Asatru Folk Assembly - 12⧸10⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 179 - Freyshof Dedication

00:00:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

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00:02:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:03:00.000 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:14.480 Hopefully, I will be joined tonight by Witten Clifford Erickson to talk about the amazing

00:03:21.860 weekend that we had.

00:03:24.000 But we will see.

00:03:25.500 We will see.

00:03:26.100 So, okay, so they're trying to work that out on the back end.

00:03:35.520 In the meantime, GW Farnsworth, as always, you are awesome.

00:03:41.020 Thank you so much.

00:03:42.460 Starts off the show donating $25 to Victory Never Sleeps and $20 to the Frasehoff Fund.

00:03:50.220 So that's awesome.

00:03:51.260 We appreciate it very much.

00:03:52.700 you start off every week with this, and we really appreciate it. Also, Gilbert donated $150

00:04:02.000 to Beautify Thorshoff. That is much appreciated, so thank you for that.

00:04:13.220 That said, a little housekeeping on it. Where are we at with our thermo for the payoff of

00:04:21.220 phrase off. That's awesome. We are 32.4% paid off as of today. It means we have

00:04:30.620 didn't run the math. I believe we have just over $84,514 that we owe remaining. So we are making

00:04:45.060 awesome progress on that. We're sitting right at about $113 per member. We'd pay it off today.

00:04:53.060 You guys have been generous and we appreciate you. And that rolls into our theme for the evening

00:05:02.320 because of y'all's generosity and all of the great people that we have who are

00:05:09.760 helping us collectively move our faith forward and establish ever more temples to our gods here

00:05:19.220 in Midgard, we were able to dedicate our fifth half this last Saturday. That's in

00:05:27.820 roughly 10 years and three months going from zero hoffs to five hoffs and it is tremendous

00:05:40.000 um i could not have imagined a better dedication or a more wonderful uh phrase hoff it was an

00:05:51.300 awesome experience thank you to all of you who are listening who joined us we're there this weekend

00:05:55.900 Thank you to everybody who donated that helped facilitate making that happen to everyone who's come out and helped the Ericsons and a crew of, you know, a variety of different dedicated people have been out there every single weekend since we got this off months ago to make it ready for dedication this last Saturday.

00:06:18.520 And what a tremendous, tremendous event it was.

00:06:23.700 I am certain that Frayer is pleased with the gift that we've given him.

00:06:35.400 What an awesome, awesome weekend.

00:06:38.180 Cliff, do you have anything you want to say starting out for folks?

00:06:43.860 Well, sure.

00:06:44.420 First, I want to note that Githya Katie came down with a flu after the dedication, so she

00:06:53.680 would have liked to have been here.

00:06:55.020 She certainly has a huge perspective to share on the Phrasehof dedication conversation.

00:07:02.880 So I will be speaking for her and about her as much as I can, because a lot of what everyone

00:07:11.220 saw at the dedication um in particular with the place being clean and and welcoming and warm um

00:07:21.940 had a lot to do with her um and uh a lot of that is is her vision for things um including the the

00:07:30.900 the goddess shrines that were flanking uh the the mural to frayer so um she would have liked

00:07:38.660 have been here and i would have liked for her to be here because no matter how much i might try to

00:07:43.940 encapsulate her point of view it's it's just not the same so um you know i'm sure that there'll be

00:07:50.500 stuff in the runestone from her and that there will be uh plenty of chances for her to speak

00:07:55.060 about things but the yeah i was joking with matt and i've joked with a few other people about how

00:08:01.380 how our family has basically skipped fall.

00:08:06.280 We got the keys to Frazehoff

00:08:08.880 or what was going to be Frazehoff,

00:08:12.820 the Church of God assembly property on August 27th.

00:08:21.600 So when we got those keys,

00:08:24.720 beaches were still open.

00:08:26.320 The water park was open.

00:08:27.560 the garden was in like peak productivity phase you know that's when you're like getting rained

00:08:33.900 on by tomatoes and peppers and all of that um still days there was more daylight than there

00:08:41.640 was dark so you know i could cut the lawn and the afternoon after work it didn't rely on just

00:08:48.340 the weekends at that point but that was all about to be changing real quick um right there at the

00:08:54.840 end of August. So, um, you know, we, we kind of leapfrogged over all of the fall season here

00:09:01.160 because we, like Alshir Gauthier, Matt mentioned, we're there almost every weekend. There were only,

00:09:07.780 um, a few days where we were not personally at the Hoff for both Saturday and Sunday.

00:09:15.460 One of those was when we went to Gettysburg, um, Gettysburg State Park in Pennsylvania for our,

00:09:23.960 our annual feast of the einherjar bloat which will be we will be continuing um we will also

00:09:30.440 of course have an einherjar bloat at phrasehof but um we're going to continue going to gettysburg

00:09:35.400 every november it just might not be on the same weekend that we did but that's a

00:09:42.200 about an eight hour drive for us one way so we got up at like 4 30 in the morning drove

00:09:48.680 to gettysburg met up with everyone um you know did some of the sightseeing uh had a a bloat to

00:09:56.120 the iron here you are in the the wheat field which was a particularly bloody spot in in that area

00:10:01.800 although there's there's plenty of those to choose from um and that place is very very weighty you

00:10:08.680 know we we picked that place because of the the number of men on men of our folk who who fell

00:10:16.520 they're fighting for their states on both sides um and then we went out to dinner which took longer

00:10:23.320 than expected there's a whole funny anecdote about that if you're not in the know ask somebody who

00:10:27.800 was there um and then we drove the eight hours back to sleep like four hours and then go to

00:10:34.920 freeshoff the next day on sunday because we needed to to get things done that was a particularly long

00:10:40.840 weekend that kind of just kind of just like highlights to me you know

00:10:49.400 yeah we were we were all in we were there all all the time um it's gonna be it's gonna feel

00:10:53.960 strange not being there so much honestly like two out of seven days of every week i you know joked

00:11:00.360 with the kids that was our home away from home they originally they were scared to like go into

00:11:05.640 new rooms there or to be on one of the floors by themselves if they couldn't like physically see

00:11:10.840 Katie or I took about a month and a half,

00:11:14.460 but that changed to where they were just running around like they own the

00:11:17.200 place. So, yeah, there was, there was a lot that went into it.

00:11:22.660 I don't want to steal too much away from, you know,

00:11:26.760 the rest of the conversation and questions that'll come in, but

00:11:29.320 that place matters a great deal to us. And I, I hope that Freya is proud.

00:11:35.200 You know, I think he is. The showing of folk there this past Saturday, I think at least partially speaks to that.

00:11:44.500 But we will really know by, you know, how bountiful or not bountiful our district, that Hoff and the Ossachew Folk Assembly are in the, you know, in the years to come.

00:12:00.160 I'm cautiously confident.

00:12:02.720 So, Nick, if you throw the group picture up for us, it was tremendously well attended.

00:12:15.760 I don't know how many were finally showed up, we had 146 registered, as always, some people who

00:12:24.000 registered, you know, can't make it for a variety of reasons, usually some last minute people end

00:12:29.200 up showing up but you know this group picture is a very healthy picture so many people there and

00:12:36.560 this is you know probably 15 people had left by the time we remembered we should take a group

00:12:43.680 picture so uh you know that's that's one of the the problems and it's an awesome problem to have

00:12:49.920 by the time we realize you know man we should really get a group picture you know it's it's

00:12:54.960 always an afterthought because we're there you know doing something really special um

00:13:03.600 but one of the things i wanted us to i don't know tell people or communicate with folks

00:13:11.200 folks that weren't there i think a lot of people may wonder

00:13:16.320 i mean i think i think it's self-explanatory what a what a dedication is but i think they may

00:13:22.000 wonder you know what exactly that might look like and what exactly that means in a in an

00:13:29.360 house of true context um so i suppose a couple of preliminary things when taking possession of a new

00:13:47.120 space, be it someone's home, or moving into an apartment, or

00:13:54.080 whatever that might be. There is a process that our folk do

00:13:59.360 that's, you know, typical that in its most generic form is

00:14:03.520 called the land taking. Traditionally, that's done by a

00:14:11.680 cleansing flame being brought to along the uh perimeter of the property

00:14:22.160 oftentimes if it's done in a house or an apartment it's you know paraded through the rooms

00:14:29.280 and we are claiming that land or that space for the new occupants and the new um you know

00:14:40.400 new owners or new tenants of that space and we're making our presence and our impression

00:14:50.480 felt by the spiritual inhabitants of the area

00:14:56.640 often we refer to those as the land veteer or whatever other unseen spirits might occupy a place

00:15:04.080 And we are also inviting good spirits in. We're inviting the Aesir into a place. We're inviting our Alfar and Deesir and spirits that follow us into a place.

00:15:24.740 And we're staking a claim that this space belongs to us, or in the case of this Hoff, that this space belongs to Freyer specifically, to the Aesir generally, and to the Ausitru Folkesson.

00:15:40.480 Nick, if you could throw the group outdoor picture up.

00:15:49.160 Let's just give you guys a little idea, this is by no means exhaustive of the crowd, but

00:15:53.300 we all gathered outside and it was nice and chilly like it's supposed to be in wintertime,

00:15:58.620 which was cool.

00:16:00.520 We gathered together there and we went around the edges of the property, claiming this land

00:16:10.460 in the name of the house true folk assembly in the name of the ice here and then the name of

00:16:15.900 engby frayer and it was a testament to how many faithful were there that we you know at the and

00:16:28.780 i told people we could kind of bunch up because it's hard to hear in the back but it was funny

00:16:33.500 that like the hailing of things made a made an echo because it took a while for it to

00:16:40.520 get to the end of the line. And so that was that was cool. We went around, you know, the

00:16:47.420 the corners of the property staking claim and then we went and we did the same thing

00:16:53.940 for the building. If you could post the picture, there we go, you anticipated what I wanted.

00:16:58.860 went around the building um sprinkling it with blessed mead and making the same claim and

00:17:07.180 proclaiming that this would now be phrase off we also while doing the land taking invited

00:17:19.100 i suppose slash challenged the spirits there to

00:17:23.740 To bear witness to us, to know us as people, to hear our words, to witness our deeds, and, you know, to judge our worthiness while we're in the area.

00:17:36.800 That's something at any of our existent Hoffs I always mention during bloat is that, you know, those spirits have known us for a time.

00:17:50.040 They've heard us and they've seen us.

00:17:53.260 They're able to judge whether we live up to the things we claim to be and to the obligations that we set.

00:18:03.120 And they know us.

00:18:04.760 And so we invite that judgment.

00:18:07.000 We don't shy away from it.

00:18:08.400 And we want to be known for our deeds in this world and in the world beyond the veil.

00:18:14.580 um and then that culminates in us um taking that mead that we that's been ritually charged that

00:18:25.780 we've used to bless the place and we uh process with that up to the altar and present the hof

00:18:35.340 as a gift to frayer then as people come up to give their you know give their allegiance to

00:18:45.340 to fray we um i trace a rune on each of their heads to bless them with the energy of what we're doing

00:18:57.920 and why we're doing it and mark them as people who were there that day that were part of that

00:19:03.460 once in a lifetime, very special thing. For this instance, I traced the Rhytho rune on there. For

00:19:11.900 anyone who might not know, our first 24 Hoffs will be, will each bear a corresponding rune to that

00:19:24.500 order in the uh in the elder futhark and rhido happens to be the rune of of phrasehoff and uh

00:19:34.420 so yeah that's kind of how that went um i thought that everybody took

00:19:45.540 as a gothi you always

00:19:47.700 want to make sure that the people who are there are experiencing the level of

00:19:56.620 awe and of piety that you want to convey. And I thought everyone there was

00:20:06.180 absolutely in a pious place and was feeling the magnitude of the event.

00:20:14.780 cliff what was your impression of you know how the folk received that particular ceremony and

00:20:21.980 and saturday as a whole there's katie peeking in behind me she retrieved my phone from the

00:20:28.860 kids martial arts i get you hi oh you're here you're here she's not doing too good she's got 1.00

00:20:34.860 that scratchy throat i thought for sure you were gonna be facing the camera in different directions

00:20:40.140 so nope my sneaking didn't work not did not work at all everyone saw you from the first peak

00:20:46.140 yeah so um the impression that i got from the folk um both just you know from observation

00:20:58.460 and things that they came and straight up told me um was really a sense of of all i think that um

00:21:06.940 um I mean first we're blessed with a really beautiful building there so we had a really

00:21:14.260 good um canvas to work with the uh the wood paneling and the interior um is is just amazing

00:21:24.040 um the the outside even though it's basically just a long brick building um the columns on

00:21:30.880 front and the the overhang of the the roof there at the porch area really add a lot of character

00:21:37.920 to it um and we intend on improving on that of course um we'll talk about that another episode

00:21:44.960 though we're talking about dedication um there was really a sense of of all people were blown away at

00:21:54.960 first the size of the place it really is large and um when when you step into

00:22:00.880 that sanctuary into the vey it it is striking just how large and imposing it is and and i i like that

00:22:09.000 um you know i i like that it communicates this sense that frayer is greater than us

00:22:18.900 i like the imposing nature of the building um you know i know in in asitru in in heathenry there's

00:22:26.320 sometimes a pushback against that that you know it's uh you know we're we're kin to the gods

00:22:33.960 right so sometimes i think people misinterpret that to mean that we could be casual with the

00:22:38.540 gods and that's not at all that's not it at all it's more like being in your great grandpa's

00:22:45.240 office or something like that it's like okay all the really old cool stuff is in here

00:22:52.420 and if i break something i'm done for you know um that's a kin relationship as well and

00:23:01.200 i think that some of that's the scale of the building i think some of that is sort of the

00:23:07.500 intentional way that we arranged things there i think that um the lighting in particular really

00:23:15.820 lent itself to that the the number of candles that were burning in there and that combined with

00:23:21.900 the the wood paneling and the the earth tones that were in there and the you know the the the the light

00:23:30.620 um curtains that katie had chosen and the the the forest green table cloths that were on the central

00:23:38.060 um folk fire and the four corner tables for the uh for the sanctuary sitting area and um and all

00:23:47.260 that i think really it worked well and everything in that building is designed to draw your eyes

00:23:52.940 upward from the columns before you even enter the building to the pitch of the roof when you

00:24:00.700 when you go through the first set of doors you're met by a large wide staircase that goes up to the

