00:13:40.820yeah it um as we discussed last time so much of this is laid out in the scenario of
00:13:50.440going to the feast or celebrating at the hall um but that's a really good microcosm of
00:13:59.740social interaction and the wisdom contained in this poem is
00:14:07.320yeah this is why it is so such a beloved poem is is it's very readily available and readily
00:14:15.980applicable to almost anybody's life we all find ourselves in these spots
00:14:24.060point being and this is kind of something i've
00:14:27.720talked about on the program a number of times
00:14:31.600we behave very very differently to people's face than we do behind people's back
00:14:38.820and just because to your face and in the company of others in a public setting somebody says all
00:14:47.200the right things and they seek to ingratiate themselves to you by you guys teaming up making
00:14:53.860fun of people you don't like be very wary because the second you get up and go to the bathroom those
00:15:00.320same people may very well be making fun of you. And that's just a social dynamic that I think we
00:15:06.440all know. And probably whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of us probably participate and
00:15:12.200find ourselves being those people sometimes. So it's important, you know, the premise for those
00:15:17.740who missed it last week and those catching up, the premise with this is someone who's traveled
00:15:22.580far from home, who doesn't know the circumstances that he finds himself in. He's a guest in someone
00:15:28.400else's hall and doing that listen listen more than you talk and be aware and pick up and try to
00:15:40.000find ways to accurately read the room but uh yeah there's a lot of people that will tell you
00:15:47.440just what you want to hear to your face but behind your back they really have you know evil designs
00:15:53.560for you. And that's just the path of wisdom to people, you know, going to an unfamiliar location
00:16:03.580with unfamiliar people, maybe even with familiar people. Keep some objectivity about you and don't
00:16:12.280be too trusting, especially in a situation where you don't know folks. Oh, and just as a random
00:16:20.820side. Ronald, I see that once again, you've come through donating to help out some of our folk who
00:16:27.880are in need. We appreciate your donation. We appreciate all that you've done for us
00:16:32.600over time. Thank you so much. Awesome. I didn't see that. I'm kind of running behind on the text.
00:16:42.740this uh these next two again are still kind of of the courtly manner but i find this one
00:16:56.240to be a little bit kind of reversed in our day and age um well so 32 friendly of mind
00:17:04.860are many men till feasting they mock at their friends to mankind a bane must it ever be
00:17:12.060when guests together strive and i think he's he's saying strife or when they come together
00:17:21.900this one seems to be more along the lines of there's a there's a lot to be said back in the
00:17:28.380day for our ancestors when um they were living so far apart a lot of times everything was done
00:17:34.900by word of mouth so you know it's like hey are you with gunner yeah i'm with gunner when if he
00:17:40.480needs help you know he can get help or or whatever he's a good man but then they come together they
00:17:46.220start drinking and then it's like gunner why are you always getting into trouble why are you you
00:17:50.380know being such an idiot or something and then they start kind of jibing at each other i find i
00:17:56.100feel like this is the opposite nowadays where it's um you might have somebody who's on the internet
00:18:02.180is just toxic they're they move via the computer like they got a dagger in their hands they just
00:18:09.980the thought that hits their head goes right through their fingers. But the moment you see
00:18:13.940them in public or the moment you see them in person, even if you don't have a problem with
00:18:18.160them and you've never had a problem with them, all of a sudden you meet this person, you hear
00:18:22.320everyone saying, this person is just absolutely vile online. And then you go to meet them and
00:18:28.100they're so nice. They're great. And you would never guess they were the same person. Now that's
00:18:37.360my personal take on this is that it's kind of seems to be flipped in this time age well you
00:18:42.400know it's it's a little of both some of this has to do with the competition that comes with
00:18:50.960conversation in the hall um trying to put your best foot forward and present yourself well it's
00:18:57.200very easy to compete with your with your friends with a game of one-upsmanship and that often
00:19:03.440doesn't end up well um one of the i don't know something to keep in mind that i think this
00:19:15.120this brings up and is worth reiterating the idea of
00:19:23.120people always have this common refrain like you know how about you say that to my face or you
00:19:29.440wouldn't say that to my face that's true i think we front load it with so much bravado as if if
00:19:37.600you said that to my face i would hit you that's perhaps one outcome of something but that's not
00:19:44.720the big thing everyone's afraid of if they're being honest when you speak to someone's face
00:19:53.120you have to deal with the consequences of your words um how that makes someone feel how they
00:20:01.240respond it's all of a sudden a very real thing it's very easy to speak behind someone's back
00:20:08.360and to uh to tear somebody up verbally from a distance uh behind a screen or in a hall when
00:20:18.680they're not paying attention or when they leave and they're they're not there so it's very it's
00:20:25.780just something to always be aware of just because somebody is is friendly to your face well most
00:20:31.320people will be that doesn't necessarily mean that they're as friendly to you or maintain the same
00:20:37.940the same attitude towards you when you're not when you're not present
00:20:42.860um this one also this one also has an air of interesting compared to modern times when it
00:21:01.060comes to um feasting culture on 33 it says oft should one make an early meal
00:21:07.920nor fasting come to the feast else he sits and chews as if he would joke and little is he able
00:21:16.440to ask and this is really talking about the idea of one you should uh prime yourself for moderation
00:21:24.600um and you know don't be seen as a glutton but if we talk about hall culture back in the day
00:21:34.100It was an understood thing. I mean, if you were invited to a hall, it was good. But these, the food that you were receiving is part of, say, the overall rationing of food that's built for surviving on the day to day.
00:21:48.860And it was a, it was a very big power play in order to host a feast to say, you know, you're doing so well, the gods have granted you, you know, so much bounty, you share it with others. And it was seen that way. So it was also kind of seen as unseemly if you, you know, just showed up and stuffed your face.
00:22:10.720and that was like all and we can kind of see that with uh certain modern events where it's like
00:22:15.740you know this person just pretty much shows up to eat and then as soon as the the food's gone
00:22:20.600he's out or you know she's gone um and that's kind of what this is saying is um you know prime
00:22:29.040yourself uh perhaps eat a little before you show up so that you're not starving and hungry and then
00:22:36.980just mowing through things and you know then you don't even have any time to talk to anyone or
00:22:44.200socialize or anything like that so this is really about not only just moderation it's active or
00:22:52.120proactive moderation the idea of disciplining yourself ahead of time whether it's you know
00:22:58.840and i'm not talking about like pre-gaming anything like that the idea again yeah we are talking about
00:23:04.920pre-gaming a little bit though if you read line one
00:23:07.400pre-game with food but not with drink the idea is you know take your time with the drink and
00:23:17.760make sure that you have a full belly when you show up at the hall so that way you can just kind
00:23:22.240of eat a little bit nowadays i think a lot of people are like please eat because i don't want
00:23:27.180to take any of this home so i can see a lot of that kind of that little flip there so it's fun
00:23:33.940We have not actually read the text together yet, have we, for 33?
00:36:55.140forth shall one go, nor stay as a guest in a single spot forever.
00:37:00.620Love becomes loathing if long one sits by the hearth in another's home.
00:37:08.620I really, really like it because the Old Norse is
00:37:13.220love turns to loathing and love i mean i just i love the idea that um it's it's wise to
00:37:30.180keep stock at your presence and sometimes in the way it might inconvenience people
00:37:38.020um you know when you take a guest when you are a guest you know you should consider
00:37:43.240that you don't sit too long or or uh you know stay about too long it has to be just perfectly
00:37:50.520timed in order to not be so burdensome that it throws off the the flow of the house and um
00:37:58.260and then then you end up leaving with a that joyous sense of man it was so nice instead of
00:38:05.200It was like, man, it was nice, but, uh, or something of that nature is that timing.
00:38:12.380It's, it's knowing when to pull the ripcord.
00:38:14.420It's knowing when to pop smoke and, and, and, and get out of, get out of there.
00:38:20.280You know, that's, again, it's hard to, uh, encapsulate these things in.
00:38:35.200I'm tripping over my words here, and that's kind of what I was trying to say.
00:38:40.860When we view this like perhaps biblical verses are viewed to where we hyper-focus on its particulars, sometimes we lose its broader application.
00:38:59.500and there's so much wisdom in these stanzas to be passed to us that's very very relevant in a lot
00:39:07.060of different ways and can be learned from social dynamics in a in a principled way and this is the
00:39:15.220thing with our faith the principles are timeless the circumstance and the situation is going to
00:39:23.100look really different depending on place and depending on time but the wisdom in in the have
00:39:28.220Mall specifically is just as applicable in 900 as it is in 2024. And before I elaborate a little
00:39:41.480bit more, I just want to point out the Phelps family blew the victory horn for $20 and said
00:39:46.940hail the McNabb, hail the AFA, and then hashtag bestest Hoff. So there's that. We appreciate
00:39:55.560$20. As always, thank you very much. You too can blow the victory horn for a $20 donation.
00:40:03.300So keep that in mind. All right. That said, a little bit more I want to say about the stanza.
00:40:14.800There is a, I've mentioned this before, in
00:40:19.840original aryan language the very oldest roots of the word host and guest are the same word
00:40:30.520and it diverged at some point from that concept but there's a reciprocity
00:40:37.900and there's a delicate balance between being guest and host
00:40:42.040and yeah if you show up to somebody's house and you you know they're waiting for you to leave so
00:40:50.380they can go on with their family's business and you just aren't aren't going to or if you stay
00:40:56.020there and you're literally eating them out of house and home they don't want to be impolite
00:41:02.440And they're balancing the desire to be polite with their growing resentment for perhaps some of their politeness that they're doing.
00:41:14.500So some of it has to do with, you know, you in this instance being a bad guest.
00:41:20.080But some of it also has to do with them and not being, you know, forthcoming with what they think.
00:41:26.600it's one of the things when we have a freer discourse with our friends and those close to us
00:41:33.500sometimes if you give them a hint it's less bad than if you sit around and you grow resentful of
00:41:41.740it so yes don't stay too long at the party don't be burdensome don't stay after the host
00:41:50.280kind of gives you hints they want you to leave but as a host before you get upset did you mention
00:41:56.860like hey it's fun you want to be getting on home um we got stuff to do in the morning
00:42:01.640at some point at some point that is a greater kindness than you know sitting there gritting
00:42:08.640your teeth and being upset as fawn sits by the fire and eats all your food till you know 7 a.m
00:42:15.200So I think there's value in expanding the application of that there.
