Asatru Folk Assembly - 2⧸11⧸26 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 188 - Ásatrú Academy： Checking in with Goði Stamm

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:01:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:00.000 yeah hello everyone and welcome to this week's exciting edition of victory never sleeps

00:03:12.980 this is the first episode i am coming to you live from lovely jackson county tennessee

00:03:19.620 um yeah so i'm working on my setup a little bit i know it's echoey in here because we just moved

00:03:27.060 in but bear with me tonight we have got uh go through rob stam joining us for the first two

00:03:33.940 hours he is here to talk to us about checking in on things going on in the oust true academy

00:03:41.380 and then any other i don't know any other insights he has that he would like to share with us and

00:03:47.540 we'll see where we get and then uh nick and i can kind of finish up with questions and whatever else

00:03:53.780 we might have after that as always this is a q a program so if you've got questions please go ahead

00:04:00.820 and ask those uh also if you have questions whenever they might come to you bns roomstone.org

00:04:11.060 we'll make sure to answer them on the next uh next program so thank you we already have a number of

00:04:16.340 people that are sending those in which is awesome um you may notice on the program i'll look off to my

00:04:23.780 To my right, because that's usually where my monitor is.

00:04:27.000 My monitor is underneath right now.

00:04:28.560 So if I'm looking down, that's me looking at the screen.

00:04:31.900 Working on a system here.

00:04:33.560 Anyways, top of the show stuff.

00:04:37.300 Coming up in a little over a battle.

00:04:44.260 Just a little over a week.

00:04:45.760 We have Disa thing at New Orbs Hoff.

00:04:50.320 that is the the big event of the year for those folks it is in lovely white springs florida which

00:04:56.400 is a cool little town in like north central florida that's very very nice place it's a lovely

00:05:02.800 hof um we'd love to have you guys there i'm gonna be there i would love to meet you if i haven't

00:05:07.600 already or you know get to talk to you again if it's been a while so please make your way there

00:05:13.440 if you can if you're interested any of our full pillars can get you set up and squared away to

00:05:19.280 attend that um other top of the show stuff nick how we looking for paying off phrasehoff

00:05:29.920 looks like we are 35.6 of the way there which is awesome this far in

00:05:37.200 110 from each of our members gets it paid off today still owe about 80 550 which again all

00:05:46.160 things considering is a really nice place for us to be sitting thank you guys so much for your

00:05:51.920 generosity a number of you over the past couple weeks have been donating to a couple of different

00:05:56.800 things we got going on uh folks at thorshoff their fellowship hall there heat went out on them in a

00:06:03.360 particular cold snap so we're working on getting that replaced and squared away and you guys have

00:06:08.160 been really generous on that so thank you very much also um last year our lawnmower at sigerham

00:06:15.600 out here got stolen so we've fixed that we're getting that all squared away um but needing to

00:06:23.280 get a new new lawnmower and this time with the trailer so we can take it to and from until we

00:06:27.920 have a bit more secure spot for it out there is cost us a little bit you guys have also been

00:06:33.200 really generous on helping us with that so thank you guys um you guys continue to astound so one

00:06:39.520 One of the things, super generous, Nick in North Carolina donated $10 to each of the

00:06:46.700 Hoffs plus Sigurheim, so that's much, much appreciated.

00:06:50.720 Thank you, Nick.

00:06:52.760 GW Farnsworth, as always, starts off the show $30 towards the heating situation at

00:06:59.360 Thorshoff and $20 to this program, so thank you very much.

00:07:03.900 Your generosity is amazing.

00:07:06.080 And Leroy, Michigan, donated $50 towards the heat situation at Thoros House.

00:07:11.940 Thank you for that.

00:07:12.560 We appreciate it.

00:07:15.160 That said, it's been a minute since we checked in with you, Rob.

00:07:20.940 How is the Academy going this year?

00:07:23.240 yeah so i think i have a little bit of a situation with my internet here so

00:07:39.080 it's going in and out um i'm going to switch over to my phone but uh as far as the academy goes we

00:07:46.440 The reason I'm here tonight is we have a big announcement.

00:07:52.160 We now are ready to enroll kindergarten all the way through 12th grade.

00:07:57.300 We have complete material and curriculum, which is fantastic.

00:08:03.060 It's extremely comprehensive for kindergarten all the way through 12th grade.

00:08:08.320 So every one of our AFA kids can now take advantage of the academy.

00:08:12.360 many schedule. When we started this program, we promised that we would make sure that our

00:08:24.200 kids that we started kindergarten with would have every grade as they progressed. So, you know,

00:08:30.440 we said our kindergartners that we're starting with this first year will have first grade form

00:08:35.160 next year and so on and so forth that we made that promise that we would make sure that they

00:08:39.400 always had curriculum but now we have all the way through K through 12 we're completely good to go so

00:08:49.400 we're very proud of that and we're excited we've had

00:09:01.000 we've had plenty of people reach out and ask about the older grades the the older kids and

00:09:05.560 and we weren't able to accommodate them, and now we are.

00:09:09.320 So we're very proud.

00:09:12.640 We hope to get a lot more students signed up now.

00:09:16.320 Well, you should be.

00:09:17.360 That's awesome.

00:09:19.280 As you mentioned, we made that commitment and have far surpassed that as far as timeline goes,

00:09:27.040 and that is a testament to yourself and all of the amazing people we have volunteering

00:09:33.900 and helping out with that program it's one of those things it it's something that we

00:09:41.140 are tremendously proud of and that i think is going to be very very important to our future

00:09:47.240 it's less flashy than our hoffs and you know it's it's less shiny but over the time it's a huge huge

00:09:56.060 impact and it uh and i say that in a couple ways like i'm really proud of it as the all's hair you

00:10:03.360 with you but also i'm very very grateful for it as a father who's you know homeschooling my daughter

00:10:09.920 having that resource having that uh that network of people helping make sure that that's a viable

00:10:19.680 real option is a huge peace of mind in the world that we're living in today so

00:10:28.080 it's it's awesome and rob and them are doing great so rob's having some challenges this

00:10:32.720 evening he's trying to get it all uh all squared away we will get with him when he comes back

00:10:37.520 because we have uh more to uh more to say with him um looking to see if there's anything i can

00:10:45.760 grab in the meantime here while we wait for his return uh so caleb in ohio hello and good evening

00:10:58.880 is there a cultural significance for what ring is worn on what finger in the afa i've read that

00:11:04.400 germans often wear their wedding ring on the right thing right ring finger whereas it's mostly

00:11:09.120 worn on the left in america are gothar rings worn on a specific finger what about other rings uh

00:11:16.080 thank you for asking that would be awesome i would like to say that there is but no right now it's

00:11:21.840 kind of so and i go on this a little bit um people can resize their rings or whatever when they need

00:11:32.800 to but often we have the rings with standard size so i think more often than not it's what what

00:11:45.440 finger the ring that we give you best fits on for the gothar ring i know some people can get them

00:11:50.160 resized but right now i think that's kind of where we're sitting i know different people

00:11:55.840 you know may already have rings for certain fingers or stuff that they're that they're doing

00:12:02.320 as of now there is not a significance to which finger on which hand you have different rings in

00:12:08.240 the afa but you know that might be a cool thing to develop at some point but if there is right

00:12:14.880 now nobody's telling me about it rob has returned to us if there is right now nobody's telling me

00:12:22.480 about it i think i gotta figure it out there we go all right so um

00:12:36.080 what

00:12:39.120 i don't know if people are just now hearing about the academy or maybe they're not very

00:12:43.440 familiar with it you want to give people kind of a rundown on what that what that is what that looks

00:12:48.960 like sure absolutely so the aussitrew academy we especially those of us that are parents we

00:12:59.600 we noticed that there was you know our public school system is not the best for our folk um

00:13:05.360 Um, most, most systems are teaching lessons in, in, uh, in social commentary that we don't agree

00:13:13.960 with. Um, coupled that with new educational strategies like common core and, and other

00:13:20.420 issues. And we all recognize that this wasn't the best way to educate our children. Um, but what

00:13:26.980 were the alternatives at the time? Um, you know, various private Christian schools, um, you know,

00:13:33.100 that's not a perfect alternative either um and a lot of our folk were homeschooling uh so we

00:13:40.780 we noticed this this niche that we needed to fill we needed to have a homeschooling program that

00:13:48.260 also emphasized our values and our faith so we put together um an idea well let's make a

00:13:57.220 homeschooling program that's grounded in the Aussie true faith and teaches AFA, um, you know,

00:14:03.380 values and morals. And, and let's make that available to our members. So they don't have to

00:14:09.140 put their kids into the public school system. Uh, so they don't have to take their kids to

00:14:14.940 expensive, uh, private Christian schools. Let's, let's, let's develop something for them. So,

00:14:22.740 So I was tasked with putting this together, which which is interesting because I'm not a school teacher.

00:14:31.620 You know, I have taught before, but at the at the community college level, I'd never taught children before.

00:14:37.980 So that was a learning curve for me. And of course, I'd never completely developed an entire program from nothing.

00:14:45.700 So there was a lot that I had to learn pretty quick.

00:14:49.880 There was a lot of research involved, and I couldn't have done it without the help of my amazing staff.

00:14:56.720 Most of you are familiar with Nick, our producer here on this show.

00:15:01.760 And then also, Githia Sarah Alt, who's my assistant dean.

00:15:08.180 Couldn't do it without her either.

00:15:09.940 She's been just words can't describe how valuable she's been.

