Happy New Year, lets make it a good one
Published: Sun, 01/05/25
Personally 2024 was a pretty good year. Iduna started school and is growing up fast. She is strong and healthy and is developing a healthy curiosity about the world, as well as a vivid imagination. I had the opportunity to engage in a number of interesting work projects last year, several of them involving the construction of fences and sheds in various locations. During the summer there were camps to attend such as the Spirit of Awen camp where I got a lot of interest in Stav training sessions and talks on the runes. There was a Mid-Summer and a Samhain camp at Silver Forest which were fun. We also had a week camping on Dartmoor as a family which was very pleasant, if a rather long way from Beverley.
From a Stav point of view we had a small,but enjoyable camp at the Silver Forest Site in Lincolnshire. There was also a course in Salisbury in November and in September I restarted classes in Beverley. I have two people training regularly at the moment and we have been mainly concentrating on the cudgel as this weapon is ideal for practice in a relatively limited space. We have room for a couple more people if anyone would like to join us. It would be good to build up a class which will provide an opportunity to learn the stances and principles of Stav, along with good exercise and some practical knowledge of self-defence.
We are also planning a day course in Tickton, East Yorkshire for the 1st of March and another Salisbury course on the 3rd of April. There will be a camp of some kind in the Summer but I am still working on the details for that.
What else is coming our way in 2025 which may affect our lives directly, or indirectly? The war in Ukraine drags on and will probably end with Russia achieving the original goal of the Limited Military Operation. In the meantime hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have been killed, maimed, or displaced and the material and financial cost is incalculable. Conflicts in the Middle East continue to create thousands of casualties and disrupt the lives of millions of people. The latest tragedy being the fall of Syria into a colony of Turkey with Israel seizing a large section of territory. The minorities who lived in peace under Bashar Assad are now at the mercy of extremists led by someone who recently had a $10 million bounty on his head for terrorism.
Maybe these conflicts don’t affect us directly because they seem to be happening a long way away. So why is the USA and its colonies (collectively known as Nato) so keen to promote brutal conflicts around the world? The main reason is simply that the USA, and to a slightly lesser extent other Western countries, is on the brink of bankruptcy with a Federal debt of over $36 trillion and the interest alone rapidly becoming the single largest item of government expenditure. The excuse ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ will be used to cover the chaos that will result from large scale international bankruptcy. We may not have bombs dropped on our homes like the people of Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, the Lebanon etc but the economic fallout of massive financial mis-management will be inescapable.
We Westerners have had an incredible run of prosperity and technological progress in the past 100 years and I don’t think we have appreciated how blessed we have been. Most of us also have no idea how easy we have had life compared to our ancestors, or compared with many people in other parts of the world today. How ready are we for coping with a massive demographic change with declining and aging population and a corresponding reduction in living standards, especially for those who have been employed by government (local or national) or dependent upon benefits? For much too long our governments have been buying their way to victory in elections with debt. And now the national credit cards are maxed out and the interest is compounding. There are three ways to deal with deb:
1. Cut back on all other expenditure and do your best to pay it off.
2. Just default on the principle sum and accept that there will be no more credit available for a while, if ever.
3. Borrow so much money that inflation runs rampant and the debt becomes almost insignificant.
Stav belongs to a time before we had governments which promised to take care of us ‘from the cradle to the grave’ so long as we were good boys and girls and didn’t inquire too closely where the money was coming from or going to. For too long there has been no need for self reliance or understanding of the fundamental principles of how the world works because the state could be relied upon to manage everything on our behalf. Well, the good times are rapidly coming to a close and we will need to know how to create our own wealth, look after our own property, manage our health and well being, and see through the fog of propaganda and misdirection which has been directing our thinking and beliefs for far to long.
I find myself in something of a paradox this year. I am old enough to qualify for a state pension from March onwards. This makes me at least partly dependent upon a government in which I have little faith or confidence. On the other hand, the money will give me the time to think about the world we live in and share information and insights which will be of value in the near future as we navigate a rapidly changing world.
I have not written as much recently as I wish I had done and it has been a combination of being much in demand for my handyman work as well as having a lively 5 year old around the house. My New Year’s resolution is to write a post weekly, if you are interested in what I have to say please hold me to it.
I am updating the websites for 2025 now and links will be in the next post.
In the meantime here is a link to a recording of a short talk I gave at the Salisbury course https://app.screencast.com/RpZAqgCmFgdeC
regards
Graham
Graham Butcher
21 Beaver Road
Beverley East Yorkshire HU17 0QN
UNITED KINGDOM
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