Chance and renewal in the Padi

A life force flows from the sacred mountain shrines in waters blessed by the Gods through ancient irrigation channels to the hilltop Padi where the quiet people live.

I arrived naive and willing many years ago wanting but not ready to receive. 

Bitten by an invisible viper, magic brew taken in willing desperation. Served with a grin from a wild beauty hag. A woman about 60 who laughed and never aged. She served a forbidden spirit only to the few and silently she hid it when strangers wandered by.

I was grateful for that venom and to see the other side, but if you falter you must fear it, it'll take your bloody life. At that time I found new life. At a warung near the edge. On the stairway to the quiet place. A palace where dreamers, hippies, the lost unloved and lonely go to find their soul. 

It was the place of great power where evil and good are one. 

The Quiet People, Clever men and warriors never gave an inch, if you messed with this village you'd fall down the hill. There would never be a whisper of what had happened there. The hilltop was safe from scoundrels and the snake blood flowed in the arak laden dusk.

 

The artists used to paint there and musicians would often play. Rapturous clamouring gamalon, frog calls and the sound of gecko fights. 

The padi was alive and at the heart of all that power, they protected it and tended it to keep the harvest strong. Hindu offerings were constant in temples in the field. And farmers worked hard to keep everything in order. Weeding, planting harvesting. Water flowing ducks foraging is all needed to keep the sacred balance.

This time when I visited I could see more bungalows, more tourist development, less rice. The fields seemed un-tended and full of weeds. No frog no fish no duck. New age hippies had set up camp but the life force is dwindling.

I cried for the padi and the magic and the witch. 

My life is out of balance, something has gone wrong, broken. I imagined my life as rice. Whatever the magic trance vision I was given years ago, it is connected to these fields.  They always draw me back. Maybe I owe a debt here. Maybe I am called.

Was there a sacred silent oath?

To return and pray and sweat for the rice with a hoe!

In the Ubud Padi on the hilltop ridges and in the valleys. I dream and wake in dreams to walk. Dream and reality blend and the the dream walkers meet with bliss.