A glorious sunset glimpsed from the motorway. Would we be able to get ‘there’ before it faded?
The most reliable ‘there’ is the halfway point to Arnside, via the A6 and hope…
And there, at Sandside, we got the last of the sunset, mottled in red-golds and lilacs.
And stood and stared.
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.
Contact: Stevetemeq@gmail.com
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As each day passes, it’s difficult to fight the sense of ‘looks like we’re not getting a summer, this year’.
There is certainly beauty in the profusion of green. The plants are getting what they need, but we humans thrive on the gold that sometimes falls from our skies.
Come summer … late summer … golden autumn; whatever it takes, and save us!!
———————————-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.
There is no charge to attend these meetings.
Contact: STEVETEMEQ@gmail.com
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Sometimes you’re just there at the right place, at the right time…
… and nature does the rest.
A brief encapsulation of June, here in The Lakes. And a rare moment of morning sun.
>>>>>>>>>^
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.
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+ #iphonephotography, #StillLight, landscapes, Photographic techniques, Photography, Places and Prose
Grado Confidential
by Steve Tanham
There was something ‘soft and interesting’ about the image: a simple street scene, shot from our table at an Italian cafe in Grado, on the northern shores of the Adriatic.
I played with a few of the settings … and settled on this ‘look’.
For some reason it reminded me of the poster image of the film ‘L. A. Confidential’ with its luxurious textures overlaying dark truths.
———-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.
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+ #iphonephotography, #Photography,, #Silenti, Ancient Landscapes, Places and Prose, Travel and people
Island of the Sun
by Steve Tanham
For somewhere I’d never heard of a few months ago, Grado – l’Isola Del Sole- has made a big impact.
This ‘island of the sun’ sits in the upper arc of the Adriatic Sea: the ocean that links eastern Italy with its neighbours, Croatia and Slovenia.
Trieste, that ancient meeting place of east and west, lies some fifty km to the east, and can be reached by boat in 90 minutes.
Technically, Grado is only just an island. A long causeway links it with the mainland of Italy. Venice is an hour away by train plus a 30 minute journey by bus from the nearest station.
It’s worth the effort…
We’re on foot, of course, as explained in the previous blog post. It’s brought us much closer to the experience of the region’s beautiful lakes and people, but can prove costly to ‘soul and sole’ on a hot day when two smaller cases and a large one have to be manhandled onto train and bus in unkind heat…
The opening image, which delves back into the island’s ‘Belle Epoque’ 1900’s past, made me smile when I thought of the pun on the more weary aspects of ‘journeys by foot.’
The local fame and fortune of Grado was sealed by it being the favourite holiday destination of the Hapsburg dynasty’s royalty, who ruled a mighty region of Austrian and southwards until the disaster of the First World War, after which they lost this beloved land as territory, leaving them without a sea border.
By the end of the war, in November 1918, Austria-Hungary no longer existed as unified entity – at the expense of Italy’s reclaiming of the coastal regions up to Trieste, which completed the longed-for reunification of the Italian state.
Despite this, when you arrive in Grado, you get a shock. The most common spoken language is German. Restaurants and shops all open their dialogue with German; switching to Italian or even English once you respond.
The German speakers are mainly Austrian. The drive to their former coast is now a matter of a few hours and they come in droves, from May onwards. It’s a lesson in how older cultures form deep patterns in our lives, and affinities remain.
I’m a beginner in Italian, though I am plodding through the excellent (and free) Duolingo online course, in which you do a few minutes per day.
Many years ago, I worked for a German computer company – Nixdorf, from Paderborn – and they paid for a few of us to have language lessons from a private tutor. After two years, I was the only one left in the class. Much of it remains in my memory, and comes in useful on these occasions, though I always start off rusty.
So now it’s time to let the Grado visual postcards speak for themselves. The shots to here are as taken, those that follow are the subject of a lens-art approach.
Grado has been one of the highlights of our trip. Our adventure of Italian exploration is now coming to an end. We will certainly return to this place when we get the opportunity.
The concierge of the hotel summed up Grado’s significance when he said: “It’s truly a meeting place and a melting pot for both culture and language. As such, it’s a very modern place in an historic setting…”
We couldn’t agree more.
