Friends
With little solace in the every day news on the world stage, these are extraordinary times (opportunities!) to greet our (individual and collective) fears and issues of sustenance and abandonment, commitment and control, integrity and healing.  With all the 'apparent' turmoil in the world around us, remember to take time for stability, self nurturing, reflection, grounding, renewal.  The times are here, to bring focus & clarity to that which we hold most dear, most sustaining, most true, most pure.  What is the eternal part of our own being?  Is this where we are placing our primary awareness and focus, or is it in the mundane worries and fears?  Knowing that what we place our attention on, is drawn to us, is it not time to focus on that most real, most true, most pure?  This will draw it ever closer to us.  Take time to call in, to view, to see, embrace, and embody those principals you truly wish to hold and have in your life. 
We each know this is the power of attainment, of abundance, of attraction, of 'the secret.'
Are we using it in our every day times, lives, consciousness?
What are we creating?  What do we wish to create?  Make it so, now.  Without judgement, without attachment, just being present and ever mindful of every breath we create, that every breath, we create.

What can we do?  A simple practice:  
Find 10-15 minutes you can have alone.  It is best, but not necessary, to have a truly private place, with a small altar, which might be a simple table or dresser with candle, flowers, sacred art, crystal, stone, feathers, or items special to you.  Close a door, let others know not to disturb you.  Turn off the phone.
Know that you can do this anytime, anyplace, outdoors, as a passenger in a vehicle, in the dentist chair (can help here,) but simply best with uninterrupted private space.
Find a comfortable chair or sitting space, and position.  Sitting upright can be most beneficial to this practice.  If you find it helpful, you can put on some quieting, soothing music in the background, though silence can also be most beneficial.

Take time to relax, and become aware of your breath.
Spend several moments, just relaxing, and drawing in your breath.
Then, slowly, draw your awareness down to your navel, and just behind your navel.  Simply place your awareness here, and breathe into this region.  The air, and our breath, contains vital life force, which we can conscientiously utilize for our own sustenance and well being.  Consciously pull, or, simply imagine you are pulling in, life force, chi, from the air, through your breath, to build and circulate in this region of the body.  Draw it in on the in breath.  On the outbreath, release any tension, anxiety, any cares or worries that arrive from the day.
Simply place your awareness at the navel, and let go, through the outbreath, any feelings which may arise, of anxiety, worry, fear, grief, sadness, anger, guilt, shame, or other 'in-coherent' feeling you have, including any grievances or judgments held towards others.  (If none appear, just go into a feeling sense, with awareness behind the navel.)  Continue this for some time, drawing vital life force in to the region behind the navel, to gather and circulate, releasing from the navel on the outbreath.
With each breath you draw in, you will experience either or both of two things.  One is greater awareness or building of pure life form (life force), and more clarified, or coherent, states of awareness and emotion.  The other is greater awareness of suppressed or not fully experienced emotions of anxiety or in-coherence.  We are going to speak about the incoherent first, as these will tend to arise first, as you move into a feeling state, if present, and through this simple breath and awareness exercise, can easily be released and transformed.

About any feelings you experience during the practice:
Many of us are reporting greater and greater sensitivity to unsettling emotions.  Even professional therapists, practicing traditional psychotherapy for decades, have reported to me, they are seeing rising issues with clients, and even in their own personal lives, of rising stress, anxiety related problems, unsettled emotions, and issues around 'enough time' in their lives, etc.  These certainly may be from one's own generation and experiences, and we will speak about that in just a moment.  But, this may, also, be from the 'collective field.'  Indeed, we find many people, especially those more sensitive, are, more and more, drawing in, or connecting to, & experiencing, the collective angst of the world.  Some of us are not aware when this is not even of our own making.  This happens, especially, as the 'veils' are thinning.  The doorways or barriers to other dimensions of awareness, or consciousness, are becoming less distinct.  This makes it more easy to access more unusual, or subtle states, of consciousness.  It also allows us to more directly penetrate and experience the energies and emotions we have not fully experienced in our own lives, often stored in the subconscious aspects of our being (both individually, and collectively.)  If we have not learned or trained ourself in practices to live more fully in the moment, we often collect and store these unexperienced emotional states.  Whenever we commit to a practice (even a few minutes) of mindfulness, we allow our feeling sense to arise, and these emotions may become more fully present, ready to reveal their memory and mysteries to us, asking us to deal with them when we are ready.  With simple practices, releasing these past, present, or pentup experiences, with their co-inciding, angst, grief, pain, etc, can be fairly easy.  (Many of our upcoming sound trainings give specific methodology to assist this, as the 'sounds' of these emotions will directly release them, often more fully than the breath alone.)  Deeper traumas may require the skills of practiced and trained facilitators or therapists.  Nonetheless, collectively, this 'thinning of the veils,' is making for a great muddled soup of emotional consciousness on the planet, and one reason why there is growing chaos in world order, and human behavior.

Many psychics, teachers, and elders of the world are discussing this in terms of both their cultural prophecies for 'these times', and modern science, such as the known fluctuation of the Earth's magnetic field, increased solar flare activity, and bursts of immense gamma ray activity from deep space.  Some suggest these directly affect our memory, our emotional experiences, and the ability to see into the 'unseen' worlds.  Many relate it explicitly to what we should expect as these new times emerge, with the onslaught of chaos ensuing as a transformative agent shifts our reality from the old paradigm to the new.  The Maya say 'this is the end of  'Time As We Know It,'  suggesting there is a direct correlation to our experience with time related events, and an altering sense of reality.

