balinese dance lesson clip

the wedding present

when i was in the village yesterday i saw mithas neighbors had decorated the entrance to their house for a wedding celebration. i asked mitha if she is going, and can i come too. after a slight hesitation her father explained that they do not have money for a gift so they are not going, and he is sorry. but later mitha told me she will go with me and i should meet her after school. so...i got into my" balinese dress" and started to go meet her, and was sidetracked to her uncles hut in the forest where mithas mother was getting some food. he speaks pretty good english and when i told him i was going to the wedding he suggested that maybe i bring a gift. i too had thought about it and had stuck 6o,ooo rupias ($6) in my purse just in case ( a little voice told me to)....knowing that here that is alot of money! so i asked him what i should bring them and he said: maybe some glasses. and when i asked how much that costs, he said 10,000 so i said fine. and off we went to mithas house.
when we arrived mitha had still not come back from school. meanwhile her mother cut through the backyard to a neighbor who has a kiosk and we bought the glasses; one box from me, one from mitha, and also a bag of rice. the neighbor recommended some cookies too, but mithas mother decided it was enough, it was nice watching her pick out the present. until now i never knew what the standard gift wrapped boxes were, with a little fan shaped end to them from the wrapping paper, and each box is in a different paper and they are always in piles in the kiosks...so...it turns out they are ...glasses...and then i remembered last year when i went to a wedding there was one whole room with piles of these gift wrapped boxes 5 feet high stacked against the walls,,,i couldn't figure out what it could be....so it is glasses....okay....glasses....

anyways, she looked at each box and picked out the one that was cleanest and not crumpled, the same with the bag of rice....which one of the 2 had the prettiest knot in the hand packed plastic bag of rice. just like her house is perfect, so everything should be the best, even though they don't have any money....no connection between the two. the neighbor put it all in a plastic bag and suddenly i realized that the people that were all dressed up and walking with trays with colored doilies on their heads in front of us earlier on, were also bringing presents to the wedding.., and i wished i too had a nice tray to put it on my head and bring it like that instead of in a plastic bag, so i explained that to mithas father, and they began to look for a tray and doilie. (this is the same little voice inside of me that i will explain later, that told me about the tray)

so first her mother took the small tray and took their own bag of rice that they need for food, and poured it onto the tray to make a nice thick base, then she placed the wrapped up box of glasses on it, and then the bag of rice i had bought, and decided to go and exchange the second box for cookies, returning with the one brand of cookies that are sold in the kiosk. and on top of it all a pink doilie. all placed attentively on the little table with the white lace tablecloth that had been put into the kitchen hut but was taken out since i arrived, was wiped off, tablecloth aired out and neatly arranged and set in the middle of the courtyard.

meanwhile i had been sitting in the courtyard, watching their younger daughters playing; hanging up little empty snack wrappers on a string, and tying it between two branches, and underneath cutting little pieces of banana leaf and putting it in a pile...i wondered what the game would be...and suddenly it "clicked"! they were playing "kiosk" and the older one of the two comes on one side of the string and chooses which of the empty snack wrappers she wants to buy, and the kiosk saleswoman asks if maybe she needs some banana leaves too to make offerings today? i love it!

meanwhile mitha came back from school. as soon as she entered the courtyard she walked in the kitchen door and after a moment came back out to be with us for a moment. her father explained to me that when she was a baby he would hold her and she used to cry, it is known that if the baby cries when you hold them, that means you need to take them into the kitchen where the god brahma resides and then the baby will stop crying. so that is what he did, and for the past 13 years that is what she does whenever she comes home...she walks into the kitchen...i laughed and told them that my kids also walk straight into the kitchen when they come into the house, but it is for a different reason! they open up the fridge to see if there is anything to eat! and then they too walk out into the other rooms....she soon disappeared and washed herself and came back wrapped in a towel and entered their one bedroom to get dressed. her father decided to join us (since there is a respectable present to be given) and also went and washed and walked back with a towel around him and also into the bedroom and came out looking quite spiffy with a white shirt and typical balinese mens bandana on his forehead and a sarong. meanwhile mitha was still getting dressed, including putting whitening cream on her face, since the balinese believe that light colored skin is more attractive. i felt bad for her that as a developing 13 year old she does not have any privacy to get dressed and that her whole family just goes in and out of the communal bedroom, we took photos, and walked over to the neighbors.

the bride and groom had their ceremony in the morning, and were now, each in their respective tent area of men on one side of the path and women on the other, the priest was there preparing for the land blessing ceremony because marriage is considered dirty so you have to bless the land in order to make the marriage clean. the man behind the priest singing the whole time is their way of guaranteeing that if god forbid something is not done properly or was forgotten in the ceremonial preparations, the singing will cleanse all of that and guarantee its validity.

mitha and i walked into the tent area for the women and were seated on some plastic chairs after having handed the tray over to a woman that placed it on the floor in front of the bride who was dressed in red and gold and sitting on the porch of their unfinished house looking very hot and tired. her mother in law was sitting next to her. her own mother is not invited to the wedding...now the bride belongs to the grooms family and household and her parents are not invited to come over, but they will visit her parents in 2 days after the marriage to say hello, even though they live in the same village.

