Paul Spencer Sochaczewski

The Sultan and the Mermaid Queen

Posted on 25. Jun, 2010 by Paul Sochaczewski in Articles, Curious Travel

This article is adapted from a chapter in:

QUESTS
Searching for Heroes, Scoundrels, Star-Gazers, and a Mermaid Queen

Explorer’s Eye Press © 2024
Geneva, Switzerland
ISBN: Paperback: 978-2-940573-43-1
ISBN: eBook:  978-2-940573-44-8

Available from:

 

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THE SULTAN AND THE MERMAID QUEEN
A Love Story for the Ages

 

SURAKARTA (SOLO), Java, Indonesia

The instructions, given by a friend of Javanese nobility, were tantalizingly vague. If you look really carefully and if the wind is blowing right and you are of good heart and you let yourself “switch  ” into a semi-trance, you just might see a tenth dancer. That would be the Mermaid Queen herself.

My friend was referring to the bedoyo ketawang, a sacred court dance held each August in honor of the ongoing love affair between the sultans of Java and Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, a mermaid-like spirit who is considered the Queen of the Southern Ocean. In this 90-minute performance, nine dancers weave an intricate and highly stylized ritual in front of the Sultan of Surakarta, Susuhunan Paku Buwono XIII. If a tenth dancer is seen, palace-watchers say the blink-of-an-eye appearance would be the Mermaid Queen herself, come to pay her respects and reaffirm her support for the monarch.

My wife and I were on our honeymoon, travelling through Java. Through my friend’s intercession, we were invited to witness this private performance.

The bedoyo (sometimes written in the Javanese transliteration as bedhaya) ketawang reflects one of Asia’s most magical histoires d’amour — the mystical love affair between Panembahan Senopati, a late 16th-century Javanese prince, and Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, a princess who was turned into a mermaid goddess. Together, this unlikely couple began two of the world’s longest-surviving regal lines: the royal families of Surakarta and Yogyakarta, in central Java, Indonesia.

* * *

In one of many versions of the myth, a beautiful princess from the Sundanese Pajajaran kingdom of West Java was cursed by her jealous stepmother and afflicted with leprosy. In despair, the unfortunate woman went to Java’s raging southern coast to meditate, where a divine voice enticed her to enter the ocean and become reborn as a powerful aquatic queen.

Shortly thereafter, Senopati, a very real Javanese ruler, was having his own crise de coeur, and he too headed south for prayer and contemplation. While sitting on a rock on the precipitous sea cliffs south of Yogyakarta, Senopati was seduced into the ocean by the spirit who became known as Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Ocean. During their three-day bacchanal in her submerged palace, he taught her the secrets of terrestrial love and she instructed him in the intricacies of good governance.

As proof of her devotion, Kanjeng Ratu Kidul promised to be the consort for all of Senopati’s descendants, a tradition that is still very much recognized by the sultans of Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Solo) in central Java.

* * *

In this chapter I refer to a figure known as Kanjeng Ratu Kidul. As a shape-shifting spirit, she is often conflated with a similar personage, Nyai Roro Kidul. Some scholars — and many local people — say they are the same spirit while others argue that Nyai Roro Kidul (in various spellings) is Kanjeng Ratu Kidul’s prime minister, senior general, or chief of staff. For simplicity, if not constant accuracy, in this chapter I refer to her as Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Ocean, and,  , the Mermaid Queen.

Regardless of her name, the cult of Java’s Queen of the Southern Sea may have originated from a much older prehistoric, Animistic, pre-Hindu-Buddhist belief; the certainty that a stern nature spirit lives in the treacherous Indian Ocean and, when she is disrespected, causes storms, tsunamis, and deaths. Most religions include powerful gods and goddesses who control the fickle power of nature, and local people well knew the dangers of being swept away by the Southern Ocean’s riptide or experiencing the loss of their flimsy fishing boats in a storm. They attributed such inhospitable acts to a sea-based deity who had to be respected and appeased. In time this watery nature spirit became anthropomorphized, mythologized, and integrated into existing beliefs and historical legends. Psychologists might argue that her existence is based on a form of deep-rooted thalassophobia, the fear of the ocean and the terrifying creatures that live in that realm.

* * *

The late Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX of Yogyakarta (1912-1988) was head of arguably the most prestigious and powerful modern Javanese royal family. He was a key figure in modern Indonesia’s history — he played a vital diplomatic role during the Japanese occupation in World War II and helped lead the fight for independence from the Dutch. In 1984 I was granted an audience with the sultan to discuss his relationship with Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.

