Asatru Folk Assembly - 10⧸5⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 13

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

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

00:03:00.000 hello everyone and welcome to another exciting edition of victory never sleeps i think this is

00:03:21.520 this may be our most anticipated broadcast so far we have joining us today our august

00:03:28.640 law speaker good friend of mine alan turnage and a man that has done a whole lot often behind the

00:03:35.680 scenes to bring us to where we are today hey alan welcome thank you sir it's pleasure to be here

00:03:42.640 it's pleasure to have you um off the top 50 from folk the rude for sigerheim thank you very much

00:03:53.520 we're going to do big things that's how we make victory happen we appreciate it

00:03:56.800 it um trying to think of anything on top of the show to start out with um this is our second week

00:04:03.600 being simulcast on our uh twitter channel so for any of you guys joining us on twitter it's good

00:04:11.600 to have you um if anybody is interested in donations or super chats please go to our entropy

00:04:18.800 link um you can throw us a couple of dollars over there it's always much appreciated

00:04:24.320 and if we stack up with questions we will answer your questions first uh the paid questions never

00:04:30.560 fear as always we will get to all of the questions that stack up we are very happy to answer any

00:04:35.600 questions you guys might have and without further ado alan introduce yourself and tell folks a little

00:04:42.720 bit about what brought you to also true and what brought you to the astro focus simply

00:04:47.520 well what brought me to also true was a the spiritual yearning that so many of us feel

00:04:52.560 grew up in a very christian but very spiritual household it taught me the importance of a

00:05:02.100 relationship with god as i knew him then and then when i realized that i needed something that was

00:05:10.540 more coherent if that's the right word i sought set out on a search for spiritual meaning i wandered

00:05:19.320 through Buddhism, Taoism, a brief flirtation with general paganism, and that sent me to

00:05:30.260 Osatru. One of the leaders of a pagan group that I was in pointed me directly to, probably

00:05:36.660 after two conversations with me, she said, you know, really what you are is you're one of these

00:05:40.620 guys. She wasn't, but she obviously identified me correctly. I set out to find some Osatru

00:05:47.800 friends, met some people in Atlanta. Shout out to Bodie and Doug, who's not watching, but he was

00:05:57.420 one of the first guys that I met and felt right at home right away. It integrated well with what

00:06:05.680 I knew about science, with what I knew about my own spirituality, my own self. It just was always

00:06:12.320 a comfortable fit it was like finding the right shoes you know it was it was always uh the right

00:06:17.880 place for me to be um within two years i had uh was i was going to the moots that we had in florida

00:06:28.480 at that time was called just the florida moot because we uh i didn't even i had not met mr

00:06:33.520 mcdallan at that point but um was meeting with some good florida folk uh started to learn the

00:06:39.300 difference between uh folkish and whatever that other stuff is um and uh within a couple years

00:06:48.360 took over the running of the florida moot um and and actually the first moot that i ran uh

00:06:54.640 we brought mr mcdallan in i had not met him at that point i think that's where i first met mandy

00:06:59.600 and we you know i mean within a month after that i was working as a folk builder for the afa

00:07:08.980 Um, but then six months after that, I was on the board in the Goathe program, uh, you know, and just, again, I was off and running and felt right at home all the way.

00:07:23.080 Good folk, good place.

00:07:25.180 I was at home.

00:07:26.740 About what year was that, Alan?

00:07:29.120 Um, it was 2005 when I first met, uh, when I first met any heathens, easy for me to identify that year for various reasons. 0.93

00:07:37.380 And then it was like 08 and 09 were the moots that I was going to here in Florida.

00:07:42.220 And then in 2010 was when Steve came to. Sorry, Mr. McDowell.

00:07:48.180 I know he likes us to call him Steve, but I call him Mr. McDowell because I have a lot of respect for the guy.

00:07:54.600 But he you know, but it was 2010 when I first met him, actually over at Stephen Foster State Park, as I, you know, as Mandy reminded me, that was the. 1.00

00:08:03.480 So lots of good, weird that we ended up with that hoff there in right across the street. 1.00

00:08:13.600 Quite auspicious indeed. Yeah. And that's that's about. 1.00

00:08:19.840 2010, that's about when I that's when I went to my first AFA gathering at Midsummer in the Sierras.

00:08:26.900 So it's it's neat. Those things happen right around the same time there within a year or so each other.

00:08:31.900 Um, do you recall when you got your ordination?

00:08:39.900 Uh, no, I think 2012.

00:08:44.900 Um, and there's a long story that goes around why I couldn't even read it off the date there

00:08:49.900 that, um, if I'm ever in good company with good beer, I'll tell you the long story about

00:08:55.900 enough about my new ordination, but it was around 2012. And I'll say then that the program was much

00:09:06.040 different. I think what we have now is much better. Yeah, it was quite different. I believe

00:09:10.980 I was ordained. I know you were ordained, or I don't know the funny backstory, but I know we all

00:09:16.600 assumed you were ordained before, certainly before I was, and I was ordained at mid-summer of 2012,

00:09:24.040 I believe. So cool. I didn't realize it was that, it was that close there. We got a comment from

00:09:30.740 Nick, just supporting the stream. What are you drinking tonight, Matt? Hope you're both having

00:09:35.880 a good night. Thank you for all you do. Well, you're very welcome. Nick gave us $15 on that

00:09:40.400 one. I appreciate it. I am drinking Howling Gord's Pumpkin Ale. I'm drinking straight vodka.

00:09:48.320 no so i'll get there quicker than i will but uh this is just water i i i like to keep my wits

00:09:54.880 about me when i'm in public on the rare chance that i actually you know make it out of the cave

00:10:02.000 i like to present myself properly i don't know if there's any implications there for me but

00:10:07.280 but i'll choose to think there's not um sarah greetings alan uh what was life like before

00:10:14.080 you were part of the afa well before i was part of the afa i mean i still had a rich full life i was

00:10:24.000 uh married now divorced um cool girlfriend though um but uh so i was busy raising three kids

00:10:31.840 um i was actually quite active in the church um the unitarian church so it's not like it's

00:10:38.640 the real church i mean you know we call it the unitarian church you know it's the church of

00:10:42.640 everything else which was where the pagan group met um but i was quite active uh raised the boys

00:10:49.360 um you know coached flag football so i did and i sometimes don't like to say i did all the things

00:10:57.120 like that a normal dad does because it's you know that seems to say like afa people are not

00:11:02.800 normal people unless you you know have that extra caveat in there you know i was i was a guy i you 0.99

00:11:08.560 You know, I'm super busy law practice full time.

00:11:14.740 I was practicing my Kung Fu and raising the kids and read it.

00:11:21.200 I read stories to them every night, coached flag football, took them to play Frisbee golf, you know.

00:11:28.700 I was and but there but even so there was that void.

00:11:33.300 Um, uh, I brewed beer, I brewed mead, you know, that's, uh, I was busy, but, uh, I just didn't

00:11:42.080 have that, uh, spiritual framework to, uh, to set everything in. And, you know, which is the one

00:11:47.900 thing that the AFA and heathenry in general has given me, you know, it's given me a, a, a foundation

00:11:54.320 and a framework to, to understand all this from. So King of Cheese is with us tonight. He says,

00:12:01.860 Howdy Matt and Alan, coming in with my regular. How are you two doing tonight? How are you doing

00:12:07.020 tonight, Alan? I'm doing really well. You know, things are going good. I'm in good health and

00:12:13.340 good spirit. I've started losing some weight. I'm doing, I'm eating six raw eggs every day,

00:12:19.800 following the raw egg nationalist diet. So, you know, I'm feeling better than I have in a while. 0.50

00:12:26.500 Um, you know, uh, got the Hoff going in New York's off.

00:12:32.680 We've got a good group here in Tallahassee.

00:12:34.600 It's hard to complain, but sometimes I still do.

00:12:38.420 Yeah, Tony, thanks for asking.

00:12:40.380 I know I'm a broken record on this, but you catch me at, you know, you catch me at the

00:12:44.300 highlight of my week.

00:12:45.560 Uh, it truly is me talking about the thing that's most important to me in life and sitting

00:12:52.260 around having a conversation with my very best friends, especially in this case, Alan

00:12:56.480 i are very close he has absolutely been my right hand man in so much of this and getting us where

00:13:02.480 we are so talking to you guys getting here having a beer talking to alan life's pretty good for me

00:13:08.880 and i'm honored to serve i you know i i appreciate your uh gratitude and i know that it's well meant

00:13:16.400 and you know this is you know it gives me a reason to get up every morning and uh you know go in and

00:13:23.840 do the rest of the stuff this is the stuff that i live for the you know the law practice pays the

00:13:28.800 bills but this is what i do and that's and just uh you know one thing to to know and and one of

00:13:35.920 the ways that i understand the ways which i like the way i like to call it you know this is this

00:13:41.440 is not something that we do and i know you say this quite often as well matt it's not something

00:13:45.600 that we do this is this is who we are i mean this is who i am you know this hammer never comes off

00:13:51.440 I, you know, I display my, who I am proudly and, you know, I don't hide any of this stuff.

00:14:00.220 This is, you know, this is who I am and what I do.

00:14:04.040 Well, I think that's by far the best way to live.

00:14:06.820 And those of us who are fortunate enough to be living that seem to feel the same way about it.

00:14:12.520 So, no, this is very important stuff.

00:14:15.820 And in order to make it all happen, Alan is is often hard at work doing.

00:14:22.300 It's really cool. So, Alan, I often describe this on our Witten and to people in leadership.

00:14:30.480 But some of you who are who are my age will get my reference.

00:14:35.220 Kids may not. But Alan is very much the wheat side to my frosted side sometimes when we're planning.

00:14:40.320 And and a lot of Alan's skill set really complements like Alan is is very strong, strong at things that I'm not his legal acumen and knowing how to do adult things like paperwork and figuring those things out is extremely important because I got all the drive in the world.

00:14:58.680 But when it comes to some of the tedium of that, I'm lost and Alan helps in a big way that way.

00:15:04.380 Well, I appreciate that. Raising three kids taught me how to teach people to have patience.

00:15:08.460 you know, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're not there yet, but we'll get there.

00:15:15.300 Fair enough. Trent asks, law speaker Alan, could you please explain the importance of

00:15:20.720 elevating our discourse? Why do our spoken words matter so much?

00:15:26.760 Okay. To continue my one-man campaign against low speech, you know, if you get the,

00:15:35.900 uh when you get this month's runestone you'll see my challenge um for everybody to raise their

00:15:41.180 discourse um it's called low speech for a reason higher discourse is this is the noble speech it's

00:15:48.620 the it's the idea that uh there and of course there are several spiritual reasons for it as well

00:15:55.260 if you believe as i do that galder changes the world what you what you know is that you're written

00:16:02.540 that your spoken word enter it that's where your will manifests into the world so when you speak

00:16:10.380 with vulgarity when you speak profanely you are profaning your world you are vulgarizing your

00:16:17.500 environment so it's important for you to speak with the with the highest level it's only been 0.70

00:16:25.500 a few decades when white people were known to curse as freely as we do now in public

00:16:38.460 and you know i remember years ago when it was said of various comedians that they couldn't

00:16:43.820 work the big rooms because they back then it was called working blue you know if you used

00:16:49.420 sexual innuendo and certainly foul language you know that you that you weren't even allowed in the

00:16:54.940 big in the in the big venues because it was seen as um to uh to be beneath polite society um and

00:17:06.860 and i don't think that we as also true although we certainly a lot of us come from that background

00:17:14.620 myself to some degree included where you know we've had to we had to sort of portion ourselves

00:17:19.660 up through the school of hard knock. Certainly there's, you know, I'm not a prude about these

00:17:25.920 sorts of things, but the idea of it is to always present your highest self, knowing that, you know,

00:17:34.240 your grandmother is with you over your shoulder. Your gods watch you not as closely, but they

00:17:40.920 certainly know whether you are, you know, whether you are presenting the highest possible light

00:17:49.560 to those around you. So part of it certainly is just the personal, that you should always be your

00:17:55.760 highest and best self. And part of it is that you are, for most of us, for the other, the rest of

00:18:03.440 the world out there, we are the only author, we have the only odeness that they know. And so if

00:18:08.980 They think of us as a bunch of foul mouth brigands, then they're not going to want to be associated with that in any degree.

00:18:15.340 But if they think of us as polite, well-spoken, helpful, all the things that we really are and really should be, then then we'll you know, then we'll begin to attract more and more as we have over the last few years.

00:18:31.480 So it's both the sales pitch and, you know, a personal means of displaying integrity.

00:18:38.980 And I think that's very important. Linguistically, I think I fall short with foul language sometimes. And Alan is sure to correct me on that frequently. And it's much appreciated. I agree 100%. I got loose with it when I was in the bar industry bouncing. And in that environment, it was just so commonplace.

00:19:00.980 commonplace pervasive and I did I worked in the bar as well so you know again I just I just got

00:19:06.680 in the habit well I so one time I ended up taking my mother to a doctor's appointment on a like a

00:19:14.020 Saturday morning and I had been working the bar Friday night and didn't get much sleep and I just

00:19:20.680 I was still in that mode when I was at the doctor's office and I was with my mother at the doctor's

00:19:27.340 office just dropping f-bombs here and there left and right like it was nothing and all of a sudden

00:19:31.560 I heard myself and I was so embarrassed and I had to apologize to the doctor and it really made me

00:19:38.180 look at myself critically because for a second there I you know heard the words coming out of

00:19:42.980 my mouth and it was so out of place and for a lot of us it's just you can have that one moment of

00:19:47.980 realization and you know you can snap to at least absolutely begin the course begin begin the course

00:19:54.500 correction. Well, one of the things is when you try to hold yourself to a higher standard,

00:20:01.160 whatever that may be, if it means fixing your language or holding your head up and looking

00:20:05.880 people in the eye when you talk to them or speaking with a higher level of discourse using,

00:20:10.420 you know, using high value words instead of commonalities, using, you know, proper language

00:20:19.280 instead of i mean you can still be scathing and insulting if you need to with in a in a more clean

00:20:24.560 and certainly more creative manner um but those kind of things when you act a certain way when

00:20:30.880 you dress a certain way and you try to project something it fundamentally changes how you how

00:20:36.320 you do things you carry yourself different you have a different not only do other people respect

00:20:41.280 you differently and more but you respect yourself differently and more and uh i've seen that a lot

00:20:48.240 in the AFA as we've tried to tighten up on some of those things. Katla asks,

00:20:54.320 has being Alcitru affected your law career or how you handle cases? 0.90

00:21:01.360 It really hasn't. I mean, because, and I wish I had thought of this line, although I certainly

00:21:08.640 live it, you know, I hate to lose even more than I love to win. So I've always been a battler and

00:21:17.040 a scrapper and I've always done the right thing. Um, you know, and I, and that is, that was just

00:21:24.520 part of the way I was raised, you know, whatever you do, you do it to your best. Um, whatever you

00:21:29.920 take on, you take it on in the full and these are, you know, whether clients pay me or not,

00:21:34.800 once I take their case, you know, I, I go at it full tilt. Um, when they disrespect me, I am

00:21:41.060 polite to them um that you know and it's uh sometimes i feel like i work harder at getting

00:21:48.780 their case completed than they do but it's um but uh it's you know otherwise it hasn't but

00:21:57.380 maybe because i was practicing law for like 15 years almost before i found also true um but even

00:22:05.220 then i mean when i was you know even in the early days before there was also true there was uh you

00:22:11.040 there was this sore spot on my head from running into the wall repeatedly so uh no good question

00:22:20.160 but now as i've thought my career for anyone who doesn't know i i have i practice in bankruptcy

00:22:28.160 law and i do i represent debtors in bankruptcy and certainly my politics has evolved to to a

00:22:36.480 point where i have no remorse about kicking these banks down you know i've i've seen the way that

00:22:44.000 they abuse people and the way they take advantage of the system so i feel like i'm trying to even

00:22:50.000 score and so so to that to that extent i certainly feel like i'm trying to bring some

00:22:55.600 bit of order into the chaos

00:22:57.120 Daniel asks, law speaker, when can we expect to see you at Thorshoff?

00:23:07.360 It's a four out tomorrow night. Soon, the next, I can't see, I would say the next event, I have,

00:23:14.980 I'll tell you this, Daniel, and I know I'll say, I have rearranged my life now in a way that I'm

00:23:20.260 going to have time free. That's, so yes, from now on, I'm going to be traveling to Thorshoff. I've

00:23:26.300 got the uh you haven't seen my rv with the um mural on the side but you'll see it up there soon

00:23:34.020 um soon sounds good i'm i'm curious about this mural

00:23:40.680 it it looks like it it looks like the hippie van i mean you'll think that there's a you'll think

00:23:49.480 there's somebody who is completely lost when it pulls up, but it's me.

00:23:54.740 Fair enough. Sarah asks, can you talk about finding Baldershof, the events that ensued

00:24:00.480 after and the victory since that time? For those of you that, a note here, for those of you that

00:24:05.860 may not know, we were really in a good position when we ran into some legal things that needed

00:24:14.260 to be done at Baldershof. Alan flew up there to represent us in dealing with the city and it was

00:24:19.400 really really nice thing to have alan on our team for that so uh i didn't find it there was uh

00:24:31.400 but once it was found i helped negotiate a good price i thought for the for the hoff um the short

00:24:37.720 story is we had a zoning issue that because it had been briefly used as a home it was no longer

00:24:43.080 a church according to the zoning regulations. So we had to get it rezoned. Sorry, that's not

00:24:52.140 correct. It was because a church is a non-conforming use, but it had been used as a church. So it was

00:25:00.460 pretty easy to see for everyone concerned that there was no way for us, for them to deny us a

00:25:07.140 permit. And the city commission had lots of questions. There was a protest group that formed

00:25:18.160 to try to prevent them from issuing us a permit. But what the city came to understand

00:25:26.120 was that they can't deny us a permit because of our religious beliefs, because of our sincerely

00:25:34.140 held religious beliefs that is that only those of northern european descent can be can practice

00:25:41.340 the religion of also true um then you know they knew they had to issue us the permit and and and

00:25:47.740 in a certain way well first of all i'll say that you know that wasn't entertaining two hours

00:25:53.420 standing in front of the city commission and the uh room full of uh

00:26:04.140 you know and and fielding their questions and just explaining to them why uh we had the right

00:26:10.300 to do what we were doing and but again in the most polite way possible i just you know i explained to

00:26:16.620 them that um that we were good guys which they still don't believe but um since then of course

00:26:25.820 brandy witten callahan and you know the crew up there in minnesota has acquitted themselves and

00:26:31.740 represented the afa and also true in general and you know in the extreme good light they've made

00:26:37.500 friends in the community they have demonstrated those high ideals that we all hold and share

00:26:42.700 and the community has come to understand that we are the good guys i mean at least that we're not

00:26:47.900 the bad guys you know they may still not they may not ever worship with us but they uh certainly do

00:26:53.500 understand that that we are not what the media and what the blue-haired freaks pretend that we are

00:27:01.740 know a side note to that the protest group that formed to oppose us one of their founding members

00:27:07.260 came by to apologize to us uh because they saw who we really are and they saw beyond the media hype

00:27:14.780 and that was really special for us one of the members um involved in that city council

00:27:21.660 now comes by and has coffee at uh balder's hof with brandy

00:27:25.260 it is uh we've we've really changed a lot of people's mind in that community um i mean it's

00:27:34.940 unfortunate the media tried to go in and scare people honestly you know i'd be scared of us too

00:27:39.700 if all i heard was was the vicious lies that the media was telling folks about who we are

00:27:45.740 i appreciate that that community is has opened up to us and now when we go there and i'm always

00:27:51.560 surprised every single time I'm there, we have a pretty constant flow of people that drive. It's

00:27:57.600 kind of, if you guys haven't been there, it's kind of on a main drag and we've got people all day long

00:28:02.780 that drive by and honk and wave and, you know, sometimes pull over and give us positive

00:28:08.080 encouragement. It's really nice to see that. It really is. And, you know, it makes us, it certainly

00:28:14.920 helps me know, you know, because you can feel it and think it, but, you know, it helps me know that

00:28:20.120 we are on the right course. So inside baseball, and this is also an Alan thing that relates to

00:28:24.980 Baldershoff, he may not have found Baldershoff, but we got a steal of a deal on that place. And

00:28:31.260 we're currently in the process of trying to pay off the loan we've taken out for Thorshoff.

