But if one watches kittens at play or the exquisite evolutions of tropical
fished one is also reminded of many dance movements of the Balinese.
We may event feel that the kitten's play is like a dance, though it
is obviously very far indeed from the elaborately artificial dance of
the Balinese. Yet the kitten's play in it delicate complexity of springs,
withdrawals, glancing, pouncing and ambushed seems to cover a world
of possible emotions. There is a great element of flay in Balinese dance,
not only in the war-play called Pentjak and similar martial 'dances',
but in that other world of dance. If the evolutions of tropical fishes,
their smooth spells and sudden accents, turns and doublings, infinite
lightness and grace, their flickering fins and the rippling life of
their glowing bodies seem to use to bear some real relation to Balinese
dancing, it is perhaps because the perfectly Balinese is the human exponent
of a world where motion and emotion merge even more completely than
in our vocabulary. The Balinese let the dance play as trees and tendrils,
kittens, monkeys, birds, and fisher flay.
This feeling of continuity is the cornerstone of the local society.
Every form of work of creativity is given group expression. The organization
of villages, the cultivation of farm land, and even the creative arts
are a communal effort. Within his village, a man belongs to his family,
his clan, his caste, his community, and to the total of the Balinese
people who share in his heritage and surroundings. Religion is as essential
as his livelihood. Every new accession, whether is be the firs birthday
of child or the completion of house, receives the priest's blessing.
Every personal calamity is treated as a shared problem a among family,
friends and divine guardians. Only in rare moment throughout his live
would a Balinese feel oppressive solitude. Nor is death a separation,
but a journey of the soul to resting place in heaven where "life
as just in Bali, but devoid of all the trouble and illness," until
it is reborn on earth, possibly in the person of a great grandchild.
After creating the world and mountains trees, fruits and flowers, the
deities made four human beings whom they provided with tool of work
and house to live in. the divine Shiwa then made four women as wives
for the four men. The god of love, Semara, made mating a pleasure so
that the women could be fertilized, and eventually, the four couples
had many children. (From the ancient Catur Yoga)
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