00:04:10.280Special thanks to our Githias that were on last week.
00:04:15.660I caught some of that, but I was on a plane going to our annual Winter Nights Celebration.
00:04:22.700But sounds like they did an amazing job. We've got really good feedback on that.
00:04:27.380And I certainly appreciate Brandy taking the reins while I'm while I'm gone.
00:04:35.300So I suppose we'll start. Winter Nights was fantastic.
00:04:40.260It was the first time we had Winter Nights in Ohio.
00:04:43.880Those of you listening may or may not know, but Ohio has just been on fire with zeal and membership and growth
00:04:51.400and all good things lately um so it was really nice to do this the 11th national winter nights
00:04:59.640there just a phenomenal weekend with amazing people and just a whole herd of children the
00:05:08.620children were amazing i was honored enough to be able to do uh three separate baby namings and it
00:05:16.380was a fantastic, fantastic weekend. Those of you who I got to meet and see there, I'm overjoyed.
00:05:23.860And those of you who I didn't, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in the future and hoping we can
00:05:28.620get you up there. The next national event you can make it to. If anybody is interested tonight in
00:05:37.060donations and or participating in Super Chat, Entropy is the place to do it. Nick will throw
00:05:44.900up that link for you. And as always, those are much appreciated. And without further ado, let's
00:05:55.300discuss the All Fathers. Svon, where do you think is a good place to start a discussion about Odin?
00:06:05.160Oh, that's a big, broad chunk of a lot of things. I think first and foremost, we should talk about
00:06:14.240how the nature of divinity amongst the Assetra Folk Assembly. I think that it's important for
00:06:21.620us to establish, first and foremost, that when we talk about the gods, we're not talking about
00:06:26.020the gods as some sort of a profile. We're not digging through bits of lore with the intentions
00:06:34.140of fitting them into things that we need to fit, that we hold, first and foremost, gift cycle,
00:06:42.700and that we see the divine as truly living and willful, moving and dynamic, especially the All-Father.
00:06:55.620So, you know, establishing that and making sure that people understand that when we talk about the lore
00:07:01.900and we talk about things that we read and when we look at comparative things,
00:07:05.480whether it's, you know, pan-Germanicism, pan-Aryanism, specifically, or even pan-Nordicism,
00:07:17.200if we're talking about the differences between, say, like the pro-Zetas and the sagas,
00:07:24.040or like when we paint pictures of Odin in Grimnismaur versus like the Volsunga sagas
00:07:33.620And the way that he's perceived, you know, sometimes we have to understand that these stories are meta narratives, but also narratives still and with an intended audience and with an intended purpose to speak the stories and to portray things.
00:07:53.680So I think that first and foremost, seeing the gods, firstly, with how we have interacted with the gods is most important.
00:08:04.460And then moving into lore and things like that.
00:08:09.720And of course, right now, I'm a big believer right now that Odin is on the wild hunt right now.
00:08:16.680So I'm a big believer on the idea that at the equinox begins the starting of the wild hunt, and it doesn't end until, you know, towards Yule tide.
00:08:26.400Or I would say if you're Anglo-Saxon or Theode, you know, if you're doing only three days, they might consider it at Yule.
00:08:34.180But it's generally right around the full moon or in the middle of Yule that I view the wild hunt ends.
00:08:42.600so you know it's very auspicious i think we had a very auspicious moment that happened
00:08:48.840at winter nights and so um seeing the gods as living real willful dynamic and all-encompassing
00:09:00.200their abilities to move in and out and above and through weird itself um is first and foremost
00:09:07.900And then we move into other things like where does the where does Wodhanaz as a name come from?
00:09:16.640Where does it come from for our people and what does it establish?
00:09:19.820And I think that it's pretty much well agreed upon that Wodh or Vodh and most likely it would be Wodh with a W.
00:09:29.120The V sound seems to be a later addition or a transition in the 10th century to 12th century in Europe, especially in Germany.
00:09:42.840but woe seems to have a root towards fury and the idea of furious mental state furious uh maybe even
00:09:52.220a climate state or um even a state of of psychosis within certain situations whether it's in poetic
00:10:01.820or singing of runic songs or being in battle and experiencing that kind of sense of uh fury and
00:10:09.880inspiration and or confusion mixed in the two, I think. A kind of a moment of clarity
00:10:16.760so focused that everything else seems to disappear. So you become, I shouldn't say
00:10:25.080confusion, but maybe unawareness of the big picture and a hyper focus on the moment or the
00:10:31.900central focus of time. And it seems to be that from expanding from that, we have the idea of
00:10:38.920consciousness in humans uh within you know the folk as he is the god of hyper consciousness
00:10:48.520um so when we when we talk about woe in that hyper conscious state we're referring to that
00:10:56.600deep focus um yeah so i mean when we're we talk about woldenaz uh there's differences
00:11:07.320in the possibility at the end there i know that woe obviously seems to be connected to fury and
00:11:12.680inspiration it survives in uh old norse's older or older and it's it that means furiousness um
00:11:21.560if uh if you see somebody who's older like in icelandic it's like somebody with a fist and
00:11:27.000they're hyper ready to go um and you know there's a sense of caution to the word too
00:11:34.440So, I mean, this could relegate to the idea of both hyper-focus and hyper-consciousness on memorizing poetic singing rune songs or also all the way down and into the, you know, the Berserker or the Ulfhiedner and their preparations for battle or the battle itself.
00:11:56.520So I think that that part is covered when we think of Wothe, but the Anas part, too, is interesting.
00:12:05.060There's been some theories as to, like, whether the A-S or A-Z, most likely the farthest that I can go back is the A-S, like, suffix of the Goths, the Gutens.
00:12:19.460excuse me the guttons were more uh they they um often put an as at the end so um correlating the
00:12:28.840differences between masculine and feminine seem to be correlated in that uh and also to the idea
00:12:35.640that um people have proposed that the as or as at the end is kind of where we get the word
00:12:41.840Aus in the late Nordic period. So, Wolven Aus or Wolve Aus kind of being led to that as the furious
00:12:53.760divine one. So, I mean, name structure, I think, is important because we understand and begin to
00:13:03.920relate to him through our language first and foremost.
00:13:08.960And when we start this, we have our branch, the Germanic branch,
00:13:13.720and we need to try to understand everything about it in correlation to him through our language.
00:13:21.040I think that's important. I think that's one of his highest functions.
00:13:24.340So when we talk about sounds and we talk about runes or the symbols of sounds,
00:13:28.780language is probably the first place to start with trying to build relationship with
00:13:35.700him. All right. So let's, let's pause for a second. I think it was
00:13:41.740a very good idea to start with our understanding of what a God is and what a God isn't.
00:13:51.920and I think is a really good second step is understanding the name and the implications
00:14:00.360of the name. But on that first step, I'm trying to think of the best way to start it. With so much
00:14:12.100of the conversation tonight, it's difficult to know where to start. And I think that's an issue
00:14:18.000without the truths of faith in general, it's so all-encompassing that it's hard to pick a
00:14:22.500good starting point and work from it. As far as what the gods are, they are the source of our
00:14:32.080existence. And in that sense, they are our most ancient of ancestors. But what I think is
00:14:40.680fundamental to our practice is that the gods are our beings they exist they have personality they
00:14:50.200have will they have emotion they have the things that make a person have personness
00:17:14.260mankind, his consciousness, his soul, and the willful manifestation of action and fury within
00:17:27.360the cosmos. Seeing the dynamicism of woe than makes me, leads me to believe that that function,
00:17:35.380That root word, woe, that is what he greatly represents as he functions through these.
00:17:47.020Whether we're looking at stories, whether we're looking at personal events, things that people have had happen to them or their workings with certain things, I would say would always kind of denote that there is a sense of fury.
00:18:04.060But the fury isn't necessarily something I would say it would be akin to the furious motion of falling suddenly, the kind of this quick and absolute rush of power, whether it's internally in the mind or whether it's externally as as he moves and does things.
00:18:25.500I think it's fundamental when we're talking about this that folks, we run into this a lot, that language, and certainly language as it's come down to us today, lacks some of the depth and breadth required to express metaphysical or deeply spiritual things.
00:18:48.420In this context, for everybody listening, fury is synonymous with ecstasy, is synonymous with overwhelming inspiration.
00:19:02.320Everything that Svan said is absolutely correct.
00:19:05.660um I when when asked myself to translate I take Odin's name to mean the uh the master of inspiration
00:19:18.220or the master of the fury the master of that ecstasy and I think that that points to the will
00:19:25.720that Svan talked about the will to fury so when I talk about mastery mastery implies
00:19:31.700command of or willful execution of. And so I think those are our fundamentals in understanding
00:19:40.200the All-Father and in starting on the right page of that understanding.
00:19:45.360And it seems that the ecstasy seems to also correlate to the idea of speed. That may be
00:19:52.500why it means furious. Furiousness is a suddenness, a great and overwhelming quickness of a sudden
00:20:00.200inspiration or a sudden realization of action that needs to be done. And that correlates pretty
00:20:07.920clearly with Odin's aspect as, you know, the chooser of the slain. When we're talking about
00:20:15.500these moments of battle, that would really, you know, the sudden and quickness of things,
00:20:21.200how things happen. But it can, it applies, I think, more so to, yes, consciousness and that
00:20:27.900suddenness and there's a certain notion of speed so i think that's why fury it does get
00:20:33.860misconstrued but it also fits it's ecstatically fast moment of either a mental or physical
00:20:42.800initiation or um uh inspiration slash uh willful manifest to do something
00:20:54.280all coalescing in it in perfect timing i it's kind of hard to explain that but to say like the
00:21:01.580furious god people could take that in a lot of ways and there are there's a lot of lore that
00:21:07.380would suggest fury just as in the power and anger uh fury as it denotes in our in our language
00:21:14.740could apply but it's deeper than that all right well and so i assume that most of our audience
00:21:21.840has a familiarity with odin already so i don't think that any of these shows that we do on our
00:21:26.480gods are going to be comprehensive but they're a good starting point to um to see where the
00:21:32.960audience is going to take us and what questions might come up and for the audience you guys can
00:21:37.040ask anything you like but in specific we're focusing on uh odin tonight we'll happily answer
00:21:43.440any other random stuff as well and we'll we'll make our way through it and if any so we're going
00:21:49.680to kind of stop at the times we want and go back in and take questions that we have if you want to
00:21:55.360bump those to as soon as we're done with a statement we'll shuffle them right in go ahead
00:22:00.000and throw us uh throw us a super chat and we'll make sure that gets the front of line and take
00:22:04.320some precedence um sarah asks odin has many different names can you speak on this and what
00:22:12.800perhaps the reason is for that. Do you have ideas on that Svon?
00:22:18.080Oh, absolutely. First and foremost, when we're talking about the late Nordic period,
00:22:24.240we have to remember that the scalds, the shields of the Anglo-Saxons and the scalds of the late
00:22:33.680Nordic period, it's worth noting that I think the biggest, most pivotal thing for them was the
00:22:41.360the understanding of the divine inspiration that was given from Odin through Kvasir's blood or
00:22:48.920Kvasir's blood. And so when you have that connective point and it is seen culturally
00:22:58.140that when they're speaking, they're speaking in a divine sense that the higher and the better
00:23:03.280that they speak, they have this power over the audience. They have this kind of pinnacle sense
00:23:08.900And they are more than just mere entertainment in the hall.
00:23:14.800It's pretty well understood that not only are they pulling from lore, but they're also committing to memory, these names.
00:23:26.160So I'm not saying that the Skalds created the names entirely.
00:23:30.300But they commit them to memory with great reason, because in a lot of ways, their their poetic sense was a devotional act in and of itself.
00:23:41.860And so having the committed memory of all of the Haiti of Odin is, I think, incentive.
00:23:50.620They have motive. And in a lot of things, I mean, I've even heard of people committing to like saying all of the haiti as a meditative form of like almost like a mantra in which they recite out the names of and all the names and haiti of Odin.
00:24:07.040Um, so, and you can see this in, in the, uh, in the Skel-Drapismal, where they talk about the different names of the gods, but, and clearly, and in Grimnismal, where they talk about Odin and specifics having multiple Haitis, the multiple names, um, and all of them diluting to, or not diluting, but alluding to, um, different functions, whether it's oski, which means the wish, or the word wish, or to give of wishes.
00:24:37.040Or even Yggr, Y-G-G-R, where we get Yggdrasil, you know, it's terrible.0.92
00:25:47.020And perhaps maybe they make allusions to other heites, but the only one that comes to my mind right off the bat is Odindis, which was a woman's name and saying she's a maiden of Odin.
00:26:06.900And there's a lot of place names dedicated to Odin that would show application and popularity, perhaps, in the Old Norse.
00:26:15.320But the reason why it's crystal clear in the poetics is because the Skalds are one of the top-tier devotional folks of Odin, the followers.
00:26:30.860I think they were the premier cult of Odin at their time.
00:26:34.120And there may have been other cults of Odin previously. And when we talk about like hound cults or wolf cults and things like that, or battle cults, and we could go into that. But we know at the time, especially with later Nordic periods and the things that Snorty was pulling from, it was the skulls that were probably the last and final true strong cult of any of the gods of the folk.
00:27:04.120I think that when we deal with the names of our gods, when we deal with the imagery that attends our gods,
00:27:19.220and when we deal with all of the other names our gods are known by,
00:27:25.240that's very much a story of the relationship of our folk to our divinity.
00:27:31.940and what that looks like words are all about communication and what that evokes and over the
00:27:45.780lifespan of the Aryan race of man our people have encountered Odin in
00:27:55.980a myriad ways at different points in their life and different circumstances. It's one of the0.76
00:28:03.560things when Svan was talking to us a little bit about the name that was implied in it was the
00:28:10.180dynamicism, was all of the diverse facets that make up this just amazing and mysterious and
00:28:21.760fascinating God. He is each of those things and he is all of those things. And he shows one face
00:28:30.700to his friends and one face to his foes. I would further posit that at no point in time did he
00:28:40.160appear in the flesh before, you know, ancient haplogroup ancestor of ours and say, hi, my name's
00:28:49.180Ovin. I think that us referring to that God by that name is part of that process of how we know
00:28:57.800him and what we know of him. And so I think that says a lot about the relationship our ancestors
00:29:04.740had with him and the role he played in their life and in their and in their cultures.
00:29:13.120It's kind of random. I don't know if it really relates to the question, but one of the things
00:29:17.460that I think is a particularly profound aspect of our relationship with Odin is that he is
00:29:27.160the god of kings. And we have other gods that in different parts of Europe serve a similar
00:29:34.720function, but I would say more royal houses than any other trace that lineage back to Odin as the
00:29:41.880the sire of that line, and do so even well, well into Christian times.
00:29:50.020Very late, the kings of Spain would trace their lineage back to Oven. For all I know,
00:29:59.500the current House of Spain might as well, I'm not sure, but it's really surprising at the
00:30:05.900breadth of that and how long that lineage kept on even after our gods, the worship of our gods
00:30:12.960has fallen out of fashion. So I think that's worth mentioning. Brandy says, the gentlemen
00:30:19.740look dashing tonight. Thank you for that. Any recommendations on where to shop event clothes
00:30:25.500for the menfolk? Yes, I do. I asked Nick to be able to throw it up on here, suitsoutlets.com.
00:30:36.700I like to look good, but I also like to find a deal.
00:39:56.540And they have a cross between an Arthurian feeling and just grand, high medieval poetics when they talk about the gods and they talk about Balder and the shadow of death upon his heart and all of these things.
00:44:38.480And then I was kind of urged to walk the road.
00:44:42.680it was kind of like a hand grabbing my hand and just going to to move down the road wasn't walking
00:44:51.120with me it was just kind of an initiation of it like okay begin and then that was i woke up from
00:44:56.900that and that was one dream um and then recently i i held uh bloat to odin and this is a more
00:45:05.960roundabout because there's no direct presence, but I was, I was asking Odin that if, you know,
00:45:13.280if I, if, if I am to, if I am to go in a direction, if I am on this road or, and I've referenced this
00:45:21.560dream often when I talk to Odin in prayer, if I'm on the correct path, if I could get some
00:45:29.980kind of lending of the idea of whether I'm going in a wrong direction or a right direction,
00:45:35.180confirmation if you will anything uh and i left myself open for it and i wasn't demanding anything
00:45:42.360and um so i left my my shop and uh in the parking lot in the middle of the summer and the wind is
00:45:49.660out and all of these things i find three black feathers in the parking lot and um i thought that
00:45:58.220was pretty interesting and i didn't quite get to the blow on i just oh there's these feathers and
00:46:03.960I picked them up and they were all from the same bird and I didn't fully know but I have a website
00:46:12.300that I go to to identify feathers and I looked it up and it seems to the crow American crow
00:46:22.020corvid and I was I was like wow this is amazing three and they're in the middle of the parking
00:46:27.520lot they're right next to my car but the the story got even deeper than that I was visited by my wife
00:46:33.160earlier that day and she had a story of her own when I showed up with these three feathers
00:46:39.040she was the one that threw those feathers into the parking lot and that's because she was house
00:46:45.760sitting for a dear friend of hers and she's a naturalist and she has a um an actual crow's nest
00:46:53.740in her backyard along a waterway um in the Chester Bay and this crow had taken residence
00:47:02.380there and was known to, you know, groom and sell for herself and drop feathers. And, and when,
00:47:09.360um, when she was talking on the phone with this woman, she, the woman said, uh, yeah, you know,
00:47:14.500if you find any feathers, you can give them to Svan and, uh, maybe he'll like them. So she went
00:47:18.920out there and she picked up three feathers that, that, uh, she never expounded on whether there
00:47:23.400were any more or if these were just the best looking ones, but she picked up three feathers
00:47:27.060And and then she left from the house sitting and suddenly there was a series of kind of miss or unfortunate events, not to my wife, but surrounding people that she knew.
00:47:42.860There was, you know, there was a fatality had happened and there was all of these things kind of hitting her communication wise where she was finding out a series of kind of strange events.
