Pay Attention
"Pay Attention" I was told, at 6am by our guide, Agung Rai as we walked through the rice fields of Ubud, Indonesia. In the excitement of travel and acclimating to a new place and reality you can always miss things. "Listen" he said... and the words of Joni Mitchell's Woodstock "And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden" came to my mind as I heard water, birds, roosters, ducks and dogs.
It all starts with the waters systems, from 300 BC, that rival any engineering feat I have ever seen, and then you add the villagers who farm the rice which sustains them, whose children see every day where their sustenance comes from, who take great pride in their homes, constantly cleaning, brooming and honoring their family temples... (from mud huts to more elaborate stone compounds) watching their mothers and fathers and grandparents working the soil, flooding the paddies, feeding their ducks in the paddies on the leftover rice from the previous harvest and then naturally fertilizing the paddies with the duck droppings, then flooding, pulling and plowing this fertile wet soil with the cows that they don't kill because they work to help make the rice, to the painstaking planting of individual rice clusters, (imagine hair plugs) and then the natural dance of growth and defense from nature's predators to the harvest and drying and then and only then eating. Add the myriad offerings, ceremonies, festivals and celebrations and what you get is family. They celebrate birth, a three month old's first time where their feet touch the ground, harvests, rice, weddings and yes, death. They pray in silence so that everyone is welcome to pray to whomever they want to. When they cut down a tree, they plant a new one to honor the one cut down. They work in small community units, Bangars... remember the political jokes levied about Obama's community organizing background... Agung Rai talked about our Western belief in reality, Sakala. He spoke of his belief in Niskala, the unseen, the intangible and then he dropped the big one..." When things are bad, share with others."
"Pay Attention" he said. As I stood at the highest point in the farmland of Indonesia watching the sun come up there in the distance were the cell towers. Dotted every visual ten feet and of course forever ruining the vista. The buzz and drone of the motorbikes which are ubiquitous in Bali and the trash which was what I brought back as my "How am I changed by my trip and what am I going to do differently?" After seeing the amount of trash I decided (I know better late than never) to not buy anymore plastic bottles of water, drinks etc." I asked him about why there was such attention to home village beauty and care and such widespread trash and plastic and he said:
"You have to teach the young people one thing at a time." The pulls away from that culture is even happening in the villages of Bali.
"Pay Attention... Life, is not mathematical," he said. Back here at home I am seeing his words play out every day. Iran's nascent revolution is not mathematical. Jon and Kate-is-enough and the obscenity that is children on reality TV is not mathematical. Raising children is not mathematical. Being married is not mathematical. Even rice, simple rice and how it is farmed is not mathematical. It is intangible. Unknown...
Our children need to see us all work hard. To take care of our home environments and the environment around us. Obama's message of family unity and gardening is fundamental to continuing these village legacies. Hilary Clinton wrote: It Takes a Village. I was lucky enough to see this first hand, only because of the generosity of Agung Rai's time and patience and deep love for what he understands IS the fundamental connection we all make. Families. Working together. Interconnected. Interdependent. Natural. Beautiful. Breathtaking.
PAY ATTENTION!
In the book that I wrote about the constant competition that our children face every day; Is There Really a Human Race? a mother answers her son's query with these words.
Sometimes it's better not to go fast. There are beautiful sights to be seen when you're last. Shouldn't it be that you just try your best and that's more important than beating the rest? Shouldn't it be looking back at the end that you judge your own race by the help that you lend? So, take what's inside you and make big, bold choices and for those who can't speak for themselves, use bold voices and make friends and love well, bring art to this place and make the world better for the whole human race.
Agung Rai runs a foundation to bring village children into art classes and offers them free of charge. If you get a chance and are in Ubud, Indonesia check out ARMA, The Agung Rai Museum of Art and take a tour with Agung Rai into the heart of the art... the farms and villages and rice fields where the water flows and the art begins.
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This is wonderful! Thank you!
Great Scott!
You mean life is not about fast food, fast cars, fast sex and fast coronaries?
A really beautiful post, Ms. Curtis.
That's a post I would like to have seen more of. That doesn't happen often. Simply because I think there was more wanting to be said that wasn't, or at least more I wanted to be said that didn't get said. But I think it's on its way. Remember, we are having to focus on such things as family nowadays because for at least a few decades, things like family and other 'intangibles' were considered passe, old fashioned, not what the hip people were about. And now we are trying - without really admitting any previous wrong doing - to pick up the pieces and declare what folks in most cultures throughout most of history always knew. So a nice start - but I still would like to have read more.
