fronds, slightly bigger than a hotel bar's ashtray. There is one flower blossom in the
basket, along with the money and a few grains of rice. (Their poverty puts them in stark
opposition to the richer family from the capital city of Denpesar who will come to see
Ketut later in the afternoon, the mother balancing on her head a three-tiered basket filled
with fruit and flowers and a roasted duck--a headgear so magnificent and impressive that
Carmen Miranda would have bowed down in humility before it.)
Ketut is relaxed and gracious with his company. He listens to the parents explain their
baby's troubles. Then he digs through a small trunk on his porch and pulls out an ancient
ledger filled with tiny writing in Balinese Sanskrit. He consults this book like a scholar,
looking for some combination of words that will suit him, talking and laughing with the
parents the whole time. Then he takes a blank page from a notebook with a picture of
Kermit the Frog on it, and writes what he tells me is "a prescription" for the little girl.
The child is being tormented by a minor demon, he diagnoses, in addition to the physical
discomforts of teething. For the teething, he advises the parents to simply rub the baby's
gums with pressed red onion juice. To appease the demon, they must make an offering of
a small killed chicken and a small pig, along with a little bit of cake, mixed with special
herbs which their grandmother should definitely have access to from her own medicine
garden. (This food won't be wasted; after the offering ceremony, Balinese families are
always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more
metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to
God--the gesture--while man takes what belongs to man--the food itself.)
After writing the prescription, Ketut turns his back to us, fills a bowl with water, andkeens a spectacular, quietly chilling mantra above it. Then Ketut blesses the baby with
the water he has just infused with sacred power. Even at one year old, the child already
knows how to receive a holy blessing in the traditional Balinese manner. Her mother
holds her, and the baby puts out her little plummy paws to receive the water, sips it once,
sips it again and splashes the rest on top of her head--a perfectly executed ritual. She
could not be less frightened of this toothless old man who is chanting at her. Then Ketut
takes the rest of the holy water and pours it into a small plastic sandwich bag, ties the bag
at the top and gives it to the family to use later. The mother carries this plastic bag of
water away with her as she leaves; it looks like she has just won a goldfish at the state
fair, only she forgot to take the goldfish with her.
Ketut Liyer has given this family about forty minutes of his undivided attention, for the
fee of about twenty-five cents. If they hadn't any money at all, he would have done the
same; this is his duty as a healer. He may turn nobody away, or the gods will remove his
talent for healing. Ketut gets about ten visitors a day like this, Balinese who need his help
or advice on some holy or medical matter. On highly auspicious days, when everyone
wants a special blessing, he might have over one hundred visitors.
"Don't you get tired?"
"But this is my profession," he tells me. "This is my hobby--medicine man."
A few more patients come throughout the afternoon, but Ketut and I get some time alone
together on the porch, too. I'm so comfortable with this medicine man, as relaxed as with
my own grandfather. He gives me my first lesson in Balinese meditation. He tells me that
there are many ways to find God but most are too complicated for Westerners, so he will
teach me an easy meditation. Which goes, essentially, like this: sit in silence and smile. I
love it. He's laughing even as he's teaching it to me. Sit and smile. Perfect.
"You study Yoga in India, Liss?" he asks.
"Yes, Ketut."
"You can do Yoga," he says, "but Yoga too hard." Here, he contorts himself in a cramped
lotus position and squinches up his face in a comical and constipated-looking effort. Then
he breaks free and laughs, asking, "Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make
serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile.
Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty
energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too
hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. All
finish for today. See you later, alligator. Come back tomorrow. I am very happy to see
you, Liss. Let your conscience be your guide. If you have Western friends come to visit
Bali, bring them to me for palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb."
78787878Here is Ketut Liyer's life story pretty much as he tells it:
"It is nine generations that my family is a medicine man. My father, my grandfather, my
great-grandfather, all of them is a medicine man. They all want me to be medicine man
because they see I have light. They see I have beautiful and I have intelligent. But I do
not want to be medicine man. Too much study! Too much information! And I don't
believe in medicine man! I want to be painter! I want to be artist! I have good talent with
this.
"When I was still young man, I meet American man, very rich, maybe even New York
City person like you. He like my painting. He wants to buy big painting from me, maybe
one meter big, for lot of money. Enough money to be rich. So I start to painting this
picture for him. Every day I painting, painting, painting. Even in night I painting. In this
day, long time ago, no electric lightbulb like today, so I have lamp. Oil lamp, you
understand? Pump lamp, have to pump it to make oil come. And I always make painting
every night with oil lamp.
"One night, oil lamp is dark, so I pumping, pumping, pumping and it explode! Makes my
arm on fire! I go to hospital for one month with burned arm, it make infection. Infection
goes all the way to my heart. The doctor say I must to go to Singapore for cut off my arm,
for amputation. This is not my cup of tea. But doctor says I must go to Singapore, have
operation to cut arm off. I tell doctor--first I go home to my village.
"That night in village, I got dream. Father, grandfather, great-grandfather--all they come
in my dream to my house together and tell me how to heal my burned arm. They tell me
make juice from saffron and sandalwood. Put this juice on burn. Then make powder from
saffron and sandalwood. Rub this powder on burn. They tell me I must do this, then I not
lose my arm. So real this dream, like they in house with me, all of they together.
"I wake up. I don't know what to do, because sometimes dreams are just joking, you
understand? But I make back to my home and I put this saffron and sandalwood juice on
my arm. And then I put this saffron and sandalwood powder on my arm. My arm very
infected, very ache, made big, very swell. But after juice and powder, become very cool.
Became very cold. Start to feel better. In ten days, my arm is good. All heal.
"For that, I start to believe. Now I have dream again, with father, grandfather,
great-grandfather. They tell me now I must be medicine man. My soul, I must give it to
God. For do this, I must make fast for six days, understand? No food, no water. No drink.
