Interruptions of regularity: learning from the Balinese Nyepi festival.

The benefits of adding in regular work-abstinence into your creative practice.

I am trying a new approach with this Festivals series. This month there will be not one but two posts inspired by the same festival, both of which will have enough free information to be interesting to everyone ( I hope!), but with extra writing and coaching material for paid subscribers only. I have a lot to say but am conscious that those of you getting the exercises may need time to work through them and too much at once could overwhelm. At the same time I want to remain generous and not dumb down content. Paid subscribers will get a poll at the end of the next post, which will arrive mid-month to see if you thought this division helpful - I’d be grateful if you would let me know what works best for you.

Now and again I find myself perusing websites for creative retreats or looking at holiday brochures for a DIY set of arrangements. Inevitably I fail to find what I am looking for. Sometimes it’s a question of cost, sometimes it’s distance, the unavailability of accommodation on my required dates or for formal retreats, an application process that I am likely to be unsuccessful in. Other times it’s because a ‘retreat’ is heavily scheduled with tuition and communal meals and is a misnamed conference in a hot place. Frequently I admit it is the standard of sofas, about which I have strong opinions. Most often however the problem is noise.

Admittedly I am extremely finicky. Oddly I can cope with the odd RAF pilot roaring by in a F-35 as often happens in the Lake District here. But next-door pubs, motor boat clubs, music festivals, construction work, cottages right on busy through roads, farmyard cockerels, playgrounds, there are so many things to be checked and rejected. I am seeking quiet. Truly deep communal quiet for a period of time of my choosing, long enough to allow me to think to the bottom of my brain.

I think I have found a solution. To the noise problem, if not the cost and distance issue. It lies in Bali.

Bali night sky: Photo by Atik sulianami on Unsplash

Nyepi is a part of the Balinese New Year’s Ceremony which falls this year on March 11th. It is a day of silence in which the whole island participates. The airport shuts down for a full twenty-four hours. Mobile phone masts are shut off. Hotels close. Shops close. Restaurants close. Temples, offices, and train stations close. Even the beaches close. Pecalang - local watchmen - are posted to make sure no pedestrians sneak down for a paddle. Everyone stays home. Even tourist hotels limit light emissions and operate restricted menus.

Once at home, the focus is on meditation and personal reflection. Rules of the day include;

Amati Geni – no lighting of fire or use of electricity,

Amati Karaya – no work

Amati Lelunganan – no travel,

Amati Lelanguan – no entertainment.

Some also observe Mono Brata – no talking even to housemates. A stillness descends over the whole island and the lack of artificial light makes it an ideal time for star gazing. It feels like a perfect time to be in a villa with a kitchen pre-stocked with delicious cold food, a leather journal and fountain pen, and a good meaty creative problem to solve.

The surrounding days are, however, rather a contrast. The rest of New Year involves gamelan music processions and the papier-mâché monsters, called Ogoh-Ogoh. In a similar form of celebration to the Chinese festivities we looked at last month, and indeed with a nod to the Sumerian festival from January’s post, the night before Nyepi, these giant puppets are paraded through the streets with loud music, bursts of fire and people lining the streets partying.

Nyepi is but a brief retreat. It reminds me a lot of the weekly Orthodox Jewish Shabbat save that there is most definitely talking and entertainment on Shabbat which is seen as a holiday - a celebration, not a form of withdrawal from life. However we arrange our retreats - as societal activities or solo escapes - part of the benefit is the experience of refreshment and the clarity that comes with thinking and slowing. It is the experience of contrast with normality that makes them effective. A second, less recognized benefit, according to writer and university Professor Yahya Wijaya is that they are a form of practice for the interruption of regularity. ¹

I want, therefore, to look at two intertwined topics inspired by Nyepi:

1. In this essay, I ask: How can we tolerate and benefit from interruptions of regularity in our creative practice?

2. In the follow up I will ask: What are the benefits of choosing silence? What happens after we emerge from a time of Nyepi-like quiet? What does it mean to emerge from choosing to be silent, or from having been having been silenced by others?

Interruptions of regularity

I saw a post in an art group on social media this week by someone who was struggling with her practice. She had hit a dry spot and was finding it impossible to make meaningful work or to grow her practice. The suggestions in the comments before I arrived were all very similar. Press through! Switch to a sketchbook! Just make yourself do 10 minutes and you’ll find you want to keep going! The throughline thought was: if you are finding your regular practice hard just work regularly ( albeit in a different form) and all will come well. My advice was a little different. Walk away, I said. Go and live life. Do exciting things, seek out novelty, let the practice be. Take a sabbatical. Don’t beat the regularity to death. Let it breathe. Honour the dry spell.