between research and the search of spirituality

work has been marvelous and come with a lot of variety. i feel like i’m back to my old self again, which i’m glad. i felt even much better nowadays. at the end of this year i’m involved with the research: indian community history in jogja. the process can be found in this blog. it is a project involving etnohistori and kunci, the participant comes from diverse background and multi-discipline. it is also part of the parallel events of jogja biennal xi. etnohistori is a continuation of my study group back in my student days, now that all of us already growing up, we start to establish a community concerning on history and ethnography studies.

anyway, the process of the last two months research put myself in the “temple team”, along with my best mates JP, abmi and sandhy (a comic artist). we’re going to present the work later on the 3rd of january 2012.

it was a very interesting experience. founding temples in the most unexpected places. a hare krisna temple in the maguwo of east outer ring road of jogja. a saibaba center on top of a toko besi (hardware store) in bumijo. it is one of the weirdest and exciting experiences.

the top of hare krisna temple

the flower garland offerings

hare krisna altar

saibaba temple

the fire offerings

i believe by knowing other beliefs, experiencing their rituals and being involve with the people, we would gather more understanding about others and about ourselves. it is what we need in this kind of time :)

the boy who love to swim

our days swimming in melia purosani and of course eating a lot after :D bhumy is now 3,5 years and weighing 13.4 kg. although still using his pool tire, he is quiet brave lately jumping to the water without it and i had to catch him all the time.

a suprise from lasem

so one busy morning, where i had to meet antariksa to get some video for a discussion we are preparing. that’s another project i would like to share later. anyway, i met bessy or he like to be called pop, i like to call him becy. he has been a good friend for years. always meeting him in odd places. we’ve been meeting regularly, since he is become the ambassador for batik lasem. he has been working in rembang heritage community and been inviting me to come to visit rembang and lasem. i might go this january after all this end of the year hecticness is over.

anyway, he become a hand in hand batik seller. always carrying a pack of batik lasem in his bag wherever he go. we met in via-via that morning because he had a meeting too with antariksa. the breakfast become a small exhibition of batik lasem. and for my suprise, bessy brought a red dragon batik lasem, just finish being exhibit in solo. i’ve been eyeing to buy a batik for the past years, but have not manage to decide or fallen completely for a piece. i wanted to start to add to my mother’s inherited collection. that morning was the moment.

i had a special discount from bessy and got myself the handmade dragon batik lasem. made by bapak parlan, seen in the photo above. it was such a lovely morning and such a joy i had until now. *grinning everytime i look at the dragon batik*.

it is going to be the dragon year next year and giving myself with such present, i felt next year would be such a lovely, lucky journey. time to rise.