00:15:15.040 um and all our academy parents are very familiar with sarah because she speaks to you on a regular

00:15:20.640 basis to check in with you um so we put together this program um and when we were looking for

00:15:29.240 homeschooling we we bounced around the idea of writing brand new fresh curriculum from scratch

00:15:36.960 and i actually attempted to do that and learned very quickly that there's a reason that uh people

00:15:43.080 with master's degrees get paid you know six figures a year to do that um and and devote

00:15:50.360 their entire careers to that because it is extremely difficult time consuming and uh you

00:15:56.520 you absolutely have to be a professional educator to do that um so even i tried my best but that just

00:16:03.640 that was not going to be an option for us so i began to do some research about various

00:16:09.960 educational philosophies um you know i had thought at one point well when i first started

00:16:16.840 to homeschool my oldest daughter i i tried the classical approach and as a result i mean my

00:16:23.240 my oldest daughter has a a very deep love for greek culture but uh you know that's not um

00:16:30.520 something that all our parents i didn't think were going to to be able to do or we even want to do

00:16:36.040 and I wasn't sure that was the best strategy to go forward to. So reading the various educational

00:16:44.640 philosophies and programs out there, I came across Waldorf, which is what we do use. And the Waldorf

00:16:51.100 method was developed by Rudolf Steiner in Germany in the late 18, early 1900s. He was a German

00:17:02.060 nationalist and and again like myself he didn't start out as an educator but uh he ended up that

00:17:08.460 way um but a very intelligent and educated man um who came up with this new educational philosophy

00:17:16.380 that it really it takes a holistic approach it grounds our students in everything uh experiences

00:17:23.900 are highly promoted rather than just reading and memorization experiencing the world and

00:17:33.500 everything in it to gain a broader perspective and and Mr. Steiner really when he wrote this

00:17:42.460 this program and this new philosophy he really had the Aryan mind the in our Aryan youths

00:17:49.180 as the backbone of that, how we specifically look at the world, how we specifically relate

00:17:56.660 to it, how our minds specifically work. So when I saw this, I thought, well, this seems

00:18:02.920 like it's tailor-made for our folk. Let's use Waldorf. So luckily at the time, we had

00:18:10.340 a member that had been homeschooling in Waldorf who helped us a lot with early materials

00:18:17.660 for the uh when we first started and we've kind of picked up and gained more material as we've gone

00:18:24.300 uh in the waldorf style um and then most recently we found uh a comprehensive program i mean it's

00:18:34.780 just like if you went to a private waldorf school it's so uh extensive and wonderful what they

00:18:41.020 provide you don't have to excuse me i'm losing my voice i'm just getting over a cold uh but it was

00:18:46.940 videos materials lesson plans books um anything and everything you could possibly need is included

00:18:55.180 in this you you literally wouldn't have to to get another piece of material at all it's that

00:19:01.420 comprehensive um and and we went ahead and got that to get the very best for our students and

00:19:08.060 that's that's what we want for our kids is the very best and and we provide that as a church to

00:19:14.860 to our membership that's a question i often get when parents reach out um asking about the academy

00:19:22.620 and how to enroll is this well you know how much does it cost um because traditionally in home

00:19:27.660 school they're used to having to go out and make possibly tens of thousands of dollars worth of

00:19:32.540 purchases uh to gain materials um and we as the church provide that free to our membership that

00:19:40.380 is a benefit of afa membership is this program is 100 free to you and it is it's quality and it's

00:19:48.140 it's if you were to go out and purchase this on your own and collect all the materials we have

00:19:52.700 collected it would be tens of thousands of dollars so it is absolutely a good value

00:19:58.300 um and then on top of the waldorf material we've got um our own afa uh gothar that have

00:20:05.260 and folk builders that have contributed religious lessons um so you're getting the very best in in

00:20:12.300 our faith and in our theology being taught to your kids at an age-appropriate level

00:20:17.260 um and then as the children get older um and and are able to do more they'll have

00:20:24.780 uh actual theology lessons with myself and uh get the alt where we'll have a video conference

00:20:31.740 and we'll teach a lesson so it's almost uh it's almost like you're getting private training in

00:20:37.180 aussitrew and it's and it's by the very best we have to offer uh so um and all our all our clergy

00:20:44.540 have can have contributed and will contribute to that so you're getting um not only um world-class

00:20:52.860 scholastic educational material but you're also getting the very best in aussitrew um teaching you

00:20:59.580 about your faith and our gods so you really can't beat the afa academy in any way shape

00:21:06.460 or form out there for our kids these days there's a couple of things i wanted to piggyback on that um

00:21:16.860 one of i don't know i talked a lot last year as we kind of spent the year celebrating our 30th

00:21:23.820 anniversary um this is the 32nd year that we're a little over a month into and one of the really

00:21:33.500 special things that comes with time is you know rob mentioned kind of the best and the brightest

00:21:40.540 giving you you know their expertise but that expertise is built on the experience and the

00:21:50.060 institutional knowledge of those that have come before us so the longer the longer we exist and

00:21:55.820 the more you know the more we do this the more our go far have been through and experienced things

00:22:02.540 the richer our depth of resource to bring to the folk to the children in this program and you know

00:22:11.660 to us true in general is we've got you know all that pool of resource of all the experience to

00:22:17.660 go with it which is great that's one of the things with this program is we have the experiences

00:22:22.060 of all the afa parents who have who are homeschooling their kids who have homeschooled their

00:22:27.740 kids and those lessons and those strategies and that troubleshooting is all there to try to help

00:22:34.380 our folk on stuff um one of the things a lot of our stuff we try to try to get away from the

00:22:43.980 pay to play stuff as much as possible um i get on here you notice every show i'm i'm

00:22:51.340 coming with my handout on stuff for the hoff or stuff for whatever we absolutely need your

00:22:56.700 your donations uh money matters it's a big deal but you guys are extremely generous so we never

00:23:02.380 want to make money a barrier to participation our faith to educating your children it's one

00:23:09.580 of the things that goes into our interring our loved ones of burial sites with the afa

00:23:17.580 so hard when you go other places and they want to rob you blind on burial expenses and ongoing

00:23:26.380 upkeep and ridiculous stuff so we try to do what we can to provide what we can for our members

00:23:33.340 in the best way we can we don't want people to go without since one of the reasons also that

00:23:37.660 when people donate to the astro academy we're able to you know take care of those things so

00:23:43.340 that we're not putting that burden burden on families that they can't or aren't in a spot for

00:23:47.500 it we want to make it as easy and i mean that doesn't it doesn't make for the best sound bite

00:23:55.580 but it is what it is we want to make the path to homeschooling your children as easy as possible

00:24:00.540 And when I say easy, I mean easy, but I also mean as stress-free.

00:24:06.080 One of those big things is, you know, wondering if this is legit or wondering if it's going to meet your state qualifications or want to make sure you're doing it right.

00:24:16.680 That's why we really, you know, pride ourselves in this program on trying to hold parents' hands and help make sure that you're able to be successful.

00:24:26.920 This is something you can do.

00:24:29.400 And if it's something you're considering, you want to reach out.

00:24:32.860 You do have to be an AFA member.

00:24:34.720 It's one of the things in order to keep the curriculum what we want and to avoid, you know, having to fit some other people's standards.

00:24:43.120 We do need to restrict it to actual members of our church.

00:24:47.000 But, yeah, it's open to any AFA parents that would like to get involved now with K through 12.

00:24:52.160 So keep that in mind.

00:24:54.860 We got a question.

00:24:56.060 um gothy stam can you talk about the heraldry for the australia academy

00:25:00.940 yeah absolutely uh let me pull it up here on my laptop

00:25:07.580 hiding over your shoulder ah there it is

00:25:13.740 all right so the heraldry uh well of course um mrs uh madison east helped design this um as she

00:25:23.880 she does with all our stuff um so what what we see here um in the top corner up here is the sword

00:25:33.560 and that is a symbol of young men um many of you uh may may know that um during man making ceremonies

00:25:42.680 um for younger men it's a wooden sword and as as they get older they get uh

00:25:47.400 another symbol of actually reaching adult male manness but the sword is traditionally a symbol

00:25:56.260 of male youths and then in the other corner directly opposite opposite of it you'll see the

00:26:03.760 horn and that is a symbol of our young ladies they are the frith weavers they they are the horn

00:26:10.820 bearers uh so that is a symbol of our our kids male and female and then of course we have the

00:26:18.980 tri horns um in the upper corner and then the mjolnir the symbol of our faith in the bottom

00:26:25.460 corner um so that that is the the heraldry there and then you'll see the two runes above

00:26:32.740 um you'll see sawilo for strength and anzus for wisdom uh and that goes into our our motto as well

00:26:44.340 and i'm not going to even attempt the icelandic i'm still in the baby stages of that but uh um

00:26:52.100 speckinger harrell uh wrote the the um the motto for us uh and it what it means

00:26:59.300 that translated in english is um through wisdom strength or victory i'm sorry through wisdom

00:27:06.740 victory so what that means is that um as we gain knowledge as we learn uh as we progress

00:27:15.620 in our studies uh we we gain our victory um the victory is not achieved through strength

00:27:21.940 strength alone it is achieved through wisdom as well so we thought that uh that particular

00:27:27.780 motto tied in with the overall theme of of victory in the afa um and then knowledge and wisdom uh

00:27:37.140 gained through our our schooling

00:27:42.020 there you have it

00:27:47.300 so

00:27:47.540 Oh. Hey, Shannon. Shannon donated $20 to Frazehoff. Thank you so much for that. Wow. You guys have

00:28:04.420 been... A bunch of donations just came in. Thank you, guys. Gilbert donated $150 towards the

00:28:10.280 heating situation at Frazehoff. Thank you, Gilbert. Always such a generous donor to us.

00:28:14.480 we appreciate you uh jason in um mississippi uh donated ten dollars to this broadcast

00:28:25.680 and bought a phrase off a pell pen so i hope you like your pen um

00:28:32.400 yeah thank you jason we appreciate you caleb donated ten dollars to the academy and towards

00:28:38.080 balder's steeple folks baldershoff are the old steeple there had not been maintained the way it

00:28:45.360 needed to be had a lot of weather damage so the top portion got got lopped off and we're working

00:28:51.280 on building something back that's even better but we're still raising funds for that so thank you

00:28:56.480 for that we appreciate it um and steven in japan donated ten dollars each to thor's hoff heating

00:29:03.520 situation and towards phrase off so thank you very much for that steven we appreciate you

00:29:08.640 um what else do you wish folks knew about the academy that they might not currently know

00:29:23.520 well um we do encourage and we have a parent group on me we and we encourage our parents

00:29:30.160 to be active within the the parent group so once you get signed on to the academy it's not just we

00:29:37.760 we give you the the login um uh you know when we do use google classrooms which is in keeping with

00:29:44.000 modern educational practice um and then we just disappear from you oh no um we hate we stay in

00:29:50.640 contact um we give you as much help as you want um so you know some homeschool parents want um

00:29:58.400 um very little interaction because they they've been homeschooling for a long time and they're

00:30:04.280 very uh they're very confident in their abilities and they know what they're doing and they they

00:30:09.900 just want our material and maybe to to come to our class our live classes uh and then we have

00:30:15.080 parents that are brand new to homeschooling and they they need a little bit more support and in

00:30:19.840 which case uh we we will you know call you or or stay in in contact by text or however you you

