Malaysian Wayang Kulit Shadow Puppets

Last weekend I experienced my first Malaysian shadow puppet show in Gainesville, Florida, seeing “Wayang Kulit: The Shadow Play of Kelantan”, Florida.  The troupe was traveling in the USA giving a sampling of the art with a one hour demonstration. They are a group of villagers from the state of Kelantan that borders Thailand where much traditional Malaysian music originated. The shows are typically 3 to 5 hours long, and portray stories from the Ramayana,  This evening's tale was of Lord Rama's courtly attendants discussing security of the palace, and then Ravaan coming in to steal Lord Rama's wife, Sita. 

When I entered the space, there were rows of seats to the right, and a red carpet for floor-sitters to the left... just in front of the screen. I saw my friend Anna P. there, and I wanted to be there with her, right next to the stage. When I sat down, I looked up and saw the screen, rows of puppets, and a young Malaysian drummer child sitting on the stage behind the screen. I smiled at the whole scene with child-like joy! I waved at him with a little wave and a big smile, feeling so excited that I was going to experience this traditional, original, unbroken lineage of ritualistic honored sacred art of telling religious stories for the enlightenment of the community they live in. He smiled back. As we all waited for 10 or 15 minutes, we kept looking at each other... and smiling. There was a very old man directly behind him (see pic) that we later learned is one of the masters, in his mid 70s. 

There was a second projection screen to the left of the puppet screen where a few sentences were listed in English to explain each scene.  They were quite general and did not reflect dialogue or drama. 

The show opens up with the tree of life and two celestial swordsmen protecting the tree of life. In Malaysia there would be prayers and rituals to start the show.  

As I watched these large images moving on the screen, I was so curious about how the puppeteers were moving the puppets back there. Were they in the floor? Why couldn't I see their hands or arms? The projection on the fabric was so sharp. 

 I was mesmerized by the drumming... there was a flute that was like a snake charmer. It was mesmerizing actually... Later we heard that after hours, some viewers go into a trance. It might be part of this spiritual art.

There is one puppeteer called a Tok Dalang (puppet master) who maninpulates all the puppets and says all the dialogue. Wayang means 'theatre,' and kulit means 'skin.'  The large puppets are made of buffalo skin, and I think a stick of horn is a rib doing down the length of each puppet giving it the strength to stand up to the movements.

I was craning my head to see behind the screen to figure this out... I was in awe of all the colorful puppets... The director was sitting on the edge of the raised stage where the musicians were sitting behind the puppeteer. He signaled with his finger, beckoning me to come back there. I turned round to see if he was speaking to someone else. There was nobody else... He beckoned again... I pointed at myself, he nodded, yes, come... I stood up halfway and went to where he was, and he said "You don't have to sit in one place. You can move around." 

So I kneeled there in total awe of the spectacle I was witnessing, and the incredible light and color of the Tok Dalang, his puppets, the light hanging in front of his face. the rows of puppets next to him. The musicians. I was heartbroken that no photos were allowed. Would I be able to find this on google, I wondered?  But I just enjoyed, and watched with awe as the puppeteer grabbed a puppet from a block of florists' green styrofoam. A palace perhaps... and he'd stab it into the styrofoam in front of him with quick deft confidence, because he had two other puppets that needed to get fighting! Those, he would swoosh across the screen, pressing the top to the screen, and swining the bottom part a little more so they moved in an arc across the screen, with the top more sharply projected than the bottom. It created an amazing movement affect for the audience, and was pretty simple... 

I stayed there a while and a few other folks from the floor came over, Anna first... then Kathy S. come from the seats to come see. More people came. I watched as my 13 year old drummer friend helped the puppeteer find the right puppets when needed from the puppet block in front of him... I never got to talk to my drummer friend... his older brother and mother are also musicians.

So while there is one puppeteer, there are 8 musicians (4 masters, and 4 young students ages 13 to 24 or something). They were playing barrel drums, gongs, cymbals and an oboe. 

I went back to watching from the front. I loved the music. Can I find a recording of that? I thought about making shadow puppet shows with elephant stories. I wondered if American puppeteers were ever producing these traditional shows to keep this art alive.  

After the show, the director talked, and the assistant director, a Malaysian woman answered most of the questions. They were so relaxed and nice, staying with us for almost an hour, answering questions and discussing. I asked about the tree of life coming back during some times in the play. They said it was used to represent the forest. I asked about other puppeteers doing this work in our out of Malaysia. There are only 3 troupes left doing it and no artists outside Malaysia doing it like this.  

