Sunday, December 4, 2011

Mount Bromo


Mount Bromo (the Javanese pronunciation for the Hindu God, Brahma) is located in Eastern Java, an eleven hour drive (so, appreciate these pictures :)) from Yogyakarta.  The Mountain is an active volcano which erupted most recently in January 2011.  It is part of the Tengger Massif, and is surrounded by the Sea of Sand (ashen lava).


(Mount Bromo erupts on January 22, 2011)

Mount Bromo is accessed from Cemoro Walang, a rare Hindu village in largely Muslim Java (though Javanese history includes both Buddhist and Hindu dynasties, along with indigenous religions).



(Cigarettes and donuts for the gods!)

The Mountain is considered sacred by the Tenggerese people who throw offerings into the caldera of Bromo during the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada.


I threw an offering of flowers into the caldera . . .


For my family and friends, especially, Beth, Hadera, Denny and Moses--

May the fierce spirit
of this fiery Mountain
protect, transform and guide us.

Clear away illness and despair
make way for new beginnings
  and endings
and heartfelt openings.

May our deepest yearnings
and dreams
take form in this
  precarious life!

Om shanti, shanti, shanti
peace, peace, peace.

Reflection # 6


Reflection # 6

It is Sunday and Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice in Islam.  The day commemorates Abraham’s willingness to follow the command of God to sacrifice his son.  Sheep, cows and other animals are sacrificed on this day.  I’ve never fully understood the Abraham story, and remember being saddened when I first heard the story as a child.  What kind of God would require the sacrifice of children, or animals or any living creature?  Today, I read the story of Abraham (Ibrahim) and Isaac (Ishmael) metaphorically as a plea to well hear the word of the one God, even when difficult to do so.  But what is the word of God?  George W. Bush hears God tell him to bomb Iraq, and the suicide bomber hears God tell him to bomb a church.  All I hear is the call to love all sentient beings because we are all a reflection of the divine.

 As I round the corner on my morning run, a man emerges from a house with a knife in his hand.  I guess what he will do when I see him turn toward a group of men down an alley near a mosque.  Running further down the road, I come across sheep in a field surrounded by many people.  Some of the sheep have words written on them in red.  I’m sure the sheep are scared.  All beings seek life.  I wonder what it is like for a sheep to watch other sheep being killed.  Once I watched a friend fish, and saw the way the fish he caught squirmed and fought to stay free, to retain life.  I’m a vegetarian these days, and perhaps I am too sensitive to killing other beings.  (Yes, I know that carrots and lettuce probably struggle for life too!)  Wikipedia states that more than 100 million animals are slaughtered in two days during Eid al-Adha.  This figure may be too high.  Eid al-Adha is my impetus for broad reflection on our relationship with nature and animals.

Robert Bellah identifies five stages in the evolution of religion.  In the archaic stage, religious cults emerge with gods, priests, worship and sacrifice.  Here, the individual and society are merged in a nature-divine cosmos, and sacrifice is performed to appease the gods as part of the cosmic order (364-365).   In the stage of modern religions, God is demythologized.  Individuals are not embedded in a cosmic order, and ritual sacrifice is not a necessary dimension of the cosmic scheme.  Rather, individuals seek to develop meaning in the world through the promotion of ethics and the enactment of values (370-373). 

But what ethics and values have we adopted?  The climate crisis, the fact that we are in a sixth great extinction period and the often poor treatment of animals evince the ways that humans are ecologically disembedded.  In an anthropocentric move, we have placed humans in a privileged position over and against nature.  Nature and animals are thus viewed as our property, lacking intrinsic meaning and value of their own.  We sacrifice animals for our own ends—in fights, races, rituals and for food, sometimes without due care.   Animals are raised for slaughter in crowded and fetid conditions, and injected with antibiotics, steroids and hormones.  Prudence is divorced from ethics

 I understand that many of the animals sacrificed during Eid al-Adha would be killed for food in any event.  And, I appreciate that a portion of the meat is always given to the poor.  Eid al-Adha comes at the end of the Hajj, a sacred, powerful and prayerful journey of surrender to Allah.  It is a day filled with devotion, connection and sharing. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Kuala Lumpur

I took an unexpected trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when Indonesia refused to extend my visa.  Indonesia only allows a non-resident to stay for 60 days without an extension.  Since I have a multiple entry visa, I had to leave the Country, and then return to finish my program and research.

Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, is fascinating and diverse.  Women in burkas (I suspect mostly Middle Eastern), others in short shorts, Westerners, Africans, Indians, Chinese and Malay people traverse the crowded streets.


A woman in a form fitting burka
  covered face
bright purple leggings
  eyeslit eyes
bare feet in sandals

what is the point?

always a deconstruction
  of the construction
a way out even while
in

the drive to express
me into the more than me
to take a place
while taking a part
apart!

