Pitching a Tent in the Desert
A Music-thanatologist’s Journey of
Learning to Sing at the Bedside
Professional Paper
Suzanne Cerddeu
Chalice of Repose Project School of Music Thanatology
Missoula, Montana
August, 2002
Copyright © 2002 Suzanne Cerddeu
All Rights Reserved
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the faculty and staff of the Chalice of Repose School of Music-thanatology, who guided
and supported me in my journey from 1998-2001, most especially Lois Mandelko, my voice teacher.
I would also like to thank my family for their unending love and support as I went on this journey
later in life, and the Class of 2000, who as a group created a sanctuary of hope and love as we
became music-thanatologists together. Special thanks to Selby Coffman, Tim Renner and Rachel Joy
for their assistance with editing and helpful suggestions, both when this paper was originally
submitted and in 2010 when I once again sought to put it in readable order.
December 2010
Introduction
Mountains and deserts have fascinated me since I moved to the West in my twenties. I had a concept
of high mountains from pictures growing up on the East Coast, but really could not relate to deserts
in any significant way. My daughter’s fascination with them in her teens took us to the desert on
several vacations, but it wasn’t until my mother died in 2000 that Belden Lane’s book, The Solace of
Fierce Landscapes, brought the desert into focus for me as a guiding metaphor through that time of
loss. Lane describes mountain experiences as spiritual and literal high points, the times of ecstasy
and transcendence, awareness of the divine through extraordinary peak experiences. The desert, in
his view, is the material version of those times when hope is lost and there is nothing to do but carry
on for the sake of carrying on, with no end in sight.
In retrospect, I came to understand that learning to sing at the bedside for dying patients as part of
Music-thanatology training was a desert journey for me. I could not escape the memories of trauma
that arose when I sang, and did not know how to integrate them so that the blocks to a free voice
would dissolve. Seeking an image, a metaphor, or a memory of healing and grace that would help
me through this time, a childhood fascination with the biblical Tent of Meeting (Tabernacle) and its
rich imagery began to return. My father read the Bible at our dinner table each evening, and when he
got to the parts in the book of Exodus describing the Tabernacle, he could not contain his
enthusiasm for its imagery of divine encounter. This was the richest and most meaningful part of
the Bible to me growing up. I daydreamed about the red and purple curtains, the incense, the
costumes, and the rituals. But most of all, I remembered the description of the hem of the high
priest’s robes, sewn all around with a bell and a pomegranate. My father believed these lush
decorations showed that when we encounter the divine, both joy, conveyed by the sounding of the
bells, and blessing, represented by the pomegranates, result. I wanted to learn sing so that my voice
with all its flaws could become an instrument of divine love at the bedside. How might the trauma I
associated with my voice be superseded by joy and blessing as I offered my voice to patients at the
bedside?
This paper was written during my time of grief and processing of my mother’s death. However, it is
only now, 10 years later, that I have begun to understand what I was trying to say. I have rearranged
the order for (hopefully) better flow of ideas, but have not significantly changed the content or
updated references. I hope that others who struggle to integrate past trauma and very human flaws
will find it useful in learning to sing at the bedside. At the least, I hope it will stimulate all of us to
search out those images, metaphors and rituals that will nourish us as we offer ourselves in service as
music-thanatologists. May we offer our voices knowing we can be an instrument of sacred
encounter to people who are facing the ultimate desert journey of their lives, the letting go and
releasing into death and the unknown.
Suzanne Cerddeu, CM-Th
December, 2010
MUSIC-THANATOLOGY
Music-thanatology is a palliative care modality established by Therese Schroeder-Sheker.
1
Developed
in a bedside practice over many years, Schroeder-Sheker developed a clinical musical methodology
using harp and voice to serve the needs of terminally ill people with prescriptive music. Appropriate
in every medical setting, prescriptive music is delivered at the bedside by music-thanatologists
prepared academically, musically, clinically and spiritually to recognize and address physical,
emotional and spiritual needs of patients. With a clear understanding of disease and bodily
processes, the music-thanatologist sculpts the raw elements of music: melody, harmony, rhythm,
tone, timbre, texture and so on, to assist patients and their loved ones. It is not a performance of
repertoire but rather music that arises live at the bedside through observation and direct experience
of the patient in the present moment. Observing the patient’s breath, countenance and other vital
signs, the music-thanatologist responds dynamically with song and pregnant silence.
Music-thanatology refers back historically to the practices of monastic medicine in the middle ages.
Reaching its zenith in the monastery at Cluny, France in the 11th c., the “care of the body, cure of
the soul”
2
as practiced in European monasteries was a direct forerunner of the modern palliative
care movement. Music was a key element in monastic medicine; the delivery of live music at the
bedside by a community of caring individuals was key to the practice. The contemporary work of
Music-thanatology is non-sectarian, drawing on the wisdom of many spiritual traditions, however
rooted it may be in our particular Western cultural heritage. It demands of the practitioner a kenosis,
or emptying and letting go, of a personal or musical agenda so as to be fully available to the patient
and loved ones. No response from the patient is needed or sought. The music is simply offered as a
sacrifice of sound delivered through as clear a vessel as possible.
The prepared music-thanatologist, “living an interior life that clarifies and purifies the soul,
understands that it is not enough to encourage people who are frightened to find some new inner
resource to meet an agonizing condition”.
