I'm taking the mikveh guide course via Mayyim Hayyim and Rising Tide Open Waters and finished my first week. I made this to try to explain what it means to me. Anyone, anytime, can choose to mark something new, can choose to cleanse of anything that no longer serves them, and for all Jews, no matter your observance, this is open to you. I'm so excited to help you access this the way you need it.
Artists statement and image description.
A collage: a banner of stars with Hebrew text “shelter us beneath your peace” floats over a pomegranate tree bearing only ripe fruits. It grows in front of a beach at sunset with subtle trans pride colours from a stone wall that reads madrich/a in Hebrew. This wall, collaged from an image of the kotel, is balanced on seven pillars of text capped with an image in front of a red desert sand, connecting the natural and human made desert mikvot with the biggest natural mikveh, the ocean.
Between these pillars grow flowers. From left to right, a red poppy for rest and healing, California poppies for the artist’s home and their medicinal restful qualities, yellow roses for friendship, a lily of the valley for the author’s birth, its duality as poison and perfume, and mention in Shir haShirim, a blue gentian for medicinal properties especially as an emmenagogue to tie it to mikveh use, lavender for healing, a white rose for love and death, and a pink rose of Sharon as mentioned in Shir haShirim for love and marriage. They are in this colour order as a nod to queer use and usage of mikveh as a spiritual technology.
The columns each have one of the seven principles for mikveh written in Hebrew, and are capped with a stone collaged with a related item. From right to left, these are a Torah scroll, a folding screen, a magen david with the downward pointing triangle replaced with a heart, a seven branched menorah with almond blossoms instead of candles, an open book, a brush painting a rainbow, and an open set of french doors that, if you look closely, are opening to a mikveh at Mayyim Hayyim.
Over all this are three blessings connected to mikveh, in English, with a name for the divine in Hebrew beneath. The first two are the artist’s own poetic translations of the mikveh immersion and shehecheyanu brachot, and the last is a tekhine praising Gd for gifting us the mikveh as self empowerment connecting us to natural cycles.
Blessed are You, She Who Contracts our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed us with your teachings and invites us to immerse.
Blessed are You, Being our God, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed me with my life, sustained me, and accompanied me to this moment.
Bless the One who gives me this.Bless the one who shows me how to cleanse myself take in the power of the water and the moon as the sun sets orange and feel that coursing through my veins to know I am powerful as this.
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Is there a list of pluralistic mikvahs out there? I’d love to have this as a resource for myself and for folks I know on and off tumblr. By this I mean mikvahs that:
allow non-Orthodox converts to immerse for conversion ceremonies and throughout their Jewish life as needed
allow single women to immerse
allow LGBTQIA folks to immerse as part of transitions (or otherwise) while affirming their gender and sexuality
allow other new traditions (immersing after sexual assault, immersing after becoming a father, etc.)
ideally would be halachically stringent enough for a Modern Orthodox Jew to feel comfortable immersing (or at least a Conservadox Jew)
This week's mikveh art: I rewrote the traditional ketubah wording with the Lieberman clause to be between Klal Yisrael and the divine, and rewrote the Lieberman clause as a purification clause. Mimicking the vernacular and Hebrew ketubot style, I added in a poem and my poetic translation of the traditional immersion and shehecheyanu brachot to the left.
I am fascinated by the delineation between purity and holiness, and the fact no-one can be purified, technically, until a Temple is rebuilt. This opens so many possibilities for us!
Since technically all humans are related to humanity and thus ineligible to sign as witnesses, I had Lilith and a golem (I like to think it's the Golem of Prague) sign. I struggled to choose which name of Gd to write in (I collect them, all with shades of meaning) but settled on an ungendered or god-gendered version. In some places you will see the word 'god' or 'godself;' I use god as Elohim's pronouns. Since the month starts with the fresh crescent moon, and it's my name, I centered that at the top of the phases. The papercut is traced off a pomegranate blackwork pattern.
Text on image below image description.
Image description: a ketubah with a background of bright blue and white waves, centered on a photo of the moon. The moon has a white glow. White hamsot in the corners, white pomegranate blackwork in a circle, and white moon phases starting with a rosh chodesh moon at center top circling the moon and text in center mimic papercutting. The ketubah text on right of the moon has a yellow cast to black font and is shaped like a crescent. The remaining space to left is a poem with a purple gray cast. The ketubah is signed in thin cursive Hebrew by Lilith, and childishly large block print Hebrew by the golem. The bottom centered pomegranate holds the artist's signature in red.
~~~
Ketubah text:
On the third day of the week, the third day of the month in the year two thousand four hundred and forty eight since the creation of the world, the era according to which we count here at the slopes of Mount Sinai that Elohim Eloheinu said to Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah.