00:30:27.800 best stay in contact um as much as you'd like and and give you as much help as as we possibly can

00:30:33.740 or as much as you want um but aside from just uh staff support we like i said we have the parent

00:30:41.040 group on me we uh so that the parents can support each other uh and talk about their victories and

00:30:47.920 what they found to be uh to work best um to to teach a lesson etc um and then we've had parents

00:30:57.000 that that organize that are in the same um location or close by they'll organize field trips

00:31:03.240 together or uh or just play dates to to meet up and hang out uh for the younger kids um as we

00:31:09.960 now are adding older kids um you know that that that group is a way for them to network and and

00:31:17.160 to make you know and build relationships with kids their own age across the church

00:31:22.520 um so it's not just uh you know we hand you materials and run uh we've got a lot of uh

00:31:28.920 support uh for you um whether it be from other parents or from staff so i think that that's

00:31:35.560 something i really want to drive home because it can be scary especially for new homeschoolers that

00:31:40.040 have never done this um they may you may worry about well how do i teach this um or how do i

00:31:46.920 teach at all uh luckily we've got some parents that are very um experienced in in homeschooling

00:31:54.040 that are right there in that parent group that can help you uh we also have um githia sheila

00:32:01.240 mcnalen who is um as many of you know she was a a professional teacher for many many years she's

00:32:07.880 on our staff and she can absolutely help give you pointers uh on teaching styles and methods

00:32:15.000 and to show you that it's not it's not really as daunting as you think another big thing that I

00:32:23.640 think especially parents new to homeschooling should know is that homeschooling is not it's

00:32:32.760 not what you may fear you don't have to come up with eight hours of solid instruction you don't

00:32:40.920 have to sit your child in front of the computer or in front of a book for eight hours a day

00:32:45.560 and learn learn learn learn um you know most like when we send our kids off to public school most

00:32:51.960 of the day is not filled with actual instruction it's filled with indoctrination um it's filled

00:32:59.320 with learning how to uh to interact in that social setting it's recess it's lunch it's discipline

00:33:08.600 um it's play uh which these things are important but um that i think is something that parents

00:33:15.080 worry about is that they're going to have to devote eight hours a day to teaching their kids

00:33:20.200 and a lot of parents don't have that ability but that's just not the case um you know when you

00:33:27.320 break it down you can do as much or as little as you feel comfortable with uh as long as you're

00:33:33.160 progressing but um most of the day is is not needed to be devoted to instruction and in fact

00:33:40.920 many instances of instances of your just day-to-day life are are um can are opportunities

00:33:48.760 to to do teaching and uh they count towards educational hours in the states that uh that

00:33:55.320 make you track hours so for instance if you go to the grocery store that's something you have to

00:34:00.280 anyway uh that is an opportunity that you can get instruction time and you may not think of it but

00:34:05.800 sure uh there's nutrition there there's there's math um there is uh depending on on what you're

00:34:14.280 shopping for uh there's um you know automotive uh for their our older kids um but there there

00:34:23.000 there's a ton of opportunities um you know most most people like to go on a trip to the park

00:34:28.280 uh well there's an opportunity there uh to identify animals nature uh and for our smaller

00:34:35.160 kids and say kindergarten um you know you can say point out something that's alive

00:34:41.000 point out something that's not alive um you know how do you spell leaf you know sound it out uh

00:34:50.120 things things like that that you don't really think of when you do them but they come natural

00:34:54.840 but they absolutely are instruction and count towards instruction time um and there's several

00:35:01.560 studies that i've read um and i unfortunately don't have them on hand but especially younger

00:35:06.280 children kindergarten first first grade age they can only really focus for about 15 minutes 10 to

00:35:12.680 15 minutes at a time um anything beyond that and they start to wander um so really instruction time

00:35:21.000 is these little nuggets uh that they get broken up throughout the day so you can you can focus

00:35:27.320 on a task um or or uh a you know something from the from the curriculum you do it for 15 minutes

00:35:36.040 and then you go out and play or you do it for 15 minutes and you switch gears into something else

00:35:41.480 um so it's not this steady stream of instruction all day long uh and i think that's one of the

00:35:48.840 things that may might be a block for some of our parents as they think oh no i've got to teach

00:35:54.200 all day long but trust me that's not the case well i want to mention this too and it's one

00:35:59.960 of the reasons i really like waldorf um there's a lot of things institutionally

00:36:08.840 set up either intentionally or because it's just the momentum things have taken on to where there's

00:36:13.400 a a fear factor and especially as a parent you don't want to be do wrong by your kids

00:36:19.640 and you know i know that was something that um anybody doesn't know mandy and i had aubrey

00:36:25.480 you know we're both 39 had her at the height of uh the cobit situation and all this stuff

00:36:34.280 you know you want to do right by your kids you don't want to make the wrong choice and that can

00:36:39.400 be um debilitating one of the things that was really interesting through all of that

00:36:46.120 was just kind of a re-evaluation of schooling and what counts and what doesn't so one of the things

00:36:52.520 that i really sat and thought about you know how much stuff did i learn in eight hours of

00:36:59.960 institutionalized learning grown up versus you know where did i learn most of the things that

00:37:05.320 i learned learned a lot with my parents my grandparents with experiences that i've had in

00:37:12.200 my life as a kid with figuring out those things didn't you know didn't learn that much

00:37:21.640 indispensable in public school system and there's a lot of negatives that can come with that i don't

00:37:27.960 want to rag on the idea of public education too hard my mom was a mostly first grade school teacher

00:37:36.760 for about 30 years so my family's you know been involved in public education for a really long

00:37:42.200 time but there's a lot to be said for learning by getting to spend time with your parents and

00:37:51.160 that's something that homeschooling really allows and especially that waldorf encourages

00:37:57.320 um and i think that's a that's a neat thing to take advantage of and to think of it but also

00:38:05.800 and i know that you know when you get in the higher grades there's some more specialized things

00:38:11.720 but don't worry this is stuff you can do this is stuff we can do together and if you want to take

00:38:20.040 you know control of your kids education if you are in a situation which is increasingly a thing

00:38:25.560 to where people with values counter to ours are indoctrinating your kids during the day and if

00:38:32.200 you have the availability to to homeschool your kids this is something you can do this something

00:38:39.560 we're all in on really wanting to help you be successful at doing so you know make choices

00:38:46.600 based on on what you want and what you believe and not out of fear that gets put on you by a

00:38:54.040 system something else kind of an unintended consequence of the um reaction to covet was

00:39:02.280 whereas you know when i was growing up there's a big stigmatized thing about homeschool like

00:39:07.720 you know what's your kid gonna do they're gonna you know be strange and they're gonna miss out

00:39:12.680 on all this stuff and it's this you know horrible scary thing then all of a sudden those same people

00:39:17.800 are like no no keep your kid at home for two years and i think something that they learned

00:39:22.680 during that is like wow didn't really have the same effect that i think they thought it might

00:39:30.040 so it opened i don't know i think it opened a lot of minds to homeschooling and it also freed up

00:39:36.520 some of the hesitancy um that people and that the mainstream had towards homeschool so yeah

00:39:43.720 this is a really really cool program and i'm excited about it and you know i'm also excited

00:39:49.800 that i'm not just you know trying to sell this to you get to you guys it's something that i'm

00:39:54.120 very much you know doing the the like what is it kindergarten one um schooling with aubrey right

00:40:00.520 now and i'm very excited as a father to be taking her through the austral academy as she as she

00:40:05.800 grows and learns um looking to see prioritizing questions here we'll get to random stuff but i

00:40:12.920 wanted to make sure that we get any uh academy specific stuff out of the way if you've got um

00:40:20.200 okay are there options for just the religious material for kids if someone is doing you know

00:40:26.200 something different academically yes absolutely um so we do offer the full program which is the

00:40:36.120 academic and the religious studies and we also allow um we have a program religious studies

00:40:44.200 uh for our parents that maybe you just aren't able maybe you are a single parent you have to work or

00:40:49.960 maybe you're two parents and both of you have to work or any number of different scenarios where

00:40:55.240 homeschooling just doesn't isn't an option for you we still have our religious studies program

00:41:01.400 And that is you get all the benefits of of our of our theology and our religious teachings from our go far and through our program.

00:41:11.000 And you can sign up just for that so that we still want our kids to get the good quality religious instruction, even if they aren't able to attend the full school.

00:41:21.380 We still want them to get that that basic grounding in our faith and pass on the morals of our church.

00:41:27.980 so yes absolutely um you can sign up just for the religious studies program

00:41:36.540 all right

00:41:42.380 so unrelated with no segue what is the alatyr

00:41:48.940 spelled a-l-a-t-y-r it seems to originally be syllabic in origin and then co-opted later

00:41:59.080 by christians is there anything similar to the alatyr within other aryan cultures

00:42:04.440 rob let's say you

00:42:07.260 i'm i'm not gonna blow sunshine i am unfamiliar with the term

00:42:15.240 i'm unfamiliar with that term so matt i uh i am well studied on this term having googled it as

00:42:27.080 soon as i saw the question arise no i think that uh that's probably new to both of us i did in

00:42:35.160 fact google it and what i find is it's focus on um like being the center of the world and i will say

00:42:43.560 this i claim no expertise on even if i'm pronouncing that word correctly but the concept of the sacred

00:42:53.160 center is very very important in arian religiosity altogether the idea that there's a central axis

00:43:00.280 a central point that life existence the world revolves around and i think that that exists

00:43:09.800 in a spatial understanding in a geographical understanding but also very much conceptually

00:43:19.960 as an idea that there's a center point that things radiate out from

00:43:24.360 and that center point looks different and is a different thing to different people over time

00:43:30.040 with how they conceive of it but the idea that there's like a sacred center that radiates

00:43:36.840 power and wisdom and you know the outflow and inflow of people from is really important

00:43:45.000 sometimes that's a sacred mountain sometimes that's the irman soul or yggdrasil or any number

00:43:53.080 of of sacred central points that things expand from that was a big you know kind of a core mythos

00:44:01.640 that um that camelot and the round table was built out of that idea that there's this you know

00:44:11.480 sacred holy center space that things um revolve around the idea of revolution around a central

00:44:20.040 axis is really important and it is one of the things that i think is particularly um

00:44:26.280 um relevant to uh lord tier and his his position as that pole as relating to the pole star

00:44:39.000 and the revolution around that sacred center and it's one of the things that's going heavily into

00:44:44.680 what we're trying to do at sigerheim and with tiershoff is that idea of this afa capital

00:44:51.960 that's, you know, our sacred center to where things people come to for learning, for

00:45:00.920 connection with things, and also something that radiates out wisdom and sacrality and power

00:45:12.600 throughout the world from that sacred center. So the idea of the sacred center is extremely

00:45:17.840 important um philosophically the idea that there's the the unmoved mover that things circulate around

00:45:24.720 um or the uh chakra vartan the turner of wheels to where the wheel rotates around is very important

00:45:31.920 to all branches of arian mythos if that connects to the alatyr then awesome if not then maybe it

00:45:43.200 It doesn't, but the rest of it is a legit thing.

