Tirta Empul ~ The Water Temple

I have been very ummmmm, busy obsessively reading Bear and Tiffani’s blogs. Two friends  --well I mean, sort of. I barely know Tiffani but she feels like a friend after reading her blog. Is that weird? Anywho… two friends who are/were traveling South America for an undetermined amount of time. I wonder if they ever ran into each other… ??  :)
 
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I went to Bali with the boyfriend (who I think we shall dub as "clown ninja" for this blog) for almost three weeks in April. I attended week two of Sacred Circularities, which was a fantastical hoop retreat. We went a few days before the hoop part and stayed for about a week afterwards to do some exploring. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken! 

I am going to skip around in time and first talk about my visit to Tirta Empul Tampaksiring, a water temple, at what is considered by many to be one of the most sacred spots in Bali.  This actually happened in almost the exact middle of my trip.


Approximately 25 people from our hoop group decided to go on this trip. We assembled out front at 11am, and split up about 5 per car after making sure everyone had a sarong and sash. It was a lovely ~45 minute drive through and out of town (Ubud) to the Northeast. We passed through small villages, each specializing in a different kind of art (wood furniture, bone carvings, etc), some crazy statues, including a giant paper mache Gollum (more on that later), through tiered rice fields, and rainforests. I sampled some Seaweed Pringles, which I found delightfully strange!
 
 
 

We re-assembled at the temple and had a small introduction from Puta, Hindu priest and our spiritual guide for the retreat. He did not speak English ~ his wife translated for us. All of the info was very general and I had so many questions. Many of which they did not know the answer. I was surprised and frustrated at the lack of details that were provided either by them or by literature (signs/pamphlets/etc?) from the Temple.   


Things like:

• Why do we wear the sarongs / sashes?
• What do the different fountains mean?
• Who are you praying to?
• What is the history of the temple?
• Etc, etc, etc

I feel like my mom with all these questions!

The temple dates back to 900 AD. This BLEW MY MIND.  Built on a fresh mountain spring, the temple had several different pools with stone fountains that looked sort of like fish heads. It is a purifying, cleansing ritual to dunk yourself under each fountain. You are releasing the bad... "STUFF" from your life. It felt very personal yet also I could feel an enormous connection to those who had been there before me and touched the same things that I had. It was magical, but it got my head all in a swirl.

You could feel the spirituality of the place and I was amazed at how tired I was afterwards considering how little physical activity I did that day! It was beautiful and serene and fun to play in the fountains. 

During the day and the rest of my trip, the questions of religion and the Bible and the world and the universe and my ancestors were swirling around me. I grew up in a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, as a preacher's kid (PK), yet have always had questions that were never satisfactorily answered. Yet still with my background and old testament stories of worshiping false idols floating around in the back of my head, I can't help but wonder if me participating in other religion's ceremonies or rituals is wrong? Thinking of how my dad would have a heart attack by the “falseness” of it. But I felt so much more connected to the world and those who were there before me than I EVER have in a church. So how can that be wrong? I really felt I was able to LET GO of the bad stuff. the stuff I can't control. Maybe it's good that they didn't have answers to all of my questions, because it really allowed me to make the ritual personal and address my own specific needs.

Just a bit more afterthought on the religion stuff. How can some part of the world completely isolated from the Judeo-Christian world be expected to have the same religions or beliefs as us and how in the world can our God be banishing BILLIONS & BILLIONS of people to hell for believing something different? It just doesn’t make sense. It makes so much more sense that all of these religions should co-exist peacefully; each ultimately being just a different way to view or understand the Universe. I just cannot believe that there is only one way to God / Enlightenment. It is different for different people and different cultures and different minds and well, I think this picture sums it up better than my rambling can (unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the source for this)

....I think that's enough heavy stuff for now :D

(I just realized that I often spin inside my hoop to quiet my spinning head!)

Spin on my friends!

  ~ Minerva