It was time to go... but I REALLY didn't feel like leaving. So I asked my partner: "Do we have time for just one last dip?" I was dreading the imminent end of what felt like a VERY short beach family vacation.
I needed space and a reminder that we are never stuck or static in life, even though sometimes it feels like so.
The heaviness that I was carrying around was really getting to me, the unseen weight that was tied around my heart and lungs. I desperately needed relief.
And it's been a while since I've done this, but as soon as I saw that vast blue sea, after coming down a very winding road, I remembered that water is a holy healing source.
I grew up facing the Atlantic Ocean. Wherever I have traveled in the world, I found my way to the sea. Now I live in Madrid and somehow this ancient practice got hidden in the depths of my memory.
This practice is called mikvah — a ritual bath. For thousands of years it’s been a part of Jewish wisdom, and countless women have found its power. When you immerse, you create a physical marker of shedding old patterns and emerging anew.
This ritual is a reminder that there is always possibility. In fact, the word mikvah comes from the same root as the word for “hope.” As the waters surround you, you enter a space of transformation. And with that in mind, I kissed my family goodbye and started my slow descend to the beach...
I could hear my inner critic firing up, questioning if I was doing it the right way; if I even still remembered how to do it and all that self-doubt started to increase as I slowly unclothed looking straight ahead.
I sit before I enter.
I breathe in very deep and full breaths. My mouth feels salty with the smell of the sea.
I kept telling myself to be brave: you are entitled to create your own relationship in the now to the ancient.
A traditional mikvah is au naturel. It was early and besides some seagulls here and there, there weren't many people around but I wasn't ready to go fully naked in. There is a connotation of water being the womb of the world, we live surrounded by water in our Mother's womb and without water there would be no life. So going into and completely immersing yourself in it can feel quite transformative if your purpose is to shed and immerse a new. Just like birth in a way.
I learned to see mikvah as a powerful marker of transitions, not only in the womb cycle, but in anyone’s life cycle. I see mikvah as a place to return to one’s most fundamental self — or be reborn into a new era of becoming yourself.
In the water where I am alone from people but felt so connected to the water and the earth, I fall to my knees and I get teary eyed. Sturdy in my body, sinking into the sand I say the blessing for immersing as I remembered it: asking for guidance and for lightness from my grief. And praying to remember that there is no separation.
I immerse my full body and head.
Then I say the blessing again and dunk again.
Then I say the blessing again and dunk again.
I leave the water behind and head over to Madrid but those moments of silence, lightness, and deep connection are still living inside of me...
I've suggested this practice to the women I teach who have gone through a miscarriage. The process of letting the water hold you and help you release all the anger, the heaviness, the sadness and the questioning can be quite freeing. Feeling it all drip from your body into the womb of life, allowing it to leave you even if only for a bit until you have to repeat it once again.
I hope this practice helps you too. There is no right or wrong, you can make this practice your own. If it helps and you are a journal person, notice if anything comes up for you after the practice and write it down. When everything feels so mundane and robotic, ritual helps us to go deep and see the beauty of life again.
With love.