A Field Day

Is there such a thing as “inspiration inherent in the air" ? Driving through villages in Ubud , Bali is like being a roving camera in a natural museum. The streets are lined with endless shops with display of wood & bronze carvings, stone statues, wooden door frames, paintings and various other forms of artistic expressions. The driver plays a folk music CD, the composer of which is from his village. As the car passes various villages we were introduced to the artistic talents peculiar in each.

Sitting in the balcony of your hotel room looking out at the rice terraces, you watch the world and sink an inch deeper into yourself. In the morning the rice plots were still filled with rice crops. When you returned in the evening from your day trip, the crops were harvested and bare muddy ponds lay before you. It must have been a good harvest for the farmer. In the morning, flocks of ducks swam in the uncluttered plots. For the farmer perhaps a bountiful rice harvest that promises more of his needs being met; for the ducks the space and joy swimming in openness. Farmer and ducks love a harvest.

I also noticed dogs roaming everywhere in Ubud. The driver thinks maybe 90% of families keep dogs. I know the farmer near our hotel has at least 3 running along him on the padi field ridges and chasing the ducks which block the way. Most times the dogs in Ubud seem engaged in the activities of their owners, a dog watches as its owner shave wood blocks, a couple of dogs seem to offer some tips when a group of men were discussing how to distangle a cut bamboo pole from the overhead wires and a dog beside the little girl helping her to push the sale of postcards. I think of Fluffy, my neighbour’s dog back home and how my neighbour will whine sweetly when she is back from work in the evening “Oh Fluffy, you lucky dog, sleeping the whole day whilst I was out slogging.” Obviously she doesn’t know what it means to be lucky in a dog’s world. How can she, when most of us don’t even know what constitutes being born lucky in the world of humans.



(More about Bali later, so much reflection)