Yesterday we came to Lombok to attend the annual temple ceremony at Made’s village. It was the first temple ceremony for me and was beautiful. Apart from being hot beyond hot, to the point where it was amazing I didn’t end up as just a puddle, and having a sore butt from sitting on concrete for so long, the ‘event’ was beautiful.
Made’s town, Tanjung, has 11 villages (=banjars). Each has its own temple – or pura, and each of those has an annual ceremony where everyone from that banjar comes to. So there were maybe 200 people at his pura yesterday afternoon. At about 3.30 the pura bell rang to call the villagers together, and everyone wandered over dressed in their traditional gear and carrying all manner and sizes of offerings.
For the first hour or so while the pandetta (the chief Hindu leader of Tanjung) prayed and blessed everyone and everything, all the people sat chatting and gossiping and on their mobile phones while the gamelan players banged away at top note.
Kids walked about and returned to their spots with ice-creams (much to my dismay)!
Then suddenly everything went quiet and the whole congregation slowly recited the whole gyatri mantra together. It was powerful. Followed by the traditional ritual Hindu prayers which are full of blessings and wishes for health and happiness – no God fearing sin pardoning here! Lastly the two mangku (second Hindu leaders) chose a handful of people to be the dancers and everyone chatted and laughed while they watched the unrehearsed traditional dancing. The atmosphere was so natural and easy.
And so the ceremony was over. It was followed by family gatherings at people’s homes and some stayed on at the temple to play music and celebrate.
Then today we visited Made’s son in Mataram! I had a job to stop the tears when we arrived and Made just held him for ages, and again when we left when Gede actually held his arms out to Made not wanting to let him go, and said “bapah” (papa). In between lots of laughs and happy play. Couldn’t have gone better. Sooooo happy for them both 
☺️
🎶
💙
☀️💙🎶
