Complete at last and only nine months late

Published: Sat, 07/09/22

It has been a while since my last post. Sorry about that, I have been concentrating on finishing the last two modules of the Ice and Fire Stav Foundation Programme. I posted Module 24 to my members on Monday this week. I did have time for more writing, but somehow any other projects, even writing a post like this, seemed like procrastination from getting the programme finished. So, now I feel freed up for writing posts again.
Looking back in my records I see that I sent out the first module on the 31st of September 2019, so it took me two years and nine months to create all twenty four modules. The idea was to do one a month, but it did not work out quite like that. On the other hand the programme does amount to 192 pages of A4 with over 85,000 words of text and illustrations. There is also some supplementary video material which still needs work to complete and improve.
The basic format is that the first four modules cover the history and essential principles of Stav including looking at the Rigsthula, the Havamal, and the Voluspa from the poetic Edda. The first four modules also seek to teach the basic stances so that someone following the programme develops a practice of daily stances. Modules five to twenty cover the sixteen runes in detail including the meanings and associations, mythology, and rune poems. Modules twenty one to twenty three focus mainly on the craft, ethical, and healing bind runes. Twenty four which I have just completed briefly covers practical rune craft such as making and using a rune set, utsette (journeying), recognising the festivals, and the horg (altar). Yes, it could have been done as a book, but I would never have finished the project without the commitment to deliver a module a month. Okay, I didn’t even manage to keep to that schedule but I got there in the end.
A lot has happened since September 2019. Since then Venetia and I have had a baby, Iduna who is now a beautiful little girl of 2 years and 7 months. Got married in a low key way. Bought a house and moved in. My mother died in January 2020 and I took a lot of the responsibility for sorting out her estate. I have had two operations on my right eye, the first to repair a detached retina and the second to remove a cataract and fit a plastic lens. My handyman business has built up quite nicely during this time, enabling me to make a living while still providing some child care while Venetia works part time. I have also trained and graded regularly in Kung Fu and should have my black belt next year while keeping up my Stav practice and teaching from time to time.
The wider world has been through a few upheavals too as you may have noticed and I have been disillusioned by a lot of what has happened over the past two and a half years. The big corporations, the media, politicians, and the state owned National Covid Service (as it became after March 2020) colluded to manage a ‘pandemic’. My illusion prior to 2020 was that the majority of people would wake up and resist when something as patently absurd as Covid 19 and the associated experimental gene therapy injections was foisted on the population. An alarming number of people just fell for it. On the other hand it has turned out that around a third of the population both in the UK and the USA never had a Covid jab at all and many more only had one injection and stopped there. So, the good news is that a lot of people have also become ‘dis-illusioned’ and are waking up fast. The same process is happening as far as war is concerned (hopefully
NATO’s days as America’s cover for imperialism are numbered) and ‘man made’ climate change is also being recognised as an excuse for massively restricting our freedom and prosperity which had come from hydrocarbon based technologies.
As you are probably aware I became a father late in life at the age of sixty. For many years I had doubted that I wanted to be responsible for bringing a child into a crazy world. When Iduna arrived I thought maybe everything will be okay after all. And then... I have had some quite dark times over the past couple of years, concerned about what the future holds for our daughter. Now I realise that she has been born at the tail end of what was once an impressive society which has now run its course. She has also been born at the start of a great awakening which will eventually create a better civilisation than we have ever seen before. And Iduna can help create a new golden age. (No pressure there then)
The most important thing I have learned in my life, and Stav helped a great deal to clarify this lesson, is that we have the power to understand principles. Once we understand the principle of something we have the ability to work out a solution for ourselves to any problem. We can also assess the viability and wisdom of a suggestion from an ‘expert’. For example, the basic principle of disease is that only three things make you sick, deficiency, toxicity, or stress. Understand that principle and you can sort out most health problems yourself. If you do need to consult a medical professional make sure that their advice does not contradict this principle and the recommended treatment might do you no harm.
If our daughter can discover the essential principles of how the universe actually works, and find the courage and wisdom to live according to genuine principles then she should do okay. Not sure what else I can hope for.
regards
Graham
PS I am not organising a dedicated Stav camp this year. However I will be teaching at two other camps coming up in August. If you come to either of these I will be doing morning Stav sessions, giving some talks and workshops and I will be happy to do some individual or small group training with you.
5th to 14th August is the Spirit of Awen Camp in Gloustershire https://www.spiritofawen.co.uk/
26th to 28th August Another camp at Silver Wood in Lincolnshire. Let me know if you are interested and I will connect you with the Facebook page or just give you all the details you need.