00:45:46.620 I hope that addresses the question.

00:45:48.360 It's something I'll look into a little bit more

00:45:49.720 because I just like learning new things,

00:45:51.920 but that's not a term I encountered before.

00:45:57.640 Are the named forces of chaos actual beings

00:46:00.840 with personality or more so archetypes?

00:46:05.360 Go for Stan, what say you?

00:46:08.980 I think it's both.

00:46:10.340 um you know i i do believe there are forces of chaos and they are real personalities just

00:46:20.400 there are forces for good uh and order in the arian world which are our gods they are real

00:46:26.520 they are real entities with real personalities but they are also archetypes that we can embody

00:46:31.900 um certainly we i've known people in my life or or you know even life adjacent i should say

00:46:40.220 that it's like wow that person is just pure chaotic energy um it's like that's that's their

00:46:48.440 whole reason for being um and to me that's embodying that archetype uh i do also think

00:46:55.220 though that they're like i said there are those those forces of chaos that are in the in the

00:47:00.860 cosmos that that are real entities and real persons for lack of a better term um that are

00:47:10.100 you know the antithesis of our gods and order so um yeah i hope that makes sense

00:47:19.620 so yeah i think that

00:47:28.020 i think that we run into a linguistic issue here when people talk about archetypes they talk about

00:47:36.260 things as being just archetypes so as opposed to real gods or real spiritual beings these spiritual

00:47:44.820 forces are like encapsulations of a certain type of person or a certain way of thinking

00:47:52.180 or a certain way of being that's not the case um but if you look at if you look at it flowing

00:48:02.660 a different direction that these larger than life spiritual forces these spiritual beings

00:48:14.500 are examples that people can follow or forces that if people you know spend time focusing

00:48:25.700 their worship on or focusing their attention on they begin to embody elements of that spiritual

00:48:33.380 being's um personality or that spiritual being's essence then sure i mean you know you could say

00:48:42.660 that arnold schwarzenegger is the archetypical bodybuilder that doesn't mean he doesn't exist

00:48:48.660 or is not real but it means he sets an example that many emulate to be the you know the ultimate

00:48:54.500 at that particular field or that particular pursuit so yes they're absolutely real entities real

00:49:03.940 spiritual persons with malevolent chaotic intention and absolutely like rob said

00:49:12.980 when you find people that spend their time and their focus worshiping and like emulating or 0.77

00:49:24.500 um it's funny because you know i want to be fair and i would describe it differently if it was

00:49:30.080 directed at one of our gods um but yeah when you find somebody worshiping loki for instance

00:49:37.440 or sir there was this really gross i want to say silly but unfortunately very very damaging thing

00:49:48.900 where people, it was called Roka True,

00:49:50.660 where people would worship, you know,

00:49:54.360 malignant Yotnar and things like that. 0.92

00:49:57.320 It was the also true version of Satanism. 0.61

00:50:02.060 But a lot of those people,

00:50:05.620 it's hard for me to judge how serious they were with it.

00:50:08.980 Some of them I think were very serious.

00:50:10.560 Some of them were just trying to be antinomian. 0.99

00:50:14.540 But most of them, deeply mentally ill,

00:50:18.900 not successful in their relationships at life the chaos really overtook them in a very bad way 0.96

00:50:27.540 and I think that there's always this idea that you align yourself with these evil forces and

00:50:33.800 you're going to get these you know evil superpowers I haven't seen a lot of like awesome

00:50:40.480 some super evil wizards come out of that. I've seen a lot of people with addictions and mental

00:50:49.280 illness and deep psychological problems for the rest of their life. I think that

00:50:57.380 for the adorners of grandma's couch, it's silly and kind of laughable and, you know, 0.94

00:51:04.380 a gross mental illness but what i think of some other people when they really get into that in a 0.81

00:51:11.580 very dark way you know you stare too long in the abyss the abyss stares back and i think that's a

00:51:17.020 thing too but one thing that we know is true and i i think that in also true we don't have the

00:51:23.980 language i was talking to somebody the other day about this i think i was talking to uh

00:51:26.860 specking you young about this demons exist we would call them something different but bad

00:51:37.720 malignant chaotic forces in the world that want to damage and take advantage of people that they

00:51:46.740 can victimize that exists as a thing that exists as a part of our reality it exists in all cultures

00:51:54.540 that i'm aware of it's a thing there's negative spiritual forces out there

00:51:59.500 and the really big ones get names in our lore but there's a lot of

00:52:08.380 we can't accept that there's you know positive good spiritual forces out there in the world

00:52:13.660 without also allowing that there are malignant forces and i think that's very much at play with

00:52:19.260 the forces of chaos what else we got good evening matt you at the new house now i am at the new

00:52:28.780 house now um this is my new fireplace behind me these are my old moose antlers um but yep

00:52:37.260 moved into our new house on monday we drove from reno down here to jackson county tennessee from

00:52:44.620 thursday until got into the county sunday evening so aubrey did awesome we drove with

00:52:55.420 a dog and four cats and a five-year-old all of the all of the creatures did very well on the trip

00:53:03.660 we had some amazing friends of ours also afa members that helped along the way that helped

00:53:09.340 load us up that helped drive the uh penske truck here that met us here and helped us unload we've

00:53:19.420 had some amazing amazing people helping us out we're very very blessed and very fortunate with

00:53:23.980 that and we're in our lovely new home here it's it's really cool i invite you guys to

00:53:32.700 come visit us stop by say hi if you find yourself in jackson county tennessee

00:53:37.100 but yeah we're enjoying our new home and that's why it's a little bit echoey as we're still

00:53:42.520 unpacking everything and we no more carpet no more carpet ever we're done with carpet

00:53:48.400 so uh also increases the echo but we're done with carpet

00:53:52.600 what else we got this evening um is the top of the steeple at baldershoff going to have

00:54:02.020 a thor's hammer on the top once it's finished or the afa logo matt

00:54:10.100 we'll see we talked about different ideas for the top of steeple um

00:54:19.060 you don't want something that's not recognizable

00:54:22.820 thor's hammer is always depicted like upside down and hanging because that's how the pendants

00:54:28.740 were so getting something standing upright is a little bit tricky of it the other thing is you

00:54:37.320 don't want it to appear like a crucifix that just looks funky so i don't know a lot of different

00:54:43.420 people have thought about that a couple of different ways whatever you put up there you

00:54:48.080 also don't want to become a sale so having something completely flat doesn't work so we've

00:54:53.440 thought about a lot of different ideas i'm not sure what will end up going up there once it gets

00:54:58.080 constructed all the way but we have talked about different things over the years

00:55:03.760 rob do you have any inside baseball and what people are thinking about that

00:55:09.200 uh no i think it should be a big fire breathing dragon uh that play slayer as you pass under but

00:55:18.800 uh just joking no i don't have any inside baseball sorry yeah i think if it breathed

00:55:24.480 fire it would be against the conditional use permit violate some murdoch ordinances i would

00:55:31.040 assume but it would be super cool what else uh yeah is there an episode where sigerheim build

00:55:43.520 plans are teased i wonder if a steeple will be incorporated to keep up with the times

00:55:50.160 something like a stave church converted into a hog and i assume that means cloth um

00:55:59.680 so yeah and i think that we tease build plans all the time

00:56:07.120 i think that you

00:56:11.360 a steeple per se no is not in our current thoughts on it and keep in mind our these

00:56:19.040 plans will continue to evolve up to and until it gets built but um as far as tiershoff itself there

00:56:29.200 we're very much looking into a stave church inspired construction there i have always me

00:56:35.920 and many of our people have been inspired by uh state church construction because i really think

00:56:42.880 that is the that's the point of evolution that like that's the highest form of um

00:56:55.040 arc also true construction met with it's like the the the highest point that that construction of

00:57:04.240 Hoffs was developed and the you know the starting point for how our people at least our people in

00:57:12.880 Scandinavia begin to incorporate uh Christianity and other things so I think that you find

00:57:19.760 so much of what would have been relevant to to the Hoffs of antiquity in the the lines the

00:57:27.760 structure the upward thrust of state church architecture so inspired but we wouldn't be

00:57:35.280 trying to make a you know a replica or a you know something like that what we would try to make would

00:57:41.760 be something completely modern and you know relevant in modern construction and you know

00:57:49.280 we want to be very honest about that but i think a lot of the inspiration of the lines and the

00:57:53.840 And the themes of that very well being in play.

00:57:58.460 It's certainly something we've thought a lot about.

00:58:08.580 Matt, what kind of lessons is Aubrey enjoying the most?

00:58:17.460 So it's pretty light because it's that kindergarten one.

00:58:23.840 nature stuff the idea of finding finding things when we're out at the park when we're out you

00:58:34.300 know going for walks and things like that that are seasonally relevant that was more challenging

00:58:41.240 in reno than is now that we're in tennessee so i'm excited about that um we have a afa hike

00:58:49.120 newt coming up this weekend so she'll get to experience some of like ah this is what winter

00:58:54.480 time in tennessee is like these are some of the leaves these are some of the critters and some of

00:58:59.280 the stuff i think she'll get to experience that a lot more so that's i'm excited to share that with

00:59:04.400 her coming up rob what is your favorite hero of the folk and why that's a that's a tough one

00:59:19.120 um so uh as a german as a person of german uh ancestry uh naturally uh you know my mind

00:59:32.300 gonna go to prince herman uh because without him you know i i don't know that germanic culture on

00:59:39.980 the continent would have looked anything like it does now it would have been romanized much like

00:59:44.760 the Gauls were. So, personally, I believe we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Prince 1.00

00:59:54.840 Hermann. But I am also, you know, very devoted to Meister von List and an arminist, practicing

01:00:06.160 armonist so it's really a toss-up between meister von list and uh and prince herman and i would say

01:00:15.120 um prince herman probably is going to take precedence because without him i'm not sure

01:00:20.240 meister von list would uh would even have been able to or or to study what he did so

01:00:27.040 i'm gonna have to go with prince herman on that one yeah that's it's always an interesting one

01:00:34.800 And I think, I don't know, it's funny because I think a lot of those kind of what's your favorite, this or that question can be really, really simple.

