There are women who come to their mikveh night with the excitement of an open heart, finally reaching the special, intimate night with their husband, the time that they have been preparing for all week. On the contrary, there are also women who come to the mikveh with relationship stress, emotional pain from the past and uncontrollable fears. As a balanit, it’s the women in the second category who have opened up my desire to find new ways for women to connect to a portal of the sacred energy available for them on their mikveh night. 

One of the ideas that came to me is to offer women coming to my mikveh the opportunity to connect together for a few moments, as they arrive, and before they prepare for their immersion, we take the time to sing and visualize together. The experience has been almost indescribable. The theme I chose for the pre-mikveh meditation and song is connected to the souls that are coming into our world and bringing their much needed healing and light.  I explain that whether or not a couple is trying to conceive on their mikveh night, they can bring the consciousness of “Banim Tzadikim” (Righteous Children) into our world. We sit together in the lounge space outside of my mikveh and form a sacred space to imagine that we are singing in these souls. Every time I have had the merit to experience singing in this unique way with women, a floodgate of love and tears opens up with holiness and trust beyond that which I could ever have imagined. I know this because for the entire time we sing together, whether it has been 5 minutes or over 30 minutes, the feeling I get is as if there are chills flowing up and down my body, signaling truth and connection and purity.

The first time I decided to make the offer to sing before tevillah to one of the women coming to the mikveh, it felt surprisingly natural and familiar. It was like I was coming home to the way a woman’s mikveh experience used to be in the ancient times, and still  should be. I imagined holy women thousands of years ago, our matriarchs and prophetesses, supporting each other at the mikveh, in sacred celebration and joyous song. This to bring the energy of The Creator’s oneness into their union with their husbands, the patriarchs and the prophets, I saw how it was possible in those times to magically draw down this energy from the spiritual worlds into the physical world, and how we can imagine trying to do the same for our world today.

 

I’m forever grateful that the women of our world have the mikveh in our communities as a tool of sacred connection, cleansing and healing. I share this while knowing that as you are reading, it will open up for today’s women the desire to think more consciously about the potential of their own mikveh night and perhaps to awaken their own ability to use the power of singing their prayers in the presence of the living waters of the mikveh. And huge gratitude to Naomi and The Eden Center team for creating an access to a softer approach to the mikveh of our foremothers as we keep it alive in our communities today.

Below is a link to the song that I have written to sing with women who come to my mikveh. (Please note, this clip is a shortened, at home recording, of a longer version.)Enjoy!

Listen to Neshamot a song by Alison Serour and Reva Emunah