Asatru Folk Assembly - 10⧸9⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 118 - Ásatrú for Kids

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

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

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00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:00.000 hello everyone welcome to another episode of victory never sleeps i am witten brandy and

00:03:17.040 i'm joined tonight with uh githia sheila mcnallen and tonight we are going to talk about as a true

00:03:23.360 for children how are you doing tonight sheila i'm doing great thank you yeah very excited about this

00:03:29.600 segment it's quite different but ties into families and that's what we're all about so

00:03:35.600 there's plenty to discuss absolutely before we get started tonight um i want to talk a little bit

00:03:42.160 about doing things together as a folk and one of the things i'm going to ask all of you to do

00:03:49.120 tonight uh sometime this evening is i want you to go to your altars or go go to a quiet corner of

00:03:56.640 your house, go outside, make an offering to the Aesir, to the ancestors, and ask them to watch

00:04:05.440 over our folk who have been suffering from the hurricanes that have happened down south,

00:04:11.200 and especially tonight in Florida. We have a lot of people down there, a lot of our people,

00:04:16.480 a lot of our members, and a lot of our folk down there who are in need, who are scared,

00:04:22.960 and who are right in the way of these storms or have been affected by the storms already

00:04:28.880 now when we do things together i want you to think of the great big fire that you can gather around

00:04:35.520 when you're at ritual when you're at bloat think of that raging fire as the folk flame

00:04:46.000 every once in a while a small spark is going to pop out of that right when you do something

00:04:52.800 individually that spark is you the gods see it we see it but when we work together and we combine

00:05:02.560 our energies for a purpose and our prayers and our offerings we are that raging flame

00:05:10.080 so i do ask everyone tonight if you could please give some sort of offering a prayer

00:05:17.200 some energy to help protect our people and protect those that have been affected and

00:05:21.680 are currently being affected by the hurricanes that are going down south.

00:05:27.520 And speaking of which, we have actually raised some money for some hurricane relief funds already,

00:05:34.800 and we actually do have two of our wonderful folk builders, folk builder Heinlein and folk

00:05:39.280 builder Bethea, that are already down there helping out with hurricane relief, and they are currently

00:05:46.080 down south helping our folk that are affected by there. These are actually pictures that

00:05:49.760 were taken by the folk builders that are there on sites helping folk recover

00:05:55.460 helping with cleanup and helping people in need we've currently raised over

00:05:59.660 $3,000 and we could use more to help these people all of that money is going

00:06:04.520 directly to this effort so if you could please go to runestone.org go to donate

00:06:09.200 and we're going to be helping our folk down there recover and rebuild so please

00:06:16.340 if you can absolutely donate to that help us help the folk down there please be generous with with

00:06:23.860 that there's a lot of people they need down there all right so tonight we are streaming live on

00:06:32.260 odyssey vk entropy rumble twitter rx twitch youtube on fridays you can catch us on uh apple

00:06:42.420 Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. Also tonight, we do have a very special guest,

00:06:49.220 as I announced her already, Githya McNallan. I'm excited for you to be here. I'm excited to talk

00:06:54.420 to you about this. I know that this is something that is extraordinarily close to your heart,

00:06:59.140 and something that you have really taken on is educating our families, educating our children,

00:07:04.180 and watching the next generation grow, and the relationship with the ACR grow,

00:07:09.780 and the relationship with their folk grow so i'm so excited for you to be here as well

00:07:14.660 thank you very much yeah i hope i have some new insights and things to share with parents

00:07:20.660 that um will build communication build those bonds within the family that type of thing

00:07:26.820 you know that's what we're about and of course bringing them to an understanding of why we gather

00:07:32.420 the way we do and honor the d-seer and well the d-seer and the acer of course always and uh yeah

00:07:41.780 i'm just very happy to share my thoughts history you know where we've been where we are now all

00:07:47.460 that kind of stuff it all plays in wonderful and githia mcnellen and myself are here tonight

00:07:53.460 because the elshira godi is off um traveling to winter nights it is not too late to get your

00:07:59.780 ticket for winter nights uh go to runestone.org store and click on the link for that it's going

00:08:05.460 to be a great event um held in new hampshire this year if you have any questions get a hold of any

00:08:10.820 of those folk builders uh up in the thorshuff northern part of the district there and they can

00:08:16.580 help you out there we've got a lot of people going there it's going to be a really great event

00:08:20.980 sorry i have to miss it but hey we get to be here with you and i get to talk to sheila tonight so

00:08:24.980 so it's going to be a great night. Other upcoming events that we have, we have the Feast of the

00:08:29.880 Einherjar, which is going to be November 8th through the 10th in South Dakota. That is going

00:08:35.060 to be put on by Gauthier Nathan Erlinson and folk builder Ashley McStocker. They always put on an

00:08:41.180 amazing event. Gauthier Erlinson does one of the most powerful Feast of the Einherjar bloats that

00:08:48.540 I've seen. He does an outstanding job with that. There's going to be a lot of us there. I'm going

00:08:52.780 be there. Sheila, I believe you're going to be there. Your wonderful husband, Founder McNallan,

00:08:58.620 is going to be there. They've got a lot of great things planned, so come out and join us for the

00:09:03.500 Feast of the Einherjar. Tickets are on Stella at groomstone.org, and get a hold of any of our

00:09:09.020 Baldur South folk builders, and they can get you in touch with anybody. If we need to figure out

00:09:14.300 how to get you from the airport, if we have any questions about how long it's going to take, the

00:09:19.420 best route to take what we're going to do get a hold of us we'll help you out with that

00:09:24.700 all right also just a reminder in just a few days it is also uh founder mcnellen's birthday

00:09:33.340 so we want to make sure that everyone make sure you wish him a happy birthday i'm sure you would

00:09:38.060 appreciate it so wish him a happy birthday can't wait for that we will yeah he's in the other room

00:09:44.860 right now i will certainly share the good tidings too with him yes everybody get in the chat and

00:09:52.380 wish Alan a happy birthday so that he can see that later or Sheila can let him know how much

00:09:58.540 how much he has loved and how much that is in the chat i would sing you steve i really really would

00:10:04.140 but we don't want to we don't we want viewers not lack of viewers so i will not be singing tonight

00:10:10.140 i love it a couple other things we got just on the top of the show stuff um we're making really

00:10:17.580 good progress with new york soft so as of right now um we've paid 167 104 that is amazing we do

00:10:29.260 have 77 896 remaining so you guys have been amazing and generous and it's because of your

00:10:36.540 generosity and hard work and dedication that we are able to continue to build these hops to the

00:10:43.100 east here and have places for our people to celebrate have places for our children to grow

00:10:47.900 up you know that's one of the the best things that that i've seen is that there's children 1.00

00:10:53.340 our children are not going to remember a time when there wasn't a half they don't have to grow up with

00:10:59.180 that you know there's going to be a half there's going to be a place for them to to find their

00:11:04.780 friends and to find their family and to build that relationship with their gods. And it's thanks to

00:11:09.580 your generosity and the dedication of our folk that we do have those. So thank you to everyone

00:11:14.300 for that. Please go over to runestone.org to donate for that. We can get that paid off and

00:11:20.300 get on our way to the next things. Also, what else do we got? The Baldur's Hof Steeple Fund.

00:11:28.620 Since I'm on the show tonight, we're going to go ahead and plug that Baldur's Hof Steeple Fund.

00:11:33.180 right now so far we've raised almost a thousand dollars our goal for that is about twenty thousand

00:11:38.000 dollars that is going to include a complete rebuild um if you haven't seen the pictures of

00:11:43.880 it the top of the steeple is missing uh we did have to take it down to keep the water intrusion

00:11:49.540 um the steeple itself was really degrading and causing some issues we were getting a lot of

00:11:54.560 water intrusion so in order to save the hawk we had to take down the steeple and we had big plans

00:12:00.120 for that steeple um so what we are doing is we are raising funds to completely rebuild that with

00:12:05.800 the dormers um in the space for the the stained glass that we wanted to do and also just rebuild

00:12:11.480 it to to really match the beauty that it should be for boulder so if you would like to donate to

00:12:16.920 that please do we appreciate all of the donations that we've had for that as well um let's see what

00:12:24.360 what else, Sigerheim, making good progress on Sigerheim. Sigerheim, we've got about $52,000,

00:12:31.020 over $52,000 paid on Sigerheim already. Still got a ways to go on that, but it's great. We've

00:12:39.980 already shown that we can really join together and make really, really big strides on taking

00:12:45.280 these next steps together as a folk. So thank you to everyone for all your donations to that as well.

00:12:50.620 and it looks like ronald blake has started the show with a 200 donation to the relief fund

00:13:00.760 ronald blake you are so generous and see you are so consistent we can't thank you enough thank you

00:13:05.560 so much ronald that is so deeply appreciated i know the people that that are affected by this

00:13:11.400 they will appreciate the help in rebuilding that thank you so much

00:13:15.500 all right so I think that's all the top of the show things that I need to hit

00:13:21.100 I'm sure producer Nick will let me know if I missed anything and if we do we'll hop back in

00:13:25.560 and do that so let's go ahead and get started so one of the questions I had specifically for you

00:13:30.400 Sheila is in all the years that you have led your your women and your children and your families

00:13:37.280 in the AFA what is one thing that you've seen I guess since you know since the the

00:13:45.080 mid-90s until now. How have you seen the way that children practice as a tour, the way that the

00:13:50.980 children are included from then until now? Oh, that's a very good question. You know,

00:13:57.420 we consistently have children with us now. At the last event at Odenshof Winter Finding,

00:14:04.740 we had 32 adults, 16 kids, you know, a ratio of that two to one. And that's pretty amazing,

00:14:13.400 because there would be a lot of events even in the early years at Odinsoft where we might have

00:14:19.080 you know 20 adults and three kids but that is changing and it's really good for the kids

00:14:25.060 to have that time with each other but also good for us and reminder that we need to be

00:14:34.500 meeting their needs spiritually too and so we're doing a much better job of that

00:14:39.000 and it's still you know they need to play they need to build their own relationship so most of

00:14:45.620 the time the kids are together they're doing that but it's always good to give them more than that

00:14:51.540 that which they will have at our house or at kindred meetings or moots where you're out in a

00:14:59.340 natural space where kids can play and interact and have well campfires and singing songs I mean

00:15:08.160 what's more natural than that. So we really do need to gear ourselves to the children a lot more

00:15:14.320 than we have. And I think that's been really, really good. Again, it's just wonderful to see

00:15:19.800 the families come. And we've had a lot of very young families at Odinsoff with young children,

00:15:25.240 you know, five and under. But our last two families have older kids. And well, no, actually,

00:15:32.060 one of them does have young ones. But we do have a family came in with older boys. And so we've got

00:15:36.580 this quite a range now between you know six months and 14 years 15 years which we didn't have before

00:15:44.180 we've got a better spread of ages and that's good because those kids need to start working with the

00:15:49.460 younger ones and be their mentors and one thing we did do we have done for two years now is what

00:15:57.300 we call family camp at odin's off something we created and it was based on um the the wonder

00:16:06.420 that comes from kids going away to camp and my husband and i actually were science teachers and

00:16:12.100 we used to take kids to them into an environmental ed camp and yet we were able to put in a lot of

00:16:18.340 really cool spiritual stuff in the experience and um that's what we do in august the first weekend

00:16:24.980 of august we're inviting we invite the families to come back to be there to camp with us and

00:16:31.940 involve the kids in not that a lot of them again are young but in the cooking in the planning and

00:16:37.780 all those things that we do and this year we had lots of art and stories of the lore we did fray

00:16:45.460 and freya quite a bit and we did puppets and we had one of our dads brought out a lot of equipment

00:16:52.260 at nighttime that dealt with electromagnetism and so we had some great science things and we got to

00:16:58.420 look at rocks under black lights and just cool things that we can do and i hope that people will

00:17:06.260 look at what we've done here and it's grown really well last year this last year we got so much more

00:17:12.660 incorporated into the weekend um it can be done and it's so worthwhile for everybody

00:17:18.340 so that is a huge difference because i was kind of a dream and for our children we're now doing that

00:17:24.820 and it can be done at every half as day trips as you know day camps and because i know that's what

00:17:31.620 you're kind of limited to but it's still a good time to focus on those kids and have that in fact

00:17:37.700 we ended with a free freya bloat and the adults it was for the kids but the adults wanted to be

00:17:42.660 there too and so but focused on the kids and their ability to do that and also doing kids

