Thursday, October 14, 2010
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/12/13/madeleine-habib-captain-courageous.html
Madeleine Habib: Captain Courageous
The Jakarta Post -- WEEKENDER | Sat, 12/13/2008
Madeleine Habib is the captain of the Esperanza, the 2,000-ton ship that is the biggest in the Greenpeace fleet. Nabiha Shahab, one of the few Indonesians ever invited aboard the vessel, sat down with the skipper during a recent voyage across the archipelago and learned of the Australian’s fond Indonesian connections.
I had imagined Madeleine Habib to appear older, unapproachable and hardened by years of sailing. But hers is a kind, easygoing demeanor.
She greeted me with a “Selamat datang” and a string of other Indonesian words. I was surprised, the standard amazement of an Indonesian hearing a bule slurring Indonesian words.
For a second I even forgot that she is Australian: I always underestimate how many Aussies are proficient in our language.
Madeleine picked up the language when she was living in the country for six months. After studying journalism, she was wondering what to do with her life.
“I was lucky enough to go sailing on a yacht for a week and then I realized that’s what I want to do,” says Madeleine, 42. “It’s the right combination of physical and mental challenge, it’s exciting, it’s outside, and I wanted to sail around the world.”
She packed her bags and went to sea, working on boats to earn money and then stopping off in a country. She says she was lucky to learn the ropes on yachts, which required doing a bit of everything, from work on deck to preparing meals. All the while she held the dream of working for Greenpeace one day.
“In 1994, I flew into Kupang and I wanted to learn to surf. In Kupang, I saw an Australian guy with a surfboard. I asked him where he’s going and he said he’s going to Rote, so I went there.”
The Tasmanian native learned firsthand about daily life in an Indonesian community.
“I stayed with a family who lived on the beach at Nambrela. For me it was a very interesting insight into village life in Indonesia and I really enjoyed going with the women every day to the well to get the water every day and learn to balance the buckets on my shoulders on the bamboo pole,” she says.
“They had a beautiful place that they would go. It was like a freshwater spring inside a cave; there was where the ladies use to go to bathe. I had very long hair at the time and the young girls always liked to brush my hair and they called me Rambut Mie or noodle hair because I had curly hair.
“I was there during Christmas that year. We were invited to go to church on Christmas Eve and I said it would be nice if we could sing a song so we learned to sing ‘Selamat Hari Natal dan Tahun Baru’, the Indonesian version of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’.”
She stayed there for a month and continued her surfing quest to Nias in North Sumatra. She ventured out to the small islands off the coast of Nias and stayed for three months, surfing every day.
“I was speaking Bahasa every day and really enjoying the company of the local people,” she says.
After breaking her surfboard for the second time, Madeleine bought herself a bicycle and decided to cycle through northern Sumatra.
“Sumatra has a mythical quality around the world; it’s like the Amazon, the wild jungle place that people hear about. I was fascinated with the idea of traveling through Sumatra.”
She started from Sibolga, rode up to Lake Toba and found her way up to the Gunung Leuser National Park.
“I met the ranger and asked directions for the next village, and he invited me to stay at the ranger station. There was another person there, a scientist who was studying apes.
“I went with the ranger and the scientist up to some remote places in the mountains for three or four nights. They were doing a wildlife survey and I was part of that. It was raining a lot.
“One morning I looked up to see an orangutan spread-eagled in the canopy of trees that bridged the road. It was silhouetted against the sky with a halo of orange fur glowing in the morning sun. I stood for ages watching the true ‘man of the forest’ moving thought the trees and vines. It made me realize how precious these forests are.
“The hike was tough, lots of leeches, muddy and wet. There was little food and it was difficult to light a fire. I was quite glad to get back at the ranger station.”
Madeleine continued her journey up to Banda Aceh and cycled back south, down the coast back to Medan and then up through Malaysia into Thailand.
I asked her whether she had encountered any problems traveling as a lone woman.
“You have to be conscious of the fact that you are outside your own culture, and respect that culture. It was quite surprising for local people to see someone on a bicycle by themselves. But I found that as long as I tried to approach family groups or women, people were always hospitable.
“I usually stayed with families because I was in places that were too small to have any kind of accommodation. No, I didn’t have problems. I tried to dress respectfully. I had a sarong on the back of my bike, so whenever I stopped even for a minute, I put on my sarong,” she says.
