Asatru Folk Assembly - 1⧸24⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 81 - Gothi Bodi

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 For the thousands in attendance

00:03:25.800 and the millions watching around the world.

00:03:30.700 Ladies and gentlemen,

00:03:32.880 let's get ready to rumble!

00:03:37.440 Let's get ready to rumble!

00:03:51.100 Nice.

00:03:55.800 Thanks, Nick. That was festive.

00:04:00.720 Welcome everybody. Once again,

00:04:02.360 to another exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps. This week,

00:04:07.240 we've got a special treat for you as we take a break

00:04:11.920 in our

00:04:15.880 edict studies with Witten Svahn.

00:04:18.520 We've got the very first time on Victory Never Sleeps.

00:04:23.120 good friend of mine long time friend of mine gothi bode mayo joining us for the very first

00:04:27.840 time when victory never sleeps so uh welcome bode thank you sir um

00:04:39.600 so i okay top of the show stuff we are coming to you live on entropy youtube vk twitter

00:04:52.160 odyssey rumble and twitch um you're welcome to ask questions on any of those platforms if you

00:05:00.080 find yourself there uh we've got folks monitoring all of those and this is a

00:05:05.180 viewer participation program so uh all your your questions are welcome uh if you would like to

00:05:15.660 do any super chats where

00:05:17.660 you can get your questions to the front of the

00:05:19.640 line, monetize

00:05:21.860 those. We have instructions

00:05:23.240 on how to do that

00:05:25.900 on the description

00:05:27.760 of this video. If you guys

00:05:29.780 would like to

00:05:30.560 leave us a tip to help support

00:05:33.620 us and get little

00:05:35.520 flashy noise making things happening

00:05:37.640 on the screen, you can do that there also.

00:05:40.700 We really appreciate

00:05:41.760 it. We appreciate you guys' generosity.

00:05:43.820 It's helping us a lot on

00:05:45.420 our progress towards Frazehoff, as well as other things. We appreciate it.

00:05:53.820 I should mention coming up in February, and Nick can throw the link and the dates up,

00:06:00.800 we have Charming of the Plow at Njortzhoff. That is the showcase event at Njortzhoff every year.

00:06:09.920 This is going to be the second annual one, and it's going to be amazing. I'll be down there,

00:06:14.780 i look forward to seeing you guys there if you're a member talk to your folk builder if you need any

00:06:19.660 help and instructions on that and they'll be happy to get you set up if you're not a member

00:06:25.100 um we'd also reach out to the local folk builder or any of our folk builders or go far and we can

00:06:33.500 get that squared away from you we would love to have you give us a visit um also if you're not

00:06:39.660 a member and you're hearing the sound of my voice on this um assuming that you are

00:06:46.860 one of our folk we would love to have you

00:06:52.140 consider joining the outdoor folk assembly um we're doing awesome things we're doing important

00:06:59.900 things and we would love to have you do those things with us and sharing that it's a really

00:07:05.420 exciting time to be also true um got amazing things going on and we're at a stage in our

00:07:10.780 development where you know every individual can make a huge difference so yeah if you hear this

00:07:16.700 and you're thinking about it go to one of our websites check us out and consider joining and

00:07:22.780 that said uh as of today we have the new and improved mjordshoff website up and running

00:07:31.260 uh folk builder lydia phelps has been putting in work to make our websites even more functional

00:07:39.260 uh and on top of that to look a lot better and a lot fancier so check that out um if you don't

00:07:47.660 know what district you find yourself in you're listening to the program um we have a map that

00:07:54.860 kind of breaks down which you know what area is in which district i invite you to check out any

00:08:01.900 of our hoff websites they've got contact information as well as calendars and other

00:08:08.140 useful stuff there to help get you involved whether you can or you can't make it to new york

00:08:17.580 Hoff for Charming of the Plow, we would also invite you the following month in March to attend

00:08:23.340 Ostara at Thorshoff. New York's Hoff is in White Springs, Florida, and Thorshoff is in Linden,

00:08:34.620 North Carolina. I'll be at both of those events. We would love to see you guys there.

00:08:40.060 If you need help or assistance getting that figured out, please talk to your local folk

00:08:44.220 building. And with that, Bodie, can you introduce yourself to folks and tell

00:08:57.160 people about how you found Alistatru generally and what brought you to the

00:09:04.000 Alistatru Folk Assembly? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. That's a

00:09:11.300 tall order. We'll start with the introduction first.

00:09:16.780 I am

00:09:17.660 Goethe Boethe Mayo. I am from

00:09:19.780 at present Southwest Georgia

00:09:22.020 by way of East Alabama

00:09:23.440 and further north

00:09:25.820 than here, West Georgia.

00:09:28.940 True certified 0.62

00:09:29.860 side of the South.

00:09:31.540 I've been here for a long, long, long time.

00:09:34.380 We're the honkies that settled this part

00:09:35.800 of the world, in case you didn't know.

00:09:37.360 So as far as how I came to Aussitrew, I was just speaking with my GoGuard program student about that.

00:09:49.720 It's been 23 years now, Mother's Night of 2001.

00:09:55.460 Um, that was, that was the culmination of about, I think a year, uh, of the, well, the

00:10:06.440 last year of kind of soul searching, um, new Christianity wasn't for me at an early

00:10:12.000 age, uh, kind of floated around as, I guess what you would call an atheist for, I guess

00:10:20.220 my teen years in my early 20s. Dabbled a little bit in the neo-pagan scene, realized that was an

00:10:28.000 exercise in mass dementia. I kind of dropped that. But I ran into an ostrich who styled himself as a

00:10:38.460 goatee because there was no AFA, there was no church yet. And he's the one that kind of brought 0.98

00:10:44.420 me home and uh yeah 23 years ago on mother's night we had back then what was called a profession of

00:10:52.280 faith where i literally in bloat um foreswore all ties and legences and binds to christianity and

00:11:01.420 and all that and swore that i would follow the gods forever so here we are so flag on the play

00:11:10.240 There was, in fact, an AFA then

00:11:12.540 Oh, I mean, for me, there wasn't

00:11:15.100 That's one of the interesting things

00:11:18.840 About that period

00:11:20.920 In our history

00:11:22.180 There was an AFA, but it was

00:11:23.960 Almost exclusively in California

00:11:26.960 And there was

00:11:27.980 Scattered members around the country

00:11:30.080 But pretty much all the activity

00:11:33.200 And certainly the focus of it

00:11:35.200 Was out on the West Coast

00:11:36.460 At that time

00:11:38.140 Yeah, we knew

00:11:39.200 the afa was a california thing in 2001 if you look at our membership map today you never would

00:11:47.840 have thunk it because the i guess center of gravity as far as weight of members go has

00:11:54.320 moved substantially east since then yep um

00:12:06.240 so we've got a couple of couple of questions the first one here so far uh from folk builder jason

00:12:13.760 gallagher good evening gofie mayo can you talk about how you got the name bode and the tradition

00:12:21.280 of giving quote-unquote heathen names in certain groups back in the day he'll be afs yeah hey

00:12:29.040 jason uh thanks um not a lot of people know that um it is a it is a strange strange world i walk

00:12:39.600 of names uh so my legal name which you can easily see on the database if you are privy to it uh is

00:12:47.440 Matthew. 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,

00:13:17.440 I could just stay Matthew Mayo or I could, you know, take on a heathen name.

00:13:21.780 And it was very much the fashion.

00:13:23.220 But at the time, a lot of these, at least a lot of the dudes who were taking heathen names,

00:13:30.380 they were just this impossible, you know, long, drawn out, hard to say,

00:13:35.700 even for Scandinavian kind of names.

00:13:39.420 And this guy, Craig, actually, you know, put some heart and some thought into it.

00:13:45.560 And 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.

00:14:02.140 And so Bodie is actually supposed to be spelled with two D's instead of one.

00:14:07.460 But Craig forgot that, just left me with the one.

00:14:10.680 So it's not actually the correct spelling.

00:14:14.000 However, 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.

00:14:27.940 And it actually means speaker with a capital S and also one who owns property.

00:14:35.860 So, yeah, kind of real boring.

00:14:38.620 But the speaker with a capital S doing my research, I found out it's not a mistake.

00:14:45.360 Even though I do not want his job and never, never want his job.

00:14:49.880 It is believed that that capital S denotes someone who spoke the law or who spoke in official terms.

00:14:57.980 So that's the story of it.

00:15:00.820 And the reason why mine stuck so much to me, I think, was, number one, it was meant to be.

00:15:08.800 Number two, it wasn't like skeet to blue.

00:15:11.580 It wasn't some ridiculous stuff.

00:15:13.780 It was just very easy to say, very easy to spell, very easily digested.

00:15:18.220 So that's the story.

00:15:23.540 Why not Matthew X?

00:15:26.980 Why not Matthew X?

00:15:28.700 Yep.

00:15:30.820 no reason well no just to throw that out as like some i guess a historical note on it

00:15:38.980 i make a joke because it's funny but it's very much for similar reasons um

00:15:47.220 in the latter half of the last century a lot of folks were searching out

00:15:55.620 an ethnic religion that was closer to who they really were on the inside and trying to

00:16:04.260 make that point of separation between a culture or a belief system that was foreign to them

00:16:10.260 and so that's very much the same reason that um asatrara of the day would you know get uh

00:16:19.700 often old norse inspired names uh if you read the old runestone articles

00:16:25.380 it's funny because that was so common in there and you run into all kind of

00:16:29.860 all kind of odd names that may be difficult to pronounce or that you're unfamiliar with

00:16:34.180 that people were taken back then um yeah it's really uh

00:16:42.020 I don't know.

00:16:46.020 It's really interesting to look at where we came from and how we got to where we're at.

00:16:53.400 We have a $10 donation from GoToTrent.

00:16:58.840 Appreciate that.

00:17:00.060 Trent says, no question.

00:17:02.120 Just proud to see one of my oldest friends on my favorite program.

00:17:07.640 So Trent's calling you old, Bodie.

00:17:09.820 I am.

00:17:10.380 I was thinking about when you were talking about, you know, it's interesting to look back at the history.

00:17:16.360 I'm just a living relic over here.

00:17:19.440 I'm kind of a bridge between the old days and the new days.

00:17:23.000 That's been brought to my attention or brought to me more than once, which I can't deny.

00:17:29.920 I've literally been witness to the development and growth in Austria over the past 22 years, so 23 years.

00:17:38.340 So, Nick mute yourself, Nick mute yourself.

00:17:59.700 Hey Nick, we can hear you.

00:18:01.380 about 85 bucks. I didn't know. Sorry about that, guys. I think Nick's got somebody muted.

00:18:17.580 I think it's us. That's okay. Okay. We'll look into Nick's financial dealings here.

00:18:31.380 All right, so hopefully we've got that sorted.

00:18:53.080 Okay, so our next actual question does come from Trent as well.

00:18:58.840 Gauthier Mayo, what has been your favorite memory during your many years in the AFA?

00:19:08.040 Wow.

00:19:10.200 That's about as hard as asking a parent what their favorite kid is.

00:19:15.180 Is it the same?

00:19:16.320 Like, there's an answer.

00:19:17.600 You just don't want to.

00:19:18.600 Yeah, there's an answer.

00:19:19.300 You just don't want to know the other answers.

00:19:23.300 Well, I mean, there are so many.

