This meditation is a powerful, flexible, and highly-adaptable one, with multiple applications. It has coalesced steadily from various forms and numerous sources, which here are amalgamated and shaped into one extended multi-purpose technique. Judith Blackstone’s Subtle Core psychological work was one such influence; Eckhart Tolle body-awareness meditation was another. The Sophian Gnostic school has a similar practice called “Middle Pillar”, and Qigong sessions typically open with a standing meditation that is very similar, if not identical, to the essential elements of the practice. Lastly, the meditation has a healing adaptation for use in bodywork modalities like polarity therapy and Cranial Unwinding, where it is called “holding space” for a client before and during a client session. Like nesting Russian dolls, there are always more surprises to pull out with this practice. The practice can be extended and directed towards the objective of the practitioner’s choice. It can be used as a base Qigong practice or centering/relaxation process in its most reduced form; it can be extended as a self-healing meditation with the addition of another step; it can extend further into spiritual and trans-egoic realms with another two steps, and it becomes a full-blown powerful third agent in healing sessions with others in its full expression. It is capable of helping a person rapidly feel her subtle core, not as a fleeting and possibly imaginary thought, but as a clearly sensate and persisting awareness. The posture is a standing one, and movements may or may not be added as called for in certain steps. There are a series of affirmations that are recited interiorly for each establishment of a new center. The affirmations are summarized below:

Affirmations – Location

• I Am => Heart/Middle Dantien
• I am embodied/present => Sacral/ Lower Dantien
• I am aware/attending => Brow/Upper Dantien
• I am whole/unified => Add crown, feet, and fuse with three dantiens
• I am grounded => Center of the Earth
• I am aligned/connected => Heavens
• I give you all the space you need => Occiput to ground, diagonally down and behind
• I honor your innate intelligence => General field of relationship
  
  Core Practice
• Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, spine erect, and knees slightly bent. The tongue should be on the roof of the mouth, and the tailbone should be slightly tucked under. The head should feel as if it is perfectly centered and suspended from a thread. Your hands can be either at your side or crossed over your lower dantien. Focus your awareness on the “seat” of the heart, behind the heart itself along the spine. This is, if not identical with the Middle Dantien of Taoist internal arts, then in the same neighborhood. Once your awareness has found and settled on this spot, mentally intone the words “I Am” as you inhale. Exhale and repeat the affirmation and the breathing cycle. Attend for a moment to this true center of your being.
• While keeping a portion of your attention on the middle dantien, move your attention next to the lower dantien area and find the exact 3D center of your pelvic floor, the area between your front and back, your left and right hips, and the navel and pubic bone. Once your awareness has found and settled on this spot, mentally intone the words “I am embodied” as you inhale. Exhale and repeat the affirmation and the breathing cycle. Attend to this area as you did for the middle dantien. Link the two stations together in your awareness and feel the connection between them.
• While keeping a portion of your attention on the linked dantiens, move your attention next to the upper dantien area on the forehead just above the nose (the “third eye”) and find the exact 3D center of your head behind this spot, the area in the center of your skull. Once your awareness has found and settled on this spot, mentally intone the words “I am aware” as you inhale (if you are using this with a healing-for-others orientation, you can intone “I am attending” instead). Exhale and repeat the affirmation and the breathing cycle. Attend to this area as you did for the previous two dantiens. Link this station with the other two stations together in your awareness and feel the connection between them. Feel all three dantiens at once and become aware of the connection, the core connecting them. Set this linkage with your intention to persist, whether you end the practice here or after you move on.
  
  Self-Healing/Axis mundi extension
• This step may be added if your intent is to focus on self-healing. Focus your attention on your feet and inhabit and feel all of your feet at once, but at the least the “bubbling spring” kidney acupuncture point on the sole and the tops of all of your toes. It may be helpful to visualize a cloud of awareness expanding to encompass both of your feet. Keeping a portion of your attention there, move your focus next to the Ba Hui point at the top of your head (i.e., the fontanelle), the point where the imaginary suspension from Step 1 is occurring. Fix a portion of your attention here as well. You are now fixing and holding your attention at five different locations in your body-mind system – the three dantiens, which are holding due to your set intention, the feet, and the top of the head.
  
  It is helpful at this point to recognize that we normally attend to our body-awareness piece-meal, and sequentially in time. This is habitual, and it represents a state of vastly reduced “stepped-down” energy available for healing. We may talk a lot about holism, but we don’t typically practice as if it was a potential. We rarely if ever attempt to be aware of the whole body at once. Try to do so now. See if you can simultaneously hold in awareness all five locations and link them all, from top to bottom. See if the core can fuse into one living entity. You do not have to will this as such to happen, but if you succeed in holding all loci together in awareness simultaneously for a few seconds, the process can happen of its own accord. You will feel a great amplification and unification/coherence of internal energy all at once if success results.
  
  Whether or not the fusion happens (this will take repeated practice and is not assured even then), remain aware of as much of your center as you can and mentally intone the affirmation “I am whole.” Set the extent of the core you are able to coalesce to persist with your intention.
   
  Heaven and Earth extension
• While keeping a portion of your attention on the central core, project your attention next through your feet on an extension of the core to the metaphorical “center of the earth.” Once your awareness has found and settled on this spot, mentally intone the words “I am grounded” as you inhale. Exhale and repeat the affirmation and the breathing cycle. Attend to this area as you did for the central core. Link the core with the center of the earth in your awareness and feel the connection between them. Stabilize the connection with smooth, even breathing. Intend its persistence and stability.
• Next, move your awareness to the transcendental center 12 inches above your head and project from this point beyond, into the spacious gap above the point. Once your awareness has found this openness, mentally intone the words “I am connected” as you inhale. Exhale and repeat the affirmation and the breathing cycle. Attend to this area as you did for the central core. Link this heaven to the central core and feel the entire core, from heaven to earth as a channel through which spirit and energy can freely move from one pole to another. You are now the channel between Heaven and Earth, a central tenet of Taoism. Breathe smoothly for several cycles.
  
  Summary: The objective for all steps to this point, for any of the modes chosen, is to feel and stabilize the feeling in awareness of the inner core, the esoteric spine of the incarnated individual. Depending on the objective, this interior spine or axis may be longer or shorter in terms of extent. You can think of this in the terms of a persisting one-dimensional omnipresent thread of presence/awareness within and throughout the body.
  
  Healing Arts Modification/Holding Space
  If you are working with a client in the healing arts, bodywork or energy work, there are two additional steps that can be added.
• Envision a ray of awareness originating in occiput at the back of the head and angling down to the ground behind you. Draw a portion of the feeling of your core awareness back through this ray with the affirmation “I give you all the space you need for your healing.” The intent of this action in working in close proximity to another is two-fold – first, to prevent oneself from becoming an overbearing and intrusive presence in the etheric field of another, and secondly, to maintain a stance of neutrality or perfect equanimity in one’s relation to the client. Equanimity has proven to be the ideal non-interfering agent in working with another, as it allows one to be a witness to another’s healing process, and this uninvolved emotional orientation (present, but non-interfering) acts as a type of catalyst in allowing the client to feel safe and allowing them to grant themselves interior permission to let go in the healing process. In essence, this movement creates a containing presence field for the healing action to take place in, and the client begins to tap into and release her own native self-healing abilities in the container; the “healer” is in essence a facilitator.
• This last step has no additional locational component to it, but puts one in a beneficial field relationship with another. While occupying the core, “listen” to the presence of the client with the core and affirm “I honor your innate intelligence.” With this, the practice and healing orientation is complete, and the healing session proper may begin.