00:03:00.000Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Victory Never Sleeps.
00:03:20.100As you might have noticed, we are still doing the guilt forgetting.
00:03:24.020I anticipated us rocking through last week, but we have important material yet to cover.
00:03:32.680Again, it's not a long piece, but it's a really important piece.
00:03:37.960And one of the things we get to talk about tonight is the goddesses.
00:03:41.980and um most people are familiar with freya and with frigg but the the other uh lesser known of
00:03:53.500our goddesses are important to pay some attention to and i think very often they get lumped into
00:03:59.820oh the 12 you know handmaidens of frid and that's not wrong but when you lump
00:04:07.580So when you lump something like that, and I'm already starting with my rabbit trails, but I think they're important. When you lump people, persons together in that way, it's hard to flesh out an individual understanding or an individual relationship with each of these goddesses, especially when the material is rather slim.
00:04:34.160one and you know i think it's kind of the same way we you know we run into with a number of
00:04:39.280our heroes almost as if you say them in the same breath and so i like to when i can separate things
00:04:46.800out and i like to make sure tonight we're gonna have enough time to mention them each individually
00:04:54.080and talk about them each a little bit individually and it's interesting this is kind of a
00:04:59.360something that spawn and i discussed when i was going over um you know how we were going to write
00:05:07.100this part up in the truly model um yeah just having some of those discussions about the
00:05:16.160associations with each of these with each of these goddesses and you know a little bit more detail
00:05:22.340about what their name means and you know what some of the significance that they can have for
00:05:29.860our modern worship so it's going to be a good show tonight um again we're not going to rush it on on
00:05:36.660this one so stay tuned for that um i think at the top of the show stuff for everybody um
00:09:23.060And it gives us, I don't know, another way to imbue that with our devotion.
00:09:30.900But building a new structure from the ground is much more expensive than finding a good deal on a building that there's very little market for somewhere else.
00:09:42.200So I think that the costs in that are probably a little bit more than we used to on some other stuff.
00:09:47.480Got different plans. We'll see how it comes.
00:09:49.680one of the options is us taking out a loan for the entirety and paying it off over time,
00:09:56.960kind of like we do with all of the other Hoffs. If that happens, we're waiting until we have paid off
00:10:02.880Freyshoff before we can do that. So that's just something to keep in mind on, you know,
00:10:08.640what's at the end of that road on paying off Freyshoff. Another idea, if we can, and we'll see
00:10:16.160depending on what we got to work with is being able to do it piece by piece by piece if we can
00:10:22.400do it that way we can raise money for individual steps of the project and we could do that
00:10:26.960concurrently if that becomes available so just keeping you guys abreast of the situation there
00:10:33.360um before we get well okay so you guys are able to follow along tonight we will be reading out
00:10:41.600of the guild beginning um nick do you know what chapter we're on off top of your head
00:10:48.16035 i believe 35 so we'll be starting number 35 i say chapter section 35 it's not really
00:10:57.440a stanza in this work um but yeah we'll be starting that we are reading off of the translation that's
00:11:05.840at thelospow.org you're welcome to follow along in whatever translation you have um so feel free
00:11:13.120to go there and gw farnsworth as always you're starting us off with the generosity we appreciate
00:11:19.120it so much 25 towards the thorshoff heat 25 towards paying off the sigerhang property thank
00:11:27.520you for that we appreciate it uh also steven in japan another very frequent donor to us we
00:11:35.840appreciate you so much steven five dollars towards the thor's hof heat ten dollars towards paying
00:11:41.120off phrase hof much appreciated and gilbert um again we got very consistent donors that
00:11:48.160do so much for us gilbert donated 150 towards that thor's hof
00:11:52.480me um yeah that's amazing thank you thank all you guys we appreciate you so much um
00:12:03.280i think that's what we've got for the top of the program today um
00:12:13.680yeah i don't think there's any prep work folks need to get right into the text tonight i think
00:12:18.960it's kind of uh self-explanatory it's fun if you could kind of pause at the end of each of these
00:12:27.840goddesses because again it's not like a section break so you know if you can do that so we can
00:12:34.800digest or address any any questions or points on that and uh yeah with that thank you all for
00:12:41.680joining us tonight and spawn take us into the text if you will yes sir oh and i did want to say uh
00:12:48.800pronunciation of the goddesses their names for those that we a lot of people struggle
00:12:58.880so we're going to be covering that too and i'm just reminding everyone if you got a chance
00:13:03.720please write down the holy goddesses names and if you need to uh how they're pronounced
00:13:09.740so that way we can start correcting culture back towards the uh the old norse pronunciations and
00:13:17.040things like that so so um a note on that we are we're doing our best um you may run into different
00:13:31.080things so nobody knows exactly how old norse used to sound there's a lot of theories um back tracing
00:13:41.160like the evolution of of language and there are experts with different theories and ideas about
00:13:48.000how it might have sounded linguistically it is mutually intelligible with modern Icelandic
00:13:54.080so you may run into words and pronunciations that uh Dr. Jackson Crawford might pronounce
00:14:02.320differently because he's one that has some different linguistic theories
00:14:05.700he is lettered in that i'm not going to take away from his expertise but those are theoretical
00:14:11.600so when in doubt we kind of err on the side of modern icelandic pronunciation of old norse
00:14:21.660um don't claim perfection but we are doing our best with it um feather in our cap and a little
00:14:28.040bit of nod to legitimacy is uh my co-host is a a a son of of iceland and he has he has feasted
00:14:36.700upon the rotten shark so he is he is imbued through decayed shark with linguistic knowledge0.68
00:14:44.620of his ancestors when i move to tennessee i'm gonna bring some how carl and we're gonna eat
00:14:51.580it together. Probably the same exact piece that you grew up with. Cut from the same shark. Once
00:14:59.780it's rotten, you know, I don't. They just take a little nibble over Thorabla and there you go.
00:15:06.400Next year. So I don't know if anybody has tried that, but used to always when I got involved in
00:15:12.800Austria, that was kind of the fun thing is people would get some of this rotten shark from Iceland
00:15:17.840and then they you know everybody'd have like a little tiny taste of it at thor gloat and run
00:15:23.440around finding it disgusting and trying to wash it down with some brenovan um
00:15:27.600yeah so i've had it it's gross but you kind of want it to be i think you'd be disappointed if
00:15:34.540you had it like it wasn't so um one thing to uh the old norse and why we are we are utilizing
00:15:45.200and making an effort to reach into correct, correct pronunciation. Um, if you look at all,
00:15:53.580I've been practicing house true since, uh, 1994, I've been devoted to the gods. I, I took, um, my,
00:16:01.000my oath of professing or professing, um, to the gods. And, uh, I didn't always use old Norse as
00:16:12.920primary ecclesiastical language um i kind of did as everyone does um in america and um
00:16:23.400so i think a lot of people might get it into their heads that i'm the reason there's the push for
00:16:28.920this but the reality is is no matter what branch you you may see uh anglo-saxons the that are
00:16:37.560trying to do their own thing or um normani or uh gothic or uh even modern german like the uh
00:16:48.200the uh airman gestational shaft uh folks and no matter what any one of those tendrils that you go
00:16:55.240down they are pulling from old norse and if you go and look you you can't take five steps without
00:17:05.320old norse because it is our most concrete and substantial body of lore that survived the
00:17:13.080christian overtake of europe and its slow progression um so alziragoti has decreed
00:17:21.640in this sense and i think this is a very wise thing for our children and for our future we
00:17:27.640should not look at it in separate groups but instead in the in the timeline of itself this
00:17:35.400is the last step off this is where the main body of lore is and so now as our children look back
00:17:42.360they're not going to get confused and say well oh well daddy taught me that his name is voton
00:17:48.520uh but here it's it's old or odin or or what have you so there is a great need for consistency and
00:17:56.360clarity and i think so yeah just a note on that and this is not spawn nerding out about his
00:18:04.040memories of the rotten shark this is it's something that i think is really important and it's
00:18:09.960something that um i think that maybe you appreciate the importance over the years that you've been
00:18:17.800doing it but it's again all the source material go you know 90 plus percent of the source material
00:18:25.320goes back to the old norse and in reading it sometimes it makes a substantial difference
00:18:33.640and it's funny as you know complete amateurs as we are at it the more that we pick up in our
00:18:40.760efforts the more when we're reading the lore we notice things that are important and make a
00:18:45.560difference um and you know different translators at different time had access to less things than
00:18:54.680we do now but i forget where it was but we've run into translations where you know straight up
00:19:01.960say frig when the text says freya right um now i think that even somebody who doesn't speak
00:19:07.720old norse if you look at the text you would see the difference in the original language
00:19:12.840but you do pick up um you do pick up differences the other thing is consistency
00:19:18.680um one of the things going on in australia for a very long time is you have this uneasy combination
00:19:27.320of modern english old english icelandic german uh swedish continental german um
00:19:41.160mismatch of a lot of different things you get that with uh customs you get it with the deities
00:19:47.400and you get it with a lot of different things and it produces confusion when you have
00:19:51.640overlap so linguistically you know modern English is always fine nobody's out to give
00:20:00.600you know go with what you're comfortable with that's fine even you know German or whatever
00:20:06.440you do that's fine but as the AFA when we're presenting and trying to teach and present this
00:20:13.320to our folk into the world we want to do it in a way that's consistent and in a way that is is
00:20:19.560unified and i found um though we're tying together a far-flung people with far-flung traditions
00:20:28.520being able to do it in a way where the pieces fit and match up syncretically it increases the momentum
00:20:37.320and the potency of what we do the things align we take the chaos that we find and we shape order
00:20:43.240out of it and we bring that order back into it um the other thing and nick pointed this out
00:20:48.840you know we could have done this site if the same would be true if we did this all in german
00:20:54.360we did it all in anglo-saxon if we did it all in um you know norwegian book model or we did whatever
00:21:02.200but picking one and going with it is important and Old Norse is where our lore comes from
00:21:08.740and importantly the Norse context is that's the context that the Allfather brought this
00:21:19.600to our founder that is the context the cultural expression the linguistics that's what was
00:21:30.100presented to our founder steve mcnallan way back in you know way back in the 1960s so
00:21:38.020that's what's brought us to the dance and those are some of the reasons that we're sticking with
00:21:42.100it but it's fun without further ado if you would start uh section oh all right further ado jared
00:21:51.300and virginia donated a hundred dollars towards thoris hofke thank you jared we appreciate it
00:21:55.540And with that, would you bring us into, what, section 35?
