10. The Throat Center

Kelsey: 00:00

In human design manifestation is a mechanical thing that deals with impacting the physical reality through externalization of energy pressure awareness through the throat. And specifically, if we think about the manifestor type specifically, it's about fuel energy power getting to the throat, to be able to move the Maya to change and shape reality. So it's not the same as this idea of creating your reality through perception. It's a different concept. Welcome to the Living Your Design podcast.

I'm your experimenter, Kelsey Rose Tortorice. This podcast is an audio only release of the full length in-depth human design foundations course I've been teaching over the last several years. It is a no bullshit, comprehensive, embodied introduction to to the human design system that will challenge your ego mind and support you in your process of reuniting with the unique wisdom of your body. In episode one, I speak a bit about the process that led me to releasing this course for free in podcast form, and I offer a few notes that might be useful to contextualize and clarify what you'll hear in this episode and beyond. I recommend giving that short intro episode a listen if you haven't yet.

The LYD podcast is part of a larger living body of work, a growing archive of my teachings about consciousness through the languages of astrology and human design, hosted in an online community space where I stay in orbit with my students, mentees, alumni, peers, and collaborators. For more information about how to connect with me and tune in to my archives and ongoing live teachings, including how to access the original LYD course complete with videos and slides, stay tuned to the podcast or check out patreon.com/kelseyrosetort. Thank you for tuning in to my transmission of living your design. It's a deeply personal and somewhat vulnerable share that I feel honored, humbled, and excited to release into the world. I hope that it helps you remember and come home to yourself.

In our final center of this unit, the throat center, everything begins at the pressure center of the root or the head at the opposite ends of the body graph. And then all roads, all the channels lead to the throat. All roads lead to Rome. In the case of the body graph, Rome being the throat center and the throat is then the portal for what began as pressure to be released. The throat center is referred to as the manifestation center of the body graph.

And it deals with communication, self expression, manifestation, and interaction with the exterior through verbalizing and externalizing. It's where the pressure from the head and root is eventually released and it's the release valve for that pressure. Quick note on the word manifestation in human design, manifestation is a mechanical thing that deals with impacting the physical reality through externalization of energy, pressure awareness through the throat. And specifically, if we think about the manifestor type specifically, it's about fuel energy, power, getting to the throat, to be able to move the Maya to change and shape reality. So it's not the same as this idea of creating your reality through perception.

It's a different concept. Manifestation and human design, both in terms of how we understand the mechanics of the throat center. And in terms of understanding the mechanics of the manifestor type has nothing to do with law of attraction, law of assumption, group reality creation and beliefs, creating reality. It's an entirely different concept having to do with energy getting to the throat to be released. And as energy is released to the throat, it shape, it actually moves the energy outside of the form.

It creates impact and changes and shifts the reality through an actual energetic release of energy into the outside world through that release valve. Setting manifestation aside here, because now we're gonna get into the mechanics of a defined versus an undefined throat. And that's not the same thing as manifesting. Actual manifestation is when energy reaches the throat to be externalized. And that's a different thing that everyone can experience on a fluctuating basis, regardless of definition in the throat or otherwise, but it's different than just the simple mechanics of whether this manifestation throat center is defined or not.

For those of us with a defined throat, there's a consistent way of using your voice and expressing and behaving or acting and externalizing. It's the portal, it's the communicative portal. So it often has to do with the actual release through vocalization, but it's not always just vocalization. It can be other forms of expression as well, like behavior. Depending on the centers and channels that connect the throat, that create the throat's definition and the different gate activations in the throat, a defined throat person is gonna have a certain thing or certain things that they are consistently expressing.

So it's not that that voice, that ability to express is available for all forms of expressions or ways of expressing. Your differentiated voice based on your throat definition is consistently available to you. It's a consistent voice. When you speak, you speak about these things or you speak in this way, you contribute or externalize in this way, through your throat, your voice, your expression. Although people with a defined throat may always feel able to talk and express because of that consistent definition, you don't always need to.

It's very easy with the throat center to do too much because so much energy is moving towards the throat. Right? So think about, for example, someone with one of the pressure centers, undefined, but a defined throat. It's not always going to be correct for you to try to release that pressure, especially when you have one or more pressure centers undefined. There's still gonna be that same sort of suffering or discomfort associated with amplification of pressure.

