Every day there are dozens of religious ceremonies in villages across Bali.  Last week, our village of Pakse Bali celebrated the birthday of its main village temple.

Offerings provided by every family.

One of the temple shrines

What’s fun about a village ceremony like this is that it’s not only a religious occasion, it’s also a chance to see the village kids showing off their Balinese dance skills, listen to the village musicians get their gamelan on, test your gambling skills and watch the Balinese shadow puppets (Wayang Kulit) perform.

Gamblers awaiting their customers to finish prayers.

We first said our greetings to our neighbors and to the village chief, and entered the grounds for prayers and blessings from the priests.  All families brought offerings of flowers, and blessings of fruit and snacks for the Gods.

Fortunately, Balinese Hindu Gods only eat the spiritual essence of these gifts which left the goodies for us to eat while we watched the dances, observed the gamblers and stayed awake long enough to see the Wayang Kulit.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!!

Ashram members all dressed up for the event