ULUWATU has a lovely story . . .
but the true story is amazing
I think the Uluwatu story is wonderful. Of course, I would; I wrote it myself.
And developed the Handmade Balinese Lace identity, the 'crisp white lace', the hand-crafted Bali artisan angle, wrote the advertising copy, designed the logo, designed the shops and the racks and the hangers, and even designed the statues, the mannikins, and the signage.
That beautiful shop in the photo? Yeah, I designed and built every centimeter of it.
And essentially invented Ni Made Jati as the inspiration behind Uluwatu and Kori Restaurant. We were married, and I was in love.
Life was wonderful until my sons and I began to deincarnate.
Fact is that Made Jati and her family had little to do with starting or building Uluwatu. A romance of a Balinese woman devoted to traditional handicraft, however, is a far more interesting marketing pitch for tourists than a business developed by an American.
The real story is darker, involving false identities, faked documents, misleading ceremonies, black magic, criminal fraud, warrants of arrest, corruption, betrayals, death threats, child abandonment, murder, and more. All true, and ongoing.
Poleng
The sacred cloth of Bali
'Crisp white lace' would be a poor fabric choice to represent Bali anyway . . . Bali has poleng.
Poleng represents the real world of good and evil, kindness and greed, love and hate.
Rangda and the Barong battle endlessly for balance, but there is never a winner, only a stalemate for now.
Offerings of flowers in the shrines are lovely, but the offerings on the ground are for the Buta Kala, the evil little things that crawl in the mud and constantly plague us.
Offering are not only fruits and flowers; there is a scarcity of red dogs in Bali because they are sought after for sacrifices.
There are good are bad Pemangkus and Pedandas—the Sudra and Brahmin caste priests. Good and bad have little to do with sacred in Bali, both have equivalent power.
In the striving for balance, sometimes the temptations are just too much and the darker side takes over. That seems to be what happened here.