00:17:24.320but poetry and song are kind of like a disciplined speech.
00:17:29.120so you have uh you have someone who is a natural born or may have the inspiration maybe they
00:17:36.800weren't natural born but suddenly it dropped into them um and their expression becomes something
00:17:43.000that emanates power that that changes people's minds changes people's hearts does all kinds of
00:17:48.620things um so i think that when we talk about bragi being the god of poetry it's kind of like saying
00:17:54.220that's disciplined speech. And, uh, in context to the time, you know, the disciplined speech had a
00:18:01.720very high ranking power in our ancestral time. And I would say even up until the, uh, you know,
00:18:09.320maybe even the fifties, uh, and then, then poetry kind of started to disseminate down out of our
00:18:17.200culture into different forms. But yeah, speech itself is powerful. We know this. It survives
00:18:25.580in pop culture with every grand speech before the charge or whatever that might be. And it may seem
00:18:31.720cliche now if we put it in that context, but that's actually just reflecting of how important
00:18:36.800speech is and how the expression of a moment before passing through a threshold. Or we still
00:18:45.040do it, speeches at graduations and other things. These things are seen as deeply important and
00:18:50.960they need to transfer some grand message. Oftentimes, if they don't, they're seen as,
00:18:56.880well, that was kind of, but when it hits home, when someone speaks about something of great
00:19:03.000importance, it strikes true to the heart, drives people to tears and even to ecstatic levels of
00:19:10.140laughter and just elation usually is I think the best form that you can see most often or people
00:19:18.580can identify with when they hear a speech and they're just absolutely elated by what is being
00:19:23.340said. By the end, they're almost floating. Yeah, so poetics and song are the disciplined forms of
00:19:33.060root which is speech and speech i think is the most important aspect especially when you think
00:19:41.060about pulling back from speech and from poet uh poetics into speaking uh whether it's oritating
00:19:49.460to a crowd or uh you know to uh an assembled folk or even to your comrades in arms and things like
00:19:56.340that you go back even further and what that does is it's a culmination of sound specifically
00:20:03.620attested to a moment in weird that's if you think of it that way it suddenly has
00:20:11.540a different context a different way of thinking about it all of this combination all of these
00:20:15.780people gathered all of uh whatever it might be at before this moment there is a a song a poem
00:20:24.580uh speech sounds being correlated together to inspire to pass through that threshold um
00:20:32.740almost like a key to a lock and um then once that threshold is passed and moved through
00:20:38.660all things begin from there so i think that's a really uh mystical and powerful thing that we
00:20:43.940should think about when we talk about speech we talk about the usage of speech i know that a lot
00:20:49.220lot of us uh here recently have at the behest of uh winton turnage have been talking about
00:20:55.760noticing our speech and and holding uh correlation to it matter of fact i i actually
00:21:03.160um proclamated on the boar's head for yule um that i would clean up my speech and stop using
00:21:11.700any sort of like unknowable speech profanities if you will um and so i think it's very important
00:21:20.740that understanding where the rubber meets the road about speech and about uh the power of speech is
00:21:28.900in the domain of bragi you know i'd like to add this and after this we can get into some of the
00:21:35.700questions but speaking speaking or singing is in and of itself a profoundly magical act
00:21:50.260if you think about it and you can you can there are other ways to enact this
00:21:57.700but on a very fundamental level speaking
00:22:01.140i'm sorry i'm a little bit out of order trying to think of this in my head how to present it but
00:22:07.780magic operative magic magic that that you're intending to do into the world
00:22:15.840specifically male oriented magic is the idea of um
00:22:23.260working your will of willful like having your will penetrate reality and make change
00:22:35.020and the first step in doing that so often is taking a concept or an idea that's in your head
00:22:42.160and having the courage or the willpower to speak it out loud and you know some of you you know
00:22:51.240certainly I run into this. Some of you may run into this as well, where you can have some really
00:22:56.580cool plans that sound great in your head, but there's a fear and an apprehension of saying
00:23:01.400them out loud. Because once you say them out loud, it's out there and it's real and you have to deal
00:23:06.160with the consequence of it. If you express your intention to do something, you can, eh, one of
00:23:11.580these days in your head all day long. But when you speak it, especially with like, that's why it took
00:23:17.520me as long as I did to bring up Sigurheim. That's an intimidating in its scope thing.
00:23:26.380And I wanted to make very sure we were ready to commit to it because I don't want to be that guy
00:23:30.380that says something and then doesn't follow through and back words with action. So there's
00:23:37.080something magical about speaking that intent because it takes something internal and it makes
00:23:42.880it external it puts it out there it puts it on the field it lays it out on the table it makes it
00:23:50.320now it's a real thing now it now it exists now people can have comment on it or can
00:23:56.080you know think one way or another of it you commit to things and we see this in the culture
00:24:03.040of our ancestors specifically in hall culture and i think hall culture is where you see a lot of
00:24:09.360braggy's gravitas because those speeches made at stumble or over the feast to where you're
00:24:18.080standing up and you're saying something and there's weight to what you say you're making
00:24:22.560an oath or an agreement with your lord or with one of your fellow warriors you're calling somebody
00:24:28.080out and making an accusation somebody said something that you're going to call um in respect
00:24:35.280to to spawn's oath i'm going to try to clean it up too that you're going to call um bull excrement
00:24:42.880on and say that's not that's not the way it is that's not you know that's not true well then you
00:24:48.240have to back that up and that's a real thing those words especially spoken in a ritual context
00:24:55.840are profoundly meaningful and it's one of the reasons that um that poets and and musicians
00:25:04.880and scalds and singers were so important in the hall it's not just that they provided entertainment
00:25:11.120which they certainly did but their songs and their tales
00:25:18.640was profoundly magical in a world that didn't have movies that didn't have tv that didn't
00:25:23.840have that other media them painting a picture for you with their words
00:25:30.160was transcendent um them being able to make a melody with their words that could make warriors
00:25:41.800weep is powerful to be able to do that and to move people on a fundamental core level
00:25:49.600with your speech is tremendously powerful and you see that when you talk about magic one of the the
00:25:58.000root words of of you know magical incantations is the chant is the speaking you do that when you
00:26:06.900do when we do rune galder that's why rune galder is so important there's one level of the runes
00:26:12.040where you're writing them but the intonation the sound that you're making um there's a lot of
00:26:20.500hippy dippy sounding things out there about vibrations but there is a lot to that and i
00:26:29.060always like to start off the rituals that i do with rune galder because i think that
00:26:35.300because literally it harmonizes those of us in the circle figuratively it gets us all in the same
00:26:42.820pace all focused on the same thing but it unites us together we adjust our inflection and how long
00:26:49.540we carry a note and our tone to where it blends with those around us and it it structures the
00:26:55.780communal aspect of our worship in a way that i don't think others do quite as well so that's
00:27:02.180speaking not just is it artful not just is it you know technically valuable and does it sound pretty
00:27:10.580but it's it's metaphysically valuable as well um and as fawn said there's so many times in
00:27:18.820our history and our lore in our popular understanding where and i forget there's a
00:27:24.500there's a term for it but where you know the the war leader would go out in front of the war band
00:27:29.780and make a speech to motivate and to incite the troops we see that you know up until this very
00:27:37.220day and we'll see that into the future to motivate men to go into battle to do great things um so the
00:27:44.820the power of speech is, I think you, you can't overestimate how important that power of speech
00:27:54.060is. And Bragi being such an exemplar of that is very profound to me. It's, uh, well, one thing
00:28:06.740we've mentioned it before. Like we, we don't prep for these, these, uh, episodes. We kind of just
00:28:12.720go on this like back and forth and kind of uh rolling forward on the subject uh it's just it
00:28:20.440is very strange possibly even weird that um you had mentioned this about the manifestation of
00:28:26.480destiny within the speech uh as i was doing some of the research about the braga full and again we
00:28:34.000can go more into the what it might actually physically be there is one thing and it was
00:28:37.860something that you just said that really like ping clicked off in my head and it was uh it's
00:28:42.900from the yinglinga saga in which um king ingyald stood up he grasped the bullhorn and this may be
00:28:51.700that the the braga fool was poured into the bullhorn or the the meat horn and he makes a solemn
00:29:00.340vow to enlarge his domain by one half towards all four corners of the world or else he will die
00:29:08.860and then he stands up and he he turns his body into the four directions into the north into the
00:29:16.420east into the south and into the west holding the horn up and then he drains it so like when you
00:29:22.280started saying that about the manifestation of action and i was just reading that and we don't
00:29:27.380talk before these things that was just right well it it makes me
00:29:37.380and and that's the thing saying that out loud making that toast
00:29:42.340you're the burden for you to follow through is extremely heavy um at sigger bloat in uh july
00:29:51.860I went out and, you know, I kind of, it wasn't ill thought out, but I got very much moved in
00:29:59.300the moment at Sigur Bloat at Odenshof. And, you know, as a final toast with the horn before
00:30:07.680we made our offering, I swore over it on behalf of the AFA that by that time in the coming year,
00:30:16.560by july 2023 we will i talked about our victories and things we've accomplished together
00:30:23.040and i swore before the gods that we will make them prouder we will accomplish more we will be
00:30:29.280more victorious one year from today than we are today and i swore that over the horn in the circle
00:30:36.400in front of the gods and as soon as i did i was very impressed with the weight of and you can
00:30:44.400you can ask fawn i immediately went to the wit and i said hey guys help help me come through on this
00:30:49.200one because yeah because i mean those things and and and i'll say this one way to strategize that
00:30:58.160is to just never over promise never put too much out there and you can call it safe but
00:31:04.800our gods favor the hero and to do that you have to step out of your comfort zone and you have to
00:31:11.040you have to take some risks with the things you achieve and then you have to back it up with your
00:31:17.640last ounce of blood sweat and tears that you have to make it good and when you do we're all made
00:31:26.020better for it somebody makes an oath like I'll brush my teeth tonight yay we score a point because
00:31:31.520I did it that's not the point you oath to do big things it's not worth speaking or acknowledging
00:31:39.120if you're othing to do something mundane that anyone could do. The hero stands up and makes
00:31:45.020an oath to do something heroic. And that, as much as anything else, spurs men on to help him
00:31:54.120accomplish that thing. That's why speaking is so, and I know I said I'd get to the questions and I
00:32:00.520will here in a second, but I think this is very relevant to our practice of Ausitru that you guys,
00:32:06.860you know many of you even who are new may have been familiar with our our two big rituals are
00:32:12.400bloat and sumble. Sumble is is all about what we're talking about here and it's
00:32:18.140the third round of sumble is a round that folks it's the appropriate time to make oaths
00:32:29.160but I'm a big stickler and in the AFA we're big sticklers on getting those oaths okayed so you
00:32:36.660run it by somebody before you before you speak it because in that ritual context we're all sharing
00:32:45.740in that and so if you make a promise that you we have no confidence you can keep we don't want to
00:32:53.380by continuing to drink with you assent to that and bear responsibility for it in the inverse
00:32:59.580if we do back you we do have faith in your carrying through on your oath then we're all
00:33:05.480made better by witnessing it and you know helping you get there if that is accomplished we all
00:33:10.840benefit from being in your presence when that oath was made so we take it very very seriously
00:33:15.960and it's one of the reasons there's many reasons we would take symbol very seriously but specifically
00:33:24.840what you say over the horn matters and we have um a special person in a position there
00:33:34.440to call you out if you speak poorly over the horn and to negate what you said to correct
00:33:39.240your behavior to eject you if necessary to preserve that we're saying the right things
00:33:44.600over the horn and so that's that's fundamental it's even referenced to that that bragi is the
00:33:53.640thuler of the gods that he's the um the word itself is kind of tossed around because it kind of
00:34:02.120bad mittens between old english and old norse but thular or or uh in old in old english or anglo
00:34:08.840saxon i i believe it's still pronounced the same except it doesn't have the rn so it's just thula
00:34:14.920but there's a y so it may be thila i'm not 100 sure on that so the y is the same that's ensemble
00:34:21.560though so i think it makes that you sound the thular or thulla yeah the the idea of the of the
00:34:30.840the uh the warden of speech that's really what it is he's he's guarding over the sanctity of the
00:34:38.040moment and anybody who treads up close to uh kind of um breaking that sanctity has to deal with the
00:34:46.600thular and the thular is uh the wise man who sits and and just like you said he's that's a sacred
00:34:54.120moment i think that that is one thing for sure that bragi and i think culturally in our faith
00:35:01.480is one of his presiding things in our culture is the the ceremony the ritual of sambal
00:35:12.840absolutely um had something else but thought has escaped me i might interject i reserve the right
00:35:18.920to interject at a at a later time but start with some of y'all's questions tonight
00:35:25.080uh tim says i think we can all agree the celtic gods are cousins to our pantheon besides the
00:35:32.520obvious the harp could you compare and contrast the dagda and bragi for us thanks i'd like to
00:35:40.520stipulate i don't think a lot of us i i think that we can say the celts are cousins to the germanics
00:35:46.200But I think the relationship between our gods is much closer than it being cousins.
