00:11:39.200the afa was a california thing in 2001 if you look at our membership map today you never would
00:11:47.840have thunk it because the i guess center of gravity as far as weight of members go has
00:11:54.320moved substantially east since then yep um
00:12:06.240so we've got a couple of couple of questions the first one here so far uh from folk builder jason
00:12:13.760gallagher good evening gofie mayo can you talk about how you got the name bode and the tradition
00:12:21.280of giving quote-unquote heathen names in certain groups back in the day he'll be afs yeah hey
00:12:29.040jason uh thanks um not a lot of people know that um it is a it is a strange strange world i walk
00:12:39.600of names uh so my legal name which you can easily see on the database if you are privy to it uh is
00:12:47.440Matthew. Everybody at work calls me mad. Of course, I know some of you watching this may be shocked to know that that is not my actual government name. But 20 some odd years ago, it was the fashion to take a quote unquote he the name. And so that first goalie that I ever knew his name was Craig. Craig asked me if I'd like to do that as part of my professional faith. You know, it was an option. I could just, you know,
00:13:17.440I could just stay Matthew Mayo or I could, you know, take on a heathen name.
00:13:39.420And this guy, Craig, actually, you know, put some heart and some thought into it.
00:13:45.560And so Bodie, and it's important to note here that my good friend Craig is a little bit has spelling issues, a little bit of dyslexia, grammar issues, doesn't always really spell things correctly.
00:14:02.140And so Bodie is actually supposed to be spelled with two D's instead of one.
00:14:07.460But Craig forgot that, just left me with the one.
00:14:10.680So it's not actually the correct spelling.
00:14:14.000However, it comes from the Riggs Dula. When Heimdall comes down and fathers the three classes of men, Bodhi is one of the first sons listed of the first free man.
00:14:27.940And it actually means speaker with a capital S and also one who owns property.
00:27:02.020Yeah, I think that was a few years previous, but Steve doing his Odin bloat was the first bloat that I was ever a part of that I wasn't leading.
00:27:25.940You know, I was originally up in Alaska and fairly isolated when I went to my first AFA event, Midsummer in the Sierras.
00:27:38.160Yeah, Steve's Odin bloat was extremely powerful, and that did a lot to bring me to where I am today.
00:27:48.460um we've got another question from folk builder katie joiner
00:27:56.100bode where is the bestest hoff and why should the folk come there in february
00:28:02.480uh it is one uh it is in white springs florida uh it is the hoff dedicated to lord and yord
00:28:09.780and um you should definitely come and experience our down home southern hospitality
00:28:16.100um you should come experience the piousness and the love and the community and uh yeah
00:28:23.400I know that uh all our other Hoff members may fight for the bestest Hoff but
00:28:28.240you know we've been humoring you guys for a long time and um I think it's time we put a stop to
00:28:33.620that we all know that New York's Hoff is the bestest Hoff so
00:37:42.680So 22 years ago, what we were doing right now was something that those people
00:37:49.440then are still talking about now, but we're actually doing.
00:37:52.360so and it was uh it was rough it was rough 20 something years ago it was very very rough um
00:38:00.940most of you guys who have come to it in the past 20 years would not recognize it as what it
00:38:05.360you would not recognize it then as what it is now um we're very thankful for families
00:38:12.200and for our women folk because back then it was a lot of dudes
00:38:16.800Yep. It was what we now call grossetry back then. There was a few pockets of seriousness
00:38:23.840and piousness, but they were relatively small. Thankfully, they have grown.
00:38:36.280Yeah, just thinking about it, I mean, a point that I try to make on here a lot is
00:38:46.800and i think that i think this is natural to do so it's not uh being overly critical
00:38:57.120just being honest and truth is one of our one of our virtues the the biggest
00:39:07.760biggest step you'll ever take in any endeavor is the distance from the couch to the front door and
00:39:16.800That's how you're able to accomplish stuff. I think that really often in some of the circles that all of us run in, people spend a whole lot of time contemplating and debating and analyzing and recontemplating and arguing and theorizing and reading and
00:39:46.800whatever else but very often they don't ever get around to the doing
00:39:52.560and also true is truly about doing we are our deeds and it's nice it's nice to see
00:40:01.680things that are god's accomplishments we're able to make and efforts that we're able to initiate
00:40:09.920and the blessings that our gods pour upon those efforts when we get up and we start trying to do
00:40:15.840stuff. And it's so easy to make perfect the enemy of good and to wait around until the perfect
00:40:22.620moment or the perfect time in your life or the perfect circumstance or the perfect whatever it
00:40:29.260might be. And there's a whole lot of people at the end of their life on their deathbed
00:40:36.500wondering what life would have been like if instead of waiting for perfect, they just got
00:40:42.280out there and started doing the best they could with what they had. So it's really nice to be
00:40:47.960able to see, see accomplishments when our folk put their mind towards something and put their
00:40:53.560efforts towards something. The gods really do bless those that get out there and put in the work.
