Message from Mexico

Published: Thu, 10/27/16

Hi The nice thing about Stav training is that you should be able to do it pretty much anywhere. I have been heard to say that if you got washed up on a desert Island you should still have your practice of Stav and guidelines for self-reliant survival. This last few days I have had the chance to put my words into practice, kind of. Get up soon after six am local time and walk about 200 meters and there is the Caribbean , warm waves lapping a white sand beach lined with palm trees. We are currently in Mexico about 50 miles south of Cancun on the Caribbean coast. It isn’t all perfect though, the first morning I went down to the beach ready to do stances and some weapon training and got rained off. When it rains here it really throws it down. This morning it didn’t start raining until after I had finished training but there was a huge bank of black cloud along the horizon so there was no sunrise to be seen. Then the rain made an
alfresco breakfast a little uncomfortable so we had to eat inside, life can be tough sometimes.

Here is a picture of Venetia training on the beach on a morning when we did see the sun rise http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/beach01.jpg , yes it was worth getting up for.

I would like to tell you that I have been having particular and significant insights while training in such a wonderful setting. The only thing really is that where ever you are you can only be centred in your own web in time and space, in that sense we are never lost, simply at home in this vast and beautiful universe. Make of that what you will.

Mexico does have a strong sense of its own past, the Mayans especially, even though the Mayan civilisation had declined long before the Spanish arrived. The resort features larger than life statues of figures from Mayan mythology. They brighten the place up and provide useful landmarks when navigating the site. I can’t quite imagine a European resort having statues of the Aesir and Vanir prominently positioned. It would be fun if they did. We did visit Corba which is a Mayan site with many buildings preserved in the Jungle. There are also many standing stones with carvings on which do remind me of the rune stones which are so common in Sweden, perhaps they fulfilled a similar function.

Perhaps another insight is that wherever you go people are really very similar at heart.

A highlight for me was attending a Catholic mass, mainly in Spanish in the beautiful open sided, palm leaf roofed church which is on the site. Okay, I could not understand all the words but there was a great sense of spiritual connection, perhaps not something you expect to find in a holiday resort. Not in secular Europe anyway. When I spoke to the priest afterwards and thanked him he told me that Mexico is a very spiritual place, I think he may be right.

Back to Autumnal UK on Saturday and I will share more of what of what comes to me while I am here.

regards

Graham

PS One of the statues, perhaps my favourite http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/statue01.jpg A Mayan standing stone http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/stone01.jpg and the church on the site http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/church01.jpg