00:35:54.800I think they're different understandings of the same divine forces.
00:35:59.500Svon, what do you have to say about the relationship between the Dagda and Bragi?
00:36:05.780Well, I would also, just to extend a little bit on what you said, like when we look at the tripartite of our faith,
00:36:12.740If we look at the tripartite of the of the Gaulish people or the Gaulish pantheon, the Hellenic pantheon, the Slavic pantheon, we see these tripartites, the Etruscans all the way down even to the Luwians and the Hittites.
00:36:26.620And even by extension to the Vedics, all the way across. So yes, absolutely. I think we're even more than cousins that there is an overlap or an overlay, or an understanding that culturally or linguistically, the names might be different, but the gods themselves may not.
00:36:46.840Um, but that's a, that's a whole thing. And I'm just referencing that to, um, to, to, uh, T. Dumas. Um, I think that, I mean, yes, Dagda has the harp, the, uh, the harp, I believe it's called Un Lathe. I'm going to butcher that. Um, but I'm just kind of going off the top of my head.
00:37:08.680So, um, and that it says that it can inspire men and control them, I think is what it was.
00:37:15.980Um, the, uh, beyond that, I mean, dog that carries a lot of one, we know that it's far
00:37:30.040Um, there has been a lot of evolution of the gods as far as, uh, after conversion, there
00:37:36.300was a lot of things that were going on as far as the way they were placed he's been referenced as
00:37:39.740a warrior a father-like figure he's uh even referenced as a druid one thing i would say is
00:37:46.020um a lot of people kind of correlate him i think more to to ovin um but again that's speculative
00:37:53.800because there are other connections that he has uh in in relation to like agriculture and things
00:38:00.040of that nature um i have a limited understanding of of the uh gaulish path and druidism but i do
00:38:07.600know that there was a class of druid or a i guess like a sect perhaps that was dedicated to the art
00:38:16.080of being a bard and what that might entail as both being a singer of prayerful songs to the gods
00:38:23.260uh singing the correct songs that had been passed down and that they eventually evolved into what
00:38:29.600would be like the courtly bard uh or the courtly scald um of later later times so that again the
00:38:36.840druidic connection to dogda and to poetics and and bards themselves may have some some connectivity
00:38:44.500there uh if we were to look at it as possibly that dog has been you hemorrhized down into more
00:38:51.180of a humanistic form by the time he's actually written about um you know and then you would see
00:38:57.640uh the the harp as being an extension of him perhaps this is a uh cultural poetic language
00:39:06.120uh instead of speaking of bragi as the god speaking of bragi's dominion as being an extension
00:39:12.120of dagda um that that correlative sense is what i'm saying is a lot of times in other cultures
00:39:18.120especially after um christianization i would say even the gods some of the gods themselves are
00:39:25.000placed into uh items whether they're swords or goblets or shields or helmets or harps and so
00:39:32.920where in our family tree of arianism we would see this god as named such because we might not have
00:39:40.480had the same effect um as far as christianization goes but in other branches of our of for our arian
00:39:48.460brothers and their in their religions they may have actually been broken down into even extensions
00:39:55.580by hand in the form of items um so in that case i would see if there is a correlation between
00:40:05.260say odin and dagda and then there would be a correlation between bragi and the harp
00:40:10.540itself um and again you can't read it one for one because the stories especially after they
00:40:17.740they've been involved but you can kind of see broad stroke mythological points in which we
00:40:24.060see the gods manifesting even in the stories depending on how much they've been affected
00:40:30.940or changed or worked around um and they don't always manifest in a physical name or even a
00:40:37.340physical featured or as a as a human but more so as a force so in my my view of that i i would think
00:40:46.940that um dogda has older connotations i'm not identifying him strictly to odin i'm just saying
00:40:54.380that others have but if this was the case to compare with i would say the harp and this then
00:41:01.740opens up a whole new thing when you go to look at some of these stories and you see a sword or a
00:41:09.180shield or a hearth or a special boot or a special saddle these things might have more meanings
00:41:17.980they just may have been changed because of the environment that that our cousins if you will um
00:41:24.860were in and so the gods and their dominions have often been changed in order to make them more
00:41:31.180palatable or less you know punishable however it may may be but i would say that the understanding
00:41:38.220the power of speech and then the uh discipline of creating speech into song and into meter that's
00:41:47.180the connection i would i would immediately hone in on with dogma and i want to throw this out
00:41:52.860there as well and sometimes i make really silly mundane analogies because i think it it displays
00:42:03.980a concept i don't ever say them that way to minimize something very important but
00:42:10.220sometimes whittling it down to something very simple and very basic
00:42:15.900illustrates a point in a way that's really clear that you can then
00:42:19.500expand back out to the grandeur that we're talking about but
00:42:25.260different groups of our people form different relationships with the gods over time
00:42:33.980Um, by the time of the Viking Age in Norway and then in Iceland, I think that that branch of our folk had a very specialized relationship with our gods. I think the relationship of the Kimbri of 500 years previous was probably also very different.
00:42:58.700I think the relationship of of the Anglo-Saxons that weren't out writing all the time that were settled in doing pasture lands probably had a very different relationship and understanding with each of our gods as well.
00:43:11.800And I think we see that further in these different cultural contexts.
00:43:16.100And I think that, you know, the silly analogy is, you know, your friends from different parts of your life know you differently.
00:43:24.620your parents know you in a very different way than your friends know you your friends know you
00:43:30.300in a different way than your wife knows you um your co-workers know you in a different way than
00:43:36.920you know people who've known you in another very specialized experience and you know you may have
00:43:44.060a nickname in one of those circles and they may not recognize it in a different circle because
00:43:48.340they don't know you in that way or that that part of you hasn't been the predominant thing they've
00:43:52.980been exposed to. So I think that that's at play too in how different Aryan peoples, you know,
00:43:59.680both in the names they use for their gods and in the attributes that they highlight for different
00:44:04.960gods. Next question from Travis. I'll hear your Gothi and Witten. What two books would you suggest
00:44:13.420I direct new folk new to our lore and faith? Hail Victory. Svan, what two books do you advise that
00:44:22.120he should tell brand new people to uh make sure to check out um i mean also true a native
00:44:32.940european spirituality by stephen mcnalen would be i think number one that pops into my head
00:44:38.540um i know too that the uh revised version the um by edward thorson's uh the uh is it the i don't
00:44:49.840the revised version i still have the old one the book of troth um it's kind of interesting that
00:44:56.880was one of the first books that i ever read that he wrote uh that inspired me to become asitru um
00:45:03.120or to at least kind of fully acknowledge where a lot of these feelings and and ideas and and
00:45:07.920dreams and things that i was having it suddenly pulled it out of the the mist or out of the out
00:45:14.080of the muck so that was uh definitely an interesting um book for me uh in the early 90s when that came
00:45:24.720out um but again that's i i guess a broad overlay and have have we moved into some more uh
00:45:38.240specific nuances since then i i don't know i i guess that would be my first two that's
00:45:42.880just the first two that came to my head so uh i have some beyond that but they might be a little
00:45:51.440bit more outside of the league of of um a beginner and that's why i'm hesitant to to say those
00:46:00.400yeah the question's a deeper one than folks may think because what's you know the best books are
00:46:08.080not necessarily the books that you would give somebody who's brand new you'd give someone who's
00:46:14.080brand new books that will you know that are easy to digest or that would introduce them to things
00:46:22.320in a in a way that's that's engaging and uh accessible to somebody who doesn't necessarily
00:46:29.680have the background so that's really interesting um certainly the two books that's fawn mentioned
00:46:38.080But I'm trying to think otherwise, as far as a brand new, a brand new person.
00:46:51.440It's tempting to mention the Eddas because that's where we draw so much of our lore from.
00:46:58.760But they're very confusing if you don't have a good foundation before you, before you understand them.
00:47:04.580Certainly not all of them, but many parts of them are.
00:47:13.540OK, so. I suggest the Eddas with an asterisk.
00:47:20.020I think the Eddas should be read one poem at a time and then go read a different book, then read another poem, then read a different book, then read another poem and read a different book.
00:47:32.340The Etta's aren't something that, especially for a new person, I think are best read together.
00:47:39.320They're a compilation of things that are independent and to be digested by themselves.
00:47:46.420And if you try to read the Etta's cover to cover, like maybe you would a Bible that's written in a very chronological fashion, it just doesn't lend itself to that.