00:41:02.480We got a couple other questions going on. Oh, we got a couple of donation things here. I'm sorry,
00:41:07.100guys. $10 from Chris Lukat. Nick, mute yourself. I realized this would have been more beneficial
00:41:18.440at the time had I said it, but he wasn't listening to me when he was unmuted earlier. I tried,
00:41:24.240but we appreciate your donation, Chris. Thank you for that. And we got a $20 donation from
00:41:31.100the Phelps family. Here's a check-off donation for New York's Hof tonight. But Baldr's Hof is
00:41:37.860the bestest Hof. Thank you. So we appreciate your donation. We appreciate your efforts.
00:41:44.840We appreciate the work you did on New York's Hof website this last week. It looks beautiful.
00:41:50.760it it looks awesome each each each of our websites that you move to looks better than
00:42:01.000the previous one and i'm excited on uh on where this is going thank you very much they look awesome
00:42:06.720um so bode from katie joiner what is your favorite meal you have been served at a hoff
00:42:16.860well your husband's uh cheese grits or whatever every cheese and sausage or whatever grits
00:42:31.820um i loved it so much i took some home from from cigarette back in last last summer so
00:42:57.380If for nothing else, please come to New York's Hoth so that you can taste my good friend's cooking because the man is amazing.
00:43:05.160um doesn't matter what he makes it's always top-notch and tasty and you know literally
00:43:13.100people who are like you know no i'm trying to trying to watch my calories or my macros or
00:43:18.100whatever we'll go back and get thirds and fourths so yeah i would have to say mike's cooking
00:43:22.840yep yeah that's a folk builder mike joiner he does he does awesome things there uh he
00:43:31.060has cooked for a number of events and he certainly cooks for stuff at uh at mjordshoff there and it's
00:43:38.980really a it's really a special thing it's delicious food it's awesome but also
00:43:44.880his doing that as part of his hospitality of being one of the folk builders of that hoff
00:43:52.700is in and of itself a really kind of special act of devotion to our gods and to our church and it's
00:44:00.700really a it's really a nice thing and he he puts that love into the food I think
00:44:05.540so I noticed there was a comment early on when we were talking about the quote-unquote heathen
00:44:19.460names about casting off the slave name like they did in the black nationalist movement0.95
00:44:25.240And yes, exactly like that. And I don't think there was any intentional overlap, but there was really a movement in the 60s and 70s, certainly in the United States, to recapture ethnic identity and traditional belief and traditional culture.
00:44:51.240culture and you saw that in the black nationalist movement you saw that amongst various strands of
00:44:58.760white identity movements you saw that with uh
00:45:04.200native americans in a number of different varieties on you know the god is red movement
00:45:10.840that they were doing about re-embracing their you know ancestral faith and ancestral identity
00:45:18.040So you saw it in a lot of different places. But yeah, it was the same the same kind of spirit.
00:45:25.960But his parents gave him a Hebrew name. They sure did. I happen to know that because my parents gave
00:45:33.000me the same Hebrew name. Right. And, you know, while we could while we could all, you know,
00:45:41.160damn the man and take it back, you know, and name ourselves things like, you know,
00:45:46.800Leif and Ragnar and whatnot, whatever.
00:45:50.420I mean, at the end of the day, you have to think, would I ever legally change my name?
00:45:58.020Probably not while my parents still live, because that's disrespectful to them.
01:00:55.320So we talked in broad strokes about getting involved in things.
01:01:00.580I mentioned that the hardest step to take is always that one from the couch to the door.
01:01:07.660And I've talked about it a little bit my first time.
01:01:12.840so first gathering of ossature that i was involved in i was in i was living in anchorage alaska at
01:01:23.320the time and i think it was through it could have been through a yahoo group or through
01:01:35.800a meetup group but back then there were meetups there were yeah meetups was a big thing to try to
01:01:43.480find people in your local area and so there was not any other afa members in anchorage at the
01:01:53.400time there's a couple up in fairbanks but as far as folks close to me that wasn't really there so0.99
01:01:59.720So I found some unaffiliated prostitutes who were up there and, and they were going,
01:02:09.960and I forget the occasion, but it was during, it was during summer at some point.
01:02:16.200So I'm not sure what the occasion was during summer.
01:02:18.280And they were hosting a, a bloat in a, you know, a bloat and a meal at a park.
01:02:24.120And I remember I had no idea what these, you know, oddball people might be up to.
01:02:31.820I didn't know, and it was sketchy, and I was nervous.
01:02:34.160And I was, I think that I masked social anxiety or fear on my part with, oh, these people are probably losers.
01:02:54.380These guys are probably lame or whatever, you know, whatever I wanted to tell myself.
