Asatru Folk Assembly - 10⧸25⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 68 - Winter Nights

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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

00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:00.000 THE END

00:03:30.000 message.

00:04:00.000 Thank you.

00:04:30.000 Oh, everybody, welcome to Victory Never Sleeps.

00:04:44.400 Folk builder Nicholas Rice filling in for the Ericsson's.

00:04:53.400 A little bit while the rest of them settle in in the land of victory.

00:04:59.260 So we hope that you guys don't mind, but we have done a little bit of a takeover.

00:05:03.980 And with Baldur's Hoff being a little bit feral, we had to spice it up a little bit.

00:05:08.040 So we're going to be here to welcome you to tonight's awesome episode.

00:05:12.740 Just to get started, we are going to remind you that Winter Nights is this weekend in Sigurheim.

00:05:20.720 And tickets are still available at runestone.org.

00:05:24.420 and you're going to see the Alshira Goethe there

00:05:26.520 and the Erickson's are there

00:05:28.700 and Nick will be there

00:05:30.400 and I'm going to be there

00:05:31.980 and you all should be there

00:05:34.180 so definitely go over to runestone.org

00:05:36.940 and get your tickets for Winter Nights.

00:05:39.800 Nick, what else we got going on this month

00:05:41.700 or next month coming up?

00:05:43.380 We got all kinds of stuff going up.

00:05:45.080 I'm going to start by just making sure y'all remember

00:05:47.240 that we are streaming live on Twitter,

00:05:51.080 VK, Odyssey, Entropy, Rumble.

00:05:54.420 And brand new, as of last week, we are on Twitch.

00:05:59.620 Of course, all those links are in the description.

00:06:03.180 And, of course, you've got to make sure you like, share, and subscribe, as always.

00:06:07.860 But as you said, what do we got coming up next month?

00:06:10.120 Well, we have the Feast of the Einharjar in South Dakota.

00:06:16.260 Yes, South Dakota, not to be confused with the Best Dakota, which is just north of that.

00:06:21.620 You're going to go a little bit south from the Best Dakota, down there.

00:06:26.980 And that is where we're going to have the Feast of the Einherjar, which is going to be hosted by the Sigtier Kindred.

00:06:31.940 Come out to that.

00:06:34.900 Tickets are also available at runestone.org.

00:06:37.300 That's going to be a great event.

00:06:38.940 We're going to have the McNallans there helping us celebrate the Feast of the Einherjar.

00:06:44.640 I'm going to be there.

00:06:45.900 A majority of the Baldur's Hof leadership is going to be there.

00:06:48.500 we've got an amazing venue that's going to be just amazing we've got a huge feast hall we've

00:06:56.420 got accommodations for everybody who could possibly want to attend so definitely go to

00:07:00.580 runestone.org go to the feast of the einheryard and get your tickets for that it is definitely

00:07:04.920 an event you don't want to miss um go the erlinson is going to be doing our bloat to the einheryard

00:07:10.960 this year so make sure get your ticket because that is definitely something that you don't want

00:07:15.500 a miss so definitely go for that as well what else we got going on well that's about it right

00:07:23.440 now with the schedule for every all the big events such but of course we have all kinds of

00:07:28.140 stuff going on in all of the Hoffs and we're going to stop here for a second five dollars

00:07:33.640 Zach Phelps, Hale Whitten, Callahan, Hale Nick Rice I appreciate it sir I appreciate it thank you

00:07:40.660 Zach. Thank you, Zach. What's going on in the AFA? We've got some amazing websites. So the first

00:07:48.320 website you need to check out is going to be runestone.org, right? And then you need to

00:07:52.920 figure out where you're at in that whole district function that we've got, because we've got Odin's

00:07:57.080 Hop District. We've got Baldur's Hop District. We've got Thor's Hop District. We've got New

00:08:01.280 York's Hop District. And every single one of them has their own website. And on that website,

00:08:06.000 there's this handy dandy calendar that you can click on and you can look and see what's going

00:08:10.840 on in your state if you for some reason can't get on that calendar or you just want to talk to

00:08:17.440 somebody because we would love to talk to you contact your folk builder which can also be found

00:08:21.680 on the website and they can tell you everything that's going on in your area as well and get you

00:08:25.840 connected with all the folk and all of the amazing leadership with all of the amazing things going on

00:08:30.460 there is something going on every single weekend in the AFA.

00:08:34.640 There's something going on just about every single day in the AFA,

00:08:37.760 whether it's a book study or a women's group or a men's group or a district

00:08:44.920 meeting or the elderly meeting or victory never sleeps every Wednesday or a

00:08:52.560 moot all over the country.

00:08:54.440 You can definitely find links to all of that and contacts for all of that.

00:08:59.220 Absolutely.

00:08:59.700 And again, we got Ronald Blake donating $50.

00:09:02.520 He donates week in and week out.

00:09:04.800 Ronald, we really appreciate you.

00:09:06.720 And we know that you're very supportive.

00:09:09.560 And we couldn't do it without you, buddy.

00:09:11.860 Yes, thank you, Ronald.

00:09:12.960 We appreciate you each and every week.

00:09:14.440 We appreciate your support.

00:09:16.200 Absolutely.

00:09:17.540 Absolutely.

00:09:18.540 So I know we don't know exactly how long we're going to be on here,

00:09:22.180 how long we're going to be allowed on here before Matt kicks us off.

00:09:27.720 So we got a few questions here to get us started, see how many we can get through.

00:09:33.180 If they're related to me, to me and Brandy, we might not get to them if we get too many and Matt kicks us off.

00:09:39.120 But if they're in general, you know, we'll carry them over from Matt.

00:09:42.340 He'll have a few good ones. We're going to start.

00:09:45.860 If they don't, if they don't get to the questions that particularly pertain to us before we're kicked off the program tonight,

00:09:52.660 because the real stars are going to be coming on in a little bit to talk about the topic.

00:09:56.080 so if we get kicked off early they can always just come talk to us on mewe because that is

00:10:02.900 the best place to find anybody and anything that's afa related so if you're a member and

00:10:09.520 you don't have a mewe account you need to give with your folk builder filled up find out how to

00:10:13.920 do that and get involved on mewe so we have all kinds of groups you've got the homesteading groups

00:10:20.040 on there you've got the parenting groups on there uh spiritual excellence physical excellence

00:10:24.600 The best group on MeWe is going to be the Waldershof group, where we have nightly dinner wars, and we talk about all things nonsense and have a good time, build a lot of frith, get to know each other.

00:10:37.500 So all of your best friends on MeWe, please make sure you get on MeWe and join us.

00:10:42.900 Absolutely. And I do want to interrupt again. We got Sarah donating $5.

00:10:47.800 Hey, Brandy, you're looking amazing. Nice hat, Nick. We really appreciate it, Sarah.

00:10:52.620 up? Sarah's amazing. So people don't realize just how much Sarah does that's seen and not seen. So

00:11:01.840 she does things with the elderly group. She helps me with the book studies and anybody who's ever

00:11:06.760 done the book studies, the women's book studies with me, you have to have a lot of patience

00:11:11.620 because I jump into a rabbit hole and then I dig another rabbit hole and then I do another rabbit

00:11:16.580 hole and it takes forever. And she's so patient. And every once in a while, she'll dangle the

00:11:21.840 carrot for me to get back on track and we can weave our way back to where we're supposed to be

00:11:25.400 but she does so much stuff so if you are in wisconsin get a hold of folk builder sarah alt

00:11:32.080 because she she is involved with so many different things and she's got so much good information so

00:11:38.040 if you have any questions about the afa in general especially in wisconsin or baldershoff district

00:11:43.120 please make sure you get a hold of sarah alt as alt at runestone.org absolutely and i'll just throw

00:11:48.840 out she does she's a big help to me as well she's the one who adds all of the moot pictures and

00:11:55.260 calendar events to the baldershoff site plus she helps out on the runestone she's the one who

00:12:01.420 compiles the runestone for thorshoff and normally baldershoff um so she's a big help and uh we

00:12:08.460 couldn't do it without her as well um so we definitely got a few questions this first one

00:12:13.640 was texted to me early before the show that's how you get on the show first if you want to do it

00:12:19.800 send me a text send me an email um steen asks uh yeah so steen asks us uh witten callahan what was

00:12:29.180 your favorite part of north dakota winter nights and why should folks join us next year all right

00:12:36.260 so the best part of winter nights in north dakota was that it was in the best dakota

00:12:42.580 I got to go home for for a weekend and see my family, literally see family and all of my best

00:12:51.100 friends out there. So it was awesome. We had we had a lot of people. We had people come from

00:12:57.460 Minnesota. We had people come from all over North Dakota. I saw a lot of friends I haven't seen in

00:13:03.640 a while. We had members, previous members that came. We had current members that came. We had

00:13:09.060 people who are just interested come. So it was kind of an open event for people to really get

00:13:13.400 a taste of what it's like to celebrate an event and a holiday with the AFA. It was really, really

00:13:20.160 awesome. So we had a really great little space that was big enough for all of us. And

00:13:26.080 it was just such a tight-knit group of people and everybody knew everybody. So everybody was

00:13:33.580 super comfortable. We had people from Montana come out there. Um, we had good food. We, uh,

00:13:39.960 folk builders, Ian Penner did a really good bloat for us. Uh, we did winter nights bloat and we did

00:13:45.920 stumble as well. Um, and then we spent a lot of time in the hot tub and swimming with the kids.

00:13:50.900 So that is always a good time. Anytime that I can incorporate some hot tub into an event,

00:13:56.060 I'm down with that. Hot tub, stumble is a thing. Ask around. It's real. Um, but I think my favorite

00:14:02.940 part of winter nights was actually spending the holiday with my brother. Um, and listening to his

00:14:13.620 experience during bloat was really powerful. Um, he had a really, really good spiritual experience

00:14:19.960 and we talked about it afterwards. And that's really meaningful when you can hold bloat and

00:14:26.960 you can see people's reactions to that spiritual experience you can see them cry sometimes you'll

00:14:33.120 see them laugh sometimes you just see it in their eyes but to talk to them afterwards and hear about

00:14:38.720 what they experienced at that moment is always really special as as a githya that that's really

00:14:44.320 special to me so i think that was probably my favorite part of winter nights in north dakota

00:14:48.960 other than just being in the best dakota yeah i do love dakota it was amazing when i was moving

00:14:55.120 from Illinois uh after my mom passed I knew I was moving and I was literally 50 50 moving to

00:15:03.220 the Dakotas where I knew nobody and I was going to be in the middle of nowhere with no job

00:15:09.360 prospects but I just loved it out there or I was going to move to southern Illinois with family

00:15:15.060 and uh it was 50 50 for a while family went out got it to 51 I moved there for a couple years

00:15:22.120 but i do love north dakota and south dakota they're they're great yeah they're beautiful

00:15:29.960 i mean the best thing about north dakota i'll correct that um my best friend used to always

00:15:37.300 say the only thing pretty in north dakota is the sky and that may or may not be true depending on

00:15:44.740 what you consider beautiful landscape um but the sky is beautiful and the sky is huge and that's

00:15:50.840 actually one thing I miss about living there is the big open sky and the beautiful sunrises and

00:15:56.780 the sunsets and being able to watch a storm that is still in Montana roll in. So I do miss it. It's

00:16:05.140 amazing. I like to visit, but I also like, you know, being right next to Baldur's Off. So

00:16:12.560 I can't complain about that, but I do miss the sky. There's nothing better than the Florida sky.

00:16:17.440 all right so the next couple questions are uh talking about me so i want to get to those right

00:16:24.780 away oh yeah you get kicked out of here for being i know i know i know uh so the first one is from

00:16:33.400 bruce and he just says is that a kraken and i said yes this is kraken uh scally cap and uh we'll

00:16:42.020 throw we're gonna skip your question real quick because the very next question's from cody and

00:16:45.560 says where could you get a fine hat like that uh boston scally it's really the best place to get

00:16:53.600 the widest variety of scally caps there might be fun places they're you don't get an original from

00:16:59.120 england for all i care but boston scally is easy and they're pretty well if you if you're not going

00:17:06.240 to go get that exact hat where do our folk find all the cool afa stuff that we wear all the time

00:17:11.460 and everybody's always asked us where you get that cool t-shirt where'd you get that cool hat

00:17:15.060 and get that cool pair of gym shorts.

00:17:19.320 I'd like to say the Roonstone store,

00:17:22.040 but we don't have any up right now.

00:17:24.880 You can get flags, pins, stickers, books.

00:17:29.200 We do have founder Stephen McAllen's The Spear,

00:17:33.080 his newest book that came out a couple months ago.

00:17:35.500 That's in the Roonstone store,

00:17:37.800 roonstone.org slash store.

00:17:40.500 You can buy your tickets for any of our events

00:17:42.780 and all of that.

00:17:44.500 All right, I'm going to stop.

00:17:45.420 Lydia's donating $5.

00:17:46.820 Hail Whit and Callahan.

00:17:47.860 Hail Dick Rice.

00:17:48.640 We appreciate everything you do for us.

00:17:50.780 Well, Lydia, you've been doing a lot for us, too, recently.

00:17:53.080 You're the reason we're getting these donations,

00:17:54.680 coming up with this idea to move on over to this platform.

00:17:59.760 Lydia's amazing.

00:18:01.320 Lydia does so many cool things,

00:18:02.900 and she keeps all of us old people in touch with all of the other people who are not old.

00:18:09.300 We keep saying that we need somebody like Lydia to make us cool,

00:18:12.500 because we're not spring chickens anymore,

00:18:15.920 and we're getting called boomers a lot, Nick.

00:18:19.520 I know, and unfortunately,

00:18:21.060 I'm probably one of the ones calling y'all boomers,

00:18:23.220 but to be fair, I mean, Lydia's only three years younger than me,

00:18:28.600 but she's a lot more hip and cool,

00:18:31.400 and when she stepped up back in, what, July, I believe it was.

00:18:37.100 Yeah, she's done a lot in a short period of time,

00:18:39.940 and she does a lot to help me out and she does a lot to push me as well um i could be a bit

00:18:46.600 stubborn with change i didn't want to move to this new platform it's a pain in the rear

00:18:50.600 it's a lot more work for me it doesn't run as well on my computer but it's pretty it's shiny

00:18:55.000 the cool kids are doing it and apparently that's what we need to do to uh reach you know bigger

00:19:01.120 and brighter audiences we don't want to be uh we don't want to sacrifice anything that we're doing

00:19:07.920 about the church or anything like that but uh you know we do it does help to reach more folk

00:19:14.080 help bring folk home we get bigger and better audiences uh we got all we got all kinds of

00:19:20.340 questions right now in the chat i'm just gonna go through real quick uh uh just because they're

00:19:25.500 talking about hats and wanting more stuff in the store we're working on it people i promise i

00:19:30.480 promise there's going to be clothes in the store it keeps getting pushed back unfortunately over

00:19:36.360 and over um we're trying to nail down a few more things but we will have closed back the store and

00:19:42.280 there are plans this time for hats and we're gonna get gym shorts and all kinds of stuff

00:19:46.800 probably the next big thing to look out for in the store though is uh 2024 calendars will be coming

00:19:52.740 out soon and uh we'll be doing that so uh we'll get those done and we'll be good to go there

00:20:02.380 let's see what else

00:20:04.760 Finray do we have any audio versions

00:20:07.080 of the books I don't think there's

00:20:09.100 any audio versions of any of the books that

00:20:11.060 we sell in the store

00:20:12.440 all the books we sell are by Stephen

00:20:14.800 MacNallan founder MacNallan and

00:20:16.800 I don't think there's any audio books

00:20:19.140 any audio versions that I'm aware

00:20:21.080 of

00:20:21.440 might be something we need to get with

00:20:25.000 Elder MacNallan about see if

00:20:27.000 we can enlist

00:20:29.280 some people to record some audio

00:20:31.100 versions that would be cool that would be cool um don't mean to skip uh wolf thrones next question

00:20:39.560 but i'm actually going to skip it and leave that for matt and the ericsons but we're going to go

00:20:44.500 on to the question he just asked because it is nick and brandy how are you doing this spooky evening

00:20:50.840 well how are you doing this spooky evening nick i am doing quite well this is kind of fun

00:20:57.440 We didn't realize until about an hour or two ago, Matt's running late.

00:21:01.480 So we had to do an audible and figure it out.

00:21:06.180 And it was just going to be you for a minute.

00:21:07.840 But then I decided, you know what?

00:21:09.800 Ballershoff's a little feral.

00:21:11.220 If Matt's going to, you know, Matt's going to pull these kind of shenanigans,

00:21:14.820 we'll pull some shenanigans on him and I'll join you.

00:21:18.480 Sometimes he needs to be careful who he leaves me unattended with.

00:21:22.040 I can be easily swayed to be feral.

00:21:25.340 Absolutely.

00:21:25.780 That happens from time to time with me and the Medium show, Witten's Fawn.

00:21:30.820 I don't know if y'all remember that episode with the Medium show, but he'll never live it down.

00:21:35.820 That was great.

00:21:37.080 Yeah.

00:21:37.660 And it's funny.

00:21:38.620 I do remember that.

00:21:40.180 That was probably a year ago, the Medium show thing come up.

00:21:43.460 And then what was it?

00:21:44.360 Two weeks ago, last week, actually, Matt forgot that Fawn watched wrestling or at least had some interest in it, even if it was passing.

00:21:53.600 And that question, a question about wrestling came up and yeah, so it was pretty nifty.

00:21:59.700 You can't get the AFA leadership started on the wrestling that it's bad.

00:22:04.540 That's a really, really deep rabbit hole that we could spend a lot of time in.

00:22:08.860 I mean, you're going to have to get a lot of carrots to get us back on track on that one.

00:22:12.560 Absolutely.

00:22:14.260 Absolutely.

00:22:15.740 I'm getting on a plane in.

00:22:20.060 I don't know.

00:22:21.580 What time is it?

00:22:22.580 It's 819.