00:47:55.320and suddenly it kind of hit her by the time she got my shop that maybe i shouldn't give these to
00:48:01.240smog maybe there's some sort of correlation of like an ill omen and so she had picked up the
00:48:06.440three feathers and threw them out into the parking lot um aiming for the grass and hoping that the
00:48:12.840wind would just kind of scatter them and let them go but they didn't they were right next to the
00:48:16.760driver's head of my car and when she told me this and how they came to be there and how they were
00:48:23.160absolutely crow feathers and she had come across them i i um and of course the number three being
00:48:29.720very significant for me in correlation to odin i took this as an auspicious sign um that i i had
00:48:39.080been in the right direction she i i don't know if the the feathers correlated to the ill omens that
00:48:46.240she received but the feeling was was there for her and she kind of just let them go but they found me
00:48:51.120anyways. So yeah, I appreciate you sharing, sharing those with us. It's there's a reluctance
00:49:07.580oftentimes to share spiritual experiences. And I want folks to understand that if you encounter
00:49:16.200that in the AFA, it's not due to a lack of experiences or due to, you know, the AFA doesn't
00:49:26.320do that kind of stuff. It's much more an issue of reverence and a fear of being impious.
00:49:35.480We don't want to ever be overly casual about those things. And we don't want, we're very
00:49:42.900careful, or we try to be, not to unjustifiably put words into the mouth of the gods and take
00:49:53.260liberties in that way. Especially our gothar who have responsibilities in that regard and who are
00:49:59.320listened to. We don't want to misuse that spot to, I don't know, to try to,
00:50:06.860i don't know we don't want to ever use the gods as a tool to legitimize things
00:50:15.240so we want to be very careful with that um i have
00:50:20.840i have had numerous um pretty powerful experiences i feel in bloat to odin um
00:50:32.660the subtle there are a lot of subtle things a lot of animal sign um bird sign and whatnot
00:50:45.600um a lot of things that way um a couple of of recent things and then kind of my
00:50:55.260my little bit bigger deal one um a number of of bloats i've done at odenshoff
00:51:07.020uh i believe all to oh then when this has occurred have had
00:51:16.140a blue energy that's only captured on people's cameras
00:51:21.580from lots of different cameras at different moments that is
00:51:29.260around me and amongst me and interacting with me during the bloat.
00:51:37.680I don't know what that is. I don't know. I don't know any of the number of things that might debunk
00:51:45.820that but it seems very significant in its timing and in what it's doing during those times and i
00:51:54.220take that to be really significant um this last charming of the plow in washington um
00:52:05.260we're doing it at a at a rented camp so it wasn't you know there's no permanent uh worship space
00:52:11.340there so we had to find a flat spot that was kind of in a you know rough parking lot area and uh
00:52:18.940it was icy and we go out there and the winds howling and whipping around and stuff's going on
00:52:25.420and so we proceed to uh to start oven bloat um and right as i start the bloat
00:52:34.380So, I'm looking around and realizing the need for a tine to asperge with, an evergreen sprig to asperge with.
00:52:49.920A gust of wind picks up and rips off the perfect size sprig of evergreen that floats down and lands right at my feet at that moment.
00:53:01.080And it was it felt very significant to me.
00:53:06.840And I think other people in the circle had a reaction to that as well.
00:53:10.700And then the most profound experience like that, weird in the in the appropriate use of the term experience like that that I had was at Ostara 2017.
00:53:31.080I officially became the Ausheri Goethe of the Astro Folk Assembly at mid-summer of 2016, but unofficially my time leading our church started around Ostara of 2016.
00:53:48.500And a lot of that was behind the scenes things to structure a smooth transition when it was time.
00:53:56.520But that's when I really took the reins of things and.
00:54:02.260I was under a lot of pressure at that time, and I don't.
00:54:07.760I don't say that for pity or for sympathy, you know, that pressure was because I'm literally the most fortunate man in the entire world and the most blessed man in the entire world.
00:54:17.060So I don't begrudge any of that, but it was still a lot of pressure. It was a lot of responsibility. And I was at a at a moment in time where there was very real fear and concern that with that transition, the AFA might crumble.
00:54:36.840um that all of this that i think at the at that point 21 years were put into it it could all come
00:54:45.860crashing down if i didn't do the right things or if i you know made one false move and and the whole
00:54:52.420the whole thing might might collapse and so i was feeling a lot of that weight and a lot of that
00:54:57.180responsibility and i was trying i was trying with every ounce of myself to do the right thing
00:55:06.720to keep this up, to be worthy of the gods, worthy of leading our folk,
00:55:13.460just not to screw anything up and to do the right things.
00:55:17.500And so this is marking the kind of complete year cycle of this that I was going through.
00:55:23.020And, you know, numerous people were there that were very close to me that I felt supported me on this.
00:55:30.820As a matter of fact, I just got done getting a haircut from Svan here.
00:55:35.860And I walked out to the circle and people were ready for us to do us to do some.
00:55:44.480And so I was, you know, collecting myself and getting my thoughts together and I was standing up to bless the horn and.
00:55:53.220Someone put their hand on my shoulder and, you know, I think we're familiar with that feeling of somebody putting their hand on your shoulder and like just kind of reassuring a little reassuring, squeeze, shake your shoulder.
00:59:29.120And in the time of his reclamation in which he,
00:59:33.520it's in the story is said that he you know he sees Odin on the battlefield and he attempts to
00:59:40.440to block him and it shatters his sword um and and then he is taken and he he it takes a while
00:59:47.200for him to die because he does have a conversation with his wife uh in order to beset the next part
00:59:53.040the legacy with Sigurd. There's also King Vicar and his mother, Gerhildr, he says to her, you know,
01:00:08.720that, you know, I want what's in between your bernie, your armor, and your body. And it was
01:00:18.200kind of alluded to the idea that he wanted her dress, but that was not the case. She was full
01:00:22.720with child and so he wanted her child and there there's an air of kind of mystery and and a little
01:00:30.180there's that sense of fear in relation to i think um oh then when we talk about his attentions uh
01:00:39.040for the longest time i know um people that you know especially in early i was sure the idea was
01:00:44.340not to place a valve knot on your body um with reckless abandon but that that would in essence
01:00:51.860bind you or fetter you to the machinations of what Odin had in store for the folk in order to
01:00:59.420stave off the end the doom of the gods and the doom of the folk so this this put you in a
01:01:05.860precarious situation and there had to be a precept that you were willing to give yourself up to that
01:01:13.320and so um you know there's a lot of people that have talked about the not not having the
01:01:19.140significance that we place upon it, but, you know, the symbols and the significance have
01:01:25.080absolute validity within the time frame that they're used. And so I take that as a high mark.
01:01:34.700So, you know, seeing how the Christians dealt with Odin amongst the folk and demonizing him,
01:01:41.280and even kind of in the transitionary stages between the elder and the foreign faith that0.80
01:01:49.020was coming from rome and ultimately beyond that they they they greatly kind of extended
01:01:56.480the concept that he was a a god of ill omen and um was not to be spoken of i have met many
01:02:05.140theodish practitioners who don't speak of him um openly uh and again this has connections to the
01:02:14.240idea of Hammingya and of our connections to luck and to weird. And, and I think to our, ultimately
01:02:20.480to our fate or our dooms and the judgment of his ability to, you know, call on that price. And so
01:02:28.740I, that, that era mystery there, I think is important as a, a dynamicism of our relationship
01:02:37.240with him is that the, the, the reclamation can be swift. And oftentimes when we see his
01:02:42.340machinations we wonder the goodness in them because we can only see the emotional investment
01:02:48.840of the moment without seeing the grand picture which is what makes Odin so powerful is that
01:02:54.620his perspective is from the grand to the micro and we are often of the micro and missing the grand
01:03:01.060so um as far as uh understanding too that he's not always seen as a boogeyman that uh he's
01:03:10.140oftentimes seen. And it is worth noting, you know, joyous, the wish giver, and is happy with the
01:03:16.780folk and the gods when they attain things and speak gloriousness of the gods and of the folk
01:03:22.940or attain deeds. So not entirely, but it is certainly there in my opinion of it all.
01:03:30.620So. I think this approach is another fundamental that's really important for us to understand when talking about our gods and our relationship to them.
01:03:47.400And that's what counts and what doesn't in a authoritative sense.
01:04:00.620Our. So I said earlier, our our lore is a story of our people's ancient relationship with the gods and how the gods were revealed to them in the collective knowledge of our folk soul as relates to these gods.
01:04:20.620um it's very important to realize that as a living faith we are still adding to that corpus
01:04:32.680we are still part of that developing saga of the relationship between us and our gods
01:04:47.680place um disproportionate amounts of stock in ancient lore at the cost of modern lore and
01:05:00.280modern experience and i don't want to discount ancient lore at all certainly it's it's sacred
01:05:06.580and it's immensely valuable to us but i just want to say that we have no belief that
01:05:16.440you know odin rode down on slepner and handed some tablets to some guy in the desert that
01:05:24.500wrote down his divine commandments that's not our god that's not how that works
01:05:29.040at some point this lore was codified and put down by the gothar and the elders of our uh
01:05:37.660our ancient ancestors and they could they use their collective knowledge now some of that could
01:05:46.720have come from many things I don't discount that some of that could have come from visions or from
01:05:51.060divine inspiration certainly but the interpretation of that and the codifying of that
01:05:57.320was done by the the learned men and the priests of the time to to encapsulate these this wisdom
01:06:04.920in the stories for us and we're still part of that today um if we believe that the gothar of
01:06:15.880700 had the authority to codify these stories and to
01:06:23.880um to offer insight into the nature of the gods
01:06:31.160then certainly our gothar today have a similar authority to to do similar things to add to that
01:06:39.560continuing story if if our relationship with our gods stopped at some proto-viking period
01:06:47.240that would be a tragedy for all of us and all of our descendants and i don't believe that so
01:06:52.760i believe we have a living relationship with our gods it's a long-winded way of saying this
01:07:00.200No, I don't think we want to avoid Odin's gaze, but what I do think, perhaps more than any of our other gods, you want to be cautious, and Odin is less likely to suffer fools or suffer the arrogant.
01:07:18.560being a patron god often of kings and of heroes you have this theme and you have this theme
01:07:29.100throughout much of Arian myth cycle of hubris of people having excessive pride or you know
01:07:38.500over over extending their authority or over extending their their station and those are
01:07:44.580moments when very often um something comes back to bite them so i think that any and all of us
01:07:53.540should be hyper reverent and respectful and cautious when we approach the throne of the
01:07:59.380all father to speak and to to to ask certainly to ask of him and i think this is the case with
01:08:06.340with all of our gods i don't think we want to over ask we want to be careful of what we're putting
01:08:11.860what we're putting out and what we are, what we're asking the gods for. And I know I'm,
01:08:18.460I'm meandering and I tend to do that when we talk about spiritual things, but
01:08:22.260I think it's useful when we pray out loud and we hear ourselves. And I think it's a good time
01:08:34.140to check ourselves and like does the high god of arian consciousness that breathed the breath of1.00
01:08:43.200life into our ancestors that dismantled ymir is it really an appropriate thing to ask him to help0.97
01:08:52.680you on your math test um there's things that are just beneath the gods for you to bother them with0.87
01:09:03.940and again if you're seven and that's what you ask then maybe that's
01:09:11.720you know i think the gods also have a certain amount of grace when dealing with
01:09:15.820you know the the mentally impaired or the youthful or or or people in in that kind of a place but
01:09:22.360in all seriousness what are you asking of the all father and this this goes back to something else
01:09:29.900i think it is dangerous to over ask from odin but i think it is the height of what one who
01:09:39.100would be a hero would aspire to do is to get the attention of odin and to be worthy of odin
01:09:51.180you know approval or hopefully and this is a huge hope but the idea that you would do something that
01:10:04.940would make the all-father proud of you i can't think of a higher thing to uh to aspire to
01:10:12.300and so i would never want somebody to hold back from that i think that's fundamental
01:10:18.140um but i think that's part of the relationship with the all father it's not about asking it
01:10:22.940needs to be about offering and about displaying before him your merit and your worth not because
01:10:33.100you are worthy but in the hopes that you might be worthy if you did enough and i think that if you
01:10:39.740approach with a level of piety i don't think um you want to avoid his gaze i think we again the
01:10:48.780idea of odin looking at you and with pride is is everything um another thing we think of odin in
01:10:57.900this very grim aspect and i think that when a lot of our lore was written down in the elder times
01:11:02.860Sometimes death was close by through starvation, through war, through disease, through many
01:11:10.980things. And I think that it was a grimmer period of time. But if you recall, Odin, he
01:11:16.620makes his residence in glad time, in the home of gladness. And I think all too often, we
01:11:23.980only focus on the spooky and not the joyous and the celebratory. In his hall,
01:11:32.860there's feasting and merriment and joy um and i think that's that's important to notice there's
01:11:43.620great dualities with odin i think uh dr stephen flowers uh edrid thorson said um he described
01:11:52.680odin as the the lord of light and the drayton of darkness and i think that that duality really
01:11:59.400speaks to to some of the fundamentals about uh victory father um danny asks maybe dumb it's not
01:12:10.440dumb at all what is the perspective on odin and other gods in terms of omnipresence many monotheist
01:12:19.400our religions believe that god can commune anywhere with anyone at any time what is the afa's0.95
01:12:26.200perspective all right so i want your thoughts on this first spawn because i kind of like to
01:12:38.840encapsulate and close things up but i go in second i don't mean to put you on the spot but where you
01:12:44.040at with um i think that uh when we first talk about like the omnipresence of of the fabric of
01:12:54.040creation and of all things interacting, whether it's the movement of atoms, the movement of cosmic
01:12:59.640matter itself moving around, all the way down to our intentions and our ability to
01:13:09.640willfully see ourselves in a different place, to even be able to express that we see our
01:13:16.760consciousness in a different state uh in an undisclosed future um is a really powerful thing
01:13:24.060and i think that when we talk about that omnipresence we we talk about uh and especially
01:13:32.860amongst in the afa is the sacredness of or law or weird um kind of being uh all pervading but
01:13:41.080But there's some things to consider when we talk about the stories and we see Ovin giving
01:13:51.680his eye to Mimir and to place his eye in the well.
01:13:58.180The well of memory or the well of the past or the well of that level of the ever expanding
01:14:06.080sense of weird, whether it's all of the past or the cosmic sense of all things that had
01:14:13.600come to pass, was a great need to attain that for purpose.
01:14:20.900But I think in Ausatru, when we consider the divinities and we consider the gods, because
01:14:31.500as you did say, and other gods, one of their connections to weird, the fact that they are
01:14:39.740tied into things. I think all humanity is deeply and intrinsically tied to Odin through breath
01:14:44.240and through a state of consciousness and the ability to communicate our consciousness.
01:14:53.080However, it lacks dynamicism if it's all pervading and everywhere. And I think that a lot of
01:15:00.400monotheists don't understand from the, from our perspective of the idea of there needing to be
01:15:09.820a movement, there needs to be a tying, there needs to be an outer presence, an inner presence that
01:15:17.740can transition and move, and that it's not all just a sense of relativism, that there isn't,
01:15:26.880everything is just either connected or disconnected. This brings about a lot of problems.
01:15:32.760When people have this concept of relativism, they then see things happening and don't understand
01:15:39.740why. And if all things are intrinsically tied and omnipresent, then why do these things happen?
01:15:47.540Again, it could be macro to micro in our perceptions, but we see dynamicism as a form
01:15:55.960of movement, that there is an ability to move closer in and farther out, and it ties heavily
01:16:03.480to the gods. We see the gods interacting with the material in ways to maintain order, but we also
01:16:10.620see them interacting with, you know, humanity and the folk through prayer. We see, you know, we see
01:16:19.620them uh interacting through signs and other things and sometimes we perceive them as interacting
01:16:28.180through weird itself um perhaps you know through like uh earthers well and the idea of the ability
01:16:37.960to interact with the with multiple layers of of time and all of those massive the the movements
01:16:44.760Um, but to say omnipresence, I would, I would say no, I don't see the gods as having this, um, overpervading omnipresence where the, the, the willful and the conscious directive is so relative that it's in all things with at all times.
01:17:07.580I think it certainly has the ability to move, the ability to transfer, to go up and down
01:17:17.820through the veils of separations of reality and plain existence and higher existence,
01:17:29.480Having this ability to move is very, very important in our lore and in our perceptions
01:17:35.180of the way we give gifts and looking upwards and looking downwards or having directions and things
01:17:43.300like that, these correlate to the ideas of movement. And I think it's really important for us
01:17:48.180to have that with our structuring of divinity. We don't see it as just simply being relative or
01:17:57.160simulatory where you know it's just you're inside some sort of projection uh or or concept or you
01:18:07.560know these things are i think are detrimental to people uh where you end up getting this kind of
01:18:12.600sense of solipsism and i think that uh the gods are showing that in their movements that there
01:18:23.460isn't this sense that the only thing that is real is my consciousness and everything else is
01:18:27.380kind of relative and everywhere and all things and no instead we are dynamically moving with
01:18:33.300each other we're interacting with each other we're interacting with the gods we're interacting with
01:18:37.220our ancestors there's a sense even like now with the veil is thin there's this sense of movement
01:18:43.220the idea that the veil is thin now then it may be thicker some other time so there's a sense of
01:18:49.300presence. And that presence is always preluded with movement. And that, I think, shows that
01:18:56.260omnipresence is a kind of a detrimental mental state when we talk about the relativism of
01:19:08.240man and the gods and all things that are interacting with each other. And we can see
01:19:14.140this in nature we can see this in cosmic sense in space and in time um so that's that's my take on
01:19:22.480that as far as like omnipresence so there's two parts in the way that you asked that question or
01:19:29.380at least as i understand it there's are the gods present everywhere at every time across existence
01:19:40.500And I think Svan covered that really well. The idea of movement of travel is time and again spoken about in every single facet of our lore.