00:17:48.660 symbols we're doing that where the kids actually get to make the toast the three round toasts

00:17:54.340 we never did that before and um so i always try to do a ritual with the kids at at each event that

00:18:01.460 we do at odin's off and uh they just love doing a symbol of course they get to do the apple juice too

00:18:07.780 he doesn't want that right out of a horn oh my goodness so we use the small horns for them anyway

00:18:13.860 those are some of the things that have changed we're just growing we're building and of course

00:18:17.620 now that we have a really uh good foundation with us true academy there's so much more that even

00:18:24.580 parents will be able to do in the future um and taking some of those materials and working them

00:18:29.460 into their daily lives i think one of the favorite bloats out of all the bloats that i've participated

00:18:37.140 in or um you know that i've that i've conducted i think one of my favorite bloats was one of the

00:18:44.740 children's bloats that we did and i think it might have been austara if i had thought about it i would

00:18:50.020 have sent some pictures to you uh to the producer nick there to put up there but we actually had a

00:18:55.300 symbol where the children led the symbol and they were accompanied by um one of the godar uh one of

00:19:02.340 the godhar you know students or one of our folk builders and they actually led the bloat with help

00:19:10.340 from you know from their from their adult helper you know from the welcoming to or the entrance to

00:19:17.860 the welcoming um to to calling upon the aesir you know they they received the gifts they gave the

00:19:24.980 gifts you know they received the gifts of the gods and and gave the gifts of the gods and they closed

00:19:30.580 it they had so much fun those kids were so happy you know every single one of them had a little

00:19:36.900 something to do um they either got to hold the candle or they got to take the offerings up to

00:19:42.200 the altar um or they got to you know spray people with mead you know they thought that was pretty

00:19:46.960 cool um and we actually had um folk builder uh ashley mcstocker's daughter uh lily she did an

00:19:54.240 amazing job, an amazing job of leading that bloat and really helping the kids feel that,

00:20:00.880 you know, she was a little nervous, but wow, she did amazing. And she was so proud and I was so

00:20:06.060 proud of her, you know, and I know her parents go the Erlandson and Book Builder McStocker. I know

00:20:11.600 they were very proud of her as well, but that was, that was a big deal for her. And it was a big deal

00:20:16.500 for the kids to actually do this, you know, having somebody help you of course, and help you with the

00:20:22.180 words to say and the motions to go through, but you could see that the kids were excited to be

00:20:28.060 actually holding the bloat themselves. And we were pretty lucky to have Lily there and to have a few

00:20:34.040 older kids that, you know, kind of knew the process and could do it. But even the little kids, you

00:20:39.320 know, we have a young family, the Proudfoot family. I know we've talked about them a few times, but

00:20:44.700 that they're just an amazing family. But I remember Corey sending me a video of her son

00:20:51.800 walking around their living room and he would stop and he would hail Balder and he would march

00:20:56.700 around and he would stop and he would hail Balder. And they do that at the Hoff and it's just the

00:21:01.320 sweetest thing. But it's also a moment that those parents should really be proud of because they've

00:21:07.340 helped build that relationship between their children and the gods. And that's something

00:21:12.100 absolutely amazing yes indeed and in fact when we are doing um greeting to the gods for instance

00:21:22.100 and the kids are doing um their own introductions and they know exactly which god they're going to

00:21:27.540 hail um and also just in ritual you know they some kids are very very involved at this point

00:21:35.060 and being quite young a long ways from being adults but they got they have the idea they

00:21:40.660 know why they're there and they want to be there and nobody's coercing them at all and uh and

00:21:46.340 they're so appropriate and just it just brings a smile to your face when even the small kids are

00:21:52.100 healing healing naysayer and uh just just uh it's it's very it's very heartwarming to see how many

00:22:02.020 kids want to be involved and do it so well right we do it with such maturity yes and to have their

00:22:09.780 symbols there's a lot of hail mommies there's a lot of my goodness

00:22:16.420 mandy gets that every time well it's always who's who's the god or goddess and hail mommy

00:22:22.740 hail mommy and is the mama should be the goddess of the family we know that right yes so that's

00:22:29.540 really sweet yeah and they love that they really do love doing symbols they do they do we have

00:22:36.260 actually a really small horn um it's the kid's horn um and it's it's kind of just perfect for

00:22:42.260 them they don't have to to fumble it but it's just a really small horn and they get really excited

00:22:47.200 that they get to have their own sumble one of the things i think that is probably the most

00:22:51.560 heartwarming for me is you know when you when you talk to parents and their kids you know and

00:22:56.800 you'll you'll talk to them and i want to go to the hoff and see my friends you know or i want to go

00:23:02.620 auntie brandy's house and i want to go to the hoff and see my friends you know that's something

00:23:06.940 that's really special you know to see kids that kind of get used to each other in the first few

00:23:11.820 minutes but within five minutes they're chasing each other around it's like they've been friends

00:23:15.820 all their lives so that's great yeah what's really important to me is to think back to those covid

00:23:23.500 years and at that point we just did pretty much had odin's off and maybe we had thor's off i'm

00:23:29.500 not really sure into that i'm sure we did but um well obviously we did but at odenshof matt made

00:23:37.180 it clear that we're going to keep doing events no matter what you know and here we are in california

00:23:42.540 and everybody was to shut down i mean they you'd drive the streets and there'd be nobody out kind

00:23:48.540 of a thing um but we continued meeting monthly and um nobody stopped us we would have you know

00:23:56.700 meanwhile down in the valley in the sacramento churches they're doing drive-in um church services

00:24:04.700 with big screens and all and then people you know have the windows rolled up so they don't get

00:24:09.020 disease we continue doing what we did and it's it was even more important for the kids to be there

00:24:16.060 because that was the only place they could play and be kids to know that life continued on and

00:24:21.580 that we were not going to stop at the mandates of others but that they got to be with their friends

00:24:27.740 play with their friends and we continued to do bloat and to do symbols and to share the horn and

00:24:33.180 nobody got sick and i like to point that out you know when my few interviews or when i've talked

00:24:39.660 to people i do point that out because there is that that um that courage that comes from that

00:24:46.220 going against the grain and the strength and conviction that what we're doing is right

00:24:51.100 and matt guided us in that and said no we're not going to back down on this at all there was one

00:24:55.740 month where um there really was was very virulent at that point there was a lot of of um many cases

00:25:04.940 being diagnosed in our area and we were also doing the food pantry at that point and that's when we

00:25:10.860 started doing the drive through food pantry um but uh and i don't really remember a lot of the

00:25:18.460 details on that that's so many years back but it just felt so good to get through it and continue

00:25:23.900 just with without a step we just continue doing what we do at the hoff and was a the holy place

00:25:29.660 the sacred place and the place of protection and unity for our folk always has been always will be

00:25:35.420 yeah well before we keep going we did get a few donations uh gw farnsworth uh bought us five

00:25:44.160 coffees that's 25 thank you very much uh brent law bought us three coffees thank you sir thank

00:25:51.860 you very much and gw farnsworth also donated a hundred dollars to the folk services fund

00:25:58.040 thank you that is very very very appreciated so the the folk services fund just so people have an

00:26:05.140 idea of what that is. Our folk services fund is for folk that fall on hard times, whether they

00:26:12.360 need a water heater or, you know, emergency tire repairs. And, you know, the things that we can

00:26:20.420 can try to help with the best of our ability for people that, you know, are unable to deal with

00:26:26.520 those emergency circumstances by themselves. So that is very, very deeply appreciated. Thank you

00:26:31.820 so much. That really does go to folk that are in need. Thank you, sir, very much. And before we get

00:26:39.840 back to the kids, we do have a question from Go the East. Gideon McNallan, what has been your

00:26:45.280 proudest moment for the AFA so far? I saw that in the side chat. Yeah, I've been thinking about it.

00:26:52.300 Obviously, it was the discovery of what has become Odin's Hoff.

00:26:59.980 That was really some magical working that made that happen.

00:27:03.520 There's no doubt that Odin was involved in that.

00:27:06.380 And I had to play a really critical role to make that happen because it was up to me to go back and provide three years of balance sheets for the AFA and, you know, income, expenses, and the whole thing.

00:27:19.800 And I had to do that for us in order to get our loan, our mortgage through a local savings and loan.

00:27:26.720 And that was that was a lot of work.

00:27:30.060 And I pulled it off and we got we got the mortgage at a good rate and we paid it off in what within three years, within three years was all paid off.

00:27:40.740 We also did a really good fundraising with a group called Indiegogo.

00:27:45.540 and we had people because it was the first you have to realize it was so exciting because we

00:27:49.780 had talked about this um ever since i got involved in the afa which was in the early 90s like 90

00:27:57.140 92 93 um and even back further of course back when steve was doing the astro free assembly

00:28:05.380 it was always there was always a land and hawk fund where you could drop your five or ten dollars

00:28:10.660 in and people did people were donating because everybody wanted that and we thought we would get

00:28:16.260 it but we had no idea how to do it and it was one of those things that when it happened we were

00:28:22.020 ready we were ready we had enough money in the bank i've been just as we are you know i'm was

00:28:27.860 frugal with the money and so there was enough savings there plus we made about 45 000 within

00:28:34.500 about i think four or five weeks with indiegogo i mean people really came through because they

00:28:39.060 and there's actually the video there for you guys to go see it is the new grange hall promo video

00:28:45.700 that i put together which i love i just it just kind of ah you know brings back the old days of

00:28:52.580 so much expectation of what it would be like and it has turned out beautifully just couldn't be

00:28:57.700 better but the god said it was time you know odin was there and you may know that the name was

00:29:06.580 because it was originally the old grange hall there in this little town of brownsville nobody

00:29:11.220 had ever heard of none of us even knew yuba county let alone that town of brownsville which is in

00:29:16.900 an unincorporated part of the county with a lot of other little towns like forbestown and rackerby

00:29:22.100 and all these little towns but we ended up there for some reason and it suited us so well and it's 1.00

00:29:29.860 the most laid-back community except they're a christian that's probably the biggest detriment 0.61

00:29:34.740 and they've had their you know the drug issues and whatever but um they are just genuine down

00:29:41.460 home people like you find in other parts of the country you know it's not california at all and

00:29:48.180 they would not want to be associated with um woke california that's just the way they are and we

00:29:52.900 found this place was the old grange hall had been abandoned had been lots of other things had been

00:29:57.780 a christian school karate stews studio i think bingo things had been dance halls the kids um

00:30:06.740 adults come back and talk about how they would do have dances there in fact the whole community would

00:30:11.780 turn out for the dances that would take place in the in the old grange hall so because it was the

00:30:17.860 grange it was my idea to call it new grange and you know you you know our roots back there in

00:30:26.420 ireland with new grange and it just made sense and so it was called new grange hall the first

00:30:31.940 half of the austral folk assembly but then a few years later and this was even about the time i

00:30:37.940 think matt took over well in fact that was a couple years after that probably 2017 or so

00:30:44.180 we heard from the grange you know you think the grange what the grange is some kind of agriculture

00:30:48.820 group well they kind of threw out their muscle on us and said you have to stop using new grange

00:30:55.060 because we own the word grange how can that be you know it's a timeless word that deals with

00:31:01.200 agriculture but you know what it did it's like all things and things can be upsetting at the

00:31:07.540 time and you wonder why on earth has that obstacle been put in our way but because of that matt came

00:31:13.940 up with the idea of well let's call it odenshof we're going to go through the first 12 gods um

00:31:21.400 in the beginning i think it is right and um and it would be the first one and how perfect because

00:31:27.480 the color was was red and as you know and the but first the cross pieces up at the rafters

00:31:35.020 up at the the uh geez i can't even think anyway the crossed um barge boards were horses that's

00:31:43.560 what they carved. And it was perfect for Sleipner, obviously. And then when you think

00:31:51.000 about it, my husband, Steve, has always, always been connected to Odin. That's always been

00:31:57.380 his God. He'll tell anybody that. He's done bloat to all the other gods. But there's something

00:32:02.600 about Steve and his connection. I know even the true love mall talks about Steve's connection

00:32:07.520 with odin and it's true and so how perfect it was that in choosing a new name it would be odin soft

00:32:14.320 the first talk truly the first talk um the it all it's just is true points out to me how

00:32:25.840 we are we are the chosen people you know we are the chosen people by our gods to do this to carry

00:32:31.520 on something that was just a little seed in steve's mind and also others at the same time as we honor