01:02:59.640and i and i went and it was i remember i parked and i went creeping around in the woods
01:03:09.940to try to view them from a distance where i could see them and they couldn't see me to see what i
01:03:16.000was getting myself into oh my goodness what are these characters up to what do they look like
01:03:21.420what's going on um because again i didn't know what to expect and i think that there's a lot of
01:03:28.060things that go into not taking that first step. There's infinite possibilities of finding some
01:03:36.140reason that you've got something else to do that day, or that now's not a good time, but maybe
01:03:41.580later, or that, you know, whatever, fill in the blanks. We all, it, unfortunately, the human mind
01:03:50.260has an amazing capacity to manufacture excuses but yeah i remember i remember that and there was
01:04:04.580two two really nice ladies that i haven't talked to in a long time unfortunately um
01:04:11.220a woman named danielle she was there with her daughter and uh and a woman named lisa
01:04:17.940and they were there and that was my first thing that i did and we just got together in the middle
01:04:23.540of a beautiful park that's one of the anchors beautiful place and it was a really nice park and
01:04:29.700and it was so much easier from there once i'd done it um once i was done it once i went to that first
01:04:36.740one then you know i think it was maybe one or two months later i was hosting stuff at my house
01:04:45.300and I was all in. But that first step is really hard. Bodie, what was your first step? What was
01:04:54.480the first Ausitru thing you attended, no matter what the scale?
01:05:04.580This would have been around probably, I'll say the summer of 2001, I would think,
01:05:13.420maybe around midsummer um that's whenever i was kind of in my probationary period as it were um
01:05:23.660there was and i know our our good friend go the east he lives not too far away from there's a
01:05:33.620place in west georgia or north west georgia norton anyway northern georgia there's a place
01:05:41.700called dragon hills it is a 75 acre site that is for the past 30 something years i don't know if
01:05:49.920it's still active now but it was in the 80s and the 90s it was a big old neo-pagan gathering spot
01:05:54.900and um that first go through that i knew craig him and his wife she was some kind of hippie
01:06:02.240neopagan and um they ran two big events there every year um so i don't guess it was midsummer
01:06:11.660It was around May Day, unfortunately, or not May Day, but Memorial Day.
01:06:20.580So they did a gathering that was a four-day weekend for Memorial Day and one for Labor Day.
01:06:29.840And that was the first time that I can remember actually standing in Bloat and sitting in Sambal was that year.
01:06:40.000was back then and I'll tell you something you brought to mind Matt was we're talking about how
01:06:47.260it took so long to get the first off and now we've gotten two three and four in such rapid succession
01:06:51.840I'll tell you guys listening and watching one of the reasons why um back in 2002
01:06:59.640um I went to and I don't remember where the heck we were in Alabama but it was somewhere in Alabama
01:07:07.840And this moot was put on by an organization called Kayak, spelled C-I-A-K, and that stood for the Confederation of Independent Ossitru Kindreds, because there was the AFA, which was a California thing.
01:07:26.460Then there was the Ossetree Alliance, which was a Arizona thing.
01:07:31.560And both in the early 2000s were kind of seen as big Ossetree, you know, like they're trying to make this national.
01:07:42.140They're trying to get all of us together.
01:07:45.060Like, we're going to be a confederation of independent Ossetree kindreds.1.00
01:07:49.200So that's the silliness that was going on 20 something years ago when you look back and go,1.00
01:07:55.320well gee why did it take us so long to get to where we are now with the afa that's why stuff
01:08:01.980like that because founder mcnallen and githia sheila and some other folks back in the day they
01:08:08.460were really trying to march towards what we have now but people like that and their pig-headedness
01:08:14.840and their small-mindedness were just they were boxing themselves out of this march towards glory
01:08:21.980that we're all on now, that we're all participating and driving.
01:08:25.580They were doing this to themselves, and you could see the silliness
01:08:29.860and kind of the jankiness of it back then, but it was the only thing that we had
01:08:34.640because, you know, Brownsville, Grass Valley, California is a long way
01:08:39.580from East Alabama, a long way from Florida, a long way from Georgia.
01:08:44.440So we didn't understand then what we could have now.
01:08:49.120So that's the silliness that was going on back then.
01:08:51.980So, I think this warrants a little bit of attention because it's an important point.
01:09:03.860It's always been a challenge and continues to be to this day.
01:09:09.260And people, and I think any people that are uprooted for so long from folk identity, but, you know, the more I think on it, our people have always struggled with this.
01:09:31.640people are very selfish and we can pretend that we're not but i think the first instinct
01:09:40.360of people is to be very selfish and i don't think you know there's there are some souls
01:09:48.060out there that just aren't and you know maybe god's blessed them but for a lot of us it takes
01:09:56.700stopping consciously acknowledging and then choosing not to be selfish one of the hardest
01:10:04.660things is okay cool we need a hof where are we going to put it every single person thinks we
01:10:12.320should put it within walking distance of their house yep um and i've watched you know any of
01:10:21.160early attempts before we got odin's hof to get a hof well no we want to keep our money local no
01:10:27.080we want to keep our money local no we're gonna build we're gonna build our own hof we're i've
01:23:38.660No, I think they care about whether somebody is being generous and wholehearted with what they're doing or if somebody is deliberately being miserly or stingy.
01:23:50.920I don't think there's really a specific answer to that, but not to avoid the question at all, I think it really depends, again, on the person.
01:24:01.100It's not about, like, quantity of liquid.
01:24:03.740Very often people at home making an offering or coming to their offers as a gesture and as a gift, you know, maybe we'll pour a shot or something.
01:24:13.900It doesn't have to be a great quantity of liquid.
01:24:16.400The point is the intention of what you do behind it.