I asked about the relationship between the Tok Dalang and his puppets... I wanted to know about this man's personal experience. The director answered in general that there is a relationship... the woman answerd that the puppets are a community and all travel together, even if the won't all be used in a show. And some are there and never used at all but stay with the group. They showed us a puppet that was almost 200 years old. They talked about the main master that was so famous that died not too long ago. 

I wanted to show these puppets to people. I wanted to make a show with a good story, and singing that people would enjoy while seeing the artistry of these puppets. I wanted to have ritual and the tree of life in the show, to create awareness, consciousness and reverence for all that we do.  

Rooting out Rot

These past few months have been about rooting out molding, rotting things... literally and figuratively.

• I had a plywood wall on the back of the converted carport section of my house that had been rotting for 2 or 3 year which I replaced last week. 
• Sections of soffit and fascia on the back of the house were rotting from faulty guttering and roofing, that I had replaced. 
• A 6' by 20' section of roof was rotting that I had replaced. 
• I washed the mold and dirt from bedroom miniblinds, it's hopelessly humid in Florida, and this winter was record-setting for warmth and humidity.
• I prepped and painted the one room in the house that never got painted since I moved here in 2006.
• I spent some sweaty strenuous last week raking piles of rotting leaves and digging up two years worth of weeds and thorny vines (that Smilax seems almost evil) in the back yard.
• I finally completed my 2013 taxes and mailed them in last week!
• I am replacing old warped cheapo ceiling fans
• I am replacing a corroded hard-to-open sliding glass door and window on the house! 
• I am scrubbing and re-covering seats of the dining room set.

Why such a pile of rotting projects? I was quite sick in late 2012 when the stress of trying to perform to par at work and my propensity to be super social wore me out and my weakened immune system crashed.  A friend recommended I check for Lyme with a specialist, which I did, and they found band 23 of the Western Blot positive which indicates antibodies for Borrelia, the Lyme bacteria. They found Epstein Barr virus and hypothyroid. I took a series of herbal tinctures (it was too late to take antibiotics and have it do anything) and meds for the nervous system as well as for busting up protein matrices (which is how Lyme defends itself from the immune system). I had acupuncture, went to doctors of Lyme, functional medicine, had laser light therapy, massage. I missed weeks of work and invoked Family Medical Leave after running out of sick time.

I believe my immune system broke down because of the stress of trying to fit myself into a job I didn't like, in an environment that didn't suit me. As I became more self-aware and intentional to make my life more about being heart-centered and communicative, the cold, individualistic, competitive atmosphere of academia just clashed with my energy system and the resistance created wracked my nervous system until I ended up in bed with extreme fatigue and burning aches in my hips and legs... I watched a ton of Bollywood movies during that time, and the series White Collar, I remember...

I finally quit the job in November of 2013 and traveled to India for four months from January to May of 2014. I went to Thailand and destinations in the US before returning to my home in Gainesville in August 2014. Then I was so focused on my internal process and experiencing some spiritual upheaval and depression. After the year of sickness, almost a year of travel, and months of focusing on my internal world, the house and paperwork had suffered some neglect and needed the attention I am giving it now, with a spirit of airing out, uncovering, being honest, cleaning and opening. I feel I can breathe better!

Journey with Codependence

Ahh, what a time I have had in these last 7-8 years, heightening my awareness, through multiple friendships and romances, how my immature adult is wanting the things I didn't get as a child in a behavior pattern known to some, but a term shunned by many, as codependence. I have read 4 or 5 books about codependence, love addiction, the wounded heart, and women who love too much. They all have a common theme, that as children we were not wholly accepted exactly how we were and our parents wanted us to be a bit different, or just didn't see us and appreciate us as we already were.

According to Pia Mellody (a recognized expert at the phenomenon and treatment of it with an energy of positive acceptance and love) the signs of codependence in immature adult are:

1. Trouble valuing the self from within. Needing to get self-value from being wanted by others.
2. Personal boundary problems. Put up walls, or the opposite.
3. Difficulty being authentic about our feelings, needs and wants.
4. Difficulty attending to our own personal needs and wants, and having difficulty with interdependence.
5. Lacks an attitude of ‘moderation in all things.’ We may over- (or under-) indulge in eating, drinking, socializing, working, exercising etc.

and here is my understanding of what creates codependence patterns:

1. child was not treated as precious - child was ignored or abused
2. child was not treated as perfect as she is now- but expected to act certain way according to social norms, parental molding etc. 
3. child was not treated as dependent - her needs were not recognized, or were not important, and was expected to take care of herself or her parents either emotionally or physically. 
4. child was not treated as immature - was expected to do things inappropriate to her age, or was punished for acting her immature self
5. child was not treated as vulnerable - she wasn't protected, or certain healthy emotional boundaries were not created

I am starting to connect the dots between some fears and beliefs I have about myself, and what I experienced in childhood. I defintely experience all of the adult behaviors listed above, and can say that I also experienced all of the childhood experiences listed in the second list.  I don't want to go through my childhood experiences and traumas here now, but I listed out about 19 of them for a therapist I found a month ago, that specializes in helping clients using Pia Mellody's approach with practices, processes and work for recovery. 