In his souvenir-filled Jakarta office, he offered me sweet tea. I had one question I wanted to ask him. I tried, probably clumsily, to phrase it in a refined Javanese manner. How was it that a man as pragmatic and cosmopolitan as the sultan — he spoke several forms of Javanese as well as Bahasa Indonesia, English, and Dutch, and had been vice president of Indonesia and then held various ministerial posts — could pay homage every year to a mermaid queen?

Instead of answering directly, Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX told a story. “One night during the Dutch occupation of Yogyakarta, I, and others who were living in the kraton [palace], heard soldiers moving noisily about, as if wearing armor. It is said they were the soldiers of Ratu Kidul protecting the palace.” I pressed him for details. “As I said, there was no one in the kraton except our family and staff,” he repeated. “But we all heard the soldiers’ drums.”

He told me about several other of Kanjeng Ratu Kidul’s timely interventions that changed the course of Indonesia’s history. I kept my thoughts to myself; the sultan continued, perhaps sensing my unspoken skepticism. The sultan didn’t quote Shakespeare, but he might as well have. He gave me the Javanese equivalent of “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” He concluded: “When I was four years old, I was already living with a Dutch family, so my brain is in some ways a Western brain. But many things happen which can’t be explained in a logical way.”

I must have looked bewildered.

The sultan then told me not to get too caught up in a Cartesian view of the world. “You’re asking a Western question, expecting a Western answer,” he admonished. “You either accept it or you don’t.”

There is magic in the air throughout Java. Accept it; or not. One man’s myth-enrobed fantasy is another man’s hard-nosed reality. In the rainbow-hued world of shifting Javanese cosmology, reality can be as ethereal as a wisp; like a miracle, like love. It resists dissection and flies away from analysis. Believe it; or not.

Deeply held beliefs are not necessarily religious, but they often involve ritual. Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX was a cosmopolitan, well-educated man of the world. Every June 21, he trekked 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the dangerous surf on the slate-gray southern coast of Java. There he offered a full set of women’s clothing and his own nail and hair clippings to pay homage. Some people might suggest this is inconsistent with his Western-influenced education. I found it admirable that he was comfortable embracing with elegance two different cultures.

Years later I put a similar who/why/what question to Trias Indra Setiawan, director of the Museum Wayang Beber Skarjati, near Yogyakarta. “Kanjeng Ratu Kidul appeared to me as a spirit when I was a young boy,” he told me. “I called for my mother, but she didn’t see the queen.” I asked whether he could explain who or what she is. He replied: “You can’t anthropomorphize her. In fact, she has no gender. She appears human, but she’s not human. She is energy. Natural energy.”

* * *

Visitors to Java might like to spend a night at the Grand Inna Samudera Beach Hotel at Pelabuhan Ratu (literally “Queen’s Harbor”) on the south coast of Java, scene of a dramatic appearance of the Mermaid Queen.

The story, as told to me by KRT Hardjonagoro, the regent of the susuhunan’s palace in Solo:

“In 1966 Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX attended the opening of the previously-named Samudra Beach Hotel, on Java’s southern coast, which, of course, is Ratu Kidul’s home territory,” Hardjonagoro told me one evening as we nibbled some of the fried chicken for which Central Java is famous.

“In the morning, a few hours before the event, a local lurah [village headman] asked for an audience with the sultan. The old man told the sultan that he had had a dream the previous night in which a lady said she wanted her offerings. She was dressed in green.

“The sultan, of course, knew that the old man had seen Ratu Kidul. His Highness thanked the humbled old man but explained that he would not make an offering since he was attending the hotel opening in his civilian capacity as minister of defense, and he wanted to separate the affairs of the state from the mystical duties of the palace.” We ordered more chicken, and Hardjonagoro continued. “I was outside, near the pool, when the sultan said goodbye to the well-meaning old man. Shortly after, I heard the sound of a locomotive. The noise increased until it sounded like many locomotives were coming toward the beach-front terrace where we were enjoying the hotel’s hospitality. Then, suddenly, a 10-meter high tidal wave erupted from the sea, which had been calm. It washed away the hotel’s buffet table and soaked all the visitors. Some palm trees were knocked down. Someone ran to tell the sultan what had happened, and realizing what had occurred, the sultan put on his ceremonial clothes, said his prayers to Ratu Kidul, and made the appropriate offerings. The sea was calm once again.”

