by the sea

At sunrise I was walking from the compound to the small temple next door to place an offering of gratitude for another day of life and nutrition for all of us, when my heart melted as Made's little one year old son was walking with his 6 year old sister on the dirt path from their compound behind the resort, towards the sea. Little barefoot feet and such a sweet little boy, shy to suddenly see me standing there watching him, as he plodded along still learning how to walk steadily on his own. Ketut, the 6 year old sister, smiled and said hello to me and tried to encourage him to continue their morning walk out to the sea. I carried on with my round of offerings and quickly changed clothes so I could go out and watch the two of them alone playing by the sea.

As I got there, Made had just arrived to work at the resort and quietly motioned to his daughter to bring the baby ashore, and not so close to the small lapping waves. I came out to do my Tai chi on the patch of black sand that luckily appeared this morning from the tide, amongst all the stones and rocky shoreline. I love watching babies and how they do things, so instead of starting with my exercises I just stood there, watching the 2 children, doing whatever it was they were doing. Ketut was busy collecting little stones and flowers and focused on the micro world of the shore, while her baby brother had bigger visions and after having picked up a big stone to hold in his hand, he headed to the waves. Each time that his little barefoot feet lost their footing among the rocks, he would lower himself down, recenter and then rise up straight and tall and continue towards the big blue sea.

I marveled at the simple trust that surrounded it all….the mother, who was up since 4, cooking , cleaning, taking care of all of the animals, and who gone off to the market, leaving her daughter, Ketut to take care of her little brother for a while. And Made, doing what he had to do in the morning for his family, and then walking over to the resort to begin his work at 6:30. And the kids headed off to the sea.

The fact that there are no life guards, no flags telling you by their color if the sea is dangerous today or not, no signs warning that swimming is forbidden without supervision, etc, seems to leave it up to the individual to take responsibility, to be aware of the signs from Mother Nature. The Balinese go into the sea with their clothes on, or, the boys with just underpants….no one has bathing suits. If you want to go swimming or play in the water, you just do. Usually there are just a bunch of kids splashing around, teaching themselves how to swim, or just having fun, unsupervised. There is always lots of laughter in the air when the kids are by the sea. The fishermen are coming in and out with the boats, some men usually decide to wash themselves in the sea, and just undress and do just that, while they sit in the water until "the coast is clear" to get out and put their clothes on, or else they just cup a hand around their private parts and nonchalantly walk over to their pile of clothes, believing they are invisible if they are naked. Or possibly that someone's body is just a body, and there does not seem to be a lot of sexual connotations going on.

As I continued to watch the little one year old getting closer to the shoreline and wondered what he would do then, his sister intuitively raised her head and quietly walked over and tried to take his hand and head him back inland. But he was a determined little fellow and gently pulled his hand away and continued to the sea. After a few attempts to sway him in the other direction she just bent down and picked him up and placed him some 4 meters from the waves. Again, she was busy looking at the little pebbles and flowers on shore, and he was busy heading towards the waves. No words were exchanged, but as he again arrived at the shoreline she intuitively looked around and silently walked over to him, bent over and placed him on her little back and the quietly returned home. I was so surprised that there was no crying, no scolding, no threatening, no bribing, and no struggling. Just doing what needs to be done with love.

I wondered afterwards how the parents relate to all of this potentially "dangerous" playing by the sea. And I realized that there seems to be such a strong natural instinctual connection with nature in their lifestyle, and also perfect faith in God and karma and destiny, that when you put it all together, you just seem to have a society of people that are not fear based in nature. Their tri-daily offerings of gratitude and prayer, their greeting each other with "Safe morning" or "Safe evening", while we westerners prefer "Good morning" and "Good evening" seems to reflect an awareness of the transience of life and together with that a communion with it in a most natural and trusting way.