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 Pro.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a free monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to deeper states of self-realisation.
Contact: stevetemeq@gmail.com.
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I like to think I’m a man of the world …
I’ve certainly not ‘done it all’, but I’ve lived my life, fully. And greatly enjoyed each challenge as it came, often learning in the process, especially from the disasters.
But I’d never met a tanga, before. Well not in a personal way…
I’d better explain.
I’ve just turned 70. “Surely not!” I hear you say – and thank you. But the great wheel of personal time has brought me here in a healthy state, ably assisted by a lot of effort at family Pilates, dog-walking, and a wife whose healthy cooking is second to none.
We were in our previous location of Sirmione when we stumbled across the historic spa at the foot of the hill on the way to the old town.
It looked inviting … but expensive. I went ahead into the town to line up two latté macchiatos while Bernie entered the spa to explore. She’s a big fan of such places, whereas I can take it or leave it. Give me a good walk with the Collie, any day.
Ten minutes later, she rejoined me with a smile. I knew that spelled trouble…
“I’ve booked myself into the spa for a two hour session, tomorrow,” she said.
I began to relax. “Excellent!”
“And you’re having a massage with Olga on the morning of your birthday…”
“Hmmm…”
Two days later, as scrubbed and showered as I could be, I trundled down the hill to meet up with Olga. She approached me at the inner door of the ‘personal treatment’ rooms. She was Croatian, delightfully pleasant yet serious, gently perfumed … and gorgeous.
Olga instructed me to remove my clothes and lie face down on the massage table. I looked to where she pointed and saw a rolled up towel at head height.
“I will leave the room while you undress … and put this on”
She handed me a small blue bag containing a piece of black ribbon which narrowed to a string, with what appeared to be white trimming at the edges. Horrified, I started at the cloth serpent uncoiling on my palm.
“‘It’s a tanga,” she chuckled in response to my catatonic state “The thin bit goes at the back…”
I remained frozen as she left the room. Even allowing for the shock of the thin bit at the back – literally between my butt cheeks, the ‘larger’ bit wouldn’t cover a Canarian banana, let alone Horatio, down there…who’s not as inert as a banana. I should point out that I’m perfectly average, unlike the tanga.
I’m kidding. He’s not called Horatio.
I lay face down on the table, my head resting sideways on the rolled up towel. Olga returned.
“I’d rather have you like this,” she said whipping the towel gently away and urging my head down into a padded hole in the massage table.
I had little time to respond before I felt warm liquid being gently dripped up the back of my calves and thighs … and all points north.
Expert and strong hands followed, and I entered a state of heavenly floating as everything but what was beneath the thin strip was stroked, prodded and squeezed into a relaxed mush.
Olga did eventually roll me over. She may have shot a disparaging glance at the errant Canarian banana, but I’ll never know, there was a warm and perfumed towel over my face before I could blink.
Heaven continued. Eventually, she left me to come back to earth. “Shower and dress when you’re ready. No rush….” She chuckled. “Keep the tanga.”
I did, but only until I could photograph it for this blog. it’s going in the bin now.
Thank you, Olga. You were expert, wonderful and entirely proper. And thank you, Bernie … for a memorable birthday event.
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All images taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
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We have observed over the years that our best holidays are those where we have to ‘do a bit of work’ to engage with the destination landscape.
Just getting on a cheap flight and staying in a sanitised resort is no longer satisfying, though a few days of sun at the end of a Cumbrian winter is much needed!
Our best ever trip was to cycle the Canal Du Midi from Carcassonne, in southwestern France, to Sête, on the Mediterranean coast. The journey and local hotels were organised for us by Headwater Holidays, but we had to do the cycling – and in considerable heat, requiring the carrying and drinking of three litres of water each day.
This spring, with a big birthday coming up, my wife, Bernie, offered to arrange us a touring holiday based around the Italian Lakes … but without the car. We would be essentially backpacking, but using rail, local buses and foot travel.
We would fly to Venice – covered in the last post – and then use the train and buses to navigate an inclusive arc around the best bits of Lake Como and Lake Garda. We would finish back in Venice, 19 days later, to get our return flight to Manchester.