I was incredulous. Hardjonagoro showed me the photos. I said, “Come on” or something equally un-Javanese. Instead of arguing, he simply told me to go to the hotel and ask for room 308. Sometime later, I did. This, it turns out, is the room in which Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX made peace with the easily irritated Mermaid Queen. It is kept locked and reserved only for her; however, hotel staff will allow people access so they can make offerings to the Queen of the Southern Ocean.

* * *

The bedoyo ketawang was originally performed as a six-hour marathon, all the better to ease the dancers and audience into a trance-like state. Today, the occasional ringing of guests’ cell phones reminds us that we live in a less-patient world, and the dance has been shortened to 90 minutes. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is reminiscent of a picaresque, slightly down-at-the-heels 19th-century operetta. But it is also otherworldly,  , as the sultan’s gamelan orchestra pings and gongs a deliberate beat that accompanies a high-pitched singer. According to Nancy K. Florida of the University of Michigan, the verses first recount Senopati’s setting forth to battle (or to a romantic encounter), then evoke the depth of Kanjeng Ratu Kidul’s passion for Senopati and his royal successors, and end with her praise of the metaphysical potency of her royal lovers.

In the wrong frame of mind, the bedoyo ketawang can be tedious, but when I remembered my friend’s advice to “switch modes,” it became totally entrancing. Just as western baroque music has been shown to induce relaxation by reducing a person’s heart rate and decreasing blood pressure, I have the impression that the bedoyo ketawang music, played on sacred gongs and xylophones used only on this occasion, alters our consciousness. Let’s call it a Ratu Kidul-enhanced altered state.

The roadblock to transcendental experience was our location. We were seated near the front of what might be called the “commoner’s section.” We had poor sightlines and had to crane our necks to see past  statues of Greek goddesses and semi-clothed angels, huge Chinese vases, potted ferns, wrought-iron rococo balustrades, and a handful of photographers.

Nevertheless, we saw nine young women wearing sacred dark blue and white batik sarongs, colors which symbolize earth and ocean, darkness and light. They wore hair extensions pulled back in chignons entwined with golden filigree and jasmine garlands. They had been rehearsing for weeks and were forbidden to dance if they were menstruating.

* * *

During the reception that followed the dance, a man named Ki Radu Kusumodiningrat approached me and asked if I wanted to “speak with Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.” I wasn’t too sure what he meant but said yes anyway.

Ki Radu Kusumodiningrat, a relative of the susuhunan, is a traditional healer. His colleague, Raden Ayu Retno Handayati, who was going to channel the Mermaid Queen for me, was also a distant relative; she works as an acupuncturist and massage therapist. We stopped at a market to buy fruit, candles, and incense, and went back to our hotel for the séance. The doorman busted us for the pungent-smelling durian, and out of respect for the no-smoking signs in the room, we cancelled the incense, but the medium, Raden Ayu Retno Handayati, wasn’t perturbed. She put on a head scarf, intoned an Arabic blessing, and quickly entered a trance. Her voice shifted to the timbre of that of a young woman. She asked our names, and we suspended belief and imagined we were speaking with the Mermaid Queen herself.

We asked her about her love affair with Senopati and got romantic platitudes, sort of Javanese Hallmark card sentiments.

“Were you present just now at the bedoyo ketawang?” I asked.

Raden Ayu Retno Handayati, perhaps channeling Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, smiled and answered enigmatically: “I’m always present for the sultan.”

We saw she was getting tired, but just before the seance ended, Kanjeng Ratu Kidul offered me personal support and invited me on a date, Javanese Mermaid-Queen-style. “Just go to Parangkusumo [a well-known beach on the southern coast of Java], call your name, stamp your foot three times, and I will be there for you.”

Raden Ayu Retno Handayati appeared to have gone into a trance. Did she really channel the spirit of the Mermaid Queen? And what kind of reception would I get if I actually went to the beach and sought out Kanjeng Ratu Kidul? Stories are rife about men who wear green (Kanjeng Ratu Kidul’s favorite color) while swimming in the Southern Ocean and are never seen again. Some logical people say such disappearances are simply victims of the treacherous riptides. However, other people know better and insist that these unfortunate men were abducted to serve the queen in her watery castle.

* * *

I am intrigued by the possibility that Kanjeng Ratu Kidul was present at the dance and put the question to one of the bedoyo ketawang dancers.  Wuri, a soft-spoken English teacher at a local elementary school in Solo, didn’t find the question strange. “Yes, I had a feeling Ratu Kidul was there. One time I made a mistake in my movement, and I felt her correcting me.”

