The Balinese Ritual of Offerings
The Balinese people’s days are filled with ritual and ceremony – in fact it’s said that a Balinese woman will spend 25% of her life performing rituals. There are rituals for pregnancy, birth, 42 days after birth, teeth filing, marriage and of course, death. Temples are everywhere, with at least one specially created altar per home.
One of our favourite rituals here happens three times a day – the offerings to the Hindu gods. Tiny banana leaf baskets are filled with rice, fruit, flowers and incense and placed on the altars for the gods and scattered on the grounds for the demons. Holy water is sprinkled on them to send the essence of the offering to the appropriate god. Walking around Bali, you literally see hundreds of these offerings scattered about every day.
At our retreat, we participated in a Balinese offering class where we each prepared two offerings. While our banana-basket-making craft skills left much to be desired, the whole process was quite intense and beautiful.
And with temples literally at every turn, we thought we’d include some photos of us at a random roadside temple, dressed in mandatory sarongs.
Tags: Indonesia, Travel
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