The Heart Chakra
The fourth vibratory center is the heart chakra and is located in the center of the chest between the two nipples. Green in color, it influences the heart and is associated with love, compassion, and affection. This chakra forms a bridge, linking the upper three chakras to the lower three. Drumming activates the heart chakra, thereby balancing the descending higher chakra energies against the ascending lower chakra frequencies. From the heart, these harmonious energies resonate outward into the web of life. Researchers have found that drum rhythms affect the heartbeat. The heart's pulse may speed up, slow down, or gradually entrain with the pulsation of a drum rhythm until they are locked in perfect synchronization. In fact, many shamanic cultures use a healing heartbeat rhythm pulsed at around sixty beats per minute, which is the average heart rate of a person at rest. The heartbeat is one of the reasons that people so strongly and naturally connect to the drum. Each of us, after all, enters the world, having spent nine months listening to a heart-drum in the womb. We are imprinted with rhythm from the very start, and rhythm is the heartbeat of life. Shamans around the world believe that the drum is coming into power again to awaken our hearts, for we must now learn to live from the heart. We have been living from the navel center, using our ego and will power for mastery, control, and conquest. If we focus on the heart center, we can hear divine will. Our actions then spring from divine will rather than the ego. To live from the heart means to walk the "rainbow path," to walk in balance like the colors of the rainbow, to respect all pathways to wholeness. The rainbow symbolizes unity, wholeness, and balance. Mongolian shamans believe that this balance, called tegsh, is the only thing that is truly worth pursuing in this world. When humans lose it, they create imbalance within the web of life. It then requires the unity of all colors, all cultures, working together to bring the web back into balance.The Throat Chakra
The fifth energy center is blue and is located at the base of the neck in the nook where the clavicle bones meet. Known as the throat chakra, it is associated with the vocal cords and the thyroid gland. It is the chakra of communication, telepathy, and creative expression. Unexpressed emotions tend to constrict this energy center. Drumming activates the throat chakra, greatly enhancing self-expression, creativity, and telepathic communication with others. More importantly, drumming opens your ability to hear and recognize the truth of your inner voice. Your inner truth is your sense of what is correct-your innate tendencies and inclinations. In every situation, we should be humble, open, and receptive, suspending all previous judgments in order to grasp the inner truth of the matter. If we rely on the truth of our inner voice to guide us, our actions will be in accord with the times.The Brow Chakra
The sixth chakra is that of the brow, third eye, or place of "shamanic seeing." Located between and slightly above the eyebrows, it is indigo in color. This energy center is closely associated with imagination, inner vision, and psychic abilities. It is related to the pituitary gland. It functions as a link between the inner world and the outer world. Malfunctions of the brow chakra commonly manifest as headaches and eye tension. Resonating this chakra remedies any problems in function and opens the door to a reality separate from the ordinary world. Rhythmic drumming enables us to perceive and journey into the inner realms that shape and direct our reality. Vast worlds of extraordinary richness and complexity emerge when the brow chakra is activated. Archetypal figures symbolizing transpersonal and spiritual qualities arise, such as images of deities, spirit guides, or power animals.The Crown Chakra
The seventh or crown chakra is located at the top of the head. The Hopi call this energy center kopavi, meaning "the open door" through which higher spiritual knowledge is received. The crown chakra is associated with the pineal gland, the color violet, full enlightenment, and union with the cosmos. Drumming activates this chakra, thereby facilitating a state of unity consciousness. One's sense of being a separate individual gives way to an experience of union, not only with other individuals, but also with the entire universe. The benefits of attaining this state of unity consciousness include relaxation, healing, more energy, better memory, greater mental clarity, enhanced creativity, and communion with the resonating web of life. Feelings of peacefulness, timelessness, and spiritual well-being are common, along with a oneness of feeling and purpose with the totality of a dynamic, interrelated universe. This experience of mystical union with the cosmos is said, by many of the world's spiritual traditions, to be the final realization. Consciousness rediscovers its true nature and recognizes itself in all things. Drumming is a simple and effective way to induce this profound state of consciousness.continue
