In this update, I share about a unique Balinese tradition, Nyepi.
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Once a year, for twenty-four hours, Bali goes silent. Airports shut down, cars and scooters stay parked, thirteen million dollars are saved in electricity bills. Only members of the Banjar (select married community males) go out. Even they use reserve—leaving their homes each hour to make sure no one else is out. Pedestrians are punished. Why?
To honor and purify for Nyepi. Balinese New Year.
The day before Nyepi is Tawur Agung Kesanga, or the “Day of Great Sacrifice.” Colorful monsters dressed in coconut hair called Ogoh-Ogoh (picture a cross between a Chinese dragon and the Sesame Street dog, Barkley) are brought to afternoon temple ceremonies to receive offerings of rice, fruit and flowers, and then let into the streets at night for Ngrupuk, a procession to entice demons. In villages, artisans spend upwards of a month making Ogoh-Ogoh—painting intricate slanted eyes, flaring nostrils and gargantuan teeth. Everyone donates. For establishments that don’t, Ogoh-Ogoh destroy or steal what they can during Ngrupuk. (This told to me by the awesome taxi driver, Gede, who is also a banjar.)
During a temple ceremony on Tawur Agung Kesanga, Erica and I offered fruit and shrimp crisps with our heads bowed in gratitude. A holy man with a strip of cloth tied to his head doused water in our eyes and mouths, smashed rice (nicely) on our foreheads, and wafted incense to bless us. We felt honored. Humbled. And bouleh (foreigner.) Many bouleh living in southern Bali don’t attend ceremony. (Bouleh living in villages and in Ubud. I gather, tend to.) We backed up with our hands in prayer as the holy man chanted, and surrounding dogs ate the bananas, apples, rice balls, shrimp crisps, and sweets spread across the ground, pausing occasionally to blink with glazed eyes and belly bloat. (Once an offering is given, it is available. Dogs get there first.)
At midnight, after the procession gave demons the chance to land inside the Ogoh-Ogoh, the exquisite monsters were burned. Dogs yelped. Chickens squawked. Children swerved in finery. Masses gathered; women in white dresses, men in short white caps and traditional black and white kekak pants. Thus began Nyepi.
Twenty-four hours of darkness and silence. Not so much as an electric light. My friend Tom tells a story about seeing a lit cigarette last year seventy feet away—the only light—and feeling that he was communicating with this person who could, he was sure, see his cigarette. As Erica and I live at Villa Zen, where silence abounds, it was a usual writing day and evening, though our minds were noticeably clear. At night, after squatting before our refrigerator to eat (we hoped involuntary light away from a window was tolerable if we were quick) we spent long moments looking at a black sky flush with white-blue stars and listening into the silence.
According to legend, during Nyepi demons fly over the island looking for life. Since Bali looks abandoned, the demons pass over until the next year. Many of our Balinese acquaintances were nervous. Our grounds caretaker, Ilu, reported correct procedure numerous times. We understood that she did not want demons coming to Villa Zen. (Our refrigerator really is far from the window!!)
In Bali, superstition and wisdom live side by side. I’ve heard even U.S. born bouleh report fears of being cursed with black magic. But through this superstition, a profound ritual like Nyepi generates life. At five a.m.—exactly one hour before the end of Nyepi—I woke to a surge of rain. Thunder crashed so loud, I sat up. (Bali thunder can be frightening.) At six a.m., the downpour turned instantly to mist. Stunned, I went outside. The sky shone peach, an abundant, actual sense of birth. I gazed out, awed by the earth according with tradition. In Bali, the sacred is literally not separate from the manifest.
To honor and purify for Nyepi. Balinese New Year.
The day before Nyepi is Tawur Agung Kesanga, or the “Day of Great Sacrifice.” Colorful monsters dressed in coconut hair called Ogoh-Ogoh (picture a cross between a Chinese dragon and the Sesame Street dog, Barkley) are brought to afternoon temple ceremonies to receive offerings of rice, fruit and flowers, and then let into the streets at night for Ngrupuk, a procession to entice demons. In villages, artisans spend upwards of a month making Ogoh-Ogoh—painting intricate slanted eyes, flaring nostrils and gargantuan teeth. Everyone donates. For establishments that don’t, Ogoh-Ogoh destroy or steal what they can during Ngrupuk. (This told to me by the awesome taxi driver, Gede, who is also a banjar.)
During a temple ceremony on Tawur Agung Kesanga, Erica and I offered fruit and shrimp crisps with our heads bowed in gratitude. A holy man with a strip of cloth tied to his head doused water in our eyes and mouths, smashed rice (nicely) on our foreheads, and wafted incense to bless us. We felt honored. Humbled. And bouleh (foreigner.) Many bouleh living in southern Bali don’t attend ceremony. (Bouleh living in villages and in Ubud. I gather, tend to.) We backed up with our hands in prayer as the holy man chanted, and surrounding dogs ate the bananas, apples, rice balls, shrimp crisps, and sweets spread across the ground, pausing occasionally to blink with glazed eyes and belly bloat. (Once an offering is given, it is available. Dogs get there first.)
At midnight, after the procession gave demons the chance to land inside the Ogoh-Ogoh, the exquisite monsters were burned. Dogs yelped. Chickens squawked. Children swerved in finery. Masses gathered; women in white dresses, men in short white caps and traditional black and white kekak pants. Thus began Nyepi.
Twenty-four hours of darkness and silence. Not so much as an electric light. My friend Tom tells a story about seeing a lit cigarette last year seventy feet away—the only light—and feeling that he was communicating with this person who could, he was sure, see his cigarette. As Erica and I live at Villa Zen, where silence abounds, it was a usual writing day and evening, though our minds were noticeably clear. At night, after squatting before our refrigerator to eat (we hoped involuntary light away from a window was tolerable if we were quick) we spent long moments looking at a black sky flush with white-blue stars and listening into the silence.
According to legend, during Nyepi demons fly over the island looking for life. Since Bali looks abandoned, the demons pass over until the next year. Many of our Balinese acquaintances were nervous. Our grounds caretaker, Ilu, reported correct procedure numerous times. We understood that she did not want demons coming to Villa Zen. (Our refrigerator really is far from the window!!)
In Bali, superstition and wisdom live side by side. I’ve heard even U.S. born bouleh report fears of being cursed with black magic. But through this superstition, a profound ritual like Nyepi generates life. At five a.m.—exactly one hour before the end of Nyepi—I woke to a surge of rain. Thunder crashed so loud, I sat up. (Bali thunder can be frightening.) At six a.m., the downpour turned instantly to mist. Stunned, I went outside. The sky shone peach, an abundant, actual sense of birth. I gazed out, awed by the earth according with tradition. In Bali, the sacred is literally not separate from the manifest.
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Namaste,
and Love,
Nikki
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