00:19:25.000 um but uh i think we were talking about this before we went on air i think that

00:19:33.660 one of my favorites uh that i've told a couple of times um and this this for real happened this is

00:19:41.520 this is some uh also true lore or i guess this is some uh some real deal lore um in the early

00:19:49.380 early 2000s. Yes, the AFA was existed. A lot of us on the eastern side of the country

00:19:55.420 did not know that. That was when Yahoo groups were all the rage. And there was a Yahoo group

00:20:01.180 called Our Meat Hall. And that was a bunch of people from all over the country. And it

00:20:07.280 people were coming from different philosophical viewpoints about Austro and whatnot. And on

00:20:13.600 that on that uh yahoo groups and it basically turned into a um hey i bet you won't say that

00:20:20.680 to my face and i bet i will and that turned into a moot which that's the story i was given on how

00:20:27.520 it started so i don't know if they were going to meet and actually throw hands or what but

00:20:31.700 it turned into a bunch of people getting together and realized that they had more in common

00:20:35.500 than they did apart and uh so this was in the northern ozarks which is in southern missouri

00:20:42.540 and there's a place called wades on the edge because the campground was on top of a 300 foot

00:20:48.940 bluff and um so i showed up for the third one i believe and um we every there were you know

00:21:02.080 there were kindreds but they're also families and so everybody took a meal because we're in

00:21:06.440 the Ozarks in these cabins and so everybody took a meal as families to prepare for the folk and me

00:21:14.820 and my family we had the breakfast on Friday morning well I knew we all knew because it was

00:21:20.960 a big thing everybody was all abuzz about it that um Steve McAllen and his wife Sheila were coming

00:21:29.580 to the meat hall moot and so that was a big deal everybody knew now I had I knew who Steve was

00:21:38.660 but I do not believe that I had seen a picture of the man at that point so that Friday morning

00:21:45.600 we get up and we're cooking breakfast and I'm in this kitchen in this cabin and I literally had

00:21:51.940 I think a stove with three pots and two flat top griddles I was I would have short order and

00:21:58.600 cooking my butt off. You know, I was, um, slinging hash, literally, um, cooking sausages, cooking

00:22:04.940 eggs. And the door was behind me to my left. And at some point after I'd gotten started trying to

00:22:12.500 cook breakfast for about 60 folks, which, uh, if my good friend Mike Joyner is watching, hey buddy,

00:22:18.560 um, I know his pain. He knows that, that struggle where you're trying to get all this food out

00:22:23.580 quickly and uh in through the door walked this very slim older fellow had on a pair of black

00:22:29.540 jeans and a black polo shirt and um didn't introduce himself that I remember um but he says

00:22:37.960 you know out loud to anybody who would listen hey is there anything I can do to help and one of my

00:22:43.860 family members says yes you can help Bodie over there he really needs help you know cooking all

00:22:48.140 the the various breakfast meats and eggs and whatnot and so this guy comes over and says hey

00:22:53.820 are you Bodie I said yes I am he's like well I'm here to help I said cool why don't you get on them

00:22:58.820 sausages and just kind of pointed him that ray like hey man there's the spatula there's the flat

00:23:03.620 top there's the sausages get to work on me and so for about the next 10 or 15 minutes me and this guy

00:23:10.520 exchanged very few words uh just kind of you know hey do this hey do that yeah put those in there

00:23:18.120 yep we're serving them this way yep do this there's the rest of it blah blah blah blah blah

00:23:22.560 and then it's all done breakfast is prepared for the folk and this guy kind of wipes his hands

00:23:27.940 and it's like i don't believe we probably met i'm steve mcnellen and uh yeah you could knock me over

00:23:32.980 the feather. I had just been ordering around the founder of Modern Ossetree like an employee. So

00:23:41.780 that's one of my favorite memories. Yeah, that will, that will live with, that one will live

00:23:48.660 with me forever. Anytime I see, anytime I see the boss man, we, the old man, we still kind of

00:23:56.200 chuckle about that about how we first met um and that was the beginning of a very impactful and

00:24:03.380 meaningful weekend uh there are more than more stories from those three or four days than just

00:24:07.780 that one so that's one of my favorite memories though good deal um in anticipation i was trying

00:24:19.920 to remember

00:24:21.900 the first time

00:24:24.180 that you and I met.

00:24:26.660 I believe it was at

00:24:27.560 Winter Nights.

00:24:29.860 2012.

00:24:31.800 That's what I was thinking.

00:24:35.540 And that was

00:24:35.920 back when you were still the man, the myth,

00:24:37.980 the mountain, Matt Flaville.

00:24:41.280 That was

00:24:42.400 our

00:24:43.520 very first Winter Nights.

00:24:47.600 Was it?

00:24:48.760 Yep.

00:24:49.920 yeah that was when we're uh doing them in the poconos in pennsylvania that was a really nice

00:24:59.320 spot i wish wish we still do it there but it's one of those yeah options that that uh didn't

00:25:07.820 i don't know a lot of people who were taken out by the covid but i do know a lot of businesses

00:25:16.080 that were and uh that's that's one of them that had to restructure their whole business model

00:25:21.640 unfortunately oh i didn't know that's what happened to camp natimas yeah we had a had

00:25:27.780 a real good relationship with them but they had to completely change their

00:25:32.000 how their business was run and uh written out to private organizations wasn't a

00:25:39.140 wasn't part of whatever their new structure was unfortunately but it was really nice place they

00:25:45.740 great by us. A lot of good memories there. But yeah, that was 11 years ago now, 11 and a half,

00:25:54.860 just about. Yeah, there's another memory from that weekend that I could share real quick,

00:26:04.500 and that is Founder McNallan's Odenblut that night, the main night, whether it was Friday

00:26:10.560 or Saturday night, that was quite the emotional event.

00:26:15.460 I know if any of you guys watching or listening have ever attended a bloat done

00:26:19.840 by the Alcerigo, the Nodens bloat, they can be quite emotionally charged.

00:26:25.460 They can rev you up pretty good in a spiritual way.

00:26:28.500 And that was, I know Alcerigo, he talks about Githya Hall's this here bloat

00:26:37.780 where he, you know, felt the presence of his grandmother,

00:26:42.800 that Odin's bloat there in 2012 at that winter nights,

00:26:45.480 that first winter nights.

00:26:48.300 Yeah, that was definitely a spiritual experience with a capital S.

00:26:53.720 It was definitely something to be experienced, 0.98

00:27:00.160 and I was glad I was there for it.

00:27:02.020 Yeah, 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.

00:27:25.940 You know, I was originally up in Alaska and fairly isolated when I went to my first AFA event, Midsummer in the Sierras.

00:27:38.160 Yeah, Steve's Odin bloat was extremely powerful, and that did a lot to bring me to where I am today.

00:27:48.460 um we've got another question from folk builder katie joiner

00:27:56.100 bode where is the bestest hoff and why should the folk come there in february

00:28:02.480 uh it is one uh it is in white springs florida uh it is the hoff dedicated to lord and yord

00:28:09.780 and um you should definitely come and experience our down home southern hospitality

00:28:16.100 um you should come experience the piousness and the love and the community and uh yeah

00:28:23.400 I know that uh all our other Hoff members may fight for the bestest Hoff but

00:28:28.240 you know we've been humoring you guys for a long time and um I think it's time we put a stop to

00:28:33.620 that we all know that New York's Hoff is the bestest Hoff so

00:28:35.900 so new york's hof is the newest hof

00:28:45.180 it is also the only hof that we still owe money on so if anyone would like to help us make that

00:28:55.860 not the case now seems a fortuitous time to uh throw a donate link up and uh ask once again for

00:29:05.460 anybody that wants to contribute to help us get that Hoff paid off, because that is the

00:29:11.540 next step in our progress of getting his son, Lord Freyer, his Hoff. I'll say this too, February,

00:29:21.140 one of the reasons that that month was chosen for the event there is that's a really nice time to

00:29:27.880 in florida yes the heat and humidity in florida can be oppressive to people who are not accustomed

00:29:36.920 to it and even to those who are a lot of the year but february is a really nice time if you're

00:29:43.240 coming in from someplace that's colder you know it's warm it's comfortable it's good but it's not

00:29:48.680 yet so hot and uh stuff that'll make you gross and feel uncomfortable so it's a it's really the

00:29:55.480 perfect month to do something in florida and uh it's neat it's a neat spot if you've never been

00:30:02.600 there it's a nice i forget the acreage we got on it um i want to say just about five i believe it's

00:30:10.920 five or five or a little bit more than five yeah so right around there but it's it's really nice

00:30:16.440 there's uh two little ponds on the property uh i'm told there's no gators in those ponds

00:30:22.760 unfortunately but we'll see beautiful live oaks there as you come in um it's one of the things i

00:30:30.280 really miss about the time i spent in florida is those beautiful live oaks with the spanish moss

00:30:36.200 hanging from them um they're just beautiful and they're iconic and uh got some really nice ones

00:30:43.160 on the property there so it's really cool building it meets meets our needs really well it's right

00:30:49.800 they're part of that cool little community um white springs turns out to be where my wife had

00:31:01.480 her first house true event she went to they happened to host it there for whatever reason

00:31:07.400 and just weird worked its way to where that's where we got uh nortzhoff but it's nice it has

00:31:13.480 some some special gravity that way um yeah mandy was born and raised in florida there and

00:31:23.880 uh when i first

00:31:27.720 shortly after i first met her i moved down there in to saint augustine in

00:31:33.080 uh december 2014 was there for just about two years and

00:31:43.400 it was an interest it was an interesting time um that those two years overlapped when we got

00:31:51.160 the uh very first half odin's off out in california and that's also when

00:32:03.080 the weird head in store that, uh, that I'd be elevated to the position of all

00:32:07.880 Syria go be. And we, you know, we left Florida in,

00:32:13.400 I left Florida in the, in December,

00:32:18.940 2016 and Mandy followed me out like two weeks later in January of 2017.

00:32:26.180 Um,

00:32:27.020 and it was one of those things that was,

00:32:31.840 had a split with some people that i was pretty close to that mandy and i were both pretty close

00:32:39.860 to in florida and there were you know skepticism or doubts about

00:32:48.900 the afa under new leadership or just how that would work and it was really

00:32:55.180 it meant a lot to me when I was able to come back out there in 2022 and arrive you know

00:33:05.240 bringing it off with me that was kind of a that meant that meant a lot to me that I was able to

00:33:12.820 able to make that happen there because it's one of those things that folks out there thought once

00:33:19.200 We had, okay, so this is kind of an interesting historical perspective.

00:33:27.540 It had taken so long for us to get our first half that there wasn't,

00:33:38.200 I'm trying to get how to put it.

00:33:39.680 There wasn't, it's not that, I guess, people rationalized we would never have more than one half.

00:33:45.120 but at the time we weren't looking at that we were looking at okay cool now we've got

00:33:51.700 the Hoff and this is this we have the Hoff this is the Hoff and it's really it's really something

00:33:59.900 to think that we've been able to to get three additional Hoffs in in such a short amount of time

00:34:05.960 um been really blessed to be able to do that and we've had some really hard working and amazing

00:34:13.440 people and very generous donors and a lot of really good a lot of really good things a lot

00:34:19.560 of blessings to let us get to where we are um it's nice sometimes to get on here with a person

00:34:28.300 who's uh been involved in obstetra and involved in the afa for you know relatively long time

00:34:34.640 and see where we where we are knowing where we came from and what it was like when first got

00:34:42.260 involved um for whatever reason i thought bodie was involved a little bit longer than 2001 but

00:34:48.980 2001 was when i when i came home to house the truth as well so it's nice i think we've seen a

00:34:56.820 lot of the same the same events happen within house true and the same development happened so it's

00:35:03.780 it's nice we've it's it's a blessing and a curse it's really cool that people who come around now

00:35:11.380 true words have never been spoken assume that this is just how it's always been and of course

00:35:16.900 we have hoffs why wouldn't we have hoffs that's silly and have no idea some of the

00:35:23.220 you know some of the more humble roots that uh that house true came from and it's frustrating

00:35:29.860 they don't know the struggle or whatever but it's also really nice that people like bodie

00:35:36.740 have been around putting in the work to build this to what it is today to where folks can take

00:35:42.740 it for granted it's one of the coolest things ever when i had my daughter and i realized she's

00:35:49.220 born into a world with hoffs to our gods she will never know a world that doesn't have hoffs to our

00:35:56.100 gods something that we could only dream about 22 years ago yeah i don't think folks necessarily

00:36:04.180 understand, but in an organized way,

00:36:09.740 Ausitru has been revitalized since 72 conceptually since 1968 and it took

00:36:18.640 until 2015 to get that first half. So it was a long road.

00:36:24.320 It was. And, you know, that, that cannot,

00:36:28.500 I feel like sometimes we beat a dead horse about, you know,

00:36:32.540 explaining to all the new folks, you know,

00:36:35.160 about how they don't know what it was like back in them streets.

00:36:37.540 But, you know, it really was something like what we are living now,

00:36:45.120 what we are doing now is, you know, not only leadership of the AFA,

00:36:49.300 of the only church of the ASE here in Midgard,

00:36:52.780 but just as everybody listening to this who is a supporter of the AFA,

00:36:57.580 who is a member of the AFA or whatever,

00:36:58.760 what we are living right now is something that literally was the stuff of dreams 20 something

00:37:04.400 years ago it literally was so you know I've actually had occasion to run into a couple of

00:37:11.180 the old heads from back in the day in the past year or so since we got Sigurheim and started

00:37:18.100 moving forward on that and they said oh yeah yeah we heard uh heard you guys got some land like yep

00:37:25.540 Like, yep, so what are you going to do with it?

00:37:28.460 Like, well, you know, the stuff we used to talk about, you know,

00:37:31.960 back in the day, if we got a big chunk of land, what we'd do with it.

00:37:35.180 Yeah, but, man, that's impossible.

00:37:37.220 And I smiled and said, no, it's not.

00:37:39.760 We're doing it.

00:37:41.000 We're doing it right now.

00:37:42.680 So 22 years ago, what we were doing right now was something that those people

00:37:49.440 then are still talking about now, but we're actually doing.

00:37:52.360 so and it was uh it was rough it was rough 20 something years ago it was very very rough um

00:38:00.940 most of you guys who have come to it in the past 20 years would not recognize it as what it

00:38:05.360 you would not recognize it then as what it is now um we're very thankful for families

00:38:12.200 and for our women folk because back then it was a lot of dudes

00:38:16.800 Yep. It was what we now call grossetry back then. There was a few pockets of seriousness

00:38:23.840 and piousness, but they were relatively small. Thankfully, they have grown.