00:28:37.660 And so I was pushing really hard to pay off that Thorshoff loan fast. I try to get us out of loans

00:28:42.580 as quick as I can. And Alan was kind of slow rolling me there for a second, you know, as if

00:28:47.800 he saw this opportunity and it was Alan it was Alan was the force behind us going ahead and

00:28:52.280 getting that second Hoff in 2020 um if not for Alan's you know timely insight on that I would

00:28:59.240 have emptied the coffers paying down that Thor's Hoff loan and we might have missed that opportunity

00:29:04.860 so Alan was very very instrumental in making Baldur's Hoff happen I live to serve uh Bruce

00:29:11.380 Matt can you tell us more about your plans for Sigurheim I can Bruce I'm not sure how much you

00:29:16.720 heard from last week um got so i it's hard to define what the difference is between plans and

00:29:24.980 dreams i think i've got a lot of dreams as far as specific plans some of that's going to depend on

00:29:31.840 the the swath of land we get and how it's laid out what kind of usable stuff we've got the idea

00:29:38.660 as it is now for kind of phase one is to get real deal, you know, middle class homes in there

00:29:50.520 of a community of AFA members on one portion, but also have a section for people who may need to get

00:29:56.880 either a cabin or a tiny home or some, you know, intermediate living facility if they're not quite

00:30:05.360 there yet economically to build what you'd think of as a middle-class household. So to have a

00:30:11.120 space for both of that, also to have spots for guests to stay. When I say guests, I suppose

00:30:18.480 that's an extension of the word. Certainly guests, but also members of our AFA family. When we get

00:30:24.420 the home of the AFA, that's really what I mean. And if you're an AFA member, you are welcome

00:30:30.060 there that's your home too um you may or may not get to sleep on my floor if i'm there but

00:30:36.860 you certainly can use the guest facilities that we're going to have set up i also want to in

00:30:41.820 conjunction and overlapping with the guest facilities have spots for if we have members

00:30:46.860 that are infirmed or that are elderly and don't have the finances to live in a dignified way that

00:30:54.460 that we think they ought to be able to we can't promise them everything but you know we'll have

00:30:58.860 food at the hall we'll have a community of people that care about them and they'll be in a spot where

00:31:03.980 they can worship their gods and we can at least make sure we provide that for our folk um that

00:31:10.140 means brings me to the other two i guess planks of phase one we're going to have a big mead hall

00:31:19.660 slash some offices and commercial kitchens and multi-purpose gathering room hall area set up

00:31:28.540 there. And we're also going to have, when the time comes for Hoffs, and this is in our normal

00:31:32.820 rotation of Hoffs, but when that time comes, we're going to have Tiers Hoff there on the grounds of

00:31:37.880 Sigerheim. And we're already working on getting plans for those things all set up. I suppose this

00:31:44.680 is as good a time as any to say, in order to get those things, we need money. We appreciate your

00:31:51.360 guys' generosity and donations. That is a huge part of how we've been able to accomplish the

00:31:57.120 things that we have been able to accomplish. And we thank you guys so much for that. Sigurheim is

00:32:02.580 going to be a bigger investment than we've made before. So, you know, those three and four figure

00:32:08.420 donations are what we really, really need. Shoot five figures if you want. But yeah, anything you

00:32:15.780 guys can do for that. This is a dream of generations that folks have wanted to do.

00:32:21.300 If you are seriously interested, you can reach out if it's a place that you actually want to put

00:32:25.400 down roots and live, but it is going to take some real world financial contributions to make it a

00:32:31.120 reality. So that's what I've got so far. I'd be happy to answer any other specifics to the best

00:32:36.740 of my ability, but so everybody knows, these things evolve and change as we move forward and

00:32:42.600 as the situation presents itself and depending upon the piece of land we're able to get. So

00:32:47.280 stay tuned, but we are moving on that. We've got a member of leadership actually looking at some

00:32:54.200 stuff this coming weekend so we are moving forward um gc uh matt what was the second best part of

00:33:04.280 your week and why was it the coffee peanut butter porter i'll tell you what that was delicious

00:33:10.040 that's one of the best beers i've had in a long time um you know i i build up my my masculine

00:33:18.200 points so I can drink a little bit fruitier beverages sometimes. Um, that there was a

00:33:24.900 creme brulee, uh, stout that I had a number of years ago. I think it's probably tied for my

00:33:31.020 favorites, but that was really, really good. I wouldn't say that's the second best part of my

00:33:34.860 week. I'm trying to think of what the second best part of my week was. I know it's kind of a cop

00:33:37.960 out when you guys ask, you know, what I'm doing. I tell you, this is my favorite. It is, but it's

00:33:42.140 the same answer every week um shoot yeah i think it was so did i say mandy uh mandy and my daughter

00:33:59.100 but so mandy and my daughter were with me on this one so i think it counts for both i i can hit

00:34:03.580 both here so we went uh down to carson city and did a wine walk and met some new folks that actually

00:34:09.740 got interested in the in the afa from this uh this broadcast so we got to meet them and spend

00:34:16.380 the day walking around in really cool historic old carson city and enjoying some wine and spending

00:34:24.460 some time just walking and talking and making friends so that was a really good part of my

00:34:28.140 week too we did that last saturday uh lane asks alan since you both complement each other so well

00:34:36.620 Can you tell us if there is an Aousetruar version of yin and yang?

00:34:48.340 I would say that I'm the yang, just because that's the masculine side.

00:34:52.840 No.

00:34:58.380 It's, I have actually given a little bit of thought to that because I did do, you know, I did spend some time as,

00:35:06.620 or at least proposing myself as a Taoist.

00:35:10.440 And the thing that I find interesting about the comparison between Taoism as a generality

00:35:20.460 and then also true is that Taoism, you know, the yin and yang, if you look at it, you know,

00:35:27.280 the little black swirl has the white dot and the white swirl has the black dot.

00:35:33.560 And they each like each element has the seed of its opposite in there, whereas I think of also true as more like the sort of the opposite in many ways or the inverse of that, because what I think of is making up the the the the way that the multiverse came into being is like the hottest part of the fire.

00:35:59.320 It's fire and ice is the, you know, is the beginning, the swirl that creates canunga gap, but it's the hottest part of the heat and the coldest part of the ice is what rises to create physical reality.

00:36:17.100 So there certainly is some complementarity to that, but rather than resting and repose, we think of ourselves as a much more active and vibrant folk that's the Faustian bargain, you know, for lack of a better word, you know, we, you know, we are the hottest part of the heat and we are the coldest part of the cold.

00:36:38.840 And that's that's what retains balance. So that instead of being, you know, a little bit of wheat on the frosted side, you know, we're all frost and all wheat.

00:36:51.960 I could spend two hours talking about that because I've given that's one of those things that I can't contemplate with a fair bit because I've got, you know, right under my poetic ed, I've got my copy of the Tao Te Ching.

00:37:03.540 Sarah says, Alan, can you talk on speaking the names of the runes like you let us in doing during bloat at Fall Fest?

00:37:16.540 Thank you.

00:37:18.540 And as near as the reckoners can reckon, especially those who, like Stephen Flowers and Colin Cleary, who've done work in this area, they see these brooches and pieces of jewelry and bracteates and those sorts of things, clasps.

00:37:40.400 And many of them have the entire Futhark circled, just like we often do it, you know, all the way around.

00:37:50.120 And what they think that the folk were trying to do by that representation was that the Futhark represents the world as manifest.

00:38:05.680 So that in much the same way that the yin and yang represent the world as manifest to the Taoist.

00:38:14.060 So so by gall the ring, the entire Futhark, which I often do in the morning just over and over again, it it manifests the world.

00:38:28.000 it shapes the world to our being um it certainly changes my mindset because if i you know if i

00:38:35.700 galder uh you know the food thark a few times while i'm getting ready for work it just puts

00:38:42.520 me in a different mindset than if i'm in there singing carly b or whatever and i don't even know

00:38:48.280 who that is but that's uh i have no idea who that is okay frank even frank zappa who you know who

00:38:55.440 is in a different sort of elevated discourse, but it's, you know, it's a very different place

00:39:02.160 than when I'm galling the food park. I just think it's a way of us, that we can shape the world to

00:39:08.480 our own use, because it is ours after all. Michael says, and I believe this is for you,

00:39:17.440 alan do you have an opinion about how to dress at bloats and symbols i do and it's um and it it is

00:39:27.840 cool how that this has evolved i i absolutely think that we should always present our best

00:39:33.680 selves at bloat ensemble um if you because and again if you look at the history of alter true

00:39:42.240 we come from uh you know if we look 15 years back we would mostly be you know kind of scruffy guys

00:39:50.880 who were proud of our scruffiness you know you're not going to tell me what to do and but but it's

00:39:57.280 not about that it's you know if you went to see the governor if you went to see an honored ancestor

00:40:04.960 you wouldn't you know come in from you know plowing the fields with mud on your boots and 0.53

00:40:10.240 you know go tromping your mud into the courtroom um you wouldn't go tromping your mud into and

00:40:15.120 court i mean the you know the inner chamber of the king's you know reception area and in the 0.54

00:40:22.080 same way i think we should present our best selves to our gods um suit and tie and you know even

00:40:28.480 though it seems you know it kind of and i understand the objection it smacks of high

00:40:34.720 church and you know for a long time i sort of um was on the fence about it but it puts you in a

00:40:40.120 different mindset when you're putting on a suit you're putting on that tie and you think man i

00:40:44.960 you know i am i am putting on my best self and we should always present that uh to our gods and to

00:40:51.320 our folk which is not to say like if you you know if you can't get there you know if you're um if

00:40:58.620 you're on hard times for whatever reason there's absolutely nothing wrong with putting on a clean

00:41:03.240 shirt, clean pair of shoes and coming to bloat and sample that, you know, it's, it's, it's

00:41:06.940 absolutely not a requirement as long as what you're doing is, you know, this is my best

00:41:11.720 thing. And, you know, I got a closet full of suits. So my best thing is a suit and a

00:41:17.040 tie.

00:41:21.600 Yeah. I think everybody knows where I stand on that. I've talked about it all the time.

00:41:26.120 I, I certainly think that, you know, present your best and, you know, at different times

00:41:30.560 in different parts of the world, that may mean different things. But, you know, there's nothing

00:41:36.400 biblical about a suit and tie. It's a European style of classy men in Europe. And when the Asians

00:41:45.100 do it, they're adopting Western style. It's been appropriate in our culture. And I guess one other 1.00

00:41:51.800 thing that we should also always say in this context, Matt, and I know that probably regular

00:41:57.000 listeners already know this but we sort of went through that thing of wearing period garb whatever

00:42:05.640 that was you know there was a time when some of us wore tunics and you know the lapped belt and

00:42:12.760 you know and the little uh purse thing but i think that time's passed you know we're

00:42:18.920 we're maturing as a folk we're maturing as a religion um and it you know it's hard to imagine

00:42:26.760 guys in the tribal period thinking you know we should all be out here in loin cloth and uh you

00:42:32.600 know carrying a big club because that's what the ancestors did you know if uh if

00:42:40.040 ragnar neckbeard was alive today he wouldn't be going to church in a tunic and a you know in a

00:42:47.400 sword belt he'd be wearing a wearing a suit and a shoulder holster you know absolutely

00:42:55.160 um sage of sylvania has the afa considered making a young men's group similar to what the boy scouts

00:43:03.620 used to be yes and you know that's been a steady consideration certainly certainly it was a it was

00:43:13.380 a thing when i joined when i became alsa true and first got involved excuse me when i first got

00:43:19.860 involved in also true in 2001 2002 there was a lot of talk about it and i think it's still

00:43:27.480 something people would love to see the trouble is so much of what makes those things work is having

00:43:35.180 young boys of a of a similar age in a similar location um and so far that density of people

00:43:44.440 with the same same gender same age and within you know a very small distance of each other

00:43:51.640 we're just not quite there yet we're closer than we've ever been we certainly got more children

00:43:57.080 than we've ever had and you can see that at all our moots and certainly at all our hoffs

00:44:04.120 what i do think is a possibility sooner than that especially when we get sigerheim is having

00:44:10.680 a summer camp kind of deal with boys or with girls for that matter. But we could have those

00:44:17.320 kind of things when we have a permanent place that's ours, that has eating facilities and

00:44:23.880 facilities for people to stay at. And I think that's something we're going to see before we

00:44:28.240 see a traditional scouting type group. But we would love to see that when we have the density

00:44:32.880 of boys together to do that, we would absolutely love to see something like that.

00:44:38.260 You know, I think it would be a good idea to have that group, and if it's led by a father who has the ability and the interest to do it, even if it's not necessarily all AFA boys, but, you know, if it's a couple kids from the soccer team, you know, get your dad to show us how to shoot a bow, you know,

00:45:00.460 then you know your pants are fausting and recruiting new members by taking them and doing

00:45:05.340 stuff that doesn't look like it's coming off a screen with a video thing attached to it yeah it

00:45:12.220 uh that certainly fills a niche that's lacking amongst our young men today so yeah i'd love to

00:45:17.180 see those kind of things uh finn wraith asks is there anything in the myths that said we shouldn't

00:45:23.820 curse i think the idea that we shouldn't curse because it makes our believers look bad is only

00:45:31.420 if the person we're talking to sees swearing is bad um a couple of thoughts on that and i'm sure

00:45:37.260 alan's got thoughts on that as well his his first point that alan made that i think stands with this

00:45:43.900 when we the root of magical act is incantation it's speaking things into existence the act of

00:45:56.380 speaking is what takes thoughts and ideas from the privacy of your head and manifest them into

00:46:04.860 the world into our shared space i think you certainly want more good things than negative

00:46:10.460 things when you're doing that yeah you know speech you're right in a sense that speech

00:46:16.780 only has context based upon um meanings that we uh that we ascribe to words sorry my daughter is

00:46:26.220 has broken in my office here and is causing some chaos um no but you know our words only

00:46:33.580 have meanings based on the meanings we've assigned to them but we can navel gaze about

00:46:38.220 that all day at the end of the day our words do have meanings and there is a there is a

00:46:46.460 perception that happens and so much of our speech isn't just about um the one person we're conversing

00:46:54.780 with there's almost always there's people looking on there's an audience whether we know they're

00:47:00.860 there or not and they make judgments about us they make judgments about how we look about how

00:47:05.340 we speak about how we present ourselves in general and i think it's also true that you know

00:47:12.940 a couple things like the lore we don't think of as a comprehensive source anyway

00:47:17.340 you know there's not a list of thou shalt nots because it's just an example for the way that

00:47:22.780 we live and there's certainly not any place in the lore where eagles gallagrimson you know

00:47:30.780 curses at people except with the intent of casting a curse on them and that's really what the you know

00:47:38.860 that's the thing of it you know as if you know and i don't even like to use examples but you know to

00:47:44.940 like the like the gd remote controls laws okay i don't want the all father to curse my remote

00:47:56.380 control because it happens to be missing right now you know that's just idle speech um the uh

00:48:02.780 and the other thing that while i was formulating these ideas low these many years ago

00:48:08.060 i spoke with a guy who's one of the leading scholars on the anglo-saxon tribal era and

00:48:16.380 he confirmed that the anglo-saxons would during that pre-christian era would not have cursed

00:48:23.100 an object um because they because they think their words have intent they wouldn't waste

00:48:29.500 like this manifesting power of uh the web of weird and use it to you know because their tire went

00:48:37.020 flat or you know because the wheel came off that's just not you know that's not worthy of that sort of

00:48:44.460 that level of discourse so it's so it has both the practical and the spiritual aspect

00:48:50.220 And certainly if you're alone with your buddy and he's also going to notice that you're speaking in the higher tone, which doesn't mean that you have to be a prude about it.

00:49:01.780 I mean, you can speak to your audience.

00:49:04.360 Absolutely.

00:49:06.080 It's not a prohibition, it's a goal.

00:49:08.860 Well, I think what you're saying, though, about intent is very important.

00:49:11.680 And I think that comes into polite speech as well.

00:49:14.820 I think when you wish someone luck, that has a meaning.

00:49:20.220 And it's gotten to where it's just a figure of speech now, but we should hold ourself to intent.

00:49:26.900 And if you wish someone luck, you genuinely should be willing to break off a chunk of your luck and grant it to them.

00:49:35.200 You know, when you say you're welcome after somebody says thank you, are they welcome or do they grossly inconvenience you and you don't want them to do it again?

00:49:43.520 Don't say you're welcome unless you mean it.

00:49:46.840 I think all of that is is very important.

00:49:49.680 The other thing is, despite whatever, you know, philosophizing we want to do, cursing's bad, and you look crass and low class when you do it.

00:50:04.880 You look much better when you speak elegantly and with more respectful verbiage.

00:50:12.080 And it's just over the last 30 or 40, 50 years that crass, low culture has become predominant.

00:50:19.000 And it used to be that the whole goal of civilization was to try to elevate people out of crass low culture, you know, whereas now it's been celebrated. 0.72

00:50:30.740 You know, so much of the meaning of Arianism is being noble and not just being noble, but shining with nobility.

00:50:39.120 And that means how you present and you project that nobility.

00:50:42.560 Holding yourself to a higher standard is always better than holding yourself to a lower standard.

00:50:47.700 And I'm sure we can come up with intellectualized arguments to try to make it okay in certain contexts, but we're always better served holding ourselves to something higher and something better.

00:51:03.060 Libre Algis von Gell, are you sure about what you describe as higher language?

00:51:10.040 Being able to properly use the F word in Haiti and Kinnings requires a keen intelligence.

00:51:15.460 yeah um really crass gangster rap is often very impressive in its rhyme scheme and its

00:51:24.820 intelligence but it's not what we aim for and it's not our target um there's ways to be very

00:51:34.780 artful in rhyming things with curse words but we're better than that we know we're better than

00:51:43.000 that. Right. We could hit those same insults without, you know, scraping the bottom of the

00:51:49.200 vocabulary. There are a lot of adjectives out there. You know, it's something, and I don't

00:51:55.260 want to assume anymore because in 2022, I can't assume this, but, you know, I'm tempted to say

00:52:00.860 you wouldn't say that stuff around your parents or your grandparents. Why not? And if you wouldn't

00:52:07.480 say it around your parents and your grandparents, why are you saying it in front of our gods and

00:52:13.440 folk? And I think it bears consideration. And if you would say those things around your parents

00:52:19.740 and your grandparents, shame on you. Finn Wraith, has a hater ever changed their minds

00:52:32.160 and join the AFA. Yeah, Alan may have stories about this. Yes, absolutely, there has been.

00:52:40.240 A couple of things I'll say on it up front here.

00:52:48.540 I don't know if it's even relevant anymore to you guys, but for a long time, the AFA's,

00:52:56.040 I guess, lefty competition was the troth. And I don't think they're nearly as relevant today as

00:53:02.720 they once were. But they had these things that I guess were their equivalent of our folk builders

00:53:07.200 called troth stewards. And we had multiple troth stewards end up joining the AFA when they had

00:53:14.120 children. And children make people view life really differently. And the common thing that

00:53:22.580 I've heard from people that come from a more leftist background that have joined the AFA has

00:53:28.600 been the dichotomy in their head between it's cool to have all these lefty values of acceptance

00:53:38.080 towards degeneracy when it's for the attention and the applause of your lefty friends.