00:47:55.800so I would suggest the Eddas but with with the exception that I said certainly the two books
00:48:02.920that Swan said also I think Beowulf I think reading Beowulf and it would be really cool
00:48:11.740to and there's a number of editions that have this that have the old English paired like on
00:48:18.320one page and then the modern english on another page reading beowulf isn't good on our high
00:48:26.640lore and our high mythology because it's written down with a with a christian overlay
00:48:33.180but the hall culture and the warrior ethos of the people in it and the way they interact
00:48:40.740together as a group is essential to how our people conceived of society and conceived of
00:48:47.800of the inner the relationship with each other and i think that beowulf is very applicable in
00:48:53.880principles to our interaction with each other today and i think beowulf is a very valuable
00:48:59.320one that is overlooked more often than it should be so that's going to be my suggestions
00:49:04.680can i do a slight addendum to that too is i i would say for well for storytelling and the idea
00:49:13.000again what in in correlation to tonight and if you're having an issue finding readable um
00:49:21.240correlations to to the uh to the adas and to the poems um the northern pathway by douglas rossman
00:49:30.120i think is a really good one as well and it's if you read it it it has the the interesting thing
00:49:36.680is if you read it alongside the poems you'll begin to notice that he focuses on very key points
00:49:43.640that i think have almost that's almost like a road map where you can if you see him keying in
00:49:50.040on this point but leaving some things out there seems to be a correlative sense to um
00:49:56.040that something massively powerful is happening uh and it might be very very um hard to see
00:50:07.080in references to perhaps you know if a jotun stands on his shield it's mentioned there that
00:50:13.480has correlations to i think deeper meaning things that can help you look into it but the best part
00:50:21.000about it is you could just turn around and read the book to your children and they get a better
00:50:25.620understanding of the stories of the gods without getting mired in a lot of the poetics or a lot of
00:50:32.340the problems with you know linguistics and things like that it's very easy to read um and very very
00:50:39.860fun for the kids so i would say that to the northern pathway when you're reading the eddas
00:50:46.820read any kind of liner notes read any kind of supplemental materials and you know other people
00:50:53.700may tell you not to do this but they're wrong um keep your phone or your computer handy and every
00:51:01.780time they're using something that you've never heard of before google it go down the google
00:51:06.260rabbit hole if it takes you a week to read one of the poems in the eddas but you and okay so this
00:51:14.500takes us back to the beginning of the show and what i talked about etymology is so important
00:51:19.620there's all these names and strange terms in the eddas and i know i felt this way you may very well
00:51:27.220feel that it you might as well just skip over something or just you'll look it up later or
00:51:32.020whatever else especially starting fresh if i could go back in time and start fresh i would absolutely
00:51:39.460do this myself take your time and read it stanza by stanza and every time you're unfamiliar with
00:51:46.820something look it up you will learn so much and i think honestly that's a great idea for a new
00:51:52.980person to get so okay one of the books that i always recommend is the culture of the two times
00:51:59.620and there's a reason i didn't recommend it for brand new people that book ties together so many
00:52:07.060of the other sources that you would read into a very clear and concise way but in all of the
00:52:13.780points and all of the references you wouldn't understand unless you've read that other lore
00:52:20.100if you went through the eddas and every time there was a word you didn't understand or a name
00:52:24.900you'd never heard before you looked up the etymology and then you looked up like what
00:52:29.140that means culturally if you just and i hate to recommend wikipedia because they do us personally
00:52:36.580a very bad disservice but for these kind of things for points of history or linguistics or
00:52:42.820or whatever they're a very good jumping off point and uh if you did that on every word you were
00:52:48.420unfamiliar with and took your time and went down those rabbit holes in the ways that interested
00:52:53.540you or the questions that those brought up i think you would find yourself much better prepared and
00:53:00.180with a much better foundation as you move through things like i i would strongly recommend that if
00:53:06.980If I had it all to do over again, that's what I would have started doing as well.
00:59:35.320in which the gods meet together in heaven, look down into us and see our deeds, and they can
00:59:45.180turn on and turn off blessings to us based upon whether or not we are worthy. So we seek to be
00:59:51.680worthy before our gods. In the middle world, we have a moral duty and obligation to our people,
00:59:58.460to the land or the governance in which we abide to our people. And so we have, again,
01:00:04.580our peers and i would say uh the grand governance of uh of ourselves as an obligation to make sure
01:00:12.740that we follow so that the morals there and then we have the underworld or i you know the underworld
01:00:18.900is kind of a thing that would be i would say like beyond the veil or uh beyond the the place within
01:00:24.900time when when things sink down below the time is cut off that that moral obligation is to our
01:00:32.580ancestors and so we look to them as well as an obligation to not fall back or to break our troth
01:00:41.780with them uh to to keep our our um ourselves and our our focus towards them in corrective action
01:00:51.540in uh so we have these three sources in which we can kind of move about
01:00:55.940in in looking at our moral structure and that's a lot so when we look at uh cosmic order and
01:01:04.180natural law and the way that we see our things like again in the heavenly and in the material
01:01:09.060i think that's the primary focus but we can't forget that our one of our biggest obligations
01:01:13.780to moral correctness is to make sure that we do not offend the ancestors because they too
01:01:18.900have an ability to, I think, affect things. That's first and foremost. Our morals are
01:01:28.440faith-based. We have faith in the gods, we have faith in our folk, and we have faith in our
01:01:33.320ancestors, and so we are obligated then to follow in a moral structure that is correct and right
01:01:38.860and of the best way. That's the problem. Not everyone can quite agree on what is the best
01:01:44.800way, but we gather together in group for that reason, because we believe in each other that
01:01:51.700this is the best way. And so the hardest thing I think that a lot of people find is when they come
01:01:58.320to Ausatru, they're looking for maybe some sort of edict or things like that. And there are quite
01:02:04.100a few, you know, looking at the nine noble virtues, looking at the six-fold goals of society,
01:02:10.760um looking at the uh comparative uh like thews and or um tenants in which like you know
01:02:19.660also true believes this is good and that this is bad these are great these are wonderful ways of
01:02:25.800kind of giving you a roadmap as to where you're expected to be um especially in relation to the
01:02:32.480middle world but you know again the gods they they meet out our doom now as we do things so
01:02:40.260one of the first and foremost things is just entering into your head what do the gods think
01:02:45.440of me now how i'm acting how i'm doing what i'm doing and actually considering that the gods are
01:02:52.300actually watching you now a lot i think a lot of people don't really contextualize that very much
01:02:59.160Some of them may see them as archetypal or that they're going to be judged in the afterlife. And so that is what it is. No, the gods are watching you now. So what does that mean to you?
01:03:14.760What do you have to do to step up, to clean up, to begin fixing your speech, fixing your deeds?
01:03:23.440That sense of moralism is what I would call dynamic moralism, is that you're taking an account of your area around you and placing upon you duties in order to make yourself better.
01:03:39.900because you know what it is to be moral within your own heart.
01:03:45.260And I think the gods know you know that.
01:03:47.000So they leave it upon you to start to look around,
01:03:50.920to ask your fellow folk and to read and to study the gods
01:03:55.580and kind of utilize that structure of understanding.
01:04:01.500And again, it gets odd when if you're reading the Adas like a Bible, you are going to be led down the wrong way of thinking because understanding that the Adas do have large amounts of components, that they are structured around the society of our ancestors.
01:04:27.940Understanding that is good, and then reading that is good, but also understanding what would have, say, perhaps moralistic or even entertainment value in the poem towards our ancestors, it may be slightly different now.
01:04:42.580The gods don't exist because of the Adas. The Adas exist because of the gods. But that's of that contextual time. We are now revitalizing our relationship with the gods. They have been there. We have finally showed up again. And now we're trying to make ourselves even more worthy. And that means setting up that moral structure.
01:05:07.540Oftentimes, yes, it can be helped by your gothar, by your folk, your kinsmen around you,
01:05:12.500but it also comes from you, and it also comes from seeking guidance from the gods and seeking
01:05:17.840guidance from your ancestors. Keeping it real. So one of the things
01:05:26.120that I think is very important, and Svan mentioned this, but I want to reiterate,
01:05:32.700is the idea of realism. Our founder, Steve McAllen, made the statement that realism is
01:05:42.380better than dogma. And I think dogma is really important. I'm much more a pro-dogma guy than
01:05:48.500some folks. But the idea of realism, I don't think realism and dogma are mutually exclusive.
01:05:55.240but realism your beliefs don't matter what you do with your beliefs matters
01:06:04.980it's important that we understand ausitru is most often incorrectly translated to mean
01:06:15.260belief in the aesir it doesn't mean belief in the aesir at all it means troth with the aesir
01:06:23.100It means loyalty. It means remaining true to the Aesir.
01:10:21.300Well, so I think what the confusion that is coming, and this is totally normal, is to think of ancestors as to being, you know, pre the line.
01:10:30.080And that's why it's the greatest tragedy for anyone to have to, you know, lay to rest or to light the fires upon, you know, the ones, the vessel of the souls of their children.
01:10:43.200um that's that's terrible um but they are i guess the ancestors they are ancestors they are uh it's
01:10:54.600more or less the honored um lineage and in understanding that it doesn't necessarily
01:11:04.920have to be chronological and i i it's it deeply saddens me to say that but it is the truth is is
01:11:12.300that it does happen sometimes and when they are reunited with that with the folk soul with with
01:11:20.780the the others beyond the others that are in the place beyond time um you know they they are
01:11:30.540accepted they are received but they also then turn around and can see upon you and so they would be
01:11:38.220classified as ancestral or ancestral even though it's not necessarily that they're you're they're
01:11:45.980sourced from you or sourced from a parent um but they join the ranks and they are not alone
01:11:54.300with the ancestors of the past just as we all will one day be so it's okay
01:12:00.860to understand that and it doesn't necessarily denote a chronological uh title it's more of a
01:12:09.080title of they are now standing with the ones that came before us and we too will one day stand with
01:12:16.060those who came before us thus making us ancestors or elders or of the elders or with the elders
01:12:23.640uh it could be seen as as many of those things but we when we do pass we are not alone and we
01:12:29.440do go there. And I think that as long as our deeds, I think that there are many grievous
01:12:38.140deeds that may keep the ancestors from allowing us into that space beyond time where they
01:12:43.680are, where we stand shoulder and shoulder to them. There are some deeds I think that
01:12:48.360definitely bar entry. For instance, like kinslaying. But there are many other things
01:12:59.220I think in which the ancestors understand, again, that we are not perfect, but we try to strive to
01:13:07.020not be barred from that place. That we strive to do great deeds because we don't want to be
01:13:14.620held at the gate. We don't want to be stopped. And we want to be able to reunite with the core,
01:13:20.860with the central of us. And so, you know, praying to the ancestors for the passage of folks
01:13:27.920and to asking them please to accept them.
01:13:31.380Please hope in their understanding of things that they do accept.
01:13:37.460And if they have done great deeds, then there's usually no doubt.
01:13:41.140And I would say speak highly of them in every way you can.