01:00:48.100 But they also challenge you to actually like dive deep and think like, man, which is my favorite?

01:00:58.020 hmm let's compare and contrast unless you know i think that they also have different um

01:01:08.100 different appeal at different stages in your life um or different things you're going through like

01:01:21.060 i don't know that he's my favorite of our heroes but one that has always been

01:01:26.740 really really i don't know specifically important to me is uh is king radbot um

01:01:38.820 and that was you know for a couple of reasons there

01:01:44.660 but i felt really

01:01:49.460 it was an interesting thing when i came to ousted true because i didn't

01:01:53.060 i didn't come straight from something to also true i left christianity on its own terms

01:02:04.100 which was really scary because for all i knew their god was real and that was the

01:02:10.500 all-powerful god of the universe and he still was a bad person and somebody that i

01:02:17.940 couldn't in good conscience be affiliated with but that was real scary because i thought that

01:02:24.740 was all there was so it was one of those like you know radbot at the time didn't have some some

01:02:33.940 profound faith in the ice series like all right well i guess this is i guess this is what it is

01:02:40.900 i've heard all the arguments whatever the case might be i guess i'll get baptized but but hold

01:02:47.380 up you know where where are my ancestors and there's just as hyperbole saying like no i'd 0.55

01:02:57.460 rather be in hell with my ancestors in heaven with some beggars it's a cool like metal thing to say

01:03:05.300 but if you genuinely believe that those are your choices and you still would choose that 0.94

01:03:10.900 that that's really saying something and that was kind of where i was at when i left christianity

01:03:18.820 was like uh-oh maybe this is all there is but i can't do this in good conscience this is wrong

01:03:27.860 and so that was really meaningful to me so i think a lot of us when we when we get asked that

01:03:32.820 have uh you know different personal things where we can see can see some of these heroes

01:03:40.900 in things that we've gone through or things that we're going through in our

01:03:47.920 life that they really kind of speak to us so our next question Matt do you

01:03:57.100 follow the k1 curriculum exactly or do you use it as a baseline so I absolutely

01:04:02.380 use it as baseline we read the story so much of the k1 curriculum is about

01:04:09.520 reading a series of Super Sam's adventures. And so we'll do that. We try to, you know,

01:04:22.040 thematically do some of the other stuff. So we, you know, do, do nature stuff when we're out in

01:04:29.540 it. I talked about that a little bit earlier. We try to look at the leaves and look at the

01:04:33.400 different stuff that goes on at different times of the year talk about the seasons again in reno

01:04:40.120 there's not a lot of seasons we're in a there is a lot more seasons now which is cool the cooking

01:04:46.480 stuff it depends no we have not done you know some of those old traditional recipes because

01:04:51.220 aubrey is way too finicky with her eating which uh i wish that wasn't the case uh her mother and 0.95

01:04:58.320 need to work on her with that but we do make sure that she helps um cook and shop for uh

01:05:07.120 so i one of the big things that i do is i have you know we have everybody over in our home for uh

01:05:12.880 i'll share your gothic dinner once a month and so i always take her shopping with me for the

01:05:19.520 ingredients and try to you know reason with her how much stuff goes for how many people and you

01:05:26.240 you know, math stuff about the recipe

01:05:28.480 and stuff about how to pick out, you know,

01:05:30.800 the right stuff for it,

01:05:32.380 pick out things that work and things that won't

01:05:35.180 and then get her as best we can to help with the,

01:05:38.420 you know, with the preparation of the food and of the meal.

01:05:42.640 So we do a lot of that, but yeah, we use it as a guideline.

01:05:46.560 so anybody else have questions tonight or it's going to be a little bit brief of the show i know

01:06:00.580 rob's looking at a brief show anyway so that's okay but if you have questions we'd love to get

01:06:05.260 to them um rob do you think anybody has misconceptions about the academy that you

01:06:14.640 may want to clear up um not that i've heard specifically um you know i i think some of

01:06:25.440 the earlier misconceptions were that uh it was more just a support group or a conglom

01:06:32.320 uh what's the word i'm looking for um where several people get together and just share material

01:06:40.480 um a co-op there we go uh you know some folks may have thought we were a co-op for a while

01:06:47.360 um you know which people do share stuff and ideas but we we definitely aren't a co-op so

01:06:53.520 um i think those the big misconceptions uh that were early on but i think a lot of those have

01:06:59.600 been cleared up um or and another big one and not so much from afa members but in the beginning um

01:07:07.760 from outside the church you know there was some some ideas that you know it wasn't going to be

01:07:13.200 a quality program but it's funny because our detractors actually went through and saw our 1.00

01:07:19.440 program and like oh this is our dream program if only it wasn't the folkish folks you're funny that 1.00

01:07:28.320 yeah so um no you know that that was the big one is uh you know in the in the beginning uh 1.00

01:07:35.840 they thought some folks might have thought it was a co-op or that it wasn't going to be

01:07:39.440 so comprehensive and quality and you know just through us following through on what we said we

01:07:45.280 were going to do we've we've dispelled those myths uh handily so i think that's that's the only thing

01:07:51.840 i can think of unless there's something specific you're thinking of matt but that's really all i

01:07:56.160 can think of yeah i uh you know i i didn't have anything off the top of my head i was wondering

01:08:01.680 if there's something that you've encountered uh you interact with the parents more directly on

01:08:06.480 that than i typically do um one of those things that i think is interesting for anybody out there

01:08:13.440 um out there watching this if you okay so

01:08:21.520 if you are you know a heterosexual white person who is not involved in an interracial relationship

01:08:28.400 you should join the house true folk assembly it's where you should be we would love to have you that

01:08:33.440 said anybody out there in in the universe is welcome to watch this program and i hope you do

01:08:40.560 and i hope you enjoy it i hope maybe you learn something from it if you are afa eligible

01:08:48.400 and you're watching this and you are uncomfortable with um

01:08:59.360 racially specific religion or politically incorrect traditional views of the world

01:09:07.360 or things that just socially are stigmatized something that you know rob and i chuckle

01:09:15.520 about and i think we've earned some of the chuckling because we've been in the trenches on it but

01:09:20.000 But something I've really experienced with people over the years that are around us and see the things that we do.

01:09:30.220 They get an idea in their head that, you know, you're not allowed to think these things.

01:09:35.440 And the things that you're not allowed to think aren't because we're house of truth.

01:09:40.400 They're because we're traditionally minded.

01:09:42.620 And there's things that generally all of your ancestors, you know, I'm getting older now.

01:09:48.080 going to say up until your grandfather's generation but maybe up until your great

01:09:51.440 grandfather's generation have pretty much all thought and agreed upon and would be completely

01:09:56.640 normal it's only very very recently that things have taken a real dramatic turn in different ways

01:10:05.840 so these are things that you know the vast majority of our ancestors would have found

01:10:10.320 very very reasonable things um but sometimes a lot of stuff goes together and it's worth

01:10:16.560 considering that um i knew a woman that uh used to get together with me on stuff when i first started

01:10:24.320 out and she had a daughter and you know she tended to lean universalist back when there was a lot

01:10:32.400 more crossover with those things and you know she was uncomfortable with the you know social or

01:10:39.760 political or whatever views of myself some people that we get together with she always felt really

01:10:45.520 comfortable having her daughter around us when she got together with you know her good socially

01:10:52.160 approved lefty rainbow coalition buddies they virtue signaled right but she's terrified to

01:10:59.760 leave the room with her daughter unattended around those people and it was one of those things that

01:11:05.680 i've seen more and more people over time realize some of these things go together

01:11:09.840 so it's worth considering you know the totality of some of these things

01:11:15.520 detractors think you know whatever they want about folkish people but one of the things

01:11:22.780 that goes with our traditional views about gender and about race and about

01:11:29.480 values also is commitment to follow through on our word is commitment to stick through and look

01:11:40.100 out with what's best for our children, for our families, for our folk in long run, and to really

01:11:46.120 hold the line and to stand firm on the things that we believe. And that ends up, you know,

01:11:52.380 these things go together and there's a totality. And some of these things, when you notice a point

01:11:56.820 of commonality like that, it's worth considering. Maybe there's something inherent that ties all

01:12:02.600 these things together in a comprehensive worldview. I just think that's worth, you know,

01:12:08.080 worth thinking on for a moment um what else we've got a couple of other things coming through here

01:12:15.840 also uh 14 broke i'm glad that you were inspired by my dinners to start hosting your own that is

01:12:22.240 that's my roots that's how i started with house a true that's something that is really

01:12:26.800 near and dear to my heart is hey there's nobody doing anything near me i was up in alaska

01:12:32.800 you know afa wise pretty much all by myself in the area that i was in when i started there was

01:12:39.040 you know some other people i was able to find on like was it meetup.com or like yahoo groups

01:12:45.680 or something at the time but inviting people to come over and share a meal at my table that was

01:12:52.240 really how i started how i got my i don't know got my feet under me in house and true and it's

01:13:01.280 It's something that I look forward to every month to this day and it's so important to, you know, to what I do and how, I don't know, how this fits into my life.

01:13:11.360 So I'm glad that that's something that you're doing.

01:13:13.920 I wish you a lot of success with that.

01:13:18.380 You know, while we're talking on the Academy, I have been digging in there for the last couple weeks, uploading all of the new programs or the new curriculums.

