Bali Reflections

Bali, a dream woven from ancient whispers

where life and spirit intertwine seamlessly,

infused into each moment, each step.

The veil between the worlds gossamer thin.

The island pulses with colorful reverence,

flower offerings bloom daily at thresholds of homes, temples, shops;

they rest lightly on the earth like blessings, fragile yet eternal,

as if each petal were a prayer to the gods.

Here, temples outnumber people,

Each corner a shrine,

each shrine a prayer,

a pulse of divinity through earth and air.

Faces glow with a brightness kindled by the warmth of belonging.

with the confidence that behind every person stands a village,

a community bound by invisible threads,

hands always ready to catch, to lift, to hold.

Here, demons are brought out of the shadows,

scary, twisted faces painted, carved, and externalized--

invited into the open air to keep darkness in balance with the light,

to remind us that we all carry those demons within.

Each day is shaped by hands that weave, carve, paint and plant,

making meaning from the materials of earth and spirit.

Everyone is an artist whose creations are not bound to galleries

but live in streets, temples, in every offering and stone-carved figure.

Each statue, each dance, each painting a prayer,

each gesture a brushstroke in the ever-growing mural of life.

Nature is no stranger but an ancestor, a presence

in the sway of rice fields, the rush of rivers, the splendor of mountains.

A bond nurtured by taking only what is needed

and giving back with daily offerings and prayers.

Black and white checkered cloths wrap many trees and stones,

a sacred wardrobe of guardianship and grace

that bind the seen with the unseen,

a quiet invitation for spirits to dwell.

Here, to touch earth, to touch water, is to touch the sacred,

to feel life and spirit intertwine.

Everywhere water purifies:

springs flow with holy water, silvered and clear,

cascading into pools that gather pilgrims who dip foreheads and hands.

In this place, every rite of passage is met with ceremony,

life is a procession of sacred moments, a dance of birth, love, death and rebirth.

Each step carved with care, each transition marked with reverence.

Death, the Great Departure, is not feared but met as a passage,

an extension of life’s cyclical flow.

No one walks alone--

there are ancestors in the air, spirits in the soil, family always near.

And a deep belonging that anchors the soul.

The people wear this knowledge with the certainty that they belong

to something timeless, boundless and holy.

In Bali, the mundane becomes sacred and the sacred flows freely through everything.

You feel it in the air. You see it in the smiles.

You sense it in the contentment that dwells in the heart’s connection to all things.

Life is not just lived but offered back to the universe in gratitude,

one moment, one prayer, one breath at a time.

Bali breathes in a rhythm the world has long forgotten,

a dance of balance, a song of humans in kinship with the divine

and the soil beneath their feet.

The West has learned to hunger but not to be whole,

seeking endlessly yet forgetting to touch,

trading awe for ambition.

What Bali whispers to us is simple but profound:

That beauty lies in small ceremonies,

That balance is an art,

That peace is a way of being.

If we could listen, truly listen, we might learn to soften, to see the world anew--

not as a possession but as a partner in this dance of life.

We might find the sacred waiting quietly in the everyday.

~ Alexandra Kennedy