"Menjangan whispers. Not with fear, not with terror, but with admiration. A narrative and transmitted ramification, the connection with ancestors.
Let's welcome its manifestation in all its beauty and spontaneity. We see it move away towards the ocean. Her reaction surprised me. Here, the ocean delimits, but does not limit. He who arrives survives, in cohesion with synergy.
We turned around. Look, observe. This is what we have and nothing else, she told me. And so it manifested itself!
I started to operate, no longer seeking it but following it. Energies sown, it manifested again. A new shape, the same intent.
"Stop," she yelled at me, "she has arrived."
On time, with its rhythm, it invaded us. I opened my eyes, feeling observed. Yes, it is its gift. Up there, don't you see? She guided us, and you unconsciously listened to her. Now rest, the sun will rise. Menjangan will return, the ocean will have its perpetual motion, the rain its moment of sacredness. And you, dancing with Mother Nature, synergy again will be arise, said to me Walidwipa."
The Balinese believe that their island can be divided into three parts.
The mountains, known as Kaja, are the holiest place, the house of gods. The ocean, known as Kelod, represent the Hell, is the least sacred place. Instead the place in between is the home of humans, the purgatory.
For them the ocean is therefore something powerful and frightening, inhabited by evil demons. They believe two dragon gods live in the ocean and protect them and the island itself.
In Balinese Hinduism balance is the central point: everything is a combination of holiness and non-holiness, in order to maintain the balance. Good and evil come together.
The concept Rwa Bhineda, or “the two in one”, defines this idea of the necessity of a balance of opposites, even within one entity. Fred B. Eiseman Jr. explains the intertwined nature of all opposites in Bali in his book titled Bali: sekala and niskala: essays on religion, ritual, and art. He states that for the Balinese “evil is part of the whole, and good is part of the whole. Neither can exist without the other.”
These two energies live within each of us, as well as in all of nature. Each death represents a new rebirth.