And just because you have the defined throat doesn't mean that you are designed to always be talking to try to get rid of that pressure or to try to deal with and contend with the not self of any of the other centers that we've yet to get to. So it is very easy. Like for myself, you'll witness it plenty. I would say I'm softening away from this slowly, but I'm certainly still in a, in a process of deconditioning my own undefined centers, which are head, ajna, and sacral. And you'll see, even though I have three non-sacral motors that all connect to my throat, I have a very defined, very powered up throat.

I can still feel at times when, and you will likely be able to observe and feel at times when I'm just talking and talking and saying too much, you'll feel the flavors maybe as you get to know the center is if you're someone who continues to engage with me, you'll feel the flavors of is is Kelsey talking too much because of head pressure, amplified head pressure, because of Ajna conditioning, trying to prove that she knows, or because of sacral conditioning, doesn't know when enough is enough. So even the defined throat can do too much, can say too much. But when we are clearing the conditioning from the other undefined centers, there is a consistent access from the defined throat person to be able to have this consistency of voice and expression that is uniquely their own. As with all other centers, with a defined throat, it is most aligned for people to use strategy and authority to determine when and what to externalize. There are a few channels connected to the throat that are referred to as manifested channels or manifesting generated channels, which means they connect one of the motors directly to the throat, in which case, speaking for the manifested channels and everyone who has that as a manifestor comes from this internal force, this internal energy that moves one to express.

That's only gonna be the case for manifestors. For the manifesting generator channel, the thirty four twenty that goes directly from the sacral to the throat, the correct mechanics for that channel, the strategy for that channel is going to be to express in response, in sacral response. Excuse me, I'm going to sneeze. But for all the other channels, the majority of the channels that define the throat are referred to as projected channels, which means they're not an energy source to the throat and projected channels require invitation to be correct. So there's an element of, of being invited to express.

It's, it's more nuanced than this because your strategy and authority will override whether things are actually being invited or not, but there is something to that. Expression in order for it to actually be impactful, which is the point of this manifestation center is to impact what's outside of it through one's expression. It's this release from the internal perspective, but it's impact on the outside world. There's an element of invitation that is intertwined with so much of that potential impact in many cases, in the cases of most of the channels that define the throat. And so using strategy and authority to determine how your body wants to express and in what directions and when is what is going to support both the defined and the undefined throat center in expressing in a way that is correct or aligned.

For undefined throat people, you don't have a consistent voice. You don't have a consistent way of expressing. The way you express yourself and the extent to which you feel called to express yourself will fluctuate. So, for example, being in group classes, going around in a circle and introducing yourself or speaking or sharing your reflection on something, that's going to often feel pretty uncomfortable for the undefined throat person because the undefined throat person doesn't know if they're always going to have something at the ready to say. There's an inconsistency in regards to when it truly is time for you to speak up and what it truly is time for you to speak up about.

So a defined throat person, I always have something to say. I always can find something in my voice, in my unique expression and way of contributing with my externalization. There will always be something I can share. There's a consistency there for me. For the undefined throat, that's not always gonna be the case.

But I sort of see it as, like, with the undefined throat, there's not consistent access to that externalization. But when deconditioned and when operating in a healthy way, when that undefined or open throat does speak up, when its body cues it, there is something to say now, it's supremely powerful and supremely impacting. The right timing for the undefined throat can have so much impact and so much influence, but that impact and influence will get distorted and muddied up. If the undefined throat is pressuring itself to always have something to say, to be available, to always be externalizing. The undefined throat is also able to know who speaks the truth because you're, you're amplifying this externalization process from the people around you.

You have a sense of what frequencies coming out of the throat are true versus distorted. The undefined throat person might feel a pressure to try to plan what you're gonna say or feel insecure about how you communicate or speak due to conditioning, and might also feel an internal pressure to speak in order to get attention. Think that you have to speak up because your natural state will so often be quiet that you're not self mind might convince you that you're getting left behind. You're getting left out. No one's paying attention to you because you're not always the one having something unique to contribute.