00:53:45.540 But there was a genuine guttural back of your, you know, medulla oblongata fear when you have

00:53:52.300 children that you can't leave the room with your child with those people um those same folks got 0.90

00:53:58.940 around folkish individuals and people that they thought practice wrong think and they just

00:54:04.220 inherently trusted in their safety and their children's safety and dealing with that battling

00:54:10.380 that in their head has brought a lot of people to the afa what's your experience alan very similar

00:54:16.540 um you know there's uh certainly at any moot that i've been to with the afa any gathering of us is

00:54:25.020 you know we call it the high trust environment you know you can leave your you can leave your goods

00:54:31.500 laying around it's going to be right there when you come back to it the kids go from uh

00:54:36.860 from person to person and you know that they are absolutely safe um personally i you know one of

00:54:43.500 of the guys who's an AFA stalwart right now. When I first met him, was a member of SHARP,

00:54:52.180 Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. I was just thinking of that same person myself.

00:54:56.820 Yep. And I asked him sometime later after he had joined the AFA, I said, how'd you get from there

00:55:03.900 to here? And he just pointed at his kids. I said, when I had those kids, I realized that I had to

00:55:10.500 think about the kind of world that I'm leaving for them. And that's what, you know, is the world a

00:55:16.260 better place for our existence? And you have to be able to look in the mirror and answer yes.

00:55:25.920 And like you said, it's easy in the abstract to think everybody's the same, but we know better.

00:55:33.180 Well, you know, I've seen that in a different context with my stepmother, and she's pretty

00:55:37.920 far left and she has all these very politically correct ideas about the differences of people but

00:55:44.880 she was raised in a completely homogeneous environment where all of that's theory

00:55:49.600 when people actually have to experience the and i'm using air quotes for those listening

00:55:54.720 on the podcast the cultural enrichment you on a much more safety-minded visceral sense you you get

00:56:04.160 what's what and it's it's very different when there's boots on the ground it's it's

00:56:10.080 easy to see things a different way from an ivory tower it's much different

00:56:14.400 when you and your family are in positions to to notice those differences in perhaps a dangerous

00:56:20.880 way um we got a 10 canadian dollars from lawrence thank you lawrence you you are a loyal uh follower

00:56:30.160 of this and a loyal contributor every single week. And we really appreciate you. Good evening,

00:56:37.260 Matt. It's nice to meet you, Alan. I don't want to open a can of worms here, but your thoughts

00:56:43.020 on cursing our enemies, not foul language, but summoning slash rallying our gods and goddesses

00:56:48.980 against them. I tend to think this should be considered healthy and normal. That's a really

00:56:54.960 good and interesting question that you bring up. And I'm glad that you did. What are your thoughts,

00:56:59.520 i agree wholeheartedly um you know i i do think that that sort of thing can can work in the

00:57:07.040 ethereal way you know it doesn't excuse us from not um doing the groundwork also but you know i

00:57:14.720 think by uh it both manifests the spirit inside of us to to to renew the will to fight and it uh

00:57:23.200 and in the ethereal plane it it hampers our enemies when we do it i you know i i think we

00:57:32.020 are at the moment we are too few and too scattered to um to um to to do that successfully

00:57:39.880 on a large scale um i am aware from having participated in some groups of chaos magic that

00:57:46.900 um that some of those guys in uh great britain were able to um you know knock out the bbc for

00:57:54.740 a few seconds by concentrating their sorry i don't know that for a fact that's what they said they

00:58:01.060 were able to do and i you know i um my world view says that um that that would be possible so you

00:58:08.820 know i do think that when the time comes and we're in that position then you know absolutely which is

00:58:15.620 why we shouldn't waste our cursing on remote controls and flat tires we should save it up for

00:58:22.580 you know something worthwhile so you know on the on the topic i guess of saving it up

00:58:31.140 yes i think that that is appropriate but i think it's something that is best done

00:58:37.300 sparingly and when it is done with devastating and full intent um

00:58:49.300 i have only engaged in that and so i'm happy to answer most any question on here but when we come

00:58:56.740 to those kind of spooky esoterics i think there's a value in secrecy a little bit on some of it

00:59:07.300 because I think it affects the efficacy. I have done that on two occasions. And on both occasions

00:59:18.000 that I've seriously gone into casting curses upon my foes, I feel that it has worked

00:59:27.560 shockingly well, certainly in one of the instances. So I do think there is a time and a place for

00:59:35.940 that. But I think with anything magical, it's not something that should be done casually or

00:59:40.920 because somebody's a jerk and you want to put a curse on them. I think that that's something that

00:59:44.720 is a very serious and a very, should be used sparingly and devastatingly when it's necessary.

00:59:55.760 But I think we can take that same force and use it to, you know, for ourselves and build good

01:00:00.540 in ourselves and wish wish well of ourselves and then you don't you know and if you if your wall

01:00:06.220 is insulated well enough you don't have to worry about what the neighbors are doing you know

01:00:10.460 absolutely i think that typically and again i've admitted that i've done that twice myself i think

01:00:17.100 that there is a time and a place and a circumstance that is completely appropriate

01:00:21.580 but as alan just said it is much more valuable in general to use that energy towards building

01:00:29.580 instead of towards tearing down um and i think it also is worth noting that your spiritual might

01:00:36.220 is a uh it's a limited resource you know maybe not finite maybe you can recharge it but there's

01:00:43.020 there's a there's an issue of quantity it's not unlimited that you can spend all of this energy

01:00:48.700 equally in all of the endeavors that you possibly want it just doesn't work that way so you need to

01:00:54.300 pick and choose where to put that focus because the the efficacy of magic or of success in your

01:01:00.780 life in general is on how much intent and how much passion you put behind what you're doing

01:01:08.620 and the more you divide that up the less you can focus that yep that absolutely

01:01:14.540 uh sarah matt and alan could you talk about oaths how seriously should we take if we should take

01:01:21.100 them seriously and uphold them and the meaning of being released from one alan go ahead and take

01:01:28.220 first swing at this one i i think taking an oath is the most serious and most sacred thing that

01:01:35.420 you can do um you know when you when you bind yourself um and you're weird with someone else

01:01:44.940 for a purpose when you you know uh first of all i think it should be very narrowly done

01:01:52.140 with lots of circumspection um you know before you say those words and um and do that thing

01:01:59.740 you know and bind yourselves together you know you have to think it through very carefully and

01:02:05.420 and make sure that that is exactly the right thing to do um and it should absolutely be taken

01:02:14.140 seriously which is um which is why when we take the oaths that we do as folk builder as goathy

01:02:23.420 um the wedding ceremonies and so forth that we do um you know we remind everyone before they

01:02:31.260 before they take that oath we remind them again of the seriousness of taking those

01:02:36.060 us because they do um it does bind that spiritual part of yourself um you know in the in a very real

01:02:45.660 and lasting way and when you when you break those oaths it chips away a part of your soul

01:02:53.100 so it's absolutely something that that you have to take um super cereal so

01:03:00.700 So this is complex, and there's a lot that goes into it. And I've seen it's baffling and interesting

01:03:15.300 to see how people have taken the value of oaths in my time in Alcitrum. Oaths are extremely

01:03:24.040 important. Your word is very much your bond. And when you formalize it in a ritual context with

01:03:30.120 making an oath, it's very powerful and very important. And there's consequences for breaking

01:03:40.920 oaths. I've seen what I was going to say when I was leading off with. I've seen situations where

01:03:50.040 people feel that there is a conflicting oath that goes on, or that there's conflicting loyalties.

01:03:56.220 and it seems and i know that some of this is human nature but our people are particularly

01:04:02.580 susceptible to choosing the oaths that are most convenient for them and go and ride or die with

01:04:09.860 those oaths but the oaths that they don't like they find a convenient way to weasel out of

01:04:16.720 and it's completely unacceptable for you to ever break an oath with them but they can break an

01:04:22.300 oath to you at whim because reasons. I think our folk have a very unreasonable,

01:04:30.660 imbalanced view of oathing. Like I've seen people with their kindred oaths always supersede

01:04:39.080 their AFA oaths for some reason. And that reason is convenience because it's easier not to hurt

01:04:47.580 the feelings of your friends than to care about people that are distant from you.

01:04:52.300 Oaths don't work like that. Another misconception about oaths. Okay, so I've seen other people that

01:04:59.200 have taken profound leadership oaths and break those at the drop of the hat like they're nothing,

01:05:05.800 but sacrifice lots of things for very small, inconse, or would seemingly less consequential

01:05:17.440 oaths to kindred members or dude they came up with um so i think one thing about oaths is very

01:05:26.400 important is make sure your oaths are not conflicting or done in such a way that if there's

01:05:32.160 a conflict there's a resolution path and that leads me to the other thing i want to say about oaths

01:05:37.680 oaths are a contract between two entities and there's typically terms on both sides of that

01:05:49.860 if the other side of your oath violates the terms of the oath then it's completely appropriate to

01:05:57.480 to address that and if in irreconcilable it no longer binds you to your portion of it if that's

01:06:05.340 agreed upon. I think it's very reasonable to get the people who've chosen to enter into oaths to

01:06:11.120 dissolve those oaths if the fundamental situations of life have changed. And there's

01:06:17.360 honorable ways to try to do that rather than just running off and breaking your oaths.

01:06:22.540 It's worth the time to renegotiate and come up with an equitable and appropriate solution rather

01:06:31.900 than to just abandon one's responsibilities. And I think, you know, I think as grown adults,

01:06:38.140 the older we get in life, we see more and more occasions in life where we're unable

01:06:42.140 to continue with perhaps oaths that we've made that we shouldn't have made. I think

01:06:46.640 one of the most obvious ones of those is divorce. And I think a lot of us, myself included,

01:06:51.780 have been involved in divorce that were, you know, oath to be till death do us part and then

01:06:57.480 didn't quite work out that way. And it's unfortunate, but it's still serious and there's

01:07:04.980 still a debt on those. I think another oath a lot of us have engaged in is baptism. I know that's

01:07:11.700 one that I feel bad that I broke that oath. So I think that we need to be realistic that there's

01:07:19.940 consequences, but it's not one and done and you're worthless for the rest of eternity if an oath is

01:07:25.460 broken, but they're very important and they need to be considered in the extreme before they're

01:07:32.040 made. And I'd also venture to say they should be made sparingly so that they don't conflict and so

01:07:38.100 that you can focus your seriousness on maintaining the commitments that you have made. And I think

01:07:43.220 you also bring up the valid point of getting released from the oath, which is if the agreement

01:07:50.440 is mutual, you know, certainly divorce is an example, but also, you know, I'm getting ready

01:07:55.960 to move to somewhere where we can't be together as kindred anymore. I would like to be released

01:08:01.460 from this oath that we have together. Absolutely. You know, and you, you know, or I, my life

01:08:07.200 circumstances has changed and I cannot fulfill my oath as a folk builder. You know, I don't have

01:08:11.680 time to do it. I would like to be released from the oath. You can be released from an oath in an

01:08:16.020 honorable way. But what you don't want to do is slink away from it because, again, you leave that

01:08:24.060 piece of your soul behind and it's not coming back. Yeah, it's a finite resource. The other

01:08:33.100 thing that I want to say to that is, and I mentioned this a lot on this program, and please

01:08:40.840 don't take this that this has come easy for me or that i'm perfect at this in my own life

01:08:47.560 we all have things that we're afraid of or make us uncomfortable um but courage is really it's

01:08:55.880 essential to the practice of asa true it's essential to all of our virtues and it's something

01:09:02.280 that our folks specifically are very very lacking in today and we're working hard to rebuild that

01:09:12.440 but when we think of courage as you know there's people with bar fight courage and that's the

01:09:17.640 courage that so many of our men think about you know courage in battle and that's that is a

01:09:23.400 important courage. And in times where it's necessary, that is a truly profound and one

01:09:33.180 of the greatest courages. But on the day to day in 2022, a courage that we often lack

01:09:39.220 is a social courage to say something that may hurt feelings or to say something that may

01:09:46.140 cause people to make you feel uncomfortable. And so rather than taking the courage of a

01:09:53.960 20-minute phone call to honorably ask for release and dissolve an oath in an appropriate way

01:10:02.200 we would rather send an angry email and just abdicate our responsibility because we feel it's

01:10:09.160 easier and it may be easier in the moment but it's not easier in the long run and i challenge you

01:10:15.080 guys to stand up and have social courage as best you can that's a challenge for all of us that's

01:10:21.560 a challenge for me i don't like letting people down or hurting people's feelings or having

01:10:26.760 awkward conversations with people like i get it but it's important that we rise to that it's

01:10:32.200 important that every time we realize the only thing holding us back from something is fear

01:10:37.560 that we conquer that fear and that we don't allow that fear to dictate our actions that we live up

01:10:43.080 to the odenshoff motto of do right and fear none so i'd encourage you guys to do that

01:10:48.360 uh sierra threw us ten dollars i appreciate that sierra she asked uh can you boast about

01:10:56.040 the signs being erected for adopt a highway odenshoff yes sierra i can anyways next question

01:11:04.440 no no sierra is uh one of our folk builders in northern california and she's worked very hard

01:11:09.800 to get um a stretch of highway for the afa to have um do to do the adopt a highway now we have

01:11:17.400 other folks across the country that have done that i think it's a really nice way to take care of and

01:11:22.280 be good neighbors in the communities that we're in especially around our hops but anywhere we have

01:11:26.440 membership and sierra's been the tip of the spear on making that happen and she just got approved

01:11:31.880 we got the sign up this last weekend i say this last weekend i don't know the days get away from

01:11:37.800 me it could have been on monday don't hold me to that but within the last week since i spoke to

01:11:42.040 you guys last we got our sign up and we got a nice stretch of highway that we are going to keep clean

01:11:47.400 and beautiful that if you're coming i believe if you're coming from the east to get to odenshoff

01:11:54.840 you will see this stretch of highway and uh when you do stop and appreciate the work that sierra

01:11:59.960 and our other volunteers have put in on keeping it beautiful throw some litter out so they'll have

01:12:05.080 something to do uh you know that i don't support that idea i think there's a thousand dollar fine

01:12:10.280 for that in the state of california don't do that don't do that don't don't there's a lot of advice

01:12:18.280 from the law speaker you should heed but that is not one of them uh kevin says matt it said there

01:12:23.800 would possibly uh be summer camps in the future would this be possible it will absolutely be

01:12:30.600 possible i would love to see it happen i can't make a promise on when it would happen but that's

01:12:35.080 one of the options one of the things that sigerheim really makes a reality and that's something that

01:12:40.200 is part of the position paper i made on sigerheim when it was you know in gestation that's something

01:12:47.160 i want to see happen can't promise you when but that is something we're gonna we're gonna make

01:12:51.400 happen uh christine law speaker turnage can you describe to us your different roles as a law

01:13:00.520 speaker how can members best utilize the knowledge you offer well um first of all i mean the practical

01:13:09.000 stuff that matt has already talked about i do well i i honor the uh and serve um as the interface

01:13:20.440 with the government functionaries um you know like i did up at balder soft to get the permit

01:13:27.400 completed. I read documents. I review contracts. I look at closing statements. I do all of those

01:13:34.620 sorts of things, prepare promissory notes when we buy things. So in the mundane part of it,

01:13:42.520 I do think of that as the mundane part of my job, working as the legal portion of the AFA

01:13:55.700 um but uh within the organization itself my goal and i and i um my goal is to try to

01:14:06.660 maintain the uh the the law of the afa to make sure that what we do and the way that we do our

01:14:15.560 the week the way that we comport ourselves is within the uh you know is within the law and

01:14:21.340 structure of the uh you know of the lore and the history of our folk and our ancestors um as as we

01:14:30.440 know the the word law speaker originated from the idea of the thing in iceland and i think in the

01:14:37.520 pre-tribal times before that where the law speaker was the guy who had to know what the laws were so

01:14:42.400 you'd know whether x was inbounds or out of bounds whether certain behavior was to be tolerated or

01:14:48.760 not um and certainly i will and so as far as being able to take advantage of that a couple things

01:14:55.960 i'll go ahead as matt has done in in the past and say that um one thing i do is i act as a repository

01:15:03.800 for our wills uh you know the wills and testaments that we have i think i have three of them

01:15:12.680 mine is not among them unfortunately but so mine is yours is matt i have matt's will in my drawer

01:15:19.480 and it's and and you know there are uh i don't want to get into the long story of of the way

01:15:25.560 that that can go wrong but the only way that you can have your intents enacted after you pass from

01:15:34.600 this bodily life is to have a last will and testament and the only way that we can help make

01:15:40.600 sure that whatever you want that that happens is for that an original of that will to be living in

01:15:45.560 my drawer so that um eons from now when uh when we start to pass away i can pull that will out and

01:15:54.440 say you know matt's intent is for this property to go to this person that property of that person

01:16:02.360 and you know for his remains to be interred at wherever it's going to be so you know so that

01:16:08.760 sort of is that overlapping responsibility you know that that way we make sure that our will

01:16:16.360 gets uh implemented in the world um i've also done a couple of mediations here recently

01:16:25.180 um and i've just used my i would say my gift to talk but really it's just my patience

01:16:34.020 to let people discuss with each other the ways that they feel like they've been wronged

01:16:42.700 and come to a resolution of that.

01:16:45.080 I've had a couple of these resolutions that really just by being able to be patient

01:16:52.100 and everybody getting heard and coming to something everybody can live with,

01:16:55.980 I am honored to do that, you know, to maintain the frith within the AFA.

01:17:07.480 I'm sure there's other stuff I'm leaving out.

01:17:10.520 You know, certainly other things, I'm happy to act as advisor and even to point you in practical legal solutions.

01:17:23.380 Again, I've had long conversations with people about legal matters that I don't really practice it, but I can guide them in the right direction. Criminal matters, child support, property disputes. I may not be able to practice it mostly because each state's laws are so particular, but I can weed through the chaff out there and point you in the right direction.

01:17:50.180 i'm always glad to do that you know i've you know i've helped i like to think that i've helped a few 1.00

01:17:55.140 people you know just with their legal problems just by making them aware of legal resources that

01:18:02.900 are out there that they didn't that they didn't know were available whether it's state help or

01:18:06.500 low-cost lawyers or you know just legal websites out there that explain your rights i'm happy to do

01:18:12.500 that i could keep talking that's frozen

01:18:26.260 send me an email and i'll shoot you a call that's for sure eventually sorry guys i glitched out

01:18:33.700 there for a second um hairbrush pictures over on the side said that i'm looking good and i just

01:18:40.580 want to take a moment to say thank you i appreciate that um so unlike sunny i am lucky that i have a

01:18:48.740 wartime consigliere and a peacetime consigliere alan is uh alan is solid with the advice and um

01:18:59.060 you know there's different people on the witten that i go to for different things

01:19:02.740 but and alan spoke a little bit about this second ago in his description but

01:19:07.540 But laws are scary. We live in a society where the laws are so arcane and confusing and terrifying to the average person that doesn't understand that system and how it works.

01:19:24.300 And Alan is able to cut through that and tell me what's real, what's not, and guide me through that maze.

01:19:33.700 And first, it's terrifying for me. I know that it's scary for our members. And Allen is a source

01:19:41.460 that demystifies that and can advise us in a legitimate way. I don't know what it would be

01:19:47.900 like to have the law speaker that's not an actual lettered attorney. It's very functional and

01:19:56.360 awesome that Allen is. It's a huge resource that we have that none of these other groups have had.

