SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: Mystery Schools

(-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

May 23, 2023 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Collie dogs, Consciousness, English Lake District, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Photographic techniques, Photography, Places and Prose

From Windermere to Sedgwick

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

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

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

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

November 17, 2022 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Psychology, Silent Eye School

Representing the Invisible

by Steve Tanham

For this you were called, created, formed and made… The human mind has always sought to represent the invisible… A feeling might be represented by high art, such as Michelangelo’s marble sculpture ‘Pietà’, in St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. To stand before the Pieta sculpture is to be drawn into the emotion of Christ’s mother, holding the crucified body of her son, Jesus Christ. … Read More Representing the Invisible

November 10, 2022 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, guided mystical walks, Higher Mind, Lake District, Mystery Schools

Beyond the Winter

by Steve Tanham

It’s at this time of year, when the nights are long and the days short and getting shorter, that we turn our attention to a what could unfold in the spring – in the form of the Silent Eye’s May workshop. The idea is one thing, the success lies in giving it form and substance…and making sure that everyone there feels a creative part … Read More Beyond the Winter

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 4, 2022 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Magic, Mystery Schools, Powers of the Mind

Defining Relationships (1)

by Steve Tanham

We treat the word ‘relationship’ casually. We don’t mean to – we probably don’t know we are dealing with one of the most fundamental parts of our existence. If we could see the full implications of the idea of relationships, we might be better equipped to see how much symbolic ‘gold’ there is in them. To consider this, we should step back and examine … Read More Defining Relationships (1)