00:24:06.060 double doors into the sanctuary when you pass through those doors you have four rows of arches

00:24:12.860 on either side of you um and just that that go into the the recessed deus which is all

00:24:23.820 pointed upwards and then we added to that by by intentionally putting a hero and ancestor shrine

00:24:30.460 on either side at a lower stature and then the goddess shrines to the right and left of frayer

00:24:37.740 with a slightly greater stature and then frayer in the middle with the greatest stature of course

00:24:42.220 so that everything is pointed up towards Freyr and his halo that's the it's not the middle of

00:24:51.580 the room but everything like that's the middle of your view when you go in there because your eyes

00:24:56.060 are drawn upward and um yeah I think people were all struck I don't know if they thought all of

00:25:03.500 that stuff but that's sort of what we were doing there was very much an intentional design there of

00:25:08.700 you know the hero and the ancestors being lesser than the goddesses and in this temple at least

00:25:17.820 the goddesses that are honored there being lesser than frayer that might be different in different

00:25:23.500 settings but in that temple that is certainly the case that is frayer's home that is his home in

00:25:30.220 midgard so everyone else there is somewhat secondary so people know you mentioned um that

00:25:38.460 there are two goddess shrines yes who are those awesome and why so um we have seated to frayers

00:25:49.260 right the lady freya and to his left we have uh his wife girther and the reason we chose them

00:25:57.820 um i think it's fairly obvious um you know freya is is his sister and she is seated in the place

00:26:04.220 of honor at his right because of her um her power her standing amongst the the aesir and and seated

00:26:14.380 to his left is his wife in the the second greatest place of honor um so when you walk in girder is

00:26:22.540 to your right and freya is to your left but they're two lord the lord's right and left respectively

00:26:30.460 in the uh you know the traditional places of honor um and then we did the same for um the the hero

00:26:38.620 shrine and the ancestor shrine the named hero is on the right side in the place of honor as an

00:26:44.460 ancestor of particular importance and then the ancestors as a whole are to the left all represented

00:26:52.220 but um not all of equal standing um and so as a note for people that might not be as familiar with

00:27:01.900 our lore um freya and frayer are mentioned they're very often paired in description in the lore

00:27:14.220 there are very often mentioned you know in the same paragraph occupying a lot of the same space

00:27:20.220 their position as brother and sister isn't so the gods the way that our um cosmology is presented

00:27:37.980 is that all father odin is the all father meaning the father of all the gods

00:27:43.260 but in a very specific and particular like in that sense you know thor and and heimdogler are

00:27:52.900 brothers but they're not mentioned as a pair ever to my understanding they happen to be related but

00:28:01.220 there's not that parody um freya's main name means lord and freya's name respectively means

00:28:10.340 lady and they're paired and they're often throughout our lore mentioned as a pair so her

00:28:16.340 having a special place of prominence and his hof is a is a very nice touch there i don't know if

00:28:22.840 it yeah go ahead i don't know if it mentions it specifically in the lore or not it may

00:28:27.580 but i know that it personally and i think this is just generally true in in tradition that they're

00:28:32.660 often thought of as twins as well yeah i don't believe it's mentioned explicitly but that's

00:28:39.880 that's an implication that's an impression that's you know well i don't know

00:28:46.600 well propagated i guess yeah they're simply the male and and feminine of the same name

00:28:53.000 um they're very much mirrors of each other in that way so you mentioned a special hof hero can

00:28:58.680 you share with people who that is and nick can you throw up the uh picture of that shrine yes

00:29:04.040 It's Svendurin Betenson, the first Alshir Gauthier of the Asatru Fellowship.

00:29:10.180 I'm not going to attempt to say it because that I will butcher worse than I butchered the poor man's name. 0.99

00:29:15.000 But I sent an article into the Rune Stone about it, which everyone can read soon, about why we chose him.

00:29:22.040 But the basic reasons are that I wanted to choose a modern Asatru hero.

00:29:29.700 I think it's really important for our folk and for the Frazhoff culture that I'd like to develop there.

00:29:37.680 It's had three kind of proto months to take root in the work days and stuff there.

00:29:42.300 But I want us to focus on the fact that modern heroes of Asichu are not only possible, but really important to everything we're doing.

00:29:51.260 and

00:29:52.960 Alstrugothis Frenbjorn's

00:29:58.060 persistence

00:29:59.900 and really I would say

00:30:02.300 zealotry

00:30:02.860 helped to bring Asatru 1.00

00:30:06.040 back as a living religion

00:30:08.020 in Iceland and beyond

00:30:09.920 but initially in Iceland

00:30:11.980 also it's sort of

00:30:16.080 a cautionary

00:30:17.600 representation as well that without

00:30:20.280 um this is not to his fault this is to the fault of you know his successors and to the people that

00:30:27.780 took it took over from him um but that if we're not really careful about how we instruct um new

00:30:35.060 Ossetruer that come to the Ossetru Folk Assembly and if we're not really careful about how we

00:30:39.220 instruct our children and cultivate that next generation of Ossetruer that um our work and 0.99

00:30:47.060 our victory is not ensured in any way. Like it is always at risk. And the, the Asatru Fellowship 1.00

00:30:55.840 in Iceland, I think is a good example of that. It started off with piety and with true belief

00:31:05.040 and with a recognition for the, the same ethics that we hold, I believe, but, um, that,

00:31:12.760 that wasn't maintained by um aliceur gothi uh swan bjorn's successors um and so it's

00:31:21.480 it's deteriorated to say the least um so it's it's something we need to to constantly work on

00:31:29.980 and we need to you know i i mentioned this in the article personally i i hope that swan bjorn

00:31:36.020 in you know in in afterlife that his spirit sees the asachu folk assembly as the

00:31:44.340 legitimate success for successor to what he was doing there because um sadly the asachu fellowship

00:31:51.640 isn't worthy of that so um that's why we chose him um and you know hopefully we can develop more 1.00

00:31:58.660 of a cult around all of that as time goes on. It's kind of basic right now. The photo

00:32:05.800 of him, Nick, can you put that shrine photo back up again? The photo of him there is actually

00:32:12.980 an album where he is chanting Vluspa and I believe Havamal. And it's pretty cool. We're

00:32:23.400 going to utilize that at different times. The record is in the record sleeve there right

00:32:28.500 up there in the shrine so um and we we do have one of those sort of modern little victrola boxes

00:32:34.980 that has the speakers built into it so so we can play that i i didn't get to do it at dedication

00:32:40.180 it slipped my mind i wanted to work that in somehow but you'll just have to come to yuletide

00:32:44.660 if you want to hear that you know that's one of the it's one of the things every time we go away

00:32:52.100 from one of these events there's something we meant to do that we didn't like man should have

00:32:56.980 done this or shouldn't should have done that and none of that is absent-mindedness honestly it's

00:33:04.420 the opposite of absent-mindedness it's that we're so present in the awe of the moment

00:33:12.420 that sometimes you know little detail things slip because we're all awestruck it's one of the

00:33:19.940 one of the beautiful things about it um you know we had

00:33:26.980 I would say well over 120 people there this weekend.

00:33:33.700 When each of them was processing up to personally, you know, give their allegiance to Lord Freyre,

00:33:42.500 and I was tracing a rune on each of their heads, you know, looking out and looking at them as they came up,

00:33:51.260 that takes a certain amount of time to process all those people up and not to make anyone feel

00:33:57.760 rushed and have everyone have their moment in front of frayer's altar for the first time

00:34:04.420 but seeing just that look of awe and of gravitas on everyone's face as they came up was

00:34:15.500 It's a very, very special thing and something that I'm really proud happened like that.

00:34:24.740 There's a lot more to say about it, but before I do, Caleb donated $60 to help pay off Frasehoff.

00:34:34.080 So thank you, Caleb.

00:34:35.000 We appreciate that very much.

00:34:36.700 uh judging by it being spelled with the k i assume this is the same gentleman who gave me

00:34:44.940 a ride to and from the airport so i appreciate that too thank you um and steve bought us 10

00:34:51.660 coffees that's a 50 donation so thank you for that steve um so uh

00:35:06.700 it, it's worth, I don't know, worth taking a moment to note. Cliff mentioned a little bit

00:35:15.960 about Sveinbjorn and his, his veneration there. A couple of things. First, you know,

00:35:27.100 he mentioned that it wasn't maintained well with folks that came after him in the organization

00:35:32.020 that he founded uh australia started out as a you know noble and good aussitru organization that

00:35:44.180 was foundational in bringing back the worship of our gods and that was maintained by um

00:35:50.420 Um, Sveinbjorn's immediate, uh, successor, um, I'll say your Goethe, uh, Jormundur Inge Hansen,

00:35:59.520 but due to some of the rot and things that take place in a lot of, unfortunately, early, early

00:36:10.280 stage, um, groups to reintroduce Ausatru, that wasn't maintained and through

00:36:19.900 voting and committee and whatever else the spirituality left that um that organization

00:36:27.060 and was replaced by leftist woke politics and such which is very sad and so you know some of

00:36:36.960 you may note that some of our modern heroes aren't uh or weren't part of the astro folk assembly

00:36:43.140 We have heroes. Elsie was, she had her own group called the Odinus Fellowship, the two founders of the Odinic Right, Stubba and Hoskold, John Ewell and John Gibbs Bailey.

00:37:00.460 Well, I reversed the order when I gave you the real names, but yeah.

00:37:09.260 Founded the Odenic Rite and was feignborn with the Austrofelioth.

00:37:14.860 And one of the reasons for that is something that I was talking to some folks last week about it and someone at dedication about it a little bit.

00:37:22.880 there was a time during the reawakening of our faith where the all father

00:37:32.700 awoke uh they he awakened the soul in several people and he you know

00:37:44.820 gave them the charge to do this, to make this happen. And it was wise to disperse at that time

00:37:55.600 to see what was going to make it, see what seeds planted were going to take root.

00:38:01.800 And so there was a number of people that, you know, gave it their best effort.

00:38:06.840 There was a time there of proving to see what way of doing this worked, to see what was going to

00:38:14.780 stand the test of time and carry the mantle of Ousitru into the future.

00:38:20.660 And, you know, over time, as we mentioned, in the 90s, the Ousitru of Feligeth fell to

00:38:27.300 degeneration and the forces of chaos. And so we want to, you know, take the good of that

00:38:39.060 and be good stewards of the accomplishments and the heroes that set that forth. 0.95

00:38:44.780 The Odenic right was doing great things, and then they weren't. That organization has fallen and dispersed, and the good thing that Stubb and Hoskold founded has gone to nothing, so we wanted to be good stewards of that tradition and of those heroes as we move this forward. 0.96

00:39:10.200 You know, Elsie's Odinus Fellowship didn't last past her lifetime, but we wanted to, again, take that legacy and add it to the collective legacy of Ossetru as we move forward.

00:39:25.580 And so it's very important that we do that with our modern heroes.

00:39:28.120 I should also mention Alexander Rudd Mills and what he put in motion due to various events and things in his lifetime, despite his best efforts, it did not live him.

00:39:39.200 But we want to harness that legacy and preserve it and cherish it and move it forward under under our tent.

00:39:48.700 And that's part of our responsibility as those that, you know, were the ones that were the last men standing in the in that struggle to see what this would look like going forward.

00:40:01.960 And that's the legacy that we move forward and that we carry on and that we safeguard as we continue to grow and to evolve the Astro Folk Assembly as the church of the Isir in Midgard who won that time of struggle and the time of testing.

00:40:23.800 So something else that was a special feature of the dedication.

00:40:28.520 I should do this first.

00:40:29.780 You guys may have noticed the amazing mural of Ningvi Freyr in his Hoff.

00:40:39.980 And Nick, if you can put that up again, it's worth oohing and aahing over.

00:40:45.520 It is magnificent.

00:40:49.180 Witten's Fawn gets better each time in his, you know, holy depictions of the Aesir.

00:40:56.720 and it's funny because I got to see all of this as you know in little bits and pieces and starts

00:41:05.960 and stops as he was doing it that's one of my special special privileges I get as the else

00:41:12.140 Harry Gophie but it I don't have the words to express how profoundly moving and breathtakingly

00:41:24.620 magnificent it is in in real life to stand there before it to see it and to be in the presence

00:41:34.460 of frayer as he's you know channeled through this amazing mural and uh you know we're trying to show

00:41:43.900 you a picture it's cool but it's not anywhere near the magnitude of what you feel when you're there

00:41:50.700 it's truly magnificent and I encourage everybody to you know get a chance to go see it and that's

00:42:01.140 the special thing is now that it's our Hoff it's not going anywhere

00:42:03.960 Cliff do you have anything to say about the the mural or how that came about yeah I'm trying to

00:42:13.440 get a photo to nick here because i want people to see what it looked like before joe drota's set to

00:42:21.880 work on things because that space where frayer is used to just be a hole in the wall a large

00:42:30.720 nine by seven hole in the wall and without joe's efforts we wouldn't have

00:42:37.800 um a canvas for Wynton's Fond to have put that on and I think it's really important

00:42:45.000 for for people to get to see just what work was put into that I think I might have found two

00:42:54.360 pictures that are gonna really kind of represent that that I'm getting to Nick

00:42:58.600 right now and then it'll probably take Nick a minute to process that so bear with me just a

00:43:06.520 minute hoping to beat you to the question not quite all right so nick i just sent you two photos one

00:43:23.320 is me next to the uh the untouched hole in the wall and the next one is joe up on the scaffolding

00:43:33.320 doing the work so when you get them and when you can't can if you could put them up but um

00:43:40.920 two people i want to mention you know i mentioned there we go so there is me in a victory shirt

00:43:46.840 with all the stuff littered around that is that is where the fray mural went and it's a lot less

00:43:53.240 impressive that way there's a like a utility storage hall behind there um you know it gives

00:44:00.680 you a little bit of the reason i took that photo was just to communicate the scale to alshire

00:44:05.320 goethe matt and to the way and about you know what needed to happen to get that mural ready and um

00:44:14.040 there's joe up there on the scaffolding doing his thing so he framed that out and um with the help

00:44:20.680 of a couple of members mike and adam got the drywall up there but joe did the lion's share

00:44:27.480 of all that he planned it he cut the two by fours to the proper lengths he you know he he framed it

00:44:33.800 entirely and he he put all the drywall up and finished all of it he had a couple of people

