What I have learned in 30 years

Published: Fri, 03/20/26

Updated: Fri, 03/20/26

Stav literally means; ‘knowledge of the rune staves’ and this knowledge provides the basis of a traditional education system. Today we tend to think of ‘education’ as something approved of by government and often financed by the same in order to socialise young people and make them employable. There may even be certain benefits to having such a system although the modern approach tends to be ‘one size fits all’ regardless of individual interest and aptitude. Also a minium of 11 years full time schooling to learn how to read and write and a bit of arithmetic strikes me as rather inefficient.
Traditional education encouraged the individual to think for themselves while developing the skills and knowledge to provide for their families and wider community. Learning Stav can bring the same benefits today, to those willing to take responsibility for their own development while grasping the idea of learning and applying basic principles. Having a book on the shelf can be useful. However, for Stav to have any real value the core teachings need to be remembered and internalised. This way, if you found yourself washed up on a desert island or incarcerated in a high security prison, you would still have your knowledge and you would be much better equipped to cope with your situation than you would be without it.
Here are six things I have benefited from learning through Stav over the past thirty plus years. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it will serve as a starting point. I will expand on each point in subsequent posts:
1. From the beginning I was told that Stav was much more about principles and the application of principles than it was about techniques. Once you grasp the principle of how something is done or made then you can always work out a way of doing it for yourself. First you have to understand the principle of principles.
2. Why might a modern building fall down when subjected to a strong wind or because it was built on unstable ground? And yet a cathedral or castle built many hundreds of years ago, or in the case of some classical architecture, thousands of years, still stands as strong as the day it was built? If something is constructed according to the lines of the Web of Orlog it will stand as long as the building material retains its integrity. If not it will collapse sooner rather than later. The web also exists in time and connects past, present, and possible futures.
3. What is leadership? Why do we have kings, presidents, or supreme leaders? We may like to believe that all people are created equal. However, in reality, no society can actually function without a hierarchical structure of some kind. Different roles need to be fulfilled for a community to survive and flourish and if we can identify these roles and ensure that each is filled by the most competent person everyone will benefit. Eventually a hierarchy outlives its usefulness and needs to be dismantled. There are basically five roles to be filled from king or Konge to dependent thrall and we can learn to work with the structure rather than being controlled by it.
4. I realised some time ago that the body is not an object, rather we are an ongoing process and a physical manifestation which begins at conception and ends (in this dimension) with death. The health, strength, and well being of our physical body depends upon some simple factors. To maintain the process food is needed, especially a daily staple food, which not only feeds us, but also take care of our gut biome which enables us to process our food correctly. The body also renews itself in response to appropriate exercise and how we maintain our posture.
5. As well as the physical, or blood, bone, sinew, as aspect of the manifested body there is also an energetic body which is associated with the planet’s electrical cycle. The Chinese call this energy Chi, the Vedic traditions call it Prana, and the traditional European name is Megin. Just as the body constantly renews itself with a cycle of elimination and renewal, so does our Megin need to flow from the sky to the ground, energising us as it passes through.
6. We live in a world where conflict and sometimes violence is an all too common occurrence. To deal with such threats we need a structured approach to self-protection. In Stav martial training is important for mental and physical development. Also for maintaining a sense of reality about ourselves and our relationships. For self-defence the five principles provide a structure for recognising our status and role in any given situation. If you have the status of a Trel then you will have no reason to involve yourself in other people’s conflicts and your only priority is your own safety. On the Konge level you mau realise that you simply cannot live the rest of your life knowing that you didn’t risk everything protecting something, or someone of such importance that your own life would be secondary. In between these two extremes are measures where risk and benefit are balanced out.
Over the next few weeks I will expand on these topics and share some of what I have learned through my 30 plus years of working with Stav.
I am now leaving for Salisbury to teach a course tomorrow. If I am not seeing you there have a good weekend.
regards
Graham
Graham Butcher
21 Beaver Road
Beverley East Yorkshire HU17 0QN
UNITED KINGDOM

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