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Ecofeminist Spirituality of Natural Disaster in Indonesian Written Folktales: an Analysis of Symbols

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Ecofeminist Spirituality of Natural Disaster in Indonesian Written Folktales: an Analysis of Symbols Ecofeminist Spirituality of Natural Disaster in Indonesian Written Folktales: An Analysis of Symbols Purwanti Kusumaningtyas (Fakultas Bahasa dan Sastra UKSW) [email protected] Abstract: Indonesia yang terletak di wilayah pertemuan lempeng bumi sudah sepantasnya membuat orang Indonesia terbiasa dengan bencana alam seperti gempa bumi dan letusan gunung api. Keyakinan-keyakinan tradisional yang bagi orang modern mungkin merupakan takhayul mengajarkan kepada kita etika partnership yang diyakini oleh pandangan ekologi spiritual dan ekofeminisme. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk membahas kemungkinan-kemungkinan makna- makna simbolis atas sikap partnership spiritual terhadap bencana alam yang ada dalam cerita rakyat Indonesia, melalui analisa simbol. Telaah ini menunjukkan bahwa cerita rakyat Indonesia yang sudah tertulis mengandung banyak pesan perlindungan ekologis yang erat berkaitan dengan makna simbolik perempuan sebagai representasi spiritualitas ekofeminis. Dengan demikian cerita rakyat merupakan media yang berpotensi besar sebagai sarana menggeser pola pikir patriarkhis menjadi cara pandang yang lebih adil gender kepada generasi muda. Key words: Spiritualitas Ekofeminis, Bencana Alam, Cerita Rakyat, Analisa Simbol A. Introduction People responded differently to disasters spiritually and religiously. The first response is to put the Divine as the problem solver and / or an escape to what human did wrongly to the environment. For example, in Indonesian case of forest fire recently (June 2013), The Mayor of Dumai, Sumatra, invited all people to pray for the rainfall after all efforts to extinguish the fire and reduce the thick smoke-haze did not help much. They prayed after what they did to the land: slash and burn it to prepare land for oil palm and rubber plantation, especially those in South Sumatra (http://www.antaranews.com/berita/381836/dumai-gelar-sholat-minta-hujan- untuk-atasi-asap). Forest fire and smoke-haze have happened repeatedly in the area since 1997 and Byron and Shepherd (1998) reported that it was due to “the deficiencies in both forest management systems and the policies and regulations that are supposed to control the clearance of forest land for agriculture.” A different response comes from people like those in the mountainside of Mount Merapi whenever it erupts. They generally personify it as “mbah Petruk” (literally means Grandfather Petruk, the name of one of the four servants of Pandawa of Mahabharata epic) and very often people came up with pictures of old man contemplating as they tried to portray the power of this volcanic mountain. Whenever it erupts, which may happen periodically every five years, the folks in the mountainside will consider that “Mbah Petruk is having his feast” or “the mountain is cleaning itself.” Such beliefs are difficult for people outside the region to accept as the folks never consider the eruption as disaster. Instead, they think that it has to happen in order that the mountain gives more blessings to them, for their farming and their business, in short, their welfare and well-being (Pak Hardi from Cangkringan, Sleman, Yogyakarta, personal conversations in, November 2011; Pak Sitras Anjilin from Padepokan Tjipta Boedaja, Tutup Ngisor, Dukun, Magelang, personal conversation, July 2011). A number of folks in Merapi mountainside even believes that the nature speaks to them only if they are willing to listen to the nature as the nature are the representation of the Divine, the source of Life. Only if people are willing to listen to the nature’s “whisper,” then they will be able to understand the nature’s moves. They faithfully hold the philosophy “wong sing gedhe gentur tapane, yo kuwi sing arep ngerti akibate” (whoever is diligently and faithfully contemplate and meditate, s/he will understand what the consequence is). It gives them courage to befriend with nature, no matter how hard it is.1 Those two cases reflect the conclusion of what human beings fundamentally seek for in their lives: “why is anything at all happening? Why am I here?” as what Wilber (1995) postulates as “behind the happen stance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or intelligence.” To be more specific, G. Schlee (as quoted by Low and Tremayne (2001) declares that “rituals, practices, beliefs and spiritual values are often adaptive responses (not consciously) to the ecological environment” in order to nurture and protect their relationship with their environment (p.1). The anthropocentric explanation of the interconnectivity of human and their environment, posing nature as secondary to human beings, leads to the ideas of the dichotomous