00:44:38.600 there to to help with um you know handing up the the full sheets of drywall and um

00:44:46.040 joe drodos is our our hoff steward and without him this place wouldn't be wouldn't have been ready

00:44:53.480 um you know um so first thank you very much joe you are absolutely instrumental to the operation

00:45:02.680 of phrasehoff and you know i want you to get your your credit because um joe did work that

00:45:08.440 i'm just not qualified to do you know i have helped pat drywall before that's not the same

00:45:15.240 thing as framing a wall and putting it up i know a lot of people have have the ability to do that

00:45:21.000 but joe was the man in the place who had the skills when and where we needed them and it's

00:45:25.320 greatly appreciated also um al shaguthi matt mentioned uh caleb harluck a little bit ago

00:45:32.200 caleb has put tons and tons of time into um getting phrase hof ready um and has traveled

00:45:39.240 great distances to do it he lives about four and a half hours away but almost every saturday workday

00:45:45.800 caleb was there and sometimes he stayed over um stayed one night at at my house getting very

00:45:52.520 little sleep because that night the dogs decided to be up all night howling and barking at some

00:45:58.120 leaf out in the field um uh he he camped there one night and helped confirm that our friendly

00:46:05.640 neighbor was actually working on the place because that neighbor accosted caleb to make

00:46:11.560 sure he was supposed to be there and he texted me to make sure that caleb was supposed to be there

00:46:17.400 um that's awesome yeah funny enough caleb had a key to the building and didn't think to

00:46:22.920 demonstrate his ability to open the door and if um if he had thought of it at the time caleb

00:46:28.600 actually held title to the property so he could have like shown that this is my building property

00:46:35.000 yeah so of all the people to to be accosted about that it's funny that it was caleb but i appreciate

00:46:40.360 it that um that the guy across the street kip is watching the place for us in a friendly way

00:46:46.840 um and uh you know he saw something funny going on wanted to make sure it wasn't some meth head tent

00:46:52.840 so um everything was fine though everything's been fine there have been no method tents just

00:46:57.800 the caleb tent so um that's that's good um but caleb has put a lot of work in you know caleb is

00:47:06.600 kind of a jack of all trades he's a smart young man and he can figure most things out even if he

00:47:12.760 hasn't done it before so um caleb has has been a big help on on all sorts of small and medium

00:47:21.600 sized things that needed to get done especially in the cleaning that's one of the worst jobs that

00:47:25.880 we had there um hopefully nobody who visited on saturday was able to tell but that place

00:47:31.000 smelled like mold and dead bugs and old lady teeth when we first got it so um it didn't smell

00:47:39.960 like that anymore there was a lot of mopping a lot of scrubbing you know we we scrubbed and mopped

00:47:45.420 all the walls downstairs scrubbed and mopped the floors twice um every single chair that everyone

00:47:54.000 sat on was scrubbed and like steamed with one of those hand missiles um and the water was gross 0.99

00:48:01.520 i think katie has a picture of that i wish she was here because she could share us the nasty water

00:48:05.680 picture just so y'all could get an idea of what we were dealing with but it basically looked like

00:48:09.760 used motor oil so um not good stuff didn't want it getting on your nice clothes didn't want

00:48:16.400 that humigation that would happen out of it um you know some things were moldy so if you sat

00:48:25.400 down on them there'd be like a little puff and then we all go home sick at the end of the day

00:48:29.340 so um the cleaning was was really a huge huge job and and everyone who who came there um really

00:48:38.780 helped out but joe and caleb were the the top two volunteers and i would be remiss if i didn't also

00:48:45.800 mentioned josh wilson who helped us get the uh the the first floor uh heater exhaust motor replaced

00:48:52.840 and working um it seemed like kind of an afterthought project when we were there in

00:48:58.200 september it became more and more apparent how important that was as the weeks went on so um

00:49:05.480 you know i think it may have been pretty warm there over the weekend because we had more bodies

00:49:09.720 in there than we were used to but um it it's important for the opera you know we want we need

00:49:16.520 to make sure the pipes don't burst we're not there so i always turn the water off every time we leave

00:49:20.680 to make sure that if something happens it's contained you know a dozen gallons is better than

00:49:27.320 thousands of gallons by a long stretch but also making sure that especially that first level the

00:49:32.920 basement level that that's you know heated to you know 55 degrees when there's no people there to

00:49:39.000 give us some buffer room just in case the thermostat's not working right um is important

00:49:44.360 you know we don't need to to come back to any disasters we've we've already cleaned it once

00:49:49.640 we'd like to you know i mean the deep clean of course it'll get cleaned regularly but we don't

00:49:53.880 want to have to revisit that anytime soon um so yeah a lot of a lot of people put work in but um

00:50:02.360 um myself katie joe caleb and josh um are the ones who did most of it we had a lot of other

00:50:12.280 people who helped out and all that's appreciated um you know some people that could show up for

00:50:17.000 one work day some people that could show up for two or three um but uh joe and caleb and josh

00:50:24.980 have been there almost as much as katie and i um at least once a week um between the three of them

00:50:31.060 i think that's much appreciated you guys have done an amazing job with it a little bit on the

00:50:37.980 building so this was a building that um i had my eye on for a long time as a possibility and it

00:50:46.500 really it is an amazing it is an amazing building and property and location and so many things about

00:50:58.460 it are just so very optimal. Um, one of the kind of comments that I was seeing over in the chat was

00:51:05.620 that people felt like the building didn't look as big on the outside as it felt on the inside.

00:51:13.220 I mean, I think the whole thing is big, but do you have any concept of the square,

00:51:19.280 excuse me, the square footage? Yeah, it's about 3,600 square feet. I think that's per floor.

00:51:25.600 um there there's actually like a floor plan on the austin town township like zoning page

00:51:32.020 um but it's it's i think 3650 or 3640 something i think part of what makes it seem so massive is

00:51:39.500 that in you know the the second floor the basement level has the same footprint as the

00:51:44.860 entire building so it doesn't look you don't quite realize that it's two usable stories there

00:51:50.880 um when when you go into it and because most of the community hall is the is in the basement

00:51:59.020 that still allows for the the the first floor not the basement floor to to have that like

00:52:05.220 vaulted ceiling going on and you know just have a massive amount of of airspace in it which you

00:52:14.100 know we will pay for when the heating bills are due but i'll try to be as responsible as i can

00:52:19.260 that without it destroying the building but um i do think it's going to be you know we'll need

00:52:25.500 donations to keep the place properly heated it's not going to be our least expensive one for the

00:52:29.660 utilities i don't think so um but it's yeah it 36 something square feet and and it shows you know

00:52:38.540 it's uh it's large and there's you know there's the two classrooms downstairs um uh one of them

00:52:46.540 we have finished into a kid's playroom the second larger one is still just basically

00:52:53.020 an overflow storage room but will be a library slash study slash lounge for the grown-ups

00:53:02.380 where you know of course we'll put a bookshelf and as many books as we can get our hands on we

00:53:07.900 you know i want to put a proper desk or several desks for for people to do real study and note

00:53:15.340 taking for for scholarly and you know devotional learning type activities um but also with you know

00:53:22.860 a few comfortable archie bunker kind of chairs or um love cedar something like that so people

00:53:29.900 can relax in there and it'll be the one room where you know where um the kids won't be allowed

00:53:36.700 to go without a grown-up it's gonna be you know the kids can go into the kids room to get away

00:53:42.460 from the grown-ups and the grown-ups can go into the grown-ups room to uh to to get away from them

00:53:49.340 and yes nick you're right i i mentioned it in person but i i want to literally have the uh the

00:53:55.340 the library desk lamps with the green lamp shade and the pull chain i want it to look the part you

00:54:03.340 know i think that aesthetics matter you know i i literally think people will study more seriously

00:54:09.580 with that lamp in there um and if not it looks cool and that's good enough for me there you go um

00:54:18.620 something else uh just worth worth noting it was very special to have

00:54:25.340 our founder steve mcnallan and his wife githya sheila mcnallan there for the dedication and

00:54:33.180 They both seemed very, very pleased with it. And that meant a lot, I think, to all of us.

00:54:41.560 It was great to have them out there. I know a lot of our members, this was the first time maybe

00:54:46.060 they've been able to meet them in person and speak with them, which was great. And, you know,

00:54:51.100 those of us who've interacted with them, you know, it was great to interact with them again.

00:54:58.520 Currently, where I'm out here, I interact with them, you know, once a month or so.

00:55:02.280 But it was great to have them out there to be part of it.

00:55:05.940 And it was, you know, even greater that they were proud and pleased with what we were doing.

00:55:13.040 Yeah, I think in the in the northeast area, especially.

00:55:18.980 Steve and Sheila hadn't been able to make it out to a winter nights for, I think, five years.

00:55:22.940 I think the last one they were at was Camp Natimus.

00:55:25.820 so um it's been some time um and you know i know they've been to um to to thorshoff and to njortsoff

00:55:35.920 but a lot of the folk up here haven't been able to get down to those so i know for a fact this

00:55:40.660 was the first meeting um of our founder and of githia mcnalen for a lot of the folk here and

00:55:47.860 it's greatly appreciated and was um you know really cool and i hope life-changing for a lot

00:55:54.460 them i think uh one of the things about founder mcnalon that um that struck me when i got to

00:56:02.860 know him personally and that i know it always comes up every time i talk to someone who's just

00:56:08.140 met him for the first time is how like he's this modern living austro hero right and when you meet

00:56:16.780 him it's it can be intimidating and there's this you know idea of who stephen mcnallan is that's

00:56:25.420 built up in our heads and then when you speak to him and realize that he is i mean this with

00:56:33.980 love and not disrespect but he is just a man that he has a sense of humor that you know

00:56:41.020 that he's fun to be around i think that's not that anyone thinks that he wouldn't be i just

00:56:44.860 think that that experience is something that isn't necessarily what people were expecting

00:56:49.100 you know they're they're expecting to be meeting this holy figure and um i don't think that people

00:56:57.580 often anticipate that it's going to be you know quite so chummy you know what i mean

00:57:04.300 well i think it's nice for people to get get a sense of the man and not just the myth

00:57:11.420 get a sense of you know his personality his sense of humor um he's always been you know a very

00:57:19.580 charismatic guy and getting you know getting to speak to him or to ask him questions or get

00:57:26.940 insight into you know who he is or why things are the way they are or why things

00:57:34.700 came to be the way they've come to be is i think a really special opportunity

00:57:41.420 So we could relive a bunch of stuff about it over and over again because it really was

00:57:50.960 a very, very special, very beautiful experience.

00:57:54.180 But I wanted to get to some questions that we have and then hopefully maybe share a little

00:58:00.140 bit more or get some more questions if they get generated on it.

00:58:06.140 Our audiovisual guys are putting together something cool and I'm looking forward to

00:58:10.760 when that comes out. They drove all the way across the country from Montana and they are

00:58:15.460 still not home due to the storms and things across the plains. So they made an epic journey

00:58:22.480 out there and are still on the way home from said journey. So to start on a light and frivolous

00:58:34.240 note what is the meaning of life according to your religion so asking the light the lightweight

00:58:41.600 questions first um cliff do you want to take a stab at what is the meaning of life

00:58:53.280 that life is good um you know i

00:58:56.800 life is now life is good and we shouldn't hesitate to live it um you know we don't like planning is

00:59:08.140 good but living to plan is not good you know being prepared is good but don't don't miss the

00:59:17.060 moment you want to make sure that you that you seize opportunity that that you savor the moment

00:59:23.060 And that the things that are beautiful in life, the things that are pleasurable in life, the things that are satisfying in life, those shouldn't be rejected.

00:59:36.200 It doesn't do you any good to starve yourself of the things that make you feel alive.

00:59:47.860 It's sort of like what we were talking about with the group photo, right?

00:59:50.500 So the best thing for the group photo would have been for me to, like, have a slot on the schedule for the group photo or to interrupt everyone's moment right after the dedication, right?

01:00:02.840 And to basically ruin that moment and get everybody together for the group photo when we had the most people there.

01:00:11.740 But it would have ruined the moment. 0.95

01:00:13.380 It would have been the Japanese tourist thing to do.

01:00:15.220 so um not that i thought of it and like bypassed it for any intentional reason i was in

01:00:21.980 that kind of awestruck moment myself but um

01:00:26.380 yeah like life is is to be lived like life is for the living um so the meaning of life is to

01:00:37.360 is to be good but to recognize that good is beautiful and you know to really

01:00:47.480 embrace the fact that our blood is pumping i guess i don't know if that makes sense but that's

01:00:56.040 that's what i think the meaning of life is in asa true um

01:01:00.660 yeah it's uh

01:01:05.380 i mean it's definitely a question worth asking it's one of those big questions of existence

01:01:13.320 um and i think that you know each religion in the world answers it in a different way and i think

01:01:24.180 there's the slogan answer and then i think there's kind of the meat and taters like

01:01:28.740 important answer so you know islam might say the meaning of life is submission to allah

01:01:38.560 because that's what islam means but i think if you asked a devout muslim his question

01:01:45.320 probably his answer would probably be deeper you know a christian might say faith in christ or

01:01:53.680 or or something it'd be easy to say that the meaning of life is loyalty to the icer because

01:02:00.460 again that's what austro means i think it is that but i think it's a little bit deeper of

01:02:06.060 an answer and i think it couples with with cliff's answer life is about

01:02:12.380 building fame and reputation

01:02:19.880 in you know the art of living a good life worthy of recognition by the Aesir and by your

01:02:30.860 descendants um I think one of the most fundamentals for any heroic uh man in the course of human

01:02:40.480 existence is that quest for immortality through deed through action through accomplishment

01:02:48.880 i think you only see with the with the uh advent of abrahamism that morphed into to something other

01:02:58.000 than that as a matter of fact they have to specifically admonish against that because

01:03:01.840 that's the natural condition is to want to be great to want to do great things and accomplish

01:03:08.080 things that are worthy of remembrance and of recognition of the gods and i think that's very much

01:03:16.800 encapsulates the also true meaning of life it's to seek greatness and worth in the eyes of your

01:03:24.560 family in the iser and that's done by embracing life and using your existence here in midgard

01:03:34.560 as your proving ground for who you are and what you can do worth remembrance and celebration

01:03:44.160 and you know sometimes for for many people that is can be writ larger or smaller but that concept

01:03:53.760 is important and that means seizing the time you have and the opportunities you have

01:03:59.040 to do things to accomplish to find victory

01:04:05.280 and that's the simple answer i think we could talk about the particulars of life's meaning for

01:04:09.920 you know forever and and not to be afraid is a really big thing what you know

01:04:18.160 sometimes the the christians or others will say that you know also true is fatalistic because of

01:04:23.840 you know not being afraid to to die but it's it's not that it's just being unafraid to live and

01:04:31.880 sometimes there's a certain element of risk there but it's not it's not the death that's the focus

01:04:39.780 of that um you know it's it's the reputation like ashir gothi matt said you you do what you're going

01:04:45.840 to do full-throated, and what happens, happens. Absolutely, and it's, that's much easier said

01:04:54.620 than done. Oh, also, ooh and ah over this horn. This is the special horn that Githya Katie carved

01:05:03.540 as a special commemorative Frazhoff dedication celebration horn. Beautiful carvings on it.