01:13:44.200That's the one thing you should be doing right now while you're living
01:13:46.320is to make sure that when you do join shoulder to shoulder
01:45:41.040no honestly you already gave me what i want right that was the sound bite i was after i'll take any
01:45:48.300more as a bonus but i was trying to point about the the heredity and the flowing of sound right
01:45:55.780throughout our mythos sound has to do with manifestation and creation
01:46:06.520um when talking about runes and i don't know if this is the rune upon bragi's tongue
01:46:11.880but so much of the ansu's rune is about the estuary the mouth the opening up of of things
01:46:19.400um and specifically again to tie in with the runes when when odin wins the runes by piercing
01:46:29.640himself with the spear and hanging from the tree he doesn't just kind of pick them up in silence
01:46:35.240and go about his business he picks them up roaring roaring he picks them up that guttural
01:46:45.400releasing of sound releasing of energy in that form is so essential to the magic of our folk
01:46:57.320and you know as this is what i was going to say like disney princesses and like disney witches
01:47:02.040like to sing when they make spells um really and truly that's from our folklore you know the
01:47:09.800the spinning of this you know stirring the cauldron and toil and trouble and all that and then
01:47:17.160those kind of incantations over spell work is essential and speech craft poetry
01:47:25.240song is in was inseparable with magic for our ancestors and it's only recently it's become
01:47:33.520more mundane than that um something just another and i don't really know where this connects but
01:47:39.600just throwing out there another use of the word song song and poem were also interchangeable
01:47:45.840there was a time to where with music or without music didn't matter and when you read medieval
01:47:52.800literature the song of roland isn't a musical piece it's an epic poem but the term song and
01:48:02.000poem were synonymous and i think that they did have a verse structure in a in a more musical
01:48:08.160form in the way they were presented um but yeah that's very important uh i got another question
01:48:14.800what is your favorite translation of the poetic eddas i'm really not that guy honestly i like what
01:48:20.960i like to do and there's a website that does this and i can't ever remember it um but there's a
01:48:26.400website that does it and always comes up when i google it but i like looking at different ones
01:48:31.760together and comparing them because i think there's benefits to each and i think by trying
01:48:38.560to compare them with one another you pick up the things that carry through and then you pick up the
01:48:43.600nuances but i couldn't tell you i have a real favorite version what's yours it's fun in relation
01:48:49.920to poetry uh again hollander the hollander translation um isn't the best as translatable
01:48:57.360one to the other it's it's yeah i think um a more i guess scholastic kind of well that's you know
01:49:05.920no that's terrible i'm not talking about it from scholastics i'm talking about it from poetry
01:49:10.240hollander's version has a great sense of meter in relation to english because a lot of that gets
01:49:17.040lost when you direct translate and so i think the best thing about it is that it holds a sense of
01:49:25.520keeping to that tradition that this is still poetry this is spoken in meter it shouldn't be
01:49:31.040lost even though it's translated into another language and i think that it does well to that
01:49:35.600i enjoy that and it's it's it's helped me structure some of my prayers i think it's helped me structure
01:49:42.000some of the prayers that i do on a regular basis through at bloats whether it's uh you know speaking
01:49:48.160to the land whites or um speaking to the ancestors speaking to the gods in like introductory forms
01:49:53.760i've fashioned them around the same kind of speech meter that i learned from the hollander translation
01:50:01.200all right so bruce asks matt and svan is there any specific have them all stanza that has stood
01:50:11.580out to you more than others what are some that that you find yourself returning to offense fun
01:50:18.840um the uh uh receiving of a gift um again the numbers but uh i've never met a man so proud
01:50:30.260that he could not uh receive a gift nor a man so poor that he did not ask for what he rightly
01:50:35.780deserved that to me has always been a deeply powerful one that i i i fall back on often it's
01:50:45.220just it just so profoundly hit me uh about the idea that um no no matter how high no matter how
01:50:53.620noble or not excuse me that's not the correct word no matter how high or in reference this like
01:50:58.500how well off you still must act noble and then no matter how lowly you are you still must have
01:51:06.020the dignity within your soul to ask for what is uh deserving of your work or deserving of your
01:51:12.500deeds or deserving of your of your time uh it shows a sense of i think our the structure of
01:51:20.900our society as having that all men give unto themselves the part that they should fulfill the
01:51:27.860most within society and that they always have obligation whether it's the obligation to them
01:51:34.260to to the uh structure above and also obligation to the structure below and no matter where we are
01:51:40.820it's it's about hierarchy i think it's about fitting in and it's about understanding so well
01:51:47.700but yet it's such a noble verse that helps me i don't know like i it struck me as so grand
01:51:57.860i never met a man so rich that he he could not uh accept a gift and never met a man so poor that he
01:52:02.820could not ask for what he rightly deserved now that is a very very broad translation of it but
01:52:09.460that's the way it's always stuck in my head so that verse in particular and then i will go and
01:52:15.140actually find the number if i can so i am awful at memorization like i'm not that guy uh friend of
01:52:24.420mind bodie is amazing at that he can word for word just rattle you off pieces of lore
01:52:31.860once he gets a bit of it he's like aha and then he can just go i'm not that guy um
01:52:39.700one that i find a couple that i find myself returning too often
01:52:43.780because they give me perspective when i see other people do things that i find vexatious um
01:52:54.660the one and so mandy's my go-to on this too if i ask mandy does my have them all researched
01:52:59.380i'm like mandy where's that one quote that's you know this about that and she can pull it
01:53:04.500up instantly she's really good with that but the one about um you know always be a friend
01:53:10.020to your friend's friend but to his enemies never loyalty is only worth it if it's selective
01:53:18.820of course i'm loyal i'm loyal to everybody well then you're loyal to nobody
01:53:23.220um loyalty is about picking and choosing and taking a side and it's never it's not neutrality
01:53:30.340isn't noble picking a side and standing nobly by it to victory or uh to to defeat that's noble and
01:53:40.740so that one stands out to me and i go back to a lot and the one about uh cowardice and uh
01:53:50.340how you know you can you can try to hide from death all you want but death's going to find
01:53:57.060you one way or another um but you know your your life is better if it's lived being courageous
01:54:04.740than if you're a coward that tries to hide and death comes finding your bed um
01:54:10.980so those ones stand out to me because they i don't know they give me solace in in things
01:54:17.940and they strengthen my resolve on things and i find those to be be beneficial um travis
01:54:25.380what grade level is the astro academy at will all grades be covered in time and what are the
01:54:31.300requirements to enroll our children i'm really glad you asked that one of the things that i've
01:54:35.700talked to dean stam go through rob stam who's the dean of our astro academy is ways to publicize
01:54:44.260this better and get stuff out there more um one of the one of the victories that started after my
01:54:54.420oath and will hopefully be achieved by the end of my there's every reason to be achieved by the end
01:55:00.340of my oath is we will have passed the first class of afa students through our kindergarten portion
01:55:09.460of our austro academy course we're you know we're over halfway through the school year and we've
01:55:14.820retained all of the kids we started with and we've built a good relationship with them and their
01:55:20.580families and as uh from what i'm being told they're doing very well and the families are doing very
01:55:26.180well with it um 2022-23 school year is just kindergarten because it was our first one and
01:55:35.140that's as far as we would be able to make it um in the fall so our commitment
01:55:42.420i'm stumbling over my speech a lot now because i am trying to think about it make sure that i'm
01:55:46.980clear i know a lot goes on in my head so by this fall our commitment is to have first grade ready
01:55:54.180so that our kindergartners go into first grade that will always be the case as this class of
01:55:59.540kindergarteners progresses and i think i did the math and it's class of 36. so we will at the very
01:56:07.060least have the next grade ready for each of these students by the time they get there that's a
01:56:12.020promise now bonus grades are what we want to do and what i think that we can do dean stam has
01:56:19.380promised me not only first but first and second by this fall so you know we're trying to hurry
01:56:27.060up and get there we know we have a lot of kids that could benefit from it and a lot of parents
01:56:30.980that could benefit from from having their kids in that environment and we want to get that up to the
01:56:35.860grade level of your child as fast as we possibly can as that stands now in the fall if you're
01:56:42.020looking to get your child registered we'll be registering kindergarten through second grade
01:56:49.220but we're very excited about that that is one of the i mean that's something we've dreamed about
01:56:54.020and wanted for a very long time i think it is so crucial it was crucial 10 years ago when we
01:57:02.020thought about doing it it's so much more so in the last 10 years so we're very very proud and
01:57:08.900we have a great team of a lot of people putting in a lot of work on that
01:57:12.580and rob is definitely leading that charge and we're super proud of him
01:57:15.860um just to fall back to the last question stanza 39 was mine but again we got to remember too some
01:57:26.120of the numbers changed because of translations but uh the the way it was written here and i
01:57:31.120would just wanted to bring it up was uh i have never found a man so bountiful or hospitable
01:57:37.560that he refused a present nor of his property so liberal that he scorned recompense that's that
01:57:44.880translation. So Svon, I'm going to go and take the lead on this first question here. Could you
01:57:50.380find the two of mine so we can read those and not my butchering of them for the good folks
01:57:57.740that listen to this broadcast? In the meantime, gentlemen, great stream. Will Sigurheim be an
01:58:06.540off-grid community with food production, garden, animals, etc.? No point not to be in the current
01:58:13.640times hail um i'm not sure if that's a juxtaposition or a following through with
01:58:21.240with what's being said there but to answer it no it's not going to be an off-grid situation um
01:58:29.960we don't have the space for as much of that as somebody who took that seriously as us
01:58:36.600you know the community existing off-grid would be and we we have no desire to shun the modern
01:58:42.680convenience of things that allow us to do different stuff with our time i know that a lot of our folk
01:58:48.440think that they're they're about that slapping the hogs at four in the morning life but i'm not that
01:58:55.560guy um and i think a lot of us don't don't live that way but what would be really nice is if we
01:59:02.040could do some hobby farming maybe some of us could have some animals and learn that skill
01:59:07.480maybe some of us could have a garden i've often thought it'd be really cool to have
01:59:11.000some fruit trees i think fruit trees would be awesome i've never had that in my life so i
01:59:15.640think that'd be neat i would love for us to have a community garden and we could even figure out
01:59:20.040maybe a community small you know group of animals to deal with the more we can do that i think it's
01:59:26.520very cool and i think it's a really important skill to have but i don't think it's necessarily
01:59:31.720an industry that we all need to do and so many of us have just other things we're doing with our
01:59:36.920lives then you know being a farmer is a full-time job and it's a hard job and i think we we may
01:59:42.760think that it's easier than it than it is but the way that things have gone to where we don't have
01:59:49.080to live like that anymore and we're able to do so many other things has freed us up to to live a lot
01:59:55.000of other dreams but i would like to have the availability if we found ourselves in a spot
02:00:00.360to know how to do those things and i think some hobby farming things on a scale to where people
02:00:05.640enjoy doing it would be a really nice way to supplement the other things we have going
02:00:16.040i found them uh 16 and and uh 43. excellent could you read them for the good folks
02:00:21.320yeah cowardly man thinks he will ever live if war here warfare he avoids but old age will give him
02:00:27.160no peace those spears may spare him that's 16. again yeah that was speaking of of cowardice and
02:00:34.200avoiding things in in order to uh stave off but you get no recompense in the end either way so act
02:00:42.680now uh and then 43 to a friend to a friend a man should be a friend to him and to his friend
02:00:52.600but to his foe no man shall be the friends to be so of no friend's foe should you make allegiances
02:01:02.120with loyalty is is across the board absolutely um can you speak a little on the relationship
02:01:14.680between bragi and iduna the interplay on their roles in the aesir and how they complement each
02:01:23.240other spawn can you break that down for us i was anticipating this question real slam dunk you got
02:01:32.840it um i again we've already made some um mentions towards bragi's primordial sense the focusing of
02:01:41.160power the focusing and um i guess it would be disseminating of of the runic or like the primordial
02:01:49.320sounds uh and the foundations of the universe but i think also too it's worth noting that
02:01:56.200uh both of them are kind of again focal points two great primordial powers when we talk about
02:02:06.520uh for uh for people that might not know even even uh is or edena as she's often referred to
02:02:13.560in just in like common english ethana is um the goddess of the the source and power of the eternal
02:02:22.920the eternal amongst the gods uh she is the uh conduit of which i think life and time are
02:02:32.520continually renewed or recycled to be brought up brought forth again thus making the gods
02:02:38.840outside of time but in a different way as opposed to the lower world but again she is the conduit
02:02:48.220and the focal point of that divine power and so in a way both of them are um i would i would say
02:02:56.580the what's the convert the convergence point in which these these powers come in and then they
02:03:04.560cross and are uh in a different form uh with one being the immortality of the gods the rejuvenation
02:03:12.800of them so the tapping into a primordial sense of the foundations of sound and and cosmic creation
02:03:21.280uh seem to converge with both of them i don't think that they are unified simply as
02:03:28.640uh just happenstance like that's what snorty wanted to do i think that there is a deep meaning
02:03:34.000into an understanding of uh i would even say the convergence of sound and light if if we're really
02:03:40.480going deep even uh and the um the ambrosia of the gods the um the the the light as their their
02:03:51.520countenance of renewal mixed with the foundational sounds of the universe converge at the gods and
02:03:59.360then also then transform in a different way at that convergence point and that that takes place
02:04:06.640in two ways one the actions of the gods and the way that they interact with our world so that again
02:04:12.480after that convergence point the gods are one of the direct results of that and then i think also
02:04:18.640to the foundational sounds of the universe being played in the material world are again past that
02:04:25.280convergence point so i would say and a lot of people you know they focus on the golden apples
02:04:32.400um again there's been a lot of stuff about uh like debate about that about the apples and their
02:04:38.480their um the fact that the apples weren't always um strictly native to europe in the sense that
02:04:44.720obviously we moved westward so the the importance of apples has always been with us but it was not
02:04:50.480always physically with us the apple species in europe when our ancestors were moving westward
02:04:56.960uh was a like a crab apple it wasn't very good there were more um central asian
02:05:04.080apples but by that time it was already established what that meant that fruit that that giving of
02:05:11.120power is um again fertile and then the goldenness again reiterating to light
02:05:20.640so light and sound convergence is where i go on that one so i got a story of something that happened
02:05:28.960and i i feel like this is a a very small boon uh from from lord fray but i i can understand if
02:05:37.840people who hear this don't don't necessarily buy into it this is not a point of it's not
02:05:43.840like a statement of afa faith but i'm telling you a story i was in denmark um
02:05:50.960steve mcnalen his wife uh brad and his girlfriend and myself were in denmark on an afa trip in 2014.
