What is Voice Yoga ?

Read til the end for a simple practice is seeing how your voice shapes the world. . .


In yoga, the particular shapes we take are designed to awaken us.


So in singing the seed syllables, chants and prayers that hold meaning in our collective over time (like ho’oponopono), we awaken, these song postures are the equivalent to the yoga postures that serve the purpose of waking up.


I would add singing “in key” to this. Key is just a particular form in relation to other forms. More on this another time.


Just like in yoga, in voice yoga, we love ourselves where we are as we aspire and create new possibility through the aspiration. Anyone can grow in their capacity to sing in key.


There is also this absolutely magical (and scientific) quality of humans making sound together called entrainment which works both rhythmically and tonally (and with our heats and brains!) to help us come into alignment and harmony with each other. This just amazes me because it shows me on a micro level how human being CAN live in harmony together and just how powerful vibration is. And anything that can occur on the micro level can occur on the macro level. It’s just, what are we tuning to? DT or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? (As an example).


And I will say this a million times because I want it to be heard that this tuning does not mean to repress the shadow or negativity. If that worked then my early childhood traumas would have been erased through my ignoring them 😂


No, no. Ignoring is not tuning. Tuning is working with (and loving) what is to go where we want to go.


It’s integrating, and getting it “wrong” (because you really can’t get it wrong) and trying and “failing” and then trying again and sounding “bad” or “ugly” and letting the tears flow (or laughter - it’s just energy moving)- all within the sacred container of kindness - a real space to explore. There will be beauty created in voice yoga, but it doesn’t have to be beautiful.


Alternately in a dance practice like 5 rhythms, we track of our sensations in the formless.


We allow our awareness to be the aliveness that it is! Old forms evolve, and sometimes we access entirely new patterns of movement.


This I would relate to what we call “group or spirit song” and “signature song” the former being a collective soundscape created by regarding the body as a conduit between heaven and earth.


This practice is one of awareness through deep listening to the field to let the sounds we hear in our minds ear, or the pictures floating through our minds sky, or the images arising from our minds heart to bubble up and out our mouths or through our palms to flow rhythm through our bodies.


Signature sound is where each person has an opportunity to take the lead and the community reflect and enhances through their listening, picking up motifs from the leader and the field.


It’s here that we often hit resistance from our logical mind. We might encounter the limiting conditioning we have received from the world, our families, and past experiences telling us “No! Don’t sing that sound ! You’ll sound like a fool” or whatever the limiting habit might be. I’ve certainly encountered that thought. And what I found, reliably, when I regard my fear as an invitation and have had the courage to step through the threshold of that fear to make (or attempt) the sound anyway, is new possibility and FREEDOM!


And of course so often we forget... the voice is LITERALLY the instrument of the human body. It’s physical. Vibration effects physical matter.


The best example I have for this is how a yoga teachers voice guides you twice a week into plank pose, and suddenly after 55 minutes of plank, three months later, you can see your abs! The teacher literally shaped your body with her guiding words (and your willingness).


So it’s my intention through voice yoga to call attention to this profundity. Your voice shapes your life. Your voice shapes your friends and loved ones.


And you don’t have to just take my word for it either.


Just try it out, “Hey ____, I really love that _____ on you.” And notice the PHYSICAL response they have to the praise. Watch. Do they smile? Do they shake their head? Do they blush? Do they wear that piece again next time they see you?


Your voice shapes communities. Your voice shapes your city. Your voice shapes this world.


Voice Yoga @ Earth Yoga @ 4:30 pm
Cost: Donation - all levels of offering welcome.
Art by Nayamoon Art
Facilitated by:


Malaine Snow, Naropa Grad & Women’s Work Nonprofit founder of Haven


Ellen Pierce, Psychotherapist, musician and +1200 hr yoga teacher