SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: Consciousness

June 29, 2021 + #Poetry, #Silenti, Consciousness, Mystical poetry, Photography, Poetry, Seasons, Four Seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter,

Summer’s Retort

by Steve Tanham

A circulating seedThat knows no deathFinds purchase in the soilOf spring’s awakened greenAnd in the silky, shortest nightExplodes. Born a child of solstice lightThe summer’s lust for lifeEmbeds itself withinThe coalescing heart of flowerTo fall as seed returnedThe forms of life are eatenBaked and rolled As harvest yields tomorrow And bonfires mark the end of lightCasting free this single sparkProjected, angel brightInto the heart … Read More Summer’s Retort

June 24, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Mystery Schools, Silent Eye School

Intention chooses Heaven

by Steve Tanham

The words stopped my reading… I mean I read them and had to go back to them, immediately – not even finishing the sentence before returning. Intention has long fascinated. It’s one of those vitally important words that belong with a handful of others, like memory, or will, or detachment, or even truth. Each of them carries great import when, and only when, it’s … Read More Intention chooses Heaven

June 17, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Healing, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

The Art of Healing (part two)

by Steve Tanham

“The healer must know themselves to be connected to something bigger, something vast in its power to help us… something entirely whole. The healer is not the source of the power, simply its conduit.” Who wrote it is lost in the past. For me, it expressed the entire art of healing; the idea that suffering is ‘smaller’ than the power of wholeness. The main … Read More The Art of Healing (part two)

June 10, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Healing, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

The Art of Healing (part one)

by Steve Tanham

“Healing is about restoring the person’s power to heal themselves.” The old lady who said it was called Jean. Beloved of all us us at the Roiscrucian group in Manchester, she was was a venerated outlier from a previous age; an age in which the sheer magic of mystical development and communion was not taken for granted, and was a path that required work… … Read More The Art of Healing (part one)

June 3, 2021 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness

The Mysterious Road to Tain (4): a simple man

by Steve Tanham

The young missionary – a peregrini, meaning one on a life-pilgrimage – wore two crosses; but not around his neck nor on his simple, woven robe. The Celtic designs were tattooed onto his eyelids so that, when he slept, the original Cross of Christ was projected from both his sleeping eyes into the world… Truth never sleeps. A Christ that he had reached out … Read More The Mysterious Road to Tain (4): a simple man

May 30, 2021 + #Silenti, Collie dogs, Consciousness, Mystery Schools, Photographic techniques, Photography, Silent Eye School

Still Light: twilight and night garden

by Steve Tanham

Our garden faces south, which means the arc of the sun can be watched for most of the day, and, at this time of year, well into the evening. One of our favourite things to do at the end of day’s gardening is to sit with a gin and tonic, plus a bowl of crisps, and watch the sun’s final slide into the west. … Read More Still Light: twilight and night garden

May 27, 2021 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness

The Mysterious Road to Tain (3): the protectors

by Steve Tanham

“Saints don’t just disappear!” Bernie was getting a little exasperated with my poor attempt at stringing together a viable theory to account for the cultural disappearance of St Duthac. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation… we just have to find it.” I’d already found it, But I wasn’t letting on. It’s not that I’m cleverer than she is, but one of the sources I’d been … Read More The Mysterious Road to Tain (3): the protectors

May 25, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Mindfulness, Silent Eye School

Radiance of the Invisible Pearl

by Steve Tanham

Certain internal ‘states’ are realities deep within us. Love, strength, and boundlessness are examples of levels of conscious experience that are not simply psychological constructs; they indicate that our ordinary ‘day-consciousness’ is in contact with the deepest parts of who and where we really are. These deepest layer of self – Self, as we write it, in order to differentiate this from the egoic … Read More Radiance of the Invisible Pearl

May 20, 2021 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness

The Mysterious Road to Tain (2): the demi-god of Ross

by Steve Tanham

“You’d have thought they would have looked after it, better!’ Bernie can be highly critical on these occasions. Mind you, we had trudged all the way around the small town of Tain to find it. The original chapel of St Duthac. The priest to whose church three Scottish kings travelled to pay their respects, sits as an unmarked ruin in the middle of the … Read More The Mysterious Road to Tain (2): the demi-god of Ross

May 10, 2021 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Consciousness, Mystery Schools, Photographic techniques, Photography, Silent Eye School

The Paradox of Cromarty

by Steve Tanham

‘Human nature, unchecked by strong values, drifts downwards towards chaos, drowning the vital and corrective energy of individuality…‘ Read the full post here…

May 6, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Psychology

A glittering piece of the real Self

by Steve Tanham

It’s like a beautiful, glittering kite, flown high and above the regular considerations of our lives; and yet this part of us, long recognised by psychology, has the potential to transform us into people of being, rather than reaction… (750 words, a five-minutes read) When we are children, we have to be seen. By this, I mean that special feeling when your parents see … Read More A glittering piece of the real Self

April 29, 2021 + #Silenti, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Gurdjieff, Mindfulness, Silent Eye School

A kindness of belly, heart and head

by Steve Tanham

There are ancient techniques that describe the gentle coordination of belly, heart and head to make the self a peaceful place. In this short article, we discuss a modern approach to their use… (1000 words; a five minute read) The philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff rose to prominence in the first half of the last century. This enigmatic Armenian created a no-nonsense system of self … Read More A kindness of belly, heart and head