dark moon ceremony

i just finished writing a long saga about yesterdays ceremony....and it disappeared into cyber space...so much for the "dark" side of writing a blog! so now will come a "lighter" version of yesterdays dark moon ceremony. the jewish people celebrate the new moon every month, and the hinuds celebrate the day before the new moon; the dark moon. my own interpretation of this is that the jews emphasize the light, and the hindus give equal credit also to the dark.


lots of synchronicity happened around the ceremony; first, while i was trying to find the right temple and entrance, i suddenly found myself face to face with the teenage boy that had helped me 4 months ago in the internet cafe. we were so happy to run into each other. he invited me over to his house on sunday, and i immediately agreed and was grateful since i had wanted to meet his father who is a priest, and just in general to meet up with him again since he speaks pretty good english, is intelligent, and could maybe shed light on alot of things that are questions for me about hinduism, bali, ecology, etc. the next fluke was when i entered the temple and bravely walked across the courtyard past all the balinese men in the band in order to find a place by the women seated on the grass, i suddenly turned my head to the side and saw that my gamelon teacher was right there, smiling a big smile of recognition as he sat on the little platform with his drum and the other 22 members....out of the hundreds of people there, we just happen to see each other...and the third time was when i was sitting behind a women waiting for the prayers to begin, i was noticing her lovely glittery hairpin, gold earrings, lovely hair do and white blouse, and when she turned her head i saw it was the neighbor woman from the little dark corner kiosk that plays a tough game of dominoes with the men with a loud tongue and strong throw of her domino cards....who would have thought that she had this feminine side to her? and we smiled, recognizing each other from the last time i was here. it also turned out that during the parade that followed, that she was responsible for the huge beautiful offering on the altar which she later carried elegantly on her head all through the main road to the other 2 temples. so much for preconceived ideas about people...i am so judgemental....thinking everyone is all or nothing.


what especially interests me at these ceremonies is trying to understand what is really going on...what do the villagers think as we sit there each time for 1/2 hour while the priests do their praying, and everyone is chatting away quietly. what is all the music from 2 gamelon bands of 22 men playing different repertoires at the same time along with independent chanters singing also entirely different tunes, and the incense sweetening the air, and the young 5 years olds moving their shoulders and beating their hands to the fast paced rhythms making apparent who the next generation of gamelon players will be.


there is a timelessness to it all as we started at 3:30 and it continued until 11 at night, (i left at 7) going from temple to temple in a long procession of a few hundred people. first the 30+ priests, followed by the 7 women with offerings on their heads for the altar, then boys with tall flags, and some 10 men carrying little wooden boxes on their shoulders covered in cloth that the gods inhabit and then one of the gamelon bands, then 20 young girls that are dancers, dressed in white with gold sashes, and then 20 some male dancers in their colorful garb, and then another 20 gamelon players from the second band, and another 10 men or so dressed in white with a black sash and swords and all of us villagers... then arriving at each temple and the priests making offerings, then all of us praying for a few minutes, etc.


i always connect to my own prayers even though outwardly i go along with their ritual of clasped hands facing upwards at the top of the forehead. and while i was doing this at the third temple, which was opposite the sea, and was wondering about this celebration of the dark moon, i suddenly understood that the unpleasant event that took place within me with payment to my gamelon teacher the day before, was exactly that: the dark moon. there was no light, all i could see was the manipulation, assumptions, victimization, misunderstanding, coercing, and then suddenly in the middle of praying, i realized that all the "actors" in the little drama were faces of god allowing me to go from dark to light and to see the importance of them both. i had gotten "taken in" by the physical world, and forgot that it can only be in order to enable me to grow some more. to be in the dark, feel it, recognize it, see my powerlessness there, be guided to turn to the light, and then be lifted to the next step. sometimes when i am with one foot in mid-air before placing it securely on the next step, i begin to "lose my balance" and doubt that all is good, and start believing that the dark is separate from the light