01:20:02.500 and it's easy to say that today because we've outpaced the competition by so far

01:20:07.000 but when Alan was he mentioned that very quickly he was on the board of directors of the AFA

01:20:12.280 you know back in 2012 and at that time we we hadn't outpaced a lot of the competition having

01:20:19.780 an actual lawyer on the team is a huge deal when we need to be represented um to the city of Murdoch

01:20:27.640 minnesota sending our lawyer up from florida to you know do his matlock thing to him is

01:20:37.480 that's pretty cool that's a really big feather in our cap that we're able to do that um just

01:20:45.160 recently i was mentioning this to alan the other day when we first when alan and i first got our

01:20:49.880 ordinations one of the things that was talked about way back when was um mediating conflicts

01:20:56.840 between membership. And that was always kind of one of those things on the list to do. But up

01:21:03.200 until very recently, we've had nobody engage us in that. So Alan is always our go-to for

01:21:08.900 mediation right now. It may get to a point where there's, you know, levels of mediation or too much

01:21:15.680 mediation going on that other go-thar will do that. And they're certainly qualified to do so. 0.99

01:21:20.480 But Alan doing that adds an extra layer of gravitas. And it's really nice to have him

01:21:25.200 able to do that. Alan is one of the people behind the scenes that really does keep an eye on things

01:21:34.720 to make sure things are functioning right. He's one of those folks that is always a really good

01:21:42.040 check-in for me to confirm that something I'm doing is on the right path or to, you know,

01:21:48.720 give me some advice if I have some confusion or feel like, you know, I'm conflicted about

01:21:53.440 something uh his counsel is is essential and has really made a difference that like i say so much

01:22:00.560 of what alan does is unsung but it's there and it's extremely important and appreciated and i and

01:22:07.120 i and i appreciate that recognition and you know i think much of it is not um keeping you off the

01:22:13.920 right path but just reassuring you that you're on the right path because you managed to concoct all

01:22:19.440 these imaginary fears that uh you know you know there's there's like this one tenth of one percent

01:22:26.480 chance that this what if this happens it's like just chill man it's not gonna happen how heavy

01:22:31.600 is the head that wears the crown i tell you what i know i am i am i feel like i am always one mistake

01:22:39.360 away from ruining this from everybody and i don't want to do it you know i want so bad to do the

01:22:44.880 right thing just the reassurance that i'm on the right path and knowing that you would tell me if i

01:22:51.440 weren't it literally helps me sleep at night and i appreciate it good and i mean that you guys don't

01:23:01.200 get it you can ask mandy no i will be up all night stewing about stuff it it's a thing uh

01:23:08.160 Lou says, I get asked this a lot as an apprentice folk builder by members.

01:23:13.680 What is some dating advice you may have?

01:23:17.220 And specifically, how do you find a folkish woman?

01:23:22.240 Alan, what are your words of wisdom on this topic? 0.99

01:23:26.840 Right.

01:23:28.680 Man, I'm not sure that I'm the one to give dating advice.

01:23:32.560 You know, here's, you know, the one thing that I would have to say in that is to be forthright and to, you know, to be yourself from the beginning and don't be led astray by the shiny object that gets dangled in front of the guy's face.

01:23:51.020 You know, because you could tell if you inch into the territory of however you would approach the idea of folkishness, you know, whatever the way you would breach that topic, you know, if she turns her nose up at the vaguest hint of your folkish ideology, then it's best to cut your losses and run in the other direction.

01:24:21.020 Of course, the hard thing about it is that folkishness for our people is not trendy right now.

01:24:31.480 We're not the star of the Disney Channel right at this moment, but we are the solid folk, and it's worth being patient, number one.

01:24:47.480 And number two, the, you know, and this is, I'm just borrowing this element from Mr. McNeil.

01:24:54.900 And one of the things he points out is that our people, the people that we can bring into the folkish ideology are not in, generally speaking, not in the pagan groups.

01:25:07.880 They're not in the liberal ideologue groups.

01:25:12.600 You know, they're sitting in the Baptist church, you know, because they are the ones who are conservative.

01:25:17.480 They're the ones who hold to those family values, which are the things that we, you know, that we hold most dear.

01:25:24.760 And, you know, their religion's in error, but a lot of times it's easy to, you know, to steer them off that.

01:25:34.180 But, you know, once you go through the 14 fallacies of, you know, that Martin Luther pointed out, he was 96, but you can distill it down to 14.

01:25:43.700 you know alan's right on about being up front with it um so many times we have convinced

01:25:52.860 ourselves that we need to start with a fixer upper you know we need to pick somebody that

01:25:59.860 we think maybe down the line we might could you know convince them to you are so much better

01:26:06.700 served finding somebody that's broadly on the same page with you to start with and moving that

01:26:13.800 direction. But, and I'll say one other thing, I'm going to interrupt you right here because

01:26:19.080 I had another thought come to mind because, and the other part of it is be somebody that

01:26:23.660 a woman wants to date, you know, um, because as hard as it is to find a good folkish woman, 0.77

01:26:31.720 you know part of that is speaking in your highest elevation you know if you're if you 1.00

01:26:36.840 you know a good focused woman with good family values doesn't want some foul mouth tobacco spitting 0.99

01:26:43.720 you know scrungy biker dude that's just the reality of it you know um there are you know that's 0.96

01:26:52.520 and if you so if you want to find a good woman be a guy that a good woman is going to want to date 0.76

01:26:58.200 you know that's a that's a good point too i was just gonna say you know

01:27:03.520 base your base your relationships that you actually want to build a life around

01:27:13.100 around your faith and your values those are the things that are going to hold you together and

01:27:18.460 hold things together in the long run it's very tempting you know alan mentioned the shiny things

01:27:23.680 this goes for both men and women it's very easy to pick someone based on sex appeal

01:27:30.800 or based on convenience but you're much better served and i don't mean you got to find some

01:27:37.760 ugly people but you're much better served finding somebody that shares core values with you that's

01:27:45.520 going to last much longer than the other and i know that's not comforting to people that are

01:27:52.560 you know desperately in the hunt and i don't fault you for that i think that's the

01:27:56.560 the primal drive of mammals is to be in that hunt to find a mate and to procreate but

01:28:05.680 value yourself and find somebody that shares your values and with the internet and with the afa you

01:28:12.720 are in a much better spot to do that than many of us were you know just a few years back distance

01:28:18.560 isn't the object it once was. I lived in Alaska when I met Mandy, who lived in Florida. We met

01:28:27.160 in an AFA event in Pennsylvania. And, you know, we've been married now for five years and we have

01:28:35.380 a beautiful two-year-old daughter. So distance, you know, you can't be much further apart than

01:28:40.760 her and I were, certainly on our continent. There's ways to make it work. Keep that in mind.

01:28:46.720 And you can go out and do stuff. I mean, you know, join a hiking group. You know, what do conservative people, what do conservative women do? I mean, I don't know that I would, as a guy, would I join a knitting circle? No, maybe not. But you can join craft groups and be aware of those sorts of things going on and strike up a conversation. You know, it's, you know, that's where you're going to find conservative women with family values. Go down to the maternity ward.

01:29:15.800 Well, you know, that's another thing to say to a lot of our guys, especially our younger guys, and this is not meant insulting, we find our, this is what has happened to specifically younger white males in 2022, especially with all of the reaction to COVID over the last couple of years.

01:29:37.300 there's you know the chances of you just stumbling across an attractive conservative

01:29:44.900 also true woman in your basement or in your mom's basement are really difficult

01:29:49.680 you got to get out where these people are and i know that that's a challenge but you'll be well

01:29:55.420 rewarded for it over time and it's really important uh that folks do that and i know it's it's kind of

01:30:01.580 snarky to say but it does it is important i skipped over a question earlier from nick because

01:30:07.720 i didn't understand the little side check i'm side chat i'm sorry nick so i mentioned that we

01:30:13.260 can be scathing and insulting yet clean and correct does that mean that you're going to

01:30:19.780 arrange an afa flighting competition i'm not because there is a very thin line between

01:30:26.600 flighting and battle rap. And I think that battle rap is a bad look for the Astro-Folka syndrome.

01:30:35.480 There is a video out there, and I couldn't find it when I went back to look at it, but

01:30:42.560 there's a guy who goes back and analyzes the rap music rhyming scheme and points out that it is

01:30:51.400 actually cultural appropriation from viking flightings you know and even like he has a

01:30:57.080 shakespearean flighting that fits exactly into you know it could have been

01:31:04.920 you know straight off the well i wouldn't say nwa but maybe you know eminem

01:31:13.720 you know i that is an unfortunate truth there is is very little difference between i think that

01:31:19.400 the dude making the beatbox noises is the only real difference right um so yeah nick you'd have

01:31:26.520 to provide somebody who can beatbox um maybe we should do a karaoke though you know it's an idea

01:31:34.200 it's an idea we've got a lot of ideas some are good some of them aren't king of cheese says

01:31:39.560 matthew and alan on the subject of clothing does the afa have an issue with folk wearing traditional

01:31:45.080 clothing not to pretend but because that's what they like or what they wish to wear what are your

01:31:51.960 thoughts alan uh absolutely not you know i i have worn a kilt um not in bloat but you know i've i

01:32:01.240 i have a kilt that i used to wear sometimes to go to the hardware store or whatever but you know if

01:32:06.520 you are comfortable in uh you know in and i know that there are like the dress kilts that with the

01:32:13.720 you know the dress scottish shirt i think those look 100 sharp you know they're absolutely

01:32:20.840 no quibbles about that sort of thing you know

01:32:25.880 if you're doing it because like you say because that's how you feel comfortable that's how you

01:32:31.480 manifest your best self for your gods absolutely do it

01:32:37.400 so i i've come at it from a bit different angle um because i'm just going to be completely honest

01:32:43.720 There's two things. First, you feeling that that is your best self and you wearing it proudly in front of our gods. I don't think that's inherently wrong between you and the gods.

01:32:59.520 um alan's example of a kilt there are cultural dress that are also formal and nice dress

01:33:12.480 a kilt is one of those items um there's many items in eastern europe that are also that way

01:33:21.820 there's you know the basque people have cultural dress that's useful there's a lot of different

01:33:28.720 cultural dress you know even if you wear some later hosen or something but silly viking tunics

01:33:36.320 um you're not forbidden for it you know there's no rule we're not going to kick you out of ritual 1.00

01:33:43.920 for for dressing in in larpy viking clothes but yes we do look down on it and it is ridiculous

01:33:52.800 and though it may be meant respectfully to our gods what is really important whether we like

01:34:00.480 to admit it okay so let me take a step back there is a commonly used

01:34:09.040 idea in modern times that is completely antithetical to aussitry

01:34:14.000 the whole i don't care what other people think our ancestors cared everything about what other

01:34:19.520 people thought reputation was everything to them how they made themselves and their family and

01:34:26.880 whatever group they were associated look to their friends and to their enemies meant the world to

01:34:34.000 our ancestors it is a core value to value what other people think as a matter of fact that is

01:34:41.520 the root and that is the core of the idea of honor honor wasn't an internal code that you had our

01:34:48.800 honor was a value that your tribe or your people placed upon you you were given an honor an honor

01:34:56.720 was bestowed upon you honor was based on your cultural social relevancy to your in-group

01:35:05.920 when you dress in a way that other people find silly

01:35:11.840 it brings laughter and silliness upon us as a group upon our faith and upon our gods ultimately

01:35:21.800 and i would never want to do something that made people lose respect for you guys lose respect for

01:35:32.340 the austral folk assembly or to lose respect for our gods so it's really important to me that we

01:35:40.100 don't look ridiculous and i don't mean ridiculous as an insult i mean it literally that we don't

01:35:46.340 become an object of ridicule for the wrong reasons if we're ridiculed because of our

01:35:52.180 core beliefs and values not being politically correct that's one thing if we're ridiculed

01:35:59.300 because people think that we look absurd i wouldn't want that and so i think that has to

01:36:06.340 has to factor in there's ways to culturally dress there's ways to incorporate you know if you were

01:36:13.940 of scandinavian heritage there is cultural dress towards scandinavians that you can wear

01:36:19.860 that looks okay wearing a renaissance fair viking tunic

01:36:26.580 i think that makes folks look silly now early on it's been a long time since we've had that but

01:36:31.700 But before we've had people in, you know, tunics show up or we've had dudes show up with like a shield and stuff.

01:36:41.700 And no, we're not going to treat those people badly or kick those people out.

01:36:45.120 But, yeah, people are looking at you and some people are laughing at you.

01:36:48.360 And I wouldn't want anybody here to be laughed at.

01:36:50.900 I want everybody here to be elevated and to to get to a higher place by being part of the Oss True Folk Assembly.

01:37:00.800 And I think the best way to do that is in dressing in a way that's going to give you respect and not take respect from you.

01:37:09.040 And I think exactly as you say, you know, that a lot of guys show up the first time, like they've never been to an assembly before, but they've seen pictures on the Internet that guys standing in a circle holding a horn typically have on Viking garb.

01:37:26.660 So they've, you know, gone to great lengths to, you know, try to fit in in the sense that they bring that part of themselves maybe to their first gathering.

01:37:36.400 But then they see us standing around in suits and ties and they and they and they bring it back in, you know, pretty quickly.

01:37:45.520 So but like Matt says, you know, we never we're never hard on people like that because they are, you know, if you're trying to, you know, to present your best self, you're welcome.

01:37:57.140 So, you know, Tony, I've gotten to know you over a little time on here.

01:38:01.760 I've heard about you.

01:38:02.560 I've known you since you've become a member. 0.93

01:38:04.660 When I see you, if you're wearing a silly Viking tunic or whatever, I'm going to give

01:38:08.860 you a hug and I'm going to be happy to meet you. 0.99

01:38:10.880 But people who see you for the first time, if that's the first impression you make, it's

01:38:15.660 going to be hard for you to start on the right foot if that's what you do.

01:38:19.100 And I want everybody to start out maximizing their reputation.

01:38:23.240 um joe asks are there legal attacks against us in any real capacity or is it normally just

01:38:33.560 defamatory behavior i apologize if this was already asked i'm late to the party

01:38:39.080 alan go ahead and take this one

01:38:41.120 um well the answer the long answer is that uh yes there are legally um if we had the

01:38:57.440 time and the resources to get out there and scour brings bring the stuff to ground

01:39:01.760 um the when we were looking for a hoff here in florida we had a church loan officer a church

01:39:12.780 loan broker um who looked at our numbers we gave him our bank statements we gave him our membership

01:39:18.780 numbers the guy said this these are the best numbers that i've seen in years you guys should

01:39:24.280 have no problem getting this loan he sends it to the bank the bank calls me back and says

01:39:29.900 I have to be very careful in the way that I say this, but we are not going to fund this loan.

01:39:37.240 And the reason that they wouldn't fund the loan is, and his exact words were,

01:39:45.420 we have, there's a group out there who says that your group breaks state and federal law.

01:39:53.480 And so that is liable per se. I can't find it. Sorry about that. I can't find whoever it was that said that directly. But for someone to accuse you of breaking the law, that's called liable per se. We do not break the law.

01:40:13.460 We conform absolutely with with all state and federal laws and with the law of the folk.

01:40:19.820 So that would be actionable if we could track down who did it, both because liable per se, you don't have to prove damages and because it cost us that loan.

01:40:31.040 You know, we were not able to obtain that loan because of those lies and smears that are out there.

01:40:35.200 So we are under a very low level and insignificant legal attack there because we are because we operate on the protection of the religious freedom that's inherent in this country.

01:40:53.080 You know, thank the gods for the Constitution and the First Amendment because we have the freedom of religion.

01:40:58.900 We can practice our religion in the way that we see fit.

01:41:01.520 and um you know liars and other uh naysayers be damned and i mean that in the strictest sense

01:41:11.100 the um so uh yes but at least at this point we're not like there there are no actions where people

01:41:21.200 are trying to work against us to have any of our permits taken away or any of that stuff

01:41:26.980 Both because I think, you know, those forces of chaos are not well enough organized, well enough conversant in what they're doing.

01:41:37.360 You know, they're just sort of flailing at everything we try to do in a reactionary way.

01:41:45.480 And because, you know, they just don't have, because we comply with the law, we're not doing anything wrong.

01:41:53.380 You know, so what are they going to do? 0.98

01:41:54.820 You know, they're going to come in and see a bunch of families playing around together and, you know, they're all white. 0.98

01:41:59.940 They don't like it. I mean, you know, that's not legally actionable. 0.99

01:42:04.420 It's, you know, they believe me, if we were doing anything illegal or wrong in the in the broader sense,

01:42:13.060 they would have found that up and, you know, leveraged against us.

01:42:16.880 But they don't because we are not. We are. We are in the right.

01:42:20.940 you know, that's really important. And I want to assure everybody on here and everybody who

01:42:28.440 listens subsequently, we're not doing anything wrong. Not only aren't we doing morally wrong

01:42:36.240 things, we're making really sure that we're abiding by the laws and staying on the up and up.

01:42:44.200 It's really easy if you hear our enemies to think that there's, you know, there must be some

01:42:49.700 something going on there must be some fire if there's all this smoke there's really not and

01:42:55.960 that's one of the things that me and alan are that alan and i frequently speak about is just to make

01:43:01.060 sure um one of the best things that alan does is help make sure that we do conform to all of the

01:43:09.700 rules of 501c3 all of the rules of you know what exactly we can do as a church as a religious

01:43:17.260 organization under the tax code to make sure that we're doing the right things, that we're doing the

01:43:23.720 legal things. And we are very careful with that. And I hope that you guys trust that. I hope you

01:43:31.040 guys know that. And the gentleman with me tonight is a reason that you can rest assured that that

01:43:37.800 is being taken into account. We have another question talking about curses. Some pagan groups

01:43:45.720 practice a group ritual to curse a particular person or organization? How does the AFA feel

01:43:52.440 about that? And when to protect your reputation, honor, and family? What are your thoughts on it,

01:43:59.900 Alan? I think the people that do that are a bunch of idiots. You know, they're not, you know,

01:44:07.960 why? Think of the amount of energy that is expended to sit around and, you know, I mean,

01:44:13.800 I just can't imagine working up that much vitriol against somebody.

01:44:19.180 Although, you know, I would guess if I, you know, given this question,

01:44:27.800 I would imagine that, you know,

01:44:29.400 I could see a bunch of the blue haired meanies sitting around trying to gin up 0.99

01:44:33.640 a curse against us. But, you know, we're impervious to that, 0.86

01:44:39.880 in my opinion, because we practice so much positivity.

01:44:43.800 And that's why, you know, it's easier to build positivity than it is to attack it from without.

01:44:49.820 So I certainly would never encourage AFA group to do anything like that.

01:44:56.840 You know, we have the circle of air where we sit around and send healing blessings to our folk who are down, you know, and sick and under the weather.

01:45:11.900 That's so much, so much better use of our time in Maine than sitting around trying to throw a curse at somebody.

01:45:21.420 Thinking about the South Park episode where the wizards are trying to curse each other, you know, didn't work.

01:45:29.960 So, you know, there's there's a couple of thoughts on it, but just on a completely practical level.

01:45:36.280 are the people who are doing that spiritually effective um and i'd have to think they're not

01:45:47.580 um it's one of those if there was some legitimate magical group that i felt had their stuff

01:45:55.240 together and they were you know super potent wizards you know maybe it'd be a bigger concern

01:46:01.420 But most of the people that do that sort of thing are completely laughable individuals.

01:46:07.760 And I'm not scared of their curses.

01:46:09.700 I don't believe in their magical efficacy.

01:46:15.420 I also think that once you start into that arena, if you practice it in a real way, you know, the hardest thing to do is to do yourself.

01:46:27.740 You know what I mean?

