The poor creature died after a two-week illness despite obat, prayers, offerings and a special diet. Wayan and I tenderly removed it from the quarantine cage and wrapped it in a towel. The bird had parented the two other parrots that lived in aviaries in the garden.
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We should bury it near its children,” I suggested.
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Yes, I’ll make some offerings…” began Wayan.
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With lots of flowers,” I continued.
“…
tomorrow,” she finished.
Today is Kajeng Kliwon, and we can’t dig in the garden “or someone might get sick,” said Wayan. So we’ve wrapped the parrot in a smart plastic shopping bag and it’s marking time next to the eggs until we can bury it in the morning. I’m learning not to resist this kind of thing.
After a lifetime of living in pragmatic cities, it’s rather refreshing to live in a country town where you can’t bury your dead parrot until tomorrow. The rules of the Balinese culture are complicated, but life, by western standards, is simple. I got rid of most of my belongings when I moved here, and don’t miss any of them. When I built the house, I purposely limited the power supply to 2000 watts to keep me mindful of energy consumption. To keep my life simple.
I’ve spent the last three years trying to follow the tangled threads that lead from small daily acts of faith as they are woven into the intricate fabric of Balinese culture. It’s a hopeless task, of course, but intriguing. Everything comes back to balance and harmony.
I’ve begun to understand that this harmony is multi-dimensional. The offerings and ceremonies are one dimension. The relatively clean environment compared to, say, Bangkok or Jakarta, is another. I’m gradually coming to believe that the unseen power that’s called electromagnetic energy plays a significant role too, on the dark side.
Humans and other animals are very sensitive to the artificial electromagnetic fields of energy (EMF) generated by electrical equipment. A wide range of international studies shows that living near high tension power lines or having many electrical devices around you can disrupt essential body functions. EMF exposure has been scientifically linked to miscarriage, cataracts, sterility, Alzheimer’s disease, elevated blood glucose levels, chronic fatigue, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and cancer. Of special note, it appears that EMF pollution leads to more rapid aging. Emotional health is affected, too, with people becoming more irritable and aggressive with increased exposure. The risks associated with exposure to electromagnetic radiation are growing appallingly quickly, due to the rapid development and popularization of wireless technologies. The electrical industries spend enormous amounts of money on advertising and public relations to keep us buying the stuff.
Dr Yuri Grigoriev, Chairman of the Russian National Committee for Protection from Non-Ionizing Radian, feels that EMFs represent perhaps the greatest danger facing humanity at this time. As early as 1990,the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommended that magnetic fields be classified as a ‘Class B’ carcinogen, along with formaldehyde, dioxins and PCBs. Pressure from the electrical industry forced the EPA to back down, but dozens of studies published in respected medical journals around the world link electromagnetic radiation with cancer.
Most common household electrical appliances emit EMF radiation. Colour televisions, for example, have large EMFs and may continue to maintain their charge for up to several days, even when unplugged at the wall. Hair dryers are bad. Computer video display units (VDU) are also offenders, associated with all kinds of disagreeable sexual and menstrual disorders. Computer users are urged to limit exposure to 5 hours a day (fat chance) and have a living plant nearby. The New York Stock Exchange uses cactus plants near its computers to neutralize the harmful effects of VDUs.
Now that life has become so complicated, it’s reassuring that maybe a simple cactus can fix things.
Dr Grigoriev found that chick embryos experienced a 50% mortality rate after 21 days of cell phone exposure compared to 10% of control animals. So keep chickens away from your cell phone. You might want to cut down your own chat time too.
Lighting is an interesting topic. Unfortunately the cheapest and therefore most widespread form of lighting is fluorescent. This is the most damaging form of lighting, emitting the same type of radiation as cathode ray tube VDU monitors. Flicker, glare and low waves of microwave radiation can cause eye and skin problems, hypertension and behavioral changes, especially in children. And this is the most common form of lighting in schools and hospitals all over the world. North American studies demonstrate that violent and anti-social behavior in schools improves, as do marks, after a change to full-spectrum lighting.
On the subject of behavior, it was found that when a low-cost device that removed harmful frequencies was installed in school electrical systems, discipline and attention deficit disorders disappeared. So did symptoms of asthma and diabetes.
We spend about a third of our lives in bed. This is a time for the body to regroup and undertake repairs at a cellular level. If we sleep with computers, televisions, radios, sound systems and clock radios in the room, these delicate body functions can be impaired by EMF radiation. (Think about what you’re sleeping on, too. Most mattresses and pillows are made of foam rubber mixed with formaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen which can also cause headaches and fatigue. Synthetic clothing also contains formaldehyde.)
All this was just so many words on paper until last month, when it came into sharp focus for me. I’d spent five days in Bangkok and a week in Singapore, and it was interesting to observe how my general health deteriorated over that short time. The frigid air conditioning, constant activity, traffic, cell phones, TVs, computers, crowds of people and noise were a constant assault. I stood in a train station in the middle of Singapore at rush hour one day, feeling quite peculiar, and thought, “This must be electromagnetic radiation.” I was a long way from my simple little house with no glass in the windows and hardly anything that plugged into the wall. I felt awful.
When I got home to Bali, I had 3 circles under each eye, severe allergy symptoms and bad dreams. It took a week before I was back to normal, by which time I had a much greater respect for my simple life.
Living in smaller places, we have the choice of limiting our exposure to much of the energetic pollution of the cities. What we choose to have in our houses has an impact on our harmony and physical wellbeing. We can live simply; sleeping on a kapok mattress, dressing in cotton, doing without electronic gadgets and living somewhat as the Balinese used to. We tamu come here to escape from city life but bring much of the damaging equipment (not to mention thought patterns) with us, and wonder why we’re not happier. Ironically, as the Balinese adopt a more Western style of consumption, they are becoming less happy and healthy as well.
I’ve just gone out to the kitchen to look for some lunch. When I opened the refrigerator door, I noticed that the parrot was gone.
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Where’s the bird?” I asked Wayan, who was grating coconut.
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Oh, I buried it.”
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But it’s Kajeng Kliwon, someone might get sick,” I was amazed.
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Never mind, Ibu, maybe it’s okay to bury birds.”
It’s all so simple. And so complex.
With thanks to Karen Kingston for information from her book, “Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui”
