We’ve finally made it to Canada! After years of wanting to, the presence of my son on a two year contract to Toronto has enabled a week-long trip to this lovely – and very friendly – city.
We feel entirely at home here.
As a special treat, we’re being taken to Niagara Falls, today. Can’t wait!
Lots more photos to follow!
The opening shot was taken yesterday at Oakville, looking along the coast towards a distant and barely visible Toronto, but the great city is there if you look.
©️Stephen Tanham
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Alness: about ten miles north of Inverness on the famous A9 highland road to John O’ Groats and the port of Thurso.
We hadn’t planned to visit Alness but an internet lookup for a decent pharmacy showed it was the closest supermarket town to where we were staying on The Black Isle.
We bought our supplies at the supermarket then parked up and wandered down the small town’s Main Street. At its southern end the road descended quite steeply to a modern bridge over a small river.
Searching for a park to give the collie a run, we stumbled on a beautiful river valley at the southern end of the highland town.
A quick check on the iPhone showed it to be the River Averon, and its woodland course through the brough had been turned into a nature park.
Unusually for this far north, it was a very warm afternoon. I wanted to reflect this ‘sultry’ feeling in the photos. To that effect, I played about with the photo settings, using the best configuration as a template to augment each of the others.
©️Copyright Stephen Tanham 2025.
Stephen Tanham is a writer of blogs and mystically-oriented fiction.
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What secret value do I hold
That this – with dying seconds –
Bestows its once-glory on my eyes
And now on yours…?
—-
What is this act of seeing
That knits the view and viewer new
In such a way and with such love
They were not ever two but twin?
—-
And yet…
—-
And yet kaleidoscope of ‘it’
Mocks egoscope of ‘me’
For being tied to ‘here’
—-
‘It’, never the same, unparalleled
In its newness, laughs at my desire
To fix, as foe, my shifting self.
—-
This dance of eye and I is
Nature’s gift to smooth and soothe
The monkey-mind’s raw peril.
—-
When Self comes calmly knocking
Upon the cracks of it and me
To shatter Life assumed as matter
—-
Then let my arms be love and open
My mind surrender here and there
My heart, awake, stride free and far
Into the after-where…
©️Stephen Tanham 2025
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With labyrinthine grace
Not lacking pace
The human mind:
The snake devourer of the here
Makes shapes of what it likes
And doesn’t…
—-
The sum a palette:
A well-stuffed wallet
‘Embrace, avoid or pass’
The money says
As hissing head explores in dread
A painting made by self
In which its power of choice
Is just a word…
—
Come heart and flower
And give me back my soul
Freed of the past
And seen in shining brow
Like arrows of the now.
—-
©️Copyright Stephen Tanham 2025.
Image by the author. Setas de Sevilla. Seville, Andalusia, Spain.
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St Peter Parasol
With higher vision
Perceives the Earth rotating
Round and around
The endless quest for truth
In human mind revolves
Crucified by greed
And children’s slaughter
His gaze seeks out
The pretenders…
That they, one day,
Might know themselves
In heart and share
The tears…
©️Stephen Tanham 2025
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Beyond the Hawthorne
Skies of blue
Trick eye to thinking
Summer’s due
Not yet! The mind
Replies, as frozen fingers
May betray
Spring’s breeze for
Deeper pockets’ warmth.
©️Stephen Tanham 2025
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I love photographing fires. Domestic ones, usually. On Guy Fawkes’ Night (5th November), I can indulge this passion outdoors.
But that’s a distant memory now.
Usually, the results fail to justify the effort… The ‘euphoric’ energy and fulsome nature of the flames fails to come through to the image.
But this shot – taken through the glass of the log-burner in our lounge – did fulfil its promise.
It was only when I was gazing at it, later, that I began to see the ‘Egyptian figures and faces’.
Over to you!
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2025
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.
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There’s a tiny road that leads out of our village of Sedgwick, to cross the deep gorge of the often thundering River Kent. A quarter of a mile later it connects with the busy A590 that links the M6 motorway with the heart of The Lake District.