Jamie Lee,
You may not have intended it, but you wrote a wonderful Fathers' Day message. Thanks.
Yes I agree...I sent this to my daughter. Happy Father's day all, to all the mommies and the poppies.
I suppose you can find the good in every society and the bad. Indonesia certainly has had it's problems and still does. A Shangri-La it's not. None of the problems of the world go away as long as there's government and religion for that matter, with those in government who because of ambition or desire for power over others are there. So, even though the answer certainly isn't anarchy, the answer will always be somewhere off beyond the horizon and unreachable. Even Native Americans who treasured the earth went to war with each other. Humanity has never existed and never will on a plain of community spirit that savors life and doesn't destroy it. While pockets of coexistence exist, we devour each through religion, greed and intolerance. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. Every little bit helps some people get through and get us through the blinding snow that leads to the entrance to Shangri-La. The door opening inside to it though is permanently locked.
Steamboater....
Q!UOTE: " While pockets of coexistence exist, we devour each through religion, greed and intolerance. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. Every little bit helps some people get through and get us through the blinding snow that leads to the entrance to Shangri-La. The door opening inside to it though is permanently locked."
Permanently Locked! Your Belief! Your Truth! Your Fact!
So the KEY for you is the KEY for all of US... WE the People, WE the Individual, WE the Holistic, need to change our Habitual mis-beliefs! To cast out the Negative Habitual Reality creating Beliefs and replace them with Positive Beliefs that become open doorways to changing, reality... To Real-ize and Material-ize the Positveness of OUR godly nature...
To get "beyond" so to speak, our Habitual Reality Creating Beliefs, much of which are Negative and enter into what I like to speak of as the "Light and Love of the godly nature I am that I am...."
That which Jamie Lee touched into, as well as many of us, in natural empathy with her writing, picked up on.... Her words became the vehicle which beauty fully, delivered her feelings.... I would bet you many of US stood right along side of her in shared observation...
Thank You Jamie Lee, I greatly enjoyed the trip....
I'm originally a New Yorker; we're all perpetual cynics. :) Besides, nothing changes. The world just goes on and peolple die every day from the worst sort of violence. If you want to believe in the 'inate' good nature of man, go ahead and good luck. I just read the newspapers and see something else. It's nice to be idealistic. I didn't create the "beliefs I talked about either; they're not a figment of my imagination so a little reality is due. Like religion, no amount of faith brings anyone miracles. A supernatural being even destroyed the Garden of Eden because knowledge was sin. I wish the world well though on it's continuing spiral to oblivion.
Curtis tries, as do many others, to make this a better place; there just aren't enough like her to ever make a difference. How is all this talk going to make a difference in Darfur or the in Iraq and the with the just as reckless war in Afghanistan where people are also starving? Will that monster in North Korea or the thugs who run China or Myanmar become enlightened? Will the blood stop flowing in Iran today or even stop after the protesters become the ruling power?
Jamie, as always you add something special to Huffington Post:)
Wind Feather, what a beautiful name:)
SonofLiberty1
thank you..it was a gift..
Ms. Curtis,
Post 911, the US sped up, and got all hinky over money, power, scamming each other and it seemed to me that our art, music, even science, were relegated to 'it doesn't make money so forget it' category. Movies got militaristic, TV too. It seemed to be a new sin to want to paint, write, or just create, unless it was tied to a start up, a financial scheme, or other 'money for sure' schemes. I don't like what we've become--there's no room for peace and quiet and the pursuit of art (etc.) because a person wants to do it. Instead, everyone should be an MBA, CEO, or an attorney to have money and respect these days. Your story reminded me of how I feel about post 911 America, and probably its true world wide now---if it doesn't make a billion dollars in six month, its not worth it. We, the world too, have lost a lot of soul.
But as Jamie Lee Curtis reminded us, "Pay attention." The fact that the Western version of civilization begun 500 years ago has gone so far in the wrong direction has now become obvious to many people who before were oblivious. It doesn't help to be cynical like Steamboater and lay blame on our enemies that we and our actions have created (Think about that!). We don't need to be idealistic; we should rather be realistic. We need to pick up our own garbage figuratively by getting our political house in order.