once the present was given we were seated and brought a glass of sweet tea and a little basketful of goodies. one interesting one answered my riddle of what the spirals of palm leaf strewn on the beach are for...it is like a "push up" ice cream, but it is wrapped gooey sweet something in the palm leaf spiral, and also i ate something with banana and rice that was wrapped like a little packet in a leaf. and everyone sits...some of the women that were sitting on the edge of the porch made small talk with each other, but the only words said to the bride are when they are ready to leave, usually after 5-10 minutes at which time the bride is supposed to recognize which tray and doilie is which and when the person says congratulations and wants to leave, the doilie is lifted, the anonymous standard gift wrapped box of glasses is put in the stack of anonymous standard gift wrapped box of glasses pile, (which gets moved into the inner room of the unfinished house each time it gets too high for the porch and a new pile is then begun), the rice in the bag is put in the pile of rice in bags, and the cookies in the high pile of standard one of a kind cookies, and the layer of rice that padded it all on the tray is poured into a big basket and when that reaches the top it too is moved into the inner room.and will later be brought as an offering to the temple (and then returned home and used) the tray and doilies are returned to the guest and off they go home, having "celebrated" the wedding!

meanwhile the priest and the grooms parents, brothers etc, are sitting on a mat on the ground busy with their cleansing ceremony that no one else pays attention to, and the men are in their tent eating their basket of goodies and drinking their sweet tea, and then leave. while we were there, each woman that came in balancing the tray on her head as she walked up the entrance, brought the exact same gift and went through the exact same order of actions....

as we left, i asked mithas father, what in the world a bride and groom are going to do with all the glasses?! he didn't understand the question....i said, let's just say 100 people came today and everyone brought 4 glasses in a box. that means they received 4oo glasses! he said; oh no, many many people will come tonight, now there were only a hundred. and i kept repeating: but what are they going to do with all the glasses??!! use them, he said... only now when i am writing this do i understand that all the glasses are probably used in order to give all the guests the glass of tea! and those that are not used, are later given as gifts to the next marriage, or baby ceremony, or teeth cutting ceremony, etc. that is THE gift that one brings...period. and i also remembered that last time i went to an engagement party and everyone brings a small box and puts them in a pile, and then later someone walks around with all of the small boxes and gives them out to all of the guests, and inside is the exact same snack for each guest, so i guess this is a way to save any embarrassment or additional expense for the young couple, so you just bring glasses and cookies so they can host the 100's of guests that come by for a few minutes to say congratulations.

when her father drove me home on their motorbike he started to repeat his usual routine of " if for any reason i have caused you pain, or have said or done anything that was wrong, please forgive me...." and i always cut him off and say that everything is fine and i am fine and he is good...but suddenly i understood, that this is like the man singing at the land blessing ceremony i just witnessed at the wedding...that it is very important to "cover all bases" so that god forbid no one is hurt or offended by something that you have done unknowingly...it reminded me of kol nidre prayer on yom kippur...where we too ask to be absolved from all of our promises, etc. and that his saying this to me is not out of politeness, which i thought it was until now, but out of true desire that nothing bad happen to him on account of unknowingly causing harm to someone,

glad i listened to that little voice that whispered in my ear when i walked out of my room all dressed up to go to the wedding: maybe you want to take some money with you to give for a gift for the wedding?

thank you little whisper that always takes care of everything...if i just listen to you always... amen.

bahasa engrish

that's how you say "english language' in indonesian...that's as much indonesian that i know at the moment, and i am always impressed to meet balinese that speak english....whether it is when i walk to the village and a woman is sweeping her sidewalk and says to me "good morning" or the kids that yell "hello , what is your name?" it impresses me that they have made the effort and enjoy speaking to a foreigner...hopefully i too will learn indonesian.

in the meanwhile i was stopped by a villager and asked if i could speak english with his 13 year old and i agreed. we set a time and date and his 2 daughters met me at my resort on the beach. the 8 year old quickly took my hand, out of respect, to accompany me along the way. mitha, the 13 year old is shy but clever and a very talented balinese dancer too. we spoke along the way to their house and it was comfortable.

once we reached their courtyard, a folding chair for me and a little table with a white lace tablecloth on it was set up for our lesson. i asked to see her english notebook so i would know what level she was on...when she brought it to me i read the first entry:
"i live with my family in a very simple house. we are very poor. but i have decided that even though we are poor that does not mean that when i grow up i will be poor too. i know i deserve the best and can make a life for myself however i want to. i want to study and have a profession and i will do it...."

it went on in this vein...i was impressed! the "extra activity" for the lesson was: take a photograph of your house and write about it....if you do not have a camera, you can draw a picture.

so i suggested we do just that, sit in her courtyard and describe her house to me. she looked at me, a bit surprised since what we saw was what there was; a bamboo hut....but i began to ask her questions;
where do you eat?
how do you cook the food?
where is your bathroom?
where do you wash your clothes?
do you have pets?
what do you have in your garden?

and slowly she answered and began to show me all around and i kept telling them that they already live in a mansion! everything was so simple and orderly and served their needs, and even though the land they are living on is "on loan" from a cousin until he decides one day to sell it and then they will have nothing... but meanwhile there is a cow, some pigs, some chickens, a tree where a little metal bowl is placed among the lower branches and that is their "altar" for offerings. when i asked about water, they laughed and said that they have a hose that brings some from the neighbor, and a shower??? they laughed again, no...