There is usually one day, often in January, when a severe winter frost turns the leafless and dead-looking ‘bridge road’ into a twinkling grotto.
Very occasionally – as here – there is a blue sky. When the blue sky and the frost come together, the place becomes magical.
You can’t see it from the village. You have to be in the gorge, itself, to catch it. In previous years, I’ve had other motorists behind me who would not have taken kindly to my stopping on the narrow road to photograph the scene, no matter how fine the view was.
But on this occasion, with no-one behind me, I was able to stop the car and – leaning out from the driver’s window (and keeping a keen eye on the rear-view mirror) snap a few hasty shots. I was surprised how clearly they came out.
So here it is, in all its winter glory. It’s great to be able to share it.
Enjoy!
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2025
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.
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Deep winter comes to the Lakes. Our tiny village of Sedgwick is perilous – already lacking in footways, people are strapping spiked soles onto their shoes in order to get around,
But the beauty remains … is even enhanced by the glittering danger.
And tomorrow is expected to be even colder…
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12
ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.
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+ #iphonephotography, #Photography,, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Consciousness, Lake District, Mystical walks
A Lion in Winter
by Steve Tanham
It’s there quite clearly in the trunk. A lion, claws embedded firmly in the old wood to support its descending weight. Head down, eyes fixed on, well, you!
Microseconds from reaching the ground, where it will be lord of life and death.
I’ve passed here many times, but never seen it before. That’s the joy of winter light. It’s a whole n’other world out there. Darker, inscrutable and somehow visceral…
It makes you reflect on ancient life
Another winter night for our skin-wearing ancestors. The importance of home and the hearthfire. The power of instincts and their associated energies.
Dramatic stuff, I thought, chewing the last of the cheesy wotsits thoughtfully.
“I wonder what else is hidden in the wood?” I muttered it to the empty parkland, abandoned by everyone except the collie and me, due to the cold wind and almost lightless sky. We don’t usually have it all to ourselves.
Time was short, as we were late meeting up with my wife – who had the car, and thus our fast way home. Our rendezvous was to be the cafe of Leven’s Hall, still several minutes away.
It would have to be ‘scan and snap’ with interpretation over a cup of tea, back home, later.
We moved on, prepared (indeed enabled) by the need for speed and therefore the inability of the mind to interfere with those vital first impressions!
And then we were approaching the A6 road, and the most dangerous place on its entire length to cross! Animal instincts to the fore!
But first, and no matter how late it is, it’s the done thing to stop and take in the sheer elegance of this old bridge … and reflect on how the river mirrors life, ever returning us – richer in experience -to the source.
Safely across without being sworn at by speeding motorists, we recovered our composure in time to compose this view of the majesty of Leven’s ancestral hall. An Elizabethan masterpiece which survives intact – with its period gardens.
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12
ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.
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The massive concentration of vapour-trails over the familiar presence of the Midland Hotel set me musing with a smile: we could be being invaded!
I walked up the promenade a little way to get a better view of the invasion. Tess was grumbling and pulling at the lead. She’d had a ‘frantic fifteen’ (minutes) chasing her favourite ball on a beach – newly opened to dogs for the winter – and was in no mood for speculative investigating…
‘We’ were due a coffee from the Rotunda Bar; a casual venue, dog-friendly and facing the beach at the top of the Midland Hotel’s Art Deco steps.
But the intense blue sky and the feeling that something was going on ‘up there’ drew me away from that precious refreshment.
I’d seen them before; mysterious alignments between near objects and suspiciously similar distant ones!
Now fully alerted, I moved around to the front of the Midland Hotel to study the bright sky and its mysterious markings.
And there they were: chasing the great orb of the day star across our skies.
The danger – if danger it was – had passed, but the blue left peacefully behind spoke only of the gentle morning, undisturbed once more.
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.
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Decidedly ‘November’ in Grange…
Time for that coffee.
-🔷-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12
ProMax.
Sun in Gemini 
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