01:46:28.340 that like, it's easy to think, well, I can take my, this little drop of spiritual might and use

01:46:34.660 it to put a hex on this person over there. But the hard thing is to turn all that into some higher

01:46:40.300 spiritual manifestation in yourself. That's the hard, that's the hard battle. You know, it really

01:46:45.680 is. And I think that the best thing that we do to protect ourselves from the hexes of disgruntled

01:46:54.680 lesbians is uh to live to live well to succeed to build a strong relationship with our gods 0.58

01:47:04.440 to build a potent spiritual armor within ourselves of that mighty hymenia and that's 1.00

01:47:12.200 something that you know my mentor taught me back in back in the day is we

01:47:18.840 the way that you win in life is not to hide from spiritual assaults or try to protect your

01:47:29.480 your hymenia from any possible bad things that can happen no you win by living boldly and by

01:47:37.200 building such a strong hymenia and such a strong luck that you can weather any of those attacks

01:47:44.300 that you can weather any of those hits to it because you miss out on all the good when you

01:47:49.900 hide in your room and you don't do stuff for fear of the bad but boldness in and of itself

01:47:57.740 is a buffer to some of the malignant spiritual forces out there yep absolutely and i think also

01:48:06.940 being faithful and building relationships with our gods we have some folks looking out for us

01:48:12.540 and i think that's a very real thing um this you know this kind of started with

01:48:16.860 some questions or the question previous was about legal attacks on the afa

01:48:22.140 um one of the things that i think protects us from some of that and i i don't think it

01:48:29.260 necessarily is proof against any possibility but i believe that if we are diligently

01:48:36.780 worshiping our gods to the best of our ability that they recognize that and that they give us

01:48:43.740 a certain amount of blessing and a certain amount of protection um i don't presume that that keeps

01:48:50.300 me safe from everything in this world but i know that it keeps me safe from some things and i'm

01:48:55.900 very thankful for that and uh you know hail the gods for for that and i appreciate it absolutely

01:49:02.540 uh sierra asks why should we not use weird uh and strange peculiar instead was this already

01:49:11.260 asked it was not already asked alan pontificate okay this is part two of my uh verbalization

01:49:18.940 manifestation um weird the word weird um the the english the current usage of it originates from

01:49:29.420 shakespeare um the weird sisters in macbeth you know the but when sh when shakespeare used that in

01:49:36.700 the in the in the play macbeth the three weird sisters stirring the pot the people in that era

01:49:44.300 of the 1600s would have known they were still living in the era when weird to them meant the

01:49:51.260 same thing much the same thing as the karma you know it's the orlog so they would know that the

01:49:57.500 um because they were so uh living so much still in the folkway the weird sisters were the sisters

01:50:05.020 who made weird in the in the pots you know we think of most weavers but the but um but certainly

01:50:12.460 the you know stirring the pot stirring the well of weird and you know was very much the same thing

01:50:19.260 so but that word then just over the eons of usage came to mean anything that was strange odd unusual 1.00

01:50:30.860 you know look at those weird people you know look at those weird women up there on the stage stirring

01:50:35.500 those pots yeah they are the weird women they're the weird sisters so oh then this other stuff is

01:50:40.300 weird because it's strange odd unusual but weird is a holy word weird our weird is the manifestation

01:50:47.660 of the uh of our luck it's very much akin with karma it's sort of like karma mixed more with

01:50:56.300 intent you know we make our own weird by the way that we work in the world so i you know i try to

01:51:04.940 steer folks off using that word weird in the profane or vulgar sense the you know both because

01:51:12.220 it is a holy word um and because you know by steering off that word you can um think of all

01:51:19.260 the other 72 synonyms of uh you know that mean strange unusual coincidental now at the same time

01:51:28.860 that's not to say that there aren't things that are strange or coincidental that aren't we i mean

01:51:34.780 some some of those things are weird you know i was uh coming back from panama city one day and

01:51:41.580 you know ran into one of my good friends out there who was with his um club and you know so

01:51:49.020 that was weird that was a weird coincidence um but weird things that happen are very few and far

01:51:57.260 between you know not every dog standing on his front paws is weird that's just good training

01:52:05.900 you know so it's just part of speaking mindfully you know weird is not everything weird is a whole

01:52:13.660 weird is a holy place it's also really good balance if a dog can stand on his front feet

01:52:19.420 that's pretty impressive it is got a good owner you know or it's just it may just be inherently

01:52:26.940 a very special dog with good balance it may also not have back legs um

01:52:33.100 um that said no I think that's really important and it's about the intent in speech not only is

01:52:39.940 it wrong to use holy words casually but it also trains us to recognize when something truly is

01:52:48.880 weird and that's important okay now you've added to my lexicon there there you go number 14 why

01:52:57.040 you shouldn't say weird so Lawrence you've been cheated I should have asked this before the last

01:53:02.800 question I apologize Lawrence with another 10 Canadian dollars I love the black shirt sun or

01:53:09.280 the black sun shirt Alan did you put the patch on or purchase it that way if purchased where

01:53:15.820 can I get one and what do you think my chances are of getting away with wearing it in woke Canada

01:53:22.000 um how big a fella are you um i got i bought this shirt at winter nights

01:53:33.200 five or six years ago um it was done you know it was done as an embroidery so it was on the

01:53:40.660 shirt when i bought it um i have i actually have another almost identical um black sun

01:53:49.540 that is on a different shirt

01:53:51.240 that was on as an applique,

01:53:54.360 you know, an embroidered patch

01:53:56.200 that is now sewn onto the shirt.

01:54:00.540 So you can find it.

01:54:02.020 It is on Etsy.

01:54:03.320 There's Black Sun items,

01:54:06.280 Black Sun wear on Etsy.

01:54:08.300 You might have to buy it from,

01:54:09.860 you know, some of our Eastern European friends.

01:54:13.220 God bless them. 1.00

01:54:15.240 You know, as far as getting away with it,

01:54:17.500 you know you know be bold and fear none um you know what i never get anybody knocking me for

01:54:27.100 wearing my hammer out or for you know wearing the black sun symbology as i do often um but

01:54:35.900 you know you just you know at the same time

01:54:42.380 and see as i'm saying all that i'm doing it in a way that suggests confrontational

01:54:47.500 but if somebody ever said anything to me about it you know you you can just you know this is

01:54:51.900 my cultural iconography you know it's not it's not anything i'm not being belligerent i'm just

01:54:58.220 being myself so you know you don't have to do it in an aggressive way you just you know you

01:55:03.580 wear your hammer you wear your black sun and this is you know this is the spirit that stands behind

01:55:09.340 all life it's who we are and it's what we believe you know something's to be said about doing those

01:55:15.740 things with pride if you wear a symbol of ours and you're skulking around with your head down

01:55:23.180 and your eyes down you won't look at anybody and you're acting shady then yes if you portray

01:55:28.860 weakness you will be preyed upon if you're proud and you're bold and you're out there and you're

01:55:33.260 talking to people and laughing and having a good time your chances of somebody calling you on it

01:55:38.380 are far less and i used to sort of have that you know like i'm gonna portray you know put a

01:55:45.740 badass dude i am by being kind of you know manifesting an angry countenance but it is

01:55:53.260 since i've lightened up it is thousands of times happier for everybody

01:55:59.260 and then what they do is then they begin to associate those positive um vibrations with

01:56:06.300 your presence you know man i don't know what that thing that guy had on with his shirt but man you

01:56:11.100 you know, he was, he was, you know, conversational and complimented me on the way that I was doing

01:56:16.920 this stuff. And he made me feel happy. So I'd like to, you know, see that sort of stuff again.

01:56:22.040 Those guys are cool. Those guys are happy. They're fun to be around.

01:56:26.540 Absolutely. Following on this, Sierra asks, what is the purpose of the sun wheel within our ritual

01:56:33.980 spaces within the afa um so as alan was saying and spawn and i talked about this a little bit last

01:56:44.220 week it fundamentally it is a solar symbol of solar might and power of the light of the sun

01:56:54.700 of literally that shining nobility that we talk about um various versions of the sun wheel with

01:57:03.180 the with the uh the crooked uh spokes like the black sun that alan's wearing and the 12 spoke

01:57:10.460 one is kind of the highest evolution of it but there's examples with all different number of

01:57:16.540 spokes that are very ancient in tribal northern europe they've been found throughout our culture

01:57:23.020 and throughout our people and it's a very sacred symbol it talks about the moving of the sun and

01:57:27.580 that movement that's inherent in all of our all of our ritual all of our faith that uh you know

01:57:34.700 it's ironic we're using entropy now to make some dollars but that escaping of entropy through

01:57:39.580 constant movement and uh staying on our toes i mean fundamentally that's the core of victory

01:57:46.620 never sleeps is you got to keep moving because if you stand still you stagnate and entropy pulls you

01:57:51.820 down um yeah the power of the sun wheel has always been sacred to our folk it's been an identifier

01:58:00.300 since you know since before the the trondheim uh sun chariot so i've read some and

01:58:10.780 can't think of for all the analogies right now but some of some of the writers that have written

01:58:17.180 about sun symbols as versus earth symbols that the sun is the bringer of light and the bringer

01:58:22.460 of things into the open so that it is uh you know so that all things can be analyzed and judged and

01:58:29.260 made uh you know and made right as opposed to earth symbols which are about being hidden and

01:58:35.740 in darkness and um you know the so this which is why we are the you know we're the people of

01:58:43.420 we are sun worshipers in that, in that ancient sense.

01:58:49.740 And it's, you know, it's, it's a beautiful thing too. And I, I try to make note of this

01:58:55.560 during Ostara rituals, but that idea of the dawn, that idea of the sun, as it sweeps across the

01:59:03.200 land from east to west, conquering all that's dark, all that's shadow, everything flees from the,

01:59:10.760 the noble light of the sun and it's a really powerful symbol for our folk and that's why it's

01:59:17.560 a halo for our gods in our iconography that's why it is is such a central theme to to our

01:59:25.160 spiritual expression hail the day and the sons of the day hail uh as so okay also from sierra

01:59:32.680 with ten dollars behind it how do you get such stinking awesome folk builders that guy nick

01:59:38.360 who's the tech behind this uh behind this rocks as does everyone else no nick's pretty cool guy

01:59:44.840 nick does good stuff uh he polishes this up and makes this broadcast look way more professional

01:59:51.240 than it would be otherwise he's absolutely fantastic sierra's not so bad herself she's

01:59:56.920 a really good folk builder we have out there in california um i know it's kind of a joking

02:00:02.200 question but in a very serious way how do we get such good folk builders um

02:00:09.400 there you know you break a few eggs to make an omelet uh the folk builders volunteer for that

02:00:15.480 spot uh we've learned a long time ago it's it's typically a bad idea to pick somebody you think

02:00:23.240 could be good at it and kind of pressure them into the role you want somebody who steps up

02:00:28.200 of their own accord wants to do it, wants to do a really good job of it. And that's, that's hard to

02:00:35.220 come by. And, you know, from a, from an Overwatch position in the position I'm in, seeing everybody

02:00:43.700 everywhere, you always want to have the right people in the right places. And it's very hard

02:00:49.360 because, you know, as Alan is well aware, I'm not the most patient man in the world.

02:00:54.140 and just the most patient man in the room. I'm the only one in the room I'm in, and I can't say

02:01:00.540 I'm the most patient man in the room. And that's true. I don't shy away from that. I think that's

02:01:09.540 one of the reasons that we have some success that we have. But realistically, you hope for

02:01:14.380 these people to step up, but you can't make it happen. You've got to wait till the right people

02:01:19.140 step forward. And we've been very blessed with some really great people stepping forward lately.

02:01:23.720 we have the best folk builders we've ever had and these people step in they give of themselves

02:01:31.320 they you know there's a certain minimum that they gotta do to make it work but so many of

02:01:38.040 them go so far above and beyond that in hosting things and building relationships with our members

02:01:44.440 in really building the community in their area and with working with the rest of us to make

02:01:49.480 this all work our folk builders are the you know they're very much the tip of the spear as far as

02:01:54.760 our our local interaction and you know i can't be everywhere our gothar even though we've got a lot

02:02:03.000 of them now they can't be everywhere so when people think of the afa it's it's always a

02:02:11.160 challenge to make sure that when they think of the afa they think of us and not those guys out there

02:02:18.840 and i hate that when i hear that from our members and i don't mean that rudely to them

02:02:23.080 but when i hear members say you guys are doing great you guys are doing this no they're getting

02:02:28.120 it wrong we're doing this together us guys are doing this and the difference between you guys

02:02:35.800 and us is those folk builders making our members feel like they're part of this bigger afa family

02:02:42.440 that they are so much a part of and i think the way that we get such production out of the

02:02:47.960 folk builders and shout out to Mike Joyner here on the private text. He's been slaying it down

02:02:54.940 here in North Florida. We have high expectations. It's like, get out there and kick some butt. And

02:03:03.220 they do. They rise to it. And I know Sierra does a great job out there where she is.

02:03:09.400 Iron sharpens iron. And that's the thing. We've got great people holding up. And 0.81

02:03:14.200 what i really like to see is in a healthy way competition and we see that so we see that a lot

02:03:20.200 right now specifically between uh ohio and florida right who can do the best who can get their member

02:03:26.440 count up and ultimately the afa wins so whoever wins the afa wins the gods win but it's really

02:03:34.760 well it's really cool to see everybody rise to the challenge of of their fellows in this to be

02:03:41.960 the best they can be and we've got great folk builders uh human manipulation nation vanity and

02:03:49.320 ego are best to be tamed and and constant effort on one's own appearance seems kind of silly

02:03:56.360 considering how short a time is and how many noble works need done is just uh is this just silly

02:04:05.080 overthinking um so i disagree with you um there's a point where you're just preening and ridiculous

02:04:16.200 and become a feat with it and that's not what any of us are proposing wanting perception is reality

02:04:25.480 in the sense that it sets the tone your first impression is more important than than your

02:04:33.640 subsequent impressions it's not that you can't ever fix it but it takes so much effort to change

02:04:41.160 an opinion once it's established if you lead with your very best everything in your life magically

02:04:49.480 becomes more successful and it does because the energy that you're putting out doing it

02:04:55.240 and i think you hit it exactly with you know with your first statement it's you know you want to be

02:05:00.280 you want to do enough but not be overwrought with it uh that's the you know and and i often think

02:05:07.480 about that actually with you know with the path of also true that that we are very much the middle

02:05:14.280 path it would be easy to say no this yes that and just have this big bright line between

02:05:23.080 you know what the you know the christians used to have to do in the middle ages which was not debate

02:05:29.000 because that was to think too much of the body versus now what people do you know spend two

02:05:33.960 hours in the you know in getting getting ready you know three layers of creams and ointments and

02:05:41.400 hair do and beard oil and all that other stuff but there's a but you know so you want to

02:05:47.960 be presentable and nice but not what's the word um not metro 1.00

02:05:56.440 Yeah, you don't want to be gay with it. The thing that's really important, honestly, 1.00

02:06:03.520 is presenting your best self. Presenting your best self is essential. And it's very important.

02:06:10.740 It was always important to our ancestors. You see in our lore how the people, when they rode

02:06:15.100 to the thing, would wear their best that they had. And they have the thing of so many of the

02:06:21.460 grave goods that they found, you know, they have the little, what we would call a key ring,

02:06:26.200 but it's a little steel ring and it has a toothpick and an earwax scraper and a, you know,

02:06:32.480 and a little scissor to, you know, to deal with your, so you, you know, you can have enough of

02:06:37.520 that, but without being overdone. So our law speaker just cut me off and stole what I was

02:06:42.200 about to say. I picked up the vibration and it's weird. It is kind of weird. No, honestly,

02:06:51.460 that was one of the things we noticed at the museum in in Stockholm. So much of what our

02:06:59.320 ancestors had was trimming beard trimming devices and clippers and combs and things to make

02:07:07.280 themselves look their very best. Trying to look your best is so the fetch and the the the lich

02:07:18.560 and other parts of our soul complex feed on each other. The, your body is a part of your soul

02:07:24.940 complex. And by you making that body the best it can be and presenting your best visual appearance,

02:07:34.000 that is a reflection of your soul. If you let that part lag and you look

02:07:41.560 unkept and out of shape and you look subpar, that is an indication of where your soul is at.

02:07:52.180 You taking care of yourself speaks of discipline. It speaks of the dignity that you hold yourself

02:07:57.800 in. It speaks of a lot of our virtues that are really important. And it has an effect on it has

02:08:05.080 a tangible effect on the world around you. You mentioned all the good work that needs to be done.

02:08:09.920 you are much more effective at doing any of those works when you look good as when you don't.

02:08:18.160 And it sets your mind into that spot. You know, I'm glad that you got reminded us of the second

02:08:22.800 part of that question, because it's because it's absolutely it's not all one versus none of the

02:08:28.240 other. You know, you can certainly if you spent four hours, you know, brushing your beard and

02:08:35.360 partner ponytail then that would be you know then that would be beyond the point and be

02:08:39.440 taking away from the work that you would be able to do but you can but it helps you do your work

02:08:45.280 there's a i know there's a book that uh that i've given to two of my kids that they've safely ignored

02:08:51.600 about you know that one of those uh one of the military guys said you know you start your day

02:08:56.880 by making your bed you know you make your bed every day and it's not because your grandma's

02:09:04.320 going to come over and give you a spanking if your bed's not made it's because it puts you in the

02:09:09.120 mindset of being neat and tiring and orderly and make sure that there's order in your world and not

02:09:16.480 chaos absolutely all of that it does put you in a much better frame of mind and in a completely

02:09:24.000 different way if you're a folk builder for the afa and you look good it's going to attract other

02:09:32.400 successful good-looking people to want to join if you look unkept and you look like you know

02:09:39.760 if you look bad it's going to make people less likely to be part of what we're doing 1.00

02:09:44.960 if you're a gothy in the afa and you don't look like you have even your own ability to your own 1.00

02:09:50.960 hygiene under control no one's going to come for you advice and trust that you know what you're 1.00

02:09:56.320 doing but if you look like you have your stuff together if you look like you take care of

02:10:01.120 yourself you're it's much easier to put confidence in you when you do something if any of us go before

02:10:07.360 anybody for anything we're trying to do for a guy at a bank for a loan or a person for a job that we

02:10:13.040 want or you know a a potential mate that we want and we don't look our best we're going to have

02:10:19.840 much less chance of success if we put our best foot forward in everything we do we're always

02:10:25.360 better off anything else is just an excuse to not try that hard and i i don't mean that rudely

02:10:32.080 that's just very much what it is cliff asks if you have not touched on this yet can you please

02:10:39.120 go into the origin of the f word alan can you etymologically go into the origin of the f word

02:10:46.320 for Cliff? You know, I'm not even, I've heard 17

02:10:49.840 stories of what the origin is. And so

02:10:54.240 the answer is, I, you know, I don't know.

02:10:59.700 So I could, I could make some stuff up. I could

02:11:02.140 tell you the stories that I've heard about what it, you know, what it is. But

02:11:05.360 you know, all I need to know is

02:11:10.040 F word bad. No say F word. No say GD.

02:11:13.960 google says it is of germanic origin and possibly from an indo-european root meaning to strike

02:11:22.320 uh and it is cognate with the uh the latin pugness or fist

02:11:30.080 so there you go pugnacious i'm gonna pug you up there there you go that's a that's that's

02:11:39.220 better that one's authorized by the law speaker otto asks uh how has the bloat structure changed

02:11:46.900 since the beginning of the afa what parameters do we have to adhere to and what latitudes are we

02:11:54.500 allowed it's an interesting question otto so talking to steve about this a little bit over the

02:12:00.820 years mr mcdallon no because i i'm an alice harrier goethe we can we can co

02:12:12.020 okay no realistically talking to our founder steve mcnallan though over the years um

02:12:18.500 because and a lot of people don't realize this steve

02:12:22.100 founder mcnalen uh very much is the guy that invented the modern bloat structure in the way

02:12:31.680 that we do it now certainly we we think that our ancestors did something that was was similar in a

02:12:37.560 way but he was uh he was really blazing a new trail when he did that um my understanding and

02:12:47.580 from reading things and from talking with him about it over the years is it was more

02:12:52.500 it was more theatrical I think back in the early days there was a an intent on you know like like

02:13:04.260 I've criticized before but it was a uh it was an important step that we needed to take and it's

02:13:09.620 easy to look back on it now and see the different ways that we do things different but it was a it

02:13:15.060 a fundamental time so a lot of it was a little bit more larpy and you know trying to put on

02:13:21.540 viking airs and how to do it and wearing viking costume and talking in yield time language and

02:13:30.100 whatever um the fundamentals of uh practicing a circle of speaking over a horn of mead and imbuing

02:13:40.020 that with our might and our main those have still remained the same certainly i think the basic

02:13:46.180 structure of of you know inviting in the calling the you know i know that uh dr flowers edward

02:13:54.340 thorson has he had a big part in this as well back in the austro free assembly but the basic

02:14:02.020 structure of calling the gods of saying you know i think it was called the reed back then but of

02:14:08.900 saying something worth saying before the, you know, the invocation, as it were, giving a gift

02:14:16.780 to the gods and receiving a gift with a horn of meat around a circle is very much the same way

02:14:21.580 that we do it now. I think the biggest difference that I've seen over the years that I've been in

02:14:26.860 as true folk assembly is oftentimes it is much less of a performance and much more from the heart

02:14:39.900 it seems to be much more visceral in a lot of ways and i think that's only natural i think over time

02:14:47.900 as a church and as individuals we've built a relationship with our gods and so we don't

02:14:55.660 have to approach them in such a sterile way we we we feel a closeness through relationship

02:15:04.220 and through gift cycle that we didn't have early on or that we weren't aware of early on

02:15:10.300 and so i think that's a fundamental change um it's hard to say what the specifics of this

02:15:17.900 auto are much more specific if you you know if you get into the gothar program at some point

02:15:23.820 but realistically you know what parameters do we have to adhere adhere to and what latitude so

02:15:29.420 fundamentally um we try to think of the bare minimum of what you have to do for it to be a

02:15:40.460 afa sanctioned bloat um i think it is very important that there is a clear distinction

02:15:47.900 between giving and receiving i think that the rotational the sunwise rotational pattern is very

02:15:56.940 important um the idea is that gift exchange and the other thing and this

02:16:06.220 this would seem to go without saying but i know for experience that it doesn't um

02:16:11.660 the idea is to connect the folk with whatever God you are bloating to and to connect that God with

02:16:20.740 the folk. So you don't go out there and talk about a God. You speak to a God. You don't go

02:16:31.240 out there and give a lecture about Ausatru and then pass a horn around. That misses the point

02:16:36.640 and it doesn't make the connection. Your job when conducting a bloat is to connect the folk with

02:16:42.940 our gods and our gods with our folk. And that's how you know whether it's been a successful bloat

02:16:48.600 or not. So I think those are the fundamentals. There's a lot of latitude, but your latitude

02:16:54.180 can never extend past piety. We are pious. We worship our gods. It can never extend.