02:06:01.200and I had I think it's what they refer to as a birch allergy but that's really misleading
02:06:12.620my understanding was it meant a certain family of fruits which is crazy I love fruits but I had
02:06:22.360this thing where I would eat certain berries or peaches or apples or nectarines or apricots
02:06:29.620Apricots are my favorite fruit. And this would happen when I eat them. I couldn't eat apples and anything of that apple family. I could eat some, but if I ate more than just a little bit, my throat would start to close up. I'd have trouble breathing. I have tightness in my chest and a strange tingly thing. And it just, it wasn't good.
02:06:50.240but um so at the event that we were at in denmark the the culmination of things was this bloat we
02:07:02.140did on top of froborg which was phrase mountain in denmark now don't let the word mountain fool
02:07:09.160you denmark is a very very flat place so this was a hill but we circumambulated up this hill
02:07:17.080along the path right when you get to the top there was this um i think grove is not the
02:07:22.360appropriate word but there was a cluster of these crab apple trees and you know i couldn't not take
02:07:28.520the opportunity so i i ate one of these crab apples i didn't have a reaction to it anyways
02:07:35.880cool whatever i went on with the bloat came back to the states did whatever and then i started
02:07:41.080trying things out i promise you that this is the case coincidence or no since that time
02:07:49.080i have no allergy to to apples or anything of that family so
02:07:56.040take it for what you will but that happened you never told me about this there you go every every
02:08:01.960podcast there's something it's got layers right dang we have to talk about that more i want to
02:08:09.400know more about the actual absolutely there's lots of cool stories from that trip that was a once in
02:08:14.520a lifetime thing um lars and soren and justina if you guys are listening which i don't know if you
02:08:26.520guys are thank you guys you guys made us have an amazing amazing trip um those are folks that we've
02:08:32.120lost touch with in denmark that made that trip a absolutely amazing amazing once in a lifetime thing
02:08:41.160and i'm so thankful i got to be a part of that hail to them and you will hear more stories from
02:08:47.720it on this podcast i'm sure because it just so many really special things happen um
02:08:57.000so to a question that i i skipped over when i was talking about the austro academy i i told
02:09:01.560you a lot about the grades but the the last part of it there was a couple of questions in it
02:09:05.720last part was what uh the requirements were so literally the requirements um be an afa member
02:09:15.320not the child we don't accept membership until someone's legally an adult but their family needs
02:09:20.360to be an afa member one of their parents hopefully both of their parents and other than that um it's
02:09:28.680free it may not stay that way if we get further on and we need we find a need for stuff for curriculum
02:09:36.360i don't know if that'll be the case i want to keep it free as long as i can
02:09:40.120and we've had people who've been very generous in donating towards it so yeah there's there's
02:09:45.960not a cost obligation we want to raise our children in a safe environment that's going
02:09:53.160going to teach them the things that we think are valuable and meaningful for their life
02:09:59.860and if you're out there and you can't for any number of reasons you have to put your child
02:10:07.660in public school we understand that and shoot if you're in a spot that's got you know a really
02:10:13.140positive school board and everything's good and it's what you want to do with your kids cool
02:10:18.400We're not coming at you on that. But most of us, and I say this, my mom was a teacher. She spent 30 years teaching first grade in the Anchorage School District. And school's not the same now as it was then. And it's really important that our kids have a refuge from the woke liberal indoctrination that's going on in public schools.
02:10:45.040And we're really proud that we're doing the best we can to provide that for our kids and for your kids.
02:10:51.100And if you've got older kids, we're going to try as hard as we can to get our curriculum to catch up with them.
02:10:57.440I want to reassure people this has been a huge priority in that program to make sure that.
02:11:04.600So we have somebody and it's it's their job.
02:11:08.400Folk Builder Mason Johnson's wife, Rachel, she's the one that does this.
02:11:13.180this is like her her job in that and she does a lot of things in it but one of her big focuses
02:11:20.220is to make sure that our curriculum and our processes are compliant with the state rules
02:11:25.660where your child is so as we're doing this we have kids from i forget the number but rob told
02:11:32.460me a lot of different states and we're making sure that our standards meet the toughest standards of
02:11:40.460all of those states and all the different areas it's important to us that we know how to walk you
02:11:46.780through the process of implementing our program but also of making sure it's completely above
02:11:53.980board and meets the requirements and legitimate in your state we will hold your hand through
02:11:59.340that whole process because i know that that's one of the things that's scary we want to take
02:12:05.100the scary out of it and we're learning all the lessons every class that goes through we learn
02:12:09.820lessons that we can use for the benefit of classes to come so please do know that
02:12:16.620the question that's up on the screen is how does one go about starting a kindred
02:12:21.980so an afa kindred it's real simple and it should be done with a with seriousness absolutely but the
02:12:30.140idea of the afa kindred and this is really important to me but come to find out this is
02:12:36.300always the idea of afa kindred it's back from the eyes of true free assembly i read the afa kindred
02:12:41.900handbook from like 86 or something and it describes kindreds in the same way we see them today the afa
02:12:48.700kindred is the local congregation of afa members so a kindred needs to be made up of three or more
02:12:57.340afa members those members need to be on board and building their kindred around the house of true
02:13:07.020folk assembly the afa loyalty is essential in making that kindred function for the long term
02:13:14.060and we want that kindred to be a living representation of the afa in their area
02:13:20.620and other than that if that's something you want to do and you have those things met
02:13:25.260now the idea is don't find three people across the surface of the earth the point of these kindreds
02:13:30.620is that they're local to the area that you're in and they can form a tighter bond
02:13:35.020in that area and that's what we'd really love to see so if you have um you know a total of three
02:13:41.660or more afa members in your area and you want to form a kindred you want to reach out to jason
02:13:46.700gallagher he is an awesome awesome guy very good friend of mine he's been a guest on the program
02:13:52.860before and he is our kindred coordinator and you know he also is is he runs his kindred northern
02:13:59.740blood kindred he's very passionate about our afa kindreds and he would love to talk you through
02:14:05.580that process and get you set up we also have a six-month probationary period so that you guys
02:14:11.980are solidified and there's you know some permanence to it because we live in a world where there's so
02:14:17.900much transiency maybe things seem like a really good idea today you find out three or four months
02:14:23.420down the road it doesn't quite work out so we do have that that uh probationary period
02:14:27.740but yeah contact jason if you're interested
02:14:32.380so gothe young asks can you both speak to what it means to be a gothi and speak to the spiritual
02:14:40.860authority that comes with it? And why do titles matter? Svan, take it away.
02:14:49.660Ah, well, I mean, the, to be a godly in this day and age, especially of the Ossetra Folk Assembly,
02:14:59.020I mean, I'm not aware, I think some people maybe proclaim the title in other areas and groups, but
02:15:06.780in with us there is initiatory practice in which you have to work your way through um and and these
02:15:15.660might manifest in different ways whether it's a the ability to counsel during times of emergency
02:15:20.940or times of great distress um the ability to um mediate between uh warring not worry scary
02:15:30.540warring arguing parties or or um warring parties is a bit much um there might be grievances between
02:15:37.980folk within the community and being able to to mitigate some sort of peace between them
02:15:44.780sometimes it doesn't work sometimes it does again but you're still willing to step up for that um
02:15:51.340especially if both parties have uh tangible uh goals towards achieving that um
02:15:57.820There are other things, I think, in particular, discussing relationships with the gods, discussing seasonal relationships and tidings, knowing when the tidings are, following them in accordance to our traditions, the way that we have done it, and the way we continue to.
02:16:17.900and um that doesn't mean that we don't evolve we do have orthopraxy that uh is you know we are a
02:16:25.240a religion of deeds but we maintain those traditions and uh see the evolutions of things
02:16:31.460in accordance to the way they need to be um and i think we we are stewards of that and i think that
02:16:37.620you know in a one sense we're receptive to people's um questions and and needs but at this
02:16:46.040on a projecting sense, we're also very much like priests on the ground. We are the boots on the
02:16:52.180ground. We are the ones pulling things in directions in our local community to get things
02:16:59.060going, to make things happen, to build foundation on, to inspire people to unite or to build
02:17:07.140allegiances with each other, to build the community around, whether it's a kindred or a
02:17:12.200hoff or wherever the go the or give you is um you know that there's that that dynamic of both being
02:17:20.360receptive to problems and being dynamically moving forward on things that we need to do
02:17:26.600so we end up being kind of like uh some of us are attached like two hoffs but even before then you
02:17:33.640You know, it was we were like, I wouldn't say migratory, but we were we were on the path of fate, on the path of weird, enacting in both alignment with the church and the gods and trying to be that convergence point since we.
02:17:55.720But yes, that's what I would say about it.
02:18:03.640So my friend Gauthier Young asked us a bunch of big questions in a in a sequence, and I hope I don't miss something here because it's a it's a big topic.
02:18:15.160a legitimate gothi is a bridge between the gods and the folk to the gods he represents our church
02:18:30.380and our folk to us he represents the gods he serves during ritual as a a literal bridge of
02:18:40.000energy to pass from us to our gods and the gods to us. That is the ceremonial purpose of Agothi.
02:18:52.480Agothi in the modern sense is a leader. Agothi in the AFA is a manager of their district,
02:19:02.280a keeper of their hof that's in their district, a listening ear and a counselor to everyone
02:19:12.700in their district or outside of their district that needs their help. Our Gothar, and it's
02:19:20.520Daniel Young that asked this question. He's one of our busiest when it comes to counseling.