00:22:23.600 right 9 8 8 20 yeah yeah 20. so i'm getting on a plane here in about

00:22:30.960 five five or six hours so i'm super excited because i'm going to be hanging out with all

00:22:36.240 of the cool people over at sigerheim here very very soon celebrating winter nights

00:22:42.400 i'm so excited what just uh 12 hours i get to see your face give you a hug so i'll be really

00:22:49.120 forward to that pretty soon yeah so we got ally calling me out i'm sorry nicholas did you

00:22:56.220 ironically say wrestling it's like 50 50 whether i say wrestling or wrestling uh it's like my

00:23:02.860 accent the words i say they they bounce all over the place you guys see in me we we talked about

00:23:09.560 me when you see every single day i'm posting something about coffee yes that's how i pronounce

00:23:14.860 it. It is coffee. I have no idea why I say it like that, but I have not said the word coffee

00:23:20.380 in years. So I do not know. That's what happens when you have friends and family that are spread

00:23:27.560 all over the United States. You tend to pick up all of their different accents. I know when I go

00:23:32.460 to different places, I tend to listen to how they talk and I kind of giggle about it, but I'll find

00:23:39.500 myself doing it as well. So the only time my accent gets really, really bad is if I

00:23:44.820 Yeah, get angry, start talking too fast, or spend a little too much time in the hot tub,

00:23:49.280 and then the O's start to get a little bit exaggerated.

00:23:52.620 Yeah, between being born and raised in Illinois, and then living 17 years in Georgia,

00:23:58.420 watching season after season of Doctor Who, and then, you know, playing D&D and messing with accents there.

00:24:07.040 Favorite movie, Boondock Saints, and Google Hunting.

00:24:10.780 You know, that's like Boston, Southern, Yankee, British, Russian.

00:24:16.140 I don't know what my accent is day to day.

00:24:18.680 But if you try very hard, I might talk with a Russian accent for a little bit

00:24:22.780 and see how many people I can offend in Mother Russia.

00:24:26.100 You see, you need to be real careful about what kind of accents you adopt

00:24:29.220 for my entertainment because you might just have to do them on the spot.

00:24:33.500 You can even ask poor Stian about that.

00:24:35.580 Yeah, Stan's got his Oompa Loompa accent, yeah.

00:24:42.540 So, Nick, what's your actual favorite part about Winter Nights?

00:24:46.600 Whether it be spiritual or cultural or traditional, what's your favorite part about the holiday?

00:24:52.500 Winter Nights is when it starts getting really actually cold, so I like that.

00:24:56.320 But really, we're going to go with, I mean, and I was talking with Githiam McDowell and Sheila the other day.

00:25:02.660 My favorite part is Katie and Dithya Katie Erickson and her Desire Blotes.

00:25:10.400 I mean, it's the main part of the weekend, but it is definitely the highlight of the weekend.

00:25:16.840 Everybody has their own way of doing blotes, and they're all a little unique and everything.

00:25:25.760 And Katie's are really good.

00:25:27.200 Last year, she even got me into a little sound mixing and had me make a Desire chant audio that she had playing over speakers during the blowout.

00:25:40.240 You could barely hear it, but it was there in the background.

00:25:43.400 It was pretty interesting.

00:25:44.460 But Katie does a really solid blowout to Desire.

00:25:51.280 When my mom passed away five years ago, it's a very important time.

00:25:57.200 And, you know, everybody likes – I was definitely a mama's boy, and I think a lot of boys are, a lot of men are.

00:26:05.320 They do like their mamas, and it's a good time to connect with our female ancestors.

00:26:12.180 For sure.

00:26:13.560 So I'm not going to lie, I like the food.

00:26:15.340 It's not the best thing, but I like the food a lot.

00:26:20.480 Absolutely.

00:26:22.340 I used to make the strawberry glazed ham.

00:26:25.700 I only make it once a year.

00:26:27.200 And now I see, now I've moved it over to Freyfaxi.

00:26:31.120 We make it at the national event at Freyfaxi,

00:26:33.700 but the strawberry glazed ham was always a winter night's meal.

00:26:39.140 So it's delicious and it's wonderful, but making all of the food,

00:26:45.140 like the feast was always, making the food was always a big deal,

00:26:48.580 but sharing the food with the ancestors,

00:26:50.660 that was always something that's been really prevalent in my family is the actual preparation

00:26:58.480 of the food um the whole feast itself is a huge huge spiritual experience to make you're putting

00:27:06.620 in all of that work all of that time you're making recipes sometimes that are you know three

00:27:11.740 four or five generations old if you're lucky um but this was always my biggest feast of the year

00:27:18.800 You know, this is where I went all out with the coal cannon and the strawberry ham, the roasted root vegetables and the desserts and all of the things.

00:27:29.260 So this was always my biggest feast.

00:27:31.720 So that's what I always remember the most is I think all the time spent in the kitchen with my family and my friends and meeting 15 people to make a huge feast for the army of ancestors coming through that bale to celebrate with us.

00:27:47.680 I'm trying to find

00:27:52.200 I know it's kind of bad

00:27:53.900 But I know somewhere on this phone

00:27:55.880 I have saved

00:27:58.060 The Callahan

00:28:00.340 Cold Cannon

00:28:01.060 Recipe

00:28:02.420 Here it is

00:28:03.560 Let's see here

00:28:04.860 Which one of these is it

00:28:06.440 I believe it was in a ringstone article

00:28:09.780 Yeah and I took a screenshot of it

00:28:12.280 I know I can't find it right now

00:28:14.000 But somewhere I've got a screenshot

00:28:15.460 out in the coal cannon recipe. I really like it. There is a coal cannon recipe that is better than

00:28:22.100 the Callahan coal cannon recipe, and I will admit it. I'll admit it. My friend Alan makes the best

00:28:29.920 coal cannon that I have ever had, and it's a recipe that he's never shared with me, but

00:28:35.100 if I ever find out what he does different from me, I'm going to change that recipe,

00:28:40.820 that Callahan recipe a little bit, but

00:28:42.720 he does it way better

00:28:44.940 than I do. That cold canning he makes is

00:28:46.800 to die for.

00:28:49.360 We've got a few more questions

00:28:50.960 here. We're just having

00:28:52.940 some fun in the chat right now,

00:28:55.140 which is good.

00:28:56.700 Allie's calling me out again. First,

00:28:58.960 it's about wrestling, and

00:29:00.860 now she's asking me if I can talk

00:29:02.920 about bugs.

00:29:04.600 Talk about bugs, Nick. I know.

00:29:06.780 I know. Well, I called her out last

00:29:08.780 week because she was wanting to talk about

00:29:10.820 the, she was wanting to

00:29:12.720 talk about the etymology

00:29:14.100 of a particular word and she

00:29:16.720 happened to say the entomology

00:29:18.360 and I'm like, are you sure

00:29:20.760 about that? You want to talk about

00:29:22.440 entomology? But

00:29:24.200 I don't know much about bugs

00:29:26.300 other than

00:29:27.840 let's see, praying mantises

00:29:30.840 are pretty cool. After they

00:29:32.540 finish their

00:29:34.220 they finish doing the

00:29:36.560 dirty, the female cuts off their head

00:29:38.760 and eats the male, so that's

00:29:40.820 pretty nifty.

00:29:42.960 I'm guessing as peoples,

00:29:45.020 we're

00:29:46.240 kind of happy they don't do that.

00:29:48.800 I'd be scared. I'm scared of you enough

00:29:50.560 as it is. I don't need

00:29:51.800 any female

00:29:54.800 murder

00:29:55.520 stuffs.

00:30:01.360 I looked in the chat

00:30:02.920 here, too. They're talking about

00:30:04.440 are we going to talk

00:30:05.900 wait, are we talking about wrestling? Yes.

00:30:08.760 Yes, Mrs. LaBelle.

00:30:11.040 We can talk about wrestling all day long if we choose to.

00:30:13.860 I mean, I can fill up a few hours of wrestling discussion

00:30:17.680 until the El Shira Goethe comes in.

00:30:19.440 I got a very tight window of wrestling I could probably talk about.

00:30:26.880 You got me in about just the Attitude Era.

00:30:30.460 That's about the only time I ever watched.

00:30:32.260 and um so i i was i was actually quite a big wrestling hater back in the day i used to make

00:30:39.820 fun of my brother for watching it because you know it's fake and you know people people back

00:30:45.600 in the day didn't really they may knew but they didn't it wasn't part of the thing nowadays at

00:30:52.120 least i think it's pretty much acknowledged that yes it's fake and that's part of the fun it's just

00:30:56.640 the show but

00:30:58.540 the Attitude Era was cool

00:31:00.480 Stone Cold was awesome big show

00:31:02.720 Heartbreak Kid

00:31:03.860 they were really good

00:31:06.520 I did see I met or I didn't meet

00:31:08.380 but I saw the Heartbreak Kid in person

00:31:10.440 one time at a little convention

00:31:12.480 in Knoxville Tennessee

00:31:14.200 actually he was kind

00:31:16.540 of a dick which was

00:31:18.480 kind of disappointing but

00:31:20.500 you know

00:31:21.740 it is a thing

00:31:23.400 well speaking of this year

00:31:26.580 because this is the holiday for the Desir.

00:31:28.580 I'm going to tell you about one of my Desir.

00:31:30.760 Okay.

00:31:31.420 Oh, is it the fun one?

00:31:34.260 Yeah.

00:31:34.900 Yeah.

00:31:35.980 She was amazing.

00:31:39.580 She was absolutely amazing.

00:31:41.660 My grandma Bonnie is the reason that I watch wrestling, right?

00:31:46.440 She's the reason that I've watched it since I was a little kid.

00:31:49.460 And she was in love with Sting.

00:31:52.200 And we used to turn it on and we would watch it.

00:31:55.600 and you weren't allowed to tell her it was fake she would throw things at you i mean she would

00:32:00.800 like take a chair after you she would it is not fake they are bleeding they are bleeding and she

00:32:06.700 had a love hate relationship with rick flair it it depended on if he was a healer or a face at the

00:32:13.280 time but if he was in his heel face she hated rick flair and if he wasn't she loved him but

00:32:19.300 he look how much he's bleeding grandma you know he he he bleeds in the same place every single

00:32:25.140 time and she would have logical explanations that's because it's scar tissue and it breaks

00:32:30.140 easier you know that's why you know so you could never tell her that it was staged or that it was

00:32:36.420 fake because she could be extraordinarily terrifying and i believe she could probably

00:32:42.740 have wrestled in the ww in the wcw at the time so you didn't want to argue with her you know you

00:32:49.900 just had to you had to just go with it yeah i mean they point out in the chat see how fake uh

00:32:57.960 metal folder chair feels across the back and even when it is fake i'll definitely acknowledge

00:33:02.420 they are actually cutting themselves they're doing it intentionally they're actually getting

00:33:07.640 hit on occasion those falls probably don't feel good i actually did i went to wrestling uh actually

00:33:13.000 professional wrestling uh training one i went to one practice um got to learn how to lock up

00:33:20.200 and um basically i i'm uncoordinated i can't roll every time and that's like wrestling 101 you fall

00:33:29.880 you roll you get up i couldn't do it i just said yeah hey all i know is it hurts because when i was

00:33:37.080 like six or seven me and my cousins decided we were going to go outside and play wrestling and

00:33:43.460 one of there was four of us and one of them was the rock and roll express and then the other two

00:33:49.140 were the midnight express right so we were wrestling in the back of the pickup and we all

00:33:54.420 fell out the back of that pickup so i can imagine it hurt falling out of the back out of the ring

00:33:59.560 if falling out of the heart i can only imagine absolutely let's see if we catch up a little bit

00:34:06.620 with this chat here oh let's see where do we leave off uh lydia wants a coffee joke i don't

00:34:14.080 have any coffee jokes and you know how good my jokes were we were talking about the other night

00:34:18.320 i gotta read them all off the internets so i can see here uh how are you guys just like coffee

00:34:24.240 the best ones are rich hot and can keep you up all night i don't know there's your joke

00:34:30.520 all righty i am not a funny jokey person i like my coffee i like my coffee like i like my attitude

00:34:40.880 sometimes dark and sometimes bitter yeah oh absolutely uh neitherok norr says uh which

00:34:49.400 is the tastiest and why is it in thor's hof i will it's thor's hof it is no food is one of

00:34:58.100 those days you can't be getting us started no i know uh i know heather and all the ladies over

00:35:05.640 there at thor's hoff probably cook some good food in fact i know they do it was good when i've been

00:35:10.300 there but but it is nothing like a baller's hoff we got you know we got steen out there cooking for

00:35:18.760 us and it is amazing yeah yeah we got james we've got stein and we've got ashley and we've got um

00:35:28.840 jesse schaefer out there who cooks plus lydia has been out there cooking like the food is absolutely

00:35:35.960 amazing yeah so i mean you do realize that stein penner actually modifies old julia child recipes

00:35:43.240 to make them compatible with deer and venison and like different kind of meats and everything

00:35:49.500 has real butter in it um also everything might have a shot of a shot of mustard in it but

00:35:54.760 everything also has butter in it so it's not just good for your body it's good for your soul

00:36:00.580 all right this isn't a question we gotta call out uh go see rob stam over here he said he'd

00:36:07.440 knife a fool for a bowl of your nothing a bowl of my soup yeah the net soup absolutely

00:36:15.680 yes rob rob definitely like the nefla soup so rob i'm gonna have to when i come down that way i

00:36:25.480 will make you the the black forest cake and the nefla if the thor's half people will let me in

00:36:31.200 the kitchen oh man uh wolf thrones asking who my favorite wrestler was uh it's hard to say i i

00:36:42.480 bounced around i like the rock i like stone cold i liked aj styles when he was with tna

00:36:48.060 uh before he transferred over to the big time um ddp was pretty cool back in the day uh

00:36:57.080 DDP is awesome.

00:36:58.420 You know he likes some DDP videos now?

00:37:00.960 Oh, yeah.

00:37:02.060 DDP yoga is a thing.

00:37:05.460 Absolutely.

00:37:08.100 Absolutely.

00:37:10.100 Finn over there, Finn Rafe.

00:37:13.840 Actually, our only Finnish member is pretty cool.

00:37:17.420 He's asking, do we like any real fighting sports like MMA?

00:37:21.240 I watch it.

00:37:22.380 It's cool.

00:37:23.080 The thing I've been into recently, though, is I decided I wanted to get into rugby and watch rugby.

00:37:30.300 So I learned the rules and I started watching rugby and such.

00:37:34.920 And I actually bought a rugby ball the other day.

00:37:37.280 It arrived yesterday.

00:37:39.880 So we're going to throw around the rugby ball maybe a little bit at winter nights just for the heck of it.

00:37:46.360 Just to see what happens?

00:37:47.820 Yeah, yeah.

00:37:48.760 I used to play semi-pro football, so I've been hit a few times in my life.

00:37:56.520 Let's see how it is.

00:37:58.320 So we're going to have this whole theory of what's the worst that could happen

00:38:02.100 with a rugby ball and a bunch of AFA men.

00:38:05.400 That's what we're going to do, Nick.

00:38:07.020 Yeah, yeah, that's about how it is.

00:38:11.400 Let's see here.

00:38:14.040 Roll down.

00:38:14.940 Oh, man. The Undertaker says Sarah. Undertaker is good. Actually, I had we were supposed to have a wrestling shirt thing at Fall Fest or Frey Faxy, but that didn't happen.

00:38:29.100 And I brought my Undertaker shirt. I wore it for about five minutes, walking out to the hot tub, and then I took it off to get the hot tub.

00:38:41.420 There you go.

00:38:44.940 Oh, man. Let's see here.

00:38:48.140 So do we have any questions, or am I going to start winging it now?

00:38:51.520 I mean, we've got a few questions.

00:38:53.480 It's just seeing if we want to cover.

00:38:55.680 Do you want to cover any of these topical winter nights questions,

00:38:59.100 or do we want to leave those for the stars of the show?

00:39:02.400 Well, I can take a swing at them, and they can always answer them when they come back in,

00:39:05.860 because we might reach a vast holiday that is rooted in, like, family tradition

00:39:12.140 that I bet they're going to have a different answer.

00:39:14.320 Everybody you ask is going to have a different answer.

00:39:16.600 All righty.

00:39:17.960 So, yeah, we might throw these in and get them answered twice tonight.

00:39:22.020 Wolf Throne, he actually has the third question of the night.

00:39:26.180 We skipped it a while back.

00:39:28.700 As someone who grew up with Halloween and being very nostalgic for it,

00:39:32.940 I'd like to know if there's any traditional Halloween elements in winter nights,

00:39:36.460 such as pumpkins, candy, costumes.

00:39:39.180 Seems like it would be a great way to get kids involved.