00:32:39.200 the odenic rite and even elsie and um the also true falagi over in iceland um

00:32:50.240 they were all starting about the same year they became incorporated or official

00:32:53.520 in 1972 when steve started uh got his first 501c3 and you know the wind was blowing

00:33:01.280 well the wind was blowing when we found it in 2015 it was time for us to kind of step away because

00:33:07.440 we had reached a point where we didn't have any fresh ideas we didn't know how to organize

00:33:12.560 as it takes to organize something to the extent that the afa is now and it can carry on we know

00:33:18.880 that all the changes have happened in the last month to kind of centralize a lot of the things

00:33:26.560 to make it easier to to get things done to do checks and balances and all just for efficiency

00:33:34.240 we couldn't have done that we didn't have the ability or steve doesn't have the interest

00:33:38.640 it's always been said he's the visionary he is a visionary but he is not a businessman and matt

00:33:44.560 is the man who is 24 7 on this and has made the afa what it is and on came thor's off and balder's

00:33:52.080 hoff and newards hoff and soon to be frares hoff and tears hoff and all the others so it's really

00:33:57.760 exciting but it did kind of start with going back to it started with discovering the old grange hall

00:34:04.160 and making it happen and i never would have looked for it thorgan odin is the one who made the

00:34:10.000 contact found the realtor who uh sent us that way and uh and you know we owe a lot to him too and of

00:34:19.600 course he passed away this summer we had this beautiful ceremony and now there's thorgren's

00:34:25.040 grove which will always be the place where we honor him and his his role as a phrase man a

00:34:30.880 phrase goody and loving the land and loving the folk and the children especially so you know good

00:34:36.880 things that's you know odin's hop has come into it's it's gone from a grange hall into something

00:34:43.520 that really does serve the folk and will be there for the future um from now on out and there's no

00:34:50.480 doubt right so as far as um how do you think the afa has has changed you know going kind of back

00:35:00.400 with the kids and we mentioned thorgrin with the kids and i'd like to talk about that a little bit

00:35:04.240 later as well but how do you think the culture of the afa itself has changed um that you've seen over

00:35:12.960 the last few years with the women's and family because i know there's there was some there was

00:35:17.760 some years at national events where we were all joking i think it was at one of the ostaras and i

00:35:21.680 think you were you were there with us sheila where we were all joking there's more women and children

00:35:25.440 than men here you know true and you find that especially out there in the midwest and the east

00:35:33.760 coast where new families are coming in and we're lucky that men out there have found their soul

00:35:40.400 mates um it's much harder out here in california so indeed we don't have that we are very imbalanced

00:35:48.000 and so with that today i just put in out some uh some notices on craigslist like back in the

00:35:55.920 early days and steve started um also true um started doing this and others a few others

00:36:02.720 said they did bumper stickers and i would say odin lives you know and um stuff like that and

00:36:09.360 it would be just right in your face odin lives and so i started that today odin lives freya lives

00:36:15.840 and i wrote up some stuff to go in several craigslist groups i'm gonna see kind of just

00:36:22.080 working in and my goal is to find women because you know we need our families and it is wonderful

00:36:28.480 to be in places where you've got the large number of women and children um again unfortunately we

00:36:34.720 don't have that here we have a lot of great men but boy they would love to find their soulmates

00:36:40.880 so we continue working on that not that i really don't match make but we have a hard time getting

00:36:46.080 the women to turn out they don't even know about us the men have their network right they all have

00:36:51.280 you know they have their little political other other little groups they have and they know how

00:36:55.760 to network but our women come oftentimes with the men and so they don't have other ladies to network

00:37:01.680 with um one thing that we've done though and i used to think it was men and women men and women

00:37:07.680 but we really do treat our women as ladies we call them and that's something that olivia who

00:37:15.120 has been a wonderful helpmate to me has reminded me that we have we do daughters of frigg and we

00:37:21.280 have a ladies tea and so very much like boulder software they do fika we do our ladies tea which

00:37:28.320 has a really important role for bonding our ladies together and um and so we do a lot for

00:37:35.040 our ladies the men have their time too but that is something that was never before

00:37:39.840 but we make a very very definite point for the ladies to get together and chat and talk and get

00:37:45.040 to know each other and share concerns um and i usually have some kind of a theme that we touch on

00:37:51.680 but um kind of going back to it for so long we would at events long ago um they were open to

00:37:59.120 anybody you know um it was considered focus but we always called it focus light so um and then we'd

00:38:07.600 invite other groups who would then bring in their their members and some of those members were a

00:38:11.520 little on the darker side and it didn't always work and so that was very much the old days the

00:38:17.120 old afa and we got by the time matt came around and we had a few other people like him we were

00:38:24.560 really kind of clearing out that that nature and we were working on quality not quantity

00:38:31.760 but there's always been um a real element of of drinking at our events and i have to admit i would

00:38:38.000 be the one who would bring in you know we go out to winter nights in the poconos and i make sure

00:38:43.200 we get a couple of 24 packs of local beer or whatever i have some wine and frankly we don't

00:38:49.360 do that anymore it's almost we're a little straight laced but our friend newt always brings

00:38:55.520 up wonderful red wine from the wineries near his home um but we don't drink mead we've never had

00:39:03.680 mead socially to us it's always you know it is our religious it's our electric our sacred elixir

00:39:11.040 to connect with gods so um but you know our guys do a bit of drinking but it's never an excess

00:39:17.920 like it was even a few years ago and that was kind of horrific to have people who would come

00:39:25.760 and not care about their behavior and how it appeared to others and so we've really improved

00:39:33.920 that so that's what makes it so family oriented we have no qualms about inviting people or even if

00:39:41.040 you know, you get that, you know, mother-in-law or somebody who comes along, you know, it's such

00:39:47.680 a warm and loving environment. And there's nothing that should cause disdain or disapproval from

00:39:55.540 people because we're so open-hearted and generous. So it's really, it's a wonderful environment. And

00:40:03.280 a lot of people just, it does, it sways the wife over to our side. It may take a while,

00:40:09.360 but um they always they always feel comfortable bringing their kids even if they themselves are

00:40:15.060 not um followers of alsatree yet so we have just it's just kind of cleaned up the act of people

00:40:23.080 and moving those out and being direct with people those who have and it hasn't happened

00:40:28.040 hardly at all but uh no we don't do heavy drinking here it's not appropriate also language i know

00:40:34.560 that some some hops um apparently five dollars for some words that get spoken or something like

00:40:41.440 that and we really don't have that problem very much at certainly not with our leaders um you

00:40:47.680 know our people are really well behaved at odin's off so i can say that's what i speak on mostly

00:40:52.240 because of course i know it so well but um yeah i know every hoth has its own personality its own

00:40:59.520 culture there's no doubt about it we tend to be more casual at odin's hof you know people can

00:41:05.040 come camp when they can camp you know they're wearing their shorts and their t-shirts and

00:41:09.040 whatever but we do try to get people to remember to bring it and change of clothes for bloat

00:41:15.040 especially when we get to yule and and midsummer those are big times but some people are kind of

00:41:21.600 like matt and a few guys come dressed up with a tie and all um but that's not as common as it is

00:41:27.840 at the other halfs but the point is people come they're happy there they want it it's their half

00:41:34.000 it's where they connect with the the sir and the ancestors and that's really what it comes down to

00:41:41.520 they don't they're not disrespectful in any way that's just not going to be allowed at this point

00:41:47.280 we have to set the example for those little kids you know one of the one of the things when we were

00:41:51.920 we were getting balder's half ready to open and one of the things that we were talking about with

00:41:56.480 the leadership and with the men in particular that came was you are the dad the uncle the brother to

00:42:04.480 all of these little kids what you do they will do you know and so we always try to make sure we

00:42:10.640 and not just the men the women too but it's very true the the children emulate us you know like

00:42:16.320 with um with with corey's sons with hale balder and and things like that they are

00:42:22.080 they're mimicking what we do now because they're learning what they they learn what we do and they

00:42:31.000 may not fully understand what it is that they're doing but they're going to mimic it first so if

00:42:36.540 we mimic that pious and responsible behavior are we if we are pious and responsible our children

00:42:42.240 will mimic that behavior especially in a in a religious in a church setting so

00:42:46.920 speaking of cory she does ask can you please tell us about the before the meal blessing

00:42:53.840 something about might and main i can't quite remember yes um nick i think has this that

00:43:00.160 he will go ahead and pop up for us um everybody take a minute screenshot that take a picture of

00:43:05.960 it speaking of children this is a great prayer to teach the kids uh with the rhyming to it with the

00:43:13.420 with the wording to it. And it really kind of sets that tone for what we're asking. It is a very

00:43:19.960 pious prayer that you can teach your children. And it's something that you can let your children

00:43:25.500 lead once they know it. So speaking of kids, this is a very good prayer. Go ahead and screenshot

00:43:30.340 that. Write it down if you have time. Nick is also, if you could post that in the chat.

00:43:37.000 This is a prayer that you can teach your kids. So one of the really neat things about going to

00:43:42.520 thorshoff um the children know this prayer the adults know this prayer they say it together it's

00:43:48.440 it's a beautiful thing but yes what's it yeah what's the source of this who actually wrote this

00:43:56.360 this was written by law speaker turnage oh okay yeah it's beautiful very nice i think i've asked

00:44:05.720 that before in fact i think last time i was on that came up i need to get a copy myself it is

00:44:11.080 it's totally beautiful and i've just been informed that there's another one that was

00:44:16.840 written by witten erickson which is a prayer i believe this is their family prayer

00:44:25.400 nice so here's another one that we can uh write down if nick will put that in the chat as well

00:44:34.440 something that we can teach our children and a tradition that you can pass down

00:44:41.080 That is so important. Families need to have their own traditions of a religious nature, because we haven't had that before for our folks. So, yeah, family prayers.

00:44:54.280 so uh ryan wilson asked question what about saying golly darn shucks and other stuff from

00:45:01.900 leave it to beaver i mean if that's going to prevent you from saying words that you don't

00:45:07.060 want the children to repeat by all means do so yes the intent's the same but we're not teaching

00:45:12.780 them to say it in public it is much better for those kids to say golly darn shucks and other

00:45:17.300 stuff and leave it to beaver my children learned martha stewart so yes when i got angry it was

00:45:24.740 martha stewart and when i was very angry it was martha stewart living so that's what we

00:45:32.180 used so every once in a while you'll hear my kids go martha stewart

00:45:38.260 that's fantastic yes yes

00:45:41.620 so kids and as a true sheila let's jump into that prayers is there any particular prayers

00:45:49.140 or any recommendations that you would have for teaching parents how to teach their children to

00:45:53.780 pray let's start there how do we try to pray

00:46:01.860 well obviously even just hail odin odin hail odin give good gifts something that very basic

00:46:12.340 it it has import it um has clarity to it and of course that's something that adults can do too

00:46:21.380 and it's wonderful when people get together um and they have a bit of privacy to do that

00:46:28.980 is kind of an opening because it's what we do when we do our introductions that's called greeting to

00:46:35.220 the gods or greeting of the gods and i i think that um whether the parents actually have prayers

00:46:47.220 that are memorized i think ending the day you know with the thanks the thanks to to all you

00:46:54.500 can go through the sir and the ancestors and the land they tear and then my pets and my friends and

00:47:00.980 my you know all my mom and dad very important for us to all be thankful for the blessings in our

00:47:07.060 lives i really stress that a lot just the person i am uh gratitude was one of my big words this

00:47:14.500 last year having gratitude grateful for what we have and um what we learn um and uh i would say

00:47:24.820 yeah parents look for opportunities um out in nature and point out the blessings that are out

00:47:31.860 there in nature and then refer to the van air fray and freya and your and um get the kids familiar

00:47:39.940 with the names of the gods and when you're out in nature and again of course everybody loves

00:47:44.980 the world during a thunderstorm but uh freya and uh spitting the clouds you know or not freya

00:47:52.660 sorry frig frig for spinning the clouds and some of those stories are important um reading the

00:47:59.620 stories having telling the stories and even retelling stories so that it is um the kid you

00:48:07.620 could ask the children what story do you want to hear at night and then you repeat kind of the

00:48:11.540 essence of the story and then let them end it or that kind of thing but um i think there are a lot

00:48:18.260 of opportunities for parents to work prayer into uh into their lives certainly um animals pass

00:48:26.260 relatives pass we've seen that with some of our families locally of the kids who have to