You contribute what really needs to be said when it really needs to be said, which is deeply impactful, but requires a level of comfort with not always being talking. The undefined throat person in alignment will get comfortable with embracing quiet and use their strategy and their authority to navigate when and what is truly moving within themselves to be expressed. So digging into the, this concept a little bit more, getting a picture, a little clearer picture of the healthy and not self state for the defined and undefined throat. Coming back to the defined throat here, the healthy state defined throat has a consistent voice, according to their channel definition. And I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more on the next slide.

The defined throat in a healthy state has a fixed style of speaking and acting a way that they are consistently expressing themselves that is unique in frequency to them. And the healthy defined throat uses strategy and authority to navigate correct timing for communicating, acting, and impacting. The not self defined throat state, I sort of already gave an example of this. Conditioning from other centers and gates will distort the expression of the throat. So the defined throat can still externalize a distorted frequency when that frequency is happening based on the conditioning of the not self mind through the flavors of the undefined centers, rather than based on the strategy type and center mechanics of that person with a defined throat.

A defined throat can talk too much, do too much based on the themes from their undefined centers and gates, and a defined throat can have a lack of awareness on the expression that it has. So again, a sort of taking for granted of your consistency, your access to, and your uniqueness of expression, and therefore maybe not being aware of the impact that that has on others. The undefined throat person in a healthy state, your voice and style of communicating or acting is inconsistent, but will shift based on who is around and what the frequency of the day is. So you will literally express yourself differently in different relationship containers, because you might have, for those of you with definition, with gates in the throat, but undefined, so not completely open, or this could be the case in an open throat as well, because you could have a gate that leads to the throat whose throat gate isn't activated, but half the channels there. So you'll have certain relationships where you plug into someone and within that relational container, you always have a defined throat.

So there's a way that you tend to always express and communicate with this person because of electromagnetics and or because their defined throat is amplified and you will express yourself as a mirror to the way they express themselves when you're with them. Right. So you will find these certain shifting, fluctuating consistencies in relational containers, but they won't stay with you everywhere you go. So you're not meant to, you're not designed to, and it's not healthy for you to identify with those situational relational ways of expressing yourself. If you find it very easy for you to express along a certain sort of vein with this one person or in this one group, and then you expect yourself to be able to consistently carry that way of expressing yourself into another container, another group, or on your own, you're going to be in pain because you're identifying with something that's not you.

It's a part of your movie in these circumstances. And same thing with transits. Certain transits will give you throat definition, but the presence of that throat definition, whether it's from a transit or from another person, is not your authority. That's your conditioning. And so relying on your strategy and your authority to know how and when to move from temporary throat definition is really the key.

The undefined throat in a healthy state is not concerned with planning what they're gonna say. You trust that your body will move you to speak correctly in the correct timing, and you trust that it's okay when you don't have something to say. You trust that you can remain silent. You trust that even when asked to speak, if there's nothing that wants to come out organically, that you can remain quiet, that you can perhaps articulate that I don't really have anything to contribute, or I have nothing to say. A healthy undefined throat is comfortable with that quietness, regardless of whether that might create discomfort socially.

A healthy defined throat is good at knowing who speaks the truth. A healthy undefined throat understands that transformation and development happens inconsistently in spurts. This piece is kind of related again to the idea of the manifestation center, the, the principle, the mechanical principle of manifestation through the throat. That's where change happens, right? It's where mutation sort of hits the outside world.

And so, for this example, I've heard this specifically directed towards the idea of childhood development of speech and voice. When it's an undefined throat, there's not a consistent way that the voice and speech and communication will develop. It will happen in spurts. And so it it's easiest to sort of conceive of that when we think of child development, but it's gonna be true for undefined throats as adult to, as adults to the development of your voice happens inconsistently in spurts. The undefined throat in a not self state is trying to attract attention with words and actions, is not comfortable with silence, thinks it needs to constantly be articulating and expressing and contributing in order to get attention.

The undefined throat and a not self state will be anxious and insecure about what they will say. We'll talk excessively, trying to gain some type of security on what it is they're even saying or trying to attract attention that you think you need. The undefined throat in a not self state gives into the pressure being amplified towards the throat and speaks in attempts to relieve it. I often think of what it must feel like to have an undefined or open throat in my presence as someone with so much fuel getting to the throat. If you have an undefined throat, you're amplifying all the energy going towards my throat in your body when we're in aura together.

