SteveTanham – writing, mysticism, photography, poetry, friends

Category: spiritual turning around

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

March 10, 2022 + #Silent Eye, #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Silent Eye School, spiritual turning around

The ejector-seat of self…(1)

by Steve Tanham

Do we really understand mindfulness? It’s become one of those ‘must do more of that’ sentiments, as though we could press a button on the side of the head. Perhaps the reason for our chagrin is not that we lack diligence, but that we think it’s a chore… Possibly that we don’t feel pulled or compelled from within to practice it? After all, we … Read More The ejector-seat of self…(1)

August 18, 2020 + #Silenti, esoteric psychology, Magic, Mystery Schools, Powers of the Mind, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, spiritual turning around, Spirituality

My Own Trumpet

by Steve Tanham

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

March 5, 2020 + #Silenti, Biology and mysticism, Consciousness, People power, Politics, Politics and Power, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Understanding Fear

Echoes of the Bunkermen

by Steve Tanham

I was born in the 1950s. It was an age riven by anxiety about nuclear war. Ten years after the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed by the first use of atomic-powered weapons, the west was still consumed with the horror of seeing Oppenheimer’s equations translated into an explosion that ripped apart buildings, adults and children on a scale envisaged only … Read More Echoes of the Bunkermen

November 21, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Sacred Sites, Celtic Christianity, esoteric psychology, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Travel and Photography

Divide and be Conquered

by Steve Tanham

It’s a funny thing, division – its principles apply to many aspects of our lives. We can cut something up, but its original ‘wholeness’ persists in ways we may never have considered. Wholeness as a concept is worth some thought. Can we step back and consider why we think something is whole? Is it simply that ‘it works’ – in the way that a … Read More Divide and be Conquered

August 29, 2019 + #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, landscapes, Life and Death, Magic, Mindfulness, Self-help, Silent Eye School, soul in body, Spirit, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Tarot, Tarot, The Fool,

Land of the Heart

by Steve Tanham

This is a self-help exercise I developed recently. I call it ‘Land of the Heart’ It’s an exercise that involves the surrender of the small self that feels so much pain and anguish, especially at a time of national division, such as we have on both sides of the Atlantic, today. It’s an exercise that addresses that feeling of helplessness that many of us … Read More Land of the Heart

July 30, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, meditation, Mystery Schools, nature, Photography, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Soul, soul in body, Spirit, spiritual turning around, Spirituality

Have you seen it, yet?

by Steve Tanham

Do you see it all, sometimes? Turn, doing something strange with your mind Look back with different eyes And see the path that led to you? A moment of vast lucidity… But there’s one thing you don’t see The thing that can’t be seen Have you seen it, yet? ©Stephen Tanham Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, a not-for-profit … Read More Have you seen it, yet?

July 25, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Consciousness, Egregore, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Higher Mind, Incarnation, Initiation, Life-sciences, meditation, Mystery Schools, nature, Photography, Silent Eye School, Silent Eye Workshops, Soul, soul in body, Spirit, spiritual turning around, Spirituality

The creature on the beach beyond thought

by Steve Tanham

It lay there, head in the sky, gazing at the radiance. Its tail was still in the ocean of thought, the gentle waves urging it back where it belonged… The gaps in the waves had always been there; they were the rhythm of life. But it had never thought to use them as a way through. To where? To beauty, certainly. The sights and … Read More The creature on the beach beyond thought

July 18, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Egypt, Astrophysics, Belief and Faith, Biology and mysticism, Child of Light, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, Egyptian Gods, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Fear, Incarnation, Life and Death, Love, Mindfulness, myths and spirituality, Photography, Solar Year, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, The Beloved, Understanding Fear

Death of a salesman

by Steve Tanham

In a few short weeks it will be September. We (the Silent Eye) have been invited to speak at the Unitarian Society of Psychical Studies annual conference at the Nightingale Centre in Derbyshire. We use this lovely place for our main annual event in April each year. We had our official ‘birth’ there in 2013. It is a very special place to us, and … Read More Death of a salesman

June 22, 2019 + #Poetry, #Silenti, Alchemical Poetry, Consciousness, Mystical poetry, Silent Eye School, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Stone Circles

Harlequin Solstice

by Steve Tanham

Harlequin solstice St John Kin A picture in the fading sun A race of fingers, digits Of solstice long earned Short departed ➰ How little How sadly You are understood Your music the struggle Of madness Made harmony ➰ Until this moment When kings detach your strings When single song Descends Towards the dark arms But brighter eyes Of St Stephen ➰ ©Stephen Tanham

May 30, 2019 + #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Ancient Sacred Sites, Astrology, Belief and Faith, Biology and mysticism, Castles, Child of Light, Consciousness, Egregore, Esoteric Meaning of Myth, esoteric psychology, Higher Mind, Highlands of Scotland, Initiation, landscapes, Magic, Mindfulness, Mystery Schools, Mystical ritual drama, myths and spirituality, Scotland, Silent Eye School, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Travel and Photography, Understanding Fear

Five Faces of the Macbeth Human

by Steve Tanham

Exploring the faces of the ‘human condition’ should be consuming our world at the moment. We might reasonably conclude that understanding the heights and depths of our shared experience, as we drain the planet of its living life, would be of interest to us. But we don’t… Instead, if we ask any questions at all, we spend months looking at things from a political … Read More Five Faces of the Macbeth Human

May 28, 2019 + #Poetry, #Silenti, Consciousness, Higher Mind, imprisonment, Journey of the hero, prisoner, Speaking truth to power, spiritual turning around, Spirituality, Truth and Esotericism

An idea whose time has come

by Steve Tanham

An idea: invisibly potent A watery creek A new and gentle breeze of ripeness Felt by few A red propeller spinning in the soil? A sail – unfurled and flapping Held fast with thin steel ropes which ‘clack’, dull metal, at its imprisonment … Whose time: like the now-revealed spinning toy Whirring in the wind Unwraps, revealing shining teeth Rotating gear, synchro-meshed Engages, beneath … Read More An idea whose time has come