00:48:32.180 understand that that that person is no longer in the life as we know them but they continue on and

00:48:39.140 that was a big lesson for a lot of people when thorgan passed this year because we we did it so

00:48:45.300 very profoundly and um so those kinds of things uh reminding them of life and death and the cycles

00:48:53.460 and certainly the ancestors you know to honor our ancestors who were doing it winter nights but i

00:49:01.620 to have them think about the ancestors and ask for their blessings and watch over the family

00:49:08.020 help the family and guide all the very important things um so yeah as for prayer steve my husband

00:49:18.100 steve wrote some beautiful small prayers in the book of faith and i love reading those myself they

00:49:24.260 were done a long time ago but like everything you know if it's well written it's timeless

00:49:28.100 so those still really are nice prayers and they can be read aloud recited as a family

00:49:34.180 um that kind of thing yeah how about you what would you say so some of the ones that we did

00:49:40.800 with my kids when they were little um we used to always um we used to always greet suna you know

00:49:47.880 we would we would greet the day every day when we wake up um we would greet monty every night

00:49:54.480 so but it was more along the lines of approaching the morning with hope and ending the evening with

00:50:02.680 gratitude um one of the others you know we grew up in the rolling nothingness that is you know

00:50:10.680 north dakota and in the winter time it got it got pretty rough driving places and we used to have

00:50:17.560 you know we used to do the litany of the gods in our heads when we were on long trips because we

00:50:23.000 were there was a time when we were driving you know back and forth 100 miles every weekend

00:50:27.800 you know and when there was inclement weather if it was really snowy and slippery and the kids

00:50:34.200 could tell that i was a little bit nervous and if i'm nervous they're going to be nervous you know

00:50:38.920 so we used to do you know a whole litany of of the easier you know we would we would hail odin

00:50:46.280 we would hail his wife rig you know we would hail thor would hail his his wife thief um but we used

00:50:53.400 to go through the litany in times of stress especially when we were traveling um i mean i

00:50:58.920 know some of us can probably remember our grandparents who used to have like a travel

00:51:02.600 bible that they would read the bible we would have a travel haval and we would read um

00:51:10.120 but it was it was things like that where there was always a chance to talk to the gods either

00:51:15.960 in the morning when you wake up or at night you know after the days ended um in times of stress

00:51:22.760 you know giving giving that moment to be pious rather than terrified you know give you something

00:51:27.400 it it helps calm me down because it's it's focusing on something else but at the same time

00:51:32.280 you're teaching them to pray um we used to do the litany of our ancestors you know we would start off

00:51:38.760 with my grandparents and then the great-grandparents and then the great-great-grandparents

00:51:43.000 and when my children were little it was a memorized prayer for them you know

00:51:48.360 hail you know hail charles and bonnie um you know hail you know petra and hail all of these they

00:51:55.640 would go through the whole line and they they did it so often that it just become like a prayer to

00:52:00.280 them you know it was a memorized prayer um so that's one thing that i taught them pretty young

00:52:06.120 is when we would do like our our ancestor day our ancestor feast um we would basically go

00:52:12.280 through the whole litany of the ancestors hail charles and bonnie you know hail anthony and

00:52:16.600 maria hail petrus and petronella you know hail pets and hey all of them and then we would go to

00:52:22.920 the other side of my family and we would do that again um and we would always talk about them as if

00:52:30.440 they could listen you know so we always had um a plate for the veitir and we always had a plate

00:52:37.560 for the ancestors you know and i have two kids so that worked out great right one could do one

00:52:43.720 do the other you know one of the day one of the things that we always did is is we had a day set

00:52:50.840 aside for religious education and you know education for the children but also education

00:52:59.320 for myself you know so you would have a day of one day a month would be dedicated to otan and

00:53:05.720 then the next month that day would be dedicated to thor and then that next month alder we would

00:53:10.440 go through all of the gods all of um the goddesses and we also had days that were for our ancestors

00:53:17.000 and then we had days that were for heroes you know we would celebrate heroes um and we usually did

00:53:22.200 it like on on feast days it would be like wednesdays so and that probably comes from you

00:53:28.200 know my my catholic side upbringing where we always had catechism on wednesdays you know

00:53:34.520 so we kind of carry that tradition is this is what we're talking about this is who we're praying to

00:53:38.760 and we kind of just set all of our wednesdays out that way you know this one is for this this one

00:53:43.520 is for this and it was just a little calendar for them to follow um so that really helped them

00:53:49.360 take time and go okay it's wednesday it's time to do the feast to thor or um and then they would

00:53:56.820 like to be the one to talk about thor you know if you if you read the stories to your children

00:54:02.640 and you talk to them about the gods on a regular basis,

00:54:08.180 it becomes part of their everyday life.

00:54:10.740 So when it comes time for that Feast of Thor, right,

00:54:14.560 they want to be the ones to talk about Thor.

00:54:17.500 You know, they want to be the ones to raise the horn.

00:54:20.340 They want to be the ones to give the plate of food.

00:54:23.340 So that's something that I think would be, you know,

00:54:26.900 if your children are old enough to participate in that,

00:54:29.760 talk to them now and kind of get them in a routine of worship um get them into a routine of piety

00:54:35.620 get them into the routine of this is what we do and why you know because if you create that now

00:54:41.480 they're more likely to carry that on you know in moments of stress they're going to call upon

00:54:46.220 their ancestors because they know them by name you know they're going to call upon the aesir

00:54:50.560 and the asenir because they know them by name you know it comes naturally to them so that's i guess

00:54:57.820 would be my recommendation my first one find a re find a reason and find a routine yeah yeah right

00:55:05.040 and of course the ninth of the month is is a good day to remember everybody can celebrate that with

00:55:10.300 the holy with the uh the day of remembrance to one of our heroes as well as it can be you know

00:55:18.080 odin world prayer day as it is some some places on wooden's day and that can be kind of a guaranteed

00:55:24.060 thing too but also that the ancestors plate is really important for them to continue to

00:55:31.380 to do that they could take turns if there's several kids and just do it like every sunday

00:55:35.780 or something we're doing the ancestors place because we're doing a formal dinner where we

00:55:40.700 are really paying attention to what's here and all that so yes the routine building routines

00:55:46.320 yeah morning prayer together when a daybreak like you say anticipating the day how can we make it

00:55:53.180 wonderful how can we the one i love the ending of and healing hands and you guys know that because

00:55:59.260 i say that when we when we do the the one from the cedrifamol and to me that is the day is good

00:56:07.280 if i know or if if i have made somebody's day better and sometimes we all need to find ways

00:56:14.460 of doing it might be holding the door open you know what that's like when somebody does it for

00:56:18.600 you just those little things the smile the the um helping somebody just whatever a stranger or

00:56:25.260 family member but have those helping hands and that's a gift that keeps on giving right

00:56:32.100 it'll come back on you but it is just heartwarming to be able to do that for people

00:56:37.760 so instill that in children that they need to go out and in their day do something very special for

00:56:45.400 other people. Right. Yeah. Now, speaking of the heroes, one of the questions that I've received

00:56:53.760 in the past is some of our heroes died viciously or painfully, gruesomely, you know, how do we,

00:57:04.520 how do we relay that story to our children without being too explicit in the details?

00:57:11.340 and do you think there's an age range or ideas that you can give to the children when they're

00:57:17.380 very very young you know when we talk about our heroes and some of the ways that some of them

00:57:22.280 were taken from Midgard you know how do you censor that for children or do you censor that

00:57:27.280 for children what are your thoughts Sheila oh I think I probably would um you know there's enough

00:57:34.020 tragedy and bad things in the world that to give very young kids a sense of violence and

00:57:42.800 atrocities for people. I don't know. I think we can just say that they dedicated their lives

00:57:48.720 and died an honorable death and tried to describe that when they're young. As they get older,

00:57:53.860 they get towards their teens. They're ready to hear some of these stories, though, and they need

00:57:58.460 To know what people did in dedication to their faith, to their gods, to the Aesir and Asenir and honoring them and keeping the folk going.

00:58:13.220 You know, the sacrifices made is really important.

00:58:15.880 That's just me, though, because I always, you know, I always kind of want to shield children from unpleasantness, you know, when they're not ready for it.

00:58:23.880 because you know their little minds go enough anyway with nightmares and all so that's just me

00:58:29.240 how about you how do you handle that so i had boys um so i think i did it a little bit younger

00:58:36.920 for them that i would have for my nieces and i think that's just uh that was just me you know

00:58:44.920 but you know thinking of like my nieces now and they're not that far in age but

00:58:51.240 i don't think that i would have ever told my nieces about that part of it but as my kids got

00:58:58.360 11 12 then it you know they started asking well how did he die well what happened was we took this

00:59:04.760 they took this bowl of um you know hot coals and put it on his stomach and then poof you know and

00:59:11.000 then at that point they were like wow holy cow yeah but boys will ask those questions where you

00:59:18.680 you know girls sometimes won't um but yeah i think 11 and 12 was when i started actually

00:59:25.400 you know this is what happened you know it was it was kind of kind of awful and kind of terrible

00:59:30.200 and this is one of the reasons why they're a hero is because they died for their gods you know and

00:59:37.160 that's a very heavy thing to put on a kid even though even though you know we're they're heroes

00:59:43.400 to that to us and of course you know they see cartoons and stories and movies where people do

00:59:48.880 die and things do happen when you start talking about it it kind of can get a little bit heavy

00:59:55.000 you know but you bring into that whole this is why they're a hero you know this this is the

01:00:00.000 sacrifice that they made for their gods this is how strongly they were this is how strong their

01:00:05.420 loyalty to the gods were is that they would not do the smallest thing they would rather have done

01:00:13.020 this than denied their gods so you know that could kind of hit home for a kid so you got to kind of

01:00:19.100 be careful on how gruesome you know how detailed you're going to get with great gruesome deaths

01:00:23.900 sometimes but what i found with my kids my my kids were all about i want to know how like how does

01:00:30.540 that work and then i have my oldest would be like that's not real you know how does that actually

01:00:35.740 work because he's the one that wants to know how everything works you know now why would i do that

01:00:40.060 you know it is it like because it was like microwaved and it popped or how you know things

01:00:44.340 like that just like questions you know but yeah i think there were about 11 or 12 before we started

01:00:50.600 getting into that that level of stuff um yeah so with with the days of remembrances is there

01:00:59.900 anything that you would recommend for parents on is there anything that they can do in the home

01:01:04.880 to start letting the children um hear about the heroes and honor them on their days of remembrance

01:01:12.480 is there any simple things you know older children younger children that you would have ideas for

01:01:19.680 well we know that all of them have been um their stories are available in the room stone which is

01:01:26.080 nice you've got the whole year um katie erickson um gidea erickson has done most of those for us

01:01:33.600 again parents if their their children are attentive they want to hear the story the

01:01:39.200 parents can read the story to them and you know skip a few sentences if it's not appropriate for

01:01:46.400 that particular age but um talking about the times trying to to encourage them to find out about you

01:01:54.000 know history is important what was going on and i can't say i'm an expert on uh things like

01:02:00.080 Mexican Navy in history I'm not but I would say that there's a time and a place and for kids as

01:02:07.280 they get older you know where there's similarities what we learned from that today of course and even

01:02:12.920 as as children they may be able to make some find the relevance in their own lives with their own

01:02:19.100 friends or family that kind of things we have pictures we're doing the holy you know now we've

01:02:25.400 got them with the sun and rod and red and all that kind of stuff which is kind of cool

01:02:29.560 and get them so they can start you could actually play games with them which is this you know you

01:02:33.960 can put their names and do a matching game or something like that eventually because they're

01:02:38.360 they're ready to learn i mean they are little sponges i have to say though see i did not have

01:02:43.560 young children who were raised in alsatrew and i i am seeing families all the time who their

01:02:51.720 children just are steeped you know they already know it it's familiar and it's comfortable and

01:02:56.680 that's as it should be but for the generation that we had when we when i started now so true

01:03:03.240 and we were kind of starting fresh with a bunch of new people a lot of them were relatively new

01:03:09.400 to us true and they didn't have many many kids at that point we had a few families not many

01:03:15.000 and they were quite involved some of those were raising their kids very closely

01:03:19.400 somewhat with the lord but certainly with traditions and in the old ways you know that

01:03:25.860 was nice just to see that and the traditional foods and the culture and all that um we can do

01:03:31.680 so much more now though and so when the materials are there parents should be using those and trying

01:03:36.620 to just come back to it every year you know we've got the same holy people in our in our lineage

01:03:45.680 In fact, you know, they were ancestors of ours and they sacrificed for us.

