Waters of Healing Meditation – Kos Refuah/Cup of Healing

By Ariel Neshama Lee, September 28, 2010

EXCLUSIVE TO WINNIPEG JEWISH REVIEW

[Editor’s note: Ariel Lee is a Winnipeg writer who conducts mediation sessions. She attends Temple Shalom and ha written a number of meditations which will appear in the Winnipeg Jewish Review in the coming weeks. ]

This is a meditation based on the concept of Miriam’s Well which Midrash says accompanied the Jewish people in their forty-year sojourn in the desert following the exodus from Egypt.

Take a few moments to become comfortable. Close your eyes. Let your body relax. Shake out any tightness, constriction, or tension.  Pay attention to your breathing. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling slowly, taking in cleansing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. As you breathe out, imagine that all that represents tightness and constriction within your body is released through your breath on a thin film of grey smoke. As you breathe in, imagine that you are breathing in cleansing light. Do  this four times, each time becoming more and more relaxed and letting go of any tightness or anything that is restricting you. Feel anything that constricts you, anything that holds you back, leave each part of your body. Feel this happening in your feet, your legs, your hips, your abdomen, your heart, your arms, shoulders, neck, face and head. Feel all the tension leave as deep relaxation takes its place.

Close your eyes and visualize a goblet. Notice the shape of the goblet. Note what it is made of, the texture of its surface. Note its color. Note how light is reflected on its surface. Now take the goblet and hold it in your hands near your heart. As you look down into the goblet, note that it is filled with water. Note the color of the water and how light sparkles and shimmers on its surface.

Now envision individual droplets of this water; each droplet contains all the colors of the rainbow – yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple. Each droplet shimmers and captures the light around it like a mirror. Envision these shimmering droplets becoming smaller and smaller until they are so small that you cannot see them with the naked eye. They blend and merge into one body of clear, crystal water. Now envision the goblet filled to the brim with this pure, clear, crystal water. 

Now lift the goblet to your lips and take a sip of the water. Note that it is cool, refreshing, quenching your thirst. Feel the microscopic droplets of water as they flow through your arteries and veins, penetrating every cell, becoming one with you. Feel this cleansing water as it flows through your body like a river, bathing every cell. Feel this healing water as it washes every cell clean, carrying away any fatigue, disease, heaviness or pain. As this healing water travels through your body, imagine that it is dissolving any darkness within you and around you. Imagine that the water fills you with healing energy. The healing energy from this water brings with it rebirth, renewal, empowerment, and wholeness to you and to everything and everyone around you.

Now envision the water in the goblet rise to the brim and overflow and become a beautiful, cascading waterfall. Follow the path of this waterfall as it merges first with a river, then a lake, and then with the ocean. These are living waters, mayim chayim. These are waters of healing.  

Envision these waters of healing reaching out to all those in need of healing of any kind, be it physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. You may wish to picture a person or persons in need of healing. As you hold the image of this person or persons in your mind and your heart, visualize these waters of healing expand, envelop, and merge with them. These are living waters, mayim chayim – waters of healing.

Legend says that when our ancestors traversed the desert, they never lacked for water. As long as Miriam lived, a mysterious well accompanied them on their journeys. Miriam’s Well was an ever-flowing source of sustenance, strength, abundance, and healing. "In the beginning, God’s voice hovered over the waters." Miriam’s Well contained these very same waters of creation, the primordial water, the waters of Eden.