Village Life

After four days of incredible ceremonies at the royal temple around the full moon, I spent today at home all day, uploading the video to my computer and beginning the daunting task of organizing and editing. 

Some sneak previews – more soon . . . 

Puri Saraswati entrance

Saraswati in ceremony regalia

Penjor made from bamboo shaped like the sacred mountains

 Recording video is its own discipline, with alert attention and awkward body stances to get the best shot. It is often fatiguing, but always a powerful, meditative in-the-moment experience. I am exhilarated and exhausted afterwards. And after four days of ceremonies– I am in a state of quietly euphoric altered consciousness. I treat myself to an acupressure massage, and take it slow.

Some images of my home in Pengosekan, the street where I live, the main road one block over, and the village gathering space where people make offerings together on some days, have quiet prayers on others. 

View from my terrace

The street where I live at Danu's Guest House

Danu and his grandson Eka on our outing to Puri Ulan Danu

Ketut, Danu's gracious wife

Their daughters Iluh and Luhde

Their son Komang    

Today- lo and behold—the local Green Earth anti-pollution activist showed up with composting equipment for the villagers. His name is Wayan and he worked with an American woman for three years in trash removal. She taught him about global climate change, about the toxic effects of burning plastic in the garbage—a common practice here—and about composting. Not polluting the streams and rivers with plastic rubbish is part of the training. 

Wayan changes village life

Now he is out on his own educating villagers and providing composting bins. He and his friends made a colorful booklet explaining it all. The villages pay for the composters and he delivers them and trains people about using them. I was very impressed and glad to hear about this.  Very heartening.

Composters become toys!

Taking them home

I am happy, healthy and holy -- enjoying most moments-- bliss plus reality. Bliss = all the ceremonies, the arts and culture, the people. Reality = all the traffic with cars and many motorbikes with no pollution control so the air in the traffic is very bad.

I study Indonesian 3 days a week and it teaches us about the culture -- the language is mainly in the present tense. Life is like that here. The heat slows us down too – pelan-pelan- slowly, slowly. I learn patience here in many ways. (For example, it has taken two days of the internet working/not working/working to post this blog!)