00:38:36.280 Yeah, just thinking about it, I mean, a point that I try to make on here a lot is

00:38:46.800 and i think that i think this is natural to do so it's not uh being overly critical

00:38:57.120 just being honest and truth is one of our one of our virtues the the biggest

00:39:07.760 biggest step you'll ever take in any endeavor is the distance from the couch to the front door and

00:39:16.800 That'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

00:39:46.800 whatever else but very often they don't ever get around to the doing

00:39:52.560 and also true is truly about doing we are our deeds and it's nice it's nice to see

00:40:01.680 things that are god's accomplishments we're able to make and efforts that we're able to initiate

00:40:09.920 and the blessings that our gods pour upon those efforts when we get up and we start trying to do

00:40:15.840 stuff. And it's so easy to make perfect the enemy of good and to wait around until the perfect

00:40:22.620 moment or the perfect time in your life or the perfect circumstance or the perfect whatever it

00:40:29.260 might be. And there's a whole lot of people at the end of their life on their deathbed

00:40:36.500 wondering what life would have been like if instead of waiting for perfect, they just got

00:40:42.280 out there and started doing the best they could with what they had. So it's really nice to be

00:40:47.960 able to see, see accomplishments when our folk put their mind towards something and put their

00:40:53.560 efforts towards something. The gods really do bless those that get out there and put in the work.

00:41:02.480 We got a couple other questions going on. Oh, we got a couple of donation things here. I'm sorry,

00:41:07.100 guys. $10 from Chris Lukat. Nick, mute yourself. I realized this would have been more beneficial

00:41:18.440 at the time had I said it, but he wasn't listening to me when he was unmuted earlier. I tried,

00:41:24.240 but we appreciate your donation, Chris. Thank you for that. And we got a $20 donation from

00:41:31.100 the Phelps family. Here's a check-off donation for New York's Hof tonight. But Baldr's Hof is

00:41:37.860 the bestest Hof. Thank you. So we appreciate your donation. We appreciate your efforts.

00:41:44.840 We appreciate the work you did on New York's Hof website this last week. It looks beautiful.

00:41:50.760 it it looks awesome each each each of our websites that you move to looks better than

00:42:01.000 the previous one and i'm excited on uh on where this is going thank you very much they look awesome

00:42:06.720 um so bode from katie joiner what is your favorite meal you have been served at a hoff

00:42:16.860 well your husband's uh cheese grits or whatever every cheese and sausage or whatever grits

00:42:31.820 um i loved it so much i took some home from from cigarette back in last last summer so

00:42:39.760 So that was delicious.

00:42:44.420 Yeah, I'd have to say probably Mike's cooking.

00:42:47.500 Yeah, probably some of my favorite food I've ever been served at a Hoth.

00:42:51.360 I mean, the man is wonderful in a kitchen.

00:42:55.080 I mean, this guy can really cook.

00:42:57.380 If 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.

00:43:05.160 um doesn't matter what he makes it's always top-notch and tasty and you know literally

00:43:13.100 people who are like you know no i'm trying to trying to watch my calories or my macros or

00:43:18.100 whatever we'll go back and get thirds and fourths so yeah i would have to say mike's cooking

00:43:22.840 yep yeah that's a folk builder mike joiner he does he does awesome things there uh he

00:43:31.060 has cooked for a number of events and he certainly cooks for stuff at uh at mjordshoff there and it's

00:43:38.980 really a it's really a special thing it's delicious food it's awesome but also

00:43:44.880 his doing that as part of his hospitality of being one of the folk builders of that hoff

00:43:52.700 is in and of itself a really kind of special act of devotion to our gods and to our church and it's

00:44:00.700 really a it's really a nice thing and he he puts that love into the food I think

00:44:05.540 so I noticed there was a comment early on when we were talking about the quote-unquote heathen

00:44:19.460 names about casting off the slave name like they did in the black nationalist movement 0.95

00:44:25.240 And 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.

00:44:51.240 culture and you saw that in the black nationalist movement you saw that amongst various strands of

00:44:58.760 white identity movements you saw that with uh

00:45:04.200 native americans in a number of different varieties on you know the god is red movement

00:45:10.840 that they were doing about re-embracing their you know ancestral faith and ancestral identity

00:45:18.040 So you saw it in a lot of different places. But yeah, it was the same the same kind of spirit.

00:45:25.960 But his parents gave him a Hebrew name. They sure did. I happen to know that because my parents gave

00:45:33.000 me the same Hebrew name. Right. And, you know, while we could while we could all, you know,

00:45:41.160 damn the man and take it back, you know, and name ourselves things like, you know, 0.98

00:45:46.800 Leif and Ragnar and whatnot, whatever. 0.99

00:45:50.420 I mean, at the end of the day, you have to think, would I ever legally change my name?

00:45:58.020 Probably not while my parents still live, because that's disrespectful to them.

00:46:02.960 I know I could maybe

00:46:07.240 Maybe change my first name

00:46:09.960 But I would have to leave my middle name

00:46:12.380 Because my dad gave me my middle name

00:46:14.380 But at the same time my mom gave me my first name

00:46:16.920 She named me Matthew

00:46:17.860 So even though she's passed

00:46:20.280 Four or five years ago now

00:46:21.980 I would still be kind of disrespectful to her

00:46:24.300 So I would

00:46:25.720 I would counsel against it

00:46:28.420 If you know you are so inclined

00:46:30.200 I mean if there's a good reason

00:46:31.920 and there are myriad of good reasons why you would want to do that that are sound but if you

00:46:39.940 can at all possible I mean if it's I would avoid it you know I wouldn't I wouldn't do it because

00:46:45.580 that's you know your parents gave you that name out of love and out of you know you know their

00:46:51.100 hearts and carrying on especially some of us in certain parts of the country where traditions run

00:46:57.160 deep deeper than others sometimes uh you know some of us have some of us follow a very old

00:47:04.720 european tradition of the the new son getting the name of a either living um living family member a

00:47:15.800 granddad or a great-granddad or a great-uncle or you know a grandfather a great-grandfather

00:47:22.240 or whatever that's passed on, which I passed on to my son.

00:47:25.640 So, and I have, I have my middle name is from my grandfather's generation.

00:47:35.420 So I had to think there for a second.

00:47:37.520 So, yeah, I would, I would keep your name as, as, as much as possible.

00:47:44.340 You know, I am an anomaly as far as names go.

00:47:47.460 So happily so, but I don't recommend we all start, you know,

00:47:52.240 switching to scandinavia names tomorrow

00:47:57.840 you know i i agree matthew's the name my parents gave me and i respect that it's the name i've got

00:48:06.000 and my uh my homing is tied to that name names are really important but one of the one of the

00:48:14.400 things to do isn't to go back and retroactively change what your name is your name is what it is

00:48:24.320 but naming your children is uh an important thing to do you know start now going forward

00:48:31.520 and it's really important in our tradition to assign a a good and an auspicious name to your

00:48:40.400 child and one of the things that you know a lot of us do and you can name your kid whatever you

00:48:49.760 think is cool by all means a lot of people will go and find a name out of the sagas and find you

00:48:56.000 know some super viking name because that that speaks to them um and we see a lot of that now

00:49:03.920 but something else to do is to look back in your family at your family's names because quite a bit

00:49:10.000 of them have european roots and aren't uh aren't foreign names and i think that's something

00:49:19.280 some easy enough for us all to do is look back at our family and

00:49:23.200 you know which of our ancestors that we know of didn't have a you know didn't have a foreign name

00:49:30.000 had a had a european arian language name and that's easier than you'd think certainly

00:49:39.920 what i did and i was fortunate because this was a you know a grandfather that i had a relationship

00:49:46.320 with and i knew very well and did a large part in raising me but it was important to uh

00:49:51.360 do that kind of a naming tradition that's why i named my daughter aubry because it's it's a uh

00:49:57.200 celtic name that uh means elf ruler and generationally depending on the time it

00:50:08.800 has changed genders numerous times over the centuries but you can find those in your family

00:50:16.060 history and it's neat to carry those on and and build towards the future that way or something

00:50:23.340 when i first uh actually my first afa event i ever went to back in 2010 um gothi david james did a

00:50:35.180 did a um

00:50:38.300 talk about naming customs what he said that is a good idea to do is kind of retroactively like

00:50:47.020 refit a name if you want to name um one of your children after an ancestor you have who has a

00:50:55.660 a biblical name or any foreign name for that matter figure out that name's meaning and find

00:51:02.300 the equivalent name in uh in one of our traditions and something that you know reflects your heritage

00:51:09.260 and that's easy enough to do there's a lot of crossover in that in a lot of ways you can

00:51:13.740 and find a name that has a very similar meaning,

00:51:16.960 but it's one of our names.

00:51:18.300 And that's also a nice way to honor an ancestor

00:51:20.720 that may have had a name from a foreign people.

00:51:35.060 Super honky. 1.00

00:51:36.420 I'm in my late forties.

00:51:38.660 I've been training and working out

00:51:40.780 with some younger gentlemen at my local park

00:51:42.760 few times over the last few months they're called active clubs when is the afa doing that um so

00:51:54.440 there are certainly afa members that are part of clubs um

00:52:12.760 Thank you.

00:52:42.760 Thank you.

00:53:12.760 Thank you.

00:53:42.760 Thank you.

00:54:12.760 Thank you.

00:54:42.760 Thank you.

00:55:12.760 Thank you.

00:55:42.760 Thank you.

00:56:12.760 okay i don't is that going to mess with the broadcast that's ongoing

00:56:20.800 okay thank you okay so folks can hear us now it's hard because we don't have feedback um mandy says

00:56:33.640 they can hello that is a great cartoon of me by the way i like that

00:56:55.320 all right so folks in the room in the chat room can you respond if you can hear us or not

00:57:01.800 that please and thank you okay so uh at least someone can hear us i'll go back to the answer

00:57:20.880 i was given as far as active clubs um improve physically is an awesome idea i'm all for that

00:57:34.400 in general um and it's something that we try to do i was trying to mention that folk builder

00:57:39.680 uh apprentice folk over bobby shotwell hosts um

00:57:43.760 at Thorshof, I think about once a month. It's something I'm looking forward to doing and

00:57:55.520 hosting as well at Sigurheim when we get moved out there. I apologize for all these

00:58:05.740 ongoing technical difficulties. I want to have some discussion to try to get some of

00:58:12.080 that resolved uh so they're not quite as vexing um but yeah i'm not sure super honky what part

00:58:22.160 of the world that you are in but uh your folk builder may be able to hook you up with some afa

00:58:28.460 members in your area that would like to pay because we want to be our very best selves and

00:58:34.220 And being a decent physical condition is a big part of that for a number of reasons.

00:58:43.520 Appearance and beauty are one of our values.

00:58:47.660 It's important to us as well.

00:58:50.100 So all of those things are good.

00:58:52.660 I think the physical shape that we keep ourselves in is a reflection of our spiritual health.

00:58:58.740 and it's the first

00:59:01.120 it's the first impression

00:59:03.380 it's the first impression

00:59:04.120 that we'll make on it

00:59:05.980 so that's

00:59:08.580 that's really important

00:59:13.300 something we'll work on

00:59:14.380 I'm me again Matt

00:59:21.880 you're still a Disney character

00:59:23.880 but I'm me again

00:59:24.760 yeah I'm

00:59:26.560 I'm watching the ongoing struggle.

00:59:32.660 These things happen.

00:59:34.020 Technical difficulties.

00:59:34.960 Machines are honoring cantankerous.

00:59:36.900 We're okay.

00:59:45.900 Okay, so I'm looking, and partly, I think,

00:59:54.980 because we've got the tech difficulties going on and stuff we are about out of questions in our queue

01:00:01.220 here so so trying to

01:00:14.180 trying to think of a good i don't know buddy it's your it's your first time on the program is there

01:00:20.260 anything that you've been needing to say or wanting to say to the audience or anything that

01:00:27.620 you have particularly particularly that you would like to address folks on um

01:00:39.140 no well i mean yeah i mean there's a there's many things

01:00:43.940 that we could talk about that we could occupy our time with um something that

01:00:50.260 Okay, so I got something that I think is useful for folks.

01:00:54.720 Okay.

01:00:55.320 So we talked in broad strokes about getting involved in things.

01:01:00.580 I mentioned that the hardest step to take is always that one from the couch to the door.

01:01:07.660 And I've talked about it a little bit my first time.

01:01:12.840 so first gathering of ossature that i was involved in i was in i was living in anchorage alaska at

01:01:23.320 the time and i think it was through it could have been through a yahoo group or through

01:01:35.800 a meetup group but back then there were meetups there were yeah meetups was a big thing to try to

01:01:43.480 find people in your local area and so there was not any other afa members in anchorage at the

01:01:53.400 time there's a couple up in fairbanks but as far as folks close to me that wasn't really there so 0.99

01:01:59.720 So I found some unaffiliated prostitutes who were up there and, and they were going,

01:02:09.960 and I forget the occasion, but it was during, it was during summer at some point.

