The Direction of Intention

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Several years ago in a crude temple constructed in her house compound, Jero Manchu delivered a message to me from the Bali gods. A few months earlier I’d written a letter to myself about what I was seeking in the world. It was a kind of confessional, a paper priest receiving my self-accusations along with my dreams for the future. I sealed it in an envelope and put it in a place where no one would find it. Knowing that I was going to Bali I was worried that, if I died in a fiery plane crash, my family or friends would find my paper priest. Even though I’d be dead I didn’t want them to find it – embarrassment would reach me even in my grave.

I went to see Jeo on a lark. She was a curiosity to me, a cultural fascination. Jero was a balian (healer) and she worked through trance. Jero Manchu slipped into her trance, opened her eyes, looked at me for a long moment, and then told me what I’d written to myself. There was no way for her to know but she knew. Through a translator she told me almost word for word what I’d written. She knew what I was seeking and I felt naked sitting before her. I was gob-smacked and writhed in my chair. She told me that the Bali gods required an offering from me. The Bali Gods told me to go to the ocean and at sunrise wanted me to give them something. My offer could be anything as long as it wasn’t red. Apparently, red is an offensive color to the Bali gods.

A few days later I drove to the coast on a dive trip. Just before sunrise I went to the beach, lit 3 sticks of incense as I was instructed, and placed my offer in a place where the incoming tides could reach it. Jero had told me to sit quietly and watch the sun rise. I was to do nothing. After sunrise I was to leave and return later when the tide was again low. If my offer was gone, the Bali gods had accepted it and would then support me in my growth.

Later that day, after the dive, I returned to the spot and my offering was gone. I do not understand it. I’m not even sure of the questions I have – other than how she knew – and even that seems inconsequential. She knew my deepest desire. She knew my most vulnerable thoughts. She sent me to the beach to do something that also made no sense to me. Yet, I would have been devastated had my offer still been on the beach after my return- and that makes no sense, either. “The Bali gods are helping you,” she said.

As Doug used to say to me, “Your problem is that you want things to make sense.” He was right. I wanted that. I’m not so sure that matters to me much anymore. Stories are not supposed to make sense, they are supposed to transform. Belief necessitates transcending sense-making; belief and faith dance in the realm of the heart. Standing on that beach, having had someone see my deepest secrets, and knowing that my offer went the way of the tides, I was filled with a sense of peace and hope. It made me laugh to think that the first lesson of the Bali gods was that peace was available if I to stopped trying to make sense of it all.

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