Another dancer, 21-year-old Putri, acknowledged that toward the end of the performance she felt a current of air, as if Kanjeng Ratu Kidul was “going to the sultan.”

The morning after the bedoyo ketawang, we ran into one of the susuhunan’s close relatives, who was staying at the same hotel as us. Over croissants we asked the elegantly dressed woman about the previous day’s performance and whether she thought that Kanjeng Ratu Kidul had appeared.

“Absolutely,” she said.  Her eyes started to get misty and a dreamy look, wonderful to see in a woman of a certain age, came over her face. “There was a rush of cool air. That was the queen, going to the king.”

Again, I tried to ask a Cartesian question in a polite way. What did she make of all this?

In a wistful voice, perhaps more suited to a lovestruck school girl, she answered, “It’s a love affair for the ages.”

* * *

The love affair might face a breaking point.

In 2015 Sultan Hamengkubuwono X of Yogyakarta, who has no sons, named the eldest of his five daughters crown princess and declared that she would succeed him. He subsequently issued a sabda raja (sultan’s proclamation) elevating her title to GKR Mangkubumi Hamemayu Hayuning Bawono Langgeng, which loosely means Guardian of the Eternal Beauty, Happiness and Prosperity of the World. In its simpler form, Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Mangkubumi, the title means The One Who Holds the Earth. Both names are historically given to the sultan’s heir. None of the sultan’s 11 brothers and half-brothers attended the proclamation ceremony.

The sultan also made the title of the monarch gender-neutral by eliminating the Arabic honorific Khalifah, meaning God’s Steward, an Islamic title that can only bestowed upon men.

These dramatic declarations caused an uproar not only in the kraton but among the 3.8 million people of the Special Region of Yogyakarta.

Many of the people I spoke with, both within the kraton and among the general populace, feel that the title of sultan (and the accompanying appointed position as governor of Yogyakarta) must be held by a man.

The sultan’s close male relatives went on a pilgrimage to the royal cemetery in Imogiri in an effort, according to one of the sultan’s half-brothers, “to invoke the family’s god and ancestors to change the sultan’s mind.”

A male cousin of the sultan, Kanjeng Raden Tumenggung Jatiningrat, added: “A female sultan is an impossibility. One symbol of this palace is a rooster — so if we have a queen, should we change it to a hen? When the sultan has left this world, we in the family have an agreement with the people that we will drive his wife and his daughters out of the palace. They will be evicted, as they will no longer be members of our family.”

Aburrada Fourak, a senior imam of the prominent Gedhe Kauman Mosque, argues that “if the next ruler of the palace was a woman, she could not lead Friday prayers, a responsibility that the sultan has fulfilled throughout his family’s reign.”

One figure who is close to the royal families of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, was adamant, saying, “This will mark the end of both the dynasties in both Solo and Yogyakarta.” The man, who has an important position in organizing ceremonial occasions, asked that he not be named. “Both current sultans have disrespected Ratu Kidul by not performing the required ceremonies or have taken her name in vain.”

The sultan replied to his critics: “I don’t’ mind getting scolded or questioned by my brothers. I would only be afraid of getting scolded by  .” He added that his decision was based on  s divine revelation, sent through his ancestors, that his successor must have a strong relationship with nature, be someone others would listen to, and must understand his or her true identity and origin.

Some younger people in Yogyakarta agree with a modernization of the sultanate and approve of the sultan’s choice. “This is the up-to-date future of Yogyakarta. A queen will bring new prosperity,” Dewi, an economics student at Yogyakarta’s Gajah Mada University told me.

But no one, it seems, has asked the sultan’s consort, Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.

Historically, the world over, all sultans, kings, rajahs, emperors, grand dukes, tsars, and emirs enhance their power through a connection with a spiritual entity. After all, what better way for a wannabe royal to stake a lineage than to claim status as the Daughter of the God of Thunder or Son of the God of Wealth. Like all great kings, the sultans of central Java benefit from a spiritual connection with the Mermaid Queen. Sacred geometry enhances that coexistence. It is said that a secret and invisible underwater/underground tunnel, used exclusively by the Mermaid Queen and the sultan of Yogyakarta, follows a straight line between Kanjeng Ratu Kidul’s nautical palace in the Southern Ocean off Parangkusumo Beach, the sultan’s kraton in Yogyakarta city, and the summit of the often-erupting sacred Mount Merapi to the north. Some suggest this axis is the navel of the world.