00:42:24.860Yeah, I was looking, when you said it, I looked it up real quick about the etymology and the gastes from the old Proto-Germanic.
00:42:35.360It meant stranger, a guest, and a host.
00:42:41.420It could mean someone who was not known, someone who was known and welcome or the one welcoming others.
00:42:49.140So it had a lot of uses. And the really cool thing that was written is the most likely of root sense of the word was someone who is or has reciprocal duties of hospitality or to give what is given to.
00:43:07.860So I think in the sense of the enemy is like you're giving to the enemy what the enemy is going to give to you and you give to your guest what the guest gives to you.
00:43:15.640All of our social interaction, and this is what our interaction with the gods is built upon, is the cycle of exchange from one to the other.
00:43:27.380It's a process of gifting, of sharing. That same idea of guest and host being part, two sides of the same coin, part of one cycle of building relationship is very fundamental to Alcetree.
00:43:44.200I also want to note that while we're doing this, Brandy blew the victory horn for $20.
00:45:35.760So 36 is better a house, though a hut it be.
00:45:41.520a man is a master at home, a pair of goats and a patched up roof are far better than begging.
00:45:51.060And I think that's what sets the idea of the trajectory of this statement is that
00:45:58.880there is a kind of one for one. And so it leads you to say, well, what is better than
00:46:05.240my pair of goats and patched up roof? What is better than what I have now? And I think that
00:46:11.320it ultimately is saying that first off you don't want to be you know one of uh that's forced to
00:46:18.940you know scratch at the uh at the palms of of your fellow kinsmen or or what have you i mean
00:46:25.660unless tragedy befalls you you don't want that to be just your natural state and um but then it's
00:46:32.620the question is is do you want better do you want more uh can you make things better do you strive
00:46:38.800for success and then you know you could be the one that's looking back into where you were
00:46:44.480and want your other folk to be better you want them to get and and and push forward i think that
00:46:51.920that's um this one sometimes might allude to people saying well you know i got this and this
00:46:58.880is good enough i think it's more along the lines that you you have this because you don't you're
00:47:05.280not that but where you are could you be looking back at where you are now in the future wanting
00:47:13.120more wanting better and i think that that's a a key and subtle thing that's being said here
00:47:20.000and better doesn't necessarily mean bigger or or what have you it could be more functional it could
00:47:24.720be more um independent it could be um you know more comforts or the ability to take care of
00:47:31.760certain people in your family because they need help and there's a lot of things that that that
00:47:37.760um are the i guess the the baseline for success but you should want it you know that's a thing
00:47:48.080um that goes back to what i mentioned on the previous stanzas this isn't
00:47:54.080you know this isn't generic advice for for the the thrall this is advice for those who want to
00:48:09.520achieve more this is the god of kings giving wisdom to noble people to become the best
00:48:18.060and it would mean something very different yeah if you read that verse to
00:48:22.540lowly people that were lowly of spirit and lowly of mind as well then yeah
00:48:29.000be happy with your with your shack that's got a hole in the roof and your your couple of goats
00:48:36.860and you know be happy with that at least you're not begging when that's said to the son of a
00:48:44.940prince when that's said to one who's noble and wants more the point is about even if it's of
00:48:52.760low means self-reliance is better than having to rely on the goodwill of others it's an idea of
00:49:02.240seizing control of your life and appreciating building from what you have rather than basing
00:49:13.800all of your ability on the whims of other people it's a it's a nod towards self-reliance because
00:49:21.180the text itself you know a fair reading of it makes it yeah they're describing a very you know
00:49:27.980a very not great home and a very not great uh farm with just a pair of goats
00:49:34.460but it's yours and it's a place to start from when you're reliant upon the uh the charity of others
00:49:42.840that can get shut off at a moment's notice that's on the whims of someone else this allows you as a
00:49:50.160as a man to be able to exercise your will from your own resources and self-reliance is this is
00:49:56.020one of the reasons that self-reliance is is one of our noble virtues
00:49:59.140and uh as you'll see here the the next verse doubles down on that
00:50:04.780and you also notice that in the beginning there is a this is another repeat and i
00:50:12.820you know i'm of a firm belief that that these repeat entry um parts were more than just perhaps
00:50:22.020verse um i guess you know just filling in spots if you will i really think these are signposts
00:50:29.380that they're going to start shifting into other concepts and ideas and so these kind of
00:50:35.380double tap verses are are a sign um you know that as you get to a certain point you want to
00:50:44.340start turning your your poem in a different direction or remembering the verses that follow
00:50:49.620that that uh road sign in the verses so again you see you know better a house uh though a hut it be
00:50:57.300a man is a master at home his heart is bleeding who needs must beg when food he feign would have
00:51:08.160then and so you know obviously that those first two lines same as in 36
00:51:15.180you know but the the latter part is of course a man who must uh struggle a man who must beg
00:51:23.700um his heart bleeds if you if you have any ounce of worth to your pride the the lowest you know is
00:51:34.720the the most heart-wrenching thing is to be to be a slave to be a prisoner or to be a beggar
00:51:41.020and the idea is that you you know there's above all all things you you shan't find yourself
00:51:47.500in these situations unless, you know, really, really dire. And even then, it should always
00:51:55.300be of the mindset that you're trying to get out of that, to get away from that and to fix and
00:52:01.100rectify that life so that you can be a freestanding person and have your own will and your own and
00:52:07.880your own movement forward. It was so intrinsically hurtful to our ancestors in relation to the idea
00:52:16.200of, of kind of being compressed, um, because of our deeds, um, or, or the, or other people's
00:52:25.920deeds in reaction to, or however you want to look at it as the ideas you just didn't want to end up
00:52:30.420being that way. So you, you desperately try to work your life at not being closed down and that
00:52:39.920you're weird and your orlog is no longer able to, you know, implement itself upon the world.
00:52:46.200now the um these next two oh since we were talking last and and somebody asked you know
00:53:04.080what were your favorites i i think now i am kind of zeroing in on on what perhaps is my favorite
00:53:10.460it. But, um, but this one is also a really, really good one. Um, number 38, uh, away from
00:53:22.060his arms in the open field, a man should, should fare not a foot for never. He knows
00:53:30.040when the needed for a spear shall arise on the distant road. This one is, I think quoted
00:53:37.200quite often. It does bring up some concepts about the idea of being able to be armed,
00:53:43.360being an armed person, both in Anglo-Saxon culture and in Nordic culture was
00:53:49.900absolutely a sign of freedom and that you, you know, should not step away from your arms.
00:53:58.680But in this case, too, as you're speaking of the fact that this is coming from Lord
00:54:02.620Volvin is paramount. The idea that you never know when you might find yourself to have to rise up to
00:54:12.000an occasion that you never suspected was coming. And so the ways in which you prepare for those
00:54:21.460things should always be at least in the direct periphery of your mental state.
00:54:28.800um this is one that really emphasizes that we are a warrior's religion we are a warrior faith
00:54:36.620and i think this one absolutely keys in with a lot of people who are
00:54:41.140in a former military and things like that
00:54:43.360yeah this one is one of the more popular ones um i think it gets used a lot and i think
00:54:56.340I think it very often is dumbed down to people wanting to talk about rights to carry weapons
00:55:16.760in, you know, odd and socially less acceptable circumstances as like justification.
00:55:25.240And I'm not faulting that. I'm all for people being able to keep and bear arms. I'm all about it. But there's more to this than that. It's about preparedness. And it's about when you go places, you don't know what you're going to find when you get there. So be prepared.
00:55:44.220one of the most effective weapons that you have in any circumstance isn't a sidearm it's not a
00:55:53.760sword it's not a spear it's having your wits about you being situationally aware of what's
00:55:59.440available what's going on where people are in relationship to you and seeing danger before it
00:56:06.840comes at you so though on in a literal sense yeah when you go traveling keep your weapons close at
00:56:17.340hand i get it but i think there is deep wisdom here about keep your head on a swivel and be aware
00:56:24.920of where you're at let's see we're doing 39 or is it 38 i got yeah 39
00:56:48.760um and this is another thing that's kind of interesting um
00:57:00.760this the interesting thing about bellows and i think the reason why we chose
00:57:06.040him was he doesn't remove verses a lot and you'll find translations kind of omit away
00:57:16.600certain, you know, translations to make sure, you know, that it just kind of has congruence,
00:57:27.580or perhaps there's, you know, a question about other things. Now, the other part is, too, is that
00:57:37.600this verse sometimes is in other translations is added is is added in or brought down to
00:57:46.160stanza 40 and added into it depending on how it was written and translated um whereas bellows kind
00:57:53.520of separates this and finds the spot to place it in that would fit well uh in relation to everything
00:58:01.660else. So here, 39, if wealth a man has done for himself, let him never suffer his need.
00:58:15.340Oft he saves for a foe what he plans for a friend, for much goes worse than we wish.
