I stand here today to acknowledge and affirm this moment in my spiritual journey. Moving toward a state of pure kavannahLit. Intention Refers both to one’s intention when performing a mitzvah or when focusing for prayer. Kavanah also refers to specific readings to help focus one's attention prior to performing an act., I wash my hands in preparation of this sacred ritual which has been performed for over two millennia.
We hold our cups of clear water, a reminder of mayim hayyim, living waters, waters of hope and healing and movement.
Water naturally cycle in multiple states — liquid, solid, and air. The rain water I immerse in today is naturally collected (the root of the word “mikvehThe ritual bath. The waters of the mikveh symbolically purify – they are seen as waters of rebirth. A convert immerses in the mikveh as part of conversion. Many Orthodox married women go to the mikveh following their period and before resuming sexual relations. Couples go to the mikveh before being married. Many, including some men, immerse before Yom Kippur; some go every Friday before Shabbat.” means collect) then cycles back as moist air and back again as clouds. May I recognize and honor cycles in my own life.
The seven steps I take before immersing fully represent all the ways sevens speak: seven days of creation, seven chakras, seven colors of the rainbow, seven sacred fruits.
And the personal multiples of seven in my own life in relationship to shemitah years holds significance: sixty-three for this past shemitah year, and that shemitah will return when I am seventy.
I will immerse three times: for the past, including my own ancestors and the first peoples of this land in which I stand, for the present in which I aim to be awake, aware, and open to change. The third full immersion represents the future, my own and beyond my physical time on this earth.
I am grateful to share these living waters with other life forms: geese, blue herons, red-winged blackbirds, fish and tadpoles, bats and waterstriders and dragonflies.