00:39:41.280 it is a great way to get kids involved we actually ask um parents or we don't ask them we invite them

00:39:48.380 that if their children want to wear their halloween costumes to the hof for winter nights we are

00:39:55.020 totally okay with that and we encourage that we hand out candy um we still carve pumpkins

00:40:00.340 um if you want to get really traditional you can go ahead and carve a turnip if you're patient

00:40:05.020 and you can do that. So yeah, all of these things are things that we've done for a really,

00:40:12.480 really long time. Halloween and winter nights, I mean, they're not the same thing. Of course,

00:40:18.400 Halloween is the commercialized thing and the winter nights is the sacred celebration of your

00:40:23.280 ancestors. But build those traditions with your family. So if it's your family tradition to,

00:40:29.760 you know, celebrate Halloween with carving jack-o'-lanterns, incorporate that into your

00:40:35.260 winter night celebration. You have to remember all of these things that we do in our homes and

00:40:39.400 all of these things in our hearth culture, it's very, very important to make sure that you're

00:40:43.620 building that as a family and celebrating what your family did before. Tradition is very important

00:40:50.420 because that's one of the ways that we honor our ancestors, right? So if your grandmother always

00:40:56.300 serve the same thing on, let's say, Yule, for example. You know, grandma always served this

00:41:02.820 dish. Carry on her tradition by serving that dish. So if your family has always carved pumpkins,

00:41:09.060 continue to carve pumpkins. Put a spiritual aspect into it if you want to. Make it a devotional

00:41:13.980 thing if you want to. Take three hours and put nut work into it, and then, you know, give it as

00:41:19.740 a gift if you want to do that, you know? Hey, put the candles in your windows, you know, whether

00:41:26.540 it's the actual burning candles or whether or not you want to be safe like me because I have

00:41:32.280 feral animals in my house who have to knock over everything. Get the battery operated ones or get

00:41:38.040 a lantern and put that in your window. Put your jack-o'-lantern in your window. Just light the

00:41:43.080 way for your ancestors to find you that day. One of the biggest traditions that I have for

00:41:50.940 winter nights is the cleaning before winter nights, right? If I'm going to invite my grandmother over,

00:41:58.280 my house is not going to be a mess. She would not appreciate that. She would probably start

00:42:04.020 tossing things off the counter. It's a thing. But whatever traditions that you have, see how you can

00:42:09.920 incorporate things that you already do with your family in a spiritual way. Um, find an opportunity

00:42:15.920 to, you know, talk to them about, we're going to put a candle in this jack-o'-lantern and we're

00:42:19.980 going to, we're going to light it for this reason. Whether it's to, to scare off this, the, the

00:42:24.800 spooky things that are outside, um, or whether you just want to have a light to, you know, let's say

00:42:30.620 you don't carve a face. Let's say you carve beautiful knotwork and imagery into the jack-o'-lantern

00:42:36.660 with runes or staves or just some kind of beautiful design and you light it up and you

00:42:45.560 use that as a as a way to call from the west so you can really take things that you're already

00:42:51.300 doing especially with your children and build on them that was a big rabbit hole did i answer that

00:42:56.480 question i don't know you did great absolutely no um and and every hoth definitely has different

00:43:03.700 traditions about it. Every group's going to have different traditions. But in the end,

00:43:08.900 Winter Nights is about the ancestors and all, and the ancestors had their own traditions,

00:43:18.280 as you said, whether it be the food or not. But I mean, one way to think about it,

00:43:23.740 if you're honoring your ancestors, part of honoring them is, you know, acknowledging

00:43:28.960 some of their traditions they had their own family stuff so if your family like you said

00:43:33.680 had certain food or decorated certain way my mother wasn't a big fan of halloween she didn't

00:43:38.880 really do much we weren't uh we weren't you know chicken or we weren't candy giver outer peoples

00:43:48.080 but we had other traditions throughout the year our biggest one uh new year's eve we'd stay up

00:43:54.160 all night till midnight playing rummy so uh that may not be one we do at you know winter nights

00:43:59.880 time but that's going to be definitely one that we're going to acknowledge and incorporate later

00:44:04.100 on in the year to make sure absolutely all righty we got some more questions light up i like people

00:44:14.120 uh throwing stuff out here for us i do want to take a little bit of time and say so we've talked

00:44:19.640 about winter nights and we're talking about winter nights being at sigerheim this year

00:44:23.200 or this weekend.

00:44:26.260 But I also want to remind everybody,

00:44:27.860 since I am the guy living at Sigurheim

00:44:30.960 or near Sigurheim,

00:44:31.940 that we do have events every single month at Sigurheim.

00:44:35.020 Most of the time, it's just me and a couple people.

00:44:37.500 It's not these big shindigs.

00:44:39.440 But if you're ever in the area of Tennessee,

00:44:41.420 Sigurheim is ours.

00:44:42.760 It's the AFA.

00:44:43.560 So you're more than welcome to come on out,

00:44:45.260 see Sigurheim anytime you want.

00:44:47.560 I can always get with you and show you around

00:44:51.000 and help you out.

00:44:52.460 I've got a member that just contacted me earlier today, actually.

00:44:55.860 He said he's going to be in the area the day before Thanksgiving.

00:44:59.540 And unfortunately, I don't have any family living nearby, so I'm not really doing anything for Thanksgiving myself.

00:45:05.920 So we're going to get together because he's going to be in the area.

00:45:08.440 His brother apparently lives the next county over, so we're going to get together.

00:45:13.000 But we're doing a Feast of the Einherjar Blot on November 19th.

00:45:18.440 No, 18th. November 18th.

00:45:20.520 And then Yule we're going to be celebrating on November, December 23rd.

00:45:26.980 So you can come on out then and come see me.

00:45:32.000 Or you can come on out at a different time and we'll make do.

00:45:36.260 You want to come out and work, we can put you to work.

00:45:38.320 There's always trees to cut down.

00:45:40.300 There's brush to clear.

00:45:42.020 We got 60 acres of woods.

00:45:43.780 We can figure out something to do for everybody.

00:45:47.560 So I do appreciate that.

00:45:50.520 All righty. We got Barry's in here asking questions for the chat.

00:45:55.940 Oh, no, no. Yeah. For the chat, not for the guests.

00:45:59.460 Maybe I want to answer the question.

00:46:02.840 I'm going to steal it just because we're feral and we don't care about the rules.

00:46:07.980 Question for the chat, not for our guests.

00:46:12.380 He does say, unless we want to answer it, what would be a good offering to give a chemist ancestor?

00:46:18.800 My dad says Dr. Pepper, but I'm not sure on that one.

00:46:23.760 I'm going to say a chemist.

00:46:25.640 I hope we're working in a lab that's OSHA certified, not some other kind of lab.

00:46:32.560 But a good ancestor that's a chemist.

00:46:37.340 What would be a good offering?

00:46:39.540 It doesn't necessarily have to involve chemistry.

00:46:43.020 What did he like to eat?

00:46:44.500 What did he like to drink?

00:46:45.400 What did he like to smoke?

00:46:46.620 what did he like to do in his free time um but if it was something chemically related

00:46:53.180 what kind of chemist was he i'm sure they all do different things um i have a buddy he went

00:46:58.780 school got a degree in chemistry now he works for the red cross and he just does the blood work

00:47:04.060 because every time you donate blood they they run a test make sure you ain't got no diseases

00:47:08.780 or anything like that um what would be would be a good so they have this so if you're outside and

00:47:15.900 you have like a fire you're having a fire right and you're doing a sunbowl or you're toasting

00:47:19.980 your ancestor around the fire they always have this um this campfire chemical that you can uh

00:47:28.380 throw into the fire and it makes a really big whoosh and all the colors change and it's really

00:47:33.820 awesome so that would be kind of cool absolutely so i do hate to uh stop the show but uh i gotta

00:47:41.740 to go check something i think matt might be here let's see here yeah we have matt i don't see

00:47:48.360 anybody else on the couch with him but we're gonna go over to matt here in a second and figure out

00:47:53.040 what's going on um oh there they are they're still running around matt you ready you want to come on

00:48:00.160 or you want us to keep talking buddy all righty will you five minutes all right no no no we can

00:48:10.120 I can hear. I can hear. I can hear the Alshira Gauthier talking.

00:48:15.580 All right. Well, you tell me what he wants. I can't hear.

00:48:22.440 All right. So I can hear the Alshira Gauthier. Nick, can you hear the Alshira Gauthier?

00:48:28.500 I can't. I can't. I'll be able to hear him once I add him. But until I add him to the show, I won't be able to hear him.

00:48:34.840 okay all right they are ready to go nick so i am going to sign off and tell you guys come on

00:48:44.960 out to winter nights we're all going to be there i'm going to go pack my bags and i will see all

00:48:49.560 of you amazing people in about 13 hours absolutely i do appreciate it and charlie make sure you send

00:48:58.180 that question over to her on me we i know you're on there since we're not gonna be able to get to

00:49:02.520 it. But here we go, everybody. I do appreciate

00:49:04.520 y'all letting us butt in and steal the

00:49:06.460 show for a little bit. But

00:49:08.300 here comes the Al Sirigothi

00:49:10.500 and guests. So we'll

00:49:12.380 see what we can do. And you guys have a good

00:49:14.460 one. Happy Winter

00:49:16.300 Nights. Happy Winter Nights.

00:49:32.520 So, if you could help me with this, oh, hey, guys.

00:50:00.560 All right.

00:50:01.880 We're sorry.

00:50:02.940 I appreciate Brandy filling in for us for a minute here.

00:50:06.440 When you're traveling and setting up for an event,

00:50:09.260 sometimes things don't always go exactly as you got planned on it.

00:50:15.640 I hope it's been an awesome show so far.

00:50:17.860 I'm sure it has been with Brandy.

00:50:20.680 We've got a couple of camera things we're going to try to play with here for just a second.

00:50:25.440 Yeah, Nick, I don't know if there's a way to

00:50:30.960 Pause or if you guys just want to deal with us here for a second

00:50:34.900 While we adjust our camera

00:50:36.360 I think it's just a way, sir

00:50:41.400 Hi, everybody.

00:51:05.800 Haha, it comes right back to me.

00:51:09.160 Camera's got more.

00:51:11.400 all right how are we looking in the frame nick we're looking all right

00:51:16.360 adjustments what do you think you're good to go right now i see a lot of the kitchen

00:51:22.060 but uh once katie sits down everything gets straightened away i'm assuming she's gonna

00:51:27.200 you know split y'all she'll be good to go maybe a little bit in and out um she's got some stuff

00:51:32.140 she's working on here so i think you got us are we live for the audience are they listening to

00:51:37.400 all this nonsense absolutely they should hear all this see you guys see my face in the corner

00:51:43.060 there you go you guys get the inside scoop so here here we are we're trying something new today

00:51:48.920 hope you guys uh i don't know are entertained by the novelty of it um nick are we handling

00:51:56.960 questions the same way we normally do yeah we'll throw them to you okay cool

00:52:03.520 So I'm just catching up on the chat.

00:52:08.580 All right, awesome.

00:52:09.360 So I think if there's top of the show, I like to advertise our upcoming events.

00:52:19.900 And it's a little bit short notice if you guys haven't gotten the message by now,

00:52:23.600 but we've got winter nights celebrated probably five miles down the road

00:52:31.360 from where I'm sitting right now.

00:52:33.520 At Sigurheim, we've got that kicking off officially on Friday.

00:52:40.960 So if any of you guys are within getting here distance, Jackson County, Tennessee, we would love to see you guys come out.

00:52:51.320 Also, next, I think, two weeks from this weekend, we're going to have Feast of the Iron Hair Yard in South Dakota.

00:53:02.860 I'm going to be out for that.

00:53:03.960 The McNallans are going to be out for that.

00:53:05.500 That'll be really exciting.

00:53:06.960 So, thank you on that.

00:53:12.560 Yeah, I think that's what we got from the top.

00:53:15.740 It's a treat.

00:53:16.660 We've got three people on, but one screen.

00:53:19.840 We're doing all kind of new things today on Victory Never Sleeps.

00:53:24.320 And I wanted to have the Erickson's on to talk to us about winter nights generally

00:53:30.720 and about AFA Winter Night Celebrations in specific.

00:53:36.140 They have been heading those up now for the past quite a few years.

00:53:43.140 Cliff has been heading it up for almost all of them.

00:53:47.680 But he can talk to you a little bit about that and how the event has developed.

00:53:53.380 Cliff, thanks for picking me up at the airport.

00:53:55.420 And if you would tell these fine folks a little bit about the history of AFA Winter Nights.

00:54:03.940 Yeah, of course.

00:54:05.440 And sorry I was late picking you up.

00:54:07.500 We were at the Sam's Club getting all the food that Katie is prepping right now to make sure all of our folk are well fed this weekend.

00:54:14.100 So Winter Nights originally started as the not the second ever big AFA event outside of California.

00:54:25.360 I know that Florida has some claim to to some old school stuff, but Winter Nights in the Poconos at the time was the first real sticky, if you will, AFA national event outside of California.

00:54:41.040 This coming event will be Winter Nights 12, and the first 10 of those Winter Nights were held at a camp in northeastern Pennsylvania, almost on the New York state line, and that was a follow-up to the McNallans coming out east here to see how Fulker Sausage True was alive and well on the east coast, and they liked what they saw,

00:55:08.720 And they, I don't know the exact words that they might have used, but folk builder Patricia Hall set to making sure that the AFA had annual representation in that form.

00:55:24.540 And it stuck. It became a very successful event.

00:55:28.120 I've had the privilege and honor and joy of having attended all 11 of the Winter Nights so far and soon to be 12.

00:55:38.720 It is a celebration of our ancestral mothers, the desir.

00:55:44.800 The focus of winter nights has always been on that desir bloat, which makes it a unique holiday compared to a lot on our calendar.

00:55:56.440 It and the Feast of the Ein-Hur-Yar are holy days that we have that are dedicated to our ancestors and our heroes rather than to a specific deity or to that agricultural cycle that a lot of our holidays are focused on.

00:56:17.340 And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way,

00:56:22.900 but Winter Nights is so very special

00:56:25.500 because of that connection to the ancestral mothers.

00:56:28.780 It is by far, I think, one of the most personal holidays

00:56:34.620 that we have because we all have ancestral mothers,

00:56:40.180 you know, whether we were adopted

00:56:43.000 whether we knew our direct maternal line everyone here owes such a great deal to all the actions

00:56:53.000 and in some cases inactions if it were appropriate by all those women who going all the way back to

00:57:00.760 Frigga at the beginning of time of our creation made it so that we can be here in this world

00:57:07.880 and made it so we can be happy and healthy and strong and exert our will in in Midgard and if

00:57:15.160 you know we're really successful maybe even beyond and um yeah it's it's a it's a very special holiday

00:57:22.600 to me because winter nights is really what got me involved in the opportunity folk assembly i had uh

00:57:29.080 been a hanger around of the afa prior to winter nights even for uh almost a year after my first

00:57:36.760 winter nights i didn't actually sign up for afa membership until just before winter nights two

00:57:43.400 that september i think it was um but winter nights in the poconos was the first ossaroo

00:57:51.880 event that i went to i mean in retrospect it was the first ossaroo event that i actually

00:57:57.320 ever went to other than some small gatherings at patricia hall's home but at the time i was

00:58:02.920 going around between different quote-unquote heathen events and trying to find out what my

00:58:11.800 place was in all of that and trying to figure out what what these groups were doing what

00:58:20.920 what was going to you know be what my place was going to be in any of that and

00:58:26.440 And a lot of the other groups weren't really serious

00:58:31.700 or they were serious about the wrong thing.

00:58:34.400 The Austin True Polk Assembly and Winter Nights in the Poconos

00:58:36.640 was where I really first felt like it was a religious event

00:58:40.520 and where I really felt completely comfortable with everybody who was there.

00:58:45.560 I didn't feel like I had to watch my back.

00:58:47.420 I didn't feel like anybody was trying to use me for whatever purposes or anything like that.

00:58:54.900 It was honest people worshiping their gods and their ancestral mothers in a very wholesome way.

00:59:04.160 And I stuck around.

00:59:07.620 So, and it's a special event for me because, you know, I didn't meet her there for the first time,

00:59:14.980 but Winter Nights in the camp that it was hosted at for 10 years is where I got to know my wife long before she was my wife.

00:59:24.900 It's where I first met Witten Spahn. It's where I first met Alshir Gauthier Matt, among so many other people that if I tried to list them all, I'd end up, you know, leaving somebody important out.

00:59:39.000 Yeah, so it's really, really special.

00:59:41.700 And then starting last year, unfortunately, the camp that had hosted us for so long changed their business model.

00:59:49.040 it was a a private um summer camp for girls that we were using and they switched from for-profit to

00:59:56.320 non-profit status and then to restructure some of the things that they did in order to be in

01:00:00.720 compliance with the regulations that are imposed by uh the the irs for things uh for for non-profit

01:00:07.200 organizations that get those taxes they stopped hosting um private groups in general it wasn't

01:00:15.600 an afa specific action that they took um but it was kind of heartbreaking i i admit i i loved to

01:00:21.680 be there in in northeastern pennsylvania at that camp where so many memories over that time had

01:00:27.040 been built up um but we were fortunate to have a member in ohio step up and allow us to use his

01:00:34.720 family's uh private campground for winter nights 11 in southern ohio um and then this year um we

01:00:42.560 actually had another camp um reserved in ohio and that uh that didn't work out because they

01:00:51.760 well frankly they weren't people of their own of their worth they they broke their commitment to

01:00:55.680 us with rather short notice but fortunately um sigerheim is here for us to um have as it's our

01:01:03.440 home so it's always going to be our fallback position um we did explore you know if there

01:01:09.280 there were other camps available on short notice with the number of facilities and amenities that

01:01:15.900 we needed to host upwards of 100 people. But with only a couple of months, that wasn't a realistic

01:01:21.960 thing. So we looked in Pennsylvania and Ohio and a little bit beyond, too. I think we looked in

01:01:26.820 West Virginia, too. But that didn't work out in a short time frame that we needed for planning

01:01:32.340 purposes. So we moved it down here to Tennessee. And our AFA home is Sigerheim. And it's going to

01:01:38.080 be a fantastic event. The little tent village is already starting to grow. There's four tents

01:01:43.740 there right now. Me and Katie and our children have been there since Sunday morning doing some

01:01:50.820 prep work, which is very much on the backs of people who have already been putting in work

01:01:58.420 weekends at Sigurheim regularly, including Nick Rice, the Youngs, the Bethes, and I'm sure many

01:02:05.400 other people um that i can't recall at this moment right here on this couch but i know i've

01:02:10.920 seen them in the pictures and i've already met them and talked of them um a lot of people have

01:02:14.740 done a lot of work to um improve the the siggerheim property since sigger bloat in july i think

01:02:21.640 everyone who comes here is going to be really pleased to see the progress and and you know

01:02:26.380 know that every time we use the the property it's going to be improved um since the last time that

01:02:33.000 we did. That's one of the things that I think as Asitura we take seriously. We shape our

01:02:42.700 world around us, and that's something that is very true about Sigerheim. I'm really pleased

01:02:48.460 with how it's shaping up, and I'm looking forward to seeing people here starting about

01:02:53.840 lunchtime on Friday. If you don't get here for that, then it's going to actually be a

01:02:59.800 late supper on friday just so you know we've got some rituals planned um between lunch and uh supper

01:03:07.680 which will be uh i think around 7 p.m that day so that's my take on winter nights uh maybe a katie

01:03:16.380 can speak to it in um a lot of ways too but she is tending to the kids right now so i'll

01:03:23.160 toss the ball back to matt and we can bring her back into the conversation when uh when she's

01:03:28.500 here yeah i appreciate you guys bearing with us this evening it's a little bit haphazard

01:03:34.020 um but yeah we'll get katie out here when she is available i'm you know you may see me getting up

01:03:40.740 scurrying around and getting stuff and trying to adjust lighting and different anyways i appreciate

01:03:46.980 you guys bearing with it um zach gave us a little beers clanking five dollar deal and i appreciate

01:03:57.860 that thank you very much um it says hail matt and cliff enjoy your time at siggerheim

01:04:05.460 always do always will we're very very excited about it i certainly am

01:04:12.820 it's a beautiful country i love coming out here and it's such a special place

01:04:16.420 and i hope i get to share that with a lot of you guys this weekend um

01:04:21.380 Hey, Katie, can you pull these lights out of the table and see what that looks like?

