This month has seen the loss of two great figures in the world of Gambuh here in Bali. First I Ketut Kantor (I Nyoman Kakul’s son) passed away from a stroke earlier this month and on July 19th, Cristina Formaggia passed away in Europe from lung, brain and liver cancer (all undiagnosed until just before she passed on). She was 62 years young.

Cristina was one of the forces behind the Gambuh Preservation Project and worked diligently and tirelessly to ensure that this form did not disappear.
Thanks to her, we have the wonderful two volume book on Gambuh (in Indonesian) that she edited and a DVD of the Pura Desa Gambuh troupe.

I am currently trying to put some of her life into words for a short article so if any of you have words or photographs to share, please send to me at rucina@indo.net.id. I will then post this article on the list. There is a tribute to her at the URL below.
http://www.themagdalenaproject.org/archive/cristina_wistari.htm

We are all in shock at the loss of this vibrant, dedicated and amazing artist.

Rucina

Here is another good articles on climate change by Balinese high priest Sri Bhagawan Dwija Warsa Nawa Sandi from Buleleng regency who has great concern on environment and climate change without further ado here is the words of Bhagawan Dwija.

TRIHITAKARANA for UNFCCC

The relevancy to the world climate change anticipation
By : Bhagawan Dwija

Introduction
Mpu Kuturan who came to Bali at 11 AD by request of King Udayana and Gunapriadharmapatni, not only succeed to unite various existing Hinduism sects at that time under Trimurti belief system, but also have placed social religious life foundation in the form of Desa Pakraman. Desa Pakraman as Hindu-Bali community, is developed with Trimurti belief where God with his manifestation as Brahma, Siwa, and Wisnu are placed at Pura Desa for Brahma, Pura Dalem for Siwa, and Pura Segara or Pura Puseh for Wisnu. These three Puras, known as Trikahyangan. Based on that, concept of Trihitakarana also developed, with human as central or determinant for kindliness and prosperity. Trihitakarana means three things needed to make kindliness and prosperity happen, i.e Parhyangan (well-balanced and harmonious relation between human with God); Pawongan (well-balanced and harmonious relation between human with each others); and Palemahan (well-balanced and harmonious relation between human with environment).

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Paying homage and praying to a temple is not just an act of devotion to God for Balinese, it is more than just a religious activity. In socio-political context praying in a temple for a Balinese is also an act to justify his positions in the society, his position in a clan, his position in a village, etc in short praying to the temple is an act of justifying his identity.

Taman Ayun Temple

Justifying identity through worshipping in a temple is possible since most temple membership in Bali is exclusive, that is, only those who are member may worship there. One cannot as in Islam and Christianity, stop in at any temple and pray; for this privilege, in Bali someone must in some sense regular member of the congregation of the temple. From more 20,000 temples in Bali not more than five percents are public temple, where everybody can pray and pay homage and the rest of them are members only. (There are five types of temple in Bali: public temple, territorial temple, functional temple and clan temple).

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Balinese believe that during the third and fourth month of Balinese Çaka calendar (around September and October in Gregorian calendar), Ratu Gede Nusa also known as Ratu Gede Mas Macaling, the leader of demons and evil spirits which resides in Nusa Penida Island invades Bali with his vast demon and evil spirit legions spreading plagues and death all over the mainland starting from the coastal areas of south Bali. Balinese will take perform various rituals and ceremonies to negate the invasion the negative effects of the invasion and the most popular way is to seek help of another divinities especially from a Barong which usually acts as protector of a certain area.

During this critical months the representative of a certain village will beg to the Barong which in charge in that area to hold a ‘malancaran’ activity to his village. The word ‘melancaran’ is a high Balinese word which means ‘strolling away from one place to another’ in this context the word ‘melancaran’ means the protective Barong and sometimes is accompanied by his consort the Rangda make a trip to the village which need their help. The melancaran is not a direct trip from the temple in which the Barong and Rangda reside to the target village but moving from a temple to another which spread along the way to the target village. Hundreds of followers will accompany the Barong and Rangda during their trip, these followers create a long merry procession accompanied by energetic Balaganjur orchestra.

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Thousands of temples that scattered all over the island of Bali are not just built for a single purpose. The function of a temple can be determined by the characteristics of the temple that totally depend on the bond that bind the temple congregations to the temple. The bond may be a social, political, economical, or genealogical bond.

The social bond can be in the form of territorial bond, and teacher – student bond. The political bond is created base on the need of the king to unite his people and territory. The economical bond is created based on the similarity of the profession, for example farmer, trader, fisherman, etc. Genealogical bond is established based on kinship or clan.

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As all things Balinese, Balinese villages are peculiar, complicated, and extraordinarily diverse. There is no simple uniformity of social structure to be found over the whole of the small, crowded countryside, no straightforward form of village organization easily pictured in terms of single typological construction, no “average” village, a description of which may well stand for the whole.

Rather, there is a set of marvelously complex social systems, no one of which is quite like any other, no one of which fails to show some marked peculiarity of form. Even contiguous villages may be quite differently organized; formal elements–such as caste or kinship–of central importance in one village may be of marginal significance in another; neither simplicity nor uniformity is Balinese virtue.

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