Today I am feeling more connected to this awareness and process for myself after feeling some rejection by a friend whose family I know very well and had welcomed me to participate in their dynamics, which were very codependent so I felt super comfortable, happy and anxious at the same time. But lately I have felt that friend and the family being very distant and it's triggering some very big feelings of being unimportant and inconsequential. So my motivation in life drops when this happens and it turns into powerlessness. I feel powerless and go into a mode of doing things around the house to keep active at a level that is familiar and just like my mother who is a cleaning addict.

I notice I am having negative thoughts. I had a session with a therapist about managing Automatic Negative Thoughts... One of mine comes up after some romantic failures. I go to a place thinking that I am worthless. I finally realized, this is not healthy or normal, where did this come from?? I don't want to feel this way, and it doesn't really make sense that I feel this way when one man decides not to communicate with me anymore. 

I want to move beyond the stories of childhood and be in my adult self. The 5-step process is to 1. Grow up, 2. Face reality, 3. Grieve what I didn't have growing up, 4. Learn to parent myself, and 5. Learn to forgive. 

I have been doing a lot of #3 and #4 these last few months... I will look more at what the others are about. Pia Mellody's books are smart, relatable, not negative, and have useful tools. I don't feel broken or less than others. I feel happy to know what is happening and how to really feel into what is happening so I can more deeply heal and be happier in my life with positive thinking that is genuine. I feel more connected to the Divine, God, feeling the unconditional acceptance of that big huge force that is total love for all of us beings human or not!  

Vippassana, 10 days of Quiet

I just finished a 10-day meditation retreat in Jesup, Georgia, in total silence; no talking with, or looking at, anyone else except the teacher and "the management."  Two meals a day, at 6:30am and 11am with fruit and tea at 5. Dorm-room residence on a woodsy piece of land with walking trails. All was separated for men and women, each having their own dining, sleeping, walking areas, and the meditation hall was divided down the middle with men and women on each side with separate entrances and separate management staff to talk to if any need arose. It was beautifully managed for our comfort and concentration on what we were there to do.

And what was that? We were there to look at our minds. Sort of.

We had evening lectures by S.N. Goenka (video recordings from a course he taught in 1991 since he left his body in 2013) a teacher of this style of Vipassana from Burma, which he says is the unpolluted original form of the teaching of mind-purification that Siddhartha Gautama Buddha taught. After 500 years in India, he said, it became mixed with other rituals, and changed, so wasn't effective and was thus abandoned there. In Burma it was preserved by a line of teachers, and it moved to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and other eastern countries.

The first three days of the retreat we focused on our breath to enhance the ability of the mind to detect subtleties of breath sensations in our nose, on the edges of the nostrils and on the upper lip. This he called Anapana meditation.

We took 5 precepts on the 1st evening, observing "Sila" - abstaining from killing, lying, stealing, sex and intoxicants. Was black tea or coffee an intoxicant? I guess not since they stocked it in the dining area. Cool. And sexual fantasizing couldn't be either, since, I figured, most people here would have some sexual thoughts coming up, right? It was easy not to lie, since we were speaking only to the assistant teacher and lady manager.

I was getting terribly bored by day 3, still meditating on our nostrils and upper lip, wondering why I had to keep doing this same thing for 3 days, and I wasn't detecting much additional sensation. Maybe because I was so distracted by my thoughts of sex! I was fantasizing of a beautiful unavailable man that I had liked, and how we would meet, and what we would do. Many ideas were formulated, I felt very creative.

I also formulated the most amazingly worded monologues I would tell to this man I had liked but was never able to say just how I felt about myself or about him. So perfectly worded and slowly stated, and I felt that my truth was finally coming to the surface. All the confusion of feelings I had before blocked my access to my boundaries, my true desires, and what was right for me and for him. The confusion seemed to fall away, and my stillness of mind allowed me to get to the intellect and clarity to interpret my feelings and what I wanted to create with this person which went on changing over the days I was there, until I stopped thinking about it, or putting much importance on it.

I also generated wonderful ideas for writings, and activities back in Gainesville, and I kept thinking of many witty Facebook posts.