01:04:29.740 Sorry, trying to adapt to a lighting suggestion we got.

01:04:35.920 Just a little bit.

01:04:39.220 Good idea, Lydia.

01:04:40.520 Thank you.

01:04:41.920 So, as Cliff was saying, up until, what year was that first winter nights, Cliff?

01:04:51.380 2012, I think.

01:04:59.460 23 minus 12.

01:05:01.820 Not quite.

01:05:02.320 It was the 12th, so it was 11 years ago.

01:05:04.600 Anyways, when that happened, I was part of those discussions a little bit.

01:05:09.060 At the time, I was, I think, the assistant folk builder coordinator.

01:05:17.440 And I've been really fortunate that I've been able to be at all the winter nights.

01:05:21.380 For the longest time, the AFA was a West Coast phenomenon, and for a longer time after that,

01:05:31.840 it was perceived as being a West Coast phenomenon.

01:05:36.400 People who may have joined in the last few years may be kind of shocked to hear that.

01:05:40.900 If you look at our membership map today, it's very much not the case.

01:05:46.220 the vast majority of our members are right around that mississippi corridor or to the east

01:05:55.180 so the growth of the afa has been tremendous in just that short amount of time but that was kind

01:06:01.900 of the first big national event that was going to be regularly occurring outside of midsummer that

01:06:07.900 was going on in northern california and it's been it's been amazing and it's built a lot of steam

01:06:16.220 since then it's been a very very special event and it

01:06:23.660 in a lot of ways it was really the start of a big afa surge and

01:06:33.100 a leaping off platform to really expand the afa and it's done a very successful job at that

01:06:40.140 but it's also been an event that has been really personal to a lot of us

01:06:49.120 it's at that event in 2014 that i met my wife mandy she was in florida i was coming from

01:06:59.420 alaska and we met in pennsylvania at winter nights so that was the start of that and

01:07:06.180 And so far, so good. We've got a beautiful little three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and those things absolutely can happen, but I don't know if it would have happened or it would have happened in a very different way if not for AFA Winter Nights, which this is a continuation of.

01:07:26.840 I'm trying to think of what else to say up front.

01:07:32.200 There's a lot of winter night stuff to talk about,

01:07:34.000 but I do want to get to some of the questions that are stacking up as well.

01:07:40.900 Before we – all right, we will get to that in a moment.

01:07:51.140 i want to bring katie over here to talk about the d-seer and her d-seer bloats she is that's

01:08:01.860 one of her showcase things she's able to do and here she comes katie can you

01:08:07.620 talk to folks assuming that they've never heard of the d-seer before and don't understand the

01:08:14.100 connection to winter nights and kind of break down our d-seer bloat and why we do that why

01:08:19.940 we do at this time of year okay i'll try we can make room if you want yeah i'll have to pop up

01:08:28.340 again and keep stirring the uh the food in a minute so uh when i first became a godar student

01:08:36.900 uh i was asked by my then mentor professional hall to jump right in i had been a student for like

01:08:44.020 two months and she's like you're doing this year bloat and I was like what there are no words to

01:08:52.780 explain to the absolute sheer panic that I felt when she told me I was doing this year bloat and

01:08:59.780 she gave me like a month anybody who knows me knows that I will literally spend an entire an

01:09:07.840 entire year after the first bloat or after planning the next one not because

01:09:13.540 I'm doing all kinds of remarkable things or anything it's just because Patricia

01:09:18.400 Hall was really amazing at what she did and it was a very very hard act to

01:09:27.220 follow uh i will probably spend my whole life

01:09:47.060 sorry guys there's some kind of weird feedback over here

01:09:51.540 And I think it stopped.

01:09:55.300 Carry on.

01:09:56.080 I will talk to Nick about the tech issue on the side here.

01:09:58.560 Right.

01:09:58.860 Sorry.

01:09:59.460 So anyway, yeah, so the Desir bloat is what it sounds like.

01:10:06.000 It's a bloat in which we honor our Desir.

01:10:08.960 If the concept of bloat is that we are giving gifts to the gods in return for the gifts that they have given us,

01:10:16.460 then it's the same when you talk to the desire or about desirable you're giving the gifts to our

01:10:24.020 female ancestors who i mean let's face it without them we wouldn't exist and we owe them a great

01:10:33.660 amount um you take that the whole concept of the eggs for every woman develop inside the womb

01:10:42.940 like when you're a baby when you're developing in your mother's womb the eggs that you will have for

01:10:48.200 the rest of your life are developed in the last like week or two before you're born so literally

01:10:55.460 i was created at least part of me was created while my mom was inside her mom that right there

01:11:06.300 i mean that to me is like the best picture of the the connection that as women in particular

01:11:12.360 we have tour this year to our female ancestors um we celebrate in october because winter nights was

01:11:19.720 traditionally held in october um specifically it was usually held around

01:11:28.520 sorry my son is poking me

01:11:30.360 um sorry um was held on or right around the whole moon in the month of october or the equivalent

01:11:44.680 a thousand years ago um one thing that i like to stress really hard is that winter nights is not

01:11:50.600 the celtic salmon they're not related um a lot of people think because we're celebrating our

01:11:56.600 female ancestors that it's uh it's equivalent to the the bales are thinning and the dead

01:12:03.080 are closer to us than ever but if we sure if we have a similar time in the australia calendar i

01:12:10.360 would say it's probably during mulletide um the wild hunt rides so uh they're really not connected

01:12:18.200 of the the only thing that they really have in common is the fact that they both happened in

01:12:22.040 october um that's just something i like to stress because a lot of people conflate the two and

01:12:29.080 they're not the same but uh i'm kind of losing track here what else was i supposed to say

01:12:34.920 no that's all good i was just going to have you talk a little bit about

01:12:39.960 your dc or bloats and how those are kind of kind of your thing that you do and let people know a

01:12:45.720 a little bit more about the DC-er

01:12:49.840 and why we celebrate them this time of year.

01:12:55.820 So a question comes up,

01:12:59.300 I'm gonna go to some of our questions now.

01:13:00.900 As someone who grew up with Halloween

01:13:02.720 and being very nostalgic for it,

01:13:05.660 I'd like to know if there's any traditional Halloween elements

01:13:09.040 in winter nights, such as pumpkins, candy, costumes, et cetera.

01:13:13.420 It seems like it would be a great way to get kids involved.

01:13:16.840 So, there is, and I want to add on to what Githya Katie was saying a second ago.

01:13:28.640 We have a number of different celebrations throughout, I'd say throughout the early winter,

01:13:40.740 October, November, December, that all center on these concepts of the veil being thin and

01:13:50.100 our access to our ancestors being pronounced.

01:13:54.860 I think that the various holidays are very similar and different permutations are a very

01:14:00.980 common theme that way.

01:14:03.740 traditional Halloween stuff

01:14:07.340 is

01:14:07.680 I think you guys

01:14:11.680 may notice

01:14:12.560 at our hafs or in our pictures

01:14:15.540 very often we've got

01:14:17.120 traditional fun

01:14:19.280 Halloween stuff

01:14:20.740 because again it's that spooky time

01:14:23.600 of year where

01:14:24.820 the veil

01:14:27.560 between worlds is thin

01:14:29.000 and we do stuff

01:14:31.400 involving the dead, involving our

01:14:33.500 ancestors and if we can loop that in with halloween i think it's completely appropriate to do so and

01:14:41.820 as the person asking the question uh wolf throne i think said it is a fun way to get the kids

01:14:46.860 involved so sometimes at our events we do have like uh you know costume costume parties costume

01:14:55.340 things this time of year do we have any of that scheduled for this year katie we do anybody who's

01:15:00.940 coming who has small children please make sure you have them bring their costumes we're going

01:15:06.940 to be doing a little like costume parade and we're gonna have candy for them um we are going

01:15:13.980 to opt out of pumpkins this year because it takes a long time it tends to get really messy

01:15:18.700 and we don't have running water so um it's not practical but yes always we love we do um at

01:15:26.780 least when we host when we have hosted maternities in the past we almost always do um costumes and

01:15:33.660 try to find other things to engage the kids because as far as i'm concerned i want them to

01:15:39.980 remember our holidays and i want them to love our holidays so we've got we've got to make that happen

01:15:44.940 so they want to stay off the tree when they get older you know we're still in um and it's

01:15:51.100 I mean, it is what it is, and it's worth being honest about, but we're, you know, over 50

01:15:59.220 years into ousterture in a modern context, and one of the things that we continuously

01:16:07.800 try to do is find more ways to build tradition that's going to stick with the kids throughout

01:16:15.420 their lives.

01:16:16.120 it's part of you know this question being asked and we think about it all all through our calendar

01:16:22.920 there's so many things that we've got fond christmas memories fond easter memories for

01:16:29.460 fun you know halloween or thanksgiving or anything else and very few of those memories have much to

01:16:35.480 do with jesus they often have to do with things that are completely appropriate and part of how

01:16:42.520 white people celebrate spring stuff and winter stuff quite a bit of if not most of those things

01:16:51.240 go back to our ancestral paganism and so keeping those and incorporating those is

01:17:01.880 there's no reason not to do that and it's a fun way to generationally keep the kids involved with

01:17:09.480 with traditions and the things

01:17:11.400 that we also harken back to as being special things

01:17:14.780 for our childhood and how special memory is about.

01:17:21.760 Our next question from Barry,

01:17:27.360 just found out one of my ancestors

01:17:29.220 was a locally famous clown.

01:17:32.520 Do you think a written joke

01:17:34.500 would be an appropriate offering to him specifically?

01:17:39.480 very not knowing your ancestor i couldn't really say i think clowns do a lot of different stuff

01:17:46.160 or if the point of it is you're trying to honor your ancestor

01:17:52.640 um if they're if they were a clown by trade i have to assume that they have a sense of humor

01:17:59.180 and that'd probably be a nice thing for you to do keep that attitude of respect when you're doing it

01:18:05.340 and you know the intent of your offering here and i think that'd probably be a nice thing

01:18:10.060 what do you think cliff i guess they say that uh mimicry or emulation is the sincerest form of

01:18:15.820 flattery so if you're doing it to try to you know follow in his footsteps or to be

01:18:22.140 more more like him then that's a way to honor him um you know i don't i don't know that it

01:18:30.780 you know if if your ancestor were a dancer that doing a dance would necessarily be

01:18:36.060 required is certainly a personal thing if you knew this person in life um then then you know

01:18:42.620 a lot more about what their sensibilities or or tastes might have been but that's really

01:18:50.060 a personal decision you know that's that's your family member and how you approach them should be

01:18:56.620 personal. Absolutely. Next question. I don't have a photo of my ancestor that passed. How

01:19:13.040 else can I honor them for winter nights? Well, so details are everything on that. I don't

01:19:22.200 know what you might have i don't know if this ancestor is recent or you know someone in the

01:19:27.700 way back before you might have anything there's a photo is special because you can see exactly

01:19:34.820 you know what they look like in life and i think that's a really really special way to connect that

01:19:41.120 we're able to do these days but if you don't um do you have anything else that belongs for them

01:19:46.480 And I think finding things that you can use as a focal point for stuff in your altar, for your devotions, for your offerings, for your communication, it helps us to, like I said, to focus.

01:20:04.420 It helps us to direct what we're doing at a certain point.

01:20:09.800 And that makes everything a way that our mind works better.

01:20:16.480 But barring that, if you're looking for some way to honor them on your ancestors' altar, what do you know about them and walk from there?

01:20:29.240 It's frustrating and self-defeating to just focus on the things that you don't have when you still probably have a lot of opportunities of ways to honor them.

01:20:38.780 And the other thing is, even if you had nothing, if you wound up, you know, deserted on a deserted aisle somewhere, they're still your ancestor.

01:20:49.340 They're still connected to you and you're still connected to them.

01:20:53.720 Anything that you are doing, if your intent is right, is a nice way to honor them.

01:21:00.980 um how much you need to fill with your own creativity is dependent upon your circumstance

01:21:08.900 a lot more about your ancestors right now have a specific idea off the top of my head cliff do you

01:21:17.380 have any thoughts i guess when we talk about a photograph of an ancestor um you know that's a

01:21:22.820 a modern creation photographs are relatively recent but really it's an icon um and you know

01:21:32.140 that could be a painting um it could be you know icons could take many forms um idols uh you know

01:21:39.180 a statue or a carving or something like that a relief um and then there's and then there's also

01:21:44.520 relics you know maybe you have some personal effect of theirs um you know um it could be

01:21:51.900 anything i mean you know i have a a brick from the farmhouse that my grandfather was born in it's

01:21:59.100 it's just a brick but it's a particular brick you know um you could you could create some kind of an

01:22:05.420 icon um if you don't have anything like that you know if your if your ancestor was a sailor maybe

01:22:12.620 you make or buy a ship in a bottle and use that to have a visual connection to that ancestor there's

01:22:24.940 a lot of different ways that that could be done um and so i think if you know if we if we consider

01:22:32.380 that a photograph or a lock of hair or you know a bracelet or a locket or uh you know a pistol

01:22:41.820 or a sword or any of these things that we might have that represent our ancestors if we think of

01:22:47.340 them as icons and relics they're reminders of who the person was and you know it could be a song

01:22:55.740 you know it could be a record or something like that um if we think about it from that approach

01:23:02.380 then then really what's what's important about these things is that they remind us of the

01:23:07.340 ancestor which ties back into what matt was saying as far as even if you don't have these things it is

01:23:15.180 your your memory of them speaking to them that's the most important thing so a photograph is is

01:23:23.260 absolutely appropriate to place on an ancestral altar and to utilize it as an icon but the

01:23:28.780 you know remember that the photo is not the ancestor themselves it's just a reminder of them

01:23:37.340 I'm going to chime in real quick. As somebody who doesn't have a whole lot of anything left

01:23:48.640 from recent or distant ancestors, and I'm sorry about my children in the background,

01:23:52.720 they should be going to sleep already, but our routines are from normal the last week.

01:24:01.300 One thing I know is I've asked my mom, for example, for stories, and every once in a

01:24:07.020 when she thinks of a story she'll give me a story of like her dad or one of her uncles or

01:24:12.460 and i try to remember those i try to remember them so i can tell my kids because if i can tell

01:24:17.260 my kids those stories and then that ancestor becomes remembered um but we don't always have

01:24:23.980 the luxury of stories um we don't always have the luxury of items and if you wish to honor your

01:24:30.780 ancestor sometimes just the fact that you want to do so the intent behind it uh can matter a lot i

01:24:38.940 i like the idea of finding an item that reminds you of the ancestor you may not know that ancestor

01:24:44.300 you may not have any stories about them but say it's uh you know your great grandmother who lived

01:24:49.980 during the depression you know she probably would have liked flowers she probably didn't have access

01:24:56.540 to flowers or maybe she would have really liked a pie because i'm pretty sure they didn't bake a

01:25:02.220 lot of pies not the normal kind during the depression so maybe you put a piece of pie on

01:25:08.620 the on the altar for her would you wish to honor her or you put flowers or you find um like a silly

01:25:15.580 little item from a thrift store like a pretty vase or something and you can you can put that

01:25:21.020 vase on your altar and that could become the altar that means to you your grandmother your

01:25:26.220 your great-grandmother, so you can create associations

01:25:29.360 with people, or for people.

01:25:33.220 But the biggest thing to remember is that when you want

01:25:35.600 to honor your ancestors, all you have to do is light a candle

01:25:38.500 and remember them and say their names out loud.

01:25:42.040 Saying their names is the most important thing.

01:25:44.800 Remembering them is the most important thing.

01:25:50.220 The pictures are nice, but unless you say their names,

01:25:55.220 none of it matters.

01:25:56.220 I'll disagree with you a little bit. You don't necessarily have to know their names.

01:26:01.800 Some people are adopted and others, and let's be honest, the vast majority of our ancestors,

01:26:09.920 we don't know their names. We may have the good fortune to be able to document two or

01:26:16.780 three or maybe 10 generations back, but at some point that documentation stops. Even

01:26:25.500 And if you can document back 40 generations of ancestors, you've got this magnificent, you know, genealogy and records of everyone, of your ancestors.

01:26:37.340 At some point, those ancestors fold back into a people, England, Norway or Germany or wherever else.

01:26:46.620 and your story really then turns into the story of you know of that people which maybe is the

01:26:53.640 story of a nation for a time maybe is the story of of the the people of that nation before it formed

01:26:59.840 um and then it goes back even farther farther than that to you know to prehistory where you know

01:27:08.260 we, we have our, our, our myths and our legends, but that, you know, you're, you're basically imagining people, you knew they exist, because you do, they must have been there, but you don't really know anything about them other than, you know, there was some ancestor in the Stone Age, who led a life that was successful enough to produce offspring, and you're the result of that.

01:27:38.260 in a very direct way, even if it's separated by many degrees.

01:27:44.620 And, you know, I think it helps to imagine what the life of, you know, those ancestors might have been.

01:27:54.560 You know, and that could be in any time period.

