Remembering Rituals: Sacred Bathing

There are moments when the body knows something the mind has forgotten.

The first time I stood waist-deep in a sacred spring in Bali, I didn’t know what I was stepping into. The stone carvings were ancient, their mouths pouring fresh water into a pool where people stood silently, offering prayers and flowers, cleansing their bodies and their grief. I felt the current wrap around my thighs like a whispered invitation—Let it go, love. Let it wash through.

That day, I wept quietly into the water. Not out of sadness, but relief. It was like some old part of me—bone-deep and weary—had finally remembered that water was not just for drinking or washing. It was for healing. For being held.

The Oldest Medicine

Water is our first home. The womb. The ocean. The tears we cry. Every culture on Earth has remembered this, at least once.

In India, pilgrims immerse themselves in the Ganges River, believed to be the earthly embodiment of the goddess Ganga. They walk into her waters to be purified—not just of dirt, but of karma, sorrow, and forgetting.

In Japan, people have long bathed in onsen—natural hot springs fed by the earth’s volcanic heat. The bathing isn’t just about hygiene; it’s a ritual of restoration. There’s etiquette, reverence, stillness.

In Bali, where I now live, sacred bathing is woven into everyday life. At Tirta Empul, a thousand-year-old temple, people step beneath stone spouts to cleanse their energy before ceremonies. Offerings are placed before stepping in—flowers, rice, incense—because entering sacred water is a prayer in itself.

In the Caribbean and across the African diaspora, ritual baths made of herbs, oils, and intention are a common ancestral practice. Known in Yoruba as omiero, these baths clear spiritual blockages and reconnect the bather to divine alignment. The water holds the medicine. And the hands that prepare it—often those of a grandmother, a priestess, or a healer—carry the wisdom of generations.

More Than a Bath

Sacred bathing isn’t about scrubbing skin. It’s about remembering that we are porous—that we absorb and carry so much more than we realize. Energies. Emotions. Echoes of what we’ve been through.

It’s about releasing shame, fear, and old stories through the elemental grace of water.

Sometimes that looks like a moonlit dip in the ocean, whispering your heartbreak into the waves. Sometimes it’s a bathtub with candles and rose petals, where you cry the kind of tears that feel like surrender. And sometimes it’s just letting the morning shower hit your chest while you breathe out the tightness you’ve been carrying since yesterday.

These, too, are rituals. Modern prayers. Reclamations.

A Return to Innocence

What I’ve come to understand is that sacred bathing is less about becoming clean and more about becoming clear. It’s an invitation to return—to innocence, to flow, to the part of us that remembers we belong.

There is a tenderness in this ritual. A softness. A human truth that says:

You do not need to carry it all.

You are allowed to be held.

Let the water take it, love.

So next time you feel heavy, stuck, or uncertain, consider this:

Prepare your space. Light a candle. Bless the water. Speak your intention.

And step in—not just to cleanse, but to remember.