01:05:15.840 Painted with the unique and I think really pretty Frazhoff colors.

01:05:27.120 Next up.

01:05:28.100 So, okay, this is a good time to.

01:05:30.840 I was going to say they're gorgeous colors,

01:05:32.800 but you've got to use them with graphic design.

01:05:35.520 Oh, they're still pretty.

01:05:36.500 They just become a challenge.

01:05:38.500 But I appreciate that our graphic design team is up to the challenge.

01:05:42.700 They are.

01:05:43.140 So, and we will see, Witten Erickson, if you are up to the merchandising challenge that comes with it, because that can be a little bit trickier.

01:06:00.440 Where was I going? Oh, I was going to say this is a good time to mention both of these questions were emailed to us.

01:06:06.360 It's a question and answer driven program in large part.

01:06:09.340 If you have questions that you want answered, you can send them to us at any time at vns at runestone.org.

01:06:19.040 And we'd be happy to get to them the very next program that we get to.

01:06:26.240 So, as I said, next question.

01:06:30.260 How do you rectify other people's having other origin myths?

01:06:35.160 Someone has to be right.

01:06:36.340 cliff would you like to take the first stab at this sure so i don't really rectify it at all

01:06:44.980 um i don't discount the origin myths of of other ethnic religions it's just not important to me

01:06:53.980 um that doesn't mean that they're wrong and that i'm right or that um that they're right and i'm

01:06:59.600 wrong um i know and i'm only really interested in where my people came from um you know in terms of

01:07:12.200 of other pantheons of um you know little g gods or or other entities out there i don't discount

01:07:19.180 their existence um you know the the aesir and and the vanir are two families of gods that join

01:07:27.340 together um and there is an entire out guard out there that they know exists it's not really

01:07:35.000 important um what's out there that's the other but i don't you know i don't feel like i need to

01:07:42.920 justify asa true cosmology to to someone of any other faith um and and nor do i expect them to

01:07:51.400 justify their cosmology to me different peoples all come from different contexts and understandings

01:08:00.060 of the world so and also true you see a lot of references to mountains and ice and forests and

01:08:08.300 things that our ancestors were familiar with because that's how they understood the world

01:08:15.260 and they're describing a truth in the terms that they know how to use other peoples have different

01:08:24.380 origins and are made of the stuff of where they come from and the materials that their gods had

01:08:31.740 to work with i suppose yeah i think we get um first i appreciate the question i understand

01:08:41.500 And I understand the logical, like, struggle or impetus to try to make stuff all match

01:08:53.980 up because I think, I mean, that makes sense because we have a certain amount of shared

01:09:04.420 existence with other um with all the other creatures that occupy the earth with us and i

01:09:13.620 guess you know in that sense the universe but that's not the point of the war

01:09:21.380 and i think we also get a little bit confused naturally because our point of reference

01:09:28.180 are books by the abrahamists that are at you know at the price of death you accept

01:09:38.100 are the literal writings of their god um that's not the way that myth is in the rest of human

01:09:47.280 existence that's a particular abrahamic um understanding of of their particular mythos

01:09:54.000 So, we're not telling you that, you know, in the beginning there was a big giant, and then the giant got chopped up into pieces, and like, when I'm on the plane, I'm literally like, whoo, I'm flying through Amir's brains.

01:10:15.900 and i don't mean to make i don't mean to make light of the question but we often don't

01:10:21.020 think logically to that next step our ancestors had brains as large as us too you know they built

01:10:29.340 homes out of wood and ships out of wood they didn't literally think that the timber of their

01:10:35.260 ship was somehow a hair from a giant. They weren't stupid people. These are poetic ways of expressing 0.99

01:10:46.540 truth. And the truth wasn't meant objectively in the term of science. It was meant subjectively

01:10:56.140 in the term of our creation our race our gods our existence so it wasn't a scientific textbook

01:11:08.060 but truths are told in our origin story that are essential to how creation came about and how

01:11:19.740 we came about as as a race as a unique biological order of existence in midgard

01:11:32.140 you're not you don't have to believe in like the giant worlds of musful hame and and niflheim

01:11:41.900 you need to understand that you know there was there was cold and there was heat there was a primal

01:11:46.940 polarity of opposites and through their intermixing a quickening happened and order

01:11:56.660 and consciousness emerged in a long process there were primal forces that were immensely powerful

01:12:05.500 that were without will and consciousness and order from that came beings of order and of

01:12:16.140 consciousness that shaped the chaos of early existence and brought that chaos into order

01:12:25.320 those are our isere those same forces of order that found a chaotic and wild

01:12:33.200 primordial existence made it beautiful and ordered and structured with with laws of nature

01:12:42.540 and how things work and a system and a functioning that worked they then found existent things

01:12:52.440 exemplified by you know the the logs the driftwood that were asker and embla and they imbued those

01:13:02.400 things with the gifts of sentience and of of soul and of life and vigor and they made those things

01:13:13.920 us and over the course and the the expanse of time the gods taught us lessons and helped us

01:13:25.040 go from something very primal and brutish to something noble to kings to the amazing race

01:13:33.440 that our folk are that conquered the world that brought order to the far reaches of midgard that

01:13:41.280 built civilization and they did that through their instruction and their being with us

01:13:46.560 Thus, Heimdottler brought the knowledge of things to our people to ennoble them and progressively through the generations to make them the amazing Aryan race that we're all part of.

01:14:03.180 Those things are true and they're taught by our origin lore and our understanding of creation myth.

01:14:12.240 I don't pretend to be an expert on other groups of people's creation myths. I'm sure many of them have truths that are relevant and important to those folks. And I'm sure some of them are silly and not. And I'm sure there's probably a lot in between.

01:14:32.100 but that's how i reconcile those things um i don't think they're fighting for a scientific

01:14:41.140 truth i don't think that's the way that other that other faiths do things i think it is

01:14:48.640 particularly the way that the jews the christians and the muslims do things

01:14:54.280 so i do think they have to reconcile those truths did you know that um african and asian elephants

01:15:04.860 honor their dead when they're migrating they will recognize ancestral bones and they have

01:15:13.900 like a specific kind of ritual that they do they they approach these bones silently and like

01:15:22.140 kind of caress them with their trunks

01:15:24.420 and legs and smell

01:15:26.360 them and turn them over

01:15:28.120 and sort of like

01:15:29.480 will scatter them

01:15:32.040 gently

01:15:33.520 and

01:15:35.600 they will actually recognize 1.00

01:15:38.160 the matriarchs 1.00

01:15:40.200 in their families greater 0.80

01:15:42.240 than other deceased

01:15:44.360 elephants that they recognize.

01:15:45.920 So there's a

01:15:46.480 you know

01:15:47.860 there's a recognition

01:15:50.420 of of lineage and ancestry there and i would go so far as to say that they're that they're doing

01:15:55.760 something spiritual when they do that whether it's religion or not it's hard to say but the

01:16:01.760 reason i mentioned it is because what those elephants are doing is real like it is it's it's

01:16:09.340 primarily real it's not contaminated by anyone trying to teach them anything from the outside

01:16:15.700 and i don't need to justify ossitrut to those elephants and they don't need to justify their

01:16:23.380 ancestors bones to me and i think it's kind of the same thing like what what they're doing is real

01:16:28.980 and and what i'm doing is real and that that doesn't present a conflict in and of itself

01:16:34.980 no it doesn't um it doesn't and it certainly doesn't have to and it's not something that

01:16:41.300 i ever see attested to or that didn't seem to be such a conflict in world literature

01:16:53.780 except for when we read writings of christians interacting with other with other groups of

01:17:01.460 people you don't see that in ancient literature that's pre-christian about you know you don't

01:17:08.380 typically see that certainly between other races of people like having that existential struggle

01:17:16.240 like I have to be right or you can be right no we can be us and you can be you and that's fine both

01:17:24.120 of those things can be right for us individually because it wasn't a battle of scientific truth

01:17:29.720 it was a battle of moral truths of who we are and who they are and those doesn't have to be that

01:17:39.000 overlap it's not a astrophysics debate that's not like we can learn scientific truths from some of

01:17:46.600 the lore but that's not the the focus of it or the the purpose behind it yeah you see a little

01:17:54.440 bit of that in um you know in in old testament judaism where where the israelites are specifically

01:18:02.760 against other gods that they recognize as real but they simply want to destroy the worship of

01:18:10.120 um and sometimes the people that are worshiping them as well and you know to be completely

01:18:16.760 balanced about it tribal genocide was certainly germane to warfare um in in the bronze age

01:18:23.960 that's that's how it worked um and then i guess in the roman empire you see that but it's more

01:18:29.160 of a political tool the subservience of a pantheon of conquered people to the roman pantheon is

01:18:37.960 not so much a spiritual truth for them but a like a political recognition of conquered and conqueror

01:18:47.800 that because we conquered you our gods must be greater and so you owe jupiter the proper due

01:18:56.520 yeah but it's still even in that form and even in old testament judaism it doesn't pretend these

01:19:02.920 other gods don't exist and don't have power and don't do stuff it's saying my gods are better 0.94

01:19:09.160 than your gods not my gods are the gods and your gods don't exist you're you're silly it's no i'm 0.94

01:19:18.440 marching under the banner of my gods you're marching under the banner of your gods i win 0.94

01:19:23.800 therefore my gods are better or are stronger clearly they've you know imbued you know they've

01:19:30.840 given me victory over the the might of your gods but inherently in that it acknowledges

01:19:36.520 your gods exist and they have powers and those powers were not as you know as mighty as as the

01:19:41.560 powers of mars and that makes sense that's a much more authentic to humanity's existence position

01:19:50.120 then you know there are no such thing as you know the only god is jehovah that's not a

01:19:56.280 it's a very very recent understanding of that concept by a very select group of people um

01:20:03.320 I was on the wrong thing over here because something came up in the chat. Oh, just as a as a reflection on the chat. Primal Mike Kindred says, for years, I considered myself a traditionalist and wanted my practices to be ancestrally authentic.

01:20:22.540 The more I watch VNS, the more I realize authentic meant piety to me. I prefer piety now. I hope

01:20:29.980 that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. And I think it's where many of us start. And I don't

01:20:35.900 think it's a wrong place to start. So our founder, Steve McDowell, we had a little history

01:20:42.180 presentation that we're very blessed that he was there for. And in the early days when he was

01:20:49.220 founding the viking brotherhood which for folks that don't know is the predecessor

01:20:53.300 organization one of the predecessor incarnations of the astro folk assembly and

01:21:01.940 he didn't know what to do he didn't know what this is supposed to look like

01:21:04.820 as we were talking about there were this there was this group of men and women that were

01:21:09.380 given this dump of inspiration by the gods of

01:21:17.760 there is not this thing that is the worship of the iser in midgard there needs to be

01:21:27.520 that people are waking up bring them home what do you do with that what does that look like

01:21:34.160 and it takes a lot of different forms and i think that a kind of a starting point is

01:21:38.000 okay well let's make it look exactly like it did when it stopped being a thing what did this look

01:21:45.600 where do we leave off with this let's go back to there as our starting point

01:21:49.580 and that's there is a logic to that that makes a lot of sense and i don't fault that i think we

01:21:56.240 were all there i know i was there for a time and that's what you know people will chastise that

01:22:03.020 phase as Viking LARP. But trying to emulate the last people you knew who did something

01:22:10.580 right isn't something to be scoffed at. But not evolving it from that point kind of is.

01:22:20.100 So a lot of us start there and you want to be authentic and authentic a lot means recreating

01:22:24.760 something that other people did the exactly the way they did it as best we can. But then

01:22:31.360 you think like well what made what they were doing often it wasn't because they were emulating

01:22:36.640 somebody who'd come before them it was because they were being themselves in the most authentic

01:22:43.360 and true way of being you know ninth century vikings they weren't pretending they were cavemen

01:22:52.400 or bronze age you know celts or whatever or funnel beaker people they were being

01:22:59.360 themselves in the time that they lived and worshiping their gods with the piety they had 0.94

01:23:06.920 with the material culture and social culture that they had at the time and so you know i rebuff the

01:23:16.100 any accusation that the austral folk assembly is not authentically also true no we are absolutely

01:23:21.900 authentic because we don't have any pretense that we are something we're not or that we live in a

01:23:27.860 time that we don't our gods are eternal they've been with us since the beginning and they will

01:23:32.780 be with our descendants until the end of time until the end of you know existence and beyond

01:23:38.440 so our our faith should reflect who we are and should develop and grow and evolve and be relevant

01:23:48.720 to the people that live whenever that might be and i just thought that was a cool comment there

01:23:54.840 Yeah, please, Cliff.

01:23:56.200 So I think also, yeah, you mentioned how our ancestors didn't like LARP cavemen, right?

01:24:02.980 The Vikings were Iron Age people who did Iron Age things.

01:24:09.680 And, you know, looking at them as the last frame of reference is good.

01:24:15.540 Also, looking at things that came before them can help inform our religion.