This spiritual partnership has existed for centuries. It has never been tested (or imagined) that the sultan would be a sultana. A woman.

So, the big, unanswered question is how will these two strong women relate? On the one side you have Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Mangkubumi, educated in the United States, Singapore, and Australia; a leading figure in Yogyakarta’s commercial world; and immersed in kraton culture and politics. On the other side you have Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, a powerful, no-nonsense female figure who gives the sultan power and legitimacy. Will these two figures work it out like sisters and help each other? Or will Kanjeng Ratu Kidul abandon her loyalty to the throne, leaving the sultanate in limbo? Watch this space.

* * *

Over the years I continued to seek Ratu Kidul.

• In 1973, when I was at the beginning of a steep learning curve about Javan culture, a friend wanted to introduce me to a remarkable man who lived on a back street within the grounds of the kraton of Surakarta. It was almost midnight, and I said, “surely, he’s sleeping; we can’t disturb him.” My friend, a relative of an earlier susuhunan, confidently answered, “Pak Hardjanta doesn’t sleep.” We took a pedaled becak to his simple home (a late-night ride in a trishaw, smoking a kretek clove cigarette while slowly exploring the history-enrobed perimeter of the kraton is, for me, a highlight of any trip I make to Central Java). And W. Hardjanta Pradjapangarsa was awake and chain-smoking, as if he was expecting us. I asked the usual boring fact-searching questions and Pak Hardjanta explained he had attended a Dutch Catholic school and, in his words, ”became a one hundred percent materialist, rejecting all that was illogical.” But he became disillusioned by the “weakness of character and knowledge” of his Indonesian revolutionary idols and began a journey of isolated meditation and study, resulting in his own version of a Road to Damascus — a conversion from a devout logical Indonesian Cartesian to a sage whose worldview happily embraced spirits, abstract events outside objective experience, and cosmic mysteries that cannot be dissected by formal science. His version of the spiritual world was based on the teachings of the “prophets and avatars of Indonesia.” Imbued with what his followers described as wahyu, a “divine radiance,” he taught metaphysics, Javan style, to an international group of truth-seekers. This opinionated, hunchbacked, always-squatting, elfin-man, who let his cigarette ashes drop on a fire-hazard pile of papers and books, happily explained that he was a seer who could communicate with the Mermaid Queen. He practiced a severe form of kundalini yoga, and while exposing his frail body to the mid-day sun, he learned when, to the day, the Mermaid Queen would have a fit of fury and cause Gunung Merapi volcano to erupt.  I thought: Who is this voluble man with such a curious gift? What is the power of kundalini? How does one release the yogic dragon? And who is this Mermaid Queen, and why is she so angry?
• I slowly descended a series of shaky wooden ladders and gingerly followed a narrow, slippery, and vertiginous path down steep cliffs to reach Goa Langse, where an important Ratu Kidul shrine sits in a mysterious cave near the pounding surf. Some people say this is where Panambahan Senopati first met Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.

 

Photos: Paul Spencer Sochaczewski

Visiting Goa Langse on Java’s dangerous southern coast involves getting permission from the guardian of the shrine, descending steep and slippery ladders, and walking along the rock surf-battered shore to enter a large cave, where a statue of Kanjeng Ratu Kidul awaits the diligent pilgrim.

• I spoke with dozens of people, ranging from academics to motorcycle taxi drivers, about their experiences and whether they believed in the Mermaid Queen. Although there were not quite as many personal encounters as I found when investigating the female vampire ghosts of Pontianak, in Indonesian Borneo, they were frequent enough and of sufficient detail (elegant Javanese green sarong, long hair, aroma of rose, beautiful) to alleviate any questions about whether the Mermaid Queen retains power over the populace. And for people who hadn’t had a one-on-one encounter? The consensus about whether she exists was “probably, maybe, who knows, but I think so…”
• As instructed by Raden Ayu Retno Handayati, the medium who had channeled Ratu Kidul after the bedoyo ketawang in Solo, I went to Parangkusumo Beach one evening. The night was overcast and windy, with breakers starting a  from the shoreline — broken, smudgy, fast-breaking swells, the John Cage of wave action. I stomped my foot three times. I tried to sit silently and think of her, but I’m a lousy meditator even at the best of times. The rain came. I didn’t expect a golden vison of a beautiful Javanese nymph to appear, and she didn’t. I retreated to the sanctuary of my car for the drive back to Yogya.

