Asatru Folk Assembly - 5⧸10⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 44 - John Gibbs-Bailey ＂Hoskuld＂

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

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00:03:00.000 Hello, and welcome again to another exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:19.640 Never sleep, and I had to rest up since the last one.

00:03:24.300 You guys had me on for six and a half hours last time.

00:03:29.000 that was that was a record but it was really good show and i appreciate all y'all's participation

00:03:33.880 um in it this is you know this is about half an hour of pre-planned stuff and the rest is fueled

00:03:43.240 by your guys participation your questions your comments so uh very appreciative we got such a

00:03:49.880 good audience on top show just to say if you guys want to participate in super chat or if you guys

00:03:58.280 want to give us donations they are very much appreciated they go to the efforts that the afa is

00:04:06.280 is doing where we need them um right now they're going towards paying off njordshoff which is our

00:04:14.040 first step in getting phrase off uh but yeah so we appreciate any of that to do that

00:04:20.840 you guys got to join us well you can go to our donate link on our website which is great but

00:04:25.400 also you can come watch this over on entropy entropy is a really cool system it's the one i

00:04:30.920 have up to look and see about the comments on my end it's really cool they've always been really

00:04:38.280 good to us so i would love to see you guys over there we're also being broadcast live on odyssey

00:04:45.240 youtube vk twitter and for folks that you know for folks joining us after the fact i appreciate

00:04:55.800 all of our uh podcast listeners who are listening to us on spotify uh we get these episodes loaded

00:05:03.320 every friday on uh on spotify so we appreciate you guys too

00:05:11.080 i'm trying to think any other top of the top of the show things in about two and a half weeks we

00:05:20.600 have elsie fest three in wisconsin uh folk mother elsie christensen her day of remembrance was

00:05:28.680 yesterday and uh in may for the past three years we've gotten together up there they do a really

00:05:34.680 good job um folk builders james and sarah alt host that and they do a really good job of hosting an

00:05:42.360 event and i'm really looking forward to the fish bar because it's delicious so yeah um

00:05:52.200 i think that's the news you can use for right now so today we are going to talk about a

00:05:59.640 a unfortunately fairly little known uh hero of our folk and that's that he deserves better

00:06:06.840 than that so this is the first year that we are honoring this gentleman with a day of remembrance

00:06:14.120 and uh we are joined okay so we are joined by christian penner a folk builder from north dakota

00:06:24.520 who's with us, and an amazing artist. I don't know if you guys have seen some of the horns

00:06:29.320 that he's carved. He's carved several horns for our auctions now that are absolutely breathtaking.

00:06:37.480 But before we talk about the subject of our show, Christian, can you tell us a little bit about

00:06:44.680 how you came to Ausatru and how you came to the Ausatru Folk Assembly?

00:06:49.240 um well uh i started listening to a lot of um i guess folk metal um for the subject matter is

00:07:01.080 you know kind of within our folk tradition and

00:07:07.240 things like that and wound up reading uh the children odin by pedraic column and was really

00:07:15.200 fascinated than like went on to read the prosetta and you know kind of just snowballed from there

00:07:21.520 you know and then once i actually got out to meet uh people at balder's hop because that was around

00:07:28.400 that time uh that i had found i was true um we acquired the building and i was like wait there's

00:07:37.440 other people that believe the same things i do you know so driving down to to meet them you know

00:07:43.760 all the folks at boulder soft is like really uh really profound um

00:07:52.400 i was pretty surprised to see that like most of leadership was also veterans and i was like

00:07:59.360 oh i i get you guys i get these people they get my humor you know and uh yeah i've been a member

00:08:06.560 ever since and now when was that boy it was right after it was the spring and renovation started

00:08:16.320 i believe okay so that would wow that would have been spring 2021 all right um

00:08:29.440 So, without further ado, today we are talking about a gentleman named John Gibbs Bailey, who went by the name of Haskold.

00:08:43.460 So, can you tell us a little bit about Haskold?

00:08:46.920 Um, so, um, the reason why, uh, his name's Hoskold instead of, you know, his kind of

00:08:58.080 real name is kind of, that's kind of the tradition that, you know, they started, uh, they started

00:09:04.200 what, you know, using an Odinic name, something that was kind of ancestral or, you know, you

00:09:11.060 had a strong influence from like someone who shared that name um from my understanding

00:09:22.340 all of this is pretty obscure uh and was pretty hard to dig through and and actually find out

00:09:29.700 really any detail about you know who he was but um so the odenic right started in england

00:09:38.100 And I believe some of the early movements started around the 30s and kind of, you know,

00:09:51.500 changed and developed and grew into, like, the old Odinic rite.

