Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Pendeta (The Priestess)

When I feel like I’ve had enough (it’s been hours – sitting, eating, listening in the hot sun--since the priestess arrived) still, the rituals continue. The gamelon plays. The bell rings. The people talk and laugh. I have no familiar context, no familiar words, no familiar ritual, no familiar taste, no familiar sound, no familiar face, nothing. Two and a half intense days, lost in time and another world. It’s been immensely beautiful, but also immensely challenging for reasons I never expected. I love how it all makes me start to think new things and feel new things. And yet, when I stop and sit, it feels like chaos, swirling around me. I watch Siwa blow through the palm fronds, I feel the warmth of matahari (the sun) touch my skin through my thin kaballah. Then I look up.

The priestess sits high above me, on her gilded pedestal, hand mechanically ringing the bell, her brown eyes hooked on one thing: me. There’s no one behind me, no one around me, nothing to distract her from me. When I look up to meet her gaze, instead of turning away, something in her eyes holds me there. Looking up at her. Instinctively, I smile. I want it to be gracious and effortless. But I’m tired and worn. My cheeks hurt from trying so hard all day. It feels fake. I feel fake.

Frustration. My smile comes crashing down. Sitting there, I can’t hide. I can’t hide my real confusion or honest pain, my intense desire these days to push myself in new ways, to be better than I was before – not just to myself but to those who find their way in my life. But how does one do this? How does one live, love, dream in this way? I stare at those feelings. I stare at my fear that I might fail in my trying. I might fail over and over. I have already failed, trying, many times already. But I realize that's part of this life. Part of living, it is trying. Learning, growing. Then trying again. Because, now, I can’t run away either. I’m tired of running. From myself, from others. I'm tired of hiding. From myself, from others.

So I sit there. I let my eyes fill. A bit of hard-earned salt-water drips slowly from my eyes as she watches. My worn-out senses can only trace it’s warm path down my cheek. I feel it slowly evaporated by a golden sun. Honest pain dissentigrates in the warmth of the day. A deep breath. I look down then. At my hands, at the carved stone, at the bits of magenta and gold flowers on the dirty cement. I close my eyes. I sit in a courtyard in Bali, I feel all these new things closing in around me. The gamelon crashes and falls and crashes and falls so loudly now, people talk with more passion, my sarong is damp with sweat, smoky incense bites my nose and throat, and the high-pitched golden bell vibrates through the air, faster and faster and faster. I feel her staring at me, still. I’m not sure if it’s her eyes I feel, or the honesty of my own eyes staring into new, previously unknown depths of my soul that I feel I’m discovering as I take one new, brave step--directly into the path of my fear—after another: I just know deep down there are parts of me that are scared, nervous, I am not sure any of these things I dream of will work out, I am not sure what is for sure, I am not sure what to trust, I am not sure what to be, I am not sure where to go, I am not sure what to feel. I'm not sure how I'll translate this moment to words. My head aches with new and old words, new and old emotions. Fire, water, wind. Brahman, Wisnu, Si…

Even as the ceremony spins around, the bell stops. I stop. My tired senses and over-worked emotions can take no more. And that is when it stops. I lift my head and open my eyes, to the gaze of a high-caste Balinese priestess, who hums incantations I can’t understand. Red crown, white dress, ringing bell, but something has changed. When I look up to her brown eyes, still staring into me, I see a new depth. A kindness, a gentleness, an understanding – not of my happiness – but of my confusion, my pain, my honesty and my own internal chaos. My humanity. It is this that binds me to the people around me. It is not for me to change, it is only for me to experience, on a never-ending path to learning, loving, living, and understanding. Life--it’s never just done, it always unfolds and continues, up the next mountain, around the next corner. A deep breath as I let go. I see it clearly. Her lifetime intersecting with mine, for just that moment. My mistakes and my falls that create chaos ARE the things I need to celebrate! It’s through realizations from these powerful things, where I am truly finding new depths to my heart and new strengths to my mind, and in the process new honesty, openness and connection with those people around me – long time friends and utter strangers. It’s through these things I begin to uncover my strength. I smile again. It feels real and true. Let there be chaos! Let there be great unknowns! Let there be huge risks! Just let me have the honest strength and kind wisdom to try and experience these fully, to the best of my ability, however, wherever they find me! Let me fail miserably in the trying and always get back up to try again: stronger, lovelier, kinder than before. It’s my own anthem, repeated in my own words, with its own song, in my head.

Holy water is flung from palm fronds to those in the ceremony. They drink it fervently and feverishly. They touch it to their face and wipe it through their hair. They reach for more as I quietly watch, wondering if I'll try to post about this moment. If this will be understood or tossed aside, even though it doesn't matter to me. I know I'll try to post something. It's part of the process. Then the procession starts through the compound. A sea of gold and rainbows against the dirt-gray walls. Through all halls they go, chanting, proclaiming, smiling. It ends where it began, in the center. And it’s over.

The gamelon still plays, the puppet show mimes a holy tale, people continue to talk and laugh and eat. Some people leave. More people arrive. They will continue to arrive into the night and the days to come. More food will be made. More coffee will be served in teacups. The bell stops ringing. Without a word, to anyone, the priestess packs up her things and leaves with her followers.

A quiet, tired, long drive home. I thank Oka and Annie over and over. I head upstairs light a candle, and prepare a room-temperature bath. I close my eyes and lay on my back with my ears underwater, until there is no other sound but that of my own breath, until the dark night of another day finds me.

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