01:13:29.600 and we mentioned a few things tonight that i thought were funny and we talk about how

01:13:35.420 a lot of the program with waldorf is about like hands-on not this boring reading from a book or

01:13:44.260 just listening to some lecture drone on and sometimes they incorporate things in interesting

01:13:49.140 ways that i thought were a little interesting in either 10th or 11th grade curriculum there's a

01:13:55.000 whole science class on embryology like embryos uh baby making and in part of it there is even a

01:14:05.980 uh a sculpture lesson where you sculpt an embryo out of clay so you're really getting hands-on in

01:14:14.840 that regard there's another one in it's a history block on art history where and yeah

01:14:24.880 art history you think yeah you're doing some artsy stuff but this is technically from the

01:14:28.720 historical perspective but you're still getting in there and in one of the lessons you are

01:14:35.760 using clay again to sculpt a uh one of the old venus statues uh you know the the heavy set ones

01:14:44.240 from uh way back when the bronze age or was maybe even pre-bronze age um and then in another lesson

01:14:51.280 in there you're doing a painting in the art history section and you're always all kinds of

01:14:58.140 different fun lessons and i'll tell you especially once you get into high school it's gonna be so fun

01:15:03.540 for these uh kids i think because there are probably four math science history and english

01:15:13.940 options per grade level um and with encouragement to pick one from another grade level

01:15:21.940 if you want um we've got one where technically at least according to waldorf if you complete

01:15:30.060 this lesson block it's actually the exact lessons that people have to take to pass the certification

01:15:38.500 at zoos to do hands-on animal presentations um so that's part of i think the 11th grade veteran

01:15:49.440 11th grade veterinary course um there's zoology there's all kinds of all kinds of fun stuff in

01:15:57.800 here and that's just the tip of the iceberg that's just what you get to look forward to in high

01:16:03.280 school coming up um all of the amazing stuff that we've got in the earlier grades too is um

01:16:11.760 it's really it's really very thorough and um well we've got the baseline down now that's what i

01:16:20.500 consider it so we're just going to keep adding on to it for years to come it's going to get better

01:16:24.880 and better even um all right rob are the older years in the academy more structured or specific

01:16:32.880 in the curriculum yes um so there's going to be more and this is really when we start um keeping

01:16:44.000 transcripts and that's something i can talk about as well um so yes the classes are more structured

01:16:50.720 there's going to be um you know specific live classes with myself and possible other goes are

01:16:57.280 that are going to teach not only religious lessons but uh myself i'll be teaching some history

01:17:02.000 um and we'll also like i said start keeping track with transcripts so kids that want to go on to

01:17:10.820 to college will have those transcripts um and they'll get a diploma uh from them from the

01:17:16.820 academy so yeah it is a little bit more structured it's not so much um you know play focus but it is

01:17:23.780 still experiential um as nick mentioned uh you're not just learning about an embryo you're crafting

01:17:29.120 one um and you know some folks learn just from reading a book and and memorization oddly enough

01:17:37.200 i'm one of those i i retain things i read very well um but a lot of folks learn better doing it

01:17:45.040 hands-on um they're not gonna look at a picture in a textbook and remember the parts of an embryo

01:17:51.680 but if they make one they feel it with their hands um they interact with it in a in a in a

01:17:59.520 physical sense then they retain that knowledge better uh and waldorf really emphasizes that

01:18:05.280 so uh yeah there is some structure but it's still in in a waldorf style um so i i hope that answers

01:18:12.320 the question um but for those students that are interested um you know by training i'm an historian

01:18:18.880 so i i want to teach like a lecture several lecture series on on various uh topics and

01:18:26.480 area in history so i'm going to so uh dean's prerogative there um um yeah so yeah definitely

01:18:35.840 some more structure so rob how how much does racism play in the curriculum

01:18:44.880 none i'm just looking over in the chats and i guess somebody did a video about the evil racist

01:18:54.620 brainwashing their children and right well it makes me wonder what our detractors think that

01:19:01.800 we actually do it's humorous but it's also kind of sad that that's the world they live in but

01:19:08.980 i think they would be surprised i think they'd be very surprised yeah exceptionally um and

01:19:16.100 waldorf let me let me be clear waldorf um it is huge worldwide there's private brick and mortar

01:19:24.900 waldorf schools all over the world um you know there there's and i visited one as a matter of

01:19:33.600 fact um you know i i said i would be interested parent so i went and visited one and looked how

01:19:39.780 they did things you know at a brick and mortar wall they're all over the place and there's

01:19:46.160 waldorf universities there's um there's it's not this fringe you know ultra racist uh you know

01:19:58.540 we're teaching our kids these horrible evil things you know this this is a pretty solid

01:20:03.740 internationally recognized program you've supplemented it with courses on on racial

01:20:09.740 hatred and stuff right no no um you know so when i teach topics in history i mean i'm teaching

01:20:18.860 facts um you know i i don't teach i don't want to word it like in the wrong way like

01:20:27.660 i don't teach self-hatred i don't teach hatred of anyone um but i think you should take pride

01:20:35.820 in your own people and there's nothing wrong with that of course you should and we would hope that

01:20:41.580 everybody else does too right uh hatred is not taught anywhere um you know i can look at the

01:20:52.300 imperial palace in in japan and say wow that's that's a beautiful building that's that's a

01:20:59.020 gorgeous piece of architecture i can look at um you know japanese culture and and japanese food

01:21:06.940 i love japanese food and so that's an amazing culture it's beautiful and they they are certainly

01:21:12.860 proud of their achievements um just because i can look at a culture and their achievements and say

01:21:18.460 wow that's that's pretty and that's cool and um they have neat history that doesn't mean that

01:21:24.060 i have to hate my own and it certainly doesn't take away from mine either but i can still

01:21:29.020 appreciate some another people's accomplishments um so no we don't we don't teach hatred anywhere

01:21:36.300 uh and especially we don't teach teach hatred of ourselves and i think that's the big difference

01:21:42.860 um between homeschooling especially in and you know more and more in a public school setting

01:21:49.020 is we don't teach our kids to hate themselves nope and we our kids have a lot to be proud of

01:21:56.460 and that's good that they have an avenue to take pride in themselves unabashedly

01:22:01.740 i'm an afr i'm a member i'm sorry let me start fresh i'm moving to anchorage in a couple of

01:22:17.060 weeks i'm not an afa member yet but are there events in alaska i'd love to join but odentock

01:22:23.780 isn't practical to travel to so disagree when i lived in anchorage i traveled to northern

01:22:31.420 california uh once a year to go to afa events it can be done but it is a challenge one thing about

01:22:38.220 alaska is you're far away but that's where i got my start and you know here i am and i've really

01:22:44.460 made this this my life we do have members in alaska i'm not going to lie to you and tell you

01:22:51.740 there's a lot of activity going on because what we desperately need is somebody up there to step up

01:22:58.140 and folk build and host stuff and even if you're not folk building to actually host stuff and be

01:23:02.780 willing to make some stuff happen it's difficult to do but when i was up there i was able to get

01:23:08.140 together with people uh regularly and really make something for myself up there that you know brought

01:23:15.980 me to where i am today so it can absolutely be done i spent the first uh 33 years of my life

01:23:23.660 in anchorage so awesome i hope that you really like it and yeah we have members all around the

01:23:30.780 world if you want to have stuff in your area you should join and you should get people together

01:23:36.300 and make stuff happen the afa doesn't this is the name to you the same to anybody that wants

01:23:41.980 to see activity this is how every time you see a successful area where we have a hof or where

01:23:48.700 we have a community of afa members that are meeting regularly and you see a afa activity

01:23:56.940 it's not because i sent out missionaries there to go make it happen that'd be cool but we don't have

01:24:02.380 those resources right now it's because you know a member decided to step up and say hey how about we

01:24:11.100 do something there are folks in my area absolutely there are you want us to let them know sure and

01:24:17.420 they host something maybe it's at their house maybe it's at a park maybe they go to a bar or

01:24:23.180 a restaurant or a event or whatever they want to do there's a lot of stuff to do it just takes the

01:24:28.940 individual stepping up and saying they want to be part of it we've got people that would love to

01:24:33.100 help connect you with other afa members wherever you're at and get those things going so please

01:24:38.300 if it's something you're interested in reach out we would love to help make that happen

01:24:41.820 in person on a personal note i would love to see more activity in my home of anchorage alaska i

01:24:49.020 would love to see that happen that's like i say that's my roots that's where it all started for

01:24:53.420 me and i would love to see that area flourish ah what is the afa's views when it comes to animal

01:25:01.580 rights and circumcision um of people not of animals when it comes to circumcision i assume

01:25:11.820 I hope.

01:25:13.500 So two separate things.

01:25:19.560 Last one first.

01:25:21.500 Circumcision, unless there's some kind of medical necessity 0.97

01:25:25.080 because the kid's junk's mangled somehow, no, that's not good. 1.00

01:25:31.260 That is an explicitly Jewish practice. 0.98

01:25:36.640 It's something that has for a variety of – you can go into the history of it,

01:25:41.560 but that's not typically a worldwide thing it's very much an american thing that has happened i

01:25:46.440 think it happens far less lately um but no that is explicitly the mark of the covenant between

01:25:56.760 the jewish people and yahweh and it's not something that we want our people engaged in

01:26:03.160 you know you've got to make the choices that you want for your children but it's definitely 1.00

01:26:08.920 something that we do not encourage and that we're we're not in support of like i said unless there's

01:26:14.280 some kind of a medical reason that that needs to be done but i don't really know what that reason

01:26:18.840 would be but animal rights i think is is interesting i don't i don't know what all

01:26:25.480 that means animals aren't people we're not the same in the afa we don't believe in equality

01:26:30.680 but we are absolutely opposed to cruelty cruelty to people cruelty to animals cruelty is something

01:26:38.280 that we're very much opposed to a great many of us are deep animal lovers i know that that i am

01:26:46.760 i mean you can see behind me i hunt i say that i haven't hunted in a long time i'm glad to hunt

01:26:52.120 and have the opportunity but cruelty is completely unacceptable um it's one of the things we do when

01:26:58.680 we screen and we background check members you know we look for you know some hard nose when it comes

01:27:06.600 to uh registered sex offenders but one of the other things we look for is crimes of cruelty

01:27:14.360 and that includes you know cruelty towards women and children cruelty towards the elderly

01:27:20.200 but also very specifically cruelty to animals um cruelty is

01:27:28.280 anathema to what we believe and what we do and we are very you know we're very aware

01:27:35.080 of and we don't tolerate cruelty towards animals uh rob do you have anything to add on any of those

01:27:41.640 topics not especially um it's unfortunate uh in the united states specifically that circumcision

01:27:53.320 has become the norm um for every you know american boy um that's something that we

01:28:01.560 consciously contain uh now that we know better uh you know don't be mad at your parents they

01:28:08.120 didn't know any better that was standard practice at hospitals um and even parents that have have

01:28:13.800 had a boy born recently can probably tell you that the hospital still pushed that

01:28:18.360 it's it's something that we have to consciously you know fight against now

01:28:27.400 knowing what it means and how it is not medically necessary um to mutilate our young men

01:28:34.900 um so unfortunately many of us like our parents didn't know any better so you know we got what

01:28:41.280 we got but going forward we can definitely change that um yeah animal cruelty animal cruelty uh you

01:28:50.140 know i love animals i know most of us do um but i also love tasty animals too so i think there

01:28:57.700 there has to be that line drawn as matt said there's a difference between hunting for food

01:29:02.620 and sport um and cruelty just for cruelty's sake and that's where i think the line needs to be drawn

01:29:09.620 all right um rob what you know about cleptis um not a whole lot i know they pushed that a lot

01:29:22.960 when i was in the military you know that was uh over 20 years ago so but i know i know they

01:29:30.380 pushed that a lot for for us when you know um to to get signed up to college and do clept tests

01:29:37.460 And I vaguely remember it from high school. Some of the some of the courses, you know, the the the higher like the gifted and talented program courses counted for both college credit and high school credit.