00:09:57.800 and kind of things were set into place as a formal organization like the 1960s 70s

00:10:10.920 somewhere somewhere in there I believe I believe early 1970s and

00:10:16.480 And he did a lot of work with another one of our heroes, Stuba, S-T-U-B-B-A.

00:10:30.840 And together they kind of coalesced, like, moral virtues and values, and they came up with what, you know, is commonly known as the Nine Noble Virtues.

00:10:44.600 And, you know, kind of set down a framework for a more formal organization instead of like just loose, loosely associated, very independent, localized groups in England.

00:11:01.980 all right well so you may nor uh you may notice that was kind of short and sweet and this is

00:11:22.740 something this is something that's very important and honoring our heroes and realizing

00:11:34.040 that history happens as we speak

00:11:38.080 if we don't remember and celebrate our heroes

00:11:43.520 then they become lost to the past and that's really unfortunate

00:11:47.440 it um so hoskold was a young man who found also true in the 1930s by young man was he in his teens

00:12:03.840 was he in his 20s was he in his 30s couldn't tell you um and all the research that we've tried to

00:12:09.440 do it seems like no one could tell you um the last that anyone is that anyone who i've been able to

00:12:19.600 find or any research we've been able to do says uh as an old man he was involved with and around

00:12:27.680 odenic right members in the 1980s we don't know the man's birthday we don't know the date that

00:12:34.480 he passed and uh we don't know where his remains were laid to rest unfortunately still seek to

00:12:42.320 find those answers and if anyone out there uh watching this program has more to offer or knows

00:12:47.360 more please let us know um but he was a seminal figure in the movement towards modern alsatrew

00:13:00.320 certainly in his home country of England.

00:13:07.680 He was a big part of establishing what we knew as the nine noble virtues,

00:13:14.720 what are expanded to the ten noble virtues now. He's responsible for the first eight of those.

00:13:22.720 And when the Odinic Rite was formed, they added the ninth one.

00:13:29.440 But yeah, from anything I've been able to read, he was a humble gentleman who didn't, you know, wasn't the in front of the camera guy. And so very often he was behind the scenes.

00:13:44.220 He was a treasurer for that organization and a Goethe for that organization.

00:13:52.820 And yeah, that's that's what we know.

00:13:57.640 But because of him and the effort that he put forward, what would become the Odinic right was was founded and was successful for the years that that was successful.

00:14:11.100 And we're very grateful for what he put in.

00:14:13.600 it's got to be a really very different experience. You know, we feel sometimes perhaps like

00:14:21.120 we're strange or there's not others like us when we find this in 2023, but I can only imagine what

00:14:29.640 that was like in, you know, 1923. So it was really quite, really quite a thing. And we got some

00:14:38.560 questions stacking up. But first, Michael donated $5. We appreciate that very much. Hail Matt,

00:14:47.680 hail John, hail the gods, hail our Volk, and hail the AFA. A little something for the good work you

00:14:53.820 do to restore our ancestral faith and our people in it. Thank you very much. And he also tacked on

00:15:01.320 afterwards, oh, and hail Christian too, sorry, for an additional $3. So we appreciate you, Michael.

00:15:07.340 thank you so much um on the side and i want to look over here to see if there's been any

00:15:17.820 clarification because the first question is a bit confusing or or could be a bit confusing i'd

00:15:26.860 suppose um from sam hi matt in your opinion is the folk a collectively bonded group

00:15:37.340 I don't know exactly what that means. And I'm not trying to be trying to be obtuse, because I'll answer what I assume that it might mean here in a second. But it could mean many things to many different people. And so I want to make sure that I don't, that I'm clear in how I respond.

00:15:56.840 yes in one sense we are we are certainly bonded we are bonded through the folk soul we are bonded

00:16:04.940 through our our very blood our genetics and our race we're bonded as a people um and so that's

00:16:13.880 absolutely a thing now that chops down into smaller circles and each of those circles has a

00:16:24.400 has a tighter or a higher degree of bonding um when people talk about the folk the folk at large

00:16:33.120 you know our our racial brothers and sisters but oftentimes in an outsider context we talk

00:16:40.480 about the folk we're talking about members of our faith and so in that sense yes we're bonded by

00:16:48.800 our allegiance to our gods we're bonded together um when we join the astro folk assembly

00:16:56.160 specifically we're connecting with that group our groups hymenia and we're bonded with each other

00:17:02.960 with our heroes with the gothar of the past and the present and with those of us to join in the

00:17:08.880 future i think that's the best thing i have to answer that question if if there's any uh

00:17:14.640 clarification on the side i'd be happy to address that though as well

