Let’s Celebrate Galungan with Penjor!
For Balinese, weeks before Galungan is the time to showcase their art talents! Here our #SedasaFamily works together to create a beautiful penjor.
Penjor are tall tapered poles made from bamboo and placed outside Balinese Hindu homes/buildings during certain religious ceremony. While nowadays people can buy an instant penjor starting from IDR 300,000, we decided to make it from scratch.
To make our penjor, we started by preparing the long cylinder of Styrofoam, with stacks of dried palm leaves (Borassus flabellifer) then created a meticulous artwork from there.
We believe penjor as a symbol of the dominance of good (dharma) over evil (adharma) as well as to offer thanks to the gods. The whole body of penjor represents the biggest mountain in Bali, Mt. Agung.
While making penjor, we have to be careful as the leaves could hurt our hands, and sometimes leave an itchy feeling due to the chemicals that soften the leaves. But nevertheless it is still a joyous moment we enjoy together to celebrate Galungan.