01:19:53.300the gods are traveling to you know to this place or to that place or jotunheim or or whatever
01:20:00.580they're doing they're going across the rainbow bridge they're coming back they're taking a seat
01:20:05.440of council they're um doing things and they're moving that sense of moving is fundamental
01:20:12.560um the rotational sense is seen throughout our symbols it's so no the gods have to move
01:20:21.920um but the other thing was omnipresent in the sense that they can hear anyone any place at
01:20:31.440any time and i think you know my latin is not good so i don't know latin for hearing uh omni
01:20:36.960or i think there's an or root anyway omni hearing perhaps and i think that's uh
01:20:46.020that comes to a fundamental so some of the things are like are the gods everywhere are
01:20:51.400they in this place or that place are fascinating and important to talk about, but to a degree
01:20:56.700aren't relevant to our human existence. What is relevant is, can I interact with the gods
01:21:03.700everywhere or at any time? And I have to say the answer to that in some way is yes, but
01:21:12.460with the caveat that there are times where that connection is more powerful. Svan mentioned,
01:21:19.360as we go into this fall period of the year, it talks about the veil being thin. We often refer
01:21:26.220to that in a sense of interacting with our ancestors, but it's the veil between worlds
01:21:32.220generally. So I think in a spiritual sense of interacting with the gods, this time of year is
01:21:37.580that's easier or better in some way. I think at certain holy tides, the gods take more notice
01:21:50.680or your spiritual interaction with them is heightened. I think there are places that
01:21:56.140are charged with energy that draw more notice. I think that your communication is improved
01:22:07.420with the gods if you're in front of an altar doing your work as opposed to walking along the side of
01:22:15.320the road. I think that at one of our Hoffs, I think certainly in like a ritual circle, there's
01:22:21.980power there and that's a more direct conduit to our gods than, you know, at some other random
01:22:28.260mundane location. Certainly in our Hoffs, that is a much more direct way to interact with the
01:22:39.340gods. And some of that, and I'll mention that in a second, goes to the idea of that omnipresence.
01:22:44.000I think that the power of a mighty spiritual force, a mighty hymenia, a mighty magical force in a person who's developed that to a high degree has more ability, communicates clearer, communicates louder, communicates more effectively with our gods
01:23:12.960than someone who has a less developed spiritual gravitas.
01:23:16.480And I also think that communicating with the gods in ritual
01:23:23.000where you have numbers of people enhances, you know,
01:23:32.760When hundreds of their followers are in one place
01:23:37.580simultaneously chanting their name and offering them gifts,
01:23:42.460then I think that's more impactful than just just a singular person.
01:23:47.440But on the issue of omnipresence, one thing that.
01:23:52.100Happens when one does ritual, you invite the gods and if you do it right and it's auspicious and the gods will it to be so.
01:24:03.480People can notice and feel a presence manifest there.
01:24:08.100you're calling the gods in you're inviting them and sometimes they take you up on that
01:24:14.720i think very oftentimes they hear you but sometimes in a very tangible way they show up
01:24:22.280um and i've i've had that happen several times in in pretty meaningful ways to people who are there
01:24:33.720of all of a sudden there was a presence in the world.
01:24:38.420That's also something that's been experienced
01:24:40.780when Svan paints the murals of our gods in their hoffs.
01:24:49.540Something happens when that mural is there
01:24:52.780and when it is completed that that god resides there.
01:24:59.200There is a presence that exists there. And I don't think that the gods, you know, I don't think Odin hangs out at Odin's off rather than in Asgard. But I and again, we're trying to find human experience words to relate to concepts that are so far beyond our language and our understanding.
01:25:25.840it doesn't fit perfectly but perhaps that's a window perhaps that's some kind of a conduit of
01:25:32.960something but odin exists in that mural he also exists other places but he definitely exists there
01:25:43.600and you feel that when you're in that room um if that if that answers your questions one of the
01:25:50.880other things we want to refrain from doing is limiting our gods um
01:26:00.480our gods have the the might and the power they have whether we
01:26:04.320express it or acknowledge it or not and we never want to
01:26:09.440project our own limitations upon them and their will and what they want to do our gods are gods
01:26:15.440of will and they they can do what they want unless opposed by some other spiritual forces
01:26:21.200certainly greater than us so i think that uh trying to trying to box in limitations of what
01:26:33.260our gods are is also a dangerous thing that i would resist the urge to do something i wanted
01:26:40.620to mention and it i guess was more fitting for an earlier question but i didn't get to it
01:26:45.820something really important about modern lore and about uh about odin um
01:26:54.140odin was the god of our folk that that stephen mcnallan first connected with in uh in 1968
01:27:03.660And to this day, he is the God that Steve is is totally devoted to.
01:27:11.020And that relationship is now 53 years old.
01:27:19.020And a lot of things have come from that.
01:27:22.300The relationship that Steve built with Odin is why we're here.
01:27:27.280It's why we're having this discussion tonight.
01:29:05.940that the god of arian consciousness that shaped arian man that shaped our existence
01:29:13.940that is the father of kings the lord of battle the lord of victory
01:29:20.020has some sort of partnership relationship with steve mcnalen
01:29:26.260and that he chose to be in that partnership with steve i can't imagine a higher praise than that
01:29:33.860that odin would find you worthy to in some in some sense team up with to accomplish big goals
01:29:41.140for his people what high praise from our foes um unknowingly so and i think that that just bears
01:29:51.060reflecting on um another thing to talk about personal uh relationships and steve our personal
01:29:58.260experiences with odin and steve has told this story a number of times but i don't think everyone's
01:30:02.420heard it i don't think it's it's a secret so i'm venturing to uh to tell it but uh this really
01:30:09.620struck me and it was i think it was the first time i met steve back in 2010 he told a story of how
01:30:16.260one time odin turned him invisible and it sounds fanciful and it's perhaps a fanciful way of putting
01:30:22.660it but steve did a lot of traveling in war-torn portions of africa that were going through
01:30:28.020revolution and i think this happened in the um in congo or central african republic or whatever one
01:30:37.460of those things that changes names every couple years and especially back then did he was airborne
01:30:42.980flying into this place when a government change took over and they were looking for and just
01:30:49.620recently an american had gotten shot because his papers weren't didn't match the papers they were
01:30:55.380looking for at the time and they pulled him off and blasted him with the ak as was going on in
01:31:00.900africa at the time um and steve's like oh what am i gonna do my past you know my stamp is for
01:31:07.940the country you know my authorization or my visa or my papers are for this country that used to
01:31:12.100exist doesn't exist anymore uh-oh it's about to get real um and he's in this line and soldiers
01:31:20.260are on the runway lined everybody up went through every single person to a man checking papers
01:31:27.140and he's like uh oh you know it's it's coming it's coming and they meticulously checked everybody
01:31:33.700and the way steve describes it they checked the man in front of him and as if they looked
01:31:38.260straight through him they went immediately to check the guy behind him and here's you know a
01:31:44.820middle-aged or younger middle-aged white dude sticks out like a sore thumb on a you know a
01:31:50.100congo tarmac and it's as if they completely looked through him it's not that they looked at him and
01:31:56.020chose to look away or nodded him through or it's as if for a moment he didn't exist and they went
01:32:02.260right to the guy behind him and nothing else was said of it and uh that was if i'm to understand
01:32:10.420the story correctly that was certainly after the uh the free assembly days but that was before the
01:32:15.140founding of the austro folk assembly if that occurrence had not happened that way and if that
01:32:22.100miracle had not occurred then the afa wouldn't wouldn't have happened and we may very well not
01:32:30.260be here doing what we're doing today so i think that's an important footnote about the all father
01:32:36.820that needs to be mentioned tonight um while i went off on a tangent i'll take this time because we're
01:32:46.260i was going to do this word at the top of the hour it's not at the top of the hour but i'm
01:32:49.220do it anyway if you guys want to join us on entropy nick will pop up that entropy link
01:32:54.820and we would happily take some donations or anybody who wants to jump in on super chat we
01:33:00.180appreciate you guys entropy is a cool service and they support free speech and podcasts like this
01:33:07.220or uh and um i don't even know what you really call this broadcast like this um and those of you
01:33:14.100listening on a podcast the live version of this they support that happening offer a platform for
01:33:19.780it support content creators getting um getting a good portion of their donations so it's it's
01:33:27.380a good thing either way if you go that way um oh something else i was remiss not mentioning
01:33:34.580at the beginning of the show um the young man that passed away
01:33:38.260Do your will. Do it now. Do it yesterday. Do your will. And Nick can put that link up. I think it's, yeah, doyourownwill.com. It's free. It's easy. But don't stop there. Once you've done your will, send it to our law speaker, Alan Turnage.
01:34:06.120You can have multiple original copies that are all signed or all notified or notarized that some you have with your loved ones.
01:34:14.340But if you have one to Alan, then we will be in a spot to help make sure you get what you want when you pass.
01:34:21.940I've seen too many people not take that very easy step and then not get what they want in their in their funeral rights, in their final resting place and in the distribution of their assets.
01:35:44.980And they're, you know, I guess in respects to the story, they can seem to be, well, they are jibes, they're clearly jibes from an antithesis force.
01:35:58.740But I think it's important to understand that Odr as an inspiration, Odr as a sense of power in beauty, I would say, in relation to Freyja, the idea of her inspiration,
01:36:23.680Her, that which drives her forward, that which presents to her, her inspiration, like, much like a poet.
01:36:34.580The question is whether or not Odr is Odin.
01:36:43.380There doesn't seem to be a direct correlation.
01:36:47.920Oh, that is seen as leaving. And then she weeps tears of gold or the gold of the north being amber falling to the earth. And, and, and there's a great lament and a longing.
01:37:01.220um however most people do see a correlation that uh perhaps there there is a connectivity between
01:37:10.480them and there is references to them uh being together or intertwining together uh whether we
01:37:19.940you know we talk about that in like it perhaps in a physical sense in the stories but if we're
01:37:25.040talking about gods and the encapsulation of their coming together, I would say that there's a high
01:37:35.340likelihood that Odin is perhaps a movement of Odin into Freyja's domain or dominion. Perhaps
01:37:51.520there is an interchange there but that that that interchange could not be seen as finite and or
01:37:58.240forever and so there is a movement in and a movement out and so the lament is that movement
01:38:04.240out and so there is a regret or a um a longing for it to remain but there is not and so whether
01:38:12.960that could be in the form of inspiration, whether it could be read as the Asa and the
01:38:23.600Vanna, when we see cosmic order affecting natural law, there's this interchange between
01:38:29.260the two, between the Asas and the Vanna, or the Aysir and the Vanir, we see this correlation
01:38:36.020happen over and over again in which the two sides end up melding through various situations or
01:38:45.620ideas or cosmic powerful interludes of uh where they come from how they how they affect the
01:38:55.540universe the known universe so if there is this connection and there is this uh referencing to
01:39:02.580to the idea that Freyja learns from Odin.
01:39:10.340And the barbs kind of denote that it's sexual in nature.
01:39:16.660And I think it's important for us to know
01:39:24.080they were really talking about the gods in a mundane sense
01:39:29.080or sometimes even in a, they were, they were, you know, antagonizing, and very, very, I would say, unpious.
01:39:42.260But I take that moment as, if there was an interconnection between cosmic order and natural law,
01:39:49.580and that being the Aesir and the Vanir, then there is this moment where there is this overlapping
01:39:54.260in which basically the wise and the dynamic of the vana are meeting the wise and dynamic of the asa
01:40:04.420there is this moment of great inspirations moment of deeply powerful uh transitioning between two
01:40:12.580gods that has a deep powerful thing it's intimate it's extremely wonderful and when it then goes
01:40:21.060away um there would be a lament so uh but it's worth noting as as far as structure goes
01:40:30.480odr is mentioned and not odin um and again there's a lot of things that even write down to um
01:40:38.860the idea that there might be uh like for instance a hero of of uh freya is otter and some people
01:40:48.120have wondered if there may have been some sort of connection there as well i don't take it as that
01:40:53.960oh there is a uh physical man or a worshiper freya but that in essence there is this moment
01:41:00.520of intercharging between two very dynamic gods in polarization between that which is cosmic and that
01:41:10.840which is more cyclical and there's this transfer of knowledge this this unification um and in that
01:41:18.600power once it's like a tide once it recedes there's a there's a lament because it may never
01:41:24.840come back that it it wasn't always to be that way so i take it as that that um yes in reference
01:41:35.480in short it is odin but also that odin represents inspiration in a new
01:41:44.280dynasty of of interaction that freya has with the cosmos um and i think it's deeply poetic
01:41:51.640that they have this interaction and uh i i think it's also possible that the gods do have these
01:41:57.160interactions with each other um it's just clearly the the masculine feminine and the placement of
01:42:04.360of the stories, it really does have a wonderful poeticism to it. But you see this kind of
01:42:12.640dynamicism when the gods interact with the Jotuns, when the gods interact with men,0.73
01:42:19.440whether they're heroes or the lineage of them or the kings of nations. There's these
01:42:25.340interactions that happen. And I think in this case, it's a reference to the longing of a
01:42:31.100recession of it there's this moment where it's deeply close deeply there uh we see it again too
01:42:36.540with odin and and sauga um and and their correlation or with the gods in ayer and raun
01:42:43.340um this movement of them coming to the primordial uh ocean the blood of emir and um and then
01:42:50.620returning again so these movements some of them are very cyclical and and constant and i don't
01:42:55.740think this case was the case this case was like a uh one time a moment of interaction that was
01:43:02.540going to transfer a deep and profound amount of godly knowledge and then it was going to
01:43:09.660uh re-amplify itself back in its polaric forms so that's my take on that
01:43:16.620and the etymology odor and oh then both come from that uh that ecstasy of inspiration yeah um how
01:43:29.740would you respond to a monotheist who sees metagenetics and folk religions as moral relativism
01:43:37.740um trying to think of the best way to go because uh typically monotheists
01:43:48.620think that religion equals morality in a sense and i think that's a relatively late
01:44:01.000Christian thought. I think that more than that, religion is about your relationship to divinity.
01:44:10.160Yes, morality is heavily implied. Morality is often instructed through religion,
01:44:15.440but the core of religion is about what your relationship is to your gods.
01:44:23.240And in that way, you know, I don't know about moral relativism as much as I think about
01:44:29.740religious relativism and certainly that's the case and i think it's um
01:44:37.900a little bit preposterous most all monotheisms or all monotheisms unless they're well sometimes
01:44:45.900you have a syncretic sense with some of the new age systems but in a traditional way all monotheisms
01:44:52.380are heavily rooted in a particular people and then it presupposes that their gods are the gods of
01:45:01.900everybody else too and it disregards everyone else's faith that they came into the world with
01:45:08.220because that one uh monotheism is the only possible thing that exists and you see that
01:45:13.740evolve over time very seldom i can't think of one example where you see that originate
01:45:18.940as a as an inherent truth you see that become the truth over years and over time you certainly see
01:45:25.020that in the semitic regions with with yahweh didn't start out as an all-powerful the only god
01:45:35.420everything else is evil and the devil it evolved that way over a long period of time so i think
01:45:42.460religions have always been relative and continue to be relative and
01:45:51.820i think moral relativism has become one of those words that people just use as a cudgel to beat
01:45:57.180people they don't like with um most everybody knows that there are shades of gray in the world
01:46:03.900some people acknowledge that that's true and some people pretend that it's not but i think
01:46:07.980fundamentally we do all realize that that's some of that's the case um i would say
01:46:15.660and again not knowing which monotheism you're referring to it's hard to level a specific
01:46:20.940uh accusation to it but one thing i think is interesting about our faith and our gods
01:46:29.020is morality exists and it exists outside of the demands of the gods like it exists it's a thing
01:46:40.360there is an or there's an order there's a dharma to the universe there is right and there is wrong
01:46:46.380which i would say is is fairly objective in our universe in our worldview now different
01:46:52.640circumstances require different expression and different weighing of that but there's customs
01:46:57.040and values that are universal and inherent that aren't bending to the whim of a particular god
01:47:04.460in uh christian monotheism right and wrong is solely determined by the whims of their god
01:47:12.860and is as fluid as that god wants to make it whenever he wants to make it so and our gods
01:47:18.480don't function in that same way so in that way i would say that uh morals and monotheism are more
01:47:25.760relative than uh the morals within our cosmos what are your thoughts sivan uh i i i have a tendency
01:47:35.360to believe that universalists and i'll i'll i know we can lay that onus on people in now so true or
01:47:43.600people that claim to to be true to the gods um despite a lot of their other worshiping tendencies
01:47:50.320But we can also apply this to Christians and to Muslims. I think that they are universalist. I think that they, in essence, unite under credo, whether it's that credo subservience or that credo is the, I guess, activation of will of what they perceive as the driving goal of their life.
01:48:20.320their god but i really think the universalists hold the crown of relative uh relativism they are
01:48:28.400extremely good at broadening their scopes of relativism and you kind of alluded to it you
01:48:35.120know when you read the scriptures of of the olden times and you see the language transition
01:48:40.560uh when you bring up some of this stuff and kind of i do it very subtly sometimes when i have
01:48:46.400theosophical debates with universalists is especially in the in the christians that's because
01:48:52.000not because i i'm afraid to engage with other universalist faiths it's just that i
01:48:56.960was once inundated in uh christianity and i think that so it helps me to have that knowledge to to
01:49:05.920go there um you know you see in the elder or the old testament um you see this kind of um
01:49:13.520connection. There isn't a lot of relativism. There's actually quite poignant points of
01:49:20.400interactions between Yahweh and his people and his relationship with other people and their
01:49:27.760relationship with other people. But at some point, I think when Saul of Tarsus and Shimon or Simon,
01:49:36.080who later became Peter, when they started moving westward and started interacting with0.90
01:49:44.000non-Semitic people, they started enacting their relativism. They started changing names. They0.81
01:49:52.320looked for things that had no more context in a cultural sense. You know, the difference between
01:49:59.700a Malach amongst the Hebrew and an angel amongst the Greeks may have very close and poignant
01:50:08.200power, but an angel amongst Germanic speaking people, they very rarely ever correlate an
01:50:17.080understanding of the idea of a messenger or an extension of Yahweh. They just simply take it
01:50:23.200as face value. And so it becomes quite relative. And you see that in the names of divinity when
01:50:29.520And we talk about Hebrew and we often refer to Yahweh, but they never refer to Yahweh as Elohim.