00:58:24.760so i i've always taken this uh as a two-part um the first part of of of this is that you know
00:58:38.620the wealth of a man uh if he has gained worth through hard work um then and he has done it
00:58:46.660well it is a it is an ill sign to see him suffer for need um or to be of you know a struggling
00:58:55.000nature um but the the second half is kind of i see is um you know oft he saves for a foe that
00:59:05.080he plans for a friend um is more along the lines that we are in preparedness oftentimes for the
00:59:14.660negative when we should be perhaps in preparedness for the positive. That we oftentimes amass or
00:59:26.160think of things in the worst case scenarios when in reality, if we do take the time to consider
00:59:32.980building friendships and community, that when things do get bad, we have help. A lot of people
00:59:39.740think nowadays look at certain interactions as detriment and so they you know they prepare
00:59:48.460or they they work their life or they they just want to be absolutely independent and they don't
00:59:54.620want to have to rely on anyone and and there's that sense of individuality that is so venomous
01:00:00.540to the point where you end up kind of becoming uh unrelatable and you don't take the time to
01:00:08.220to understand that perhaps working towards having friendships, working towards the benefits
01:00:13.280that you have and sharing them with your friends can help and go a very long way when you're
01:02:03.100at uh my home hof odin's hof uh and that's obviously the point you're getting at i would
01:02:10.220encourage everyone and i'll say it one more time on here we got charming and plow at new york's
01:02:14.700hof coming up in a week and two days in white springs florida at new york's hof please make
01:02:25.660an effort to get there uh spawn and i will be there i'm looking forward to seeing everybody
01:02:33.500there looking forward to meeting you guys um looking forward to celebrating charming of the
01:02:39.020plow at uh at new york's amazing hoff and it will have been a full year since i've been there it
01:02:46.380doesn't seem like it's been that long so i'm definitely looking forward to it um as far as
01:02:53.180the stanza what i feel very much is being imparted here
01:03:03.180don't be stingy um and i think this goes well with the rune poems when svan and i talked about
01:03:12.620those you know number of months back a dragon sits on his wealth and festers and is
01:03:24.620corrupted by it and doesn't get any joy out of it he just sits there and and and keeps it to
01:03:31.820himself instead of circulating his energy uh this talks about you know money comes and money goes
01:03:38.620a lot of people will save up and they're always saving for something in the future and they're
01:03:44.620always saving for when they need it they're always saving for this and then they get hit by a bus
01:03:50.140you know three weeks into their four-week plan and it was it was all for naught
01:03:59.420enjoy resources that you've garnered for yourself if you've been successful
01:04:03.980use that success to benefit yourself and your family and your friends get benefit out of it
01:04:11.600while you have it instead of saving it up because one day your enemy can just come snatch it from
01:04:17.940you and that's the thing if you're just saving up a horde for one day and this is okay so I often
01:04:25.160get on the wrong side of of preppers with some of my talk about prepping there's plenty to be said
01:04:33.800for being prepared and having a reasonable plan on it there's other people that have squandered
01:04:38.760their entire life preparing for an apocalypse that doesn't happen at the cost of all that
01:04:45.240opportunity cost between now and then of enjoying those resources a lot of people's prep plan
01:04:54.600is to enjoy their life have a certain amount of weapon and cunning
01:05:01.000and then once the time comes just go and take all the preparation for those guys that spent
01:05:07.440their whole life storing it up for them because that's the storehouse of supplies that's a solid
01:05:13.920prepping plan from a lot of people is uh knowing where everybody else is stashing their stuff so
01:05:20.120they can come take it when it's game time um and i think that's what's meant here by saving up
01:05:27.880uh you know what could be spent on a friend for the foe to take stuff happens and you never know
01:05:37.660how long you've got or what the future holds for you and sometimes it's not what you want
01:05:43.160and your plans go awry this isn't an advice to be frivolous and wasteful but enjoy what you have
01:05:52.420I mean, we've all heard those tragic stories of, you know, the homeless guy with a million dollars in his paper sack, in his shopping cart, who's lived his whole life this miser.
01:06:06.620And, you know, they're sitting on a fortune that they could have used to get a whole lot more out of their life and have a whole lot more celebration.
01:06:16.020So I think that's I think that's important.
01:06:19.300And you can obviously take it too far.
01:06:26.020And I don't think Google wants me to use the term that comes to mind when people get a whole bunch of money and then blow it on frivolous things.
01:06:36.820But you guys can can draw connections on that.
01:06:40.500There's there's there's a reason it's called that.
01:18:46.360Or the worst off is when someone's giving you a gift in order to kind of put you into debt and lord it over you.
01:18:53.140In this case, it's more of because the speaking of if fair their fates may be is really talking about that natural synchronicity of friendships.
01:19:03.260of giving and receiving with uh you know without really a sense of that there needs to be an
01:19:11.500immediate dotted line there has to be a balance on the other side of the weight no no this time
01:19:17.580you know your scale is is heavy with with a gift and it's good and then you know you know the next
01:19:23.180time you you catch them you get them and you get their side of the scale and it's kind of fun and
01:19:27.820it's good and it's not really seen as being weighted or added to anything else i think that's
01:19:35.420i love this one because of how light-hearted it's it's taking it should not be seen as
01:19:42.380uh reciprocity under absolute cultural law
01:19:57.820I mean, it elaborates on it and takes it, talks about some of the negative implications here as well, but this one, 41, and then it's reiterated throughout, you know, 42, 43, 44, even 45 to a degree.
01:20:14.880But the gift cycle is our fundamental building block for relationships between friends, between hierarchies of people, between us and our gods.
01:20:34.020We build relationships by sharing and by exchange of goods and treasures, absolutely, but exchange of favors, of kindnesses, of...
01:21:00.020We think, and it's very easy today to think of our resources solely in terms of dollars or dollar value of physical things.
01:21:18.500and that absolutely counts and is obviously important and is the example used here when
01:21:24.620talked about you know things of value that were cool gifts back then were fancy clothes and and
01:21:30.620weapons um certainly in in this hall culture that that this is based around but as i've mentioned
01:21:38.480before so much of it is on the point of you know the fact that you care and that you are giving
01:21:47.140something of yourself to the people that you care about and that they're giving back to
01:24:44.020So this one is often, you might hear another translation.
01:24:48.740um more often than this one but i like this one because it's poetic and it's subtle
01:24:54.620whereas the other one seems to be kind of again utilized um
01:25:00.080sometimes misplaced so uh 42 to his friend a man a friend shall prove and gifts with gifts
01:25:10.740requite but men shall mocking with mockery answer and fraud with falsehood meet so this is again
01:25:19.580very you know the the poetics a way of writing it is really really nice oftentimes what you'll hear
01:25:26.360is you know to a friend give gifts and repay gifts and laughter for laughter and treachery
01:25:33.860for treachery or treachery for lies um is is it often the one you'll hear the most and in essence
01:25:40.440They are saying that, but I like the way this is worded because it's really talking about the idea of the company you keep and the people you're surrounded with, as opposed to perhaps, I think a lot of people utilize this as like, if they're ignorant or they don't fully see the entirety of the situation, they assume that they've been wronged or they don't even really talk about it.
01:26:08.500They don't actually step forward and try to figure out the answer.
01:38:24.120I can't state this strongly enough as a core value.
01:38:27.800It is perhaps the thing I've been most disappointed by in my time in Ausatru, and it's a symptom of how far our people have to go to be healed of our soul sickness and to get our souls right.
01:38:43.840but there is this well you know i want i want to be friends with you know everybody and you know
01:38:53.920well i'll you know i'll pick and choose and i'll you know i'll i'll be open just because you're not
01:39:00.700you don't like somebody doesn't mean i don't have to don't like yes it does it does if you're my
01:39:05.380friend. And that's the thing. Loyalty is exclusive by definition. You can't be loyal to everybody.
01:39:17.580Loyalty to everyone is loyalty to no one. It's one of the values that's value comes from its
01:39:28.840scarcity and its discernment not from its freely being freely given friend to all is a friend of
01:39:38.280none we've got two groups of people that would be wise to heed this counsel the folks that don't
01:39:52.520want to ever take a side that perpetually sit on the fence there is no virtue in neutrality
01:40:00.200none whatsoever our virtue as creatures with will is us choosing
01:40:11.560choosing a side and then standing with your convictions
01:40:15.400that is perhaps our most important virtue
01:40:22.540it is literally what Alcetru means is that we are standing loyal to the Aesir
01:40:30.100which doesn't just mean that we're pro Aesir it means we are anti the enemies of the Aesir
01:40:38.380that's what we owe one another within our afa family that's what you owe to people that you
01:42:49.980It is one of the most noble virtues of our folk.
01:42:54.220Since the receding ice back to the very beginning of our people, and to this very day, and as far in the future as our folk exist, loyalty is the key, and that's why we stand also true.
01:43:20.300Very well said. I can't add any more to that.
01:46:03.020that's the part that predicates friendship is making sure that you,
01:46:06.820you listen, you learn, you don't make commitments and, and, and false,
01:46:11.760you know, uh, brotherhoods. And when you find that person,
01:46:15.240then you owe it to them to, to be honest with them,
01:46:20.180to share, uh, and share your thoughts, share your inclinations,
01:46:25.300share your desires, or perhaps projected plans and things that you might be excited about.
01:46:33.940Those things come about after you find a person who you've kind of worked your way into understanding
01:46:39.600that they are a wise, good person. I mean, nobody's without faults, but the idea is that you
01:46:45.500want to honor the friendship with the nobility of truth, with the nobility of, again, and lack
01:46:55.160of secrecy i think this is a this is a good one but it's it's pretty straightforward yeah it's
01:47:01.480very straightforward but i like that it um it's juxtaposed in a really good contrast with the
01:47:09.960following verse and the point of this is the differentiation between stuff you owe somebody who
01:47:18.520you have that loyalty with and you have that bond with versus folks that you don't
01:47:25.080um this idea of with your friends being open speaking freely letting them know your plans
01:47:35.320sharing with them engaging in the gift cycle and visiting them frequently keeping and tending that
01:47:42.780friendship and so much of this poem is about when you are traveling outside of your circle of
01:47:53.860friends outside of your companions outside of your home to different places where you don't
01:47:58.480have those bonds so much of it is about suspicion and caution and you know you don't know what
01:48:07.240people are saying behind your back and yeah everybody may be laughing and having a good time
01:48:11.220but don't overshare it's a lot of stuff about watching your back when you're in enemy territory
01:48:16.740this is one that is but when you're with your friends you can let your guard down
01:48:22.420and you can feel comfortable sharing you know your true thoughts and them sharing their true
01:48:29.380thoughts with you this talks about the comfort that friendship brings that's in such contrast to
01:48:35.700how you deal with people who are outside of that circle
01:48:40.580i think this next one too kind of uh is misused but i think in the comments i was looking and i
01:48:52.300saw um adam really i think keyed in on what this stanza is truly about um you know he posted a
01:49:02.600little bit ahead just saying you know honestly protecting your protecting your peace um is
01:49:08.040important i think in 45 that's really what this is kind of going about and a lot of people again
01:49:13.960use this as an admittance to to be treacherous as opposed to thinking i don't owe treacherous
01:49:20.040people anything but that you should protect your peace and um and you know in 45 it says if another
01:49:29.000If another thou hast, whom thou hardly wilt trust, yet good from him would get or wouldst get, thou shalt speak him fair but falsely think, and fraud with falsehood requite.
01:49:50.120So people are like, well, is Lord Vothan saying I should deceive someone?
01:50:00.640I think that, again, it's more about you are not beholden to those who you have very little trust for.