02:19:27.540Folks will never see it, and that's because it's not something people brag on, but I'm going to
02:19:31.620drag on them for them we've got gothar that spend hours and hours every single week talking people
02:19:42.960through what's often some of the very worst times in their lives so providing that spiritual need
02:19:51.960is very important and a lot of people so it's another one of the ones I get lost on because I
02:20:00.300know where to start at this um so many people when they join the afa or they first discover
02:20:08.060alsatru say okay cool i joined i'm about this i love it how do i become a gothi
02:20:15.260and there's nothing wrong with that that enthusiasm honestly is beautiful to see
02:20:20.620but there's so much more to it than anybody sees coming through so right now as it stands you have
02:20:26.780to be a folk builder first and put in kind of the not sexy part of the job with the database
02:20:33.340and the management of the members and the this and the that and the social media
02:20:38.620to put in the work and then after you've done that become a gothi um because a gothi is not
02:20:47.100just a master of ceremonies it's not just a guy that stands out there in the middle of ritual
02:20:51.820and performs that's a part of what we do and it's a really fun part of what we do
02:20:57.260and outside of just being fun it's a very important part of what we do
02:21:03.740but leading our church and leading our development is an essential part of what we do counseling our
02:21:13.420membership and sometimes each other is so important to what we do and this is going to
02:21:22.060bring me to the other big point here in just a second but these folks
02:21:31.260brandy mentioned this about our donations we don't bring sacrifices from our flocks and from
02:21:40.060our fields anymore that's not what most of us do that's not reflecting most of our lives
02:21:45.420we donate in terms of cash but cash isn't about currency cash is a reflection of hours
02:21:57.740it's a reflection of time that you've spent engaged in something that's time you're spending
02:22:03.500away from your family away from your hopes and dreams now some of us are very lucky and and
02:22:10.060we're doing what we love but most people are working a job for a paycheck and so time away
02:22:18.140from your family is is so important well afa gothar spend a lot of time away from their families
02:22:26.460tending to the spiritual needs of of us of all of us and nobody thinks about it but you know i i get
02:22:36.220that i've been that guy that i am that guy that gets a call during dinner and gets a call when
02:22:41.900you're out doing something with your family and gets a call when you're you're at a special
02:22:46.060occasion and depending you know depending on the situation sometimes you got to drop what you're
02:22:51.740doing and talk to somebody who is going through something really hard in their life
02:22:56.460We've we've had go through that are literally saving lives through their counseling, and it's a it's a huge thing.
02:50:26.140as a separate issue for a time and see how that works but again the answer is never going to be
02:50:34.060the same to any couple because different people have different reasons that they might oppose what
02:50:38.620we're doing one might completely agree with our ethics but be an atheist and not believe in the
02:50:47.660in the metaphysical side of what we do and that's one scenario another person could completely be
02:50:54.540super woke and not agree with any of our politics and any of our ethics and any of our worldview
02:51:00.700but like the gods just fine or what they think the gods are about just fine
02:51:06.540That's an entirely different struggle. So it would be very different depending on that audience.
02:51:12.620If it's just a matter of not having faith in the metaphysics, then focus on the positives that
02:51:20.100having faith and that our principles bring to your life and to improve the life of your child
02:51:26.720and worry about the deeper metaphysics down the road. That's the most I'd suggest without
02:51:32.900out knowing more about your scenario but I'm really sorry that you face that that's a big
02:51:37.520challenge and I wish you the best with it spawn do you have any advice for Cade or folks in his
02:51:45.620situation uh again with context not really there you know I guess I would I would say identify the
02:51:54.320source of that whether it's um again maybe it's moralistic or maybe they don't believe maybe
02:52:00.500atheistic uh maybe they uh are super religious in a in a universal monotheistic religion from
02:52:09.220the middle east and they have like fear of damnation or fear of original sin uh fear of
02:52:14.760going to like the judaic afterlife of sheol and not getting into um you know where yahweh is and
02:52:22.820things of that nature um and and identifying that and understanding that will help you
02:52:28.660again, mitigate where you're coming at with this. If you hold bloat for yourself and your child
02:52:35.960holds bloat with you and they have a deep visceral fear of not making it into the Judaic
02:52:42.140afterlife by them participating, you could have issues there. So like knowing when to hold bloat
02:52:48.800and things or where or taking in those considerations, that causes a lot of issues
02:52:55.440in the house and a lot of familial uh dissecting between the the the mother and the father and
02:53:04.320that's hugely important for the child and so having that unified front i think it's first
02:53:10.960best to identify what problem they have and try to find a mediated middle and then work from there
02:53:17.840because time does change things if they start to see the way you act the way you uh live your life
02:53:23.840um those things might change and they can change i think people can become aware of certain ideas
02:53:30.720that they have as being at the moment and then later on down the line they change it
02:53:36.400but there's other things to remember the gothar are here with you because this again is a con
02:53:41.440this is a question of heavy context so it could be politics it could be um orthopraxy they just
02:53:50.160don't like the fact that you drink from a horn or i the context and i'm not trying to make light of
02:53:56.000it is rely on your gothar whether it's you know if you're speaking to a go the or give you um or
02:54:02.880both and you get a chance to kind of talk about this situation you can rely on them and they can
02:54:08.160start to give you baby steps to help hopefully heal this situation because again this spiritual um
02:54:15.040um amicability is a huge thing i've seen people with different religions that love each other
02:54:22.960very much and it's not a big component in say one of the their lives they do get along and
02:54:29.920they do move forward but that is extremely rare um for the most part it's it's a unity thing and um
02:54:39.920i think ultimately too it could be just identifying that they have some sort of
02:54:43.440preconceived notions and if they come out or they come to a temple they come to the hof
02:54:48.480and they get to meet people i that has happened numerous times in which a one um spouse comes to
02:54:54.960the hof and they they realize how just we've got how regular people we are we have children
02:55:02.640where we have music playing we've got food and and we're uh you know we go in we we do blow
02:55:08.560sometimes they just sit off to the side and watch but now they understand what we're doing they get
02:55:14.000to speak to a gothar and and ask him why did you do that why did you do this and they can tell them
02:55:19.440you know this is we're giving gifts we're we're holding libation and we're holding communion with
02:55:23.920the gods they begin to slowly from that tensing release and at least they can then build towards
02:55:33.360at least being you know amicable with you there's lots of different avenues to this that's a hard
02:55:38.000question without context but at the same time too i don't i understand not airing everything and it
02:55:43.200might not even be you it could be someone you know and i know some members in the afa that do have
02:55:48.080that situation in their life and it's hard um so he added a little bit of context on the side
02:55:58.080and i want to address this really briefly and move on to the next thing but it's i it's worth
02:56:03.120addressing um he said she is pro-choice and pro-homosexuality and i appreciate you giving
02:56:11.440us a little bit of con of context to work on um i've said this before the afa doesn't take a
02:56:23.600100 black and white stance on abortion in the sense that there's health reasons there's reasons
02:56:32.480that it may be the better of two really bad options but what we don't and what we'll never
02:56:40.000support is the joyous and enthusiastic embracing of infanticide and i think that
02:56:51.200you know maybe in the 70s or 80s or 90s this is a lot more well there's a lot more nuance to it
02:56:57.440But, you know, we as a society all agree that killing babies is bad.
02:57:02.920Now, maybe if there was a horrible deformity or if it was the result of incest or rape or some various things, then it might be the best of two really bad alternatives.
02:57:18.100But we all kind of agreed killing babies is bad because it is.
02:57:22.940we live in very strange times to where some very mentally ill people now celebrate killing babies
02:57:35.140because that sticks it to the patriarchy or sticks it to the daddy they have issues with
02:57:44.980or whatever the problem is but that's evil and i'm not afraid to say that's evil um celebrating
02:57:55.780killing babies is bad that doesn't sound like it should be a bold moral stance it sounds like
02:58:02.900it's common sense for any for any mammal but um where the the woman in your life is
02:58:11.700is maybe a really strange place. I don't know y'all's age, but stuff's really odd right now.
02:58:20.160Fortunately, I don't think that the abortion issue is necessarily super important to your
02:58:25.760child unless your child is at the very end of their childhood. You know, the 15 through 18
02:58:31.360range, that might be a very serious thing. The homosexuality issue, I would caution you a little
02:58:37.220bit more stringently on a lot of women don't take a live and let live ideology on it and they don't
02:58:48.180really see where a person's sexual preference would negatively affect you know your child
02:59:00.900um and i think that many of us know the the reasons why that would be um all of the macro
02:59:09.380discussion about how embracing that is eroding a lot of our morals and a lot of society that's
02:59:18.500a bigger question that doesn't need to be addressed right now by you please be very
02:59:26.260cautious about homosexuals that are around your child whether your child is male or female
02:59:35.140the reason that we take is first we believe that homosexuality is a mental illness
02:59:44.180but secondly when one suffers that particular mental illness
02:59:48.420There is certainly not 100% of the time, but a very significant percent of the time
02:59:58.080that carries over into other sexual mental illness that very often involves the abuse
03:00:06.980of a child. And for whatever reason, for whatever motivates it, I would just urge you to please
03:00:14.160don't let homosexuals around your child unattended. Please be vigilant against that as best you can
03:00:22.660in your situation. That unfortunately is a terrible thing that however that mental illness
03:00:31.720manifests itself, it results in the victimization of children far too often. And please do your
03:00:39.800best to avoid that for for you and your family um travis asks asking on behalf of the shy
03:00:48.920why are we here what is our purpose appreciate travis coming with the with the simple questions
03:00:55.760to answer uh perhaps the biggest questions of of of humanity is why are we here and what is our
03:01:04.660purpose. I don't think that given the entire rest of the
03:01:11.540evening, all of tomorrow, that me and Svan could exhaustively
03:01:15.160answer that question for you. But in simple terms, what I would
03:01:20.060give you on that question is to a couple of things to make our
03:01:31.000gods and our ancestors proud of us to create a better hymenia and a better orlog for the children
03:01:41.640that we bring into the world and for our grandchildren than we came into the world with
03:01:47.960to elevate our family to a status and a position better than we started in and to build
03:01:56.200build a world closer to how it should be to the best of our ability.
03:02:04.680Within those constructs, to achieve victory and to be a winner,
03:02:14.080I think that the best of intentions don't matter if they're not put into implementation.
03:02:19.700And that's not always judged by whether you have ultimate success or not, but it absolutely is judged by how much, how hard you try and the things that you do.
03:02:31.840And if you find victory, victory is our 10th noble virtue.
03:02:37.860Things are about winning. Don't let people trick you and think it's not about whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game.
03:02:44.520Yeah, it's how you play the game, but it's also whether you win or you lose.
03:02:49.700In real life, there's consequences. Victory brings a set of very positive consequences.
03:02:57.580Defeat brings a set of very negative consequences. Be a winner. Make your gods and your ancestors
03:03:04.480proud of you and leave something better for your children and your grandchildren.
03:03:10.900We could, again, talk all day, but that's the best I've got on it in a really general way.
03:03:19.700piggybacking off of your um the achievement of victory and and how that to say that some people
03:03:25.700might not understand what that means in in a sense of also true so i will just kind of take that and
03:03:31.940then context it into a barrel and shoot it out when when odin villianve breathe in the soul power
03:03:43.860of that which is the vessel of humanity with the vessel of the folk they they split that power
03:03:52.180that power comes from odin but why you're asking why why did odin speak that spell why did odin
03:04:00.740sing that song why did he the three split that power into the vessel that would become the folk
03:04:07.940and thus start things, is because soul might. And so your attainment of victory is actually
03:04:17.240a building of soul might. And you won't always get it right. And in actuality, your individual
03:04:23.060soul is part of a bigger soul might. And when he sees a might in the soul, where is it taken?
03:04:31.220handpicked, taken to heaven. And then also there is this cycle that continues in which
03:04:39.140there can be a process of building that soul might. So his breath, his song becomes the spell
03:04:47.360that he knows some of it will fall away, some of it will wither and die, but others of them will
03:04:52.680become honed in victory and in attainment through deeds. And that soul might is going to join the
03:04:59.960soul might of others. And soon it will be a mega wave or bomb of soul might that will be brought
03:05:08.820into heaven for the final moments in which all things unite. There needs to be a moment in which
03:05:15.160that the soul might that is honed in order and in deed and in victory will then rise up in tide
03:05:23.220against the forces of chaos and necrosis and dissemination and all of those things. And if
03:05:29.540that soul might isn't reached, then it might win. So it needs to be reached. Your purpose
03:05:36.840is that you carry within you the spell of Odin and testing your might, gaining your victory,
03:05:44.520building the luck and the Haminya of your individual soul and the souls of your ancestors,
03:05:49.420then will in turn help the gods maintain the balance when all things collide.
