monsoon time

I think we are in the thick of it. It started about a month ago and is pretty wild! Sometimes it rains bucketfuls for hours all of a sudden, and then stops and the blue sky returns and a few days of sunshine and it is hard to remember it was any different a few days earlier. Even when it does rain, and everything is overflowing with water, a few hours later, you would never know it rained. No mud or puddles or anything.

The kids and I had discovered a "river" near the house. It was as wide as a two lane highway, and had been created for the heavy rainfall that comes down from the mountains to the sea, in the rainy season. The reinforced high stone walls seemed a bit "overdone" in my opinion, since I had only seen it dry most of the year. But a few weeks ago there was a nice flowing river there and we started to go there to play n the calf deep water among the rocks. It was fun, other than the first time when the 4 year old got swept off with the fast flow and I went running after him and thank god, caught him holding onto a big boulder. After that we were more careful. And after many playful days there, we took a walk up the river one afternoon and discovered that all of the rubbish from kilometers away, is thrown there and we just happened to be playing in a clean place, but in fact, better we stop and continue going to the sea instead, since the same pollution is distributed in the whole sea, instead of just the river.

Today it rained from midnight for almost 24 hours straight. The older daughter returned from school and excitedly told me that as she passed the river on her motorbike she was amazed that the water is so high, but she didn't want to look in case she has an accident. I excitedly suggested we take a walk over there, in the rain, and see it close up. So off we went, with raincoats or umbrellas, along with the rest of the family to see the sight. As we walked the 250 meters to it, we walked through the flooded new road and the fast flowing cannels on the sides of it. But when we arrived to the river we were not prepared for the amazing quantity and intensity of it. Real white water rafting right here in tejakula!

Instead of the usual narrow, shallow, flowing river, the whole width was bursting with huge quantities of fast flowing deep water that reached midway up the sides. I now realized why they built such high sides to it. The rumbling we were hearing was not the thunder, but huge boulders being swept along in the fast flow and tumbling against other rocks along the way. Seeing mother nature like this is a real adrenalin rush for me. I love it. The family had seen enough, but I wanted more, and as they returned home, I walked further down to the sea in order to watch how this huge quantity of rainwater looks as it enters the sea.

Just before reaching the sea, the road was already in water up to my ankles as was the forest next to it. Watching the fast flowing river enter the sea was a surprise for me and a bit anti- climatic. Here was this huge sea, heaving its' waves in a kind of universal breath, and the fast flowing river just kind of relaxed into it and became one with the great sea, no longer with its' own unique power and force.

After watching it for a while, I started to walk back at twilight along the river in the rain. I saw I was not the only person interested in seeing this amazing sight. Opposite me came a man with his umbrella. As we passed each other, we smiled and said hello. I giggled to myself how funny he looked, with his umbrella and wearing only underpants! He probably thought he was all alone on the road and just left his house in the forest for a moment to get a look at the river. But a moment later, I looked down at my soaking wet sarong and blouse and laughed even harder! I am the one that looks funny walking around in this weather in soaking wet clothes and an umbrella, instead of just wearing a pair of underpants!

me and the sea

I spend hours each day at the sea. We have become intimate friends. I love seeing it each morning and looking around and deciding what mood it is in today. Tide in? Tide out? Waves? Flat and still like a lake? Clouds over it? Moon rise? Sunrise? Windy? Fishermen out? Shimmering, glittering, glimmering, sparkling? Grey, green, white, brown, blue shade? Flying fish? Also the shoreline changes so much each time as it curves around, either inviting you to walk along the rocky coastline or it disappears and you need to walk on the narrow dirt path to the side.

For the past couple of days the sea has been so wild and windy with huge waves. I had never seen it like that before. It happens during the monsoon season. It was so powerful, crashing on the shore. I just sat for hours watching it and wondering what it was all about, other than the full moons' effect. The Balinese relate to the sea as the Great Purifier. It is there that the crematory ashes are thrown.  And as I walk along the shore and see all of the plastic and rubbish that is washed ashore each day, I wonder what kind of purifier it really is. Even with the publicity of "bali clean and green" and "keep bali clean" etc, habit is habit and people still throw their rubbish into the sea. I even watched as one of the fishermen cleaned up the area around his boat on shore, since the sea was too rough to go out fishing, and threw it all into the sea. I couldn't believe it. Didn't he know the tide would just bring it all back to shore in a few minutes or hours?  Maybe it wouldn't end up in front of his boat, but rather some 50 meters further down the shore but why back to the sea??