when we sat there they served me a boiled root from a plant in the garden that they dip in some white sugar...that is breakfast. when they served this to me, with a cup of sweet tea, i said my usual blessing before i eat something and also "shechecheyanu" since it was the first time i would be tasting this fruit they gave me. i say it silently, but i saw they were a bit surprised that i had not taken a bite yet, so i explained to them afterwards that i say a blessing first and another one for the miracle that i am alive and can taste this fruit for the very first time. her father than spilled a few drops of the tea from his cup, (an action i had seen an older man on the street do the day before) and he said that they believe that everyone has an invisible twin brother or sister and that you give them a bit of the food before you eat it, and that way they are always there taking care of you, and if something falls or something happens, you know it is your invisible twin doing what needs to be done. but if there is any kind of disharmony among the children or in the household, then you must look within yourself if you have been remembering to give all the offerings because the natural state would then be harmonious and not discord. as he spoke about this his little 5 year old daughter was going around the grounds i with a little tray with small pieces of banana leaf and a few grains of cooked rice, and placing them as offerings in each of the relevant spots: the tree altar, on the road in front of the house, on the fire, on the water, in their bedroom entrance, for the animals.... morning and evening this is done.after that, then they can also eat.

and at 10 they eat lunch, some rice, which was already cooking on a wood burning fire made in a separate hut which is pitch black inside other than the red coals of the fire. and when she goes to school from 12-5 (some kids study in the morning and some in the afternoon if there are too many kids for the school all at once) then she takes some rice too. and when she comes home...if her father managed to catch a fish with his little can that has fishing wire wrapped around it with a hook and weight at the end of it that he slings into the water at dusk as he walks along the shore with other fathers, hoping to catch a fish or two for their family...i am not romanticizing...it is their reality. and mitha, when we later walked home together, told me that she would like to be an english teacher in elementary school or an english tour guide when she grows up.i encouraged her. she is very good with english and whenever i correct her she remembers the word.

i asked if she studies balinese dance since i want to watch them learning it, and she said yes, so yesterday i met her in the afternoon again, to walk together to the class...but in the end it was postponed and i ended up just sitting in the courtyard with all the neighbor women (3) and her mother sitting there sewing on sequins and beads to little straw boxes, for commission from a shop that sells them to balinese women to put their jewelry in. she does about 3 a day, (and gave me one as a present...i felt bad but accepted, knowing that she has lost out on her commission and is also paying for the box!). the 3,000 rupias she earns from that is enough to buy each of her kids a cup of water and a snack of junk food in a little bag.which all the kids are constantly eating.

the women enjoyed the opportunity for mitha to ask me all of their questions in english and then to interpret the answers, since they did not know english themselves. and we just sat there either in silence or with questions every now and then for about an hour....and then mitha said we can go, so off we went, with her younger sister again grabbing my hand to accompany me through the village, proud that she was walking with me, the foreigner, and i noticed that the giggles and comments of the villagers and kids did not budge her from her proud stance.

we arrived at a courtyard of her elementary school, where there were a bunch of kids playing around and a group of 6 girls dancing to an old tape recording that you could barely hear, of gamelon music.. the teacher was an older woman, former dancer, with a smile and a air of royalty about her...so lovely and happy and danced to beautifully...we were there for one and a half hours, of which an hour was spent trying to find the right cassette and playing and rewind and fast (ha-ha) forward and meanwhile the girls all played together...neither the teacher nor the kids seemed to care that most of the lesson was just spent playing.

when the cassette was finally found and played the right tune (they are rehearsing for nyepi, the new years ceremony at the temple on march 6th) most of the girls, wearing their sarongs and girdles that hold them up and give them a very seductive profile of their "bottoms" sticking out with a svelte waist and flat stomach, stood in rows according to their height. and then began the dance that i have come to recognize already, since everyone dances the same dance on nyepi, which is one of the tales from the ramayana. it is so interesting watching each of them, with their own beauty and unique way of doing the same movements. the littler kids copying as many of the movements as they could follow...just like playing on the gamelon...you just follow and repeat and copy what ever you can year after year...and the teacher is doing it along with them, rarely correcting anyone...

as i watched these girls dancing i tried to understand what this style of dancing is all about. their torso remains erect and centered at all times, and the rest of their body; hands, legs, shoulders, heads fingers, eyes, hips, toes, are all busy doing very very subtle movements, usually sudden, of surprise, of fear, of suspicion, of joy, of on guard, of lightness, of relief, of coquettishness, of curiosity, of discovery of changes...all the time things are changing slightly from right to left and left to right and up and down and around and sideways, but the dancer herself looks almost like the shadow play puppets, with strings attached to the parts i mentioned, and the torso remains erect and centered. this is all my interpretation but this is how i see it...it is the journey of the soul in its search between good and evil that is coming every moment from all sides in every situation, and all i have to do is stay centered and respond, choosing the "light"(the good) each time...so no matter what they are doing; masks, puppets, dancing, gamelons, they are all repeating the same path of life over and over of the soul. the women, whether carrying something on their heads (which they are always doing at all ages!) or dancing or just sitting, have an air of beauty and respect of themselves.

for me it all connects and is a very physical expression of the wisdom of kabbalah that i listen and study everyday with rav laitman.

sunrise walk

I woke up early and went out onto my porch to journal, but when I saw the pink clouds in the sky I realized it was a rare occasion of seeing a real sunrise, so I let go of all my good intentions to start the day with some kind of "centering" routine of prayer, journaling, exercising, etc. and ran and got my camera and water bottle and flip flops and set out on the shore, watching the sun rise, the tide was the furthest out I had ever seen it so I decided that this will be a chance to walk even further than the other times since the shore will be easy to walk along.