00:25:14.140when in reality, the Jotuns are, I guess,
00:25:19.980or again, even Lord Odin and his descendancy.1.00
00:25:25.820And then they don't differentiate Daltons of Nivelheim or Muspelheim or Midgard because they want to create this kind of false framework.
00:25:36.920And so sometimes they call them yachting brides. And I think that ultimately, as they are joining the gods, they are shifting from a mode in the universe as beings of non-biological willful intent of great power.
00:25:59.340They are moving from one team to another.
00:26:04.280That doesn't mean that the other team is completely an alien.
00:26:08.260They are of the same source, the ancient beings, and that's what Jotans really are.
00:26:14.160They join the gods, and instead of calling them troll brides or Jotan brides or some sort of other, the word Austvenir is used.
00:26:26.540So that's a thing. A Norwegian marrying a Dane is a different order of thing than a Norwegian marrying a Tutsi or some other order of being.0.92
00:26:50.720so in the uh just kind of pieces here and we'll and we'll do this um so from the from the true
00:27:02.280woodmill frig's name means beloved mother frig is the wife of odin and the queen of the isere
00:27:09.380frig's divine femininity is exemplified within social order as the noble lady of the hall
00:27:17.020as a dutiful wife and as a loving mother.
00:27:47.020well there's another point that is not so differentiated in the gil beginning here we
00:27:57.440will notice that there is um kind of a mashing together so what we try to do is imagine much
00:28:09.260like the turtle brooches that um nordic women wore in the past that uh the two brooches that support
00:28:20.380and hold everything together are frig and freya or through yeah if you're a crawford person
00:28:29.500you had mentioned like the theories of of things and one of the his is that ey is like a sound but
00:28:35.980but it's not really nobody knows um but the the idea that the two turtle brooches the two main
00:28:45.260uh divine feminine is frig and and freya and this is juxtaposed or or i don't know not even
00:28:56.980juxtaposed just in comparison to the masculine where we have the tripartite or or the three
00:29:04.240um the uh and we see it in the in the names of the days of our weeks tuesday wednesday thursday
00:29:11.060um you know and the and the nordic people will say oh you guys are larping as vikings but you're
00:29:18.620not discounting the fact that it's clear that it was a pan-germanic religion um but nobody else
00:29:25.940have steak on it anymore um yeah so you it's uh the masculine is built in a tripartite in leadership
00:29:35.160or or um focus and just like that there is a duality focus in the feminine um and these are
00:29:43.660unique to each other in the masculine and feminine and i think it's important to look at it notice it
00:29:49.040So that's why the emphasis on the two major goddesses and then the maidens of Fensaler and then the Ausvenir, the most beloved or because Vinir means like friend.
00:30:05.260So Anastvinir is like a, is just the, a beloved friend or a beloved companion. And it gives them honor without calling them, you know, oh, these are the, the mail order brides.
00:30:20.260I mean, that's kind of the value that they kind of put when they say like the Yotin brides.1.00
00:30:28.380And they also, again, want to keep that separation, just like they want to separate the Vanir.0.99
00:30:34.980It's all an attempt to dissect the gods, which in reality, I don't think they even truly believe in.0.98
00:30:44.320that it's because they're again these are proto-indo-european Aryan gods who came in and0.89
00:30:50.720took us so we're we're gonna dissect things and make it you know more kosher and so you end up0.97
00:30:56.880oh well I was gonna say that and Sarah brings it up um Githya alt brings it up in the uh
00:31:03.820in the chat but I think this is important one of the things to note with the polarity between
00:31:09.700Frigg and Freya is the difference in Aryan religion between cow and horse goddesses and
00:31:22.380there are different sides to femininity that are exemplified with different emphasis and
00:31:33.280different ways and i think that's kind of a unique station that um women find in life
00:31:42.320and in you know in the social order and frig is very much the the exemplar of the the cow goddess
00:31:53.040stat status of the femininity within social structure with dignity with um the propriety
00:32:02.560of wife mother in the station of having that very domestic um socially binding role that's
00:32:14.240very important and you know she displays that she displays it in you know it's it's regal um
00:32:21.680regal proportions um and we'll talk a little bit more about freya when we get to her but
00:32:28.480But remember, when we do get to her, she exemplifies more of the horse guides.
00:32:33.620So you also mentioned in the section that you read, because again, they're all going to come quickly, you mentioned Sauga.
00:32:43.760So from the true and wrong, Sauga's name means the seeress.
00:45:33.520The worm is, it's not the craft of the worm, it's the craft of medicine.
00:45:39.820And the worm was utilized, so they called it a leech. But they also called the leek and the garlic or garlic. And I think that is a huge thing when we start looking at their health benefits and diet and the absorption of nutrition is a huge part of the overview of her of her dominion.
00:46:06.540It's not simply like a, like a pharmaceutical thing or something like that. Um, so, you know,
00:46:13.900and I always like to pretend that when the folk come home and we have, um, the, the gods of our
00:46:22.160people and the nation as a people together as one, uh, there would be statues to her, um, uh,
00:46:32.680all over at every hospital but um i think it's important there's a reason why one of the rivers
00:46:40.040in heaven is called the garlic river and um flowing through either wall it's mentioned in
00:46:47.720the grimness mouth and this river and the point of it being is its connection to healing um
00:46:56.520but that's i mean you covered everything well so something i didn't cover that
00:47:02.680Githyalt is asking, what is the connection between Eir and Lithuabird, the healing mountain?
00:47:14.680And it's mentioned in Fieldsvensmall about her residing there and it being a place where offerings are brought and people are healed.
00:47:29.280Well, one of the things is we see this elsewhere. There is a deep, there are two things that in our body of lore we don't really cover, mainly because the construction of our lore was built around keeping poetic integrity.
00:47:50.460but we get these little glimpses of other things and then they're never addressed for instance the
00:47:56.780island off the coast of holland or uh um maybe it's holland belgium i think it's holland um
00:48:06.700that is completely dedicated to force so uh i believe that these power spots so that our
00:48:17.980ancestors and what i'm implying is is that these little glimpses that we get through this is that
00:48:24.540there are physical places holy sites uh throughout the world where the gods are
00:48:32.060deeply connected there whether it's a a thinning of the um space between the divine and the material
00:48:41.340or if it's that they are able to manifest there
00:49:10.060um so i would like to um get into the next one here but before we do scott in ohio donated ten
00:49:19.180dollars each to phrase off to the south africa fund and to the prison minister thank you for
00:49:25.500that we appreciate it scott and isaac in missouri donated 25 to the general fund thank you isaac
00:49:33.580we appreciate it. Next up, the fourth is Gevion. She is a virgin and they that die maidens attend
00:49:46.000her. From the Truenal, Gevion is the giver. That's what her name means. She watches over young girls0.99
00:49:54.720and maidens of our folk. Gevion is a comfort to those who feel alone. Gevion is the patroness
00:50:02.640of virgins and of land taking um yeah anybody who is unfamiliar about the land taking situation um
00:50:15.360there's a story that uh she and her giant children i know that contradicts the fact that she was
00:50:24.480mentioned being a virgin but i want to mention something on that too um take the form of oxen
00:50:32.160and with a big plow they break off a chunk of europe that forms zealand so
00:50:39.360often she is one of the one of the deities that's mentioned or or worshiped during when
00:50:46.160we charm the plow at uh at these so something to when the depiction gets contradictory or odd
00:51:02.160don't remember that a lot of us come from a very very literalist background these things are not
00:51:13.740meant to be that literally they're meant to be expressions of cosmic truth in language and
00:51:20.980circumstance that folk understand. So, um, when we talk about sexuality amongst the gods,
00:51:33.500it evokes a lot of things in us as humans. It evokes, uh, you know, passion and connection
00:51:43.180and lust and love perhaps and a certain closeness and a primal exchange a lot of different things
00:51:53.980that we all have that help us understand the concept better but i think when we picture
00:51:59.580larger than life vikings engaged in lovemaking i think that's not the literal how the things work
00:52:08.580I think we're talking about the coupling of divine forces in a way that probably is beyond our reckoning or our ability to depict.
00:52:21.760So I think that when we get really, really specific on the point of it, that misses the point.
00:52:28.240I don't think that gods necessarily need to, you know, they can create out of nothingness.
00:52:35.660they can couple they can do a lot of things but um so her two or her uh four sons that do this
00:52:44.300plowing it don't trouble yourself over much with yeah but i thought it says that she's a virgin
00:52:50.300there that kind of misses some of the point of well being a source of comfort to those that find
00:52:59.020themselves lonely that don't have that connection that have never known that connection or that you
00:53:04.060know live their life in that solitude that don't experience that sometimes
00:53:08.920they're they're members of the folk that
00:53:14.100for a variety of means sometimes medical sometimes other stuff
00:53:20.080live their life isolated and that you know very fundamental human connection of sexuality is not
00:53:27.020mayor for them that's a relating thing her uh being a comfort to those those folk i think is
00:53:36.860very relevant in this day and age uh into our ancestors as well swan um a couple of other
00:53:46.060things that people kind of get lost in one is that um it comes from the uh heimskringla
00:53:54.460and that is a compilation and specifically the ing linga saga the the story of the swedish kings
00:54:07.400and where they come from all of the gods are deeply euhemorized they are made very human not
00:54:16.260so bad as say like saxo grammaticus who was openly antagonistic towards the uh religion of his of his
00:54:24.400forefathers. But there are things in that story that are placed about. And it goes much to say
00:54:35.860that the understanding of things may have been miscued. And on top of this, there is
00:54:45.420a scholar by the name of John Lindau who suggests, because we also forget that
00:54:52.780Snorri Sturluson compiling, reviewing, clarifying and keeping things together, but there were multiple
00:55:04.220writers doing the work and that leaves room for error. And Lindau believes that the
00:55:15.260possibility is that that section of the story was written um and somehow kind of missed review
00:55:24.220and was from there on in i don't know if i believe that but i definitely think the
00:55:30.380euhemorization creates a point where they place the gods in overly um realistic situations like
00:55:45.660the connections to troy or what have you but this is again in the in a in a saga about sweden
00:55:52.460that it's mentioned that her her children um bring the the are or the oxen that she brings
00:56:03.340are her children and that association is made here not but that she does bring the oxen and
00:56:11.260that they are jotuns shaped um they uh i think it's it's it's kind of strange in that sense that
00:56:20.380a lot of people kind of immediately start to try to carve things up they do it with the um lokasana
00:56:26.540where uh loki says that it doesn't take much for her but like a necklace for her to throw her arms
00:56:33.420around someone um but and they immediately apply that to the idea that that's somehow strictly
00:56:39.980sexual but he is very much attacking just her integrity um and that he has no problem making
00:56:48.940it very sexual with the other goddesses so i think that's telling as well but um one thing that i
00:56:55.820would also point out and this is kind of leaning back to what we were talking about before the the
00:57:00.780horse or the mare and the the the um cow um and we clearly see even this point playing out through
00:57:13.260all the goddesses each one of the goddesses to some degree is uh kind of of one ideal
00:57:23.580or another i'm not trying to say definitively but you can kind of see it and i think in this case it
00:57:29.020is very much um uh understood there was a land taking in one of the icelandic sagas where a
00:57:38.140woman her husband had died on the way over to iceland and she had made it and so she took land
00:57:46.860by running a cow over the on the borders of the land to uh signify her taking of it and we can
00:57:57.260clearly see that connection of the oxen or the or the cattle to claiming pastorial land and um
00:58:06.060I think that's very, very important. Her name means the giving, the giving one. And with her connection to land and giving, I've often talked about how I believe that the gods first, that gods are with us, whether we read the sagas and the Aedas, they manifest yet still in our blood.
00:58:34.000And I definitely think that the spirit of manifest destiny is the best example of the gods manifesting in our blood, despite simply the Nordic lens.0.50
00:58:47.860It's the post-pagan heart of our people after Christianity. The promise of the giving land, the maiden, the virgin maiden, so unclaimed, is also kind of, again, metaphorical to the land.
00:59:11.000And it's all of the possibilities that the land can give forth as you claim it.
00:59:19.780So kind of that attraction of the West, the song of the beautiful maiden drawing you further in.
00:59:27.720And again, the maiden represents all the potential of that land and what that land can give.
00:59:34.860so um you literally described that and it makes me think of columbia precisely yes i was going
00:59:43.800with columbia yeah columbia as well now of course columbia does have immediate attachment attachments
00:59:51.180to another aryan religious structure the hellenics but you know those connections are are you'll we
01:00:01.100will find them often throughout the goddesses though they're not greatly expanded upon like
01:00:07.940the the there's a goddess coming up named clean and there is uh slight nods or connections or
01:00:15.640points that we can make uh looking or overlaying them to say uh the etruscan goddess minerva um
01:00:23.740And so as we go through the lists of the goddesses, think about the idea of the solid, the cow, the connection to expansion and order, and then there is the mare goddess, the ones who are free and wild.
01:00:44.000But the idea again is about movement. It is about the movement that makes things happen and the movement to instigate things from far away. It's society versus kind of stepping over thresholds, liminal spaces, going through other places.
01:01:05.280The mare and the horse is always associated with movement, whether it's the horses of the sun and of the day and the night and so on and so forth.
01:01:16.780And then there is the cattle, which is their movement is always grounded in the earth, in creation, in formulation.0.97
01:01:28.780And even, of course, later in the story of the creation of Zeeland, that Gevion takes Zeeland with the four Jotin cattle.
01:01:43.820I'm actually of the mindset, too, that whether they were euhemorizing or not, this is one of those things that is like another mix-up, just like we find with Lord Vauli, where many people try to say that Loki has two sons, Vauli and Nyarvi, and that that's a misnomer.0.79
01:02:08.060It is Vauli, the god, who turns into a wolf to slay his son.
01:02:14.000And the same goes in this sense where we have the four Jotins who come to help her and the additions of the son's part.
01:02:27.640But as Al-Syregoli said, if we get too attached in these things, then we have to take these euhemerizations of the gods literally.
01:02:36.980And that's not on multiple levels the way you should correlate with the divine.
01:02:46.500And those euhemorizations are kind of picked and choosed.
01:02:50.580In the same saga, it is said that the king of Sweden is Njordr, Lord of Waters, and then Lord Odin becomes the king.
01:03:03.360And then he must be wounded so that he can go to his god. And then after that, the king Frodi comes in. And if you take that literally, that's very confusing for people.
01:03:17.880But if you look at it as what I really truly believe it is, these are the cults of worship of these gods in power in Sweden that develop the royal families of Sweden.
01:03:30.900It makes a lot more sense. And they're specifically talking about an Odinic point of that cult of worship about being pierced and not dying of old age as part of the Odinic cult of worship.
01:03:46.600And then the cult of Frey comes into power afterwards.
01:03:51.320So this would also give lend to a lot of the theories about the Germanic migrational tribes coming back into Scandinavia at the time and bringing worship and the cult worship of Odin with them and emphasize it when it had lost favor in the north for other cults of worship to other gods.
01:04:11.880All right. Well, let's take some questions. One from Caleb. What are bird signs?
01:04:23.520So, in this context, one of the, I don't want to put it,
01:04:39.580But there are moments if you are so attuned or if the moment is significant enough that become transcendent and you notice that special things happen at special times.
01:05:03.680And it's not limited to bloat, but often when we're talking about these sort of things, bloats involved certainly doesn't have to be.
01:05:15.520In that context, bird signs is birds doing significant or meaningful things when fortuitous circumstances occur, often during bloat.
01:05:33.660It's something that I first really noticed observing some of Steve McNallan's bloats.
01:05:43.160He would very often get callback responses with ravens when we do bloat at places.
01:05:57.060um and again without context to an audience to those that haven't been in bloat or haven't
01:06:04.340experienced it it's kind of different and the different signs and special stuff show up a
01:06:10.400little bit differently when you're doing bloat in a in a hoth versus when you're doing it
01:06:14.500in nature in an open space but birds tend to be really interested and that tends to happen
01:06:23.540in special ways and all this is going to sound very very odd but you know there'll be birds
01:06:29.280around throughout the day but when you go and you do bloat and there's a silence and then there's a
01:06:34.880impactful meaning to a thing that is done in the bloat and you'll have you know a raven will croak
01:06:43.660or you'll have songbirds that'll all of a sudden sing at the point they'll be quiet for the rest
01:06:51.200it or maybe they won't be around for a time and then they'll come and they'll uh perch in the
01:06:58.960tree that's by your your uh your vey or your ritual circle and stay there for a certain moment
01:07:04.960and then maybe they'll take flight at a certain moment there's not a real exact science to it i
01:07:10.300know it sounds kind of nebulous but it's something that happens often um often throughout the years
01:07:17.680as you know i've done a number of bloats seeing that i one of the things that's just
01:07:25.840was really interesting to me in my property in palmer alaska when i was up there doing bloat
01:07:32.240we had kind of our ritual tree was right on the outside of a ritual circle and that's where we'd
01:07:37.120leave offerings and pour out the meat after we were done with with uh doing bloat and whatever
01:07:43.120else and it was this old cottonwood tree we're pretty far from you know from the river we're
01:07:49.600away from things very very seldom see eagles there but there was a bald eagle that came
01:07:57.520showed up at the start of bloat in that tree sat there through the entirety of bloat with us you
01:08:06.000know yelling and being loud and doing you know an enthusiastic bloat and as soon as bloat was
01:08:12.720concluded it went about its way and it was very you know very odd i've never seen an eagle do that
01:08:19.920in a spot that i was before or since um so i thought that was meaningful i know a lot of people
01:08:27.520see that and have those associations with ravens um
01:08:33.520you'll see them fly over at a particular moment where they'll do a call and response when there's
01:08:39.680stuff going on i know that we experienced that at odin's off on floats that i've done there
01:08:47.600again every time that happens is it the gods is it the land spirits now sometimes it's just birds
01:08:54.160being interested but sometimes it is and over time you get a better sense of when it's significant
01:09:04.000when it's not and what it might be um it's fine do you have any anything to add on that
01:09:09.920yeah that last part that you you hit on is i think super super important um the idea
01:09:18.160is that very often when we try to understand something we dissect it away from its relationships
01:09:26.000to focus in on it and what a lot of people will say like they'll look at bird signs bird omenology
01:09:34.400or um it's called ornithomancy um from the greek um the kind of communication through
01:09:43.120bird flight um but in rome it was uh the augers priests that um would by way of auspex
01:09:55.120determine things. Auspex means to watch the birds. But what, when we look into our lore too,
01:10:04.580it's every time it's at the starting of the trip, we saw the ravens fly. This is a good sign.
01:10:12.720And it's always correlated in the relationship to what's happening at the moment.
01:10:19.320so that is i think one thing that people need to remember it is not that every time
01:10:28.340but that when you are creating or law in the world in the well and there is a correlation
01:10:37.060to the singularity of a moment where the the or log of the bird is uh moving at your at that same
01:10:47.640time and there's deep correlative significance whether it's symbolic or cultural or what have
01:10:55.400you these two moments would seem like coming out of the randomness that makes augury or clairvoyance
01:11:05.380or divinatory practices is always kind of based off of the randomness of it is that those two
01:11:11.420things colliding at that right moment often lend towards thinking uh and knowing that there's there's
01:11:22.140this correlation between the two we do it like with alvar everyone always trying oh the alvar
01:11:28.300what are the alvar but they never look at the fact that alvar is a meaning that the whatever
01:11:34.140the word in front of it and and how there's a synthesization of of the being to the item so
01:11:42.620it becomes a lot less confusing when you look at it that way so i think a lot of people dissect
01:11:49.820things and it causes um uh confusion when but when we look at bird signs it's always in correlation
01:12:02.540to great monumental or just very important moments so going forward and looking at the
01:12:11.780signs of birds i think you should always consider your whereabouts and you should consider what's
01:12:18.740going on um as opposed to just simply there's a there's a really delicate interplay with this
01:12:30.220And having done ritual to our gods for 25 years now, it's interesting, you know, to kind of compare where I was when I started, where I am now, how these things affect.
01:12:49.780in your own digestion of these things it's like you want to embrace the frosted and the wheat
01:13:04.060side at the same time it's cool and there's a value to you getting carried away and excited
01:13:13.400about the possibility of it being something special and i wouldn't ever want to kill that
01:13:19.100I wouldn't ever want to like stomp that out being open to that and especially new people
01:21:59.400you guys are very generous. And Scott, thank you for the question. From Caleb, can our prayers
01:22:05.920stir our gods to action? How is it similar or different from Christian prayers to Yahweh
01:22:13.500slash Jehovah? Spawn, how would you, how would you respond to that? Well, I, I think
01:22:22.080i don't want to claim that that which uh perhaps the nature of the prayer
01:22:32.720uh is is the part where i'm getting kind of reservation on i'm i'm not here saying that0.99
01:22:41.060the gods are gonna go beat up the bully down the street because you're getting your butt kicked0.91
01:22:45.640um because you really really really want them to um so prayer in the relation of a spiritual0.98
01:22:58.640exchange a gift cycle i think creates harmony between the divine and the material and the folk
01:23:10.860And in doing so, that harmony beckons blessings from the gods, kind of as if the gods are ever giving of blessings, but that when you become aligned with it, that the frequency of the blessing or of the divine, of the gods, then you too are linked and then you gain and harmonize with.
01:23:38.560When people are out of the gift cycle, they catch that harmony of the blessings of the divine. They still catch it now and then. It's an emanation, if you will, but it's easily as cyclable into as it is out of.
01:23:57.980So the purpose of the gift cycle, which is so important in our faith, is, again, that deep and correlative connection to the divine, that creating that line between the two, of the self and of the divine.
01:24:16.700I do believe that we in the material then do gain benefit or blessing of the divine in doing so.
01:24:26.580And one of the ways that you can align yourself is through prayer. But I do not believe it's through prayer alone, unless obviously we're talking about the gift cycle. Some people do consider and I myself do consider the the gift cycle, the bloat that we perform to align ourselves is a form of prayer.
01:24:54.220so that's why i was kind of a little hesitant in the sense of like uh you know getting at your
01:24:59.260bedside and and saying like please lord thor can you beat up the guy who stole my lunch money um
01:25:06.860i don't think it works like that and and the only reason why i'm addressing it is because
01:25:11.740over the years christianity uh has muddled a lot of of ideas for itself and it therefore
01:25:22.060passes over so the biggest thing for anyone in ausitru is to understand that the gift cycle is
01:25:30.860extremely important and once the grip the gift cycle is established and there is this
01:25:36.940entunement between the ever flowing and willful divine that can do and administer its gifts
01:25:45.740however they see fit when you become receptive to that then you gain those blessings and you
01:25:52.780begin to start seeing them around you so it's not based on need it's not based on desire
01:26:01.420it's based on you committing to deeds to make yourself receptive to the divine
01:26:06.860i hope that makes sense um i hope that also kind of clears the difference between our
01:26:14.700understanding of prayer in Ausatru versus perhaps the praying in a Abrahamic sense.
01:26:24.380Ours is about that alignment, about receiving that emanation of blessing that flows from them
01:26:31.460at all times and can be wielded and manifested as they see fit, whether you pray to them or not.
01:26:38.440But that, again, it's like catching the sunlight between the leaves of the trees. Whereas when you start to commit to deed and you enter the gift cycle, you build relationship, you meditate, you communicate, and those I think are peripheral to the core that is the gift cycle.
01:27:05.660The placing of your will and doing the very deed of it in alignment with the gods and in alignment with the church as a whole.
01:27:17.600So you're doing it with all of these other Asatruir all over at the same time.
01:27:23.820There begins to have this fulfillment of kind of intuning yourself to the ever-present emanation of the blessings of the holy Aesir.
01:27:50.660Yeah, I'm going to go a little bit different way.
01:27:53.660So I think people try really hard to make a distinction or differentiation that's not necessary.
01:28:12.080Because Christians do something that doesn't make it bad or wrong.
01:28:16.520um yes you need to engage in a gift cycle with our gods yes you need to give them worship and
01:28:24.720you need to give them offerings and you need to give them devotion but i don't see anything wrong
01:28:33.640with praying in the traditional exactly what you're picturing in your head
01:28:39.280praying in the by your bedside at night, praying in any of that. I don't see anything wrong with
01:28:47.500that. What I do think the distinction comes in that's important is Christianity is about your
01:28:56.380weakness in the face of things. And the only thing that is good is their God. And the only thing that0.97
01:29:02.700is effective is their God or invoking him or invoking his son's power in doing something.
01:29:11.460I think that's very different in our faith.
01:29:14.800I think the emphasis on you doing your part to make stuff happen is really important.
01:29:22.600But I don't think it is inappropriate or ineffective to ask the gods, specifically to ask your ancestors, but to ask the gods to help and intercede on your behalf in situations.
01:29:39.500especially if you need an extra you know an extra bump on something
01:29:45.700to get you over the finish line or if you're out there doing the work and you need some extra luck
01:29:52.640for it or if it's beyond your control and beyond your ability to do something i don't think that's
01:29:59.320inappropriate at all when you ask can that move the gods to action certainly i don't limit what
01:30:06.760our gods do if our gods know you and listen to you and care what you have to say
01:30:14.300they may very well decide to do you a favor and do you a kindness they're not obliged to
01:30:22.100you can't demand of i mean i suppose you can do what you want but you cannot like they will not
01:30:29.140you cannot force them to meet your demands or to do the things that you can't like contractually
01:30:35.060bind them to do the things that you you know did the right song dance you prayed in the right way
01:30:40.020so they have to do your bidding it doesn't work that way god's in your person but yes if they're
01:30:46.580so inclined um they can absolutely be moved to help you in some way i think they are more inclined
01:30:54.500to help you if you are you know out there fighting and putting in your part and doing your part on it
01:30:59.700But I think that the big, and again, I think there's something fundamental to our people, and I don't think it's just a Jesus thing, to reach out to the divine when you are overwhelmed with things beyond your power.
01:31:22.540I think that is a human thing. I think it's what our people have done forever. I think that we've seen it in a Christian context because that's been the dominant religion of the media we've consumed and of kind of how we process imagery of the past.
01:31:41.620But I have no reason to believe that our ancestors, in all different forms of Arian faith, didn't ask the gods to help them, didn't come before their altar and, you know, ask for strength or for healing or for, you know, luck in business or whatever.
01:32:00.400I think that's fine, but there is a helplessness in Christianity and a groveliness that I don't0.91
01:32:13.280think is necessary or I don't think is a hallmark of absolute religiosity, but what I do think0.99
01:32:20.380really important about prayer is that it's genuine i think that a false
01:32:29.820a false groveling is gross and dishonest but i think that a false bravado is also gross and
01:32:36.940dishonest i think approaching our gods with respect and with piety and with a genuine
01:32:45.740expression of yourself is the most effective route towards successful prayer with them in my
01:32:53.180experience again it's really important to always have the gods can do what they want right they're
01:33:00.940gods they can listen to your prayer they cannot they can help you they cannot they can do what
01:33:09.900the gods want to do they are gods we never want to be impious by limiting that or by coming up
01:33:16.220with equations that we can somehow manipulate them to do it doesn't work that way they're gods
01:33:25.500well i wanted to say like and you had mentioned uh uh stepping in on your behalf and and speaking
01:33:32.780about those the prayers to the ancestors prayers to the lanvetir um i and i i i wanted to set that
01:33:44.700understanding about alignment and not necessarily making individual prayer the way you see it as
01:33:51.180being bad or or less than it's it i think it for me is the gift cycle as the core of the rope and
01:34:00.700then there are the outside of that rope is filled with many important and intertwined things like
01:34:08.220producing art for the gods is would be one of those things praying to the gods and having a
01:34:16.380verbal relationship or a mental relationship with the gods um in and utilizing your consciousness
01:34:24.620to make those connections. And also turning inward and looking to the divine to help
01:34:33.700guide yourself inwardly as well. I think all of these are very, very important. I was just
01:34:41.640the point of the core, that gift cycle, that connecting of timing with everything. And
01:34:49.440prayer is utilized so much in the bloat in uh whether it's at home or whether it's at the
01:34:56.920hof um but certainly not disconnected i just think it's yeah that's that core um
01:35:05.080and i the major reason why i'm bringing it up is because we talk so often about
01:35:10.440the gift cycle that our church has had with the gods clearly bringing blessings
01:35:17.880uh it's and i'm not claiming it's just the observation of and i think that that's so
01:35:28.780important that people new to alsatru and even some older folks because i've met people in
01:35:34.980alsatru who are like i've given horns to the gods they should give me this they make some
01:35:40.000contractual thing and that is ridiculous but um yeah that all that interconnectivity i think is is
01:35:53.840worth and i often do say prayers to the gods at night at bedside or in bed um
01:36:02.320But I do feel that, again, it's the communication is a relationship, but the gifting cycle is the, you are now rubber meets the road.
01:49:09.700Songs of love are well-pleasing to her.
01:49:12.080It is good to call on her for furtherance in love.
01:49:15.940I think that Freya is very well attested. I think that it is people are quick to point out
01:49:29.560the sexuality and the kind of carnal nature of her character which is valid and is a thing
01:49:41.300but it doesn't stand alone and it's not crass um her name literally meaning lady her being gently
01:49:52.180born she exemplifies nobility and nobility of bearing so i think that she's often um
01:50:01.380misrepresented misrepresented in a derogatory way in a i don't know in a in an obscene way
01:50:09.780that is is not fitting of her station so i don't i know that it's society goes through phases0.53
01:50:17.140and i think that we are currently in a phase where as a push back against the degeneracy around us
01:50:24.340our people in our circles tend to either be prudish or virtue signal prudishness
01:50:33.140i think we need to be careful to have balance and how we do things and not to
01:50:39.780unfairly demonized sexuality there's appropriate displays of sexuality and
01:50:45.660there's ways that it's that's very valuable and meaningful I don't think
01:50:52.100that we have to either be prudish or you know it immediately bust out into some
01:50:57.700kind of backic orgy I think there's there's certainly nuance to that but I
01:51:04.440think we all need to appreciate and be able to find the dignity in it that's fun oh uh before0.52
01:51:13.000i go there jeffrey in texas donated 50 towards the cigarhine mower thank you jeffrey we appreciate
01:51:18.920it it's fun yeah i kind of i had made mention of the separation of the wholeness of two polarity
01:51:27.080polarities with uh holy freya and the mentioning of other and other um a lot of people again
01:51:35.960want to linguistically connect other to lord odin um the the word itself is more akin to
01:51:47.880passion and it can often be utilized in linguistically to the soul the mind the desire
01:51:58.840and the passion of things um so whereas we when and we'll we'll talk about a a goddess of love
01:52:10.920love in the sense that we would often see holy freya addressed as um i think that changing and
01:52:21.160looking at the ideas of the the manifestation of the power of passion the power of attraction
01:52:31.560and desire i think is um more ethereal than the actual mechanics of um love and uh societal uh
01:52:46.120interaction um where uh like even down to the point of of dating and things like that that's
01:52:53.800That's mechanics towards building in a relationship towards love, but instead looking at Holy Freyja as the emanation of passion and love and the things that drive us towards, I would even include art or like classical art and architecture and the idea of surrounding beauty around us.
01:53:23.800That emanation, that desire that we have as folk, that is, that's her dominion flowing out. And oftentimes it's interpreted as that is the Brzingam is that focal point of emanation of passion emanating from her and driving the souls of the folk to search for beauty, to search for that which elevates them.
01:53:53.600and drives them on and that beauty is the opposite of death and that her light her life the warmth
01:54:05.900her fire all of these uh things are against the drudgery and the fallacies of the material
01:54:14.060it goes beyond that um and in doing so in that big sense she is very very complicated as a goddess
01:54:23.340Just as Frigg is complicated with the ideas of oathing society, interconnectivity with the moving forward of society and royalty, the gently born, the usage of the word tinnust is royalty.
01:54:48.620That's what the gently born translation kind of means. So like Frigg, Holy Freyja is aristocratic, is royally born.
01:55:03.600And we know this because of the way it's placed in the sagas, but I think also it is an elevation of dominion that's far more reaching and less nuanced, like I was speaking before.
01:55:24.060So that's why we went understanding that elevation between, and we can see it clearly around us in the observation of the worship of the goddesses, that there is a heavy emphasis on the worship of Holy Frege and Holy Freya in different ways as their dominion pervades.
01:55:45.060And then the maidens of Fensalar, I think, are so nuanced that people are building their relationships with them now, but the cults of them are very niche amongst folk.
01:55:57.240So when we talk about, and I had mentioned that the ancient way that our ancestors looked at the gods as living on top of heaven's mountains in the valley of work,
01:56:14.240that when he leaves and he goes to the nations of men and then she searches after him crying
01:56:24.480tears of gold and the gold that or the tears that fall in the land become gold and the tears that
01:56:31.220fall in the ocean become amber you know there is this deep poetic point of the goddess of passion
01:56:39.820the goddess of possession, the goddess of beauty, going out and searching for that other
01:56:49.000polaric half. And nothing comes out of creation if you don't have the desire to attain, to create,
01:57:00.760to build or move forward, or that longing. It's a longing. And that, I think, is where a lot of
01:57:08.300the power of Holy Freya resides is that longing of something to create, to formulate, to build
01:57:19.760or make beautiful. And over and over and over again, she is clearly the most prized of the
01:57:31.320goddesses that the Jotun who, despite their grumblings of the fact that the Isir had slain0.92
01:57:39.700the great progenitor of the middle Midgard Jotuns, Ymir, they still covet and they want0.98
01:57:49.180her. There's that yearning. And it's, again, it's about a receptive end constantly drawing
01:57:59.540to itself. And I think that that has a great play in any artist who is trying to reach the pinnacle
01:58:10.780of what they're attempting to create, or any person that looks upon a statue and is
01:58:18.420moved to weeping. The beauty that lies in these techniques of traditional work is a total
01:58:27.240manifestation of the entirety of our folk in western civilization and she manifests that way
01:58:34.200and and um you know that that kind of thought came to me when i saw the the famous uh painting um
01:58:45.800the artist's name is going to elude me right now um he the of her weeping the tears of gold
01:58:55.240um uh i'm gonna have to get back on the name of that artist a modern or not modern but
01:59:05.760in our modern times um that essence is very mysterious and her traveling moving all
01:59:17.220connecting to the idea that we were talking about before with the horse versus the the the sacred
01:59:24.700cattle. The movement part is, I think, a huge thing there. And the difference between like
01:59:35.320solidification in society and the etherealness of beauty and passion being able to be not quite
01:59:46.260defined by plot of land or by boundary of nation it just it's um definitely horse versus cattle
02:00:01.860all right um real quick the artist is ann marie zilberman often false attributed to gustav klimt
02:01:36.540too sharply like oh these are just for for women to pray to like oh or you know
02:01:45.180warriors only pray to odin and farmers pray to thor and you know women pray to the and i don't
02:01:52.980think it's that way at all i think all of our goddesses are for and all of our gods for that
02:01:57.320matter for all of our folk and it talks specifically about a number of our goddesses here being
02:02:03.200And particularly, you know, giving an ear to mortals that have these very, very real and very relatable struggles internally, you know, struggles with love and relationship, with loneliness, with various circumstances in life.
02:02:25.700you see like the halomo talks very specifically about you know a young warrior traveling
02:02:36.380far from home to different halls and in different circumstance here you see something very relatable
02:02:43.360to people who are going through struggles internally with their emotions with their
02:02:51.820social relationship to others you see that in the maidens of fensiler and their description
02:02:58.220in a lot of ways and i think this one is a you know an example of that and makes the point um
02:03:05.020that it's not just for for women it's for men to to pray to her swan do you have stuff to add on
02:03:12.220shelvin yeah i think you keying in on that i mean it's there very it is that that's so important that
02:03:20.540interconnectivity between men and women um it's almost unspecific in the sense that it's utilizing
02:03:27.340at first man in the public sense like all men or uh like a la mother um where it's open
02:03:35.420to mankind or or the folk um and then it specifically hones in on between men and women
02:03:44.220so the and i had just spoken about how oftentimes holy and i'm not saying you can't pray to holy
02:03:52.540freya for love but that oftentimes i feel she is misplaced or or misplaced in the mind of many
02:04:01.660people as specifically being some sort of kind of aphrodite um direct uh parallel but um
02:04:14.220we have the j is like a y sound the o with two dots is at all and then the f in the middle of
02:04:21.820the word is a v sound so and um as the what i was speaking of about the the minutia of love
02:04:31.340in our societies um but also too i think uh because of the usage of it in the broad sense of the folk
02:04:40.300so um you know most diligent in turning the thoughts of of men to love both of women and of
02:04:50.380men so there's that double the it's a like saying um or you know the interpretation of it could be
02:04:59.660that she is most diligent in turning the folks thoughts to love both of men and women and that's
02:05:09.100something that i was kind of uh thinking about was that there is familial love there is um
02:05:19.340friendship between that is a is a form of love and i think that forces outside of the core of uh
02:05:29.820aryan social structures that have created the west try to attack a lot of these ideas about love and
02:05:37.340try to immediately sexualize them. But instead, it is good to pray to Siovan in all cases of
02:05:46.660returning to or having that feeling of love. Now, again, more so when we talk about the love between
02:05:57.740a man and a woman, but it also, that's the core, but there is the love between brothers and the
02:06:04.920love between say fraternity or and love between parents and children and and family in general
02:06:14.060that is far more focused it's not so much about the longing and the passion and the creation of
02:06:24.180of beauty and so it's more about the interconnectiveness of society that holds it together
02:06:31.540and that it isn't strictly in a sexual way.
02:06:39.240And I'm not trying to be prudish and I'm not trying to...
02:06:44.180No, I'm trying to include versus exclude.
02:06:47.980Instead of saying it isn't this or that,
02:06:51.960is that I think it is this plus the love elsewhere.
02:06:58.600and i i mean and it's worth noting again especially when we get into some of these things
02:07:04.440there is a tendency to right go prudish because in
02:07:15.000the faith tradition that has been predominant over the last few centuries
02:07:19.880we have not been raised with the appropriate way to talk about sex and sexuality in the same breath
02:07:36.640as we speak about pipe and it's challenging and we wouldn't want to be disrespectful or be
02:07:44.680inappropriate. So we err on the side of caution sometimes. And I think that's done out of the
02:07:49.840best of intentions. And I think that as we culturally return to our native faith, that
02:07:57.480that balance will be more, will come more naturally. But again, I think as a good rule
02:08:06.400of thumb on all of this we get it but it's religion and we worship our gods as pious people
02:08:19.600we want to err on the side of being too polite rather than being too crass and i think that we
02:08:28.440would apply that in life to anybody that we respect if you're talking to a parent or your
02:08:34.800friends parents or your in-laws or your grandparents or your boss or you know the governor or whoever
02:08:43.360you're talking to if it's somebody who you're seeking their approval and you want to be very
02:08:50.000respectful of you always want to err on the side of of not offending rather than accidentally
02:08:57.680offended by being too uh too body in the things that you say yeah and i i think that a lot of
02:09:05.680times when we do talk about it and it's like oh he's saying this because he's trying to be prudish
02:09:11.520and trying to deny the reality i'm more of the mindset that the core of of that of love but that
02:09:19.760That there is the in addition to the love and of other things and that has been kind of doled out of our society by, I think, forces that don't want to, they want to sexualize everything.
02:09:38.060It is the love between a man and a woman, but there is also addition.
02:09:46.480It's that feeling of that love, of her source coming out that I think pervades, and it is always going back to that interconnectedness of societal dominion.
02:10:05.680their their dominion in our world is keeping and connecting uh it's about relationships and
02:10:13.120those connectivity points um whether it manifests in something as simple as an organized house
02:10:19.440or as something as great as the passion that that drives an artist to seek their magnum opus
02:10:28.560so getting on a couple of questions and there's a conversation going on over in the chat
02:10:33.200so I don't want to go over everybody's thing
02:15:20.000um so because i know who's asking the question and i'm the one who conducts the
02:15:29.840that part of the high assemble i'm assuming that you're asking the rooms that i put in because
02:15:34.160others may do something different um i do my bit over the horn the way that i came up and observed
02:15:44.740our founder, Steve McNallan, do. The runes are ansus, laugus, and urus. The formula of
02:15:58.860that is the alu formula. It's also, I've tried this before and don't think you can see it.
02:16:08.020Anyways, around the Gothar Ring, there is very tiny, a never-ending cycle of Ansuz, Laguz, Uruz, Laguz, Ansuz, Laguz, Uruz, Laguz, Ansuz.
02:16:25.200The idea is the gods represented by answers, the exchange of worship of energy symbolized by the liquid of need of pouring out, which is the most the original form of worship by our people.
02:16:49.860it's the root of like uh the goths it's the root of the word below
02:16:55.040um so the gods the liquid of transmission and then the primal the the fleshy the the us
02:17:06.280so from you know the that connection between gods this exchange this liquid and us and then
02:17:16.980us the liquid to the gods um so that's done over the horn and then i you know say alu three times
02:17:28.900over it uh yes that's appropriate for a lot of things outside i mentioned that's kind of the
02:17:38.700the runic way of symbolizing that gift cycle in action through the work that our gothar perform
02:17:48.020i think that that's you know useful in a lot of context that's that and as i mentioned the
02:17:55.780inverse um alu or i guess ula are runic formulas that are attested in um ancient carving
02:18:05.860there are a lot of different runic formulas you can do where you can combine a runic formula
02:18:12.380into bind runes um but that's what i do over the sumble horn spawn do you have anything to add to
02:18:19.340that uh no i i mean i think you covered the totality of that um and why i think the
02:18:29.680significance of why you say it at sumbo is the key point that people should focus on is yes the
02:18:37.960that that breath the manifestation of these very powerful uh sounds the words of these runes going
02:18:46.980into the horn um is that the the words going into the the liquid into the mead that brings about
02:18:58.300that primal strength, that invigoration at the starting of Sambul. And in a way, I think it's
02:19:07.800subtle that people, when they leave Sambul, oftentimes it's late at night and there's a lot
02:19:13.360of people, but they feel an invigoration in a way that's, they feel a deeper connection to people.
02:19:21.560they feel a heightened sense of faith um there's a lot going on and all of that is again
02:19:30.080stirring the waters it's the the the words go out and the mead goes in and all of that is stirring
02:19:40.440and activating a lot of that uh of the soul you know changing things making things grow
02:19:50.320So I think that that's another reason outside of everything you covered about just the fact that it is at symbol in that utilization.
02:20:18.180um i think it's clear and it's concise i think there's also a point because remember we talk
02:20:26.900about or i've been talking about relationships the bridge to heaven is the shimmering path
02:20:33.420it is made of light and of fire and is not easily attainable whereas the bridge to hell guard is
02:20:41.160wide and strong and covered cover a covered bridge which symbolically is is speaking of a bridge that
02:20:50.200is not weathered but protected so it is ever accessible and you notice these two relationships
02:20:59.000um almost immediately now why the rainbow over the aurora borealis
02:21:04.920a couple of reasons and one of them and i talked about it already with like the owl in the sagas
02:21:12.260the owl is only mentioned once by the beak of an owl and it's in a flippant kind of list of things
02:21:21.040that doesn't mean that our ancestors didn't know what an owl was but interestingly enough
02:21:27.520the Aurora Borealis is not mentioned anywhere. And there is a lot of theories to that. One of
02:21:37.700them majorly being that the poles might not have been aligned at the same position that they are
02:21:46.440today. And we do know about polar shifts and all of these things. So a lot of folks kind of attested
02:21:52.820to the idea that they didn't write it down because they weren't really getting any of it
02:21:57.720at the time. And I don't know about that. I don't know enough about the polar shifts
02:22:05.640in chronological history and how much validity that theory has. But I've also heard a lot of
02:22:15.720other things. It's the shining glimmer of the roofs of heaven or the armor of the Einherjar.
02:22:22.820um there that actually comes from a a book calls it's called bull finch's mythology it's the only
02:22:33.100place it's ever mentioned and there's no attestment to it anywhere in the adas i that doesn't
02:22:39.840necessarily mean that it's bad or or incorrect in the sense that you know if it had come about from
02:22:48.860a place of faith in these things um the beauty and the poeticism of it
02:22:56.300i think are interesting but we have to be honest it is mentioned there and nowhere before then
02:23:03.000um but it is carried throughout the internet the other is that it's associated with ullur and uh
02:23:10.940But Ullr, with his name having a theorized etymology of the shining, it's not really theorized. It does mean like glorious and that kind of goes in with brightness.
02:23:26.420And there's always a connection of light and brightness to the gods.
02:23:31.640And I'm not denying that, but there was some connection predominantly because the light and the shiningness that shows up in winter.
02:23:46.740And so with all of that, I, you know, the ultimate point of it is I, you can't, I think in this day and age, not look at the heavens, but I've always associated it with Leo Saufheim, with the light.
02:24:08.760and the reason that when the gods as we were speaking about ausgard and how there is a heaven
02:24:15.320above a heaven and then there is a heaven beyond that heaven and that that these places will come
02:24:22.340into being when um ragnarok comes uh that the souls of the einherjar and those in heaven will
02:24:31.460reside there but right now none reside there but the light elves and what we're seeing is kind of
02:24:39.860this kind of furthering or escalation of the heavens um and we already know that that
02:24:47.620association is that the light elves reside there despite no one else does uh the gods are living
02:24:52.740in ausgard but at the edge of heaven or at the uppermost of heaven as it's kind of often
02:24:57.860translated so i've always associated with the uh with the leo south but there is no
02:25:06.100lore stating either way but i do think the definitive point of the bridge of fire the
02:25:13.780prismatic ray of light descending from the upper realm and the fact that it is thin and it is not
02:25:23.940able to carry holy Thor. All of these attestments are building on the idea that heaven is not a
02:25:31.160place attainable by the masses. It is exclusory in that sense, and that the bridge to the dead
02:25:42.220is ever open. And so attaining that upward ascension is one that requires work, passage,
02:25:56.700and a kind of honing of the soul or admittance by the gods. I think that's really, really
02:26:05.020important. And that's what substantiates the evidence that Bivrost or the glimmering path
02:26:12.000is you know more a rainbow than the northern lights
02:26:21.200um so because it is the theme of the show you know what do we associate uh
02:26:31.040bifrost with be it the rainbow or the aurora well it says really clearly in the text so i don't
02:26:38.720think we gotta gotta play with it over much which is which is handy um it's described and is told to
02:26:48.720us uh they must have seen it it may be that you call it rainbow when talking about the frost um
02:26:57.840and that in the in the actual test or a text is uh reagan boga so it it clearly says that it was
02:27:08.320seen and understood as as the rainbow and that makes sense as it clearly you know goes up into
02:27:14.640the heavens and especially when you often don't see it in its full you know hoop you see one of the
02:27:23.440arcs um so yeah and that's there and it's in this poem it's in the guild forgetting which i think is
02:27:34.080all of these all of these questions can be answered in guilt getting maybe not
02:27:38.560quite a bit of them can i think that's why this is such a um a seminal text for what we're doing
02:27:44.960what are the worst sins that someone can commit in ausitry what would have been done to the
02:27:57.860perpetrators at the height of ausitry and what would be done in modern times it's fun
02:28:04.100what would you say to that oh I would definitely say that um and this seems to be pervading over
02:28:12.080all Arian or Proto-Indo-European. Faith is kinslaying. This kind of manifests in different
02:28:27.900ways. We see it sometimes with the fact that during the migration era, when whole groups
02:28:35.880of people were moving um the that the elderly um sometimes were um given a kind of swift the swift
02:28:48.280death so that the whole group could keep moving because they wouldn't be able to move with them
02:28:54.760and they didn't want to leave them behind um it was never done by someone in the family it was
02:29:00.760always done by someone outside of the biological bloodline and so i think that's one point that
02:29:08.120shows a heavy emphasis of um not slaying uh kin we also mention it with uh loki as haiti
02:29:18.040as the kin slayer uh being the blood brother to lord odin thinking that he could push the
02:29:27.240kinslaying upon another but by extension and very poetically it is that haldur and loki are in
02:29:37.720essence both brothers and um that is the true poetic tragedy of of the stories is the kinslaying
02:29:47.080of a of a brother or of of someone of blood um whether it's blood brotherhood or biological and
02:29:56.120And that seems to be not deeply differentiated in Nordic society, which is another reason why I think kinslaying is such and was such an important point was that blood brotherhood was so highly respected that, in essence, it was comparative to biology.
02:30:17.760that once you became a blood brother, if you slayed a kinsman that you're not technically
02:30:25.380biologically related to, it was held in the same gravity. And that's huge.
02:30:34.240There are others, but I think that is the big one. So the slaying of a child,
02:30:41.440the slaying of um a father or a mother um and i know people will some well what do you what if
02:30:49.300that person attacks you um yeah then you're defending yourself and trying to stop them from
02:30:55.920doing the the very thing that's really bad um but you know i i think people just try to
02:31:02.760go through intellectual circles to either try to yeah our our faith isn't about that
02:31:09.780That's a very Hebrew way to look at things.
02:31:15.560Our faith is much more about nobility of making decisions and choosing paths when things are murky.
02:31:26.740The nobility, the Aryan-ness of our fold, is our ability to make informed decisions based on imperfect circumstance.
02:31:35.540circumstance um you know there's a lot of what about kinslang what if your brother is trying to
02:31:44.340kill your dad you know what if whatever you've got to do what you've got to do there's not a
02:31:48.760perfect answer but the principle is what matters or you know your brother's a horrible serial1.00
02:31:56.280killer and he's out you know doing stuff in the community and you can be the one to take care of
02:32:00.280or you can let somebody else or what about this that's not the point the point is your
02:32:08.840supreme loyalty to your family and your kin and the responsibility that that entails
02:32:17.720and that that is is such a huge important part of our our faith and our honor um
02:32:24.920you know, again, to harken back to the text that we are studying, it talks about
02:32:32.160Naustrum and those that find themselves there. And so it talks about, you know,
02:32:41.200oath breakers, talks about specifically, which I thought was a cool term. I'm trying to find it in
02:32:51.660the, in the, in the text here. Now my, my searching is, is failing me. So I'll find it in a second,
02:33:10.280but specifically wolfish murderers. And I think that the wolfish murderers is actually0.90
02:33:21.600from the Volusval. It's something like, anyways, regardless. But the idea of like, tricking1.00
02:33:35.040people and laying in wait and like, you know, slaying them, you know, sneaking out of the0.71
02:33:39.820bushes and slaying them as opposed to it. And that was a really important distinction
02:33:44.040our ancestors between like face to face uh killing of your foe and like treachery so um
02:33:53.880oath breakers like treacherous murderers that lie in wait and people that
02:33:59.240you know sneak around and steal other men's wives um so treachery disloyalty to kin disloyalty to0.79
02:34:10.520your tribe your king the gods um those are some of the worst things
02:34:19.480disloyalty to a solemn vow that you've made is one of the worst things
02:34:26.200uh other things that are particularly bad again is is um those who who flee in the face of the0.94
02:34:36.120enemy and shirk their duty and you know deviance like homosexuality and i think that would extend0.77
02:34:45.720other unnatural levels of perversion like you know uh pedophilia and things but you know you hear0.96
02:34:56.040in germania about you know they'd hang thieves and murderers and such as an example like hey0.98
02:35:06.840don't do this or we're gonna hang you for criminals but they would bog stomp the cowards that fled in1.00
02:35:13.080the face the enemy or the homosexuals because they were gross and just the thought of that was1.00
02:35:20.040not something that they wanted to be reminded of by that continued existence among them so0.99
02:35:28.360depends on you know in the in like the the prime era of also true how would those things be handled
02:35:36.840um depends on at what time what place i mentioned kind of the bog stomping in a continental way was
02:35:43.880a thing um you know taking vengeance communally by you know killing the offender is a thing
02:35:57.560being able to kill the offender openly and it'd be okay because those kind of actions have those
02:36:02.920kind of consequences of the thing the other thing which was similar was outlawry and the idea that
02:36:09.880you're completely cut off from the protections of society because that meant that likely very
02:36:16.360bad things would happen to you and you don't have the protection it would be lawful for people within
02:36:21.000the society to do whatever they want to you because you don't have anybody to call upon to help you
02:36:29.080the further question what would be done in modern times
02:39:02.980then all their austere friends a handful will cut them all the way off but the rest of them will
02:39:08.180still hang out with them and still treat them like they're you know it's all good so there's
02:39:12.260not a lot of lesson learned and oftentimes people don't feel the isolation of you know like an
02:39:18.980outlaw read where anyone who is in good standing and also true would cut them off and they would
02:39:24.740be forced to you know make some kind of reconciliation and get back right to be back
02:39:30.020accepted in the world today are people don't um when somebody is grievously erred in their you know
02:39:40.660severed from their association with the austral folk assembly or with other house to true art
02:39:46.180people don't act that way they oh but he's a good guy he's my buddy and so there's not
02:39:53.700the social mechanisms that made those kind of principles reinforced in the time of our ancestors
02:40:00.420in the same way it just kind of is what it is unfortunately we're working to get back it's a
02:40:06.980overnight thing i don't think it's one generational thing but we are trying to rebuild the courage
02:40:12.740honor and dignity amongst our folk and heal that full that soul sickness has afflicted so many of
02:40:18.020our people um i recently found out that there is no pagan representation in the u.s congress
02:40:27.620would you consider sending a representative to washington someday it's fine what say you
02:40:34.740i mean on behalf of the church i think that would be your decision all right well so of course we
02:40:38.900would but i so the question is strange would we encourage a member of the afa to run for congress
02:40:46.900Yeah, absolutely. Would like the AFA send one to Congress doesn't really work like that to where, you know, churches have their representation. Would we send a member of the AFA to serve on some kind of presidential council on religion or something?
02:41:06.080absolutely that'd be great um as far as you know you don't run for congress as a representative of
02:41:13.280the afa you'd run for you know representing whatever your district is and whatever state
02:41:17.520that you're in um but yeah to get also true and specifically afa members involved politically
02:41:25.280absolutely we certainly encourage any of our people to be as politically involved as they'd
02:41:30.080like to be and to take an active part in politics and life and life in the public sphere and not
02:41:40.720you know not shying away from it or hiding their their faith the more people live their faith
02:41:47.520openly the more it paves the way for others to do so so you know we'd love that that would be
02:41:53.040fantastic i think it also opens up a great point that you've made or maybe you can elaborate here
02:41:59.360but you've made it to me about um the apps there isn't a disconnect that our people um
02:42:08.240and the governance of the way that we live our lives is interconnected that we shouldn't try to
02:42:15.120scurry away from the word politics and that you know we have every right to discuss
02:42:23.600us the ways of governance and what ways we want to go i think uh i was even talking about this
02:42:31.900earlier there was somebody saying oh it's not in the adas uh or this kind of i guess like political
02:42:38.900theory or whatever it is and it's like yes but by your rationale that means we should all just
02:42:43.400be monarchists because it's in the adas is the oh it's you know the king and uh kingdoms that's
02:42:51.220the only way it's ever mentioned. There are many things that our ancestors did not face that we
02:42:57.180are facing. And as you had said before, it is about that correct action. And one of those ways
02:43:05.180is very much in the dominion of Forseti is our correct action to create good governance for our
02:43:14.880folk going forward so i don't know if you wanted to expound on that especially because i remember
02:43:21.840you talking about not don't shy away there's like this fear that people have of the politic so
02:43:31.200people people do and a point raised in the chat is to lobbyist clergy you run close to challenging
02:43:37.760your 501c3 standing so here's the thing even if you were to do that you create a separate umbrella
02:43:44.160category under the 501 c3 i believe and you have to be very careful with the separation of funds
02:43:50.000but i don't think that's that wasn't my implication because like i said you don't run to represent a
02:43:56.800church you run to represent a district i would like for afa members to run as representatives
02:44:02.720of their district who happen you know if they happen to be gothar that's fine i didn't say
02:44:09.840that the afa or i didn't mean to apply that the afa would um you know act as a a platforming
02:44:18.160service or a fundraising thing for that but to be involved in a you know interfaith
02:44:26.080presidential commission or something that doesn't involve campaigning it's a finance issue that just
02:44:32.160involves representing your church and that's a very clearly understood uh position that a lot
02:44:37.280of different pastors and priests of other faiths are involved in but it'd be a strange thing i
02:44:43.920think that our membership should get as involved in politics if they'd like though but i i think
02:44:48.560that's a good opportunity to clarify so thank you for bringing that up also
02:44:54.320how's true is world embracing and not world rejecting um
02:44:57.920it's you shouldn't separate your faith from the way you interface with all of the things you do
02:45:08.360in your life with your political affiliations and political positions with your interactions
02:45:16.400with your co-workers with your stances on you know how you treat anything and everything you
02:45:25.320do in your life all of that should be informed by your faith so that's you know that's important
02:45:32.880to keep in mind and realize that there's not that separation you know the bible talks about how
02:45:38.820you know a renunciation of that and how um you know you should know you live in the world you
02:45:47.760should be no part of it and it's like separation between worldliness and godliness whatever that's
02:45:53.740not present in our faith that is an abrahamic thing very specifically a a christian nuance
02:46:02.220that is seldom adhered to but it's not something that's relevant in our faith um
02:46:12.300it's fun what does rotten shark taste like
02:46:14.780again i cannot escape um uh so it's chewy and i think the reason why it really hits first is
02:46:27.900because of the smell the smell is very similar to like a pneumonia or strangely enough i was boiling
02:46:37.980parsnips and one and there was a smell that came from them it was very similar uh this kind there
02:46:45.740is this kind of a stinging smell to it or just a pungency and then you know despite it being chewy
02:46:53.580the closest thing i could think of is it's it's like a cheese it's like a chewier um blue cheese
02:47:02.620that's more dense and i know that some people because blue cheese dressing they think this
02:47:07.980is very soft but no like in a dense form like if you were to take a cut of it um and it it doesn't
02:47:15.500break apart it it uh it has kind of a chewiness but it's the the ammonia smell or the pungency
02:47:27.340smell and most people kind of just only associate like ammonia in that realm and that's why i brought
02:47:34.540up the part about the parsnips is because i've had a similar like i that smells like how carl but um
02:47:42.940i would say it like a chewy cheese not quite on the level of say like an octopus or a squid
02:47:49.020not that chewy um one down from that and then one above cheese that's the way the best way i
02:47:59.540can describe it and then it does have like a an aftertaste of of that smell it's like the smell
02:48:07.400hits you you eat it and then it lingers a bit and that's why they they uh drink the brinevin
02:48:13.640the the burnt wine which is it's a misnomer it's kind of like the same as brandy wine brandy
02:48:20.820or brand a fire brand in the in the uh utilizing it to to kind of boil the wine down and remove
02:48:29.680the water so it can be shipped um it means like burnt wine but it's really it's uh it's a spirit
02:48:38.580that is drunk and that tastes like pumpernickel so when you eat the fish and then drink the
02:48:46.400brinevin it removes the more pungent aftertaste that settles in with a pumpernickel flavor
02:48:54.220and so and both of them are kind of nutty and i don't know some people like it it's an acquired
02:49:00.060taste um i'm kind of indifferent on it i don't seek it out but nor will i turn it away
02:49:06.760Spawn is an expert, but I would not see the similarity between blue cheese, because blue
02:49:16.240cheese is delicious, and rotten shark is gross, and yeah, it tastes super ammonia-y.
03:00:10.940Next up, it's confusing to me how one can be pious and one can brag as well. A pious braggart? Svon, break that down, if you would.
03:00:28.000Well, I think that there's a misunderstanding in the perception of this. Obviously, bragging today, when we say bragging, there's a clear connection that we make to the idea of puffing oneself up and all of this.
03:00:53.340um but the the idea of bragging in the context that we're talking about is more like praise
03:01:01.420now you can be pious and there's clearly a connection to piety and praise when you are
03:01:09.000praising uh one of the divine or someone else and and that has become socially acceptable
03:01:20.240And there's that clear connectivity, but there is a downturning away from praising one's self that is kind of turned the nose is turned up at and that's mainly because of the Abrahamic faith Christianity that has been brought into Europe.
03:01:42.620there is this um over like sense that this is about pride and pride is a sin and that's where
03:01:53.020that's where the true fissure is you cut it all down and it goes back to um
03:02:01.660pride and and and it's it's interesting because it's not always consistent um there will be uh
03:02:10.220speeches leaders of war bands fighting for the glory of christendom or or keeping europe
03:02:18.620christian and they say i have defeated my enemy here and i've defeated my enemy here i will defeat
03:02:24.060the enemy now and so he's singing praise of himself in his convictions and it's not considered bragging
03:02:33.100but it is and especially in the context of the way that we're applying it
03:02:40.200so when you brag when you sing the praises of oneself um you're not doing it so much of the
03:02:50.220puff point um it is more about the uh exclamation of deeds and again whether it's done
03:03:02.680for the God, whether it's done for your people or whether it's done for your family or even
03:03:08.920for the betterment of yourself that doesn't degrade it and make it like you're speaking
03:03:17.600flippant about something. So that's the reason why it isn't the same as the modern usage of the
03:03:26.920word bragging. And I would equate it to praise. It's praise of the divine. It's praise of the
03:03:34.480lineage. It's praise of your people. It's praise of your deeds and praise of your deeds and how it
03:03:41.940affects all of that. And the things that you are doing to bring people home to the gods or to
03:03:52.640defend your nation or to ensure the safety of your family and the sacrifices that you made
03:03:59.200to get there and you are speaking them out loud and ultimately it's not taboo in our in our society
03:04:08.940because the abrahamic concept of pride being a sin is where that makes it taboo
03:14:03.200Svon, is yoga compatible with Asatru as a religion?
03:14:11.920Compatibility. I don't see it as incompatible. I think it is much the same as if a member was to
03:14:24.880do a Japanese martial art. The benefits that they gain can help them, but that there is no direct
03:14:32.880sort of disjointedness between the two um because of whatever kind of nature it is
03:14:43.420now when you start to get into yoga as a hindu practice that's where it gets very interesting
03:14:50.200because a lot of yoga practice in the west is disconnected from or marginally
03:14:58.820uh in the zone the gray zone if you will uh of of the religious connectivity to hinduism
03:15:08.340um but if you know if you're going to do hot yoga at a place to uh better your health and
03:15:19.100and get and still your mind um i don't think that that's bad at all and it's very um
03:15:27.160parallelly moving with the spiritual faith of of your folk um just like meditation or
03:15:36.600martial arts or pursuing things um that train and hone you to be a better person
03:15:42.940um but if you do it and do it kind of in in the sense of like hindu spiritualism and
03:15:52.800um i don't know exactly how deep that goes in because i'm not hindu um i would then begin to
03:16:04.320say okay this is perhaps uh creating this differential because a lot of people like to
03:16:15.280I mean, the origins of Hinduism come from the Araya, but what is Hinduism today is very much affected by not the Araya.
03:16:25.260And so that's where it kind of gets a little dicey.
03:16:29.400But as far as, you know, going to a local school and practicing and trying to attempt to become more flexible and to become more focused and still in your mind and reducing stress and all of that,
03:16:43.360I kind of compare that to other forms of personal training, and I don't think that that conflicts at all.
03:16:57.720Yeah, again, yoga means so many different things to so many different people,
03:17:03.620and it's kind of implied in the question that people use it for exercise, people use it for meditation.
03:17:09.400there's all kinds of different styles of yoga