01:03:53.240 And, yeah, that's all important.

01:03:56.600 And I think parents can probably find some ways of incorporating it.

01:04:01.960 I haven't really thought that much about the heroes, though, so much with the kids.

01:04:06.600 But it's obviously, it's really important, especially when they get into those teen years

01:04:10.700 and they're starting to make decisions of right and wrong.

01:04:13.920 Right.

01:04:14.080 and you know the whole nine noble virtues hit real hard so you might want to again go through

01:04:19.040 which virtue are we talking about here and that's one place you could repeat that all that

01:04:24.720 and look at what would have happened if you know those kinds of things with the kids carry the

01:04:29.840 story further right when they get into their teens right and we do actually have some um

01:04:37.440 So this is a good time to talk about the academy because the as a true academy actually is open, even if you're not homeschooling your child, the academy is open for religious lessons as well.

01:04:51.400 So if you are interested in, you know, the academy for just religious purposes because you don't have the ability to homeschool your child for, you know, whichever reason is best for your family, we do have those religious studies available in the academy as well.

01:05:07.220 and one of those lessons is on the heroes and i think they've got they've got a lot of um the old

01:05:12.820 youth program lessons in there as well so those are very fun and those are good for older kids

01:05:19.860 younger kids i think they might have them set up i'd have to check with nick but there was a few

01:05:24.420 different age levels you know depending on depending on what age child was there was a

01:05:29.460 different uh lesson about the hero absolutely we have word searches for the heroes that are set up

01:05:37.060 there's one that's like k through second one that's like third and fourth one is fifth and sixth

01:05:42.580 different levels of difficulty um we have though we have heroes holidays uh the acer

01:05:50.900 lots of other activities outstanding so if you are interested um getting help from the academy

01:05:57.700 in religious studies for your children please visit the as a true academy.org uh reach out to

01:06:02.740 to the wonderful folk there. Sheila is one of those who work very, very, very hard to make

01:06:08.200 sure that the academy is there to support our families and our kids, as is folk builder Sarah

01:06:13.700 Ault. She does a lot of work with the academy, another amazing woman who's dedicated to the

01:06:18.340 children and making sure that we've got all of these things available. And Goethe Robstam as

01:06:23.780 well, the dean of the academy. I'll reach out to any of those people and they can definitely get

01:06:28.060 to get you lined up. Yeah, there we go. Look at all the cool stuff that we have. Look at that.

01:06:35.800 This is specifically for adults too. Yeah. Yeah. Did we have the answer sheet for that one too?

01:06:46.720 The solution? Oh, I did not get it. Do it. I did not make an answer sheet. I made these. I didn't

01:06:51.520 making answer sheets. So parents, you gotta do it too. Four hour trip on the road. Keep them really

01:07:04.160 busy. That's good for the adults too, though, frankly. Yeah. Yeah. The fifth and sixth grade

01:07:10.900 level one is even, is even harder than that. But you know, that, that was, I think that was the

01:07:16.220 second and third grader level when i believe so right in the middle yeah i mean all you do is

01:07:23.580 looking for letters and matching look well i don't know about that nick

01:07:29.960 i apologize that is the fourth and fifth grade level one um i think the uh you know and you know

01:07:41.540 So if you think it's too hard for your kid or if your kid thinks it's too hard, let me know.

01:07:47.040 I can give you the lesser one, too, if you don't have it, because I'm the one that was judging what grade level those were.

01:07:55.720 Oh, goodness.

01:07:57.320 Somebody better check, Nick.

01:07:58.780 Yeah, I know, right?

01:08:01.500 Honestly, we could do the same thing.

01:08:05.180 word searches with a particular one of our heroes and elements of his life you know places or

01:08:12.540 objects or that kind of thing and we could have one for each of them and um at kind of different

01:08:18.460 levels too definitely so the idea of kind of worksheets just to reinforce some of those things

01:08:24.540 and to kind of build it in memory nice one of the other things you can do with the kids for

01:08:32.460 for the heroes is make sure that they they can set a place at the table and invite them to dinner

01:08:39.260 you know that's one thing that we used to do as well as we used to set a place at the table and

01:08:44.700 then they would take turns inviting the hero to come to dinner you know so that was one thing that

01:08:50.300 was fun as well trying to build that relationship you know and and it helps with the understanding

01:08:56.540 that they they may no longer be on midgard but they are still present in some way you know so

01:09:03.820 do that with the ancestors as well you know when you have your ancestor night or um during the you

01:09:09.340 know during october when you have like the desir bloats and things like that invite the ancestors

01:09:14.940 set them a place you know you can set up a whole table and have your children set that table up

01:09:20.220 set the table in the table put the silverware on go find pretty things to put on the table

01:09:26.700 um you can have the kids actually write they have like these blank place cards

01:09:32.140 where you can write like an ancestor's name on it but then you can actually have the kid write them

01:09:36.780 a letter for their place card and then so i mean it's about winter nights it's a good time to talk

01:09:42.540 about winter nights and kids right absolutely sheila we might have to do like a three or four

01:09:48.460 parter on this one um but you know winter nights you know if you set the the table for the guests

01:09:54.860 you know you can set it up so you have your place cards but you can also have the children

01:09:59.420 um write notes to them and write about stories that they've heard about them as parents um it

01:10:06.380 is our job to pass down the stories that we know because if we do not tell the children our stories

01:10:12.300 those stories are going to get lost and those people will become forgotten you know part of

01:10:17.820 our immortality is our name you know as long as as long as our name lives we live you know okay so

01:10:25.420 and then after your meal you can take you know the plate of food that you prepared you can take it

01:10:30.780 out to your ritual fire and you can you know burn your your offerings there but you can also take

01:10:36.380 those letters and we used to um burn the letters and it was like sending letters to the ancestors

01:10:42.380 so just in case they didn't hear us they could read it you know if we sent it to the other side

01:10:47.420 that way um we also used to take the time to talk about those who had passed away um you know we

01:10:57.660 have we have our honored ancestors right people that are close to us um that passed away within

01:11:04.140 that year what we would do is we would write their name and after they had passed away we would write

01:11:10.380 their name on a piece of paper and we would put it in our ancestor jar um and on winter nights we

01:11:16.140 would take all of their names out and we would read their names because this is the first winter

01:11:21.980 nights since they passed and we would read their names and we would tell them goodbye and we would

01:11:27.420 tell them that we loved them and we told them we hoped that that they found their way to the

01:11:31.500 ancestors and we would say those things over the fire and they would each get their own offering

01:11:36.220 for that year and they would then become an honored ancestor um you know someone that we

01:11:41.740 we would continue to invite every year so that was kind of a mini ritual that we had during our

01:11:47.520 to seer bloat is we would make sure we honored all of those um that passed the year before

01:11:53.520 okay yeah but that's something that the children the children used to help with that you know they

01:12:00.480 used to we would speak and then the children would take the name and they would put that in the fire

01:12:05.540 and then put an offering in there as well whether it was a picture that they drew they were they

01:12:10.500 always used to like to draw pictures or they would whittle sticks you know they'd write runes on

01:12:14.740 sticks or draws on sticks and burn the sticks you know um but but something that's very simple that

01:12:21.860 they understand the magnitude of it and they know why we're doing it do you have any recommendations

01:12:28.200 for winter nights yeah well no i'm going to kind of stretch it out a little bit because it even

01:12:34.400 occurred to me a while back that if parents would take like one ancestor a month and every day

01:12:43.280 talk about that ancestor speak to the ancestor and build that life you know all that that is known

01:12:50.780 about that ancestor so that the children have a pretty good idea and obviously if you have

01:12:57.280 photographs and just connect all everybody connect with that ancestor for that month

01:13:03.080 Or it could be a week, but it actually occurred to me a while back that I feel this is really important.

01:13:11.660 But, well, this time, yes, the de-sir. 0.95

01:13:14.640 It is my time of year. 1.00

01:13:17.520 It's my favorite time.

01:13:18.940 I think my favorite bloats are done.

01:13:21.640 I will never forget having been to the ones out in the Poconos and Katie Erickson.

01:13:27.720 And I still love her first song, We Are the Watchers.

01:13:33.080 Yeah. Anyway, we'll be doing that because that's one I will never stop doing. And I'm looking so forward to it. But to connect their children to the desert, to our mothers is, yeah, it's, it's something that it should always be that they should always know who we're talking about, right? And it should be a special time for them, too.

01:13:56.860 I'm just, again, you know, I know that Svan also does the Alfar.

01:14:04.520 You know, he does not just keep it singled out for the DC or for the mothers.

01:14:11.000 And in some ways, I've all used Fisa and Harriar, which is to tend to be male-oriented, obviously, with Odin's Warriors.

01:14:21.260 And the fact that Veterans Day and all that.

01:14:23.560 and it does seem like a time because just about every every father has made sacrifices and so

01:14:30.280 to me that can also be done to some extent at that time if we don't do it but we do

01:14:36.440 typically do the mothers and it's really important for the men to participate fully we women do it a

01:14:43.560 lot with our when we're together we talk a lot about our mothers it's natural to do that but

01:14:48.840 it's very different for the men and uh what we will be doing is something that uh again

01:14:55.240 katie has us do and i'm sure she probably does something similar to it or maybe it was even

01:15:01.320 pat hall but the idea is that because we go into a ritual circle outside it's not like indoors so

01:15:08.280 we have a couple of ladies there with a basin of warm water and you're stepping into your mother's

01:15:13.880 home and this is when you show your best you're polite you you wash your hands and you dry them

01:15:21.400 on the towel and you come in and then we would have everybody hail a god or god not what am i

01:15:27.000 saying one of the mothers uh direct line mothers typically a mother grandmother great grandmother

01:15:32.760 even an aunt obviously if you're close to an aunt who did not have children you could do that as

01:15:37.640 well but it's important for the kids to participate in that and to see the adults um

01:15:46.680 giving it that much thought that much reverence and again piety to the act of honoring the dsir

01:15:54.120 the other thing is that at this time we think of the dsir but goddess that is associated is really

01:16:02.360 freya as the vanities and so and people will say well isn't it frig well frig is definitely the

01:16:09.400 mother but there's something too about all women having gone through from the earliest from the

01:16:15.960 moment of conception till their death you know it is that that long life and the beauty of of going

01:16:22.680 through the many stages of youth and then then those young adult ears and marriage and children

01:16:29.640 and all those things and i think it works very well for both friggin freya but it's there's

01:16:35.160 something that life forces with freya that is just felt particularly all through the life and i think

01:16:42.200 that is somewhat representative with honoring our mothers knowing them not just as we knew them but

01:16:47.720 that they all lived dramatic lives there were times there were things they went through and

01:16:53.400 learned from and people they knew and decisions they made and we will never know what those are

01:16:59.320 but they know and they're still with us and so that we we must remember to try to communicate

01:17:05.080 and have them speak back to that us if they so uh choose to but to sit and certainly connect with us

01:17:12.760 and help guide and give comfort i've been saying that actually in letters this week

01:17:17.560 for the dcr to be there to guide and help give comfort at times of need because there are

01:17:22.600 mothers it's what they do so i think for kids to be around adults who are also honoring those who

01:17:28.040 of past is really important. Yes. Mary has, hi Mary, I'm glad that you're here. Mary Mitchell.

01:17:37.800 Oh Mary, dear Mary. She asks what about heroines? Should we talk about Boudicca and other heroines,

01:17:46.600 both historical and mythological? I'm thinking about daughters and granddaughters. Yes, so

01:17:51.560 So, you know, we do have some of our heroes that are, you know, we do have female heroes.

01:17:57.780 We've got Elsie, we've got Queen Sigrid, but if there is somebody in the sagas that

01:18:07.400 you're drawn to for whatever reason, of course, you know, talk to the girls about them.

01:18:12.940 Talk about what makes them strong as true women, right?