01:29:51.220 But I'm not super familiar with it. I know it's it's like a test you can take to get college credit.

01:29:56.880 that's that's about all we know now that high school kids coming into our program

01:30:02.740 I'm gonna have to get more well-versed on it and and absolutely you know be

01:30:09.420 able to to have some knowledge if our kids ask about it and want to take

01:30:13.200 advantage of it I'm not sure if all colleges recognize it or not but it's

01:30:21.060 something that i'll definitely investigate more deeply yeah so um he goes on to uh say cleps

01:30:29.780 slash ap test so that's what i'm familiar with is advanced placement tests um in my high school

01:30:38.980 you had your your standard courses you had honors and then a step above that is you had

01:30:43.540 advanced placement and that was i don't know if it was 11th and 12th grade courses for everyone

01:30:53.860 or if that's just when i got involved in it um i remember i took uh like ap us government ap

01:31:05.860 history a couple of different ap histories and like ap english and that that was a really cool

01:31:14.420 thing and it was it was cool in a couple ways the test to where you could get college i didn't use

01:31:20.020 any of it but it was cool that you could get college credit for it but it also was taught

01:31:25.060 at a little bit higher level and was that's something that i'm a big fan of deviating from

01:31:31.620 the homeschool thing for a sec one of the things if you're gonna be in public school

01:31:38.100 that i think is really nice if you're able to and you have a kid that is interested

01:31:45.540 is to keep them stimulated and keep them interested it's really unfortunate when you

01:31:52.580 have very high functioning kids that are you know forced by circumstance to be in a class with

01:31:59.140 either kids that just aren't that high functioning or kids that are outright disruptive and a problem

01:32:09.220 public school tends to lower people to the lowest common denominator because that's what works when

01:32:15.300 you have a system like that but when you have the option put your kids in honors programs

01:32:21.060 or in advanced placement programs

01:32:22.900 i found those to be really those are the things that i look back when i'm like man what did i

01:32:30.860 actually get out of public education that was good those classes i look back on and like man

01:32:36.680 i remember learning this there man that was a really good experience so those those are things

01:32:41.340 that i do look back on family and public education um how many kids do we got in the uh astro academy

01:32:55.740 at present uh nick would have the exact numbers um the last i checked which granted i think that

01:33:04.380 That was last month. It was 54.

01:33:07.720 If you scroll up, I posted the numbers.

01:33:11.180 It said from Sarah.

01:33:13.120 It was 30 some odd in the academic portion

01:33:17.080 and another 18 families worth in the religious studies.

01:33:25.120 So that could be more than 18 kids in the religious studies, though.

01:33:29.200 So has that number grown since we started?

01:33:34.380 Oh, yes. When we started the program, we had, I think, five or six.

01:33:42.500 Like our first kindergarten year? Yeah.

01:33:45.880 Yeah. So, yeah, it's grown a lot.

01:33:49.740 And we anticipate a lot of growth coming up now that we are completely open K through 12.

01:33:55.820 uh because over the the last at least a year or two i've had many parents reach out asking about

01:34:03.240 their kids that are in middle school and high school and i had to say well i'm sorry we're

01:34:07.220 just not there yet uh but we will be soon so i anticipate that uh you know we're going to get

01:34:14.480 another large influx of of applications and kids in the program so that's exciting can we

01:34:21.480 you all right can kids change over and enroll at any point or do we only have like a limited

01:34:28.860 enrollment window uh no uh kids can join any time of the year they want um so yeah don't wait do it

01:34:38.840 now uh for administrative purposes just for our ease of keeping track of things and this helps

01:34:45.400 with some of the states that require uh portfolios to be turned in and educational hours to have

01:34:51.880 track of uh we like i said for administrative purposes our academic year um it runs from

01:35:00.840 uh the september 1st through uh june but that really doesn't mean anything for

01:35:07.560 for you parents or students because it's an ongoing process we don't stick hard to those

01:35:13.320 um to those dates uh you can school all year round or you can school less as long as the you

01:35:20.520 know you get your requirements satisfied but um yeah we don't have any specific blocks that we

01:35:27.960 that we do registration and and don't please if you want to sign up sign up we

01:35:33.560 we will take you any time of the year excellent um

01:35:37.960 Matt, I'm sure you know of Red Ice and Henrik and Lana. Have you ever reached out to collaborate?

01:35:49.180 So, yes, actually. Henrik and Lana have been to two different AFA events to come speak on

01:35:57.160 different things or to come, you know, be part of stuff. I've gotten a chance to meet them both

01:36:03.540 those times uh lovely people i really really like them i think they're fantastic i love their family

01:36:10.740 um i was on lana she used to have her own program like what was it radio 314 i think i was on that

01:36:20.180 with her years at 2016 i think a decade ago now i'm getting old um i've been on red ice a couple

01:36:29.060 of times for like yule specials where i popped in and said hi to people but you know i'm very open

01:36:34.740 to that if there's something we can you know collaborate on or or do whatever i think they're

01:36:39.060 i think they're really great people and you know like i said communication with them a number of

01:36:43.940 our members are friends of theirs and you know they've been lovely to me each time i've gotten

01:36:48.660 a chance to meet them so hmm what what does the academy do for physical education

01:37:00.360 uh well as you know built into waldorf there's a lot of stuff uh that is physical um there is

01:37:13.240 nature walks and and going outside and that's that's one thing uh i talked to one of our

01:37:21.380 members at one point who had a son who was in a an adult fund at that point when we went to a

01:37:27.840 waldorf um private school growing up and said that was one thing about waldorf is rain or shine or

01:37:33.480 snow whatever the kids went outside so uh built into waldorf itself there's a lot of of being

01:37:41.640 active. As far as, you know, structured physical education, unfortunately, because it is a

01:37:51.420 homeschool program and because, you know, you can't just go to gym class. So, or we

01:38:00.000 don't have like school sports, unfortunately, because our membership spread out and it's

01:38:04.860 in a homeschool environment the cool thing about that is by law um you homeschool uh your school

01:38:12.760 district in your area has to allow your kids to play sports at the local school so that's not

01:38:20.060 something you have to sacrifice uh if you're if your son or daughter is a soccer a big soccer

01:38:25.560 player or a football player wants to wrestle whatever etc etc uh the local school has to let

01:38:34.080 them play um so they're not going to miss out on those opportunities um what does that look like

01:38:40.960 like if you have a kid that's i don't know wants to be in football and they're a freshman or

01:38:45.820 something how does how does that interface work we haven't run into that yet um we've had the

01:38:56.300 younger kids um but i'm sure we may run into it now uh accepting older kids as far as i'm aware

01:39:04.520 you just you go to the district office of the school and and sign them up um for example my

01:39:12.060 my oldest daughter she's a musician um she plays in the in the local school marching band

01:39:18.040 um and that was simply i had to go to the school district's office and and say this is what we do

01:39:24.360 this is what you know she wants to play in the band and and okay this is when band practices

01:39:30.920 you know i had to fill out some forms you know but um but that it was the as easy as that um

01:39:40.440 so i yeah well another question

01:39:45.160 i know that this is legit in all 50 states what about if we have kids in canada i heard that

01:39:55.800 there are some provident provinces to where it was fitting yes so we have that come up

01:40:02.860 and so we did some research on that there are provinces in canada where it's very easy

01:40:10.780 Just like here in the United States, we have states that are incredibly easy.

01:40:15.540 And then we have states that have more restrictions or have more requirements.

01:40:20.420 It's the same way in Canada.

01:40:22.360 Some provinces are really easy.

01:40:24.460 Some require more reporting or tracking.

01:40:27.260 And then some don't have it at all.

01:40:28.780 They don't allow it at all.

01:40:29.780 So it's really by province.

01:40:33.060 But if you're in Canada and you're interested, contact us.

01:40:37.520 and we will let you know if your province allows it or not and what are the requirements for your

01:40:43.360 province um as far as our membership in europe i mean i'm sure you all know unfortunately europe

01:40:49.460 is not on board with the homeschooling so that's that's cool because i mean i think people do

01:40:59.900 understand that but i think people also assume that canada that canada i think that some of us

01:41:06.540 in the United States assume that all of Canada is as far left as you can possibly be and is very

01:41:13.560 anti-homeschooling, it's refreshing to know that some provinces do allow that. I think that's

01:41:19.160 something that a lot of people maybe haven't considered.

01:41:33.700 What has surprised you most about running a homeschool program for the AFA?

01:41:42.480 What has been the most unexpected for you?

01:41:49.160 That's a good question. There's so much that I've learned over the last couple of years. I said, when I got into this, I'd had some, you know, I mean, I have a background in education, but I'd only taught at the adult level, you know, and then my own higher education.

01:42:11.760 So everything I've had to learn fresh. So that's that. I mean, everything has been new and exciting.

01:42:23.180 I think the most, you know, surprising aspect of things is, you know, just like you talked a little bit on earlier, you touched on earlier, is that most people when they hear homeschool, they think, oh, how are they going to socialize?

01:42:45.180 How are they going to get socialized?

01:42:48.480 But into the homeschool community and culture and and and and really seeing things from a homeschool perspective is that's it's probably better how our homeschool kids get socialized rather than how they get socialized in public school.

01:43:08.100 And that that really was surprising to me because, you know, I fondly remember my high school days, but not everybody does.

01:43:17.100 And things have certainly changed in, you know, 30 years.

01:43:22.700 So I think that was the biggest surprise is that our parents are so good at getting our kids socialized, but getting our kids socialized in a healthy way.

