I have a very old friend in Klungkung (also known as Amlapura), Ibu Agung, whom I met way back the second year I came to Bali, in 1985. She used to sell postcards and cheap tourist souvenirs across from the Kerta Gosa. We became fast friends (and still are). Later on, in the 1990s, her family was having a rough time, and she decided to have a cleansing ceremony where she lived with her family in three rooms small house, few blocks away from the Kerta Gosa. This ceremony, called a Mecaru, is especially intended to deal with the balance between man and nature.
They had no money to speak of, but they are Balinese, so…(of course, I contributed). They even hired a Pendeta (expensive) to conduct the ceremony. Offerings were prepared way ahead of the ceremonial day, and in these offerings was a babe guling that sat there, in the sun, for about ONE week.
After the ceremony, we all went down to the Telaga River to dump into it all the offerings and decorations, to be taken to the sea, except for the babe guling. When we return to the house, we all sat on the floor, and proceeded to eat the “thing,” which had sat in the sun for the last week…Obviously, I could not refuse partaking in the dinner :icon_sad:, especially the expensive “had-been” babi guling, plus the trimmings. My sacrifice and faith were obviously well appreciated by the Gods who, even if I had much apprehension in submitting to the protocol, granted me a peaceful night and let me survived the experience absolutely unscathed. :icon_surprised: