Breath, Music, and Healing
A fundamental inspiration for inquiry into music as medicine is Yoga’s
prescription of control of the breath for establishing meditative con-
sciousness. In using the word inspirationhere, I wish to convey its double
meaning of stimulation of feeling or creativity, and its literal meaning,
from the Latin inspir ̄are‘to breathe into.’ The force behind sacred speech
and song is breath. Air is the constant support of our physical life, and
breathing is the fundamental human interaction with the energy of the
cosmos. The medium of the sound of the flute is breath, the vehicle of
pr ̄aÓna,the current of life. To play the flute requires control of breath, not
pra ̄Ónay ̄ ̄amaas it is practiced for yogic meditation, but with pr ̄aÓnay ̄ ̄ama’s
essential property of specially timed inhalation and exhalation, and,
more important, its effect: breaking the tendency toward breathing that
is thoughtless and erratic. Instead, the breathing is regulated and a medi-
tative state ensues from the quieting of what classical Yoga called the
vÓrttis, the ‘turnings’ of mental activity. Ordinary breathing tends to be
shallow, but in pra ̄Ón ̄ayama ̄ and other breath-disciplines, breath is made
more even, and deeper breathing infuses the body/mind with vitalizing
oxygen, in turn infusing the practitioner spiritually with more pra ̄Óna.
In Navajo philosophy, the word ni¬ch’iis translated by James K.
McNeley as ‘Holy Wind’:
Suffusing all of nature, Holy Wind gives life, thought, speech, and the
power of motion to all living things and serves as the means of commu-
nication between all elements of the living world.^76Health and well-being are central concerns in the Navajo worldview. The
term hózhóhas meanings along the lines of beauty, harmony, order, and
well-being. Through ritual, hózhóis restored to an individual’s being,
and through speech and song, hózhóis then imposed into his universe,
carried by ni¬ch’i:
After a person has projected hózhó into the air through ritual form, he
then at the conclusion of the ritual, breathes that hózhóback into himself
and makes himself part of the order, harmony, and beauty he has pro-
jected into the world through the ritual mediums of speech and song.^77Pacific Northwest traditional healer and oral historian Johnny Moses
(Whisstemenee:Walking Medicine Robe) is a member of the Nootka and
Tulalip nations, and a practitioner of a medicine way called SiSíWiss,
which means Sacred Breath. He says:
160 religious therapeutics