SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: Ancient Landscapes

August 13, 2019 + Ancient Landscapes, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, Lake District, landscapes, nature, Photography, Places and Prose, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Travel and people, Travel and Photography, Your inner wolf

Above the Lion and the Lamb (Part Two)

by Steve Tanham

We were on the Helm Crag plateau, about to climb up and beyond the Lion and the Lamb rocks to reach the start of the ridge. When you’ve just done a steep climb, it’s natural to feel that you’re ‘at the top’. In our case, this assumption was to prove expensive… It was time to say goodbye to the glorious views of Grasmere – … Read More Above the Lion and the Lamb (Part Two)

August 6, 2019 + Ancient Landscapes, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, Lake District, landscapes, nature, Photography, Places and Prose, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Travel and people, Travel and Photography, Your inner wolf

Above the Lion and the Lamb (Part One)

by Steve Tanham

We were delighted to meet up with some friends from the UK who had emigrated to New Zealand many years ago. Bernie went to school with Kathryn and the couple had kindly collected and put us up in Auckland – their home, now – at the end of our short cruise from Sydney, last November. Jon is a keen walker, and has fond memories … Read More Above the Lion and the Lamb (Part One)

August 1, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Castles, Consciousness, Fear, Higher Mind, Spirituality

Only a Horse and a Sword

by Steve Tanham

We become habitual in our thinking. It’s a good idea (and fun) to play little games with our mind to help us look at things differently. One of these is to look at things in a ‘zero-sum’ way: that is, to consider life as a vast journey of ‘bought and sold’: acquisition, usage and disposal… Saladin, (Salah ad-Din) the legendary first Sultan of the … Read More Only a Horse and a Sword

July 30, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, meditation, Mystery Schools, nature, Photography, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Soul, soul in body, Spirit, spiritual turning around, Spirituality

Have you seen it, yet?

by Steve Tanham

Do you see it all, sometimes? Turn, doing something strange with your mind Look back with different eyes And see the path that led to you? A moment of vast lucidity… But there’s one thing you don’t see The thing that can’t be seen Have you seen it, yet? ©Stephen Tanham Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, a not-for-profit … Read More Have you seen it, yet?

July 25, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Consciousness, Egregore, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, Incarnation, Initiation, Life-sciences, meditation, Mystery Schools, nature, Photography, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Soul, soul in body, Spirit, spiritual turning around, Spirituality

The creature on the beach beyond thought

by Steve Tanham

It lay there, head in the sky, gazing at the radiance. Its tail was still in the ocean of thought, the gentle waves urging it back where it belonged… The gaps in the waves had always been there; they were the rhythm of life. But it had never thought to use them as a way through. To where? To beauty, certainly. The sights and … Read More The creature on the beach beyond thought

July 11, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 7, Final) – Face to Face with Macbeth

by Steve Tanham

We were standing in the car park near Drumin Castle. Dean was using the visitor map of the Glenlivet Estate to describe the day ahead. We were to begin by exploring an ancient and little visited stone circle on the nearby slope above the river Livet – The Doune of Dalmore. After this we would cross the river to the nearby ruin of Drumin … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 7, Final) – Face to Face with Macbeth

July 9, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 6) Beyond the Blasted Heath

by Steve Tanham

We were all tired; it had been a wonderful day, and the weather had been kind – which is not always assured in Scotland… The brain tends to switch off, which is no bad thing when you are in a ‘holding’ group and the whole idea is to engage a different (deeper, gentler, non-analytical) layer of consciousness. The path was very straight and shaded … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 6) Beyond the Blasted Heath

July 4, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 5) Stone in the Sky

by Steve Tanham

You can’t miss Sueno’s stone. It sits on its own plateau, just off the old main road between Findhorn and Forres; now bypassed. You see its ‘hangar’ first, then realise that this glass and steel monolith contains something special… Sueno’s stone was thought to be named after Swenson Forkbeard, but this is disputed. There is also a folk-link to King Duffus, whose castle we … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 5) Stone in the Sky

June 29, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 4) Sea and Stone

by Steve Tanham

I didn’t want to leave Burghead, not even for Findhorn; a place I’d wanted to visit for a long time. Burghead had filled me (many of us, I think) with a sense of ancient mystery and that dreadful knowledge that the centre of the Pict civilisation had likely perished in the Viking raids of the 9th century, when the ‘fort’ was sacked and burned. … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 4) Sea and Stone

June 27, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 3) Headland of the Picts

by Steve Tanham

The Moray Firth is vast, wild and beautiful. Examined on a map it resembles a child’s geometry exercise in triangles, with the coast between its ‘origin’ at Inverness and far-away Fraserburgh being a virtually flat west-east baseline. From Fraserburgh the great inlet of the Moray Firth reaches northwards into the North Sea. The final line in the triangle, from Inverness moving north-east, ends at … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (Part 3) Headland of the Picts

June 25, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (2) Coast and Castle

by Steve Tanham

There has to be a dawn… I’m not being flippant. Our Silent Eye ‘spirituality in the landscape’ weekends always have at least one early morning event during which we gather somewhere beautiful and greet the dawn. It’s a joy and also a discipline: something that tells our inner self that ‘we mean it’. Sometimes we might read poetry or even enact something from esoteric … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (2) Coast and Castle

June 19, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Highlands of Scotland, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Neolithic, Pentagram, Scotland, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (1)

by Steve Tanham

We were standing close to the River Spey in the grounds of Strathallan church a few miles from the centre of Grantown-on-Spey: one of the gems of the north-eastern highlands of Scotland. The previous hour had seen us all meet at a tea room in the centre of the town. We discussed the plans for the weekend, drank tea and had cake… Strathallan church … Read More Three Days of the Oyster-Catcher (1)