9 Unity in uniformity

One day in September 1996, I found myself seated on the ground with about 70 other women in the inner courtyard of the Pura Puseh temple in Tegalsuci, a village in northern Gianyar. ¹ It was around 9:30 a.m., and we were only beginning to warm up. The mountain mists here are chilling in the morning. The floor of the inner sanctum (jeroan) was strewn with new mats laid over the black volcanic sand. As the sun strengthened, the top crust of the sand turned a soft pale grey, but if you lifted the edge of a mat with your finger, the sand beneath was dark, damp and cold.