SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: Metanoia

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)

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

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

October 27, 2022 + #Silenti, Child of Light, Consciousness, enneagram, Esoteric Meaning of Myth, esoteric psychology, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Mind – mover of the Soul (4) Where is the World?

by Steve Tanham

Where is the world? Is this a fair question to ask ourselves or some pointless intellectual game? A friend sent me a beautiful piece of writing, created by a Kabbalist teacher. The Kabbalah is a system I’m very familiar with, though the Silent Eye uses the enneagram as a map of egoic and spiritual consciousness, rather than the Tree of Life used by the … Read More Mind – mover of the Soul (4) Where is the World?

October 20, 2022 + #Silenti, Child of Light, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Mind – mover of the Soul (3) Seeing Pi and finding your birthday…

by Steve Tanham

One of the most important things we do with our minds is to learn, yet we seldom ask: how do we learn things, and is it a single process? How do we learn things, and is it a single process? How do we learn things? We have to be careful to define what we mean by learning. The child or young student gains praise … Read More Mind – mover of the Soul (3) Seeing Pi and finding your birthday…

October 13, 2022 + #Silenti, Child of Light, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Mind: mover of the Soul (2)

by Steve Tanham

The consideration of mind is a journey, not a concept. There’s nothing theoretical about the degree to which we believe we are ‘in-here’ in our body. That statement has two parts: the sense of us -the observer, being contained inside something, and the inherent idea of ‘self’ in the status of the observer. To the mind, the observer self-evidently is… The place where she/he … Read More Mind: mover of the Soul (2)

October 6, 2022 + #Silenti, Child of Light, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Mind: mover of the Soul (1)

by Steve Tanham

Science has its definitions of what the mind is, yet, for most of us, we don’t even consider the question; driven by the fact that what would do the ‘considering’ is the mind itself. It’s like one of those logical traps, like why it’s a bad idea to saw off the branch of the overgrown apple tree that you’re sitting on… Can the mind … Read More Mind: mover of the Soul (1)

September 29, 2022 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, Higher Mind, Initiation, Love, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Psychology

Eye, aye and I…

by Steve Tanham

One of the many paradoxes of modern mysticism is that there is no good word to describe the ‘sense of self’ that we all have, but which does not appear to be shareable as meaning. It is as though the real meaning of ‘me’ always slips away when we try to define it. We point to ourselves and say, “Well, it’s just me!” And … Read More Eye, aye and I…

August 22, 2019 + #Silenti, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, Life and Death, Love, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Photography, Politics, Powers of the Mind, Silent Eye School, Speaking truth to power, Spirituality, Travel and Photography

Vexed by the Tribe (part two) – the fabrication of complexity

by Steve Tanham

We’re visiting relatives. It’s friendly. We have a light meal and some cake to follow. But then someone mentions Brexit and a cold frost descends on the room… My wife and I bite our tongues, knowing our hosts are firm believers that Britain’s post-colonial destiny lies in a renewed ‘Little England’ reborn from some poster of decades ago. Until my wife’s uncle says, “Besides, … Read More Vexed by the Tribe (part two) – the fabrication of complexity

August 15, 2019 + #Silenti, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, Life and Death, Love, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Photography, Politics, Powers of the Mind, Silent Eye School, Speaking truth to power, Spirituality, Travel and Photography

Vexed by the Tribe (part one)

by Steve Tanham

I am vexed… It’s a word you don’t hear much, now. Old English, I believe. It describes an agitated state of mind – and possibly body – when something nagging can’t be solved. What I’m vexed about is the entrenchment of nationalistic opinion across the world, in the face of much more important issues – like the world’s climate problems and the undermining of … Read More Vexed by the Tribe (part one)

August 8, 2019 + #Silenti, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, Life and Death, Life-sciences, Love, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Photography, Poetry, Powers of the Mind, Sexual Force, Silent Eye School, soul in body, Speaking truth to power, Spirituality, Travel and Photography

Primal screen

by Steve Tanham

Somewhere in the frontal cortex of our brains there’s a very special junction – a place where we learned to do something truly different with our minds… Let’s call it the Primal Screen… Our spines can be considered the highway of our historical evolution: the inherited paths of form and energy that developed from single cells in oceans, through fish, lizards and apes. At … Read More Primal screen

July 23, 2019 + #Poetry, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Mystical poetry, Silent Eye School, Spirituality

Half day, half night, half nothing

by Steve Tanham

Along the edge of darkness lives delight A silver, shining, running stream A place of soul’s respite Where questions rise unbidden And answers tease and tide from hidden A flow so all-embracing that the third: Not day, not night, is briefly seen. ➰ ©Stephen Tanham