01:24:19.660 and recognizing that what they were doing in that last, you know, century of, you know,

01:24:29.680 first generation Asatru, we'll call it for lack of a better term, you know, one big, long,

01:24:36.160 continuous, unbroken religion that evolved slowly over time, but that did evolve. There were changes

01:24:43.140 probably every single generation, something small changed through a retelling of a story or the way

01:24:48.800 that Agothi maintained his hof or something like that but then we have this thousand year

01:24:56.720 thousand plus year gap where we to to recognize tradition we can't just ignore that that thousand

01:25:04.280 years happened like that's part of our folks tradition as well that Christian era it matters

01:25:12.900 and there are people who mattered in that time and the you know the the whole history of modern

01:25:19.780 europe and of medieval europe it's all still that's all still also true like the people there

01:25:26.580 might not have been also true in in the sense that we mean it but they're part of our connection back

01:25:34.500 to the gods they're part of that unbroken you know chain of life that goes back to asker and embla

01:25:40.980 and that really gives us that kinship on with the ace here so even when people didn't know

01:25:47.940 the names of the gods when the folk had forgotten the gods the folk still existed and so

01:25:55.780 our experiences traumatic or otherwise during that time are also relevant to inform our modern

01:26:01.700 practice um you know sometimes we talk about you know gothic architecture and cathedrals right and

01:26:07.380 And how those are not expressions of Semitic religion.

01:26:14.220 Those are expressions of European religiosity.

01:26:18.280 And they have the wrong iconography on them because of what the folk who crafted them were taught, what they knew.

01:26:27.220 but that that that spirituality that's there in a gothic cathedral just as one example is

01:26:35.540 very european those are those are temples that are folk built and you know they were misled on

01:26:41.760 who to build them to but that stuff matters and and and it's i think it's right to incorporate

01:26:48.820 that stuff into our modern practice and that it would be a traditional not to because you can't

01:26:55.100 just skip 25 generations, and pretend like it never happened.

01:27:02.980 Absolutely. And that's, I mean, that's part of the process of

01:27:08.900 our faith maturing over time. And that's, that's proper again, I

01:27:15.140 don't, it's easy to get on the bandwagon and to criticize, but

01:27:21.980 I get, I get the earlier missteps or, you know, confusion or places, we all start from

01:27:30.260 a different spot.

01:27:31.080 And I think there's a certain, we should have a certain amount of grace and understanding

01:27:39.000 that we grant some folks of, you know, everybody starts somewhere.

01:27:44.900 And I think a lot of us who've done this for a long time recognize similar things that

01:27:50.600 we maybe assumptions that we may have started with that we've learned you know we've learned

01:27:59.160 how it really is or how it ought to be over time and over experience and there's some people that

01:28:05.920 you know haven't had the opportunity to have that yet and I welcome and invite those people to come

01:28:10.760 and you know experience how it's true with us and grow with us I still have my tunic up in my closet

01:28:17.040 upstairs i did this dreadful thing for a while a tunic and a tie i called it trying to fuse the

01:28:22.960 two things didn't really work too well but i gave it a go you know there's some cool tunics i'm not

01:28:28.640 anti tunic it's funny because like uh dressing like a viking doesn't mean dressing like a priest

01:28:39.440 and i think sometimes that's odd i think some kind of viking age inspired liturgical

01:28:47.660 garment isn't inappropriate at all as a matter of fact there's a number of really cool ones

01:28:53.260 steve had a really really cool one that's in the slideshow that i like a lot and i wouldn't

01:28:58.180 find that off-putting at all um in a in a religious context for a gothi or an ulterior

01:29:05.380 gothi to wear and uh yarmendra ingi he had a really nice one that i wish had a picture of on hand

01:29:14.020 um he was very excited he designed the um the clerical outfit that uh their gothar wear

01:29:26.260 um but he had a real special one made for him that was that was cool looking and i'd like to

01:29:32.900 go ahead and find find the picture that I think Chris Savage has that picture somewhere but I

01:29:37.220 thought that was really cool too. So yeah, there's a little different there. Um, he also at the same

01:29:44.020 time though dressed really snazzy. Yeah, pictures of him as like a clothing model. Yeah, he was

01:29:51.460 known for or he is known for being a sharp dressed gentleman. He is he is still this side of the

01:29:59.620 veil but he's a very old man and largely he's lives a less public life than he once lived

01:30:05.780 um but yeah absolutely um so the next question is an interesting one and it led to a couple

01:30:15.140 side questions earlier on in the evening um is there an outsider equivalent of proverbs 31

01:30:22.340 that explains how women ought to act the have them all gives a lot of advice to men

01:30:28.100 along with general advice for all people but it's limited for women in specific

01:30:36.580 cliff let's say you i don't know if there i mean there probably are but i can't think off the top

01:30:42.900 of my head of specific like verses or chapters from uh an edda or saga that would be equivalent to

01:30:52.900 that song but i i think that the um the idea of the noble lady of fruer frau is there throughout

01:31:03.460 all of it that um the if if you read them as a whole there's a concept of noble ladyship if you

01:31:14.220 will that is there like i said throughout um you know the fact that um

01:31:22.540 that the women were the frith weavers that there should be an element of of self-reliance to them

01:31:31.660 um that um the the women in in the sagas um are generally courageous um and they have a very

01:31:43.100 very strong sense of honor in particular when it comes to their families um i think those are things

01:31:51.380 that um that are important to to womanhood in asitru although um you know this is one where

01:32:01.300 i wish githia katie were here she would probably have um some some interesting things to add to the

01:32:05.920 conversation yeah um so again some of this

01:32:14.880 comes from the difference in also true to uh to christianity or to judaism with um with proverbs

01:32:26.680 there and it's not a this is not a better or worse it just is it is very handy to have things

01:32:38.840 like proverbs proverbs is cool i when i was a christian i think proverbs was one of the

01:32:45.240 coolest books of the bible because it does lay out like useful stuff in a way it's similar to

01:32:52.280 the have them all because it's again a book of like here's these little chunks of these little

01:32:58.280 nuggets of applicable wisdom to different circumstances but that's irregular in the

01:33:04.280 lore that we have and it would be awesome if our ancestors gave us more material like that

01:33:10.280 or if you know perhaps over time we produced more material like that um what we do have

01:33:17.240 so much more of our faith isn't a sit down and read faith it was a taught faith

01:33:28.280 the written language came very late to our ancestors specifically to the norsemen who wrote

01:33:35.160 down our lore so a lot of our religion was taught verbally it was an oral tradition that was

01:33:43.800 disseminated amongst the people spoken in the courts of of kings and jarls um and

01:33:51.480 shared generally generationally by the gothar

01:33:57.640 the best place for modern people to look for written examples of expectation of

01:34:04.920 also true ladies is and i saw over in the chat that witten uh witten facet mentioned

01:34:13.800 I mentioned Beowulf and Queen Wilthio, she embodied a lot of that and is an exemplar of female behavior. But the best work on that that I've seen is The Lady with the Mead Cup.

01:34:30.840 That is a very good book. I would encourage everyone to read that. It leans heavily on Beowulf along with a couple of other examples, but if you read our sagas and you read our lore, you pick up on themes of things that are thought good for our women and noble and things worthy of emulation and things that were negative.

01:34:59.700 It defines femininity in a very, the Ostav and Merkstav fashion.

01:35:06.400 They're a very light side, the best of what women can do, 0.90

01:35:11.100 and then the worst of what treacherous or evil women can do. 0.86

01:35:17.040 And you mentioned the Havemol, it cautions men against bad workings of women a lot.

01:35:27.080 and i think that's valid caution for you know men to heed but our lord talks a lot about the virtues

01:35:35.960 of of a noble woman and their bearing and how they ought to be in ways that they strengthen

01:35:43.880 and reinforce custom reinforce um admonishing and urging men to write action um urging men

01:35:55.400 to do their duty and not shrink from their duty and i think those things again those things are

01:36:01.240 in many places in our lore you find snippets of them in the sagas often very particularly you

01:36:07.720 find them in the story of beowulf and also um one of our heroes uh one of our two i believe heroines

01:36:20.600 uh queen sigra there she exemplifies a woman's dignity and stalwartness for the faith

01:36:31.160 and for you know doing the right thing and i think her story is informative

01:36:35.560 on two virtues of womanhood within ausentrum

01:36:40.760 there he is fun fact queen sigra was in the running for consideration for phrase half half hero 0.96

01:36:49.720 um but i went in the direction i did to uh not stack too many uh feminine shrines into the uh 0.99

01:37:02.040 the ds that is actually one of the things that edged her out because we were going to be 0.98

01:37:08.520 specifically including the the shrine to freya and to uh to to go there so

01:37:13.960 so i i noticed a heresy in the chat it is a it is a half joking one but i really want to

01:37:25.640 there's somebody saying they prefer the animated version of beowulf

01:37:30.520 don't do that it misses the point and the meat of the actual story and it infuses a bunch of

01:37:38.520 pieces to the story that aren't there it really does fundamentally change the story

01:37:45.560 and i think it's very important to read and be familiar with the the actual text um

01:37:54.600 so yeah i would strongly advise against the animated beowulf as it really changes the

01:38:01.480 meaning of the story and kind of to go on that cliff do you have a

01:38:07.080 best translation or a preferred translation of beowulf i really don't to be honest um

01:38:16.360 i don't remember which translation it was that i first read when it was assigned to me in high

01:38:20.600 school um since then i've read a few others and i don't i don't have a favorite um

01:38:27.560 i don't i'm not familiar at all with the animated beowulf so i guess good on me if it's yeah good

01:38:39.160 i they take a lot of liberties with the story and make it about stuff it's not about

01:38:46.200 they you know make it about misdeeds of beowulf coming back to haunt him and they add a whole

01:38:53.480 sexual element that's not there and they they use the original story as a very loose

01:39:01.300 backdrop to tell an entirely different morality tale that's not you know that's not the story

01:39:08.060 there are a lot of different beowulf movies and a lot of reinterpretations of beowulf out there

01:39:15.020 some better than others but almost all of them fall short and don't include the whole story

01:39:20.280 they tend to focus on the first half almost always it's always about Beowulf and Grendel

01:39:25.300 which is the name of one of those movies that's actually okay but it doesn't really

01:39:29.340 it still misses the point of a lot of it I think yeah so the Seamus Heaney version is the one I'm

01:39:36.940 most familiar with but I you know I don't have any big position on that being you know a better

01:39:44.920 or worse translation than others that's the one i'm probably most familiar with but i you know any

01:39:52.360 actual attempt at a real translation you know i think is probably going to get you close but that's

01:39:58.440 it's the best i have on a on a translation recommendation

01:40:03.720 yeah that's one of the the newer ones that that i've read um but there's

01:40:08.360 you can think of the beowulf there's there's a lot of translations too so if you're gonna

01:40:13.400 watch a movie and get far afield get the like christopher lambert version that's like

01:40:22.040 sci-fi future craziness um is that the one where he falls to the earth in a millimeter-shaped

01:40:29.720 spaceship man i don't that's probably a different one i haven't seen that in a long time um

01:40:39.560 yeah i haven't seen that in quite a while and it's not good uh

01:40:45.560 if i may ask what is the relationship between the afa and raven folk united

01:40:50.520 i saw ron mcman with them so ravenfolk united is the result of a skinhead coup attempt

01:41:03.640 by traitorous people within the afa they had intended to take over the afa

01:41:09.640 and do afa stuff but skinhead style and it was unsuccessful so they broke off

01:41:18.920 and tried to take as many members as they could with them through uh lies and and uh treachery

01:41:27.800 and probably you know a lot of well-meaning people who were were tricked in that i don't

01:41:34.920 i don't know the ratio there but they are absolutely enemies of the astro folk assembly

01:41:41.240 and antithetical to to who we are as people i say that their leadership again there's probably

01:41:47.320 well-meaning members that don't know any better and i understand that they uh so ron mcvan is a

01:41:55.160 is a an honorary afa member um i think that he is you know on uh an elderly gentleman at this

01:42:05.560 point who has been out of you know active public participation announced a true for a pretty long

01:42:11.560 time and i think he's probably very happy to you know say hi and be in a picture with whoever

01:42:18.040 wants to come by and you know say hi to him i think he's very easy to use as a uh like a

01:42:30.280 propaganda football to like look here's us with a picture with ron he clearly supports what we're

01:42:35.400 doing i think he is a well-meaning older man that's just not really paying attention to a lot of

01:42:43.240 how alstra true has developed over the last you know 30 years i think he's just happy to

01:42:49.720 to have fellowship with people who come and extend a hand of friendship and want to

01:42:55.320 do stuff with him and i think you know i would not ever want to try to take advantage of that

01:43:02.680 That, you know, he's our guy. 0.97

01:43:04.280 He says you suck because here he's in a picture with us. 0.99

01:43:07.600 I don't want to do that. 0.99

01:43:10.160 I can't really claim their intentions on it,

01:43:14.220 but I worry that that gets done with them sometimes.

01:43:19.080 Cliff, do you have anything to add on that?

01:43:25.180 A lot of the leadership that you mentioned

01:43:27.480 And were oath folk builders of the Ossetree Folk Assembly, were ordained clergy of the Ossetree Folk Assembly, or had already failed in those capacities.

01:43:42.080 So, you know, frankly, for me, Craven Folk United is a collection of failed leaders.

01:43:54.120 They either had failed already and then latched on to this as a way to to lift themselves up in a way that they were not able to be successful for real.

