SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: esoteric psychology

July 27, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Incarnation, Powers of the Mind, Psychology, Silent Eye School, Spiritual Enneagram

Nine Keys: (4) The edge of the known

by Steve Tanham

We look out at the world with our eyes. There is a strong, conceptual basis for our looking. We look out from an in-here to an out-there. In other words, we locate ourselves – the ‘me’ – inside something that we regard as an intimate ‘home’, never seeing, perhaps for all of our lives, that we have created the division. The immediate effect of … Read More Nine Keys: (4) The edge of the known

July 20, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Gurdjieff, Incarnation, Photography, Psychology, Silent Eye School, Spiritual Enneagram

Nine Keys: (3) the Fall

by Steve Tanham

We seldom think about what it must have been like to be a new-born.Perhaps there is something uncomfortable about the image of being so helpless? And yet that first period of life – emerging from mother’s body in which we have been safely cocooned with all our needs met – is formative for the rest of the human being’s incarnation in matter. The way … Read More Nine Keys: (3) the Fall

July 13, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Gurdjieff, Incarnation, Photography, Psychology, Silent Eye School, Spiritual Enneagram

Nine Keys: (2) The look of love

by Steve Tanham

A good friend wrote to me after last week’s Part One of this series. They wondered if they had ever really known their ‘real self’. It’s a common observation, and people who can say this are being emotionally honest at a deep level. But I can reassure anyone who feels this way that they are mistaken. The feeling is that life has apparently taken … Read More Nine Keys: (2) The look of love

July 6, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Gurdjieff, Incarnation, Photography, Psychology, Silent Eye School, Spiritual Enneagram

Nine Keys: (1) The human hologram

by Steve Tanham

Modern spirituality is aligned with psychology in many ways; one of them being that whichever direction we travel in on our quest to ‘find the real’, we need to start with the personality. The personality is where we live. We think of it as us. Because it’s ‘me’, there is no questioning how it views things. True, we can be aware that we tend … Read More Nine Keys: (1) The human hologram

June 4, 2023 + #Poetry, #Silenti, #wantonwhimsy, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Love, Mystical poetry, Photography

One god of two

by Steve Tanham

One god of two, she chooses From the young faces at the bar While he, her husband? To be or not… Long, lean and known to her every wish Smiles into his cigar Did God post the envelope you open with your lips In a reverse of time? And the page within is blank Save … now it says: ‘The page within is blank’ … Read More One god of two

May 16, 2023 + #Phoetry, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, guided mystical walks

#Phoetry – Stone Fortress Mind

by Steve Tanham

Beneath the skies of blue that ache with white-kissed beauty Beside the meadows’ deeper green that brightens every day Beyond the water’s vastness blown by breezes on a million waves She waits for him to end his stone-faced exile. #Phoetry is a hashtag amalgamation of the words Photography and Poetry, a form of visual and poetic communication. ©Stephen Tanham 2023 Stephen Tanham is a … Read More #Phoetry – Stone Fortress Mind

May 9, 2023 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, guided mystical walks, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Soul, soul in body

Emotional journey of the Deep-Me (Part 1)

by Steve Tanham

The spiritual quest is simple: we need to: (1) Recognise that, in our present ‘state of mind’ we are not as we could be. (2) Begin to follow those ‘inklings’ within us to a new ‘Kingdom-Queendom of me’. (3) Keep our eyes – and minds – open for clues that may provide simple or substantial course-corrections. (4) Observe everything as though the end of … Read More Emotional journey of the Deep-Me (Part 1)

May 4, 2023 + #Silenti, Ancient Sacred Sites, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, landscapes, Photography, Silent Eye School

Fear No Object

by Steve Tanham

I was looking through some photographs from various trips we had taken, when prepping Silent Eye weekends. The beautiful hills of Derbyshire were a home for our monthly get-togethers, largely because they gave a sensible meeting-point for journeys from home that began in Buckinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Cumbria. The opening shot is the only one of this post that is not Derbyshire. Tess is … Read More Fear No Object

April 27, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology

Through the looking glass of Polarity

by Steve Tanham

Students of esoteric studies – focussed on practical techniques for understanding and accessing the deeper potentials of our being – are exhorted to consider the idea of polarity at the start of their journey. Polarity is the idea of opposites creating a dynamic environment in which some kind of evolution takes place… For example, the play of heat and cold in a watery substance … Read More Through the looking glass of Polarity

April 20, 2023 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, English Lake District, enneagram types, esoteric psychology, History

Drowning not waving

by Steve Tanham

Stage Directions: Cue: Hamlet cigars advert music from the 60’s to the 90’s…. Video link below, if you weren’t there… YouTube video, late 1970s… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVecbh15dWU They were a very popular series of ads about heroic failures… All featuring the same theme music ‘Air on the G String’ by J. S. Bach. It is said that humour is divine. I often find it puts into … Read More Drowning not waving

April 16, 2023 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, guided mystical walks, Higher Mind, landscapes, meditation, Mindfulness

To Boldly Glow…

by Steve Tanham

We’d like to thank Stuart France for his decade of insightful contributions to the Silent Eye, his companionship, and the depth of his historical spiritual knowledge. We will miss him, very much, and wish him well in his future work. And now we have to move on… Deeper into cyberspace may not the only place we glow. The world is changing, and we must, … Read More To Boldly Glow…

April 13, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Photography, Silent Eye School

Presence: seed and flower (1)

by Steve Tanham

Our Silent Eye Explorations group meets online via Zoom on the third Sunday of the month at 8 pm UK time. For April, our topic is Presence. We live in an age that takes a lot of ideas lightly, professing a working familiarity with such things as meditation, mindfulness and the idea of presence. Are these separate, or do they overlap and even interact? … Read More Presence: seed and flower (1)