01:50:09.420Predicated on the idea that you don't have trust for them for many reasons.
01:50:14.980One reason could be flat out they're an outsider.
01:50:18.960A lot of people for millions of years have lived with that knowledge and it's done them good, but it could be other things.
01:50:27.400And so the idea is that if you have someone that you don't trust coming at at you, you can still meet them with kind words or tactfulness or a cleanliness of it where you just want to, again, protect your peace.
01:50:46.820keep things amicable and move on. It's, I think this is one of those, um, a lot of times where
01:50:54.100we find ourselves in a hotheaded situation and we want to, you know, say something to someone
01:51:03.060we don't trust, but at the same time, you're not quite at that point where this person is
01:51:09.200made themselves known as a, as a threat. And so perhaps the idea is to just be cordial
01:51:15.520and leave it be until you can figure out later that this person absolutely deserves scorn,
01:51:22.880you know, and you can have animosity. So I think this is kind of like that gray zone area.
01:51:29.760It's okay to speak to people and kind of hold your tongue. You don't have to be wild and out
01:51:34.720of it just because you've perceived this person as wrong. Until you absolutely know, speak kindly.
01:51:40.980don't lose yourself and become like a, you know, just a boorish dog, you know, and snipping and
01:51:50.260snapping at them. No, treat them with the risk with just the basic necessity of decency. And
01:51:58.380then if you find out more and move from there, then yes, you don't owe them anything. But at
01:52:03.580least at that point, you have the wisdom and wherewithal to not simply lash out. Everything
01:52:11.500is timed and measured by wisdom. And here's the thing. That and the following stanza.
01:52:22.800Yeah, it does say that. It does say if there's somebody out there that you don't trust
01:52:29.400and you're, you're not going to trust, but you want to get good things out of them.
01:52:35.020Then, uh, you know, one of your options is to tell them what they want to hear,
01:52:40.860but have sinister intention behind, you know, in your thoughts and look for opportunities to,
01:52:47.200to get what you get, what you need. You don't have to revert to that, but that is an option.
01:52:55.440And it's talking about kind of the rules that apply in a bond of loyalty that don't apply to people outside of that circle of trust.
01:53:07.500And I think a little bit of what's implied is not only that you don't trust them yet, but you have reason to distrust them.
01:53:19.100And in the situation where somebody has bad intentions and you absolutely do not find them trustworthy, then, you know, some deception and misleading them is called for and can make a lot of sense and may be an important safety measure.
01:53:36.880Also, it talks about, you know, saying good words, even if you don't think highly of them behind their back.
01:53:45.480You don't need to be over-the-top dishonest with it, but you can kind of laugh and smile and go along with stuff so that you don't create a problem if you don't know these person's intentions or what they have in store for you.
01:54:02.300There's a lot of subtlety here in interaction with folks that this talks about.
02:01:55.380yeah and this really starts to get into the idea of the acting nobility the acting of being noble
02:02:04.220that the the actions of being noble kind of juxtaposed to like a caveat of kind of like
02:02:11.640the brunt of the joke if you will or or like a comparison um and then another interesting part
02:02:19.000of this too is, is the usage of experience as being a teaching lesson. The idea that Lord of
02:02:29.860Odin is kind of placing himself as the key to unlocking the wisdom is through the application
02:02:38.360that was already kind of attained, if you will. And I think that that's truly an interesting
02:02:44.500way that our look at divinity is very much different than perhaps a lot of other
02:02:50.280religions. So here we have, let's see, young was I once and wandered alone and not of the road I
02:03:03.680knew rich did i feel when a comrade i found for man is man's delight so i like this one because
02:03:15.520we often find ourselves as especially as young men like when i was in the military you know you
02:03:21.000find yourself alone you find yourself thinking that you are um kind of standing on your own but
02:03:28.160when you do find a comrade in arms, when you do find a friend, you really do understand the joy
02:03:36.980of that friendship. You really do appreciate. And so I think scarcity often breeds the necessity or
02:03:44.100the wisdom of value. And I think that's what's taking place here is
02:03:52.200uh the brashness again mentioning of being young um and and traveling about only when i was
02:04:00.440traveling about and had nothing did i truly realize how important it is to have a friend because
02:04:06.100friends are what make us who we are like we we can't be unto ourselves alone um without any help
02:04:14.960without any aid, without any, you know, person to share and move forward with, we are not singular
02:04:26.000people. We are tribal. We are collective. We are, we see our, you know, we can't, we shouldn't see
02:04:32.420ourselves strictly as just these individual mechanisms. We require that connectivity between
02:04:43.200those around us. And so when you lose that, that's when you realize the value of it.
02:04:48.480So I can't reiterate this enough. The rugged individual being a virtue to our people, that
02:04:59.500is a lie. And it is a, it is a wrong that was trotted out there early on before some of our
02:05:11.300Before Ausatru had matured, when folks had a much more incomplete knowledge and integration of our faith,
02:05:22.080and unfortunately it's something that's stuck around in certain circles far too long,
02:05:29.580Ausatru is now and always has been a social faith.
02:05:35.200the value is defined by your relationships be that with the iser with your church
02:05:45.260with the people that you are close to with your community with the people you interact with
02:05:54.440um we see that most starkly in the idea of honor honor has become your personal code of right and
02:06:02.380wrong but that's not what it meant to our ancestors it meant the value placed in you by your community
02:06:13.340now they would place that value in you perhaps because of your code of right or wrong
02:06:18.940but it's your consistent displaying of those traits and we still see this in when
02:06:25.660an organization gives someone a recognition. They give them an honor. They bestow an honor
02:06:34.500upon someone. Someone is honorary, has the honorary this or the honorary that. The idea of
02:06:41.760the community bestowing the honor on an individual. It was all done in the context of your relationship
02:06:48.980with others. The following few verses here are going to reiterate that in some stark ways.
02:06:55.660This idea of the value of, you know, you traveling and being alone and feeling alone and feeling isolated, you against the elements, was a necessity sometimes, but that was a terrible thing for our ancestors.
02:07:14.260and the whole world was different when you found a friend and you found somebody to share with
02:07:22.200you found someone to help you when you were struggling someone for you to help when they
02:07:27.040were struggling you could see a reflection of your actions in how they treat you and you can
02:07:34.560feel the warmth of connection between two people that is fundamental to our existence and can't be
02:07:42.740overstressed so a couple of things i want to hit before we go on to the next um next stanza
02:07:50.260first uh callum you can absolutely do super chats if you do a super chat we'll get you right up front
02:07:56.420and answer your question as soon as we are done with the stanza we're currently on you can do that
02:08:01.940on entropy you can also do that by attaching a question to any of the fun bells and whistles
02:08:07.620like folks have been doing with the uh victory horn there's also the like buy us a coffee option
02:08:13.700there's another thing too there's a couple of those any of those will get you to the front of
02:08:17.860line on it if you have a question that's about a specific stanza or concept that we're talking
02:08:24.020about we'll get that in real time and address it if not all of those we will address as soon as
02:08:32.660we're done with the meat and taters of what we're on and we're probably going to go another about
02:08:39.38050 minutes on actually going over have them all verses and then we'll hit all those questions that
02:08:46.180we've missed so far one question though by jamie i think is relevant because it goes into the context
02:08:54.740to a degree of this poem jamie says i have a question is the ritual of drinking wine
02:09:04.180a very ancient pagan tradition absolutely it is um in a number of different ways
02:09:13.540but very specifically in some of the earliest attested practices of our ancestors
02:09:19.940the idea of communal drinking was extremely important to the chieftains and nobles of
02:09:29.980Germanic tribes and Tacitus wrote about this matter of fact the the Latin phrase that we've
02:09:39.540all heard in vino veritas from wine truth was originally applied as a reference to our ancestors
02:09:49.040to germanic tribesmen because a part of their taking counsel on serious things
02:09:57.440would be they would drink together and be in a you know get a little bit buzzed and be in a
02:10:05.120more receptive state to those things speak freely amongst their council have these conversations
02:10:13.440and then make decisions and plans and ideas and confirm them the next day when they were
02:10:20.960make sure everybody had a clear head but the fact that they would share and talk with each other
02:10:26.160over over the drinking horn was really important and um we see in later times a lot of talk about
02:10:34.320need but it's important to note most of our ancestors for most of the practice of
02:10:39.120of Alcetru wine was very often the drink of choice for the nobility it's harder to come by it was a
02:10:46.240it was a fancier beverage than mead or ale so wine was very often something that the nobles
02:10:52.560would share together when they had their councils and that communal drinking and toasting culture
02:11:02.000certainly goes on in the hall culture that we're discussing that to have them all is set in the
02:11:06.960backdrop of and it's absolutely something that we do today we share food and drink socially in so
02:11:14.960many occasions and a very overtly religious occasion we share that during the ritual called
02:11:22.000symbol where we have multiple rounds but typically around to the gods one to our ancestors and then
02:11:30.160one that is uh for the heroes it's a bit more free form but yeah ritual ritual drinking was
02:11:37.200very important to our ancestors and uh still is today swan did you have anything you wanted to add
02:11:43.440on that yeah i think one of the key converting points of christianity amongst um europeans and
02:11:54.480And I would say like Hellenics and Teutonic Aryans, there was an admixturing of that.
02:12:04.000If you were one of the Hellenics, though, you had to make a wine spritzer.
02:12:12.280Beer was seen as something for, it was lesser than wine.
02:12:18.080It was seen as like a woman's drink or like something that would be fed to a horse.
02:12:24.480But the culture around the time, and I'm speaking specifically of the usage of the Last Supper in relation, and there are many things in Christianity that were utilized based off of the necessity that was already built in the religiosity of Europe.
02:12:45.500So the focus on the Last Supper and the communion of wine was brought into the forefront later on after, say, like Saul of Tarsus and Simon or Peter.
