Last year I had a challenging health issue for which I needed surgery. My spouse and I hosted a healing circle before the surgery, and then I participated in an arts ritual with a friend afterwards. A benign ovarian tumor, which I’d been monitoring with my gynecologist for 6 years and which previously had remained the same size, started growing and had to be removed. It was simplest to take out the ovary attached to the tumor as well. And, as a 53 year-old female-bodied person, it made sense to take out my fallopian tubes, since they are often the origins of gynecologic “ovarian” cancer. I also should note that I’m a physician, and quite curious about bodily processes.
Still, the prospect of going “under” –of being completely unaware and not in control as someone cuts me with a knife or invades me with a camera–has always frightened me. When I realized I needed to have this surgery, I sought ways to receive comfort.
I wanted to share this before-and-after program because many other Jewish women undergo surgery to have their ovaries and/or fallopian tubes removed, and might be looking to ritual for solace and support.
Here is the letter I sent to the group of six friends I wanted present at the ritual. Of note, my friend, Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein, was instrumental in helping us conceive of this ritual.
Hi!
Thanks so much for your support in being a part of my upcoming healing circle this Saturday, 4:30 p.m. at our home. I think this will run about an hour but folks are welcome to hang out afterwards or shmooze a bit before.
If the weather’s nice we’ll be on the back deck or in the backyard.
Since my surgery involves an ovary, among other things, I thought we could think about seeds and fruit. So… please bring one or more pieces of fruit or seeds to contribute to the circle.
We may also go around the circle and ask for a short blessing or thought — if you don’t feel comfortable, it will be totally okay to not speak at that time.
Looking forward to seeing you,
Love,
Joanna
Here is the guide for the circle ritual for participants:
Healing Circle
**********************
Opening Song: Pit’khu Li
פִּתְחוּ-לִי שַׁעֲרֵי-צֶדֶק אָבֹא בָם אוֹדֶה יָהּ.
זה השער ליי צדיקים יבאו בו.
Pitkhu li sha’arei tzedek
Avo vam odeh Yah.
Zeh hasha’ar la’adonai tzadikim yavo’u vo.
Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter into them, I will give thanks unto Yah.
This is the gateway to G-dess/G-d; through it the righteous shall enter.
1. Introductions
Here, we went around the circle and participants introduced themselves.
2. Poems
by Alicia Ostriker
Yes, that’s what I want right now,
Just that sensation
Of my mind’s gradual
Deceleration, as if I
Took my foot off the gas
And the Buick rolled to a stop.
Let’s try to listen to the announcements
Of the inner mind…
by Linda Pastan
In this kingdom
the sun never sets;
under the pale oval
of the sky
there seems no way in
or out,
and though there is a sea here
there is no tide.
For the egg itself
is a moon
glowing faintly
in the galaxy of the barn,
safe but for the spoon’s
ominous thunder,
the first delicate crack
of lightning.
By Audre Lorde
On Thursday she buried her featherbed
at the foot of the garden
a Manx cat’s bleached pelvic bone
twirled in the sun.
She had never intended to stay
so long
the horizons burning
past forsythia bracken
all roads out of her dooryard
folded in
upon reflection.
Every full moon
the neighborhood cats
came to worship
to wait
in a grim line
under the apple tree
the cat-bone swinging
to a heavy beat.
Sharpville
Amritsar
Shatila
Birmingham Sunday
Imagine yourself
Alabama
wanting to weep.
by Michael Ondaatje
On the warm July river
head back
upside down river
for a roof
slowly paddling
towards an estuary between trees
there’s a dog
learning to swim near me
friends on shore
my head
dips
back to the eyebrow
I’m the prow
on an ancient vessel,
this afternoon
I’m going down to Peru
soul between my teeth
a blue heron
with its awkward
broken backed flap
upside down
one of us is wrong
he
his blue grey thud
thinking he knows
the blue way
out of here
or me
3. Ritual
Here, people offered their seeds or fruit and explained their significance. Additionally, they were welcome to plant seeds in pots with soil, which we had available.
4. Blessings
Again, we went around the circle and my friends offered blessings.
by Debbie Friedman
Mi shebeirach avoteinu
M’kor hab’racha l’imoteinu
May the source of strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing
And let us say Amen
Mi shebeirach imoteinu
M’kor habrachah l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing with r’fuah sh’leimah
The renewal of body, the renewal of spirit
And let us say Amen
Reflections:
My friends brought a variety of seeds and fruits:
dates,
blackberries,
a blood orange,
kiwi,
and more.
Their blessings were widely ranging. One said I should continue to revel in the intersection of science, health and spirituality – a place of joy for me. Others suggested I let go and rest and let others care for me. Another had written a poem for me and read it aloud. A musical friend sang a song of healing. And from another, I cannot remember the content but just that she said, smiling richly, “My b’racha for you…”
We sat on my family’s outside deck, and served humus, a baby kale and strawberry salad, and a slaw of beets, carrots, radishes and apples I’d made. We drank iced hibiscus tea.
The ceremony made me feel so warm and held by others in cushiony strength. We underestimate the power of rituals at our peril. I felt, at one level, unworthy of such attention – but immensely grateful and thankful.
That was Shabbat afternoon. Sunday night I longed to go swimming- I had to report to the hospital early the next morning. It had been a hot and humid day. It turned out that one friend, who’d come in town for the ritual with her boyfriend, wanted to go swimming at a nearby lake. We went together and I was so grateful for this immersion, this movement of my body in the water, a place of comfort for me, with a supportive friend whom I’d known for more than 30 years.
That is not the end. I noticed I healed quickly from this operation. The post-op pain was not as severe as what I remembered from a similar surgery when I was 29. The ritual had noticeable healing powers.
Still, a few days later, I recall calling a friend of mine crying, and she came over and sat with me. I felt comfortable crying with her. Among other things, she’s an artist and had gifted my partner and me with a small, wooden pelvis several months before, which we treasured.
The vulnerability was unexpected, even though it should have been no surprise. The fear of not getting better. The sense of weakness, of not being able to do as much as before, of being overcome with dizziness after the slightest exertion. I wonder at these moments whether there is a future when I’ll be able to cook, joke around with my kids, do dishes, stay up late, swim vigorously with my legs kicking water past, have sex, live my life the way I did before. Additionally, I was realizing that parts of me, of the whole self I was, were missing. To reconcile yourself with a new incompleteness, to say goodbye to generative parts of yourself that helped you birth a child – that is a big deal. In my tears, I realized the goodbye wasn’t over.
My artist friend and I planned a follow-up ritual. My gynecologist, who is a special guy, had sent me pictures of the tumor. When I was 29 and had surgery for a similar tumor, they had sent that one to pathology and I never got to see what it looked like, other than the image on the ultrasound of palm-like fronds waving in a watery, encircled sea.
This time, I made sure to tell him to send pictures. And this thing was odd and disturbing looking, this dermoid that grows from our germ cells. A cross-section revealed that it had bone in it and muscly and gristly stuff. It was solid. I sent pictures to a colleague of mine and to my sister. “My baby monster cousin!” she wrote.
My friend and I thought we could make ovary and fallopian tube art. I had been drawing the parts I was now missing with pastels on thick, grainy art paper. Now, she brought lots of pastels, paints. I had colored pencils. Sitting with her at the dining room table, she made beautiful pictures of fallopian tubes, and I depicted colored versions of the tumor, this warped thing stunning in its ugliness that had come out of me.
And my tumor drawings looked like shiny Christmas tree ornaments. The colors leaped out in pretty contrast to each other – purple, pink, red, white. They were beautiful.