03:05:55.760and that's how you see it whether it's in the cyclical sense or whether
03:06:00.540olden himself plucks you out and puts you into the hall that awaits for that moment
03:06:07.940and this this happens to all of us this the the men women our ability our souls are all
03:06:15.520part of the process of this filtration and this build-up of might and of power that will
03:06:22.240eventually come back to the gods come back to ovin and be utilized to maintain the balance against
03:06:29.520the forces that are seeking to disseminate and tear down creation you know i'll add this on
03:06:39.520the picture that spawn just made for us so it's about victory it's about making the gods and
03:06:44.960ancestors proud of you but in a bigger odinic sense it's about structuring order from chaos
03:06:57.200in your life if you are able to bring this world closer in the spheres that you operate in
03:07:05.520towards order and towards right action
03:07:07.920that is your goal that's what you need to find victory in or use victory for
03:07:16.760and away from the destruction of chaos um
03:07:22.100so simply your your job is not to tear down your job is to build up yes in some circumstances you
03:07:32.480have to tear down in order to build up but if you just tear down and you stop there
03:07:37.900doesn't count what counts is the build-up you know you weed the garden but you're not
03:07:43.980a gardener if you just pick weeds all day you're a gardener if you grow stuff um see i'll i'll say that
03:07:55.660i know i knew that the moment he that that spell was spoken
03:07:59.500that breath was given he knew it that's why you're here
03:08:02.780absolutely so we have a question uh why obsidian skull has a question question why there's more use
03:08:14.780of the elder futhark instead of the younger futhark in the afa which is more in line with
03:08:20.780the historical time used in aussitrew um yes obsidian a couple of things first of all
03:08:28.700we don't believe that also true is confined to a historical time um it's just as legitimate and
03:08:38.540just as relevant for us to practice also true today as it was for them in the viking age as
03:08:45.500it was for them in the neolithic period as it was in our most ancient ancestors before the
03:08:51.740the the glaciers in the ice age um our relation to the gods takes different forms in different
03:08:59.660times one of the reasons that the elder futhark is used um more than the younger a couple of things
03:09:11.100it is thought to be more more metaphysical whereas the younger is more adapted to writing and
03:09:21.740we use our runes for various different purposes for magical practices and for intoning the very
03:09:29.780mysteries of the universe the elder futhark is very clear in that and when you read the
03:09:35.840rune poems the ones in the elder futhark are most often carried over in the other traditions as well
03:09:43.400and retain their meaning whereas the reason for the um movement from the elder futhark
03:09:53.720to the younger was to accommodate different linguistic sounds
03:09:59.160so as a form of writing if we were trying to write things yes if we were trying to write them
03:10:05.800in old norse or in icelandic or perhaps even in any of the modern um uh scandinavian languages
03:10:14.600younger futhark would be a good way to do that conversely if we were trying to write right now
03:10:21.320in the best runic script for writing english the anglo-saxon futhark would be a much better option
03:10:27.880but honestly most of us know the elder futhark it's simple it's complete within itself we're
03:10:37.900most familiar with it it lends itself very well to galder and to magical and esoteric practice
03:10:46.900and in our tradition it's what was chosen to glom onto uh reading about the development of
03:10:55.960runic understanding in the modern age uh the the the seminal work on modern rune work was uh
03:11:08.120futhark by edward thorson and he originally had wrote that in uh using the arminen runes
03:11:19.400because at the time he was writing it in the 70s and the 80s
03:11:23.720the arminen runes were the runes we had the best access to and the most complete understanding of
03:11:31.240it in the united states i'm sure that that people in different parts of the world that
03:11:35.400was a different case um but for for a guy at university of texas that was what we had the
03:11:41.160most access for but over time he discovered the elder futhark and he learned more and he learned
03:11:47.640into it and he studied it and it's the basics that these other runic systems are based off of
03:11:55.720so they may add things here and there but they still contain the basic truths of the elder futhark
03:12:04.120he then took those elder runes and spent most of his time in runic writing
03:12:09.240discussing those and adding and fleshing out our understanding of those runes so those are
03:12:14.760the runes that we've spent you know 40 45 years studying and learning and understanding more of
03:12:23.800um but we're certainly open to people using whatever of the the futharks and the room rose
03:12:29.640that resonate with them and they'd like to all of those are part of our heritage and we celebrate
03:12:35.240them but the reason the elder futhark is used more often is just because of the vast increased
03:12:40.520familiarity we have with it for one the fact that it lends itself very well to galder work
03:12:47.240for two and for any other form of communication communication only works if if i send a message
03:12:56.120and you can receive it most of us understand the elder futhark and can understand what's being done
03:13:02.840in it when you branch outside of that then perhaps the person you're communicating with
03:13:08.520doesn't get the message you're trying to convey so i think that's why we focus as much on the
03:13:13.960elder food ark as we do those are just my thoughts you have thoughts on this one actually nothing
03:13:21.480nothing outside of what you said i just to emphasize again what you about the timing of
03:13:26.840the question with the term house of true in time but i would say the elder food ark we know is the
03:13:33.080oldest that we in especially in correspondence with gothic language when the missionary um
03:13:39.880ufilos amongst the goths made his uh runic kind of language he used the gothic runes and those
03:13:48.680correspond with the central germanic runes of the elder futhark it's actually highly repeated we have
03:13:56.360lots of artifacts with the elder futhark on it um the the um ordering may be like different in
03:14:05.320certain spots but we know that the elder futhark was the core because it correlated with the gothic
03:14:12.680as a confirmation point and then the anglo-saxon was built and expounded on from that whereas
03:14:20.600for reasons unknown that it was whittled down in the nordic uh sphere however we do have plenty
03:14:29.640of stones in which the elder and the younger were utilized at the same time so again the reason for
03:14:35.240that we don't really know but in the time of ausitru there was elder futhar conscriptions
03:14:41.480they were just dying out and then the younger kind of became uh more famous and i would say
03:14:48.120probably out of use of the fact that they were being carved into stone and they were a little
03:14:51.880bit easier to structure um but yeah that's outside of everything that's the only thing
03:14:57.640i would say you hit the nail right on the head all right so kade asks another question
03:15:05.560said thoughts on jackson crawford and his translations um thoughts on jackson crawford
03:15:14.040I don't think Jackson Crawford has a lot of character and a lot of code. I also think that it's less desirable, if not inappropriate, to take our translations of holy texts from someone who is not a practitioner of our faith.
03:15:36.660because I think it's very relevant in his conclusions and it has to factor into his
03:15:44.780translations. If you have, you know, six of one, half a dozen of the other on a translation,
03:15:53.800what are you going to default to? If you default to a spiritual interpretation,
03:15:59.220it's different than if you default to a scholastic interpretation. And I think that
03:16:06.300when dealing with spiritual text, you're best served with a practitioner of that faith to
03:16:13.060translate them. That said, his translations, he's a smart guy. I don't dispute his scholarship.
03:16:22.880But again, like his have them all, he writes this cowboy have them all, and he puts it in
03:16:30.500folksy Americana like way of expressing the have them all which again I'm not against and I don't
03:16:37.100think it's wrong most of the time but you translate something very differently as a
03:16:44.240scholastic than you do as a spiritual practitioner Jackson Crawford is not also true and Jackson
03:16:52.640Crawford is woke, and if you're woke, it's hard for me to have a lot of respect for some
03:17:01.480of the nuance of the conclusions that you come to.
03:17:09.640I know that Jackson Crawford has taken a very negative stance towards practitioners
03:17:15.880of Ausatru generally and practitioners of folkish Ausatru like the Ausatru folk assembly
03:17:22.440specifically. So, you know, I'll be friends of my friend's friends, but if he's an enemy
03:17:28.420of my friends or us, I'm not going to be his friend. Svon, what are your thoughts on Dr.
03:17:34.900Crawford and his translations? I knew when I first started getting familiar with him,
03:17:42.980as far as his videos were going a lot of his translations um interesting and and i i found
03:17:49.460some of his pronunciation stuff to be very helpful um i think to a lot of people that were trying to
03:17:55.300learn and he was spot on with some stuff but yeah then as with all things you know when we were just
03:18:02.260when it was just that i had no issue with it but it evolved or i think that perhaps people in in
03:18:10.260whatever that the internet community felt the need to pry open the box uh i don't know if he
03:18:16.900did it voluntarily but once the box is open i can't know and just accept now like it's
03:18:25.380you see the underbelly now you know do you continue on or not um yeah and when he when
03:18:32.020he kind of spoke out about the idea of faith towards the gods as being kind of ridiculous
03:18:37.540and had his views on that that was the that was the thing i saw that kind of was like all right
03:18:44.100i mean i don't know where the uh the scholastic scholars of elder times and i mean like in
03:18:51.300germany or you know in sweden and uh in iceland and in america these you know lots of people have
03:18:58.980been scholastically translating the uh the stories and um i don't know where they spiritually stood
03:19:05.860um but i also like that's the thing is i didn't know and you could also tell that some of the
03:19:13.140you you kind of gravitate towards the ones that have a lot more of a kind of enticement
03:19:17.300to the gods when they read the stories when they were younger it inspired them to learn
03:19:23.700the old norse to speak the language to to read it and try to understand it because they were just in
03:19:29.640this fervent field for it as opposed to it being more like a manual or um you know like the spirit
03:19:37.360of it was kind of lost in some people i think it was lost in him and i think it was lost once he
03:19:41.780was kind of brought under the microscope to explain to justify what he thinks about and
03:19:48.520what he chose to say kind of like that kind of just turned me off from it um i unfortunately
03:19:56.660like or or fortunately i did not hear any of his views or thoughts about us in specifics so i i
03:20:04.980take your word for it and but i i've fallen away from it the moment he even talked about religion
03:20:11.040as being kind of a falsity and seeing polytheism and seeing the gods as just being these kind of
03:20:17.160he only sees the the adas as the componental stories as if he was reading a a linguistic
03:20:25.760comic book. And, you know, that to me is not, he doesn't, he can't see beyond that. I know too
03:20:34.520much. So translation wise, I can't argue with him on a lot of things, but purpose wise, very much
03:20:42.100so. I have an argument against it. All right. So next question. How is it that both Odin and Jesus
03:20:53.040were said to have been hung on a tree, pierced by a spear, and sacrificed to themselves.
03:31:17.440We moved everybody over to Stripe. A little bit of a pain in the butt. Not going to say it wasn't, but we came back stronger and we kept going. Eventually, Stripe ended up cutting us as well. So we moved to directly processing through our bank.
03:31:34.820we make sure and our tech team makes sure that we always have a backup
03:31:41.040and hopefully if we can we have a plan c as well just in case i can't say it won't affect us in
03:31:50.320any way it very well may but we try to always make sure that we have at least two layers of
03:31:56.860back up in place so we can transition to something else when that comes about.
03:32:04.720I think it is ambitious to think that that comes out very soon and all of a sudden
03:32:10.480they're going to roll out digital currency and we'll phase out everything and the whole world
03:32:15.640changes in a year. We've been hearing people say that for a very long time. I'm not saying that
03:32:22.340will never happen. But that happening this year is unlikely. That happening in any calendar year
03:32:28.580in totality is very unlikely. But we want to be ready and we want to prepare the best we can.
03:32:36.300And we have. And we do. Even if everything switched to a digital currency,
03:32:44.060that would still come to us and we would still function just fine.
