by Steve Tanham
It’s February; cold and wet, now… But in a few month’s time, It will be glorious May, and the landscape around the celebrated village of Grasmere, in the heart of the Lake District, will be transformed into one of the beautiful locations in Britain. Grasmere is to be our base for the Silent Eye’s Spring weekend of 2024, 10-12 May. Grasmere’s most famous resident … Read More Trailing clouds of glory
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
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
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)
+ #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
+ #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, I Ching, Inquiry techniques, meditation, Mindfulness, Photography, Silent Eye School
by Steve Tanham
We are urged by spiritual writers to ‘live in the now’. We might reasonably ask how we might live anywhen else, but that would go against the spirit of such good advice. Some clarity might be needed, though. As far as a reasonable self-inquiry goes, we – our composite consciousness – lives pressed up against signals from our senses that are very much of … Read More Shells from an Inner Sea (2) A fresh look at the ‘now’
by Steve Tanham
The German girl was speaking. “It was as though I was picking up shells in a stream by a beach … where every shell pointed back to another, until I got to the sea – and couldn’t stop the joy of having the waves breaking behind me…” I remember the moment vividly, though it was several years ago, during a mindfulness seminar accompanied by … Read More Shells from an inner sea (1)
+ #Silenti, Consciousness, Lake District, Mindfulness, mystical travel, Photographic techniques, Photography, Travel, Travel and Photography
by Steve Tanham
Ulverston on a June day. Immediately after a dowsing in one of the rainstorms that have ended two solid months of sunshine and blue skies here in the extreme north-west of England. It’s actually a pleasant change, though I have no desire to ‘hex’ the lovely summer we’re having. We’re in Ulverston – a lovely market town that used to be in north Lancashire, … Read More Wet Summer Light
+ #Phoetry, #Poetry, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, guided mystical walks, landscapes, Mindfulness, Photography
by Steve Tanham
And is there time in wander wood Or slow, abiding, gentle ‘should’ Without resistance: touch and kiss A reaching for midsummer’s bliss So powerful this May surprise I need not leave my seat – just close my eyes To wander in the wonder wood ©Stephen Tanham 2023 Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to … Read More Wander Wood #phoetry
+ #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Photographic techniques, Photography, Places and Prose
by Steve Tanham
We have just needed the Silent Eye’s ‘Water-Circle+Cross’ weekend, which took place a forty minute journey away, on the shores of Lake Windermere, England’s largest lake. The weekend had gone well; better than expected, in fact, and I will be writing up each of the days over the next couple of weeks. Our friend, Dean, had been staying with us and was due to … Read More From Windermere to Sedgwick
+ #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, guided mystical walks, meditation, Metanoia, Mindfulness, Soul, soul in body
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)
Sun in Gemini 
You must be logged in to post a comment.