01:02:16.200 So I'm not sure what the occasion was during summer.

01:02:18.280 And they were hosting a, a bloat in a, you know, a bloat and a meal at a park.

01:02:24.120 And I remember I had no idea what these, you know, oddball people might be up to.

01:02:31.820 I didn't know, and it was sketchy, and I was nervous. 0.96

01:02:34.160 And I was, I think that I masked social anxiety or fear on my part with, oh, these people are probably losers. 0.90

01:02:54.380 These guys are probably lame or whatever, you know, whatever I wanted to tell myself. 0.65

01:02:59.640 and i and i went and it was i remember i parked and i went creeping around in the woods

01:03:09.940 to try to view them from a distance where i could see them and they couldn't see me to see what i

01:03:16.000 was getting myself into oh my goodness what are these characters up to what do they look like

01:03:21.420 what's going on um because again i didn't know what to expect and i think that there's a lot of

01:03:28.060 things that go into not taking that first step. There's infinite possibilities of finding some

01:03:36.140 reason that you've got something else to do that day, or that now's not a good time, but maybe

01:03:41.580 later, or that, you know, whatever, fill in the blanks. We all, it, unfortunately, the human mind

01:03:50.260 has an amazing capacity to manufacture excuses but yeah i remember i remember that and there was 1.00

01:04:04.580 two two really nice ladies that i haven't talked to in a long time unfortunately um 0.98

01:04:11.220 a woman named danielle she was there with her daughter and uh and a woman named lisa

01:04:17.940 and they were there and that was my first thing that i did and we just got together in the middle

01:04:23.540 of a beautiful park that's one of the anchors beautiful place and it was a really nice park and

01:04:29.700 and it was so much easier from there once i'd done it um once i was done it once i went to that first

01:04:36.740 one then you know i think it was maybe one or two months later i was hosting stuff at my house

01:04:45.300 and I was all in. But that first step is really hard. Bodie, what was your first step? What was

01:04:54.480 the first Ausitru thing you attended, no matter what the scale?

01:05:04.580 This would have been around probably, I'll say the summer of 2001, I would think,

01:05:13.420 maybe around midsummer um that's whenever i was kind of in my probationary period as it were um

01:05:23.660 there was and i know our our good friend go the east he lives not too far away from there's a

01:05:33.620 place in west georgia or north west georgia norton anyway northern georgia there's a place

01:05:41.700 called dragon hills it is a 75 acre site that is for the past 30 something years i don't know if

01:05:49.920 it's still active now but it was in the 80s and the 90s it was a big old neo-pagan gathering spot

01:05:54.900 and um that first go through that i knew craig him and his wife she was some kind of hippie

01:06:02.240 neopagan and um they ran two big events there every year um so i don't guess it was midsummer

01:06:11.660 It was around May Day, unfortunately, or not May Day, but Memorial Day.

01:06:20.580 So they did a gathering that was a four-day weekend for Memorial Day and one for Labor Day.

01:06:29.840 And that was the first time that I can remember actually standing in Bloat and sitting in Sambal was that year.

01:06:40.000 was back then and I'll tell you something you brought to mind Matt was we're talking about how

01:06:47.260 it took so long to get the first off and now we've gotten two three and four in such rapid succession

01:06:51.840 I'll tell you guys listening and watching one of the reasons why um back in 2002

01:06:59.640 um I went to and I don't remember where the heck we were in Alabama but it was somewhere in Alabama

01:07:07.840 And 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.

01:07:26.460 Then there was the Ossetree Alliance, which was a Arizona thing.

01:07:31.560 And both in the early 2000s were kind of seen as big Ossetree, you know, like they're trying to make this national.

01:07:42.140 They're trying to get all of us together.

01:07:43.740 How dare they? 0.99

01:07:45.060 Like, we're going to be a confederation of independent Ossetree kindreds. 1.00

01:07:49.200 So that's the silliness that was going on 20 something years ago when you look back and go, 1.00

01:07:55.320 well gee why did it take us so long to get to where we are now with the afa that's why stuff

01:08:01.980 like that because founder mcnallen and githia sheila and some other folks back in the day they 0.63

01:08:08.460 were really trying to march towards what we have now but people like that and their pig-headedness

01:08:14.840 and their small-mindedness were just they were boxing themselves out of this march towards glory

01:08:21.980 that we're all on now, that we're all participating and driving.

01:08:25.580 They were doing this to themselves, and you could see the silliness

01:08:29.860 and kind of the jankiness of it back then, but it was the only thing that we had

01:08:34.640 because, you know, Brownsville, Grass Valley, California is a long way

01:08:39.580 from East Alabama, a long way from Florida, a long way from Georgia.

01:08:44.440 So we didn't understand then what we could have now.

01:08:49.120 So that's the silliness that was going on back then.

01:08:51.980 So, I think this warrants a little bit of attention because it's an important point.

01:09:03.860 It's always been a challenge and continues to be to this day.

01:09:09.260 And 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.

01:09:31.640 people are very selfish and we can pretend that we're not but i think the first instinct

01:09:40.360 of people is to be very selfish and i don't think you know there's there are some souls

01:09:48.060 out there that just aren't and you know maybe god's blessed them but for a lot of us it takes

01:09:56.700 stopping consciously acknowledging and then choosing not to be selfish one of the hardest

01:10:04.660 things is okay cool we need a hof where are we going to put it every single person thinks we

01:10:12.320 should put it within walking distance of their house yep um and i've watched you know any of

01:10:21.160 early attempts before we got odin's hof to get a hof well no we want to keep our money local no

01:10:27.080 we want to keep our money local no we're gonna build we're gonna build our own hof we're i've

01:10:31.400 i have heard for

01:10:36.600 23 years now

01:10:41.000 probably 30 or more times about no we're gonna build our own hof

01:10:48.520 mm-hmm of those 30 how many of those hofs have happened zero of them um

01:10:57.640 so to get odin's off we put the entire weight of the astro folk assembly and um generous friends

01:11:09.640 that wanted to contribute towards one hof in brownsville california and as bode said well

01:11:17.320 i'm not here in alabama why do i want to hoff out there in california you don't yeah well what i've

01:11:23.640 said since the day i became austere guffy shoot what i said before then the quickest way for you

01:11:31.560 to get a hoff in alabama one yeah we have one of stayed away but the quickest way for you get

01:11:40.280 a hoff close to you wherever you find yourself is to pay off odin's off yeah whatever

01:11:47.320 it's a hard sell and it's hard to get people to trust that.

01:11:53.000 And it's hard to get people to get past their own self-centeredness.

01:11:59.280 And again, I'm not saying I'm, I'm free of that.

01:12:03.400 You have to consciously acknowledge it and choose not to be, but, um,

01:12:07.760 yeah, and as we got it,

01:12:11.220 I think a little bit more people bought in that as soon as it was paid off,

01:12:16.040 it took it took people for everywhere if we relied on the people within three hours of

01:12:23.660 Odenshof to fund it we still wouldn't have the down payment raised yeah um it takes all of us

01:12:32.340 putting our weight behind one thing to make that happen but then we were able to make uh to pay

01:12:40.700 that off and make Thor's Hoff happen in just five years. And after we made Thor's Hoff happen,

01:12:50.600 yeah, we found an amazing deal, but we were able to get Baldur's Hoff a few months later.

01:12:57.440 And then two years after that, we're able to get Njords Hoff. The quickest way to get a Hoff 0.90

01:13:02.800 closer to you is truly to pay off Njord's Hoff. That is the quickest way to get a Hoff 1.00

01:13:11.200 near you. Because continuing to pool all of our resources together to get that Hoff and 1.00

01:13:17.120 make it happen, that's how things get done. And it's taken a long time to gather that

01:13:23.120 momentum and it's still a constant struggle. But by sticking it out and wanting to be part

01:13:31.920 of something that makes that work uh when bodie and i first got involved in house true that

01:13:39.200 everybody wanting to do their own thing was that was the norm and it was it's always been described

01:13:46.520 it's like herding cats everybody wants to do their own thing everybody wants to start their

01:13:52.440 own thing everybody wanted to be the fat king of their group of four fat in camp chairs

01:14:01.340 yep with 100 rotisserie chicken yep and that's that was it and like the theodsmen literally

01:14:12.580 wanted to do that um everybody else you know may not call themselves king but they wanted to be in

01:14:18.260 charge of it and they would like argue over what position your camp chair was in around the garbage

01:14:25.440 fire in the hole they dug in their backyard in the hood and that's that's their aspirations for

01:14:33.260 where we should be worshiping our gods and i'm not faulting anybody we all started there

01:14:38.620 but i'm faulting people that want to stay there um right and you know matt i was talking with

01:14:45.600 my go the program student earlier the uh wonderful uh folk builder steen penner about

01:14:53.440 about that about you know how that's that is a problem you asked it if i had anything i really

01:14:59.540 wanted to say that that is that is one of the things you know i told him that the old saying

01:15:08.000 the old adage of you know a wise man plants a tree knowing that he'll never enjoy the shade of it 0.99

01:15:13.300 um i know that those of you who live way far away from any hoffs because you may be in the

01:15:22.140 middle of the country, you may be in the extreme corners or whatever. Um, I get it. Um, it's not 0.99

01:15:28.720 a 12 or 14 hour drive, but it's still a three and a half hour drive to the Hoff, you know,

01:15:34.180 to 10 yards off for me for the Hoff in which I'm attached as a priest. Um, however, you know,

01:15:40.740 going back to that adage, you know, if you are contributing as a member, even though you live

01:15:46.840 500 a thousand miles away from any hoff you contributing to paying off those 0.93

01:15:52.140 hosses going to ensure that one is going to be closer to you sooner rather than 0.99

01:15:55.620 later um so yeah it sucks that we have to travel such distances now for some of

01:16:05.000 us to get to a hoff take flights whatever but i cannot i cannot express how much

01:16:10.220 it's worth it i just can't it's it's it's absolutely worth it once you

01:16:15.360 experience Hoff

01:16:17.300 culture no matter which one of the 0.90

01:16:19.280 four you go to

01:16:20.080 and we often talk

01:16:23.340 about

01:16:24.240 Mike Joyner and myself we talk about

01:16:27.400 how every time we come to Njortzhoff

01:16:29.020 you know Witten Slawn has painted these beautiful murals

01:16:31.540 at all four Hoffs

01:16:32.800 right? At Thorshoff

01:16:35.340 and at Njortzhoff which are the

01:16:37.320 two that I frequent most often

01:16:38.660 every

01:16:41.440 time we walk in there we all do

01:16:43.360 the same thing we go up and we

01:16:45.140 i guess kind of present ourselves in front of the mural and and address the god of the hall

01:16:51.840 every time and it's something that 22 years ago i couldn't even imagine that i would be walking

01:16:59.760 into a it to one of four you know temples dedicated to my gods and i would be doing such

01:17:08.000 a thing. And it to be a feeling of, you know, of wholeness and, you know, here I am again in this

01:17:17.840 temple to Njord. Here I am again in this temple to Thor. Odinsof will always be very special to me.

01:17:26.220 That's the one that I've been to, even counting all the times I've been to Njordsof. I think I've

01:17:30.920 been to Odinsoff more times, more often.

01:17:36.220 And yes, there was a sense of familiarity in, oh, I'm back to Odinsoff again.

01:17:41.800 But every single time was special.

01:17:44.840 Walking around that beautiful, beautiful Vey out back.

01:17:50.920 If you have not seen that, that is a selling point for Odinsoff.

01:17:54.940 I'll give them a little bit of hype up.

01:17:58.380 If you have not seen that beautiful vey out in the back of Odin's Hoff,

01:18:01.860 the building itself is beautiful. It's been there forever.

01:18:04.120 But if you have not seen that vey out back,

01:18:05.960 you're doing yourself as a disservice.

01:18:08.960 So yeah, it's, that's one of the things that I,

01:18:11.480 that I'd like to, you know, kind of get on the bandwagon about is please, 1.00

01:18:16.040 please help us pay off these Hoffs because that will ensure you having one

01:18:19.980 close to you as the officer you go, they said.

01:18:23.120 And it, that really is the case.

01:18:26.020 And as we are economically able, we will continue to build temples to our God or to establish, be it build or acquire temples to our gods.

01:18:37.500 And we're absolutely committed to that.

01:18:40.500 We're making awesome progress at it.

01:18:44.340 We got really special things, but man, it came out of a place where, yeah, everybody wants to do their own thing.