Day 4 we learned the art of Vipassana meditation, scanning the body for sensations such as the touch of fabric or air, tingling, numbness, pain, heaviness, lightness, vibration, tightness... You scan down from head to toe, then back up from toe to head... later he told us to sweep 'en masse', sweep 'en masse' which was very confusing coming from an older guy with an indian accent so I had no clue he was saying the french term until I asked the assistant teacher a few days later.  There were no subtitles on these videos of him that we watched every night.

I scanned myself. I felt fleece jacket on neck; pants on waist; pants on legs; pressure on feet; moisture on hands; after 30 minutes, there was tingling, some numbness coming up. Some coolness in some areas from the air. Many areas were 'blind,' with not much sensation, especially forearms, lower back and cheeks.

Day 5 I was getting a little calmer, and scanning over and over... but Day 6 I was irritated at this teacher. He kept saying these are not "useless rites or rituals." He criticized other religions for the devotional practices, and the empty activities by people who were still angry, fearful, and egotistical, not having any control of their own minds, and doing things for show, or our of fear, or because it was tradition... which, yes some of that could be true, but his attitude seemed to be making fun of other people, and I didn't think that was they style of a very enlightened egoless person. Not that he claimed to be...

On Day 6 I wanted to go home, and leave the lectures of this old Indian guy, talking stories about anger and greed on the most gross rudimentary levels with examples of slapping a secretary in anger, or kicking a man on the street out of disgust, or taking a brother's inheritance of land. When was he going to talk to us about all the emotions I was feeling in my heart and my stomach? He did not talk about emotions coming up in meditation. He seemed to have zero emotional intelligence and I was not getting the link between the feeling of fleece on my neck and my attachments and aversions to so many things in life. Hello? He was speaking a lot of theoretical things, and how we would get rid of all our aversions, attachments and miseries by observing all sensations of the body.

There were 2 assistant teachers sitting on daises, and they were not ever speaking except to tell us when the breaks were. Why weren't they using their intelligence to bridge the gap between these general gross emotions examples Goenka was speaking of and the subtle emotion challenges that a modern western person might be more likely to be dealing with? Or why weren't they answering any questions to the whole audience?

I went to the female teacher 5 times to ask the questions. It helped a lot. It was beyond what Goenka was saying. Hm, confusing.

Okay, Day 7 I was finally having a quiet mind and trusting that some good things were happening for me. I felt it, as my attachment to that attractive man seemed to be reducing, and my internal dialogues with him were changing to less attachment and more compassion.

Day 8 it finally clicked! As I create equanimity with pain in my body, I can create a habit of the mind that has equanimity with things that happen in my life. Oh, ok! So if a mosquito bites me in meditation, I can practice on that training ground to be equanimous with the sting and the itch that is there... so when someone says something quite rude to me in future, I will have a mind trained to not react, but to consider and process and think before responding.

I was feeling more sensations, and by now had experienced a few surprising things.

After a few days of Vipassana I realized I was sensing my left side as blue, darker, like in the shadow, and the right side as orangey active yellow. Then I realized that these correspond to my yin side (dark, night, passivity, moon) and my yang side (daytime, active, sun). Wow, so I had firsthand experience at the feng shui idea of yin and yang qualities - I actually experienced those qualities and colors on my left and right sides! During one sit, I experienced my right side as tingly and vibrating in it's totality, while my left side remained largely un-sensing. Wow, the right felt alive, and the left felt half-asleep. The right is the masculine side, the left the feminine side... For years I have noticed more injuries to my left side than to my right and wondered about it.

It was revealed to us during one of the later lectures that we will end up getting a sensation of vibration and tingling throughout the body at some point, and it will very feel pleasant... but we should not get attached to this, just as we should be equanimous with pain we might feel, and this sensation is a good training ground to create equanimity with this nice sensations.

So the idea is: that our cravings relate to a negative body sensation that happens, and we want to react to alleviate it. As we practice not reacting to body sensations in meditation, our mind gets calmer about wanting satisfaction of craving, or to get away from things we have aversion to... and those cravings and aversions calm and balance out over time... then, we stop being reactive in situations and with people. We begin to get more accpeting of what is.

I can say that I had some amazing internal experiences (a few mentioned here), and am grateful for the seachange in my attachment that I had coming in to this retreat that has now been minimized to something very small.

There is more to the story of Vipassana that I did not discuss here (accumulating merit, karma, sankaras, etc) and that I have not learned about yet... but I think this has a great potential to help me with anxiety and worry that I have and for connecting me to what is true for me at a deeper level that I miss as I tend to keep myself pretty busy in action - that active yang side!