“I would say that the reception was much more friendly than dangerous on every occasion.”
Later, in Thailand, Madeleine worked for a private yacht that was a replica of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. The skipper, Peter Willcox, was captain of the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed by French agents in 1985.
“Finally, after maybe eight years of applying, I got a job with Greenpeace,” she says. “The Rainbow Warrior was my first Greenpeace ship; I started as third mate on that ship.
“We were going to Mururoa atoll to protest nuclear testing. My first action was to drive an inflatable boat into a nuclear test site in the middle of the Pacific. We’re surrounded by French navy, a really powerful military force. I had to set out in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the night, 20 miles from the nearest land and the nearest land is a nuclear test site.
“I drove a boat off into the darkness, found my way across the reef and climbed up on a drilling rig where they were going to do a nuclear test. It was totally my childhood fantasy. Although we didn’t stop every nuclear test I think it certainly brought the nuclear testing issue to the front pages of the world news.”
The surfing and cycling trip was the last time Madeleine was in Indonesia but she was later involved in the tsunami relief effort, based in Langkawi in neighboring Malaysia.
“I was working for a group called Waves of Mercy. We were sending supplies to Pulau Weh where there was a very large refugee camp. Because it wasn’t on the main island, Pulau Weh had a massive population of people and it wasn’t getting very many services.
“We were sending supplies directly from Malaysia. That made me feel very close to Indonesia again.”
Now she is crossing the country on the Esperanza, from the very eastern tip of Indonesia all the way to Sumatra.
“I’m very happy to be back in the country.”
Madeleine Habib: Captain Courageous
The Jakarta Post -- WEEKENDER | Sat, 12/13/2008
Madeleine Habib is the captain of the Esperanza, the 2,000-ton ship that is the biggest in the Greenpeace fleet. Nabiha Shahab, one of the few Indonesians ever invited aboard the vessel, sat down with the skipper during a recent voyage across the archipelago and learned of the Australian’s fond Indonesian connections.
I had imagined Madeleine Habib to appear older, unapproachable and hardened by years of sailing. But hers is a kind, easygoing demeanor.
She greeted me with a “Selamat datang” and a string of other Indonesian words. I was surprised, the standard amazement of an Indonesian hearing a bule slurring Indonesian words.
For a second I even forgot that she is Australian: I always underestimate how many Aussies are proficient in our language.
Madeleine picked up the language when she was living in the country for six months. After studying journalism, she was wondering what to do with her life.
“I was lucky enough to go sailing on a yacht for a week and then I realized that’s what I want to do,” says Madeleine, 42. “It’s the right combination of physical and mental challenge, it’s exciting, it’s outside, and I wanted to sail around the world.”
She packed her bags and went to sea, working on boats to earn money and then stopping off in a country. She says she was lucky to learn the ropes on yachts, which required doing a bit of everything, from work on deck to preparing meals. All the while she held the dream of working for Greenpeace one day.
“In 1994, I flew into Kupang and I wanted to learn to surf. In Kupang, I saw an Australian guy with a surfboard. I asked him where he’s going and he said he’s going to Rote, so I went there.”
The Tasmanian native learned firsthand about daily life in an Indonesian community.
“I stayed with a family who lived on the beach at Nambrela. For me it was a very interesting insight into village life in Indonesia and I really enjoyed going with the women every day to the well to get the water every day and learn to balance the buckets on my shoulders on the bamboo pole,” she says.
“They had a beautiful place that they would go. It was like a freshwater spring inside a cave; there was where the ladies use to go to bathe. I had very long hair at the time and the young girls always liked to brush my hair and they called me Rambut Mie or noodle hair because I had curly hair.
“I was there during Christmas that year. We were invited to go to church on Christmas Eve and I said it would be nice if we could sing a song so we learned to sing ‘Selamat Hari Natal dan Tahun Baru’, the Indonesian version of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’.”
She stayed there for a month and continued her surfing quest to Nias in North Sumatra. She ventured out to the small islands off the coast of Nias and stayed for three months, surfing every day.
“I was speaking Bahasa every day and really enjoying the company of the local people,” she says.
After breaking her surfboard for the second time, Madeleine bought herself a bicycle and decided to cycle through northern Sumatra.
“Sumatra has a mythical quality around the world; it’s like the Amazon, the wild jungle place that people hear about. I was fascinated with the idea of traveling through Sumatra.”