01:50:36.280And then, you know, as they move westward into Europe and they start, you know, they look at Dios pater.
01:50:42.300They just simply took that and made it poignant for purposes.
01:50:48.580They made it relative and correlating to them.
01:50:51.500they uh they moved away from the idea of um you know like uh i'm probably murdering this but like
01:51:01.640in the afterlife in their language with um i believe it's shalom or no shidim excuse me shidim
01:51:09.300and the demons and what a demon meant to a greek and what a what a shidim meant to a middle eastern
01:51:15.280And they change these things. And then these things become, again, almost like free of copyright. They become extremely relative. And I've had Christians tell me, oh, it's not the meaning behind the word. It's the feeling or the intent behind it now.
01:51:32.520And so relativism, especially amongst universalists, I think pervades far more.
01:51:41.840And I think I would argue that metagenetics is a reversal of relativism.
01:51:49.000It's an idea of an understanding between the outer and the inner, that which was in, that which is out.
01:51:54.140And you see this in early, you know, biblical stories in which the people of Judea, the Hebrews, and all of these things, they're in juxtaposition to the Sarmatians, they're in juxtaposition to the Philistines, they're in juxtaposition to the Canaanites.
01:52:11.460There's very much an inner and outer. And then over time, when Saul enacts the idea that, you know, this concept of a Messiah that was solely understood amongst these people can now be transferred to people outside of that, that became a moment of relativism.
01:52:34.160it's very much similar to the to the ideas like there's finite sense between a natalist or a
01:52:40.720person who is natal to a land uh they are born there they share the traits they have the the
01:52:47.000the physical features they have the language they have the production they have context
01:52:52.320and then you have like a more of a broad uh patronism or a patriotic kind of sense of page
01:53:03.140a patronism under credo. And so all of a sudden, the finite things start to get washed away
01:53:09.740and are then led into obscurity, led into relativism. So I would argue metagenetics
01:53:17.240is the opposite of relativism. And that morals and any person that you engage with that talks
01:53:27.780about these things, when we talk about what is right and what is wrong amongst different people,
01:53:31.880it's pretty well known that it's a fool's folly to think that all people have the same sense of
01:53:38.440moralism. And that becomes relativism, that there is some sort of over-pervading sense
01:53:45.620that we can just kind of plug and play into every single person. And that's not the case.
01:53:51.360The case shows that we have moral distinctions, and those distinctions are incumbent upon many
01:53:58.240different things. Where our people come from in the past, how they interact with each other,
01:54:02.740how they communicate with each other, how they produce things, how they look,
01:54:08.920and all of these things. And sure, I think that we could go to other places and understand what
01:54:14.080is morally good for them, and even enact upon ourselves to be kind in that way. I have been in
01:54:21.440foreign countries and interacted with many different people and knew that something that
01:54:26.340may not be any particular slight uh in my land and to my people could be perceived as a great
01:54:33.780slight amongst other people so out of kindness i just didn't interact in those things but am i
01:54:40.480following their moralism to a degree i'm using it as a framework in the place that i'm at but do i
01:54:47.720ultimately believe that that moralism applies when i go home no there there's a there's a difference
01:54:54.500And so I would say that metagenetics is the opposite of relativism.
01:55:01.680Christine asks, what ways do you incorporate Odin into your regular spiritual practice?
01:55:09.440Svon, how do you incorporate the All-Father in your regular spiritual practice?
01:55:16.480That is first and foremost, I think, a good way to interact with the gods.
01:55:20.920And I think prayer can be laying out self-reflection and laying out ideas physically, sometimes in the web or the well or into the interactions of all things in the universe.
01:55:36.160And so that there is, again, like what you had said elsewhere, an omni-awareness of that once it's placed, once that road is traveled thoroughly between, it's open and then can be observed or judged from their counsel.
01:55:52.460um and so i i try to do that often but uh in correlation especially when we talk about on
01:56:00.380we talk about breath and this kind of came about uh in in waves uh it was particularly strong when
01:56:07.240i was younger and then over time i i you know we go through essences of of intentions and degrees
01:56:14.420of understanding and awareness but uh recently you know i there was a godi there is a godi in
01:56:20.360the afa who was speaking about ond and he he greatly inspired me to begin to to understand
01:56:27.960some of the presence of breath the the presence of of um awareness in the self and in the moment
01:56:36.360so uh i do occasionally practice a form of like i guess what would be like runic yoga or stavar
01:56:44.680or stavr. I do it with intention of different purposes. I do movements and breathing, and
01:56:51.960my ultimate purpose is to understand my awareness of breath and presence. I also do movement in
01:56:58.700order to, I guess in a medical sense, to move the lymphatic system. So, I mean, it could be as
01:57:07.420very material as that, um, and in enacting these positions of runic symbolism, um, and while doing
01:57:15.800that, I breathe. Also, through meditation, um, oftentimes, too, uh, incorporating bits of poetry
01:57:22.920or writing things down, uh, especially when it comes in relation to, uh, worship to Odin or to
01:57:28.860I, uh, composing poem, whether it's like in Fornideslag style or just in general, uh, I think
01:57:37.660it's a great way of devotion. And then oftentimes burning them and just never, never really, uh,
01:57:44.840maybe they, they bleed over another expressions of, of art, but that, that singular moment is
01:57:50.480gone. That's a gift completely given in, uh, kind of a, a devotional prayer or written sense,
01:57:57.600uh, given out. And I just offer that up in hopes that it is taken. I'm not saying that it is,
01:58:04.340but I hope that it is, or at least that it's again placed out into, uh, the web, uh, or the well.
01:58:11.080And, um, I think also too, um, in, in reading and in, in the murals, um, I, I, I say a little,
01:58:24.220uh i guess i guess a prayer and i i mean i'm using this over and over and over again but
01:58:30.540a kind of restock a re-perception a breathing moment the idea of going forth and then
01:58:36.660interacting in a space with the intention of not losing focus and with the intention of
01:58:43.080being connected not losing sight of the grandness of the all-father and um
01:58:49.740so even in the mundane sometimes it's just a moment a stop a pause kind of okay i have the
01:58:57.860breath of odin within me um i i do the i do this service in intention as being a like a
01:59:04.680a willful moment a pressing forward in in in the world in weird at this time at this moment
01:59:17.460I'm focused on it and this is what it needs to be. And sometimes I have to reiterate that
01:59:22.480because you get lost in things. You get distracted. There's so many things. So I find
01:59:28.280honoring Odin as a refocusing moment of severity is a thing I often find myself doing.
01:59:38.460But yeah. So I don't have a profound answer to that.
01:59:44.700Um, most of my personal, um, trying to think the best way to say this, um, I suppose a
02:00:03.860lot of my personal, uh, religious expression is fairly simple.
02:00:07.140um i so first i am in a very fortunate position to where i get to worship the gods in a big
02:00:21.380spectacular in the literal sense of the word way because i travel so much to do bloats at our
02:00:28.900different hofs and i very often have the honor of conducting bloats at whatever hof i'm at
02:00:33.620So I have a lot of time of interacting with the gods in a big, loud, very public way.
02:00:43.600When I interact privately with the gods, it's, you know, in front of my altar, I will light some candles, I'll burn some incense.
02:00:52.640And especially as it relates to Odin, I come to Odin very often in thanksgiving for the blessings in my life and for my position in the AFA and for victories that I've had or that we've had together.
02:01:18.160Um, I asked for his, uh, for his guidance to help me to make the right decisions on things for our folk that helped me live up to the responsibility of my office.
02:01:36.900And I reaffirm or I restate in front of him my commitment to do that and my commitment towards our victory and towards our goals and towards glorifying him and the other I see her.
02:01:57.660But again, I often approach the All-Father in thanksgiving as opposed to asking for a boon.
02:03:24.380The triplication of Odin to me is a dynamic part of my theological, I guess, understanding of the dynamicism of Odin.0.50
02:03:36.480And I often refer to the 1R3 and the 3R1, a trinity within itself.
02:03:43.780um and i speak of uh the the three uh with great importance as much as i do to the one0.99
02:03:53.360um and i see them as inseparable and i see them as uh that the triplication is a symbol of
02:03:59.800dynamicism and interaction but it's worth noting i mean on this the spiritual breath it could be
02:04:05.400The prana, if you're talking about in the Eastern context, there's even kind of a scientific force that was referred to in reference to ONT, talking about the ODIC, O-D-I-C, the ODIC force, and a lot of ways of conceptualizing that this may have connection to electromagnetic presence and maybe auric presence.
02:04:31.560And I see a connection there, but what we're deeply talking about is the breath, the animation of the transference between the first step and nothing, which is a huge step.
02:04:52.040And so when we talk about ask and embla, it says they're unrooted and unfated. So that breath is going from not being rooted and not being fated to being rooted and fated into the material.
02:05:10.880And so I think that that is very important in understanding. I think some people see the shaping of the wood in somewhat of a literal sense.
02:05:24.580And I think that there's obviously deep poetic allegoric connections between wood and humanity or flesh.
02:05:32.880And there's lots of kennings in reference to this in which like Odin's oaks are oftentimes referred to or Odin's ashes are speaking of the ash tree or speaking of possibly the spears that the menfolk are holding.
02:05:48.600But there's a lot of references to the idea of the shaping of wood.
02:05:51.700And I think especially amongst the Norse, the idea of shaping of wood was highly important, especially in shipbuilding and lots of other things.
02:06:00.020I mean, even to this day, we look at the Nords, you know, as shapers of wood, especially like in reference to architecture and things.
02:06:38.940material and you don't see it manifest very often i think that um when we see it in the stories you
02:06:46.760know if it's thor as the storm father and we see his interaction with as energy uh in in the storm
02:06:53.360uh this this physical man this this is powerful um but when he gives on he gives breath and he
02:07:03.560gives animation, and he then proceeds to move them into the fated state. The ability for humans
02:07:11.020to understand their animation is first and foremost, I think, important. But then,
02:07:18.960other. Other is kind of translated as wit or an intellect or an awareness. I often like to
02:07:25.860conceptualize that along with the idea of the rush of consciousness, there is also a sense that
02:07:33.440makes us different from animals in the sense that we can now mentally project ourselves
02:07:38.780into a state that we don't exist yet that we don't seem to see that very often amongst um like we
02:07:46.680can't we it's hard for us to conceptualize that or or scientists are even looking for it in other
02:07:51.980animals for their ability to project themselves into a place that they've never been or uh that
02:07:59.540That's the communication that they might be having with, say, an elder animal might be telling them based off of their experience in the past.
02:08:07.980So now we can project ourselves into a forward movement, into a place that doesn't exist.
02:08:14.140I can conceptualize myself being somewhere or interacting with something, though I've never been there and I've never interacted with those things.
02:08:24.960and those things might not even exist when i get there but i can conceptualize that maybe they are
02:08:30.480um so that's an interesting thing when we talk about the other and the sudden rush of consciousness
02:08:37.280so i i think that's where that fury of of other and then lastly is lao and uh hyoner gives lao
02:08:46.400or or or they and when you look at the the two um differences between like say the pros aidas and
02:08:53.440And the Aedas is that the references to Odin, Vili, and Ve, Odin, of course, fury, or the sudden rush, and Vili being will, the ability to project into, and Ve, holiness, or wholeness, and how those two words deeply correlate with each other.
02:09:16.660And so holiness and wholeness are one in the form of the body.
02:09:23.940And I think it's important that when we look at wellness and wholeness, we see when there is dis-ease or when there is something wrong with something, it is not whole.
02:09:34.900And so we see a paragon of health as being wholeness.
02:09:38.160so when hyonur gives lao he gives shape color and the wholeness of body the the wellness of of of
02:09:51.020being and um so or in essence the shape of and so i've always taken that when we look at odin
02:09:59.320and ve and ve being the holy space or the wholeness of space um it's very very you know
02:10:07.960poignant that the the as they are given that's the the order that they are given in so we see this
02:10:16.120kind of grand connection to weird this grand connection to the cosmos the grand connection
02:10:20.840of fate and to be rooted in things and then we see intellect and body and shape and color added next
02:10:31.800the the truly powerful dynamic part of odin being able to take a piece of himself and make
02:10:42.360from that which is not into something that is um taking a kind of piece of himself is
02:10:50.680deeply important and and that takes in our stories in the form of the breath you cannot see it but it
02:10:58.440It is clearly something that is within you and then comes from without or comes through your mouth or as in the Anglo-Saxon Rune poems, like the mouth of the river, that which flows from him.
02:11:11.540And then suddenly the vessel is filled.
02:11:51.820There you go. No, you guys may not know this. Svahn is a barber and at winter nights is kind of a tradition and some of our other events, but at winter nights for Svahn to sit on the on the deck or in some kind of gathering space of the men. And we can kind of have a little impromptu barbershop experience there for as long as Svahn is willing to cut folks hair. And it's it's kind of a fun thing. I think that we all really enjoy it.
02:12:17.520gives the men a chance to sit around and talk about stuff and it's i don't know there's something
02:12:22.720special about it but we appreciate you doing that for us he he spent an awful lot of time doing that
02:12:27.680on friday so thank you 11 to 9 p.m or something like that is what somebody told me i didn't even
02:12:34.480yeah it was like a 10 hour day um it's a lot of haircuts it was a lot of haircuts so christine
02:12:43.760asks um what do you suggest for those seeking the wisdom of odin um i would
02:12:54.800you know steal an answer from odin uh from the have them all and say that it's
02:13:00.080it's best for man to be middling wise um it's really easy for
02:13:06.000or people new to our faith or younger people or whatever to jump right in and say,
02:13:18.160I don't think people calculate the cost before they want to embark on such an endeavor.
02:13:24.120You see Odin's quest for knowledge and his quest for that are harrowing.
02:13:34.140they're painful, they're difficult, and they involve great sacrifice. And some of the sacrifices
02:13:44.120that you can't unknow things, I think that most of us, whether we admit it or not, don't really
02:13:50.000want to know everything. There's a peace in not looking behind the curtain too much. There's a
02:13:57.880piece in not gleaming the cube. And I think that most people probably don't really want to
02:14:08.300have that kind of odinic wisdom. If we're past that point, and we've decided we do want to pay
02:14:17.380that cost and we do want that burden that comes with great wisdom, then I would suggest
02:14:29.220it's hard because as a starting point, I don't know. Wanting to know the mysteries of the
02:14:36.680universe, there's any number of places you can start. But what I would put special attention
02:14:42.020towards is things outside of your comfort zone, things that are uncomfortable, things that are
02:14:47.680outside of your area of expertise, things that perhaps you do need to pay a cost in order to
02:14:54.760learn or to understand. I think learning things in those realms and from those places, learning
02:15:03.380things in uncomfortable places is probably a sure path to odenic wisdom than just focusing on you
02:15:13.700know the stuff you're already very comfortable with but those are just some thoughts on it svan
02:15:17.940what are your thoughts on the subject i i think you're you're hitting a lot of a truth to it
02:15:23.860first and foremost the middling wise is uh is as a good place sometimes to be um uh because knowing
02:15:32.980much brings a lot of sorrow or a lot of trouble, a darkness in the mind sometimes, I think.
02:15:42.180And sometimes it can apply wisdom. And I think the Odinic sense of wisdom, for a long time,
02:15:53.360people talked about it in a Faustian sense, the idea of sacrificing a piece of one's self
02:16:00.360and one's intellect in order to gain a higher understanding, but that higher understanding
02:16:06.320isn't always necessarily, I think, a bigger or broader understanding of things, but perhaps a
02:16:15.380honing or an application of that which exists, as opposed to going from a puddle to a river.
02:16:24.200instead maybe looking at it as like uh from a bucket of water to a pressure washer um the uh
02:16:33.120the water is still the same but the means in which it is being transferred is drastically different
02:16:39.980so you can find great wisdom in someone who knows perhaps very little about many things
02:16:47.500But knows a great deal about one thing. And so I think that the interactions that Odin has with others, other forces, he interacts with them understanding this, the application in which they project wisdom, the application in which they apply their wisdom, the presence of where it comes from and what they're intending to do with it.
02:17:14.580But I had a friend, and I always remember this, you know, like the truth isn't like some eternal flame.
02:17:27.360It has to be delivered at the right time.
02:17:30.720And so the idea is that, like, when people are hungry for things and you give it, it's readily consumed.
02:17:38.220You place it down at the wrong time, and everybody ignores it.
02:17:42.140And we can see that sometimes when we see we have this truth or we have some concept or a lesson that we've learned.
02:17:49.980I've learned many great lessons in my life.
02:17:51.840And if I meet somebody, the only thing that really initiates me to even speak upon it is perhaps there's some sort of similarity that the person I'm talking to is experiencing something very close to the thing that I experienced.0.83
02:18:04.620So the initiation of knowledge and the interaction of knowledge is, I think, also deeply odinic.
02:18:11.300And so it doesn't necessarily always mean the quantity, as it does mean the delivery, the timing, and the application of that wisdom.
02:18:22.520You know, if I'm struggling with something on my car and I have a neighbor who's really, really good at being a mechanic, I go to him and I ask him for help.
02:18:33.200And I learn. I want to learn. I don't just, you know, hand him money and say, here, fix this.
02:20:51.980If you guys are interested and you want to help out, we really appreciate y'all's generosity.
02:20:57.840It's how we're able to do good things. As far as an update on Frazehoff, we are actively working on making that happen.
02:21:06.880It comes to mind because we had a fantastic time at our winter nights in Ohio.
02:21:15.960It was our first event in Ohio. I mentioned earlier, Ohio is swelling with amazing people and amazing activity.