KL has multiple skyscrapers and exclusive shopping malls with high-end stores.  Malaysia has been one of the best economic performers in Asia since winning its independence from Great Britain in 1957.  It's major exports are electronic products, machinery, gas, petroleum and petroleum related products.  It has a relatively large technology sector, and actively promotes medical tourism (with numerous commercials on television!).

From my hotel window:


From the ground:


Malaysia is ethnically composed of Malay (just over 50%), Chinese (about 25%), Indigenous (about 12%) and Indian (close to 8%).  Sixty percent of the population is Muslim, 19% Buddhist, 9% Christian, 7% Hindu, and the remainder, the amorphous "other."  Throw in a large dose of commercialism and this is what you get in a 60% Muslim and 19% Buddhist Country:




Batu Caves is a sacred Hindu shrine located on the outskirts of KL.  The Shrine, which consists of a series of cave temples set in a limestone hill, is dedicated to Lord Murugan, an especially sacred deity for the Tamil people.


Monkeys guard the entrance when not otherwise preoccupied:




Temples:





I was blessed by an Indian sadhvi (holy woman) with hair in dreadlocks to the ground 


while making an offering for my friends


May the light and love of the most precious divine greet you and hold you in the endless depths of mercy!

Reflection # 5

This week we reflect on the work in Indonesia of cultural anthropologist Glifford Geertz.

Reflection #5

Clifford Geertz, a scholar in the field of cultural anthropology, studied and wrote about the religion of Java in the 1950s.  One of his primary sites of field research was Modjokuto (or “Middletown,” the real name is Pare) a relatively small, multi-ethnic (24,000 Javanese and 2,000 Chinese), agricultural town at the edge of a great rice plain in east central Java.  Through the lenses of history and ethnography, Geertz observed a Javanese society intent on development and nation building, as it recovered from war, internal conflicts, Japanese occupation and Dutch colonialism.  Using the constructs of typologies to organize his data, Geertz identified three “main social-structural nuclei” in Java—village, market and government bureaucracy—which he broadly (and non-exclusively) associated with variants of Javanese Muslim religion and social class (5).

The religious beliefs of the Javanese village consist of a syncretic blend of animistic (belief that we share the world with spirits), Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic elements.  This so called abangan religious tradition is predominant among village peasants and proletariat.  Santri is a more orthodox variant of Islam especially widespread among merchants and wealthier peasants.   The association of the Javanese trading element with a purer Islam is unsurprising given the introduction of Islam to Java as part of a great trade expansion (5-6).  The prijaji tradition is identified with elite heritage.  It is strongly influenced by the Hindu-Buddhist traditions of earlier Javanese courts (high art and refined etiquette), and mysticism.  In the modern era, prijaji is associated with the elite, and with a white collar, well educated, administrative bureaucracy (6).  

Geertz explores the antagonisms between these various religious/class orientations, while noting the ways that nationalism and Javanese customs of harmony, cooperation and polite suppression of feeling mediate conflict (366).  He seeks to interpret cultural symbols in order to elicit deep meanings and reasons, to make sense of experiences and interdependencies, and to better understand the circumstances in which modernization and development occur.  He claims his study as merely descriptive (7).

 I greatly appreciate Geertz’s contributions to anthropology, though again, I am drawn to reflect on the silenced voices of women.  Geertz writes that in an exception to a general policy of non-interference between the abangan and the prijaji, prijaji  women are concerned with unhygienic birth practices, and with rituals and practices (washing the groom’s feet, polygamy, degrading art forms) which concretize the inferiority of abangan women.  Without offering any woman’s voice as supporting descriptive evidence, Geertz characterizes the prijaji women’s gestures as “half-hearted,” and then dismisses them as ultimately selfish.    

In another example of women’s silenced voices, Geertz cites as an example of an integrating nationalism, The Day of Women’s Awakening.  Before 22 December 1928, women’s groups were focused on women’s advancement.  On the day of awakening, women, “fully conscious of their responsibilities, merged their movement with the national struggle (369).”  On 22 December 1953, the women’s movement was still focused on the “glory” of Indonesia and “its people” (370).  Lelia Ahmed and Chung Hyan Kung write about the co-option of women’s independent interests in cultural and national movements in Egypt and Korea, respectively.  Both attribute this assimilation of women’s separate interests to patriarchal culture.  In what ways does the Day of Women’s Awakening memorialize national unity, and in what ways does the day memorialize the continued submission of women under patriarchy?            




Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Bali High

Okay, let's play the Sunday newspaper picture game.  Can you spot three BIG differences between Yogyakarta, Java (where I will spend most of my time in Indonesia, and pictured in previous posts) and Sanur Beach, Bali?


