ULUWATU has a lovely story . . .



but the true story is so much darker

I think the Uluwatu public 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 manikins, 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. 'Deincarnation' is what happens in Bali when one's identity and legal status and history is progressively falsified and erased. You become nobody. You are lucky if it doesn't end in murder.

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, where Rangda and the Barong battle endlessly for balance. There is never a winner, only a stalemate for now.

Visitors see the lovely offerings of flowers, but they miss the offerings on the ground for the Buta Kala, the evil little things that crawl in the mud and constantly plague us.

When we project our desires for peace and paradise, we trivialize the Balinese; they struggle with same same charms and vices found anywhere. That's the meaning of poleng.

Anyone, including Pemangkus and Pedandas—the Sudra and Brahmin caste priests—can embrace good or evil; both are sacred, and both have 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.