02:21:23.200and we are going to establish our fifth half our half to fray there and if you guys would like to
02:21:32.440help us make that happen we need money to do it so please uh please consider donating to that cause
02:21:38.560and uh the the more we have generous folks the faster that'll become a reality
02:21:44.020uh king of cheese says well here's one what is the significance of the number three in aryan
02:21:51.060cultures and where does it come from why is it considered it's so important i'm glad you asked
02:21:56.820that tony i think you're some of these questions you guys are hitting right in in swan's wheelhouse
02:22:02.420on some stuff he's been thinking about a lot lately and i think this is one of them swan what
02:22:06.660are your thoughts on the sacred number three and why that's a thing in our mythos um i was speaking
02:22:14.260on this uh pretty recently when i talk about the idea of the tripartite uh and i know if you're
02:22:22.100if anyone's familiar with like duimazil um and uh the idea of the tripartite when they're talking
02:22:28.100about that they're talking about social structures and the idea of sovereignty and warriorship and
02:22:32.420production but uh i think this is applications that we can see elsewhere and other aryan branches
02:22:37.700And it mainly has to do with, I would say, the structuring of either divinity, could be divinity as an overall, in some ways it could be the structuring of sky function.
02:22:53.820And the reason why I say sky function is because if we see things as – there's a spark and progenitory force, that which is pulled out of the primordial matter of the cosmos and then is then set forth in physical and masculine and feminine force.
02:23:16.520We see that after this masculine and feminine force, there seems to be this presentation of a tripartite, but it doesn't always apply to sky functioning, so I wouldn't always call it the architecture of the sky as I would say just more or less the thrones of divinity.
02:23:36.600And I like to say the thrones of divinity because we see it consistently in every Aryan branch. There isn't one that I can think of that or that I've looked into that it doesn't seem to really dominate in the lore of those people, whether it's the Luwians and the Hittites, whether it's the Aryans in India, whether it's the Gauls and the Hellenics, or the Slavs and the Tutans.
02:24:06.600uh or you know and of course the latter norse um we see these this architecture of three
02:24:13.700so much so that when the trinity within christianity didn't exist until it was
02:24:19.100embedded in europeans for so long that the the trinity became a very important part of their
02:24:27.920um theology and um i you know i i i see this number three as a as a an idea of dynamicism
02:24:38.960there is no point i think where we can point to and say okay this is where the triplicate becomes
02:24:45.740a thing uh we have symbols we have uh the number four in in the in the swastika or the the thunder
02:24:53.080cross or the sun cross or um you know in the sun and rod but we have also the number three often
02:25:00.360seen whether it's in uh triplication whether it's in the triskelion um and all these things but
02:25:06.760there's no real point that we can point to as origin i i think that these things show dynamicism
02:25:15.320overall and that the divinity are moving the divinity are are uh rolling in in a sense they're
02:25:22.680not four-cornered so it's at a hard stop it's not planar it's not a vertical hard stop wall
02:25:29.480it's the three represent kind of a a rotation if you will with specific function um and i i talk
02:25:39.240about the tripartite in the idea that we see amongst our folk and other folk this tripartite
02:25:47.480formulating in the thrones of dynamicism stasis and catalytic or catalystic um where we see
02:25:57.640dynamicism as almost like free movement and the ability to interact in in and out up and down
02:26:03.720or all the way down uh in the lower realms left and right and in every which way to move stasis is
02:26:11.080generally either locale in the idea of a central point the axis mundi a mountain the uh high point
02:26:18.120you can see this like as for instance i would i would denote that the throne of stasis could be
02:26:22.840taken by heimdall as just as much as odin when on hlidskalf or a fray when he takes that position
02:26:33.720and so i see the i call them thrones because i see this correlation of movement when we talk about
02:26:40.440like Svaurag and Perun and Veles amongst the Slavs. And that's just one of the groups of
02:26:47.220Slavs. There's many, and I'm learning about them more and more. So I don't want to pigeonhole
02:26:52.140that they have very, very complex and defined in small groups that kind of make a broad sense. But
02:26:59.920we see it amongst the continental Gauls with Teratatis and Tyrannus and with Asus, which is
02:27:07.840more or less a theory right now as to where Esus fits into this or we see it with Dagda and Ogman
02:27:15.040and Lu and um amongst the Atlantic Gauls or the Isle Gauls um or with the Hellenics which I brought
02:27:24.360up was very interesting I I when I was working on um uh Njörðr at Njörðshof and I saw this
02:27:33.240that the the three thrones and i thought about the hellenics and their connection to mathematics
02:27:37.980and they numbered it uh you know when they speak of zeus and you see the the lightning bolt or the
02:27:44.080scepter a singular point uh and then you see uh neptune or poseidon as a carrying a trident
02:27:51.880and then suddenly it made sense i was just looking into tridents and looking into like
02:27:56.920bronze age tridents and different things to make a picture well and all of a sudden i ran
02:28:03.020into this concept with Hadis or Hades or Plutonus carrying a bident. And suddenly it was like,
02:28:10.800oh my God, they numbered it. There's one, two, and three. The Hellenics and their dang math.
02:28:19.520So we see this too with the Trimurti amongst the Hindus or the Tridevi when they talk about0.95
02:28:26.800They have a tripartite of a divine feminine. And so I think this application is cultural because you might not see a tridevi amongst, say, like the Nords or the Germanic people.
02:28:39.920We see a far more bigger stratification of, like, say, the Earth in function, whether it's Jorv or Nertha or Grida and her being the mother of Vidar and helping Thor.
02:28:56.720We see Gerda and we see Frigga and we see Skadi when we, you know, the connections to the mountains and all of these things.
02:29:07.300so we see a huge plethora in the feminine amongst our people but perhaps that's not the case
02:29:13.060amongst another people so i i call these the trifurcation thrones as like kind of an application
02:29:19.220that may vary and it causes a lot of confusion between people and they try to correlate things
02:29:26.100um maybe not understanding that like for instance hadis is i i would say in a stasis sense
02:29:32.340um amongst the hellenics so that throne is a stasis throne and um but i'm not trying to
02:29:41.200jam the the the gods into any particular format i'm trying to observe and just see in a way to
02:29:48.760correlate maybe map out some things uh based more on the observation as we go different like a
02:29:56.140difference between a sailor and a cartographer. A cartographer gets maps from others and interviews
02:30:02.200bits of lore from sailors that may have seen things and they place them down and they write
02:30:07.480them out and they take great care in creating these maps. But it's the sailor who observes
02:30:12.440and sees things and then proposes the idea or at least acknowledges the moment of it in realism,
02:30:19.860but not in a definitive sense. I'm not saying that this is an absolute, this is more or less
02:30:24.840a guideline a reading of the currents underneath the ship um so you know the number three i think
02:30:33.560is a number of dynamicism and when you see the dynamic throne it's oftentimes triplicated amongst
02:30:41.960itself um and so again showing even more dynamicism and so i think three six and nine are a compounding
02:30:50.600of that trinity and are very, very powerful. But if we were to break it down into three and see it
02:30:56.920in separate, we would see catalyst, the idea of being able to move through the edges of things
02:31:03.300and up and to the material, which we see like in with Thor, the dynamicism with Odin, being able
02:31:11.020to move in all manners of ways. And then, of course, like in Stasis, whether we see it in
02:31:17.780in tear or whether by losing his hand uh and losing his ability um to wield the sword or we
02:31:24.580see it in heimdall when he's upon heaven's mountain or frey when he takes lead scalp and suddenly
02:31:31.140you know he sees and right afterwards he immediately goes into stasis he uh he closes
02:31:36.660down in the story he goes into his room he locks the doors he shuts the windows he's in a deep state
02:31:42.740of of non-dynamic movement so uh that that would be my take on the on the number three i've got a
02:31:50.820lot of stuff on that but i i could ramble about that for a very long time yeah i think three in
02:32:00.660the multiples thereof we can find them in so many different circumstances and i think in each
02:32:08.580circumstance we'd have a little bit different angle to express on this but
02:32:15.940i think that it is an idea of balance and wholeness an idea that things are multifaceted
02:32:22.020and coming from different parts in different places um in polytheism life is complex and
02:32:29.460it's made up made up of so many different factors and angles that really add depth
02:32:36.980and beauty to life that you don't get in the same way in a monotheistic belief system.
02:32:45.460Nick had a question. I did want to point out like certain things that we can see
02:32:51.220triplications in is like with Kvasir. Kvasir is singular or he's a component that's brought
02:32:59.140together by the gods and the unification of the gods and then he is separated into a triplicate
02:33:04.180and then taken from that triplicate and moved dynamically throughout creation is i think
02:33:10.420important or when we see the tricking of king galfi when he goes into the hall of the icier
02:33:15.780there are three thrones there there is high even high is how it's kind of directly translated but
02:33:21.540it means just as high and the third so again we see that that triplicate it's everywhere
02:33:27.060so very very we see with the nor near we see it um and again that balances it creates a spatial
02:33:36.900aspect to time it creates a past and a in a present in a future tense um that triplicate adds
02:33:45.780It's dimension and context to map out the space that something occupies in a lot of ways.
02:34:02.340Nick's question, a question spurred from the conversation in chat, is there a coincidence?
02:34:07.740Are all things the working of someone, something, or some things just random acts of life that somehow seem linked?
02:34:14.220I would say that. Sure, some stuff is coincidence, but nothing is random.
02:34:26.440And when I say that, I'm talking about from the perspective of the individual.
02:34:31.980Everything that you come encounter towards doesn't necessarily have a syncretic meaning to you or to your life.
02:34:42.960Sometimes you're an observer in other things outside yourself that don't have a direct relevance to yourself.
02:34:51.900But I think in a microcosm, all of those things are intentional because they're all the results of all of the things that have come before them that have put them in that place.
02:35:01.700They take place in that tapestry. Nothing is random.
02:35:05.620The butterfly effect is real. Something very small may send out ripples that affect something major.
02:35:11.860And I think what's important to take note of, and so I guess in that sense, there's no such thing as coincidences, but there's some things that are syncretically less relevant and syncretically more relevant.
02:35:29.800synchronicity that's relevant to will that you've put out into the ether or, you know,
02:35:37.920will to action, then that starts to become very significant. Or when, quote unquote,
02:35:43.260coincidences start piling up in a way that's meaningful or outside of what seems to be,
02:35:51.180you know, the statistically average amount of them to pile up in your life experiences,
02:35:59.060that's when it's time to perk up and take notice um the art of recognizing synchronicity and being
02:36:06.580able to differentiate what is meaningful and what's not relevant to uh to a given situation
02:36:15.860is a challenge you have a lot of people especially new people or people who just take a very deep
02:36:22.740dive and aren't uh into the the metaphysical and aren't particularly grounded they'll find
02:36:29.460themselves overwhelmed every you know every noise everything they see every anything is a sign or is
02:36:37.860you know some momentous occurrence and when everything's at volume 10 you don't know
02:36:45.940you know you can't put the emphasis on truly important things if everything is amplified that
02:36:51.700much having the art to know when some things are volume two or volume three that gives you the
02:36:59.060context to knowing things are very important and meaningful being able to see and hone in on
02:37:04.980synchronicities that are relevant either to yourself or to a situation that you're contemplating
02:37:12.100that is very much the root of willful magic and i think that's fundamentally essential to the
02:37:18.340stuff that we do. What are your thoughts, Swan? I think I agree with what you're saying. I think
02:37:26.260that it's the perception of things that makes coincidence. We can, you could be sitting on
02:37:35.380one end of a big great body of water, and you're pouring water into that water, and it creates
02:37:41.700ripples. And those ripples, the laws of movement and things that are displaced and are going,
02:37:48.340And I throw a rock on the other end, and that creates ripples.
02:37:51.320And then somewhere in between, there could be an item like a leaf that gets rocked from both ripples, causes some great movement.
02:38:02.420Maybe there's a frog on the leaf, and he gets knocked off the leaf.
02:38:08.020But those coincidences are sourced on finite action that may have not understood the gravitas of the entirety of that.
02:38:17.700So when we perceive that moment as coincidence, but yet all things, like you said, with the butterfly effect, they do source from something.
02:38:26.380It's just that their outcome and intention may not be fully aware.
02:38:30.380And depending on how disconnected we are to the moment, we could perceive all of these events as being simply coincidental.
02:41:59.220Give them a gift with the demand that they give you one back?
02:42:03.400No, it's typically nice to reciprocate.
02:42:06.220But sometimes at somebody's birthday, you just give them a gift.
02:42:09.480They don't give you a gift on their birthday.
02:42:11.660Sometimes you just do nice things for people.
02:42:13.620If you approached your parents with here is a gift. Now I demand something in return, how rude and disrespectful that would be. If you approached a king in this world and gave them something and demanded something for them, how inappropriate would that be? How much more so would that be to a God?
02:42:35.640um so yeah i think it's extremely important to honor the gods in your prayers rather than
02:42:42.120always asking for stuff what are your thoughts fun uh yeah um nail on the head there i think
02:42:52.660the biggest thing too is like um the gods aren't i mean in oust true we believe living is good
02:42:59.940that life is good and that the gift of life and the gift uh that we are that we are given from our
02:43:06.360our ancestors that we are given from our parents even if the the conditions of life may be hard or
02:43:13.920are um are not ideal in comparison to something else that whatever that litmus is um the idea of
02:43:22.600life itself is good and that there's an opportunity uh that has been given in the premise of life so
02:43:27.800the interesting thing is the gods don't lord that over our heads they're not demanding a gift
02:43:35.180like we're not indebted in the sense that there are you're in debt to me you better better you
02:43:42.780know honor me in every way uh and if you don't you're going to a bad place um it's not like that
02:43:49.460That premise isn't set. What instead is set is that the long culmination of what we do
02:43:58.640and how we exist is seen in a sense of gratitude. And in that sense of gratitude,
02:44:03.660we seek to build better relationships with those who have been gracious with us.
02:44:08.980They've already been gracious with us. And they want to see us in our existence, how we interact,
02:44:17.320How do we live? What will we take? Even in the worst of times, how will we act? How will we be?
02:44:25.380Our gift cycle is a reoccurrence or a reemergence, a reapplication of an original gift cycle that was started by the gods, not by us.
02:44:45.140to the gods, started by them, and then we reciprocate, and then it creates this cycle
02:44:51.460of leaving avenues open, making sure that the pathway between the gods and ourselves are open,
02:44:59.580well-worn, and truly, well, to be honest, worthy of being tread by the gods. You know, we create
02:45:08.360those, the temples, we create our actions, we create the pathways between us and the gods,
02:45:13.680And we don't just wear them out. We build on them. We build around them. We make them bridges. We make them roads. We make them tunnels. Whatever way it needs to be done, we do that to make sure that that avenue between us is always open.
02:45:34.200And that's what I think when we're giving to the gods is we're formulating and making – we're building those roads brick by brick by brick by brick or wall or guardrail or pylon or skyway.
02:45:47.380Whatever it needs to be, we're building that because the gift they have given us first is good, and so therefore we must keep those pathways open.
02:46:30.120I think that understanding that we do have need sometimes, and if the God's grace us with the wisdom of understanding and how to get past this need, it may not be in the form of like something, but maybe just leading in a direction.
02:46:44.400And that direction leads us to finding a resolution of that problem that we have, then you're blessed.
02:46:55.900But if not, and you find it yourself, then you have proven to the gods there again that you're willing, you're not expecting them to point you in the right direction.
02:47:06.000And sometimes they don't because they know that your time for yourself is coming for yourself.
02:47:14.040All of these things are, these coincidences are wrapping around and the waves that are being shot across this well are eventually going to interlap.
02:47:24.660And it may intersect. So sometimes just knowing that is, I think, enough for the gods to not interact, but necessarily to just wait and you find that blessing and they know it's there.
02:47:41.420So I don't recommend always coming with the obligation of receiving something.
02:47:48.120As they say, beware of someone who gives over much. They're trying to put you into debt.
02:47:53.440The gods did not put us into debt, but we should still be aware of the gift that they've given us.
02:47:58.620And we should keep the roads between them and those who give good gifts readily open, constantly tended and never overgrown with weeds.
02:48:11.260What's Odin's purpose in hosting Loki within the halls of Asgard?
02:48:16.460How would you expound upon the connection between them?
02:48:20.300If Odin knows the consequences of the relationship, why does he keep the oath?
02:49:25.660Took me a minute to get that out there.
02:49:27.360um so that the consistency of truth is always applicable in a cycle of of movement and motion
02:49:36.040um so when we see and understand the catalystic moment in which uh if we're taking
02:49:45.980things outside of the circular the balder is dead balder is amongst the gods and balder is
02:49:53.000returning or has returned. We see things cyclically and compounded, much like a spring.