I was surprised to find a small shack with a sign saying that it is an ecological base for caring for the sea. Just the night before we sat around talking about all of the plastic that is in the ocean. The balinese are used to everything recycling on its own since they use nature for all of their offerings, but with the western influence now here, all the candy wrappers and plastic straws and bags are just tossed on the ground like the banana peels or the leaves for offerings...and they do not realize that all of these wrappers do not just disintegrate in the sea like the flowers and branches, but pollute. They believe that the sea is a very powerful force of nature that neutralizes everything that goes into it, so the fact that the rains push all the rubbish through the streams that all lead to the sea, is a guarantee for them that all is well and the sea with its magic power will remove all negative energy and all will be in balance. Yurgen, who is also staying here, is an avid traveler in asia, a former travel agent, and also a diver, and he was telling horror stories of coral reefs all over the world being destroyed and sold in shops at high prices, and how in the most magnificent nature reserves he has visited in far off islands, the boat has to wade through tons of plastic bags…he said that the currents in the pacific ocean form a spiral the size of texas and 12 kilometres deep of plastic! Unbelievable!! I was actually impressed that nature has found such a unique solution! Gathering it all up in one place! He said that when making oil from plastic will be financially viable, then it will be cleaned up since it will be profitable! He also shared stories of how when he dives there are entire areas where the fish are dead because the fishermen take poisoned rice kernels and throw them in the sea to entice the fish to eat and then they put out their nets and catch all the fish….and then we eat the poisoned fish…ahem…I wasn't too excited about eating fish anymore after that story!But i was happy to see that someone is doing something about it in the area.

I continued on and saw a huge huge huge tree with roots on the sand the size of a big car. It is considered a holy tree, and has a little altar on it. I like seeing these little gestures of sacredness. It just shows a sensitivity to the awareness that everything has energy in it, and energy is gods essence, and that recognition of something "higher" touches me.

Towards the end of my walk I was near a school and I saw 2 children come with a small bucket of pebbles and an officer pointed to a place on the side of the street that had a pock hole (is that the word for it??) and they dumped their little bucket there and he smoothed it out with a metal tool. I thought it was so cute that there is a project like that where the kids help repair the street. But later when I reached another school, I saw all the children coming to school with little colored buckets balanced on their heads with either sand or stones in them, and that maybe Saturday is the day for repairing the road?

Next, I heard the sound of the gamelons being played… I followed it and found the classroom where the school band was practicing…I laughed, since every morning at 7 I hear them, and kept intending to try and find them, but it never worked out, and here I suddenly ended up at exactly where I was hoping to arrive! Thank you! I love watching the conductors and teachers and the kids playing…it fascinates me, much more than seeing a performance…I love seeing the process and how they teach them and how they improve and what is important….

Each of the male teachers rehearsing with the male band all know how to play all the instruments too, so each time they stood next to a different child and repeated over and over again the rhythm or notes that needed to be played by that instrument. It all sounds the same to me, but their ear is in tune with something that I can't even hear. The 26 boys were all playing different rhythms, all by sound, without any written sheet music. And the teachers are all dancers too, so they have the beat inside of them and move their bodies along with the quick hand movements.

Many of the kids coming to school also stood at the entrance to the classroom where the band was rehearsing, their hands beating on their thighs the different familiar rhythms of their favorite instrument (drums, cymbals, gamelons, gongs…). I laughed when I saw the kids standing in front of me, each with their little colored bucket placed like a hat on their heads, the most natural thing to do with them, now that they had emptied the sand on the road, no?!

When the practice ended, I carried on home, again hearing the giggles etc. and one man asked if I want "transport" and pointed to his motorbike, but I just shake my head no and smile and he sang out: "wok eng, wok ENG!" and as I walked I wondered what he had said to me…until it suddenly dawned on me that he had said: Walking, walking!

Whenever I see something that surprises me I whip out my camera to take a photo. And they always laugh: "foto, foto!" and today one of the chefs here was carrying a big papaya on her head and I thought, oh, if I just had my camera to take a photo of that! And then I realized that my photo taking is the same as their giggling…we are each seeing things that seem so strange and unknown and different than what we are used to, and I take out a camera to document it, and they turn to their neighbor and nudge them and giggle.."same - same"

I returned just in time for breakfast, and was sharing some of the impressions from my walk. Nicole was telling them about my visit yesterday with the man who is practicing "The Secret" by envisioning and positive affirmations...she said that this is also what she does everyday, and has always done in life and that the Law of Attraction works. she said that it is even recommended to write on a piece of paper a check with the sum of money you want to receive and for what goal, and that she has done that every day and received it. i was surprised! and then as i reflected on what she said, as i sat looking out at the sea from the breakfast table, i remembered that several times i had made collages in the last year, and put them on my wall full of photos and drawings from magazines of sunsets, sea, flowers, forests, wooden bungalows, trees, beauty, stones, colorful clothing, aesthetic surroundings....in short; all the things i love,,,,and i suddenly realized that i was living my collage this very moment! i have actualized everything i glued on those big sheets of paper that i placed opposite me whenever i was on the computer at home. and now 6 months later i am in it.

nature does it for me

this morning i was in a reflective mood and was just enjoying looking at the dragonflies in all shapes and colors, and all the new blossoms and how each different plant changes from day to day, water lilies opening and then dying, palms growing flowers, the sun shining through the bright green leaves of lilies, black lacy butterflies as big as the palm of my hand fluttering around...

