It is so lovely to be in a society where reverence and ceremony are an everyday occurrence. It is just a part of their lives here. I have been struck by how they don’t take ceremony too seriously either. For example, we went to the second phase of a cremation ceremony a couple of days ago, and even during the procession (that was from 4am until 9am) they were laughing, splashing each other with the rain that was flooding the streets, and smoking cigarettes. That might sound out of place, it seemed to me at first, but as I was watching it, I realized how refreshing it was. It was a cremation ceremony, but it was also a celebration and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, even at the end of a five hour walk with huge heavy towers on their shoulders and flip-flops on.
This cremation, and most as I gather, was for about a hundred people from a particular village. This town hadn’t had a cremation for five years, and the bones have been waiting in the ground until twelve days earlier, where they burned the bodies. This procession was the part of the ceremony where they bring the ashes to the sea. In my previous post there is a picture of the women carrying the ashes on their heads. Each village, no matter how far they are from the ocean, process down to the sea with the ashes of their loved ones. The amount of talent and time that went into the towers were astounding. They were so intricately decorated and finely crafted. Apparently you learn at a young age how to make the animals that are on the tower, and each village has it’s own special animals that they use.
The beauty here is slowly seeping into me. I have realized that the lines and shapes of the environment have started to show up in my work without me even realizing it at first. It is exciting to have such different shapes and textures informing my drawings. It’s as if I am taking it all in, filtering out what moves me the most, then my hand acts as the record keeper moving to a new beat. Moving to the beat of this tropical paradise.
this makes me so happy! the time they set aside to do these rituals and the freedom to just be .. i love it. my much beloved teacher passed away recently and i could not make it home for the funeral. i realized several things. one was how important making time for these rituals is and also that they dont need to be ridiged. they ended his memorial with a massive ringing of bells and when my parents called to tell me about it i thought they were just coming back from a party there was such excitement in their voices! - point being i love what you are seeing and taking in. and i love to see how you express it in your art!
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