01:18:51.240 and what happens is when we come together united in purpose that as a folk as a people that's when

01:19:04.360 we can do stuff we still see it there's you know some kind of uprising or schismatic people needing

01:19:10.780 to do their own thing because so many of our people are so broken that they don't know how

01:19:17.200 to act right in a group and it's unfortunate but we continue to heal we continue to move forward

01:19:24.000 and it gets better uh over time but that's the thing it's it's a long it's a long-term thing

01:19:31.700 but bode mentioned planting you know planting trees that you won't get to sit under the shade

01:19:37.460 of which kids will your grandkids will yep um being willing to do that that willingness that

01:19:44.540 commitment really important i wanted to mention this too there's the other option if you want

01:19:49.720 a hof closer to you you can put you closer to one of our hofs um you know i didn't live

01:19:57.940 near a hof when we got odin's hof and moved across the country it's something you can absolutely do

01:20:05.980 if it's that important to you so there's there's multiple paths to that but uh the commitment is

01:20:13.280 is the key. So in the time that we've rattled on about that, we have some questions stacking up.

01:20:24.260 So from RealMage, question, would Matt be okay with someone trying to find the Hoff payoff on

01:20:34.280 GoFundMe? I think he means fund the Hoff payoff on GoFundMe, not sure. Fundraising for other

01:20:40.620 churches is allowed. So in a bubble, that's an awesome idea. I like that because GoFundMe

01:20:48.260 is such a recognizable platform. Unfortunately, GoFundMe is very bad about

01:20:54.820 de-platforming and screwing up the money on causes that they don't like.

01:21:05.700 and we ran into that with um trying to raise money for odinsoff gofundme ended up

01:21:15.940 shutting us down and

01:21:20.260 causing you know causing problems with us getting that money when we tried that there early on

01:21:28.760 so that was very problematic um we've heard horror stories from a lot of other people

01:21:33.760 with causes that GoFundMe doesn't like.

01:21:36.880 So unfortunately, there's certain platforms

01:21:38.780 that do not treat us fairly.

01:21:40.500 And GoFundMe is one of those.

01:21:43.460 That's why we run our own fundraiser

01:21:45.680 through our website.

01:21:49.300 And if you guys take that and run with it

01:21:53.920 and share it around, share it with your friends,

01:21:56.240 it doesn't have to be AFA members.

01:21:59.140 There's no qualification.

01:22:00.640 Anybody who wants to donate to it,

01:22:02.660 we welcome it and we appreciate it um if you guys get the word out there and put the link out there

01:22:07.980 it'll really help but that's by far the best way and we can trust the money will go towards us and

01:22:15.560 it also helps they don't take a commission it's it's us running our own thing so 100 of it goes

01:22:20.960 towards the cause but uh yeah we can't trust gofundme not to seize the money and eventually

01:22:30.040 send it back to the donors or whatever they do with it. But, uh, yeah, that's, I wish that we

01:22:36.420 could use that. I wish we could, you know, that would, uh, help accelerate what we're doing.

01:22:41.100 Certainly. Uh, next question when giving to the gods full horn or full bottle, can a horn be too

01:22:50.920 small um so i've i've mentioned this a lot so much of that revolves around intent

01:23:05.000 um if it's all you got then it has an increased value than if you've got a seller full of mead

01:23:15.240 and you're wondering about you know what's the smallest horn i can find to give an offering in

01:23:20.920 And it's all about what's in your heart at the time as far as the quantity.

01:23:25.220 I don't think that, you know, I don't think that the God's appreciation is based on fluid ounces that are offered.

01:23:36.020 I don't think they keep a tally.

01:23:38.660 No, 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.

01:23:50.920 I 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.

01:24:01.100 It's not about, like, quantity of liquid.

01:24:03.740 Very 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.

01:24:13.900 It doesn't have to be a great quantity of liquid.

01:24:16.400 The point is the intention of what you do behind it.

01:24:20.920 that said there's other mechanics that come into play if you're doing a group ritual with

01:24:27.660 you know 50 or 100 other ostrich or and you've got a little tiny horn that you know can barely

01:24:34.300 fit me in it then it looks chintzy and uh doesn't have the same effect as a as a full horn that's

01:24:40.600 that's suitable for the occasion so circumstances matter you have any thoughts on that buddy

01:24:45.520 um yeah i was gonna say you know if that's all you got that's all you got the gods don't take

01:24:50.660 a tally they don't say you know well you know old Bodie's uh offerings he used to give us this

01:24:57.740 high shelf mead and now he's giving us this low rent stuff so we're not necessarily going to

01:25:02.500 shower as much blessings on him and give him as much insight as as we normally do because he's

01:25:07.580 being a little chintzy with the mead I don't think that's it you know it's about the sharing

01:25:12.800 process Bodie can you drop the the have them all verse on us about the many friends that Odin's

01:25:20.240 one? Oh, yeah. Do you mean the loaf and the cup? I do. Yeah, I was just thinking that as we were

01:25:28.340 talking about it, I was going to say, you know, Odin himself says in the Hava Mall that with

01:25:31.900 half a loaf and an empty cup, I found myself a friend. And if that's good enough for the father

01:25:37.840 of the gods to make friends out on the road, then I don't think that we would be going too far wrong

01:25:44.260 with giving the best we had and you know when we speak of like where my name comes from earlier

01:25:50.780 when we speak of the Riggs doula uh being uh being part of Riggs Blood Kindred what's up Dan

01:25:59.240 um being part of Riggs Blood Kindred you know Riggs was the name that Heimdall took when he

01:26:04.880 came down to Midgard to follow the three classes of men and as you move through that story um

01:26:11.780 you see that great-grandmother and great-grandfather did not have uh or grandmother and

01:26:18.180 grandfather they did not have the best their house was not very well put together it was drafty

01:26:24.280 um you know the the meat was half cooked when he arrived there was no ale that was brewed

01:26:30.160 and it progresses on you know into greater levels of accoutrement as you move through the story

01:26:36.900 But 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.

01:26:51.160 They 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.

01:26:59.240 They gave him what they had. They gave him the best that they had.

01:27:03.200 And 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.

01:27:21.820 okay um you're not getting any judgment from us you are not getting any you know any uh furrowed

01:27:30.760 brows because you don't have this massive drinking horn that holds 14 bottles of liquor i mean that's

01:27:36.360 not that's not a thing let's not make that a thing let's uh as the kids say nowadays let's

01:27:43.040 normalize doing the best we can with what we've got now you should aspire to give the gods always

01:27:50.600 the best of what you have and that doesn't mean that you you know give them gold and jewels that

01:27:58.200 you are trying to save for your retirement or something like that but it's the best of what

01:28:02.200 you can afford to give without making yourself destitute um i remember speaking of ancient things

01:28:10.360 which is one of my specialties back in the day whenever i was like i said when i was kind of

01:28:17.400 trafficking in you know neo-pagan circles traveling not trafficking has a better word

01:28:22.540 traveling in neo-pagan circles um i found out that many many many times a lot of these folks would

01:28:32.040 forego bills to go to these gatherings like they would not pay their light bill or they would you

01:28:38.840 know put off their car payment so they could spend three or four hundred dollars or more for a weekend

01:28:44.660 And I remember being of two minds about that.

01:28:48.260 I remember thinking, wow, that's a lot of dedication to the cause.

01:28:51.220 And 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?

01:29:00.300 Because that's that's really not that's really not the most ideal situation.

01:29:05.360 We 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.

01:29:17.820 I mean.

01:29:19.900 So there's two points that I'd like to make.

01:29:23.480 First, there is the nature of sacrifice.

01:29:29.300 um that word has come to mean something that it didn't mean when our ancestors were offering to

01:29:40.760 our gods. Most, if not all, religions have some form of sacrifice involved. And the

01:29:59.640 predominant religion of our culture for the last, you know, 1,500 years comes from Hebrew

01:30:08.660 judaic roots and the nature of their sacrifice to their god is very different it was very much

01:30:16.400 the giving up of something valuable as a burnt offering and in its entirety

01:30:24.920 of taking something and giving it value to their god

01:30:28.540 our the nature of our sacrifice was really different now the word sacrifice comes from

01:30:36.600 the Latin sacred and to make. So to make something sacred, the idea is you're taking

01:30:43.700 that exists in the mundane world and through ritual, you are sanctifying it as an offering

01:30:52.080 to your gods. But the sacrifice of our ancestors is really different. There was, you know,

01:30:59.340 there was a portion or the blood perhaps, or, you know, the heart or something like that

01:31:05.700 set aside for the gods but or maybe you'd make a plate for them on the altar but the idea was

01:31:11.900 you're sharing a meal with them it's it was a lot about sharing and in that way it very much

01:31:18.540 is like um the line that we quoted from the have them all where odin made friends with a half a

01:31:25.060 loaf and a you know half cup that sharing with our gods is the nature of a lot of it's not to

01:31:33.840 say there's not a time and a place to give gifts to our gods, but I think considering what they

01:31:43.260 want or the value of it, realistically, it's absolutely a gift to Mjord to contribute to 0.86

01:31:52.520 paying off his hof. It's a gift to Lord Frey to contribute to establishing his hof. Those

01:32:00.760 have a lot of value, I think, to giving something tremendous to one of our gods.

01:32:08.440 And I think our gods, I believe that our gods would value a temple to them much more than

01:32:16.680 they would value an expensive bottle of mead.

01:32:21.580 But what's more common is that sharing, is that when you come before your altar, like

01:32:30.040 I mentioned earlier, some people will leave a shot. Some people will also leave a shot and

01:32:34.940 take a shot so that they're sharing a drink with our gods or leave a portion of the meal that

01:32:41.680 they're preparing for their families so that their gods are included in that sharing. The idea of

01:32:49.160 sharing and communing with our gods is really, really important. Now, giving them something,

01:32:54.480 offering them just a gift for a gift's sake, that's fine. And that's absolutely appropriate.

01:32:59.300 there's plenty of time and place for that but in the thought process of it think about what

01:33:06.740 you're doing and why you're doing it but yeah money spent towards your church and towards

01:33:14.100 the success of alsatru and you and your family's further participation in it

01:33:20.100 is absolutely an offering to our gods and it's a holy act and i uh i hope people

01:33:26.500 grow to see it that way.

01:33:33.620 So our next question is from

01:33:36.580 Finn Rafe.

01:33:40.620 What is your ancestry? You go ahead and go first on this, Bodie. What is your

01:33:44.700 ancestry? Which part of Europe did they come from?

01:33:48.400 They came from, my honkies in particular, came from

01:33:52.120 uh germany france and england with a little bit of uh scots and scandinavian thrown in

01:34:00.280 um i am well i'll say a little bit i am according to all of the spit tube purveyors out there i am

01:34:10.560 roughly anywhere between depending who you ask 20 to 25 scottish um go kind fraser um

01:34:21.120 And, of course, I like to joke that, of course, because I am who I am, I couldn't be any Scotsman.

01:34:29.440 I had to be descended from the folks that live around Loch Ness.

01:34:33.540 So, of course, I do.

01:34:35.720 I am a Fraser of Inverness, right on the banks of Loch Ness.

01:34:40.400 So that and a little bit of continental French and a little bit of English and Scottish.

01:34:51.120 with a smattering of Scandinavians thrown in for flavor.

01:35:01.060 Yeah, my people are predominantly from England

01:35:08.420 and have been in the United States.

01:35:14.260 Most of my people that I can trace or have any knowledge of

01:35:17.460 been in the United States for a very long time.

01:35:21.120 mine too especially the american south since well before the war of independence

01:35:32.880 originally in the carolinas

01:35:37.360 farming in the carolinas and then moving over towards eventually a bunch of my people

01:35:44.160 ended up in mississippi um the most recent from europe lines of my people we have uh

01:35:53.280 on 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

01:36:06.800 and other than that also at the like the very beginning of the 1900s we have a couple who

01:36:14.160 The 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.

01:36:24.880 I don't know the nature of how their marriage was set up, but they came over separately.

01:36:31.800 It 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.

01:36:41.200 And I've got a, if I had it handy, I would show you a picture of them.

01:36:46.760 But those are the most recent from Europe.

01:36:49.180 So, but other than that, the vast majority, as far as I know, from England.

01:36:57.120 Yeah, all of mine have been here since my oldest ancestor that I know.

01:37:04.400 well my the oldest ancestor well the original uh one who came here um let's say it that way words

01:37:11.680 are hard um my first american ancestor stepped off the boat from england somewhere wherever you got

01:37:21.120 off the boat in virginia back then uh in 1685 and it took them another hundred some odd years to get

01:37:28.960 from Virginia down here, because as I said earlier, we were the original whiteys who

01:37:35.840 came in, kind of if you follow the coast down through the Carolinas across the bottom half

01:37:42.520 of Georgia and into the panhandle of Florida, and all across southern Alabama and into southern

01:37:47.020 Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, I think is where we finally stopped. But along the way,

01:37:52.000 my people stopped in the panhandle of Florida.

01:37:55.680 The Mayos come from Jackson County, Florida,

01:37:59.680 which is not too far away from New York's Hoff.

01:38:03.940 But yeah, we were all here.

01:38:06.520 I don't know of any recent additions past the late 17th century,

01:38:12.320 early 18th century.

01:38:14.080 So we've been here a long time, long time.