01:43:33.160 um a way that reinforces our values and our faith and our morals rather than denigrates them

01:43:40.320 so i think that's been the biggest thing well one of the things that you know we see all the time

01:43:48.320 um you know i mentioned aubrey you know we like to get outside and go to the park and

01:43:52.680 learn stuff that way a lot of the time and she's we've run into groups of homeschooling parents

01:43:58.960 all the time. They're awesome. They're like the nicest kids. They're the nicest parents. It's

01:44:07.000 the most wonderful experience. It's good socialization as opposed to the victimization

01:44:14.000 slash enrichment that can often be a very problematic thing about today's public

01:44:24.580 education unfortunately uh reminder to folks though um even if you live in some backwards communist

01:44:38.820 dystopian location you can always be part of our religious studies to enhance um and to you

01:44:46.740 know fortify the stuff that's going on where you're at um and we'd love to do whatever we

01:44:52.260 can to help you be successful if you find yourself in a spot where you're not able to homeschool and

01:44:59.060 you're an afa member we can supplement and help and help help help you get the best

01:45:06.580 best situation you can find our people are very very interested in helping out any way we can on

01:45:10.820 that rob what was your first

01:45:22.260 like, non-solo practitioner Ossetru thing you did?

01:45:31.560 Oh, well, I guess you could count it.

01:45:36.780 It was way back when I was in the Navy.

01:45:40.400 There was one other guy, and that's how I found Ossetru on my ship

01:45:44.640 that was Ossetru, and he and I were just doing book studies together,

01:45:52.260 and um you know pouring out a cup of bug juice uh but you know real real awesome true um you know

01:46:04.900 it would be years later um uh and i i remember the first afa event i i went to was a charming

01:46:14.020 of the plow um in in virginia with uh speckinger uh svan errol um and and that that's what really

01:46:23.780 got me hooked was just the warmth and the the the friendliness of those folks um and then the the

01:46:33.540 genuine religious feeling there you you don't in my opinion and i and i think this holds true for most

01:46:40.260 you don't get that same feeling um from a solo practice as you do with standing in a circle with

01:46:48.780 with fellow believers um you know it was it was genuine and real and that's what hooked me

01:46:57.380 yeah that's one of the things that i don't think

01:47:03.720 there's words only do so much

01:47:13.300 you know pictures do a lot of things that words don't do as far as communicating past that

01:47:21.940 kind of logical barrier we have where we look for

01:47:25.840 we look for critical arguments we look you know toward with an eye towards cynicism

01:47:31.320 all of us do that in today's world um pictures help conceptualize like oh these look like

01:47:38.040 good people oh this looks like fun but experience does that in a wholly different way

01:47:44.600 um i would really encourage anybody who hasn't yet met up with other afa members

01:47:52.520 or practiced also true with other people to do that um

01:47:57.800 that's when it becomes real and you can see the people who've done this for a time and you can see

01:48:05.600 how very real this is to them, how very serious they take it. And that enhances and strengthens

01:48:11.760 your own faith, especially when you're starting out. I can't say it enough, but this is really

01:48:17.280 something meant to be done as a group and as a community. You know, if you find yourself in a

01:48:22.420 spot where you're in an institution somewhere, you're isolated, you're out in the middle of

01:48:27.220 know where worshiping the gods by yourself is a lot better than not worshiping them at all

01:48:33.440 but worshiping them with your folk is really how this is meant to be done

01:48:38.780 similar to how jews have their own language hebrew slash yiddish muslims have arabic and

01:48:51.200 farsi and christians have latin and greek does the afa use germanic icelandic or other scandinavian

01:48:57.060 language as i see your title name so i think that does is ambitious do i want us to and am i trying

01:49:07.460 to get us to yes the exact same comparison you're making yeah i want that to be old norse and

01:49:16.100 icelandic is mutually intelligible to old norse we do that for a number of reasons we do it because

01:49:25.380 it keeps things congruent as opposed to a hodgepodge of random european languages

01:49:31.700 it becomes unified in one language in one uh middle uh least linguistic framework to

01:49:40.980 conceptualize the things also that's where the majority of our lore comes from that is its

01:49:49.140 original language and it helps us relate to that and understand it in a deeper way and it also

01:49:55.860 that's the um the names of the conception that this has come down to us in the most successful

01:50:03.140 way that's the presentation of this that was you know that was there when the all father

01:50:10.580 interacted with our founder steve mcnalen and set him on his course to found the austral folk

01:50:15.620 assembly and bring us where we are and so in the same sense that you know you so you mentioned and

01:50:23.460 i you can be a muslim and not speak arabic or not speak farsi and that's fine but i think speaking

01:50:31.700 arabic enhances your participation in some of that you can be a christian certainly you can

01:50:38.180 even be a catholic these days and not you know speak any latin or greek but i do think that is

01:50:43.460 a liturgical language unites some things and helps that so you don't have to speak icelandic you don't

01:50:51.780 have to speak old norse to be also true not at all not even a little bit but it's cool if you do and

01:50:57.700 you learn in a different way and you know i've learned and i say this i'm trying i've been trying

01:51:05.220 since you know i've tried off and on but this time it's really stuck and i've worked hard towards it

01:51:09.940 But I can, if I were to tell you I can speak at a kindergartner level in Icelandic slash Old Norse, I think that would be a reach.

01:51:22.860 I think I'd be a pretty dumb kindergartner, but working on it.

01:51:27.860 And the more that I do, though, the more that I notice things when I read the lore, the more that words and phrases jump out at me and that it helps my conceptualization stuff.

01:51:38.660 So aside from just being cool, which I think it is, and a unifying thing, which I think it is, it also helps me appreciate the lore in a different way.

01:51:49.700 But, yeah, that's something that we're reaching towards.

01:51:53.120 I think it's still, you know, a little bit out of our grasp, but it is something that we're absolutely working towards and trying to study.

01:52:00.760 Certainly members of our clergy are.

01:52:05.780 Rob, what was your rating?

01:52:09.540 uh i was a sonar tech there you go

01:52:16.340 so what did that involve for those of us who are not on the inside

01:52:21.460 um i listened to the water um and tried to hear enemy ships

01:52:28.820 most of the time what i heard was fish and whales

01:52:32.100 that sounds kind of cool that sounds really interesting from a distance

01:52:41.400 yeah and it can also be mind-numbingly boring but

01:52:46.500 he didn't speak whale

01:52:49.220 yeah there's there's a whole a really funny movie uh i think it was the late 90s um it's called

01:52:57.660 down periscope and they actually had a and it was a submarine movie um it was a comedy

01:53:04.940 and the the sonar tech on board there uh spoke whale it was hilarious that's awesome

01:53:16.140 all right well are there any uh any closing thoughts you'd like to leave people with about

01:53:22.860 the academy about also true about about rob's stuff um i'm just looking at the chat and yeah

01:53:31.500 monk um yeah we used to clean the toilets too the bug juice uh i think that's probably something

01:53:39.500 that has stand stood the test of time uh in the navy uh uh no uh as far as the academy goes um

01:53:48.220 you know we're very proud of this program um we've worked really hard on it all the staff

01:53:55.020 we're very excited uh to present it to you all and we want you we want you to take advantage of it

01:54:00.860 it's such an outstanding program and we really want all of our families to take advantage whether

01:54:06.940 that be the religious studies part or the full academic program um you can benefit somehow um

01:54:15.900 so please please do reach out and get in touch with us we're very happy to help you get started

01:54:23.420 and as far as the languages go um that's something that we're still looking at um is is language

01:54:30.620 um instruction we've got several options but unfortunately they're not super cheap so that

01:54:37.660 may be something that we have to you know have the parents help with on that but we're trying

01:54:43.020 to get around that uh and we're trying to find a way to get around that but we do want to offer

01:54:48.380 foreign language um in our program so that's that's something to look forward to and also uh

01:54:55.260 we we do add new material all the time just because we quote unquote are done and we have

01:55:01.260 complete and comprehensive uh curriculum k through 12 we are going to keep adding new stuff

01:55:06.700 you're never done we want to keep improving we want to make it you know i don't want to say

01:55:15.100 perfect because i'm not sure that's really a possibility but as perfect as we can get

01:55:20.300 and that means continually improving and that's something we're dedicated to

01:55:26.380 yeah i

01:55:29.180 can't say enough how much uh we all appreciate you and the other volunteers at the academy

01:55:36.700 any anyone who's been around for a long time um involved or now is true involved in the afa has

01:55:44.480 known that we have we have wanted and known that we needed a homeschool program for decades

01:55:52.280 and figuring that out and being able to have the people in place to make that happen

01:55:58.480 has been elusive and you know you mentioned at the top of the show getting you guys in there

01:56:05.500 like all right well what we can do is we can get this first class students which is like four years

01:56:11.180 ago and we can we can stick with them one grade at a time where this kindergarten class can make

01:56:19.660 it all the way through and in just a few short years having an entire k through 12 curriculum

01:56:27.580 and a staff that's helping and learning and contributing so much to it is such a huge

01:56:34.380 achievement and those of us who have seen this for decades are able to appreciate that some of

01:56:41.340 the new people and it's a bit sweet assume it must have always been that way because of course we

01:56:46.460 should have asked you you know homeschool like why wouldn't we and that in itself is a testament to

01:56:55.260 like no we're achieving some of the things that we've really set out to do so you guys are great

01:57:01.900 thank you for all the work that you guys are doing thank you for joining us on the program tonight

01:57:08.540 we appreciate you thanks for having me i appreciate it well we look forward to having

01:57:15.260 you back on uh you know we're always curious how our students are doing there and we're curious

01:57:19.660 about other various rob things yeah well good deal guys um so we're gonna call it a night

01:57:31.900 uh next week i will be joined again by speckinger swan harrell to talk about part three of the

01:57:41.340 guild beginning which swan and i nerd out on and we're very excited about uh like i said i think

01:57:47.440 it's a very important piece and something we're very excited to present to you guys so we'll see

01:57:52.600 y'all next week until then hail the isere help folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps

01:58:01.900 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

01:58:31.900 Thank you.

01:59:01.900 Thank you.

01:59:31.900 We'll be right back.

02:00:01.900 Transcription by CastingWords

02:00:31.900 Transcription by CastingWords

02:01:01.900 Amen.

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 12, 2026

2⧸11⧸26 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 188 - Ásatrú Academy： Checking in with Goði Stamm

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