Documentary Film Maker and IL Muse, Maria Mutiara, devotes much of her time to honouring our island home of Bali. Her work is constantly inspiring us to deepen our commitment to nature, to each other, and to our sense of spirituality.

Maria sat down with us to share about her work at the Rahayu Project and Harmony Farm School, and to explain the values that drive her activism.

We hope you find her words as moving as we did.

Every village [in Bali] has their own way of life. And so I feel this diversity, in a way, opened my mind already within just a small island. And I feel when you're open to such diversity, you also tend to have more of the capability of respect.

And so for me, Bali taught me to respect. Respect towards my self, respect towards other human beings, respect towards our surrounding environment, and respect towards our spirituality. If you respect all of these things… that's the key to wellbeing. That's the key to harmony.

Rahayu means “I wish you all of the best within every single thing in life.” It is the most powerful word in Bali.

We are a platform for incredible heroes all around the island [of Bali] that are working to combine ancient wisdom with modern day needs, modern ways of life, but also a platform that reminds people of the different meanings behind all of these incredible traditions and cultures. That make Bali, Bali.

My question is: how can you continue doing something if you do not know why you're doing it? How can you preserve a culture, a tradition, a land, if you do not know the value behind them? And so I deeply believe that culture is very important, because culture is what affects our mindset and automatically our actions.

It all starts with storytelling… Through these visual stories, we are trying to pass down these messages, these ancient ways of life, hoping that it might bring back the Rahayu way of life.

The gurus that we interview, they say that not knowing is the source of many problems. So I feel that through Rahayu we want to share that knowledge that potentially might create awareness and automatically action and change.

Educating little children, we already understand that our best way to actually share this information is always through stories.

I really believe that the right story actually has the power to change the world.

Our main goal at Harmony Farm School is to familiarize our children to nature, for them to learn from it. To learn to appreciate it, grow to love it, and automatically respect it. How can you respect nature, and how can you love nature, if you do not even know what it is?

I feel that the more we know, the more we can work with it. The more we can give back to it. The more we can respect it.

My best place to rebalance is usually up the in mountains, getting lost in really lush, green vegetation and just hiking…

That's the best way for me to reset my thoughts. I feel it's really important to understand, what is your pause?

When you're hiking, you have two choices. You either look around and see what you're scared of… or you already know your goal, and so all you need to do is just arrive to that one goal. And sometimes I feel that's life. You have, yes, a lot of distractions, a lot of negative things around you, a lot of problems, of course, on the way. But having a goal is very important. Within work, within life itself, having a purpose… it really helps a lot. It guides you forward. 

A lot of people come to me and ask how can I give back?

You can do it in incredibly simple ways. Clothing is one. The food we eat also is another. I feel that little shifts can create big shifts. in Indonesian we say “Sedikit demi sedikit menjadi bukit.“ Little by little, it becomes a mountain.

It's not about doing the big leap. It's not about completely revolutionizing your life. It's about doing those little shifts that little by little will create a big change. A big impact.