02:13:01.500Peter. Their emphasis was more on the crucifixion itself. But later on, the prevalence of the wine
02:13:11.140and drinking of the wine was, I think, a great part of the need and the usage of conversion
02:13:20.900because it was already established amongst Europe, that libational connection to the gods,
02:13:28.700whether it was and to each other communally um and so this here's a communal drinking moment
02:13:35.500at this at the final you know the last supper and so that was really keyed in on and i think for a
02:13:42.700reason um but its emphasis became more in europe than i believe the you know the the heretical um
02:13:52.060jews like saul was hunting down these these uh believers that this particular rabbi was uh the
02:13:59.220messiah they did not focus so much on libational connections um to the messiah uh in before and
02:14:08.820during that time it was much much later and i think that was because it was influenced by your
02:14:12.860you know european precepts same with the trinity the idea of a tripartite is extremely arian every
02:14:19.780Aryan religion has a tripartite. The Hellenics even numbered theirs with Zeus and Hadis and
02:14:28.400Poseidon having one, two, and three in connection with the implements that they carry.
02:14:36.980So the Trinity also was one of those things. But again, reemphasizing, it was long established,
02:14:42.960The idea of sharing sacred liquid that elevated the mind, whether it was, you know, soma amongst the Indians to the sacred mead or the mead of poetry, wine and other, you know, vital fluids.
02:15:02.060Again, the usage of ingesting and speaking into and over a threshold of liquid is a huge part in Arian gift cycling towards the gods, whether it's speaking over perhaps in, you know, again, and a lot of times in the olden days, there was sacral butchering that was done in which they would prepare a meal with an animal that was given as a gift to the gods and then was shared with the gods and the folk.
02:15:31.500but the blood was spoken over. It was anointed or sprinkled upon because that was seen as that
02:15:37.720transference. So even to the connection with blood and wine was already long established
02:15:43.300in the ethnic European faith of Europe before the Semitic. And again, I wonder too how much
02:15:52.200that was influenced by Roman culture in relation to the times in the Levant. The Romans had fully
02:16:00.660taken over for a very long time, from Egypt all the way through the Levant and back up into Greece.
02:16:07.040There had been so much integration of the usage of wine that it may have been even further back
02:16:15.280that the usage of wine to influence even the religions of the Middle East.
02:30:49.060On 49, this one's a really interesting one. It's one I've thought on over the years,
02:30:54.860And it took more than just the first reading to internalize and think on.
02:31:03.340Um, so much of, and it, it is easily said and just always agreed upon that in order to come home to Ausitru and practice Ausitru correctly, we need to unlearn a lot of things that Christianity taught us.
02:31:30.520And it's very easy to do that with the things that we don't like.
02:31:37.000It's harder to do that with the things that we've taken comfort in or that have been easy and validated behavior that's less than.
02:31:57.200One thing to keep in mind is Christianity was a religion that was targeted towards the lowly.
02:32:10.060It was targeted towards the slaves and the outcasts.
02:32:16.800Jesus' Beatitudes were all, you know, blessed are the meek, blessed are the downtrodden, blessed are those who mourn.
02:32:25.180it's basically blessed to the um the losers in society and i don't say that as a as an insulting
02:32:35.200term i say that as people who are losing at life taking hope in jesus for you know getting their
02:32:44.240you know being compensated on the other side or being made whole on the other side of a miserable
02:32:50.200existence. Alcatru's not. It's for all of our folk, but it's upward oriented. It's aimed at
02:32:59.400the nobility. And if not noble in kingdom, noble in spirit, nobly inspired to be more, to do more,
02:33:10.020to achieve things. That's why we see things addressed to a prince's son. This is how they
02:33:17.620should behave this is advice to you know these travelers aren't your peasant that's working the
02:33:22.660land these are our people who are out trading and building and doing and achieving who are
02:33:29.220our missionary or not missionaries um um what's the word i'm looking for emissaries to different
02:33:39.020courts to different uh places of importance these are people who are aspiring to be their very best
02:33:46.900and stanza 49 talks about this is i guess what i'm saying breaking the habit of christianity
02:33:54.260we've taught ourselves that the clothes don't make the man and you shouldn't judge by appearances
02:34:01.620and you don't judge a book by a coat by its cover yes you absolutely do successful people do um
02:34:10.180people that are not successful don't if we pretend that how we look doesn't matter then
02:34:19.020we can all just you know show up in our in our jammies and you know it can be like walmart all
02:34:25.500the time we're better than that we owe our spouses better than that we owe our children better than
02:34:36.160that. We owe our ancestors better than that. We owe ourselves better than that. When you
02:34:43.080look your best and you show up in your best, that's when you make those impressions that you
02:34:50.580want. And that's not all that counts about a person, but that is the first thing that others
02:34:56.900notice about someone is the way that they look. Not only the way that they look in terms of what
02:35:03.360they're wearing but are they clean do they look like they take care of themselves are they in
02:35:11.440decent shape how do they carry themselves their head high and their chest out are they looking
02:35:16.740down and with their shoulders hunched those things those things communicate on a profound
02:35:25.580level and they set the tone for your interactions thereafter and it doesn't
02:35:33.680talk about how these people are who they are it says how they seemed heroes they
02:35:40.820seemed when clothes they had the naked man is not if you look you know if you
02:35:48.680look homeless that's how you're gonna be perceived if you show up looking like a
02:35:54.620a king that's how you're going to be perceived and then your actions can take it from there
02:36:02.140but all too often you're never going to get to that point if you show up looking like a bum
02:36:08.300we see that you know you see that at job interviews if you show up looking like
02:36:13.260somebody who wants to do well and be successful cool maybe you can actually have an interview
02:36:20.700with somebody if you show up looking scrubby uh stand in line and maybe we'll get to you maybe we
02:36:27.500won't and you know we all know the truth of that we all know the truth of that and see it in others
02:36:35.500we judge people with our eyes all day every day in every situation we find ourselves in
02:36:42.220every time you know today when you went to work when you went to the store
02:36:46.300when you were out you know walking out to get your mail every person you looked at you made a
02:36:52.220judgment of based on how they presented themselves how they looked how they carried themselves
02:37:01.180the non-verbal communication that they gave you without ever talking to them
02:37:05.660you made an assessment of them and that truth is is known to our ancestors and will be known
02:37:11.660to our descendants we don't gain by denying the truth of it we gain by understanding and using
02:37:18.940that to the best of our abilities to project the very best of ourselves when we when we meet people
02:48:37.720the idea of not letting perfect be the enemy of good
02:48:40.720well i didn't give him anything because i couldn't afford this one expensive thing i wanted to get
02:48:47.100him cool then get him a candy bar give him you know better to give a gift that's not the best
02:48:57.760gift in the world but is the thought of giving someone something than to not do it because it
02:49:02.820wasn't perfect you know and the same thing with our altar practice well you know it's just it's
02:49:09.140not up to the standards of our gods i'm going to wait until i have this thing now i'm going to wait
02:49:14.080until i can my special mead that i've got uh ferments and once i've waited a year for this
02:49:19.760mead to be perfect then and only then i'll come before the altar and offer it to the gods
02:49:24.720in the meantime you're missing all the opportunity
02:49:28.140just doing a kindness with what you have and going from there
02:49:32.700um so yeah i think this is this is applicable in that case uh as well and it's fine if you
02:49:43.400take them through 53 and we are going to end tonight's have them all study with 55
02:49:49.940all right uh and this one is really interesting especially from the nordic sense too
02:50:00.500Little is sand, little is the sea, and little is the minds of men.
02:50:18.940The idea of this is really to understand that, again, we're talking little sand, little sea.
02:50:24.380the if you're standing on a beach and you see the the water in front of you that is the little sea
02:50:31.820in front of the little sand and some men only have tiny strips of land so but but we know the ocean
02:50:39.740is big we know the ocean is vast we know the ocean is deep so oftentimes this is really being
02:50:45.940translated as the smaller the beach, the less understanding of the sea is a great way to look
02:50:54.900at this. So, you know, little is the sand, little is the sea. The perception of minds men's can
02:51:02.360often be this way. Not all men, it says, you know, three other men, not every man is of equal speech
02:51:13.900or equal wisdom or knowing, but really even speech, yet half-wise only are all.
02:51:27.240And it's kind of saying that in a way we all have those ignorances.
02:51:34.400We all have those misunderstandings, if you will,
02:51:39.040or the inability to fully know the scope of all things.
02:51:42.840In some ways, this can be good. In other ways, it can be detrimental. So you have to bear in mind when you speak with people not to get caught up into thinking that they know so much.
02:51:56.720um a lot of times people don't know a lot a lot of times people um may even front load that they
02:52:04.420know a lot and uh you you could get caught up in the idea of being around wise men um
02:52:13.220with the idea that they they know so much what do i do in reality all of us are still learning
02:52:20.140still working still trying to attain um a better understanding of the of the waters beyond our
02:52:26.240beaches. And so I think that this one is really cautioning the listener is that Odin is saying
02:52:33.900that, um, often more often than not, you will find that the people around you are only focusing
02:52:40.900on what's in front of them and you cannot beat yourself up in the perception that perhaps
02:52:46.080they know more. It's kind of like the old saying is like, you're focusing on some fault that you
02:52:51.380have but no one's focusing on anyone else's faults but their own it's a lot of that in which you have
02:52:58.580to understand that there are people out desperately trying to know more but don't get in your head
02:53:06.100that um the people are are so overly wise that you have nothing to contribute
02:53:12.500to so i think this is fascinating what svan is saying is absolutely true what i'm about to say
02:53:23.540is as well one of the interesting things when reading this the have them all is applicable
02:53:32.180in such a broad scope across experience in life i'm really thankful that we are doing this
02:53:39.940with the lore because this is stuff that svan and i have each read many many times
02:53:48.180but every time i go through the lore again there's something that i learned that i didn't before and
02:53:56.980the words are the same and they're all familiar but the concept you'll see it in a different way
02:54:02.020depending on the different season of your life you're in or things you've learned since the
02:54:06.900the last time you read it and i would encourage everybody to do that from time to time because
02:54:14.220it's amazing the different little nuances you pick up see when i read this um i read it as an
02:54:23.160admonition like don't get full of yourself equality is not a thing nobody's equal like
02:54:30.520there's smart people and there's dumb people but even the smartest person doesn't know everything
02:54:36.860there's always room to learn and when you start thinking that you know it all
02:54:42.720that's when you're slipping and that's when you don't see things that are obvious
02:54:47.320that's when you you know i'm smarter than that guy maybe but maybe you're smart about world
02:54:55.120history and he's smart about cars maybe you're going to get swindled on this mechanic thing
02:55:01.120because you don't know as much as you think you know you know you can there's a lot of different
02:55:05.880ways and there is so much out in the world to learn it's very easy when you're
02:55:11.880we all compare ourselves to the things that we see it's harder to compare yourself and judge
02:55:20.680against the things you don't see when you find yourself being feeling like you're the smartest
02:55:26.780person in the room it's easy to get lazy but one of the things about wisdom you don't know
02:55:34.200the things that you don't know if you did then you'd know them it's a it's a paradox
02:55:40.360so you have no idea of the things that you have yet to learn
02:55:47.720you have to factor that into your decision making sometimes you're going to get surprised and
02:55:53.160sometimes there's going to be more for you to learn um but no i think those two different ways
02:55:59.320are both equally applicable and valuable wisdom from the all-father here
02:56:09.400these next ones and i want to preface this the next two are really really interesting
02:56:17.160because i don't think they're meant to be taken lightly
02:56:24.360it is very easy to see the world in terms of all or nothing everything's not always that way
02:56:37.680and there are always consequences and it's worth considering that it's fun if you could take them
02:56:48.740through uh 54 for us please a measure of wisdom each man shall have but never too much let him
02:57:02.460know the fairest lives do those men live whose wisdom wide has grown
02:57:10.420and this one is i think really good i like i love the fact that bellows uses the word
02:57:17.820measure because the the direct translation is is uh middle snotter and that's middle wise or
02:57:26.760middle knowing and i'm most familiar with yeah and i you hear it and it's like
02:57:35.640And it's even interesting to ponder on the idea of what middling wise means.