01:38:22.000 yeah i'm just checking on uh something on a date i think the oldest of my family that i know that

01:38:31.840 was born here was uh john bond born in north carolina in 1690 um but yeah so i've got got

01:38:47.380 american roots that go back that far um i believe his family was from uh dorset in england

01:38:57.620 yeah it was an interesting uh interesting uncovering my genealogy and my

01:39:03.060 my last name which is a bit unique um it has um you know i used to say unfortunately it has

01:39:14.500 french origins i don't say that anymore i know we always clown on our french relatives and cousins

01:39:19.300 but um you know for for various reasons which we won't get into but you know uh mayo was originally

01:39:29.060 m-a-y-u-x it was mayo and then through the process of history and all the forces that shaped that

01:39:39.460 That, you know, it became Mayhew, then Mayhew became Mayho, M-A-Y-H-O, then they lopped the H off and left the O.

01:39:50.360 People 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.

01:39:58.400 There are literally no one, there's not a single soul in the entire island of Ireland with the last name Mayo.

01:40:03.600 So not a single one, which is an odd thing, but it's the truth as far as I can reckon it.

01:40:10.900 So, yeah, we were – Mayo is an Anglo name by way of France,

01:40:16.880 as so many things were in England back in the day.

01:40:20.840 So then we came over here, and we haven't left since.

01:40:27.740 Goethe Bodie, what is your favorite holiday?

01:40:30.280 my favorite holiday probably midsummer

01:40:37.320 because while yule as we've talked about while yule is you know that that time of the year where

01:40:50.320 we're we're starting the year over and we are taking stock of the year and we are looking

01:40:58.380 forward you know we're drawing inwards as go the east likes to say we're we're drawing inwards in

01:41:03.260 a good way and we're commuting with our ancestors and ourselves and you know we're we're kind of

01:41:09.780 hunkering down for the long winter midsummer is the is literally uh the solar polar opposite i

01:41:16.920 guess you could say so i've always enjoyed midsummer since i've been in oscar because it's

01:41:24.400 just that radiant exuberance that midsummer signifies it's just when you are literally

01:41:34.320 and figuratively waxing in might as a people as you know as an individual if you're doing things

01:41:41.680 right um if you're following the the holy tides and the seasons correctly and manifesting them

01:41:49.640 internally, then when you get to midsummer,

01:41:52.840 that is an outpouring of just right action and energy and in a good way.

01:42:00.080 And it's, you know, everything is green, you know, yes, it might be hot,

01:42:05.120 but everything is green. Everything is growing. Everything is fertile.

01:42:09.900 It's, it's kind of a point in the year where despite trials and tribulations,

01:42:16.300 life is good. We're living high on the hog.

01:42:18.760 we're we're we're cruising on the crest of the wave as it were at midsummer and um that's always

01:42:25.960 been one of my favorite times of the year it's literally my favorite holiday fair enough

01:42:37.320 super honky has one more question i have one more question i love that name

01:42:41.240 what do you guys think about border situation if the videos and info is true we are way behind

01:42:49.860 enemy lines in my opinion thanks for responding to the other question so

01:42:54.960 here's a thing and i think that it

01:42:59.660 i don't know flows into a bigger topic here so

01:43:05.580 border situation is terrible because it just gives away and takes away from our folk. One

01:43:18.880 second. I love you too, Aubrey. Good night. Good. Yeah. So, so that's, that's unfortunate.

01:43:27.820 There's also a lot of criminality and unfortunate things that are coming across the border as well, which are unfortunate.

01:43:40.180 But I think a bigger thing to what we're talking about, politically, there's lots of stuff going on that's really, really bad.

01:43:51.920 I think that all of us are surrounded every day by flows of information that tell us just how bad everything is.

01:44:02.700 I know. I'm aware.

01:44:05.680 But 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.

01:44:16.360 Be active. Make that happen.

01:44:18.220 in the meantime what and i think this goes into a different question we've got a little bit

01:44:23.900 further down the queue but in the meantime what do we have that is accessible that we can do something

01:44:30.540 and i think that's where we're trying to focus our attention

01:44:38.620 so many of us are very very frustrated at big things in the world that we have no ability to

01:44:45.580 substantially affect or make better one thing we can absolutely make better is our house true folk

01:44:52.700 assembly and a big part of what we do is building that golden age within within the area that we

01:45:01.980 have the ability to affect within our family within our faith community in the house true

01:45:06.540 folk assembly that's why we're trying to live closer together we're trying to gather our people

01:45:12.860 around hoffs we're trying to bring as many people as we can of our folk to siggerheim and build an

01:45:19.660 house a true village there with our folks we can look out for each other so we can help each other

01:45:26.300 when we're in need no matter what that help might look like and so we can build the world that we

01:45:32.620 want in the microcosm that is the afa and the more we do that we the more we bring our folk home

01:45:40.940 the more we can make the world that we want um the world is a very very big place and i don't

01:45:51.180 think we should be aloof from and not care about um macro political issues of course we should

01:45:57.820 ability to you know move that needle please do but in the meantime we have a huge

01:46:04.780 that's what it is and we can build the world we want and there's a lot of space

01:46:12.200 to where we can do really amazing things and we're doing that and uh you know if

01:46:19.700 if you are a part of that or you want to be we'd love to have your help doing that

01:46:24.980 uh Bodie do you have thoughts yeah the thought that come to mind is you know

01:46:31.200 an old adage from back in the day

01:46:34.400 because that's where I'm from

01:46:35.740 is everybody wants to

01:46:38.160 be focused until it's time to do

01:46:40.280 focused things

01:46:41.140 and the same folks

01:46:44.460 who want to

01:46:46.740 constantly traffic

01:46:48.680 in political things

01:46:50.260 and want to constantly be worried about

01:46:52.220 the next political ism

01:46:54.260 as El Serigo they said

01:46:56.100 do I pay attention to geopolitics

01:46:58.140 and national politics 0.65

01:46:59.060 yeah you're damn right I do

01:47:01.060 But I also recognize the fact that I and this is going to sound to some as a cop out, but it's not.

01:47:09.260 I am powerless to do anything about it. What I am empowered to change is what we're about right now.

01:47:17.760 I'm not a political operative. I'm a priest of the ace here.

01:47:21.560 That is my scope and my sphere of influence and my scope of practice.

01:47:26.420 That 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.

01:47:50.240 And 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.

01:48:17.040 so now this time is a spiritual awakening so if we tried the politics and it didn't work once 0.94

01:48:25.720 the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result 0.96

01:48:30.260 i feel that votan himself is telling us that the solution is going to be spiritual it's going to 0.99

01:48:40.380 be religious i think that that's why the gods have heaped victory upon victory upon us

01:48:46.220 Have we had our setbacks?

01:48:47.380 Have we had our losses?

01:48:48.380 Yes, we have.

01:48:49.600 But as the Alshira Goethe likes to remind me all the time,

01:48:52.320 you have to look at the net positive and the net negative.

01:48:55.860 And as it stands right now, we are at a net positive.

01:48:59.860 Doing what we're doing, aligning ourselves with our spiritual interests,

01:49:05.220 curing our soul sickness, getting back to where we need to be in here and in here.

01:49:13.060 Instead 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.

01:49:27.040 I'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.

01:49:37.520 I'm trying to

01:49:40.080 I'm trying to think

01:49:42.260 Worldwide

01:49:44.960 And act locally as the old saying goes

01:49:47.440 So I have a couple of

01:49:51.400 A couple of other thoughts

01:49:53.020 Border crisis stuff

01:49:57.180 And how

01:49:58.260 We're behind enemy lines

01:50:01.880 In a lot of ways that way

01:50:03.460 That you suggested

01:50:04.440 i don't know that that's true uh behind foreign lines perhaps

01:50:11.540 but i think that we find ourselves much more behind enemy lines

01:50:17.660 with a lot of the ruling elites in the country that we're in that you know are of the same

01:50:29.680 genetic stock as the rest of us, I think those people are doing far more to hurt us than,

01:50:36.180 you know, the other folk that are, that are taking over the Southern Western part of the 0.96

01:50:43.800 United States and more. I see what you're saying and the demographic shift. I don't like stuff 0.98

01:50:51.800 that my forefathers fought for and built being taken over by a different group of people. I

01:50:59.660 And certainly I don't think that's good for us.

01:51:03.600 But 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.

01:51:15.080 But what but again, what are you going to do about it?

01:51:17.240 And I think a whole lot of our people, I've watched a lot of people for ever since I was aware of it.

01:51:24.960 So, you know, probably about 30 years now, I've watched a whole bunch of our people get very upset about lots of political things.

01:51:33.080 I haven't watched that upsetness manifest in positive change towards the political ends that those people want.

01:51:41.080 most of the time what i have seen is people getting out and voting and making some better

01:51:48.820 things happen locally some better things happen in you know ways that are available to them but

01:51:55.040 where i've seen the most bang for your buck on building the world that you want is within our

01:52:02.080 afa is within our afa family that has been the biggest thing that i've seen in my life that has

01:52:09.140 moved what we want forward in a way that benefits my family in a way that benefits my friends and

01:52:17.540 in a way that builds the world that i want to see and so you know do what you want to do if there's

01:52:24.820 stuff that you can be politically active in you know the afa has never encouraged people not to

01:52:29.940 be politically active by all means but politics isn't necessarily sitting around complaining with

01:52:35.220 other guys who complain about it it's very often getting people in office voting on things even if

01:52:43.060 it's not a hundred percent your guy to move stuff forward um i think that we've got really narrow

01:52:49.060 views on a lot of these things but like i said before this is something that you can make a

01:52:54.180 huge difference in moving the needle and making the world better and that's uh it's what we try

01:52:59.380 to focus our time on um as people said over in the chat it's really easy to get bogged down

01:53:07.700 with doom porn we've got a constant yep so one of the places the a so i mentioned earlier um

01:53:15.220 we get deep platform places because folks don't like us but one place that we have a really big

01:53:19.700 following still is twitter um man i wish i could turn off my feed on twitter and just look for the

01:53:26.100 stuff that i want to look for because the feed itself is just constant negativity 24 7. and it's

01:53:33.860 really easy to let that weigh you down and beat you into inactivity and beat you into hiding in

01:53:40.100 your basement and gnashing your teeth and shaking your fist at the world instead of getting out

01:53:44.660 there and capitalizing on all the amazing things that we can do and we're doing really great stuff

01:53:49.940 together um so i hope people listening to this you know check out what we're up to and get involved

01:53:57.460 be be part of be part of what we're building instead of bemoaning all of the things that

01:54:02.900 other folks are tearing down yeah you know matt on one of the um on that tip about you know you

01:54:08.260 could just you could just do important yourself into inactivity uh something that uh my my good

01:54:16.660 friend and and kinsman witten young says all the time is that uh are you gonna keep saying one day

01:54:24.660 are you gonna say day one you know are you gonna say one day or day one um you can sit there and

01:54:32.740 you know say all day long and like i said earlier 20 something years ago uh when i was sitting

01:54:39.780 around those fires with those guys who were content to sit around the same fires forever

01:54:44.100 they would all say man one day it'd be nice if we had this or that or this or that and 20 something

01:54:50.560 years later we're doing it we're doing these things because some of us at some point said

01:54:57.120 enough of this one day today is day one so you and i have in a lot of

01:55:04.620 though they were separated by an entire continent i think we sat around a lot of

01:55:14.300 proverbially the same fires of the fat dudes wondered what it'd be like one of these days

01:55:21.300 some of those folks have come with us and are enjoying what we've got and unfortunately some

01:55:33.020 those guys are still sitting around those same fires, wondering what could be.

01:55:39.640 And I feel bad for them. I wish they'd come join what we're doing. But we've watched a lot of

01:55:45.060 people who are perpetually in the one of these days, and it is seductive. The lure of the couch

01:55:57.000 cushion is quite seductive. Um, and it's hard to break that, uh, that initial friction to get

01:56:05.060 some momentum behind you and to get propelled towards something better. Um, and we, we all

01:56:10.740 get it. I get it too. I, I think it's easy to, hold on one second. Um, anyways, what I was saying

01:56:24.680 is i think it's really easy to think that um i don't know that i'm looking down my nose and that

01:56:32.120 i'm being aloof from these things as if i don't feel it or understand the struggle i do i've been

01:56:39.880 there and i have a lot of the same things internally that pull me towards the same

01:56:48.360 negative directions that i complain about and that i do sometimes get sarcastic about

01:56:54.680 We 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.

01:57:18.120 it's the ability to break free from that and overcome it and as i was saying earlier it's

01:57:24.160 you know with the selfish thing there are some people that it comes easy for that they just

01:57:30.900 you know they're just built of of better stuff than the rest of us and good on them

01:57:37.180 but for the rest of us you have to get up in every day to make this world better than it was

01:57:45.320 when you got up and to make yourself better than you were when you got up and it's a daily challenge

01:57:52.580 and it's a daily action um but it's worth doing that's the theme of so much of our

01:57:59.900 our belief cycle all of it is about constant motion it's about staying one step ahead of the

01:58:07.040 wolves you know our our beliefs tell us there's wolves out there trying to eat the sun trying to

01:58:14.380 eat the moon. And it's a constant struggle to say, just out of the gaping maw of the wolf.