* * *

Years later, in summer 2023, I got a much better opportunity to get close to Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.

My friend Risang Yuwono, a leading photographer and promoter of a Javanese village dance troupe, arranged an interview with KRT Budi Adipuro. KRT Budi, a large man with an engaging smile, welcomed us into his home in a village outside Yogya. He proudly showed us the devices he makes (and sells to dealers in Europe and America) that negate the effects of waves emitted by computers, cell phones, power lines, and wi-fi routers. But that’s his second job. His main occupation is juru kunci, “key keeper” or intermediary between Ratu Kidul and the Susuhunan of Surakarta. In that position, he’s the man responsible for the susuhunan’s ceremonial engagements with Ratu Kidul.

I explained my decades-long interest in Kanjeng Ratu Kidul. Risang asked if we could hold a ceremony and give her offerings. KRT Budi got out his pendulum to check my spiritual health and found that four of my seven chakras (crown, heart, throat, kundalini) were open. He no doubt was also sizing me up to see if I was worthy of such an honor. We talked about Javanese philosophy, which is ever interesting and more complex each time I attempt to delve into that world. “Meet me tomorrow night after evening prayers at Parangkusumo.” He gave Risang a shopping list of the offerings that would be required. And pointing at me, said, “don’t wear green.”

We met KRT Budi (KRT is an abbreviation of Kangjeng Raden Tumenggung, a noble title bestowed by a sultan, roughly similar to a knighthood) the following evening at a tea stall on the black sand beach. His first words of greeting were both ominous and promising. “I was meditating and Ratu Kidul came to me,” he said. “She said she was expecting you.”

I sensed he was referring to ragasukma, a Javanese form of astral projection practiced by spiritually developed psychics. I asked for an explanation.

“The queen says she knows you from before. You were a sea warrior. She was a mermaid when you met. ‘Please,’ the queen says. ‘You are welcome.’”

I strip down to my (blue) swimming trunks. KRT Budi, Risang, and Risang’s wife, Aurea, help me dress in traditional formal Javanese gear — a traditional Javanese outfit called baju surjan consisting of a brimless rounded cap (blangkon), a dark blue collarless woven jacket (beskap), and a long piece of brown and white cotton wraparound batik (jarik) in a parang pattern, indicating strength and strong will, which I later had sewn into a sarong. The lady who owned the tea stall watched; I couldn’t tell if she was amused or impressed.

We gathered our offerings. I carried the most honored gift — a slightly rounded basket filled with  white jasmine and white rose petals. KRT Budi carried a basket containing a roast chicken, bananas, and coconut that had been prepared by Aurea. Aurea had a cone of nasi kuning (yellow rice) that she had cooked.

“Think of something you want to ask her. And remember, the sea is dangerous. When a wave comes stand to the side, otherwise you’ll be knocked down and you might be carried away.”

We walked to the shore and sat on the sand. KRT Budi was aware that I don’t sit comfortably in the lotus position so he carried a rattan stool for me. “No plastic!” he said, referring to Ratu Kidul’s ecological sensibility. KRT Budi drew a large circle in the sand, not unlike the witches’ circle featured in countless horror movies. By now a small group of onlookers had approached, not intrusive, but politely curious — a combination of guys who just hung around the tea stalls and pilgrims of various degrees of commitment. KRT Budi gave his prayers, some spoken, some chanted, some silent. We stuck incense sticks in the sand. He slapped the sand three times and motioned us to head into the sea.

“Wait for my signal. Wait for a big wave.”

Standing perpendicular to the waves we waited. I lost count, maybe ten small waves had broken around our waists. “Next wave,” KRT Budi said.

The powerful wave crashed into us, around chest height. I grabbed Aurea, who was in danger of falling. As the wave began to recede, we felt the strong undertow and tried to remain upright. “Now,” Budi said, and we released our offerings to be carried out to sea.

And did a miracle occur? You be the judge. It was the night of a  , when tides are at their highest and the forces of the ocean are most active. The evening had been cloudy. When we released the baskets, some of the clouds parted and, for a moment, the moon shone like a searchlight over the turbulent sea.

We retreated to the beach, lit some more incense, said some more prayers, and started back to the tea stall for a cold-water bath and to change into dry clothes. A man who had been watching the event shyly approached me, holding one of the flowers I had offered to Ratu Kidul that had drifted back to the beach. “Do you mind if I keep this?” he asked.

“Of course. With the queen’s blessings.”

 

 

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