And then this morning, when I came to the sea, I sensed something different. Other than it being mainly black sand instead of rocks, there was something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I enjoyed the soft sand, a luxury, since it is usually so rocky. It was easier to hoop, and doing my exercises on the large shaded sandy areas. And while I was doing that, and just kind of looking out at the crashing waves and wondering what it was all about, I noticed that our dog had dug a deep hole in the sand. He too was happy to have sand! And as I walked past the hole I realized that he had dug so deep that he had hit big stones.

It was then that the puzzle pieces started to fit together. I realized that it wasn't that all the stones had been washed to sea, as I had assumed. But rather that the sea had brought ashore tons of sand that covered all of the rocks! As I walked along the shore I realized that there wasn't a single bit of rubbish to be seen. I knew no one could have cleaned the entire coastline, and that this rare virgin looking sea was what the Balinese were referring to as the great purifier. I am still not sure whether it just took all of the rubbish (tons of plastic snack wrappers, flip flops, broken bits of plastic and metal) and just swept it out to sea, or whether it just buried it all underneath the sand.  In any case, the water was perfectly clear, after days of it being thickish, and the shore was its' natural self, and I too became a believer that the sea is the great purifier…even though I know there is a pile of plastic in the sea somewhere the size of the state of texas and a few miles deep! It is easy to stay naïve and believe that everything really is in harmony and mother nature is just churning her cycle of creation, preservation and destruction and we don't really need to get all up in arms about it. Yes, the coral is faded and disappearing, as are the beautiful colorful fish, and animals are chocking on plastic bags and the water is being tested as very polluted in the world. But still the thought crosses my mind that maybe it is all just preparing for the next stage of our lives…? That maybe the sea is like a great mother that knows that her children are still small and don't understand anything and keep throwing their candy wrappers on the ground instead of the garbage bin.  And she patiently picks them up and throws them away for them, until they grow up and understand the importance of taking responsibility for their actions (which is the stage we seem to be entering now? Puberty? )

Meanwhile, I shall see what new lessons and thoughts and scenery it gifts me with tomorrow morning….

Bale Blessing

It took a month to build the bale (a kind of gazebo-like open sided structure). The plan was to have the "blessing " for it the following week on the eve of the full moon, which is an auspicious time for blessings. But since there was a death in the extended family, we were not allowed to have it, and ended up waiting another month for the next full moon eve. When the bale stood finished, it felt kind of "empty". There was no feeling of a dream being realized or finally a nice place to meditate in. it was there, but not inviting. Each day I would sit on the porch, opposite it, and didn't feel any kind of attraction. Could it really be that the bale is a let down? I knew that we could use it, but that only after it was blessed would it be official. I decided to wait for "official" and would just sweep it each day along with the rest of the grounds, and sometimes the kids ate there, but nothing special.

On the eve of the full moon, the priest came over on his motorbike with his wife at 7p.m. The full moon had just risen above the top of the palm tree opposite the bale, and was glowing with a purple and white aura. The priests' wife had prepared all the necessary offerings for the ceremony, instead of me doing it, without experience. It included many fruits and cakes and a roasted chicken, and rice and flowers, etc. A white cloth with a gold printed design was tacked around the sides of the bale and Ketut had taken some young palm leaves and created a kind of crepe paper hanging effect ( I think the crepe paper copies the palm leaf and not the opposite!) and tacked them above two of the open sides of the bale where we enter. We were wearing our temple clothes for the occasion.

The priest, who is a fisherman when he is not being a priest, is a simple, happy, laid back guy that I see at the beach each morning. He lives in the forest near us. Still used to my internal American clock, I was pleased to see that even though it was 7, no one was in a hurry to get something done. It was all done easefully and joyfully and without any pretentiousness. Ketut was asked to paint with his fingers the white, black and red lines that symbolize Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (Creation, preservation, transformation) on the wooden slats of the peaked ceiling and on the four posts of the square structure. The red of Vishnu is the blood from the chicken that was slaughtered and roasted for the offering. The other colors were from plants.  Also a little kind of palm crown is hung from the center of the ceiling along with a smaller palm symbol on each post.

We were now ready to begin the ceremony. The priest along with ketut and his three children and I, were all sitting on the bale, as a symbol that it will always be strong and support us. The priest had his bell and ceremonial flowers, incense, holy water and rice and the offerings all arranged on the mat in front of him, and we sat with incense and flowers in front of us. I do not understand the mantras or prayers that he was saying, although I could guess that he was blessing this structure and inviting the soul to enter it. I sat there praying the whole time that this place be one of love and bestowal and health and well being, inspiration and reverence, and connection to the highest forces of the universe. It was a very nice feeling of togetherness and creation of something new among us and on the grounds.

