Ecofeminist Spirituality of Natural Disaster in Indonesian Written Folktales: An Analysis of Symbols Purwanti Kusumaningtyas (Fakultas Bahasa dan Sastra UKSW) purwanti.k@gmail.com Abstract: Indonesia yang terletak di wilayah pertemuan lempeng bumi sudah sepantasnya membuat orang Indonesia terbiasa dengan bencana alam seperti gempa bumi dan letusan gunung api. Keyakinan-keyakinan tradisional yang bagi orang modern mungkin merupakan takhayul mengajarkan kepada kita etika partnership yang diyakini oleh pandangan ekologi spiritual dan ekofeminisme. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk membahas kemungkinan-kemungkinan makna- makna simbolis atas sikap partnership spiritual terhadap bencana alam yang ada dalam cerita rakyat Indonesia, melalui analisa simbol. Telaah ini menunjukkan bahwa cerita rakyat Indonesia yang sudah tertulis mengandung banyak pesan perlindungan ekologis yang erat berkaitan dengan makna simbolik perempuan sebagai representasi spiritualitas ekofeminis. Dengan demikian cerita rakyat merupakan media yang berpotensi besar sebagai sarana menggeser pola pikir patriarkhis menjadi cara pandang yang lebih adil gender kepada generasi muda. Key words: Spiritualitas Ekofeminis, Bencana Alam, Cerita Rakyat, Analisa Simbol A. Introduction People responded differently to disasters spiritually and religiously. The first response is to put the Divine as the problem solver and / or an escape to what human did wrongly to the environment. For example, in Indonesian case of forest fire recently (June 2013), The Mayor of Dumai, Sumatra, invited all people to pray for the rainfall after all efforts to extinguish the fire and reduce the thick smoke-haze did not help much. They prayed after what they did to the land: slash and burn it to prepare land for oil palm and rubber plantation, especially those in South Sumatra (http://www.antaranews.com/berita/381836/dumai-gelar-sholat-minta-hujan- untuk-atasi-asap). Forest fire and smoke-haze have happened repeatedly in the area since 1997 and Byron and Shepherd (1998) reported that it was due to “the deficiencies in both forest management systems and the policies and regulations that are supposed to control the clearance of forest land for agriculture.” A different response comes from people like those in the mountainside of Mount Merapi whenever it erupts. They generally personify it as “mbah Petruk” (literally means Grandfather Petruk, the name of one of the four servants of Pandawa of Mahabharata epic) and very often people came up with pictures of old man contemplating as they tried to portray the power of this volcanic mountain. Whenever it erupts, which may happen periodically every five years, the folks in the mountainside will consider that “Mbah Petruk is having his feast” or “the mountain is cleaning itself.” Such beliefs are difficult for people outside the region to accept as the folks never consider the eruption as disaster. Instead, they think that it has to happen in