3
The challenge is much more complex than that. However,
she or he does not bring a spiritual or other agenda to the bedside, but rather seeks to create a
sanctuary of music in which the patient can rest. Being open to whatever movement or processing
occurs, without expectation, is key to the music-thanatologist’s presence at the bedside. By paying
expert attention to the physical and emotional as well as spiritual suffering of patients, the music-
thanatologist can help relieve symptoms as well as provide a comforting, beauty-filled space in which
dying persons may become reconciled to their loss and find peace. In their unbinding from
biological rhythms and layers of identity and cultural conditioning, patients are held and supported
in a loving presence. Movement to a more comfortable or peaceful place may become possible in
this environment but the music-thanatologist is unattached to outcome.
1
I have drawn much of the material in this study from the writings of Therese Schroeder-Sheker, founder of the
Chalice of Repose Project and the field of Music-thanatology.
2
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, “Introduction”. A Medieval Death Ritual. Fred Paxton., trans.. Missoula, MT. 1996, p
x.
3
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, “Shaping a Sanctuary of Sound: Music-thanatology and the Care of the Dying”
How does one possibly prepare for this work? Harking back to Western Christian religious and
cultural roots in Judaism, I looked to the ancient Hebrew desert tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting, for
meaning and inspiration. To invite divine presence into one’s work of singing takes intention and
preparation. The accounts of the creating and use of the tabernacle are rich in metaphor and
symbolism. To the ancient Hebrews, it symbolized both their physical life in the desert as well as the
Divine Presence in the midst of ordinary life. In the developing an iconographic culture of the
Hebrews (they ultimately did not use images to represent the Divine) the tabernacle was somewhat
of an exception. It was not only acceptable, but in many ways became an all-inclusive image of the
intersection of humanity and the divine, though no actual image of God was used. In the inner
sanctum of the tabernacle, the voice of the Divine was heard, and the presence of the transcendent
one was felt. In this paper, I will describe the biblical imagery and symbolism of the tabernacle and
then relate that to the physical mechanism of singing , finally integrating my own desert journey
of overcoming obstacles to learning to sing.
CREATING A SANCTUARY
Tent symbolism was common in middle eastern nomadic people’s divine cosmology. It was not
unique to the Hebrews; there are analogous Bedouin practices.
4
Perhaps what was unique to the
Hebrews was the recording of the tabernacle’s elaborately developed construction in the Hebrew
writings. Plans for the desert sanctuary were believed to be given directly by God to Moses at Mt
Sinai
5
, though as Morris Seale points out, it was “no more than an elaborate nomad’s tent.”
6
The
nomad’s tent was made of animal skins stretched over poles. It was secured by pegs and closed with
overlapping flaps, Amazingly stable and secure in the desert, it could withstand high winds and
shifting sands. A tent was the most ordinary of necessities, the dwelling in which every Hebrew in
the semi-nomadic tribe that wandered in the desert carried out the daily acts of living.” Nothing was
as characteristic of desert life as a tent, unchanged in material design since pre-history.”
7
Its use
implied movement, the impermanence of place in nomadic life, as “movement is the chief business
of a nomad”
8
And yet, it also had the potential of symbolizing something beyond the ordinary,
something that transcended the harsh reality of desert existence. The appearance of an inhabited
tent in the desert must have been organic, a living entity in an environment hostile to most life. I
wonder if the light within, as deep darkness fell and lamps were lit, glowed like starlight through its
portals on the vast expanse. Life, movement, and encounter with something beyond the ordinary all
4
The utfah is an Islamic tent-like structure which is fastened onto the baggage saddle of a camel. Allah lives there,
and when the camel moves, the tribe moves. A mahmel is a pavilion, also carried by a camel, and leads to Mecca.
The Koran was carried to Medina in a black silk tent . These later forms descended from the pre-Islamic qubbah- a
small portable tent-shrine covered in red leather. Tent shrines of skin and sacred objects also existed in Egypt
(pictured in a bas relief featuring Ramses II, 1290-1224 BCE; also, pre-fab oak shrines with thin plaster and gold
foil were found in Tutankhamen’s tomb) and in the sacred huts of Carthaginian armies. See Sarna, Nathan. Exploring
Exodus. p.199.
5
Mt Sinai, a peak abruptly arising in the desert, is where the law was divinely revealed to Moses, the leader of the
Hebrew people in the wilderness. It has been described as a symbolic prototype for the tabernacle. See Belden
Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes.
6
Seale, Morris. The Desert Bible.
7
ibid., p. 85
8
ibid., p. 84
became part of the symbolism that was evident in the Hebrew Tent of Meeting.
Two words for tent, ohel and mishkan, are used in the Hebrew Bible. Both words have prior use in
Ugaritic and Akkadian, and reflect the nomadic roots of the Hebrew people. Ohel is primarily
translated as “tent” and mishkan as “tabernacle” in English, though they are actually synonyms, used
interchangeably to refer to a tent-dwelling.
9
Ohel: the root, HL, appears in almost all Semitic languages. Hebrew usage of the word Ohel
meant both tent and the people who dwelled in tents.
10
It derives from a primitive root, ahal, which
means to be clear, to shine.
Mishkan: cognate of the post-biblical Hebrew word Shekinah, used to indicate Divine
Presence. In rabbinical literature Shekinah meant the revelation of the holy in the midst of the
profane. In feminist theology Shekinah is the generative, feminine aspect of God, related to Sophia,
wisdom.
11
It is significant that both Hebrew words translated interchangeably as “tent” and “tabernacle” in
English includes the quality of a light-filled space in their root meanings and derivatives.
In the book of Genesis, the tent is portrayed as an overwhelmingly female space, with women
appearing inside or at the threshold of tents, while men were outside or at the entrance.
