Right away, people took me in and I was amazed by their generosity and openness, and the ways in which they live together. I lived with a family of eight, spanning four generations, which is common. The people I knew live in an intricate social structure which insures that everyone has an important role in their family compound, their extended family, and the banjar (a religious neighborhood organization). This sense of community is also experienced on a personal level. People of the same gender are constantly holding hands or have their arms around each other--I even saw two policemen casually hugging in the street. This ease in relating and expressing affection is extended to visitors as well. I found that after a short introduction the people I met would invite me to their homes, help me get places, and even insist on buying me meals. In this way they absorb visitors into their communities. "Whose tourist is that?" is a common Balinese question, expressing the sense of ownership they have of tourists. I had many experiences reaffirming that this ownership reaches beyond economic need and comes from an honest desire to feel connected. As a young woman, I attracted a lot of parental attention, especially from my teachers.
This is the context in which I was learning new skills in dance, pottery, batik, basket making, and wood carving, as well as learning to speak Indonesian. What struck me most in the beginning was the profound simplicity in their use of repetition as a teaching method. In my two hour long dance class, Gusti Ayu, my teacher, would do the same ten minute dance the entire session, rarely slowing it down or explaining the movements. This is very different from dance classes in the US, where we are taught to understand the choreography in our minds. Gusti Ayu was not teaching my mind to tell my body how to move, she simply taught my body. I learned to love the process of copying her movements until I was able to rely on my body to follow the music.
The use of repetition helped convey knowledge and skills, as well as connecting me to the generations of Balinese who assisted in the evolution of a particular dance, design, or motif. In my study of basket making I learned not only the technique, but a specific design, which I would repeat until I had mastered it. As a beginner it was my role to simply learn what others had already created. I was being taught to join them in their creation, not begin my own process. In this way, I was pushed to let go of creativity as a mode of self-expression and embrace it as a means of being part of community and feeling connected to other people.
I studied pottery with two traditional potters who work with small, hand-spun wheels and use clay dug from their yard. Their daughters and granddaughters bring the unglazed ware to the market in baskets they carry on their heads. Learning with them was a magical experience and very insightful. When I first began, my teacher would throw the pot and place her hand on mine, training my hand to move like hers. As I was able, she allowed me to try it on my own. In this way we made many lanterns, bowls, dishes, and vases together. It was in this process that I discovered the moment of having what felt to me like "my" creation become "our" creation. This was a very frustrating moment: I had begun a pot on my own, and as I lost control her hand suddenly joined mine in order to save the pot. Not only was she assuring that a usable pot was made, she was showing me the correct technique. I became frustrated many times before I realized that unconsciously my motive was not to make a pot or even to learn how to make one, but to have made something by myself. I wanted a sense of ownership and accomplishment that I could achieve only by being solely responsible for the creation.
Through discussions with my western friends, who had all had similar frustrations, I realized that we had an assumed separateness which the Balinese didn't have. They seemed to have included us in their creative process. I remember one evening in a basket making session: while my American friend left for a moment, a neighbor wandered by and complemented her basket and then began working on it. The ease with which they share in creativity acknowledges that creation is the focus, not who the creator is. I remember when one of my friends had started a batik and then became sick, Nyoman, our teacher, completed it for her. He explained that he really wanted her to have something to bring home. I had a similar experience with a woodcarving that the grandfather in my family compound was helping me with. When I was a few days away from my departure Ba'pak finished the carving, refining and sanding it.
When I showed my parents and friends what I had made in Bali they were impressed and it was refreshing for me to feel so unattached. I was able to really understand that it was the relationships I had with the people that is important, and this trivialized any sense of achievement or failure I might otherwise have felt.
Another aspect of living with the Balinese that had a big impression on me was that religion is interconnected to all parts of life. Much of the beauty the Balinese create is an offering to the Gods; whether it is the ornate leaf and flower petal offerings left in auspicious places throughout the compound or a temple dance, lasting through the night. In this way, artistic creation is linked to the spiritual security and evolution of the community, acknowledging the spiritual interdependence.
Witnessing the use of creation as an affirmation of the interconnectedness of people was inspiring for me. I saw in myself and others the ability to let go of the self-centered nature that we allow to separate us from each other, God, and the Earth.
Kestrel Gates is a dancer, gardener, graduate of the 1997 Lost Valley Deep Agroecology Program, and assistant in Lost Valley's 1998 Summer Apprenticeship Program.
©1998 Talking Leaves
Summer/Fall 1998
Volume 8, Number 2
Art and Ecology