02:17:03.760 And again, we don't just go out there to receive.

02:17:08.580 Sometimes we do just go out there to give, but most often we go out there and we have

02:17:13.160 a giving and a receiving round.

02:17:19.100 Yeah, I mean, to ask, to wonder what those latitudes are, I would need a little bit more

02:17:23.960 specific questioning.

02:17:25.740 What are your thoughts, Alan?

02:17:26.940 Well, I agree with everything you said.

02:17:29.060 And one thing that I often say, especially if we're bloating with new people, is that we are lighthearted, but not flippant.

02:17:38.220 You know, that the words that are said in ceremony are sacred beyond even what we should do, you know, the rest of our lives.

02:17:48.800 And so anything said over the horn has to be said, you know, with that in mind.

02:17:54.700 um it's at the same time i think there's a wide lot of latitude now the um ceremony has evolved

02:18:08.260 a lot since i've been involved in the afa it is it is much more formally structured than it was

02:18:15.780 um you know 15 years ago and that that i think is very positive i think that the

02:18:22.800 that we're getting finally in that spot where we we view ceremony as a time aside it is sacred

02:18:33.080 space and sacred time um and and one pressure that i have felt as a goathy or even merely an

02:18:41.840 officiant is i always feel like a like i'm taking too long doing stuff um like i you know like i'm

02:18:50.180 i don't want the bloat to last too long because i feel like people might be impatient or um you know

02:18:58.020 uh want to get on with something else but i've gotten over that just because i think that you

02:19:03.700 know these these these few minutes or longer that we spend in um in communion with our gods is the

02:19:12.180 most vital thing that we do and um so i i think that would be the other part and and

02:19:22.100 is that setting aside the sacred space from the rest of the world you know we

02:19:30.980 our hoffs are already dedicated so we don't have to do that separately for the hoffs

02:19:35.460 but if you're um holding a bloat in your backyard by yourself which you're at which is absolutely

02:19:42.020 within the latitude of, you know, what's, what's allowed and encouraged, um, as, as part of

02:19:48.380 practice as part of the honest, um, dedication, you know, but you, you know, but you have to

02:19:56.440 have that verbal mental recognition of for right now, this space is not my garden.

02:20:06.220 This is my worship space. And, you know, you bring the gods in, commune, and then release them back, you know, having given them the gift of yourself, the gift of the work of your hands, mead, beer, incense, bells, drums, you know, the whole thing.

02:20:30.080 there's you know we've added all those elements since i've been in the afa and it's you know it's

02:20:36.080 it's so include it don't include it if it feels good do it

02:20:44.800 um bode says this is a personal message to the law speaker war damn eagle

02:20:54.240 yes i agree we don't have much of a team this year but war eagle

02:21:00.080 There we go.

02:21:02.480 Glenn asks, speaking of the knifing pole,

02:21:09.960 Alan, has Matt agreed to allow you to point a few somewhere?

02:21:18.080 I would be 100% in favor of having a website

02:21:27.560 or an actual pole set somewhere and setting up nyling poles against some of the people who

02:21:35.640 richly deserve it. We wouldn't spend a lot of energy on it, but I would think a little bit

02:21:42.840 pointed in that direction would be well taken. We would need quite an amount of dead horses to do

02:21:50.180 this. I don't know if we can go to the knackers and get the heads or what we can do, but we'll

02:21:56.760 We'll look into that Z Zou Shan. Where would you recommend that I find important materials for practice used by the AFA? I'd like to begin translation of several documents. 0.99

02:22:11.760 I'm curious what language you want to translate them into one of the things.

02:22:20.400 Fortunately, or unfortunately, a lot of those those important materials for practice is attending things and being part of stuff.

02:22:29.860 As far as huge written tomes, the AFA doesn't have a lot of that.

02:22:35.360 So much of our tradition is by word of mouth from our go far to our our practitioners.

02:22:40.940 and through experience.

02:22:42.940 So I think that our documentation

02:22:44.340 is less than you may be looking for.

02:22:49.080 I would suggest, you know,

02:22:51.480 our founder, Stephen McNallan,

02:22:53.660 his Living Alcitru is an older book that he made

02:22:58.400 that talks a little bit about daily practices.

02:23:02.040 And his book, Alcitru, a Native European Spirituality

02:23:06.340 is certainly on sale at our website or on Amazon.

02:23:10.060 on and that would be helpful to you as far as specific like ritual specifics i'm not sure where

02:23:17.580 you're going to find a good written source for that alan do you have any ideas um no although

02:23:23.580 uh you know i think the runestone press edition of uh the book of truth is another good um starting

02:23:32.700 point for that um you know it's you know for you know as far as actual practice i think it does

02:23:41.420 also like uh mr mcdallin's book i think it does have some kind of the you know here's how you do

02:23:47.260 ritual you know it has some of that initiatory stuff in it um i had a different thought but i

02:23:57.180 lost it that happens a lot but um you know now as far as the what written material is out there

02:24:05.140 there are you know the the the austro library starter set is probably 30 books and then you

02:24:14.560 know the sub the first supplemental set is 300 books and then there's you know 3 000 behind that

02:24:19.860 so um and that's part of the thing of being a living faith and a living tradition a dharmic

02:24:26.380 faith um to you know to use one of the proper terms um you know we we draw our information not

02:24:33.660 just from the eddas um you know but from sources you know from our critics the you know some of

02:24:43.100 the stuff that we know about our folk was written by caesar you know you know who came in and said

02:24:48.860 you know the here's how the germans did their stuff um uh you know from germanicus um and you

02:24:57.100 know from the from the law books that you know prohibited heathen practices well why did they

02:25:03.180 have to prohibit them because even heathens were still doing them after the you know after the

02:25:07.420 christians um took over the thing so you know there's uh and everything in you know even folklore

02:25:14.140 um we can we can recognize our own traditions

02:25:18.700 in court you know yule is the easy one you know jesus didn't say anything about bringing in a tree

02:25:28.480 and putting lights on it that's all straight yuletide tradition you know easter is bunnies

02:25:37.840 and fertility with eggs and all that stuff so it's all out there it's just it's just beneath

02:25:44.720 the veneer all you have to do is you know when you look for it you'll see it um

02:25:53.680 one of the things that i bought that i'm actually really proud of even though i haven't

02:25:56.960 had a chance to restart reading it yet is this four volume set of uh grimm's teutonic mythology

02:26:04.080 you know because that's all that's all of our practice out there it's what you know what all

02:26:08.560 the folkways that we had it's you know it's still it's right there just waiting to scrape off the

02:26:15.360 little plastic coating and find you know the four cherries underneath so daniel asked for both of

02:26:27.520 you describe what it meant to be ordained and what the experience was like alan go ahead and

02:26:33.840 can go first on that. Okay. Ordination was certainly a moment of pride for me. It felt like

02:26:43.840 the culmination of a lifetime of spiritual seeking, that to have not only done, you know,

02:26:55.580 read and, you know, read the required reading and understood the thought at a higher level

02:27:04.240 and performed a bloat in front of my peers, but then to be recognized by the people whom I

02:27:13.600 most respect in the world, you know, that, you know, it felt like I had finally made something

02:27:21.000 of myself you know it was every bit like um taking my load that oath as a as an attorney

02:27:29.240 although you know with with people that i actually liked being around me um

02:27:39.240 so trying to think the best way to answer this um the actual experience itself i remember

02:27:46.840 i got uh i got oathed right at the the culmination of my ordination bloat i had to do a bloat at the

02:27:57.320 time and i did a i did a thor bloat and i was ordained by uh by our founder stephen mcnallen

02:28:09.640 and at Camp Norga in Alta, Northern California.

02:28:16.920 And my mentor at the time, Brad, was also there.

02:28:20.880 And Steve and Brad both were part of the ceremony.

02:28:26.440 And they said blessings over a torque that I have

02:28:30.200 that I haven't worn in a while,

02:28:31.640 but that I've worn at different times.

02:28:34.160 And it meant a lot to me.

02:28:38.000 The celebrity around Steve and all that he's done for us, that was very big for me.

02:28:50.060 We wouldn't be having this conversation.

02:28:52.700 We wouldn't be doing Victory Sleeps, Never Sleeps every week. 1.00

02:28:55.820 We wouldn't have these Hoffs. 0.87

02:28:57.920 We wouldn't have any of this if it wasn't for Steve McNallan and the work that he put in.

02:29:01.740 and him being there to bestow that ordination upon me means means so much to me at the time.

02:29:10.040 I was I was exhausted. We talk about the energy that you put in on these curses and other things

02:29:16.200 today. You put that energy in when you conduct a bloat and especially when you're out there

02:29:22.520 trying to lay it all on the line to do your your big ordination bloat before before all the folk

02:29:30.460 that are there, you know, I did it at midsummer with the biggest crowd of the year of AFA members

02:29:35.340 and all these people that I really respected to try to do that really well. And in a way that

02:29:41.320 was satisfactory to us before, um, it took it out of me. It's surprising when you do that,

02:29:50.160 how much energy it just drains. I had to go take a nap immediately afterwards. It just

02:29:54.680 zapped all the all the strength out of me it was it was really important and it it's meant so much

02:30:03.100 over the years it uh it is such a weight of responsibility to be a living bridge between

02:30:15.920 our gods and our folk and it's a it's a constant task and i may be the alzharia gothi i have a lot

02:30:25.520 of administrative running the afa stuff that i do but fundamentally the core of that is being

02:30:32.320 a gothi being a priest to our gods and a priest for our folk so i find myself you know i think

02:30:41.760 daily is maybe too far but almost daily fielding uh counseling calls and and calls to be a goathy

02:30:51.120 to our people and it's such a i mean it's such a blessing i'm so very proud of it but it's a really

02:30:58.880 important responsibility and something i'm always trying to be conscious of because you're not just

02:31:04.800 a goathy when you put on the goathy stole you're you're a goathy 24 7 and that requires a certain

02:31:11.760 vigilance and a certain commitment. And it means a lot. And something that, you know,

02:31:20.620 if you are a Goethe, you should think about this every day. It should be something that's

02:31:25.060 always on your mind. It should be one of the first things you think of when you wake up and

02:31:28.700 one of the last things you think about before you lay your head down. And it's really, it really

02:31:34.500 has been that for me. So it's a big deal. Absolutely. I want to go back though,

02:31:40.860 it because while we were talking about this it made me think about the you know the when somebody

02:31:46.840 somebody asked about you know I think it was Otto's question about doing bloat one of the

02:31:51.620 things to understand is you know bloat we do um you know every month or so once a quarter

02:32:00.240 um the main relationship that we understand is our relationship with our ancestors

02:32:07.200 So I think the fundamental element of the way is to have an ancestor shrine in your home with either pictures or tokens of your ancestors, both, and just go every day and just offer them a moment of remembrance.

02:32:33.200 remembrance, you know, thank you, grandfather, for allowing me to be alive today.

02:32:41.960 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's very often overlooked, unfortunately. And I think that

02:32:50.200 sometimes that cuts both ways. I think sometimes it just happens and you don't put the significance

02:32:54.960 against do it or make mental note of it but honoring your ancestors is such a core of what

02:33:03.600 we do and it's unfortunate that people do overlook that that's the most accessible and the easiest

02:33:11.280 thing for us to do and it's the easiest to incorporate into our daily life and it's a

02:33:17.600 shame we don't do it enough and I'll also throw this out there because I think this is a decent

02:33:23.280 time to do it honoring your ancestors it is amazing how comfortable we are going before an

02:33:33.280 altar in a picture of grandma or grandpa and off making offerings and honoring them and this and

02:33:40.960 that but it's really stark when you juxtapose that with when grandpa and grandma are still alive how

02:33:49.600 often do you call them you know when they're still with you how often do you make that connection

02:33:55.440 you're going to be all pious and devoted after they've passed but many of you if you're fortunate

02:34:02.720 have living time with your ancestors while they're here

02:34:08.000 you know somebody who's lost you know lost loved ones and lost ancestors make the most of that time

02:34:13.760 if as soon as they die you're going to put them up on the wall and worship them

02:34:18.560 why wouldn't you give them some of that while they're here why would you go spend a weekend

02:34:23.760 with them and let them tell you the some of those stories yeah and you know i i'm guilty of it too

02:34:29.920 i i get it but i think it's something we should all be more conscious of

02:34:35.840 um cody asks matt and allen how do you feel to be part of the greatest ouster true family ever

02:34:43.600 You know, that's such a wonderful question, you know, because that is exactly how I feel, you know, that I'm part of the, and I, you know, I've said before in small company, you know, that the time I spend in, you know, doing, you know, in and around the AFA, that's the good stuff.

02:35:12.660 You know, and I'm honored to have done my little bit to help make that happen, you know, and to feel honored and loved and respected around, you know, a group of people that I honor and love and respect.

02:35:27.760 um you know that's the real that's the real thing and i'm you know we're we are manifesting it and

02:35:36.940 matt's just like what you said earlier you know it's not me and you and the folk builders it's

02:35:42.200 all of us all 874 people listed all 915 members you know all their families everybody who contributes

02:35:50.000 to us um you know the people who loaned us money to buy the hoff the lawyers who have given me

02:35:57.580 advice that are not afa members and you know but are you know what we call fellow travelers you

02:36:04.460 know we are changing the world and we are changing the world for the better and we're changing the

02:36:10.300 world make a better world for our folk and uh you know cody i appreciate you

02:36:17.820 recognizing that we are part of the greatest afa you know the greatest austria family ever

02:36:23.580 and you know and which is why i've gotten away from saying focus also true because that's you

02:36:31.860 know that's that's redundant you know we are also true we are the folk anything else just pretending

02:36:37.740 absolutely i uh

02:36:41.700 it is the i can't imagine any anything greater anything better than

02:36:52.980 being part of, as you said, the greatest AsaTru family ever. When I talk about my AFA family,

02:37:01.720 it, for somebody who isn't part of this, it's easy to see that as some kind of a,

02:37:07.560 I don't know, cool marketing thing. It's not. I mean that. It's, and I hope more of you take

02:37:14.860 advantage of this and and not in a you know not in a selfish way but i genuinely mean get the

02:37:22.260 benefit from this you have the family of the afa wherever you are more and more within just a

02:37:33.400 couple of hours of you no matter where you find yourself it has been one of the most amazing

02:37:39.080 blessings to me. And I'm very fortunate. I get to travel all over for AFA events, but I really get

02:37:45.680 to see the connectivity between our family literally everywhere. I've gone to Sweden and

02:37:53.940 I have family there. You know, I'll go to Minnesota. I have family there. I go to Florida,

02:37:59.380 the Carolinas. I have family there. I've got an event to go to in Oklahoma, but I want to find

02:38:04.880 cheap plane tickets so i've got family in texas that are going to drive me up there for an event

02:38:09.440 here in november and that's easy i guess it's more apparent for me as the else harrier gothie

02:38:18.400 but that's something that all of us have when you travel you've got people all around you that are

02:38:24.880 part of your afa family that would love to get together and have a beer with you or that'll

02:38:29.200 give you a couch or give you a ride somewhere if you need something or especially in this world

02:38:36.160 today that means so much um we are all very very connected and that's that's part of the dream of

02:38:45.120 sigerheim is having that home for all of us to go to whenever we need it and a place for family no

02:38:51.120 matter no matter when you show up and you've got a place to be and people that care about you

02:38:57.280 and you can find that certainly to an extent at all of our hoffs when we have folks there

02:39:02.800 and when sigerheim's established you can find that 24 7 365 there um we're building something

02:39:11.200 amazing and we're all doing it together and uh alan is humble and says he contributes in some

02:39:16.560 small way he contributed in a huge way to making this reality um but no i'm so blessed to be part

02:39:23.760 part of our FA family Cody Finn says what if we have broken oaths in the past I'm gonna let Alan

02:39:32.580 get to this I think he's probably got some more meat on it but I want to just throw out there

02:39:36.540 try to fix it um the best we can do we don't forgive and erase that's not real there's an

02:39:44.580 actual damage that is caused when you violate an agreement to the best of your ability try to fix

02:39:51.900 what you broke. If there's a way to compensate or to fix a

02:39:55.440 party that you've wronged, do that first. Yes, take

02:40:00.120 responsibility and apologize. That's great. Ask forgiveness.

02:40:04.260 That's great. But fix what you broke as close and as best as

02:40:09.720 you can. That's the first step in those things. And then try to

02:40:13.920 counterbalance them by worthy deeds from here on out for the

02:40:19.860 rest of your life. You can't take that away, but you can put in good over top of the bad

02:40:24.680 and make a better, make a better product at the end. It's not a one and done proposition. This

02:40:31.560 life is as short as it is. It's long too. And you've got a lot of years that you can try to

02:40:39.000 right wrongs that you've done and try to, you know, overcome that balance and end up in the,

02:40:44.960 you know, end up in the black instead of in the red, as it were. Alan, what do you got?

02:40:50.860 I like how you go, I'm going to let Alan take this. And then you take,

02:40:54.020 then you say everything I was going to say. But it's, you know,

02:40:59.540 it is a fundamental precept of the way that we recognize the debt that we owe each to each other.

02:41:08.660 and that's that's behind the concept of paying where guild or shield when you break an oath and

02:41:17.960 because and there's a long boring story i'll tell some other time um but the but but it is about the

02:41:28.360 difference between the horizontal relationship and the and the i did that backwards the vertical

02:41:32.460 relationship versus horizontal relationship the you know the the thing that we see out there in

02:41:38.780 a lot of the world right now is only god can judge me because and that is you know one of

02:41:44.120 christian precepts is that your holy relationship is only vertical you know it's up that you know

02:41:49.500 on that axis but for us the holy relationship is between each other the bond that we share as a

02:41:55.000 folk is uh you know is also holy um and and when that bond is broken then you have to do something

02:42:03.920 to heal it um and and it absolutely is to go back and try to fix what it is and it can be it can be

02:42:13.960 simple things you know yes you apologize and you talk about something that takes courage go to

02:42:21.360 somebody that you've wronged and say, I admit what I did was wrong. What can I do to make it

02:42:28.120 right? And accompanied by some sort of outward act, here's a bottle of your favorite bourbon.