“Be My people according to these laws I have given you, and I will cherish, honour, support, and maintain you in accordance with the custom of Jewish husbands who cherish, honour, support, and maintain their wives faithfully. And I here present you with the marriage gift of these teachings of connection, which belongs to you, the law of Moshe and Yisrael; and I will also give you your food as manna and the seven sacred species, tallitot, and necessities, and live with you as your god according to universal custom. And Klal Yisrael, these people consented and became god’s people. The trousseau that they brought to god from their house in silver, gold, valuables, clothing, furniture, and bedclothes, their stiffneckedness and chutzpah and thankfulness and dedication, all this Elohim accepted in the sum of themselves, and Elohim the bridegroom consented to increase this amount from god’s own property with the sum of six hundred and thirteen teachings of connection, making in all one covenant. And thus said Elohim, the bridegroom: “The responsibility of this marriage contract, of this trousseau, and of this additional sum, I take upon Myself and My heirs after me, so that they shall be paid from the best part of My property and possession that I have of and beneath the whole heaven, that which I now possess or may hereafter create. All My property, real and personal, even the glory which is My raiment, shall be mortgaged to secure the payment of this marriage contract, of the trousseau, and of the addition made to it, during My lifetime as Ein Sof, from the present day and forever.” Elohim, the bridgegroom, has taken upon godself the responsibility of this marriage contract, of the trousseau and the addition made to it, according to the restrictive usages of all marriage contracts and the additions to them made for the children of Yisrael, according to the institution of our sages of blessed memory. It is not to be regarded as a mere forfeiture without consideration or as a mere formula of a document. We have followed the legal formality of symbolic delivery between Elohim Eloheinu, the bridegroom and Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah, and we have used as a garment legally fit for the purpose a rainbow, to strengthen all that is stated above, and everything is valid and confirmed.
And both together agreed that if either party in this marriage shall ever become impure, then either spouse may invoke the cleansing of the gathering of the living waters, in a naturally occurring or duly kosher humanmade gathering, to immerse three times as is appropriate under Jewish purity and holiness law; and if either spouse shall fail to honour the purifying powers of the gathering of these living waters or to live in accordance with this cleansing power, then the other spouse may invoke any and all remedies available in healthy community power to enforce acknowledgement of the cleansing powers of this first creation and this solemn abligation.
Attested to [Lilith] Witness
Attested to [GOLEM] Witness
~~~
Poetry text: Note that in order for a ketubah to be kosher, there must be a clearly defined shape to the text with no space to alter the contract. This text is not exactly what appears on the image so as to make it screen reader friendly. All open space has been replaced with words in a font half the size to fill it. These are bracketed so you know what words are repeated to fill the space. They exist between stanzas and in stanzas separating the lines.
[purity holiness]
You will never be pure.
Oh, sure, one day, perhaps,
the stars may align,
the calf be born,
the stones relaid -
but until then
see the foxes, jackals, among the ruins.
You will never be pure.
[purity wholeness]
But how wonderful a world of possibilities opens!
Instead of pure
you can be holy
wholly human.
[wholeness purity]
Your body is your body is the image of God.
your choices are your choices are yours.
[purity holiness]
Immerse, and cleanse yourself.
Start anew.
Emerge from the womb of the earth
trailing amniotic rain.
Be wrapped dry in clean white linen,
welcomed by name,
and your holiness affirmed.
[immerse]
Return to the head of it all:
the gathering of the roiling sea,
moon tugging at your blood,
lungs sealed shut,
as waves push you back, back, back
to shore as sun sets orange.
[purify immerse]
You will never be pure
like the moon is not pure:
shifting phase to phase above us.
like oceans are not pure:
glimmering gold and silt and teeming life.
like forests are not pure:
ancient and fecund and noisy.
like gardens are not pure:
a riot of life and species cocreating.
like birth and death are not pure:
bodies riding the cycle.
like storms are not pure:
winds and rain and lightning.
like deserts are not pure:
so dry but filled with life when you breathe.
like art is not pure:
messy with emotion.
You will never be pure:
but you are holy.
[holy]
We long to re-enter living waters
and they long to hold to us,
gift us their slippery purity
now we have forgotten to breathe them -
only hold them in our veins -
but more than that
we long to exit the waters
and stride forth onto surety.
[holy]
Blessed are You, She Who Contracts our god,
Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed us
with these teachings of connection and
invites us to immerse. Blessed are You,
She Who Contracts, our god,
Sovereign of Space Time, who
has blessed me with my
life, held me, and
accompanied
me to this
moment.