00:17:19.280 um ali asks steen you're an amazing artist and horn carver where do you draw your inspiration from

00:17:30.320 um sometimes it's uh you know

00:17:37.200 like art from antiquity like some of like the romantic period stuff i really enjoy especially

00:17:43.840 with like because i do a lot of portraiture um so for instance if i was going to do like one of

00:17:50.560 the ace here you know i might look up uh art that's like depicting them and that i could use

00:18:01.840 oh yeah that's uh one of our folk builders horns uh

00:18:05.840 with heimdall and the other horn on there that was really fun one to do

00:18:09.200 um and yeah i i think that that came from a piece that i saw somewhere um and um i guess the sagas

00:18:21.800 and you know uh sometimes even album covers to be honest so yeah

00:18:30.980 all right um

00:18:36.720 so this is this question is from shane it's uh for you christian is victory never sleeps

00:18:50.120 the best podcast and are you saying it or are people saying it

00:18:57.200 i won't disrespect their program by doing the trump impression but

00:19:01.080 in my opinion it's my favorite podcast

00:19:04.080 I was going to say, it's early in the program for you to have a different opinion than that,

00:19:11.820 or we may get the crook out and go to plan B.

00:19:21.120 I've been really blown away by the support we've had for this podcast, or for the, I don't know if

00:19:27.580 you call the live thing I do on YouTube podcast. But certainly the, you know, for for both the live

00:19:35.120 and the follow up audio podcast. A lot of people have been very, very supportive, gotten a lot of

00:19:41.580 really good feedback and a lot of participation. And we're very grateful for that. The next

00:19:48.380 question is, do you have theories why there are no photos of Hoskold? Christian, do you

00:20:01.180 have any theories of why there's no photos of this man?

00:20:05.240 Just because there's so little known about him kind of leads me to believe that, you

00:20:11.880 know, he wanted to enjoy the anonymity, I guess, you know, like through his work, it's

00:20:19.580 like, I would assume, you know, it's kind of similar to like a pseudonym or a pen name

00:20:24.060 or something like, you know, writing under a pen name, maybe, because like a lot of his

00:20:34.460 writings were really foundational his work with stuba

00:20:47.020 you know sarah um i think there's a lot of things that went into that i don't so first

00:20:53.980 he wasn't that jump in front of the spotlight guy from my understanding and i think that's a part of

00:21:01.340 it um i also think that we collectively have done a poor job of remembering our heroes

00:21:14.860 as it happens i think it's very easy to recognize man 50 years ago this guy was great

00:21:22.460 i wish we had pictures but at the time it's much harder to think hey let's take a picture

00:21:29.420 this guy because we're gonna we're gonna need this down the road i think that's an afterthought that

00:21:34.620 we all do unfortunately i think we don't realize that something is historic until we look at it in

00:21:43.740 hindsight and so by doing that i think we we lose a lot um another thing in order to try to research

00:21:55.340 it's very difficult john is an extremely common name and in the united kingdom the last name

00:22:03.500 hyphenated gibbs bailey is also shockingly common so without more details to go on

00:22:13.020 it is it is proven insurmountable for us to be able to find out additional information

00:22:18.780 we're going to keep digging and hopefully some new things can come to light but i guarantee you

00:22:23.660 there's pictures of them out there we just don't have those pictures and hopefully that changes

00:22:29.420 someday soon um carrie asks how's the horn coming along um well i have a few of them in progress

00:22:41.820 right now um i have one for one of our members in florida that's actually right on my desk here

00:22:53.660 um so yeah it's it's coming along you can't really see much detail right now but once the

00:23:03.420 color is added in it'll really pop so that's been a really fun one to do i'm really pleased with it

00:23:10.900 excellent well king of cheese is on tonight matt steen good to see you both on tonight

00:23:21.180 How are we doing tonight? And seeing glorious beard. So, Christian, how are you doing?

00:23:31.160 I'm doing extremely well. I've been looking forward to this for months now. So, good to see you, Tony.

00:23:41.680 My daughter is desperately trying to tell me something, and I have no idea what she's trying to say.

