Denpassar, Bali

Three days ago I arrived in the metropolis of Bali. No one seems to have anything good to say about Denpassar, and I would have never come here if it weren’t for the fact that a friend who spends a lot of time in Bali, who married a Balinese woman, recommended Dr. Sucipto, who works out of Denpassar.

I came to the city by car, with a driver from Candidasa named Made who just happened to go to school at the Gandhi Ashram.

Thanks to the Lonely Planet book, I located a very nice place to stay called Nekusa Familiar Inn. It’s run by Anon, a jovial, gangling big Japanese man and his family. It’s about $8 a night with the fan, and $11 with A/C, but there is no hot water. I told him I would be staying for a week, which reduces the cost of my room to about $10. “You stay for a week, you are now part of my family! Later I take you to museum, art gallery if you want.” Such a sweet man. He learns his English by watching language lessons for kids on TV.

The first night I was here I wandered over to the open-air market, which is enormous, and I was befriended by a young man named Wayan, who speaks very good English. He offered to be my translater, and just attached himself to me. Then he took me over to meet his wife, who sells beautiful fabric, and I was glad to buy some cloth from her. “Now,” she said, “we are family,” and she introduced me to their son. After that, Wayan’s wife urged him to take me all over town on his motorbike.

Every morning at 4 am I wake up to the sounds of chanting. I’m a sucker for chanting. Any kind of chanting. There’s some kind of church or something around here, and they have the chutzpah to pipe their devotional sounds out into the neighborhood on a very loud loudspeaker at 4 o’clock in the morning!

I’m loving it, but I’m not so sure I’d appreciate it if I lived next door to the loudspeaker! It sounds like it’s coming from fairly far away. I pulled myself out of bed and went to sit on the balcony to hear it better. I wondered if it was a recording, or if it was live? I decided to record it. I was disappointed that the second morning didn’t sound as good as the first because there’s a static sound. I couldn’t tell if it came from the recording, or from the speakers

On the second morning I woke up with a vision. I saw myself packing up my laptop and my mike and walking down the road to find out where the sounds were coming from. That was a little intimidating. I thought of asking my friend Wayan to meet me at 4 am and take me there on his motorcycle. But no, I think I would have to do this by myself. But not today.

On the third morning I woke up to the chanting and felt like it was time to follow my vision. I’ve always tried to follow my visions, no matter how irrational they seemed to my conscious mind. If I have the inspiration, it must be good! It was scary, in a way, to think of walking through the streets of Denpassar in the middle of the night. But it was also intriguing. Even if I found the place, I had no idea if they would let me go inside the building. I had no idea what to expect.

But it seemed like a good idea to wear a long skirt and to cover my arms and wear a shawl. A sarong didn’t seem appropriate, but I do have a long purple skirt. I’m not exactly well equipped with subtle clothing, but I managed to put together a disguise that seemed like I might be able to blend in. I put on my big round ugly glasses that I use for driving at night, and that made me feel very safe. I figured I could pass for an eccentric little old lady. I deliberately did not take my backpack; only schoolchildren wear backpacks in Bali. I put my small laptop into a shoulder-bag that I concealed beneath the shawl.

I slipped out of my room, hoping to pass quietly into the night. I walked down the stairs and out to the street, only to find that my host had closed and locked the gate for the night. Alas!

I stood at the gate, watching people walk by and drive by for about fifteen minutes. I felt strangely peaceful. I had a feeling I was going to be able to find a way out soon. Then a light came on from Anon’s compound. Through the window I could see an elderly woman walking around inside. I went to the door and knocked. When she opened the door she jumped back! I scared her in my disguise!

I quickly took off my glasses and pulled down my shawl and tried to communicate my desire to leave. She woke up her son who speaks a little English, who offered to drive me, but “No,” I said, “I want to walk.”

“Where you go?”

I point to my ears and then up into the air. “I want to find the church.”

“Oh! Mosque!”

“Yes, yes,” I say.

He points in the direction where the mosque is, which is what I figured, since that’s where the sound was coming from. Reluctantly (out of concern for me) he opened the gate and let me out. I asked him to leave it open for me, which he did, also reluctantly.

I made my way into the night, and I did in fact feel invisible. No one offered to sell me anything or drive me anywhere. I felt like the intrepid reporter, going out on his beat, into the seedy part of town.

