moving the Spirit

My landlords' brother, ketut, decided to renovate a temple on the mountainside, so that his clan would have a temple there too. He waited for the balian to tell him the auspicious day for renovating, and got everything organized. I asked if I could participate, and he agreed. He picked me up at 6:45 a.m. and we drove on his motorbike about 10 minutes down the road and a bit up the mountain path thru the forest. After a short 200 meter walk through the first gate we passed the trees and reached the little "guardian " temple that stands below the steps leading up to the temple. We climbed the 40 some steps and reached a small temple wall and courtyard with two shrines and some big trees. This is where he wants to renovate. There are some 30 families in his clan and if everyone comes to a ceremony there is not enough room in the present courtyard for them all to sit, so he needs to move the gate out a bit.
I stand there, early morning, looking out to the sea, with coconut and various other trees covering the mountainside. All I can see is green, tree covered mountains. Distant sounds of music from chanters can be heard. Even though it is just the two of us at the moment, I suddenly feel that the air is filled with incense from all of the other devotees that are also doing their renovation ceremony this morning. That throughout an entire island, now is the day that is auspicious for renovating, building, and that everyone has prepared offerings and has a priest that will be blessing their site too, it was a powerful moment. It is not my imagination that everything is buzzing with life and intention all around me all the time. This is for real.
My landlord had awoken at 3 a.m. to prepare the offering and sacred meal for her own building of a new house for her son and was driving three hours to the site at 5 in the morning with her priest to conduct the ceremony now, just as we were doing the same thing on the mountainside. In the distance I heard someone beating a wooden bell in a repetitious rhythm….maybe it was to let the children know that school was beginning up in the mountains. The sun was shining as the spiraling smoke from the sweet fragrant incense flowed upwards to invite God to join us.
The priest arrived, we said hellos, and he began his blessing ritual. We then went down the steps to the first little altar and there were 3 other men waiting for us, 2 cousins and his older brother. Over the next hour the 6 of us participated in the ceremony. It was the first time I have ever been at a serious ceremony. No one gossiping, or talking while the priest was chanting his mantras, no one taking photos, no ones' cell phone ringing or sms-ing someone. Ketut had arranged a tape recorder that played some gamelon music as they began but it suddenly stopped working and even though he tried to get it to play a few more times, it stopped, and we were left with the perfect accompaniment of the melodic chanting of the cousins and brother, who took turns throughout the ceremony to simply feel inspired an begin to chant songs of praise.
I watched each movement, each gesture, each step that they took. It was all done with a minimum amount of speaking in soft tones, precise delicate actions to stand the "temporary altar" that they had made the day before from the big green bamboo stalks growing there into the earth. The "spirit" would need a place to stay while the shrine was being renovated. The serious intention of "moving" the spirit into its new home was amazing to witness. It is apparent to everyone that there is no real inherent value in any of the material objects they are touching and carrying and burning and throwing and tearing and pouring and smashing. When the priest is pouring the water from the vessel he has just blessed, the fact that it is spilling on the ground and dripping is irrelevant. But if one of the necessary sacrificial objects is missing (like a 1000 rupiah note = 10 cents) from the basket of required symbols, it is not overlooked, and when ketut didn't have anything smaller that a 50,000 note, the priest just put someof his own money in the basket. Even though the priest is doing the procedure, he needs the help of everyone for carrying, lighting more incense, bringing more water from up the steps. So it is a combination of a very casual atmosphere, with laughter and conversation about what is needed each moment along with very long and exact and involved movements and recitations by the priest as he holds his bell in his left hand and rings it with a slight movement at a constant beat the entire time.
Ketut is a very classy dresser and has good taste and was wearing a kind of Hawaiian print shirt and a lovely flowered burnt orange sarong. His cousin was dressed also in a temple shirt and sarong and sash in conservative Balinese patterns. I was surprised to see his brother just wearing some old dirty torn clothes and a woolen cap on his head. He looked so out of place, as if he forgot to dress for the occasion. But at the moment the priest, dressed in white, began, his brother opened up a little plastic bag from his pociket that had an old pink sash which he tied around his waist, and then took out a little banana leaf with some fresh flower petals in order to pray with them. I saw how quick I was to judge from outer appearances assumptions that were entirely wrong. And when he began to chant in a high delicate voice it felt like he was the most devout of us all.
The "spirit" (a palm basket filled with all kinds of symbolic objects) was moved with great care and attention with circumambulations around the old altar and the new one and then placing it gently into the newly made tentative bamboo altar along with a big umbrella tied to it so "he will have shade". Holy water and incense and flowers were being sprinkled on the old and the new and then a hammer was taken to the old altar and a symbolic smashing of the cement symbolized the beginning of the renovating. The actual renovating will only take place in another 6 weeks, since renovating a wall at a temple is on a different auspicious day….
When the ceremony ended we walked up the steps to a little storage area overlooking the sea and had tea and cookies. Ketut asked me if I "felt anything" in the temple. I told him how when we first arrived I had a moment of realization of the meaning of this auspicious day in all of bali and the rays of the morning sun were lighting up the smoke wisps from the incense. He said that when he was carrying the "Spirit" from the old altar to the new one, on his head, he felt something come into his body. For him this was a sign that all of his intentions and money that he has invested in renovating this temple of his ancestors, is appreciated and recognized by the Spirit.