Nature prevails:: A river runs through the grounds of the ARMA resort at the bottom of the hill.JP/Ron Jenkins

There are many fascinating museums in Bali, but there is only one that you can live in.

The Agung Rai Museum of Arts (ARMA) and the ARMA Resorts in Ubud share the same lush tropical location, and though there are no beds in the galleries, the bungalows adjoining the Museum can give guests the illusion that that they are living inside a Balinese painting.

You can wake up and see lotus blossoms shimmering with dew outside your window, and be reminded of a painting that depicts the mystical properties of the lotus by inscribing its petals with sacred characters from the Balinese alphabet corresponding to the directions of the cosmos and the gods that dwell there.

The painting in the ARMA collection is by Ketut Liyer, the healer made famous by the Hollywood film Eat, Pray, Love, and it is a far more profound expression of Bali’s spiritual identity than the movie. Liyer surrounds the lotus with images of vegetation, meditation, and sacred symbols that suggest an uninterrupted flow between the realms of nature, humanity, and the divine. It is the same flow that defines the ARMA landscape as designed by its founder Agung Rai.

The buildings at ARMA are integrated into the landscape rather than imposed on it. A river flows through the grounds, and winding paths follow the contours of its slopes. Small shrines are located throughout the complex and they are regularly adorned with offerings of flowers and incense that give a palpable reality to the invisible world of spirits that share the space with its human guests.

Echoing the museum’s paintings that depict rituals connecting the Balinese to their gods, the ARMA staff honors the gods with offerings that maintain the spiritual balance of the compound. Sometimes the guests see them wafting incense smoke towards the heavens with gently undulating movements of their wrists. At other times guests might be surprised to see an offering of rice and palm leaves that has been placed on their porch at dawn, a sign that the gods have been asked to protect them.

The large yellow leaves that fall onto the ground outside the bungalows have the same majestically mountainous shape as the kayunan puppets that opens the Wayang Kulit Shadow puppet plays staged at the village temples just outside the ARMA grounds. One of these temples is reached by a short path through a rice field that also leads to a mysterious Chinese cemetery, whose ornate Buddhist monuments pay tribute to the diversity of cultural expressions that enrich the primarily Hindu island.

Next to the cemetery is a Hindu temple of the dead, known in Bali as a Pura Dalem. If guests happen to be at ARMA at a time that coincides with the temple’s anniversary they can observe the festivities which last from three to 10 days. In the daytime women bring elaborate pyramids of fruit, flowers, and rice cakes as enticements that invite the gods to take residence in the temple for the duration of the ceremony. In the evenings the gods are welcomed with performances of masked dances, operatic dramas, and shadow puppets. The most dramatic of these presentations is called Calonarang, an event that is part theater and part ritual exorcism. At the same time that it tells the story of a witch who devastates the kingdom with a demonic plague, the Calonarang performance is accompanied by rituals that are meant to spiritually cleanse the village in which it is staged. The performance often climaxes with a spectacular battle between the widow witch Calonarang and the mythical lion-like creature Barong, who revives the villagers after they are put into a trance by the witch.

But even if guests are not lucky enough to happen onto a live performance of Calonarang during their stay at ARMA, they can see the paintings that depict the fanged widow witch in all her flaming-tongued glory. And they can take comfort in the small ritual acts and offerings that are made each day by the staff to placate evil spirits like Calonarang and keep the museum grounds safe from the plagues of the invisible world. Perhaps a tiny red flower is placed behind the ear of stone-sculpted pig that guards a bungalow stairway. Or a moss-covered statue of a demon is clothed in a bright ceremonial cloth.

These are all reminders that the invisible world of demons, gods, and spirits depicted in Balinese art is alive and teeming all around you when you leave the museum to walk to your room.

The frogs found cavorting in some of the museum’s paintings can be heard croaking in syncopated rhythms outside at night.

Watching the fish scramble in the ponds at feeding time recalls a painting where fish stand on their tails with open mouths at the feet of Saraswati the goddess of knowledge, literature, and the arts, who feeds them wisdom as she floats on a swan in their midst.

Another painting by Wayan Budi depicts Saraswati on land, surrounded by throngs of people engaged in the activities of Balinese daily life: Men farming with water buffalo, processions of women carrying offerings on their heads, boys delivering baskets on bicycles, and of course, tourists poking the long lenses of their cameras into all corners of the island. It is a swirling, bustling, vibrant portrait of Bali, not unlike what a guest experiences at ARMA.

There are corners of tranquility, but at the same time there is also the option of watching rice farmers work in the fields that surround ARMA, or following the path of a gaggle of ducks as they pass by the riverbank, or watching one of the dance performances that take place regularly on the museum’s outdoor stage, or take a class in a traditional Balinese handicraft, or just enjoy taking pictures of it all like the tourists in Budi’s painting.

There is no escaping the fact that tourists are now a permanent element in the Balinese landscape.

Artists like Budi have ingeniously incorporated them into the fabric of his otherwise traditional paintings so that they are part of the composition, making their inimitable mark on the pattern being depicted without destroying its inherent beauty and vivacious energy.

Agung Rai has developed a similar strategy for integrating tourists into the Balinese landscape by giving them the opportunity to blend into a setting that respects the balance between what is natural, what is human, and what is divine.

In doing so he takes on the role of yet another character depicted on his museum’s walls. In a painting that shows the enraged Goddess Uma attempting to burn a sacred lontar palm-leaf manuscript, Ganesh, her son pulls the lontar out of the fire to preserve the wisdom it contains.

While some resort builders have created monstrosities that might be compared to obliterating Bali’s traditions in Uma’s destructive blaze, Agung Rai has followed the example of Ganesh, choosing to save a portion of his culture’s tradition from the flames of over-development by building a resort that maintains Bali’s essential bond between humans, their gods, and their environment.

Ron Jenkins, a former Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, is a professor of Theater at Wesleyan University currently collaborating with the department of Culture and the Internet Archive Foundation on the digitalization of Balinese Lontar Manuscripts.

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