No breakfast. Not easy. I so thirsty from fast, I go to rice fields in morning, before sun. I
sit in rice field with mouth open and take water from air. How you call this, the water in
air in rice field in morning? Dew? Yes. Dew. Only this dew I eat for six days. No other
food, only this dew. On number five day, I get unconscious. I see all yellow color
everywhere. No, not yellow color--GOLD. I see gold color everywhere, even inside me.
Very happy. I understand now. This gold color is God, also inside me. Same thing that is
God is same thing inside me. Same-same.
"So now I must be medicine man. Now I have to learn medical books from
great-grandfather. These books not made on paper, made on palm leaves. Called lontars.
This is Balinese medical encyclopedia. I must learn all different plants on Bali. Not easy.
One by one, I learn everything. I learn to take care of people with many problem. One
problem is when someone is sick from physical. I help this physical sick with herbs.
Other problem is when family is sick, when family always fighting. I help this withharmony, with special magic drawing, also with talking for helping. Put magic drawing in
house, no more fighting. Sometimes people sick in love, not find right match. For
Balinese and Western, too, always a lot of trouble with love, difficult to find right match.
I fix love problem with mantra and with magic drawing, bring love to you. Also, I learn
black magic, to help people if bad black magic spell on them. My magic drawing, you put
in your house, bring you good energy.
"I still like to be artist, I like make painting when I have time, sell to gallery. My painting,
always the same painting--when Bali was paradise, maybe one thousand years ago.
Painting of jungle, animals, women with--what is word? Breast. Women with breast.
Difficult for me to find time to make painting because of medicine man, but I must be
medicine man. It is my profession. It is my hobby. Must help people or God is angry with
me. Must deliver baby sometimes, do ceremony for dead man, or do ceremony for
tooth-filing or wedding. Sometimes I wake up, three in morning, make painting by
electric lightbulb--only time I can make painting for me. I like alone this time of day,
good for making painting.
"I do true magic, not joking. Always I tell true, even if bad news. I must do good
character always in my life, or I will be in hell. I speak Balinese, Indonesian, little bit
Japanese, little bit English, little bit Dutch. During war, many Japanese here. Not so bad
for me--I read palms for Japanese, make friendly. Before war, many Dutch here. Now
many Western here, all speak English. My Dutch is--how you say? What that word you
teach me yesterday? Rusty? Yes--rusty. My Dutch is rusty. Ha!
"I am in fourth caste in Bali, in very low caste like farmer. But I see many people in first
caste not so intelligent as me. My name is Ketut Liyer. Liyer is name my grandfather
gave me when I was little boy. It means 'bright light.' This is me."
79797979
I am so free here in Bali, it's almost ridiculous. The only thing I have to do every day is
visit Ketut Liyer for a few hours in the afternoon, which is far short of a chore. The rest
of the day gets taken care of in various nonchalant manners. I meditate for an hour every
morning using the Yogic techniques my Guru taught me, and then I meditate for an hour
every evening with the practices Ketut has taught me ("sit still and smile"). In between, I
walk around and ride my bike and sometimes talk to people and eat lunch. I found a quiet
little lending library in this town, got myself a library card, and now great, luscious
portions of my life are spent reading in the garden. After the intensity of life in the
Ashram, and even after the decadent business of zooming all over Italy and eatingeverything in sight, this is such a new and radically peaceful episode of my life. I have so
much free time, you could measure it in metric tons.
Whenever I leave the hotel, Mario and the other staff members at the front desk ask me
where I'm going, and every time I return, they ask me where I have been. I can almost
imagine that they keep tiny maps in the desk drawer of all their loved ones, with
markings indicating where everyone is at every given moment, just to make sure the
entire beehive is accounted for at all times.
In the evenings I spin my bicycle high up into the hills and across the acres of rice
terraces north of Ubud, with views so splendid and green. I can see the pink clouds
reflected in the standing water of the rice paddies, like there are two skies--one up in
heaven for the gods, and one down here in the muddy wet, just for us mortals. The other
day, I rode up to the heron sanctuary, with its grudging welcome sign ("OK, you can see
herons here"), but there were no herons that day, just ducks, so I watched the ducks for a
while, then rode on into the next village. Along the way I passed men and women and
children and chickens and dogs who all, in their own way, were busy working, but none
so busy that they couldn't stop to greet me.
A few nights ago, on the top of one lovely rise of forest I saw a sign: "Artist's House for
Rent, with Kitchen." Because the universe is generous, three days later I am living there.
Mario helped me move in, and all his friends at the hotel gave me a tearful farewell.
My new house is on a quiet road, surrounded in all directions by rice fields. It's a little
cottagelike place inside ivy-covered walls. It's owned by an Englishwoman, but she is in
London for the summer, so I slide into her home, replacing her in this miraculous space.
There is a bright red kitchen here, a pond full of goldfish, a marble terrace, an outdoor
shower tiled in shiny mosaics; while I shampoo I can watch the herons nesting in the
palm trees. Little secret paths lead through a truly enchanting garden. The place comes
with a gardener, so all I have to do is look at the flowers. I don't know what any of these
extraordinary equatorial flowers are called, so I make up names for them. And why not?
It's my Eden, is it not? Soon I've given all the plants around here new monikers--daffodil
tree, cabbage-palm, prom-dress weed, spiral show-off, tip-toe blossom, melancholy-vine
and a spectacular pink orchid I have christened "Baby's First Handshake." The
unnecessary and superfluous volume of pure beauty around here is not to be believed. I
can pick papayas and bananas right off the trees outside my bedroom window. There's a
cat who lives here who is enormously affectionate to me for the half hour every day
before I feed him, then moans crazily the rest of the time like he's having Vietnam War