And if there's not a healthy level of comfort with just allowing that pressure and that fuel that's coming up towards the throat to be present, you're gonna think you have to say everything because you can feel all the surge of energy moving to my throat in your own body. So again, the throat and the pressure centers, there's, there's a benefit to sort of understanding them together because they're the starting and end points of energy and pressure in the body. So the not self of the pressure centers and the throat centers can really be working together often in a not selfie way in making someone think that they, and this is again, kind of whether defined or undefined, but it's gonna be especially evident and uncomfortable in the undefined throat and making the person think that they have to express, they have to relieve this pressure in order to get attention or simply to just feel free from the pressure in their own body. Expressing from a not self place is never going to actually provide a sense of relief or attention that you actually want or freedom from the pressure. Open or undefined throat in a not self state is going to try to be a manifestor and initiate.

It's going to really get fixated on wanting to be able to make impact. Manifestors one of the way we describe the manifestor aura is it's naturally impacting because it moves the Maya. It moves the reality around it with its energy to the throat, with its actual mechanical manifestation and kind of connected to this idea of trying to attract attention with words and actions, an undefined or open throat in the not self is gonna be obsessed with and fixated on trying to make impact, trying to, to change reality with its words. And similarly so the undefined or open throat in the not self state will be trying to take up space, trying to be the star, trying to get all of that attention. Sometimes what I see in an undefined or open throat people who are in process with deconditioning is like, there will be a very organic share and then it will just keep going, keep going, keep going.

So there will be this like really poignant truth that comes out that did need to be said, that was impactful. And then the insecurity shows up and the undefined throat just keeps talking, but now they're not saying anything. Right? And so one other thing I wanna point out about the throat is that well, and I guess we'll talk about this a lot more at the end of LYD when I introduce the not self hierarchy, but let me introduce it now. The way I think about it, it's like very at the surface.

Right. And so all of our not self conditioning in any center is something that to someone who is attuned to their body, that distortion of that is felt like the deeper I get into my experiment, the more I actually am able to feel and trust in what I feel in my own body, that there's a distorted energy coming from this sacral or this Ajna or this ego or this throat, whether defined or undefined. There's something specific about the throat that can be so caught up in shame because the throat is right at the surface. So all of our not self themes from all of our undefined centers show up most at the surface in the throat, in what we say. It's like very on display is sort of how I understand it and how I experience the conditioning in the undefined throat.

There's like a gradient to it. There's a there's something called the not self hierarchy and the centers towards the bottom of the not self hierarchy, which the throat is the very last center and the not self hierarchy are kind of the most at the surface. This is very much just my observation. This isn't necessarily something that's taught in human design, but I see that, like, the conditioning when it shows up in the undefined throat center and the process of deconditioning the throat center for undefined and open throat people can have a lot of shame intertwined with it because there's this desire to make impact, this desire to be heard, to get attention. That's very natural and organic and neutral.

There's nothing wrong with it. And the conditioning and the fixation on that can lead the undefined or open throat person to articulating more often things that actually can't be heard because they're not actually supposed to be moving through the body. And so it's kind of like this vicious cycle that the undefined or open throat can get themselves into. And I I think this vicious cycle exists with every center for sure in its own way. But with the throat, it looks like there's this pain of feeling misunderstood, feeling not heard, feeling not recognized, wanting to have aligned attention, but the pain of that and the conditioning of that and the fixation on that leads the undefined throat person sometimes in not self to just say more and more, to talk more and more, which actually pushes the aligned attention away.

And so there's a bit of a contradiction. I don't know if contradiction is the right word, but I don't have another one. There can be a bit of a incongruence with the undefined or open throat where it's actually when the undefined or open throat gets comfortable with silence and gets comfortable with not always making impact or having attention on them, that they can actually settle into passenger consciousness as it pertains to the undefined throat and trust that their body will move them to speak in exactly the correct timing and exactly the correct way. And the potency of that share when it's correct, although it may be less frequent, will be so much richer and more impactful and attract the exact right attention and offer the exact influence that is correct for you. And I guess like one conceptualization swarming here in my undefined Ajna right now is I mentioned that a lot of the channels that define the throat are projected.