01:18:16.820 talk about and things that you want to look for in that is were they brave were they loyal did

01:18:23.840 they tell the truth um there's a lot of things a lot of the times um in in the sagas and sometimes

01:18:32.420 in literature and things like that the women are kind of the instigators you know so sometimes you

01:18:39.440 gotta explain to the children why you're honoring that one you know she was loyal she was strong

01:18:46.180 she was brave she did good deeds she told the truth also one thing that I feel personally and

01:18:54.740 I'll get your opinion on this as well Sheila folklore is is something that I feel we should

01:19:02.200 be teaching our children as well you know whether that's Scandinavian folklore Germanic folklore

01:19:07.780 Celtic folklore whatever it is that that appeals to your family there's really really really good

01:19:14.400 lessons to be learned i mean that's you know that's those are stories that again if we don't

01:19:21.600 keep telling these stories they're going to be forgotten or they're going to be you know bastardized

01:19:28.160 and commercialized for disney or pixar or whatever right let's tell the real stories to our children

01:19:36.960 let's make sure that they know them let's make sure that they know the lessons of them so

01:19:41.440 i'm a very big proponent of make sure that you are reading folklore to your children you know

01:19:48.000 whatever whatever you celebrate as a family you can sit down and concentrate on the celtic or

01:19:55.120 the slavic or the germanic the scandinavian whatever it is but keep those stories alive

01:20:00.720 because if we don't lose those stories alive if we don't tell those stories to our children those

01:20:05.280 stories are going to die or they're going to be changed in a way that our ancestors wouldn't even

01:20:10.160 recognize them anymore so big proponent of that what do you think sheila absolutely yeah i totally

01:20:18.480 proponent of folklore um history um the whole thing culture and again i'm way into music and

01:20:27.840 wanting kids to have the experience of of classical music music through the ages um

01:20:33.360 and understand that so many of those, I mean, those were our ancestors. This is out of Europe,

01:20:40.440 so much of our culture, even here in America. So I tend to also be a proponent for American culture

01:20:46.180 that is traditional American, like, well, let's say Johnny Appleseed, you know, we remember him

01:20:51.300 for having spread the apples all over. And that's a simple one, but there's certainly other heroes

01:20:58.680 we have in this country as well, because they're going to be washed away out of history, right?

01:21:03.360 does that's the plan any anybody who is white who did anything is not going to be in a future

01:21:09.520 history book and we know that and we can't allow that to happen and these are our ancestors some

01:21:14.640 of recent ancestors for our own folk but truly the folk tales are important they have lessons to

01:21:21.520 teach us and um i've been reading through actually uh grim's fairy tales um with the thought of maybe

01:21:28.720 reading some of them as for um our story time and i keep hoping i'm going to find a little bit more

01:21:35.360 in there that's a little bit more that nugget of you know goes way back to very much um our

01:21:42.240 mythology and i'm not really getting that so much but it's still you know all those fairy tales um

01:21:49.440 because we were raised with them the nursery rhymes you know and sing the nursery rhymes

01:21:54.320 because they most of them have songs but it says so much about what history was like but what

01:22:00.320 history what culture was like when um when these were were done and of course some of these are

01:22:05.840 little um stories about um political or uprisings those kinds of things in europe but it's really

01:22:15.040 it's very important to tell do and introduce kids to folk tales of all kinds absolutely and the the

01:22:22.560 older the older the book the better honestly so when it when it comes to um translations of the

01:22:29.520 lore uh when it comes to translations of anything whether it's um the what together the pros at a

01:22:36.800 heim screen love folk tales the older the book you can find better because it's not watered

01:22:43.440 down it's not censored it's not politicized um forgottenbooks.com i'm not sponsored but it should

01:22:49.760 be i send everybody there um a lot of the books that i a lot of the books that i teach other

01:22:57.760 people from and a lot of the books that i have personally you know they're they're published in

01:23:02.240 the 1890s or 1920s it is before we started trying to censor everything you know so the older the

01:23:11.840 book the better um and you you talked about um classical music have you ever seen the have you

01:23:21.120 ever seen the rune steps where they have little footsteps that make the runes and it's a little

01:23:25.680 dance that you can do have you seen that no to find it i have this somewhere sheila remind me

01:23:31.520 of this tomorrow because it's something that you do in a circle so um you can it was just a little

01:23:39.040 diagram and it was just little footsteps like uh like dance steps but in the room so you do a

01:23:47.440 complete rune and then do the next one to the next one but you tape it out like you tape the rune out

01:23:55.760 and then you take the steps and it was kind of like it's not musical chairs because you're not

01:24:00.720 taking away something but you play classical music or you play some kind of cool upbeat music and

01:24:06.000 then they dance the rune and then when the music stops they jump to the next room so that's that's

01:24:12.640 a fun thing it's fun for adults i'm not gonna lie i enjoy it i think it's fun but but it's cute and

01:24:19.920 there's like little footsteps i will have to find it i think i have it somewhere on my computer so

01:24:23.600 i will try to find that for you yeah it's not really clear but it sounds fun yeah so you tape

01:24:29.280 your runes out and then you you do your dance steps around the runes and then you go to the

01:24:33.680 the next room and you just go on okay yeah and of course learning runs that way yes yeah yep and

01:24:42.420 you're like music and you're you're working on your spiritual excellence with your runes and

01:24:47.200 your physical excellence with your with your movement of your body and you're learning

01:24:53.060 classical music so and you're doing it with others and that's great you're doing it with

01:24:57.720 others, you're making friends. You were at the Hof with your friends. Yes. Yes. Yes. Any other

01:25:04.380 recommendations for winter nights with the kids? Oh, well, I love the Celtic nature of winter

01:25:15.640 nights as well with Samhain. You know, winter nights, Samhain, their veil is thin, right? The

01:25:21.480 same thing. And in my own ancestry, sorry, I'm not Scandinavian. That's 78, 80% Irish.

01:25:27.720 both sides and i feel it you know it's kind of who i am and so i love um the artwork that comes

01:25:35.400 with this time of year and even when i was a teacher you know halloween my kids would get

01:25:41.240 um not work worksheets to color and they loved it uh the zoomorphic stuff which is viking style as

01:25:49.040 well and that's kind of nice it's really such beautiful designs you know the zoom soomorphic

01:25:55.880 designs. Um, so I love that. I think, um, obviously talk about meals and dishes and

01:26:04.300 traditional dishes in the family. I think we're going to be doing that and encouraging that at,

01:26:08.940 uh, winter nights this year coming up. I'm still kind of pulling together ideas for winter nights,

01:26:13.820 but, um, yeah, you know,

01:26:17.820 and we would try to make it like a halloween for the kids with the whole um and again that's

01:26:26.980 our tradition right to carve the pumpkins we used to carve the pumpkins got a little too messy

01:26:31.840 a little too hard with uh so many kids but certainly decorating pumpkins and

01:26:36.900 the whole history behind that so i think sharing the history of of this time of year of the harvest

01:26:43.140 times and and at the end of the harvest and and um the end of the year as the kelts saw it in the

01:26:50.180 beginning of the new year i think there are just lots of lessons that can be taught to the kids

01:26:54.660 about this is the way it was done this is before before christianity but even with christianity

01:27:01.220 they kept these alive they knew it was important and in the heart all these traditions still spoke

01:27:06.740 to our ancestors so it's good we still do them and uh i'm sure um people probably have ideas

01:27:14.100 they can do upshot things with candle lighting and messages of course to the ancestors i love

01:27:19.540 that we will be doing that too uh with the adults we all pull a rune at the end of the ritual the

01:27:26.180 ruins are blessed with the mead and as we've all spoken to one of the the dc um we will pose a

01:27:36.260 question or a thought and see what comes in the way of a rune and those have been really profound

01:27:41.300 for people so it's to me that's how i i do the ritual a lot of it is simply fun in holiday time

01:27:49.860 especially for the kids um but uh yeah i know we're going to be doing i think caramel apples

01:27:58.500 just some of those traditional things that kids did in the past we're still going to do it yeah

01:28:02.980 so how about you guys at Baldur's Hoff what are you going to do with the kids

01:28:09.100 um we're more than likely do pumpkin painting

01:28:12.560 pumpkin painting rather than pumpkin carving because that pumpkin carving can get pretty

01:28:18.740 wild sometimes yes yes so more than likely do some pumpkin we're going to have the kids wear

01:28:24.220 their their Halloween costumes and and go there but probably some kind of pumpkin painting I

01:28:29.940 is what we're going to do this year okay something i've done oh just saying with kids with young

01:28:37.860 kids that you can do to go outside if you get a shower curtain and hang it outside and just give

01:28:43.940 the kids paints and then they can wash it off and we use it later but that's coming and then they

01:28:49.300 could do their own halloween scene or whatever they want but it's kind of a fun way of doing

01:28:55.220 painting and have it all the mess be outside yes yeah it looks like yeah we got all kinds of

01:29:04.020 interesting over there at bouldersop it looks like they're carving pumpkins and

01:29:10.340 painting painting things yeah so jesse schaefer and ashley mcstalker have always got cool things

01:29:19.060 for the kids to do they do a great job with all of the cool stuff that they do with those kids so

01:29:25.220 yeah there's a lot of cool stuff there so another thing that you can do with the kids and i'll get

01:29:31.280 your take on this as well sheila um most people only visit the cemeteries like on memorial day

01:29:37.800 you know right right winter nights is a good time to do that so some people some people like

01:29:45.860 that's creepy why is it creepy why is it creepy our our worldview is not that this is creepy our

01:29:52.240 worldview that this is the best time to communicate with our ancestors, right? And that's something

01:29:59.240 that I always wanted to stress with my kids. They're not creepy. You are going there to

01:30:06.380 pay tribute to and leave an offering for our beloved deceased, right? So I don't know why

01:30:13.740 my grandmother did this, but we always gave white carnations to the women and red carnations to the

01:30:21.060 men. I don't know why carnations, and I don't know why the color. I don't even know if there

01:30:26.200 was just some significant meaning behind that, but it was always the same thing every year.

01:30:31.200 But they was always on Memorial Day, but I always felt that it would be more appropriate to do that

01:30:37.060 at winter nights. I would agree. So that's- So do you have, did you have a family cemetery where

01:30:43.880 you could go and it was just lots of family members yeah sort of so where i grew up in montana

01:30:51.800 there's like a whole corner of the cemetery that's just my mom's family you know and it's kind of

01:30:57.400 like when when the first one you know when when grandpa gruff passed away and even before then

01:31:04.360 because uh grandpa piet and maria are buried there as well um but then everybody just kind

01:31:10.520 of started buying the lots around them you know um and when the lots ran out they started burying

01:31:17.880 them deeper and then they would bury the spouse on top of them you know so they were there and then

01:31:24.440 a lot of us are want to be cremated so now we have cremated remains that are buried

01:31:31.240 you know in front of the headstone of their parents so so the family is staying together

01:31:37.240 you can go there and they're all unless they're in the the veterans part of the cemetery they're

01:31:42.200 they're all right there you know so that was something that was very special to me as a kid

01:31:48.200 um is going and seeing the names of my ancestors and we used to do gravestone rubbings where you

01:31:56.040 would rub them with the with the chalk and you'd get a gravestone rubbing on there um

01:32:02.360 but to see them there and to see the last name and their first name and and talk to the children

01:32:06.840 this is who this is this is you know my grandmother and grandfather would tell me this is my grandpa

01:32:12.680 or my mom my dad and this is my brother who died when he was was like 13. and this is you know you

01:32:21.240 didn't get to meet him because he died in world war ii but here's this person and they would

01:32:25.640 actually explain who all these people were you know and when my kids go back there they're like

01:32:30.920 yep this is this is pia and maria and this is anthony and barbara and this is you know my

01:32:36.920 grandparents charles and bonnie and they're all right here and it's a very emotional experience

01:32:43.560 but i don't think that emotional experience is a bad thing because it's still showing the love

01:32:49.320 and devotion that we have for our ancestors and understanding that family tie and still

01:32:55.320 going there to give those gifts and to give those those offerings and to spend time there with them

01:33:02.200 so i think winter nights is a great time to do that um that's just my personal thought

01:33:10.280 okay so i'm going to add to that because of course it isn't soft we have our own cemetery

01:33:15.160 yes and we have three beloved loving people that are there now we have farron and i know monk is

01:33:23.560 on here tonight he's posted a couple times hello monk uh we have his beautiful wife who was buried

01:33:30.200 there um early summer and uh i think was june and then we had uh thorgrin who was buried in

01:33:39.240 an august right next to his daughter who was buried there about what four or five years ago

01:33:45.240 of course these are all ashes because that's how we do it there and that is the modern way

01:33:49.960 makes it very easy but there's a tradition for our children right now we have to go out and

01:33:57.200 take flowers and we will do that it will be what we do with the children is let's go out and honor

