Today, we witnessed the cremation of a very important member of the village that recently passed away. As I walked out to the village center at noon I encountered a procession of villagers, a giant wooden horse, the priest, the gamelan band, and a box holding the body of the person that passed away. The procession was moving passionately towards the lawn in the center of the village, where the cremation was to happen. The two teams of men that were holding up the wooden horse and the box turned in circles, collectively chanted, shouted and danced from time to time. Women in the procession held banquets and baskets of goods as offerings, and walked slowly with the procession. As everything reached and settled on the lawn, I learned that the box of the body was to be placed in the wooden horse, which will be burned entirely during the procession. After some time, the careful ritual of cremation on the lawn began. A group of men saw the body of the horse open. They then went to slowly transplant the box of the body to the middle of the horse. The priest spread holy water onto the loaded horse. After everything is secure, fire started to blow from the flamethrower and soon the whole horse was on fire. It was shocking to watch everything slowly burn down. I was fearful to see the body of the horse, and imagining the human body inside it, disappear and fully break into ashes. I realized how silly I was when I remember that the person passed away long before this moment, and what is happening in front of my eyes was only to give bid the remaining body a proper farewell. The fire went on and on, and I could feel the heat in my face. Everything of the horse gradually turned into smoke, flew into the air, and travelled far far away into space.
In the evening gamelan instruction, we went over all the pieces we learned in this program in the order of the performance tomorrow. At the beginning, I did not feel confident about knowing the pieces, but the rehearsal proved that I remembered more than I think. One thing I figured out these days was that even though during the learning session I struggle to remember the melodies and rhythms, when I come back to them the next day, it all becomes much easier and I “magically” know how to do a lot of the things I struggled with last session. I think this is proof that sleep does wonders to your mind and body, where things in the day are worked out during rest.
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