Bali, October 2022. In the villages around Tampaksiring, in the shadow of the holy mountains, I was welcomed into the home and community of Ketut Pande, who taught me to live by the Tri Hita Karana: in relationship with god, man and nature. The subak, the island's ancient irrigation, flows like living veins from mountain to sea, carrying the water of the temple springs down to the rice. But like all living things, unfettered excess disrupts the balance, and new building now presses up to the last of the fields. Deeply grateful to Bli Dudyk, my kindest partner in creation.
A man carries a pole hung with fresh palm-leaf decorations along the irrigation channel.Weathered hands reach up to finish the woven palm leaves.
From the ground, Ketut Pande is a small shape near the top of a coconut palm. This is where I met him, in a tree, before he welcomed me into his home and community.Halfway up the trunk, Ketut Pande grins down, coconuts dangling beside him.
Rice fields stretch toward the forest, two volcanoes rising on the horizon.
Palms line a narrow path between paddies in every shade of green.Coconuts and an umbrella rest against a stained wall.
Three generations share a meal on the tiled porch.
Einstein sticks out his tongue from a poster over the doorway.Men sit and carve on the mat beneath a sign that reads Black Scorpion.
Wood shavings pile up as a carver works a blade into a small figure.
Ketut Pande lifts a painted mask with a wild spray of hair to his face.A young cow leans out of its bamboo pen as Ketut Pande brings the fresh grass.
Ketut Pande carries an armful of cut grass in for the cattle.
Rice heads bend under their own weight beneath a line of palms.Ketut Pande bends into the tall rice of his own field, knife in hand. He taught me to live by the Tri Hita Karana: in relationship with god, man and nature.
A mother crouches to talk with her daughter on a wet lane between the fields.
Sunrise at Tampaksiring. The quiet village wakes to a chorus of roosters in the shadow of the holy mountains.A woman walks out toward the fields at dusk, an offering balanced on her head.
A woman places an offering on a bamboo shrine at the edge of the paddy.
Ketut Pande's offering of food and incense stands in his sawah at first light. The mighty Mount Batur rises behind. An offering, yes, but also a responsibility: to his land, his family, his community.At dawn in the terraces, eyes closed, she carries a woven tray of offerings on her head along the narrow dikes, to bless the fields and the water that feeds them.
Palms rise over the terraces as a lone figure tends a shrine among them.
Morning haze drifts across the terraces, the volcano's cone above it all.A priest in white rings his bell over the offerings.
A young man stands in the lane with his hands pressed together.
A man in a sarong and headcloth stands at the edge of the rice field.Dressed in white, he sits cross-legged in the doorway of the shrine.
A man in white smiles gently in front of the carved shrine.
Worshippers bathe beneath the springs in the green light of a forest pool.Face turned to the sky, he lets the current hold him.
A woman cradles a man's head as he floats in the shallows.
The community gathers to bathe and rest in the sacred waters below the temple, the same water that flows on into the subak, the island's ancient irrigation.Harvesters work the last of the rice beside a new building still wrapped in scaffolding.
An old man carries a heavy sack on his head, his face creased by the sun.
In a wide hat and orange shirt, a harvester stuffs rice stalks into a sack.Harvesters in conical hats gather around the thresher, the new building behind them.
Beneath the tarps, two workers move along the wooden trough together.
A scarecrow in a helmet guards the harvested field beside the new houses.Orange roofs press right up to the last rectangles of green. The subak flows like living veins from mountain to sea, and this is where it is being encroached upon.
A narrow strip of rice field runs between a tall white wall and the villas.
A lone harvester bends in the field as birds scatter overhead.Under a woven hat, a harvester reaches down for another bundle of rice.
A temple-festival procession, an odalan, where the community brings out the temple's sacred objects and guardian spirits to bless the fields and restore balance.
The renowned Jatiluwih rice terraces. At their base stands Besikalung, one of the oldest standing temples, dedicated to the deities of the rice paddies.A waterfall pours down a black rock face into a jungle river.
