SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: esoteric psychology

April 9, 2023 + #Silenti, Ancient Sacred Sites, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, Photography, Silent Eye School

Death and Resurrection

by Steve Tanham

For the mystic, Easter is about symbols… Being doesn’t break through the barriers into normal life very often, though it is the very substance and energy of its existence. The journeys in the gospels are those of the individual soul, learning the fundamental truths of their own existence – which then expands to be existence, itself. For me and many others, Easter is about … Read More Death and Resurrection

April 6, 2023 + #Silent Eye, Consciousness, Esoteric Meaning of Myth, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Mystery Schools, Photography

Shadowy Spirituality

by Steve Tanham

Psychologists have often reminded us that we have a have a ‘dark side’. Yes, you… And me, too! Sigmund Freud, whose work was behavioural and independent of spirituality, gave us the famous classifications of Ego, Id, and Superego; three seemingly separate parts of who and how we are. Carl Jung, who was more intent on a personal unity involving the spiritual side of mankind, … Read More Shadowy Spirituality

March 30, 2023 + Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Lake District, landscapes, Love, Mindfulness, nature, Photography

Scaling the Heights

by Steve Tanham

As a child, I remember asking the local vicar, “Where is God?” He looked at me, a little startled, and said, “God is everywhere!” I looked around, not meaning to mock him, but he took it that way. My simplistic feeling was that God was in the high places, open, accepting and taking things are they were. My family were Rosicrucians and it was … Read More Scaling the Heights

March 26, 2023 + #Silenti, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, landscapes, Photographic techniques, Photography, Silent Eye School, Travel and Photography

No strangers on the shore

by Steve Tanham

“Lead them in,” said the man who taught me much about composition in photography. “You’ve got to ferry those looking at your images into the core of the shot…” The steps, alone, were a perfect ‘lead’ down to the beach. Add in the storm wall and the high level of the promenade’s main body and you have a harmonic set of ‘pointers’. The third … Read More No strangers on the shore

February 16, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Psychology

The Glowing Ascent of Reaction

by Steve Tanham

We all have moments when we experience that inner sense of ‘glow and wellbeing’ – often quite unexpectedly… This usually happens when we are carrying out a task or thinking out a situation and become absorbed to a depth that assists us to resolve something complex. That eventual sense of a breakthrough is indicative! As is the deep breath that usually accompanies the triumph… … Read More The Glowing Ascent of Reaction

February 9, 2023 + #Silenti, Celtic Christianity, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Love, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Soul, spiritual turning around, Sufi Poetry, The Beloved

Barriers to Love

by Steve Tanham

Eight hundred years is a long way to look back and extract meaningful guidance about ‘today’s world’, and yet I can say with honesty that the historical figure whose wisdom made one of the most important differences to my spiritual life lived in the 13th century… Generally known by the short-form of his last name: Rumi, the Sufi mystic and poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad … Read More Barriers to Love

February 2, 2023 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Child of Light, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Incarnation, meditation, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools

Age and the Inner Life

by Steve Tanham

How old are we? It’s often a cruel question and we wrestle with the answer, knowing full well how many years downstream we are … but feeling, not too deep inside, that our inner state bears no relation to that set of two digits… Traditionally, this has been dismissed as just part of our psychology. We don’t want to feel old, so we learn … Read More Age and the Inner Life

January 26, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Incarnation, Love, meditation, Memories, nature

Embrace of the Inner Age

by Steve Tanham

There are many symmetries in life but one of the least remarked on is the complementary states of early and later life relative to where we place our attention. When young, despite ‘trailing clouds of glory’, as Wordsworth elegantly wrote, we are completely in-volved with the physical world ‘out-there’. From the wonder and adoration of our baby state, through the realisation that we can … Read More Embrace of the Inner Age

January 19, 2023 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Life-sciences, Photography, Psychology

The Unmasked Human

by Steve Tanham

In an attitude that most of us would find chilling, Francis Crick, the Noble Laureate who co-discovered the structure of DNA, referred to it as ‘the astonishing hypothesis’. He wasn’t talking about genes, but the proposal that all human feelings, actions and thoughts – right down to the level of consciousness, itself, are the products of neural activity in the brain. In truth, science … Read More The Unmasked Human

December 22, 2022 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Lake District, Mystery Schools, mystical travel, Photography

Musings on a Silent Night

by Steve Tanham

I received a nice little present from WordPress the other day: a certificate to say I had been blogging with them for ten years! Ten years… Where did they go… Back then, Sue Vincent was our Silent Eye blogger – and she already had a large online following. Persuading her to join the fledgling Silent Eye was doubly beneficial: I got an excellent foundational … Read More Musings on a Silent Night

December 15, 2022 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Mystery Schools

The Eight with Two Dots

by Steve Tanham

I remember being a child and considering the Yin-Yang figure for the first time. It fascinated me. I felt like I couldn’t ‘see it’ properly – as though something about it was hidden… For several days after spying it on a street poster, I tried to draw it, but without success. The best I could do was render it as ‘an eight with two … Read More The Eight with Two Dots

December 13, 2022 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Metanoia, Mystery Schools, Photographic techniques, Photography

Images of Consideration

by Steve Tanham

I read a lot into nature… I study the natural world around me carefully; a lot of my joy in taking photographs is that it helps me to ‘see’ what’s there in more clarity. It’s remarkable what being considered with a landscape can do, and how it deepens your sense of truly ‘being there’. Such acts of considering were central to what the philosopher … Read More Images of Consideration