01:58:22.460 It's interesting that those that their names really are, you know, haters, like the hater

01:58:29.520 and mockery. The one who moves. But they seek to devour us. And it's our job to say one step

01:58:39.840 ahead always one step ahead and never rest that's why this podcast is called victory never sleeps

01:58:46.780 because if they catch you sleeping then you get eight yeah and there's you know that's that's the

01:58:54.040 that's the that's the thing you know the founder mcnallen talks a lot about us working our will

01:59:00.100 in midgard then if you really want to be 100 real about it you know what else there you go

01:59:06.640 was just saying you know our ancestors when they carve civilization out of the wilderness

01:59:12.300 they were always one mistake away from losing everything they were always one you know failed

01:59:20.580 harvest one blight on their animals one you know war that came through their area or war being made

01:59:28.720 against them or them having to go to war against somebody else they were always one step and one

01:59:34.600 mistake away from losing everything. But they kept the

01:59:38.060 wolves, they kept the door locked, and they kept the wolves

01:59:40.660 at bay for another day, and then another day, and then another

01:59:45.640 day. And what the Alceria Godhead was saying earlier about

01:59:49.300 it's what you do when you break free from that. That's the 0.99

01:59:54.440 sense. That's, that's how I look at it is yes. Do I keep

01:59:57.620 abreast of what's going on politically, not only locally,

02:00:00.680 statewide, nationally and internationally? Of course I do.

02:00:03.080 but when that doom kind of comes over me like man the world really is a crap show and it really is 0.97

02:00:12.060 in shambles okay well you can sit there and you can ruminate and marinate that for a minute and 0.75

02:00:18.160 then you have one or two choices you can let it depress you and you can let it lull you into

02:00:23.860 depressed and anxious inaction or you can shake it off and go well you know what okay um i've got

02:00:32.360 this other stuff that I need to do. Uh, I need to connect with my folk. I need to go to the Hoff.

02:00:36.980 I need to, you know, read the lore. I need to talk to a go the, I need to talk to a folk builder.

02:00:42.620 Uh, I need to go to a local moot. I need to engage with my folk because that is how you're going to

02:00:48.940 affect change here and now. Um, like I said earlier, the microcosm affects the macrocosm.

02:00:55.500 So it's what we do. It's often the small things we do that can have a large effect on our lives.

02:01:01.700 And, 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.

02:01:24.560 and he was 1000% correct because my life has gotten better. It just keeps getting better. 0.56

02:01:32.340 So, you know, your results may vary, but I don't think they're going to vary too far off of mine.

02:01:41.900 There is something to be said for giving yourself to a cause like this. And it's not just a cause.

02:01:50.120 And, you know, I always I stress this to our membership in my district a lot is that we are not a club.

02:01:57.880 We are not an organization. We are a church. So that is an important distinction to be made.

02:02:04.940 So 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.

02:02:20.120 but yes, we have to pay attention to it.

02:02:22.900 We have to make sure we understand what's happening around us,

02:02:26.620 but we are affecting our change and we are working our will on Midgard by

02:02:32.060 doing what we can do for each other. So there's that.

02:02:37.600 So here's a thing too, and this goes into our next question.

02:02:44.260 So our next question, one day may we have a unifier to bring all our folk home.

02:02:55.920 Not sure which gods to pray to for that, perhaps all of them.

02:02:59.980 I'd say all of them, any of them, but pray and act.

02:03:13.280 So it'd be cool.

02:03:15.040 Maybe somebody will come along and unify all of our people.

02:03:18.280 That would be awesome.

02:03:20.240 In the meantime, be the closest to that you can be until that guy gets there.

02:03:29.980 um if you i've so you know are you unifying people what are you doing to unify people

02:03:39.640 unify the entire white race maybe not what about unify one other of our folk

02:03:46.900 then what about three

02:03:51.200 it's so often a game of a game of inches we're always looking for that

02:03:58.040 that big you know lightning bolt event that happens that changes the whole game

02:04:05.180 and that's cool but it's very very rare much more often victory isn't about that one big

02:04:13.480 cataclysmic thing that happens it's about little victories that you win every single day and you

02:04:21.500 stack one on top of another, that's how you get those big victories. Often those things are

02:04:27.740 unsung, but that's how you make those things happen. So yeah, pray for somebody to appear

02:04:35.020 that's going to unify all of our folk. That's great. In the meantime, do your part to be that

02:04:41.300 guy, whatever you have the ability to do. It's what I'm trying really hard to do in the sphere

02:04:47.780 that I have. That's what a lot of us are trying to do. And the AFA is a really good way to do that.

02:04:56.400 It's the most effective way that I've found in my life to bring our folk together. And is it all of

02:05:00.920 them? No. Is it hundreds more than sitting around hoping and wishing? Absolutely it is.

02:05:09.860 um will it be thousands more by the time i pass away i hope so i'm going to do my part and if

02:05:19.260 it's not i'm not going to be able to look back at my life and say it's because i didn't try

02:05:23.100 um and that's the the thing i wanted to say i

02:05:28.320 not just that are you bringing them together and

02:05:36.320 if you see the next guy over that is bringing folks together are you willing to get behind him

02:05:43.500 and be part of that make stuff happen because as we mentioned earlier everybody's trying to be

02:05:50.080 their own, you know, again, the king of their own backyard, fat dude, camp chair circle, and

02:05:58.560 function a lot better when we're all doing it together. It's part of it. Part of unifying,

02:06:04.980 you know, everybody wants to, everybody wants the kingdom, but only if they get to be king,

02:06:12.540 and that's not how, it's not how stuff works, unfortunately. Other thing I was going to say,

02:06:17.220 this is i think related so many of us are very very used to waiting for somebody else to make

02:06:26.980 something happen and we sit around and we wait and we analyze what everybody else is doing wrong

02:06:35.540 what they could be doing better what they should be doing or man i can't wait till this thing

02:06:40.660 happens and you look around for a hero and if you if you see one by all means get behind them

02:06:49.860 and if you don't be that guy pick up the torch pick up the banner and carry it

02:06:58.500 be that for the next guy so the next guy doesn't find themselves in the spot you were in wondering

02:07:03.060 where's you know where's the guy to hold their hand and bring them into something better be that

02:07:08.260 guy and uh you know that's something that that's a conclusion that i think i came to in

02:07:18.180 2015 or so and i've tried really hard to do my part to be that guy as best as i could

02:07:27.540 in the area that i can be to help folks do more and i think that if we all do that

02:07:33.620 We'll all be so much further ahead of the game.

02:07:38.600 I'm confronted by that in my daily professional life.

02:07:45.520 I am every day that I work forced to be that guy because I don't have a choice.

02:07:55.100 That is my chosen profession, my willing lot in life.

02:08:01.500 I love it to death.

02:08:02.800 it's the other half of me this is the other this is one half that's the other half and somewhere

02:08:08.520 in the middle i had some fun but um yeah when you realize everyone everybody wants someone to come

02:08:16.780 and fix their problems for them and if you are designated as i am by society as being that

02:08:22.760 person who fixes some particular problems um then you don't get the luxury of having someone else

02:08:30.960 fix the problem you're the guy who's been called to fix the problem so it's up to you and we uh

02:08:38.660 there's a banner that hung in a firehouse I worked in that um I kind of I kind of I kind of want to

02:08:47.360 hang around you know me all the time or see it all the time and it said um no one's coming it's up to

02:08:53.500 you nobody else is coming it's up to you and um those of us in the public safety no one world

02:09:01.220 and i and i think that that that has a lot of meaning for us and it translates

02:09:06.200 translates to me into my work as a go the is no one else is coming and that doesn't mean that

02:09:13.760 nobody else is coming down the pike it's there's no one else that has been designated to do my job

02:09:20.920 in my area but me right now there will be in the future but i have been i have been ordained and

02:09:29.560 asked and elevated to do this job to the best of my ability so while there may be others are

02:09:38.260 coming down the pike in the future i'm here now i i am trying to do things now i'm trying to make

02:09:45.320 the best of my time

02:09:47.320 now so that

02:09:49.240 I may make it easier

02:09:51.400 for the guy who's coming behind me.

02:09:54.080 Hopefully,

02:09:55.020 I will have laid enough groundwork, enough

02:09:57.300 good groundwork to where

02:09:59.340 maybe

02:10:01.440 this new guy has it easier than

02:10:03.320 me. I'm not going

02:10:05.320 to give him a cakewalk, but

02:10:06.600 maybe he has it easier than me.

02:10:09.240 That's the point of all of it.

02:10:15.320 You know, yeah, that's the thing.

02:10:25.200 And a lot of these things kind of synergize and go together.

02:10:28.740 But don't waste time worrying about all the things you can't fix or all the things you can't do.

02:10:36.040 focus on the things you can do because there is a lot that every single one of us has opportunities

02:10:44.280 to do better than we currently have to do better for ourselves to do better for our families

02:10:53.200 and to do better for our folk if you're not involved jump in get involved and be part of

02:11:01.380 stuff. You guys have a lot of options of things to be part of. If it's something that advances

02:11:08.200 our folk and our values, cool. Be part of it. If you guys are looking for something to be a part of

02:11:15.180 that's accomplishing beautiful things together, be part of us. Join our AFA family. Be part of

02:11:24.700 we're doing we're at a time now to where we're small enough that you have a tremendous opportunity

02:11:33.100 to one person be extremely impactful so if you're looking for something to do get on the team um

02:11:41.500 the other the next question is an interesting one also from chris lucat um if one wished to

02:11:50.140 build their own hof to the gods and then donate it to the afa is that allowed absolutely um

02:11:59.420 there's some stuff i would say to it so you know i would be foolish to turn that down so of course

02:12:07.260 i'm not going to um if anybody builds a hof and donates it to us the very least you will

02:12:14.540 get is a hearty thank you and lots of appreciation but

02:12:24.140 factor in what does that cost you to build a hoff

02:12:31.100 are we better served with the hoff that you build wherever you might find to build it

02:12:37.740 or are we better off if you took the money that you would spend on that hoff or the labor that

02:12:44.140 you would spend on that hoff and poured that into the afa's next off um because people ask that a

02:12:52.060 lot some people have had um parcels of land and various things like man if i donate you know this

02:12:59.980 acreage that i have in the middle of nowhere up in wherever we don't have any people well if i

02:13:06.300 donate that for the afa to build a hoff on you know will you guys take it well certainly we'll

02:13:11.660 take it but i want to be completely honest we would take it and we would sell it and we would

02:13:17.500 take the money that we raised from selling it and put it into the half that we're actually doing

02:13:22.940 where we actually have gothar and people to attend and to build it most efficiently and this is

02:13:29.980 something similar and um it's something similar we run into with uh any of our food distribution we

02:13:39.020 We run food pantries out of each of our Hoffs.

02:13:42.160 We do a folk services program for our members who are in need and they're struggling.

02:13:46.480 And everybody's like, well, if I want to donate canned food, where do I ship it?

02:13:52.960 It costs a lot to ship cans.

02:13:57.080 Dollars spend, instead of buying canned food, send dollars to something that we're actually doing.

02:14:04.040 And then the people who are in need of it can spend it how they need to.

02:14:08.160 and we can allocate the resources it's all about the efficiency of resource management

02:14:13.760 um but yeah if you build a hoff and donate it to us absolutely we appreciate that that would

02:14:20.640 be amazing um i think you would get a much better result if your goal is for the afa to have more

02:14:27.360 hoffs to put those resources into the hoffs that we're trying to do already that we're moving

02:14:35.360 forward on that will accelerate our pace of making hoss to our gods happen um you know

02:14:42.080 way man there's cold the people are cold well where do i send you know used clothing to

02:14:49.680 we're much better served having dollars than

02:14:53.840 sending used clothes that depending on where they go may or may not be

02:15:00.080 but that's an issue of

02:15:01.120 that's one of the cool things and it's easy to look at that as as not or as disheartening but

02:15:09.480 that's one of the cool things the fact that we're doing real stuff and that's how real stuff can get

02:15:16.140 accomplished um moving things from the realm of ideas and intention into reality and physicality

02:15:25.240 is a big big transition and we're at a point where we're able to do that so um yeah i hope

02:15:31.880 that addresses the question bode do you have any thoughts about that yeah a couple of things you

02:15:37.640 know uh to this has been on my mind since we've been talking about the olden days and it applies

02:15:43.160 to this this like like that was saying you want to build a hof and you want to give it to the church

02:15:52.280 That'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.

02:16:12.180 If 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.

02:16:24.520 We already have a plan.

02:16:28.940 The Alceria Gothi and the Witten and the Go-Guard, we have a plan.

02:16:34.900 So it would, like you said, you would be better served.

02:16:38.680 And 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.