She started from Sibolga, rode up to Lake Toba and found her way up to the Gunung Leuser National Park.
“I met the ranger and asked directions for the next village, and he invited me to stay at the ranger station. There was another person there, a scientist who was studying apes.
“I went with the ranger and the scientist up to some remote places in the mountains for three or four nights. They were doing a wildlife survey and I was part of that. It was raining a lot.
“One morning I looked up to see an orangutan spread-eagled in the canopy of trees that bridged the road. It was silhouetted against the sky with a halo of orange fur glowing in the morning sun. I stood for ages watching the true ‘man of the forest’ moving thought the trees and vines. It made me realize how precious these forests are.
“The hike was tough, lots of leeches, muddy and wet. There was little food and it was difficult to light a fire. I was quite glad to get back at the ranger station.”
Madeleine continued her journey up to Banda Aceh and cycled back south, down the coast back to Medan and then up through Malaysia into Thailand.
I asked her whether she had encountered any problems traveling as a lone woman.
“You have to be conscious of the fact that you are outside your own culture, and respect that culture. It was quite surprising for local people to see someone on a bicycle by themselves. But I found that as long as I tried to approach family groups or women, people were always hospitable.
“I usually stayed with families because I was in places that were too small to have any kind of accommodation. No, I didn’t have problems. I tried to dress respectfully. I had a sarong on the back of my bike, so whenever I stopped even for a minute, I put on my sarong,” she says.
“I would say that the reception was much more friendly than dangerous on every occasion.”
Later, in Thailand, Madeleine worked for a private yacht that was a replica of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. The skipper, Peter Willcox, was captain of the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed by French agents in 1985.
“Finally, after maybe eight years of applying, I got a job with Greenpeace,” she says. “The Rainbow Warrior was my first Greenpeace ship; I started as third mate on that ship.
“We were going to Mururoa atoll to protest nuclear testing. My first action was to drive an inflatable boat into a nuclear test site in the middle of the Pacific. We’re surrounded by French navy, a really powerful military force. I had to set out in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the night, 20 miles from the nearest land and the nearest land is a nuclear test site.
“I drove a boat off into the darkness, found my way across the reef and climbed up on a drilling rig where they were going to do a nuclear test. It was totally my childhood fantasy. Although we didn’t stop every nuclear test I think it certainly brought the nuclear testing issue to the front pages of the world news.”
The surfing and cycling trip was the last time Madeleine was in Indonesia but she was later involved in the tsunami relief effort, based in Langkawi in neighboring Malaysia.
“I was working for a group called Waves of Mercy. We were sending supplies to Pulau Weh where there was a very large refugee camp. Because it wasn’t on the main island, Pulau Weh had a massive population of people and it wasn’t getting very many services.
“We were sending supplies directly from Malaysia. That made me feel very close to Indonesia again.”
Now she is crossing the country on the Esperanza, from the very eastern tip of Indonesia all the way to Sumatra.
“I’m very happy to be back in the country.”
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/09/23/hok-soebagio-a-balanced-life.html
Hok Soebagio: A Balanced Life
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Tue, 09/23/2008
Jakarta resident Hok Soebagio, 60, is married with a son. Raised a Catholic but a self-described “rebel” who disliked the rituals of religion, he now practices Falun Gong. By Nabiha Shahab
After retiring early at the age of 50, I felt my body starting to age. In the morning my arms would ache and it scared me. I thought, if I don’t do something I will live my parents’ life and spend my old age with a stroke or a heart attack.
I had to find an alternative way of living, a more spiritual life. At first, I started to learn health meditation; I even went to Bali to learn about it. I tried doing yoga and also Buddhist meditation, vipasana. In the course of doing vipasana, I met a Chinese-American assistant instructor who told me about his plan to spread his teachings in mainland China. He mentioned at the time that they had to be careful because there was currently suppression of another spiritual movement called Falun Gong. That was around 1999. A few months later, the instructor came back to Indonesia and called us, his meditation students, for a reunion.
The gathering was to take place in a bookstore. I was about an hour early and I went inside the bookstore to kill time. I don’t know whether it was fate, but I saw this book, Zhuan Falun. It sounded like the movement I had been hearing about, Falun Gong. I was curious but the book was sealed, and I couldn’t peek inside. It was a bit expensive for a spiritual book, I thought. I put it down and walked away.
