Steve Taylor's October newsletter - Space and Spirit

Steve Taylor's October newsletter - Space and Spirit

Published: Sat, 10/25/25

Updated: Sat, 10/25/25

Steve Taylor's October Newsletter

Dear

I hope you are well. Thanks everyone for helping me choose the title of my book of poetry. The most popular choice was Back to Stillness, so that will be the title of the book, which is due to be published in the next month or so.

It has been a wonderful project to go through the poems I’ve written over the last five years, selecting them for the book. It's strange that I have come across a lot of poems that I don't remember writing, and which have surprised me with their content, almost as if they were written by someone else.

The best creativity comes through us rather than from us. It's as if you are a conduit, a transmitter of inspiration which comes from a transcendent source. It's very similar to channeling. At the same time the conscious mind has an important role to play, in taking the raw channeled material and organising and editing it into a finished creative form.

My process of writing poetry is to act as a channel and allow raw inspiration to flow through without interfering. That can happen very quickly, over a few minutes or sometimes a couple of hours. I just write down as much material as I can. I leave that raw material for a while, before returning to it a few days or even a few months later, to sculpt it into a finished form. I never try to write poems. I just wait for them to come. Sometimes a lot of them come in a short space of time; at other times I go months without writing a poem.

I became aware all of this when writing my book about The Beatles. The best Beatles songs, like Across the Universe, Yesterday, or Let it Be, were written unconsciously, in dreams or in the hypnagogic state between sleep and wakefulness. That's where all the highest creativity comes from - not from the conscious mind. Mozart said the same about his music. Somebody once asked him how he composed his music. He replied, ‘I don't compose it - I just hear it in my head and write it down.’ He said his best music came when he was relaxing and daydreaming.

Back to Stillness Book Launch

I am holding an online launch for the book on Sunday November 16th. I will read some of the new poems and lead short contemplations and meditations based on them. The event is at 7pm UK, 8 pm CET, 2pm EST or 11am PT. However, it will be recorded on zoom if you can't make the actual time. See the link below to join. This is the Link

Back to Stillness Course

In the new year, I am leading a six-week online course based on the book. Details here. This is the final cover of the book by the way. I hope you like it!

New Article on Awakening Experiences

I've always felt that one of my roles is to spread awareness of spiritual awakening into the mainstream, and also to try to increase people's awareness of trans-materialist phenomena, like near death experiences and psi phenomena. That's why I always try to write articles for the popular media. I think it's important to step outside spiritual circles and outside the academic world. There are so many people who experience spiritual awakening or anomalous phenomena, but can't make sense of their experiences within our cultures materialist paradigm.

Over the past few years I've written regularly for a popular website called The Conversation. Last week I wrote an article about awakening experiences which went viral and attracted a lot of interesting comments where people described their own awakening experiences. You can read it here

I’ve had a similar response to my articles and media appearances about my book Time Expansion Experiences. People regularly write to me to describe their own experiences, and sometimes say that they were reluctant to talk about their experiences because they couldn't make sense of them and were afraid that people would think they were crazy.

Two Poems

Here is a preview of my upcoming book. These are two of the book’s shorter pieces.

Beyond the distinctions between us

there is a place without identity

where we meet in oneness.

Beyond the disagreements between us

there is a place without beliefs

where we meet in harmony.

Beyond our different pasts

there is a place without time

where we meet in presence.

Beyond the conditioning of culture

there is an unconstructed space

where we share our essence.

And as we meet here, we unite

to celebrate our variety –

the infinite expressions of form

that arise from formless oneness.

Space and Spirit

There is a space between breaths

when the world stops for a moment

and we sense the stillness of spirit

flowing through our bodies.

There is a space between thoughts

when anxiety disappears

and we sense the harmony of spirit

flowing through our minds.

There is a space between words

where we silently communicate

and sense the oneness of spirit

flowing between our souls.

There is a space between objects

where we gaze into endless emptiness

and sense the radiance of spirit

flowing through the air.

There is a space between lives

when our souls are bodiless and boundless

and we sense the eternity of spirit

flowing beyond time.

And in the end, when all forms dissolve

and all sounds fade into silence

there will be nothing but space and spirit

flowing through the universe, as one.

All best wishes and blessings, Steve

Calverley Building, Faculty of Health & Social Sciences
Leeds Beckett University
Leeds West Yorkshire LS1 3HE
UNITED KINGDOM

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options