02:57:42.520I really like the fact that he says, you know, a measure of wisdom.
02:57:46.700Because it's, again, it's like weighing your wisdom with action.
02:57:51.720A measure of wisdom every man shall have, but never too much let him know.
02:57:56.600because the fairest of lives is the one that has applied his wisdom far and wide or has learned
02:58:04.060his wisdom through his deeds. Your wisdom grows as you experience life. So the ones that often
02:58:13.380have the most valuable wisdom, and this is kind of, I think, ultimately what the measurement of
02:58:18.760wisdom is, is you can be very wise on many things, but the value of that wisdom has
02:58:27.420a currency to it. It can, you know, you can be very, very wise about a singular thing,
02:58:36.240but if you have not gone out and applied your life around and had some other common sense
02:58:42.360things about you, then perhaps that wisdom is not measured very well in comparison to other things.
02:58:49.560So I think that that's ultimately what Lord Walden is saying is, is wisdom is good in
02:58:55.760things, but it should be spread. It should be, it's better to have a measured wisdom of many
02:59:04.180things than a great wisdom in a singular thing, but not know how to do other things.
02:59:12.360Absolutely. When you're over-focused, and you see that sometimes with geniuses on certain things, they'll be, you know, a savant on a certain thing where they will know all of that thing that you could possibly know, not quite because I remember last stanza, but they will know more than everybody else about that thing.
02:59:42.920but be completely ignorant on the simplest of other things so this isn't it's about having a
02:59:50.040wide range of knowledge but also a wisdom that comes from experience it talks about a traveler
02:59:56.200traveling far and wide learning through experience is different than just
03:00:03.720theory or just book learning the wealth of experience spread out in different places
03:00:09.960in different contexts is you know pound for pound much more valuable than than just book learning
03:00:20.280and spawn could you take us through 55 for our last uh stanza of the night and then we'll get
03:00:26.040to your guys other questions that weren't specifically have them already yeah this
03:00:33.080one again another another warning about the idea and again knowing too much in one thing
03:00:38.920I think this speaks true because we might know people that have a great knowledge towards one
03:00:44.480thing, but they end up finding great sorrow because they lose the understanding of something
03:00:50.800else. Um, 55, a measure of wisdom, each man shall have, but never too much. Let him know
03:00:59.380for the wise man's heart is seldom happy. If wisdom too great, he has one. This one I think
03:01:06.860is deeply lamentable because ultimately Lord Oven is the exemplary um lord of seeking knowledge
03:01:20.000but with that knowing of things comes the knowing of the of the doom the always trying to work
03:01:27.340towards it so the great knowledge that one has comes at a price and that price uh whether I
03:01:35.120would say either hyper-focused or even measured comes with an understanding of knowing things
03:01:40.160that perhaps others might not know. And it can plague you. And I don't think that, I think the
03:01:46.900way it's written is saying, simply stating a kind of repercussion of wisdom that's meant to be
03:01:54.260understood and measured with the other versus before about being happy, about meeting your
03:02:01.440doom with with a smile is knowing much is good but don't let it drag you down is kind of what i
03:02:10.540think this is ultimately uh warning against so every time i have a conversation with someone
03:02:19.760about them studying to be a Goethe or a Githya I asked them how wise does the
03:02:33.200All-Father advise that you be and then when they give me the correct answer I
03:02:40.460say okay now by doing this you are choosing to go against that advice are
03:14:39.920and i'd like to know a little bit more before i before i judge that i think that's only fair
03:14:47.500and i'd be a little bit i'd be kind of curious it's not something i've ever i will say this
03:14:52.060i've never heard of her or her room book um because a lot of people have questions about
03:14:59.060books and there's people that bring up you know that bring a lot of pieces to my attention this
03:15:04.280the first time i've heard about hers so you know i'm curious if there's some kind of a pdf i would
03:15:12.360read it a little bit and see see what's what but i can't give you a more detailed opinion than that
03:15:18.360because i really don't know i think it'd be improper for me to go too far on it without
03:15:23.560knowing a little bit more i do think that as fawn said uh some of these books that
03:15:30.040may not be the end of your journey on it, bring up questions and spark inspiration
03:15:37.720that leads you to something deeper or something, you know, something better sometimes. And I think
03:15:44.840that's, I think that has a value. Yeah, I'm looking at one page in particular,
03:15:55.920a type of rune reading in which doing, you know, three runes to represent the upper realms of Yggdrasil,
03:16:05.300three runes to represent the middle, and three runes to represent the lower and each of the
03:16:11.600roots. It's interesting. It all sounds, I mean, I can see where it was going. I don't really
03:16:20.340necessarily see anything terrible uh in relation to this like particular page of the interpretation
03:16:29.140one interesting thing too that a lot of um uh rune books don't do that that she is doing but
03:16:36.100she's coming from a tarot background so i can see why she's doing this is she has a specific
03:16:42.340interpretation of a person a woman named naomi cast these runes let's interpret her results
03:16:51.380and so they kind of give you an idea of what it would look like to do a process i and here's
03:16:57.220something and i want to give um credit to this at least in a concept
03:17:03.940we can find historical source work about runes we're all drawn from the same places
03:17:19.120that's easy enough to come by there is value if you are trying to understand operative magic
03:17:26.740by reading experience of someone who's actually employed the rooms in the present for whatever
03:17:38.240magical slash spiritual practice she has applied them for and her experience with them would be
03:17:46.940very interesting to me one way or another rather you know where good bad or otherwise whatever it
03:17:54.420might be. I would be very curious to read and understand that. And I do think that someone who
03:18:01.120is good at, if they are successful in tarot reading and other divination, they might do well
03:18:11.540with divination with the runes. So perhaps there's that. Again, I don't know. And I would like to
03:18:18.400learn more. Our next one, and Michael has left us, but hopefully he will listen to this later
03:18:27.220down the line. He had to go to bed. Understandable, it's very late on the East Coast. Svan, could you
03:18:33.820delve deeper into your personal opinion on when it is proper to stand or kneel in worship or oath
03:18:40.600uh oath swearing oh well i think there's uh quite a bit of
03:18:50.160uh there's there's a bit of that one thing is is i i think um you actually when i was when you
03:19:00.000were my mentor for the govi program something you said really hit home was you know if you if
03:19:07.320you're if you're willing to stand up for a judge if you're willing to put a tie on for a judge
03:19:12.280but you're not willing to show respect and dress well for your gods you you got a problem like this
03:19:19.900is this is the wrong way of placing your efforts and uh that really did hit home to me and it
03:19:26.540opened up a great amount of the way that we do show respect um in the military and in the marine
03:19:34.300core, when an officer enters a room, you stand up and you yell out that there's an officer on deck
03:19:39.600and everyone stands up or you salute. There's these traditions of showing respect without
03:19:45.160necessarily prostrating yourself. And again, I think prostration is built on the nature of the
03:19:56.020relationship. And if your nature is fear, if your nature is to fear some sort of retribution,
03:20:05.520because you are not, I don't know, perhaps eating the right things or sitting in the right places
03:20:11.240where a woman, you know, is unclean or eating shellfish or any number of lists of things in
03:20:20.200which you fear that you're going against this list and that the ultimate outcome is detrimental,
03:20:27.680then that is the source of your prostration, is fear, the fear of breaking those rules.
03:20:35.180Instead, if you go with, I wish to have someone witness my respect for them
03:20:41.540because of their honored position in my life, that is not prostration.
03:20:47.880that is noble and it shows a sense that you are willing and wanting for that person to know that
03:20:59.600you have a great amount of respect for them um and it is not based out of uh fear but it's based
03:21:06.860out of their station uh and i can see no higher station than that of the gods so why not give them
03:21:14.780any sort of, uh, sense of an honor and it can be placed. And that's what I think is interesting
03:21:21.000about your question is it can be placed at certain times. There are times in which you would stand up
03:21:26.980and give praise to the gods. There are times when you can kneel or sit and give praise to the gods.
03:21:35.280I have a tendency to look at them as more internal, external, um, amongst community and, or, or
03:21:43.760outside, oftentimes it is much better in a sense to stand, to perhaps hold arms up, head up, and
03:21:53.500to give a hailing to the gods based out of the situation that you're in. Whereas indoors before
03:22:03.380harrows and before even personal home harrows, I kneel. I kneel sometimes one-legged, sometimes
03:22:11.820I even have a chair that is a kneeling chair that oftentimes is applied.
03:22:17.460So I think that there is the right time, but ultimately it's based on the caveat of,
03:22:22.920are you fearful or are you giving honor because of station?
03:22:26.640And I think that no one in certain other religions can actually say they're giving honor in station
03:22:33.720because their entire religion is predicated on fear.
03:22:38.260So they cannot separate that, but we can.
03:22:41.820And so then it would be very much the the highest point is to give respect to the highest of gods, the high gods themselves, the ones above all and in the place above.
