Category: Silent Eye Workshops

Set in Stone

The Silent Eye’s Landscape Weekends were born from a mad-cap day on Ilkley Moor and a number of subsequent events up there. Join us on Sue Vincent’s birthday (14th September) for lunch and a short walk to one of Ilkley Moor’s ancient monuments as we remember our former colleague and fellow director in the landscape she regarded as her home. Meet: Noon at The … Read More Set in Stone

The preparation of Magical Landscapes (2)

You begin with an idea; in this case an entire workshop held outdoors, in the vivid landscape of the English Lake District. It’s vast and wild… and you have no control over the weather, not even in May. The goal is for those attending to experience themselves in a new way. In these dramatic surroundings, and in the midst of warm companionship, we can … Read More The preparation of Magical Landscapes (2)

The preparation of Magical Landscapes (1)

There’s no ‘But what is it’, today. The series will continue for a few weeks, restarting next Sunday. Three of us have been busy doing a ‘dry run’ of the plans for our ‘Journey of the Hero’ workshop 6-8 May, centred in Keswick. We’ve been crossing lakes, walking up hills and following rivers to mysterious stone structures… Oh, and a quick visit to a … Read More The preparation of Magical Landscapes (1)

Emerging from the Mist…

There’s a certain amount of ‘fighting back’ in this. The long period of Covid restrictions, followed by a summer in which we all got a taste of gentle freedom again; the sad death of the ‘third musketeer’, Sue Vincent, in March of this year; the inability to hold our regular workshops in the mystical landscapes of Britain… But then there were positive things: learning … Read More Emerging from the Mist…

Gnosis and the Spider

I realise that spiders might be a difficult subject, so, instead of the actual photo of the tiny spider, I’ve used this beautiful image of a web caught in the sunlight from Pixabay. I was spraying wood preserver on our fence. Its a big fence, and cost us a lot of money. Every three years it needs a wood preserver spraying on its entire … Read More Gnosis and the Spider

Winter walks with Camera (7) : panorama

The modern mobile phone puts an arsenal of photographic tools at our disposal. One of the strangest and most difficult to master is the panorama… yet the results can be wonderful. (550 words. A four minute read) The panorama is not a gimmick. It’s a wide-angled shot in which the correct proportions are retained, rather than the treatment of a ‘fish-eye’ lens, where the … Read More Winter walks with Camera (7) : panorama

My Own Trumpet

I’m not very good, nor comfortable, blowing my own trumpet… Writers on the internet know this feeling well: we are urged to promote our presence, yet our inner nature knows what sort of people talk about themselves all the time… This is particularly true if your main activity is of a teaching nature within a spiritual discipline. The road to understanding the ego – … Read More My Own Trumpet

A prospect of Whitby (3) – Touching the Sun

There’s something ‘monumental’ about planning to be high on the vast moorlands of the North Yorkshire National Park at the end of the first week in December. Yet that is exactly what we’ll be doing on the Sunday morning of the ‘Keys of Heaven’ workshop on the start of the workshop’s final day – weather permitting. If it doesn’t, there’s a plan B… Bridges … Read More A prospect of Whitby (3) – Touching the Sun

The Moment that Teaches

Most people who venture into the mystical encounter it before too long – that momentary sense of the world dropping away and an intense silence taking centre stage. In that silence is a new perspective which does not belong to the subjective, reasoning consciousness. I think of it as the ‘moment that teaches’. It is to be sought after as though it were gold. … Read More The Moment that Teaches

The Landscape that Teaches

When we were creating the Silent Eye’s mentored correspondence course, we envisaged a three-year journey through a mental, emotional and spiritual landscape which would evolve as the Companion’s learning and depth of ‘being’ increased. This landscape was to be internal – an active, meditative experience, whose presence would extend into the daily life as learning of true cause and effect deepened, and different aspects … Read More The Landscape that Teaches

A prospect of Whitby (1) The Abbey at the centre of time

The title’s cheeky… Bram Stoker created Count Dracula of Transylvania and had him come ashore at Whitby in a ship named The Prospect of Whitby. We’ll not be talking much about Dracula in our coming weekend workshop; we’ve got enough to contend with considering the truth… There are many ways to approach the centre of Whitby, but only one to truly approach its heart… … Read More A prospect of Whitby (1) The Abbey at the centre of time

Above the Lion and the Lamb (part three)

It was past four in the afternoon. We had been walking for over five hours. Despite our best smiles – and Joh’s chocolate – we were tired, very tired. We were desperately looking for something – a path that should have been climbing up towards us from the steep lower slopes of the glacial corrie below. But paths – this far into a landscape … Read More Above the Lion and the Lamb (part three)