01:27:57.140 If you don't know anything about your ancestors that were in the 18th century,

01:28:01.140 imagining what their lives might have been like by learning about the history of the culture that you're from,

01:28:07.920 about you know the the experiences that people might have had in that time period are a way to

01:28:15.360 do that um you know learning learning history and learning languages and learning geography and maps

01:28:24.160 and all that stuff is a way to be closer to all of those unnamed ancestors and i don't think it's um

01:28:31.520 you know, silly to look at like a topographical map of Norway as a way to kind of meditate on

01:28:40.400 your Norwegian ancestors, if that's your lineage, or to, you know, imagine what it would have been

01:28:49.140 like to be in the fjords or in the forests or any of those things. Those are ways to pay

01:28:55.420 honor and homage to

01:28:57.860 those unnamed ancestors

01:28:59.880 which are by far

01:29:01.820 the vast majority of ancestors

01:29:03.940 that we have

01:29:04.660 I think that's a really important point

01:29:08.200 you are completely and totally

01:29:14.100 equipped to honor

01:29:15.460 any or all of your ancestors

01:29:17.800 with absolutely nothing

01:29:19.340 beyond yourself

01:29:21.860 and your DNA

01:29:22.600 but every little piece that you have from there helps connect you that much closer helps

01:29:30.580 i don't know enhance the intent behind what you're doing and show effort in building that

01:29:40.580 connection um the gentleman who asked the question about the clown and the joke that's all you have

01:29:46.600 to go on i say i don't know anything about this dude but he was a clown maybe he'd think this is

01:29:51.560 funny. That's something. And something is generally better than nothing. And the more

01:29:57.160 somethings that you have, the easier that connection is often the way most of us are

01:30:04.680 wired to make. Katie mentioned about names, though. And I think names are really important.

01:30:13.020 It's one thing. So I think most of you might be familiar, because we've talked about it

01:30:19.660 the program a number of times but sambal is a really special ritual and it involves toasts and

01:30:30.460 during the ancestors round this isn't you know wrong or heretical but it's subpar is from people

01:30:40.860 i want to raise this horn to my grandma hello grandma it's better if you can

01:30:47.420 to tell us your grandma's name

01:30:50.160 and have us

01:30:52.300 be able to hail her properly

01:30:54.300 with it because again

01:30:55.720 we're going from we know zero things

01:30:58.420 to we know one thing, this is your grandma

01:31:00.400 oh and now we know her name

01:31:02.440 that's something else

01:31:03.760 if you could, we believe that

01:31:06.360 our ancestors look on from beyond the veil

01:31:08.720 and are aware of

01:31:10.420 these things when we honor them

01:31:12.080 someone who's been passed away

01:31:16.440 for a while i would imagine it would be a very special thing for them to hear you know a room

01:31:23.000 full of 100 people hail them and give them a toast speaking their name again in midgard so

01:31:30.760 names are important if you have them stories are amazing if you have them um

01:31:38.280 finding out you know if you do any of your genealogy online or you look into that

01:31:43.160 finding names and dates and places is really cool but if you you know every now and again

01:31:47.960 you'll stumble upon one that somebody has captured a story of and even if it's just a few lines or

01:31:54.600 a paragraph it's really special to have those and i i treasure each time i've i've come across

01:32:00.440 something like that in my own search for my ancestors i think it's the specificity being

01:32:07.240 as specific as you can is important if you if you know their name you should use it if you don't

01:32:14.920 then you should learn as much about what they might have been like if you have a photo

01:32:19.640 you should use it if you have a photo and they're laid then those both should be put in the place

01:32:26.040 of honor um it's doing as much as you can with what you have and having that specific intent of

01:32:34.120 being um you know as as forthright as you can it's it's a lot like when you know we we we

01:32:42.360 recommend and encourage people to use the word asa true when they describe the religion don't

01:32:47.560 say that you're a pagan don't say that you're a tribalist vocal heathen whatever um say that

01:32:55.560 you're also true because that describes exactly what you mean and then you might have to explain

01:32:59.960 it to more people but that gives you the advantage of giving them what you mean by that and it's the

01:33:07.400 same thing if you know you you raise the horn to grandma myrtle who was a seamstress that means a

01:33:13.400 lot more to people than just grandma absolutely and in any of any attempt to honor your ancestor

01:33:22.520 and honor our gods don't let perfect be the enemy of good so many people wait until there's the

01:33:31.180 perfect time and they know man only i know a little bit more i'm almost there but just

01:33:35.300 give me another year worth of research and then i'll don't waste the time time's precious

01:33:40.840 do what you can with what you have and improve on it over time

01:33:44.120 our next question appreciate you we can always count on you to ask this

01:33:51.260 from Robert E. Boy Lee. Good evening. How is y'all's evening going?

01:33:57.800 My evening is going really well. A little bit hectic, as you can tell, but I'm sitting

01:34:03.020 down, having a beer, hanging out with my friends and talking to you guys on here, so can't

01:34:07.880 complain. I'm doing all right. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I had a shower for

01:34:12.560 the first time in four days, so I feel wonderful. Katie probably appreciates that, too, both

01:34:19.720 my shower and hers um no it's it's it's really nice we've been here in tennessee since um

01:34:27.080 since sunday morning we drove all night from about 8 p.m saturday to to get here at about 7 a.m sunday

01:34:34.680 morning uh it was perfect we literally were getting to sigurheim right at the crack of dawn

01:34:40.360 my son owen and i like to talk about the crack of dawn um it's a big thing when you're five phrases

01:34:46.120 like that um gives a little bit more power you know um and uh we we've been you know working

01:34:56.120 at sigurheim to make things good to make them better than we found them and to leave them in

01:35:00.360 a place where people can continue to build from what we have um very much appreciating the couch

01:35:06.520 right now um we're going to be here with matt for tonight but then we'll be back at sigurheim

01:35:12.040 uh camping with everybody for the rest of the weekend um and uh yeah i'm i'm i'm in a really

01:35:19.480 great mood uh i'm having a well it it for for someone when you're organizing an event there's

01:35:26.920 this crescendo of stress as the event gets closer and closer because for months you know a few

01:35:34.040 people register and then you're not sure what things are going to look like and then you get

01:35:38.280 into this crunch time where there's a flood of people who um you know follow through and you

01:35:44.280 know assuring you that they're going to be there but then they make it real by registering so you

01:35:47.960 know you can actually include them in the head count for buying food um and for other planning

01:35:53.320 and um i'm at the break point now where the die is cast um as as julia caesar said and it is going

01:36:03.000 to be what it's going to be and then that is going to be great um there's going to be over 20 kids

01:36:07.960 here i'm really excited for the weekend so uh for me all the stressful parts of this event are

01:36:13.640 already over it's great i almost interrupted you to say the dice cast that's awesome katie how are

01:36:22.440 you doing you're doing good uh my husband likes to talk about this being the end of the crunch time

01:36:27.240 for me this is the beginning of crunch time because i'm the chariot of all the food and uh

01:36:32.120 i keep running away to the stove because i'm working on getting some prep work done so we

01:36:36.200 we have less to do on-site at a sober home.

01:36:39.720 Otherwise, I had a shower, and I feel remarkable.

01:36:42.880 It's amazing how much of a difference

01:36:44.580 just some warm water can make, and a lot of soap.

01:36:48.000 I appreciate that these people clean themselves

01:36:50.140 before I arrive, so I just got a squeaky clean version.

01:36:55.140 This is a two-part question.

01:36:57.520 I'm told the second part is very important.

01:37:00.500 It may or may not be.

01:37:02.260 which uh insect or arachnid would you be most comfortable waking up to crawling on your face

01:37:11.460 a ladybug yeah i think that one's a good one it's a good choice it's harmless you know what

01:37:16.820 i'll stick with that ladybug would be nice they're not you don't feel them they're not goopy it's

01:37:24.740 flick them off a butterfly a little butterfly the big butterflies would be terrible

01:37:32.260 I'm not scared of bugs biting me.

01:37:34.080 They're just gross and icky.

01:37:36.140 Pill bugs are cool.

01:37:37.220 I like them, the roly-pollies, some people call them.

01:37:39.860 I wouldn't like it if it was crawling in my face.

01:37:41.760 I would poke it and make it turn into a little ball.

01:37:48.480 I think that I have a decent amount of bravery in a lot of scenarios.

01:37:52.700 Being around cockroaches is not one of those scenarios.

01:37:56.100 I will squeal like a girl and stand on the couch and freak out.

01:38:00.620 I don't like scurrying.

01:38:02.260 Random side note, and I think this is remotely relevant.

01:38:06.420 I worked in bar industry for an amount of time

01:38:09.080 and there was a cocktail waitress,

01:38:10.980 and she, I assume, had a meth habit amongst other things.

01:38:15.720 And so she was real twitchy and she scurried

01:38:18.240 when she moved places, and it made me very uncomfortable.

01:38:22.580 So I'm anti-scurrying.

01:38:25.040 Katie, if you had to wake up to some kind of bug

01:38:27.500 or spider crawling on your face,

01:38:29.100 what would you prefer it be?

01:38:30.380 I would prefer to be none.

01:38:31.920 No.

01:38:33.100 It's not one of the options, though.

01:38:35.880 I mean, I really couldn't answer that since I wouldn't like them to be any.

01:38:40.760 I don't have a thing as a preference.

01:38:42.340 So the Giphy is refusing to answer your question, Robert.

01:38:45.280 I don't like bugs crawling on my face.

01:38:47.840 I don't either.

01:38:49.800 You just don't want to admit that Ladybug is the perfect answer.

01:38:52.500 It is actually a really good answer.

01:38:54.180 Nobody's trying to believe that.

01:38:54.980 If one were going to be, I would like to have the choice of which it could be.

01:38:58.320 there's there's options i would not prefer um

01:39:02.160 that's a great question by the way that's a fun question oh oh okay so we got kind of a

01:39:14.560 duplicate on the question but kind of not really uh an addition to last what brand of power tools

01:39:20.960 do you use i'm a guy myself he has an h-back tech i don't use power tools because i am not handy

01:39:32.640 what is your preferred power tool line cliff um i have some husbarna i have some devolt but i don't

01:39:40.640 i'm not a i'm not a specific loyalist on one price points are important to me a lot of times

01:39:46.480 because i don't use them professionally i use them as you know a homeowner and an automobile

01:39:50.880 owner so a lot of times it's about the price and if it's something i can use in a practical way

01:39:58.000 as opposed to outsourcing it to a professional katie do you have a power tool preference

01:40:04.400 I have a lot more hand tools than power tools honestly so random point that I guess is related

01:40:31.760 I've got a Husqvarna .30-06, apparently in the 1970s they made rifles as well, that

01:40:39.940 was my grandfather's, it's the gun I shot my moose with.

01:40:48.620 Next up, what would be a good offering to give a chemist's ancestor?

01:40:53.520 My dad says Dr. Pepper, but I'm not sure upon that one.

01:41:00.520 So, and you may be getting conflicting advice tonight

01:41:07.280 because it really depends on what angle you want to go at making out for your ancestors.

01:41:16.940 If, I guess the point that I want to make is our ancestors are real people.

01:41:26.520 And just as I've spoken about the gods being multifaceted and complete personalities,

01:41:31.320 it's not just one thing, not just war or magic or the water.

01:41:38.800 With your ancestors, that's true as well.

01:41:43.740 Just because the guy happened to clock in and clock out as a chemist

01:41:48.300 doesn't mean that when he went home he wouldn't prefer to have a sip of whiskey

01:41:55.060 or a beer or something else i don't think you know it had to be chemist themed per se

01:42:01.220 that said it depends on what angle you're going at and what you know about the ancestors they

01:42:05.300 have a good sense of humor they have a sweet tooth but they like dr pepper dr pepper's delicious by

01:42:10.980 the way um yeah i don't there's not a terribly wrong answer the answer is the intention you

01:42:21.300 You know, why are you doing it?

01:42:23.820 And if you're like, hey, great-grandpa, I heard you like chemistry.

01:42:27.020 I like Dr. Pepper.

01:42:28.320 Here's to you.

01:42:29.340 Cool.

01:42:29.860 Then that's nice.

01:42:32.460 If you're doing it to be silly, then it's not nice.

01:42:36.460 And especially some of the – and don't get me wrong.

01:42:40.460 I'm that guy.

01:42:41.120 Because I know some of my ancestors I'd make an offering to, you know,

01:42:45.700 I would make an offering of some fast food or other soda or this and that

01:42:50.800 i know that's what they like um the intention really makes everything and

01:42:57.600 the offerings get you know more and more i guess could be seen as cheesy by the outside observer

01:43:05.600 when you deal with kids but sometimes the most touching kids come up with some of the things

01:43:10.640 that you would think are kind of like not a super high shelf offering but that mean a lot because

01:43:16.560 of the thought that a kid puts into it and i've seen that be be very touching with something like

01:43:22.080 that so it really depends what do you think is a good offering for a chemist ancestor first on the

01:43:28.640 kids thing i agree fully whenever one of my kids decides that they want to make an offering of

01:43:33.600 like a piece of candy from their own halloween or like easter candy stash that's a big deal

01:43:42.080 for them they're you know that's a valuable asset of which they have very few so that means something

01:43:49.200 as far as dr pepper being an offering for a chemist i guess it would depend on why

01:43:54.080 your father recommended it if it's because this chemist was someone they knew in life and they

01:43:58.800 know for a fact that they like dr pepper and it just happens to be they're a chemist and that dr

01:44:04.400 pepper has the name doctor in it um then it's you know seems like a perfectly suitable um offering

01:44:10.880 If it's sort of a pun, because doctor and chemist, ha-ha, then it might be disrespectful.

01:44:18.420 But again, like Matt said, I don't know that somebody's trait necessarily defines them.

01:44:22.200 Maybe this chemist's true passion was like collecting stamps or something.

01:44:25.980 So it depends on what you know about them.

01:44:29.520 And if you really don't know anything about them, then give them something that you like and just hope for the best.

01:44:35.100 I mean that, too.

01:44:36.400 You know, assume that their taste is as good as yours.

01:44:38.460 and i'm not talking down to anybody my first offering to freya was oh freya likes gold so i

01:44:47.540 will get a shot of goldschlager and she has cats so here's some fancy face

01:44:52.760 like literally as a grown man it was like 20 years old so but i meant it well um it was done

01:45:04.740 in seriousness, and I feel

01:45:07.000 like it was well received. I hope so.

01:45:10.400 It can be

01:45:14.740 something simple or something cheesy or something

01:45:16.900 whatever. The point is the intention.

01:45:20.620 You've got to, you know,

01:45:22.600 again, they're your ancestor. Maybe you know them. Maybe they were

01:45:24.860 kind of a jerk, and they wouldn't have a good sense of humor

01:45:27.020 about it. I don't know.

01:45:30.240 That's a little bit

01:45:30.980 different. When you're dealing with the gods,

01:45:33.480 you have to assume that they're the very best of people at the bare minimum and go from there

01:45:39.400 your ancestors not so much you have a lot more empathy and you're in a lot more position to

01:45:45.080 understand what your ancestor might like or might not what their personality might you know might

01:45:51.240 be what their flaws might be something that you know they'd slap you upside the head about if you

01:45:55.720 said in the same room with them you know those little intricacies or maybe you know or you have

01:46:01.800 the opportunity to some of us with some of our ancestors so again the details are what matters

01:46:07.400 on that yeah and like matt said pay attention to the results um you know if you're starting this

01:46:13.240 as a gift cycle with this ancestor you know it's hopefully not a one-shot deal um watch for the

01:46:20.120 signals of whether they appreciated the gift or not and try to improve on it you know um just for

01:46:27.000 kind of a silly comparison you know if you're if you're courting a woman or taking a woman out and

01:46:33.000 you know you discover that she prefers chocolate over flowers then get her the chocolates

01:46:40.680 and you know um as a default cliff's suggestion that you you know offer something you like

01:46:49.560 if you don't know anything else to do i think that's a great place to start i've always said

01:46:53.800 any of our worship should start from empathy and that may be an overextension of the word but you're

01:47:03.640 being able to relate to well if somebody was making me an offering what would i want you

01:47:08.600 know i think that's a great place to start with any relationship you have with you know any man

01:47:14.680 any animal certainly any god is to start for what would you like and work from there i think that's

01:47:22.360 how we relate to other beings as humans i just think that's kind of what that's built upon at

01:47:28.680 the most core level um our next is kind of a comment um from phil uh frill vanier

01:47:37.720 missed you and the fam this weekend at odenshoff matt hope you're feeling better feeling a lot

01:47:42.680 better still coughing and dealing with a little bit of congestion but i'm feeling a lot better

01:47:49.560 i was really disappointed i was very excited to go to the hoff i kept trying to tell myself

01:47:54.520 on friday that it was just allergies or just something because i had a cough but i didn't

01:47:59.080 really feel bad but it hit me all really hard on saturday so we were all disappointed we couldn't

01:48:05.720 come out and see you guys we'll see you guys again hopefully at the feats of the iron yard

01:48:12.200 Allie asks, what are you snacking on this evening?

01:48:18.140 I'll share your gift.

01:48:19.460 I'm snacking on some Mike and Ike's Mega Mix, and they were delicious.

01:48:24.700 They hit the spot.

01:48:25.960 I had not eaten.

01:48:27.060 I got to the airport early in Reno this morning, and I grabbed three McGriddles,

01:48:33.380 and I ate those, and then I didn't eat again until, I don't know,

01:48:37.720 seven or so when I started scarfing down those Mike and Ike's.

01:48:41.360 so they hit spot i didn't know the girls were still a thing i loved them when they first came

01:48:46.720 out that's a genius idea uh-huh which us true holiday does the afa bloke to the male ancestors

01:48:58.640 katie you want to take this one

01:49:00.160 interestingly enough winter nights is also traditionally used to celebrate the alfar

01:49:11.680 we have traditionally um in the a of a focused on the dsir but i've been working in the last

01:49:18.460 couple of years on bringing the alfar into it more that's one of the reasons why i asked

01:49:22.840 witt and daniel uh young to actually have a alfar bloat this year at our winter nights

01:49:29.380 it's ever hard because uh i think if we're going to honor the dc we should make sure to honor our

01:49:36.340 alfar too they're they're important our male ancestors are a half of the equation the dc are

01:49:43.060 the other half so it only makes sense that we honor them both um and again if you're going

01:49:47.620 historically there is proof of winter nights being used to honor odin prayer the dc and the alfar

01:49:56.580 those are the four that are most commonly associated with winter nights throughout history so

01:50:01.620 um it kind of works out that way but you should never really need a holiday to honor

01:50:06.580 your alpha or your dc we should honor them all the time every day

01:50:13.220 yep but the thing about the fall and on through yule of the veils being thin and the

01:50:21.860 of distance between us and them being the closest, it's always a good season to do that

01:50:29.680 for metaphysical, spiritual reasons, but also just for very practical, common sense.

