Hi everyone, I'd like to share how we prepared a traditional birthday in our Balinese culture.
Besides celebrating the "normal" birthday every year (365 days), the Balinese also celebrates the Balinese birthday. Every six months (210 days) based on the Balinese lunar calendar, we celebrate our traditional birthday.
A few weeks ago, I had my Balinese birthday and this time it was my daughter's. It's not a birthday where we invited people to come. It just a simple religious celebration.
My wife had made some offerings from coconut leaves and flowers a few days earlier just for this occasion. She cut the coconut leaves and attached them together with bamboo sticks to make various shapes of the offerings. Next, she put colorful flowers on each of those shapes.
It is not an easy task to craft those offerings. Most Balinese women could make the offerings fast since they have done it from their childhood.
The offering was then presented to God and ancestors as part of the blessing for the birthday. There was no party, there was only praying together as a family in Balinese Hindu way.
In the end, my wife took the holy water from the shrine as a symbol of blessing from God. Then she sprinkled to my daughter, son, and me.
And that's the whole ritual. Thanks for reading.