01:44:08.280 um or um who straight up while currently in an oath hold to our alishir gothi and the austral folk

01:44:19.280 assembly um we're we're treacherous we're we're we're straight up traitors there's no other way

01:44:27.920 to say it i don't like to throw around the term oath breaker but that's what happened in the most

01:44:33.180 visceral way it wasn't just failing in oaths it was outright betrayal of oaths and um

01:44:42.620 there's a place of need hogs belly for some of them yeah it's you know it's one of those things 0.95

01:44:49.760 and they'll tell you a very different story but it was done in such an artificial and treacherous 0.89

01:44:57.260 way it was absolutely a a coup attempt that they had planned for some time and it you know hit a

01:45:05.740 lot of us like a ton of bricks certainly me personally it was you know just such a such

01:45:12.300 a shady thing to do but i think there was a culture clash in the afa for some time um

01:45:18.300 I had tried very hard to evolve the practice of Alcetru in a noble way, in an upstanding

01:45:30.940 and a pious way, and there was a lot of resistance from, specifically from the skinhead community

01:45:38.400 who wanted to, and I'm trying to, I'm trying to be fair, because the people who ask the

01:45:45.980 question um have a legitimate thing and it'd be easy just to say mean things about people who i

01:45:52.260 really dislike but um i think there was a thing like people didn't want to dress nicely they

01:45:57.540 didn't they thought the afa was getting too churchy and they wanted to and i don't think

01:46:03.440 that i'm being incorrect in this they wanted to basically have you know a skinhead kegger

01:46:10.080 that was i guess viking themed um and i think a lot of them were torn between two worlds like

01:46:20.880 they wanted to do this and do this right and they saw the success the afa was having and they wanted

01:46:25.860 to be a part of that success but they were very very used to and had come up in this skinhead

01:46:31.680 culture that was their comfort zone and i think there was a constant battle between them

01:46:39.380 becoming more and ennobling themselves or them sinking back into what was comfortable and

01:46:46.100 you know they ultimately chose to sink back into what was comfortable but try to

01:46:51.060 you know emulate or make their own version of what was successful and can't really have the

01:46:58.520 one without the other and I don't think it's worked out very well um but yeah they it's sad

01:47:06.460 but unfortunately it did help for us to evolve without the impediment of people that were stuck 1.00

01:47:15.100 in a you know a churlish and degenerate state of being that they were unable or unwilling to

01:47:23.980 pull up from and try to be better than there's a certain irony in the world view that they were

01:47:30.940 claiming to espouse and what they actually wanted to um you know what you had was people who

01:47:39.900 at least claimed national socialism but were demanding a vote in things you had the way that

01:47:48.300 they set up their organization after the fact is sort of this like college of co-equals it

01:47:55.420 it to me strikes as like you haven't read the source materials for what you're claiming to

01:48:00.940 for the philosophy that you're claiming whether that philosophy is right or wrong

01:48:06.260 is a material they clearly haven't read it and don't understand it um there's just no

01:48:12.100 no recognition or or respect for the the furor principle and what they were doing there and also

01:48:19.060 So, you know, like, like Asher Gauthier, Matt referred to, it may seem easy for us to just

01:48:25.320 bad mouth, you know, people who, you know, don't have a box on the screen here to defend

01:48:31.300 themselves.

01:48:31.660 But just some anecdotal things that happened over that midsummer weekend, they canceled.

01:48:38.740 They managed to get canceled to different venues for events that the AFA was going to

01:48:43.440 be having in upcoming months.

01:48:44.720 they canceled a bunch of hotel reservations to the midsummer at odenshof that was happening

01:48:52.380 concurrent to their attempt to do this um you know there were there were oh and they and they had a

01:49:00.960 backup camp ready to go reserved for all the people that they were going to try to take with

01:49:07.300 them that they ended up going to so that all of that is premeditation this isn't just that there

01:49:13.460 was some i'm inspired by virtue and i have to stand up to matt the tyrant in the moment thing

01:49:21.860 going on there was pre-planning of this treachery flag and shirts and like merchandise is ready to

01:49:30.820 go the same day yeah it was you know it was very much a premeditated thing that they were

01:49:37.060 either going to rest control of the australia folk assembly from alisher gothy matt flavel

01:49:42.980 or they had a backup plan ready to go and craven folk united is is is the result of that and if

01:49:52.500 you look at what they have it very much is this sort of like college of co-equal self-appointed

01:49:58.260 goethies um there's really no standard for anything and you know i'm sure that matt and

01:50:07.220 i are going to get flamed by them for for saying this stuff in you know in an open forum like this

01:50:14.020 but i don't think either one of us really cares no no but that is you know trying to

01:50:21.300 answer your question that's the i think the best we've we've got on that but so

01:50:27.860 So I guess, you know, if we got more questions, we'll answer them.

01:50:37.820 We don't as of yet, but with the time that we have, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, what's next.

01:50:46.580 Something that's really important to me is to, you know, continue the progress of things.

01:50:53.760 Victory never sleeps.

01:50:55.360 We don't want to rest on our laurels.

01:50:57.040 we accomplish phrase Hoff cool now what's next so what's next in the lineup of AFA I guess

01:51:08.160 campaigns or efforts or things that we're working towards is going to be tiers Hoff

01:51:15.760 one of the cool things about each Hoff that we get is we learn things each time

01:51:22.320 we learn and develop you know a system of how this works what works well what we would do

01:51:29.960 differently what that looks like and I think we saw that at phrase off a lot um you know they

01:51:36.420 were doing a food pantry before dedication which was awesome for two months so they're already on

01:51:42.520 you know a certain amount of good footing with the community there's you know how this works

01:51:48.400 what we do, how we set it up, how we do a dedication, how we do all those things, which is

01:51:53.680 awesome. All of that will serve us well as we do progressively more Hoffs. So Tears Hoff is going to

01:52:02.560 be our sixth Hoff and that Hoff will be on the Sigurheim property in Jackson County, Tennessee.

01:52:10.800 there it will be a really unique experience for us because for the first time instead of

01:52:20.960 instead of purchasing an existent property and repurposing it

01:52:25.620 this will be built from the ground up as a hoff to lord tier and that's a very very special and

01:52:37.240 very weighty opportunity to do something very intentional and to do something very ambitious.

01:52:49.240 So we got a number of plans in the works. I'm working with people now to try to find folks that

01:52:54.920 have the necessary skills and professional abilities to help make the vision into something

01:53:05.080 that's that's real and that's tangible um a couple of rando things that i wanted to say up about it

01:53:18.360 it would be we're at a point with afa membership to where we have a wide array of skill sets

01:53:27.000 amongst our members both in terms of you know hobby skill sets but also in terms of

01:53:34.440 people who are professionally in a number of trades that are very relevant to what we're trying to do

01:53:40.120 so one thing to know about tiershof is at that complex there will be

01:53:46.520 tiershof and there will also be the afa's great hall now tiershof is by itself going to be

01:53:56.120 the vey the worship space for lord tier so it's not going to have the same facilities as far as

01:54:04.040 dining and cooking and bathrooms and you know showers and multi-purpose area and whatever else

01:54:10.600 that's coming when the hall is built so the hof is itself going to just be the worship space

01:54:17.560 for tier which you know is has its advantages but it also has you know some rethinking on

01:54:26.800 how we're doing things other thing to be said about it hopefully and this is my plan

01:54:32.120 and I'll keep you guys informed as plans develop I would like for AFA members to be able to

01:54:41.080 put in and do as much of the construction as we can. Now, I'm

01:54:47.080 not that guy. I don't have much construction skills. I'm happy

01:54:49.880 to, to help and to do what I can, but I'm relying on finding

01:54:55.080 our membership who have the relevant skills and getting them

01:54:59.880 engaged in making this happen. But I also want backup plans in

01:55:05.080 place to where we can engage outside professionals to do

01:55:09.480 things, you know, whatever degree of things we might need

01:55:13.260 assistance, or we might need done for us that way. So planning

01:55:18.000 very much with that in mind. Again, as we get closer, there's

01:55:25.020 going to be more of the vision that I want to articulate about

01:55:29.580 it. But one thing I did want to mention, and this is as good,

01:55:35.880 good a time as any, as I want to talk a little bit about the

01:55:41.760 rune for tears off, which is kinas, or count. And it's it's

01:55:51.480 interesting, because it always has like two possible meanings

01:55:55.980 when you want to read about the room. The one that people tend

01:56:03.780 to gravitate towards and i did too for the most of my time being in alsatur is the torch

01:56:12.500 but there's like one attested reference to it being a torch in uh the rune poem linguistically

01:56:21.140 and you know traditionally the most prevalent meaning of it is like an like a festering

01:56:30.020 ulcerated wound like a burning ulcered wound and that always seemed kind of gross

01:56:37.700 and the uh the torch seemed way cooler and more inspirational

01:56:42.020 now the meaning of inspiration is the same but one thing that

01:56:50.980 has been revealed to me or i've come to understand

01:56:54.900 is the idea of kinas as literally a burning fire within that ulcerates a burning

01:57:07.040 inferno of inspiration that has to be expressed that has to be acted upon or else it will

01:57:17.380 literally burned from the inside out and ulcerate um the literal fire in the belly to accomplish

01:57:27.860 to do to manifest i think that's really important and it's something that i realized profoundly that

01:57:36.660 that's the most visceral way that our gods speak to me and bless me with their inspiration

01:57:49.420 is with these, you know, burning needs to do certain things in certain ways or to express

01:58:02.840 certain things or to accomplish certain things that drive towards accomplishment and towards

01:58:09.040 victory. And the, the vision of what that victory looks like is something that I truly believe is

01:58:15.640 an inspirational gift and directive from the Aesir that I'm very grateful for. And it's special to me

01:58:25.680 in this process leading up to the construction and dedication of Tiershoff.

01:58:34.360 So got some ideas that I think are very important for it that I'm going to put forth in the coming,

01:58:42.940 you know, months, I suppose. That's another thing about Tiershoff that I think people should

01:58:51.000 gear up for. I think that the payoff of Frazehoff is going to come faster than other people realize,

01:58:59.020 which also means that the groundbreaking of Tiershoff is also going to come faster than

01:59:03.340 some folks might expect. So I'm working with folks now. There are plans to put in place to

01:59:09.860 make happen. And as that takes shape, I'll tell you guys a little bit more. I'm right. There's

01:59:14.680 going to be an article in the upcoming RuneStone that I apologize, guys, coming out a little bit

01:59:18.920 late this month because the folks behind it were taking time to be at the dedication during

01:59:25.540 normally when it's published. So it's running a little bit late this month, but that will be

01:59:30.120 getting out to you in the next couple of days. And that'll have a little bit more information

01:59:34.300 about where we're at. Yeah, our producer Nick also produces that runestone and he is currently

01:59:41.400 diseased. So, but work's getting put in. We're going to make that happen. But I just want to

01:59:47.220 share that we have a minute okay so question did come up um it's a rather open-ended question but

01:59:59.200 i'm curious about hymenia cliff you have thoughts about hymenia sure so for anyone who's not

02:00:08.900 familiar with hymenia it is it's part of our soul um it is the part of our soul that is

02:00:16.020 our our luck or the personification of luck as a sort of guardian spirit um

02:00:26.200 we can inherit hymenia um we can share hymenia and um i think that especially in the asa true

02:00:37.020 folk assembly we do share um a group hominia as far as the you know the the luck that we are

02:00:45.920 building up it's um it's sort of partial it's partially inherited because where you come from

02:00:53.460 and what your ancestors have done before um that is transferred to you but also um it's something

02:01:00.780 that you can build up it's something that you can fortify and um and it's something that you can just

02:01:07.340 inexplicably be blessed with too um and you know that's perhaps the inherited part that part is

02:01:15.640 harder to understand in some cases i think there may you know maybe situations where you just don't

02:01:21.660 understand why somebody seems to have such good luck um and it's probably something that their

02:01:28.280 ancestors have done for them if it doesn't appear like there's anything in their life that

02:01:32.200 that makes that make sense but it is also you know it is very much something that you can

02:01:38.840 intentionally build up through through right action through devotion to the acer through

02:01:46.600 physical fitness and mental fitness you can increase your chances of being successful

02:01:51.760 in any scenario by simply being better prepared um you know it's um

02:01:59.920 you know the the person who is on a boat that sinks um you know some people might say that the

02:02:08.620 you know the person who's able to swim back to shore was was luckier but they weren't lucky by

02:02:12.620 accident they were lucky because they were a better swimmer so um that's that's my understanding of

02:02:23.420 herminia it is um it's something to be careful with i think that you know our our law speaker

02:02:32.940 has emphasized this a number of times we need to be careful about casually sharing our luck with

02:02:38.540 others our harmony with others and in our modern culture there's definitely sort of this casualness

02:02:44.380 about you know saying things like good luck or oh that's my lucky day um and those sort of things

02:02:52.380 are are difficult to train out of our daily speech um you know much like saying weird in

02:02:59.260 um an impious way is difficult to train out of your speech or just trying to teach yourself to

02:03:04.380 not cuss if you happen to be a cusser you you have to really pay attention to your words but i think

02:03:12.060 words are really important they can make things manifest in the world deeds can make things more

02:03:19.900 manifest but words do matter and especially when talking about something magical or spiritual like

02:03:28.460 um you don't want to be casual with it

02:03:34.380 Yeah, so in a, specifically in our modern context, Hymenia differs from luck in the sense that it's a shared thing.

02:04:00.500 so when i welcome people to the astro folk assembly i mentioned that they are joining

02:04:08.020 in the afa's hymenia their luck is added to our luck and ideally the one is strengthened by the

02:04:17.820 other you know and vice versa cliff mentioned that your hymenia is shared by your family and

02:04:27.500 And I think in the most common usage, there is a familial luck that you are a custodian or an inheritor of that you pass on to future generations or that you share with them in the sense of, you know, you, your wife, your parents, your children, perhaps your grandparents.

02:04:48.940 if they're living you guys all have a certain amount of shared responsibility for that luck

02:04:54.840 and then it goes you know into the future hopefully stronger than when you got it

02:05:01.240 um but luck in our common parlance in 2025 is thought of as like a like a random happenstance

02:05:17.160 but it's not it's a built up I guess one of the best one of the better ways that I've thought of

02:05:27.340 to express it is a built up momentum towards something if you have built poor luck and you

02:05:35.660 have a poor hymenia, then you are nudged towards bad fortune or towards failure, all things being

02:05:48.980 equal. If you have a good hymenia, you are nudged or set on a momentum towards success with the

02:05:59.380 endeavors you engage in and more likely to find success in the in your endeavors if you have a

02:06:06.580 powerful hymenia it's like a it's like a force there's something about you in the role that

02:06:12.360 you're on that you know it can seem unstoppable or it can seem you know a foregone conclusion that

02:06:18.760 you're going to accomplish all you set out to do and we see stories about that in our lore and in

02:06:25.780 history all the time of people that seem to have an overwhelming power about them that shifts the

02:06:32.380 course of events and this was thought to be a virtue by our ancestors and certainly it is

02:06:38.880 there are certain people that victory just follows because they are

02:06:43.120 their hymenia is their luck is overwhelming and is mighty and when that's shared by a group of

02:06:51.100 people that's that's hymenia and you're a steward of it i mean your your hymenia is built through

02:06:57.900 a consistent or an inherited amount of right action and doing the right things and building

02:07:05.040 a momentum through victory and through accomplishment and through reputation and

02:07:09.540 through consistency of character and consistency of deed and through effort and if you do a lot

02:07:15.960 of those things, you will find that you have a momentum towards success. And if you inherit

02:07:24.960 poor hymenia, if your parents are not good people, if you come from a line of people that have not

02:07:35.160 been honorable or not been successful or have been losers, then it's like you're fighting a

02:07:40.500 headwind to accomplish things in life. But take heart on that, because if you are, you have a

02:07:47.020 particular opportunity for heroism and success. It is truly heroic to be able to overcome

02:07:56.240 poor Hymenia, to take yourself from the negative and end up creating something in the positive.