01:50:39.100 This is the time of year that you're coming together in your homes with your family.

01:50:43.520 It's the holiday season, as it were.

01:50:46.220 it's a time where celebration

01:50:50.640 with friends and family indoors

01:50:52.340 is much more

01:50:54.820 of a part of our everyday life

01:50:56.320 than at different times in the year

01:50:57.940 and

01:50:58.960 it's important to try to include

01:51:02.800 loved ones that have

01:51:04.660 passed when you do that

01:51:05.980 it shouldn't just

01:51:08.740 be a special

01:51:11.020 ritual time

01:51:12.800 it should be that

01:51:14.300 and that's important

01:51:15.400 But it's also important to tell their stories and to talk about them and to welcome them into your home and your family and your life throughout the things that you do.

01:51:28.680 And that's how their stories become internalized in your families.

01:51:35.580 So it's important to keep them in mind that way.

01:51:37.940 Out of curiosity, what is the AFA's opinion on perennialism across Indo-European faiths

01:51:51.940 and broader world faiths?

01:51:56.500 It's weird that you bring that up.

01:51:58.280 That's something that Cliff and I were talking about on our drive from the airport here,

01:52:06.800 one degree or another. So it's a big topic and it's nuanced. Certain things are perennial

01:52:25.860 because they just happen to be things that are in common with human existence. So I don't

01:52:36.080 necessarily find that religiously significant but there's going to be overlaps with other groups of

01:52:42.560 people because there's a lot of things that are just shared experience um as being

01:52:52.560 various forms of earth fauna like we deal with certain things that are that are similar all around

01:52:59.280 religiously

01:53:01.720 and very significantly to

01:53:03.120 what we do

01:53:04.560 Indo-European

01:53:09.940 perennialism

01:53:11.700 is based on

01:53:13.560 a

01:53:14.140 a self-evident truth

01:53:21.000 that

01:53:22.160 we believe our gods

01:53:24.980 shaped us and our

01:53:27.000 existence

01:53:27.760 they have to be at least as old as our people, our race, our identifiable distinction as us.

01:53:40.500 That being said, those gods predate the lore that we have about them, certainly in its current form.

01:53:59.600 Those gods predate the names that our ancestors, our various ancestors, have assigned to them.

01:54:07.360 But those gods are.

01:54:11.340 Everything else flows from there, but they're not concepts or ideas.

01:54:17.540 They're gods.

01:54:19.300 And we have sought since the dawn of our race, and we still try to perfect to this day our ability to know them best,

01:54:31.260 to worship them best, and to forge the best relationship that we can with them.

01:54:39.460 That relationship has looked very different to different branches of our folk throughout time and throughout geography.

01:54:50.660 in the afa we worship our gods under the names given to them and passed down to us through

01:55:02.920 the norse expression during the age of of the eddas and the age of the sagas

01:55:09.540 that is the truth that has come to us most directly and very specifically

01:55:19.180 That is, under those terms, was Alcetru reinstated in the world around us.

01:55:32.180 There was a moment in 1968 where our founder, Stephen McNallan, reached out to the Allfather

01:55:45.180 and the Allfather reached back.

01:55:48.180 That moment is what this that we all do is predicated upon and built upon.

01:55:54.020 That is the form that our gods made themselves known to our founder, Stephen Van Allen.

01:56:02.100 That is what has propelled us to where we are,

01:56:05.160 and that is the nomenclature that we use going forward to evolve those relationships with our gods.

01:56:12.060 and that may that may have sounded convoluted and i hope that made sense to everybody

01:56:19.100 um the cleanest way to put that still working on but hopefully that made

01:56:25.320 some sense cliff do you have anything to add to that i think i think it's important to remember

01:56:32.060 when we talk about our gods that our understanding is always imperfect we we can't really fully

01:56:38.480 comprehend them. You know, we know a lot about Thor and other names that he may have been called by

01:56:47.480 different, you know, different members of our people and different places in time and different

01:56:55.260 places in space. But no matter what, we probably know less about Thor. We definitely know less

01:57:05.040 about Thor than there is to know. And we always will. I think that we, you know, it can only

01:57:11.860 really scratch the surface, even if we were to somehow successfully compile all of the knowledge

01:57:17.680 of all the Aryan peoples about the deity that we call Thor, just as an example, that that would

01:57:26.200 still be a fraction of everything that Thor is and everything that Thor is capable of and

01:57:34.480 everything about like

01:57:36.520 it's difficult to know our gods

01:57:42.780 as people we know that they are

01:57:44.580 people in the sense that they are

01:57:46.600 persons thank you Matt

01:57:47.580 but there's always going to be things

01:57:52.680 that we can't know things that are

01:57:54.640 godly knowledge

01:57:56.820 like what's it like at home

01:57:58.860 for Thor and Sid like we're not going to really

01:58:00.740 ever get insight into that

01:58:02.820 And I don't think it's appropriate that we do.

01:58:05.300 And it's just, I think, the reason I'm talking about this is I think it's important for us to come from a humble and pious place.

01:58:10.680 When we talk about our understanding of the gods, it's always going to be imperfect.

01:58:15.560 It's always going to be limited.

01:58:17.840 And that's true for us as individuals, and it's true for us as a people.

01:58:22.100 Like, the full corpus of everything that any of our people has ever known about our gods is imperfect and small compared to what they actually are.

01:58:35.080 It's also really important to build our appreciation of lore and custom with that in mind.

01:58:56.660 And this is where, especially people who've been brought up in Christianity or Judaism or Islam, they're functioning under a very different paradigm than they are.

01:59:15.040 All of those faiths have a belief that there is a divinely inspired text that tell them what to do, that are written by Jehovah or Allah or whatever the case may be.

01:59:33.420 That's not the case with our Lord, and that's not the case with the Lord of most religion in the history of the world, but it is very prevalent in the world that most of us were raised in.

01:59:45.040 our lore is a collection of understanding presented to us through generations by elders

01:59:56.740 that have tried to reach out and understand our gods to the best of their ability, written

02:00:01.880 down in language that communicates the best they can the truths that they discovered in

02:00:06.660 doing that um cliff and i were talking about this in the cartoon there was no

02:00:15.460 thor didn't come down and talk to a viking guy and say hi my name's thor

02:00:20.420 the name evolved is the name that we assigned to that god as that god made himself manifest

02:00:27.620 in our life and in our existence um there's no perfect perfect nomenclature for our gods those

02:00:38.980 were names that we assigned to them to reflect their personality and their magnificence

02:00:46.260 looking at it that way i think is a more healthy way to approach it than than otherwise but our

02:01:03.780 truth exists no matter to what degree we're aware of it or not our

02:01:10.660 Our religious practice, our science, our attempts to understand the world and our gods are our

02:01:20.980 attempts to reach up to get closer to a better understanding of them.

02:01:26.980 We're not assigning them things.

02:01:30.940 The directionality of that stream is very important because they exist whether we know

02:01:36.560 about them or not and the greater truths of our existence exist whether we're aware of

02:01:43.120 them or not or you know regardless of how aware of them we aren't all right matt thoughts

02:01:59.320 on push-pull legs. I've heard mixed opinions about it, but I like it. So if you're talking

02:02:09.120 about separating, working out your push muscles, I guess your calves and quadriceps on one

02:02:20.200 day and your glutes and your hamstrings on a separate day, it depends. I think that's

02:02:26.440 probably really good for women i think women can tend to be successful working their legs more

02:02:34.800 often than guys do i usually in my split have all legs on on one day sometimes i'll throw in an

02:02:43.640 extra calf uh calf day throughout the week but it just so happens the routine that i started two days

02:02:49.700 ago is one where there's one day for quads and the other, well, yeah, there's a day for quads by

02:02:56.420 themselves and there's another, and quads and calves, and there's another day that's basically

02:03:01.920 my entire, you know, all of the pole muscles, so my hamstrings, glutes, bicep, and back on a different

02:03:08.300 day. So, I don't know, I like changing it up every so often, you know, I don't, I don't, I always

02:03:15.220 stick to something for at least you know eight cycles of those days you know depending on if

02:03:21.220 it's a four day five day split whatever but do eight rounds of it before i change something else

02:03:26.340 but i think changing stuff up keeps your muscles guessing and i think it also

02:03:31.620 makes makes it more fun and certainly keeps me more mentally engaged

02:03:35.700 so if you have any thoughts on leg splits not particularly other than that uh i have not had

02:03:46.260 a proper exercise routine for users and should get back to such a thing can't say i never did

02:03:52.420 but it's been a while fair enough i do remember um when i was doing a lot more running though the

02:03:59.300 incrementals are very important so mixing it up and keeping your body guessing of course is

02:04:04.100 you know it it has to do unexpected things in order to grow you know i think that

02:04:12.260 similarly i've always my default is always to train you know chest shoulders and triceps on

02:04:21.080 one day and back and bys on a different day but i think it was useful and i'd like to you know

02:04:28.440 Alternate and sometimes I'll switch up the routine and then do, you know, chest and biceps or I'll do triceps and back or whatever to mix stuff up.

02:04:37.760 I don't think there's a wrong answer to that within reason, but I do think that continually mixing it up is the right answer.

02:04:48.740 Matt and Cliff, do you know any languages besides English?

02:05:01.820 If not, what languages would you consider learning?

02:05:05.340 Cliff, do you know any languages besides English?

02:05:09.380 Not well.

02:05:10.380 I have very rusty Latin from a couple of years of classics that I took in high school.

02:05:18.260 quarter of which which would be one-eighth of the two years I took was Greek so that was all about

02:05:24.980 just basically learning to draw the ancient Greek letters which are a little different than the

02:05:29.620 modern ones but I can sometimes read things on like church walls and monuments. An Old Norse is

02:05:38.420 one that I would like to learn. I'm a little bit behind some of our other Gothar in learning that

02:05:43.940 which is something we're working on but um something i have been interested in a long time

02:05:50.260 and um having taken latin um i can usually see german versus latin roots in english and in other

02:06:00.340 languages like if i see dutch or danish or something like that i can usually pick out the

02:06:06.980 the common Germanic roots and get a very, very basic sense of, like, something.

02:06:13.440 Like, oh, it's talking about bread.

02:06:15.160 I don't know what about bread, but there's bread there or something like that.

02:06:18.700 And then sort of the converse with Latin-based languages, like French or Italian or whatnot.

02:06:25.260 But nope, can't speak it.

02:06:28.700 It's been a long time since they made me read Gallic Wars in high school.

02:06:33.540 So it was awesome, by the way.

02:06:35.280 but uh yeah no not really okay do you speak any other languages i barely speak english fair enough

02:06:46.240 um so like cliff um vocabulary roots etymology is important to me with a lot of stuff i've

02:06:59.860 You know, I've done some Duolingo, their little Latin course that they had.

02:07:06.780 I like to look into etymology, so I think that helps a lot of things and helps me piece

02:07:14.220 out those basic vocabulary things like Cliff talked about.

02:07:18.360 I've learned a little bit of Spanish here and there because it's so common.

02:07:27.620 Um, I was going there for a while, going pretty hard on Duolingo on German, and it was cool.

02:07:37.700 And I talked to some German speakers, and I could converse like a German kindergartner

02:07:46.700 or first grader, perhaps.

02:07:48.700 Like, I could get some really basic stuff figured out.

02:07:51.520 but

02:07:56.840 yeah that was fun

02:08:00.300 so a little

02:08:01.680 I can speak like a small child

02:08:04.380 in German

02:08:05.240 I think that's the closest that I've come

02:08:07.600 but I think it's really interesting

02:08:08.960 as Cliff mentioned

02:08:12.180 our Gothar are studying

02:08:14.640 Old Norse

02:08:16.080 not necessarily to be fluent speakers

02:08:18.560 but because the

02:08:20.000 the etymology is really important and the vocabulary is important understanding

02:08:24.240 it helps a lot to add a great amount of depth to our world so it's the best that i've got

02:08:44.800 we're getting a lot of random questions tonight um

02:08:50.000 While we're giving simple

02:08:53.580 fun questions, what's your favorite

02:08:55.680 color? Katie, what's your favorite

02:08:57.740 color? Green.

02:08:59.420 Cliff, what's your favorite color? Green and blue

02:09:01.420 because I'm complicated.

02:09:10.360 You know, I don't know

02:09:11.520 as a kid, red, the older I

02:09:13.580 get, like a

02:09:14.340 more, like a deeper blood red

02:09:17.720 or like a more burgundy kind of

02:09:19.480 reddish colors tends to be my favorite what would you do if you had a time

02:09:32.120 machine that could take you any win but only for 24 hours no questions okay

02:09:43.640 Katie I don't know that's a tough one I don't know if I could choose just one

02:09:50.960 thing that ended up being you know we gotta be there for 24 hours but there's

02:09:59.020 so many places I want to go I don't know if I could choose this one I'll have to think about that one for a minute

02:10:05.260 All right, Cliff, assuming this time machine has some kind of safety mechanism where it's

02:10:17.200 going to insulate me from the surroundings of where I go to, I want to go and see the

02:10:24.200 fire nice mix it you know you got I'm so I'm hoping that the time machine could

02:10:36.140 take me to some place as well because I think you know sitting here and there

02:10:45.380 would not be a lot to do here in the central Tennessee if I went back to some

02:10:50.060 the time frames that I would like to go back to.

02:10:59.040 Man, I don't know.

02:11:00.140 See, you guys mess up when you ask

02:11:02.040 these very broad questions.

02:11:03.800 I go over in my head and I start

02:11:05.380 intricately debating what's the

02:11:07.740 right answer on some of these things.

02:11:20.060 I mean, I don't know as most of us who would be interested in this podcast,

02:11:27.100 most people in the AFA and certainly most of our go-thar, I love history.

02:11:32.780 There's so many different times and places that it would be awesome to go.

02:11:38.940 And I think the spirit of the question is something like that,

02:11:41.400 but I'm sitting here with the practicality of, yeah, but would they speak the same language?

02:11:45.480 I couldn't remember what they're saying if I don't speak that dialect.

02:11:48.300 Man, it'd be cool to be here, but, you know, I look out of place, and they might kill me.

02:11:55.180 I don't...

02:11:56.180 Okay, so let's assume it can't take me anyplace else, and I have to be here in central Tennessee

02:12:11.600 where I'm sitting, and ta-da, it takes me back.

02:12:15.240 I would like to go

02:12:18.800 to the very early

02:12:22.880 days of

02:12:24.820 the Civil War.

02:12:28.420 Pretty early, because this part of Tennessee

02:12:30.720 got overrun by Yankees pretty quick.

02:12:33.580 But I think it would be

02:12:35.140 really interesting. I think that people

02:12:37.040 are close enough

02:12:38.480 to us where conversation would

02:12:40.920 not be a problem.

02:12:45.240 And it would be a time where behavioral expectations for people was so much higher, where the average person that I would meet would be so much better-mannered.

02:13:05.480 And it's just kind of a special time in our history where it's not so remote to be foreign, but it's so many beautiful things that have retreated from common practice amongst our folk.

02:13:29.800 We were still very much expected at that time and celebrated, and I think that the dignity

02:13:39.480 of our people during that time period was really remarkable, and I think that would

02:13:45.100 be reasonable, practical, not add on any more to your scenario than is implied in it, and

02:13:54.960 think it'd be kind of nice um yeah so assuming that we could travel to as well as when i would

02:14:06.640 want to visit some of my distant irish ancestors because i don't know very much about them if we

02:14:13.520 have to stay where we are um i prefer the french indian war slash early stage revolutionary wars

02:14:21.360 period of time uh but i don't really want to meet the people i'd really really like to just see the

02:14:27.200 face of this place before human hands changed everything like imagine what niagara falls looked

02:14:37.280 like before they pardon my language i'm sorry before they like chopped everything down and

02:14:46.000 built a whole city right along the edge of it you know what i mean i think that'd be amazing

02:14:51.360 and if it can't be an air falls because that's close to where I live when I'm

02:14:56.580 not in Tennessee any other just to see what it would look like without all the

02:15:00.540 roads and the buildings and the people involved I'd be okay with that and also

02:15:08.640 less chances of being you know murdered by people except for Indians they

02:15:13.280 probably murder me all right there you have it

02:15:22.720 we have uh we have some more asked related questions coming up

02:15:26.400 for those of you that that may not be aware but this is this is a night for

02:15:30.160 some of the more uh random questions if you can hang out and drink a beer

02:15:35.200 with one celebrity dead or alive who would it be

02:15:40.000 there are plenty that would be quite entertaining but I think just they want

02:15:57.720 to go with Mel Gibson it's gotta be more than one beer though I've got a

02:16:03.440 talking you know what about you katie i don't know what kind of a celebrity does it have to be

02:16:24.320 does it have to be like a like a hollywood celebrity or can it be like a historical

02:16:29.680 celebrity because that changes the whole well i think that they would have said historical person

02:16:34.720 as opposed to celebrity that's what was going on in my head so i was thinking along those lines

02:16:39.680 so let's keep it pop culture

02:16:43.840 but it can be old-time

02:16:49.120 robin williams

02:16:49.920 See, now you got me overthinking again.

02:16:58.920 Are you going to impose additional restrictions on yourself like you do with the time sheet?

02:17:19.900 No, I mean, I used to be a historical figure. It has to be somebody that, you know, the use of the term celebrity, I think, is significant.

02:17:26.540 See, that's why we get a lot of dead airs, you make me think too hard on some of these

02:17:53.060 questions.

02:17:54.060 It's not that hard, just pick something fun.

02:17:57.340 It's hard, I could pull something random.

02:17:59.620 Honestly,

02:18:01.140 I genuinely think it'd be fun

02:18:03.820 to have a beer with John Wayne.

02:18:06.740 I think that'd be interesting.

02:18:09.560 I think that we could agree

02:18:11.800 on enough stuff that it wouldn't be odd.