We carefully practised our packing – hoping to reduce it down to two, small roller-cases that had backpack straps and qualified for cabin bags on the plane – but in the end surrendered to the need for a few luxuries and included a third, larger case that had to be checked onto the flight.
We’re now in Sirmione, on the southern tip of Lake Garda; and we’re experiencing our first sunshine of the trip, which is very welcome…
Situated on the southern tip of Lake Garda, the small town of Sirmione reminds me of Carcassonne, in south-eastern France.
Similar to its French counterpart, it is built around a medieval castle, which is carefully maintained as the centrepiece of this historic and attractive place. Unlike Carcassonne (which is spectacular but recent) this castello has a real history.
But the town has more to offer than history. It’s a magnet for well-heeled tourism due to its stylish shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as a place (on Sundays) for well-off locals to show off their top-of-the-range motors: of either two or four-wheel varieties.
It’s Sunday, so they’re all posing along the promenade. Everything is gentle and civilised. No one’s objecting to the ostentatious chrome displays.
It’s all delightfully Italian…
We’re feeling human, again. We’ve slept and had breakfast before our walk. But we didn’t look or feel relaxed the day before – when we arrived, weary after a seven- hour journey from Venice by train, bus and foot.
The delayed arrival was due to the ‘scheduled closure’ of the main line from Milan to Verona. The train would have dropped us off in the early afternoon within a short taxi ride of our destination.
Generally, like most of Europe, Italian trains are modern, spacious and wonderful. They make British trains look and feel like antiques.
Sadly, our rail systems, under the lies of efficiency and investment are neither, but like the efficient water companies, have generated billions for often overseas investors in what should be treated as fraud on an industrial scale.
The scheduled engineering works meant we had to leave the train at Brescia and ‘join the coaches’ waiting to take us to each of the stops the train would have made.
passengers onto his immaculate tour boat with teasing jazz)
In fairness, the buses/coaches were modern and swift – yet calmly driven. Soon, we were dropped off near Sirmione to be take a taxi to the resort. Later, we learned he had charged us three times the going rate…
But such dishonesty has not been a general part of our Italian experience. Quite the opposite.
And, finally, we had arrived at our new home for the next five days.
So, I’ll let the photos of Sirmione do the rest of the talking….
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of them-selves.
There is no charge to attend these meetings.
There are two blog streams:
(mystically-oriented writing)
and
(general interest, poetry, humour and travel)
Contact: STEVETEMEQ@gmail.com
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The power of the jigsaw
Can only come through
When all the pieces
Are correctly aligned.
What seemed academic
Is revealed as the key
To a higher understanding…
———-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of them-selves.
There is no charge to attend these meetings.
Contact via: stevetemeq@gmail.com
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Venice is, by definition, old.
But much of the area near to St Mark’s Square is given over to modern tourism.
A fifteen minute stroll through the crowds will bring you to the Rialto Bridge.
Where hundreds of people are taking photographs of the Grand Canal, which divides the central island in two.
Once across, and through the nearby markets, you can take just about any of the small streets and find yourself in a very different world…
And here, the photographs can tell the story of an older and less tourist-focussed life in this fascinating city.
Eventually returning over the Rialto to wander along the busy quayside to find that final coffee before, in our case, boarding a ferry back to the Lido – a more modern island at the neck of the lagoon in which Venice is situated.
————-
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to their deeper states of self-realisation)
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We’ve always loved Italy…
Some of the friendliest people we’ve ever met, beautiful food and a general willingness to help you, when you’re staring at that upside-down map.
So we’re off to Italy for a walking and touring break. But not by car. We’re letting the Italian trains take the strain.
We have to get to Italy, first, so that will involve a plane – and the innate hostility that goes with airports, these days.
Friends have commented about the lack of having a car in a strange landscape – we plan to visit one or two of the famous lakes. We don’t mind a lot of walking. It sheds the calories being put on by the delicious cooking.
The problem these days is the dog and cat. Both much loved, and we don’t put them in kennels unless we absolutely have to.
Recently, an elegant solution has presented itself. Two of our best friends (with whom we exchange pet-caring when the other is on holiday) love Kendal, and its closeness to the Lake District.