03:32:49.440And if the digital currency then wanted to persecute us, that's an entirely different issue. As it stands now, we are a, you know, I don't know where you're asking the question from, but certainly here in the United States, we are a protected religious church. We are a 501c3. We are in complete compliance. We've never had any problem with the United States government, nor do we intend to.
03:33:15.960we're completely appropriate to receive any kind of funds, be they digital or physical,
03:33:23.340and we're going to keep functioning under that until there is a reason not to.
03:33:28.980But I do want to assure you that we're always working on backup plans just in case.
03:33:34.280And Cliff and those guys are doing a really good job at that.
03:33:39.540Obsidian Skull asks, wasn't Sven Bjorn Bientensen the founder of Asitru?
03:33:45.620i'm glad you asked that um no he was the founder of what they practice in iceland but as far as
03:33:53.620the modern resurgence of aussitrew the astro free assemblies tax-exempt status actually came through
03:34:05.620within a month or two of the assatur fegeleth i probably butchered that
03:34:27.620a religious belief in the gods per se and much more of a
03:34:36.660nature cult kind of thing but if we if we're calling them the same thing then no technically
03:34:42.900steve mcnalen's was a few months previous but what is interesting is a number of people
03:34:49.380the Intensen, McNallan, L.C. Christensen, and some folks in the Odenic Rite, all around the
03:34:58.160same period of time, all rediscovered a version of our ancestral faith.
03:35:09.620Bientensen, and I don't mean to cast negativity on him in person, the folks that have taken over
03:35:17.160from him in the current group in iceland
03:35:22.680they've said that they don't believe in our gods they don't believe in our faith they're not
03:35:27.800also true they like cultural trappings of things that we do and basically the current church there
03:35:36.600is a all-inclusive pot of not christianity and the way it works over there is there's
03:35:46.920a tax that gets collected for religion by the state and that tax has to go to a religious pot
03:35:55.240whatever that pot may be for a very long time the only pot it went to was lutheranism
03:36:02.280but with the recognition of aussitrew there's another pot for it to go to so everybody that
03:36:08.440says we don't want our money going to the lutherans it goes to aussitrew and so
03:36:14.200So. They play dress up. They have said that they're there and I don't even know if they call him and I was here.
03:36:24.220I'm not sure what they call their their leader of their organization, but he has said that he does not believe in the little literal existence of our gods.
03:36:35.940He is intimated. It's not a religious thing. It's a spiritual, cultural thing.
03:36:41.660and it's become a haven to perform gay weddings and degenerate rites that the Lutheran church
03:36:50.840would not accept, you can go to the Yastatru place and do that. But those people, I would say,
03:37:02.700emphatically are not religious. And I can't say that no one over there who practices with that
03:37:08.180group has faith in our gods their leadership and their structure certainly doesn't so it's a little
03:37:14.900bit of a different animal but it uh there's a lot of nuance there like i said i i mean no ill will
03:37:22.740towards fenbjorn um from all accounts i've heard he sounded like he was a really good guy a really
03:37:29.940nice guy a really well-meaning guy and i can't say what his faith was in our gods um
03:37:38.180Yeah, I don't, I don't mean to insult that man at all. But the current organization is very, very different.
03:37:45.380Svon, do you have any insight on that being a being a native Icelander?
03:37:50.400Well, and I never got to meet Sven Björn Bjartason. I never met him, but I did meet his, his successor, Jörmann Geringi.
03:38:00.260and again his focus of the religion was based around I guess environmental politics and
03:38:08.260not that I'm against that I just didn't quite know where we were going to go with it once he
03:38:13.640started explaining it. There is a sense of Icelandic natural preservation which is good
03:38:22.100I think and then there is kind of more of a global aspect in which they
03:38:26.900uh you know uh that's where it starts to kind of overflow into the idea that the west needs to do
03:38:32.420these things and then from the west the the world or at least that's what they say but kind of stops
03:38:37.620at the west um uh as far as the name ausa through goes you have to remember too it comes from norway
03:38:46.340initially it wasn't in iceland so the the word itself too but it's again we're focusing on the
03:38:52.900meaning also true means like truffle to the to the houses through the gods um so you know the
03:39:00.500application of that again sven bjorn created the house through failure because i think that there
03:39:07.460were people in iceland who wanted to return to their cultural origins and in many ways you have
03:39:14.900a combination of people but most of them are like i would say there are many people in like
03:39:20.900um i've attended some like native american powwows uh i wanted to learn i wanted to see what they
03:39:26.260were doing i wanted to appreciate their folkways and i've talked to a lot of them and i was blown
03:39:31.700away by how many were actually fundamental christians and i was like what like and so they
03:39:39.300they were doing this as a cultural connective point but their faith and spirituality were
03:39:43.780completely in another realm and we could go that's a whole other discussion but amongst the um
03:39:49.700icelanders it was very much the same thing there but their their go-to wasn't fundamental
03:39:54.020christianity it was like scientific atheism or scientific agnosticism and uh but but the cultural
03:40:01.140tie helped them fulfill a hole in their in in themselves so there is a lot of that and it
03:40:08.900gets even worse with uh hilmar um i never met him uh hilmar orn let me see his name
03:40:20.020yeah hilmar orn hilmerson i never met him i know that he's come out to say a lot of things about
03:40:26.260the state in which they believe and i know that they're making a temple up there but that temple
03:40:30.420i think is uh much more like a pause flag on the play oh they what they call the temple started
03:40:39.700oh is it planning to make a temple to my knowledge there's been no progress on that in about 15 years
03:40:48.420really the last i heard was that it was kind of like a cultural center and it was going to be
03:40:54.900modern modern art style which is gonna be a lot of things but show me the temple right
03:41:03.300and so i mean again the context of those situate that situation to say alsatru is unavailable to
03:41:09.860anyone outside of iceland is kind of the same argument when i see people say like odin is a
03:41:14.980different god from woden amongst the english or votan amongst the germans totally different gods
03:41:22.020it's like wait a minute are you crazy like no they were very deeply interconnected so saying
03:41:28.340that also through is only exclusive um and again that's like saying that we can't call the the you
03:41:34.420know like we we have to like we can't say the god's names because we don't speak icelandic i
03:41:40.500mean we we formulated that and and even they themselves have evolutionized the names of the
03:41:45.300gods and of the religion you know whether or not you ask somebody what's the old religion call and
03:41:50.340they say foreign say that you know that's the old way uh but also true is a is a more modern word to
03:41:57.220give a title that means and has correct meaning because foreign say there just means the old way
03:42:03.220it's it can be it can mean anything uh but also true is very specific and i think that's good
03:42:09.620and yes again when you spoke about how it all spread about some i've heard it referred to once
03:42:15.220poetically as the breeze that blew uh around yggdrasil or through the roots of yggdrasil
03:42:22.980um and it was this time and i think that it's important to know that our gods again when they
03:42:28.980speak those spells what they know they're doing is they're going to fracture out a web of action
03:42:35.940and what rises to the top is the victory is the ones worthy and the others will fall away that's
03:42:42.340how they understand that even in the souls of men it does apply into the houses of the gods that
03:42:49.380that's that spread gets painted across the souls of all of all the folk all over the world but
03:42:55.860who's going to rise at the end well that's what the gods want to see because that's the way the
03:43:00.180gods work because they know that's the purpose so bob guy asks and i saw this when it came across
03:43:09.620this was in in reference to the uh remarks i made about homosexuals what if we have family members
03:43:16.660who are gay um bob if you have family members who are gay or anyone else listening i'm sorry
03:43:24.580to hear that that's very rough and and i mean this i don't say this glib and i am sorry if i
03:43:30.980come off that way i'm sad that one of your family is going through a very serious mental illness
03:43:38.660that's very unfortunate um it doesn't change anything that i said
03:43:46.500right or wrong isn't determined by your relation to people who do a practice
03:43:53.540theft is bad if i have a brother who's a thief i may still love my brother but
03:44:00.420it doesn't make theft not bad as far as when it comes to watching children
03:44:07.940You're going to do you. So I talked earlier about when our goals are ordained, we have this tremendous responsibility to do this, right?
03:44:23.940And under that, our Gothar make choices. We together as Gothar and ultimately myself as Osheria Gothi make decisions on fundamental elements of our faith and our practice.
03:44:39.060Those carry a tremendous amount of weight and we take them really, really seriously.
03:44:44.380If you have children and you're wondering, you know, what to do as far as leaving them with homosexual members of your family as your parent or as their parent, that's that is your responsibility and your call to make hope that nothing bad happens to anybody's kids.
03:45:08.640um no part of me is saying that every single homosexual will molest children that's just not
03:45:17.000true but i do think it's an unacceptable risk to have my child alone with a homeless person
03:45:25.820who's a homosexual be the male or female because something's very broken inside them
03:45:31.880That causes them to react in a sexually exploitive way. And I don't want the damage that that presents to my child is too, too great for me to trust that.
03:45:46.920it's your job to make that decision for your family. And I sincerely hope that the very best
03:45:58.060thing happens for, you know, your children. And I understand that it's conflicting. You don't want
03:46:04.240to alienate members of your family. You have a frith and a loyalty to your family members,
03:46:09.460of course but you have the ultimate responsibility to protect your children you are their protector
03:46:17.300when they can't protect themselves and i mean please make the best decision you can accordingly
03:46:28.900that's the best i know to tell you on that i think it's important to you you're speaking from the
03:46:34.740front in which you're saying to avoid these situations and i think a lot of people could
03:46:39.060say gnash their teeth at you and say oh you're painting with broad strokes and you're doing this
03:46:43.860and you're doing that and you can't be further from the truth or whatever but i will say i'll
03:46:47.780step in and say i've seen it from the other side of the threshold twice both very personal times
03:46:55.700in which there was an involvement of abuse that was predicated by a person with an immoral sexual
03:47:03.140orientation as they call it so i have a little bit more of a vested dog in the fight on that
03:47:08.580one and i would rather you take advice in the house here ago the and beat it at the curve
03:47:14.340than be on my position and what are the chances if it's such a rare occasion and twice i've seen it
03:47:21.140in deep like close proximities and i it's not fun i don't want to i don't want to talk about
03:47:27.460that anymore but the idea again is that it's you know if it's such a rare occasion in it
03:47:33.300random chance i've seen it twice so i would rather heed wisdom but also at the same time i would say
03:47:42.740you have the obligation to be noble and so that obligation to your family does extend but
03:47:50.420it doesn't also mean that you need to be foolish it doesn't also need mean that you can't have
03:47:56.180a predicated position of saying i don't think this is morally correct there's nothing wrong
03:48:01.860with saying that that's more noble to say that but at the same time you you should be aware of
03:48:08.020everything and formulate the ideas that you are responsible for your children and there are some
03:48:14.180situations that you wouldn't want them to be in you know in a vacuum i think that potential hurt
03:48:23.220feelings from an adult homosexual in your family pales in comparison to the damage that your
03:48:35.220vulnerable child being abused sexually by someone causes and i think that you know
03:48:42.980it's an unfortunate situation you find yourself in you got to do the best with the cards you're dealt
03:48:47.620and uh yeah i would i would think that an adult member of your family that's made adult choices
03:48:55.480to live a lifestyle that is embracing of mental illness i think they're in a position where they
03:49:04.960can take one for the team and just be a little bit offended if it means protecting your child
03:49:09.820um and if they're kin then your child is their kin and they should want the best for your child
03:49:15.780And I think that a lot of them deep down know that probably better off keeping their distance from that influence.