by Alena Deerwater.
Oy!
The year of my thirty-ninth birthday I gifted myself three days with a hoard of Jewish women in the woods sans children. At the time my daughters were seven and four and my entire life. This was the first time I was leaving them for more than twenty-four hours.
I could count on one hand the number of times I had done even that.
My first foray for an entire day away from Lilly, my eldest, had been to attend a “sitting” with an old Apache woman offering teachings on dreaming and dying. Now I was gathering with Jewesses reveling in our sensuality for a long weekend. My offering to the group on Friday night was an erotic reading from a new translation of the Songs of Solomon that began with an enticing command:
“Kiss Me.”
By Saturday night I had been volunteered to be one of the models for a new age fashion show depicting our version of the Woman of the New Millennium. Both Rabbi Margaret and I ended up nude as we walked a runway made up of rustic camp-like tables shoved into a long elevated path.
The year was 1998.
My scent was ylang-ylang.
Before all the joyful wild womenness was released into the woods, we shared a quiet moment by the river Friday afternoon preparing for Shabbat, the sabbath. These women had re-juiced an old tradition from Judaism and created a thing of beauty:
The Mikveh.
Originally the mikveh was a ritual women performed in water to be cleansed from the “impurities” of their monthly bleeding so their husbands could have sex with them. Remember in the old testament how Rachel stole the riches from her father so she could run off with Jacob? She sat on the goods when she had her period knowing dear old dad wouldn’t dare come near her during that time of the month.
The Jewish women of the Mendocino coast have a knack for transforming the very traditions that formerly turned my Jew-hating stomach into heart-full rituals that spark my imagination and transform my soul. Returning me to a people and a God I thought I had abandoned.
At the mikveh:
I perch on the bank of a small stream among women, some clothed, some nude, some wrapped in robes and towels waiting their turn to fully submerge three times in the one swimming hole deep enough for the task. The sun dapples through the redwoods, glinting on the water. As witnesses we sit silently except for the prayers we chant after each dunking.
Kosher!
we shout joyfully each time a woman succeeds in getting every little bit of herself under water.
Not so easy really.
A bit of toe or curl of hair often remains peeking above the ripples.
I watch.
My butt getting sore.
Each woman strips then gathers up her heart and speaks her intention or kavanah for the year. Some offer their words to the group, like a teaching. Others whisper their kavanah into the mikveh-lady’s ear.
The Mikveh-Lady.
Ella, of Blessed Memory.
She taught us the ways of this water ritual. Held our hands and our hearts as we entered and exited the stream. Our job on the shore was to hold the woman’s intention as she descended into the wet.
Man, the water was cold that year.
Yelping.
Teeth-chattering.
Each body enters the stream and ducks under. But what I remember the most is how every woman’s body is different. How every woman’s body is astoundingly beautiful.
Standing naked.
Speaking to God.
Each praying to be joined in co-creating her highest good.
Without clothing, the rounded tummies, tushies, breasts and thighs; scars, moles, wrinkles and sags, all find their loveliness. Their beauty. Their truth.
My turn.
I take a breath, slip out of clothes. Remove glasses, sandals. The pebbles pinch the bottom of my feet as I pussy-foot my way to Ella, lovely Ella. I’ve always had tender soles. I turn to face the chorus of women. To my naked eye they are a kind blur of smudged faces amid swatches of color resting among the redwoods. I choose to speak aloud.
“My kavanah is to open. My heart. My body. To life. To what comes…”
Ella’s hand is in mine. I slowly slip and slide my way into the water. Up to my knees, I must release her hand or risk pulling Ella in with me.
My thighs are next. I trick them millimeter by millimeter into the stream. By the time the water barely splishes the bottom of my breasts, my feet ache from the cold.
I look up and see an old tree on the opposite bank facing me. She smiles.
“Alena-la. Take one deep breath and down you go.”
I obey, like a child trusting her mother. Dive back and under.
Aaaaaaaaaa!
I pop back up.
My breath is taken away.
Literally.
My breath is gone.
A mermaid took it.
I hear a chorus of kosher!
A prayer.
“Again,” says the tree.
I jump up then down under.
This second time my eyes open.
The mermaid spreads my arms with her arms, my fingers with her hands. My chest expands. Her tail fin delicately separates my toes and legs. I open to the water.
“Kiss me,”
the water sings. Or is it her?
Water.
Everywhere.
I need air.
She pushes me up.
“Kosher!”
“Shema Y’Israel Adonai Elohehnu Adonai Echad.” my voice croons to the tree.
“Welcome home” she replies.
I plunge in the third and final time.
The mermaid. She slaps gills on my glands. Webbed fingers pressing my neck.
I
Breathe
And
Dance
Under
Water.
The mermaid and I
Hold each other and spin.
A double-helix of DNA.
Twirling together.
Till we are One.
Echad.
I emerge – Kosher! – shining wetness.
“Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech Ha-olam She-heche-ya-nu Ve-ki-yi-ma-nu Ve-higi-a-nu Liz-man Ha-zeh. Blessed is the source of all life, who has kept us, and sustained us, and brought us to this moment. Amen.”
Entwined with the mermaid in me, I walk out of the water and onto the land.
Ella says, “Look, a water nymph. You are a beautiful water nymph. Beautiful.”