VENUS ASCENDING

UBUD, BALI
April 1, 2004
EVENING



The sky fell dark quickly tonight, and a star, brighter than any plane or manmade light across the valley, emerged low on the horizon. Could it be Venus in this hemisphere?

I sat on my balcony's brick ledge to catch the evening's tentative breezes... the day had been almost too hot to bear. I loved my calm upstairs room with a view, and I celebrated with a hot cup of tea in the dark, and with incense in every niche I could find by moonlight.

The hushed velvety rice fields below sparkled with about a dozen kunang-kunang (fireflies), all independently spaced yet sporadically lighting in waves through the ether. Gamelan bells and bamboo xylophones softly sounded across the now peaceful town of Ubud. People made their shrine offerings to the spirits.

I sat in the dark as Wayan (wife and mother of this guest house) ascended my stairs to gently lay one of her many petite banana leaf trays of petals and incense near my balcony entry. She elegantly waved her hands in front of the smouldering offerings, in the same evocative motions I'd seen other locals do at temple and for the neighboring guest house entries (occupied or not). I thanked her, though I don't think this was primarily for my sake. I do however, have two big protective palm leaf weavings hanging on my door, courtesy of her husband. She continued to make her rounds down below, as her husband continued to play the bells downstairs. Children occasionally screeched, babies fussed, and dogs barked, as all this spirituality proceeded; all just part of the weft and weave of life here.