I walked one block to the left, turned right and crossed the busy street (a bit challenging, even at this hour, with constant motor-scooters whizzing back-and-forth). I felt a bit concerned that my disguise would make me almost invisible to motorists. Then I walked about two full blocks, constantly closing in on the sounds, which sometimes grew louder and sometimes fell away altogether.

At first the chanting seemed to be coming from the building on the right. Then from the big structure on the left. It had on lights and a mosque, but no people. Then I came to the river, and the sounds were coming loud, echoing from both sides of the bridge, so I was completely confused. But I kept walking, over the bridge, ever more fascinated by this heartful chanting in an unknown language.

Just past the bridge, the sounds grew very loud and I knew I was close. I felt excited and happy that I had come. The sounds seemed to be coming from down a side lane. I walked down the lane, and there on the left was a big open temple with tall pillars, and you could actually see people inside, dressed in white, their heads wrapped in white, bowing and prostrating.

I found a little stoop in front of a storefront just across the lane from the mosque. I sat there quietly, watching and listening. One or two people nodded at me, but mostly I just faded into the background. There were many people going into the mosque. During the half hour, I must have seen 100 people going in.

During a lull in the chanting, I surrepticiously brought out my laptop, hooked up the mike, brought up the Final Vinyl program, and pressed Record. Making sure that it was in fact recording, I closed the lid most of the way, placed the small mike in an advantageous location, and tucked the whole apparatus under my shawl.

Soon I’ll post this here so that you can hear the chanting that was so intriguing to me. You can hear the chants and in the distance you can hear the response. It was not a recording! There were live people inside who were chanting in an antiphonal call-and-response.

You can also hear people driving by on their motorcycles, and some talking. There is the sound of water because there are 6 spickets out in front of the building, and before people go inside they stop and wash at the spickets. The women just tend to pull up their skirts a little and hold their feet under the water, sandals and all. Then they kick off their sandals into a big pile in front of the mosque and go inside where they obtain white costumes—except for one woman who wore a black head covering.

The men get more enthusiastic about washing their hands and arms and even their faces and necks. Near the end you can hear one man who drove right up to the spicket on his motorbike, parked it there, and proceeded to expectorate loudly as he washed himself. There’s another place that looks like a bathroom just to the left of the big doorway, and many men stopped in there. When they go inside, all the men sear caps and sarongs. There are lockers on the right, but I don’t see anyone using these.

Then I hear some sounds from inside the shop that I’m sitting in front of. Someone drives up in a van and almost runs me down. I have to pull up my legs to prevent my toes from being run over. The woman driving the van shoos me away. Obviously my disguise is working! (She would never treat a white woman like that!) I wonder what she thinks as I quickly put my laptop into my bag!

But it’s okay, because I’m able to step back over a little barrier, into an entryway for a small house just next to the shop. As I sit and absorb the vibrations of the chanting, I fully understand why so many people make their way here at the beginning of their mornings. I can feel the passion of their devotion. It helps me to feel more connected with muslims who choose to worship this way. I would have loved to have gone inside, and I would have been willing to do prostrations.

For me, soulful chanting in a foreign tongue is synonymous with spirituality. When I was a child, my mother would take me to the Synagogue in Chicago, and she would hold me in her lap while the Rabbi read from the Torah and the Cantor chanted the prayers in Hebrew. I am sure that she thought of her beloved father who had been both Rabbi and Cantor for his little village in Radontzyn, Poland, where there were very few Jews.(Just as here, these Moslem people are a distinct minority, surrounded by the mostly Hindu Balinese.)

I loved the sounds of the Cantor chanting! My mother had some old 78 Records that she kept in the basement rumpus room of our home in Chicago, of Cantors chanting. I would play those records over and over, and I was heartbroken when she left them behind when we moved to San Diego when
I was eight years old. There my parents joined a Reform Temple, and they did not have a Cantor. I refused to go to Temple! They could not make me go. I was a very willful child.

So with my grandfather’s blood running through my veins, it is not surprising that so many shamans from the other side have chosen me as a willing and enthusiastic channel for their sounds, especially in a healing context. You can hear an excerpt of my Shamanic Sounding from my CD, Altered States of Planet, on the home page of my website at http://highvibrations.net

Meanwhile, my adventure for the morning was now complete, and I could return incognito to my little apartment for my morning meditation.