the order in chaos

I chose to just sit on the side and watch how things happen at the temple. What I saw was to the western mind; total chaos. While 200 women are getting up and going to the low tables to give a short prayer of gratitude and collect their blessed offerings, another 200 are already pushing their way forward to place their offerings down on the not yet emptied low tables which also need a short kneeling down prayer before they get up to find a place in the courtyard to pray. Meanwhile their husbands and children have sat down randomly in makeshift rows (or not) . The sacred masks are being passed among the helpers among the crowds to the 30 some dancers who have no dressing room or backstage and are also coming through the crowds in order to pray before performing. The policemen are closing the temple gates to the crowds since there is no longer any room to sit more people inside, but if you tell them you need to go in for whatever reason, they open the gate, or they leave the gate and people just open it up again. Gambling is going on outside the wall of the temple two steps away, along with tons of vendors selling cheap toys, and little kiosks of fast food. As each round of 600 or so devotees are to be anointed by the 20 some priests that are here for the special galungan ceremony of the victory of good over evil, the courtyard that was already full to brimming seems to expand in order that the priests are able to easily make their way through the seated devotees without anyone having to move, and manage to anoint each one 7 times, including all the little babies, and all of this without a word being spoken or anyone tripping or being forgotten.

To a typical onlooker it appears total bedlam, chaos, impossible. But as I stand there for hours watching it all happening, and not hearing or seeing anyone giving orders or trying to make order, I realize how orderly this chaos actually is. It flows. It works. And the atmosphere is light and playful and impossible to comprehend by means of western notions of order and control. No entrance or exit signs from the 2 entrances, no assigned places, no one telling anyone else how or where or what….it all just seems to work together.