02:50:00.460But if we're going to take a section, we're going to pull it out and we're going to look at it to
02:50:03.620understand the perennial truth of it. See that? It just came out like that. The idea of
02:50:11.580uh, Loki and Ovin and like say the relation of Balder, uh, knowing
02:50:21.440the ultimate outcome of this situation, the idea of the seed. We have the Lord of Light,
02:50:31.520balder being slain by the darker half the the the dark side of it of the of the of the light
02:50:41.340of the soul and guided by a treacherous and foreign hand now oftentimes we call loki the
02:50:47.940kinslayer because if the oath is a lot of people think like odin kept an oath with loki well loki
02:50:52.980kept an oath uh with odin and to kill your own blood brother's son makes you a kinslayer but
02:51:00.340do you expect anything less from a treacherous one? So again, are we to be surprised? And then0.98
02:51:08.500this comes to the idea of whether or not the application of wisdom is that he understood
02:51:13.920that there needed to be a force of that treachery in order to enact the eternal and perennial truth
02:51:24.240that the light must be must recede into the darkness before it can be born again
02:51:29.400before it can rise again is this solar myth yes is this perennial wisdom about consciousness
02:51:38.540and darkness and uh about the value of uh that of the outer guard coming into the inner guard
02:51:46.460yes it's all there and how you digest that i think can apply in many different ways
02:51:52.840um if if balder is encapsulated living and risen then so too is loki enacting bound and released
02:52:05.760myth works in a very difficult concept outside of logic and i think it's important that we
02:52:15.240understand those those truths to apply in those various levels if we if we know them the stories
02:52:23.160if we know that ragnarok is coming does it change our our fate does it change the things that we do
02:52:32.680or do the things that we do ultimately facilitate the event the inevitable anyways and i think in a
02:52:38.040lot of ways that's the way that the dynamic of the stories with loki and odin and balder and
02:52:43.320holder are all played out and so to say that there's some sort of folly in knowing that this
02:52:54.440is to come uh or or some of the lessons that are learned throughout the entirety of this whole arc
02:53:02.120um it all has great wisdom and i think it's it's important to understand that
02:53:06.760that that encompassing knowledge um and that things do happen that
02:53:14.040predecess good things darkness does come before light uh rises um so you could take this in many
02:53:23.080many different ways um is it good to honor that which is event we know is inevitably going to be
02:53:31.800a kinslayer is going to be um malicious and uh degenerative uh you know we see this in the story
02:53:41.160of the gods and we should learn from these lessons we should see what the gods how they interact with
02:53:46.680this and knowing like um you know like with scotty looking upon loki and she's an outsider
02:53:55.080and he's an outsider but she's brought in she's synthesized he's not he's not synthesized he's
02:54:03.960intertwined but he's not synthesized and he never is and um there's many testaments to
02:54:11.400there being a link but there's never a full synthesizing of him into the ice here and i
02:54:17.080think that's because he is a catalyst of dynamic force that's outside of the gods and outside of
02:54:23.160cosmic order and he initiates a deep reaction that needs to happen and um it's not good
02:54:34.620shouldn't be seen as good it shouldn't be oh well if you know if odin knew that it was going to
02:54:38.260happen then you know he's not really that bad no the end result is still the same kinslayer
02:54:44.440guiding the hand um taking advantage of the situation um these are all you know ill things
02:54:52.460that are laid out in order for us to take that lesson so so when we get overly literal
02:55:04.640with the stories of our gods we miss bigger truths because of a hyper focus on on story truths
02:55:16.860um the narrative in our mythos isn't intended to be literal it's intended to teach us lessons
02:55:27.420um it's intended to convey bigger truth to us in a way that's digestible um
02:55:36.360and also it's it's frigga that knows all these things and and keeps silent about them as opposed
02:55:46.200to odin knowing all things he doesn't know every single thing and the outcome of every single thing
02:55:54.280or else his uh wisdom quests wouldn't wouldn't be of value sending out hugan and munan wouldn't be
02:56:02.200necessary um his wisdom of past things from mimir is is immense but even in a story sense that's
02:56:11.880stretching the things that he knows uh too far um but the the theme of chaos being
02:56:25.880uncontrollable at some point and poisoning order the theme of people that you let in
02:56:34.200mistreating your hospitality and betraying you these themes are extremely important for us to
02:56:40.520understand and are fundamental to our existence and i think some of that is what's played out
02:56:45.480on a grand scale in the particulars of that story understanding that we talked about
02:56:55.720some of that is part of odin's knowledge quest we talked about that earlier it's best for man
02:57:00.280to be middling wise you don't want to know about the betrayal that happens from a friend that you
02:57:06.520let in um i think that's one of the more tragic things that we realize in our own lives
02:57:12.840as we grow to maturity is the the full knowledge of betrayal is one of the heaviest burdens to to
02:57:20.440bear um so i think that the tale about the consuming nature of of loki that chaos and
02:57:28.520letting that chaos in and the consequences of letting a little bit of chaos in uh teach us
02:57:34.040very valuable lessons for the future and i think that that's a necessary plot element to tell the
02:57:40.440stories of our gods in a way for people to wrap their heads around you need villains interacting
02:57:47.640in order for a story to have an arc that has meaningful meaningful depth and lessons to be
02:57:54.120drawn from it so this question i knew was coming because i've been watching the chat for a while
02:58:03.320so there's there's more to it than just the question there was a couple other things but
02:58:07.320amanda love cats asks does the afa accept jewish members then she went on to say she's not jewish
02:58:14.840but that she's heard from people that the afa has a lot of jewish members and a lot of jewish
02:58:19.960members of leadership from who who are these members these jewish members of leadership0.94
02:58:26.840that's silly one of the really toxic things about our folk is the insistence on every time we have1.00
02:58:36.740a disagreement we've got to chalk it up to some hidden Jewish force um I think that holds us back
02:58:45.260and I think it holds us back a lot from truth I think the hyper obsession with playing you know0.75
02:58:50.840find the Hebrew on everything is, is detrimental and prevents our advancements. One of the things1.00
02:58:58.720she's, she also said is, you know, well, Jews look white, so the AFA just lets them in or whatever
02:59:04.500first. There needs to be a little bit of realness here, a couple of different things.
02:59:11.960Jewish people is the term she used Jewish members, I think. If you are a practicing Jew,
02:59:17.780if you practice the religion of judaism and we know this we do not let you in the astro folk1.00
02:59:23.540assembly because obviously you're not also true um further if you are ethnically jewish meaning
02:59:30.340if you are a semitic person with middle eastern semitic uh hebrew that's your heritage that shows
02:59:39.620those people look middle eastern and we do not let those people in there's certain markers that0.97
02:59:47.380clearly are not us and folks that are not us are not allowed to be in the austro folk assembly no0.83
02:59:53.540we don't go blood test everyone and take skull measurements and no if you look like us and you
03:00:01.700are a white person from europe then no we don't root around to try to find ancestors to blame any
03:00:08.420disagreement that we have with you on that's preposterous uh no we don't knowingly let
03:00:14.500any jewish people into the as true folk assembly is they have an ethnic faith of their own called
03:00:19.860judaism that they practice um it's hard to tell sometimes with those questions whether they're0.83
03:00:26.340real questions or whether they're set up questions but being honest is is the right answer to them no
03:00:34.260matter what that's the afa's stance i don't know who's telling you these things but you probably
03:00:42.340need to find a better and more reliable source for your information but i'll say this assume
03:00:48.180this is a legitimate question you had the the courage to come on and ask it straight up and
03:00:52.820i've tried to answer it in as straight up a way as i could um next question oh i actually have
03:01:02.580and this is from based red pill boycott coat products oh i actually have a question can you0.60
03:01:09.140please sue the hell out of marvel for all its petty or pretty boy multiculturalism viking stuff
03:01:16.260and using the name thor no we can't do that that's not how lawsuits work um i wish that they didn't do0.83
03:01:23.140that we do not have a copyright on the name thor we cannot sue them for that marvel has utilized
03:01:31.140for in a commercial way since the 1960s i believe um
03:01:39.140that's just not the way lawsuits work and the other thing about lawsuits and this is
03:01:43.300branching off this is not really about the marvel thing but every time somebody does something
03:01:50.420first the marvel thing is not actionable but even when people do something that's actionable
03:01:54.980unfortunately justice is very expensive in the society in which we live to press a lawsuit on
03:02:03.340something is tens of thousands of dollars with no guarantee of success as i mentioned earlier in the
03:02:11.440program and as i'm about to mention in the next hour the afa has other stuff that is a much better
03:02:18.280use of those funds rather than lawsuits over petty things it's not to say we won't engage in
03:02:24.860them over stuff that has a very significant impact. But, you know, 20 or 30 grand involved
03:02:30.540in a petty lawsuit could much better be spent towards getting us that next half or towards
03:02:36.400getting a Sigerheim. It's a good time now to talk about Sigerheim. We're making progress on that.
03:02:44.620We have a conversation going on with a realtor and we have a plot that we're very, very excited
03:02:52.740about and we're moving forward with that but we need y'all's help um again your generosity is what
03:02:58.820makes these dreams happen this will definitely happen but it happened a lot quicker if you guys
03:03:03.460are generous and help us um our next question to chew on is sorry if a bit off topic since odin
03:03:16.740is the god of sagas stories does the afa have any thoughts or plans on creating slash promoting
03:03:24.260slash sharing heathen based fiction modern or otherwise i asked because since the afa
03:03:32.100is moving to provide educational resources to heathens
03:03:36.660uh i didn't know if there was an interest in cultural resources as well um
03:03:43.380No, there's no plans on that. And I think it's because we don't have a lot of people that
03:03:51.560are creators of works of fiction right now, certainly not that I'm aware of. But it's,
03:04:03.200I don't know, I think it's good timing that you ask when Svan is here, because what Svan and I
03:04:08.280been talking about a lot lately is some music and dancing things to enhance culture in the way that
03:04:17.240you're talking about. We've been working for a while, Svahn and I, with some art endeavors.
03:04:23.160And one of the things we've been talking about, especially as Sigurheim is coming into fruition,
03:04:28.840is developing music and cultural dance. And I think I'll let Svahn talk about that a little bit.
03:04:37.000it spawn tell us about the musical arts in the afa that we were talking about uh well a couple
03:04:44.360of a couple things too i i think uh just to point out when we talk about fiction and let's say um
03:04:50.920uh kind of been seeing like um i forgot the name of the book i think it's the
03:04:57.080uh it's like a young boy and he's interacting with the hellenic kind of pantheon stories um
03:05:03.880I remember kids reading it for a while there.
03:05:08.540I think the biggest thing is understanding that some modern art expressions of fiction, if they're unpious and if they're kind of making mundane of the gods, I don't think you're going to see that very much out of us.
03:05:23.940um however if there was to say be a fictional story uh with a plot and an entirety of itself
03:05:32.660and one of the maybe the main character is devout to the gods and and there is some
03:05:38.760showing of his devotion and how he does these things um and that's kind of a side point to
03:05:45.400the overall arcing story i could see that coming um you know who knows i mean maybe
03:05:51.260like one day I'll retire and just start sitting around um can folks hear me Svon cut out and I
03:06:16.580cannot hear Svan or the last part of his answer there. I can't hear myself either. I'm not sure
03:06:26.480what's happening here. Hold on. Let me manage some technical difficulties. I can't hear myself
03:06:33.540either. I'm not sure what's happening here. Hold on. Let me manage some technical difficulties.
03:06:38.360All right, I think I've got something.
03:07:07.340I cannot hear me and I cannot hear Svan. So hopefully Nick on the back end can help me
03:07:14.600figure out what's going on either way. Josh asks, hello, Gothar. I'd love to ask,
03:07:23.540have you fellas any thoughts about Galdor practices and frequency,
03:07:28.080i.e. how they may relate to the idea around healing tones and hurts. So
03:07:37.340Yes, but I don't know how fleshed out those thoughts are. To me, Galdr is very often about vibration. Vibration is essential to good Galdr, I think, and it definitely affects the world around us.
03:07:58.740Now, the science of it is something else.
03:08:03.120It definitely has an effect, and we're speaking those things into existence, and it does have a resonance that can more easily put folks into a meditative state, certainly.
03:08:13.680I know that we do, not for a specific vibrational frequency thing, not intentionally that way anyway.
03:08:22.860We do absolutely, Galder, during all of our healing rituals I've ever been a part of.
03:08:28.740Gawler is a huge part of that, specifically around the Rune Uruz.
03:08:34.440But I'd like to hear what Svan has to say on that.
03:08:38.280He has disappeared on my interface because, again, I'm having some technical difficulties.
03:08:43.640I am not sure if he is up on your end or not.
03:16:18.220i think there's a very complex interplay that goes on there i don't believe
03:16:32.540in locked in stone fate because i think that circumvents all of the the meaning of life
03:16:41.900We absolutely have free will and you might have a destiny in the sense that you are projected towards something or that you are foreseen as ought to be able to do something.
03:16:54.900But you can shirk the responsibility of your destiny and fall flat on things you are poised to be great at doing.
03:17:04.900If everything is completely preordained, then there is no success nor failure.
03:17:13.220Those things add so much context to life, I think they're essential to any conception of life that's real.
03:17:20.800That being said, I think that's reflected in the names of our Nornir.
03:17:26.940um earth translates very well to to past or that from which other things come um for dandy
03:17:37.500translates very well as as present and in the moment but scold is the same root as should
03:17:44.300it's not things will happen x way it's things should happen x way and you can judge by past
03:17:53.380and present what projections you're projected towards in the future and you can work within
03:18:00.340those currents and within your destiny or you can alter things or uh you know check out and not
03:18:09.060be part of your destiny you still have options but there's certainly with the weaving of things
03:18:16.340forces at play to move people and events in certain ways and those are very powerful forces
03:18:23.380All right, so another question, could I possibly expound a bit on Odin's role in the wild hunt?
03:18:40.620A little bit. During the spooky part of the year, when the Wild Hunt rages, Odin, in different traditions, they describe it differently, and sometimes they even describe different leaders of the Wild Hunt.
03:19:01.960But the idea of Odin leading ghostly souls through the the cold and windy winter woods in search of of people who are out when they shouldn't be and hunting and reaping.
03:19:20.960um some of that i think is a very profound way of expressing that furious energy of of odin that
03:19:34.640furious raging through the woods and knocking down anything in his way like a powerful wind
03:19:42.860that idea that we talked about at the top of the show of an overwhelming frenzy or an
03:19:51.880overwhelming inspiration, an overwhelming ecstatic state. This is a time where Odin
03:19:59.980rides free through the wilderness and through the woods and through the dark places and through our
03:20:05.580minds and through our hearts. When Odin is on the ride in his furious glory through the darkness
03:20:13.380of winter, it is a magical time. But again, as the stories show, it's a time to be very respectful
03:20:21.400and not nonchalant about going out into the world and letting things happen. It's a time to be very
03:20:30.220reflective and very careful. But it's also one of the most sacred times of the year. It's when
03:20:35.140were closest to our ancestors. It's when we have our highest times of celebration. It's literally
03:20:42.300come down to us as the holiday season. But yeah, there's that other that draws closer out in the
03:20:51.040world and out in the woods. How can I tell what gods are reaching out to me? That is a very
03:20:58.580complicated question and it's one that um i think a lot of people have i know that myself i i have
03:21:05.700that question sometimes um and i don't have any perfect answer for you uh so much of the answer
03:21:13.620to that question relies on your personal intuition your personal feelings things that only have a
03:21:21.140context or relevance to you. And I think the more accustomed you become to our faith and the more
03:21:28.820you build relationship with our gods, the more you'll pick up on what things feel like which of
03:21:37.200the gods. But there's no such thing as a really good answer on that. Sometimes you'll have a dream
03:21:46.160or a vision or something will occur to you that's very specific you're very fortunate if you have
03:21:51.280that more often than not these are feelings that you've got to interpret for yourself the best way
03:21:57.840that you can uh svan has returned um let's backtrack a little bit because there was a
03:22:07.360question specifically uh for you hey svan what are your pet peeves
03:22:16.160it's fine yes i can hear you now excellent uh to worth to be noting too there's uh
03:22:31.520construction on the road near um my home and then in a military base nearby and they have been
03:22:40.160tearing down power lines and fiber optic lines and putting them back up at strange times
03:39:21.440The other way you could take this and $500 is our threshold of donations to where you
03:39:26.700get your name on the donor plaque at Balders Hoff.
03:39:29.220And I'll try to talk to those folks over there to make sure that your name gets up there, because we want to recognize you for that as well.
03:39:40.220John T. Whitman. Hello, gentlemen. I was curious if the concept of evil exists and also true from your perspective, or are the attributes associated with evil more aligned to chaos?
03:39:54.220Chaos. Yes. And yes. So. So there's chaos for the sake of chaos and the sake of just poor mental health and tearing stuff down.
03:40:15.040And there's natural chaos. That's the entropy that just tends to tear things apart unless they're revitalized.
03:40:22.720those very primal forces of chaos are the counterbalance to order in the same way that in
03:40:31.620perhaps Zoroastrianism or Christianity good and evil are juxtaposed but
03:40:38.380because that's our primary axis that we judge these things on doesn't mean that good and evil
03:40:45.340don't exist. Nobility and right action absolutely do exist. Being noble and honorable and doing the
03:40:56.220right thing, good certainly exists. And evil, if your motivation is simply malicious to harm for
03:41:04.580the sake of harming or to be sadistic or whatever that is, there is absolutely a force. And this is
03:41:12.320again one of those things that goes back to an earlier question it's best for man to be middling
03:41:16.800wise sometimes in this world when you increase in knowledge and when you know more things i
03:41:22.320certainly know this is something that we run into as gothar sometimes you can come very close to0.89
03:41:29.840you can see true evil in the world and it absolutely exists and it is uh it is it is
03:41:39.040chilling um so the existence of yes typically if it's good and evil we talk about order and chaos
03:41:49.280but there's absolutely maniacal sadistic evil in the world and i think that we all know that
03:41:54.960that's a thing um what are your thoughts on it's fun uh first and foremost evil the word itself is
03:42:02.320germanic so the concept uh exists amongst the germanic people because that word is a germanic
03:42:08.160word, evil and good. I think for Ausatru, evil is a child of chaos, is a production that springs0.95
03:42:19.820from chaos, that chaos can become malignant or create malignancy. If order breeds nobility,
03:42:30.200breeds hierarchy and breeds um uh i would say law or uh natural law or divine law um
03:42:43.800chaos then too can breed breed malignancy evil and detriment and in all of these things
03:42:54.040oftentimes it takes its form in different ways. Sometimes there's outright evil and that should
03:43:01.300be met head on. That should be, you know, absolutely contended with. But oftentimes
03:43:09.860evil is not so forthright. That's part of the nature of its ability is to kind of slowly soak
03:43:18.760or stain or to convince others that, you know, they're doing good, but they're not. They're
03:43:24.540doing evil. And this happens all the time. We can see it everywhere. I think that spiritually
03:43:30.180in our stories, one of the greatest sources of evil would be from the mouth of Fenris
03:43:34.660or Fenrir, the dweller in the Fens. It's sourced in the story. He is bound and from his mouth
03:43:45.560slavers venom and that venom um as as things happen in the halls and the heavens of of the
03:43:53.320gods it does to kind of reflect into the hearts of men i've always been a proponent of that in the
03:43:58.760idea that one of the perennial truths of myth is that its application to the soul uh and fenris is
03:44:08.920slobbering mouth, poisoning and turning into a river and seeping in is a point of that.
03:44:21.960So yes, evil exists. Is it outright? Sometimes yes. Is it built on obfuscation and subterfuge?
