Fifth Chakra

photo courtesy of Ronin Films/Monument Films

I've always been a Spiritual Seeker. The first time I remember feeling that connection probably when I was about three. I remember feeling one with the universe, singing loudly while swinging. I was flying.

In church, I would feel myself flying, again, above the congregation- not an out of body experience, per se, but just felt myself transported. This usually happened while singing also. I love to sing.

And although I started this post thinking it would go one way, I've decided to follow my impulse and take it to the new place fingers are going with it.

I have a thing with my fifth chakra. It's a family thing, carried down through my mother's side.

My mother's brother died from strangulation when his windbreaker got caught on a nail he had used to replace a cotter pin on a grain elevator. The ripstop material got caught on the nail, then pulled him down until he died. He struggled. Both shoulder bones were broken from him trying to save himself. My mother died "by her neck." She had a fast growing tumor that impinged upon her carotid artery. Between the pressure of the tumor and her coughing from leaking blood, it burst and she bled to death. All three of my children have physical manifestations of blocked energy there: the oldest has had ear problems, had surgery and is now deaf in one ear. the middle had her thyroid removed. My youngest had the some of the most crooked teeth I have ever seen (fixed with braces for many years) and her jaw is sharply angled to one side (which she opted not to fix).

Whenever I do breathwork, it's my throat that takes the most focus. I stop breathing because it constricts. I cough, gag, spit, arch my throat. I have memories of being hanged in a past life. My throat and chin are really the only places on my body that "look my age." I've been a borderline rebel all my life, wanting to create myself solely in my own image, and yet I am always feeling I am living a half life and not being all I can be. I remember one time a psychic started touching her neck, coughing and feeling like she was choking the minute she first went into trance and focused on my energy.

My life has been intense these past two years. I've gone through and continue to be in the middle of some intense transitions and making huge changes in my life that disrupted all that I had created. Even though it has all been my choice, it has not been an easy cycle. During the stress of it, I slowly but surely began to shut myself, my voice, down piece by piece. I began to re-awaken a few months ago, coming out of my cave little peeks at a time. I retreat again when it feels like the right thing to do. I've been making decisions to live no matter where it goes. I want expression. I want to create.

So, in essence, this blog will also be a re-emergence; a combination of memories and processes I have done, and what is going on now with the places it takes me. I've done this before, this intense spiritual questing. I think I am being called to be more involved again. And it there's anything I have learned in this Questing it's that I know and have experience with the tools, it isn't the same as the Doing of it.

So, feeling my throat. Focusing on the breath moving through, where it sticks, where I unconsciously hold energy, subtly constrict the muscles in my neck and jaw. Where is my tongue? How are my shoulders?

I am going to start singing more.