03:22:55.460At that point, I have absolutely no problem showing honorific gestures. And as long as they're done authentically, I don't think that they should be done. I don't think that people should be doing these gestures just for the sake of doing them.
03:23:13.000They have a measurement of purpose. And again, movement during ceremony is important.
03:23:20.520We walk into areas, we circle around areas, we kneel down, we stand up, we hold our arms up,
03:23:27.580we take sacred vessel, we lean forward. Sometimes we hold our hands forward to take anointment
03:23:34.340or sprinkling. There's a lot of movement in ceremony and it isn't just,
03:23:38.420you know again the hyper focus on kneeling standing or what have you i think it's just
03:23:43.540all part of it and uh people focus way too much because again they don't want to go into the
03:23:50.560religion with a predication of fear and i don't think that that's even present for us so why not
03:23:56.520do it you know i know that this was specifically asked as fun but i i would really like to speak
03:24:03.240on this. When I talked about things that we need to unlearn, one of the sacred cows, if
03:24:20.340you will, of Ausatru originally was this, you know, chest thumping. I don't kneel before
03:24:29.220my gods i stand and the gods are my friends and it's i can't even say it without having a
03:24:38.500disrespectful tone to it i get where people were coming from there was an attitude at the beginning
03:24:45.220to define also true by it being anti-christian so everything the christians did we needed to
03:24:54.740do the opposite. And that's a first step, but ultimately it's wrong-headed.
03:25:03.140The rights and wrongs of Ausatru are decided by Ausatru, not in response to a foreign creed
03:25:10.740and what they do, but in a response to what our ancestors valued and what they didn't,
03:25:17.460what's noble to do and what's not. So one of the ideas was, well, we're Ausatru because,
03:25:23.780You know, Christians are subservient, kneel, and we don't kneel because every individual's their own, you know, whatever.
03:25:37.700Christianity is about submission to their God that demands they kneel and also demands they don't have pride or dignity in themselves, that they're saved by faith alone and not by works that none should boast.
03:25:53.780And that religion is very foreign to ours. But yes, one of the hallmarks of that is a demand that everyone kneel and must have this forced submission to their God.
03:26:07.200there's you don't have to kneel in house a true but i think you should consider why you think
03:26:18.400what you think and if it's baggage from something else or if it's an actual tenant of our faith
03:26:25.420worship is our word there the jewish word is something else worship
03:26:34.060Worship comes from worth-ship, which means to apply worth to something or to recognize and, you know, acknowledge that relative worth.
03:26:55.680And I think that there is an internal trauma if we have a person who refuses to kneel before their gods, but will go visit me at my martial arts class and doesn't think twice about kneeling and bowing.
03:27:18.380or goes to court all rise the honorable so-and-so presiding they'll rise for that judge and they'll
03:27:26.220sit down when they're told to sit they'll you know join the military and they will
03:27:33.880stand at attention and salute superior officers so they recognize rank and superiority
03:27:39.680but they wouldn't kneel before the great gods of our folk
03:27:45.480that tells me it's an internal issue with them and their perception of what they feel
03:27:52.840kneeling represents and again they don't have to you know the standard stance of worship
03:28:00.680in the afa is standing in the algees pose with arms upstretched towards the heavens
03:28:06.980but something is wrong and it tells me that either there is something mentally that has
03:28:17.220caused you to feel that the act of kneeling is some humiliation towards yourself which it's not
03:28:23.840in and of itself or that you must not really conceive of our gods as real if a literal god
03:28:33.600appears before you one of your gods that you are loyal to and you wouldn't take a knee but you
03:28:41.120would towards a king if you would kneel before your king certainly you should kneel before our
03:28:47.920gods you know the one if you would do the one then you should certainly do the other
03:28:53.040if you're willing to do acts of showing respect for authority and you recognize the authority of
03:29:00.560officers or of judges or of, you know, any other number of people that you see as a legitimate
03:29:09.440authority, it tells me that you don't see our gods in that way. And that's something that
03:29:16.960needs to be rectified. But the act of kneeling isn't humiliating. You know, everyone who is
03:29:24.580knighted and received knighthood would kneel before their monarch to be knighted, the king
03:29:30.380of their folk. There's no shame in that. As a matter of fact, there's a great dignity in
03:29:39.480recognizing your place in a hierarchy and embracing that with respect. That's a dignified
03:29:46.740thing, not a humiliation. Context is everything. If the foreign invader demands you bow before
03:29:53.720them that's something different if someone in an attempt to humiliate you as a conqueror makes you
03:30:01.400bow in subjugation that's different but bowing and worship and respect for your gods that's
03:30:10.360that's beautiful and i don't think there's anything terrible about that um but i know
03:30:15.640that a lot of people come with some baggage on it and i do know that that's something that
03:30:19.640was stressed early on in Ausatru a lot is this rugged individualism that we've talked about
03:30:27.720and a rejection of anything that Christians do. And a big part of that was the idea that
03:30:35.860we don't kneel before our gods. Our gods are gods. They're not our homies. They're not like
03:30:44.540our buddies there's no equality we live an illusion if we pretend that's the case no our
03:30:50.140gods are real and they are gods and we revere them and worship them that's what one does towards gods
03:30:57.260of his folk um yes i don't want to beat that one up but that's a that's an important thing and i
03:31:05.100know it's something that especially for folks that you know depending where they found out
03:31:09.980to true and under what concept uh what concept they were taught our faith can start with some
03:31:16.940initial you know resistance to that as an idea um next up
03:31:27.340matt and svan have either of you seen the vikings tv show and what are your thoughts on it
03:31:31.980i'm talking about the one that started in 2013 starring uh travis fimmel as ragnar svan
03:31:40.860Commence your rant about shoulder pelts.
03:31:46.940I can honestly say for anybody who might be surprised or not, I don't know. I have only
03:31:54.540seen the first episode of the Viking show. I've never seen any more out of that than
03:32:02.460the first episode i think that the uh the the battle scene and the showing of lord will then
03:32:11.480like kind of moving about with the with the crows around and the ravens um a lot of that imagery
03:32:19.120again it's pretty cool i thought it was pretty cool but i heard the story kind of deviates and
03:32:26.280I never really just got into it. I never had a chance to. Um, and then by the time I was
03:32:31.960possible to do it, I just didn't have the time, uh, you know, with work, uh, and homeschooling
03:32:40.180children and things like that. There's not a lot of time for things. Uh, it's the same with
03:32:46.120the Northman. I, I, um, I haven't seen the Northman either. So a lot of people, especially
03:32:51.300at my work, they're like, Oh, you, you had to have seen this, right. You've had to have seen
03:32:55.480this and i'm like no i haven't i haven't seen it at all so i think uh yeah i i don't know again my
03:33:05.620rant would be simply this um it's kind of like those books that inspire people to learn more
03:33:11.080and then they grow away from the fan fiction of it the shoulder pelting the black paint the um
03:33:18.540uh, living like a, uh, you know, a barbarian. And then they come to a realization later on,
03:33:25.360no, their ancestors weren't like that at all. Um, but other people, no, this is just something
03:33:29.820that they're clinging to. It's a, it's a, it's a, uh, an attitude again. It's that kind of like,
03:33:36.200I'm not kneeling for nobody. I'm going to put these runes on my face and, uh, get a Mohawk
03:33:41.880ponytail and um go to ren fairs and that's kind of all they do um
03:33:51.320it we're just we're in a different league we're not the same
03:33:56.120you know i uh i'm being nice about it well i saw up so again on that first episode um seeing
03:34:05.480seeing odin appear in visions as a god and not just as some silly character but as being treated
03:34:21.880religiously on the battlefield with the ravens that was really special there were things about
03:34:29.240it that that was the first time that a lot of us saw that depicted in media in a religious context
03:34:38.760and that's that was neat um there was things about it that were kind of cool i i watched way
03:34:46.520more of it than i should have um but i i think i've seen about every episode of it or whatever and
03:34:56.040it's really historically inaccurate and i'm not just talking about the merging of
03:35:03.720characters from different places and times into one narrative i get that um but it's
03:35:14.040there is this modern conception of vikings that they were these primitive barbarous
03:35:20.200filthy only wore black and primitive furs and were completely uncivilized and again
03:35:31.160it's the idea to juxtapose oh well christians and civilized europe was this way well the vikings
03:35:39.000have to be the opposite of that that's not how it was you know anyone who studied about vikings for
03:35:46.120any amount of time no they i would go so far as to say a majority of viking age artifacts
03:35:54.280are personal hygiene items are like trimmers for beards and mustaches and stuff to get
03:36:03.160crap out of your ears and like stuff and combs a lot of combs because there was a long hair culture
03:36:10.920so the combing and braiding and taking great care with your appearance vikings love bright colored
03:36:19.240clothing and you know being clean one of the things that they were because they did bathe and clean
03:36:27.640clean themselves regularly made them an outcast from other parts of europe where that wasn't
03:36:32.440something you did um and then when they went into just this moral license of you know here let's
03:36:42.920have a three-way with my wife and all this other just degeneracy because again the christians had
03:36:49.560morality so the vikings needed to be the opposite that's not true um and it's it's disrespect
03:36:58.440they portrayed our faith through that concept and our values through that concept in a way
03:37:05.880that's very disrespectful to real things that we believe um so yeah and when you looked at
03:37:14.260the gothar there are these strange like oh yeah mutants that like are deformed and
03:37:21.980yeah i love it on youtube yeah and it's it's gross and it's disrespectful
03:37:29.100um and it's just really inaccurate and so it made it very uncomfortable to watch
03:37:35.500but it did inspire people to look into their heritage and look into our ancestral faith and
03:37:43.340look into that and i'm sure some amazing people have come home to house a true because of it
03:37:48.860inadvertently. Um, next up, uh, also for you, Svon, uh, yeah, can you explain what is the
03:38:10.000tripartite. The tripartite is an Aryan religious component. I think it is in every Aryan religion
03:38:24.900and it is worth looking at. And the best way to look at it for us, and this is based off of
03:38:33.060observation of our faith in literature, poetry, and, and, uh, even observation from outsiders
03:38:42.500from Tacitus to the Adas, the idea of the three, uh, presenting or being focused upon as of the
03:38:52.600gods. Um, and, and I'm speaking right now, mainly in the Teutonic sense. Tacitus spoke clearly that
03:38:58.860the Germanic people honored Mars, Mercury, and he mentioned like divine Hercules. And so again,
03:39:11.380he mentioning these three, we clearly see in the Adas, there's the usage of the king that is high
03:39:18.780king, just as high king and the third. Again, this is establishing the tripartite. We see it with
03:39:25.620Adam of Bremen mentioning in Uppsala that the Swedes have Thor in the center, and then they
03:39:32.140have the furious one and the fruitful one next to him. And so a lot of people get caught up in
03:39:40.940this idea that they try to boil back Aryan religion into a sky daddy, earth mommy, or
03:39:48.680sometimes they don't even do the earth mommy. But they don't understand that our ancestors
03:39:55.120were polytheistic i think this is a christian reaction to try to boil the gods down into
03:40:02.720singularities and um what we see first and foremost is the functioning of a triplicate
03:40:10.880we see this with lord woden himself as being a tripartite in odin villi and ve and i think that
03:40:20.240each of the tripartites based off of my religious observations and aryan religions and studying them
03:40:27.600is that each of the tripartites i'm not saying this is how the gods work what i am saying is
03:40:33.520that this is most certainly how it is kind of framed out whether it's a cultural representation
03:40:40.640of the powers of the gods or whether the gods are telling us this is how they function
03:40:44.800the point of it is is that there is always seeming to be a dynamic lord so one i i would say the
03:40:52.820tripartite is like three thrones and one is dynamicism the other is stasis and the third
03:40:59.420one is catalystic so we have the one that can go up and down the one that can go around the
03:41:06.080edges or left and right and the one that maintains position and how that plays out for a lot of
03:41:13.900people is different everywhere. And then you have even more confusion when you start to look at
03:41:21.280different Aryan cultures and you try to not fit the gods into perhaps their dominions or thrones,
03:41:30.160but try to fit the gods into other gods. And I think that's where we get a lot of confusion
03:41:36.920and fallacy. But the tripartite is clearly Aryan and it doesn't always follow in the same patterns
03:41:45.460that we always think of. It's unique to the culture. If you look at the Etruscans who called
03:41:51.300their gods Essir, they had a tripartite, but it was a singular, it was the head of their gods,
03:41:59.500the masculine and his two wives in essence uh was their tripartite and for them the gods all the
03:42:09.180gods and what made the gods the gods was their ability to throw lightning again i think this is
03:42:15.120a very hellenic concept of the the power of divinity um but there is a tripartite the hellenics
03:42:22.840like the Romans and the Greco-Romans have a tripartite. The Slavs, a tripartite. The Gauls,
03:42:30.840a tripartite. The Germanics, a tripartite. Going all the way back to the Bhagavad Gita and into
03:42:37.200the Vedic movement into India, there is a tripartite. It is a huge pinnacle structuring
03:42:47.180of the heavenly fathers in a way. And again, it also seems to change. Sometimes the heavenly
03:42:55.900fathers have like the culture will emphasis more on stasis as an important factor of divinity.