02:16:51.260 And to me, that all stems from a phenomenon that occurs with us because of and if you're new to all of this,

02:17:02.840 we refer often to our people being soul sick to having a soul sickness and that can take many

02:17:09.540 forms and the one that is in play here I will address in a slightly roundabout manner so

02:17:16.780 that move that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast where I met founder mcdowell for the

02:17:21.900 first time and ordered him around and that was all funny there was a gentleman there who

02:17:26.380 unfortunately has since passed away um but I was a brand new Ossetruer newly minted about a year

02:17:34.720 so year and a half in and man I was hot to trot you know I was I was excited you know I was you

02:17:43.640 know meeting all these other Ossetruers from around the country I'd driven 700 some odd miles

02:17:48.440 to Missouri to get there so there's this old guy he's been around since the 80s and uh I am like

02:17:56.060 that little that little puppy who's excited to be around other dogs for the first time you know i'm

02:18:01.480 just barking and yapping and just just wanting to talk to everybody and i'm telling this guy my life

02:18:08.380 story and he could not be less interested he really could and i don't blame him and finally

02:18:16.020 after i finally wound down he looked at me and he said listen i think you've got this backwards

02:18:20.900 nobody cares where you came from the only thing that we care about is that you're here now and 0.55

02:18:25.740 What are you going to do now that you're here?

02:18:28.500 So he condensed that later on into a simpler, more easily digestible kind of soundbite.

02:18:37.260 And 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.

02:18:49.820 Where the actual right proper course of action is that you take your identity from the folk.

02:18:55.740 You find out where you fit in, where you can be of a contribution and a help, and you do that.

02:19:04.080 Too often, people come into this and they think, I'm going to improve things.

02:19:09.640 You guys have just been kind of holding the fort down a little bit until I arrive.

02:19:13.960 Now, I'm going to make all the necessary changes to where we can have everything that we want.

02:19:19.500 Whereas, as I was scared ago, they said it's those little victories every single day.

02:19:23.940 Grand gestures have their place, but they are few and far between.

02:19:27.360 So when you realize that your identity comes from within the folk and that you are not adding your identity to it,

02:19:33.380 then I think things get a lot smoother and get a lot better.

02:19:35.960 And we can do a lot of good a lot quicker and a lot more efficiently.

02:19:44.380 Yeah, absolutely.

02:19:45.340 And that's part of the kind of bigger theme we've talked about of the individualism.

02:19:53.160 And I say this, and this isn't, none of this is negative toward the person who asks the question.

02:19:59.660 If somebody built a Hoff and gave it to us, we would say thank you.

02:20:02.920 Oh, absolutely.

02:20:03.420 But 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.

02:20:32.480 And 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.

02:20:44.220 In 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.

02:20:59.960 and they would get literally they'd get um a shed kit from uh home depot or something

02:21:07.940 maybe one of those sheds that they have out in the parking lot and they would get that and they

02:21:12.860 would doctor it up and make it nice and they'd be like aha now i have a hoth

02:21:16.560 that is a lot better than having no offs absolutely no question asked

02:21:24.080 but if we had, you know, 10 of those guys that got their own shed Hoff

02:21:31.160 that they built on their own to donate or because it's kind of cool,

02:21:36.440 if we took all of that instead and put it towards a Hoff that's of the scope,

02:21:45.280 that's recognizable to the community as a house of worship,

02:21:48.080 and that can house a significant number of our people

02:21:52.600 to worship our gods in an elevated fashion,

02:21:57.180 we'd be much, much better served.

02:22:00.700 And that's one of the big struggles of Alcetru is

02:22:03.180 Alcetru of the 70s or 80s, that was the norm,

02:22:08.060 and we didn't have these things.

02:22:11.520 When we started putting all of our resources together,

02:22:15.200 we when we move forward unified as a folk to the extent that we are that's when the magic happened

02:22:23.080 and so that's how the magic is going to continue happening in the future most likely

02:22:26.780 and again you know maybe we'll find maybe there'll be some you know athlete or celebrity or business

02:22:34.760 tycoon that comes out and converts and joins the afa and you know cool i'll buy you guys a hoff and

02:22:41.560 i'll spend a million dollars on it and we'll have something amazing but that's kind of like i said

02:22:46.780 earlier when that one guy comes to unify the entire folk we stand ready for that we're waiting

02:22:52.600 for it that'd be awesome when it when it happens but in the meantime we've got a really good system

02:22:57.720 that's working much much better than i think anybody thought it might and so we've got a plan

02:23:04.320 and we're going to keep working that plan

02:23:05.800 and see where that takes us.

02:23:12.380 Our next question.

02:23:17.160 Do you operate outside the United States?

02:23:21.200 Yes, we have members in 13 countries

02:23:28.740 besides the United States right now.

02:23:31.760 So absolutely we do.

02:23:34.320 um what will you name a hof when you run out of gods to name them after good question

02:23:44.440 i was literally thinking about that earlier today

02:23:49.120 i don't know and i don't want to

02:23:54.720 get in a spot overly speculating on that i don't have a great idea as it is right now exactly how

02:24:03.740 that's going to, there are lots of great ideas on how that's going to work. Having that decided

02:24:12.120 upon, we're still a long way away from that. We've got plans now up to Hof number 14. So

02:24:21.280 once we get past that point, it's going to be amazing to be standing on the precipice of being

02:24:27.240 able to actually have to answer that question. And I look forward to when we get closer to it.

02:24:33.740 I hope I live to see the dedication of number 14.

02:24:38.200 That would be amazing.

02:24:39.940 That will be Freya's Hoff.

02:24:44.400 So get in on with you guys.

02:24:46.680 Put some donations in.

02:24:47.700 Let's pay off New York's Hoff.

02:24:49.240 Let's make it happen.

02:24:51.140 The race to 15 starts today.

02:24:54.160 Absolutely.

02:24:54.720 Absolutely.

02:24:58.300 So the next question, can you explain a baby naming ceremony?

02:25:03.740 My wife is having our third daughter within the next few weeks, and I was hoping to do one at some point.

02:25:11.980 First, congratulations. That's awesome.

02:25:16.200 Excited for you guys.

02:25:18.500 Bodhi, would you like to answer that question or start laying that out?

02:25:24.240 Sure. So what we're essentially doing as a baby naming,

02:25:28.300 should you have one of the godhar uh go the ergithia um and this guy over here

02:25:35.660 they'll share you go that he's done a he's done his fair share of them i know it's one of his

02:25:40.900 he said before it's his favorite one of his favorite rituals of our folk to do um i have

02:25:47.220 only married and buried folks officially so i haven't had the privilege to do a baby naming but

02:25:52.240 essentially what we are doing at a baby naming is we're welcoming that child we're welcoming

02:25:59.020 that soul back to the folk and so that is the way the bloat is structured that is the way

02:26:06.020 we uh do things in in the ceremony itself there's a they a we're following a little bit of an old

02:26:14.580 tradition of the father taking ownership and recognizing the you know the mother

02:26:20.220 giving the presenting the child to the godar to the godi in question that's officiating the

02:26:27.220 ceremony and uh at least the ones that i've been a part of there's a there's an element of the

02:26:32.080 father recognizing the child and uh we then bless the child and then give the child its name

02:26:40.700 and there's an old uh there's some old traditions and some old things revolving that

02:26:46.060 um there's the whole nine day thing there was a custom of our ancestors not giving a child

02:26:52.980 a name for nine days because the belief was that

02:26:56.100 that took that long for the soul to attach itself to the child's body

02:27:01.460 and we still firmly hold to that so it doesn't necessarily have to be nine days you can stand

02:27:08.640 on ceremony if you want but i know that that's here you go there's done naming ceremonies baby

02:27:13.980 namings where the child you could tell me probably the range i know that it's been several weeks old

02:27:21.100 several months old um so it doesn't necessarily have to adhere strictly to that nine day but

02:27:27.100 that's the purpose behind it and that's the intent behind it so a couple of things um

02:27:39.740 Um, I looked at where you're located and I mean, the optimal value is to get a go-fi

02:27:51.940 to perform the, the service.

02:27:54.820 Um, you're a distance from some of our go-far, but I think if it's something that you're

02:28:05.800 interested in it's might be something that we could get gothe stam to do i don't know i'd have

02:28:10.920 to check availability but i think that he's the closest to you geographically right now um

02:28:20.120 if if you can't it's something that one of our goes i'd be happy to talk to you about and walk

02:28:26.040 you through the steps of if it's something that you end up needing to do yourself just you and your

02:28:30.440 family um so there is something really important about naming in general in our uh in our religion

02:28:45.480 name takes something out of the realm of being an it and makes it a

02:28:54.120 him a her a who um affixes an identity and there's value in a name names have meaning

02:29:07.020 why are you going to name your child what you're going to name uh why are you going to name your

02:29:11.620 daughter whatever you're going to name her um and knowing that is an important part of incorporating

02:29:18.760 it into the ceremony so basically and this is what this is what i do this is the afa's current

02:29:25.080 naming tradition um on the uh usually if i can if i if i have the the forewarning

02:29:35.560 you know what i'm sorry i'm stumbling over myself here because i'm trying to think of

02:29:40.120 where to start depending on people's familiarity um if someone asks me to do a naming for their child

02:29:48.760 I ask them what they're going to name their child and why, and I think on that, and I ponder that.

02:29:56.700 And 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.

02:30:10.320 And 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.

02:30:41.280 and so i'll do that and i'll draw a room from each of the each of the norner uh

02:30:48.560 mother earth verdandi and skull and um and i you know i'll interpret those rooms i'll let the

02:30:58.960 the inspiration of the gods guide me and interpret those into into gifts for to bestow upon the child

02:31:11.240 Bring the baby out.

02:31:15.060 Come before the gods.

02:31:16.680 If you have an altar, if you're at one of our Hoffs,

02:31:19.980 if you're just standing around a circle in a place that's special to you at that time,

02:31:25.900 but call our gods to witness what you're doing because that's important.

02:31:30.520 Have your friends and family there if they can be there to witness what you're doing

02:31:33.980 because a part of it is welcoming this new life into your community.

02:31:40.320 into your family into your folk but we're taking them from the realm of

02:31:49.760 undifferentiated space and bringing them into a context bringing them into this is your name

02:31:56.800 this is your family these are your folk these are your gods we're orienting them in time

02:32:03.680 in space and in a community um when i say their name for the first time i sprinkle water

02:32:14.720 on them while i'm doing it it's a very old custom that's one of the

02:32:21.680 interesting things the idea of and this goes into catholic christening and other things in

02:32:28.720 In early Christianity, it was a full immersion in water situation that they did,

02:32:34.600 but they adopted our ancestral customs when they came north as far as, you know,

02:32:40.280 just a little bit of water that they do at a christening.

02:32:45.560 That's the naming that our ancestors did, or it's drawn from that tradition.

02:32:50.660 So we do that to affix the name, and then I have mead, and with an evergreen sprig,

02:32:56.380 I trace those runic gifts that I talked about earlier on the child's head and I speak that

02:33:05.220 that blessing to to the folk that are there and to the baby specifically and as Bodie mentioned

02:33:11.800 it's one of my favorite things to do I am very emotional and I tear up and cry like a baby when

02:33:19.020 I'm doing it but that's because I love it it's one of the most special things we get to do

02:33:23.980 so you do that and then you announce them before the folk and the people who are there can make

02:33:31.740 toast to them or give them gifts or whatever that way and and from that moment that baby's

02:33:39.340 not just a potato it's a little girl that's got a name it's got an identity that's got a um

02:33:46.780 an orlog and a hymenia that that she's building and carrying into the future with her and that's

02:33:54.820 kind of the point of it like i said it'd be awesome if you can get a uh a gothi or a gifia

02:34:03.120 to perform that service for you if you can't then like i said please do reach out and we'll be happy

02:34:10.640 to help walk you through it all right well i appreciate you guys all joining us again this

02:34:34.880 evening um it's been great to talk with you guys it's been great to have bodie on

02:34:40.720 and i appreciate all your questions appreciate all your participation i'm sorry for the continued

02:34:46.240 technical difficulties we will try to refine this process to where hopefully that happens less and

02:34:53.680 less um but yeah appreciate you guys and i look forward to if you guys will join us next week

02:35:03.280 we're going to start a four-part series on the have them all with uh witness fawn so i'm looking

02:35:10.080 forward to that um yeah bodie thank you for joining us tonight it's been nice to have you

02:35:16.960 on it's been i've been trying to get you on here for a long time and schedules just haven't worked

02:35:21.440 out yep all right well i look forward to having you back on uh hopefully sometime soon

02:35:28.720 let's do it all right we will we will make it happen um until next time hail the gods

02:35:37.320 hail the folk hail the afa and remember that victory never sleeps good night guys

02:35:58.720 Transcription by CastingWords

02:36:28.720 Thank you.

02:36:58.720 Thank you.

02:37:28.720 Thank you.

02:37:58.720 Thank you.

02:38:28.720 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - January 25, 2024

1⧸24⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 81 - Gothi Bodi

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