after breakfast is a nice time to go for a walk along the beach....the sun is shimmering on the blue sea, the tide was out, and no one was around since the fishermen had already docked their boats and gone to sleep until this afternoon. as i opened the gate ro walk out onto the pebbled shore, i saw a little white caterpillar crawling along the top of the reddish rock wall, and then as i stepped out i saw that an offering of flowers had been placed right opposite the gate, to bless the resort and its residents, and a few more steps revealed another one placed on the corner of the compound....it just softens my heart when i see this, and as i walked along the beach i noticed that one of the boats that hadn't gone out yet had an offering sitting on the seat of it....

when i reached a stream too big to cross because of the hard rains from last night i decided to see what happens if i cut through the forest....so i picked a path that looked like it might be for general use and lead to a road later on....wrong again! you know the saying "if you keep doing the same thing and getting the same results and think that this time it will be different,...you are insane!" so...again, bewildered looks of the forest people as out of nowhere i appear in their front yard...they rarely see tourists, and certainly not as they are walking down their private little path they have made in the middle of a forest....but i love it...as i walked, there is always the rippling sound of the water from one of the many little streams that runs from the mountains down to the sea and is only some 40 centimeters wide...and all is green, and tall trees, and little narrow winding dirt paths that go on and on with a bamboo shack here and there, and a cow in a palm covering for shade, and a father with a little girl, and a grandmother with her 2 week old grandaughter, sitting on the floor of their little porch along with husbands, greatgrandmother, daugher, and laughing and laughing how i appear out of nowhere and am suddenly at their house...and the usual question : where are you going? they are right! where AM i going?! i smile, and continue on my way, realizing that the places i loved most in my life were nature reserve forests whether in england, or israel, or the states, where i could walk on a path among trees and nature...and here i was, actually walking in a forest, but it was not planned for the suburbans to be able to go out for a walk on the weekend, or jog there after work...it was a real forest with the winding paths and streams that were naturally there, with people and animals inhabiting it! and what surprised me was there was no fear; not of poison ivy, not of a snake, not that i am lost, not that someone may suddenly do something to me...it was so comforting and nourishing to my soul...

eventually i did find my way towards the main road (the famous narrow 2 lane only road that goes along the north of bali) and i headed back to the direction of my village...along the way there was the singing again from the temple and the gamelon chimes, and i just sat and listened to it, feeling the slow minor key sounds entering my heart along with the high chiming of the quickly played gamelons every now and then.i wondered if i was the only one just sitting and listening to him, with the microphone vibrating it in all directions and life going on as usual. he was alone at the temple and was there just to sing the song of prayer at noon.

then went into the village which i love walking through and saying hello to kiosk people or husbands hanging out, or giggling women walking by, or seeing how they have built a house in 2 weeks on one of the lots with the wife and mother sitting there in the yard watching everyday. and each time i notice more details of the temples, or the gardens or the children.

this time someone on a motorbike with his 2 daughters stopped next to me and asked if i know "battina". yes, she was at the resort with me and has returned to germany. and as i walk off thinking we have ended our conversation he gently asks me if i could possibly tutor his 13 year old daughter in english...i happily agree, since i would like to give something to this country in return for all i am getting, and it will also be an opportunity to see village life a little more intimately. we set a day and time and off i continue, only to meet him a few minutes later as he turns into the entrance to his house and invites me for a visit...his 8 year old gives me her hand to guide me in the path of trees to an open courtyard with 2 bamboo shacks and a spotless (yes, you could eat off the dirt!!) front yard....he quickly set up a little table and some stools and we spoke and looked at photos and got to know each other.

what struck me first of all was a little sign on his shack that said in english: Welcome to Miracle Bamboo Resort. i laughed and asked if this is really a miracle bamboo resort, and he said "oh, no, it is like : castles in the sky. i write this but it has not happened yet. but i must believe it is possible." later he shows me their hut, which has their double mattress and another 3 for the girls (5,8,13) and a bulletin board on the wall with sayings written on it by him like: "my children deserve an excellent education and they will get it." "always believe everything is possible"...and photos of smiling children and beautiful water lilies blooming...i asked if he wrote this and he said yes, that he is unemployed, and does not have money for food for the family, but he believes everyday that things are possible. i asked if this is his idea or what and he said that last year he met a german woman on the beach from gaia resort that told him about positive thinking, and he too knows that what is important is to live from your heart, so this is his hearts desires.

i asked him what he works at and he said he can do many things; carry a pig to someones house, help people, help build a house, take care of the children, fishes on shore with a can and some string and bait on the end, he is also a dancer and tonight 75 dancers will perform at a resort 1 hour away, if it does not rain! since it is outdoors, and for 4 months already it is monsoon so no business for dancers. and since his english is so good he gets to say at the end of their performance :" thank you for coming and we hope you enjoyed our dancing. if you would like we can pose with you for photos, and we wish you that your stay in bali be very nice, thank you" and for that he gets an extra 5,000rupias (50 cents!)

as we sat there his wife sent the young girls to the little kiosk to buy some sweets to serve with the tea,(little packets of 2 cookies in each wrapper) i felt bad that they don't have money to eat, but if a foreigner comes they run and buy me cookies...also yesterday as i watched school children at their extra curricular dance class, they were at the kiosk buying snacks more than they were at the dance class! so strange for me, and all the wrappers tossed to the ground, as if they were recyclable like leaves...) he wanted to know how much i pay for one night at this resort, and when i told him, he and his wife looked at each other and he said that that is the price of a bag of rice for his family for 1 month...yep!