12
Don
Seeman argues that this “interiority” of women in the biblical record does not necessarily reflect
social reality, but rather indicates a concern with certain qualities: fecundity, vulnerability and
intimacy. When men enter tents in the biblical record, these qualities may be the concern of the
writer.
13
When Sarah, Abraham’s elderly wife, becomes fertile, she is depicted at the opening of the
tent. Thus, according to Seeman, “the tent opening is a site for the mediation of fecundity and
blessing in the biblical narrative”.
14
An interesting exception gender-wise is Jacob, who is called a
“dweller in tents”, in contrast to his twin brother Esau, a man of the fields. Jacob received the
blessing and birthright from his father, which rightfully belonged to his older brother. He
subsequently became the father of the twelve tribal patriarchs of Israel. The rest of the Pentateuch
15
9
One source differentiates the two, referring to the innermost layer of the tabernacle covering as mishkan and the
outer as ohel. See Friedman, Richard E., “Tabernacle in the Temple.” Biblical Archeologist. Fall 1980. Vol 49.
No. 4, p. 245.
10
This meaning carried over into Latin usage. The Roman armies used the word for tent- conturbatum, to refer to
both the tent and the officers and men who were billeted in one. Hathamodo, a 9th c. Christian abbess whose
death-bed journey was recorded by Agius (Vitae et Obitus Hathamodae. trans. Fred Paxton, unpublished
manuscript) referred to herself being present in her community as “going into my tent”. (Conversation with Fred
Paxton, October, 2000.)
11
Elizabeth Johnson writes that rabbinic specialists themselves argue that “Shekinah…is a way to assert the one,
transcendent God’s nearness to the world in such a way that divine transcendence is not compromised.” Johnson,
Elizabeth A., She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York. 1993. p. 91.
12
Seeman, Don, “Where is Sarah your Wife: Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible”.
Harvard Theological Review. April 1998, v 91, n 2, pp. 103-123.
13
ibid., p.104
14
ibid., p.113
15
The first five books of the Hebrew Bible; the Torah.
develops the interiority of the tent as a place of revelation of the Divine. Moses goes into the Tent
of Meeting, which is pitched outside the camp of the Hebrews, to communicate with God and
receive God’s instructions.
16
Nomadic tents of Moses’ time were covered with several layers of
animal skins, thus were cut off from natural light.
17
Essential to encounters with God in the Exodus
account is separation from ordinary life and entering the dark, interior place. According to Philo of
Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher living at the time of Jesus, it is “only there [in the dark separated
place] that he [Moses] enters the invisible regions and learns the secrets and most holy mysteries.”
18
The Psalms
19
are full of poetic references to the tent as the physical human body or as mortal life
itself. To die is described as being snatched from your tent (Psa. 52:5). The word tent is also used in
Psalms as a protective covering of any sort, and as a place of Divine protection in the midst of
danger (Psa. 27:5; 31:20.) In the writings of the Hebrew prophets later in the Bible, the tent
becomes a symbol of the dwelling of God in heavenly realms and also the holy city of Jerusalem.
But primarily through the development of the Tent of Meeting as a focus of encounter with the
Divine and center of worship in the desert, the tent came to represent the presence of God in the
midst of the people. God was not contained by the tent, but it dramatically made real to the
Hebrews the Divine Presence in their midst.
The Hebrews (Habiru= wanderer) were not deep desert nomads. They were considered semi-
nomads; they kept sheep and goats and wandered on the edge of the desert, eventually settling
permanently. As their culture evolved, they developed a relationship with their nomadic history that
was spiritualized. The spiritual path of apotheosis, rooted in the belief that God was without image,
prevailed. For the ancient Hebrew people, the tabernacle became a root metaphor, one that was
carried over into Christian theology and symbolism from its origins within Judaism.
20
The transitory
nature of the tent and its essential connection symbolically with survival in the desert or wilderness,
a way to encounter challenge and difficulty in a protected, interior way and not only survive, but
thrive and be fertile, still speaks to us today.
21
16
Exodus 33:7. Anyone, not just Moses, who wished to meet with God is said to go into the Tent of Meeting.
Whether this is always the elaborate Tabernacle described in Exodus, or an earlier manifestation is unclear. See
“Tabernacle”. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol 6, pp. 292-300. Freedman, David Noel, editor-in-chief. NY,
1992.
17
Botterwick,G.Johannes, and Ringren, Helmer, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament”. Grand Rapids,
1974. p. 119. See also Cant. 1:5, “I am as dark as the … tents of Lebanon.”
18
Williamson, Ronald, “Words Found in Hebrew and Philo, and also the LXX”. In Philo and the Epistle to the
Hebrews. Leiden, EJ Brill, 1970. p. 41. This picture of incubation in the dark, womb-like tent as a prelude to the
light of God entering, is an essential concept in preparation for the work of Music-thanatology. It also is
applicable to the often-seen progression in a bedside vigil through a liminal stage before movement to a new
place of comfort or ease occurs.
19
The songbook of early Hebrew worship
20
See the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, and the writings of Thomas Merton and others. Belden Lane, in
The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, gives a comprehensive history of the apophatic way in Christianity.
21
See Price, D., “Why I Live in a Tent”. Utne Reader online, Jan 2, 2000.
The Hebrew tabernacle was well-rooted in the cultural religious tradition of the near East, but the
absence of an image of a god in its inner sanctum was radically different from those that preceded it.