02:08:04.020 that is a that is a heroic effort and that's why it's you know that's one reason why viscerally

02:08:11.440 we see such a nobility in the underdog story is because they're fighting a headwind and still

02:08:20.880 able to overcome and that's that's a special thing and it's a special opportunity

02:08:26.040 um so we've got a new hoff they've got mottos yeah does phrasehoff have a motto to work by

02:08:38.380 certainly it does cliff what is phrasehoff's motto and why so phrasehoff motto is by our good names

02:08:48.120 and uh that is derived from the kindred oath of the keystone true folk i um followed the lead of

02:08:59.540 thor's hof where the uh the thor's hof motto comes from the the iron guard kindred that

02:09:07.220 preceded that hof and in a lot of ways was the the seed for that hof and um in the in the keystone

02:09:16.160 true folk oath um the wording isn't exactly the same but after we've said the various things

02:09:24.320 in the oath we would state by my own good name by my family name by my gods and by my descendants i

02:09:31.760 so swear it and so by our good names is a collective a collectivization of that concept and

02:09:40.800 And that is that for those of us who are involved in running and helping to dedicate Frasehoff

02:09:50.740 and for everyone who will attend there, we are practicing Ossetru openly

02:09:58.180 and we are willing to stake our names on it,

02:10:00.760 that our reputations are the reputations of Frasehoff

02:10:05.640 and that our reputations will reflect, reflect rather, on, on Freyer. And I think that's

02:10:13.540 important. You know, we, we talk about practicing Asatru openly. We talk about, um, you know,

02:10:23.700 and some of this stuff we don't talk about as much anymore, but maybe we should, you know, 0.74

02:10:26.840 wearing your hammer on the outside of your shirt and, um, you know, being Asatru all the time,

02:10:34.580 not just on the third Saturday of a month when when you're at bloat at a hof and 0.53

02:10:41.540 and that's what that motto is is is meant to encompass that

02:10:47.340 that we're willing to stake our own reputation side

02:10:58.420 yeah I think that's a really

02:10:59.860 I mean, as if the others aren't, but I think that's a really, I don't know, poignant or

02:11:06.840 important one. And I think it goes, it's really weird that it pairs with our last question so well.

02:11:20.340 Final question of the night. Is there an AFA community in Texas?

02:11:29.860 No, but there are many AFA members in Texas, so Texas is a conundrum.

02:11:38.980 We have several members in Texas, it's a big state, but we have, I'm going to pull up the

02:11:45.040 member map here, we have a, like, we have groups, we have members spread out through

02:11:58.940 a lot of the state. The very far, like El Paso, West Texas, relatively few. A lot of our, most of

02:12:09.280 our Texas members would be in eastern Texas, in the eastern half of the state. Some are in the

02:12:13.800 middle, but like if you drew a line down the center, most of them are in the eastern half of

02:12:17.720 the state. We've got a relatively good-sized group, and it's not more than relative. We've

02:12:24.560 a good size group in the Dallas Fort Worth area we've got another little grouping in the Austin

02:12:30.160 area and we've got another grouping around you know within driving distance of the Houston area

02:12:38.880 we would love to have a healthy community in Texas

02:12:46.960 and that would be wonderful to have we've wanted that for a while Texas is a tough nut to crack

02:12:54.560 But I think there's a lot of potential there. It's where our founder's from, and I think a lot can be built and grown there. But what we need is stable membership, and we need leadership in Texas.

02:13:07.420 We need a folk builder to volunteer to build something in Texas and to host things consistently, to invite people to show up at the things they host, and to put in the momentum to build a community there over time.

02:13:25.380 And I'm very confident that if we had somebody who was willing to do those things and work with the rest of AFA leadership to make Texas shine, there is a lot of potential to be had there.

02:13:40.600 We have had flaky people in Texas, unfortunately.

02:13:43.420 one of our ex-clergy men that has since become part of the Ravensfolk United ilk

02:13:54.020 was originally in Texas for a minute.

02:13:57.300 He was committed and on board and going to do big things,

02:14:00.380 and then he fell by the wayside, unfortunately.

02:14:03.560 But there was a time when we were in contemplation for Njordshoff

02:14:07.180 where I want to say near Galveston,

02:14:11.260 we were very much considering hoff in texas we're considering new york's hoff might have been on the

02:14:17.660 the gulf coast in texas there so i think there's a lot of opportunity there if you are somebody in

02:14:23.980 texas that wants to find afa community if you're willing to do some things that's something we've

02:14:30.060 very much got our eye on and we'd love to see some stuff happen can i give you up i love you

02:14:36.700 see you in the morning okay okay um with that we have one more question but it's easy because it's

02:14:49.900 what we just said uh we got what does it say on the freres off flag it says the motto that we just

02:14:54.620 mentioned by our good names also teaser uh nick if you haven't thrown it up already or even if you

02:15:03.980 have can you put up the uh logo for tiershoff there you go so we're we're working on tiershoff um

02:15:15.260 that's coming we we've ambitiously said it's coming in the 2020s

02:15:20.220 and i think over the next four years we can probably make that happen um but yeah we're

02:15:27.820 very excited to see that happening and we are on to that like i said there'll be a little bit more

02:15:31.820 about that in the upcoming edition of the runestone um cliff's fiddling with his lapel pin so i don't

02:15:40.220 know if he's doing a show and tell for us or if he will be yep okay so before we before we go for

02:15:46.140 the night i wanted to just tease out there that um phrasehoff merchandise including this mighty fine

02:15:53.660 pin um will be available on our store most likely tomorrow night um i need to go back to phrase off

02:16:02.620 after the the dedication to do a proper inventory that's where our our web store is is housed

02:16:08.540 currently and um before i put the things up onto the website i wanted to make sure i had the

02:16:14.140 inventory correct because i don't want to tease people and sell them stuff that maybe was sold

02:16:19.740 out at the dedication so look for an announcement tomorrow about new stuff on the store there will

02:16:27.900 be some books there will be the phrase half flag phrase half shirts and the phrase half pin that

02:16:33.020 i just showed you and um and more to come after that but i needed the inventory count to be

02:16:38.620 correct before i could put that up because i i don't want to have to communicate with you about

02:16:43.100 refunds or delays or anything like that. Excellent. So because Cliff put it out there,

02:16:51.820 this is the guy right here. If you are ordering stuff from the store, if you have store questions,

02:16:57.260 store complaints, store opinions and thoughts, this is the man to send them to. If you send them

02:17:04.460 to me, it just means I'm going to send him a message or forward them to him or make grumpy

02:17:09.740 faces or whatever might be the occasion um but no we are appreciative that uh

02:17:15.820 witten erickson is taking on the responsibility for doing our store stuff that is a

02:17:22.380 um it's cool when we have nice things but it's also a little bit more of a challenge than i

02:17:27.500 think some folks realize so it's nice to have him stepping in with his very capable hands to help

02:17:33.580 us manage that another question again it's easy so we will entertain it this evening

02:17:40.220 no i apologize we're happy to answer any of y'all's questions are there currently any members

02:17:44.940 in new zealand there are not we used to have a very say very we used to have a good uh group

02:17:51.980 of folks in new zealand we had a kindred in new zealand um political forces in new zealand have

02:17:58.940 made it a little bit more difficult for some of our folks to feel comfortable

02:18:03.180 being openly afa members and ouster true in uh in new zealand i hope that we have people that have

02:18:10.540 the courage and fortitude to want to take up that that opportunity again we would love to have

02:18:17.340 more presence in that very beautiful country um i've had the privilege of visiting there once and

02:18:23.100 it's a it's a very beautiful place um and many amazing people there that i'm sure would love to

02:18:29.180 come home to their gods so we'd love to see that grow but there's not members there currently we

02:18:34.220 do have a folk builder um chris mcdonald who is in australia no it's not the same country i'm just

02:18:41.100 saying it's much closer than our united states folk builders and i'm sure he would love to help

02:18:46.700 grow our membership there if you or any people that you know are so inclined we'd love to see

02:18:51.980 that happen and we've had members there before and we'd love to have them there again

02:18:58.140 cliff any final final words for folks this evening i see there's another question will you have a

02:19:04.860 yule log i don't know if that's directed to you or to me or to phrasehoff or all of the above cliff

02:19:14.300 will you any of personally professionally any of these above will you have any kind of yule log

02:19:20.460 in your yule festivities this year so yes um my family we have a tradition where we keep the

02:19:29.500 um bottom portion of the trunk of our previous year's yule tree and we use that as um our yule

02:19:37.660 log the following year we actually wait until the last day of yule to to burn that um to to

02:19:46.060 to bring in the new year to sort of complete the the cycle of renewal that that all represents

02:19:53.420 um and we you know we keep um that trunk usually i i truncate the trunk um you know to a proper log

02:20:02.380 size we don't we you know we keep the the fat bottom part not the skinny top part um and we'll

02:20:08.220 keep that um in like the china cabinet where we keep our our ritual horn and um my my hallowing

02:20:16.540 hammer and and other ritual implements and it it stays there for the year and picks up

02:20:24.140 energies both good and bad whatever our year is like and we turn that over um every yuletide um

02:20:32.940 um whether or not there will be one at phrasehoff we're not sure yet i was talking to githia katie

02:20:39.080 about this today um about whether or not we are going to have a live tree at phrasehoff um because

02:20:46.920 it would be there for one day so we're we're thinking in the practical terms there i'd like

02:20:52.760 to there's part of me that wants to implement this sort of you know um continuity cycle with

02:21:00.220 the old year and the new year to have that going with the yule tree and the yule log both being

02:21:06.960 present together for yuletide but then turning over year after year it would have to be adapted

02:21:13.540 we're not going to be there for all 12 days of yule at phrasehof of course starting a new one

02:21:19.620 we would not have a log we would just have the tree or perhaps in a more practical way we will

02:21:25.020 be putting up an artificial tree to use in a more practical way you know it's it's an idea and it

02:21:32.380 depends where you're at it's always a cool idea to just go cut one down and get it it's a little

02:21:38.300 bit different if you got to go buy one and transport a bunch of stuff people who are in a

02:21:43.000 you know more rural place or a place where it's not a you know difficulty to go out in the woods

02:21:47.860 and cut one down and get it it's a cool thing to do if you can uh the tree that is the old log is

02:21:54.460 kind of, it's, you know, what you're able to do. But one of the things that's a sincere hope of

02:21:59.220 mine as we get more and more Hoffs, it is a twofold thing. And you guys, you guys tricked us

02:22:06.920 because as we decided to sign, last question of the night, then all of a sudden you guys ask

02:22:11.960 questions. No, I appreciate that. We're happy to answer all you guys' questions.

02:22:15.980 it's neat if you can do it but what I was going to say is as we get more and more Hoffs

02:22:26.900 they are getting closer and closer to our membership but I would also like for everyone

02:22:33.740 to consider moving closer to one of our Hoffs

02:22:36.980 um I realized that that is a big ask when we had one Hoff at Odin's Hoff I tried to move myself and

02:22:50.840 my trying to think if she was my fiance at the time just my girlfriend um across yeah my lady

02:23:02.540 across the country to be closer to Odin's Hoff. That was really important to us. I think it's

02:23:09.240 really good if you can to get within the town that a Hoff is in or within the county. And I'm 1.00

02:23:14.920 going to move again. You know, I love where I live, but I'm going to move again so that I can be

02:23:20.180 in the same county and be able to do the Tiers Hoff there. So I get that it's hard. It's not,

02:23:27.520 I'm not asking you to do anything that I'm not willing to do.

02:23:31.300 Move closer to one of our Hoffs.

02:23:33.700 The closer we have, if we have people in the same town or the same county as our Hoffs,

02:23:38.300 we can do stuff there weekly.

02:23:40.120 We can do stuff to where we're there every day of the 12 days of Yule.

02:23:43.880 We can do those kind of things if we live close.

02:23:46.780 When people have to drive hours to get to the Hoffs,

02:23:50.200 then we do the best we can or we do stuff once a month.

02:23:53.340 But the closer we get in proximity, the more we can really spend time and occupy and do things at the Hoffs in the way that we'd like to.

02:24:04.260 And so I would encourage everyone to build up the local community around the Hoffs and be able to do things there.

02:24:10.520 That's being able to do that's going to really elevate our practice.

02:24:15.300 uh the dedication but there are multiple homes for sale right in the neighborhood of phrase hall

02:24:23.960 um we don't know about the building right next door but it looks like if you made an offer

02:24:29.040 you probably would get a good deal on it there's a building there that needs some love but there

02:24:33.740 are also um several homes for sale on the same road and the road right around the corner that

02:24:39.760 have their you know for sale signs out right now so check it out if you're interested in moving

02:24:46.300 near phrasehoff um katie and i are only an hour and 15 minutes away we really like where we are

02:24:52.000 so we're probably not going to do that ourselves right yet um although it is tempting but we

02:24:57.920 we are an hour and 15 minutes for us we're willing to do that every weekend obviously

02:25:04.340 um so you know that's the sort of good opportunity it's such a good opportunity i know it sounds like

02:25:12.540 a big deal i think people be happy if they do it we've got some people out here that are moving

02:25:19.340 closer and closer we've got one afa family uh that lives in brownsville with uh with odenshoff

02:25:25.860 and we're getting more that want to do that even if it's just a handful there's stuff that can

02:25:31.660 happen if you do it. I did it. So that is true. And that is worthy of recognition and celebration.

02:25:41.620 It has taken longer to get us moved to Sigerheim than we had planned. It seems like such an easy

02:25:51.820 thing to do for, you know, maybe it is for younger people or people who are a little bit less

02:25:57.040 embedded where they're at or don't have a family or whatever, it has taken me and my family longer

02:26:03.760 than I had planned. We're trying the best we can, and I would love to see us out there, you know,

02:26:09.720 in the first couple of months of next year. We're excited. We're making the effort that we can.