01:24:20.920that said there's other mechanics that come into play if you're doing a group ritual with
01:24:27.660you know 50 or 100 other ostrich or and you've got a little tiny horn that you know can barely
01:24:34.300fit me in it then it looks chintzy and uh doesn't have the same effect as a as a full horn that's
01:24:40.600that's suitable for the occasion so circumstances matter you have any thoughts on that buddy
01:24:45.520um yeah i was gonna say you know if that's all you got that's all you got the gods don't take
01:24:50.660a tally they don't say you know well you know old Bodie's uh offerings he used to give us this
01:24:57.740high shelf mead and now he's giving us this low rent stuff so we're not necessarily going to
01:25:02.500shower as much blessings on him and give him as much insight as as we normally do because he's
01:25:07.580being a little chintzy with the mead I don't think that's it you know it's about the sharing
01:25:12.800process Bodie can you drop the the have them all verse on us about the many friends that Odin's
01:25:20.240one? Oh, yeah. Do you mean the loaf and the cup? I do. Yeah, I was just thinking that as we were
01:25:28.340talking about it, I was going to say, you know, Odin himself says in the Hava Mall that with
01:25:31.900half a loaf and an empty cup, I found myself a friend. And if that's good enough for the father
01:25:37.840of the gods to make friends out on the road, then I don't think that we would be going too far wrong
01:25:44.260with giving the best we had and you know when we speak of like where my name comes from earlier
01:25:50.780when we speak of the Riggs doula uh being uh being part of Riggs Blood Kindred what's up Dan
01:25:59.240um being part of Riggs Blood Kindred you know Riggs was the name that Heimdall took when he
01:26:04.880came down to Midgard to follow the three classes of men and as you move through that story um
01:26:11.780you see that great-grandmother and great-grandfather did not have uh or grandmother and
01:26:18.180grandfather they did not have the best their house was not very well put together it was drafty
01:26:24.280um you know the the meat was half cooked when he arrived there was no ale that was brewed
01:26:30.160and it progresses on you know into greater levels of accoutrement as you move through the story
01:26:36.900But the point is, is that grandmother and grandfather and or great grandmother, grandfather, grandmother and grandfather and father and mother, the three couples, they gave the best that they had to this auspicious traveler.
01:26:51.160They didn't turn him away because they didn't have the fanciest goods and the best meat and the best, you know, room and board.
01:26:59.240They gave him what they had. They gave him the best that they had.
01:27:03.200And I think that's one of the lessons that we can take from that. And that applies to this is that it doesn't matter if you have if it's just you at your home altar and you have a small drinking horn that was, you know, let's say that was the only one that you could afford on your on your budget.
01:27:21.820okay um you're not getting any judgment from us you are not getting any you know any uh furrowed
01:27:30.760brows because you don't have this massive drinking horn that holds 14 bottles of liquor i mean that's
01:27:36.360not that's not a thing let's not make that a thing let's uh as the kids say nowadays let's
01:27:43.040normalize doing the best we can with what we've got now you should aspire to give the gods always
01:27:50.600the best of what you have and that doesn't mean that you you know give them gold and jewels that
01:27:58.200you are trying to save for your retirement or something like that but it's the best of what
01:28:02.200you can afford to give without making yourself destitute um i remember speaking of ancient things
01:28:10.360which is one of my specialties back in the day whenever i was like i said when i was kind of
01:28:17.400trafficking in you know neo-pagan circles traveling not trafficking has a better word
01:28:22.540traveling in neo-pagan circles um i found out that many many many times a lot of these folks would
01:28:32.040forego bills to go to these gatherings like they would not pay their light bill or they would you
01:28:38.840know put off their car payment so they could spend three or four hundred dollars or more for a weekend
01:28:44.660And I remember being of two minds about that.
01:28:48.260I remember thinking, wow, that's a lot of dedication to the cause.
01:28:51.220And then also I remember thinking, why don't you just save up and make sure that your bills are paid and you can go to this event?
01:29:00.300Because that's that's really not that's really not the most ideal situation.
01:29:05.360We don't ever want any of you to forego an essential thing, you know, that you need for your for your livelihood or to keep living, you know, to come to an event.
01:35:37.360farming in the carolinas and then moving over towards eventually a bunch of my people
01:35:44.160ended up in mississippi um the most recent from europe lines of my people we have uh
01:35:53.280on my dad's mom's side my dad's mom's father's side we've got folks from scotland uh from clan ross um
01:36:06.800and other than that also at the like the very beginning of the 1900s we have a couple who
01:36:14.160The gentleman was a Frenchman, or no, I'm sorry, the gentleman was a Swissman, and his wife was French, and they actually came over separately.
01:36:24.880I don't know the nature of how their marriage was set up, but they came over separately.
01:36:31.800It was Fritz Montandon and his wife Sophie that came over, and I was able to find the pictures of the ships they came over on.
01:36:41.200And I've got a, if I had it handy, I would show you a picture of them.
01:36:46.760But those are the most recent from Europe.
01:36:49.180So, but other than that, the vast majority, as far as I know, from England.