And so there's something around what I just said that feels very adjacent as well, paralleled as well to the projector experience where projectors are literally designed to be recognized for what they see and, and their awareness and their sharing of awareness for what they see. And so projectors can have this longing to really be recognized, which is a form of attention, right. And can get so thwarted from the truth of their path, from the truth of their organic way of moving in attempts to receive that recognition that they end up just kind of pushing away the attention that's correct for them. And what's really correct for projectors is getting comfortable enough without recognition that they can stop chasing it. And then the correct people will observe them because the correct presence for projectors is to just be, to not do, not initiate, not chase, but rather to just be and observe in your beingness, in your presence and have an awareness and other people will see, oh, this person has an awareness.

This person sees things. I wanna know what they see. And they, and then invite that awareness. They recognize you from your stillness and invite that awareness. And then the projector can have the recognition that their aura literally needs to perform its auric function.

I just see a lot of correlation between those themes for projectors of, yes, you need the recognition. It can feel painful to the not self mind to have to wait for it rather than try to make it happen. However, when you relax into that, the actual recognition that you're able to receive as a projector will lead to correct invitations and will lead to the success that you crave. Similar to the throat, there can be this not self craving of attention and making impact that can thwart you into all this distorted behavior and articulation. And if you relax away from that craving that not self craving to be seen, to get attention, to make an impact, then you actually allow for the correct circumstances and the correct articulations and expressions to flow through you, which will give you the exact right attention and offer the right impact and influence.

Now, coming back a little bit to the defined throat, I was talking about how a defined throat person is gonna have a consistent voice according to their channel definition in the throat. These are the 11 voices of the throat that are based on the 11 different throat dates. If you have a defined throat, you can look at the channel that you have defining your throat and whichever of these throat gates is included in that channel. That's going to be the voice you tend to consistently articulate with. If you have more than one channel, those will be things that contribute to your consistent voice.

And whether you have a defined throat or not, you might have a half of a channel in some cases. And so those are going to be things that on a fluctuating basis show up in your expression. So those of you who don't have a completely open throat, but it's undefined, but you have one or more of these gates, those are like the parts of your expression that are they're called dormant potentials. If you have an undefined throat, It's a dormant, so just like a resting potential that's waiting for something to come in and give it the fuel or the awareness or the resonance, depending on the center it's coming from, to power up that dormant, that latent potential. This is a little advanced.

It's it's very it'd be very easy for your mind to get ahold of this and start trying to come up with these formulas of when you're supposed to speak and how. Try not to go there, but I just wanted to share it. You know, I'm someone whose design is very much about the throat as a manifestor. I really haven't thought all that much about this graphic, about this breakdown of the voices in the throat, but it's something that's often talked about it, and it perhaps it will be helpful to someone in their process of attuning to the nature of your throat. Now coming back into the not self of the undefined or open throat center, the main theme here is trying to attract attention.

So the undefined or open throat center not self voice might sound something like, is anyone noticing me? Am I being heard? I need to speak up in order to get the attention I deserve. I need to say something because this silence is uncomfortable. What action should I take to try to manifest, to try to initiate?

Where should I go to get the attention that I want? Who should I go to to get the attention that I want? If I don't contribute to the conversation, I won't be seen or valued. What or who will I become? Again, coming back to that development of the voice and the expression and the impacting nature of the throat.

I keep thinking about like the tenth house in astrology for the astro literate. Who will I become? What will my legacy be? What am I developing towards in regards to my influence in the world? Those questions in the undefined or open throat center can become these hyperfixations.

So if you have an undefined or open throat and you notice yourself thinking in regards to these types of narratives, these voices, that's a really strong indicator that you're in the not self right now, that there's an element of detachment that you're trying to speak, articulate, initiate from a place of not self rather than trusting the inner wisdom of your own body to lead you to and through the right timing and version of expression. So summarizing it, the question to sort of ask yourself is, am I trying to attract attention right now? And then breaking down some of the the fun facts of the throat center, approximately seventy percent of people have this center defined. So it's more common to have this center defined than undefined. The biological correspondence is the thyroid and parathyroid glands.