02:18:15.420 I think he probably has a lot

02:18:17.780 of really interesting stories

02:18:19.440 being involved

02:18:21.940 in movies for

02:18:23.160 over 40 years, so

02:18:27.340 I'm going to go with that.

02:18:38.540 Alright.

02:18:40.400 Is there a horror movie or some other Halloween-related film

02:18:44.460 you guys like to watch around Halloween? Katie?

02:18:49.000 I'm a girl. Of course there's a Halloween movie or something

02:18:52.600 around so i'm a big fan of hocus pocus from when i was little that's a good movie practical magic

02:19:04.520 but that's kind of an always movie um

02:19:09.480 i'm just generally a really big horror movie fan in general so i'm watching them pretty much all

02:19:16.680 the time not just at halloween so it'd be hard to choose like a specific horror movie

02:19:23.960 but yeah probably hocus pocus and practical magic right to this

02:19:29.560 about you clip um i'm a i'm a child of the 80s so i like the freddy krueger movies

02:19:38.520 i like hellraiser movies critters was awesome um and then as far as movies that are a little bit

02:19:45.480 older than that um like hitchcock movies are always great and just for the comic value kingdom

02:19:53.960 of the spiders starring william shatner is one of the best movies ever sounds amazing um

02:20:04.920 so no because i don't like watching things more than once i'm not that guy there's lots of people

02:20:11.720 that you know like the question assumes lots of people have like uh every time around this time

02:20:17.640 of year i like to watch this i don't once i've seen a movie i like to watch something new and

02:20:21.320 different um so i don't really have a go-to i don't really i like i like movies that are scary

02:20:30.520 but i don't like movies that are just gory to see how gory they could be and that's a lot of horror

02:20:38.440 movies so I don't mind this they're under the horror category and Amazon Prime says that they're

02:20:45.920 horror movies and it also says they're movies I would like to watch and it is incorrect so

02:20:51.420 I agree I think that I'm I'm I want my horror movies to be a little bit higher brow than than

02:21:02.820 that like kingdom fighters i perhaps i i've yet to enjoy that particular offering i'm going to pop

02:21:12.100 in and i just want to say that gore movies are not horror movies horror movies have to be scary

02:21:17.780 because they make you sit and wait and wonder it's like the psychological

02:21:23.780 the psychological aspect of the horror movie is what makes it scary

02:21:27.220 and occasionally the jump

02:21:30.260 but

02:21:31.000 too many movies just do the jump

02:21:33.820 like 50,000 times and then it

02:21:36.100 just becomes boring.

02:21:38.040 Agreed.

02:21:38.980 I feel strongly about this.

02:21:42.080 Also, Gremlins is a Christmas movie.

02:21:44.420 I just thought I should put that in there.

02:21:48.040 Alright, this one's

02:21:49.860 again going back to

02:21:51.620 I guess briefly

02:21:54.060 touching on the subject

02:21:55.840 of the program.

02:21:57.220 which is also true if you could convert any famous person in Dallas true who

02:22:03.680 would it be cliff so trying to think of return on investment here that's what I

02:22:13.180 care about in this whole situation so it needs to be so many people actually take

02:22:41.980 seriously otherwise it's just you know a footnote on their zaniness yeah no see

02:23:08.500 That's, I picked him because he was fun.

02:23:10.740 He doesn't meet the criteria for this one.

02:23:12.760 He's already a little too crazy.

02:23:24.020 Okay, so this is probably not quite

02:23:26.500 where people are thinking.

02:23:29.040 But as far as the impact it would actually have

02:23:31.620 on our folk in the world, King Charles III.

02:23:38.500 Well, he's the head of the Anglican Church and the King of England and the King of Great

02:23:49.100 Britain.

02:23:50.100 If he actually converted to Austro for real and had a sincere conversion, I think it might

02:23:54.940 change the course of the Western world because, I mean, enough people take him seriously.

02:24:02.100 I know that the British monarchy is not necessarily an institution everyone puts a lot of stock

02:24:09.500 into, including myself, but it is still a legitimate monarchy.

02:24:14.960 And I think as far as the actual impact on bringing additional people to Osatru, a proper

02:24:27.300 monarch would probably be the best.

02:24:31.100 So I was going to say, Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, at that point he was

02:24:40.100 the Habsburg Emperor, he had the biggest stretch of any European Emperor ever as far as land

02:24:49.100 under his authority.

02:24:52.100 If he openly was able to do that, a significant enough chunk of Europe and the new world was under his control, that that could have set our people on a different course at a time when a lot of things were changing.

02:25:15.940 when there was still the battle betwixt Catholic and Protestant

02:25:22.800 over the spiritual destiny of our folk.

02:25:26.340 I think throwing in that much land and power with an house of true emperor

02:25:31.300 that could have given people a third option at a time

02:25:37.960 that that may have made a lot of difference.

02:25:40.620 We could have picked dead people.

02:25:42.240 You said famous.

02:25:43.220 If it was a celebrity, then I would have done.

02:25:44.940 I don't know.

02:25:45.940 So, I suppose the arbiter of that question is Finn Wraith.

02:25:55.780 So, Finn, in the comments, I haven't even looked at the comments in a long time,

02:26:00.560 so hopefully you guys haven't been saying cool stuff to us.

02:26:03.040 Or cool.

02:26:04.660 I mean, I hope you have been saying cool stuff.

02:26:06.640 I just feel bad if I've been missing it.

02:26:10.480 Anyways, I'll continue to miss it because it's awkward and cleaning over.

02:26:14.140 This is the setup we got this week.

02:26:15.940 Do either of you like cigars?

02:26:19.940 Yes.

02:26:21.940 Do you have any more to add on your cigar preferences?

02:26:26.940 Inexpensive.

02:26:28.940 Katie, do you like cigars?

02:26:31.940 No.

02:26:32.940 All right.

02:26:33.940 I enjoy cigars well.

02:26:35.940 I have to go with Cliff.

02:26:38.940 Best cigar is a cigar that's somewhat handsome.

02:26:42.940 first i think that's a good rule of thumb all together on most of the things but when

02:26:53.980 it comes to cigars and wine and i guess beer for that matter expensive isn't always better

02:27:05.100 to me um people with supposedly much more advanced palates than mine pick out notes of cherry and

02:27:20.860 you know a hickory finish and like all these different i can't pick those things out the

02:27:26.940 flavor in it has to hit me in the face it has to be very noticeable for me to pick up on it

02:27:34.140 It's like I was reading the reviews of Kirkland brand spiced rum.

02:27:41.180 Kirkland spiced rum is my favorite spiced rum,

02:27:44.080 and they complain that it's way too strong, it's way overspiced,

02:27:48.400 and somebody described it, it's like drinking a drunken gingerbread man.

02:27:54.540 That's exactly what I want from my spiced rum.

02:27:58.420 More of that, please.

02:28:00.340 Same goes with cigars.

02:28:03.900 you'll read all these fancy descriptions but i really don't notice that i've noticed that they

02:28:09.500 are strong or if they're mild people describe them as being spicy or not i don't know if i

02:28:15.740 pick up on that so much i like smooth and i've found not only is it cool but i think it helps

02:28:25.500 with the flavor to me um trying to think of how they described it on the little deal again because

02:28:35.260 we like the cheap cigars i was at an abc liquor in st augustine florida and they had you know

02:28:41.660 real cheap cigars in this container by the door and one of my favorite ones i ever smoked was

02:28:47.820 it says billowy white smoke okay so i got it it was super smooth it was the most ridiculous

02:28:55.260 like clouds of cigar smoke when i was smoking it but it's my favorite one i've ever had and i wish

02:29:01.660 i could figure out what it was or or have it again but yes i do enjoy a cigar from time to time um

02:29:10.460 kind of a interesting side note on cigars they help me meditate and they help me

02:29:22.140 me read if i'm trying to read something spiritual or something that's really important

02:29:27.500 that i want to focus on or if i'm trying to meditate about something important or something

02:29:34.320 spiritual cigars put me in a place where i can receive that better and i think one of the reasons

02:29:44.660 is i'm taking in less oxygen because of you know how you've got to breathe to smoke a cigar

02:29:52.380 So I think it's slowing a lot of my body processes down a little bit.

02:29:57.080 And it slows it down enough that I feel like I can more fully absorb the information that I'm trying to.

02:30:05.240 So cigars, a lot of the time, will put me in a little bit more meditative space, headspace, that is.

02:30:15.900 My cigar palate is also not robust.

02:30:18.940 but as a former cigarette smoker all cigars are superior to cigarettes so there you go

02:30:26.380 see that's the thing i never noticed any kind of a nicotine deal i've got a really strong tolerance

02:30:31.820 on a lot of stuff fortunately i don't have a an addictive personality or i haven't discovered

02:30:37.980 that with anything so far so it's not like i i need to i need the nicotine or whatever it's more

02:30:44.860 the experience something with the aroma just triggers stuff in my head um i don't encourage

02:30:50.380 people to smoke cigarettes i don't think that's necessarily a healthy thing to do but and i'm 42

02:30:59.180 i think people much younger than that may not get this but

02:31:05.260 the smell of tobacco smoke takes me back to my childhood a lot makes me think about my

02:31:13.980 grandpa and honestly it makes me think about being a kid in the 1980s um you go to the restaurant

02:31:22.620 and they'd have this little frosted glass thing like this high on top of the back of the seat

02:31:28.700 and that separated smoking from non-smoking section in the restaurant but something about

02:31:35.180 that just makes me think you go in places with my grandparents and it just kind of takes me back to

02:31:40.140 a different time you remember the uh every every person who would have company over that was

02:31:48.140 respectable whether they smoked or not they would all have like the ashtrays for company my mom had

02:31:55.020 a set of like crystal ashtrays that would get broken out whenever aunts or uncles or neighbors

02:32:02.780 any of like my birthday parties as a kid break out the ashtrays because people are coming and

02:32:07.980 they're bringing gifts so that means they can smoke in that house even though we don't smoke

02:32:12.380 it's just how it was and uh well i don't encourage smoking i do miss some of the

02:32:18.940 culture at that time where not everybody just wasn't up people's faces about the personal

02:32:23.500 business like they are now and everything just wasn't so fragile

02:32:26.620 One of the interesting dynamics of this show is because so much of it is driven by questions

02:32:46.900 from a variety of people, from a variety of sources, just as they come, the topics of

02:32:54.580 conversation shift pretty quick. My great-grandmother was abandoned by my biological great-grandfather

02:33:03.660 and grandmother. Mom and my generations all knew the step-great-grandfather. I love my

02:33:11.820 Grandpa Ryder, but I'm not sure how to approach my Halsteads, both the man in question and that

02:33:24.900 branch as a whole. So is the question, okay, I'm not sure if I follow the question. It can go one

02:33:38.860 two ways and i think that either of those are worth pursuing so either i'm understanding

02:33:48.380 that you want to honor the line of your ancestors that you know one particular coupling from

02:33:56.620 abandoned uh your grandmother your great grandmother or you're wondering how to honor

02:34:07.260 your step grandparents that were a significant part of your life if i'm understanding that

02:34:13.340 question right or your step great grandparents rather um are you understanding this question any

02:34:20.940 better than i am clip i think you have it okay i mean it could be either one all right so if

02:34:27.420 that's the case first um one question we get a lot and again i'm deviating from the original

02:34:32.700 guy asking the question i'm going to answer it to the best of my ability but i think it's useful for

02:34:37.100 a lot of other people have i think is something a lot of people think about

02:34:43.020 i know a lot of folks get stuck on one particular ancestor or one particular generation of ancestor

02:34:50.700 that have done terrible things or have wronged them personally or have been not worthy of a lot

02:34:59.900 of honor and i think that that sometimes alienates a person from you know statistically a massive

02:35:09.740 percentage of their ancestors and that's really unfortunate i think it's really important to

02:35:18.140 to think past that particular branch in the tree or that particular, you know, link in

02:35:29.940 the chain, as it were, that person, if you have one ancestor that did you wrong, maybe

02:35:38.160 they did something completely and totally terrible to you or to your parents or whatever

02:35:43.060 the case may be that person's side that person had two parents that aren't necessarily at all

02:35:51.220 culpable in any of that person's wrong that person had four grandparents that are even

02:35:58.740 less comfortable for whatever the decisions this person made um eight great grandparents 16 great

02:36:08.180 great grandparents it's exponential very quickly of amazing people that are all part of what brought

02:36:14.500 you to this place in this time they're all worthy of respect and getting to know at the very least

02:36:21.780 if you can and more than likely of honoring in a significant way and so i

02:36:28.500 You might do whatever you need to to bypass someone that you don't feel comfortable honoring for cause.

02:36:41.500 Don't let that happen. That just happened. You know, had a child and made a bad choice.

02:36:51.500 But also, because we are folkish, we are necessarily connected to specific blood ancestry as part

02:37:08.660 of our connection to the gods.

02:37:12.040 But we also honor heroes.

02:37:14.560 We honor important people in our lives and people that we care about, our folks, they're

02:37:19.540 all part of that river of our people that goes back to the beginning and maybe they're not

02:37:28.260 literal blood kid of yours but it's still very very appropriate to honor those people and celebrate

02:37:34.900 them just like it would be to you know any of the heroes that we celebrate or any of your

02:37:40.420 your friends or people that mean a lot to you and you know the third round assembles

02:37:47.620 um someone doesn't have to be blood can of yours for you to reach out to and honor them

02:37:55.060 from this side of the veil and i think that's important to consider as well they may not be

02:38:00.420 directly blood related to you but assuming that they're part of our fault it's still appropriate

02:38:06.900 to honor them in an Asatru fashion.

02:38:08.820 And I think that's, yeah, I wouldn't let anything, you know, hold you back from doing

02:38:15.420 that if you feel like that's something important to do with, if you, you know, have that relationship

02:38:20.680 with them.

02:38:22.180 What are your thoughts on this, Tia?

02:38:24.860 So, I tell the story relatively often, and some of you may have already heard it, where

02:38:29.880 my son is five, and he was born into Asatru, and he has very little concept of anything

02:38:36.120 else and uh three years ago now at ostar in the south he sat and played with an older gentleman

02:38:43.640 named terry rump for about 30 minutes maybe on a picnic bench um terry was a wonderful dude he

02:38:51.080 passed away not too long after that and my son to this day still hails terry rump during the

02:38:58.200 ancestor ensemble i don't know how he still even remembers that name but he does and i tell that

02:39:04.440 story because i think it uh children are the very purest version of us they my son doesn't have any

02:39:13.960 concept of what he um i mean he understands in a much more intuitive on a much more intuitive

02:39:25.560 intuitive level than we do um that terry rump is somebody worth remembering and he does it

02:39:32.840 so i use that example because my kid knows um better than we do sometimes i think because

02:39:43.720 he gets it on a different level but yeah you can you can help people who you're not related to

02:39:49.080 I tarry around as a hero to my son for whatever reason, and that's a good enough reason for

02:39:57.800 me to always encourage him to say that name at somebody.

02:40:02.220 And it should be a good enough reason for all of us to raise a horn to somebody.

02:40:06.480 Yeah, thoughts, Cliff?

02:40:08.520 Well, I think my little wife just underscored why it's important to say the names of people

02:40:15.240 that we hail.

02:40:17.020 I think that the reason our son Owen remembers Terry when he's five

02:40:21.440 is because he's been saying his name and keeping that memory alive,

02:40:26.440 which is something he initiated when,

02:40:29.160 gosh, what was he, two when he first did that, babe?

02:40:31.120 Something like that?

02:40:33.160 Maybe three, but...

02:40:34.500 Maybe just barely three, yeah, but he made a choice to do that,

02:40:39.220 and then it became almost his own personal tradition.

02:40:42.640 So I don't think he would remember Terry at all if he hadn't done that.

02:40:47.020 And it was his idea.

02:40:48.560 And of course we encouraged it, it's a great idea.

02:40:53.600 But that's one of the reasons why we say people's names

02:40:56.420 because it does help to keep them alive,

02:40:58.840 both inside us and I think outside of us as well.

02:41:03.100 As far as uncomfortable ancestors,

02:41:08.580 people who have not been the most honorable

02:41:12.080 or maybe who were just dastardly people,

02:41:15.060 Maybe they were evil, you know?

02:41:16.480 I mean, if we consider all the people

02:41:20.220 who ever were our ancestors to the beginning of time,

02:41:23.020 I'm sure we all have murderers and rapists

02:41:27.120 of some kind of...

02:41:30.020 In our history, you know,

02:41:32.400 if you go all the way back to, you know,

02:41:33.960 prehistory and pre-civilization in the Estonians,

02:41:36.720 there's going to be some people who did some bad stuff

02:41:39.720 that we need to approach with respect

02:41:43.600 because we owe our lives to them every single ancestor that we have matters and none of them

02:41:50.720 are perfect some of them by our standards today are going to be less perfect but i think it's

02:41:56.480 important to know that or to recognize that we're projecting certain standards on some of these

02:42:03.680 people i don't know the specifics about the uh the the person um who you know abandoned their child

02:42:11.760 and what the circumstances might be um and you know it it may not apply maybe you specifically

02:42:18.320 know that there's no good reason for that um but it might be worth giving them the benefit of the

02:42:24.080 doubt maybe there was a good reason that you just don't know about and you know that that the family

02:42:28.800 remembers them in a poor light because they were angry but that there could be another point of

02:42:34.320 view that hasn't been retold through time um and even if they were totally wrong as i mentioned you

02:42:43.680 we owe our lives to every single one of our ancestors who ever existed and sometimes it's

02:42:50.160 they're wrong that maybe brought us to to to be able to be here or you know they're in action we

02:42:57.840 always talk about doing right and taking right action but i mean i think a fact of the matter is

02:43:04.560 that in some it we we are also the result of all of our ancestors mistakes so um approaching them

02:43:14.620 with respect and with i think forgiveness is important and i don't mean christian forgiveness

02:43:20.040 this isn't just like you know i absolve you of your sins because i'm in some holier than thou

02:43:25.880 I mean forgiveness is in giving a gift that isn't deserved yet, giving it in advance to forgive, like F-O-R-E, give.