01:36:57.120Yeah, all of mine have been here since my oldest ancestor that I know.
01:37:04.400well my the oldest ancestor well the original uh one who came here um let's say it that way words
01:37:11.680are hard um my first american ancestor stepped off the boat from england somewhere wherever you got
01:37:21.120off the boat in virginia back then uh in 1685 and it took them another hundred some odd years to get
01:37:28.960from Virginia down here, because as I said earlier, we were the original whiteys who
01:37:35.840came in, kind of if you follow the coast down through the Carolinas across the bottom half
01:37:42.520of Georgia and into the panhandle of Florida, and all across southern Alabama and into southern
01:37:47.020Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, I think is where we finally stopped. But along the way,
01:37:52.000my people stopped in the panhandle of Florida.
01:37:55.680The Mayos come from Jackson County, Florida,
01:37:59.680which is not too far away from New York's Hoff.
01:38:14.080So we've been here a long time, long time.
01:38:22.000yeah i'm just checking on uh something on a date i think the oldest of my family that i know that
01:38:31.840was born here was uh john bond born in north carolina in 1690 um but yeah so i've got got
01:38:47.380american roots that go back that far um i believe his family was from uh dorset in england
01:38:57.620yeah it was an interesting uh interesting uncovering my genealogy and my
01:39:03.060my last name which is a bit unique um it has um you know i used to say unfortunately it has
01:39:14.500french origins i don't say that anymore i know we always clown on our french relatives and cousins
01:39:19.300but um you know for for various reasons which we won't get into but you know uh mayo was originally
01:39:29.060m-a-y-u-x it was mayo and then through the process of history and all the forces that shaped that
01:39:39.460That, you know, it became Mayhew, then Mayhew became Mayho, M-A-Y-H-O, then they lopped the H off and left the O.
01:39:50.360People think we're Irish because County Mayo is one of the largest counties in Ireland, but they're literally, you guys can fact check this for me.
01:39:58.400There are literally no one, there's not a single soul in the entire island of Ireland with the last name Mayo.
01:40:03.600So not a single one, which is an odd thing, but it's the truth as far as I can reckon it.
01:40:10.900So, yeah, we were – Mayo is an Anglo name by way of France,
01:40:16.880as so many things were in England back in the day.
01:40:20.840So then we came over here, and we haven't left since.
01:40:27.740Goethe Bodie, what is your favorite holiday?
01:44:05.680But what is really important, and by all means, if you have the ability to affect that and you're in a position to make decisions that affect that, then please do that.
01:47:01.060But I also recognize the fact that I and this is going to sound to some as a cop out, but it's not.
01:47:09.260I am powerless to do anything about it. What I am empowered to change is what we're about right now.
01:47:17.760I'm not a political operative. I'm a priest of the ace here.
01:47:21.560That is my scope and my sphere of influence and my scope of practice.
01:47:26.420That is what I'm going to concern myself with. The microcosm can affect the macrocosm. So as they all share ago, they said, if we would just focus on ourselves and I'm not advocating being head in the sand, I'm not, I'm not, not advocating that we completely tune out the outside world or the everyday world that this political stuff happens in.
01:47:50.240And I'm not saying that what I'm saying is, is that it would behoove us to be concerned more about each other and more about this stuff that we have going on to, as founder me now and has said recently with his new book, you know, you know, the last time that Wotan awakened himself or awakened in his people, it was a, it was more of a, of a martial aspect and it didn't really turn out so well.
01:48:17.040so now this time is a spiritual awakening so if we tried the politics and it didn't work once
01:48:25.720the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result
01:48:30.260i feel that votan himself is telling us that the solution is going to be spiritual it's going to
01:48:40.380be religious i think that that's why the gods have heaped victory upon victory upon us
01:48:49.600But as the Alshira Goethe likes to remind me all the time,
01:48:52.320you have to look at the net positive and the net negative.
01:48:55.860And as it stands right now, we are at a net positive.
01:48:59.860Doing what we're doing, aligning ourselves with our spiritual interests,
01:49:05.220curing our soul sickness, getting back to where we need to be in here and in here.
01:49:13.060Instead of worrying about everything, you know, border crisis, I mean, to be honest with you, man, I'm more concerned about doing a good job as far as leading my folk.
01:49:27.040I'm more concerned about making sure that their needs are met spiritually and in whatever way I can accomplish than I am about what's going on thousands of miles away from me.
01:50:11.540but i think that we find ourselves much more behind enemy lines
01:50:17.660with a lot of the ruling elites in the country that we're in that you know are of the same
01:50:29.680genetic stock as the rest of us, I think those people are doing far more to hurt us than,
01:50:36.180you know, the other folk that are, that are taking over the Southern Western part of the0.96
01:50:43.800United States and more. I see what you're saying and the demographic shift. I don't like stuff0.98
01:50:51.800that my forefathers fought for and built being taken over by a different group of people. I
01:50:59.660And certainly I don't think that's good for us.
01:51:03.600But I also think that a lot of the folks that are allowing that to happen are a much bigger, you know, much bigger enemy to us than them.
01:51:15.080But what but again, what are you going to do about it?