See Gail Lynne Goodwin's Profile
Dear Jamie,
Thank you for a beautiful post. I am reminded once again that in today's day and age, we are but a click away from our global family. Our world is truly very small and if we go deep enough, we find we are all the same.
In an effort to reach out worldwide, we're launching the Global Hug Tour this fall. Two people flying around the world in a small prop plane to deliver inspiration, more than 100,000 hugs and needed resources with important causes.
Folks around the world will have the opportunity to send a hug ($10 sponsorship) and change a life.
1 hug in Chicago will feed three homeless people.
2 hugs in Cambodia will educate a child for a year.
100 hugs in India will pay the cost of life-saving heart surgery for a child.
We'd be honored to include ARMA as one of our non-profit causes. Part of our upcoming Global Hug Tour will offer celebrity hugs with the proceeds going to the celebrity's choice of non-profits. We would be honored to auction off a Jamie Lee Curtis hug and send a huge check to ARMA. I'm sure there are many people here who would love the opportunity to bid on that hug!
One person can make a difference, but together, we can change the world.
We welcome your support and thank you in advance for your hug!
With gratitude and hugs,
Gail Lynne Goodwin
InspireMeToday.comy.com
http://GlobalHugTour.com
See Gail Lynne Goodwin's Profile
Dear Jamie,
Thank you for a beautiful post. I am reminded that in this day and age, we are but a click away from our global family. Our world is truly very small and if we go deep enough, we find we are all the same.
In an effort to reach out worldwide, we're launching the Global Hug Tour this fall. Two people flying around the world in a small prop plane to deliver inspiration, more than 100,000 hugs and needed resources with important causes.
Folks around the world will have the opportunity to send a hug ($10 sponsorship) and change a life.
1 hug in Chicago will feed three homeless people.
2 hugs in Cambodia will educate a child for a year.
100 hugs in India will pay the cost of life-saving heart surgery for a child.
We'd be honored to include ARMA as one of our non-profit causes. Part of our upcoming Global Hug Tour will offer celebrity hugs with the proceeds going to the celebrity's choice of non-profits. We would be honored to auction off a Jamie Lee Curtis hug and send a huge check to ARMA. I'm sure there are many people here who would love the opportunity to bid on that hug!
One person can make a difference, but together, we can change the world.
We welcome your support and thank you in advance for your hug!
With gratitude and hugs,
Gail Lynne Goodwin
InspireMeToday.comy.com
http://GlobalHugTour.com
What is special about your story is the 'attention' which is brought to those elements of 'life' that are sought by all and cherished by all...........the beauty and purity of a culture and their traditions that have existed, generation after generation. What pulls anyone who reads your words to your experience is their deepest desire to be connected, to our earth, to our families, to our spirituality. The serentiy and simplicity that rises from your story is longed for by most who live in today's modern, global community. You are lucky to have the oppportunity to personally witness these environments that remain around the world and we are lucky to have to opporunity to feel your emotions through your blog. Many thanks!
Catherine Bradford
Jamie,
Obama's message of family unity is non inclusive of my family. A minor detail of course.
Obama has a very very full plate, and I think, now, that he has taken on more than he can manage. He has stopped being open and clear, he has backpedaled on too many issues now for me to feel good about him at this point.
In such a short time, he was bought and parsed by all that is BIG, and that is not you, and your non standard family or me, a very ordinary person. He is now the property of BIG BIG BIG.
I am sorry for our loss.
Jamie, thanks for taking me back to my Bali and Ubud experiences -- stillness, beauty, community, living close to god and source. Terima kasih banyak, k
As the flowing water at Ubud provides spirit for its interconnected artistry of nature and life there, Jamie, so your prose has bonded memories of that time with this most eloquent plea for 'awareness'.
The cell towers prove that no place on OUR planet is safe any longer from the reach of industrialization. It also doesn't mean we can't each have an impact though - if we fight the toxic industries and just remember to do what we can.
One just has to ...'listen'.
Jamie Lee,
I've I always loved you as an actress; you're one of the best. But I just wanted to say that you seem so cool and down to earth; and bring so much more to the table than just acting. Thank you for sharing your thoughts at HuffPo and for being such a real class act!
Thanks for this.
As always the "mission" begins when we return home from the missionary's journey.
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