it was interesting speaking with him and watching his silent wife sewing sequins onto tiny bamboo boxes that she receives 10 cents for each one that she finishes, and which take about an hour, or more to do...when i asked if she enjoys it, he said she does it happily and that it is important to enjoy what you are doing and that it helps them pay for things...and top priority for him is that his daughter be able to go to high school but that it is very expensive... as i write all of this, i realize he may just be trying to put on the sad sack story for a rich foreigner...hoping i will donate some money, but i do not feel pressured to do that, and do not intend to do that either, but am willing to teach her english...

so....we said goodbye until sunday and i continued my way back, noticing how the big float images that the kids are preparing for the upcoming new years festival are coming along and the carving of the boat bottom is taking shape, and arrived just in time to nourish my body with a delicious lunch, having already nourished my soul from all the nature and impressions from this mornings walk

the higher world of coconuts

Early this morning i was getting ready to go to hear the men rehearsing on the gamelons for the upcoming nyepi new year celebration on march 5th, but when i heard coconuts thumping down on the ground i decided to change my plans...the rehearsals will continue for another couple of weeks, but not everyday is it possible to watch the harvest of coconuts...so off i walked 30 meters to watch the man who owns the coconut trees that line the waterfront in front of the resort. all i could hear was the thump of coconuts falling from high up down through the trees and onto the ground, along with the huge palm leaves that were dry already and also needed to be removed...

after hearing about 15 coconuts fall, i finally saw someone quickly coming down the trunk of a coconut tree that must have been 3 (?) stories high...so nimble that within a minute he was already down on the ground and moving a tall piece of bamboo 6-8 meters long that had littler pieces of bamboo coming out as rungs on each side of the pole. that is his ladder! he places it "in the direction" of a Palm tree and when he gets to the top of it he climbs over to the nearest coconut tree and continues using mainly his toes to grasp the slight bulges on the trunk that god has so appropriately placed at intervals and has also given the palm trees a bit of a sway to them from the wind, so that it is as if he is walking up a palm tree and not actually holding on and climbing it like a monkey, unless it is a straight one.

so up he goes, with his machete knife and then cuts off each coconut and leaf that need to be removed. and lets them fall to the ground. so madie (the gardener/maintenance/former fisherman/lovely person) explained to me when i asked if someone can die from it hitting them, and he said yes, but whenever the balinese walk under a coconut tree they look to see if they are old coconuts or new ones and if they are old, then they move aside so it won't fall on them by "chance"..and this morning when the fishermen brought one of the boats in and didn't realize there was someone up in the tree throwing down the coconuts, and they heard a thump next to the boat they all first jumped, then laughed (nice response instead of anger!) and moved aside looking up to see what direction they were falling in...

later everything was divided; young coconuts for their milk, old coconuts for their oil, and for the coconut milk and for the dried coconut for cooking and the shells used for making buttons, spoons, for fuel for burning the bricks, and the leaves also used for making roofs and walls and doors, and the thicker stem is cut off and placed in a bundle for firewood.or by the fishermen for placing their boats on them so the bottoms won't get scratched from the stones on the shore as they shove the boats inland each time and not to forget also the very old coconuts that were up there and already started sprouting, coming out of the large nut and will be planted for another coconut tree in the resort, or by madie or in the little nursery that jochan has here where he shares all of his plants and trees with his friends that also have nice gardens and so they give to each other whenever they visit, needing only to put it in the ground and presto! they grow...the earth is so wet and fertile! the huge garden here has all grown in only 2 years time with huge trees that have fruits and flowers and have tripled their size....madie and jochans green thumbs!

anyways, back to the coconuts...at the moment, a group of fishermen were walking by and carried off the 2 metre long heavy "leaves'" that had been removed and were laying on the shore...it is interesting that they just throw everything down on the ground, and know that someone who needs it will come along and take it just like what happened now, so that each young strong man walked off with a leaf on his back to be carried to someone or someplace by communal effort, which reminds me of how nice it is to see my grown up kids always getting their friends together to help set up a wedding, or build a patio or move someones house...it is so nice to see this camaraderie. and earlier when another fisherman collected the stems he made a nice bundle, placing them all at just the right angle so they would sit nicely one on top of the other, and then he just looked around at his feet and found just the piece of rope that he needs to tie it together (and then places it on his back and walks barefoot to either the a "building store" that can sell it to people, or takes it home)...i too love knowing that the universe always provides me with exactly what i need,whether it is a piece of string or an idea, to do what is necessary, if i just look around for it and believe i will find it.

i understood why the coconuts need such big thick multi layered shells on them, since they are falling from so high up onto the ground! and it is magnificent to watch these experienced people of the land as they chop away the shell, and know to the millimeter when to stop so that only a little prick of the tip of the machete knife will bring the burst of fresh clear coconut water out into their mouth instead of it spilling out onto the ground by mistake. and then scooping out the thin soft lining of this big green shelled coconut which the balinese then eat with some salt. the older drier brown coconuts have the familiar brown haired smaller nut inside which is familiar to westerners as "a coconut" and this only has a little bit of water left in it since it has all shrunk and the water was absorbed and used to build the coconut meat inside which is sliced and squeezed and placed in a pot on the fire to heat up at which point the oil from it rises to the top and is skimmed off thus giving coconut oil for cooking, making your hair black and shiny, for massage oil, for drinking for health, and the actual white coconut milk that we know is just water that has been poured through the ground coconut meat, and then the meat itself is dried and used for sweets, cakes, etc.

