Tuesday, October 27, 2009

holy knife - episode 2

I must be masochistic, otherwise I wouldn't have made an elaborate plan to visit Holy Knife again. The elaboration of the plan partly comes from the fact that this time I managed to drag 4 more women with me.


Friday after visiting Holy Knife, I was feeling quite tired yet I couldn't relax in my room. so I went to the Kafe to eat somethings and to update my blog. I saw Suzanne and Ida and told them about my healer story with maximum detail and drama. At some point, Jenna joined us too. Of course hearing about so much pain followed by a miraculous relief from a fellow female traveler immediately grabbed everyone's sympathy and somehow we ended up scheduling a visit to Holy Knife for Monday afternoon.


By the way, my eyes and knees were still feeling better when I woke up Saturday morning, though my foot was still hurting. There was a faint bruise where he poked the knife – so no wonder it was still sore. Even if for nothing else, I had to go again on Monday (this time armed with a better translator) to understand why he did what he did to my left foot.


By Monday noon, I still couldn't reach the driver recommended by Wendy so had to find an alternative fast. I don't have an address or a phone number for the Holy Knife so the driver had to know him or be familiar with his village. On my way back from the morning yoga, I run into Suzanne again, who was sitting with Olga. Olga came to Ubud from Moscow to learn English. Interesting choice of location considering the purpose but hey, if one can ignore the variety of accents everyone here communicates in English. Plus the climate is superb. So Olga mentions of his driver Ketut, and we give him a call. Over the phone Ketut says yes, he knows Mambal village and yes he knows the Holy Knife and yes he is available to pick us up at 3pm and yes he agrees to the price. Easier than we thought, so we part to our different ways to meet again at 3 o'clock. By that time Olga is also interested in the healer experience, as well as my new neighbor Melanie so it makes five. More the merrier :)


So we leave at 3 as planned. At some point I make the mistake of telling Ketut that I've visited Holy Knife just recently so he immediately assumes that my internal gps would take us to him. There's no way that I can tell him that my internal gps marks billboards and malls, so I'm completely kaputt here. We stop in the Mambal market and he gets out of the car to ask a few people and get the directions. We drive a bit further, nothing looks familiar to me but he stops in front of a fancy house and he says this is it. It's not it... There are no billboards but I can still tell this is not it. Holy Knife's home had a small entrance after a very sharp curve and he had a bird cage near the gate. Whereas this house has an entire pig farm in it – without the bird cage. I walk around the house to see maybe we are in the back entrance but no. Ketut insists that this is the place. Moreover, the “wife” of Holy Knife also insists that she remembers me from Friday... Either Holy Knife managed to give me a good memory erase as a bonus treatment or I am going nuts. I call Gusti, the driver who took me to Holy Knife on Friday – at least he can give Ketut the directions in Bahasa. That works, apparently we are in a different village and we reached the healer of that village. It is a mystery how the wife claims to remember me and how Ketut confirmed knowing both the village and Holy Knife when we called him initially...


As we reach the home of the authentic Holy Knife, we see him outside and we all cheer up. He seems to be happy to see a car full of 5 women driving to his place too. He immediately welcomes us in, gets prepared by putting on a bright yellow belt, washing his hands and praying to gods. He is ready to heal us. I volunteer to be the first and take Ketut as the translator. I guess I have already scared everyone else how painful it would be so they are jut happy to let me go and hear me scream from a distance.


As soon as I sit in front of him, I thank Holy Knife for making my knees and eyes feel better. This time he works on my shoulders, my back, my breathing and my blood circulation. (Wow, I feel like a 80 year-old grandma just reading what I write!) As I turn to face him, I tell that my foot still hurts a little and ask for an explanation what was wrong to start with. He says I stepped on black magic back in my country and that's why my foot was hurting. On Friday, he tried but apparently couldn't heal it all once because the magic was strong but today it should be all fine... Come to think of it, believing in black magic doesn't sound so crazy after seeing an entire world being convinced by a president talking about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in country as the sane reason to start a war against it. But I think I am more inclined to injure myself in yoga by pushing it too far rather than stepping on black magic. At the end of our session this time, I generally feel much lighter and energetic so I go back to meet the girls in the veranda.


Olga and Suzanne goes next. It doesn't take longer than an hour for all of us to be healed and none of us scream in pain. When all of us are done, it turns out that Holy Knife has identified black magic with 3 of us in varying degrees. Hmm... I guess being the oldest in the group I had the highest number of ailments, no one else gets poked to a bruise as I did on Friday. We pose for a photo together to remember this day and then get back in the car to return to Ubud. Although the entire journey was less than 2 hours, everyone is already quite tired.

I now know a driver who speaks good English and knows the way. I will keep telling my Holy Knife story to other travelers I meet. In case someone gets interested and would like to give it a try I know I will definitely join them again :)

1 comment:

  1. Hello Esin,
    Lovely story! I've seen the Holy Knife many times on my visits to Bali. It doesn't take long and yes, the energy shift leaves me feeling tired and ready to rest. Good memories! Last time I was there, it started to rain. I was the only one there. We sat on his healing platform together in the rain for an hour....what a treat!

    I know how to get there but not how to give directions to friends who are in Bali at this time. Do you have a name and number for a driver who may help them out? Wish I could simply go and take them myself!

    Blessing to you....Larry

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