thoughts of the transcendent/immanent–men/women–culture/nature, which leads to domination. On the other hand, the ecocentric one which breaks the wall of the dichotomy is moving with the ethic of partnership with nature (Merchant, 1992, p.188). Ecofeminist perspective owes the latter ethic to bring fairer gender relation, which so far is believed as being occupied with the ethic of domination due to the homocentric perspective. Disasters are one of the components of the interlinked web of nature in which human beings have to face and deal with, especially those who live in Indonesia, which is located in the rings of fire and the Earth’s diving and sliding plates. Indonesian myths and legends that tell about such calamities are worth looking closer look to find out how they share the ethic of partnership through the acknowledgment of complex cosmic interconnectivity between human beings and the Earth with all its components (Merchant, 1992, p.86). Studies about any traditions related with spirituality have discussed how the European and Native American folks placed femininity as the Female Divine in many stories. Spiritual ecology has even owed much from the feminine deity of the Greek, Roman, and German goddesses and references to the scriptures of the mainstream religions (Merchant, 1992, pp.114 – 117). Interpretive information about what folktales may tell their audience can provide the audience with ideas of how to refresh the ideas of spirituality that so far have been shifted into simply rituals and traditions, ignoring the underlying values, even negating them in Indonesian society’s daily practices particularly. As a means of transferring knowledge and more importantly values and principles, folktales play central role to shape the people’s mindset (Brunvard, 1968; Lankford, 2008; 1 Reflective discussion with a number of local leaders and farmers of Cangkringan and Candibinangun, Pakem, Sleman, in Padepokan Lawang Sewu (BapakSuparman’s house), Dusun Kalireso, Candibinangun, Pakem, June 21- 22, 2011. Nachbar&Lause, 1992). And thus, they are greatly potential means of shifting the patriarchal mindset into gender-fair perspective. This paper attempts to interpret the spiritual meaning of the disasters off our tales of calamities, which the folklorists categorized into stories number A1000 to A1099 (Danandjaja, 1992, p.54), from different folks in Indonesia. Employing spiritual ecology and ecofeminist perspective that promote ethic of partnership (Merchant, 1992, pp.110-129, 188), this paper will discuss how the stories in Indonesia identify the nature as the significant part of relation in the web of life to humbly contribute to the change of mindset (if the story is told to younger generation). B. Male Deity, Feminine Deity and Ecofeminist Spirituality The term spirituality here is contrasted against “a long-established, perhaps fixed and inflexible, major world religion” and used in revisionist sense for the word “religion,” which for spiritual ecologist is connoted with male domination, in which male god is always the center of the religious worship that leads to the legitimate male centered authority and traditions (Aune, 2011; Merchant, 1992). According to Flanagan and Jupp (as referred by Aune, 2011), it is considered as “more accommodating, signifying the search for transcendence outside traditional religious institutions” for many people in today’s post-industrial countries like the US and Europe (p. 32). In response to the needs of today’s life which desires to get free from the existing “ideals and values of the early scientific era, which viewed the individual as a sort of efficient machine,” people’s spontaneous movement with the interest in the “reality of spirit and its healing effects on life, health, community and well-being” becomes “spiritual revolution” that “found at the heart of the new sciences,” where the “spiritual visions of reality” renews their dignity through the recent discoveries in physics, biology, psychology, and ecology (Tacey, 2005, p.1). Spiritual ecology shares some similar beliefs as deep ecology, in which the relation of human and environment concerns the activists deeply, so their agenda is to transform consciousness, particularly religious and spiritual one. The spiritual ecologists attempt to alter the interconnectivity of human and nature from one that is based on the ethic of domination with one that is ethic of partnership based. Spiritual ecology as a perspective regards religious ideas as being able to generate ecocentric-ethic-based “moods and motivations” that lead people to “new modes of behavior” (Merchant, 1992, pp. 111 – 112). This “earth-based spirituality movement” encourages the view of the “fusion of human and nature” as well as the equality of female-male instead of the dichotomy of the two, which is derived from the ancient nature religions with their “hybrid male-female and human-animal”
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