02:43:40.380 And if we do that, we, you know, approach them with respect and give them the benefit of the doubt and, you know, make that first move.

02:43:52.040 like i'm going to give you a gift that i don't think you deserve and see what happens i think

02:43:58.680 the worst is that that could happen is that you're you know putting a little bit of energy out there

02:44:04.120 that you're not going to get back the best that could happen is that you build a relationship

02:44:09.880 with an ancestor that you might have otherwise neglected and that could also mean that you

02:44:15.640 build a relationship with a whole ancestral line that you might have otherwise neglected

02:44:19.960 people see this in their families that are still living all the time you know um parent has a feud

02:44:28.200 with an in-law and the next thing you know the two parts of the families haven't talked for decades

02:44:33.360 and you've got you know grandkids who don't know their aunts and uncles and you know it's uh

02:44:42.160 it's i think something worth putting yourself out there for and as far as you know the the adoptive

02:44:48.800 parents, the step-parents of the grandmother in question. As Matt

02:44:54.740 mentioned, they're heroes for doing that act, for taking on the responsibilities

02:44:58.880 that were either neglected or not able to be taken on by the biological parents.

02:45:06.920 And that is a great reason to honor those people. But yeah, I think, you know, how

02:45:17.660 are we going to be judged by our descendants and and especially our descendants who are more distant

02:45:22.940 that don't know all the nuances of our personalities and of the details in our lives because every

02:45:28.380 generation that goes by no matter how well our story is retold it's going to get fuzzier and

02:45:33.260 fuzzier i think we owe um the people that came before us uh the the same sort of deference that

02:45:42.700 we would hope that people give us one day to look at us in the best light possible and to

02:45:50.460 assume that there's context even if we don't know the details of it

02:45:57.900 other thing i think is kind of an important side note there is

02:46:02.300 a difference between full-throated celebration of someone and acknowledgement of someone

02:46:16.540 and i think that there's a case to be made for some ancestors that are you know have

02:46:21.260 a less than amazing reputation to acknowledge them respectfully

02:46:32.300 i think that that case is to be made and i'm not saying that's the case in every situation i don't

02:46:37.020 know the depth of what they did or didn't do but there's a there's an area there of appropriate

02:46:46.700 acknowledging one of your ancestors that comes a little bit short of you know

02:46:53.660 saying their praises and i think that's something to consider also um

02:47:02.300 And I'm not trying to screw around on my phone, guys.

02:47:05.900 We've got Goethe Young that we mentioned earlier.

02:47:08.920 He's actually coming into this Airbnb later tonight,

02:47:12.580 so I'm kind of checking on some progress stuff with him,

02:47:14.620 and it's also how I'm able to find the questions that Nick feeds me.

02:47:19.240 Usually it's a much tighter close-up on me on the camera,

02:47:23.020 so you don't see all the strings.

02:47:27.020 um ron mcvan proposes the idea in his book creed of iron that mimir was the high god during the

02:47:36.700 hyperborean times and then was later replaced by tear and then finally by ovin not sure where

02:47:44.780 he got this information from but wanted to know your thoughts um i think it is

02:48:02.460 i think some of that is built on some some valid observations and valid truths as the chronology

02:48:11.820 of things um mimir is a very old god that's part of

02:48:21.500 that's part of the fundamentals of his essence is that that wealth of knowledge and wealth of

02:48:32.140 memory his um position with the in in the hierarchy of things puts him you know amongst

02:48:43.100 the gods and in mythic time as being notably you know old and wise i think that when you look at the

02:48:53.020 archaeological record and things certainly tear was a god of much greater prominence

02:49:04.460 earlier in our people's history our recorded history and over time in the way that our people

02:49:13.420 were converted and the way that our faith developed uh over intended to take a more

02:49:19.580 prominent role specifically in Scandinavia at a later period. So I see the, I see a logic

02:49:34.020 to positing them as high gods in three different epochs of time. But I think a lot of that

02:49:46.340 is very very speculatory and trying to you know put a nice bow on it and i don't

02:49:54.980 i mean i think that's a an interesting way for around the band to look at it

02:50:01.700 an interesting theory but i don't

02:50:07.620 i don't put a lot of stock in that as i was saying earlier in the show um

02:50:11.780 truth exists because it does the gods exist because they do they exist the way they do

02:50:21.540 regardless of our understanding of them as we grow in understanding hopefully we get closer

02:50:28.880 to understanding those mysteries but i don't think that

02:50:33.660 tracking the number of worship sites or times a god's name is used in an inscription

02:50:46.480 specifically when talking about a sequence between Tyr and Odin

02:50:51.140 tracking the archaeology of when certain people worship them more or less

02:50:59.720 I don't think necessarily speaks to the truth of their divine existence.

02:51:07.740 I think it speaks much more to trends amongst our folk and amongst geography

02:51:12.320 on where they place a lot of their emphasis.

02:51:16.620 And I think you see that in different ways regionally

02:51:20.900 as we get into the more typical Viking Age period.

02:51:29.720 And you see, for instance, in Sweden, you see a cult of fray that's certainly much more prominent than you see in other Scandinavian places and other lands, you see him being their god of regality, whereas that typically at that time period was the domain of Odin.

02:51:55.720 I think that speaks more towards that tribe and their development than it does to the position of the gods in Asgard.

02:52:08.180 Cliff, do you know any more about Ron's theory on that?

02:52:11.880 Maybe any validity to it or where it came from or why it'd be like it is?

02:52:19.160 I don't notice that much about Ron's theory on it.

02:52:22.960 um but i have thoughts on it my myself um i i think that the expanse of time between

02:52:36.480 adumla and ymir to the aesir is vast and you know i mean typically people call the entities that

02:52:49.120 exists in this time, Jotuns, but I don't think that's quite accurate. I think that they're

02:52:53.600 probably better referred to as guarders from the perspective of the Aesir, because the Vanir

02:53:01.200 are among them. Their whole history that is really not very well known to us at all

02:53:07.040 exists somewhere in this space in mythic time. Odin's own lineage exists in this space in mythic

02:53:17.120 time and we have little bits of it but i would suggest that there's probably more um

02:53:25.680 and that somewhere in there munimir exists and was a wise old boot garter

02:53:34.720 or jotun with a lowercase j not a descendant of burgomir but um of all the giants as in

02:53:44.960 you know the great ones that existed in that time before the Aesir brought order and created Midgard

02:53:56.320 and the things that set our understanding of the world into motion um I have a similar thought on

02:54:04.800 the the the vulva in in Belusba if Odin can raise from the dead some old woman who's going to then

02:54:12.400 tell him the history of all the things that came

02:54:14.380 before, presumably

02:54:16.120 before Odin, then

02:54:18.460 this vast expanse

02:54:20.320 of time must exist

02:54:22.500 and this

02:54:24.220 deceased woman who he raised up

02:54:26.620 must have existed

02:54:27.900 in that time and

02:54:30.600 knows things which she

02:54:32.400 can relate to him.

02:54:37.320 No, I'm looking

02:54:38.140 something strange just happened with our camera.

02:54:40.260 I raised my hand

02:54:41.840 and it caught the camera's attention.

02:54:44.140 Raise your hand to see what it does.

02:54:46.600 No?

02:54:48.160 I don't know.

02:54:50.080 I was...

02:54:51.160 It was your ancestors.

02:54:53.040 Yes.

02:54:54.260 But I think, you know,

02:54:55.780 what I was talking about,

02:54:57.480 there is a lot of stuff that came before the Aesir

02:55:00.320 that we have very

02:55:01.640 little information of, but

02:55:03.580 that Voluspa

02:55:06.140 alludes to and

02:55:07.980 that Mimir

02:55:10.160 was part of and so i think you know i don't think that either of those two entities was

02:55:15.920 an aesir so i don't know that i would call them gods per se um but certainly they were

02:55:23.280 entities of great power similar to our gods but predating them and um i think a lot of that's

02:55:29.920 just going to remain a mystery to us because we exist in midgard and in the you know the order of

02:55:38.160 the universe that was created from the slaying of ymir and the building of our world and really to

02:55:44.960 imagine what came before that is um it's a fun topic i love to talk about this stuff but there's

02:55:53.040 never i don't think you can always correct me if i'm wrong and i'm sure you go through but i don't

02:55:57.200 think there's going to be a specific afa or ostrich position on these things because they're

02:56:02.720 unknowable um you know kind of in a way from a scientific perspective when you talk about before

02:56:09.200 the big bang like there was such a thing but knowing it is virtually impossible

02:56:18.640 at least with the information and the tools we have now yeah i don't i don't mean to you know

02:56:25.840 criticize it over much like i said i think there's a truth there to the great antiquity

02:56:30.240 of Mimir and the myth cycles,

02:56:33.660 but I don't think there's evidence

02:56:37.060 or reason for us to reshuffle

02:56:39.520 our understanding of the hierarchy of the gods

02:56:42.960 because of that.

02:56:43.760 I don't think there's anything definitive that way.

02:56:52.700 All right.

02:56:53.520 Another silly question.

02:56:56.440 If you...

02:56:57.120 If you were an aquatic mammal, what aquatic mammal would you be?

02:57:20.800 Is that your official answer?

02:57:23.640 Yes.

02:57:25.540 You would be a mammoth.

02:57:26.520 stay away from the boat motors I mean it's not a serious question so I am the

02:57:37.980 walrus that was clever thank you I don't know if it counts as aquatic but I'm

02:57:46.980 gonna say polar bear they spend lots of time in the water underwater see if it

02:57:53.880 counts if it doesn't an orca uh-huh do you like to read any horror around halloween i have never

02:58:03.860 read i don't read fiction very often at all i mean i i just i don't read fiction there have

02:58:10.860 been a couple of times in my life but in general that's just not what i read i don't think i've

02:58:16.380 ever read a work of horror cliff you like to read horror around this time of year no not

02:58:23.160 particularly um i also don't read hardly any fiction um i think i've read an average version

02:58:32.920 of dracula once and a version of frankenstein and uh in grade school i once wrote this book

02:58:42.440 scary no spoilers our audience they want to dig into that katie do you like to read horror

02:58:50.520 or in general or around this time of year.

02:58:55.320 First I have to say, if you've read the abridged versions,

02:58:58.820 you didn't read them.

02:58:59.920 I know.

02:59:01.420 That's why I specified.

02:59:04.120 Did you specify?

02:59:05.620 I said abridged, so.

02:59:09.880 I don't stick to the time of year.

02:59:13.080 And since I've had children, I have read almost nothing

02:59:16.560 except for a couple of books I had to read

02:59:20.320 during my other studies,

02:59:22.300 like Christianization of Early Germanic, whatever, whatever.

02:59:29.420 I don't remember the name, really.

02:59:33.000 What's the name of the book again?

02:59:35.060 I'm sorry, guys, it's tired.

02:59:37.900 It's late and I'm sorry.

02:59:40.600 So it's fortuitous with that.

02:59:42.660 We're gonna answer this last question

02:59:45.620 And we're going to get set up or whatever we might need to get set up so that we're ready to start right early in the AM

02:59:52.560 because we've got people showing up tomorrow and leadership showing up to do some last-minute prep stuff tomorrow.

02:59:59.320 But this is a good question, I think, to end on.

03:00:02.160 In the spirit of winter nights, pun intended, do you three have a nice story of an ancestor you'd like to share with us?

03:00:11.340 I think that we all do.

03:00:12.860 and uh katie would you like to share an ancestor story with us

03:00:18.060 so i'll stick with the one i tell pretty often when i think of it because it's the easiest uh

03:00:32.040 my grandmother my mom's mom mary alice mcgrady uh when my oldest brother was like three or four

03:00:41.240 years old he was two or three he was told to or not told but he was naming everybody around the

03:00:47.520 dinner table all my aunts all my uncles my mom my dad given them all names when he got to my

03:00:52.020 grandmother he said mop so my grandmother has forever been known as mop which is the most

03:01:00.120 unglorious name but she seemed to uh not mind it because like i said that's what we all called her

03:01:07.340 forever. All of my cousins called her mop too. She was just mopped. So mopped. Thank

03:01:16.740 you. Cliff, do you have a story about my ancestors? Sure. My grandpa, Harvey Erickson, was primarily

03:01:28.540 a farmer. He also was a machinist and served in the military, but he was a farmer, and

03:01:37.060 he had moved from the Dakotas to the East Coast during the Second Great War, and ended

03:01:45.420 up moving back to South Dakota in his later years, basically, you know, to go home at

03:01:51.820 the end of his end of his life and you know he lived for another decade or so there and was

03:01:58.280 was farming again he had done that for a long time and it made him happy and we went out to

03:02:03.000 visit him um to the family we did a road trip out there and uh one of the things that we did is we

03:02:10.600 went me and my brother went to go out to the fields with them and you know see what he was

03:02:16.980 know basically to go for tractor rides and um i mean my grandfather was always someone that i looked

03:02:23.940 at as you know a pillar of virtue he was a stalwart man all these things that i think a lot of us may

03:02:31.460 think about our grandparents and as we as i climbed up into the the tractor cab

03:02:37.860 to go on this tractor ride with them i looked up and there's this girly picture this lady in

03:02:42.900 a bikini hanging up there he goes oh he didn't realize he didn't quite dawn on him to take that

03:02:47.620 down before his you know eight-year-old nine-year-old grandson was that was coming up there

03:02:51.940 and now it was was funny it was it wasn't a nudie picture just to be clear it was a girly picture

03:02:56.420 like you might see in like a mechanic shop or something but uh it it helped me see the man in

03:03:03.140 a different way as as a man you know a regular man just like the rest of us who like pretty ladies

03:03:10.260 so uh that's my my story about grandpa hardy

03:03:19.380 i get overthinking on stuff and i'm trying to think of uh you know a particularly

03:03:28.740 memorable or clever story about one of my ancestors and i don't

03:03:40.260 i don't know that i have one off the top of my head i've got a lot of you know

03:03:47.380 it's funny the things that you remember the things that stand out um

03:03:57.140 i don't know if it's a cute or clever story or not but one thing that i

03:04:01.620 remembered a lot and i was really fortunate to experience growing up was

03:04:10.020 my mother's parents my grandma marianne davis and my grandfather aubrey allen davis who uh

03:04:21.540 named my daughter after um

03:04:23.140 um they had a um with some of my grandpa's two of his buddies they had this like one-third share

03:04:34.420 in this fishing lot on the kenai river and they'd go down there and anybody who is unfamiliar the

03:04:39.940 kenai river in in alaska is one of the best um red salmon specifically fisheries in the world

03:04:50.740 That and the Copper River up there are probably the best red salmon you can get.

03:04:56.300 And they would fly fish and get some hip boots on and go out and fly fish right off the lot.

03:05:05.360 It was a great spot.

03:05:10.640 I just remember as time would go on, my grandma was uncanny with it.

03:05:16.500 was a a limit of typically of three three a day when the run was on there do you like you know

03:05:23.620 three salmon per person a day so there'd be guys out there all day trying fly fishing and get close

03:05:32.420 you know maybe they'd get the limit maybe they wouldn't she could go out there she wouldn't be

03:05:37.700 out there an hour and much to the consternation of everybody else around her trying to fish

03:05:43.220 she just had the right touch with it or whatever fly fishing but she was really uh

03:05:50.580 she was really an amazing uh fisherwoman at that and uh it would just it was interesting because

03:05:58.820 like like i said you know my my uncle my dad would be out there my grandpa would be out there

03:06:03.860 you know any number of friends and others to get there nobody really owns the river so you

03:06:08.580 to walk up once you're out in the water

03:06:10.360 at other people's spots and fish.

03:06:13.000 But, you know, she'd knock out

03:06:14.740 her three.

03:06:16.500 Like, there's nothing.

03:06:18.260 But I remember one time, this is

03:06:19.860 seemed more interesting as a kid.

03:06:22.840 It's really kind of, I'm glad it didn't hurt

03:06:24.740 her and permanently disfigure her as an adult,

03:06:26.920 but it was humorous to me

03:06:28.680 when I was a little kid.

03:06:31.060 She had one salmon

03:06:32.680 on, and for whatever reason

03:06:34.720 the line broke, and

03:06:36.540 you know it all came coming back at her and she had this very distinct outline

03:06:43.200 of this fishing line like imprinted on her face for the better part of the rest

03:06:47.880 of the day. She was fine. I just remember that as a kid because she had these uh

03:06:54.480 shooting out the words not coming to me she had these special sunglasses where

03:06:59.700 she could kind of see in the water a little bit where salmon were where fish

03:07:03.120 were polarized lenses and yeah there was like this outline that mysteriously you know wasn't

03:07:10.320 where the glasses shaped were but i remember i remember that that was one morning when she was

03:07:14.240 out for like 20 minutes and got all three of her salmon but uh yeah i was really lucky to get spent

03:07:20.800 a lot of time with those grandparents and get to know them really well thank you guys so much for

03:07:25.680 bearing with the various difficulties tonight and kind of a little bit more laid back episode

03:07:31.360 It's been great talking to you guys.

03:07:33.320 It's cool to do this for the first time kind of on the road and, you know,

03:07:40.000 with my guests in the same room as me.

03:07:42.700 So it's been pretty cool.

03:07:45.760 Victory never sleeps on the couch.

03:07:48.760 I know.

03:07:50.000 We're innovating.

03:07:51.460 But, no, it's been great to talk to you guys.

03:07:54.280 Great to spend a little bit of time with the Ericsons.

03:07:56.260 and I'm excited for the amazing event

03:07:59.700 that we've got ahead of us in the next few days here.

03:08:02.980 Remember, if you can, get out here,

03:08:06.520 come join us, experience the glory that is Sigurheim.

03:08:13.220 And I'll talk to you guys next week.

03:08:16.620 Hail to gods, hail to folk, hail to AFA,

03:08:19.460 and remember, victory never sleeps.

03:08:26.260 We'll be right back.

03:08:56.260 We'll be right back.

03:09:26.260 Thank you.

03:09:56.260 Thank you.

03:10:26.260 We'll be right back.

03:10:56.260 We'll be right back.

03:11:26.260 Amen.

Asatru Folk Assembly - October 26, 2023

10⧸25⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 68 - Winter Nights

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