Healing Hands

Visitors on the trail of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love in Bali find themselves seeking answers at the porch of Ketut Liyer. Observing this teacher, artist and healer with his guests, Kadek Krishna Adidharma learns how healing can begin when fears of the future are laid to rest.

Ketut Liyer considers healing, first and foremost, his lifelong calling. Death came knocking at his door when he tried to deny the ancestral gift passed down to him. He was due for a life-saving amputation for burns to his arms when his late grandfather instructed him in a dream to concoct a traditional remedy based on saffron and sandalwood.

It did the trick.

“In my family we have lontar usadha [medicinal knowledge inscribed on palmyra leaves] that we pass on from generation to generation,” explains Liyer. “My grandfather always insisted that one day I should become a healer.”

After recovering from his burns, he began to study more about the family’s traditional herbal and spiritual healing. Previously, he had trained to be a teacher and artist, but he is now proud to be the ninth-generation healer in his family. Liyer understands that times are changing and he has not insisted his children study his art. They have all enjoyed a modern education instead.

Traditionally, the gift has been passed down through the male line, but Liyer’s pride and joy is his granddaughter. She has been the one to show an aptitude and a desire to study medicine.

“I hope my granddaughter will one day follow in my footsteps,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “She is already a midwife you know.”

Liyer has made his practice a combination of all three of his callings: like any teacher he is liberal in dispensing advice, albeit with humility, and he creates “magic drawings” to inspire people to overcome the fears that block their healing. Visitors come from various corners of Bali as well as the U.S., Japan and Australia for the services of this medicine man, healer, palm reader, astrologer, painter and woodcarver. He also teaches meditation.

Most of his recent visitors, especially since Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about him in her account of her journey to Bali, have come to him to have their fortunes read. Ask any local in Ubud and invariably you will be lead to him. Or simply make your way to the hamlet of Pangosekan in the village of Mas and you are sure to find him.

Arriving for this interview, I find a gentleman with an effervescent one-toothed smile sitting on his porch reading the future challenges and compatibility of a Japanese couple. An interpreter gesticulates and alternates between Balinese, Indonesian and Japanese in aid of their communication. Occasionally, Liyer makes a shortcut into Japanese – the few phrases he knows are delivered impeccably.

Based on their Gregorian date of birth, Ketut uses charts to find their Balinese birthdays and issues an English translation of the intrinsic virtues and failings of their character. These age-old pieces of wisdom encapsulate life in two paragraphs that dish out praise and warnings. Then comes the more complex calculation of compatibility and what can be done to improve harmony.

Individually, Liyer does a comprehensive reading of fortunes, fates and work prospects. He does not merely read the palm of the hand, but also the tread of the feet, lie of legs, fall of collarbone and lines of the face. An intuitive sense and knowledge of aksara holy letters that manifest in different body parts aids his reading.

Written on the body of his female guest is the holy letter Om in the fall of the collarbone, signifying a pious nature. The aksara La upon her forehead suggests that she takes her work too seriously to the point of becoming over tired. Liyer counters the admonition by praising the grace of the goddess Saraswati in the profile of her shoulders and back.

As he calmly touches different parts of the body, his visitor relaxes and opens up to Liyer’s blessings. He dispenses advice to live a balanced life.

After her reading, the Japanese woman asks, “Can you please tell me of the futures of my two children?”

“I can read palms, I can’t read the futures of people who are not here,” Liyer responds, “but I will try to meditate. Hopefully I will be given the gift of sight.”

After meditating, Liyer opens his eyes and says: “Their future is simple. Maybe they are naughty and ask a lot of you while they are young, but the general sense that I feel is that they will be good people.”

Our host believes simplicity is a great virtue, especially later in life. He may not read the future in any detail, but he reassures his visitors of the qualities they already possess that can help them live a long, peaceful life. Instead of reading too much into it, he chooses to bless their future and calm their anxieties. In this way, he acts as a healer of fates.

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