02:42:39.260 Let me wash your car. Here's some eggs that my chickens laid that I will give to you to try to

02:42:45.820 make this right. So healing that broken relationship heals your soul too, because when you break off

02:42:55.620 that oath, you break off your soul, and that's the only way to restore it is to dig down and

02:43:01.640 make it right. It's tough. Take some courage. Most things that are worthwhile do. Ashley asks,

02:43:10.860 speaking of name dropping can you mention the odenshoff restoration project

02:43:15.580 via our raffle there are more squares available um yeah do you have a good link for that ashley

02:43:23.980 you're running that off of our normal process so odenshoff our first hoff in brownsville california

02:43:33.500 is looking to looking to spruce the place up and fix some stuff that needs fixing and

02:43:40.220 continue to make it a hof worthy of the all father and we need folks help to do that uh our

02:43:46.460 our folk builders in the region have come up with a really good idea spearheaded by uh

02:43:52.300 our folk builder ashley um we do a raffle in order to do that and hopefully while i'm killing

02:43:59.420 time here, she will be able to get Nick the information needed on where to go to participate

02:44:04.720 in this raffle. It's not going to be by the time I'm done because I'm just about done. So Nick's

02:44:09.300 going to find it and he's going to throw it up there after. Nick's amazing. Look at Nick. So

02:44:14.560 he's got it up there. Send an email to Ashley. Ask her questions. She'll get you set up. We do

02:44:19.760 appreciate anything you guys do. And there's some pretty cool items that you guys may be able to win.

02:44:25.160 so you uh participate in that if you can um uh ansker drenger question is there a way for those

02:44:38.440 of us uh far from the haas to donate to the food distribution efforts absolutely there is

02:44:45.320 and uh thank you for wanting to to participate in that um so each of the hoffs uh try to think

02:44:55.720 of best way for you to do this so on each of the hoffs and at our main website we have a donate

02:45:01.560 link to each of those hoffs if you want to donate to those hoffs absolutely but what i would suggest

02:45:08.680 you do is send a follow-up email to your folk builder and you can find those at each of the

02:45:13.240 hoff sites and nick will throw up the hoff sites here in a second and the folk builder for whatever

02:45:18.680 hoff you want to donate for will be happy to let me know and make sure that money goes towards

02:45:25.080 the food distribution but for those of you that may not know each of our hoffs once a month does

02:45:31.880 a food pantry for the local community and because we're doing it ourselves we're able to to serve

02:45:40.280 whoever comes there who's hungry and needs food it's for all of the obvious reasons it's a cool

02:45:47.720 thing it builds a good relationship with our neighbors it's a nice thing to do but i guess

02:45:54.680 on the selfish way it's really neat to be able to feel like you're helping and you're doing something

02:46:01.720 positive in the world that we live in today so many things are so far out of our control there's

02:46:07.960 There's so much negative out there.

02:46:09.420 It's easy to be overwhelmed and feel powerless at our food pantries one day a month for a few hours.

02:46:17.980 Our folk get to be there and do something in a tangible way that helps their community, that allows families that wouldn't have had food to have food, to allow children that would have missed a meal to have a meal.

02:46:31.800 Those things are really important, and it's good for the soul to be able to do it.

02:46:35.860 So thank you for wanting to contribute. And please go to either, you know, any of those four links Nick has up there and, yeah, reach out to a folk builder and just let them know.

02:46:46.720 Honestly, reach out to any folk builder and they can get me the message and we'll make it work out and make sure your funds go where you want them to go.

02:46:55.420 So, OK, I'll let you take this first, Alan. Finn Wraith asked, can America still be saved?

02:47:05.860 Oh, boy. No.

02:47:13.680 All right. There you have it, folks. There you have it. So can America still be saved?

02:47:26.100 Sure. If you're asking me what the likelihood of that is, I think that's a little bit different

02:47:31.940 question. Do I see any solutions now in the political system that are going to save America?

02:47:39.600 No, I do not. But one thing I think is worth thinking about is not letting perfect be the

02:47:52.280 enemy of good. There are small things that are good for America or good for you and your part

02:47:58.100 of America that you're in, that may not have potential of fixing everything, but that may

02:48:03.640 make some things better for some people. That's still worthy. But one of the things that we're

02:48:10.600 trying really hard to do in the AFA is those big questions that you have. So many things are beyond

02:48:17.680 our power as individuals to fix. But we're very lucky in the fact, and the AFA is getting bigger

02:48:24.100 every day but we're in a place where the things you do within the afa matter one person within

02:48:33.140 the afa can make a huge difference on making the world a better place for us and that's what i mean

02:48:39.060 by my answer just sorry to cut you off go ahead that's what i paid by my answer is you know i'm

02:48:45.540 sort of evolving into this place where what i'm worried about is keeping my family and my folk

02:48:54.980 you know and if i can get if i can get my where's my camera if i can get this if i can get this much

02:49:00.820 of my circle safe then maybe the rest of that other stuff will take care of itself my goal

02:49:07.060 is to stop worrying about the rest of that stuff you know and and you know practice my religion

02:49:13.740 protect my family, love my folk, and the rest of y'all can go pound sand.

02:49:19.320 Well, so, you know, this is kind of a theme tonight. Your energy and your caring and how

02:49:28.460 much of yourself you put towards something is a limited quantity. And if you're dispersing it out

02:49:35.320 there to a country of 300 million people that is woefully askew right now, unless you have a very

02:49:45.820 productive way to make a change there, I don't think it's as efficient of a use of your energy

02:49:51.840 than to focus on your time with the AFA and to build within what we have beautiful things.

02:49:59.040 There's so much in the world I can't fix, but there's a lot of things that we can make better.

02:50:03.600 And in the AFA, we're doing that. We hunkered down and we've got four Hoffs now. We're getting

02:50:10.220 Sigerheim. We've got the Astru Academy now teaching our children. We've got families.

02:50:18.860 We've got children. We're building relationships and families within the AFA. We're fixing what

02:50:25.260 we can. And if that spreads out to America as a whole or wherever country you find yourself,

02:50:31.180 Great. I hope that it does. We can be that leavening that, you know, that makes the, you know, that makes the loaf hole. And, you know, if I were a younger man and, you know, knew now and had, you know, was in a little bit different life track, you know, the way to save the ideals of America, which I think are really our own folkish ideals, is to be active at the local level. 1.00

02:51:00.660 you know we may not be able to save america but you might be able to save your school district

02:51:06.420 if you show up at you know the school board and demand that they

02:51:12.740 normalize the way your children are taught so you know i am

02:51:19.460 i guess i was a little flippant you know a little to begin with but i i'm hopeful but not optimistic

02:51:26.340 and you know what alan says is is legitimate you know first focus on the afa you can absolutely

02:51:34.180 make that better we are building we are building our own society within the constructs of america

02:51:43.060 that we have now in the world that we have now and that will stand the test of time that's doing

02:51:48.420 something good that's positive and that'll be there for our children and as you go out from there

02:51:53.220 Maybe you can save your school board. Maybe you can save your town, maybe your county.

02:51:59.300 And it goes from there. And hopefully that has a bigger impact on the world around us.

02:52:05.580 But I know that it has a big impact on the world within within the Astro Folk Assembly.

02:52:11.340 And we're seeing that every day.

02:52:14.220 Sarah says, please plug the this Sunday's first episode of the AFA Ladies Mysteries podcast. 0.59

02:52:23.160 The women in AFA leadership have something new just for women folk.

02:52:28.100 Check out the Ladies Mystery Podcast. 0.84

02:52:30.800 Look at Nick.

02:52:31.440 He's already got the advert up before I even read the question.

02:52:34.840 So Nick is doing the plug that you asked me to do.

02:52:39.860 Yeah, check that out if you are a lady who is in the AFA.

02:52:45.800 It's just getting started.

02:52:47.260 And honestly, because I am not a lady, I'm at a little bit of a distance from it because I know that Witten Callahan is a part of getting that set up.

02:52:57.780 I know that Githya, Katie and Anna are involved in it.

02:53:03.700 I'm excited to see how that develops. But yeah, check it out.

02:53:07.360 um we've got we've waited for these kind of things for a long time and we've got the right

02:53:13.840 women who have put forth the right effort to really get some good things going amongst our

02:53:20.000 ladies and amongst the feminine spiritual tradition that we have and so i'm really

02:53:25.120 excited to see where this goes um

02:53:29.040 okay so i only read part of the question the follow-up is on uh on teams 10 9 22 at 1 30 p.m

02:53:42.480 central standard time contact sarah or christine for more details topics to be covered for the

02:53:48.560 first show sacred spaces by witten brandy callahan and the desir and winter nights

02:53:54.560 uh by let me scroll down give you katie erickson altars and offerings by githya anna plurid

02:54:02.720 frith weaving among women by folk builder sarah alt offerings with your children by apprentice

02:54:09.500 folk builder christine dumas this podcast will be held monthly and recorded just for the ladies

02:54:16.700 and that is that that is the entirety of it i did not realize it was for uh four sections worth

02:54:23.500 my error. But yeah, ladies, check that out. I think it's going to be really good. 0.99

02:54:30.040 Vril Vanier, law speaker Turnage, please explain the absolute importance of all of us knowing our

02:54:37.320 rights. I know so many people that are so afraid of the law when it's 100% on our side, as long as.

02:54:47.780 As we are aware. I don't know. That's where it cuts off.

02:54:51.280 Oh, sorry. That's the bottom line down there.

02:54:54.260 Oh, Nick knows more.

02:54:56.520 Okay. Yes, it is absolutely important to know your rights.

02:55:02.680 You know, but it's also, of course, most of the time I think of that in terms of, you know, an interaction with the police.

02:55:16.040 I have had more than my share of traffic citations.

02:55:19.780 I always have a nice, friendly interaction with the local constabulary, though.

02:55:26.220 I've not gotten every ticket that I deserved, but it's because I'm friendly and conversant with them rather than being obnoxious and, you know, presenting a problem.

02:55:38.140 At the same time, if they had ever asked, which they never have, but if they had ever asked to search my vehicle, I would have politely declined and asked if I was free to go.

02:55:47.380 So if you're detained by the police, you have no obligation to interact with them.

02:55:53.100 If you ask to leave and they continue to detain you, it heightens the scrutiny that would be subject to any later proceeding.

02:56:05.620 At the workplace, it's it is a more balanced and more nuanced issue because your employers have rights to, you know, I know that we've had some folk that have.

02:56:25.000 for lack of uh i guess to put it in the vernacular have taken some flack for wearing a hammer openly

02:56:33.380 when they're at work that yes you have a right to religious expression but your employer also

02:56:39.400 has the right to a safe and orderly workplace um so can they stop you from wearing your hammer

02:56:46.860 probably not um can they uh terminate you for wearing a blue shirt absolutely you know most

02:56:56.160 states are right to work which means that you can be fired at any reason at your employer's whim

02:57:02.280 so you just have to be careful and again you know sort of walk that middle path of

02:57:07.780 uh the way that you assert your right to you know to your freedom of practice um you you know

02:57:14.720 which for a lot of you know it can be some of it yes for the time being you know it means

02:57:23.720 if if you catch some flack just tuck your hammer in it's not that big a thing

02:57:27.620 um you know you're not caving into the man you know because the employer is just trying to if

02:57:33.740 you're if offending people you can ask them to do the same thing with their cross if their cross

02:57:38.740 offends you less likely to get the response but i mean so you see there's you know again

02:57:44.480 And especially in this area, there's no bright, clear line between, yes, you can do that.

02:57:50.720 No, you can't do this other.

02:57:52.900 I know one of the things that the AFA, that people tried to drag the AFA into was the thing about beards in the military.

02:58:00.860 You know, some guy tried to assert that his religious practice required that he be allowed to wait, you know, to have a beard when the, you know, the military code denied him that right.

02:58:15.720 There's nowhere in the law that says, you know, you're not allowed to shave.

02:58:20.180 There's nowhere in the law that says you have to wear a hammer.

02:58:24.780 Much is allowed, much is permitted.

02:58:27.920 But, you know, it's always a balance.

02:58:30.040 You know, your employers have rights too. Now, at the same time, in the public space, absolutely. If you're in a public park and you're wearing our symbols and raising a horn to our gods, the state, and by that I mean, you know, the capital estate, state, local government authorities cannot prohibit you from practicing your faith in a public space.

02:59:00.040 And, you know, for many times we've gotten into that where Antifa bullies us out of a privately rented space and we just go to a state space because the state cannot discriminate against you for your religious, for your sincerely held religious beliefs at all ever.

02:59:22.800 so you know you can rent a public park as a member of the austral folk assembly

02:59:28.500 and go in there and raise a horn to our gods and wear our symbols and

02:59:35.100 and be proud of who you are because they can't stop you there

02:59:41.560 tony the king of cheese matt not a question this but i wanted to say congrats to you and

02:59:49.140 Mandy on your relationship and your little girl. Y'all are a shining light. Thank you so much for

02:59:54.660 that. I am quite literally the luckiest man in the world and the most blessed. And I feel that

03:00:02.380 and I know that. And thank you for that. And thank you for spelling y'all correctly. Not everybody

03:00:09.120 does that um jaunty writes question for you gentlemen have you had issues for afa members

03:00:21.200 that are currently serving in the military because of their membership honestly to my knowledge we

03:00:29.440 have not had any issues with any members who are currently serving because of their afa membership

03:00:36.080 I haven't either. I think I would have heard about it, too.

03:00:42.400 I know that's very often been a concern of people. It's something that career military people have

03:00:50.020 expressed a lot of concern about. But no, we have never been notified that any of our members have

03:00:56.080 had a problem in their command because they were AFA members. And one of the other things to note

03:01:03.360 in that context is that the military has now recognized the thor's hammer as a as a military

03:01:09.520 headstone it has um yeah in uh that's been three four or five years ago longer than that um clark

03:01:23.680 had one and uh his funeral in 2014 i want to say god man you're getting old i know time flies

03:01:38.720 uh isaac i'm new here curious if you all think odin is an actual existing entity

03:01:45.680 or if it's more allegorical i don't think i know that odin is absolutely an actual existing entity

03:01:53.680 I have participated in the gift cycle with the All-Father for years.

03:01:59.720 I have received many blessings from the All-Father, and I know as much as I've ever known anything in this world that Odin actually exists.

03:02:10.820 Let's see you, Alan.

03:02:12.140 I agree wholeheartedly, and I can speak to personal experience, not in this format, but to the reality, to the real manifestation.

03:02:23.680 of the gods um now is odin voton is voton a you know a bearded guy carrying a spear wearing it

03:02:40.160 uh riding an egg-legged horse not exactly you know he's he's not not that um you know

03:02:49.280 So he is all that and more. He, you know, he is, he is the, you know, the highest order manifestation of the folk soul. And that's a very real thing.

03:03:00.720 Yeah, that's an important note. The imagery of our gods and our lore isn't an exact portrait. It's a poetic expression to show the essence of that deity as our ancestors understood them.

03:03:20.380 Um, no, I don't think Odin, you know, is an old man with the white beard and one eye.

03:03:28.500 I think that that imagery helps me conceptualize the, the personality and the essence that

03:03:36.940 is, that is Odin.

03:03:38.500 I think the same thing of all of our gods.

03:03:41.760 Um, but yes, I absolutely do believe that they are unique and individual entities that

03:03:48.840 have personality, that have will, that actively can participate in the gift cycle. The gift cycle

03:03:54.900 is very important. It's the root of all of our ritual interaction with the gods and to a degree

03:04:02.380 with our ritual interaction with each other. If a being is not conscious and doesn't have will,

03:04:11.700 it can't receive gifts and reciprocate them. It can't receive

03:04:16.940 devotion and grant blessings. That's a willful act and a willful exchanging of energies,

03:04:26.600 and that's fundamental to our practice. So yes, we absolutely believe in the reality of our gods.

03:04:32.660 uh green leader any update on phrase off a slight update um i don't think our runestone for this

03:04:42.820 month have come out yet uh nick may have more information on that for us i think they're fixing

03:04:48.200 to um not a shocking amount of difference uh just because we owe quite a bit on yours off so i have

03:04:58.540 those steps that we need to do in order to get phrased. Well, so the first step is we need to

03:05:11.360 pay off the debt we have for New York's off. We have paid off 39% of the value of New York's off

03:05:21.380 right now. So that's a lot in a very short amount of time. I mean, that's including what we put

03:05:26.740 down on it but that's quite a bit in a short amount of time that's doing great it's moved

03:05:31.860 about one percent over the last month um and our another okay so this is another thing and some

03:05:41.220 inside baseball on how we do some budgeting for the afa we try to set aside um a certain portion

03:05:49.540 of our monthly income to support the hofs it's not just the challenge of getting them and affording

03:05:55.300 them it's being able to maintain them and have money in case something were to go wrong or you

03:06:02.180 know various maintenance and upkeep things it's a responsibility that we're taking on getting a

03:06:08.100 half not a one-time purchase so we want to make sure that we can fund those comfortably and still

03:06:13.860 be able to grow to do that there's some economic points with our monthly income we need to hit

03:06:19.380 to justify getting another half and uh pull it up here we are

03:06:28.260 we need to up our monthly income overall by 17 to be in a spot where we are

03:06:36.820 comfortable going ahead and moving forward with phrase off

03:06:40.100 so you know keep your donations coming in we need to get more members and we will get there

03:06:46.100 but those two things need to be in place before we make it happen so uh that's where we're at

03:06:51.620 any day now any day now i if we have a if we get a celebrity that wants to come in and donate you

03:07:01.540 know 200 000 tomorrow that any day now could be any day now that is possible uh brendan

03:07:10.660 is there anyone around portland oregon that i can meet to talk and learn more about the

03:07:15.780 faith with someone who knows more than myself this time yes first we do have members in that

03:07:21.860 area brendan um what i think that you need to do though is talk to the folk builders that are

03:07:27.380 closer to seattle washington i know it's not right there but it's two hours away from you

03:07:33.380 i'm sure that they would be happy to come your direction to help make that interaction happen

03:07:39.620 and we've got some really good people up in the seattle area mason johnson m johnson

03:07:45.140 at runestone.org i'm sure nick will throw these up would be a great guy to talk to and carter

03:07:50.580 schaefer also in that bigger seattle area c schaefer at runestone.org both of those gentlemen

03:07:57.540 would love to help you and would love to hear from you cliff asks you mentioned stoles why

03:08:04.900 to also true gothar wear stoles because they look super cool did you mention stoles i did mention

03:08:14.020 stole in passing when i talked about the responsibility of my ordination and say i'm

03:08:19.140 not just a gothy when i put on my skull um so uh because they are distinctive and recognizable

03:08:30.020 as clergymen um gone back and forth a number of different times with different ideas on what uh

03:08:38.340 vestments to wear as a priest of alsatru um and the stole is pretty well acknowledged in the west

03:08:46.580 as being a marker of

03:08:53.220 clerical ordination and rank you also see them in graduations and whatnot

03:09:00.020 Some people associate that with Christian church, but it's really not. It's an ancient Latin thing, and it developed in pagan Rome long before there was Christianity. It's a distinctively Western pagan garment.

03:09:16.620 But it's not it's not ancient Germanic by any means, but it's certainly pre-Christian and based on Aryan faith.

03:09:24.440 And it was, again, a marker of of learning and of, you know, august wisdom and learning.

03:09:32.260 And so our Gothar all wear wear stoles. There's distinctive ones for both men and ladies.

03:09:39.180 And there's also a distinction between our standard Gothar, our Witten and myself as the Allsheria Gothi.

03:09:46.620 And we're still in production of some of those, but I think they look really good.

03:09:52.980 Witt and Svahn did a really good job of designing and getting those produced.

03:09:59.960 Fenwraith, have any of you ever visited Finland?

03:10:03.540 I have not visited Finland.

03:10:05.280 Alan, have you visited Finland?

03:10:07.000 I have not.

03:10:07.960 I would.

03:10:09.840 I would as well.

03:10:10.960 I think it'd be great.

03:10:12.220 Just point of fact on that, or point of information rather.