01:51:17.240And I think a whole lot of our people, I've watched a lot of people for ever since I was aware of it.
01:51:24.960So, you know, probably about 30 years now, I've watched a whole bunch of our people get very upset about lots of political things.
01:51:33.080I haven't watched that upsetness manifest in positive change towards the political ends that those people want.
01:51:41.080most of the time what i have seen is people getting out and voting and making some better
01:51:48.820things happen locally some better things happen in you know ways that are available to them but
01:51:55.040where i've seen the most bang for your buck on building the world that you want is within our
01:52:02.080afa is within our afa family that has been the biggest thing that i've seen in my life that has
01:52:09.140moved what we want forward in a way that benefits my family in a way that benefits my friends and
01:52:17.540in a way that builds the world that i want to see and so you know do what you want to do if there's
01:52:24.820stuff that you can be politically active in you know the afa has never encouraged people not to
01:52:29.940be politically active by all means but politics isn't necessarily sitting around complaining with
01:52:35.220other guys who complain about it it's very often getting people in office voting on things even if
01:52:43.060it's not a hundred percent your guy to move stuff forward um i think that we've got really narrow
01:52:49.060views on a lot of these things but like i said before this is something that you can make a
01:52:54.180huge difference in moving the needle and making the world better and that's uh it's what we try
01:52:59.380to focus our time on um as people said over in the chat it's really easy to get bogged down
01:53:07.700with doom porn we've got a constant yep so one of the places the a so i mentioned earlier um
01:53:15.220we get deep platform places because folks don't like us but one place that we have a really big
01:53:19.700following still is twitter um man i wish i could turn off my feed on twitter and just look for the
01:53:26.100stuff that i want to look for because the feed itself is just constant negativity 24 7. and it's
01:53:33.860really easy to let that weigh you down and beat you into inactivity and beat you into hiding in
01:53:40.100your basement and gnashing your teeth and shaking your fist at the world instead of getting out
01:53:44.660there and capitalizing on all the amazing things that we can do and we're doing really great stuff
01:53:49.940together um so i hope people listening to this you know check out what we're up to and get involved
01:53:57.460be be part of be part of what we're building instead of bemoaning all of the things that
01:54:02.900other folks are tearing down yeah you know matt on one of the um on that tip about you know you
01:54:08.260could just you could just do important yourself into inactivity uh something that uh my my good
01:54:16.660friend and and kinsman witten young says all the time is that uh are you gonna keep saying one day
01:54:24.660are you gonna say day one you know are you gonna say one day or day one um you can sit there and
01:54:32.740you know say all day long and like i said earlier 20 something years ago uh when i was sitting
01:54:39.780around those fires with those guys who were content to sit around the same fires forever
01:54:44.100they would all say man one day it'd be nice if we had this or that or this or that and 20 something
01:54:50.560years later we're doing it we're doing these things because some of us at some point said
01:54:57.120enough of this one day today is day one so you and i have in a lot of
01:55:04.620though they were separated by an entire continent i think we sat around a lot of
01:55:14.300proverbially the same fires of the fat dudes wondered what it'd be like one of these days
01:55:21.300some of those folks have come with us and are enjoying what we've got and unfortunately some
01:55:33.020those guys are still sitting around those same fires, wondering what could be.
01:55:39.640And I feel bad for them. I wish they'd come join what we're doing. But we've watched a lot of
01:55:45.060people who are perpetually in the one of these days, and it is seductive. The lure of the couch
01:55:57.000cushion is quite seductive. Um, and it's hard to break that, uh, that initial friction to get
01:56:05.060some momentum behind you and to get propelled towards something better. Um, and we, we all
01:56:10.740get it. I get it too. I, I think it's easy to, hold on one second. Um, anyways, what I was saying
01:56:24.680is i think it's really easy to think that um i don't know that i'm looking down my nose and that
01:56:32.120i'm being aloof from these things as if i don't feel it or understand the struggle i do i've been
01:56:39.880there and i have a lot of the same things internally that pull me towards the same
01:56:48.360negative directions that i complain about and that i do sometimes get sarcastic about
01:56:54.680We all struggle with some of these same things. Don't think that you're the only one, whoever's listening to this needs to hear it. Don't think you're the only one that gets depressed by the politics around you or the only one that finds it easier to sit down and screw around on watching reels on your phone and getting out and building something that you dream about. We all do that.
01:57:18.120it's the ability to break free from that and overcome it and as i was saying earlier it's
01:57:24.160you know with the selfish thing there are some people that it comes easy for that they just
01:57:30.900you know they're just built of of better stuff than the rest of us and good on them
01:57:37.180but for the rest of us you have to get up in every day to make this world better than it was
01:57:45.320when you got up and to make yourself better than you were when you got up and it's a daily challenge
01:57:52.580and it's a daily action um but it's worth doing that's the theme of so much of our
01:57:59.900our belief cycle all of it is about constant motion it's about staying one step ahead of the
01:58:07.040wolves you know our our beliefs tell us there's wolves out there trying to eat the sun trying to
01:58:14.380eat the moon. And it's a constant struggle to say, just out of the gaping maw of the wolf.
