Opening up the Throat

This is my first post this year.

My last post was on December 30, 2014. It's a reaction to some poetry that revealed some difficult truths. The one before that only acknowledges my move from the apartment in Pearland to the Love Shack in Buda.

I haven't been writing.

I haven't been speaking much either.

This past week I started feeling congested in my neck and shoulders. It felt blocked and cramped up mostly in that triangle where the neck meets the shoulders on the upper back. It hurt to raise my head. Then, I started feeling foggy in the back of the head and sensed fluid behind and below my ears, running down the back sides of my neck.

The neck and throat carry our mechanism for communication. I had some kind of a traffic jam going on. In fact, it is still clearing out. Traffic is slow, but it is moving.

I have been attending a few classes at an Iyengar studio in Austin. This blog began when I went to a workshop in Albuquerque that was at an Iyengar studio. I seem to be called back. My teacher was leading a workshop on the throat and neck this weekend,so I spontaneously jumped in.

I am so glad that I did. The work we did really helped me to begin to unclog the channel in my neck and throat where there is this traffic jam. One of the things we did was to create a sling to hang upside down from the wall. It was tremendous. I have difficulty going upside down because of my crushed left elbow. I have never been able to support myself comfortably. The ropes were able to support me and allow me to hang free. We did several poses at the wall where we trussed ourselves up in different ways to use the support of the ropes to free our poses. It was nice just to relax into them. I loved it.

The area that I have described as being congested is also part of the yoke that binds the arms to the torso. The arms reach out to the outside world and draw it in. We use our arms to encircle loved ones, to hug them to our hearts.

This is also the area where the head joins the torso and the rational and intuitive join the earth body. Input from our visual and auditory senses integrate with the tactile receptors in our hands and feet. It's a real crossroads here.

My blockage seems to come from my tendency to get stuck not being able to speak.

I can feel it, and I can draw on my senses, but I have not been able to use my voice. Thus, the blockage occurs. So much has gone in and not much has come out.

So, here I go. I am taking it slow, but I am loosening up my voice. I have been listening and watching and absorbing and processing. It is time to start to make sounds and be heard. I feel I have been holding back and protecting, choking back my complete expression.

I'm making a commitment to write every day. I haven't even been writing in my hand notebook. I've got to set aside some time to do this every day.

I think I need to do some singing too, make some beautiful noise.

I also need to talk to people. I have not been reaching out and talking to friends enough.

Namaste' y'all!