And the throat, all roads lead to realm. Right? The throat has a lot of different centers. They can access the throat through the channels. Six of the other eight centers can reach the throat.

Only the head and the root can't reach the throat on their own. They have to be first shaped by at least one form of additional energy or awareness or resonance in the g in order to get to the throat. So when the throat is defined in connection to the Ajna, from these three centers at the top of the throat center, this is about mental awareness being expressed. So this specifically is not initiation, right, because it's not fuel to the throat. It's mental awareness to the throat.

The throat can also be defined through connection to the g. The g center is the center for self and love and direction. So when the throat is defined through one of these three channels at the bottom of the throat coming from the g, where it we're talking about the the sense of self and love and direction being expressed through the throat, moving through the voice in the direction of one's sense of self identity, love, and direction. For the ego, the escape 45 comes from the ego center. This is about willpower expressed.

That's a manifested channel because it is ego energy to the throat. The solar plexus has the other two manifested channels. The 12 and the 35 come from the solar plexus. So we're talking about emotional awareness, but also emotional energy because the solar plexus is a motor being expressed, and these are the three channels where actual initiation and manifestation happens because energy goes straight to the throat from one of the motor centers. And then the sacral comes from the 34 in the sacral to the 20, And this is the manifesting generator channel because it's the sacral.

Anybody who has a defined sacral is a generator, right? But it's also energy, a motor directly to the throat. So it's also a manifested manifesting generator channel. This is about life force being expressed. The 16 and the 20 come from the spleen.

So like the G and the Ajna, the spleen is not actually about initiation or manifestation. These are projected channels rather than manifested or manifesting generated channels because there's no fuel splenic intuitive awareness moving to the throat to be expressed. Of the 11 gates in the throat center, the most gates in any center, again, because all the channels lead to the throat are not because, but in line with. So many of them are in Gemini, right? Gemini is the sign associated with talking, communicating among other things.

Five of the 11 throat gates, so nearly, nearly half of them and actually very close to half because it's five and a little bit of another gate are in Gemini. The 35, twelve, forty five, twenty, sixteen, and a little bit of the eight. Most of the eight is in Taurus, but the last little bit of gate eight is in Gemini. Two plus are in Leo, 33, 31, and a little bit of 56. Two of them are in Cancer, sixty two and fifty six, and then two are in Taurus, eight mostly in Taurus.

And circuitry wise of these 11 gates, six of them are collective, four are individual, and one is tribal. And we haven't talked a whole lot about this, because again, this is just like a sprinkling on top, but I'm feeling moved to talk about it here. Collective channels in general are about understanding and sharing from either a logic or an abstract experiential way of understanding and sensing. If it's logical, it's more understanding. If it's experiential, emotional, abstract, it's more about sensing and sharing what has been learned through those processes.

The individual channels are about individual knowing and empowerment and mutation and the tribal channels are about material resourcedness and support. And so it's just interesting to me to see the breakdown of that in the throat. There's the collective sharing emphasis. More than half of the channels in the throat are collective. That makes sense because the collective circuitry is about sharing and expressing what one understands and senses through logical and abstract awareness.

The individual channels are about individual empowerment. And so the four individual channels in the throat include the ones connected to gate eight, gate 12, gate 20, and gate 23. And so these are channels with the potential to offer empowerment and mutation through a very differentiated personal sort of knowing. And only one of the 11 throat gates is tribal. So only one and that's the 45 that comes from the ego is actually about material world resources and support and impacting and influencing in the external world, how tribal material support resources are utilized.

Definitely extra, but it's just something I've been sort of in process with, so sharing it. And that is the throat center. Thanks for listening to the Living Your Design podcast. Stay tuned for the rest of the curriculum. New batches of episodes are released every Tuesday.

For immediate complete access to the full course and to explore other perks like learning and community, extracurricular astrology and human design workshops, and meeting with me face to face, go to patreon.com/kelseyrosetort. You can also listen to me on my other podcasts, the Maia games and conversations with the zodiac, and find me on Instagram @kelseyrosetort.