by Steve Tanham
(📩 740 words, a ten-minute read) To enter a process of mystical training is often considered an intellectual experience, with limited connection to everyday experience. In practice, the opposite is true. The everyday experience is the heart of the matter. There is no finer example of this than the admonition, given early, to ‘experience, fully, what is happening to you, now.’ At first hearing, … Read More The touch of experience (1)
+ #Photography,, #Silenti, Consciousness, iPhone photography, Lake District, Mindfulness, nature, Photographic techniques, Photography, Places and Prose, Seasons of the year
by Steve Tanham
(📩 330 words, a two minute read) I love to discover a scene that epitomises (for me) the main characteristic of each month. January is a particular challenge! I took this one dangling the iPhone precariously over the safety railings of the village’s old bridge. As can be seen, the River Kent is in full flood, though not dangerously so. In mid December, 2015, … Read More The liquid depth of January
+ #Silenti, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Mystery Schools, Psychology
by Steve Tanham
(-900 words; a ten-minute read) Not ‘typing’ in the sense of my fingers tapping across this keyboard. Something else is conveyed, here: the idea that although we are each a unique example of walking, talking protoplasm, we exhibit patterns of behaviour that are so strong they can be ‘collected’ into groups – ‘types’. Astrology is good example with which to explore the idea. The … Read More In the world but not of it (3) : True to Type
+ #Photography,, #Silenti, Ancient Sacred Sites, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, Photography
by Steve Tanham
This Sunday (17th December) sees the last of our Silent Eye Explorations zoom meetings for 2023. It’s been a fascinating year, and we mean to end it with a special event which will combine a guided mediation on the subject of ‘metanoia’ with a visualised, mental and emotional odyssey to two sacred places on the mystical and ancient Orkney islands. We’re going to supplement … Read More Metanoia and Light from Darkness
by Steve Tanham
I walk the collie through the local forest and marvel at the intensity of the green mosses and lichen growing on the limestone boulders and the forms of dead or dying trees felled by the savage winds we get in these parts – particularly between the start of November up to the new year. With the other side of my mind I curse the … Read More Green that thrives in winter
by Steve Tanham
“Dancing, double-talking…” It’s a line from one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard: Innocents’ Song, by Show of Hands, a west-country folk duo who we have followed for years. Click the link above to listen on YouTube. (There may be an advert to click through, first). But this post is not about music or that album. It’s about the dramatic words used … Read More “Dancing, double-talking…”
by Steve Tanham
It has been a thing of joy to me that most of the writers and teachers who have a desire to communicate the ‘mysteries’ of the human soul use the same language to describe the innermost nature of it. The word ‘Essence’ is often used to describe this living ‘jewel’ that is our most fundamental identity – though a more liquid, honey-like metaphor might … Read More In the world but not of it (2) : Holes in the Soul
by Steve Tanham
©Stephen Tanham 2023 Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a mentored, journal-based journey from personality to the awakening of realised Self and its world of Being. http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog
by Steve Tanham
On the third Sunday of every month, the Silent Eye hosts a Zoom-based discussion to explore one of the core topics of modern mysticism. This series of ongoing posts features a summary of each monthly discussion; of which this is the third. The talks are open to all, and we welcome new visitors to the group – whether you drop in to take a … Read More Notes from Explorers (3) – presence and the now
by Steve Tanham
There is a famous phrase, attributed to the Sufi tradition: Be in the world but not of it… The sentiment refers to how an individual views their life, and also how they orientate themselves to their experiences. We seldom view experiences as being a living dimension of life. We view them as random events; our task being to navigate around them well – not … Read More In the world but not of it (1)
by Steve Tanham
It’s a steep climb from Kendal’s town centre up to the old castle that still stands guard over this ancient town. Once there, you are greeted with 360 degrees of lovely landscape, ranging from the north end of Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland hills. Just to the north-east lie the less visited Howgills. I always glance across, as the view of hills and dales … Read More The Fury on the Horizon
+ #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, I Ching, Inquiry techniques, meditation, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School
by Steve Tanham
When we find that the process of inner inquiry described in the last two posts actually works, and we see that ‘finding out’ things about our inner lives is both simple and replicable, we might wonder why and how this mysterious technique works so well? What mechanism makes this seeming conversation with our experience and its storehouse of memory so powerful? Hang on tight, … Read More Shells from an Inner Sea (3 of 3): the inner flow
Sun in Gemini 
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