03:44:32.760most oftentimes it is. And again, often dressed in gold or often wrapped with the best of
03:44:43.800intentions. And so we find ourselves dealing with it in different ways. Is it always permanent?
03:44:53.240I don't think it's always permanent, but people can go through these times in their lives where
03:44:58.380you meet them, and they're terrible, and maybe they do seek atonement. Maybe they do seek to
03:45:03.180rectify things to make things right, and you can make things right if you have done evil acts.
03:45:08.920However, that doesn't mean that the repercussions of your actions are going to suddenly cease.
03:45:15.020There's a long and, like, goodness is a river that continuously feeds you. It's the same with
03:45:22.380evil. If you commit to evil and then suddenly change, it's still going to feed you from the
03:45:27.780repercussions of your actions. So it takes a long time and it takes a great amount of effort to
03:45:32.320redirect yourself and vice versa if you're having evil done unto you. Sometimes it takes drastic
03:45:40.940action to stop it. So that's my take on it with good and evil. All right. Is there a spiritual
03:45:52.060way one can meet slash connect with their ancestors that they may not know example someone
03:45:59.180who was adopted and knows their genetic makeup but does not know any of their ancestors
03:46:05.420Um, yes, with varying degrees of efficacy, um, first it being, being humans, it is much easier
03:46:22.600for us to connect with something or someone that we have a name and, and something visual
03:46:29.880in a picture or a story or something to connect them to us and with our ancestors
03:46:39.400the ones we don't know due to adoption or due to just being lost to the sands of time
03:46:45.800it's very hard to know that so it makes it that much more challenging i think that through making
03:46:55.320offerings to your ancestors and ritually opening yourself to hear from them you might be surprised
03:47:03.640what comes through and i think especially this time of year is a very auspicious time of year to do
03:47:08.360that um when i say that i don't mean that you know hard to grasp if you go before your altar
03:47:16.200and you pour out a shot or whatever you're going to do and you light some candles and you call out
03:47:21.800to your ancestors that you don't know hey you know i'm adopted i don't know where i come from
03:47:26.360but i know that i come from somewhere and i'm here i'm listening and i'm reaching out to you
03:47:32.200please reach back do that and go into a meditative place if you can or perhaps at night in your
03:47:41.080dreams you'll be visited with a message from one of your ancestors i think it becomes very
03:47:46.200challenging but the more of yourself you put into that quest and you put into making that connection
03:47:53.480the more synchronicity will occur to lead you towards a better understanding of that knowledge
03:48:01.320i've had people do this and then there be breakthroughs in finding out about their adoptive
03:48:07.000parents had several people do that as a matter of fact but even if it's not something quite so
03:48:13.240literal hopefully your ancestors will reach out in some way perhaps in a feeling perhaps in a bit of
03:48:19.640inspiration um but i think that's a very real thing and i think that's uh that's a way that
03:48:26.360you can try to connect to that and make that happen um one of the other things it's not a
03:48:33.640straight line thing but a father to son thing if you do you mentioned you know your genetics
03:48:38.200if you know your haplogroup that can at least in a very broad sense draw you a line to
03:48:45.720where you know where your most ancient fathers come from and i think that might be a useful
03:48:50.920or inspirational point of departure for you to go on this journey um do you have any thoughts
03:48:57.480on that's fun uh you you pretty much covered all of it i would say um sometimes i think a
03:49:04.600a lot of people i've met that have had situations where they see like dreams and they'll see a woman
03:49:09.480or a man uh but in particular with the situation that i'm talking about it was a woman
03:49:15.160uh they just referred to her as the gray woman or the gray lady and they got a good feeling from her
03:49:20.940it wasn't malicious it wasn't terrible it was kind of loving and and motherly and so he really
03:49:27.820focused on making sure to honor the gray lady. Because it was originally asked, like, do you
03:49:35.580think this is one of the gods? And I don't know. I don't know exactly in what context this dream
03:49:42.340came to you. And as it evolved more and more, he came to feel that it was an ancestor who had no
03:49:48.620name, but had reached out to him and made a connection. And so he kept it at that. He wrote
03:49:56.300uh things down like poems and prayers he offered flowers he offered a drink and he offered
03:50:04.060little objects of devotion uh to her and and simply just giving thanks for reaching out to him
03:50:10.060and it really did help him but um as far as whether or not there was a sudden revelation of
03:50:17.260connectivity i i don't know over time but i i've you know i'm open and a heavy believer in the
03:50:23.900idea that that's what it takes to create those revelations. So other than what you had said.
03:50:29.900Well, a follow up, and I'll let you go and take this one entirely.
03:50:34.460What is the best way to connect with our ancestors?
03:50:41.900Well, pictures, I think are some of the best. I think everybody does it a little differently. I
03:50:47.100I have wedding photos of most of my ancestors.
03:50:50.920It seems to be a really poignant threshold
03:50:54.760that gives up precedence to the idea of furthering on.
03:51:08.100and I see them, the husband and the wife
03:51:10.240and knowing the children that were springing from them
03:51:13.220And that brings out the absolute sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.
03:51:20.240And I think that it's absolutely important.
03:51:23.880And so when I see them, that's the way I do it.
03:51:26.620But some people have pictures of their ancestors from various times in their lives or ways that they found them or it was given to them by other family members.
03:51:35.400And so, you know, I think pictures are important.
03:51:39.960I think if you find objects, objects are good, too, because they are considered just like godsteads.
03:51:46.880They're steads in which your ancestors can kind of move through.
03:51:50.380Of course, too, there's urns and physical things like that as well.
03:51:55.480But I would say first and foremost is giving a blooding or a bloat to them, a gifting.
03:52:04.640and the way i you know i've always told folks if they if they don't understand how that might work
03:52:12.060or or or don't know fully how to conduct it and say like the way that the church does
03:52:16.360at the temples um and the and the hoffs is separate yourself from the mundane
03:52:22.200focus on the moment focus on a picture of the object or whatever you have make sure you have
03:52:28.620a gift whether it's physical or it could be writing or it could just be the gift of devotion
03:52:32.940of time start small and work your way up as you see fit but um separate from the mundane
03:52:40.020deeply and and wholeheartedly focus on the moment relent yourself get out of the i'm talking to a
03:52:49.980picture don't that stuff needs to leave you are not talking to a picture you're talking to a
03:52:55.840doorway a window a seat in which you can move through and once you relent that and let it go
03:53:02.200and just pour out pour it out and whatever happens between you and your ancestors is between you and
03:53:08.020your ancestors but speak as it must be spoken speak honestly speak truthfully speak meaningfully
03:53:14.180and then once you're done present the gift let the gift stand and then i usually whenever i do
03:53:25.160something like this, I let a sunrise happen between the gift and my giving away of the gift.
03:53:33.200I know at the temples and things like that, when we do anointments and we do the aspergments,
03:53:38.180oftentimes we give the mead right away. But when I give to my ancestors, I let it sit sometimes.
03:53:44.020So I will give like, perfect example is I'll give a cup of coffee,
03:53:49.160some tobacco because I'm speaking of a specific ancestor. I give cigarettes and I give
03:53:58.920sometimes drawings, little doodles or sketches and things like that. And I fold them up
03:54:05.380and I leave them there. And then I say thanks and I leave the area or I'll leave and kind of go
03:54:12.040do other things and bring them with me from that space. And then in the morning or at least one
03:54:18.960sunrise has passed i take those things and i i usually go out into into my backyard and i
03:54:27.440have a hole already pre-dug and i'll place them in there and i cover them up with soil
03:54:34.080i pour the coffee out i place the cigarette into the ground i place the papers into the ground i
03:54:39.440cover it in in the soil sometimes i burn i'll burn them in a in a fire um but yes i usually
03:54:47.840after having my my peace of saying what i believe holy and fully and i leave a gift i wait one
03:54:56.000sunrise and then i reverently put the gift to its death or that it's already its soul has already
03:55:03.120left and been given so that's one one of the best ways i think to start building an understanding
03:55:10.080of how our gift cycles work and the symbology of that when something is given it dies and it is no
03:55:17.360longer yours it is theirs all right uh jason asks can i eventually earn the title of folk builder
03:55:26.640yes if that's something you're interested in um nick go ahead and put my email up please
03:55:31.760contact me and we can talk about that more um offline uh jason also asks are donations tax
03:55:40.800deductible what does that mean yes absolutely they are what that means is that you can
03:55:49.280deduct them in the appropriate section when you do your taxes now you have to donate a lot for
03:55:54.800that to be worth it because there's what's called a standard deduction that accounts for a lot of
03:55:59.200these miscellaneous things but yes we are a 501c3 uh church and any donations made to the afa from
03:56:08.160any of you guys are in fact tax deductible uh green leader why was tennessee chosen as the
03:56:17.040location for sigerheim um a number of things um looking behind the scenes at our membership map
03:56:29.760it's a very central location to a lot of different um hubs of membership the south in general has
03:56:40.640produced some of our very best uh members some of our most active gothar and is home for a lot of
03:56:49.840the people that wanted to pioneer the project it's the ancestral home of a lot of people who
03:56:56.240want to be part of the project there's something very special about that part of the country
03:57:03.120culturally as far as the interplay of different root populations that settled there that makes
03:57:08.800it a really special place it's also beautiful the political climate is pretty good there
03:57:15.600there's no way of forecasting that long into the future but it's pretty good there it puts
03:57:22.000us in a central location when leadership needs to travel to other hoss and other areas for things
03:57:36.480there's a lot of you know good and positive american traditions that are associated with
03:57:41.120that part of the south and the south in general um the land prices are relatively good there the
03:57:49.760the population density is pretty good there. The income tax situation is nice there. A lot of good
03:57:58.620things are advantageous about Tennessee. And honestly, when praying and meditating on it,
03:58:03.700Tennessee stands out as a fine place that we'd like to build our future. So
03:58:08.640that may not be the best answers, but those are the answers we got.
03:58:13.720um brendan asks any advice for new believers who are facing discrimination after turning to the old
03:58:21.960ways and our gods what are your thoughts swan uh yeah if you're talking about i i presume you're
03:58:30.680talking about family and when we talk a lot because i think a lot of people in house true have
03:58:35.620crossed that chasm and um they face some things i think one thing that you should really do is
03:58:42.820make sure you look at yourself first. Make sure you're not doing something that would be perceived
03:58:51.560as worth criticizing. Because remember, if you do no wrong, you should not fear these opinions. So
03:58:59.500the first part of that is a reflection upon yourself. Make sure that you're presenting
03:59:03.140yourself well. Make sure you're presenting yourself with your health improvement, your mental state.
03:59:10.100Um, seek betterment in yourself. And if you're doing that, you know, there's very little criticism that first can stand in a house well built. So check your house, make sure your body, make sure your mind are right. And that will first give you what you need in order to stand on this.
03:59:33.740Then understanding wisdom is about understanding the possibilities of the way people
03:59:38.140applicate things they know and things they don't know.
04:00:28.200And somewhere in the middle, you've got the people that are being malicious at you.
04:00:33.160And I think that it is absolutely noteworthy that you don't allow this.
04:00:38.460I think that you should try to explain yourself.
04:00:43.780Once you do explain yourself, the only time you should ever re-explain yourself is if there's a new development in your faith and processes.
04:00:53.260Other than that, say your word, say your piece and stand on it and have no more of it.
04:00:57.360And if they continue to press it, this is a sign.
04:00:59.620This is something that you need to realize that the value of what they place in your life.
04:01:06.680If they're a family, they will always be your family.
04:01:10.060But let them know you're driving a wedge that I don't want you to drive, but you're doing it.
04:01:59.760And, um, at that point you can simply state, you don't know what you're talking about.
04:02:05.560I'm done with this and, and leave it at that.
04:02:07.960Um, it's very hard when you're dealing with family and you're dealing with the love that
04:02:13.620you have for a person and they're, they're ridiculing you for your beliefs.
04:02:16.440um i i my mother's icelandic so she kind of understood but my brother
04:02:22.260uh was a born-again christian was i'll say that much at the time when i
04:02:29.860took up the faith of the gods and my people um i still remain but he was going through this
04:02:36.680time and we had a knockdown drag out kind of uh fight that we never actually ever ever mended
04:02:44.160but i held true and honest to what i was believing i'm still here i'm still doing
04:02:50.440what i believe in and i i have no reason to expound on it so if there's ever a moment where
04:02:59.200we could rebridge and rebuild if he apologized i would i would readily accept it and and and
04:03:05.200love him i still love him actually but um you know i would rekindle that but if that doesn't
04:03:12.820happen. At least I know throughout the entire thing, I was absolutely honest, absolutely true,
04:03:17.820and I never ever deflected into any sort of like maliciousness or backwards thinking. And I think I
04:03:25.620proved myself to my ancestors, or at least if the gods are watching, I proved myself to them
04:03:30.100in the way that I saw fit for that whole situation. So that's my bit on that.
04:03:37.060yeah don't don't run in yell odin and kick grandma that's that's sound advice to refrain
04:03:44.280from doing that um last real question is your position in the afa your full-time job if not
04:03:51.760are you comfortable sharing what it is uh yes the af my position is also harry gothi is my full-time
04:03:59.720job um it's literally the first thing i do when i get up and the last thing i do before i go to bed
04:04:06.480and at all times in between um it's strange when it happens because it doesn't fill 100 percent of
04:04:14.260my time i'm still doing other things but the times it does it comes in in waves um and it's hard to
04:04:20.940predict when it will or when it won't but the afa has become too large and too successful not to
04:04:27.680have at least myself always sitting there at the helm um working for it all day and i'm very blessed
04:04:34.880to be able to do that. I'm very fortunate in that way. Really my last question. Fourth time
04:04:43.600I've seen this. Okay. Goethe Svan, explain yourself. Who are you? Wow. Okay. No, I explain
04:05:00.960myself wow it's a very odd way to put it but uh i think i've i've talked about this before i'm
04:05:07.840i was born in iceland um i have an american father and i'm an icelandic mother
04:05:13.920uh my father speaks or did speak he's passed um spoke icelandic and um i moved here when i was
04:05:22.400very young and i'm the baby of the family so i learned english through the school systems that's
04:05:28.160that's why I don't have an accent. Um, I became also true at a very young age. Uh, I
04:05:37.640took my, my professing of faith, uh, from the book of troth by Edward Thorson. Um, very old
04:05:47.820book. Uh, I think you could, there's a, there's a reprint of it now with a different cover,
04:05:51.340But it was, you know, I was just starting in my teenage years.
04:06:00.080I was extremely devout as a religious person before I took my faith and profession.
04:06:06.460I understood that I had a deep yearning towards the connectivity of the divine.
04:06:11.780You know, I was constantly going to – I went to Catholic masses.
04:06:15.040I went to – I was a royal ranger of the Presbyterian church.
04:06:18.400I was at Southern Baptist churches because I live in Virginia, and I live in the Bible Belt, and I was reading the Bible and trying a lot to understand, but at the time, there was no internet, and so understanding, it came to me through small little things started flowing in,
04:06:41.940And I suddenly realized that these stories that my mother was telling me about the gods and about my people from Iceland, it was a religion.
04:06:53.100And it really did start with that book of troth or the book of troth.
04:06:59.580Sometimes it's referred to as, I guess, the space hammer because Edric Thorson's copy at the time had like a hammer floating above a book.
04:07:09.080and um in there there's a professing faith um in which you take up the mantle of returning back to
04:07:18.260the gods of your people and i did that following that book there was no one around there was no
04:07:23.380internet there was i was solely by myself but i absolutely 100 understood that this was the path
04:07:30.440i needed to go on because it all of a sudden made sense everything made sense so i at 13 years old
04:07:38.620in the early early early 90s um held my first bloat by myself and i laid it all out on the line
04:07:48.120and i just and i haven't turned back since um i was a solitary practitioner of asa true
04:07:53.860for many years from the early 90s to about 2007 and when i got back i had no idea about um like
04:08:02.620I guess, the formulation of what would be the polar sense of Ausatru as a folk faith,
04:08:12.600that it is a folk faith, and that the proponents of some people presenting it in a political sense
04:08:18.640to help propagate their idea of universalism, that this native religion of Europe was open
04:08:24.620to everyone. And I didn't really know that at the time, and I was just happy to be with people.
04:08:31.560And I met a lot of great people, I think, overall and around.
04:08:35.700But in a short time between 2007 and I would say 2016, there was a great understanding of need and a great awareness of things and a great cleaning of myself and a realignment of myself and understanding where I needed to go and what I needed to do.
04:08:56.660And so it came, I think 2016, there was I went to a winter nights, I had been to that location numerous times under like unaffiliated events, where nobody was particularly affirmed as the organizer. And so I had been there before. So I wasn't, it was almost like it was, it was a weird that was already woven before I stepped onto that.
04:09:24.240And I went there and was very quiet, and I tried to sit back and listen, and I was very open about where I had come from and some of the experiences I had in Ausatru, both solitary and beforehand, with everyone.
04:09:39.820And I heard Ausatru Gauthi speak, and at that moment, it hit me.
04:09:47.380Like, I was in the exact right place I needed to be.
04:09:49.860and um i had another overwhelmingly divine experience there and i i rushed back and i told
04:09:58.920my wife and and she supported me and absolutely now she's you know deeply involved she shows up
04:10:05.800to events we bring the kids we've you know we've i've raised my children um i believe my son was
04:10:13.040two when i joined the afa and now he's 10 and that's my eldest and all the other little ones
04:10:18.660I mean, they, they, they don't know of any life out, they don't know of Ausatru without temples. They don't know what it was like beforehand. And so it's been a beautiful thing. It's been a great process. And, um, I mean, there's a lot more. I, I, I did time in the military. I was in the infantry in the Marine Corps. Um, I was a 3-3 Marine in, uh, Hawaii, but I ended up going all over the world.
04:10:44.600And I, you know, saw combat in three different theaters, East Timor in the Malaysian island chain.
04:10:56.120I saw military service and combat in Zamboanga, which is the capital city of the island of Mindanao in southern Philippines.
04:11:07.900A lot of people don't know that, but there's a lot of stuff that's been going on there since the 1960s.