But something pulled me back, I hesitated and picked up the book but then put it down again. I walked away three times before I finally decided to buy it.
I read the book in three days. It was interesting but difficult to understand. It was like a folk story, like a fairy tale about the gods’ world, out of this world. I wondered how to practice the exercises: there were no instructions in the book. So I called their office in Jakarta and they told me they would teach me how to practice and meditate.
After a while, I stopped doing yoga and concentrated on meditation, and then decided to practice Falun Gong only. I became active in the organization, although there is no hierarchy in Falun Gong. You can say I was active on the streets, because I initiated the demonstrations we did in front of the Chinese Embassy here.
When we first planned to stage a protest about two years ago by meditating in front of the embassy, I received harassing phone calls, demanding that I cancel the demonstration or I would be shot. Another caller threatened to bomb my house. My wife was very scared, and after a while she disconnected our phone so the ringing would stop. She begged me to cancel the plan. I said I would only stop if nature wanted me to.
It rained very hard the night before the demo. My wife prayed for it to keep raining the next day. But in the morning, the sky was clear. For me, it was a sign to keep going. I meditated by myself in front of the Chinese Embassy in the beginning, and then more friends joined me. There were police all over with firearms. I was not afraid. This is my choice and I had to do it for Falun Gong.
Now, the police understand what we do, that we are peaceful and nonviolent. There has been no more harassment. In Indonesia, I estimate there are a few thousand people practicing Falun Gong, mostly in Bali. Some people study a while and practice by themselves at home, so it is difficult to tell exactly how many people are actively practicing.
Falun Gong is not a religion, so there are no rituals. It’s free. It all made sense to me. The universal law of nature is analyzed in Zhuan Falun. Everything that I learned from other teachings suddenly made sense. For instance, I used to read the Bible, and by understanding nature’s principles, now I understand what the things mentioned in the Bible meant. Zhuan Falun contains everything, from the very basic philosophy up to a sophisticated level. You have to read the book many times (for a full understanding).
Another example is how in other teachings we are taught to be patient. In Christianity, if you are hit on the left cheek, then you should give your right cheek, that’s about it. Here, it is explained what really is happening when you are hit by another person, and what will happen if we strike back. In another dimension it is all balanced, like karma.
I don’t eat meat anymore. Although there is no specific prohibition from eating meat, after studying Falun Gong it is something that comes naturally. I try to avoid taking any lives, however small they are. The bigger the life you take, the bigger the karma will be.
About a year after I started practicing Falun Gong, I was cleaning the gutter in front of my house and as I was dredging the garbage to the side of the street, a lot of larvae from the water was also taken out. My chickens ate the larvae, and after that they started laying eggs like never before. However, at the same time my feet started to ache whenever I meditated, and it kept getting worse. In the beginning I didn’t think it had anything to do with me taking so many lives.
The bad or good things we do in time will manifest in this material world. If I do good today to one person, I may get a good thing some day in return from another person. This is also true for bad things. It could come back to you after three months or three years, tomorrow or next year.
Photo by Nadrah Shahab
Hok Soebagio: A Balanced Life
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Tue, 09/23/2008
Jakarta resident Hok Soebagio, 60, is married with a son. Raised a Catholic but a self-described “rebel” who disliked the rituals of religion, he now practices Falun Gong. By Nabiha Shahab
After retiring early at the age of 50, I felt my body starting to age. In the morning my arms would ache and it scared me. I thought, if I don’t do something I will live my parents’ life and spend my old age with a stroke or a heart attack.
I had to find an alternative way of living, a more spiritual life. At first, I started to learn health meditation; I even went to Bali to learn about it. I tried doing yoga and also Buddhist meditation, vipasana. In the course of doing vipasana, I met a Chinese-American assistant instructor who told me about his plan to spread his teachings in mainland China. He mentioned at the time that they had to be careful because there was currently suppression of another spiritual movement called Falun Gong. That was around 1999. A few months later, the instructor came back to Indonesia and called us, his meditation students, for a reunion.
The gathering was to take place in a bookstore. I was about an hour early and I went inside the bookstore to kill time. I don’t know whether it was fate, but I saw this book, Zhuan Falun. It sounded like the movement I had been hearing about, Falun Gong. I was curious but the book was sealed, and I couldn’t peek inside. It was a bit expensive for a spiritual book, I thought. I put it down and walked away.
