A Quick Thought: The Throat Chakra (aka The Fifth Chakra)

The Fifth Chakra is centered in the throat and neck. Its color is blue. Communication, creativity and expression are rooted in the Fifth Chakra. It is where the body meets the mind.  My whole life has been a series of “push-me pull-you” relationships with this Chakra. From an early age my two favorite colors were blue and orange, and I had many throat infections as a kid. I remember being brought to church every feast day of St. Blaise of the Throats (February 3, coincidentally). In those days, the priest would take two candles bound with a red ribbon into a V shape, placed them around your neck, and pray a blessing over you in Latin, which roughly translated, stated:

 “Through the intercession of Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

 I was a singer, chanter, and cantor from an early age. Singing and chanting rehearsals and performances always brought me great personal peace and a heightened awareness of my life.  It helped me to focus. In high school, I joined the Schola Cantorum at the Benedictine abbey that ran my high school, traveling to England and France to sing Gregorian Chants in the great cathedrals of Europe with the Benedictine monks who taught us. By senior year, I was earning money ($50 each Sunday evening Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom) as a cantor at a small Slavonic Eastern Rite Church, in a small town near my school. One of the monks in the Schola was bi-ritual, and I learned the old church melodies from him and helped lead the congregation in an English version of the Old Church Slavonic chants.

 I sang in choirs all through college, travelling to almost every one of the 48 contiguous states on Winter Interim and Spring Break concert tours. Later, after graduation, I joined David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir (a chant choir) in New York. We were artists –in- residence for two years at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine (NY). I was a member for the years between graduating college and starting law school.

 David Hykes taught me Tibetan chant, and the eight “sacred vowels” of Tibetan chant. Each vowel was associated with a harmonic. As a follower of Gurdjieff, the great Theosophist and philosopher, Hykes taught us that there were eight chakras, each represented by a vowel and associated with a harmonic. The great Om was shorthand for these vowels. As you ascended the harmonic scale, you became lost in sound, your body chanting one note, but through concentration of the mind and control of the breath, the voice producing another –its harmonic --- either soaring high above or sinking octaves well below the chanted note. Our chanting sessions went on for hours. They were hypnotic and meditative.

 I stopped singing when I entered law school. Twenty years later, in 2004 at the age of 45, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and a tumor in my neck. I was told the cancer was curable, but there was a good chance I would lose all or part of my voice. They would not know for sure if the vocal chords were implicated until they operated. After nine hours of surgery -- a full thyroidectomy and partial neck dissection (to get the neck tumor out)-- my voice was intact, but I was left with chronic pain in my neck and shoulder near the surgical site.

 Lost and feeling spiritually empty at the time of my surgery, I met a young man who shared my hospital room at Sloan Kettering. He was in his early 30’s and had a rare form of blood cancer. He faced each day with a sense of hope, a peaceful smile, and faith that there was a lesson in all of this, and his job was to figure out what it was. I – on the other hand-- was a spiritual and emotional wreck at the time.  Who was I? Where did I begin and my relationship end? What was I doing with my life? Ahhh, that throat chakra. It can wreck you. Clear it, use it, learn from its gift of clarity, connectedness and awareness, and life was fine. Ignore it, let it get blocked up, and “oy” what havoc it can have on your life.

 I am blessed to have made it through. I have found my voice again, if you will, and cleared that Fifth Chakra. Entering seminary and becoming an ordained minister was a big part of that, and the rest --as they say, is history.

 Developing A Spiritual Practice

 Back when I initially joined David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir (see above), we often spent hours rehearsing in the Baptistery Chapel inside the nave at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.  I learned that the controlled breathing and concentration on the sacred vowels of the throat chakra made for an excellent spiritual practice that brought peace and serenity to one’s soul.

 It goes like this:

Put aside an hour or so (there is no way to do this fully without having at least an hour, and it is fun).  If you have a “live space” available, like an empty uncarpeted room or basement, or a church someone would let you use off hours, that would work the best. Living rooms can work too (and you might have to roll up the carpets and warn the neighbors).

 Eyes closed, sitting with back supported and hands on knees.

Feet planted firmly on floor.

Listen for the sound of your breath.

Feel the cool air enter the nostrils. 

Feel the warm air escaping your throat and mouth.

Fill the breath deep into your belly, drawing it up loud and deep.

Then expel the air slowly out from your throat and mouth.

Let your throat resound as the air is expelled---maybe at first like a horn (mine is a tuba), and then eventually a roar.

Now make this adjustment: As you breathe in, feel your breath rise from the belly to the throat as if it had turned into an egg – that is right – a raw –shell- intact—perfectly formed egg. Now bring that egg up-- as a note – or a sound – through your throat and out your mouth.

For me, as a baritone base, I think of an ostrich egg escaping in a deep low note. 

Now, once you have formed that deep note, slowly ascend with each passing egg, up the scale (any scale, chromatic, major, minor, dissonant), using a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), or one of the seven chakra tones as (oh-ooo-ahh-ayy-eeee-mmm-nngg), or using the eight Gurdjieff chakra sacred vowels (o-ah-ae-ng-aum-eu-eo-ham). 

 As you take a breath, you breathe out the next note on the scale, and the next vowel sound. Be sure to take steady, long breaths so that you do not pass out!

I used the sacred vowels, because I recall most of the harmonics of each, and the sound is great.

 Then just let your imagination soar, and experiment with tones, sounds, words and harmonics. I tried a “peace chant,” just riffing on all the words for peace I could think of Peace, pax, pacem, peace, shalom, salem, peace, amen.