01:58:22.460It's interesting that those that their names really are, you know, haters, like the hater
01:58:29.520and mockery. The one who moves. But they seek to devour us. And it's our job to say one step
01:58:39.840ahead always one step ahead and never rest that's why this podcast is called victory never sleeps
01:58:46.780because if they catch you sleeping then you get eight yeah and there's you know that's that's the
01:58:54.040that's the that's the thing you know the founder mcnallen talks a lot about us working our will
01:59:00.100in midgard then if you really want to be 100 real about it you know what else there you go
01:59:06.640was just saying you know our ancestors when they carve civilization out of the wilderness
01:59:12.300they were always one mistake away from losing everything they were always one you know failed
01:59:20.580harvest one blight on their animals one you know war that came through their area or war being made
01:59:28.720against them or them having to go to war against somebody else they were always one step and one
01:59:34.600mistake away from losing everything. But they kept the
01:59:38.060wolves, they kept the door locked, and they kept the wolves
01:59:40.660at bay for another day, and then another day, and then another
01:59:45.640day. And what the Alceria Godhead was saying earlier about
01:59:49.300it's what you do when you break free from that. That's the0.99
01:59:54.440sense. That's, that's how I look at it is yes. Do I keep
01:59:57.620abreast of what's going on politically, not only locally,
02:00:00.680statewide, nationally and internationally? Of course I do.
02:00:03.080but when that doom kind of comes over me like man the world really is a crap show and it really is
02:00:12.060in shambles okay well you can sit there and you can ruminate and marinate that for a minute and
02:00:18.160then you have one or two choices you can let it depress you and you can let it lull you into
02:00:23.860depressed and anxious inaction or you can shake it off and go well you know what okay um i've got
02:00:32.360this other stuff that I need to do. Uh, I need to connect with my folk. I need to go to the Hoff.
02:00:36.980I need to, you know, read the lore. I need to talk to a go the, I need to talk to a folk builder.
02:00:42.620Uh, I need to go to a local moot. I need to engage with my folk because that is how you're going to
02:00:48.940affect change here and now. Um, like I said earlier, the microcosm affects the macrocosm.
02:00:55.500So it's what we do. It's often the small things we do that can have a large effect on our lives.
02:01:01.700And, you know, I can tell you this much. I've already mentioned him a bunch. But my good friend, Goethe Trin East, when I was not doing so hot myself a while back, he recommended to me that if I dedicated myself or rededicated myself to the church and to the foe, that my life would get better.
02:01:24.560and he was 1000% correct because my life has gotten better. It just keeps getting better.0.56
02:01:32.340So, you know, your results may vary, but I don't think they're going to vary too far off of mine.
02:01:41.900There is something to be said for giving yourself to a cause like this. And it's not just a cause.
02:01:50.120And, you know, I always I stress this to our membership in my district a lot is that we are not a club.
02:01:57.880We are not an organization. We are a church. So that is an important distinction to be made.
02:02:04.940So while we can pay attention to politics and we can be worried about them and we can, you know, try to keep on our toes about, you know, the changes that are coming, we are not a political organization.
02:02:20.120but yes, we have to pay attention to it.
02:02:22.900We have to make sure we understand what's happening around us,
02:02:26.620but we are affecting our change and we are working our will on Midgard by
02:02:32.060doing what we can do for each other. So there's that.
02:02:37.600So here's a thing too, and this goes into our next question.
02:02:44.260So our next question, one day may we have a unifier to bring all our folk home.
02:02:55.920Not sure which gods to pray to for that, perhaps all of them.
02:02:59.980I'd say all of them, any of them, but pray and act.
02:15:01.120that's one of the cool things and it's easy to look at that as as not or as disheartening but
02:15:09.480that's one of the cool things the fact that we're doing real stuff and that's how real stuff can get
02:15:16.140accomplished um moving things from the realm of ideas and intention into reality and physicality
02:15:25.240is a big big transition and we're at a point where we're able to do that so um yeah i hope
02:15:31.880that addresses the question bode do you have any thoughts about that yeah a couple of things you
02:15:37.640know uh to this has been on my mind since we've been talking about the olden days and it applies
02:15:43.160to this this like like that was saying you want to build a hof and you want to give it to the church
02:15:52.280That's great. But if you if you live in the middle of nowhere where there is just you, then we're going to lean on you to maintain it, to upkeep it, to keep the lights on, to make sure, you know, it's in serviceable working order, to host events, to do all this other stuff.
02:16:12.180If you want to give us land, again, if you live out in the middle of nowhere, it's really not as much use to us as it would be, like they said, to donate to us paying off New York soft so that we can get phrase off.
02:16:28.940The Alceria Gothi and the Witten and the Go-Guard, we have a plan.
02:16:34.900So it would, like you said, you would be better served.
02:16:38.680And it's it's a matter of we don't want to stifle that enthusiasm and that giving nature, but we want to be smart about it.