01:34:02.960 those ancestors who are there because they are all our ancestors now yeah we are all ancestors

01:34:08.740 in training as my husband likes to tell people we're all going to be ancestors someday

01:34:13.220 ancestors in training i have a story though a little it's kind of fun um my sister and i like

01:34:20.780 kind of wow stuff and she was going to a psychic oh probably 12 years ago he was from england she

01:34:27.380 would come over and my sister had a friend who had this psychic come to her home older lady but

01:34:33.280 she seemed to be pretty gifted in her in her um delving in and connecting you know channeling um 0.60

01:34:40.780 the the people who had passed over and i actually had a session with her one time but with my sister

01:34:47.940 i was there with my sister and it was all recorded so we have the story and some of

01:34:53.000 these are pretty amazing really spot-on stuff like even about my own kids i didn't know

01:34:57.300 found out later it was true um but um there was a story so my our parents died um my dad died in

01:35:06.000 55 and my mom in 63 my dad had been in the army so he was in um the military cemetery in california

01:35:13.600 in colma um which is just south of san francisco um and so they're both there and um there was a

01:35:25.120 so the lady who was the psychic said to my sister um your dad says he sees something like a hill

01:35:32.480 and green grass and he says that's where the cemetery is and that's that's where the headstones

01:35:39.760 are and my sister said well you know it's been a while i've only been there a couple of times and

01:35:46.000 i really don't remember that and i don't remember what it looks like and the lady said the psychic

01:35:51.440 said oh your dad says it's okay he doesn't go there very often either back to the back to the

01:35:57.920 cemetery where he was buried so i don't know about that that's kind of that's a nice little family

01:36:03.920 story because you know we didn't get to know our dad really well but none of us knew him as adults

01:36:07.600 because he died when he was only 42. but uh but he was a good guy and uh still it's wonderful

01:36:14.720 he can connect with us i think that could have been his humor there you go but you know even

01:36:21.840 maintaining um if you if you have a family plot or if you if you have an opportunity to

01:36:30.160 go to the grave sites of your ancestors take your kids and get them in the habit of actually

01:36:35.760 cleaning up the area i mean that's you see one of the things that absolutely breaks my heart

01:36:42.080 there's two things in this world that that will break my heart when it comes to our ancestors

01:36:46.240 and it's seen it's knocked over that breaks my heart um the other is seeing these old farmsteads

01:36:53.120 that were abandoned that are caving in on themselves you know breaks my heart um but

01:36:58.800 teach our children to respect that and clean the headstones pull the weeds pick up the garbage you

01:37:07.280 know these are all things that we are teaching our children to honor our ancestors with as simple as

01:37:13.440 it may sound you know they they make special cleaner for marble headstones and you go out

01:37:18.560 there scrub brush and then you can you know rinse it off and they're not going to stop you from doing

01:37:22.560 it um but clean the debris off of the headstone you know clean any of the bird poop that's all

01:37:29.680 over it get that off of there you know um help them find pride in their family and help them

01:37:37.520 talk about their ancestors and help them honor their ancestors by cleaning the headstones and

01:37:42.400 keeping it tidy picking up garbage you know um one of the things that we used to do with kids

01:37:48.320 as well is we would always have extra flowers you know we'd get like a bouquet of flowers and just

01:37:53.920 pick a flower if there was a grave site for a like a child like a young child you know with

01:38:02.640 a little lamb on it from when they had the flus and things go through the kids would always put

01:38:08.640 flowers on these children's graves especially if they were unknown you know unknownness there was

01:38:15.360 there was a very big blizzard at some point in minnesota i don't remember what year it was but

01:38:21.200 it caught a bunch of kids off guard um and they died in the blizzard and that was something that

01:38:27.280 you know kind of touched my kids heart because going in and respecting respecting those who have

01:38:32.800 passed is something that's always been important in my family so they were like we really should

01:38:37.120 have brought some flowers because they wanted to put the flowers for these children you know so

01:38:44.320 just teaching your children how important it is to maintain that site and respect that site to keep

01:38:51.280 it clean um to keep it clean of debris and to leave things and to just spend time there i think

01:38:57.280 is really important as well right yeah um and of course something that the parents can actually

01:39:05.120 plan is to take a horn of mead and pour a horn of mead to whoever has passed and that again is a

01:39:12.320 small the simple but a very poignant ritual for the family to do together and then everybody can

01:39:18.320 toast and pour the mead onto the grave i mean that's just kind of a given if you if you have

01:39:24.480 ancestors you know where they're buried unfortunately you know so many people are

01:39:29.600 live far away from where their ancestors are buried i know in my case um yeah i mean i just

01:39:35.280 don't even my own parents like i said i can't tell you when i last visited their graves um

01:39:40.880 been 10 years maybe but if you are like lucky enough to do that but you know you can be the

01:39:47.920 adopted family to somebody too absolutely never hurts to go go to a cemetery read the names

01:39:55.120 just say thank you thank you for your life thank you i hope you're in a better place

01:40:00.320 and walk around and have everybody read the tombstones and just say the same thing may

01:40:07.760 you have peace may you be remembered by your descendants those are the kinds of things that

01:40:13.200 we can do as families and go truly honor those who are in cemeteries rather than seeing them as spooky

01:40:18.480 and you know if they if there are ghosts around that they need to go on to the other world where

01:40:24.080 their ancestors are waiting right we don't want them to be trapped here on earth anyway so i mean

01:40:29.280 i understand that whole thing but and the the really great thing about like websites now and

01:40:35.840 in in this wonderful interwebs that we have ancestry.com um findagrave.com they actually

01:40:44.000 have i mean if if you have their first name their last name their birth date and their death date

01:40:49.280 you know you can look that person up and you can see who they were you can see all of these things

01:40:55.360 just like if they were your own ancestor you can learn their stories by looking them up

01:40:59.360 because people yeah people are adding stories to to these things you know yeah um there's also a

01:41:07.360 really you know you said that you hadn't you hadn't been able to get out to your to your parents uh

01:41:13.440 sites for a while there's actually a company i can't remember their names and i might have to

01:41:18.400 send it to you later but they you can order it and somebody will take them out there for you

01:41:23.520 i know it's not the same yeah but that that's there as well but yeah learning about somebody

01:41:30.240 you know learning about somebody that was a member of your community especially you know

01:41:35.440 that did good things for your community and was did great things for folk you can always

01:41:41.360 definitely be that adoptive family especially if the especially if it's neglected it looks like

01:41:47.440 like if it's fallen over or anything like that help help keep them alive you know tell their

01:41:53.680 story you know yeah yeah steve and i actually did something kind of like that a couple years

01:41:59.360 ago we went over to virginia city in nevada which is an old silver rush town it's not gold rush it's

01:42:06.320 a silver rush town and that's where mark twain was and all that kind of stuff it's really cool

01:42:10.960 place uh it's out the desert so it's high desert and sagebrush and rock and stuff so the cemetery

01:42:17.440 out there is um very barren but you know lots lots of interesting headstones because they started

01:42:25.360 filling those up probably in the i don't know what it was 1850s and uh steve and i we did this one

01:42:32.240 day we went out and he we kind of went off and i said i want to make kind of i want to take some

01:42:39.520 time to really think basically to kind of meditate on where we are we're in the middle of a graveyard

01:42:44.560 in a cemetery and he went off and he found some man's grave and i went off and i found one

01:42:50.480 of a woman and i really just mentally tried to connect with that lady and again appreciate who

01:43:00.800 she had been i think she had died fairly young and i'm not sure what but it stayed with me you

01:43:08.160 know i got i i felt that that was a significant part of my day was to do that and to remember her

01:43:15.440 knowing that maybe nobody else has remembered her in 100 years right i just sent my own messages

01:43:21.040 on to her and simple little things we can do but again talking to to those who have passed you know

01:43:28.160 kids can get in the habit of doing that too just as they would go out to their probably pets a little

01:43:33.840 graveyard where you've got in your yard and go out and you know say hello to your your kitty cat

01:43:40.160 or your dog who's already passed you know kids kids are sensitive about things and you know if

01:43:46.080 it's in the heart and you're thinking about it still there to some extent say their names yes

01:43:51.840 absolutely yeah yeah so i want to bring up something because you talked about ancestry

01:43:58.640 and I know that Nick was going through all these cool images that he was going

01:44:04.740 to show but I want to remind people that it's really important to know your

01:44:10.040 family tree it can't stress that enough and to share that with your family and

01:44:16.220 encourage as your kids get older I mean we know that DNA is misused and

01:44:22.460 whatever but it has given us the opportunity to actually see who we're

01:44:27.680 related to in the in the afa and i do that with what i call kinship charts so and right now i

01:44:34.480 understand at least for um prime day at amazon they had um ancestry dna kits for only 40 bucks

01:44:41.680 so if you can get one tonight might be able to um but go ahead and do that and it opens up 0.95

01:44:49.760 you to other family members i came across a lady just ancestry what was that i forget just

01:44:56.880 something recently you know i shared an ancestor with this particular lady and oh she had a lot

01:45:02.880 more things that i've never seen on the family and just opened up a whole new branch and that

01:45:09.440 is what's kind of cool too with ancestry and of course ancestry also gives your ethnicity

01:45:14.960 and various things like that but it's wonderful to share with family be the person who does that

01:45:20.560 because every family should have someone who's the keeper keeper of the history the family history

01:45:25.840 and it is so easy to do nowadays but if people have done their dna they're in the afa you've

01:45:32.680 done your dna test you can go to whatever company download it into your computer and then go to a

01:45:41.100 company called jedmatch.com g-e-d-m-a-t-c-h and it's a really cool site anyway if you don't do

01:45:49.440 anything else but go there and upload in their little upload thing your raw DNA you just upload

01:45:57.280 this file and they convert it into what's called a kit number and send me the kit number and I can

01:46:02.900 show you how many people in our 75 or whatever who's in our spreadsheet how you're related to

01:46:10.000 about half of them not very closely but you're still you know we've got measurable DNA matches

01:46:15.020 and that's so much fun at events i've done things like grab a ball of yarn and i will toss to

01:46:20.560 somebody i know is an ancestor and they will toss to some or not a cousin toss to a cousin who

01:46:25.840 tosses to a cousin and you get this wonderful web just showing that we are all connected and that is

01:46:31.480 i always used to well the word folk you know i was doing folk assembly that was me because we

01:46:36.340 used to call everybody who would come our folk and i'd always say well i know we're really related

01:46:41.700 you know we're all folk together we're a family right but it wasn't until the dna connection

01:46:47.540 really came through that we can see that we truly are connected and that's neat but um also if you

01:46:54.960 want to do a free family tree you can do it on familysearch.org which is the mormon site

01:47:01.240 and then they've got an auxiliary thing called relativefinder.com and dot org i think it is

01:47:08.880 if you use the same login and that will tell you you know mayflower uh descendants um you know

01:47:18.560 presidents presidents wives inventors uh entertainers uh singers all these people that

01:47:24.640 you're related to and who your common ancestor is may be up there you know in 1820 but you guys are

01:47:32.480 now you know uh cousins and it shows on that tomb relative advantage so and that's neat for kids

01:47:39.040 because then you can say hey look we're related to elvis brisley and you are you know because

01:47:44.480 that's really true so yeah that really because that makes it really fun to uh to have the family

01:47:52.560 tree um be that entertaining it's not work at all it's it's discovery and then you get into all the

01:48:00.000 cool stuff about family origins and and heraldry and you know all that and tartans really need

01:48:08.400 stuff for kids so there's so much that our kids can get out of the way we experience

01:48:15.840 our families with them um you know they've got enough to keep going their whole lives

01:48:20.720 and keep discovering about their own family trees that's great so so far tonight we've covered

01:48:28.640 heroes and we've covered prayer and we've covered heroes and prayer and winter nights

01:48:36.000 and ancestors what else do we want to cover tonight sheila wow um and i think we've just

01:48:45.360 kind of scraped the ice off the tip of the iceberg on here yes indeed yeah i think again kind of

01:48:55.120 back to the whole cemeteries thing taking kids to uh towns where the family um had you know where

01:49:04.480 you built memories together maybe to grandparents homes if there are any homes that are there drive

01:49:09.920 by and tell the stories about what it was like again connect your children to your to your

01:49:15.680 childhood and then you can carry it on back at that point but a lot of kids don't realize their

01:49:20.640 kids were young i mean their parents were ever young you know you can do that right always mean