Many are tapping into collective feelings, and not aware or able to discern their own, making it more difficult to navigate their own waters of emotion.
Simple practices like this can assist to come into sustainability, stability, or growth.
We can conscientiously serve the greater good by simply releasing these through the transformative power of the breath and awareness, but it is beneficial to make conscious choices, and discern what is ours, and what is not.

Clarity and Coherence
However, through simple mindfulness practices such as this, we can release WHATEVER we are feeling, without naming it, without judgement or attachment, without deeply exploring it, without grief, anxiety or pain, and without concern for 'whose it is.'  We simply, through the breath, and feeling sense in this powerful center of consciousness behind the navel, release, on the outbreath, ANYTHING we are feeling.  By releasing any "obscuration," (that which obscures us from greater truth or realization,) we can more readily move into deeper integral awareness and clarity.
Draw in on the inbreath, vital, pure, clear life force, with awareness just behind the navel.
As we do so, continue for some time to release any obscuration, or incoherent emotion, on the outbreath.  Just let it go, drop, from your 'field of intelligence,' or, energetic field.
It is VERY beneficial to simply witness it, without judgement or attachment.  Just let it drop.  If you have trouble doing this, simply imagine it dropping over several breaths.  At some point, you are likely to witness or experience it letting go.

If you have limited time, you can stop the practice here.  However, we feel to at least complete the next stage will be much more beneficial.
At some point, when you feel lighter, and clarity is building, bring your awareness to the root center, at the perineum, just in front of the base of the spine.
Bring the inbreath here, building awareness and clarity through the vital life force in the breath.  Allow it to build and circulate here, on the outbreath.
Doing this for at least several more minutes, depending on the amount of time you have, you can stop here, as you have built vital and clear life force in your root center.  It will build and draw up, of its own volition, into your entire system.

However, with a little more time, you can cultivate this awareness in the root, and begin slowly drawing it up the spinal column, slowly, to the heart center, in the center of the chest.  Here, you can build greater vitality and awareness of coherent (life affirming) feeling, such as joy, gratitude, or unconditional love.  It is important to stay in a feeling sense of coherence.
Just breathe up from the root, after cultivating pure life force there, into the heart, allowing it to build a feeling sense of coherence.
It is important that you use a felt sense of coherent emotion, which you can do by simply imagining or focusing your awareness on a coherent emotion such as joy or gratitude.
On the outbreath, feel the coherence generate out in 'harmonic' fields, radiating out from the heart.
Simply continue, breathing up vital life force from the root into the coherence in the heart, feeling or imagining it radiating out in harmonic fields from the heart, on the outbreath.

After continuing this portion of the practice for several more minutes, you can stop here.  

Or, again, if you can spend greater time in meditation and reflection, to continue to the next stage can add significantly to the benefit of the practice.
From the heart, draw this same coherent and pure vital life force up to the third eye center, behind the bridge of the nose.  Simply bring up and focus your awareness in this region of the body, and sit, contemplatively, receptively, for at least several more minutes.  Spend as much time as you are able, in this portion of the practice.
At this point, you are just drawing coherent feeling and life force up from the heart to the third eye, simply bathing in it, in silence, emptiness, or stillness, in this deep center of inner awareness and wisdom.
Watch what occurs, simply witnessing your experience, listening, perceiving, but not projecting any thoughts or expectations into the experience.  You are coming into stillness, emptiness, allowing yourself to be fully present, possibly connecting to greater planes of existence, but allowing yourself to become recharged and renewed from the overall effectiveness of the practice.

There is much more we can do, and may add more to this practice at another time (such as more specific connections to other realms and states of consciousness, or actively engaging in creative manifestation,) but for now, we are simply releasing any unneccesary clutter, and re-invigorating ourself in the moment, by being fully present, and aware of the power of life force.
The practice, though simple, can bring you renewed growth, a sense of wellness, vitality, strength, clarity, and awareness.  While we use terms such as 'strength,' a significant portion of that strength comes from the softer aspects of our consciousness, building the intuitive and authentic sense of self, and a nurtured self, which is necessary to our growth, and often overlooked, or not fully nurtured in western culture.  It is, also, connecting to the very life force which renews all life, draws plants up from the earth, opening the seeds and nourishing them to build into their fullest potential, as well as drawing that life force back into the earth for rest and replenishment, in the appropriate cycles.  It is the same life force which spins the planets around the sun, and the sun around its orbs.  By connecting vigorously and conscientiously with this subtle and pure life force, we also can connect to deeper wells of our own, and of universal, being and knowing.
It can bring us closer to direct perception and connection with inner guidance, from our own higher states, and from other levels of consciousness in the subtle realms,  subtle states which can expand our awareness and connections regarding the nature of self, and all of creation.

We wish you each the very best in this practice, and in your continued exploration and evolution of life.

For further assistance in such meditative practices, and much more advanced techniques and studies, join us in any of our many upcoming programs, or make an appointment for private time with Zacciah for one on one training, facilitated journeys, or therapeutic practices.

Many, many blessings in the journey.
I look forward to sharing more with each of you.
Zacciah Blackburn