Shrines and offerings are everywhere in Sanur (Hint: The majority religion is not Islam):

 
Happy days are here again:

For cows . . .

and for me . . .
The How Are You (Apa Kabar) Rest.

A cappuccino!


Ooh la la, the beach scene--shorts, bathing suits, and wait . . . is that Flipper (aka Alpha)?





For my Mom, Rita:
 
 
 
For the always lovely Lunabells:
 
 
So, you got the three differences . . . right?
 
 

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Prambanan



The Mataran kingdom, ruled by the Hindu nobleman Sanjaya, was the largest kingdom in ancient Java.  However, in 750, the Buddhist Syailendra dynasty expelled Sanjaya, who relocated to the highlands.  One century later, Rakai Pikatan, a descendant of Sanjaya, married into the Syailendra family and came to rule the Mataran kingdom.  He built Prambanan Temple complex in 856 to commemorate the return to power of the Sanjaya Dynasty.  (Some say Prambanan is the Hindu response to Borobudar.)

 

Another century later, the Mataran kingdom abandoned Prambanan when it moved to East Java.  The Temple complex collapsed in a sixteenth century earthquake, and was thereafter essentially forgotten.  The Temple complex was rediscovered in 1848, and restoration continues today.


Prmabanan consist of three main shrines called the Trimurti (three forms) dedicated to Brahma (God as creator), Vishnu (God as sustainer) and Shiva (God as destroyer).  The Shiva shrine is the largest, standing 47 meters tall and 37 meters wide.  


The other smaller temples at the Prambanan complex are dedicated to the vahana (vehicles) for the different aspects of God (a swan, an eagle and a bull).


Galleries with bass reliefs telling this story of Ramayana encircle the Shiva shrine, and continue to the Brahma shrine galleries. The Ramayana story tells of the abduction of Sita, the wife of Rama, by Ravenna.  A monkey king, Hanuman, helps win her release.  The Ramayana Ballet, consisting of Javanese dance, is performed at Parmbanan during the full moon.  I saw this beautiful production on the last full moon.



After visiting  Prambanan, I have been thinking about Shiva, the destroyer.  We do not explicitly assign a destroyer function to the God of classical theism, though the function is implicit.  In all creation there is destruction of the old in order to accomplish the new, which also incorporates the old.  
 

Shiva dancing magic thunder
  Striking at illusion
separateness,
 anger,
 greed!
Sow a new path
Dance a new way
 through an old veil
born out of fire
into bliss,
   into bliss
 for your love
starlight dissolves
into  this,
 into this.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Reflection #4

This week we reflected on religion as a creative force in society.

Reflection #4

As I read for this week, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the hubris of the introductory remarks to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism.  Comments that make exceptional Western science, systematic theology, law, architecture and economics predominate the text.  I know the analysis is dated from 1905, and reflective of the mindset, and perhaps the practices, of that time.  I recognize the justified sentiments of pride in the West’s accomplishment of participatory democracy and economic success.  Yet, I am aware that delusive exceptional inflations continue to clog discourse and propel America and other Western nations toward the tyranny of unnecessary and unwinnable wars.

I have no quarrel with Weber’s thesis that a Puritan (Calvinistic) spiritual outlook that stressed the necessity of continuous disciplined work was a formative influence of the work ethic of modern capitalism.  The Puritans sought to build an ordered world worthy of God.  Puritans were admonished to shun idleness which bred temptation.  Diligence in worldly business was a virtue, though Puritans were to enjoy the fruits of their labor with moderation. This translation of Puritan sensibilities into capitalist ethos marks religion as more than merely private or irrational.

Still, what drew my attention in this week’s readings is the way women’s work is backgrounded and inferiorized in social theory and economics.   Max Weber traces notions of authority through charismatic historical figures—always male.  According to Weber, a charismatic leader creates community by inspiring others to accept his word and authority.  This original charism is institutionalized in rites and symbols, and thus transformed into traditional authority.  Traditional authority changes to legal authority when challenges are made, and (male-coded) reason applied. (167-169). New charismatic leaders, sensitive to people’s pain, emerge with new imaginings again and again.  Weber’s theory foregrounds the single, individual male heroic figure—the superman—as the progenitor of authority and change.  The multiplicity of myriad transforming powers are merged in a hyperbolized autonomy of one, and the manifold ways women’s bodies incarnate love and justice are lost.       

Another way the contributions of women are marginalized is in the purported separation of public and private spheres.  Weber writes that the “modern rational organization of capitalistic enterprise” would not have been possible without the separation of business from the household (21). The modern economy is mapped onto the narrative of supreme reason.  Women’s reproductive and caring work is relegated to the non-productive, irrational private sector.   The emotional attachments, relations, empathy and altruism of family are likewise separated from business.  No wonder modern corporations are disembedded from social responsibility, and modern women occupy the world with discontent, unable to live out a just relationality.