Odalan at the Lake, Part II - The Ceremony (Bali)

The day after the Meet and Greet I describe in Part I of this piece, we readied ourselves to pray. Aileen donned a new, custom-sewn kebaya made in the very latest style, and it perfectly matched her beautiful and expensive silk sarong. At that time, the height of style was a sheer, very delicate lace kebaya with a sarong of matching color. I myself was wearing a gold and white sarong with a new gold kebaya, which, even I have to admit, did fabulous things for my skin tone. Aileen wrapped a sarong around her almost two-year-old daugher, who loved it and started imitating legong (Balinese dance) moves. She screamed and cried when Aileen tried to adjust the sarong, thinking Aileen was going to take it away.

The ceremonies in Bali may seem half-hazard to the casual tourist, but in fact they are extremely well organized. (The exception to this can be the dates of certain ceremonies, which often shift at the last moment.) The Odalan for this particular temple was always a huge event, and we wandered around in the afternoon sun for hours, visiting people and waiting for our designated turn to enter the temple. Finally, it was time. As we were about to mount the steps to the temple, Leger turned to Aileen and me and asked, "Everyone okay to go into the temple?" What he really meant was, "Are either of you menstruating, because it would profane the temple for a menstruating woman or anyone bleeding in any way to enter it." We were used to this taboo, and Aileen and I nodded that we were good to go, glancing at each other in amusement that Leger had broached the topic even in this round-about way.

We went up the steps. Aileen was stunningly beautiful with her blonde hair pinned up in flowers and dressed in a shade of lavendar that had doubtlessly been created for her. She carried a very small offering on her head, nothing like the towering offerings of fruit, flowers and cakes the Balinese women carried (and I mean some of those offerings were taller than a large three-year-old child). I was tamu (a guest) with no Balinese family attachments; I did not carry an offering, nor was I expected to. Leger, usually joking and goofy, looked dashing and distinguished in his white jacket and brown batik sarong. Aileen and Leger's toddler was as pleased as she could be, feeling dressed up and important.

We seated ourselves in one of the many rows that were forming in the temple. For women, "seated" meant sitting back on our heels in a kneeling position, a position Balinese women can hold for hours, but which I have never been able to maintain for more than a few moments. So I sat on one hip with my legs drawn up as demurely as I could to the side. I didn't feel too bad about this, as Balinese are also practiced in not just casually squatting as an alternative to sitting, but squatting confortably back on their heels for long time periods, a stance I have never seen even one Westerner try. The men, who tied their sarongs in a different manner than women to give them much more freedom of movement, sat cross-legged. This was all par for the course, and I wondered what new rites I would witness at this ceremony that were different from the usual temple worship.

Before I could think about this for long, a young man sitting next to me said, very haltingly in English, "Hello, how are you?" Oh, no. I knew what was coming. He would want to practice his almost non-existent English. In deference to all of those who helped me practice my Bahasa Indonesia over the years, of course I obliged. Aileen and I waited patiently and smilingly as he formed his words, and we answered his questions. We actually managed to exchange a few pleasantries and some family information. One thing I love about the Balinese; there is very little false formality. Even on the most sacred occasions, I have seen priests laugh and joke, and at this Odalan ceremony, it was perfectly acceptable for us to chat as we waited for the blessing. However, I still couldn't help but wish that the people who wanted to practice their English actually knew a little English to practice.

We saw the priest and his assistant slowly making their way toward us; we lit incense sticks and put one in the ground in front of each of us, and readied our small piles of flower petals. Each of us waved our hands over the incense smoke and looked down as we pressed our hands together in prayer and raised them above our heads. We held this stance for a moment, then took a flower petal, passed it through the purifying smoke, and raised our hands again, this time holding a flower petal between them. We did this another time. We did this once more, this time putting the flower petal in our hair after we had used it to pray.

As the priest approached, we held our hands out palm up in front of us, accepting the holy water the priest sprinkled over us. Then he approached each one, pouring holy water into our cupped hands, the right hand over the impure left hand. We did this twice, and on the third time put the water through our hair. Finally, we accepted a little bit of rice from the priest in our left hands, and put it on our foreheads and temples with our right hands.

In other words, the blessing was the exact same thing that happens every time one goes to the temple to pray. Life, love, work and everything else you can imagine in Bali revolves around ceremonies and the banjar (community) obligations that support those ceremonies. So you would think after days, weeks and months of preparations, ceremonies would build to a dramatic crescendo. Sometimes they do, as with trance dances. But more often than not, westerners find themselves asking "When is the ceremony?" only to discover what seemed like just another small step in the perpetual lead-up was actually the culmination of the event.

But there were more people to visit, more bets to make, more dancers to watch, more babi guling to eat. We left the temple and made our way to the nearest warung, not far from the temple steps.