Zacciah Blackburn, Director
220 Hidden Glen Rd.
P.O. Box 389
Ascutney, VT  05030  USA

  Zacciah began a conscious journey to self awakening
in 1969, when voices from the world of Spirit began to offer guidance to him in his life course.  Through a series of powerful waking experiences, he began the search for greater understanding of how to walk this life in balance and in Beauty.  He was guided to develop understanding in intuitive healing, in sacred sound cultures, and in the making of musical instruments.  Beginning in 1973, he began to focus his work on the making of musical instruments related to sacred sound cultures, such as the bansuri of India, and the shakuhachi of Japan.  He developed a business in the making of these instruments still thriving today.

His studies exposed him to the sacred music and sound healing traditions of numerous cultures such as Ravi Shankar, master sitarist, and Hari Prasad Chariprusia, master flautist of Indian traditions, Babatunde Olatunji, master drummer of African traditions,  Michael Copeland, master flutemaker of European traditions, jazz/new age/classical composer/musicians and intuitive healing artists Paul Winter and David Darling, and Laraaji, new age composer/performer, among others.  He became close friends with students, musicians, and instrument makers of other cultures, such as Adimu Kuumba (African traditions) and Stephan  Mikes (Indian and Western traditions), eventually recording and producing two audiocassettes with Stephan.

Beginning in 1985, Zacciah again began to experience intense personal awakenings, guiding him to use his knowledge and experience in creating studies and a healing practice to share with others.  He began utilizing sound as a therapeutic tool, in shamanic style settings, for personal healing and transformation.  He began studies, group and individual, with Betsy Bizarro, then of Deerfield, MA, a master teacher practitioner in schools of  Western and South American mysticism, including principals in ancient Egyptian, Hermetic, and Rosicrucian traditions, and Brazilian and Native American shamanism.  He studied with Dr. Molly Scott, psychotherapist, and director of the Creative Resonance Institute, Amherst, and Charlemont, MA, Sarah Benson, founder and director of the Center of Light and Sound in Charlemont, MA, and co-founder of the New England, and the National Sound Healers Associations, and Teri Nash, master teacher of Tibetan and Native American principals, student of, among others, the personal physician of the Dhali Lama.

His studies include work with varied cultural teachers, in a variety of settings, of Native American, Eastern and Western esoteric traditions, and contemporary intuitive healing including:
Wallace Black Elk, a teacher, healer, and shaman of the Lakota Sioux tradition, and direct descendant of Nicholas Black Elk; Sun Bear, medicine man of Ojibwa traditions, and founder of the Bear Tribe Medicine Society; members of the Charles Chipps family, a 5th Generation Medicine Man of Crazy Horse & Sitting Bull; Grandfather Joseph, a spiritual elder of the Lumi peoples of northern California; Red Hawk, a spiritual leader of the Karuk peoples of Northern California; Chokmah Winddrum, master teacher of mystical Qabbalistic traditions; Dhyani Ywahoo, Founder and Spiritual Director of Sunray Meditation Society, and 27th lineage Cherokee healer; Black Crow, messenger and chief musician of the Underhill Cherokee Nation; Dr. Jonathan Klate of the Acupuncture Center of Amherst, teaching 5 elemental medicine; Barbara Perrins of Cultural Immersion Travel, who works with indigenous teachers of spiritual traditions of other cultures; Dr. Juan Nunez del Prado, an anthropologist and Professor emeritus of San Antonio Abad University of Cuzco, Peru, a visiting scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and priest and mystic of the Q’ero (Incan) traditions, initiated into the highest order of Priesthood by the oldest living teachers of his time, one of the few practicing Chumpi Paqo of our time(master of energy belts); Kay Gardner, re-known new age musician, sound healer, and author; Onye
Onyemaechi, founder and director of the Igbote Center and Igbote Ethnic Ensemble, master drummer and teacher of African dance and rhythm; Assistant Professor Hafiz Shabazz, of Dartmouth College, a master drummer and Director of the World Music Percussion Ensemble, an ethnomusicologist, percussionist, performer, and lecturer; world percussionist John Bergamo; Native American drummaker and practitioner of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, Tom Bickford; and Rosalyn Bruyere, author of Wheels of Light, and mystic, priestess, and founder of the Healing Light Center Church in Glendale, CA.  He also received initiations in an ancient system of channeling light energies, known as Omega.

