Fatalism and Mysticism 3Don't underestimate the spirits, I had to get a new car after everyone refused to use it. Was involved in an accident and thereafter was haunted .. apparently.So commented
Oigal following the post below. I'm not sure if his accident was in the new or old car, but I won't deny that the mind can lead us down some interesting paths.
For example, was it significant that I should write about 'white magic' on
Friday 13th? I think not, but I do know some folk who would have touched wood or a four-leaved clover, crossed their fingers or performed another ritual to ward off the evil eye on such a supposedly inauspicious day.
Jakartass Towers is predominantly a Batak household but 'Er Indoors is my source of information, with the help of some careful googling, for much of my new-found knowledge about the wherefores (if not the whys) of Javanese mysticism.
Firstly, there is the all-important
Javanese calendar which is combined with the western calendar
for modern life, all types of commerce, intra-national and international communications and the Islamic Hijriah calendar, whose 12 months of 29 or 30 days are based on a lunar cycle and used to mark days of religious importance for Javanese and other Muslims in this overwhelmingly Islamic nation.
There are various cycles in the Javanese calendar, starting with Pasaran.
This comes from a time when most of the Javanese population lived in tightly knit village clusters which converged at a market center (pasar) where the cluster's inhabitants gathered once every five days to buy and sell. Itinerant merchants linked groups of five village clusters together into marketing networks, moving to a different market on each day of the five-day cycle Remnants of a rotating market system can be found throughout Indonesia, including Jakarta with its districts Pasar Senen, Pasar Rebo, Pasar Jumat and Pasar Minggu.
The Pasaran calendar i
s combined with the 7-day Western/Arabic week to form the single most widespread divinatory tool in Javanese culture, as well as the most common method of determining the proper time for the holding of important rituals: the Wetonan cycle.
This produces a 35 day cycle which is repeated ad infinitum although successive groups of thirty-five days are neither assigned names nor grouped into a Javanese "year". If you were born, say, on Kemis Wagé (Javanese Thursday + Pasaran day 4),
then every thirty-five days the wheels of the 5- and 7-day weeks click together again on Kemis Wagé and it is your Javanese "birthday" (your weton).
This cycle figures prominently in a great number of traditional divinitory systems, from predicting human character, fate, and vocational talents, to determining compatible partners in marriage, gambling strategies, and auspicious days for practically any activity you can think of. It also figures in the timing of many ritual meals (slametan). Even spirits and devils are said to have their favorite days for carousing, the eve of Jumat Kliwon (Javanese Friday + Pasaran day 5)
being the most popular!
So Friday 13th isn't auspicious here, but Friday Kliwon is. The site I've quoted from goes on to give details of seasons and years, but what may be of greater interest to western readers could be that it was last updated two years ago on Friday February 13.
Shall we put that down to serendipity or happenstance? Or maybe it's
a coincidence which (as in the literal meaning, "to coincide") is one of the central pillars of Javanese aesthetics. Javanese gamelan music, wherein individual instrumental melodies diverge from each other and then converge again upon important structural tones, is an obvious example.
Similarly in the wetonan calendar cycle, the periodic coincidence of two independent time-keeping systems has a significance whose source is far deeper within the spiritual fabric of the culture than mere surface intellectualization.
Incidentally/coincidentally ~ take your pick, February 13th is my birthday. According to
this calculator, my weton is
Rebo Legi (Javanese Wednesday+ Pasaran day 1). However, this year February 13th falls on a Monday, which is also a
Legi, but not actually my Javanese birthday.
I've yet to understand how the above relates to Jakartass. Perhaps I should stick to the little I do know which is that I'm an
Aquarian and a
Fire Dog.
Fire Dogs are popular, charismatic people, always surrounded by a group of admirers. Not only admired for their vibrant personalities, these Dogs also possess a sexual attractiveness that makes them irresistible.
Need I say more?
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