In less than half an hour it was finished, and all the offerings were now shared among us to enjoy after their "essence" had been received already by god. I cleaned up and placed the evening offerings around the house and grounds and the kids watched television. The following morning, when I went to put the rice offering in the bale, since it was now officially blessed and would receive daily offerings like the other symbolic places around the house and grounds, I was surprised to sense something different there! It was the same bale that had been situated there for over a month, but when I went to place the little banana leaf with a bit of rice on it, the same structure suddenly felt like "home"! I wondered if it was just my imagination.  I mentioned it to ketut a few minutes later, and he said he had the same feeling at night, when he awoke and decided to go outside for a minute to the bale. He had explained to me a month ago that the ceremony is what invites the soul to the bale and without it it is not alive. It is just material. But once the ceremony has been completed, you can feel the life force there, and god willing it will be one that blesses us with all good things.

The offerings I place twice a day are my opportunity to give to the universe all of my intentions. It is a quiet time when just me and the moment are in touch in prayer. I see how powerful it can be. Giving intentions creates life.

3 Curios

"My mother has a talent"

I walked into the kitchen and saw a bowl with three porcupine needles in it….i realized that instead of shooting bats the previous night, ketut must have shot a porcupine and brought the needles for the kids to see. Sure enough, when we met later on, he said that his friend had shot a porcupine and the meat is in the fridge. He was going to bring some to his mother now since she enjoys porcupine meat and will awaken in her nice memories from her childhood. "She used to live near the mountain and there were many porcupines there. My mother has a talent to catch porcupine." "Really? How?" "She would take a big papaya or bunch of bananas from the garden and throw them on the porcupine….it was so heavy, stuck onto the needles, that the porcupine couldn't move. "

"This is how he refreshes"

I was sitting with the sister in law on the weekend as usual. She is with the two kids.  And her husband, who works during the week, spends his free time by cock fighting. If he wins, he comes back with two cocks; one dead one; the loser, and also his winning cock. Then she cooks the loser. If he returns with an empty bag, it means he lost…no cock coming back home.. I asked her if her husband is at the cock fight now. She said no, that a new head of the police department was voted in last week, and he has stopped all of the corruption with the cock fights, which has always been illegal, but the police turned their heads, as long as the payment was right. "no cockfights??!!" I couldn't believe it. Almost all of the men in bali are involved in some way with the cock fights. They are either raising cocks, or betting on cocks, or fighting with cocks…."so what is he doing if he isn't at the cock fight?" I couldn't imagine what all of them were doing without the adrenalin hit from the fight, without all of the talking and business involved in it. "He is sleeping." "yes, but now that the law is being enforced, what will he do with all of the time he used to spend at the cock fights?" "Oh, he is not worried. Every couple of years there is a new head of the police department and each time they close down all of the fighting. It lasts for a few weeks, and then everyone goes back to cockfighting again and paying off the police." "But this was such a big part of his life, no?" "it is how he refreshes himself.""so how did he refresh himself this week without the fights?""oh. we have a plot of land, so he cut the grass and planted vegetables." I laughed! It sounded a lot more refreshing to be out in nature doing something constructive rather than with a bunch of men and cigarettes watching cocks kill each other.  "And he will pay off the load we are taking, with the money, instead of gambling with it".  Sounds good to me!

"i guess someone needs a small bicycle"

 

The kids and I went down to the sea as usual and left the small old bicycle near some trees as usual, and began our adventure of playing in the waves and collecting seashells. After an hour or two we returned to take the bicycle home, but it wasn't there. I was a bit surprised, as were the kids, since they had never had anything taken from them before. No one was around, and it was a pretty windy wild day at sea and we were the only ones there, so we didn't even know who could have taken it. I assured the kids that I will go along the beach later and see if any of the families that live there may have taken it by mistake, and will bring it back. They were fine with that solution. I was happy, since neither of them had wanted to ride the bicycle uphill back home, and I wasn't looking forward to schlepping i't back either. So the disappearance of the bicycle suited us just fine.

Later on, when his father returned home, I told him that someone had stolen the bicycle while we were playing in the sea. I suggested it must be one of the families that lives by the sea, and I can go there tomorrow and see if the bicycle is there and tell them it is ours. He was silent for a moment, and then said "I guess someone needs a small bicycle. That is okay. Let them have it if they need it." I looked at him in disbelief. "you don't want me to go and find them and speak with the people?" "I have never heard of someone taking something that belongs to someone else. They must need this small bicycle. So when I have money I will buy my son a bigger bicycle. He is not upset about the bicycle. It is okay."

As usual I was surprised by the response, which has such a different perspective to life than I have ever seen. I laughed. Shook my head in disbelief, and said "you are amazing. No matter what happens, you always see it in a positive light! "