02:26:14.720 But when I said, hey, guys, I want our people to move to Jackson County, Tennessee, so we can make

02:26:21.340 this thing happen. I think that was three years ago. Our producer, Nick, he, he jumped on it

02:26:31.420 immediately. Sold the place he had, he packed up and he moved out there. And that he is the first

02:26:38.740 pioneer at Sigurheim. And something really beautiful and amazing is going to be built

02:26:46.040 around that pioneering effort and he's going to go down in history celebrated for that that's

02:26:52.440 an important thing and we really appreciate it so people do it people do it people are fixing to do

02:26:58.360 it you should do it make it happen but here's the thing you're going to have more and more options

02:27:04.280 the more hops we get and when people ask because because people have asked us about cigarette like

02:27:11.640 is it going to be a brain drain like you're going to do this thing and you're getting everybody

02:27:15.080 excited about the capital will all the you know all the go far all the luminaries move there

02:27:22.520 realistically no be cool but realistically different people for a variety of different

02:27:28.520 reasons are more or less mobile but the answer really is both we're going to try to put hoffs

02:27:35.480 closer to all of you and at the same time we want all of you to move closer and closer to the hoffs

02:27:42.200 we have and if we're doing those things together it's going to make a certain amount of equilibrium

02:27:48.360 to where our hoffs and our people are getting closer and closer together we can really accelerate

02:27:53.880 this that we're doing so i would encourage you guys all to do that cliff are there going to be

02:27:59.800 more clothing items in the store hats shirts hoodies etc short answer is yes longer answer

02:28:08.200 is it depends so one of the things that i really want to avoid with the store is ever having items

02:28:14.680 go out of stock again um easier said than done um but that's my intention something short of a

02:28:21.000 promise but um what i want to have is some stability so i want to make sure that we always

02:28:27.720 have the pins for each of the hoffs in the afa and that we always have the flags available

02:28:33.160 I want to make sure that we always have the books by founder McNallan available, and I want to have at least one shirt for the Ossetru Folk Assembly and each of the Hoffs available.

02:28:47.960 those are my priorities for the rest of this year um other things like hoodies and hats

02:28:57.180 maybe if we're successful in the next year with just getting baseline stuff introduced in a stable

02:29:06.160 and um and and you know in a cost-effective way it has to at least break even has to make sense

02:29:14.640 more than that it has to make sense there you go it's funny ideally it has to make dollars um so

02:29:23.260 here's the if you are listening to this and you produce those kind of clothing items hats shirts

02:29:35.760 hoodies etc contact us let us know um we'd love to do business with our people

02:29:44.160 even if you're just watching the show casually we'd love to do business with fans of the show

02:29:50.160 over you know chinese or whatever else the situation might call for um but the money's

02:29:57.360 got to line up and we've gotten to a point where production of these kind of things for

02:30:02.880 you know small small batch stuff is prohibitively expensive those costs have really risen

02:30:10.240 so if we have anybody in-house that does you know t-shirt screen printing or other things that way

02:30:16.480 we'd be you know we'd be happy to do business with some of our people if we can make the

02:30:20.160 money work out right you know we're not looking to get rich off of these things but we also can't

02:30:24.800 really take a loss on them so um and i say that we'd be happy to get rich off that thing but

02:30:32.240 that's not our primary mission so if you're somebody who does that kind of stuff we'd be

02:30:36.400 happy to work with you if it works out right so please do keep that in mind um sadly y'all are

02:30:41.760 probably going to see a little bit of an increase in the shipping prices that's just something

02:30:47.360 those prices are too low right now sadly and i both

02:30:54.880 are not big spenders on stuff it hurts us to charge lots of shipping we don't want to do that

02:31:06.400 postal industry though has done that and amazon's figured out a way around it because they've got

02:31:10.800 their own fleet of shipping planes and vehicles and stuff in case you haven't noticed we do not

02:31:19.360 have the infrastructure that amazon has um so yeah shipping is grossly expensive um we're always

02:31:28.880 looking for the best way to do it the best way we can find to do it is offensive and how much it

02:31:35.200 costs doing the best we can but shipping's gross and i don't know how to fix it that's kind of a

02:31:41.120 usps thing and not something that we really have access to and i say that as soon as i say it well

02:31:46.960 have you guys looked into ups or fedex we have we can't find a better option right now if you know

02:31:53.600 the secret to unlocking the shipping code let cliff know we're happy to think about it but we're doing

02:31:58.800 best we can to figure it out shipping costs i promise it's not shipping and handling we're not

02:32:04.000 like making money off the shipping it's just shipping yeah i mean for reference not including

02:32:10.720 the envelope i can't ship this pin for less than eight dollars which is ridiculous but um

02:32:21.520 yeah that that's a cost we have to cover so i don't want to scare anyone just know that we're

02:32:26.720 not trying to take advantage of it no we're we're doing the best we can and so seriously

02:32:31.040 crowdsourcing a lot of this stuff. And so you guys know, I'll be crowdsourcing things as far

02:32:36.040 as Tiershoff construction goes. We're trying to figure out ways to utilize the reach that we have

02:32:41.340 in our membership to help get these things accomplished. If you know the secret to small

02:32:46.440 business shipping in something that's reasonable, please share that knowledge with us. We'd very

02:32:53.400 much appreciate it. If you've got the skills to make shirts and hats and merchandise, love to do

02:32:59.420 business with you let us know we'll you know if we can make it work we'd be happy to um but that

02:33:05.020 is where that's at the other question uh the final one that's in the current queue are creatures like

02:33:12.940 the yule cat in some way related to ausitru cliff do you have anything to share about the yule cat's

02:33:20.760 relationship to ausitru if any so first the yule cat is just awesome um the yule cat for anyone

02:33:28.100 who is not familiar is this giant monster cat from Icelandic lore that will eat children who

02:33:39.920 haven't prepared their winter clothes before Christmas Eve. I don't know if it's related

02:33:48.980 to Asatru specifically. It originated in the Middle Ages or earlier, you know, among farmers.

02:33:55.900 so where exactly and when exactly it comes from is is unclear um you know i i looked a little bit

02:34:04.220 of stuff up about it when i saw the question pop up because i was excited to talk about it but um

02:34:09.500 it was first written down in the uh the the 19th century um and you know this is it's a it's an old

02:34:21.740 a much older piece of folklore it's sort of like you know the the grimm's fairy tale stuff they

02:34:26.780 wrote that stuff down hundreds maybe thousands of years after those stories were first told

02:34:32.540 um is it specifically also true i guess no but i tend to take the position not tend to it's

02:34:41.500 the position i take that all of these folklore kind of things the grimm's fairy tales the

02:34:49.020 different scandinavian folklores english folklores um you know for example the white stag in anglo

02:34:57.580 saxon kingship that doesn't occur anywhere in the uh the the asatru lore but we we took that from

02:35:06.540 the the english lore because of the association of yngwie freyer with kingship um and the antler

02:35:16.620 the heart antler and kind of synthesize those into the the phrase hall flag but i i take that

02:35:22.940 the position that all of those folklores are true in that they are part of our people's understanding

02:35:31.660 of the world around them going back to prehistory so you know the the old cat is just another form

02:35:42.860 of like the boogeyman or the the the trolls in in norway the you know there's there's like troll

02:35:52.620 hags that will like steal your baby and switch it with their baby because they find their troll 0.92

02:35:56.860 baby really annoying and then the mother has to do a specific thing like basically the mom has 1.00

02:36:03.340 to beat up the troll baby until it cries so that the troll mom feels bad and comes back and switches

02:36:08.780 the babies back um justifying some sorts of social behaviors i guess but i think that a lot of these

02:36:17.500 folk wars have roots if not in um in our ancestors religious beliefs but in their world view

02:36:26.060 um you know sleeping beauty is connected to um to brunhild and um

02:36:34.780 um and you know snow white is basically the same story just told a different way

02:36:39.980 so there's a lot of this stuff all in our our collective memory and the yule cat that comes

02:36:48.580 and eats the kids who haven't knitted their sweaters yet hasn't processed the wool yet

02:36:53.960 is just it's a really fun one because it's this giant monster cat that's going to eat you

02:36:58.900 um and i guess in iceland they didn't have a whole lot of predatory animals that were going

02:37:03.160 come get you i don't know if they have wolves there or not um i don't think there weren't really

02:37:07.800 many things out there so a big cat was like as scary as it got what's that you got birds birds

02:37:16.360 sure well they're yes there used to be very large birds that could eat people so um but yeah i mean

02:37:24.920 related the the question was in some way related to ossitrus so my answer is a firm yes on that

02:37:30.520 because it's part of our folks collective memory um but is it you know is it attested in the lore

02:37:36.520 or something like that not that i know of a bunch of those stuff are european white white people

02:37:41.480 stuff and that's kind of the thing the fun christmas stuff is european white people stuff

02:37:46.920 yeah it's not so much that all of it is firmly an ausa true religious practice a lot of it's just

02:37:53.880 fun folk customs around this the season sometimes they're serious and reinforce you know hey

02:38:00.440 hey, you need to have your stuff in order by a certain time in winter or else you're going to freeze to death.

02:38:06.200 Get your stuff done or we're going to stick the cat on you.

02:38:09.380 Like there's there's things, but a lot of them are just fun.

02:38:14.340 But you know what? None of them have to do with a desert manger and, you know, a questionable origin child getting born in it.

02:38:25.280 um there's very little that's fun and awesome about european christmas traditions that have

02:38:30.800 anything to do with judea or the bible or you know the christ child um so yeah it's it's not jesus

02:38:40.960 stuff i'll say that it's also um you know our our dutch brethren i have uh have chocolatey peat

02:38:48.640 if the kids don't behave well they may wake up the next day and not have a bike

02:38:53.560 um there's the Krampus tradition and other just fun like if you don't do stuff right bad

02:39:03.300 like Santa's enforcer is always a fun element of you know some of the old European

02:39:10.660 yuletide traditions of cool you've got a nice jolly person that although I'll say

02:39:18.880 fat american coca-cola santa is awesome european santa claus is creepy i want to find the picture

02:39:28.800 and i have it somewhere there's a picture of my uh my mom and my uncle their early childhood years

02:39:36.800 my uncle was born in 1950 my mom mom was born in 1948 my grandfather was stationed in berlin

02:39:44.320 in post-war Reconstruction, Germany.

02:39:49.440 German Santa Claus is creepy. 0.97

02:39:53.140 And the guy that was officiating as German Santa Claus 1.00

02:39:57.380 in their pictures, he's a skinny, creepy, 1.00

02:40:01.160 crazy-eyed looking, looks like some kind of a junkie.

02:40:07.160 Sure, he probably wasn't,

02:40:08.600 but he didn't look like he was eating too good.

02:40:11.400 It was creepy.

02:40:12.240 of those some of those european uh santa pictures are kind of creepy but yeah all the all the fun

02:40:18.560 stuff has very very little to do with biblical christianity it erupts from the imagination and

02:40:24.400 the folk soul of our people and the innovations of our people and it's one of those things to to

02:40:30.640 keep in mind religiosity as it's interpreted in europe looks very different and like one for one

02:40:41.760 christianity in europe looks very different than coptic christianity in egypt than you know asian

02:40:49.840 christianity again when we live in a very very interconnected age like we do now the diversity

02:40:58.320 is less because you can transmit like how it's supposed to be done very easily but back before

02:41:04.480 all that the christian practice and christian churches in different parts of the world were

02:41:10.480 very very different because different races of people approach religion very differently

02:41:19.600 so so much of medieval christianity isn't biblical or christian christian at all

02:41:28.720 it's the european folk soul expressing religiosity the way it knows how and devoting that religiosity

02:41:36.960 to a um an unworthy or an inappropriate uh focal point but the idea of how you practice religion

02:41:49.680 comes from our soul and our practice and ultimately from house to truth so you know when people oh the

02:41:56.720 afa just looks that just looks like christianity with the gods instead of jesus that's what

02:42:02.640 what medieval Christianity is is also true Jesus instead of the gods and that's absolutely true

02:42:10.460 and I think that you know undoubtedly some Middle Eastern things came into the development over the 0.99

02:42:17.100 course of the millennia but no by and large it's oh we're practicing religion we'll just slap Jesus

02:42:25.580 on it and call it good that's literally the directive of the Pope when converting the

02:42:30.140 englishmen was don't deviate from their practice just devote all of that towards jesus and not

02:42:37.960 towards their gods so you know when people notice like man you guys look like christian you mean we

02:42:45.400 look like other white people that are trying to worship our gods yes we do look like white people

02:42:51.140 practicing religion because we're white people practicing religion um and that's why yeah that's

02:42:58.260 why um you know the the the christians may have been able to you know purge the names of the gods 0.69

02:43:04.740 from our our folks general practices but they couldn't get rid of the fairies the elves and the

02:43:09.400 trolls and all the rest of that that part of it stayed because they weren't they weren't directly

02:43:15.480 focused on that they were okay this this right is not to odin it's to jesus but then all the 0.68

02:43:21.380 elves, and everything else stuck around.

02:43:27.220 All right.

02:43:28.140 Well, that is, in fact, the last question that we had.

02:43:32.780 So, Cliff, it's been a pleasure having you on.

02:43:36.380 Even more so, it has been an absolute pleasure being there for the Hoff that you and your

02:43:43.120 wife are the caretakers of that have turned into a Hoff and made such an amazing experience. So

02:43:52.320 thank you very much for that. You guys make Frayer proud. It's my honor. I'm looking forward

02:44:00.920 to this first year, especially to, you know, develop that routine and Frays Hoff culture.

02:44:07.180 Every holy tide we celebrate for the next year will be the first one there. So 0.94

02:44:11.420 So, you know, we want to do our best to get it right and to establish that

02:44:17.200 and, you know, and improve it from there.

02:44:20.560 But the baseline is going to be really important, I think.

02:44:22.500 We are all envious, and if we are not, then we should be.

02:44:28.720 Yeah, we've got amazing things happening.

02:44:31.420 I am blessed to be able to be a part of it.

02:44:35.320 Until next week, hail the Eysir, hail the folk, hail the AFA,

02:44:39.360 And remember, victory never sleeps.

02:45:09.360 We'll be right back.

02:45:39.360 Transcription by CastingWords

02:46:09.360 Thank you.

02:46:39.360 Thank you.

02:47:09.360 Thank you.

02:47:39.360 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - December 11, 2025

12⧸10⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 179 - Freyshof Dedication

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