and what amazes me even more than this is that i wanted to show you all a coconut that had sprouted, so i walked over to the pile, took a photo, downloaded onto my laptop which is working with a modem which is a little piece of metal that jochan gave me, and i sit here by the sea, put it on my laptop and then tell the blogspot to put the picture together with this story, and then i press a little white button on my keyboard and it appears in your room at home seconds later...and before i started to write this blog about the coconuts i was reading rav laitmans daily blog about kabbalah and our calling in life to discover our creator and become like him in bestowal rather than in desiring...and that every single thing here in this material world is just a reflection of the higher worlds and so this "magic" that happens without any film, or wires or anything and enables me to communicate with all of you that are in my heart, but by pressing these buttons we connect...it all just makes me feel that ANYTHING is possible!! I love it...the coconut and the photo too!

renate,watsu, cremation, dance and hooping

i met renate, a german woman that has opened up a resort not far from where i am. she is a watsu practitioner, along with yoga and meditation and a lovely lovely woman (www.pranavedabali.com). she was here and tried hooping and so we were doing that together a bit. she was off to an opening of a new school house for the village children that are iinterested in learning english and computer skills for free. this is a gesture of gratitude to bali and the neighboring village by the bali mandala resort in bondalem. the owners are also german, and have been running the successful fully booked resort for 7 years, and wanted to find a way to give back to bali something in order to enable the next generation to be capable intelligent youth with high self esteem that can function in this rapidly growing world. renate also has made her own gestures of support by paying a balinese dance teacher to teach all the elementary children dance lessons for free. this is one of the ways that the ex-patriats that have moved here and have successful businesses and are grateful to bali for the energy and beauty and life they have here, can return something to the country. i asked renate if i could join her and see the ceremony, and she quickly made a phone call and even suggested that maybe i will bring the 3 hoola hoops and can teach the children during game time after the ceremony, so off we went.

as we drove the 15 minute drive to her resort in another neighborhood, i asked her all about her life and decisions and visions. when we reached her resort at the end of the road that leads to the sea, we were met with the village gamelon band and about 20 balinese in the middle of a cremation ceremony. it turns out that we had passed THE cemetery for the city and in the cemetery is also where they cremate the bodies in the middle of the area out in the open on a metal frame with gas balloons since you need a lot of energy to burn a fresh corpse (sorry for the gorey details....) so almost daily there are processions that go from the cemetery down to the sea (1/2 kilometer) at which point the ceremony is done and the ashes thrown out to sea, with the villagers waving goodbye, the kids playing around, people on cell phones and women talking, and the gamelon band playing the special tune that accompanies the soul on its journey. that was a nice surprise treat for me, even though it is a funeral, i love these ceremonies with all the ritual and music and casualness of life.

then i entered renates place which is all along the coast and has a lovely outdoor pool just looking out at the sea which we later swam in, and a big building which has 4 beautiful rooms with huge sliding doors that open to the sea, with a wonderful breeze coming from the sea, and hand picked pastel decorated furniture,,,so delicate and feminine and lovely,,,just like renate.

her chef/right hand woman/ and make up artist was busy putting make up on the 3 young girls (8,11,12) that were going to perform a balinese dance at the opening of the school in another hour. just watching them dress each other and how the make-up is such an important part of the costume, and how they added long black pony tails to their hair and put fresh cut flowers in their hair, was a pleasure to see.

then off we drove another 5 minutes and arrived at the bali mandala resort where we drove down a narrow dirt path that was lined with parked motorbikes, with a hairs breath between us and them! and entered the decorated area where all the 200+children of all ages, plus some local yokles, and some parents, were already gathered and waiting to begin. in balinese "time " is actually called "rubber" since....yep, 3 o'clock is never really 3 o"clock,,,,you can "stretch" it if it is balinese time! anyways, there were all of the ceremonial speeches and translations and the cutting of the red ribbon and the introduction of the swiss teacher who is part of a teach and travel program and will be teaching them...the school room was a nice large high ceilinged typical balinese thatch roof, red brick walls and high windows design. the children will sit on colorful mattresses on the ground at low tables, since they like to sit like that, about 6 to a table...

as they all excitedly stood in line to register, i took the opportunity to hoop for them and offered the kids standing around to try...but almost every single one was too embarrassed. what a disappointment! i couldn't believe it...i could tell they were dying to, but the embarrassment would be too great a risk if they did not succeed...after a while of demonstrating and one girl succeeding quite easily, i moved over to the side as center stage was going to be used for typical balinese games: rice crackers hanging from a string one next to the other and people holding both ends of the long string of them and kids trying to eat it without their hands, as the string bobs up and down (a balinese version of what i did as a child with a bath full of water and bobbing apples!) another competition was who can walk with a glass bottle on their head the fastest, jumping in sacks from one end to another, holding a spoon in your mouth with a pebble on it without it falling, etc...the excitement was high with typical loud carnival music playing which was good for the hooping, which suddenly the kids were fighting over who gets to try it! they were very good, caught on quick and lots of laughs with older parents and staff trying it too...much of this done in the constant drizzle that began as the ceremony began.

then back to renates' place, for a swim and a sampling of watsu. watsu is shiatsu in water, renate has 30 years experience as a trained physio therapist and has worked with many handicapped children in water, and was more or less doing the watsu for years, but it wasn't called watsu then...and after studying it in india along with meditation, ayur veda massage and yoga for 30 years where she would spend her winter instead of in germany, she decided to leave germany and open up her own magnificent special watsu resort in bali...the special pool is perfect! so beautiful and is sea water that is heated by solar panels and is at body temperature. so when it started to drizzle in the outside pool, she invited me to come inside and feel the outdoor watsu pool that is in the middle of the architectural complex, open to the sky, but part of a beautiful "sanctuary".