The description of this tabernacle in the book of Exodus begins with the cultic items to be stored
within: manna, the miraculous food that sustained the Hebrews when they were starving, Aaron’s
dry rod that budded and was used to perform a miracle supplying fresh water, and the tablets of law
inscribed by God and given to Moses on Mt Sinai. All these objects were representative of the
Divine Presence in the camp of the Hebrews and symbolized the Divine as a nourishing, preserving
and organizing force. All were kept in a wooden chest overlaid with gold, called the Ark of the
Covenant, in the innermost chamber. “The organizing principle [of the tabernacle description in
Exodus] is movement from the interior outward.”
22
When the tabernacle was completed, the Divine
Presence appeared and spoke from above the Ark between two golden cherubim (angels) that
hovered above it. The Divine Presence was seen outside the tabernacle as a light-filled cloud rising
above it in the daytime and a column of fire at night. The Tabernacle itself had three layers of
coverings placed over wooden planks. Inside, linen cloth dyed red and purple and decorated with
cherubim all around, formed a veil that separated the most sacred inner part from the rest. The
whole structure was covered with first a cloth made of goat’s hair, then red-dyed ram’s skins, and
finally leather.
23
Materials for its construction were contributed by the people, either brought with
them from Egypt or made of raw materials available in the desert.
The tent as a symbol of the capacity of human beings to encounter and reflect the light of the
divine continued to inform Judaic theology.
24
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook
25
wrote of the Jewish
people as bearers of the promises and the light.
26
He believed the creative energy of the Jewish
people found its fulfillment in converting the desert into a place of habitation and in the
establishment of an egalitarian society.
27
The teachings of Rav (Rabbi) Kook were summed up by
Ben Zion Basker: “To Rav Kook, all things were a crust with an inner essence, a divine dimension.
Seen aright all things have the capacity to reveal the light of holiness.”
28
He called for the integration
and harmonization of the ideals deriving from all sources, in that all ‘lights of holiness’ derive from
God and lead back to him (sic). It is not difficult to see in Rav Kook’s crust with an inner essence
22
Sarna, Nahum. Exploring Exodus. p. 191.
23
The word for leather was sometimes translated as porpoise hides (Ex. 36:19) or “fish skins”. see The New English
Bible. NY. 1976, and Botterwick,G.Johannes, and Ringren, Helmer, eds. Theological Dictionary of the Old
Testament. Grand Rapids.1974. p. 128
24
It was also considered essential to a healing encounter with the gods in ancient Greece as well. Asklepian healers
used tents for their rituals, deeming a permanent structure unacceptable for their practices for many centuries. Jayne,
Walter Addison. The Healing Gods of Ancient Civilizations. NY. 1962.
25
Rav Kook, a 19th c. Talmudic scholar and mystic, significant for his understanding of a wide spectrum of
Orthodox Jewish thought, wrote from the certainty of God’s presence in existence.
26
Bosker, Ben Zion. Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, Lights of Holiness, The Moral Principles,
Essays, Letters and Poems. Ramsey, NJ. 1978.
27
The Mosaic law was a code of conduct radically different from the codes of violence prevalent in early nomadic
culture.
28
Bosker, “Introduction”, p. 3.
the wilderness tabernacle of the Hebrews.
Kook saw divine illumination as an ongoing inpouring of divine light upon those sensitive to receive
it. He described two currents flowing in opposite directions: the current of expansion, a curative
power flowing down from God to the lowest levels of the material world, and the current of
unification, where reflected light flows back to its source. Kook believed all religious rituals have as
their goal to lead to receptivity to divine love. For the return flow of light, he taught we must
separate the seeds of love from the shells of collective pride. Believing that “temporal existence is
only one spark of an eternal existence of the most endless beauty,”
29
he taught that the only way to
bring good in this life is to harmonize with the eternal. Rav Kook’s crowning perception was “the
mysticism of the transparency of existence, which removes the darkness from human
consciousness”.
30
The tent as a symbol of everyday embodied life, and also of Divine presence, brings together two
seemingly opposite concepts in our modern western view of things. It cuts through the dualism of
sacred/profane. Our western view was not always so dualistic. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th c.
Christian mystic, saw in a vision what she called a “golden tent”. It symbolized to her the Divine
Presence entering the fetus in the womb. She wrote that this is our human birthright, though the
tent folds up at birth and our life-long struggle is to unfold it. Equating the tent with wisdom,
Hildegard described the soul as wandering and struggling to set up its tent.
31
In her vision the
human soul fights off terrible monsters and eventually manifests the tent of wisdom.
THE LARYNX AS A TENT OF TRANSFORMATION
Our bodily nature is like a dark closet, in which an opening has been left in front in the form of a living, flowing,
gold-radiating cross. In the throat sphere the radiating beams of light intersect, and the whole is like a living organism
of sound and light. The singer herself is the picture.
Werbeck-Svardstrom
Our instrument of singing, the human larynx, is an amazing structure. As the organ of speech and
song, it was regarded as one of the most marvelous parts of the body until the mid-1800s, when
scientific analysis deemed it to be quite inferior to that of other species. Comparatively, the human
larynx is poorly constructed to protect the lungs from foreign material, but in a typically human
evolutionary adaptation, a great compromise was made. Our verticality increased the larynx’s ability
to achieve fine control of subglottal pressure, making human speech possible. It was only in the
1950s, after studies were done on living larynxes, that its complexity and capabilities were better
understood. “The human talent for compromise evolved a passage lined with soft tissue folds,
maintained partly open and able to enlarge by unfolding and to constrict by folding up to various
degrees.”
32
29
ibid. “Introduction, p. 3.
30
ibid. Preface by Rivka Schatz p. xxiv
31
Hildegard of Bingen. Illuminations of Hildgard of Bingen, with commentary by Matthew Fox. Santa Fe. 1985. p.
