from Bali with Love

Itak itak itak itak itak itak... three circles of Balinese trance dancers swayed forward and back chanting. Sitting cross legged, the men with bare chests and traditional black and white checkered pants set the stage for the reenactment of a Hindu story that involved a golden deer an angry monkey and many pairs of women temple dancers using hand Mutras. Today is our second day in Ubud, the artist and spiritual center of Bali. There are so many temples that its easy to loose track of where you are thinking "didn't we just pass that temple?" The traditional dances, like the one I witnessed last night, tell the stories of this predominately Hindu region.

Dad rented a motorbike so we've been zigzagging around with the hordes of motorbikes and enjoying where the lack of street signs gets us lost. Today we accidentally stopped at a huge temple complex that wasn't mentioned in the guide book. We were the only one's there. Stray dogs slept on altars and random chickens wandered below the central ancient stone carved Ganesha. Lush jungle bordered one side, faint chanting was coming from somewhere deep in it. I climbed stairway after stairway, each a bit older and more worn that the last, taking me through a series of archways. Finally arriving at the inner sanctum, I found myself in front of a freshly maintained altar with gold inlaid carvings, primitive ceramic water bowls for purification ritual, piles of gardenias, drapes of blue and yellow fabric, palm frond offering plates filled with bits of food, marigolds and insence, but no people to be found.

My heart is so completely filled up and overflowing here. It feels like being in love... it IS being in love with LIFE... with the diverse beauty of the human experience. I breathe in the beauty of the lives that surround me. Seeing the detail and effort put into building homes and temples, seeing a people committed to daily expressing their spiritual traditions in such a joyful way. The Balinese smile is the most beautiful, from the soul, smile I've ever seen.