Category: #Silenti

The Glowing Ascent of Reaction

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

The massive Skiddaw

The massive presence of the mountain called Skiddaw towers over the Lakeland town of Keswick. The entire north-eastern horizon is dominated by its sheer size. I was intending to simply post the photo above, but the dramatic image invites a bit more background information for anyone who is not familiar with the northern part of the Lake District National Park. The opening shot was … Read More The massive Skiddaw

And Cherries on Sunday

©Stephen Tanham 2023 Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being. http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Barriers to Love

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

Stories of Winter Fire

Here in the Lake District, colour can be hard to find in the Jan-March depths of winter. So I thought it might be fun to explore the replacement of faded colours – like those found in last year’s grasses and ferns – with a colour treatment that was blatantly artificial, yet suggested hidden fire and life… The grasses above are a good example of … Read More Stories of Winter Fire

Silverdale in February

It’s called ‘The Lots’. It’s a heavily protected stretch of undulating land behind the rocky headland of Silverdale’s rugged coastline. Silverdale is one of the most northerly places on the Lancashire coast. Before the boundary changes that created Cumbria (soon to be sliced into a new set of nonsensical pieces) Lancashire extended all the way around Morecambe Bay to Barrow-in-Furness. The peninsula on which … Read More Silverdale in February

Age and the Inner Life

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

The Light and the Gloom

Kendal, midweek… the retail day was drawing to a close. A thin fog had covered the town and its surrounding hills for most of the day, and the encroaching darkness at the end of the afternoon made the gloom seem even more dense. I have always been drawn by urban photos of streets where the lights have that ‘just turned on’ look. Collie in … Read More The Light and the Gloom

From Below…

One of the ‘easy wins’ in photography is to vary the shooting height of the camera by either getting higher… or, as in this case, lower. The large-screen camera phones have made this easy to do, since once you have placed the device on or close to the ground – often thanking your last Pilates class – it’s still possible to see the shot … Read More From Below…

Embrace of the Inner Age

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

Mountains beneath the Sea

I was talking with a friend about life – not a generalised view of life, such as we might do in an introductory talk to mysticism, but in the sense of what life actually is… The topic of life led us to consider health… and how we might picture health and it’s inevitable effect on the final stages of our lives. And then I … Read More Mountains beneath the Sea

A War of Fire and Ice

Late afternoon and a final run on Heysham Beach for Tess the collie. And then strange things began to happen in the sky. Bright sun on a collision course with a front of hailstones. Not the place to be! So I grabbed a final shot and we ran for the car… Only later did this joyful result reveal itself! ©Stephen Tanham 2023 Stephen Tanham … Read More A War of Fire and Ice