there is a plant that grows here that is called "pandan". it is used daily in the offerings that are given. it is shredded very thinly and is all crinkly and kind of looks like the plastic grass filler that you put with the easter eggs in the basket. but this is real. you can buy it freshly cut daily, or buy fresh stems of it and cut your own. it is used together with flower petals in the offerings. it is also used when cooking some foods, like black rice pudding, in which the whole folded leaf is placed with the rice in the pot as it cooks and gives a lovely aroma to the food, and house!
in my attempt to "figure out" what is so magical here...when in fact, it all seems so simple, unpretentious, normal, natural, and asking the balinese themselves, gives me no answers...i have resorted to trying to live like them to see what their lifestyle can reveal to me...how does waking up at four in the morning and walking to the market feel? how does it effect the rest of my day? the people i meet? the food i eat? my sense of time? how does it feel making the offerings from fresh palm leaves cut with a small sharp knife in my hands as i wield its' blade to get the right proportions for the little holder of the flowers? what do i my hands need to learn in order to use the thin bamboo strips as little pins putting the handmade offerings baskets together, instead of just taking the stapler, or better yet, just buying a bag of 16 offerings all ready for 30 cents? how do i feel walking around in a sarong? what movements can't i do with it? what does it feel like to give thanks to the fire, water, air, earth ancestors, protectors, Source, each day? what does it feel like to shower and put on special clothes twice a day to do so? what does it feel like to shower by pouring cold water that sits in a tall tub all week, with a plastic cup onto me? how does it effect me to only use my right hand for eating, and touching food? how does it feel to play in the gamelon orchestra with another 25 women and not just listen to the music that they play? what happens if i smile and tell everyone on the street that asks me where i am going...where i am going? what does living all day outdoors do to someone? and the whole family sleeping together on one big mattress? (that i already did with my own children!) praying with others sitting on the ground at the temple with incense and priests? not having a refrigerator? spending $1 a day for food? letting go of any time framework? of hearing villagers chanting in the loudspeaker at 5 a.m, while shopping in the market with the other women with the fresh fish that the fishermen just brought in and their wives are selling it? and of being called "the tourist" by one and all!
so...in my attempt to try and understand how their minds and lives tick...i decided to learn how to cut the pandan leaves, like they do. so, last year i did it with scissors! but was encouraged to have patience and keep trying...this year, i was given "a knife", and tried my best. i thought my best was "good enough"! i had asked several women to demonstrate, i had copied them, more or less, and was resigned to the fact that someone who has done this for 30 years does it better than me, and no big deal. but i also wanted to experience the meditative side of the making of offerings...how can i put intention and peace and attention into the making of them, in place of frustration, bleeding fingers, and judgement?
once i realized that i can buy the leaves at the market in the morning, i became "a regular"...buying a packet of leaves and taking them home and spending an hour trying to shred them ...more or less. i knew from being a potter that the secret is just observe...observe a pro...and then when i try, bring that picture to my mind...let my body photograph it inside itself, let my eyes notice what each finger, hand, knife, leaf are doing...and then, try, try and try again...
for some inexplicable reason, all the "teachers" i have had in my life, never spoke, or if they did, i didn't understand the language they were speaking...so i just had to "learn by doing"... sacred movements, pottery, tai chi, chinese calligraphy, gamelon, hoola hooping, qigong, and now...shredding pandan leaves...and for some inexplicable reason, i just forge on, even though i haven't the faintest clue and the results are less than satisfying...but something inside feels driven and nourished by the intention and effort being made. at the time it is always for something that has no real purpose or meaning in my life...just a desire within to master it because i believe therein lies a secret that something inside me needs to know. and so it was with the pandan leaves.
it took a while until i learned who sells the freshest nicest ones, how much they cost, how many bundles i need for one days' offerings, how long they last, when to cut them,..so there were days when i walked back from the market with a quantity of pandan leaves that left all those that passed me baffled! "what is the tourist going to do with all those pandan leaves?!" practice! out of default....i just didn't know i could buy less, or that i needed less...since the balinese really do "live for today" i have begun respecting and noticing how things are packaged...and assume that the reason there are 4 long string beans is because for an average family, that is how much will stay fresh for a day or two, or, 4-6 pieces of tofu is considered a family portion, a quarter of a carrot and 3 chinese cabbage leaves plus one leafy green stalk in a plastic bag makes soup stock, etc. so after some time i realized that the 7 pandan leaves wound with a thin piece of bamboo, is enough for shredded leaves for one days' offerings.
one of my "teachers" that did speak, was a 14 year old girl who told me that "its important to take a large quantity if you want to shred them thinly". so...obsessive compulsive eileen....all or nothing...took all 4 packets of pandan that can also be purchased as a "unit" at the market, for 20 cents, (and is probably meant for women who shred it and sell it in ready made offerings, since it is a huge quantity for one person!) and i was sitting on my veranda, with my 28 pandan leaves firmly graped in my left hand but oh so difficult to hold, happy that i had finally "got it" but wondering how do those women make it so fine and thin?