But something pulled me back, I hesitated and picked up the book but then put it down again. I walked away three times before I finally decided to buy it.
I read the book in three days. It was interesting but difficult to understand. It was like a folk story, like a fairy tale about the gods’ world, out of this world. I wondered how to practice the exercises: there were no instructions in the book. So I called their office in Jakarta and they told me they would teach me how to practice and meditate.
After a while, I stopped doing yoga and concentrated on meditation, and then decided to practice Falun Gong only. I became active in the organization, although there is no hierarchy in Falun Gong. You can say I was active on the streets, because I initiated the demonstrations we did in front of the Chinese Embassy here.
When we first planned to stage a protest about two years ago by meditating in front of the embassy, I received harassing phone calls, demanding that I cancel the demonstration or I would be shot. Another caller threatened to bomb my house. My wife was very scared, and after a while she disconnected our phone so the ringing would stop. She begged me to cancel the plan. I said I would only stop if nature wanted me to.
It rained very hard the night before the demo. My wife prayed for it to keep raining the next day. But in the morning, the sky was clear. For me, it was a sign to keep going. I meditated by myself in front of the Chinese Embassy in the beginning, and then more friends joined me. There were police all over with firearms. I was not afraid. This is my choice and I had to do it for Falun Gong.
Now, the police understand what we do, that we are peaceful and nonviolent. There has been no more harassment. In Indonesia, I estimate there are a few thousand people practicing Falun Gong, mostly in Bali. Some people study a while and practice by themselves at home, so it is difficult to tell exactly how many people are actively practicing.
Falun Gong is not a religion, so there are no rituals. It’s free. It all made sense to me. The universal law of nature is analyzed in Zhuan Falun. Everything that I learned from other teachings suddenly made sense. For instance, I used to read the Bible, and by understanding nature’s principles, now I understand what the things mentioned in the Bible meant. Zhuan Falun contains everything, from the very basic philosophy up to a sophisticated level. You have to read the book many times (for a full understanding).
Another example is how in other teachings we are taught to be patient. In Christianity, if you are hit on the left cheek, then you should give your right cheek, that’s about it. Here, it is explained what really is happening when you are hit by another person, and what will happen if we strike back. In another dimension it is all balanced, like karma.
I don’t eat meat anymore. Although there is no specific prohibition from eating meat, after studying Falun Gong it is something that comes naturally. I try to avoid taking any lives, however small they are. The bigger the life you take, the bigger the karma will be.
About a year after I started practicing Falun Gong, I was cleaning the gutter in front of my house and as I was dredging the garbage to the side of the street, a lot of larvae from the water was also taken out. My chickens ate the larvae, and after that they started laying eggs like never before. However, at the same time my feet started to ache whenever I meditated, and it kept getting worse. In the beginning I didn’t think it had anything to do with me taking so many lives.
The bad or good things we do in time will manifest in this material world. If I do good today to one person, I may get a good thing some day in return from another person. This is also true for bad things. It could come back to you after three months or three years, tomorrow or next year.
Photo by Nadrah Shahab
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/09/23/laine-berman-living-harmony.html
Laine Berman: Living in Harmony
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Tue, 09/23/2008
Most of us “inherit” our religion or set of values from our families. But others don’t find the belief system that works for them until later in life. Nabiha Shahab reports.
Laine Berman, 53, is an American citizen now based in Yogyakarta. She is married to an Indonesian. She follows the traditional Javanese spiritual practice of kejawen.
I grew up in New York City and London, very much a city girl. I was never brought up in any faith at all: my parents were nonbelievers and hadn’t been brought up with religion themselves. So whatever we found, we basically had to do it on our own.
I came across kejawen in the early 1990s when I came here to do research on the Javanese language. I have been living in Indonesia on and off since my late 20s. After getting my research visa, I had to report to different offices. I remember reporting at this one village office and the chief just automatically assumed that since I was an expat and I spoke Javanese that I must be into gamelan.
I actually did play in the Indonesian Embassy gamelan in Washington DC. I was a pesinden (a female singer with the gamelan orchestra), because it was a great way to learn more Javanese. Then the village chief said that I needed to meet Ibu Lindur, the head pesinden in the palace at the time. She had been a member of the court since she was 12 and a pesinden her entire life.