04:11:11.760um and i you know saw combat there um there was a huge they attacked the base through the city i
04:11:20.780mean there was civilians everywhere and they didn't seem to care but never made news everyone
04:11:24.820was focusing on iraq and when i got back to my main station i got sent to iraq i thought i was
04:11:32.080i thought i didn't i wasn't gonna see i very much saw and then um i was in um in and around
04:11:40.640and all throughout during our offensives in Fallujah and Ramadi.
04:12:01.240They were a tough, crazy, Mad Max group of guys driving around,1.00
04:12:07.680lots of diesel fuel dust and and being everywhere i've seen syrians and iraqis fighting each other0.87
04:12:15.280i've seen some crazy stuff all the while being also true and being in those places i held bloat
04:12:20.400on the euphrates river by myself very powerful so just some of those little things like that
04:12:26.400that's that's where i come from all right guys we're gonna wind down with these last questions
04:12:33.120here um it's getting pretty late especially for our guest i believe it is 110 where swan finds
04:12:40.240himself um and our uh our producer's probably tired as well uh we have a question i'm curious
04:12:49.840what criteria we can use to judge whether a spiritual experience is evil or good um
04:12:56.080I'm sure we can go on a very long answer on that, but I think that the truth of that is your criteria for judging anything is through your personal lens and what makes that lens up.
04:13:14.500But I think that those are two really opposite polarities and that.
04:13:22.620Differentiating between the two in general is very easy.
04:13:28.580There could be something, you know, more sinister or more murky to the experience,
04:13:34.980but a lot of that is going to come down to your perception
04:13:39.340and how you feel during that point of revelation.
04:13:43.340All of the context we could provide for that are based upon your experiences, your touchstones, things that that add your context.
04:13:55.720Context is key and you own all of the context on that.
04:13:59.940So it's very hard to. It's very hard to give you a good answer on that.
04:14:06.240other than you need to trust your intuition you need to take each new experience and
04:14:15.440compare and contrast it with lessons that you've learned in your past experiences
04:14:20.560and do your best to forge uh forge your path forward um
04:14:27.120do you have anything to to add on that's fun yeah i was looking i was looking for that question
04:14:32.960uh you said it was the perception of of connecting with the divine whether it was good or evil no it
04:14:39.040was uh i'm curious what criteria can we use to judge whether a spiritual experience is evil or good
04:14:50.080well i mean i think first and foremost anybody that would negotiate
04:14:55.360uh the the reception of good and evil um
04:14:59.920Um, and then, then there's wisdom further in that application.
04:15:05.140I mean, obviously blatant evil and blatant goodness, um, have that upfront sense about
04:15:12.500it to be, you know, to be struck in a malicious sense might very well give you all the indicators
04:26:14.160Varieg also true has risen in the military, particularly combat arms. Is the AFA able to reach out to these service members with all the scapegoating it's dealt with?
04:26:28.160Um, I think the operative word there is reach out. We have military members. We always have. I imagine we will continue to. I have also noticed that there is a an increase in also true amongst the armed forces.
04:26:45.580um the way things are going uh you know the the worldview of the american armed forces at least
04:26:57.300is very progressive and very leftist and there's a lot of communist things that have gone on uh
04:27:04.040lately and uh just degeneracy in in stuff that's been pushed so you know obviously it
04:27:11.880behooves people in a lot of situations to keep their specific AFA affiliation
04:27:17.980relatively private in that regard. So I think reaching out as the AFA to the military has
04:27:27.080become difficult, but certainly military members have reached out to us. Military families have
04:27:35.900reached out to us. I was very honored. I got to go perform a funeral for a serviceman on a military
04:27:47.440installation, and that certainly wasn't problematic, and I had to provide credentials to get in, and
04:27:52.500that wasn't a big deal. I think some of that probably has to do with someone's chain of command
04:27:59.680on on a little bit of that but as far as also true in general and having um a hammer on tombstones
04:28:07.120that's been a active thing for a long time having it on dog tags uh the afa in specific as you noted
04:28:15.280you know that can be problematic depending on who you deal with svan do you have any any perspective
04:28:20.560to add on that yeah i was uh i was asked true before i went into the military and there was
04:28:25.360absolutely nothing available to me outside of what I brought in. I think it's, but I brought
04:28:31.760in everything for myself. And one of the biggest things I would say too, is that the military is
04:28:40.340continuously trying to substantiate an organization of lawyers who says, oh, we're, you know, some
04:28:49.020sort of evil hate group. And if you, you know, talk about your faith and your connection to
04:28:55.360the church, they somehow can utilize this against you. I don't know officially in every capacity,
04:29:03.360in every command or every branch of service, but the idea there is that there's still this sense
04:29:08.060that like a group of lawyers has said this, so the government says no, and then you can get in
04:29:14.640trouble or they can somehow hurt your career or something like that. So, uh, as far as
04:29:21.160Ausatru concern, I think, um, generally, you know, when you meet other Ausatru in the
04:29:27.840military, they are folk. Uh, I've never met a non-folk person who was Ausatru in the military,
04:29:35.860especially. Um, and, uh, you know, so you might not have any issues there as being able to find
04:29:43.040people to hold bloat with and to hold honor with but you know you you mentioned if you're a member
04:29:49.620of the astro folk assembly that could cause issues um i would say the best thing to do and what i did
04:29:56.360is maintained my faith to myself because sometimes when you're in you you must be aware of the doors
04:30:03.860you walk through you walk through that door and you you find yourself intermingled with friends
04:30:08.920and enemies, it's best to keep things here until you know. So, you know, that's great wisdom
04:30:19.060that should be applied. So I don't think it is like something where you are somehow wronging
04:30:24.940the gods by keeping things close to your chest. If you're surrounded by, you can't differentiate
04:30:29.840between enemies and friends. Keep to yourself, honor your gods, go to national events when you
04:30:35.640can. Go to temples when you can. Go to the Hoffs when you can. Meet with other people. Reach out
04:30:42.080to folk builders, but you don't have to tell everyone because, again, there are enemies out
04:30:48.840there that will gladly use it against you, all based on some non-profit organization or
04:30:55.520non-government organization that wants to say what it wants to say, and for some reason they
04:31:00.400keep meriting it and uh without absolutely knowing anything so you know and then bide your time
04:31:08.240i was in for you know one term and then i did another term in the reserves
04:31:12.000um and by that time i think being sound in my faith i had no real inclinations to um you know
04:31:20.000seek that uh i did everything overseas on my own and whenever anybody asked i just said i was
04:31:25.840following the it was easy for me to say like i'm from iceland and i'm following the ways of my
04:31:30.800people and then somehow there's they're in their mind that has more credence um but i think anybody
04:31:37.600should be able to say you know this is my faith i'm just honoring my faith and then just leave it
04:31:43.440at that you know so so uh after several last questions jason asks can either of you personally
04:31:53.280differentiate from pagan heathen and also true uh yeah so we're also true that's what we do
04:32:01.440that's what we practice it's very important um branding is very important all of those words
04:32:09.840technically by dictionary definition fit stuff that we do to one degree or another
04:32:16.000but also true is specifically us it's what we do it's a uh self descriptor it is us acknowledging
04:32:26.120that we are loyal to the isere not just that we believe in their existence but we stand loyally
04:32:31.980with them um heathen is a word that other people use to describe those people in the heath that0.95
04:32:42.820practice their backwards religion. Pagan is very similar to that in a concept that it's what
04:32:49.620city dwelling turned into Christianity described those people out in the country,
04:32:57.280those different common people and what their faith was. Also true is ours. We own it. We0.63
04:33:03.920celebrate it. I don't like to use any of those other words because it causes confusion. It makes
04:33:09.020people ask questions like you're asking right now with that confusion. People who describe
04:33:14.560themselves as pagan are very often extremely far left degenerates that we don't want any
04:33:21.720association with. Folks that call themselves heathen, it's much more of a grab bag. That used
04:33:29.120to be much more of a common thing for people who share our worldview to call themselves that
04:33:36.240anymore it tends to be folk that don't want to join something organized it's very often folk that
04:33:45.600you can't count on what that word means to them might mean something very different to you it
04:33:52.720seems regionally more common in the center of the country um not everyone who refers to themselves
04:34:01.040as heathen is involved in wife swapping but if you're involved in wife swapping and you're0.93
04:34:06.000remotely in our circles, I bet you call yourself heathen because that's what we've seen a lot in
04:34:11.920my experience. But again, because all of those things have such a nebulous concept to them,
04:34:18.020that's why we stay with, we strengthen, and we own the term Alcetru. And I've even heard amongst
04:34:26.500people on the other team that they want to shy away from using the word Alcetru because1.00
04:34:32.300the folkish people have taken it over, which is even more of a good reason to continuously1.00
04:34:44.440And in the AFA, we don't refer to it in any other way.
04:34:49.580Varyag, how do we address folk as national heroes who were anti-pagan, but still loved
04:34:55.640by the people like King Olaf of Norway as an example?
04:34:58.580I mean, you do you in your personal life. I think outside of the church and outside of
04:35:07.140religion, there are ways to honor any number of people that you want to celebrate.
04:35:14.120As the Ausitru Folk Assembly, we certainly don't honor people that were anti-pagan. We don't honor
04:35:19.940people that persecuted our folk or that broke from our ancestral faith. As the Church of Ausitru
04:35:28.040it would be inappropriate for us as a church to honor people who were expressly against our church.
04:35:34.720But yeah, I'm sure there's many national heroes, depending on where you are and who you are,
04:35:39.340that would be fine to celebrate. Some of them are actively opposed to our faith,
04:35:44.360and I would not celebrate those. Some of them are completely indifferent to it and are Christians
04:35:49.400that existed at a time where no one realized that Ossetree was even an option. Those people,
04:35:56.460you know, we celebrate regularly and privately or in a, you know, in another context.
04:36:04.900We find many ways to celebrate them. You have any thoughts on this, Spahn?
04:36:10.740I think the key thing is what you said about the antithesis action. Don't honor those that were
04:36:16.100against those deeds. And you said King Olaf. I don't know if you're talking about St. Olaf
04:36:22.280or Olaf Tryggvorsson, I would not honor Olaf Tryggvorsson at all
04:36:29.480because his deeds were set and he really went against his people.
04:36:37.340So, yeah, I would say if there is an antithesis of action there
04:36:41.360and they're loved by the people, I'm not saying that you have to be somebody
04:36:46.560that's like, well, actually, or you have to be somebody that's like,
04:36:50.880I guess against the your nation you're not necessarily against your nation you just disagree
04:36:56.660with um the pathway in which they took that was and and uh an antithesis to it especially in
04:37:04.540relation to the gods this can apply to politics too you know you see people that are politically
04:37:09.120smeared in their countries uh Alexander Rudd Mills perfect example in Australia they ran his name
04:37:15.620through the dirt uh and we honor him and you know maybe they won't ever honor him but that that
04:37:22.620doesn't matter if he was right he was right especially from where we are he was right so
04:37:28.040we honor him um politics be damned and uh and you know those things change but the eternal towards
04:37:35.800the gods doesn't so if they do misdeeds against them now if it's peripheral honoring uh george
04:37:41.640washington or thomas jefferson or uh as like founding fathers in america or um trying to think
04:37:48.820like uh you know honoring people that may have had really great wisdom but they were devoutly
04:37:54.520christian but it wasn't a you're honoring them for other things their bravery in battle
04:38:00.260their their ability to stand up against the forces that are greater than themselves
04:38:04.500and you know and to fight against it even though you may have a disagreement that's that's
04:38:09.500peripheral, honoring them is honoring them, because we
04:38:13.760believe that when you die, you go back, a huge component of your
04:38:18.860soul goes back, and perhaps understands the full picture of
04:38:23.360things, honor them. But if they've done something
04:38:26.140physically in antithesis, I would say no.
04:38:29.660Well, and that's the thing. I mentioned, you know, in the
04:38:34.940previous question, we define ourselves as also true, as true to the Aesir. We can't stand true0.99
04:38:42.000to the Aesir and honor people who have actively worked against them and actively taken the0.94
04:38:48.220position opposite them. That's not loyalty, and that's not what loyalty is. Now, your example
04:38:54.580over on the side, you've mentioned people like Stonewall Jackson. Yes, every hero of the Civil
04:39:00.160war is by default, not Ausatru. But they also weren't defining themselves by oppressing people
04:39:07.680who were Ausatru or by how they denounced Ausatru and embraced Christianity. They were Christians
04:39:13.680from a long line of Christians that were in a completely Christian context and had no other
04:39:19.280point of reference for their spirituality. And, you know, as a matter of fact, many of the great
04:39:24.480confederate heroes uh tons of our members honor on a personal level and hold in great uh regard
04:39:31.760myself included um so yeah i i think that that that's the differentiation that that we both
04:39:38.800talked about if they're actively you know known for their well okay so it's the it's the reason
04:39:45.200that i don't honor leif erickson he's a first generation reject our gods and embrace christianity0.86
04:39:52.480viking i can't support that he's a traitor he's a turncoat on the gods of his folk and i won't honor0.61
04:39:59.120that at all um so there uh all right this is the final one because we cut it off but my final
04:40:08.320really last question is as a true political are modern politics destroying modern america um
04:40:16.240these are words that largely have no meaning there are political implications to anything
04:40:27.680and everything um but the the the key is the structuring your politics should be an extension
04:40:37.440or reflection of your faith and not the other way around there are things that go together but
04:40:44.800never be deceived that your politics are the important part and your faith is some afterthought
04:40:50.560irrelevancy it's very much the other way around politics are uh temporary and they're situational
04:40:59.040your faith is eternal um your politics today are not the politics of 100 years ago and won't
04:41:05.680be the politics of 100 years from now but also true is eternal um so certainly your
04:41:12.720also true should affect your politics should affect how you engage in the political world
04:41:18.560it should inform those decisions and and don't please don't get confused there's many things
04:41:25.680that are overly political and and many of us have all kind of ideas about whether there's political
04:41:31.600solutions to certain problems that we face but the fundamental is that uh you know your faith
04:41:38.560shouldn't perform those decisions just like they did inform the decisions in any other aspect of
04:41:44.560your life now are politics destroying modern america it's easy to say that they are but the
04:41:54.480things that i think many of us would rail at as the politics of the left or the politics of the right
04:42:01.520aren't politics, but cultural values. And I think traditional culture and
04:42:10.440chaotic, degenerate culture are always going to be opposed in arenas of politics and arenas of
04:42:19.180faith, in arenas of literally anything that it comes in contact with. I don't think that the
04:42:28.080problem in America is the politics. I think it is the complete lack of any common ground amongst
04:42:35.980these two very, very different ideologies. And I think that, you know, we're told that diversity
04:42:45.180is our strength, but homogeneity and having something that defines us as a common people,
04:42:51.280that we have some sense of common commonality is uh is essential to the glue to hold stuff together
04:42:59.920and we've seen that erode now we have very little in common with a lot of our neighbors
04:43:05.760we find most people in most regions of the country no matter where they are
04:43:10.400in completely mixed up communities to where there's not a common ethnicity there's not a common
04:43:17.440faith there's not a common value system or a common cultural understanding and i think that0.89
04:43:24.240lack of commonality is more the problem i think that the the distance in the politics is a is a
04:43:31.680reflection of that what say you swan i think politics destroying modern america um a lot of
04:43:41.360factors, I think, destroying some of the fabric that holds our nation together.
04:43:50.140But as far as politics in Auschwitz, yeah, I think people have every right to be political.
04:43:56.660They have every right to kind of desire a governance in the way that they see things
04:44:00.560right. But again, it's about where it sources from. If you're religious because of your politics,
04:44:06.620that's uh that's backwards that's really really backwards your spiritual sense the the wellness
04:44:16.100and the way that you see the world around you uh your politics will then kind of reflect out
04:44:20.920from there and and i'm talking about real application some people you'll see them they
04:44:28.220want to be edgy they want to be different they want to be an outsider or an underdog or so on
04:44:35.900so forth and that's where they're coming from and that again is again it's not even a there's no
04:44:41.900religious or political component it's narcissism or some sort of level of like self-gratification
04:44:47.180or i don't even know what the heck it is that they're coming from but they're not coming from
04:44:51.500a good spot to begin with so identifying that too is important but if you're real about
04:44:58.780your moral placement and spiritual placement and devotion and loyalty to the gods and to your
04:45:04.860people everything begins to flow out from there and to want to have a governance of a certain way
04:45:11.740for you for the benefit of your people there's nothing wrong with that um you know and and and
04:45:17.500who you associate with uh right now we live in a place that the the ability to have discourse
04:45:23.180between ideas is rapidly eroding you can see some people on one side of things who are proponents
04:45:32.060for that that destruction that rapid destruction and um it's it the the destination that they want
04:45:40.540to take it to is not going to be good i think for our people so we need to be aware of that and i
04:45:47.100think there's a lot of other people people that aren't even of our folk who are starting to
04:45:51.740understand some of that too for their people that the end of the line uh isn't good for them either
04:45:59.160So, you know, I think it's important to be aware of that.
04:46:03.300But ultimately, when it comes to certain things, for instance, when we talk at our meetings, we talk in private, friend to friend, fellow to fellow.
04:46:17.200But I think when we come to honor the gods, we come to honor them in a religious sense.
04:46:22.260So a lot of times we say, you know, like, this is church time.
04:46:27.920So be careful of that, too. Don't bring. You know, I'm only here because I believe in this and that you're here for the wrong reasons and you're not going to be.0.90
04:46:39.040Well, you're going to be schooled before. Finally, we have to let you go. But, yeah, that's not the reason why you're here.
04:46:46.260So when we go to the Hoff, you know, politics might get talked about certain things. Crude jokes might be thrown every now and then.
04:46:53.880But when it's time to do stuff for the gods, our language is watched, our hats are removed, our clothes are clean and good.
04:47:01.700We lead by example and we go there to honor the gods.
04:47:04.940Then when we come back out, maybe we'll discuss a little bit about politics.
04:47:08.440Maybe we'll disagree, but we still honor the gods together.