56.
32
Fink, B Raymond. The Human Larynx. NY 1975. p. 39.
This tent-like structure is shaped in humans with nine cartilages between the trachea and pharynx. It
is located at the level of the fourth, fifth and sixth vertebrae; the vagus nerve controls most of its
muscles. It has three vital functions: protection of the airway, respiration, and phonation.
Energetically the fourth or throat chakra is located at the larynx. It is regarded as the center of will,
discipline and communication. It is believed to be receptive to higher vibrational influences through
clairaudience.
33
Sound vibrations may be made meaningful without hearing through the ears via
vibrational resonance with the larynx. This raises a deep wondering question for me: How does
hearing through the larynx inform our work at the beside? To what degree do patients participate in
musical communication via their larynx, as we are present musically to their process of dying,
perhaps after they have lost the ability to speak? As we offer music with a deep cultural history of
mediating the presence of the Divine?
The pitch, loudness and quality of a voice are modified by the fine motor controls of the vocal folds
and the air stream which flows over them. Resonance of the voice is modified by the oropharyngeal
and nasal cavities, and articulation is accomplished by the tongue with the palate, lips, and teeth
contributing. Four muscle groups provide adduction, abduction, tension and release of vocal folds.
Spring-like action, rather than simple mechanical motion, regulates the position of cartilages and
therefore the state of opening of the larynx.
34
To speak and sing, we literally pitch a tent. Imaginally
I see tent pegs, flaps, and the supporting poles being adjusted for better air flow, protection and
stability depending on the temperature, wind, and shifting sands.
The etymology of the word larynx is disputed. Clearly a blended word (in Greek) from pharynx
(phyrugks- throat), the dispute is over the source of the beginning “l”. A common explanation is that
it is blended from Gr- laimos, a synonym also meaning throat. However, as a general rule blended
words are not formed from synonyms. A lyre (synonymous with harp) in Greek mythology was a
symbol of choral (sung) lyric, presided over by Terpsichore.
35
I find it completely plausible that
ancient Greeks could have called the larynx the lyre (Gr- lyra) of the pharynx, with the phrase
eventually being shortened to larugks (larynx).
36
Still another etymological challenge is that normally
more than the initial letter of a word would be used to form a blend. One etymologist argues that
the source of the first syllable in larugks is Gr: larnaks, a small container such as a burial urn, or an
“ark”.
37
An ark is a chest or a box, from Latin: arcere, to enclose; it also means a place of refuge. The
larynx very likely could have been considered a sacred container in the throat, the place where the
Divine could be encountered and communicated with or mediated. Reversing the metaphor and
going back to the Hebrew Tent of Meeting, the ark resided in the innermost chamber or place of
metanoia
38
and transformation, the place where the Divine spoke. God’s speech emanated from above
the ark, the “larynx” of the Divine for the ancient Hebrew people.
33
See Gerber, Richard. Vibrational Medicine. Ch. 10.
34
Fink,B Raymond. The Human Larynx. NY 1975.
35
Haugen, Eva. C. Symbols…Our Universal Language. Wichita. 1962. p. 162.
36
However, I did not find any documentation in the literature for this idea.
37
Lehman, Winfred P.. “The Etymology of Larynx”. In Essays on the English Language and Applied Linguistics on
the Occasion of Gerhard Nickel’s 60
th
Birthday. Josef Klegraf and Dietrich Nehls, eds. p. 222.
38
Metanoia- a change of heart; a process of stripping away the habitual in order to make room for the new
The most common activity of the larynx is breathing, followed by phonation (speech) and closure.
In addition to protective closure during swallowing, the larynx closes to create pressure for coughing,
heavy exertion, defecation and parturition (giving birth). Phonation is accomplished by vibration of
vocal folds that meet and release in complex patterns of movement. They are not simply “cords”,
but rather, multiple layers of epithelial, ligamentous, and muscular tissue capable of great diversity
of movement.
39
These layers have different mechanical properties and are innervated by spiral nerve
endings that are coiled around individual muscle fibers. This is a finely tuned instrument the size of
a thumbnail.
40
Speech centers in the brain initiate muscular preparation for speech or song.
Prephonatory muscular preparation “automatically and repeatedly presets the posture of the vocal
folds and the tension pattern of the laryngeal musculature into a state that [the speaker or singer’s]
past experiences leads him(sic) to believe will produce the desired sounds”.
41
Each layer of vocal folds contributes in a different way to the vibratory pattern. Dynamically, the
vocal folds are a triadic structure: 1) the outer layer or covering of the vocal ligament (lamina
propria), consisting of epithelium and the superficial layer of the lamina propria; 2) a transitional
layer consisting of the intermediate and deep layers of the lamina propria; 3) the body of the vocalis
muscle. I think of the three-fold layers covering the Tent of Meeting: linen and goat hair, ram’s skins
and leather. I wonder what vibrations these layers bore, how they contributed to the transformation
of vibration into sound and light. As the Divine Presence rode in on the desert winds, the
lamplight’s flame and scents of sacrifice carried in its arms, did the tent sing as the larynx or lyre of
God?
I see the human larynx as a tabernacle, a place where the divine presence can manifest as audible
sound. It is a womb where its physical structure gives birth to non-material revelation. Multiple
layers refine and release vibrations in infinite variety. Air patterns and flow are regulated by complex,
spring-like movements of the cartilages. The kinetic energy of the air creates audible sound shaped
by the will. As pressurized air is forced through the glottis, the opening between the vocal folds, it
forms spirals and currents in a vortical pattern.