They suggested that they stay in our house while we’re on holidays, and they would look after our furry ones – in the pets’ own home. Much less traumatic!
In turn, we would look after their blind black Labrador … which we’ve done for the past six weeks.
So that’s where they all are.
And we…. Well you might be able to tell from the photos…
I look forward to posting lots of photo updates.
Ironically, we’ve left behind glorious sunshine in Britain only to be greeted with several days of rain, here. The essence of irony.!
But Venice is so beautiful, it doesn’t really matter.
More soon.
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of them-selves.
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The world
in a spherical haven
of perpetual
re-creation
——————
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of self. .
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I’m having a conversation with a lizard. Nothing to be alarmed about, the lizard is only in my head – quite literally, in fact.
As Homo Sapiens developed over the long course of our evolution, the nature and function of the brain changed with us.
At the top of our spine resides the first proper brain we possessed, named the Limbic. It is a processor of signals; if you like – our first bio-computer.
The limbic brain dates back to when the life-vehicle that became a human being was a lizard… Amazingly and rather surprisingly, it has stayed with us, more or less intact. After the lizard brain, we developed a mammalian brain above it called the Cortex. The cortex takes up most of the dome of our head and is concerned with the social world we live in – which goes to show how important our social interaction with each other is.
The limbic – lizard brain – is concerned with survival and reaction. Survival is the ability to continue to live – and make the right decisions to ensure our best chance of doing so. The lizard in our heads is on constant watch for situations that might threaten us. It does not employ logical processing as the mammalian brain does. Instead it ‘knows’ when there is the need to be on high-alert.
In other words, it’s the seat of the instincts – response we did not consciously develop but which were part of us from birth.
When the lizard detects there is danger, the hairs might raise on the back of the neck; we might unexpectedly start to sweat; our breathing may quicken, and many more components of ‘danger-readiness’ may manifest. The detection of the danger state also gives the limbic brain access to vast stores of energy within us.
The lizard is concerned with ‘fight or flight’. Either will do. Its sole concern is to move us out of the zone of danger. We can ‘kill’ the other occupant(s) of that zone or run away. If we run away, our ‘legs’ will be empowered like they have never been before. If we need to fight, and can drill into the core lizard energy, we will become ‘demonic’ in our fighting purpose and intensity – even if only for a second or two.
Murders caused by anger and rage originate here… Although it may seem warped if we are a rational and controlled person, the murderer believes and feels that their existence is threatened…
Flight is more normally preferred…
So, given that the effect of threatened existence is so potent, we can see why a passing acquaintance with our lizard and their behaviour is desirable.
If we have made our conscious (higher-brained) lives into a journey of self-discovery, it’s vital to watch the lizard at work, because ‘his’ low-level responses of high energy pervade every aspect of our psychological life and its responses. There is a leakage of what constituted survival at the physical level into our vital concept of a psychological self. In other words, the essence of me…
When the me feel as threatened at my work or driving my car, then we have the dangerous and often volcanic uprising of defensive energy with a potentially murderous rage. We’ve all seen incidents on our roads and at football matches.
For the mystic, the lizard is a perpetual challenge. The sane response is, like it has been for millions of years, to trap it.
We can train our minds to notice that raising of the hairs on the neck; the arising of anger’s sweat in the skin and the pressure of blood in the head – the famous ‘red mist’. And then we can – and it will take thousands of repetitions – calm the slippery beast and thank it for its defensive energy – which we can now put to good use.
Good luck with your own lizard…
©Stephen Tanham 2024
All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax or created using NightCafe Studio AI.
Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of them-selves.
There is no charge to attend these meetings.
Guidance will be provided to each person joining the group in the form of conversation, questions and answers. In this way, understanding and companionship are deepened in a caring and sharing environment.
There is an optional extension of this work in the form of monthly studies into the nature and facets of our personalities, how to examine them and the finding of the keys of spiritual return in each of the jewel’s facets.
There are two blog streams:
(mystically-oriented writing)
and
(general interest, poetry, humour and travel)
Contact: STEVETEMEQ@gmail.com
Sun in Gemini 
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