Zacciah built a therapeutic practice in sound healing, founding the Center of Light, first in Ashfield, MA, to promulgate the studies of metaphysical traditions, and co-practiced with Hart Brent, now of Peacham, VT, and founder and director of Health Calls, a phytotherapy center practicing an eclectic blend of DarkField Live Blood Cell Analysis, Five Elemental medicine and energetic, homeopathic, herbal and nutritional diagnosis and remedy.

Zacciah taught workshops and on going medititational groups in subjects of subtle energy and personal healing and transformation, such as, Balancing Heaven and Earth, the Medicine Wheel, adolescent Rites of Passage, Awakening the Heart, Entering the Elders Circle.

While struggling as a single parent of both a gifted honors student as well as a most unique child with severe developmental disabilities, Zacciah shared his gifts as a musician, musical instrument maker, and student of Native traditions with his own children’s schools.  This led to the development of children’s programs regarding the nature of indigenous instruments, how they evolved into modern musical instruments in use today, and how the circle is returning to indigenous practices of music in contemporary music.  He has performed his World Music educational programs, and Native American Philosophy programs, over 300 times in over 150 schools and institutions for children grades P-12, in colleges, and for adults.

Zacciah has performed his guided meditational style of sacred music with various musicians and alone, in such settings as ongoing music concert series at the Kripalu Center of Studies in Lenox, MA, with music director Hansaraj Mark Kelso, and other resident musicians, at the graduation ceremonies for the Adult Degree Holistic Studies Program  at Vermont College in Montpelier, VT, and the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the Bhuddist Peace Pagoda in Leverett, MA.

For six years, Zacciah took a hiatus from practicing sound healing to delve into deeper personal and metaphysical understandings of essential earth energies and our relationship with them, and to develop other programs of study.

He has since offered numerous programs on the nature of self transformation through the use of esoteric and alchemical practices and exercises, invoking sacred sound streams in his work, which he calls Sacred Sound Transmissions.  He has worked with Barbara Perrins, director of Cultural Immersion Travel, of Richmond, VA, to develop a 10 day transformational journey into the American Southwest, to co-teach with Michael Claypool, an initiate of Hopi traditions, as well as to host studies in collaboration with Barbara Perrins and Dr. Juan Nunez del Prado, noted mystic and initiated priest of the Q’ero (Incan) traditions of central Peru.  Juan has since asked Zacciah to disseminate this work, through the teachings of the Q'ero, and initiations of the Karpay traditions of the Q'ero.  He has worked with Barrie Kavasch of the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT, noted West Coast sound healers Amrita Cottrell and Peggy Black, of the Music Healers Organization, Michelle Herrera Foster, of the New England Sound Healers Research Institute, and others, internationally, to create transformational programs through sound healing, as well as studies of subtle energy and the nature of sound healing, teaching privately and in class sessions.  He occasionally hosts other teachers, such as reknowned sound healer Kevin Michael.

He has continued his own studies in personal transformation through varied esoteric and alchemical practice, such as work with gestalt dream therapist Marc Bregman, pyschosynthesis psycho-therapist Dr. Michael Gigante, Drunvalho Melchizedek, Greg Braden, and master teacher and sound healer Tom Kenyon.

Through his work to assist in the growth of the New England Sound Healing Research Institute (NESHRI), Zacciah has been invited onto its Boards of Directors, and Trustees,   He serves as Director of Education, overseeing the major educational and outreach programs of NESHRI, such as their annual sound healing conferences, and fall gatherings.

Zacciah has, also, created the World Sound Healing Organization (see www.worldsoundhealing.org), with co-founder Annie Bond, partnering with the world puja org., World Peace Prayer Society, and other major international organizations, to create simple ceremony utilizing the powerfully transformative qualities of Sacred Sound with intentional prayer, to bring healing into and for the world, and human consciousness.

And, he continues life as a single parent, assisting his daughter through her life studies, now a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and working with his developmentally challenged son to create autonomy and fulfillment in his life explorations as a young adult.
 

While Zacciah’s studies have significantly impacted on his life and work, no amount of study can equal the knowledge acquired through one’s own passage into the Knowing of Self.  Ultimately, it comes down to this:  the healer is the one whom has found the path of self healing.

Zacciah
The Center of Light
 
 

The Center of Light in Vermont
Zacciah Blackburn, Director
220 Hidden Glen Rd.
P.O. Box 379
Ascutney, VT  05030
USA