42
Air flowing in this pattern never returns to the
same place; it must move on and out, creating a living stream. Vowels are shaped in the larynx and
consonants added as the air passes over lips, teeth and tongue.
CREATING A TABERNACLE WITH SOUND: MY PERSONAL JOURNEY
How could the metaphor of a tent tabernacle inform my journey to become a music-thanatologist,
39
Shigejiro Kurita, Kazuto Nagata, Minoru Hirano. ” A Comparison Study of the Layer Structure of the Vocal Fold.”
In Vocal Fold Physiology: Contemporary Research and Clinical Issues. Diane M Bless and James H. Abbs, eds.
1983. p.3.
40
The only addition to the text made in 2010, this image of the vocal folds is from an interview with Bono aired on
NPR. .
41
Ibid. p.73. Newborns do not have a vocal ligament. By age four, there is an immature ligamentous structure only.
Children speak and sing, but the fullness of vibratory patterns in humans are capable of can only be produced
with increasing maturity. There is a negative effect of aging, however, less significant in females that males, but
nevertheless present. The muscle fibers atrophy, so there is less dynamic variability. See Vocal Fold Physiology.
p. 3.
42
Theodore Schwenk demonstrated these patterns with water; air behaves the same way.
and specifically, how could it guide me in preparing to sing at the bedside? The process of learning
to sing was, for me, one of becoming very vulnerable, almost naked. The challenge to be open to
the entry of music through my own physical body seemed insurmountable at times. Making music
with an external instrument is one level of invitation for music to come into being, while using my
own living body itself felt much riskier to me.
43
The goal of every musician may be to wed an
internal intention to an external expression, but for the singer, there can be no separation at all. My
own journey to sing at the bedside was fraught with many monsters, deep memories of constriction,
especially focused on my throat. They interfered on a daily basis with my ability to sing. As I tried to
ignore these memories, deep shame ensued. I just wanted them to go away. Journal writing about
these memories, I tried to process them in such a way as to free my voice, to release the hold of
these memories on my throat.
44
Journal entry:
I am coughing a lot in vigils. When I sing I tend to “brace” my larynx in a non-vulnerable position and then the tone
I produce is shrill and harsh. It is actually quite difficult to produce consistent tone in this state, and I dissolve into
coughing, my body’s way of releasing tension. Without that release, I would cause damage to my larynx.
According to Therese Schroeder-Sheker, the soul plays on the vocal cords like an instrument. They
are a boundary surface, a threshold between sound and silence, where the inner life becomes
graspable physically. “Finding and freeing the voice is a spiritual activity, which involves
pilgrimage.”
45
There is a transformation of breath that must occur through the soul and body of
one desiring to serve.” The experience of connectedness between patient and healer through
unconditional love is a level which must be reached and addressed by more in the so-called ‘healing
professions’ for greater healing to occur”, writes Dolores Krieger, a Registered Nurse who created
the contemporary field of Therapeutic Touch.
46
Offering the breath in song can be a path into this
unconditional love at the bedside.
Voice lesson notes:
I reach a point of fluidity in my voice, risk going new places with tonal quality, and burst into tears. It has happened
many times before. “When you risk going new places, the tears are triggered”, says Lois Mandelko, voice tutor.
Gitta Mallasz shares the following response during a conversation with supernatural beings during
WW II in Hungary:
The Angel (indicating the throat): “Here you block the rising force with emotion;
it becomes water and flows back. From the throat to the eyes, matter becomes
even more subtle, but still it is matter. Keep the way pure!”
47
43
I encountered many musicians in my earlier instrumental jazz studies who spoke of their instruments as being
extensions of their bodies and their loss as an amputation. Still, I had never felt quite as exposed playing
keyboards or harp as I now felt trying to sing.
44
See Kilbourne, Benjamin. ” The Disappearing Who: Kierkegaard, Shame and the Self.” In Scenes of Shame:
Psychoanalysis, Shame and Writing. Joseph Adamson and Hilary Clark, eds. NY. 1999. p. 38-39.
45
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, “Imagination of the Body: Larynx”. Classroom lecture notes. 2000.
46
In Gerber. p.332.
47
Mallasz, Gitta, Talking with Angels. English rendition by Robert Hinshaw. 1988. Ch. 10:Dialogue with Gitta,
Later, Gitta understood that feelings are vital, but we need a different attitude towards them.
Therese Schroeder-Sheker says, “If rising feelings are repressed prematurely, they become stuck in
the throat and are choked off. If they are allowed to rise freely, all the way to the eyes, their initial
strength becomes diluted into tears. But if feelings are offered to the Divine just as they reach the
level of the throat, then their force becomes transformed into Light, which rises up and shines out
through the eyes.”
48
Needing to find a way to offer these tears to the divine, to give up the fear so I could sing in the
presence of the dying, I decided to combine walking meditation and singing out in the open.
Holding an imagination of singing as a two-way exchange of light, I began recording my voice
under differing conditions of light. Hoping to explore the effects of light on vocal quality, I
discovered instead the dark, the demons, the underside: the beasties lurking in the shadows, waiting
to grab my throat, to choke me, to drown me, to stop my singing. Though most often I sang in early
morning light, I did make recordings at all times of the day and with both full sunlight and
moonlight.
Journal entry:
I tend to hold my breath, which is why singing is such a challenge sometimes. I have been going outside early to sing by
the river, the flowing water in the dawn light moistening, giving fluidity to my voice, drowning it out at times. I don’t
worry about quality, but focus on releasing and singing.