03:43:03.080And so they'll focus on that throne and the Lord that fills it. Others will focus on dynamicism
03:43:09.200and the Lord that fills it. Others will go with catalyst. And sometimes I think it moves. I think
03:43:15.180that the Swedes had Thor in the center of their tripartite at that time of year with the function
03:43:21.240of, um, giving honor where honor was due. So I don't think it was a singular thing. Like you
03:43:28.060can't have, um, Tyr or Thor have any sort of honorific position that outsways Odin. And I
03:43:36.580think this is greatly emphasized by people who are trying to take polytheism and turn it into
03:43:43.080like shivaism in hindu or uh uh ism that is becoming very popular in hinduism now boiling
03:43:52.600things down and kind of making this quasi monotheism and perhaps they're thinking that it'll
03:43:58.520attract more people home but i think it leads down the improper usage and understanding of the way
03:44:04.800our ancestors uh interacted with the multiplicity of the gods
03:44:09.800absolutely um real quick it didn't show up but i've been reading the chat um john
03:44:19.560he talked about the uh so john john said a long time ago an old friend of his was telling him
03:44:33.280about odinism and how it was different from monotheism he was like we don't pray and beg
03:44:39.340the gods for stuff. We let them encourage us. Um, I think that that is a overly simplistic
03:44:52.260way of expressing what we do in our faith. And I think that that attitude was really common
03:44:59.200at a earlier stage in the modern development of our faith. Um, when again, it was defining
03:45:07.160also true by how different it was than another religion, as opposed to defining also true of
03:45:13.480its own terms. We absolutely pray. We don't beg our gods for stuff, but we do ask for things that
03:45:22.460are beyond our power. And one of the things we often ask for is them encouraging us or inspiring
03:45:30.140us or or those type of things we don't our prayers aren't always asking for things very
03:45:43.000often they're prayers of thanksgiving or of you know just honoring the gods at different
03:45:50.000times sometimes we ask things very often we offer things um that at that earlier attitude
03:45:59.840tends to be from folks that treat the gods
03:46:05.080as concepts and archetypes and not as gods.
03:46:10.620When you interact with a god, you pray.
03:46:14.800Just like some of the other conversation
03:46:16.680about vowing or kneeling or anything else,
03:46:20.820if one of our literal real gods appears before you,
03:46:51.280oh wow what a tragic story wicca uh as a it is it is a it is a tale of woe
03:47:03.520and i i'll explain it it's um i think that wicca started out as a resurgence of anglo-saxon
03:47:12.160folklore. And I'm talking before the introduction of perhaps ritualistic themes from other sources,
03:47:22.420whether it's hermetic magic or, you know, a lot of people talk about Alistair Crowley and the
03:47:28.200Golden Dawn and all of that. And, you know, and then there's even the rejection of that to a
03:47:34.540point where it's also kind of foolish. And I'll get into that in a second. But ultimately, it was
03:47:39.640starting out as a you know it was a a re-emergence of the folklore practices of the anglo-saxons
03:47:47.720and it was coming about at a time i think where there was this instigation of these many revolutions
03:47:57.320religious revolution clearly one of them and one of the reasons why we harp on
03:48:01.480not building a faith based out of rejection is that once it kind of compiled with
03:48:06.760you taking folklore, but mainly really focusing on witches. Why witches? Well, because they were
03:48:14.900burned by the church. Okay. So we're going to focus on that antithesis. Then we're going to
03:48:21.180mix it with ritualistic magic. And again, a sense of like powerlessness. Women who are powerless
03:48:29.360in a patriarchal society have their way to make power again by practicing, you know, Wicca.
03:48:37.800And this is where it starts to layer on this tale of woe. We know that, you know, our ancestors
03:48:44.340held the mothers in great respects and it's consistently placed throughout our lore. The
03:48:52.120idea of kind of a lower class beyond breeding age woman was more of a Hellenic thing, to be honest.
03:48:58.000And I'm not deride, you know, showing any derision to them. It's just that was the case a lot, like especially in mentioning in Athens and in Rome. But again, it was just used as a vehicle to kind of antagonize ideas.
03:49:14.520and uh and all that the the other tragic part was denying its source over time i remember seeing
03:49:22.760these wiccans say oh no no no it's it's celtic magic it's because it was okay to be celtic it
03:49:29.260wasn't okay to be anglo-saxon it it they started stripping a lot of the core of where a lot of
03:49:36.620those traditions come from in the Vanek practices of common folk in Anglo-Saxon times. I did see
03:49:46.620some movements towards that. Matter of fact, what caught my eye initially was there was a movement
03:49:52.160called Sayax Wicca. It was by a very popular guy named Raymond Buckland. And I'm not saying he's
03:49:58.460cut from a different cloth, but one thing that truly interested me was the usage of Anglo-Saxon
03:50:04.200runes and the usage of the actual like ethnic origins of anglo-saxon belief in relation to
03:50:12.600uh lord uh vodan as as he said and uh lady afreya or afriya and um i thought that was interesting
03:50:24.380but beyond that there's not much gravity in what he was what he was doing but it again spurned me
03:50:30.000in the proper direction. It was a signpost. But it's a tragic story that ultimately is about
03:50:37.540marking people towards antithesis, politicizing a religious view, or not even a religious view.
03:50:44.680It's taking atheism and turning it into a political religion. Ultimately, that's what I
03:50:49.960have seen over the decades that I've been intertwined with it. I have seen it because
03:50:55.460When I was younger, I would go to a local bookstore, pagan bookstore, and things like that, and see a lot of that.
03:51:04.600These people saying they're in a nature religion while sucking down cigarettes and drinking vapidly,
03:51:11.940or using it as an excuse, whether it's hedonism or political ideology, a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
03:51:19.380overall at the end of the day the the divine is being melted down into again like a a subservient
03:51:30.080sky daddy and a and a big powerful earth mommy and um yeah it doesn't really matter what they
03:51:38.320do because they're not they're not reverencing them anything outside of themselves they're just
03:51:42.920worshiping uh the divine through themselves so in essence worshiping themselves and it becomes this
03:51:50.360kind of uh hedonistic masturbatory uh political drama and all the while the biggest loss is that
03:51:59.640it originated from such a beautiful place the anglo-saxon um wart culture wart craft leech craft
03:52:10.600the usage of herbs and the knowledge that our mothers of ancient days had
03:52:18.200was just kind of washed away into like, you know, hot topic, fishnet,
03:52:24.900you know, dirty car Ren Faire girls that frequent drum circles for hedonistic reasons.
04:01:36.740acharya g has already always been really
04:01:46.760a really good ally of ours very complimentary um he talks about uh steve mcdallen our founder in
04:01:56.760in a number of his works and recognizes you know steve as an important religious figure
04:02:05.400recognizes the validity and the importance of alsatru as it and that alsatru is in fact a dharmic
04:02:12.040religion um so i really i really appreciate and have a lot of respect for him personally um
04:02:23.000Um, I, the concept of each racial group following their correct relationship to their divinities
04:02:40.880is a Dharmic concept that he espouses that I think is, is good and right.
04:02:46.880And he kind of separates world religions into dharmic religions that follow the natural order of things and the religions that aren't that.
04:02:59.600And, you know, any true folk religion of a people tends to be a dharmic faith, whereas world rejecting faiths aren't.