02:16:51.260And to me, that all stems from a phenomenon that occurs with us because of and if you're new to all of this,
02:17:02.840we refer often to our people being soul sick to having a soul sickness and that can take many
02:17:09.540forms and the one that is in play here I will address in a slightly roundabout manner so
02:17:16.780that move that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast where I met founder mcdowell for the
02:17:21.900first time and ordered him around and that was all funny there was a gentleman there who
02:17:26.380unfortunately has since passed away um but I was a brand new Ossetruer newly minted about a year
02:17:34.720so year and a half in and man I was hot to trot you know I was I was excited you know I was you
02:17:43.640know meeting all these other Ossetruers from around the country I'd driven 700 some odd miles
02:17:48.440to Missouri to get there so there's this old guy he's been around since the 80s and uh I am like
02:17:56.060that little that little puppy who's excited to be around other dogs for the first time you know i'm
02:18:01.480just barking and yapping and just just wanting to talk to everybody and i'm telling this guy my life
02:18:08.380story and he could not be less interested he really could and i don't blame him and finally
02:18:16.020after i finally wound down he looked at me and he said listen i think you've got this backwards
02:18:20.900nobody cares where you came from the only thing that we care about is that you're here now and0.55
02:18:25.740What are you going to do now that you're here?
02:18:28.500So he condensed that later on into a simpler, more easily digestible kind of soundbite.
02:18:37.260And he said that the fallacy or the mistake that folks coming into Austria make is that they believe that they are going to add their identity to the folk.
02:18:49.820Where the actual right proper course of action is that you take your identity from the folk.
02:18:55.740You find out where you fit in, where you can be of a contribution and a help, and you do that.
02:19:04.080Too often, people come into this and they think, I'm going to improve things.
02:19:09.640You guys have just been kind of holding the fort down a little bit until I arrive.
02:19:13.960Now, I'm going to make all the necessary changes to where we can have everything that we want.
02:19:19.500Whereas, as I was scared ago, they said it's those little victories every single day.
02:19:23.940Grand gestures have their place, but they are few and far between.
02:19:27.360So when you realize that your identity comes from within the folk and that you are not adding your identity to it,
02:19:33.380then I think things get a lot smoother and get a lot better.
02:19:35.960And we can do a lot of good a lot quicker and a lot more efficiently.
02:20:03.420But the thing is, I think that the odds of someone doing that who is independently wealthy and a master engineer and master carpenter that's going to build this amazing edifice, that's probably slim.
02:20:32.480And what I think would more often happen is if we had five or six people give us small, well-intentioned, okay, so this is something that we did see.
02:20:44.220In the era before we had Hoffs, a number of people, rather than contribute to getting a recognizable house of worship, well, instead, I'm going to build my own Hoff.
02:20:59.960and they would get literally they'd get um a shed kit from uh home depot or something
02:21:07.940maybe one of those sheds that they have out in the parking lot and they would get that and they
02:21:12.860would doctor it up and make it nice and they'd be like aha now i have a hoth
02:21:16.560that is a lot better than having no offs absolutely no question asked
02:21:24.080but if we had, you know, 10 of those guys that got their own shed Hoff
02:21:31.160that they built on their own to donate or because it's kind of cool,
02:21:36.440if we took all of that instead and put it towards a Hoff that's of the scope,
02:21:45.280that's recognizable to the community as a house of worship,
02:21:48.080and that can house a significant number of our people
02:21:52.600to worship our gods in an elevated fashion,
02:27:54.820Um, you're a distance from some of our go-far, but I think if it's something that you're
02:28:05.800interested in it's might be something that we could get gothe stam to do i don't know i'd have
02:28:10.920to check availability but i think that he's the closest to you geographically right now um
02:28:20.120if if you can't it's something that one of our goes i'd be happy to talk to you about and walk
02:28:26.040you through the steps of if it's something that you end up needing to do yourself just you and your
02:28:30.440family um so there is something really important about naming in general in our uh in our religion
02:28:45.480name takes something out of the realm of being an it and makes it a
02:28:54.120him a her a who um affixes an identity and there's value in a name names have meaning
02:29:07.020why are you going to name your child what you're going to name uh why are you going to name your
02:29:11.620daughter whatever you're going to name her um and knowing that is an important part of incorporating
02:29:18.760it into the ceremony so basically and this is what this is what i do this is the afa's current
02:29:25.080naming tradition um on the uh usually if i can if i if i have the the forewarning
02:29:35.560you know what i'm sorry i'm stumbling over myself here because i'm trying to think of
02:29:40.120where to start depending on people's familiarity um if someone asks me to do a naming for their child
02:29:48.760I ask them what they're going to name their child and why, and I think on that, and I ponder that.
02:29:56.700And then if I have the luxury of meeting the child beforehand, that's optimal, but it's not necessary, just to get a sense of them.
02:30:10.320And usually the night before I do a naming, I make an offering and I ask for each of our norms to bestow a gift on that child to guide them, to give them something to focus on, to fix them in time in an auspicious way.
02:30:41.280and so i'll do that and i'll draw a room from each of the each of the norner uh
02:30:48.560mother earth verdandi and skull and um and i you know i'll interpret those rooms i'll let the
02:30:58.960the inspiration of the gods guide me and interpret those into into gifts for to bestow upon the child