Journal entry:
I am afraid of attacks in the dark, so one very early morning, to confront this fear, I go out to a park in the
moonlight and sing. Roses are blooming; their scent fills my throat and I tone long, full single tones. Suddenly a big dog
comes running up to me out of nowhere and barks threateningly. I freeze in place and don’t breathe….I remember
being bitten as a child., but have long since overcome my overt fear of dogs. The dog’s owner rushes up and apologizes,
calling off her dog. With every effort I can muster, I begin to breathe, but can no longer sing this morning.
Journal entry:
When asked to read out loud in class today, I could not. I had no breath; no sound would come out. Later I remember
being punched hard in the chest by my mother as a child, and being unable to breathe. It was subsequently determined
that my ribs were all broken at the sternum on one side, and my ribcage developed in a lopsided position. I was
ashamed and embarrassed by this deformity as I grew up, not understanding its origins. But I have not thought about
it in years.
Journal entry:
In class, we look at a picture of St. Antony in the desert. Monsters surround and threaten him. The monster that
leaps out at me in the painting is a smothering, choking monster. Later, I dream a snake is choking me, and on
awaking remember being choked to unconsciousness as a young wife.
Ashamed of my inability to sing, racked with these memories of constriction, I cried and cried in my
Friday, August 27, 1943. p. 40-43.
48
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, “The Material Half of the Angel: Silence Narratives in the Mystical Experience of the
Loss of Freedom”, in The Angels. Robert Sardello, ed.
voice lessons. I needed to learn to let go of the anxiety and shame. I felt myself to be in a deep
desert of the soul, and to work though this desert, I sought a way to feel protected and held. Robert
Sardello, in reference to the story of St Antony’s ordeal, comments on the silence of the desert in
which the saint sought the Divine. The demons who came to him kept Antony from silence and
were also his way into silence. According to Sardello, they protect one from entering the desert too
soon.
49
Therese Schroeder-Sheker emphasized that without a contemplative practice, one cannot do
the work of Music-thanatology. To contemplate literally means to go into the sacred space (Latin:
con- with, and templum- sacred space). Tilden Edwards defines contemplation as attention to our
direct, loving, receptive presence for God. He says it is not an experience to be gained, but an
eternal identity to be realized.
50
Attention is key, or mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition. Edwards
further states, “A contemplative is not a special kind of person; every person is a special kind of
contemplative.”
51
How could I find this identity beyond my carefully constructed limits of safety? I
wondered now how I could find the silence beyond the monsters, making room for the light and
breath of divine presence in my being, and give voice to song.
Working at the bedside of terminally ill people is often an encounter with fierce landscapes that can
strip the ego of its false sense of importance, and test one to the limits of capacity. Entering the
desert, says Belden Lane, is a concrete journey of the body whereas going to the mountain top is a
flight of spirit, an experience of ecstasy. According to Thomas Merton, we need both for spiritual
development. In the desert we are forced to abandon ego, “carried to the remote edges of the
self”.
52
However, with a sanctuary, a Tent of Meeting, we can experience a fluid verticality, some
transcendence of the ordinary, within the desert experience. Approached in a more feminine,
protected way, transcending the limitations of our fears and everyday ways of being is not an
either/or choice of a desert or mountain-top experience. The healthy ego can remain intact, which is
necessary for the work of service to others, yet it can be given a sacred task to do so it does not hold
the limelight.
53
The tears of the desert are brought into the tent and held in a vessel, to be offered in
sacrifice and celebration when the moment is right.
If I were to learn to sing, I must embrace the fear of not being able to breathe, and set ego aside. I
had entered a liminal, desert place of painful monsters stirred up by singing. As a child, I found
silence and a sense of safety when I was frightened, in my grandmother’s loving eyes. Now I called
upon the memory of her presence to build a sanctuary of safety around me. I found her prayer
book and began singing the psalms from them. Though I have no memory of her singing, calling up
her presence in this way helped me to silence the inner chaos. As I sang the psalms every day, a new
sense of my own voice emerged. I was less afraid to sound. The silence within the profound words
of the psalms became real to me as I sang them. I began with simple toning, then let a melody arise
as it emerged out of the words. Slowly, I became able to sing. The struggle gradually became not
about singing but about when to be quiet, to listen and breathe, to allow a balance to enter between
49
Robert Sardello lecture:”The Spiritual Psychology of Silence”. October 5, 2000. St Antony lived in the desert for
80 years, beginning in 270 CE.
50
Edwards, Tilden. Living in the Presence. San Francisco. 1995. p. 2, 5.
51
ibid., p.2.
52
quoted in Lane, p. 50
53
This point was stressed by Robert Sardello many times in lectures. Chalice of Repose Project School of Music-
thanatology, 1998-2000.
silence and song. My voice teacher was finally able to say, “Your work developing good breath
support and producing resonant tone has asked everything of you as you’ve plumbed the depth of
what true embodiment means. This work has prepared you for the truest work of singing which is
the complete transformation of body tension into a limber and breath-filled body which is
completely resonant.”
54
In a bedside vigil, the music-thanatologist breathes with the patient, entering into their bodily
experience in a most profound way. Within minutes the air each is exchanging has fully blended with
that of the other. The music that flows from the singer’s larynx is infused with the breath of the
patient herself. Living and dying become shared experiences, even as the music becomes the patient’s.