03:10:16.480 our uh our swedish folk builder he lives very very close to the finnish border

03:10:23.040 he's up there in uh in very far northern sweden so that's about the closest that we have

03:10:29.280 uh to a swedish situation uh finn also asks

03:10:35.120 uh is an oath we make for ourselves important too if we say if we say i swear an oath to myself and

03:10:46.880 i will do this or that to improve myself is that important what are your thoughts on

03:10:55.120 yes it is absolutely important and it certainly it can be a mechanism to

03:11:01.360 To help you manifest that intent, you have to be careful about what penalty you impose, you know, on yourself.

03:11:12.940 You know, I'm sure, Matt, you may be thinking the same example that I'm thinking of, you know, but I will do, you know, I will be able to do 100 sit-ups by December 31st or else I will, you know, cut my ponytail off or something like that.

03:11:36.220 I mean, you, you know, so you just, if that helps you generate the energy that's required to manifest that in yourself, then absolutely it is, it can be a critical motivator, but what you also have to do, and that's, and that is, is that second component, what you should, what I would stay well away from is like the penalty free oath.

03:11:59.720 If I swear by all that is holy, that I will do thus and so.

03:12:05.860 And then if you don't do it, you know, you're just out in the ether.

03:12:09.680 You know, I swear that I will do this or else I will, you know, never drink beer again.

03:12:19.540 Okay, that will help you make that happen.

03:12:23.340 But you have to either fulfill the oath or engage the penalty.

03:12:30.600 that's what i'm trying to get around to so something important with that is not only is

03:12:34.680 it a motivator for you to follow through with your oath but it's a way for you to even out the cosmic

03:12:41.720 penalty for you not doing it if the oath you know if there is a this or that and you accomplish one

03:12:49.800 of those then you're not losing out uh with your weird or your orlog um the other thing i'd say

03:12:57.480 is it really depends one of the things that separates oaths from just saying something

03:13:05.720 is you tend to formalize it um if you make an oath in front of the gods or you invoke powers

03:13:12.280 to witness your oath then it's no longer just an oath within yourself it is something that's

03:13:17.640 played out with the you know interest of other parties and in that sense absolutely it's binding

03:13:26.680 But don't do it lightly. You don't want to just do it on a whim because you don't want to attract that attention in a negative way.

03:13:39.300 Absolutely. Leif asks, any advice for dealing with HR about beards? Alan, let's have you go first.

03:13:49.220 You know, I think the reality of it is that in the modern workplace, HR is in charge.

03:14:04.580 You know, I think the, you know, so, which I know is somewhat easier for me to say because I'm self-employed, so I do what I want.

03:14:12.480 But at the same time, I conform myself to the community standard.

03:14:15.840 Um, you know, keep it trimmed, make, keep it neat, be nice to people, you know, and then

03:14:25.460 if you're doing your job right and you're, um, sweet to everybody, then I'll, I think they will

03:14:32.760 be a lot less concerned about how long your facial hair is.

03:14:37.540 You know, my advice is shave or get a job that's cool with you having beards.

03:14:43.300 I think that one of the things that we need to find a balance on is individualism.

03:14:53.260 We've placed such a high value on it for so long that we let it override other things.

03:15:01.020 And I think that your employer wanting to have a certain visual for the people that work for them in whatever that capacity is, is very reasonable.

03:15:10.200 I think Alan's advice is right.

03:15:12.360 a lot of places that you work most places that you work now you can probably get away with a lot

03:15:17.640 of that if your demeanor is good if your um you know facial hair is well maintained and not you

03:15:25.240 know raggedy a lot of those things will certainly help but if your job is you know if there's a

03:15:30.600 uniform standard that you can't have a beard there then shave your beard or like i said find a job

03:15:37.480 that's you know in keeping with your fashion sense that you want to have right

03:15:44.840 um lucius what is your position on the goddess hell and the worship of her um

03:15:57.080 alan you got thoughts i don't think i've ever participated in a

03:16:03.080 ritual where hell was invoked i i don't think that she is a goddess

03:16:13.240 um that would be worshipped i you know i mean i think she's more like a you know she's certainly

03:16:23.320 a place in the pantheon but not you know i would i would i would never envision

03:16:29.120 her i've never even heard her invoked in some or anything and i would i think i would object if it

03:16:35.600 were she's the she's the gatekeeper to the realm of the dead but have we ever i've never heard her

03:16:42.240 invoked i've heard her invoked ensemble um you know i've got a we talked about this a little

03:16:51.760 bit last week and she falls in a category to where just because of being exists in our myth cycle

03:17:00.720 and has some sort of um divine function doesn't necessarily mean they're one of the icr that we

03:17:09.840 worship uh being i in the afa we don't officially have a worship relationship with uh with hella

03:17:19.200 but I think that respect is due and respect is is reasonable there there's no reason to feel that

03:17:28.180 she is malicious or you know bad um she entertained Balder in in Splendor when he was in her realm

03:17:38.600 Um, I don't think that's, it's, it's not, she's not someone that as the AFA, we, we have a

03:17:49.860 relationship with, or we, we do worship practice with, and because she makes many people uncomfortable,

03:17:55.760 it's probably not appropriate to invoke her in some, it's not as much of a slap in the face as

03:18:01.820 invoking um some other powers that are more malicious but she's one of the one of the beings

03:18:10.140 that we tend to you know have a certain amount of respectful distance from there that's a good

03:18:17.900 that's a good way of phrasing it and you know another thing that informs that

03:18:22.540 is that you know that there was never a ritual center um with her name attached to it and you

03:18:31.020 know there aren't any cities that's one of the other things that um you know that all of the

03:18:36.780 other deities that are worship you know there are you know there's lots of there's lots and lots of

03:18:41.500 odin's heim and you know phrase dead and all that but there's no hellheim except in hell

03:18:52.540 yeah that is a good marker to judge whether it was some you know a being was something

03:18:57.180 our ancestors place stock in or worship in um jason asks matt when are you attending a balder's

03:19:05.740 half event in the future i don't know there's always a possibility but for sure the next one

03:19:11.660 i know i'm going to is fall fest of next year i will be there fall fest 2023 barring you know

03:19:18.220 some horrible unforeseen uh circumstance i've been at all the fall fest thus far

03:19:22.460 but I've been to other events at Baldershof because it is happened to be congruent to some

03:19:31.240 of my travels. So we'll see. I would love to be as many of those as I can. I love Baldershof,

03:19:37.640 love the people there. I love the building. I love Balder and it's a, it's a really special place.

03:19:43.980 So guys, we have been going for three hours and 17 minutes. Now we are down to three questions

03:19:50.540 in my questions section.

03:19:52.500 If you have questions that have not been asked

03:19:54.860 that you want answered,

03:19:56.600 please go ahead and get those out there.

03:19:59.780 You got, until we answer these three questions,

03:20:02.800 have some more lined up or we'll call it a night.

03:20:05.920 Isaac, where will Freya's Hoff be?

03:20:09.040 It's a fine question, Isaac. 0.89

03:20:11.060 That's planning pretty far out.

03:20:12.880 So we have 12 gods that we're getting through

03:20:16.640 before we're going to our goddesses.

03:20:18.760 So we're quite a ways away. We have planned out right now where Freya's Hoff and Tears Hoff will be. That still leaves, I believe, six God Hoffs to establish and then the time to get to Freya's Hoff.

03:20:35.320 so the whole map could change for us by then there's a complex matrix of things that go into

03:20:41.720 deciding where a hoff's going to be and one of the most important ones of those is having a

03:20:48.520 functioning community that's um got longevity that's got some a history of staying power and

03:20:55.480 that's got volunteers there that are going to make that hoff successful and we also need gothar you

03:21:03.000 can't really have a temple to our gods with no priest or priestess to attend to those rights

03:21:08.600 so those things need to be in place before we have a hof somewhere

03:21:14.120 question from nick can we get a minor civics lesson on the first amendment and how it bars

03:21:22.040 the government from restricting those things not private citizens from restricting it on their

03:21:27.320 property, et cetera. I leave that in the capable hands of our law speaker.

03:21:33.240 God, do we have another three hours? There are books and seminars and weekends spent on

03:21:44.280 First Amendment law. The way the First Amendment is interpreted presently just says that

03:21:51.240 the state cannot discriminate against religious practice now what they can do is they can't you

03:22:02.840 know like you can't have a human sacrifice and call it part of your religious practice

03:22:11.640 so anything that would disturb you know the the um you know public order or violate

03:22:17.800 and practice neutral laws they can enforce you know you can't do any of that stuff but otherwise

03:22:29.320 anything that you that is your fundamental religious practice sincerely held religious

03:22:35.960 belief the state cannot interfere with it i mean that's the long and short of it

03:22:41.080 if i mean and if you had something particular in mind i'd be glad to talk with you about it

03:22:46.440 um in private but you know that but again that's why many controversial entities rent uh meeting

03:22:59.080 space from the state because they cannot they can't they they're the state is not allowed to

03:23:03.800 practice viewpoint discrimination so you know of course the you know the marxists used to use it

03:23:11.720 to get into the university um and but as it is now you know we can use it to rent a state park

03:23:21.560 we can use it to rent a picnic ground and a you know to have an afternoon bloat you know

03:23:31.560 there are certain extremely rare exceptions but the broad rule is the state can't discriminate

03:23:37.880 against us and that's the seminar all right abortions what penalty is there for those who

03:23:45.560 make these mistakes you know as a true is not a punishment based faith um

03:23:59.000 you'll find that most of our our principles don't have a a prescribed punishment set for them

03:24:07.880 and you know that's that's good or bad depending on how you want to look at it

03:24:13.160 uh what i do want to say is from an astute standpoint um from a human being standpoint

03:24:21.560 killing babies is bad um sometimes it is a better option than perhaps some other options on the

03:24:30.520 table. You know, certainly our ancestors had to make some really tough choices in times of famine

03:24:37.960 or other things. There's a lot of circumstances out there, but it's bad. It may be better than

03:24:47.700 other options sometimes, but it's still a bad thing. And it's worth saying that we live in a

03:24:56.080 day and age where people will gleefully celebrate the killing

03:25:00.160 of children. And that's monstrous. Making decisions of

03:25:06.400 who will live and who will die, because of necessity is

03:25:10.540 unfortunate. But to celebrate that is is is evil and bad. What

03:25:19.960 penalty there might be, I think that's, you know, between you

03:25:23.800 the god i think they're you know depending on who knows there may well be a social penalty

03:25:30.280 depending on the attitude that you have with it i think ultimately that's going to be a situation

03:25:36.040 of judgment uh before our gods when you find yourself you know in the afterlife alan what

03:25:41.400 are your thoughts i agree with a lot of that um you know you know one day you'll sit in the doom

03:25:50.280 chair and your life will be judged so you know you i think that's a that's that's your conscience

03:25:58.440 is your own penalty in that case um so okay next question is can the afa stand as an executor

03:26:08.040 if we were if we request that in our wills or trust um no an executor has to be a person

03:26:17.720 um you know if you named well let's say it this way i would accept appointment as executor of your

03:26:27.620 will um if you know if you chose to do that um generally speaking it is better to have someone

03:26:39.740 close to you, both physically and, you know, and in relationship-wise.

03:26:49.140 In other words, like you'd want your second cousin rather than your law speaker,

03:26:54.760 although I would be honored to do it, but an executor or administrator has to be a person.

03:27:08.520 All right.

03:27:09.740 um next question from lucius i'm working on a series of novels involving some heathens as

03:27:16.060 main characters is there a best person to talk to as a consultant to represent the folkish way

03:27:22.780 most accurately i would say any of our gothar would be a very good choice for that and in any

03:27:28.300 of those hoff websites if nick will throw them up again you can find contact information for our

03:27:34.460 gothar there and i think any of our gothar are literally experts in what you're asking about

03:27:41.740 and would be happy to give you some perspective can i bury my mother's uh cremains at a hof

03:27:52.220 first that's really clever and i like what you did there um i would need to know a couple of things

03:27:59.260 things. First, any of our Hoffs can can enter cremated remains. And we're in that process.

03:28:10.900 Some if you don't see them there already, it's because we haven't had that occasion.

03:28:15.100 But we are prepared to do that at any of our Hoffs. Was your mother also true is a question

03:28:24.340 Was she, it's 2022 and we got to ask these questions,

03:28:28.920 unfortunately, was she a heterosexual white woman?

03:28:35.140 Are you a member of the AFA?

03:28:37.400 All those things kind of play into it.

03:28:40.220 Your membership in the AFA matters with that.

03:28:43.920 Or if your mother was also true

03:28:45.920 and wasn't affiliated with anyone,

03:28:48.440 that's also very relevant.

03:28:51.520 It really depends how you answer the questions,

03:28:53.740 i think there's good odds that that might be something very well we would do but again we

03:28:59.020 have to know a little bit more about the specifics cliff asks is it accurate to say that bloat is

03:29:06.140 worship whereas symbol is honor so the standard of what entities may be hailed in sumble is not

03:29:12.540 exactly the same as making a bloat um i can't scroll down to quite the bottom of that for

03:29:21.580 whatever reason uh we hail living persons for example ensemble but would not bloat to them

03:29:28.460 and as a follow-up would a jotun who is friendly or aligned with the a seer be accepted such as

03:29:37.420 eiger or scotty alan what's your thoughts speak some laws um valid point you know yeah um

03:29:51.580 I think, you know, certainly the lore recognizes that some of the Yotans were valued allies of the Aesir, so I don't think it would be out of line to hail them in Sumble.

03:30:13.440 i'd be really hesitant to do it myself i don't think i would call it out of bounds but

03:30:20.140 you know i don't think it would be anything i'd ever do uh and you know it's certainly a valid

03:30:27.700 point the distinction between bloat and sumble you know you can you can honor and i've certainly

03:30:35.320 never thought about that you know about that distinction uh worship versus honor i think it

03:30:41.740 I think it is a nice, clean distinction and well taken.

03:30:46.940 Cliff's got his thinking hat on today.

03:30:49.960 I think it's because he exfoliates.

03:30:52.100 That helps his brain work better.

03:30:54.340 That's what I heard.

03:30:57.080 You know, I think I'm with Alan on that.

03:31:01.380 You know, I guess that's another thing about his law speaker-ness.

03:31:06.560 He is kind of the guy that makes those calls on Sumble etiquette.

03:31:12.540 We also have, you know, other folks that serve in that capacity if Alan is not present, but he tends to be the guy that makes the calls on what's what's legit and what's not during Sumble.

03:31:24.100 I think the point about things we, you know, people we would honor versus people we would worship is is a very well put distinction.

03:31:33.680 And, yeah, I don't think it's completely out of bounds for, you know, specifically those examples.

03:31:41.740 And again, it's not something that I would do personally. And I think a lot of us with some experience probably wouldn't. It's something that I think newer people are much more likely to do and folks that, you know, maybe want to show their more detailed knowledge of the Lord.

03:32:02.400 and you know might draw a yellow card um and and and part of the danger of that as i'm thinking

03:32:10.680 through that having never been presented with that question you know part of the danger of it

03:32:16.240 is that you know it's kind of the slippery slope um thing you know if this yoten is okay without

03:32:23.620 this one or without this one is you know like the further away you get from the you know the center

03:32:30.120 the more problematic it becomes. And somewhere out there, there's a line, but you just don't

03:32:37.320 want to get, unless you're in close company. I will certainly say that there's also a distinction

03:32:44.640 that can be drawn between Sumble in a kindred, Sumble in close family versus a public Sumble.

03:32:57.680 You know, and certainly if you, you know, you could be somewhat more liberal because, you know, in a, for example, in your own kindred, you're going to understand what you mean when you give honor to Hela, for example, whereas somebody that's new to the AFA and in a public bloat, you know, might be really put off by something like that.

03:33:27.680 So what is a elder's role and how does someone get there?

03:33:35.100 What are your thoughts on that, Alan?

03:33:37.980 You get there by getting all this gray hair and, you know, running up and just tilting at this windmill, you know, as long as we all have, you know, and the way you get there is just stay the course.

03:33:54.560 you know gods i've been you know it's funny to think i've been doing this almost 20 years now

03:34:01.460 and you know i've i've come a long way my personal belief in practice and certainly the practice of

03:34:06.800 also true has come a long way in the time that i've been doing it um those elders who are ahead

03:34:13.520 of me though man i have so much respect for those guys um who were doing it when the when it was

03:34:19.540 even more looked down upon you know i can't imagine trying to do this like in the 70s

03:34:30.280 and you know and and how that would have been frowned upon and how much active opposition

03:34:35.640 you'd have to face to be able to stand and you know honor your gods like that so

03:34:41.680 so stay the course one day you'll be an elder you know you'll be sitting there you know

03:34:49.020 So back when I was a kid listening to this stupid stuff on YouTube, we didn't even have holograms back in those days.

03:34:58.140 We had to look at a flat screen.

03:35:02.740 You know, it's an interesting question.

03:35:05.420 I think there's kind of two classes of elders.

03:35:09.480 I think in general, and I think folkish people get this, it shocks me that our opposition doesn't get this on a fundamental level.

03:35:24.040 People who are old, you give them a certain amount of respect and you give them more latitude than you give people that are young before they, you know, rise you to objection or action.

03:35:36.420 that's just common sense amongst humanity. And we all understand that you afford a certain

03:35:45.100 amount of respect to people who've come before you. I think that's absolutely there in a macro

03:35:51.460 case with elderly people in the world. And I think it applies even more so to folks in

03:35:57.160 Ausitru. And within Ausitru, there's kind of a matrix of not just age, but age and

03:36:03.360 um time involved in house a true um certainly everything alan said it's absolutely have a lot

03:36:13.200 of respect for the folks that came before us and that paved the way to get us to where we are

03:36:18.480 and uh at the very least everybody it doesn't mean that elders are infallible of course not

03:36:25.440 but at the very least you listen respectfully when those who are older than yourself are talking to

03:36:31.280 you. And a note on that, there's all these steps, especially within Ausitru for people who are new

03:36:42.140 to it. There's all these steps that have to take place to get us where we are. And right now we

03:36:49.660 think this is the pinnacle of Ausitru. This is the best it's ever been. This is exactly how it should

03:36:54.900 be this is the only right way to do it and i think that every person at every time felt that or they

03:37:03.140 would have been doing it differently um it's very easy to look back at what some of the old timers

03:37:08.660 did and feel that it's silly or you know it's dumb or whatever because we do something differently

03:37:15.940 but those were the steps that it took to get where we were at and time is time and circumstance

03:37:23.700 cast a very different light on things. So to have a certain amount of humility when looking at the

03:37:29.680 things our elders did that allowed us to get where we are, you know, I fully expect that, you know,

03:37:35.460 100 years from now, 200 years from now, people will do things differently than I'm doing them

03:37:40.780 right now. And I hope that they will afford me the courtesy of, you know, appreciating what I

03:37:47.380 did for the time that I was doing it. And I also hope that they'll learn from it and further

03:37:52.400 perfect this to where it gets closer and closer to be worthy of our gods but i think that's very

03:38:00.080 important when we look at our elders and and we respect the things that they've done um that's

03:38:07.040 all the questions we've got tonight it's been about three and a half hours i got some dinner

03:38:12.480 to eat i appreciate you guys and your questions and uh all your participation tonight we had some

03:38:18.160 really good questions and alan thank you so much for being on the program tonight people have been

03:38:24.000 so eager to hear from you and it's been an absolute pleasure to have you always a pleasure to speak

03:38:31.040 with you you know i looked down a few minutes ago it's you know it seemed like just you know it seemed

03:38:36.720 like time just flies man i love you brother it does i love you too alan we will uh we will talk

03:38:44.640 to you and i love all you guys too there we go we love our afa family so i'll talk to you a little

03:38:49.200 bit later alan and guys we will see you again same time next week until then hail the gods

03:38:55.840 hail the folk hail the afn and remember the victory never sleeps

03:39:25.840 We'll be right back.

03:39:55.840 Thank you.

03:40:25.840 Thank you.

03:40:55.840 Thank you.

03:41:25.840 Thank you.

03:41:55.840 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - October 06, 2022

10⧸5⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 13

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