01:49:26.640 to me always a big guy of course always been old yeah so yeah working on that whole all the family

01:49:35.760 tree dimension with your kids their whole lives and again honoring those ancestors like we've said

01:49:41.680 um birth dates death dates i actually made up a sheet and i may see about actually offering it

01:49:47.920 well it was a pdf and i had for every day of the year and there was a space to put an ancestor's

01:49:55.200 name and then a death basically the algaes or the upside down for life or death for born or died

01:50:02.480 and the date and so on a certain date it would be a certain name so it would either be the birth or

01:50:07.360 the death date and you could have that over on the ancestors table we haven't talked to ancestors

01:50:11.760 tables yeah we should do that talk ancestors what yes let's start with for let's talk about

01:50:18.880 the ancestors table and then i would like your take on how kids could set up their own space

01:50:26.800 in a home so let's talk ancestors tables first okay uh yeah you know when we started daughters

01:50:37.440 of frigg we all shared some of our pictures and we had things like candles and flowers and teacups

01:50:44.320 and i think um to me i i've got collected some wonderful teacups with teacups and saucers that

01:50:52.560 we have at odin saw that we use for our ladies teas and to me that represents those ladies who

01:50:58.240 have passed on not that they necessarily that might even raise ones probably use mugs of coffee

01:51:03.840 right but still there's something about the teacup which is really a special as a symbol of of our

01:51:10.240 mothers um yeah of course the photographs if you have so many photographs you could rotate them

01:51:16.560 through you could do again show if you've got the means for doing a an ancestor who was young and

01:51:24.800 then a couple stages in life and show your children um you know childhood midlife and

01:51:32.320 elderly those things and maybe again focus on a an ancestor just one that you're going to do

01:51:39.200 for this week we're going to set up and we're going to tell that person's story

01:51:42.800 together and i know that he really liked marshmallows and blueberries you know and

01:51:47.600 say you could do that kind of a thing or was a fisherman and you could talk about that and go

01:51:53.360 actually go out fishing and remember how granddad loved fishing there but yeah make the make an

01:52:00.480 ancestors table that is kind of a living representation so it has um kind of unique

01:52:07.920 things and of course we want to do that at uh winter nights anyway and i need to remind people

01:52:12.960 bring photos of your mothers that we can all um you know honor those ladies and uh

01:52:21.440 kind of look in their eyes and see perhaps you in their eyes kind of thing but it's really important

01:52:27.360 but uh yeah um talk about the children who even passed away when they were young

01:52:34.560 in the family because everybody had those kids nobody remembers those we always remember the old

01:52:39.200 ones who actually made it in the world but we don't often talk about the children who passed

01:52:43.920 when they were young but are still out there maybe came back within the family line too you know but

01:52:50.560 we all share we all share that ancestry common ancestry with them we share the dna with all

01:52:57.760 those who have passed um yeah i know i'm just you know just kind of winging it what do you

01:53:05.440 have to say about that brandy about doing ancestors tables i love that i love the

01:53:10.320 ancestors tables i like to have the kids draw pictures for the ancestors and put them on there

01:53:15.760 or make them popsicle sticks um sculptures and things like that anything that can be drawn if

01:53:23.440 they would draw it for their grandmother when their grandmother was alive she's still going

01:53:28.480 to appreciate that if she has passed on good point if she loved that little stick figure

01:53:34.480 and the drooling dog now she's she's gonna love it then too so definitely pictures um food

01:53:41.200 kids love to decorate cupcakes make a cupcake for each of the ancestors you know that you want to

01:53:48.000 honor um there's so many things that you could put on there you know you could have them do clay and

01:53:53.760 have them make sculptures of each of the gods if you wanted to do that or we have um um garden

01:54:01.520 goddess discs where it's just kind of like a a pancake right and you can sculpt the face of one

01:54:07.680 of the one of the ac into that and bake it and you can use it with salt though you know make

01:54:14.400 little things like that just little tokens to give to the ancestors or to leave on the ancestor

01:54:19.040 altars or at the tables right you know parents and grandparents love to get those kind of things from

01:54:25.520 kids they're still going to love to get those kinds of things from kids so true yes and kids

01:54:33.040 need to know that yeah yeah absolutely this is this is not for us it's going to them and they

01:54:39.040 know exactly they're they're gonna see and gonna make them smile yes definitely so as far as kids

01:54:47.600 having their own space in the home so you know we have a family altar but my kids always had their

01:54:54.880 own space as well that they would keep in their rooms and they they would collect their rocks and

01:55:00.000 their acorns and their dead ones and you know they would find all of their things and put it

01:55:05.280 in there now were these sacred things for them to put on there not necessarily but they were

01:55:11.520 treasures for them you know right let the children collect things to put in their sacred space because

01:55:19.760 i i would discourage parents from saying no no no that doesn't go on your altar

01:55:27.280 don't do that don't do that yet as they get older they're going to understand you know what

01:55:34.020 belongs on there and what should be for the gods and what should be for the answers and things like

01:55:39.100 that but right now they're just excited that they found the dragonfly let them put that dragonfly

01:55:44.360 on their secret space you know because they're they're building the habit of keeping up that

01:55:50.200 space of adding to the space of properly disposing things from the space when it gets too full of

01:55:56.440 leaving gifts. I mean, I don't know how many turtles and frogs and dead bugs that my kids

01:56:02.340 brought to me. And, you know, as their mother, I think my grandmother would be highly amused

01:56:10.600 with the dead bugs and the frog and all of the things. I think she would be just tickled.

01:56:17.320 So yeah, let them bring things. I would encourage the behavior of the gifting more than I would

01:56:25.340 talk to them about the appropriateness of the gift yeah i would agree and then you have to say

01:56:32.460 if it is for um does it have a purpose for them what did it what were they thinking of when they

01:56:39.740 took it why does that matter and maybe relate that somehow to the family um a family story

01:56:46.700 um but what makes it a treasure in your life and there's something about its beauty its shape it's

01:56:53.820 where it was found of what the person was thinking about um yeah no i like that and i'm i'm gonna

01:57:01.180 tell you as a mom as a mom of of grown men now i would love for one of these grown men to bring

01:57:09.820 me a dead bug or a frog mom look what i caught for you i would yeah that you know my children

01:57:17.980 are grown now you know i can't believe i'm saying that you know you remember these kids sheila they

01:57:23.180 were like yes i do grown men now graduated grown men now you know i would love for that

01:57:31.100 kid to bring me a dead dragonfly again and say mom look what i have for you you know if i would

01:57:36.540 appreciate it yeah i think i think the grandparents and the great grandparents would appreciate it as

01:57:40.860 well but the point is that someday they will have their own children and you will be talking them

01:57:47.340 along those lines of what it's going to be like yeah and nurturing your children into the adult

01:57:54.440 years and to the responsibility of being an adult and a parent yeah that's part of our role too

01:58:00.160 yeah they never stop being our children they don't they don't and sometimes they some they

01:58:06.480 just get bigger that's all that's all that happens they just bigger you're still the babies no matter

01:58:11.740 what they do you know yeah right yeah definitely encourage your kids to have a shelf or a nook

01:58:19.100 um or a place that's just for their treasure so they can get into the habit of

01:58:25.260 number one keeping those things clean right that's one thing i would stress you know let them

01:58:30.220 let them maintain it let them move the things around and make sure they keep it clean so they

01:58:34.780 can get into that habit of keeping it clean and tidy um and having purpose and meaning behind

01:58:40.140 what it is that they're putting on there and just get into the habit of of the gift cycle

01:58:45.500 and let them get into the habit of the gift cycle really very good i would also encourage children

01:58:52.780 to develop creativity and to try writing poetry just even lyric things when they're out in the

01:59:01.100 woods or discovering those little dragonflies and they want to write about it it's interesting to

01:59:06.780 see how children who are raised within our church um sometimes do that naturally and refer to

01:59:15.660 the gods and and the ancestors in the writings because it's as real to them as their answer you

01:59:23.900 know as the living can now that they're they've got this connection and as we know um little

01:59:30.300 madeline um olivia's daughter wrote a beautiful poem not a poem well she wrote a poem and then

01:59:35.020 she put it to music and it was lovely and our friend ryan skinner the other day just did a

01:59:42.060 wonderful song and i don't know if you guys have heard it but he put it to some ai music with some

01:59:46.540 ai person singing but it sounds great and again was his own expression of of our religion of our

01:59:54.460 of our our truth to the gods and it's wonderful for all of us to to explore that when they think

02:00:00.940 oh we're too well i'm not going to write poetry but you never know what you can come up with

02:00:04.540 and along with that what you have given us uh brandy is um our connection to for instance the

02:00:12.300 swedish ancestors in doing uh calling the folk home and that's something that that is our ladies

02:00:18.300 thing just like the ladies do the horn and our little girls are learning that that's one thing

02:00:22.860 they all love to come over um aubrey and all the other little girls love to come and put their hands

02:00:28.860 on the horn um feel as if they know there's something special about that as we're pouring

02:00:33.820 the meat into the horn and we're saying our special words over it they know that's that's

02:00:38.700 their that's the role that's um how they are honored by being able to do that but also they're

02:00:45.580 going to start doing the chant with us of calling the folk home in swedish and um did that the last

02:00:52.220 bloat we did and it was really powerful we had all the ladies come together um it was dusk and

02:01:00.220 the ladies were around the burning fire and we all phased out it was only like five or six of us

02:01:05.820 but we boomed it out through through the space out through the ritual space out into the mundane

02:01:13.580 world out there to call the folk home and guess what we're actually having some growth finally in

02:01:19.260 the afa in in odin soft district we've had like five or six people in the last couple of weeks

02:01:25.900 and a lot are just kind of hanging there with me um and i you know when we do this stuff we do

02:01:34.940 ritual it matters and just the kids need to know that that things happen and they should not be

02:01:40.700 surprised if they they sometimes sense something see something that's okay because that's what it's

02:01:47.340 meant to do right and they may have the gift that we can't see because they obviously we hear about

02:01:53.740 children having particular um paranormal type abilities when they're very very young and then

02:01:59.820 kind of fades but we need to encourage that if they have it there's nothing wrong with that

02:02:05.020 because that's the natural way and it's the way of our ancestors they always recognize that we

02:02:10.460 don't want them to be horrified by it or have bad dreams but i don't think that happens very often

02:02:16.540 but they just have candy gifts and can do things make things happen so um if anybody has that if

02:02:23.980 you wanted to talk if you feel your child is you know has uh the ability to move objects or things

02:02:31.740 like that and you don't know what to do with you know there are godar who would definitely

02:02:37.020 help you anything like that and that's something even to say right now if you're having uh some

02:02:42.220 issues and you don't know what the answer is some kind of dilemma you know you can reach out to any

02:02:48.620 of us uh the witten or the godhar um at any time and we're happy to hear what your your concern is

02:03:00.700 and to listen well and to offer some suggestions or find resources for you but that's what we do

02:03:08.460 for anybody but also for our families for our adults um yeah people go through a lot

02:03:16.540 we're here for them yes ma'am oh and uh looks like we have a happy 25th birthday steven

02:03:27.180 i appreciate that and that is really cute and it looks like we have had uh christian

02:03:35.900 in oregon just noted ten dollars to the hurricane fund thank you very much that is very very nice

02:03:42.460 thank you i think that is a good way to go ahead and wrap this one up sheila everybody if you

02:03:48.700 haven't already please remember what i uh when i asked our folk to do tonight please do some sort

02:03:54.780 of uh offering or prayer or send those good things out tonight over to our folk down in florida

02:04:02.860 and to also the all those down south who were affected by the hurricane before so

02:04:07.660 let's get some get some things going for our folk down there so give them some protection

02:04:12.380 and some help and some aid as well as uh some prayers and some offerings for their safety and

02:04:18.540 security right that's all we've got for the for the night we appreciate you guys all being here

02:04:24.220 thank you thank you thank you oh it was fun yes so hail the gods hail the folk hail the

02:04:33.260 hail victory hail victory and remember because we're going to be honoring them very soon

02:04:40.620 hail the dc hail the dsir and remember victory never sleeps good night everybody good night

02:04:54.220 We'll be right back.

02:05:24.220 Thank you.

02:05:54.220 Thank you.

02:06:24.220 Thank you.

02:06:54.220 Thank you.

02:07:24.220 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - October 10, 2024

10⧸9⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 118 - Ásatrú for Kids

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