The last chicken
Published: Fri, 12/27/13
There used to be a small flock of chickens here at the house and
garden where I have been spending a delightful Christmas. When I
first visited a few years ago there were at least 15 bantam hens
and a cockerel scurrying around the garden. They produced good
eggs too, rather small, but tasting really good as only a genuinely
free range egg can. Then earlier this year a fox massacred all
but two hens and one young cockerel. When we were here for the
Stav Camp in September the two grown ups and the half grown chick
were moving around the garden keeping close together and giving the
impression of being rather frightened. Then, a few weeks ago, a
stoat managed to kill the remaining hens. The cockerel is now full
grown but completely on his own. He has gone completely feral,
roosts as high up a tree as he can reach, feeds from the bird table
with the wild birds and you can hear his lonely crowing early in
the morning. The wild pheasants who come to the bird table are
tamer than the young bantam. The owners here may get some more
chickens to keep him company, but considering the risk from local
predators this Cockerel may have to manage on his own.
A rather sad little story for just after boxing day but it got me
thinking about the importance of being able to manage on one's
own. Learning a system such as Stav does depend upon receiving
training from a competent teacher. I was very privileged to learn
directly from Ivar Hafskjold. But real progress depends upon being
willing to practice at least the stances daily on your own. When I
first moved to Oxford from Hull it took me some time to find people
to train with. So each day I would go into the woods near where I
lived, do stances and axe training on my own. It was sometimes
quite lonely, but looking back it was the time when I consolidated
what I knew and that gave me the confidence to teach when I did
find new students. It is easy to say, I will do what I am told in
class but not make any effort in between supervised training
sessions. It is important to practice what you have learned. Then,
when you do have the opportunity to train with other people you
will get that much more out of the experience. So in the new year
we will sign the lease for the Stav centre and move ahead with
developing the new venture. The intention is that the Somerset
Stav Centre will be a place where people can come together, learn
Stav, share the experience and support one another. I am looking
forward to seeing that happen. But it will also be a place where
people are equipped to make Stav part of their lives. Once they
have the knowledge and skill from training they will be able to use
what they have learned wherever they may find themselves. You can
keep up with developments on the Stav Centre at
http://www.somersetstav.co.uk
regards
Graham
PS You may have received some emails which seemed a bit out of
context, indeed you may have received them before when you first
opted in. If that was the case then I am sorry, I was updating one
of my auto-responder sequences and for some reason some of the
messages got sent to people already on the list. Sorry about that,
I am always learning about this technology.