She wasn’t exactly what I expected. She was probably about 80 years old and very tiny. She ended up becoming my adopted mother for the entire time I was here and she invited me into the palace as one of the pesinden trainees. At first it was an opportunity I jumped at for my research, but then it very much became a way of life. I was very fortunate in that respect.
I did all my interviews in Javanese, because if people realized that I spoke Indonesian, that’s the language they’d use. So I basically told people I couldn’t speak any Indonesian and only spoke Javanese. It worked. Within a couple of months my Javanese was fluent.
My time with Ibu Lindur in the palace was the highlight of my life, and it’s pretty much one of the only periods of my life that I look back on and I really miss. Ibu Lindur was very old at this point, and she didn’t really live in the mundane world anymore. She would talk with spirits in the spirit world.
When I was in the palace, it was early in the reign of the current sultan. There was still a very, very strong sense of belief in the palace, which has now dissipated somewhat.
In those days, with the other people employed in the palace, we would follow all the rituals; they were very much part of our daily life. I use to fast every Monday and Thursday, and on Fridays I would bicycle down to Kotagede and semedhi, and meditate by the grave of Panembahan Senopati with the palace employees. We would go to different places depending on the day of the week.
And I spent at least one night every week sleeping at the cemetery behind the Adisucipto airport.
People usually think members of the court are related to the sultan and they are high class, wealthy people. This is not the case. There were women in the palace who had never owned a pair of shoes. They would get up really early in the morning to finish up whatever they needed to do in the house and then walk to the palace barefoot, and did this pretty much as a ritual for life. These were fabulous people; I learned so much from them.
A lot of the things that I learned from them are things that are related to Javanese philosophy. In essence, going through life being totally open to feelings, thoughts, ideas, patterns, nature – and accepting things for what they are. It’s not helplessness at all, although a lot of people can see it that way.
A lot of people use kejawen as a way to distance themselves from the real world. Maybe it’s because the people I studied under were so poor and so much part of the physical world that I learned to see it as very much a part of being in the world and not out of it. It taught me to care more, to not look at cruelty and ignore it. I ended up really being involved in a lot of social issues in town.
I must admit, though, the whole aspect of kejawen is something that I don’t really follow the way I used to anymore. It used to be very much the central part of my life. I find it’s a lot harder to take part in the classical rituals, like the Jemuah Kliwonan and Pareng Kusumo. I find that all of the so-called sacred sites have been usurped in a way for economic purposes.
Jogja has changed. It’s become such an economic center rather than a cultural center. And I think what’s referred to as culture is also being transformed into just cultural tourism, rather than something that’s authentic. But I still find that when you hang out with poor people, just the wong cilik (ordinary people), there is still that strong sense of spiritualism and authenticity that I really appreciate.
What I learned from kejawen is to respect every single person I meet whether or not they’ve been to school. The thing that I learned from the people at court – most of them from backgrounds as poor farmers – is how they all live a daily life that is very much in harmony with nature. The idea that every living object has a kind of a spirit – plants, the environmental aspects of it – I follow very, very strongly.
I have become a sort of a militant environmentalist. I do my own composting, I recycle all of my rubbish. People turn to look for power in wealth rather than quality of life, they hold on to slogans rather than thoughts, while what I learned from kejawen is pasrah (total acceptance).
I’m proud that I don’t have to go to the market for food, I grow my own food. And how to live by example instead of hypocrisy. How to respect the wind, respect the rain, respect the weather. How to respect the water: I’m not going to waste water because it’s not a renewable resource.
I still meditate on a daily basis; I do yoga in the garden. I’ll get up at sunrise and breathe really deeply, when the air is still so clean and I can just feel the wind embrace me while everything is still so quiet.
Photo by Tarko Sudiarno
Laine Berman: Living in Harmony
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Tue, 09/23/2008
Most of us “inherit” our religion or set of values from our families. But others don’t find the belief system that works for them until later in life. Nabiha Shahab reports.
Laine Berman, 53, is an American citizen now based in Yogyakarta. She is married to an Indonesian. She follows the traditional Javanese spiritual practice of kejawen.
I grew up in New York City and London, very much a city girl. I was never brought up in any faith at all: my parents were nonbelievers and hadn’t been brought up with religion themselves. So whatever we found, we basically had to do it on our own.