it was quite an interesting experience, because you feel as though you do not have a body, just some essence, and as i floated in the water it felt like such nice energy. i told her so, and she asked if i know the man that did the research on water and vibrations, and i said yes, and she smiled and said that the energy in this sanctuary is very special. after a while she offered to give me a feeling of the watsu work she does for people that like the water and feel confident in trusting someone ...you put nose plugs on and hold your breath and she moves you around underwater and then brings you up every now and then for a breath. i agreed, and found myself totally relaxed and in all kinds of positions underwater which totally liberated me from any kind of ordinary body image of hands, legs, torso etc....it was just like the inside of me was moving around without any kinds of borders. she had told me that it can create a state of bliss for some people, and that is close to how i felt, especially towards the end as she gently and lovingly brought me into a fetal position and held me in her arms, and then slowly allowed me to ground again....finding a smile and sighs of bliss coming out of my mouth. i told her that it was magnificent, and that she is too! so nice. so grateful!

education and other topics of conversation

todays' walk found me at exactly 12:00, approaching a village school, and suddenly all the kids came pouring out of the small entrance to go home. so of course there are the brave one that wave and say "ha-low" and i answer them back, a few ask "what is your name?" and when i answer and then ask them theirs, they giggle. they all wear uniforms, as i walked behind them on the road, i saw how some of the girls put their backpacks on their heads and walk home like that; not sure if it is because it weighs less, or they are practicing how to carry things without their hands, or if it is just hot at 12 in the afternoon, so cover your head with something!

as i passed by another school i had seen in one of the classrooms a 10 year old with her hands on her head that had to stand straight and bend her knees up and down many times. the other children just standing there waiting. i asked my balinese woman about this and she said it is a form of punishment if you didn't do your homework.and that it is forbidden to do it any more in schools, but apparently here in the village it still continues, and that when she was a child you sometimes had to do push ups in front of the class or other military exercises as punishment. from this we began to speak about physical punishments like hitting. she said that the balinese do not hit their children, unless their child hits another child, then they get hit. i told her that it is a bit absurd, no, to hit a child as punishment because they hit!? and she said that you do it once, and after that the child does not hit anymore. i asked about marital violence...and she said it exists just like in the rest of the world, women by men, men by women, and also rape and incest and all the other ills of the world. she said that her friends will stay in an abusive relationship because of the stigma of being divorced.

i asked her about modesty and nudity, and how they were educated as children in regards to this. she said that in the river, a man and woman can be naked and bathing, and there is no feeling of sexuality or promiscuity, but the same people out of the river, are modest. when i wondered why i see some women always with sarongs on and others without and if this reflects their degree of devotion, she said that the traditional clothing is the sarong, and that only because of the westernization are women going around with shorts and pants etc. and that until 1939 women only wore sarongs and went topless. but with the dutch entering bali, they began to put on blouses! and the woman wearing her bra and some shorts that just walked past me with the slop for the pig? is she embarrassed to suddenly find me on the road when she is not completely dressed? no...here in the village i can walk by a house after a ceremony and the whole family is sitting outside and the wife just starts undressing in front of everyone, which is also what i saw when i went with madie to visit friends or relatives that were undressed when i came, and it was no big deal....

i asked her about the "sweeping"...and she said there is no deeper meaning in it, and never liked to do it, and as kids a few of them had to come 1/2 hour before everyone else when it was their turn, and sweep at school...her husband actually does think it is a means of one pointed meditation that they do habitually, as their nanny does every morning for half an hour when she starts her day.

i asked her if she, as a balinese, also does not trust the balinese...correct. when i tried to get to the source of this, it also seems a matter of the west invading bali...she said that as a child she had "stolen" fruit from a tree...which is forbidden (good thing i haven't picked one of those ramubtan that are ripening on the trees along the path!) and that no one ever had money, so there was not a problem of trust, maybe just stealing a fruit as a child, but nothing was ever taken at school from each other...her husband believes that again, in the last 15 years the country has taken a quantum leap unlike how it was gradual in the western world, and it has caused everyone to just go berserk. a fisherman can go out and catch fish for an entire day and earn $3 and someone else can rip off a tourist and make $30....so everything is insane now.

it was also interesting speaking with another one of the guests that have gathered together her for the 40th birthday celebration of the owner(ess)...as we spoke about the coral reefs in the world, he said that over the past 15 years the coral has also gone through major destruction and with global warming and the temperature of the ocean changing by 2 degrees meaning that all of the microscopic food that was eaten in order to create the corals, no longer exists, so the corals are disappearing and what is left is faded and small, even though the fish still are there. he is pessimistic that anything can be done now, since it had to be done 30 years ago when it was first realized. i asked him, since he is a declared buddhist, if he can just look at it all and see it as perfect just the way it is? he agreed that that is the buddhist way, but that he cannot.

it turns out that the common thread among all the guests that have gathered to celebrate is that they are all german and they all dive and they met each other around the world and are now here. i laughed how when i was a potter and i would meet other potters, we would immediately feel such a common bond and enjoy each others company, and here realizing the same thing goes on with the divers. and they are just as addicted as we potters are (and i WAS!)