the lovely woman gardener/angel that works here at the guest house saw me as she walked by, and giggled. it's interesting that they have more or less the opposite approach to "tact" then we westerners do. they laugh when someone falls, makes a fool of himself, is doing something the wrong way....whereas we would be so polite. so in the "physical world" they just laugh about actions...but on the emotional plane" they are ever so careful never to cause someone to lose face, never to criticize someone about something he has said, or argue...or show someone he lied, or didn't do something he was supposed to do, or to shame or disrespect someone. so after she finished giggling, and i was just looking at her like "well....what am i doing wrong?" she took the knife and the leaves from me. and the only word she said was " a little".
ah...just the opposite of what my first teacher told me! and then she proceeded to shred the thinnest, most beautiful pandan leaves i had ever seen. i knew all the pitfalls, from all of my attempts, but here she was, and it was all perfect...i watched every movement, how she arranged the leaves to begin with ( i had always known that was important, but no one seemed to give it any importance,,,except her!). she fit them snugly into each other in the crease they naturally have, and when she grasped them she made sure that the folded edges of them were carefully folded in her grip so that each pandan shred would be a crinkly long thin piece, that when placed on the offering would hold everything in place and be a work of devotion.
she demonstrated for a few minutes, in silence, and me with my hawk eyes, and open listening body trying to just "be present" and trust that it will rub off on me! when she was done, a lovely pile of pandan shreds sat on my big bamboo tray, as inspiration. i continued...with my gross, random, straggly, shreds...i would observe how they look in my pile compared to hers, but was slowly making progress with each new batch that i tried. good enough. thank you. grateful.
but...two days ago i again bought a quantity that was way too much for me, just didn't tell the vendor the right words when i pointed to it, but once i opened up the nicely tied packet she had arranged for me so that the leaves weren't jutting out onto my head from my shoulder bag all the way home, i realized that she will be my pandan vendor...nice lovely fresh long leaves, already making the task more enjoyable. it was easy to line them all up with their folds, taking small portions like my gardener angel had said, and off i went, shredding...but the gnawing search within me continued...."how does she make them so thin and lovely? how? what is the secret? what am i doing different?"
the photos my mind had taken of her hands as she had demonstrated, were similar to mine, she had used my knife, so that wasn't the problem, when she placed the knife against the pandan leaf each time in order to shred it, it was as if a voice was telling me "there is the secret" ...but i still didn't know what... all i could do was remain there, with intention, with desire to be at one with knife and leaf and make the most beautiful shreds for the offering. each time the knife touched the leaves, i tried to envision the end result of a long thin crinkly pandan shred...but...alas, they were still thick, short, and random. hmm...there had been much progress since the first time...the effort made also by the hand with the knife that had intention, along with the left hand that brought the leaves up to the knife as if feeding it to the knife. but still, something was rough, coarse, grueling, not effortless, in flow, without ME there...
and then suddenly i heard a different sound coming from the shredding! yes! that's what it sounded like when she shredded! not staccato like when i do it, but a rhythmic lightness! what am i doing? how did that happen? i looked down at the pile, and there were a few thin long nice crinkly ones! hey! yes! but how? and then, it was as if my hands and the knife had an intelligence of their own, and in spite of ME, they knew what to do, and i just had to let them do it, and get out of the way already! the pandan leaves were "being shredded"! i continued to allow my hands to shred them without interfering, but just to witness and see what the secret is. and when i looked down, i just had to laugh, and thank God.
of course! how could i have thought otherwise? I, alone, am powerless over shredding pandan leaves. but...if i "lean" on someone, something, allow myself to be supported, to let go and trust, have a vision where i want to get to, have an intention to make something useful to serve a higher force, use my tools with respect, and allow myself to be a vessel for something to flow through me, then something beautiful is created through me. i still continued to watch the thin crinkly long pandan leaves being shredded and tried to feel what those balinese women feel when they are in this state. how come none of them could describe this to me? do they even know they are in it? do they know anything different than this state?
the only difference was that it was neither the hand with the knife nor the hand with the pandan leaves that was doing the shredding. yes, there was an active force, and a passive force in each hand, but it was the addition of a third force; the base of my thumb, and the leaning against it of the knife, that suddenly "allowed" the knife to shred the pandan leaves, and the pandan leaves to be shredded ever so thinly, without the least concern of cutting my finger anymore. it was no longer even relevant. the shredding was happening on a whole other plane, and the sound of it was now like music. i thanked god, was grateful for the "gift" of initiation, and wondered what other secrets the pandan leaves will show me next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment