Asatru Folk Assembly - 4⧸5⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 39 - Frigg

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:00.000 You

00:03:30.000 Hello, welcome to another

00:03:59.980 exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps. As you guys may have noticed on the intro,

00:04:06.780 I do a lot at my house right now. My mother passed away yesterday,

00:04:10.940 so she'd been battling dementia for a long time, so it's not startling, but it is sad.

00:04:19.820 I've got family coming into town this weekend, just to let you all know.

00:04:29.980 Yeah, so anyways, if I'm a little bit spaced out, that might be why.

00:04:37.060 Apologize in advance.

00:04:40.500 Today we have Witten Svahn on once again, and tonight we talk about the first of our

00:04:46.580 goddesses we're going to discuss.

00:04:48.260 We're going to talk tonight about Frigg.

00:04:50.040 um it's fun for and i think that i think that she is is well known as far as you know our deities go

00:05:02.440 but for anybody who doesn't know could you give people kind of a rundown on frigg and who she is

00:05:09.120 yeah um first and foremost i wanted to express my condolences um and

00:05:18.520 And I know that Frigg is the one in situations like this where I would say definitely seeking spiritual resolve and healing in times of great loss and sadness is one of the things that our folk really should take resolve in.

00:05:46.480 is that the Frigga or Frig is the goddess of motherhood.

00:05:53.980 She is the mother goddess.

00:05:56.780 She is the Asenia of wisdom, resolve, peace, frith, bounty.

00:06:09.960 So much of, I think, that any man and woman in the folk

00:06:13.540 knows the power of Frigg from the moment they enter into this world. She is the threshold.

00:06:21.600 She is the first door, if you will. And she sets the great process of our folk

00:06:31.800 forward in building the foundations of what would be the nation from the tribe and starting with

00:06:42.260 the family. She is the pinnacle mother goddess. So, uh, I feel that, uh, for anybody that,

00:06:52.080 um, is new to Ausatru that finding this, this moment, um, if you are in need of guidance,

00:07:03.600 wisdom, temperance. It is most sought after through Frege. She is often associated with

00:07:14.760 birth, but motherhood in general, femininity, especially a type of femininity that is very

00:07:21.380 important to the folk. I would say that's the dutiful femininity. Whereas perhaps other

00:07:31.340 they uh they may represent different types of femininity or uh chthonic forces of the of the 0.96

00:07:40.000 earth um friga represents the um that which all things are grown from she's the source of the

00:07:51.920 bounty and the fruitfulness of the gods she is the mother of balder and um so she oftentimes i think 0.78

00:08:00.540 our society and in our culture she is um the paragon of wisdom and all all the duties of a

00:08:10.940 woman that's bound in our society as a mother um and that has a lot of implications and a lot of

00:08:16.700 people might not understand that um for for us um there are no crones per se as there are the the

00:08:27.500 the levels i i think that most people don't realize is uh in like in teutonic culture is

00:08:32.780 that there is the maiden or the young the young girl there is the woman and then there is the

00:08:37.740 mother and the mother never ceases to be a mother um and so this has uh been established throughout

00:08:45.740 you know history in many many verses and stories the the idea of the woman becoming kind of the

00:08:52.780 mother of all mother of all the family mother of all the folk mother of all the nation or mother

00:08:58.700 of all the gods and so motherhood is a title that is earned and gained through the you know

00:09:08.540 sacrifices and the duties that are bore uh quite literally and figuratively from the feminine of the

00:09:18.140 universe, and it all kind of pinnacles under Frigg. Yeah, I think absolutely everything you

00:09:28.820 just said, and I think it's, I know, very appropriate for me tonight for this to be

00:09:36.440 the episode that we're talking about. You know, I was thinking about this yesterday. Like I said,

00:09:42.620 It was not unexpected. I'm not, you know, destroyed with grief, but, you know, I am contemplative and it is sad and been thinking a lot.

00:09:53.740 One of the things that I think is, I don't know, certainly as men, our ambitions are displayed a lot in relationship to our fathers, either, you know, in order to impress or in spite of, you know, whether you had a good father or a bad father, a lot of what you do as a man is a reflection of that.

00:10:17.160 like my dad did all these things wrong. So I'm going to, I'm going to get them all right. I'm

00:10:21.320 going to, I'm going to do right where he didn't, or I'm so proud of my dad to look up to him so

00:10:25.960 much. I want to make him proud or I want to surpass something he did. But, um, with mothers,

00:10:31.080 it's very different. Um, you learn through, through subtle things that build your character

00:10:41.700 in terms of the way you treat other people in a lot of ways in the way you instill a lot of our

00:10:49.960 virtues in throughout your life and your family place value on um place value on your wife place

00:10:57.880 value on the mother of your children place value on hospitality and on kindness and uh and compassion

00:11:05.900 and those kind of things and i know my mother really instilled a lot of that in me it's

00:11:11.580 interesting the effect mothers have on the raising of of men and certainly of daughters as well but

00:11:20.140 i think that frigg in her patronage of or matronage rather of motherhood

00:11:29.660 is much more accessible to most people than, you know, we talked about, you know, some of the other

00:11:41.280 gods that are focused on more situational things. Or for example, I'm just thinking of the gods

00:11:47.620 we've gone over and gods such as Ular or Tyr or Vidar or gods that are associated with

00:11:55.560 justice and concepts and, you know, winter activities and all these things are a little

00:12:02.620 bit cerebral. We wouldn't be here if we didn't all come from a mother and relating to motherhood

00:12:09.960 is something I think. And I think it's different throughout our lives. I think when we're young,

00:12:14.400 we can relate to motherhood, you know, as we're the child looking at our mother, whereas as an

00:12:23.300 adult, we can look to, to our wives, the mothers of our children, see that in a different way.

00:12:29.420 And I would imagine as, as an older man looking at our daughters, mothers of their children.

00:12:37.760 I've noticed a number of people over on the side, um, offering their condolences. Thank

00:12:44.440 you for that guys. I appreciate it. And I'm dumb. I messed up on the date on the little thingy.

00:12:49.660 She passed yesterday, not a month ago. I still thought we were in March for some reason, but that's okay.

00:13:00.440 Got a couple of questions stacking up. We also have a paid donation.

00:13:07.300 Hail Janet Flavell. Hail the mothers. Love the Clausen family.

00:13:12.320 Well, thank you guys. And we certainly appreciate the donation. I'll make sure that goes to good use.

00:13:18.680 If anybody is interested in donating to the AFA this evening or in participating in Super Chats, which means we'll either read your statement or answer your questions before we get to the other ones, you can do that over on Entropy.

00:13:34.560 I know Entropy was down last week.

00:13:36.280 It is back up, and it's a really cool service if you haven't been over there.

00:13:41.160 I really like it.

00:13:41.880 I like how they do things, and they've been good partners with us.

00:13:48.840 cool we just got a ten dollar donation i'll tell you go the matt and witten spawn

00:13:54.360 uh can you explain why our 10th noble virtue is victory and its importance to us also condolences

00:14:01.160 also harry goethe hail janet flavel hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa thank you very much

00:14:06.920 travis um yeah i'm trying to think of how to go go about um

00:14:15.400 why victory is the 10th noble virtue and I

00:14:21.200 I got to take responsibility for that that one that one's mine that's all you that I threw on

00:14:29.780 the list and here here are my thoughts on it for a couple of reasons um I like that it comes at the

00:14:37.520 end of the list of virtues because the idea being if you embody those virtues they should lead

00:14:42.800 lead towards a goal of being victorious. But the other thing that I think is lost on people

00:14:50.540 in the modern era, and I think is very important to us, is that victory in and of itself was seen

00:14:58.080 by our ancestors and should be seen by us as virtuous. In an authentically religious worldview,

00:15:12.800 Your success is a measure of, to a degree, your righteousness or your blessings by the gods.

00:15:24.980 Our ancestors always looked towards a person that was favored by the gods or a group of people that appeared favored by the gods because of their continued and perhaps conspicuous victories and successes.

00:15:38.520 the quality of having victory itself be a sign of virtue is um i mean it's inherent to all

00:15:50.060 aryan cultures that that i can recall it that's why we celebrate champions and heroes and um

00:15:58.360 you know it was a mark of a person's worthiness to to lead in you know in many instances in our

00:16:06.100 ancestors' time? Was that faith placed in their ability to carry something through and to find

00:16:12.360 success in it? And success is often a sign of favor from the gods. And it's also, you know,

00:16:20.760 determined by people's persistence and their commitment to a goal at all costs,

00:16:26.880 to making things happen and to eking out victories where others would turn back.

00:16:32.720 and that's why it's so important one of the reasons that i felt it was important to add it

00:16:37.820 on there and to talk about it as much as i do is i think that our folk in this day and age have

00:16:45.720 to a large degree lost sight of thinking about winning i think that a lot of our people are

00:16:53.880 very very discouraged and they don't look at the world in terms of what they can achieve what they

00:17:00.220 can accomplish what we together can achieve and accomplish. We need to fix that. So that focus on

00:17:06.660 victory, I think, is really important to us. And it's the reason I put it on that list.

00:17:12.120 I've got a couple of other questions stacking up.

00:17:18.020 Oh, first question. This one came before we were even on the program this evening.

00:17:23.060 From James Autry. Are Black people allowed to join OUSA Troop? 1.00

00:17:30.220 black uh non-white people are not allowed to join the house true folk assembly 0.95

00:17:42.060 i suppose a person can practice a faith of their choosing but whether that practice is accepted by 0.53

00:17:50.220 the deities that they're trying to honor or not is a different story and whether that practice

00:17:56.060 is appropriate or not is a different story um i saw some follow-up over on the side his next

00:18:05.420 question is the follow-up so then he further asks i don't get it is it like a racist thing

00:18:11.580 or just black people aren't included i feel like the gods would want everyone

00:18:17.340 so it's not about exclusion it's not about exclusion at all it's about inclusion of our

00:18:23.500 people and uh and i can understand some confusion on this so and i'm going to take these questions

00:18:31.020 assuming that they're genuine so that said um

00:18:37.900 and certainly in the west in our culture we're very used to uh christianity and islam being the

00:18:44.700 the biggest religions we're probably familiar with and those are universal religions by saying

00:18:51.020 that they make claims that their god is everyone's god and that there's one right religion to have

00:18:59.740 and everything else is is sinful and literally the devil so there's one right path to to any

00:19:07.900 appropriate religiosity in those faiths and that's not the case i don't believe that's the case in

00:19:13.980 the world in general it's certainly not the belief of alsatru we're an ethnic faith meaning that we're

00:19:19.980 connected to our gods by our our very dna our gods are inherent to us as a people us as a race

00:19:28.300 and just like our gods are connected to us the gods of other races are connected to them

00:19:33.340 and it would be inappropriate for you know you use the example of black people to worship white man

00:19:39.900 gods i think if anything that would be racist um it is much more appropriate for for a black man

00:19:49.340 to worship his black gods with pride and with dignity in who he is and same goes for you know

00:19:55.500 for other races of folks as well and so that's where it's coming from

00:20:03.180 swan do you have anything to add on that at all yeah i i think a lot of the confusion firstly comes

00:20:10.060 from uh whether obviously race and and things of that nature but we're talking about race and

00:20:17.100 religion a lot of people do come from the idea that there is some sort of universal and all

00:20:22.920 pervading divinity that um you know supersedes nations supersedes cultures genetics everything

00:20:31.340 just this overarching kind of global or universal which is the proper term but universal in the

00:20:38.640 like the literal sense um of faith and a lot of people don't the first hurdle that they have to

00:20:45.360 tackle whether they are uh white or black or red or yellow or whatever color is that they the idea

00:20:53.680 of ethnicity with faith and for some groups it's easier for us to digest this um if you were you

00:21:01.600 know talking to a um perhaps a you know like someone in west africa or um perhaps maybe like

00:21:09.120 an indigenous um tribesmen or something like that it would make a lot of sense that their

00:21:15.120 folklore and their stories and things uh reflect them they see their the divinity their gods in

00:21:21.440 direct connection to them and um they set boundaries about where that the divinity interacts

00:21:28.320 with them uh as opposed to say others or things of that nature what they they might represent in the

00:21:34.800 in the grand chemistry of everything um so i think that's the biggest problem that a lot of people

00:21:41.040 have to to get past and if they can understand that there is this applies to you know groups of

00:21:48.800 people in and at large and that we as a group promote that all people seek to do this then it

00:21:56.500 starts to i think change the volatility and the hostility of the idea behind it um and so if you

00:22:04.460 don't see that the ability for people to have their ethnic like makeup and their language and

00:22:12.060 their culture as definitive parts of their faith then you know it's like are you a universalist

00:22:18.380 and if you are then that's something you should contend with that in reality no one has any sense

00:22:25.100 of those building blocks being part of the religious makeup um and and so that should

00:22:31.180 apply across the board and when people get kind of posed with that they suddenly go i don't i

00:22:35.580 don't think that's right and it's like well congratulations you know you're the equivalency

00:22:41.500 of what we use the word is it's folkish and so that's our language for it and that's our you

00:22:48.540 know the word in our language for it so once you come to that i would always express um when i was

00:22:55.020 in the marine corps i i actually was good friends with a gentleman who was part of the motor

00:22:59.660 transport group and he was black and he followed the yoruban religion from western ghana and his

00:23:07.100 faith and the way he dealt with divinity in the world and all of these things came from his

00:23:11.020 worldview and from and that included language and genetics and and stories and things like that and

00:23:16.140 i would never dream of infringing on that and vice versa he would never dream of infringing upon ours

00:23:22.300 and we found i would say mutualism in in that understanding because we both were not universalist

00:23:28.700 in our faith and so a lot of people when they tackle divinity try to how can how can that be

00:23:36.540 like uh how does how do gods or a god or divinity uh they don't care about race and they don't care

00:23:43.100 about creed or or you know where you come from and there's only one overarching thing that you

00:23:49.820 know we have to bow down to or you you know are like you said sinful or um to use the greek word

00:23:57.340 demonic um i've heard that a lot being tossed around on on twitter and um you know they they

00:24:05.340 just they fail to realize that the components of the expression of faith is a lot to do with

00:24:13.900 language but language also has to do with society and society has to do with race and ethnicity

00:24:20.140 and those things are all kind of dominoed together and so it's within i think anyone's right on the

00:24:26.620 planet to express and build their relationship with the divine through themselves through their

00:24:35.420 blood through the way that they see themselves how they connect to the divine is is the way they

00:24:41.420 correlate directly to themselves and to their their neighbors their their family their friends

00:24:46.060 and their their folk um it's when you get into other things it's like you see other people

00:24:52.060 and you're like okay well that's their faith and and they deal with the things in there and i don't

00:24:57.420 want to intercede i have my own they have their own and i think that that's the biggest hurdle

00:25:03.340 if you can get past that then we can talk well and so much of this is a is a matter of

00:25:11.340 preconceptions especially in the world we live in today we're so inundated with

00:25:16.140 things and race is such a hot button issue it's been said in recent times that race is a social

00:25:24.140 construct but on the contrary society is a racial construct and i and i don't think a lot of people

00:25:32.220 are aware of that but as social groups were forming they were formed by people with a common

00:25:37.580 culture and a common heritage and unfortunately our folk have been demonized lately whenever we

00:25:47.900 want to have any pride in ourselves or any kind of anything's just for us but if we look at it

00:25:55.900 historically i think you know most people sympathize with the plight of other indigenous 0.67

00:26:02.860 people that christianity or islam forced to worship their universal religion and destroyed

00:26:10.060 their ethnic faiths and i think that that's kind of a it's not the perspective that i think we see

00:26:16.460 this from enough but if we looked at it from that perspective i think um i think we might agree more

00:26:23.020 and i think that you know even if we didn't agree we might have respect for certainly where we're

00:26:27.740 coming as focused folkish faiths. I had Nick post a link that he just popped up now as a list of

00:26:35.780 ethnic religions, because this isn't just an Ausatru thing. And that's what I wanted people

00:26:39.660 to be aware of with that. When you look at that list, and that's on Wikipedia, and there's

00:26:44.820 certainly no great friend of the Ausatru Folk Assembly, but they do point out that these

00:26:50.580 indigenous faiths are a great many around the world. I would say that's the religious norm

00:26:56.360 uh you know up until the massive conquests of christianity and islam 0.86

00:27:02.520 i would also like to point out too that universalism has a tendency to create

00:27:07.940 that what you started you know said is is that you know there is this kind of everything else is

00:27:14.840 not us but it's not only just that it's it's evil and so universalism has a tendency to give the all

00:27:22.880 or nothing caveat based on their faith. You're either with them or you're against them. And I

00:27:31.260 think that a lot of people don't understand that folk faiths are, there's an understanding that

00:27:37.340 there are other people, there are other things, there are other forces. And what truly makes

00:27:43.340 those things the antithesis against you is their deeds, their actions, the way things are led about.

00:27:49.380 So acting nobly in our faith does extend 100% to our own, to our people, but it also exemplifies the deeds we do to anyone else is we are noble people, so we will act nobly.

00:28:04.400 And I think that that's a different preset that a lot of people don't think.

00:28:12.380 They think of the political hot button issue, so it's immediately it's villainous or what have you.

00:28:18.840 And in a lot of ways, the people that are telling you that stuff need it to be that way, to substantiate either their existence or the framework of their ideology, which might be universal, say, like in Christianity or Islam, or it might be universal in a political sense, like with perhaps a communalism and things like that.

00:28:36.620 And so these people need desperately to have the outside, you know, evil, demonic, sinful forces to propagate and spread their ideology.

00:28:50.880 And whereas I think for us, we want to keep it within our people.

00:28:56.300 We want our children to know the stories of our ancestors.

00:28:59.040 There's no differentiation between the past to the future.

00:29:02.340 we are part of those building blocks, but we're not trying to step that into other people's lives.

00:29:10.780 And I think that a lot of people at least find that as one of the greatest misunderstandings of

00:29:16.460 our faith, especially from the Ausatrude Folk Assembly, because the way he posited the question

00:29:21.240 was in Ausatrude. And again, you said very well is that the Ausatrude Folk Assembly allows us to

00:29:31.200 create our inner guard which is a very important factor in our faith and um all peoples can define

00:29:41.700 themselves by the by their titles or you know some some churches and things like that will define

00:29:47.040 themselves based on who they they try to bring into their congregations whether it's you know

00:29:52.800 economically or linguistically or what have you people do it all the time ours is based on those

00:29:59.100 you know, four precepts of really is, is the culture, the heritage, the ethnicity,

00:30:05.500 and the language. But the language one is even more along the lines of, I think,

00:30:10.100 our ancient language, whether it's, you know, Germanic or Italic, and ultimately the unifying

00:30:15.880 language that all of our people once spoke of. But that's, you know, something further on and in.

00:30:21.980 so um king of cheese is not with us tonight because he's having a cable outage but he got

00:30:31.480 a message through to uh one of his bulk builders i appreciate the commitment on that tony

00:30:38.840 termination i really look forward to meeting him um yep but he wants to ask his question he asks

00:30:45.180 us every week is uh gentlemen how are we doing this evening swan how are you doing i'm doing

00:30:50.480 great i um it's uh if anybody's following the iron mark it's auspicious tonight is the first

00:30:57.840 night of summer month it's the uh it's the full moon it's the summer moon we're moving towards

00:31:02.720 you know merry moon and the may day and and so we're we're getting up to midsummer so it's

00:31:09.760 really really exciting it's a great time it is it's really nice to um i don't know for a lot

00:31:14.000 of folks maybe further west right now they're they're hitting the the evening tide of the day

00:31:19.840 but for me over here um it's it's warm and it's starting to get that kind of balmy feeling of the

00:31:28.160 summer in the air and the moon you know bright and full and um everything's i feel very connected to

00:31:36.880 it all so doing great um yeah tony it's mixed bag i'm excited to be here on victory never sleeps

00:31:46.000 talking with everybody i look forward to this every week honestly doing pretty good a lot of

00:31:52.160 stuff's going great but i am i am uh saddened by my mother's recent passing and uh just doing a lot

00:32:02.080 of a lot of thinking about things that way and and uh taking stock and reflecting on some things

00:32:08.320 but you know nothing bad just kind of somber but doing doing pretty well i appreciate you asking

00:32:13.840 um our next question is worded in a way i have not heard before

00:32:22.280 um is vril the wanderer watching right now love your output what are your thoughts svan

00:32:33.160 oh oh no i think he's talking about uh real the wanderer in the comment section so a lot of folks

00:32:41.940 might not know too that there's like the comment section's pretty it's it's awesome and it can get

00:32:50.100 there's a lot of like banter and joking and people saying hello they're also asking like hey where

00:32:55.220 you been like a lot of times they communicate to each other via our our show so this is amazing

00:33:00.100 and a lot of the input sometimes it gets heated i think there's arguments too but hopefully within

00:33:04.740 frith they keep you know it's perfectly fine to have different opinions but um you know but yeah

00:33:11.060 Yeah, he's asking about Vril D'Oper.

00:33:13.120 Well, then that makes it make a lot more sense.

00:33:15.840 Yeah, I have no idea.

00:33:16.820 I'm unfamiliar with who that is.

00:33:18.180 I don't recognize his name from the chat room,

00:33:20.120 but so often I'm focused on other things

00:33:23.180 and I can't pay as much attention

00:33:24.420 to the chat room as I would like.

00:33:26.080 So that takes away a lot of the...

00:33:28.660 Yeah.

00:33:29.500 I threw that, it's fine.

00:33:30.340 Cause I was like, what's he talking about?

00:33:32.380 I want to...

00:33:33.380 Well, I saw some of that stuff out

00:33:37.780 like Ian, good friend of mine,

00:33:40.100 Last I saw or heard of him, he was living in Texas.

00:33:43.420 Good guy.

00:33:45.140 And he said, you know, guys, I can't stay on.

00:33:47.420 I just wanted to say hello, but I got to go to bed.

00:33:50.140 I got to work in the morning.

00:33:51.140 So it was really cool.

00:33:52.920 I love the comment section.

00:33:54.000 It's great.

00:33:54.920 There's a lot of great people out there putting tons of great input.

00:33:59.140 I wish we could interrupt everyone.

00:34:01.320 The fact that there's so much activity in the comment section is really, really warms my heart.

00:34:06.700 good bad or otherwise it's great for everybody to be over there talking and meeting each other

00:34:11.340 on this i think that's been a really positive thing about uh about the program um so

00:34:20.380 this is interesting i think there's you know infinite ways we could go with this but uh

00:34:27.180 from jennifer and justin young can we get homework something to study on and put into our everyday

00:34:34.540 life. So I've got some thoughts, but Svon, do you have any ideas of some stuff folks could do for

00:34:42.920 homework that could be done and impactful to their everyday life? Yeah, I think first and

00:34:52.040 And foremost, I always talk about this at the Hoff, is build your faith-like drive, or basically exercise your mind and your heart and your body all at the same time through building faith.

00:35:13.920 And that is what we call a bloat. It comes from the old word meaning to blood.

00:35:19.640 So I would say start giving bloat now.

00:35:25.780 And yes, there is right ways or perhaps even more correct ways of doing things.

00:35:31.240 But the ultimate right way is to do it.

00:35:36.340 So, you know, even if that comes down to gathering pictures of your ancestors, because all of us can gather, you know,

00:35:47.140 or traces back somewhere in some way maybe you don't know any of uh actual named ancestors but

00:35:53.540 you might know where your people come from um or you know like lands that they may have lived in

00:35:59.060 before uh there's lots of ways that you can build connectivity and uh it could be something quite as

00:36:07.060 simple as um uh you know lighting a candle to them um and praying to them and then offering them

00:36:18.260 a drink by sharing it with them and then placing it within a receptacle one that is not just like

00:36:25.460 a bowl is usually what we use but that bowl becomes dedicated to this process um so you know

00:36:33.460 speaking their names out loud this is the hardest part is the time in between lighting that candle

00:36:39.620 and and pouring or drinking the drink is where a lot of people i think fall um

00:36:46.100 not short but they just kind of get lost um and one of the things that's worth

00:36:51.060 considering is just speaking out loud um speaking their names speaking telling their stories even

00:36:57.620 if it's like i just learned about you and i went on the internet and i i uh found these pages and

00:37:05.700 i found this out and and telling your emotional and mental um thoughts out into the air while

00:37:14.580 you know looking upon a a picture of your ancestors and then you know maybe choosing

00:37:21.620 something very special a a drink that you're not going to drink the entirety of so uh you know

00:37:27.780 something even if you bought it doesn't matter or you made it um and you you know you pour it into

00:37:34.340 a cup and you drink it and then you pour the rest into the bowl and then you thank your ancestors

00:37:42.500 for uh guiding you or ask for guidance that's you know and blessings and if you're found worthy you

00:37:49.060 know you ask it hey if you believe that i am worthy of your your love and your your guidance

00:37:55.380 please i'm open and i'm i'm ready and i'm willing and then you take that offering and place it

00:38:01.220 somewhere outside you're pouring it out uh someplace that usually people find like a tree

00:38:06.580 or or something that's notable and um and then they they clean up and you know um

00:38:14.020 kind of move from there and that's the i would say that's one of the best things to do

00:38:20.740 is that that homework of of physical practice um as you go you will learn more but if you don't

00:38:28.980 learn how to initiate your conversation with the divine and with the the the spiritual world

00:38:38.540 I think that a lot of people end up in the long run having to climb that hurdle later.

00:38:44.500 And a lot of times it can be obfuscated with details and steps and things like that.

00:38:50.520 You can learn all of that and become finely tuned, but it all is based on the fuel you put in you.

00:38:58.960 And that fuel is that initiation of faith.

00:39:03.720 yes fawn answered that pretty comprehensively i i don't really have anything to add i think

00:39:11.440 you know those are the things that i would have suggested and i think that uh with any of that

00:39:19.100 please keep in mind not to let perfect be the enemy of good all these things grow over time

00:39:26.140 um you know there's some people that have elaborate and amazing and beautiful altars where

00:39:32.140 they do their worship at. It's also really, really good just to sit and put a candle on a shelf

00:39:41.700 and start there. You don't need the world's most elaborate altar to start worshiping our gods.

00:39:49.520 You don't need to have composed the most beautiful poem to honor them with. Just speaking from your

00:39:57.680 heart to your gods is a powerful thing in and of itself, and it all has to start somewhere. So

00:40:05.120 the time is now. Katie asks, good evening, gentlemen. What are some ways that we can

00:40:13.740 celebrate the upcoming months if we are unable to make it to the Hoffs? So

00:40:19.200 a couple of different things to this question first

00:40:27.420 if you can't make it to the hoffs do that's awesome if you can't one thing that is really

00:40:34.900 special about the afa and all of the growth that we've had in the last few years there's a chance

00:40:40.340 that you may very well have afa members very close to you um so i think that you know all

00:40:46.940 effort should be given to trying to practice our faith in a community amongst other other outs that

00:40:53.100 you are if you find yourself alone with just your family um there's plenty of things you can do

00:41:02.780 depending on the holiday as far as you know activities or whatnot absolutely with each

00:41:08.780 of our holidays you could do your own personal bloat like swan just uh just talked so eloquently

00:41:14.460 about um but it's very special that even if you do go and celebrate the holidays of the hof

00:41:25.180 that you do something and you observe our our holy tides in your home as well if it's you and

00:41:29.980 your family even if it's you by yourself things you can do around your house to decorate make

00:41:35.340 it special and celebrate that literally brings it home and it um instills tradition in families

00:41:45.260 and in children and the more we can do with that the better what do you what are your thoughts

00:41:51.980 spawn on ways folk that can uh celebrate our upcoming holidays if they're unable to make it

00:41:57.820 into the halves well one thing to remember is right now is that it's it's summertime so the

00:42:05.500 bounty and the beauty of the world around you uh is to be celebrated so honoring the the house and

00:42:13.100 our senior or gods and goddesses of this time is good so um you know celebrating uh little things

00:42:21.820 it could be something as simple as if you go out with your children to a festival flowering

00:42:26.940 festival um i know they just had one recently here uh where i was at and um the idea of spending time

00:42:33.980 with your family taking that moment even if you're not doing like an actual uh you know like

00:42:39.820 ceremonial placement but taking that moment to give thanks to your ancestors to give thanks to

00:42:44.940 the gods and then go home and do that you know light a candle share a libation because the some

00:42:52.940 this the the the deep symbolic sense of of sharing the the the liquid between yourself

00:43:00.060 to your ancestors and to the gods uh during this time in thanks of the turning of the seasons

00:43:05.580 um some of the ouse and our senior to look at uh around this time in in particular of course is

00:43:13.340 the lord frey and the lady or freya um a lot of folks right now are turning their minds towards

00:43:20.700 that though to be honest uh lord fray is uh very much the summer tides uh season uh he's he's the

00:43:29.100 house we often pray to from charming of the plow all the way to fray faxie he is the viralta god

00:43:35.740 he's the god of the world right now and he is he is the blooming and and and the light and his

00:43:42.300 retinue of of leo salvar are busy uh instigating growth so a lot of times uh giving thanks to frey

00:43:52.220 is uh i would say a a good starting point if you need one um uh but all you know whether you want

00:44:00.700 to hey i i heard about like speaking to the divine of course with with with uh reverence but i heard

00:44:10.220 about um you at victory never sleeps so i would like to give thanks to you uh lady frigg and then

00:44:18.460 and hold a ceremony to lady frick you know it's it's all within kind of what you're willing and

00:44:27.340 able to do um i think the biggest thing is uh come at it with a point of reverence um but

00:44:35.340 Our faith is not necessarily like separate from our lives.

00:44:39.720 It's pervading.

00:44:41.160 And so you would look at a bloat as like we're physically doing something because a big part of our faith is about combining our thoughts with our deeds.

00:44:54.180 And so physically weaving yourself into the time of the year is very important.

00:45:01.220 That's why a lot of our holidays are based on the tidings of the year.

00:45:05.340 um and and but it doesn't have to be only that i mean any time that you want to uh

00:45:13.500 you know simply again cross that threshold that's the hurdle that a lot of people have is where

00:45:18.780 they feel that they're going to do something wrong or do something foolish and the best

00:45:22.700 route to go about is is to you know open your your your mind and your heart to the gods or to

00:45:31.340 your ancestors i say the ancestors a lot because i know for a lot of folks approaching the gods

00:45:36.140 which should be this is the case i think it should be the case is that you want to approach the gods

00:45:40.620 with a little bit more gravity to understanding and building that relationship with them but we

00:45:46.940 do have a very clear connection to our ancestors right away so in a lot of ways building your

00:45:54.220 connection to your ancestors is a way to help further in building your relationship to the

00:46:01.660 eldest of your ancestors which are the gods um so that's why i keep saying that but um

00:46:08.860 yeah the the one thing that's really hard about this time of year is this time of year is

00:46:14.620 built around community it always has been so the the the big holiday that's coming up now is the

00:46:20.300 night of the witches hexanot and uh there's a lot of confusion around that and um a lot of times it

00:46:28.300 it it it's built around the people coming out of their houses right now our folk were coming out

00:46:34.380 of their homes their farmlands they were getting on the road and they were starting to walk to each

00:46:38.940 other or ride to each other or take a wagon or there's a lot of movement that started right

00:46:43.100 around this time of year and the big thing was the preparation of the ground the preparation

00:46:49.820 of the seed the preparation of your equipment um and you know blessings asking the gods to bless

00:46:56.700 our folk to bless the livestock when they go out and you know past the um you know the guard

00:47:02.940 past the hedges out into the fields so hexanach was born from that and so too was mayday and so

00:47:11.500 both of these holidays are really built around community um you're you know anybody that's

00:47:18.060 gonna be unable to get to the hops are gonna see the maypoles coming out and that's like

00:47:24.540 that's something as a standard or a banner of of testament to the fact that there's

00:47:31.500 you know a large group of people coming together to dance around the maple

00:47:35.260 and i for many years i did not have that many many years so i totally understand where you're

00:47:41.580 coming from by if you're unable to make it or you don't have anyone around you and so oftentimes

00:47:50.620 you know um this time of year i i would pray to freya i would pray to fray i would give thanks

00:47:57.420 and ask for protection and i would give thanks for all the bounty i would do things by like placing

00:48:03.340 gifts um i think that's another threshold that a lot of people have to understand is getting

00:48:09.740 through is our sense of giving physical items as a um devotional act and giving the spirit of

00:48:19.340 something is um really integral to our faith um so you know uh even if it was uh placing loaves

00:48:28.060 of bread into a hole that i dug and then pouring wine on top of that and then placing the dirt and

00:48:34.220 just you know giving thanks there's little things you can do there's no um starting out there's

00:48:42.220 really no nothing that should hold you back you shouldn't be thinking that you're gonna

00:48:47.260 go the wrong direction as you do get more experience though and you if you do have an

00:48:51.100 ability to go to the hoffs one of the best things about the hoffs are that when you go there you get

00:48:55.820 to see kind of like the the faith at large and you get to see some of the tenants and some of the

00:49:02.940 the the processes that we do and you can then carry those home um but you know you could uh

00:49:11.660 emailing a folk builder emailing a gothar and asking them hey what you know what can i do or

00:49:16.780 is there anybody in my area um but if you're you know by yourself or with family definitely

00:49:24.620 you know celebrate the season make flower crowns with your kids um you know bake bread

00:49:32.140 or make make a dish and and and then gift that um you know or a part of it at least

00:49:39.500 um that could be you know anything from a loaf of bread to wine to flowers to fruit and all of

00:49:45.420 these things because the acts of what you're doing are part of the devotion that's that's what i tell

00:49:51.900 people at thor's office like the very fact that you got on the road and started out this morning

00:49:56.700 traveling to us that's that that's all part of the devotional process and so it starts small

00:50:05.580 and it starts with you just doing little things and trying to build more into that

00:50:13.740 all right uh next question is is an interesting one um sarah asks does frig not like her other

00:50:22.060 children uh hother and uh her mother and i think

00:50:33.660 i think that's really interesting interesting one i'm not sure if you have theories or ideas on

00:50:37.660 this fawn is that the entirety of the question i didn't see it come up yeah

00:50:42.460 i certainly don't think that she has um malice or hatred uh especially if we're talking about

00:50:55.580 holder um i i would say sadness and the great sense of loss but when we're talking about the

00:51:03.900 gods in like uh the um you know i think in the in the calls before that we've been we've done we

00:51:11.500 talked about euhemerism and humanizing the gods and i think that we do that to a certain sense

00:51:16.300 in our stories especially um to better understand again it's another way for us to understand the

00:51:24.140 divine and um one of the things i i i have a tendency to see the gods um outside of the of

00:51:33.980 the stories solely and see uh you know to me frigga is the epitome of mother motherliness motherhood

00:51:45.660 and i and i can't speak for her but i would feel that a mother would not hold um that level

00:51:57.020 of malice especially when your hand was guided by someone who you trusted

00:52:01.500 um and that's another reason why in the also true folk assembly we do not abide um the devotional

00:52:10.260 um kind of uh I don't even know what it would be called can't even find the the the word for it 0.81

00:52:21.720 um loki or the you know we call him the kinslayer because again hov was tricked by hand

00:52:32.600 he was tricked by the one that was trusted and if we're talking about the stories again

00:52:37.080 and we're talking about them as as you're kind of you hemorrizing them just a little bit

00:52:41.960 Loki plighted against Hogg utilizing a weakness, his inability to see. And even beyond that,

00:52:54.820 not fully even knowing the entirety of the story about the green and leafy, the innocence of

00:53:01.540 the mistletoe. But if you look outside, now let's break it back out again. What we're seeing is

00:53:08.420 One brother is tricked to slay another brother with something that seems innocent, much like a good intention or an abidement of that which is good.

00:53:17.780 And you can see that in our world today amongst the folk.

00:53:21.080 There are many people who would readily attack their fellow brothers and sisters based on the idea that they are abiding by some grand virtue.

00:53:33.900 and that virtue is what they see is is innocence but they don't realize it's the key to

00:53:39.420 causing such great pain and and and uh misery and and ultimately dissipating the start of the

00:53:45.420 dissipation of that which is orderly so it's so funny to me i i often think about it's like the

00:53:52.300 the dissipation of order amongst the cosmic gods of law was is the innocent mistletoe

00:54:01.980 but it's not the mistletoe itself it's everything surrounding it the ignorance of the brother the

00:54:07.020 maliciousness of the outsider you know and the connivingness of the outsider the embitterment

00:54:12.220 that he held um and then ultimately the subsequent things that follow from there

00:54:17.740 now with with hermoth that's an interesting one i don't recall anywhere in the stories where that's

00:54:24.300 that's even inclined um hermoth is uh the the name the etymology of the name means uh battle strength

00:54:32.460 and um the story is kind of placed as an as a unique i think poetic switch because we don't

00:54:39.820 see it elsewhere and we know that that uh lord odin has gone down to the under to the underneath

00:54:47.740 the place separated from time the place beyond the veil the place beyond the cave nipa cave um

00:54:54.300 And so in this sense, it's that he was so bestricken by grief that he could not.

00:54:59.960 And so one of his sons, Hermod, took the mission up for his father.

00:55:09.420 There's a lot of theories about Hermod as well.

00:55:14.080 But from the stories, his son takes his horse and rides to see his brother.

00:55:20.460 and sees it and and if you're reading all of the stories you know it's known that odin knows where

00:55:26.280 he is odin knows where he resides odin knows the process but the idea that the battle strength

00:55:33.480 that is needed by even the great god odin to to convey the message to one of the outs that are

00:55:43.240 is now has shifted from one place where the gods reside to the ultimate separation where it's it's

00:55:52.520 very hard i think for the gods and you know it's it's it's the place away from time it's a place

00:55:57.560 away from the material and it seems throughout the stories consistently remark that it's a great deed

00:56:05.240 for the gods to to transcend that threshold and go down into that place

00:56:11.240 and um that primordial place and uh so his son does and i don't so i don't think there's any

00:56:19.080 uh indication in anywhere that i could think of in which perhaps uh frig would even have

00:56:24.280 that the inclination or it wasn't mentioned anywhere um but i would feel and i feel in my

00:56:31.000 heart that uh you know frigg is the epitome of the feminine and of the virtue feminine of of the

00:56:38.520 power of within culture within society she's the queen she is the the mother she has uh so much to

00:56:47.160 to uphold um that and in great wisdom she would never even entertain the idea of malice but

00:56:56.840 would hold great sadness and that's that's referred to as well and her dedication to protecting

00:57:03.000 her her son baldur is is noted as well so i you know protection and and lament

00:57:10.920 yeah i think it's a it's an interesting question i'm not sure what prompts the question about

00:57:15.640 uh her mother um because not only does she not you know dislike but it was it was

00:57:26.120 mentioned one of the you know in a way the reward for him going and being the messenger of the gods

00:57:33.320 to uh beseech hell to release balder was you know frig offered she tried to get all you know any of

00:57:42.040 the isir to go and she said if anyone would win my my love and my favor um i think my my everlasting

00:57:51.720 love and favor uh you know who would do this for me and he was the one who went and did it so i

00:57:57.640 think that she certainly you know holds her mother in high regard um as far as uh hother goes i

00:58:09.480 i don't presume to

00:58:11.240 speak for frig in this regard um what i will say is that in in the story in the lore um

00:58:23.480 it's but it actually in the gilfaggening where we get our our list of the 12 gods

00:58:28.360 of the 12 ice here that we are constructing our hofs to um

00:58:33.000 His name is mentioned in a list of Isir, but it's said that the gods don't want even anyone to mention his name because the memory of what happened to Balder is so painful that by acknowledging Hother, they're reminded of that pain.

00:58:55.840 um so i can't say that i can't say that she does have fond feelings of him or not and i think

00:59:05.820 that's a i don't know it's not for me to say um but what i will say that i think this illustrates

00:59:18.860 in an interesting way is that to our ancestors like the worst thing that could happen is strife

00:59:27.580 amongst kinsmen and the the slaying of one family member by another because when someone outside

00:59:35.980 of your family wrongs you you can take vengeance and you can your family can be compensated for

00:59:44.060 or the loss that it suffered in some way.

00:59:46.840 But when it's people in your own house that are taking from one another,

00:59:51.040 there's no way to recoup that loss because further, you know,

00:59:56.340 further punishing your own kin for something that they did to a kinsman of

01:00:00.580 yours just continues to diminish the might and the hymenia of your family.

01:00:07.180 And there was no resolution and no, no right answer to those questions.

01:00:11.500 And that's why being a kinslayer was such a powerful transgression amongst our ancestors and why this situation is particularly tragic.

01:00:25.400 And I think that's what elevates the level of this tragedy in such a mythic scale.

01:00:31.780 and uh yeah so i i don't presume to to say that frig what frig might or might not feel about

01:00:41.600 hother but i think that she's absolutely her mother fan um that's attested to in the lore

01:00:47.780 and he you know he daringly braves situations that others that others fear to do in order to

01:00:56.460 secure her love and her favor so i think that's well earned uh i would like to even say because

01:01:02.380 something that you you have mentioned before in our conversations um which are always really

01:01:07.740 insightful is uh when you talk about olden being the god of consciousness for the folk

01:01:15.020 i'll often try to apply that understanding to all things bigger pictures patterns and the way things

01:01:23.740 that they they lay out and whether we can we you hemorrize the gods as as human and in in a

01:01:30.220 mythical sense or i never i try to say avoid the literal but in the mythical sense um but also too

01:01:36.860 if if odin is the god of consciousness and frigg is then i would say the heart or the the um the

01:01:45.100 wisdom and the spiritual guidance as the core of the folk, and of course Balder is the consciousness,

01:01:59.100 then in a lot of ways the consciousness was slayed by ignorance at the hand of the deceiving

01:02:05.740 outside outsider and it takes a lot of hermos battle strength for us to regain that so if we're

01:02:16.460 talking about the soul of the people or we're talking about the soul of the self hermo definitely

01:02:21.340 represents the the consciousness and the the heart and the great strength that it takes in order to

01:02:29.580 reach down and rekindle and relight the light the soul of uh that's in the darkness so there's a lot

01:02:38.540 of there's a lot of allegoric sense that can be there it takes great strength if someone is is

01:02:43.980 in a point where their mind and their heart are completely devoid of light and they're falling

01:02:48.780 into this dark place it takes great battle strength to reach down to go low into themselves

01:02:54.460 and pull that light out of that darkness so and i think hermoth kind of represents that strength

01:03:00.140 that that's you know in his name it represents that whether it's we're applying it to the folk

01:03:05.820 or whether we're applying it to the individual or of course ultimately to the gods so

01:03:16.140 so uh next question is from rachel still catching up on the video so i'm minutes behind

01:03:23.100 but wondering why we do not celebrate sigur bloat tonight the full moon in april um you're welcome

01:03:32.300 go ahead it's fun oh in april yeah so i was going to say um by all means you're welcome to do that

01:03:39.500 if you'd like the reason that the afa doesn't do that is a couple of things so first

01:03:46.220 there are a number of our holy days that are based on that are based on nature

01:03:55.700 um you know the equinox happen when the equinox happens uh the the solstices happen when the

01:04:03.680 solstices happen but there's other of our celebrations that aren't so tied to a natural

01:04:13.580 cycle. And Sigurbloat was one of those. It was celebrated in a particular time, and the attestation

01:04:20.900 that we have is during the Viking Age, where this is the time of year where stuff is thought enough

01:04:29.080 that they could go and start mounting their raids for raiding season. And that was very specific to

01:04:39.820 certain geographical instance as opposed to to a larger you know a larger natural truth but the

01:04:46.860 truth of that was to celebrate a to have a celebration to celebrate victory to beseech

01:04:57.500 the gods to bless them with victory and to to instill victory amongst the folk by sharing

01:05:04.940 in a in a communal context and that's something that we do still do as the astro folk assembly

01:05:10.780 but we've chosen to do that in july um so

01:05:19.020 in constructing the modern afa calendar it was very important for us to have

01:05:24.540 a monthly a monthly focus and a monthly ritual for folks to do and we can certainly do more than

01:05:31.740 that but at the very least we want to celebrate one of our religious functions every month to get

01:05:39.340 our folk together to worship the gods together to get our folk to come to the hof and worship

01:05:44.540 the gods together or even just meet up with with their fellow afa members and uh and celebrate a

01:05:51.420 bloat we want folks to do that at least once a month um july was the month that we didn't have

01:05:57.740 something. And April was a month that we did. And what was happening was we had Hexenacht

01:06:04.620 at the very end of April, at the 30th of April. And then on the 1st of May, we had May Day.

01:06:12.340 And so rather than celebrate those two things differently, what we would have is because they

01:06:19.240 were directly next to each other, people would get together and celebrate one and not the other.

01:06:27.000 And so one of those very important holy celebrations was always left out.

01:06:32.820 The other thing that we'd see is sometimes in order to do that, they wouldn't celebrate

01:06:39.380 Sigur Bloat this time of year because that wasn't a, you know, a for sure in stone thing.

01:06:44.840 They would celebrate May Day instead of Hexenacht because they're kind of both together and 0.93

01:06:50.220 they didn't really know what to do for Hexenacht.

01:06:52.460 So then both of those important celebrations would get skipped.

01:06:56.360 And what we do now is we try to separate Hexanach and May Day, unless you're able to celebrate them over the weekend.

01:07:03.660 If you're able to have an overnight and celebrate the one on one day and then the next following it on a separate day, that's great.

01:07:10.660 There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing it. That's probably the ideal if you can.

01:07:15.280 but um to facilitate monthly uh worship at our hofs we separate those by a month to where hex

01:07:23.760 and not can get its full focus and its full attention it deserves and mayday can get the

01:07:28.880 full focus and attention that it deserves and it can still happen sequentially and then also to

01:07:35.360 facilitate us getting together once a month and uh you know july is kind of a fun month to do it

01:07:41.360 because it's you know it's during that that high period of summer where things are are vibrant and

01:07:47.760 alive and it's a it's a fun time to celebrate victory and to talk about victories and because

01:07:54.240 we experience victory in you know certainly us in the united states in 2023 celebrate victory

01:08:02.560 in a very different way than we would have if we were in the middle of um you know medieval or

01:08:10.480 pre-medieval warfare to where we needed to wait for uh for the ice to thaw for us to go and and

01:08:17.120 engage in any of the struggles we engage in we're seeking victory all year long so there's not

01:08:22.720 really a bad time to to celebrate a secret vote uh it's fine do you have any more to add on that

01:08:30.560 uh yeah i think a lot of what you said is is the the groundwork of understanding uh i think that uh

01:08:37.040 a lot of people might get confused or think that we're trying to do something

01:08:40.720 but your openness about it about what we were doing and what we were intending is because

01:08:46.800 cultural evolution you know the 12 hours we have 12 months so we have you know and set up things

01:08:53.520 devotionally within the hof uh siger bloat was one of those holidays that very much are like

01:09:01.280 Alvarblot and Dísrblot. Now, we have attestments to this in Iceland, and we have a general idea. 0.96

01:09:10.440 Our ancestors saw at the beginning of winter, because of the two tidings, before mid-summer,

01:09:17.800 I mean, before mid-winter, excuse me, Yule, Dísrblot was generally held. And sometime in

01:09:24.760 around february alfar bloat was held but the entirety of our faith is not strictly just the

01:09:35.320 icelandic evolution of their tidings at that time that snapshot uh so there's a lot of room that

01:09:44.040 needs to be made for certain things and also too also true has kind of evolved since the 70s

01:09:50.680 on its own incorporating certain things even down to like uh hexanact or or you know like in sweden

01:09:57.240 and stuff it's sometimes referred to as like volsbergenacht and that you know extends into

01:10:01.160 germany and and things of that nature um siger bloat was one of those it was one of those holy

01:10:07.640 tides that uh fell right around in between our during austra or you know uh during hexanacta

01:10:16.600 mayday and so a lot of people didn't know and we already had austra and austra has such a

01:10:23.400 a vibrant connection to our people especially here in america and in england because

01:10:28.280 these traditions have long been established um you know even even with over arching christian

01:10:36.040 culture um and so the eggs and the celebration of austra was one that we naturally gravitated

01:10:44.360 towards but not losing sick or bloat in mindset and so it's one thing worth noting that right

01:10:49.960 around in the middle of the summer oftentimes there were great moots or um our fingers or

01:10:55.560 like meetings in which the folk got together to celebrate you know the first half of their

01:11:00.840 harvests um to get together and hold you know they were crafting things and selling things and

01:11:07.080 law was discussed um and so there was a lot of stuff going on at that time so it was again like

01:11:15.320 i was here ago they said it was a great time to view as this is a time when our folk are getting

01:11:19.240 together both in the past and in the present and it's a great time to celebrate our victories

01:11:24.600 and to focus ourselves towards the end of the harvest time and to also gird ourselves towards

01:11:31.960 the eventual you know falling of the year into the winter tidying so sigur bloat instead of it being

01:11:39.560 um you know x'd out it was it was brought over um and again when i was in uh when coming into

01:11:50.520 house true back in the early early 90s i did see this like kindreds and groups some of them

01:11:56.280 celebrated austra some of them celebrated sigurbloat some of them did hexanacht but couldn't

01:12:02.040 make mayday because they couldn't have people over for overnight or scheduling because the gregorian

01:12:07.880 calendar may 1st falls sometimes on a weekday so it caused a lot of logistic issues as well

01:12:14.360 and so sometimes those holidays would get kind of diffused or interlaced or and things so we

01:12:21.480 you know bringing them apart and and focusing on the season of um you know may day and the flowers

01:12:28.360 but also to april's time frame was the time which the herdsmen were starting to get prepared to

01:12:34.280 head out into the wild and they were going to face chthonic forces um and i think uh you know hex

01:12:42.680 hexanoct is one of those holidays that a lot of people are uh very very um they don't have a lot

01:12:50.920 on that and that's unfortunate because this is the time in which our our women folk bless the

01:12:57.720 the men and the children and protect them with their love with their weirding way with their

01:13:03.000 magic the magic that was passed down from our ancestors whether it's you know through

01:13:07.000 herbs and lore and spell and these women you know creating uh sacred fire and the smoke

01:13:15.880 you know blessing us as we begin our approach into the summer um i think is really really

01:13:22.200 important and and it it kind of gives a glimpse to a cultural thing that a lot of people don't

01:13:27.720 think about the chthonic forces that we talk about of course in the in the old norse they

01:13:32.040 were often referred to as like troll riding witches and and uh giants or trolls that um 0.82

01:13:39.240 that were malicious and you know out on the edges of things and our ancestors knew that they they

01:13:46.760 saw that kind of um that visceral hatred the kind of the almost like the anti-mother um energy out

01:13:54.920 there the thing that pulls the family apart or pulls the clan apart or pulls the tribe or the

01:13:59.800 nation apart and it was seen as no this is a time for the women folk to protect their people and as

01:14:06.440 they start to head out and so there's a lot to it that has evolved both modernly and pulling

01:14:13.400 from sources of the past and uh so i think it's it it's becoming a transitional state that a lot

01:14:20.520 of the folk are accepting as soon as especially once they understand what's going on and why

01:14:26.040 what our intentions are and our intentions are always built on piety devotion and making sure

01:14:31.560 that everything is covered well uh and and culturally feasible so uh logistics and things

01:14:39.080 of that nature are always kind of considered as well when it comes to families and kindreds and

01:14:44.600 the temples so that would be the reason i mean elsewhere go the dead just straight out covered

01:14:51.400 it that's why we did it but but uh but yeah there's a lot to it as we evolve

01:15:01.560 All right. Our next question. I've been very interested in learning more about the folk

01:15:10.220 mother lately. This episode about Frigg seems like a good chance to ask, where can I learn

01:15:15.800 more about our folk mother, Elsie Christensen? Ms. Fon, do you have a good suggestion on that?

01:15:22.540 oh there's definitely uh i mean one of our our hawks is is directly connected to every half has

01:15:32.360 kind of a patron or a matron uh a hero that it's dedicated to and it just it's really good that

01:15:40.660 balder's half has a lot of connectivity to elsa christensen and her contributions and her coming

01:15:47.720 to understanding the gods and then spreading it to her people, even under a lot of external

01:15:57.360 and divisive forces. So first and foremost, I would say Baldershof's website is a great

01:16:07.700 place. There's a lot of, again, the internet is wonderful as well. Again, you have to pick

01:16:15.140 and peace through and there could be you know forces that are of dissipation that are that

01:16:20.660 you might run into but again you will be guided um you know even holding honor to her and asking

01:16:27.460 for that guidance is perfectly within the realm of of of our faith so um you know there's whether

01:16:36.260 you're talking about personal experiences a lot of people you know have written down written down

01:16:40.660 what their their interactions uh her struggle and her plight and uh even you know um some of

01:16:47.780 the things that she endured are readily available there as well um yeah it's when it comes to uh

01:16:57.300 frigg and her epitome of of motherhood there is to the the the point of the god the goddess the

01:17:04.820 mother her standing up for her people her holding her her chest up her chin up and being a a bearer 0.95

01:17:14.340 of what is right versus what is wrong and sometimes it takes the the feminine to

01:17:22.580 ignite that that um again like with the the dichotomy between um frigg and hermo is that

01:17:33.700 the men the folk men should look at the women as the bestowing of that by their standards by their

01:17:44.900 what they believe is right and wrong and the menfolk will naturally look to that and want to

01:17:49.700 achieve supersede and make the women of their folk look proudly upon them so a lot of that that

01:17:57.460 that uh power is in frig is about you know when when odin goes out she she may give counsel and

01:18:06.580 say i don't think that's wise but if you are drawn to do it then then come back safely and

01:18:14.660 so she she gives counsel and she promotes the the instigation of gaining um title and i think a lot

01:18:24.740 of a lot of that is represented both in intrigue and in elsa christensen um you know this is one

01:18:34.260 thing that is unfortunate and it's something behind the scenes that the afa is really working on

01:18:40.740 is compiling more of our history um a lot of these people live very important very meaningful lives

01:18:49.860 but then when you want to find out more and you want to find out about these these great people

01:18:54.580 it's, it's often hard to get a lot of information. I would suggest, you know, that about going on

01:19:02.200 Baldershoff website, absolutely. Sarah Alt is going to come on this program when we get to

01:19:11.340 Elsie and our heroes episodes. And I think that'll happen sometime next month. And we'll be able to

01:19:17.520 talk a little bit about her. What I'd suggest if you can, is if you can get in touch with old

01:19:25.020 timers that knew her and interacted with her, that's a really good way to learn about Elsie.

01:19:34.140 I never had the honor of interacting with her myself, but I've been able to speak to some

01:19:39.800 folks who have. So I think finding ways to talk to people who knew her is a good way to do that.

01:19:47.520 But I think getting real stories from real people is always the best if you have the availability and her, you know, living so close to our time, we're still able to get some of that information, which is awesome.

01:20:04.820 Next question is for you specifically, Svon, is there anything to the overlap of attributes of Freya and the attributes of Frigg?

01:20:14.440 yeah i i think that first and foremost before we go down this road there is a lot of confusion

01:20:22.200 about this subject and there's no shortage of opinions on this as far as things go but

01:20:29.720 uh the asa true folk assembly looks upon divinity in its in its uh pluralism in its in its uh you

01:20:38.620 multiplicity if you will and so we do not hypostasis or mash the gods together we don't say that

01:20:47.260 that austera is really you know just not the goddess of night amongst the nords we don't say

01:20:55.340 that um you know that that perhaps nervous of the ancient germans uh is really just this other

01:21:03.740 goddess and then that goddess is just a hypostasis of this goddess so we don't bunch we have a

01:21:10.780 tendency to look at their the exceptionalism between them and that's the first and foremost

01:21:18.060 drive outside of that we do see a lot of overlap uh i mean obviously the the the strength of

01:21:26.220 femininity within and we're most likely going to cover um uh freya in a separate episode

01:21:36.140 so i don't want to go too much but the the biggest thing i would say is the femininity

01:21:44.620 is the clear overlap the representations of their domains within the lives of the folk

01:21:50.380 especially in relation to the woman um but whereas frigga represents a kind of escalation into the

01:21:59.100 into societal strata into the obligations of oath and of marriage and that is a big focus

01:22:08.700 around frigg um and a lot of people you know might say oh what do you mean obligation what do you

01:22:15.260 mean uh this or that or what have you is that it's clear in our society that men and women when they

01:22:22.060 reach a certain point in their life escalate themselves into the inter integral workings

01:22:28.300 of the community i think now things are atomized you know uh that um used you know a man is a father

01:22:36.700 a man a woman is a mother and they might be only unto themselves as a family but that wasn't

01:22:43.180 always the way it worked is father and mother is very much like a title it's a threshold

01:22:50.620 and again any person that is a parent knows this threshold knows this interconnectivity

01:22:57.260 uh you know it's something as simple as when you see a parent struggling with a child and

01:23:02.860 they're just throwing a fit and you look across there and you're like i totally get it as opposed

01:23:07.180 to perhaps somebody who's doesn't have a child isn't obligated or duty bound in their life to

01:23:12.140 the community to their family or to other people and so freya in essence represents the internalized

01:23:20.940 feminine and frigga is the external and at the same time they also represent how the external

01:23:29.740 becomes receptive and the internal becomes projective that's a very strange dichotomy

01:23:36.380 for a lot of people to wrap their heads around but i think it's the best way to look at is

01:23:40.220 is um when when one projects themselves out into society when they become duty-bound by by oath to

01:23:51.340 another when they become duty-bound to perhaps a higher calling of the folk or to to by blood

01:23:58.140 through children um what is required is that they have already kind of um projected themselves

01:24:05.740 out words and now it is a time to integrate themselves within to the understanding you'll

01:24:14.140 notice this right away um first time mothers first time children they might immediately start asking

01:24:20.700 their mother their grandparents friends uh about things uh my child has a you know a a block tear

01:24:28.860 duck what do i do you know and so going you know sometimes nowadays because things are atomized

01:24:34.460 people will go online uh and that that's information is good again you just have to

01:24:39.020 pick through it but you know um when that when that woman is she's projected herself into the

01:24:46.780 strata of things um i don't know if i was lost oh sorry okay so um i don't know if you guys could

01:24:55.340 me when that happens um the uh the idea of being receptive but also being projected out into society

01:25:05.100 is you are being uh watched you're being looked at uh both men and women in that point of your life

01:25:12.620 you have to be a pinnacle of of of um you know being the moral bedrock during tragedy and also

01:25:21.340 you know a lot of people are looking at the way you project yourselves into the world but you also

01:25:24.940 have to be very receptive to the people around you guidance is a big thing so i think frega

01:25:31.500 represents that whereas freya is about galvanizing the self of of the feminine uh i think the biggest

01:25:41.500 thing is and it's a huge problem within our society is is that um the determinant of worth

01:25:46.780 I think that people often miscue Freya as being some determinant of worth only around sexuality,

01:25:55.240 and I think that's a grave, grave mistake. I think that's modernism kind of injecting itself

01:26:01.180 into things. We see it on the masculine, but we're talking about the feminine now, and the

01:26:08.740 application of simply basing self-worth around perhaps like oh seeing frigga or you hammerizing

01:26:16.820 for guys some sort of just uh you know carnal based only is i think it's it's it's misguided

01:26:26.900 because the the accusations from the enemies that have been levied towards freya are the ones saying

01:26:34.020 that. So placing stock in the accusation over the god or goddess themselves, I think, is not

01:26:41.740 the right path to go. But to look at other things, like the tendance and discipline of worth,

01:26:47.480 the understanding that the femininity and the desire from the masculine to the feminine, and

01:26:54.800 the composure of that worth. Numerous times you see Freyja as being this object to be desired

01:27:06.860 from an outside source, and she continually says, no, I will not partake in any of this.

01:27:12.200 Or she gets rageful because she has, in essence, the determinant of worth internally to say no.

01:27:22.480 and so that is that standard building i think uh like young men who look upon women and want to

01:27:29.920 gain their affections they understand this the most when the woman says and again we do this

01:27:34.480 during like the the mayday when the men folk are carrying the may the maypole they ask you know may

01:27:40.400 they place the pole um to start the ceremony and the women always state a like a standard

01:27:51.760 a point in which they expect the men that they are mingling with that they are interacting with

01:27:58.160 be men of virtue men of backbone men of character men of the desire for glory and all of those

01:28:06.080 things that's very important in the realm of freya frigga has already crossed that bridge that

01:28:12.560 threshold frig knows the character of that which she has duty-bound herself to the union there

01:28:20.240 so she you know i think represents two sides of or they they both represent the overlap is that the

01:28:29.040 the uh the admixture of femininity within nature um as far as lore and things go there's a lot of

01:28:39.040 confusion because there's mention of uh freya being married to a divine power named other

01:28:48.880 and other and odin obviously very very close in in uh linguistic etymology especially around the

01:28:56.640 the ideals of um fury and of inspiration and there's a lot of stuff and i think we would

01:29:04.320 cover some of that more in in uh freya's episode but that's i think a big part of the overall

01:29:13.840 mystery of freya that is not it's been solved in frig frig has attained the understanding she

01:29:23.440 has attained the the connection um and she in her own right has you know determined the way she

01:29:31.040 she learns of the information about the the goings-on in the world um she has the the handmaidens

01:29:37.680 the maidens of fensalar the goddesses that implement all of the powers that she presides

01:29:43.120 over within our society uh freya is is more connected to uh in particular a type of death

01:29:51.520 and psychopump uh functionality within our culture especially around the the corpus of battle

01:29:57.840 um and that is not so there's a lot more i would say distinction between the two

01:30:03.280 than there is a huge overlap um other than that i would say you know frigg is born of the earth

01:30:12.080 um it is said that she is born of the earth and she is born of the mountain she is born of uh

01:30:17.840 The interesting thing is the writing down of her parentage is very limited, but it is mentioned in both the masculine and the feminine form.

01:30:27.400 So a lot of folks have taken that to be the twinning or the coupling of the earth, both in the masculine and the feminine.

01:30:38.340 So that would, of course, gear our minds towards the Vanir, especially when you see this in Frey and Freyja, or you see this in Njörð or Nörtheth, or Jörð or Nörren, as you may have been called at one point.

01:30:53.820 You see this coupling, the masculine and feminine, connected to the earth and the water.

01:30:58.240 So I would say the greatest overlap that I would like to point out is that our folk should understand that Frigga does source herself from the same place as Freya, but that she came after the unification of the gods, after cosmic order and natural law aligned themselves.

01:31:22.120 it was at that moment which again isn't hugely covered in the poetics because again poems are

01:31:28.700 limited in their scope um after the gods created that union between each other um she came about

01:31:37.740 and and made union with ovin ovin you know and her linked there's very little about a sense of

01:31:45.900 courtship of that and things um but there is reference a lot to the to again the naysay

01:31:52.460 the uh accusations against um both freya and frigga so there's an overlap there i think in

01:31:58.540 the poems um and even in some of the sagas there's accusations but again you're looking at loki the

01:32:08.780 outsider the betrayer the kinslayer because bound in blood um but you also see it with like saxo

01:32:16.540 grammaticus who was a christian who hated the old faith but yet wrote about the origins of the danes

01:32:23.740 and used a ton of the war but he you have raised the gods into literal humans and he accused frig

01:32:31.260 of being promiscuous as well and so i think one thing that's worth noting is both with freya

01:32:38.540 and with Frigg, the idea of promiscuity is something that our ancestors, when they were

01:32:45.900 hearing the story, when the accusation was leveled, was seen negatively. And that tells a lot about

01:32:54.220 the feminine in our society, even in olden days. To be accused of being promiscuous was seen as 1.00

01:33:00.940 not a good thing and that's because in reality a woman who lacks understanding of self-worth or 0.93

01:33:11.660 worth within society and i think that's the biggest problem uh and that overlap is there 0.98

01:33:18.220 the accusation of promiscuity by uh towards frig and the accusation of uh of promiscuity towards

01:33:25.340 freya are all placed with a negative context and i think that lends to knowing that societally our

01:33:32.940 ancestors saw that as a negative thing the feminine understanding its worth internally

01:33:39.100 and understanding its worth externally the feminine power the feminine uh energy of our 0.64

01:33:45.820 tribe and of our nation was seen as that it needed to determine worth because it could be

01:33:53.180 that was the thing that was attacked so i think there's overlap there as well um and i think it's

01:33:59.900 kind of also a common trope that's utilized when the when somebody of uh you know anti

01:34:07.100 or malicious intent or uh anti-cohesion will will target uh the feminine immediately and start to

01:34:17.100 try to dissipate from there um so there's overlap in there as well i think if you know reading the

01:34:23.100 lore and stuff you can definitely find that there so sarah asks how did our ancestors

01:34:34.460 treat the elderly of their tribe um and i think this is a that's a great question well it's a

01:34:43.420 it's an interesting question because i don't when people say how did our ancestors do x

01:34:50.140 especially on this program, very often we talk about, you know, the Arsh Ousatru period of,

01:34:57.820 you know, the Viking Age or before. But up until very, very recently, our ancestors and, you know,

01:35:10.380 most all people of worth treated their elders with a great amount of reverence and respect

01:35:16.780 Um, for a number of different reasons, you know, I, I think that in a fundamental way, living long, and especially the harder life was reaching an advanced age was an accomplishment in and of itself.

01:35:38.780 um but an elder a number of things so and that's an obvious one another various very obvious one

01:35:51.880 is the amount of life experience and wisdom that they've gained through through all of their time

01:35:58.680 and all of their years and in uh in another way that i think maybe is less thought about

01:36:05.640 our elders are our literal link to the past you know I said a minute ago if you want to know more

01:36:14.420 about Elsie or the heroes of of days gone by you ask ask some old timers and they can tell you

01:36:21.840 about the good old days they can tell you about the generations that preceded you so that wisdom's

01:36:29.040 not lost so those stories don't die so you learn the wisdom of the past um but no the wisdom and

01:36:37.920 experience of our elders was was celebrated and linguistically um that's why there's an overlap

01:36:45.600 between to to worship something being to venerate it and something of great age being referred to

01:36:51.760 as venerable um because we we celebrated that as a people and you know in the afa we still do that

01:37:00.800 today um in my parents generation you were hyper respectful to your elders i think it's only in

01:37:12.080 in my generation and the generation that's come since that uh that has not been the norm in

01:37:19.680 western culture and that's disgraceful and something we aim to fix do you have something

01:37:25.280 to add on that's fun yeah i i was going to say at what time because you know we were talking about

01:37:31.760 like the evolution of our holiday holidays our holy tides and how things kind of evolve

01:37:36.160 well our ancestors had an evolution of lots of things especially dealing with

01:37:42.720 um people in their latter stages of life the silver ages the golden ages of their lives

01:37:48.720 uh sometimes very very harsh the the the nature of of our our lives especially during like the

01:37:54.720 migration period and things like that so i immediately want to like you know push the

01:38:00.280 glasses up and say well at what time you know like let's talk about this time bronze age

01:38:05.460 migration period uh you know and all the way through um i think overall the respect towards

01:38:12.940 the elderly was always seen in a sense of both um care a folk that had elderly women mothers

01:38:25.260 uh that have become grandmothers or mothers of the people that was a sign and a testament to

01:38:29.580 the security of the menfolk that they had the ability to have elderly um women in the in the

01:38:37.420 halls that were there teaching the young girls how to do things and and to learn from things

01:38:45.020 um and oftentimes that was at the sacrifice of their men folk and so you know a lot of times

01:38:52.060 the men folk would go out and defend and fight and do things and so a lot of times it was the

01:38:58.460 the mother that was a testament to the security of of the people um so i i definitely think i mean

01:39:06.540 whether we talk about ancient or even like i you know i i'm here in the south and and uh it doesn't

01:39:13.020 matter really who the person is and it really doesn't always even matter the type of life they

01:39:18.300 may have lived but when they reach a certain age there is a a heavy level of respect to the person

01:39:25.820 at least given initially until they wash that away or give reason for their not to be there

01:39:31.740 the immediate go-to is to respect that age because of the wisdom that they've gained

01:39:37.920 and perhaps and hopefully the self-reflection that they have or again as a reminder of the

01:39:46.120 frailty of our brief existence here in the long line of all of our ancestors and that we too will

01:39:53.480 become ancestors one day ourselves, respecting our elders and trying to care for them in the

01:40:02.640 best way that we can. And anybody who's ever been a caretaker knows this is a very hard and

01:40:11.220 just extremely testing time of the self. Caretakers are oftentimes the ones that

01:40:20.180 might even go beyond just the treatment of our elders when they're mobile, but when they're no

01:40:25.900 longer mobile, when they're no longer able to speak or do things. That's very, very hard on

01:40:31.380 our folk, but it's always done with the idea of what's in best of care or what's in best of mind

01:40:37.260 or what's the best ability. And that's changed throughout history. In migration period times,

01:40:44.000 I think our elders, there's even reference to a scribe by the name of Procopius who said that a lot of times during the migration period, our folk were moving around.

01:40:54.740 And if people fell sick and were unable to get better, or if they were of an advanced age to the point where they could not maintain the movement of the people as all of the livestock and all of the men folk and women folk and children folk, sometimes, yeah, there was the ending of life was done.

01:41:22.960 and and that's one of the things like the evolution right now in alsatru one of the big

01:41:27.920 things is about you know don't be a kinslayer and we know that was important even to our ancestors

01:41:33.600 all the way back in those very very harsh and dark times because during those moments not anyone of

01:41:40.240 the blood but someone of the tribe or the clan or of the people they would do it but not someone

01:41:46.960 directly of the blood because that was seen as such an egregious act but yet at the same time

01:41:54.000 they're evolving during this time and we're talking about the roman you know empire is is

01:42:00.800 out and there's that life the life of our ancestors was extremely harsh but understanding

01:42:07.920 that our elderly become ancestors that's one of the things that i think our faith brings when we

01:42:13.440 lose someone we know that they are not alone that they go back to the many the plethora of many

01:42:20.640 the ones that came before us it's a it's a reunion in reality that we too will experience

01:42:27.120 and so we take a great solace and a great joy in the idea we take sadness and the loss of them

01:42:33.680 here but we carry them on a name we speak of them often we talk about them but where the rubber meets

01:42:40.800 the road is that we understand that they go back to the great lines of of those that came before us

01:42:47.280 those that experienced dreadfully harsh times and still we are here they brought us to this point

01:42:55.520 and so you know taking that solace in into the ultimate attestment um i think a lot of other

01:43:04.080 religions try to apply on that that fear and that speculation they try to use death as a caveat

01:43:10.800 to project their ideology further and i think there's nothing more cowardly um or even just 0.97

01:43:17.840 absolutely misaligned and and poisonous venomous if you will um where they you know they try to

01:43:26.080 you know take that away from us you have to you know you're you're you know the the worth of your

01:43:32.960 soul is entirely on you and and your ancestors may you know not be there because they didn't

01:43:40.000 follow some criteria or something of that nature for us no um we know that folk should strive to

01:43:47.040 do good and the biggest hope is that our ancestors will accept us when we do pass on and enter allow

01:43:53.760 us back into that reunion that's the greatest travesties to be separated from them and uh they

01:43:58.880 have the choice of doing that when they look upon your deeds through your life but if you have tried

01:44:05.040 very hard to live a normal life you know the the elderly become introspective and they start to 0.99

01:44:12.800 teach and i think that's something that our culture has always taken into absolute high stock

01:44:18.080 and it's that it's even more tragic when you meet like an old man who's just embittered by life and 0.98

01:44:24.320 and and is not willing to see himself in the grand scale of society of his people and um

01:44:32.560 that you know his weird has woven him into a corner where he has to you know spend that

01:44:38.320 time kind of shaking his fist at things we we don't want to be that person and we shouldn't

01:44:44.000 strive to be that person and if we find an elderly person who is not that that they're

01:44:48.560 willing to pass that information on gravitate towards them spend time with them hold hold them

01:44:56.240 and listen to them when you can and i think that's been with our our folk since a memorable time

01:45:05.280 all right um next question what would be a good meal for hexanod you know it kind

01:45:13.120 of depends on where you're at and what sounds delicious to you um it all it all really depends

01:45:23.440 uh there's so many subjective things that can go into that and i don't think that there's really a

01:45:31.200 hyper-traditional right or wrong way to that some people i know to uh some of our holidays

01:45:38.160 or certainly some of our days for our heroes they'll try to look back culturally to something

01:45:44.080 that's you know the origin of those things and get a meal from that cuisine uh hexenock was kind

01:45:51.600 of uh you know the attestations we have was it being a german a german celebration and a german

01:45:58.400 day so i think that uh you know some german food would probably be awesome for that um i think that

01:46:10.160 every occasion. There's a good occasion for schnitzel. Sauerbraten would be good.

01:46:22.560 Rote Kohl's awesome. I like clove flavor though, so a lot of people that don't necessarily.

01:46:30.080 But yeah, I think a good German meal would be awesome for it. Other people, because the time

01:46:34.980 of the year may want to go with something that's more of a springtime dish.

01:46:40.160 Um, but yeah, I, I think that's entirely up to you and what you and your family want to eat that

01:46:47.820 you think is going to be going to be tasty and thematic. I don't know if you're going to make,

01:46:53.260 uh, get crafty and decorate up some stuff. Maybe you want to bust out some Halloween stuff. I

01:47:00.000 don't know. It's, it's up to you as far as what your theme wants to be. As long as it's significant

01:47:04.720 and, and meaningful to you and your celebration of it, I think, you know, go for it and cook

01:47:10.920 whatever you like. What are your, what are your thoughts, Swan? Ooh, well, I was, you know, a lot

01:47:16.320 of, I don't know, a lot of folks might not know this or not, but I think I mentioned it before my

01:47:20.220 culinary, um, I was in culinary school, I used to be a chef and things like that. So, um, one of the

01:47:29.240 things I would say is if you were looking at the time of year, one of the big things that even

01:47:35.280 the charms of Hexanoc that are utilized involve herbs that are fast growers, because right now

01:47:42.860 the planted things are not in full growth. They usually, you know, that first harvest hits right

01:47:49.340 around mid-summer. So a lot of things to incorporate right now would be wild or free

01:47:57.220 fast growing herbs um and so that really depends on where you live and what you're what you're able

01:48:03.220 to grow or what you're able to get another thing to think about like with with austria you know

01:48:08.420 hassen pfeffer and rabbits and and all of that uh have placement but a good all-around year

01:48:15.300 food that our ancestors definitely you know understood was pork was especially when they

01:48:20.260 they were trying to clear the pin of older animals. They had, you know, right before

01:48:26.380 mid winter, they were clearing the pork out to have smoked meats and things that would

01:48:32.880 last through the winter because that was a dangerous time and you needed to make sure

01:48:36.340 you had long lasting food. But now we're heading towards mid summer. And so a lot of times

01:48:40.960 the older um uh swine that were that are in you know in the uh pins that might be big and you've

01:48:50.240 got maybe young you know swinelets that are that need more room so pork is always i think a a good

01:48:56.160 one to to go to um at any time of the year and so like a perfect example just throwing this out there

01:49:03.040 because fast fast cheeses fast herbs and pork you could do a uh like a butterflied pork loin

01:49:11.480 and put in like feta cheese or or a type of fast maybe dry cheese that survived the winter and

01:49:18.540 maybe do fresh like uh dandelion greens in there and maybe some pine nuts and then roll that bad

01:49:25.480 boy up wrap it in twine and bake it make pinwheels serve that with like um you know sauerkraut or

01:49:33.240 some of the stuff that's survived the winter if you will if you're looking for thematic

01:49:37.320 kind of attachment to the cycles of things that would be a great meal that sounds tasty

01:49:45.720 um next question is for you swan swan could you expound upon frig and her weaving

01:49:51.640 yes um well clearly yes the the uh the spinning wheel and the distaff are deeply connected to

01:50:06.040 frig and also to now this is where before we were talking about the um the mashing of divinities but

01:50:16.240 So I won't go towards that, but there seems clearly cultural significances that align the North Europe with Central Europe. And one of those big connections is Frau Hola. And the origin of that name is an interesting one, and I would recommend anybody to look that up.

01:50:36.420 But she is also deeply connected to weaving, symbolizing with the flax and the distaff and the spinning wheel and perched in the lowlands of Germany.

01:50:47.600 So, again, the evolutions of these names are interesting and important to look at.

01:50:55.280 But one unifying factor is that the weaving.

01:50:59.620 so um in a folklore sense especially amongst the scandinavians it's it's kind of known that

01:51:06.660 you had to have new clothes by midwinter now the icelanders even have this with the with the yule

01:51:11.540 cat and the idea is is that the kids would ask their parents make sure you got clothes for me

01:51:18.340 or the yule cat's gonna get me because he only eats children that don't have new clothes for

01:51:24.820 the winter and what that is is a kind of a societal folklore story to uh that reflects back to an

01:51:31.140 ancient practice in which all of the flax and all of the thread and everything that needed to be done

01:51:36.660 from second harvest to midwinter needed to be done by then and so that way it could there could be

01:51:43.060 weaving that was done so for new clothes and warmth and socks and mittens and hats and so on

01:51:48.900 and so forth so right out the gate there's clearly those connections and those connections are always

01:51:55.220 related to motherhood because one of the biggest things that women had when they brought their

01:52:02.340 dowry and a lot of people think of a dowry as some sort of payment but that was not what we

01:52:09.860 especially historically have seen no the dowry was her property the dowry was that which was

01:52:14.740 given to her by her family to carry over to the new farmstead or homestead and one of those big

01:52:21.300 things was the loom the distaff and the spinning wheel the ability for the woman to create

01:52:29.860 thread and clothing for her family now you can see in our lore there's tons of connections to thread

01:52:37.300 weaving the nornir the witches uh and and they're they're the threads of fate of man uh and you know

01:52:44.100 the ability of the idea of twisting um we see this again in wending or witcha the word witch

01:52:50.820 in english means to twist or to twine so uh clearly weaving in and of itself has a huge

01:52:56.180 just feminine connection but this one is unique because it's really focused in on as a product

01:53:03.860 something provided quite literally over your your children over your husband over you you were a 1.00

01:53:12.180 source of like much needed life-saving equipment if you will um most people don't think of clothing

01:53:19.380 that way anymore but that is absolutely the truth um even down to like linen socks having

01:53:26.580 linen socks so that you you know your feet didn't get cold you didn't get pneumonia or you didn't

01:53:31.060 you know get a blister and that got infected and you could possibly die from that so like

01:53:36.260 very important stuff um that our ancestors had to deal with and so that connection there is

01:53:41.860 about the prowess of the mother and her power within the household is about uh kind of producing

01:53:50.740 protective elements and this is kind of extended to frig being a frith weaver or um one who who um

01:53:59.140 connects uh forces together it's it's referred to that she knows much but speaks very little

01:54:06.820 and that i think is kind of again a reference to like uh sometimes when you you meet women who are

01:54:12.180 knitters i always find them uh fascinating when they're in the corner just knitting and they're

01:54:17.300 listening and but they're just going about they're gathering this information they're hearing things

01:54:22.980 they're kind of it's it's like one of those things where you become like the fly on the wall if you

01:54:27.380 will and um they know much they they hear much they know much they see much i think that's a

01:54:33.860 a reference to that as well um that the the the central point which all factors kind of relate

01:54:40.580 and so i've always taken uh frigg and her distaff that's kind of like the feminine center the um

01:54:48.700 the much akin to the the axis mundi or and this is something that's played over and over and over

01:54:55.740 again in our in our stories and in our faith is that there's always this kind of central vertical

01:54:59.820 And in this point, she's she's taking the raw and the on or barely processed and turning it into that next level of something that is, you know, quite literally tying and weaving everything together.

01:55:16.180 um there's references i i can't like just pull them out i don't i don't have them on my notes

01:55:23.040 like a link or specific quotes but general uh references to women singing songs or

01:55:31.200 speaking spells while they weave and um this i i can attest to with um like my grandmother used

01:55:42.620 to sing while she knitted um and you know making icelandic sweaters and stuff and a lot of times

01:55:50.220 too it's kind of funny because the elderly folk would like the uh seeing like you know a grandpa

01:55:56.080 watching television you know like watching sports and he's got his hands up and he's holding the

01:56:02.200 the thread in between his hands he's just watching and you know occasionally grabbing his his drink

01:56:07.780 and drinking it and he's holding it while she's pulling this thread and she's you know knitting

01:56:12.440 sweaters for her grandchildren is is a that is a very common sight in the olden

01:56:18.600 you know ways of things and i know my grandparents did it so um but yeah there's there's a lot of

01:56:24.600 connection in that just in the feminine in and of itself and so when we talk about weaving one of

01:56:30.360 the big things again like with the nornir and um with other feminine powers within our divinities

01:56:38.440 the thread binding and weaving is integral to their uh one of the biggest things that

01:56:47.720 that women and the feminine do within our culture is weave people together

01:56:52.040 um i think that a lot of hyper individualism in this day and age has caused both men and women to

01:56:57.960 have that not as a so much of a societal thing but a long time ago it was very very common

01:57:04.280 uh to get things done on grand scale often involved huge amounts of teamwork but that thread

01:57:11.160 that's spinning um the the concept of the dsir the dsir are is a title and it's a feminine power

01:57:20.440 but you have to understand that even the goddesses were referred to as dsir like there's the vana

01:57:26.040 dies which is freya you know ausa dies or or organs dies which is frig that um they are in essence

01:57:35.320 kind of weavers around them they bestow upon them this power that they have placed their hands their

01:57:43.800 deeds their mind their their will into um and so there's a huge connection there as well and so i

01:57:49.960 think one of the one great devotional act towards Frigg would be getting into learning those arts

01:57:59.080 you know whether it's modern you know the ability to create clothing and again

01:58:05.640 clothing and fashion and so much has been even in the modern age especially western dress and

01:58:10.840 things of that nature is slowly bleeding out of our people and it's it's a shame and so a lot of

01:58:15.960 of us are, you know, trying to acknowledge that, bring homage to it and bring it back. But even if

01:58:21.620 it's down to, you know, knitting blankets, all of the women folk in the AFA, when a mother has a 0.59

01:58:28.160 new baby, there's a blanket coming. And that was knitted by someone in the folk in the AFA. And

01:58:34.800 that is that power, that kind of testament to the love, affection, and protection that Freg provides. 1.00

01:58:41.940 all right uh what do you think a mom can take away from the story of

01:58:48.660 frigga trying to protect her son from his fate and falling short um

01:58:57.460 one thing that i love about our lore is that

01:59:01.220 our our stories are layered and there's lots of dimensionality to the truths that they tell

01:59:13.140 and they reveal different things to different people at different times and you know all of

01:59:22.180 those things can be true simultaneously one thing that i think is profoundly important

01:59:29.380 is the depth of Frigg's love for her son that she would literally go to the ends of the earth

01:59:36.980 to every living thing to secure a promise that that they would not harm her child

01:59:45.220 and to go you know try to get every living thing to shed a tear um

01:59:50.980 Um, caring that much in that deeply for your son is, uh, it's a beautiful and it's a special

01:59:59.520 Testament. I think there's also lessons about some things in fate are unavoidable. Um, one of the

02:00:08.620 problematic things about Freya's wisdom or, uh, Frigga's wisdom rather, is she, uh,

02:00:16.520 And she sees all of these things. She knows things that are to come. And sometimes when you have that and there's not the possibility of doing anything to fix it, there's there's a stress there.

02:00:35.520 um but i think that the the beauty of the story and the takeaway is that here was a mother that

02:00:43.280 loved her son so much that she was willing to go to those to the most extreme possible lengths

02:00:50.880 to to try to keep him safe and to to show her love for him and i think that's really special

02:00:57.280 um what do you what do you see in that story uh that uh that a mom can take away it's fun

02:01:02.160 well i think it's it's an overarching theme in every aspect about our testing of will in the

02:01:11.680 world um we see it with the gods facing ragnarok we see it with uh frigg and and uh doing absolute

02:01:24.240 and all her will to save balder so it's a it's a uh we see it like in uh ael skallagrimson's saga

02:01:32.720 um when a devoted warrior of ovin doesn't get chosen doesn't get plucked up by the the lord

02:01:44.800 the the choosing father um and he has to contend with a lot of that loss around the fire and some

02:01:52.160 of his later poems are written about that sadness and lament so i think it's a it is very much a

02:01:59.280 common theme in the stories but it's it's a 100 understandable theme within our lives

02:02:07.680 the question is did you do enough

02:02:12.480 i think a lot of people cope with survival guilt in a lot of things so the the answer that to that

02:02:20.000 is is is a very hard one in the sense did you do enough because most people would say no or they

02:02:24.660 they would they'll plot something to devastate themselves and saying i could have done this or

02:02:30.240 i should have done that and and so on and so forth but with the moment you have and the power you

02:02:36.660 have whatever it may be to do the absolute most is all you can do um and oftentimes again the weaving

02:02:46.660 of weird in our lives um doesn't always garner peaceful or happy outcomes so i think the overall

02:02:57.180 testament there is is about um the the oftentimes those that give the most love especially a mother

02:03:05.880 obviously a mother the the physical attachment the thread between the mother and the child being

02:03:13.140 severed at birth through the umbilical cord um there's a lot of analogous to

02:03:19.300 parenthood and especially the loss that any any um father or mother can attest to is that you try

02:03:28.220 your your absolute most to to give the best to do the best to be there um and it you know sometimes

02:03:34.380 we fall short sometimes we just get it right and you you know you you celebrate the victories and

02:03:41.840 you try to adjust for the failure. But ultimately, doing everything that you have within your power

02:03:49.280 to do is what a mother, what you should do, or what a father should do in those times.

02:04:00.160 It's just, I think it's a great understanding of that, even despite all,

02:04:04.860 uh the way things roll out do not always roll out for the benefit that perhaps we even understand

02:04:13.240 uh we see it as a great loss but in in some ways it can be a great victory it kind of reminds me

02:04:20.700 of the story of the of the um the farmer who you know his son falls off the horse and breaks his

02:04:26.440 leg and everyone says you should be sad and he says maybe like and then it ends up stopping him

02:04:32.660 getting you know conscripted into an army and and at the end of the story the the farmer just says

02:04:39.540 maybe maybe it's good maybe it's bad i think there's a an understanding to that but but more

02:04:44.980 so the power that you have expending that power you know and i think societally are are in our

02:04:51.700 culture germanic women um teutonic women or just arian women in general have always been

02:04:57.460 highly noted for fierceness towards protection of their children fierceness towards protection

02:05:02.820 of their loved ones um so i think this is also a grand reflection of that as well culturally it was

02:05:09.940 it was understood what she was doing and that was the sadness of the the ultimate doom of it

02:05:17.540 but does it lead to better things perhaps outside of the scope of of understanding that's the big

02:05:23.700 thing about the gods when we hear the stories and we we we hear the stories and like why didn't ovin

02:05:28.820 know he knows all why didn't friggin know she knows all the point isn't for frigga or for oh

02:05:35.780 then it's it's for you it's for the folk to learn that perennial truth you know a a couple of other

02:05:46.340 elements to that um first i think that one lesson that our lord teaches us is there's honor in the

02:05:56.740 struggle whether whether the outcome leads to the victory you want there's a value in doing

02:06:05.220 the right things whether it all works out or it doesn't because you can say that you did your best

02:06:11.860 And that means something. It's kind of a, well, something that, something that I do, and Svon knows this and other AFA leaders I talk to about sometimes.

02:06:28.800 but there's so many different things that factor in to the afa's successes or failures

02:06:40.120 in whatever we're trying to do

02:06:42.400 a lot of those things are determined by the blessings of our gods and by things that are

02:06:50.260 out of my hands but what i don't ever want to have happen is me not do enough

02:06:57.080 me not try hard enough. This comes, and I mean this with everything in the AFA,

02:07:04.300 but very specifically, this comes into play when we're, you know, really trying to get a hoff,

02:07:10.600 and we'll get really close, and the deal will fall through, or, you know, things will seem

02:07:15.080 perfect, then we'll have an inspection, and there's mold, and we just can't do it, and

02:07:19.000 And whatever that case is, I want to make sure that I am absolutely obsessed with getting it right and leaving it all on the field, trying my best.

02:07:31.260 I don't want the thing that's the difference between our gods receiving their Hoff or not be me being lazy or some foolish that I did or didn't do.

02:07:43.820 and if you can do that there's a tremendous amount of peace of mind not in just saying that

02:07:51.280 you did your best but in knowing that you absolutely did all that you can do so you don't

02:07:58.760 have regrets if things don't work out the way you'd like it to because you have the peace of

02:08:04.840 knowing you did everything you could and I think that's a lesson of that story and another thing

02:08:11.660 i think is kind of a a side note to the story balder's death was tremendously tragic but one

02:08:20.220 thing that happened was it spared him the conflict of ragnarok and the destruction that occurred then

02:08:29.020 and at the fulfillment of ragnarok balder comes back and inherits and he returns to asgard and

02:08:41.660 And that's, I think, a part in that story that that is important.

02:08:48.660 All right. To change it up a little bit, Lou's got a question. Hi, driving home from work. This brings up a question I had. Obviously, we don't hail Loki in our Hoffs or group rituals at all. Are people who do so privately still welcome in the AFA? No.

02:09:05.360 Loyalty is everything.

02:09:12.040 We don't make friends with the enemies of our friends. 0.79

02:09:17.480 We define ourselves by our troth to the Isir and our loyalty to them. 0.99

02:09:23.860 I am not a friend of Frigg while secretly at my house celebrating the murderer of her son. 1.00

02:09:33.240 And I won't stand with others that are.

02:09:40.400 Yeah, that's that's a hard line.

02:09:45.560 And I'll follow up also from Lou. Also, where's the best place to bloat to Frigg in the home or out in the home outdoors?

02:09:56.900 Wherever you want. I think that, again, so much is about intentions.

02:10:03.240 If there's a place outdoors that's particularly special

02:10:08.020 that you think is a beautiful spot to honor Frigg at,

02:10:11.760 by all means do that.

02:10:14.320 As you mentioned, it's also special to do ritual

02:10:17.320 and things in your home to honor Frigg.

02:10:20.680 We know that the home is an area that's sacred to her

02:10:24.820 and surrounded by your family,

02:10:27.260 with your children, with the mother of your children,

02:10:30.180 perhaps with your own mother.

02:10:32.100 And that's also a beautiful time and occasion to honor Frigg.

02:10:37.100 There's, you know, there's very few bad places and bad occasions to honor our gods.

02:10:44.360 If your heart is pure and your intentions are right.

02:10:47.540 What are your thoughts, Swan?

02:10:50.200 I've always found congruence for myself to be, you know, by the fire.

02:10:54.920 or uh in particular i i had a um a handmade um uh goldstead or godstead uh an image of um frigg

02:11:07.940 above my my stove um as a symbol of this is the heart of the home where the food is produced and

02:11:15.500 much of the strength of the family comes from and again being you know a being a cook that i

02:11:22.360 that it was uh me and my wife both cook but you know we're both there in the kitchen doing things

02:11:27.320 so it became a unifying factor so yes i also saw someone say near a marsh uh that's in reference i

02:11:34.280 think for a lot of people who might not understand is that there is a a lot of um connection to friga

02:11:41.160 and the maidens of fensaler being in the pervasion pervading area of mist between the earth and the

02:11:48.680 sky and that takes form in the fen and the positive version of the fen versus the negative

02:11:56.120 like for fenris the dweller in the swamps this is the marsh um but it's wherever you find those

02:12:03.720 connective um tissues if you will for your faith and to where you feel comfortable um

02:12:12.120 you know you could even set up a harrow inside your you know child's bedroom especially if they're

02:12:17.400 a baby and that might be a great place to honor uh frig and the maidens um or just a law on the

02:12:25.640 harrow along with all the other godsteads that are dedicated to the gods um but yeah it's it's more

02:12:32.280 more about where you find connective tissue all right have either of you read the book odin's

02:12:39.800 wife by william reeves uh it is a recent work i have not i have seen it i've seen people with it

02:12:47.080 I can picture the cover in my mind right now, but no, I have not read it. What about you, Svon?

02:12:52.840 I don't own a copy. I've read excerpts and pieces and things of that nature. There's a couple of

02:13:01.240 things with the sourcing of this that do bring to mind, again, some things that we've already

02:13:11.240 established are kind of uh not in the the the moral structure that we have been following

02:13:21.240 within our faith is that again uh hypostasis um one of the big things about um the book is the

02:13:30.160 establishment that jord is freak and um then that would imply perhaps that like uh the the mystery

02:13:42.240 around neuron or uh or nerthus in the in tacitus germania and all of this um one of the big

02:13:50.560 motivations behind this point is i think again a hypostasis ing of the feminine

02:13:57.120 to create an earth mother mother that establishes a sky father um and i think one of the modern

02:14:06.020 problems that a lot of people are doing right now is they are again mashing the gods into a like

02:14:12.320 singular masculine and singular feminine when we can see very early on in the expansion of our

02:14:20.060 people the arian people saw these establishments of hierarchy uh not as hypostasis not as oh well

02:14:31.100 one god is just really this god or that god and it just kind of like origami folds into one god

02:14:36.940 an over-pervading lord and an over-pervading lady and we can clearly see that with with uh

02:14:43.740 with frigg and freya so again if we start going down that path what you end up getting is a lot

02:14:52.300 of matching at what point do you stop and so there's clear indication it i from what i've

02:14:59.820 read too it kind of points out some of the inconsistencies of snorri snorri sturdoson

02:15:04.460 did have a lot of inconsistencies he had things with mimicking greek euhemerism and like greek

02:15:12.220 um which was the you know the pinnacle of literature at the time that kind of uh motif

02:15:18.140 he was clearly going for it uh there's some christian stuff as well especially in his

02:15:22.460 painting of the afterlife and and and the world of the undead i mean of the dead and the undead i

02:15:28.780 guess so you know when you're dealing with spirits and evil things uh and some of like the ingital

02:15:34.220 and stuff um the uh the the so that that that kind of attack on snorty i think is warranted and is a

02:15:44.380 positive sense of understanding that snorty was influenced by other things and certainly wasn't

02:15:48.700 just built around his faith but it goes to state that he is closer to our ancestors and their

02:15:56.460 understanding of the gods than we are so that's at least a a point in in a direction that's that

02:16:04.860 we don't readily have and so the the kind of uh i guess the overall argument to be made if your is

02:16:21.340 is uh frigga or frig and and we're talking about again when she's born of fjorgan um and the the

02:16:29.900 references of these things there's clearly some other times in which uh like people take that

02:16:35.100 like the maiden of fensal or hlin is mentioned as the just that when odin dies is the despair of

02:16:40.860 hlin so now was that a a text you know or a poetic force was it a text-like mistake or was it a poetic

02:16:49.180 kind of jamming in because of meter um perhaps there's a story or a relationship because we

02:16:55.260 know that odin has relationship with sauga and so on and so forth so maybe there's context that

02:17:00.380 we're missing but when we go down that road we end up doing a lot of things that um i think

02:17:12.060 people have already established that they're against uh for instance the the the thoughts of

02:17:18.540 like the seeing the the goddesses the our senior especially when we talk about the earth we see

02:17:29.180 frigga or freak we see gaird we see grither we see render we see all of these our senior that are

02:17:38.140 clearly showing variant structures and fastenings of the earth and that the earth like the sun and

02:17:44.460 the moon we're not seen as in the the entity itself but yet more a primordial warden of it

02:17:53.580 like the spark of muspelheim is the sun and thus the the warden of it is suna or the or mauni is

02:18:01.420 the the warden of the primordial piece that is from the beginning that is the moon uh and so

02:18:07.740 to the earth again most people would can see the the connection between the earth and the flesh of

02:18:13.740 emir so that the gods become they hold thrones or dominion over primordial forces because they order

02:18:22.140 things they order things and create them into channels that flow within the material and within

02:18:27.660 the spiritual but to say that they are all the same despite their many dominions is a dangerous

02:18:33.900 path to go down and so i've had big contentions with snorri's labeling of um divine powers of

02:18:42.460 being jotuns clearly if you know i've all often brought up the if if a jotun which the gods are

02:18:50.460 descended to from and a lot of people try to think them as like different races um but yet mimir

02:18:57.740 odin's uncle is a jotun or it's it's about that loyalty of those powers and ordering

02:19:04.380 once they join the ordering they become house they become not primordial ancients but

02:19:12.460 orderly cosmic adjudicators, or they hold domain over cosmic order. And we see this in Yordh and

02:19:23.100 with Gríðr. So that's a perfect example right there. When we see Yordh, we see the giving earth,

02:19:29.760 we see the mother of Thor. But then we oftentimes fail to see or hear about the story of Gríðr,

02:19:41.340 the jotanus of the earth that helps thor as well and so you you're left with okay well maybe your

02:19:48.500 than grither are the same and then we start mashing stuff together to fit into a narrative

02:19:55.660 and again it's the same with the sky father i think ultimately the misguided sense of it is

02:20:02.920 i'm not saying there isn't a sky father but what i'm saying is is that there is a hierarchy or a

02:20:09.040 faceting of the rules of the sky and there's just as much a faceting in an individual domains of

02:20:16.400 earth and our ancestors did that our arian ancestors be were polytheistic they weren't

02:20:21.920 like bi-theistic um and so if we do that we kind of end up going down the path very much like what

02:20:30.000 wicca has done where they you know there's a lord and a lady and ultimately the stories boil down

02:20:36.000 to them just being the masculine and the feminine force um and i think that that structuring and

02:20:42.080 understanding divinity and and the polytheism of of polytheistic religions is starting to get

02:20:49.920 kind of wishy-washy in in in works like that um and again that's because some of the scope of it

02:20:58.960 if you know it's it comes down to an understanding so it's very easy to just say oh they're all

02:21:03.440 frigga and frigga is the earth mother and she's married to odin who is the sky father

02:21:10.720 and that's it that's that's easy but we see again arian mythos always works in the tripartite

02:21:17.920 especially in involving the sky you know there's always the stasis throne the dynamic throne and

02:21:24.160 the catalytic throne and there's always different gods in those thrones so you have a dilemma and

02:21:29.440 And that dilemma is very simple. Are all those gods, the same God, just in different name?

02:21:34.100 And are we then cramming all of our gods into one kind of just God form? Or are they individual willful divinity powers that have their own movement in weird?

02:21:50.680 And I think polytheism is the belief that all things, whether from creation to destruction, always work in multiplicity.

02:22:01.480 And so that's the one problem I have with some of the stuff I've been reading is, again, and we've established this in our calls.

02:22:08.200 We've established this as a church. This is the way we go. It is better to individually honor as opposed to mash things together.

02:22:16.680 and i think that people are desperately trying to make things easier and in doing so they're

02:22:24.520 they're attacking like the lore in a way that crams the circle into the square crams the the

02:22:32.840 square into the circle um and if we go by what we have in lore you know uh um frig is mentioned as

02:22:43.080 being a born of the earth just as much as you know thor is born of the earth um we see again

02:22:51.080 the uh the primordial power and then the dominion or the throne that is the threshold in which that

02:22:57.080 power flows i think that's a big difference that we should focus on is looking at the gods as their

02:23:03.560 ability to one move throughout creation and the levels of the world with dominion and power but

02:23:12.120 But that they also become a threshold of a coursing part of power that is part of a whole, whether it's the primordial power of the earth or material, or they are, in essence, conduits and thrones of dominion, and behind them projects the power that makes them, that they contain, which is cosmic order.

02:23:32.860 so i i want to be careful about mashing the gods into like all into one title one name because it

02:23:40.800 becomes very dissipative when uh uh people try to force like oh thor is you know he's the thunder

02:23:50.460 god he's minor sky versus greater sky and or dellinger and and mundalfari and they're all

02:23:58.140 just really you know names for odin or that's i don't think the way i poly our ancestors and

02:24:04.860 polytheism works so and this is you know well beyond the scope of the question but um

02:24:17.260 and i say this a lot in these in these discussions but i think it can't be restated enough

02:24:28.140 our faith is not a science project it is building a relationship with living entities that exist

02:24:38.840 so the damage of let's just make it easy and pretend they're just all one thing

02:24:45.620 that's good enough isn't it well no that leaves people out that leaves spiritual personages

02:24:54.280 that are worthy and deserving of our worship out from receiving it, because it's more convenient

02:25:01.780 for us to treat it like a science project and assume two things are the same when we don't

02:25:09.640 have reason to. It's impious. As people who want to express our piety and are moved and motivated

02:25:22.200 by piety the last thing we would want to do is be disrespectful to our gods so we would we would

02:25:30.360 err on the side of caution because if you you know if you honor a god by two different names

02:25:40.120 that god is still receiving your praise and your honor but if you assume they're the same one and

02:25:46.200 you only honor one not the other then one of those gods who is worthy of worship does not get

02:25:52.280 worshiped and that's an extreme disrespect and it's unacceptable so as a church that believes in

02:26:00.200 our gods we want to err on the side of being the most pious and the most respectful as opposed to

02:26:07.320 run the risk of of causing offense by guessing wrong poorly on things like that our ultimate goal

02:26:16.840 isn't to make the lore more understandable and easier for us to digest our goal is to worship

02:26:27.400 our gods as best as we can in the most pious and authentic way we can and those goals are very often

02:26:35.160 I did want to point out, too, that some people might say, oh, well, you guys are discounting, say, like, etymology or something like that. We greatly try to place about with that in mind for lore.

02:26:54.040 i mean if we look at nerthus and her etymological name being derivative of like the word earth

02:27:01.000 and ersa or hearth or hertha and we see this kind of growth of the name from sourcing from nerthus

02:27:08.120 from from uh tacitus germania and then we see your yard being the nordic word for the earth

02:27:17.480 um and we see that etymological connection but there is a big step there immediately between

02:27:24.760 yarth and the precious one frig which the closest that we can gain especially with all of the

02:27:31.800 iterations of of uh frig's name whether it's it's frico or frijo or fria or free which causes even

02:27:41.080 more infinite confusion with freya um that's a pretty big etymological jump the other thing is

02:27:48.680 is not too far after snorty aside and the sagas aside and the prosetas is that we do know that

02:27:56.120 continental germanic folk honored like frico and i'm referring to the lombardic story in which she's

02:28:03.720 clearly and cleanly mentioned um and that's during the migration period which is even

02:28:09.160 far closer to tacitus's time and they're that that referencing that correlation doesn't there's no

02:28:18.480 connective tissue she's seen very much as the individual goddess that we call frig so i would

02:28:27.080 you know i would argue that unless there's like perhaps maybe some more etymological evidence

02:28:33.640 that that bridges that big gap and again people do that they will bridge that gap in any way they

02:28:39.420 see it and sometimes that can cause a lot of problems but ultimately at the end of the day

02:28:44.100 it's not a science project it's something that we work towards but when we honor them

02:28:49.200 we honor them like correctively as we know them in order to again if on the back end

02:28:56.880 secretly somebody says you know swan doesn't know what he's talking about

02:29:00.740 because frig frig and yours are clearly the same well i honor your and i honor frig i am not any at

02:29:10.020 the loss of reverence but if you choose to mash them together and and and put their names together

02:29:18.100 and say their name is fjord at that point you're doing disservice to divinity and that is where

02:29:25.700 that it causes more complications there's a lot of complications on that nashing road if you will

02:29:32.020 that's the thing with the best of intentions sometimes there are divinities that

02:29:41.380 that are um confused because they're coming from different sources and they're named different

02:29:47.220 things wherein they're really a singular divinity of course that of course that happens in the body

02:29:52.420 of of our literature at some point but there's a far cry from picking those that we have solid

02:30:00.020 foundation and solid reason to believe are the same and trying to mash lots of them together

02:30:08.580 because it just makes it easier the end of the day if these are just archetypes and this is all

02:30:14.900 just kind of a a symbolic our rituals are a a symbolic game that we play mentally to focus on

02:30:21.540 different archetypes then it doesn't matter why don't we just you know make it as simple and as

02:30:27.380 clean as we can because that would be really easy but they're not they are literal gods and literal

02:30:35.780 goddesses and therefore our building an actual personal relationship with them is the purpose

02:30:44.900 of our religion and the practice of our religion it's the purpose of being also true and so we

02:30:52.020 endeavor to do that with a mind towards individual personality as best as we can

02:30:59.860 and i i think too something worth like we see the gods as like vessels and each vessel um may

02:31:07.860 contain the the visceral power of order and and the overall power of the divinity but each vessel

02:31:16.260 is its own and in a way turns that when that when that the fluid flows into that vessel it leaves

02:31:25.380 that vessel differently and that's one of the things that i try to point out when we talk about

02:31:30.180 dominions or thrones of power is the liquid going in may be labeled as like say cosmic order but

02:31:37.540 when it enters the vessel of say the goddess air we're talking about healing when it leaves the

02:31:45.540 vessel of thor where you know we're strength and might and and protection and power these vessels

02:31:51.620 are very important to the the the that which binds them together so to say that they're the same

02:31:58.900 vessels is is where the disrespect kind of level comes in and i and the other thing that really

02:32:03.700 kind of gets me is and this is something recently developed that i've been thinking about one of our

02:32:08.260 witten members brought up and i just hit the ball right out of the park and got me thinking about

02:32:14.020 stuff is is um the the concept of like say golvey and perhaps we'll talk more about that with freya

02:32:21.940 but golvey the thirst gold thirst being freya is a lot of the same mash path as your brain being uh

02:32:33.700 And a lot of the people that really do condone a lot of Rieb's work will gladly soak up the path, that mash path of Yorv is Frigga because they need her to be the Earth Mother, you know, directly in correlation to Sky Father. 0.55

02:32:51.920 But they will gnash their teeth at Golvay and Freyja, that mash path. 0.80

02:32:56.500 And I thought that was an interesting point. 0.93

02:32:58.100 And I was like, wow, I never even thought of it that way.

02:33:00.260 But again, we are consistently holding to our moral framework.

02:33:02.940 And so that's something worth considering. I'm going to get the book. I'm going to read it because knowledge is knowledge and it's very, very good. But you've got to be able to kind of stick to your framework and piece through information and, again, learn from everything.

02:33:20.580 but don't compromise oneself based off of, you know, just something kind of falling in your lap.

02:33:27.700 It takes a lot of time and process to digest and organically change if there is evidence to prove

02:33:35.700 otherwise or concentric. All right. Our next question. Could the story of Balder's death

02:33:45.040 be a warning of the dangers of overprotecting one's children if she hadn't made everything

02:33:51.360 promise not to hurt him he wouldn't have felt invulnerable and no one would have thrown anything

02:33:57.520 at him is this a good or a bad way to interpret the story um like i said earlier there's

02:34:07.040 a lot of truths in each of these stories they're meaty with truth

02:34:15.040 Yes, I think that there's something in there about when you try to escape fate, fate gets you in the end anyway.

02:34:28.120 And, you know, there's plenty of folklore about those things happening.

02:34:32.820 You know, if it wouldn't have happened that way, it would have happened a different way.

02:34:36.740 I think there's a truth to that.

02:34:38.960 But, you know, like I said earlier, I think there's something to be said for, you know, saying, I don't know, probability be damned.

02:34:52.580 We're going to try our best regardless and be satisfied that we've done our best.

02:34:58.300 What do you think, Swan?

02:35:00.100 Yeah, I think like the overall and arching wisdom of the tragedy.

02:35:06.360 And again, this does place in Hellenic circles as well.

02:35:10.740 A lot of Hellenic stories follow the same path, is that the path you take to avoid your fate often brings you to it.

02:35:18.680 And this is, again, I think this is an interesting debate amongst the folk in relation to willful action or fatalism, as it's often referred to on the other side, where it doesn't matter what you do.

02:35:31.740 your fate is your fate and other you know or is it a certain mixture of will and fate and things

02:35:37.680 like that i think that also was part of the the the real drive of the story and so i think it's

02:35:45.820 ultimately a warning a warning about uh in the face of danger we we laugh oftentimes i think

02:35:54.960 culturally for most people on this call will know like what i mean by we laugh in the face of danger

02:35:59.740 we meet our end smiling and we go forth in glory and and that is culturally an aspect of our lives

02:36:06.860 um this is kind of saying be careful about hubris versus thumos and i'm using the greek

02:36:14.060 words because those are a little bit easier to kind of um like allocate on on the internet if 0.93

02:36:19.980 you look up you know and again that's very hellenic too so there's a an over arching uh 0.69

02:36:27.340 concept of thumos is about bravery and about honor and about living a bright life hubris 0.88

02:36:35.180 is when you take it too far and you um you fail wisdom and so you know courageousness tempered

02:36:45.020 by wisdom is thumos and courageousness without it is hubris in a lot of ways so um yeah it

02:36:54.140 i would say it would be a warning i don't know if it's necessarily a warning to a mother um again

02:36:59.500 but the overall arching point of the story is is that we must do all that we can because the

02:37:05.180 option to do nothing is is would seem far worse so do all that you can but um when when the gods

02:37:12.620 are throwing things at balder that is definitely a painting of that kind of hubris moment that allows

02:37:20.220 for the deceitfulness of loki to sneak in to find the blind and to guide his hand and he searched

02:37:30.220 for the gentle mistletoe that that frail and tiny and and and joyous peace the child of the oak and

02:37:38.540 the the one thing that wouldn't do any harm does the greatest harm there's a lot of things we can

02:37:43.500 see in like the grim fairy tales and even in like slavic lore and hellenic lore there's a lot of

02:37:48.460 that those adages in there were kind of woven it's really beautiful story it's great but yeah i think

02:37:54.780 hubris is the warning overall and it's not necessarily on frigga's part but on all of the

02:37:59.820 gods and perhaps even of balder but yeah the way that snorty again paints balder is kind of you know

02:38:07.340 i think he's influenced by christianity and you see this kind of like childlike innocence also

02:38:11.740 involved with him as well whereas clearly his name denotes boldness courage and strength but uh so i

02:38:19.980 would say that perhaps even on on his part if even if you remove the christ-like imagery out of it it

02:38:26.700 was you know everything is oath you know to not touch me you know let's let's see where this goes

02:38:34.940 let's see how this plays out and then everyone's doing things and everything's affirming that the

02:38:39.420 that that it is correct but that allows the avenue for the deceitful one to slip in and kill

02:38:46.940 his brother's son his blood brother son if you will all right uh do you all have a go-to book

02:38:56.620 of scripture sort of like a bible uh no we don't and i think that any comparison would be really

02:39:03.580 really loose but i would say our our closest thing to a go-to source for our lore would be

02:39:10.220 the prose and pose and poetic eddas um they're where the majority of the stories of our gods

02:39:16.860 come from in you know the most i don't know the most detailed and meaningful ways and i think

02:39:28.700 that's the closest thing you'd get to but it's not something that we believe is you know the

02:39:35.900 divine word of the gods um but it is our are the traditions of our folk and our faith as was

02:39:43.820 recorded in the 1200s and it's the closest that we have um but it is the the most the best go-to

02:39:53.500 compilation of the stories of our gods that we have available i've got a okay next question is

02:40:02.220 i'm kind of confused uh hother being blind was tricked into killing balder by loki

02:40:09.900 vowley kills hother his kin but he is not called kinslayer why is this

02:40:16.140 this loki should be the one valley kills right and i think there's layers to that one of the

02:40:23.340 reasons that i mentioned earlier about how how strife amongst kinsmen was such a horrible curse

02:40:34.860 because there is no right answer it's your job to avenge your kinsmen

02:40:41.100 but if your kinsman's killed by another one of your kinsmen

02:40:46.140 what are you supposed to do either way is wrong there's no right answer and that's that's why it's

02:40:54.300 an imperfect solution because an impossible and a terrible situation was created and i think this

02:41:01.740 speaks to that um vengeance needed to happen especially for a god a personage the stature of

02:41:16.140 of Balder, he needed to be avenged.

02:41:20.580 And so Vowley was born with that purpose in mind, boom, quick,

02:41:27.020 make vengeance happen.

02:41:29.460 And that occurred.

02:41:35.540 What I will say is you're right, a lot of it

02:41:38.320 needed to be placed, the blame needed to be placed on Loki.

02:41:43.320 Hothr was killed as an implement of the murder, but Loki was the problem.

02:41:50.800 And Vali is involved in the binding of Loki.

02:41:54.300 And when the gods formed a posse to go get Loki, Vali was involved in binding Loki with Loki's son's entrails.

02:42:04.100 So he was instrumental in delivering vengeance to Loki as well.

02:42:09.560 Um, but yeah, it's really unfortunate. And I think it points out the, the tragedy of when something like that happens between Ken is there, there is no right answer.

02:42:23.380 Um, and the cycle of vengeance doesn't have an end and you got to kind of figure out where to stop with it and what's the best of a terrible situation.

02:42:32.700 And yeah, it's all bad at that point. That's why it was such a horrible curse to our ancestors.

02:42:40.480 Do you have anything to add on that? It's fun.

02:42:43.540 Yes. One thing worth noting, and you mentioned it, but to kind of go a little bit into it,

02:42:50.800 one of the things is once you commit the atrocity, you become severed from

02:42:56.040 the connection of it all. And that's why it's such a scary thing.

02:43:02.700 When, for instance, when we look at the story, we look at Baldr, the bright, the light, the shining, the visible, the bold, the heart, in juxtaposition to Hodor, the blind, the dark, and the ignorant, if you will.

02:43:20.260 He's ignorant of what's about to happen and so much and so forth.

02:43:23.240 But what this is, is an adherence to correct law, an adherence to correct action, an adherence to correct way.

02:43:33.500 And so Vali represents, because he is birthed from, like he's birthed at this moment in his entirety to correct that which is out of balance.

02:43:43.640 And so Holder is, in essence, tragically separated from the whole, but is, in a way, it's because he must be united with Balder. They are together in their correlation to each other.

02:44:00.580 So when Balder dies, then so too must the correct action be that Hodder dies, that they become back in the equalness of each other and the powers that they are, the gods that they are and what they represent.

02:44:17.660 Is that correct action?

02:44:19.720 And that correct action is wrought out by one of our gods, Vaoli.

02:44:24.140 And Vaoli is the adjudicator of what I would call extreme and immediate dharma.

02:44:29.840 He is the vengeful sword, the arrow that strikes through fate and immediately knocks everything down.

02:44:37.480 And no God has been like him until he is made, not even washed.

02:44:44.660 He immediately enacts this corrective action.

02:44:48.060 So he shows up and is unlike any other of the owls, and he is a terrible sight to behold.

02:44:54.900 the the fury and the vengeance in which he enacts himself is swift and terrible but everyone that's 0.91

02:45:01.780 involved gets kind of like the the correctiveness that they deserve even though hold it is ignorant

02:45:08.740 that's the tragedy the he removes himself by being a a a kinslayer even though he was ignorant of it

02:45:17.780 once you kill kin you are no longer kin and so a lot of times that i think this reflects to an

02:45:26.820 ancient way of thinking for our ancestors when there was tragedy say perhaps on a farm way out

02:45:32.900 in the middle of nowhere and something happens between siblings or something like that and there

02:45:37.940 has to be a corrective action to it now our ancestors had a lot of ways of doing that and

02:45:42.340 societally we could talk about that like where guilds and so on and so forth but overall

02:45:47.700 valley corrects the action immediately reuniting hother to boulder the darkness to the light

02:45:52.980 he does it immediately and holder has removed himself from the kin and then uniquely enough

02:45:59.940 even though the onus is on loki what he does is he does it in a way that's equal to odin

02:46:07.780 odin has lost his son so in binding him in punishment the punishment is long standing

02:46:16.180 with the venom and the snake and being you know bound in the kettle groves that's a long and

02:46:21.220 terrible punishment but to equate to him that punishment valley then kills loki's son and

02:46:29.220 binds him with him so that his punishment is unequivocally attached to the loss of his son

02:46:36.900 that is what makes valley so dandably scary is because if if he moves if he enacts his

02:46:45.460 is i just his ability is like if he moves something bad is gonna happen so like

02:46:54.020 and we're talking on a godly level and it's gonna happen so fast that it will leave everything

02:46:59.940 changed from the moment he steps in and then steps out he is that threshold he is that

02:47:05.300 fulcrum point that is absolutely terrifying so that's yeah all right so completely shifting gears

02:47:15.620 with the women and men who will be living at sigurheim will there be families with kids

02:47:22.180 and will their education ultimately only be from the afa school also does the mandatory learning

02:47:29.700 of duties come in this is an add-on such as duties for women and men like motherhood and strength

02:47:36.580 uh strength building to build our strongest people there um

02:47:43.700 so first absolutely there's families there the idea of you know having families with

02:47:49.620 with young kids there and those kids being able to grow up together is a huge

02:47:54.260 part of why we want to do it um you know my family will move there we've got a number of other

02:48:02.500 families with young children that'll move there that are planning on it it's a very big part of

02:48:07.460 what we're planning to do and then also a big part of that is to facilitate um the homeschooling of

02:48:14.100 those kids so that we can you know one idea is to have like a like a frontier schoolhouse kind

02:48:21.380 of situation situation there where you have you know a room full of students that might be all

02:48:27.540 different ages but you have one one teacher they are teaching them all curriculum or a couple of

02:48:33.540 different adults they're teaching them curriculum and freeing up other adults to be able to do the

02:48:38.260 things they need to do if that needs to happen but our kids being able to build friends amongst

02:48:45.940 our folk and in the afa and build those relationships and grow up with other afa kids

02:48:51.860 a huge part of why we're doing it um we're not going to mandate that parents have to do that

02:48:58.820 if they want to enroll their kid um in a different you know in their own different homeschooling

02:49:05.780 program that they're doing um the location makes it kind of impractical for certain amounts of

02:49:14.740 public school depending or at least a good distance but uh if if parents want to do that

02:49:20.420 for their kids that's certainly their choice but no we're going to put a heavy emphasis on

02:49:25.700 encouraging folks to participate in in our austro academy which is doing really really well by the

02:49:32.100 way and absolutely some of the things that are involved in that are teaching little girls how

02:49:39.940 to be appropriate women of our folk and to teach you know boys how to become the men that we need

02:49:47.300 for our folk and to instill those values in them at an early age and teach values and character

02:49:56.420 throughout those programs that's already being added into the curriculum

02:50:01.620 and it's a really important important part of the education in the austro academy

02:50:05.380 um just something to mention on that uh our homeschooling program yes true academy this year

02:50:12.760 we're i guess we're getting relatively close now to finishing up our first year of studies

02:50:18.340 that was just kindergartners and they're doing fantastic but by this next school year by fall

02:50:27.060 registration we're going to have curriculum and everything available to enroll students

02:50:31.460 from kindergarten through third grade at a minimum.

02:50:36.600 And so that's a big leap.

02:50:38.340 That's going to be great for a lot of kids.

02:50:40.220 We're very, very excited about it.

02:50:41.800 But no, absolutely. 0.99

02:50:43.420 Having our kids grow up in and around Sigerheim 0.91

02:50:48.080 is a huge part of why we're doing it.

02:50:54.640 It seems the AFA isn't more exclusive

02:50:58.540 than Israel's right to return or Native Indian tribes' generic tests for membership.

02:51:06.580 At what membership size do you imagine we will see fair treatment?

02:51:11.900 I don't imagine that a membership size will determine our fair treatment unless that membership size is, you know, 100%.

02:51:21.600 I don't think there's a membership threshold that does that.

02:51:26.620 I don't think our membership numbers affect us, but the distance between us and where those numbers would be big enough to make a difference is vast.

02:51:40.820 I mean, we would need to have the equivalency of like Catholics or all the Jews or, you know, a huge group of millions, tens of millions of also true practitioners in order for that to, I think, move that needle on us treated fairly.

02:52:05.140 i don't think the issue right now preventing us from being treated fairly is one of the numbers

02:52:09.220 outside of those kind of titanic numbers i think the thing that's

02:52:13.620 bothering us is the political climate that we live in um we support all of the things that

02:52:22.900 woke is against and that's the thing that's that's very difficult um the political current

02:52:30.580 in the west is very very toxic and askew from all things traditional and we represent uh traditional

02:52:42.980 values and traditional understanding and i think that is the struggle that we face um

02:52:50.740 and i

02:52:54.340 i know better than to expect fairness from

02:52:57.220 the media uh from from randoms and i don't think we're going to get fairness from from the media

02:53:07.400 i do think and i do expect fairness well when i say expect i'm prepared for this not to be the

02:53:14.720 case but i do hope for and feel entitled to respect um from legal entities and so far that's been

02:53:25.680 that's been upheld and that's been the case um and we do get treated fairly by people who actually

02:53:33.120 know us that's something we've seen every place we have hoffs and where we actually exist as real

02:53:38.720 people and not internet boogeymen or whatever the media paints us as no those people have treated

02:53:46.960 us very fairly um and the the white people in those communities but very but overwhelmingly

02:53:54.800 the minorities in those communities have treated us very fairly and so i appreciate that

02:54:06.320 have you considered annually recognizing the highest monetary and non-monetary contributors

02:54:13.120 official recognition may engage the competitive spirit of our people into outdoing one another

02:54:19.440 even more i really like the idea of that what i found to be the reality with especially our

02:54:27.760 our largest economic contributors is they don't they're very humble people and they don't want

02:54:34.240 a lot of attention um the people that have donated the most to us have specifically asked that we

02:54:41.200 don't mention them um so we try to respect that i do always look for ways of honoring those people

02:54:50.240 we've got uh plaques that are hoffs of people who've contributed significantly to those i think

02:54:57.120 finding ways to recognize and honor people that contribute to what we're doing as you mentioned

02:55:02.160 monetarily and non-monetarily is really important it's easier and we don't run into the same

02:55:10.000 resistance on honoring folks who've contributed non-monetarily. And we try to do that as best we

02:55:17.180 can and recognize those people when we get together. But something definitely to think

02:55:23.320 about. I think utilizing the competitive nature of our people to make ourselves better, to make

02:55:30.040 our church better, to do more good things for stuff we all believe in is a net positive for

02:55:36.420 everybody. I know that comes into play at our auctions. Our auctions are a lot of fun and we

02:55:41.440 see a lot of competition at those and the AFA always wins on how that competition goes. So

02:55:48.700 that always works out really good. Something to add to that just a little bit, I think for a lot

02:55:57.100 of people that might not know, we have a subscriptive support member, but we do have a lot of

02:56:03.680 folk that also go into Hoftholler and to contribute in, you know, in that way is a huge

02:56:10.580 benefit because of how it, it, it aids us and keeps us away from people that are constantly,

02:56:17.320 you know, trying to demonize us. So I'm, I'm glad that you mentioned that because folks may not

02:56:22.600 be aware of it or, you know, maybe a new concept or maybe people don't understand it.

02:56:29.100 Hoftholler has been something we've done the past few years and it's been a really,

02:56:32.380 really big benefit to us. Ultimately, we want to move away from a, you know, a set dollar figure

02:56:41.640 monthly dues membership kind of thing. That's much more the model of a club or of an organization.

02:56:51.640 What we have been moving towards and where we want to get is into a percentage-based giving

02:56:59.820 situation that is the ex the expectation and the culture of our church like pretty much all um

02:57:08.780 functional religions around the world do and call it different things uh the word hof toller is an

02:57:15.420 actual term that that our ancestors used to use and it was um a toll or a tax that supported the

02:57:21.420 hoffs and the and the gothar and uh so the idea and we didn't want to we didn't want to go in

02:57:30.300 and ask too much we don't want to be money grubbing we need money to keep the lights on we need money

02:57:35.740 to do the great things that we're trying so hard to do but it's not about that so we ask that you

02:57:43.980 know one percent be that minimum for off told we've got a lot of people that do that now that'll um

02:57:50.060 Um, there's ways you can do it on your own. There's ways that some folks can have their employer, uh, take it out of the paycheck. That way it is more tax advantageous. Um, again, any of your donations or membership to us, uh, is tax deductible because we're, you know, a 501c3, uh, non-profit church, at least in the United States.

02:58:14.800 um so yeah so the hoff toller is a big deal and that minimum is one percent there are people out

02:58:21.680 there that give you know i think about 10 is the most that i've heard and there's people all the

02:58:27.120 way in between there and that makes a huge difference one of the cool things about that is

02:58:33.440 is it's very um it's very fair to use the word like if you're having a hard time

02:58:41.260 you know, then if your total that comes in is, is less than that percentage is a much smaller

02:58:48.160 number. If you're doing awesome and you know, the AFA is a part of that in some way, then we can

02:58:53.140 share in that and we can share in each other's success. And that's a really important thing for

02:58:58.660 us too. But, uh, but yeah, that's where we're trying to go. We would love to have all of our

02:59:03.400 folk on Hofftoller so we could stop hounding people about monthly dues. We could have a

02:59:10.300 culture of giving, so we don't do that. I'll tell you this. I have to push on our folk builders

02:59:16.740 hard to do that. None of our folk builders, if they ever bother you about dues, that's the last

02:59:23.200 thing they want to do. Nobody likes to do that. I hated that when I was a folk builder. It's

02:59:29.780 awful. It's what we got to do, and I don't apologize for it. It's why we have four Hoffs

02:59:36.960 to to our gods and uh we're doing really well that way but nobody likes to have to do that

02:59:44.080 and we'd love to move away from that and that's we're trying hard to do and something else yeah

02:59:48.320 go ahead i was gonna say something else that people might not know uh clergy i i am on half

02:59:54.640 toller i pay off toller so it's it's a it's not something that's done you know like a pressed

03:00:02.400 down or something like that is the gothar you know they give as well we get i'm on ten percent

03:00:08.480 so just to i guess because competition he said competition and recognition and all this

03:00:13.600 we don't shy away from that that is part of our culture is being able to boast and to brag and

03:00:18.480 i'm very proud to say even despite the fact being gothar being witten i give half toller because

03:00:25.040 it's important and it gets and then that on top of things that we need at the at the uh at the

03:00:31.360 hoff you know it's often time i would just get get it myself um to to help and to do whatever so

03:00:40.880 that's something worth noting as well i think it's it's important all of our growth are involved

03:00:45.920 even as well it doesn't make them outside of it we've got some really really generous folks and

03:00:51.600 i want to thank all of you guys who've donated and been generous i think this is as good a time as

03:00:56.240 any to bring up kind of where we're at with um with new york's hof so we have new york's hof

03:01:03.520 but in order to do that we had to um take out two two uh personal loans for that um

03:01:11.920 one individual uh was or is an afa member the other individual is you know in our larger circles

03:01:18.480 that is supportive of things that we do and um yeah so anyways we took out those two loans and

03:01:25.040 it was the biggest dollar value value of Hoff that we've purchased so far. And so.

03:01:33.280 Yeah, so we did that. And in order to pay it off, because that's the first step for us getting

03:01:38.560 phrase off is to pay off all the loans from yours off, then we can start moving towards that. So

03:01:48.240 this last month, I was very happy to say we were able to pay off one of the two loans that we had

03:01:53.520 one of those two one of those is completely paid off that person made whole we're on the

03:01:58.000 other side of it and we have one more left one more loan left on that hoff um overall cost of

03:02:05.840 that hoff was 245 000 are yeah and then uh we we now have that whittled down to just over

03:02:16.800 112 000 so we're we're getting there these big numbers but they're getting chipped away

03:02:22.960 If you'll remember, we bought that off in July.

03:02:27.980 So in a very short amount of time, we've been able to pay off the first loan and make good progress on the second.

03:02:35.760 And that's because you guys are generous and we really appreciate it.

03:02:38.240 Thank you.

03:02:42.980 This is so trippy that we are talking about Frigg.

03:02:45.820 I recently did a video on Alphany, a matron goddess known from votive stones.

03:02:55.540 Will you do an episode on goddesses that we know about from votive stones?

03:03:03.760 Svon, do you have any insight into this?

03:03:08.800 Yeah, we've definitely been talking about where to go from here 0.93

03:03:13.500 because, you know, we've been talking about the 12 Holy Aus,

03:03:18.080 and now we're moving into some of the Ausenior,

03:03:20.400 and there is a great plethora of Ausenior

03:03:23.500 and a various level of dedication

03:03:29.040 or whether they're local or venerated in certain parts of Europe

03:03:34.940 and things like that.

03:03:35.660 So we've been really discussing about where we are going from here.

03:03:41.580 one of the things like tonight i didn't know if we were gonna you know we discuss we we always

03:03:46.140 discuss divinity and then we kind of move into questions and and that can be a wild ride because

03:03:50.460 we have no idea what's coming and and we don't prep for this so we just shoot from the hip but

03:03:56.060 i mean uh you know discussing like the maidens of fen solid and the the goddesses surrounding

03:04:01.980 frigg i didn't know if we were going to broach that threshold tonight or if that's perhaps

03:04:05.900 something for future um i mean clearly the first thing uh about our structure of of

03:04:13.580 the ausenir or the goddesses is is really based around frig and freya and then we move out from

03:04:21.500 there with the maidens of fensal and and also to the um the divine powers that are you know aligned

03:04:29.500 with the gods outside of that and there's a lot of discussion as to where they where all of that

03:04:33.900 fits because when it comes to the goddesses in our it's it's the house are very upright and pillared

03:04:40.220 and easy to to focus on it's the the inner weaving of the our senior uh that becomes very um

03:04:48.700 not complicated but intricate if you will and um so you know utilizing uh

03:04:56.460 uh discussions further i don't know uh you know whether it's like alphany or or nahelania or um

03:05:05.020 you know of some of the uh or frau frau hola or perched which i had mentioned earlier i don't know

03:05:13.580 where we're where we're going with that and i do know that you know we don't i i i know members

03:05:21.020 of the afa some of them would like say hold uh you know um votive like prayers to specific goddesses

03:05:31.660 that are correlated through maybe their ancestry if they're german ancestry they'll hold uh faith

03:05:37.260 to like to perch if they're you know lowland germans their highland germans or swiss they

03:05:43.260 mention fra hola and they hold ceremony to that or even with some of the anglo-saxon you know

03:05:48.300 i don't think that um when it gets into that field we don't get super it's better to be devotional

03:05:56.700 and to to have that faith so we don't get super uh laser pointed on that so i don't know where

03:06:03.820 we're gonna go with that that's a great question it's one of the things with with our goddesses

03:06:08.780 and that's always been kind of an indo-european thing is our gods are written in these big bold

03:06:14.540 letters and they're very they're very solid and they they move with our people and they're

03:06:23.980 omnipresent whereas so many of our goddesses are are much smaller in scale are much more localized

03:06:30.840 are related to natural things that exist in one place on midgard you know goddesses of of rivers

03:06:39.100 and lakes or groves and special places like that. So, you know, we've certainly we've got Frigg and

03:06:47.000 Freya that are that are, you know, the great goddesses of our folk. And then we have several

03:06:52.380 that are much smaller in figuring out votive worship of those and how best to do that is kind

03:06:59.140 of an interesting challenge that we, you know, embrace now trying to figure out. But there's

03:07:07.340 certainly a level of might difference there seems to be between goddesses like Frigg and Freya and

03:07:21.040 some of these smaller, more localized goddesses. And so acknowledging that, too, goes into, you

03:07:28.280 know, what our plans are. We're currently discussing what our next Matt and Svan topics are

03:07:33.380 going to be alternating on these other weeks here. We have episodes on our heroes. They're

03:07:38.960 really important. Our heroes absolutely need to be talked about and celebrated. We are two episodes

03:07:44.980 into our hero episodes, and there has been not one question asked about any of these heroes we've

03:07:51.560 done episodes on during the episode. That's okay. We're going to keep doing them anyway,

03:07:55.820 because it's really important, and these people deserve to be talked about. Their story is being

03:07:59.480 told um one thought i had too is there's no no shortages of of discussion about holy tides

03:08:07.160 again that was brought up about sigur bloat and austera and and hexenacht and and midsummer so

03:08:13.320 making some of that clarified and then of course just the conversations that come out of that

03:08:18.600 seem to be really good so i don't know that's the thing any of these thematic shows you know today

03:08:23.080 we've talked a lot about uh about frig actually but a lot of these thematic shows will have you

03:08:28.600 you know, maybe half an hour, 45 minutes of topical discussion about the theme. And then

03:08:34.800 the rest of the show is just kind of taking it wherever the current leads, depending on y'all's

03:08:40.580 questions. And that's very organic. I like the way it works that way. You guys have really good

03:08:45.520 questions and seems to be working out pretty well that way. Next question. Has anyone heard

03:08:54.360 about goddesses like uh free agabis or nahelania yes i mentioned nahelania yes svan just mentioned

03:09:03.920 her and uh yeah free agabi i actually when i was studying to be a gothi i had to do a little bit

03:09:12.760 of research on on more obscure gods and goddesses and that was one that uh that i did was you know

03:09:22.400 looking into to what i could learn about free agape um so yeah i don't think they're well known

03:09:29.600 though um next question also from the same person question i did indo-european deity study and

03:09:39.760 there is a goddess of the tripartite society warlike priest and fertility aspects of all

03:09:48.160 within her would frig be our reflex uh of that goddess what do you think swan well again that's

03:09:58.320 one of the things where we talk about the war aspect in correlation to freya and then the uh

03:10:04.320 queenly aspect and the frith weaver and establisher of like uh sovereign femininity and uh correlation

03:10:13.920 to to you know oath boundness between marriage and and children and and training and teaching

03:10:20.080 the next generation and and all that the reflex of that is is a little hard i because again we

03:10:27.280 kind of hit that before and i i think that was from um ryan and i think he just came in but

03:10:34.320 earlier on in the show we were discussing about the internalized being projected feminine and the

03:10:40.960 externalized being uh receptive feminine in in regards to uh freya and frig and so um you know

03:10:52.080 the the warlike aspect again when there's correlation to say freya and the vow the

03:10:58.000 the valkyrie or the valkyries as they're often we know in english so uh there's a lot of warlike

03:11:05.760 connectivity and um you know i was in again that same discussion and that same witten member placed

03:11:13.200 some good stuff on that discussion that night and he was talking about how um freya does first and

03:11:20.160 foremost kind of epitomize a an elder and more um bronze age or older i'm just i'm putting bronze

03:11:30.640 is just out there but imagine it if you will like an iron age versus a bronze age the requirements

03:11:37.040 of the women folk may have been more harsh more brutal more determinant um as as opposed to say

03:11:47.200 maybe later on in the iron age uh you know tacitus referring to um the germanic women standing on the

03:11:53.680 edges of the battlefields you know while their men folk were fighting and things like that versus

03:11:58.240 perhaps you know what women folk uh holding down the the home while the men folk were away in the

03:12:04.640 nordic iron age there's a there's a difference there um and again you know when we look at the

03:12:10.480 time scale of the gods from our stories you know we we see this time where um after the slaying of

03:12:18.240 emir and the deluge and the sources of primordial resistance that come from bergelmer are coming

03:12:24.240 from the east uh into the middle world in the west there is the world of the vana the the place of

03:12:31.840 life and so earth is seen in its encapsulation as going on it's happening and it's it's it's moving

03:12:41.600 and then three outs come down and shape something new and then leave and the uh you know the the

03:12:54.240 progression of of humanity of the folk happen in this state and so a lot of times you'll hear the

03:13:00.400 term like the vana are the old gods and that's really because humanity you know is shaped and

03:13:07.840 the interactions that they have with the divine in the middle the the gods attached to natural

03:13:13.360 law are the first ones we truly interacted with even though we are sourced from

03:13:18.400 cosmic order and they came down but they there was time there so freya is of the older gods

03:13:26.400 in the sense that after we were shaped and given on and and and uh the primordial resistance sees 0.94

03:13:33.680 these the slayers of their source that's the slayers of emir have have once again trifled on

03:13:39.980 the middle earth by that time there was already established powers there were the dvergar or the 0.98

03:13:45.700 svart alvar and the leosalvar were already in process and in the east there was the primordial

03:13:51.300 resistance the jotits and in the west there were the van the waning ones the ones connected to the

03:13:56.340 material and those were the first gods we really encountered while the outs were above and kind of

03:14:03.880 not quite in full incorporation yet until of course after their war because the witnessing

03:14:11.280 of the war between the gods is a huge point of our faith and after seeing that war and their

03:14:16.920 alignment that's when they come down again unified because now heimdall or rig comes down

03:14:24.100 to intercede into the folk and teach us and make us better it's after that union so i think that

03:14:32.240 it's worth noting that freya is the elder uh concept of i think femininity when we talk about

03:14:40.580 a lot of that the that savageness that reflex when we when we see frigg it's of an expanded time

03:14:49.820 in which both Frigg is seen as a maiden of the earth.

03:14:54.380 She's born of Fjörgen and she is that maiden.

03:14:57.040 And that maiden comes about after the union or she at least joins the house and becomes the bride of Lord Odin after their union.

03:15:08.820 And so she is coming after a time of strife when there is stability, when cosmic order and natural law are in their correct pace.

03:15:19.420 So the reflex of war and things, I think, is kind of like seeing the war goddess, seeing the violence part of connected to femininity is either one in association with elder times when things were rough or when things are rough.

03:15:34.320 That's a sign of that kind of displacement.

03:15:38.840 When the war and the struggle bleeds over into the feminine, we've got dire situations. 1.00

03:15:46.580 when when when we're circling the wagons and even the women folk are grabbing guns that's not a good 1.00

03:15:52.500 time so the the warness and and all of that it really does fall upon the mantled shoulders of 0.98

03:15:58.580 the men folk represents that she is the goddess of femininity in a stable and well society in

03:16:07.940 which things are working organically natural law and cosmic order are moving like a well-oiled

03:16:14.580 machine so as far as um you know theorized older indo-european goddesses go what i think is really

03:16:27.780 significant in this book that i that i like called deep ancestors um i have to call it the wheel and

03:16:35.540 the donkey because on the cover it's got wheel and a donkey um but i enjoy it the guy's a lefty

03:16:43.620 but if you take his little intro out of it and you read the information it's really good um

03:16:50.500 but what he talks about in there that i think is perfectly personified in the the difference

03:16:57.540 between frig and freya is the idea of the the cow goddess versus the mayor goddess about

03:17:05.300 a goddess associated with with the home with women in a structured society in a position 0.59

03:17:15.780 as wife and mother and uh you know wise woman of the of the tribe versus the the wild passionate

03:17:27.060 the lover, the unbridled feminine youth, and that passion and magical nature and mystery that that

03:17:39.160 involves. And those are two very different sides to femininity that each of these goddesses

03:17:44.860 represents in a very special way. And that's where I think the overlap between primal Indo-European

03:17:52.000 divinity is. I think that's where that, how that's come to us in its most direct form.

03:18:01.620 Allie asks, is there something we as the AFA could be doing better or start doing to honor

03:18:07.920 not only our own mothers, but the elderly women who have become mothers of the folk?

03:18:16.220 Yes. First, the answer to that question will always be yes. There's always more we could do

03:18:21.120 better than that we could do on that not sure what exactly some of those ideas are i know people have

03:18:27.840 talked about maybe um honoring women who have uh lots of children in the afa um i think we try to

03:18:38.560 do a very good job of getting mothers in the afa to be celebrated and honored i think that that

03:18:44.160 happens a lot naturally in our afa groups and things but one thing and this is not female

03:18:52.800 specific but dealing with elderly women who become mothers of the folk um i think this goes with all

03:19:00.800 of our elders and i think it probably disproportionately is relevant to women

03:19:05.680 because they do tend to live longer than men do um one thing that we want so badly to do

03:19:13.040 at sigerheim and i think this is kind of a outside the scope of your question but i think it's a good

03:19:17.200 time to bring it up is to when we're getting you know this is probably phase two or three

03:19:24.800 but when we're getting housing and lodging there for apartments or cottages or small you know

03:19:33.840 places for elderly people to live if they find themselves to where they need to live around

03:19:39.120 others because they need help with things or because they financially have found themselves

03:19:44.860 elderly and not doing well financially. Or, you know, if they just want to, we'd love to have

03:19:51.640 them there with us. But that's certainly a way that I look forward to us taking care of our

03:19:56.880 elderly in the relatively near future and being able to, you know, if we've got little cottages

03:20:04.660 or dorms or bunk houses or whatever we've got to where there's a place where elderly people can

03:20:11.040 live. They can have heat. They can be warm. They can be safe. They can be around people who love

03:20:17.040 them and care about them. They can be connected there to their faith. And I can't promise them

03:20:22.880 deliciousness, but if they get to the main hall there, they can have beans and rice all day long

03:20:28.780 if they want so they can be you know hung they won't have to worry about being hungry or cold

03:20:34.140 or alone or isolated from from their their religious practice of their community and that

03:20:39.420 is a dream we can absolutely make true and we're gonna we're going to do that hopefully we'll be

03:20:45.100 able to do that sooner than later um it's one of those things that you know it takes money to do

03:20:50.140 it but that's something that we're very much committed to doing um it's fun do you know of any

03:20:56.220 ways off the top of your head we could do better to honor mothers or the elderly mothers who are

03:21:01.580 are the mothers of our folk i would say maybe looking at um local um community centers

03:21:13.020 both in the elderly sense there are a lot of like uh community centers that

03:21:18.780 gather and hold events or or perhaps you know um

03:21:23.100 Um, uh, they, I think they even hold classes that are available to people to come in at 1.00

03:21:28.320 these, these women know how to do things and they want to teach younger women that that's 0.86

03:21:32.200 kind of open there. 0.87

03:21:33.500 I think also looking at recreational centers, like community recreational centers might

03:21:38.560 be a good place to start, uh, looking at where a lot of the older folks come in and want

03:21:44.600 to, they have a hobby and that hobby is actually something from, you know, like decades past

03:21:52.500 that was very very popular and that's a great way to kind of get involved whether it's knitting and

03:21:57.540 sewing or or just just getting out there and and and you know giving company um find find the

03:22:05.780 climate of the situation you might be able to bring your kids and and a lot of you know some

03:22:10.420 certain folk homes and um at recreational centers children are seen as a as a boon um where they

03:22:17.460 want to see kids and maybe they don't get visitations a lot from immediate family or

03:22:22.460 you know circumstances might have you know happen or what have you search it out you know that's a

03:22:28.640 thing um my mom for the last uh three years has been living or she was living at uh an old folks 0.64

03:22:38.340 home and when i bring aubrey in there man those old ladies would just light up you know everybody

03:22:44.200 in that light up the staff the old man or whatever but the old ladies especially would just light up

03:22:49.480 seeing uh seeing a young child in there and getting excited about her so that's always a nice thing to

03:22:54.040 do um next question orion's belt is slash was called freya's distaff symbol of authority in

03:23:04.680 the home right swan do you know much about um germanic uh astro uh astronom or astrological

03:23:15.640 ah well i i suppose but that has more of an esoteric meaning to it but yeah do you know

03:23:22.200 anything about how how germanic ancestors perceived astronomy and astrology that way

03:23:27.320 um so one thing that's really hard about that is we know that our ancestors especially the nordic

03:23:37.560 seafaring all the way back to the migration period understood stars have understood how

03:23:42.040 to use them for navigation but what's really sad is the the what is left of that is so scant

03:23:49.880 that it's it's dreadful um the uh i mean the immediately the the three things that come to

03:23:57.240 my mind is of course oh uh friggs friggs distaff and orion um which again i've looked into and i

03:24:05.880 honestly don't know if where that's sourced in an elder literature um because i know like

03:24:13.800 correlatively orion and uh and hercules and the association with thor and the arian um

03:24:25.800 i guess titling of the belted warrior bearing a club is the striker motif again sometimes it's

03:24:33.720 taken in a mortal form and sometimes obviously it's divine based uh the striker is divine but

03:24:40.360 he seems to also some cultures have kind of over time lost connection to him and relegated him

03:24:47.880 into a mortal sense so i've often been looking at the orion hercules um and thor connectivity on on

03:24:57.080 the um like in patterns of the stars but when we talk about patterns of stars we're talking about

03:25:02.840 you know the first the babylonians and then eventually the greeks and their additions and

03:25:07.560 things but we do know uh the major two is uh arendil's toe and thiazi's eyes are directly

03:25:16.920 correlated to stars the problem is we don't know which one and the only thing that that we have is

03:25:24.120 arendil is associated with the east and so perhaps we don't know but it might be referring to uh

03:25:32.600 serious this the the the dog star um but that's not 100 and that is one thing that's terrible

03:25:40.920 and when we the only person that i've ever read and studied on that has ever kind of covered the

03:25:47.880 topic both the esoteric astrology and the scientific astronomy is a runic um like uh

03:25:56.600 author and um thinker is uh nigel pennock who has a book dedicated to that uh i think it's runes and

03:26:05.720 and the um uh i honestly can't i can't recall it's a very old book i have it upstairs

03:26:15.720 um it's uh it has an the the the 24 hours and 12 hour uh dial with runes uh around it each

03:26:24.760 one representing each you know the 24 runes representing each of the 24 hours and he goes

03:26:29.560 into um about the astrological significance of both the runes and stories of the gods and how

03:26:37.320 our seafaring ancestors would have um had a lot more but it's unfortunately a lot of it hasn't

03:26:43.480 survived and most of it in folklore and in sailor folklore in like the nordic countries has fallen

03:26:49.720 to the wayside for you know christian lore or even just secular names for the stars so it's

03:26:56.200 really kind of unfortunate because it's pretty much like we we we very much know we just like

03:27:02.520 we know that our ancestors were very very heavily influenced with music string instruments and wind

03:27:07.480 instruments but they're so scant because of poetic eras that you would think you know like nobody's

03:27:15.080 nothing's ever mentioned of a drum but we know the drum is the most ancient instrument or the

03:27:20.760 animals like uh there's lots of animals mentioned but there's never a mention of an owl which i

03:27:26.200 always thought was so strange being that you know like the the boreal owl the gray owl is such a

03:27:32.840 common fixture in um nordic folklore and just known um uh so there's a lot lost there unfortunately

03:27:43.480 And just from my own knowledge, I haven't super, super kind of hound-dogged into it, but I don't know where the ancient source of Frigga's distaff comes from in reference to the constellation, and I've only been really looking at more of the evolution of the Orion and Herculean connection there.

03:28:06.940 But yeah, I don't have much to offer on that. I'm sorry.

03:28:09.700 Yeah, you know, neither do I. I've heard that about Freya's diff stuff forever, but I don't recall ever seeing where that's attested in any way. And, you know, I think it depends. I think there's probably, you know, more esoteric astrological connections in all of the ancient cultures about the stars to one degree or another.

03:28:36.560 but i think that also the reason i was struggling with the word for it is i think it's

03:28:41.600 i think it counts as astronomy if you're just recognizing pictures um but it's when you add

03:28:48.880 the overlay of deeper esoteric meanings to them that it becomes astrology but either way i'm sure

03:28:56.000 that our people had a wealth of that's one of the things if you consider you know what to do

03:29:02.960 people didn't sit around and watch Netflix and play around on their computer and read books and

03:29:08.740 do stuff. Our most ancient ancestors at night, they talked around the fire, they watched the

03:29:15.300 fire, they looked up at the sky. And especially if you can do that away from the ambient light

03:29:24.220 of cities and towns. I remember growing up in Alaska, that's something we used to love to do

03:29:29.200 we'd go camp is it'd be dark up there in the middle of night we'd just go out in the middle

03:29:33.280 of the frozen lake and just look up and you could see forever and you could see the northern lights

03:29:38.000 you could see the stars and it's such a primally mysterious and fascinating thing that our ancestors

03:29:46.480 must have stared at for millennia um and i i guarantee you there's a lot of lore to that

03:29:54.160 that we've lost over time. Next question. I'm not sure if it was asked. Any updates on

03:30:04.000 Sigurheim and Pioneers? Thanks. Yeah, absolutely. Got one guy that's living close by in a

03:30:16.880 RV situation waiting to get some services established at Sigurheim before he moves

03:30:23.200 onto the property got another guy that uh is currently selling his house and packing up

03:30:32.080 and going to be moving out to sigurheim you know next to immediately and our third but our first

03:30:38.800 person that's going to actually make landfall on sigurheim as far as any kind of permanency 0.99

03:30:45.200 she is fixing to do that as we speak. I think she may, in fact, get on the road tomorrow to do that,

03:30:56.020 to head that direction. So we are getting that figured out. We've had people,

03:31:02.920 I mentioned the last call, but I don't know if you're here. We had a expedition out there a

03:31:07.340 couple of weeks ago with some of our folks to take some more specific measurements and to talk

03:31:12.800 to a septic guy and to lay out some different plans so we're absolutely moving forward on that

03:31:18.520 it's uh it's really really exciting um our tennessee folk builder is hosting a moot on

03:31:25.960 siggerheim uh on the 22nd of this month and yeah we're planning stuff and and we're going to have 1.00

03:31:33.860 a big regional event there on july the 22nd we're going to have sigger bloat at siggerheim 1.00

03:31:42.280 I'm very excited to be at that and to see as many of you at that who'd like to be there. 1.00

03:31:47.460 It's going to be awesome. It's a beautiful and amazing place, and I'd love to show that off to each of you guys.

03:31:57.060 Next question. What happens to the Asenur during Ragnarok?

03:32:02.620 I can't remember ever reading anything beyond Frigg crying out at Odin's death.

03:32:08.620 Do we know, if not, in your belief, are we not meant to?

03:32:18.680 I don't recall anything in regards to that, but that's not terribly surprising to me.

03:32:28.460 The story of Ragnarok is about opposing forces meeting on a field and fighting.

03:32:35.400 and i don't you know the non-combatants are not part of part of those kind of battle tales i

03:32:42.680 don't think it really fits the story narrative i don't think there's necessarily some great reason

03:32:50.280 that we don't know what happened but uh but no i don't uh i don't recall any any specifics of that

03:32:58.840 in our lore and i'm i don't think there's a profound mystery to it personally what what

03:33:05.240 do you think svan well i i do know of there is um a unique mention of freya and njord surviving

03:33:15.560 ragnarok it's just briefly mentioned that they returned to the land of the vanir they

03:33:21.400 return to the source of the west um but as far as frig uh or any of the other ausenir

03:33:31.400 it's not mentioned and i think again that's because poetic meter and and verse it's it's about

03:33:37.160 the you know they're clearly showing and the immediacy of forces fighting jormungandr and thor

03:33:45.240 heimdall and loki and you know it's it it's really about the things coming to head

03:33:51.400 but it is mentioned that the survivors too like magna and movi um you know but there's no mention

03:33:57.480 of through um the uh the source i i yeah i think it's more important to realize that the forces

03:34:06.920 that are coming together are disseminating and in reality the gods will will make themselves known

03:34:14.680 after the fact magne and modhi uh you know valley and vidar um balder all of the gods that supersede

03:34:24.200 the threshold of ragnarok will make themselves known to the generation that comes out of the tree

03:34:30.040 which is life and the will to live or the thirst or the the desire to live and they

03:34:36.920 that generation because you know we're not talking about an actual just singular individual

03:34:41.880 one man one woman especially when their their name is life and the will to live but that is

03:34:49.680 the new folk the the folk that survive they will they will then build those relationships with the

03:34:55.180 gods because those are the gods that remain and they will they will be known to them and um and

03:35:01.320 then we may come to know them if we ever move through that threshold of our bloodlines but

03:35:07.720 it's not i think something that we deeply uh need to ponder because that threshold will be

03:35:14.680 uh as it as it is said you know it's very very detrimental to the cosmic order and the natural

03:35:20.440 law things get broken down and then they will return slowly again and that that is as we know

03:35:28.200 it but yeah i do know that north and freya are mentioned as returning to the west so that's the

03:35:35.880 only you know one that i absolutely have based off lore all right uh next question i think there's a

03:35:44.520 misunderstanding that this is a good chance for you to clear up question for svan why do you take

03:35:50.920 your as frig i know there's a little theory about a possibility of common epithets but everything

03:35:59.400 points to yord as a jotun just like gerder as far as i know

03:36:08.360 okay so that is a misunderstanding i do not that was a little earlier back obsidian we were talking

03:36:16.680 about that and i do not like that's actually i was arguing in uh in in opposition to that

03:36:24.120 that train of thought um no i i honor um i honor your separate from frigg and have have honored

03:36:36.440 them uh in their own rights uh i've honored gareth but i i'm a big proponent for uh

03:36:44.920 the pushing that that snorri did slap jotin as a title on a lot of things without fully

03:36:50.600 understanding the scope of all of it for the sake of organization and i do i have always held in my

03:36:57.080 personal belief that there are also near and then there are also near who birth gods or marry the

03:37:03.960 gods and thus align themselves with the gods and since they are not like different races they are

03:37:10.840 you know the the joten uh and the house are different because of their the powers that they

03:37:18.920 are that once you align yourself with the powers of of the house you become an house or you birth

03:37:24.040 an house and that alignment shows the only unique one that ever ever points out is the primordial

03:37:30.360 connection the seat of the blood of emir the primordial connection is hosted by ayur and

03:37:37.560 raun the two jotuns that are that they don't marry into the gods because they're already married

03:37:42.920 so that's a complete male and feminine power that's showing completion and they rest in the

03:37:49.080 primordial bowl of emir's blood which is the ocean the one place where primordial life truly comes

03:37:55.800 from and we see animals inside the blood of emir that clearly resonate all the way back to when the

03:38:01.800 jotens were springing from him uh and this kind of leads into a question or a statement just above so

03:38:08.280 So I'm not trying to defer, but Ryberg talked about the two giant clans of Ymir, the upper body noble and the lower body base.

03:38:14.960 I think it's also worth mentioning that, yes, there could have been some correlation to ancient caste systems, just like the story of Rigg having the Thrall, Carl and Jarl is lending to those caste systems, which is perfectly fine.

03:38:31.900 But beyond that, there's a greater arching part of that story is that all of the Jotuns are killed in the Deluge, that the only two that survive are Ber-Yelmer and his wife, who is unnamed, and they escape. 0.97

03:38:46.680 And from them, the descendants of both good or like, I guess, less than terrible Jotuns and terrible Jotuns descend from them. 0.97

03:38:56.260 So that's worth remembering. 0.99

03:38:58.640 um but when we talk about like yord and uh say gareth you know whether like so gara is pretty

03:39:07.280 clear in her descendancy is coming from a yacht and so is skadi but one interesting thing about

03:39:12.080 them is that they are clearly upper caste or upper evolved jotens so much so that they align

03:39:18.320 themselves with the gods whether they do that through marriage and the story the the combining

03:39:25.520 of through trial with skadi or through the ultimate like uh resistance that happens between

03:39:33.280 gaird and frey which of course we know is about the the seed and the light and the sun and the

03:39:39.200 spring and the warmth giving way to the icy earth so gaird is you know those i honor them as our

03:39:48.240 senior which sometimes i have found has been a hot kind of a spicy take you you know you consider

03:39:55.040 skadi or gerd to be you know a god well they're part of the icier they are aligned to the icier

03:40:03.840 they give birth to icier gods whether we're talking about grither or render yes so i do

03:40:12.640 i consider mimir was once the house he his head is removed and he's placed on the wellspring of

03:40:19.680 memory and time in the middle world he is the godhead uh placed by odin himself

03:40:27.040 but i don't say oh he's he's just a jotun no he was clearly connected to his nephew

03:40:33.760 oh then he aligned himself with that and became a component a part of that and so

03:40:39.440 is there connection to their primordialness make them jotuns quite clearly but there's

03:40:45.200 a lot of primordialness in the gods themselves i think that a lot of people need to realize

03:40:49.520 the difference between an icier and a jotin if they take the word jotin and say that that's a

03:40:54.320 primordial ancient and that the icier are cosmic order ancients that would clarify a lot of things

03:41:03.680 and stop thinking of them as like completely different races absolutely so yeah i don't know

03:41:10.800 that's to answer that question i don't i don't think that i see them as separate and that's

03:41:15.280 talking about the uh the our church sees things in multiplicity so we don't cram yours and frig

03:41:23.280 together we see them as you know their domains their dominions and the sources that flow through

03:41:28.800 them from the primordial source that is emir's flesh and the earth is unique unto themselves

03:41:37.760 all right and then last question of the night do you think a good place to bloat

03:41:42.720 frig would be a swamp considering that fin sailor uh is frig's residence we touched on this earlier

03:41:50.080 but i'm going to say this again i think that any place within reason any place that is

03:41:58.960 special and you're trying to make sanctified is a good place if your heart is right and

03:42:03.760 your intentions are right to honor our gods um but that adds meaning knowing that you know her

03:42:11.680 residence has that fin name associated with it i think that uh you know offerings in a bog or a

03:42:20.320 swamp or uh are a special and a nice thing if that is meaningful to you as a place to honor

03:42:26.480 to honor our goddesses specifically or generally and frigg specifically but the more important

03:42:33.840 thing is that you make the point of honoring her and if that's done in the right within the right

03:42:40.080 mindset with right heart then you know whatever place you choose will be the right place to do

03:42:46.080 that what are your thoughts fun uh i per and i'm speaking from personal devotion i've always given

03:42:53.600 gift to uh frig in the home always have whether it's around the the oven and the stove um or at

03:43:02.800 the the fireplace and the hearth uh depending on different parts like during yule oftentimes i'll

03:43:08.080 give and and and pay uh devotional homage to her via the the hearth where uh we hang mistletoe

03:43:15.840 above and we burn the yule log in there um the uh i have also given my location where i'm at

03:43:23.920 i am near the ocean and i am also near one of the largest natural springs in the united states that

03:43:31.440 produces a swamp if you will around it but it's it's actually a swamp land created by the spring

03:43:38.400 itself george washington tried to build a road through it and could not do it the spring did not

03:43:44.320 allow it to happen it just kind of constantly eroded away all the attempts um most people

03:43:52.560 might not know but it's the great dismal swamp as it is referred to and so i have a unique um i have

03:43:58.240 given bloat in lagoons at the in blackwater um uh which is on the border of virginia north carolina

03:44:06.320 and i've given those gifts to new earth because it's right into the ocean estuaries and things

03:44:11.760 i've also given gift to uh nervous at your uh in um uh the the great dismal swamp and i've given

03:44:22.000 homage to frig in my home so that's just my personal stuff but that's because that's how i

03:44:27.440 connect my my uh devotion to them is i see frigg as like the um the reference to the the cow goddess

03:44:37.920 um is is important because the the cattle goddess or the goddess of of society and of fehu and of

03:44:44.640 the wealth of of an established society um is so pervasive in our belief in all the way back

03:44:51.920 to the indo-europeans is is that um is is about connection to the home um whereas the you know

03:45:01.200 of course the wilding of things especially with vanir um or more strongly sourced older

03:45:07.840 vanir of the waning i do that near water and the earth because i've always associated the vana as

03:45:14.800 um the ebb and flow of uh the liquid and the and and uh and material or mass it moves it ebbs and

03:45:24.800 flows it formulates together and it breaks apart and so the only thing eternal about it is the

03:45:30.320 cycles whereas like the gods especially after union with the icier become more in association

03:45:37.840 with the eternal and even though frigga is deeply connected to the natural cycle of childbirth and

03:45:44.160 of death and of the home and of the family along with sif um i've always associated more in the

03:45:52.000 home and i'm quite devout to to frig as well i have a personal story uh which i feel like i was

03:45:59.280 gifted something by her in relation to the birth of my daughter whose birthday is coming up here

03:46:05.360 um i was given a blue heron feather uh when i gave prayer to frig i was worried

03:46:13.920 about her birth and about my wife and her health and and um on my way to work i found this strange

03:46:22.320 clear dry blue feather sticking vertically straight up in dewy grass that was completely

03:46:28.880 wet and moist and i pulled the feather and i later like did biological check on it and it's from a

03:46:36.480 blue heron which is i think culturally you know the bird that is connected to uh frig especially

03:46:44.000 in modern times because i think ancient connections to the heron may be in relation to the the ladle

03:46:50.160 that mead was given out when the women brought out the paragraph mead they poured it uh mead

03:46:56.560 into the the horns they did so with um with a ladle that had a heron head on it and there's

03:47:02.880 reference to you know that the heron of forgetfulness that flies over the hall that

03:47:07.600 makes another reference to it but brewing and the disbursement of mead was very much a feminine um

03:47:14.720 uh ritual part uh of our culture in which the women brewed the a lot of the mead that was

03:47:22.480 got the honey and things were got by the menfolk and they would brew them in the home and they

03:47:26.800 were part of the disbursement of need into the horns of uh family members and and honored guests

03:47:33.680 so frigga is kind of representative in that with the heron and i received a blue heron feather

03:47:40.560 and after that i knew my my the answer was clear that she had said everything's gonna be okay i

03:47:47.440 heard i heard your your pair your prayer that your maiden my maiden i'm speaking from in in her

03:47:55.280 regards how i received it was that her maiden now the maiden offense seller who takes prayers to her

03:48:02.880 successfully delivered my prayer to her and she returned reciprocated an answer and i believe

03:48:10.000 that wholeheartedly i have that feather on my um harrow now and i think about it often and i i'm

03:48:17.120 very very thankful to frigg for the blessings of of giving me healthy children giving me um

03:48:23.840 a healthy daughter and watching over my wife who again became the very threshold that

03:48:30.480 frigg's domain flows through in our society she was the threshold

03:48:38.560 all right well thank you for joining us once again svan it's always a pleasure to have you on

03:48:45.360 uh we had a lot of really meaty discussion tonight so thank you for that i know our our

03:48:50.320 listeners really appreciate that awesome thank you for having me all right well uh you guys have been

03:48:57.120 great lots of really really good questions um glad to be able to get on here and talk to you guys

03:49:03.120 every week it's really a special thing and i appreciate it um we will see you or i will see

03:49:09.200 you again next wednesday spawn will join us two weeks from today and uh till then

03:49:16.400 hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa remember that victory never sleeps

03:49:39.200 Thank you.

03:50:09.200 Thank you.

03:50:39.200 Thank you.

03:51:09.200 Thank you.

03:51:39.200 Thank you.

03:52:09.200 Thank you.

03:52:39.200 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - April 06, 2023

4⧸5⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 39 - Frigg

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