I came across kejawen in the early 1990s when I came here to do research on the Javanese language. I have been living in Indonesia on and off since my late 20s. After getting my research visa, I had to report to different offices. I remember reporting at this one village office and the chief just automatically assumed that since I was an expat and I spoke Javanese that I must be into gamelan.
I actually did play in the Indonesian Embassy gamelan in Washington DC. I was a pesinden (a female singer with the gamelan orchestra), because it was a great way to learn more Javanese. Then the village chief said that I needed to meet Ibu Lindur, the head pesinden in the palace at the time. She had been a member of the court since she was 12 and a pesinden her entire life.
She wasn’t exactly what I expected. She was probably about 80 years old and very tiny. She ended up becoming my adopted mother for the entire time I was here and she invited me into the palace as one of the pesinden trainees. At first it was an opportunity I jumped at for my research, but then it very much became a way of life. I was very fortunate in that respect.
I did all my interviews in Javanese, because if people realized that I spoke Indonesian, that’s the language they’d use. So I basically told people I couldn’t speak any Indonesian and only spoke Javanese. It worked. Within a couple of months my Javanese was fluent.
My time with Ibu Lindur in the palace was the highlight of my life, and it’s pretty much one of the only periods of my life that I look back on and I really miss. Ibu Lindur was very old at this point, and she didn’t really live in the mundane world anymore. She would talk with spirits in the spirit world.
When I was in the palace, it was early in the reign of the current sultan. There was still a very, very strong sense of belief in the palace, which has now dissipated somewhat.
In those days, with the other people employed in the palace, we would follow all the rituals; they were very much part of our daily life. I use to fast every Monday and Thursday, and on Fridays I would bicycle down to Kotagede and semedhi, and meditate by the grave of Panembahan Senopati with the palace employees. We would go to different places depending on the day of the week.
And I spent at least one night every week sleeping at the cemetery behind the Adisucipto airport.
People usually think members of the court are related to the sultan and they are high class, wealthy people. This is not the case. There were women in the palace who had never owned a pair of shoes. They would get up really early in the morning to finish up whatever they needed to do in the house and then walk to the palace barefoot, and did this pretty much as a ritual for life. These were fabulous people; I learned so much from them.
A lot of the things that I learned from them are things that are related to Javanese philosophy. In essence, going through life being totally open to feelings, thoughts, ideas, patterns, nature – and accepting things for what they are. It’s not helplessness at all, although a lot of people can see it that way.
A lot of people use kejawen as a way to distance themselves from the real world. Maybe it’s because the people I studied under were so poor and so much part of the physical world that I learned to see it as very much a part of being in the world and not out of it. It taught me to care more, to not look at cruelty and ignore it. I ended up really being involved in a lot of social issues in town.
I must admit, though, the whole aspect of kejawen is something that I don’t really follow the way I used to anymore. It used to be very much the central part of my life. I find it’s a lot harder to take part in the classical rituals, like the Jemuah Kliwonan and Pareng Kusumo. I find that all of the so-called sacred sites have been usurped in a way for economic purposes.
Jogja has changed. It’s become such an economic center rather than a cultural center. And I think what’s referred to as culture is also being transformed into just cultural tourism, rather than something that’s authentic. But I still find that when you hang out with poor people, just the wong cilik (ordinary people), there is still that strong sense of spiritualism and authenticity that I really appreciate.
What I learned from kejawen is to respect every single person I meet whether or not they’ve been to school. The thing that I learned from the people at court – most of them from backgrounds as poor farmers – is how they all live a daily life that is very much in harmony with nature. The idea that every living object has a kind of a spirit – plants, the environmental aspects of it – I follow very, very strongly.
I have become a sort of a militant environmentalist. I do my own composting, I recycle all of my rubbish. People turn to look for power in wealth rather than quality of life, they hold on to slogans rather than thoughts, while what I learned from kejawen is pasrah (total acceptance).
I’m proud that I don’t have to go to the market for food, I grow my own food. And how to live by example instead of hypocrisy. How to respect the wind, respect the rain, respect the weather. How to respect the water: I’m not going to waste water because it’s not a renewable resource.
I still meditate on a daily basis; I do yoga in the garden. I’ll get up at sunrise and breathe really deeply, when the air is still so clean and I can just feel the wind embrace me while everything is still so quiet.
Photo by Tarko Sudiarno