To create a tabernacle in this space, the music-thanatologist can follow a three-part process. First,
the world is left outside. All the baggage of the day is set aside. With mindful attention, the focus is
only on the patient before him or her. Sitting in the patient’s presence with the harp is like waiting in
a dark tent, open to revelation and fecundity, but attuned only to the immediate. It is a transitional
place, much like the tent which Moses entered when seeking a dialogue with God. The harp’s form
brings beauty into the room, and the loving focus of the music-thanatologist can create a sense of
safety as the patient faces the unknown before him or her.
Initial tones emerging from harp or voice can open up a flow of vibration that penetrates the very
cells of the patient, at times reorganizing them. The physical connection with the patient may
become more intimately woven as the musical levels deepen, attune and respond to the physiology
of all present. All are joined in a communion of sound and being, with loving acceptance and
support through all expressions of pain, anxiety, fear or distress which may arise in the patient.
There is no end goal, no expectation of a “result”, or “outcome”. Silence is as comfortable as sound.
Sleep may provide a welcome respite for the patient or loved ones; all rest together in this tabernacle.
When the patient indicates it is time to leave this liminal place, the music-thanatologist can follow
with music that supports the journey back to everyday life, or honors the process of letting go of
the physical body.
Sometimes though, as the air streams flow through the larynx and one’s inner being is in harmony
with the needs and longings of the patient, an angel enters and we are suddenly and totally behind
the linen curtain of the inner sanctum, filled with the light of the divine, aware we are no longer
simply ourselves but a part of the eternal. The patient can choose how to ride this current of energy,
when to release, when to stand in the light and hold on to embodiment. We are holding a tension of
opposites and riding the wings of spirit. It has nothing and everything to do with our embodied
presence here. The lyre of the pharynx has called the divine, and we can only watch and listen in awe
as its presence is unveiled before us.
Living music can only occur at the threshold, where matter and spirit meet, where spirit impregnates matter,
and then is made audible, freely available to the hungry. In this perspective, the sacramental aspect of music is primary:
in living streaming music, the human, even the broken and wounded human, as either musical doer or musical receiver
can experience the presence of the divine in multiple ways, in body, soul and spirit. Music in its Boethian capacity is
spiritual medicine, a materia medica revealed to care for the body and cure the soul, a repertoire filled with life forces,
streaming through the universe, connecting and bridging while healing.
Therese Schroeder-Sheker
54
Lois Mandelko, Feb 7, 2000.
THE JOURNEY HOME
Mama is very near death. Her respirations are more and more shallow. Earlier Janet and I bathed her;
it felt more like a ritual cleansing than a functional chore. I am sure Mama is aware of our presence,
despite her deepening coma and inability to respond. My siblings and I have sung to her throughout
the night and day. Now as dusk approaches, I offer an antiphon, a traditional prelude to the mass,
attached to Psalm 50 in the Liber Usualis: Asperges me.
This prayer for cleansing “is sung in private, before the mass begins, in a ceremony called the
aspersion of Holy Water (aspersis aquae). Consequently, it is the first vibration, the opening sound in
the mass setting.”
55
This holy water, once consecrated, was used as “lustral” water for different
purification and sprinkling rites. The word lustral is descended from the root leuk- light, brightness;
from which derive the words light, luminary, lunar, luster, lucid, translucent. Lustral itself means of
or used in a rite of purification. The water thus consecrated was also used to wash the bodies of the
dead and for ceremonial sprinkling of the congregation, a symbolic cleansing, preparing the soul to
receive the Eucharist. Psalm 50 speaks of the purifying and cleansing of blessed water. It was sung
at the anointing, when the community first gathered around the bed of the dying one at Cluny, and
again during the washing and shrouding of the body after death. Finally, it was repeated at the burial
ceremony at the cemetery.
56
This is the first time I have sung this cleansing music to Mama; now it is time, and it flows freely
from my voice, quietly, gently, washing over her in consonance with the rise and fall of the water of
life, now filling her lungs as she prepares to move through death. She has slumped down in bed.
Janet and I gently lift her and rearrange her pillows. I sing a visionlieder very quietly, using the vowel
sound “eh”, singing directly to her heart. Janet joins in on the simple, repeated ascending melody
from the other side of her bed. We hold Mama’s hands while she continues breath motions, though
she is no longer exchanging air. As we watch and sing, she slowly stops even the motions of breath.
Her mouth, which had hung open, jaw slack, all day, pulls into a smile. She squeezes both our hands,
hard. In a whole body gesture, her smile becomes huge and her body seems as if it were leaping off
the bed. I see with my mind’s eye a waiting chariot of angel wings above her, lifting her and carrying
her away. Tears of silent laughter squeeze out of both her eyes. Her face fills with light, becoming
brighter and brighter. Her whole body begins to shine. Her transition has been an opening for the
entrance of light, and we say our final goodbyes with gratitude.
The real significance of the image of the tabernacle, for me, is as a once dark but now light-filled
space, a reminder of the ever-present possibility of the entrance of the eternal, or Divine, in the
midst of everyday life, including dying. Holding the tension between creative unfoldment and
disciplined preparation can open up transcendent possibilities. Traditions and history are moments
in the endless flow of eternity; shape and form help us to re-encounter it, but must not distract us
from new light pressing in on us. Our singing can be a continual opening to new light. It is not only
a physical act of the larynx, but an invitation for the creative energy of the universe to converge and
55
Murfin, Sharon, Music Embodiment: Asperges me. Unpublished manuscript. Missoula, MT. 1999. p. 4. I did not
discover how this particular psalm was used in ancient Hebrew ritual.
56
See Paxton, Frederick, trans. A Medieval Death Ritual: The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich of Cluny.
Missoula, MT. 1993.
focus on this place and time, birthing something new. This the music-thanatologist can offer to the
dying.