00:23:51.180 i don't know about a white doggy we don't own a white doggy that's okay i love you obs anyways

00:23:57.340 i'm doing fantastic um you know me i look forward to this every week um i'm doing great i appreciate

00:24:04.780 you being on uh yeah it's good to have you on here so from jason gallagher steen you are known for

00:24:15.420 your famous hand carved drinking horns and art but some people may not know of your hidden comedic

00:24:21.980 talent your impression trumps everyone else's haha thank you jason i'm glad i'm glad that uh

00:24:31.580 it always makes me laugh so much

00:24:38.860 so it wasn't nonsense it was in fact a white dog it was that dog marshall from paw patrol she's got

00:24:44.460 this thing and it lights up turns all these different colors and i happen to know where

00:24:49.340 it was so it was not nonsense i just wasn't picking up what she was laying down

00:24:58.860 all right so brandy asks uh steen you are quite uh the sharp dressed man

00:25:07.820 where do you get those awesome ties

00:25:09.500 um well uh depends this one's from amazon um but uh i do enjoy uh shopping for uh dress clothes so

00:25:26.060 sometimes i'll even go like to a thrift store you'll be able to like find some really good

00:25:31.720 stuff there. Like I just found a tire recently that has like a lion rampant pattern on it that

00:25:40.420 I was like, oh, this is really nice. And it was $2. So. You know, it's always good when you get

00:25:50.380 a deal. If you get nice stuff and a deal, you are winning. And I'm certainly a fan of that.

00:26:01.720 so we've got a uh frequently asked question by uh obsidian skull on here um

00:26:14.200 and he wants to know have i uh have i already seen any of the sasquatch people

00:26:20.920 i have no idea i don't understand this i've not watched that program apparently it's on hulu i

00:26:26.820 don't have Hulu. By your insistence, I'm going to have to do a deep dive and figure out about

00:26:33.120 Sasquatch people because I need to come with a better answer next week. And I will attempt to do

00:26:41.920 so. Nathan asks, Stan, in your own words, what does it mean to be leadership to you? What does

00:26:53.760 it take to be a folk builder in the Baldershof district and for the AFA?

00:27:03.680 To me, it's really a great honor just to be able to coordinate on things and help out. I really

00:27:11.520 enjoy taking calls with people. If we get an applicant and I can jump on it, getting to talk

00:27:19.840 to you know new people that are kind of familiar with us but really haven't talked to any of us in

00:27:26.240 person you know just seen us online or or what have you i really enjoy that uh vetting applicants um

00:27:39.040 as far as what it takes to be you know leadership like i would say you know having the time one um

00:27:46.880 And I guess just, you know, being willing to, you know, serve in that capacity, because it is a commitment. And it's one I'm glad to make.

00:28:01.340 Well, we appreciate having you. Kind of following on that a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about what it's been like to folk build in North Dakota?

00:28:14.660 uh it's a pretty sparsely populated state um how's that going and can you tell us a little bit about

00:28:20.620 that um well we've uh made contact with a few people across the dakotas and we have uh you

00:28:28.800 know had a few members now well now members a few folks come home um we literally do have more

00:28:35.640 cows than people that's a real statistic um but you know whenever i get the chance to

00:28:42.260 I guess, you know, make contact with somebody and or bump into people, you know, on the street

00:28:51.820 and they ask. It's always a really cool experience.

00:29:01.520 Good deal. What part of North Dakota are you in?

00:29:05.600 I am in eastern North Dakota, so close to the border.

00:29:12.900 yeah all right so uh ali says stehan as a hunter and chef what's the best tasting animal

00:29:26.260 i've eaten just about everything um

00:29:30.340 you know one thing i really like uh one recipe uh that i've only made i don't know probably a handful

00:29:38.180 of times is uh pulled pork out of bear is really good that is excellent also roast bear

00:29:46.980 and if you can get a young white tail deer or mule deer small one um heart is really good

00:29:55.940 tastes like uh tastes like about an expensive cut of lamb or filet excellent and the birds are good

00:30:05.700 eating too pheasants very delicious you had me at the pulled pork bear i haven't had barbecue bear

00:30:15.540 in a long time and it was delicious when i had it um have you ever had moose i have not had moose

00:30:24.180 we don't have too many moose here you are missing out moose is delicious i miss it so much i ate a

00:30:32.260 lot of it growing up with my uh with my cousins in fairbanks they were they were and still are

00:30:39.620 fantastic hunters and i was able to get a moose up there myself one time

00:30:43.620 and uh this is delicious and you can taste a huge difference um

00:30:53.620 nathan asks stan would you ever consider shaving your beard off

00:30:57.380 every once in a while i get that uh you know that inclination just like i just want to i

00:31:07.380 just want a really cool mustache and then i think better and and don't but no it's been

00:31:17.060 seven years i think since i've been clean shaven

00:31:20.100 is that a revolt against your time in the military yes 100 i did not enjoy shaving

00:31:31.540 fair enough i have i have observed and heard that from a lot of veterans

00:31:39.220 all right uh so shay asks what meal would you and this isn't specific so we'll both

00:31:47.300 give answers to this but you can go first christian what meal would you cook for 100

00:31:53.540 hungry iron here you are and will you be coming to the feast of the iron here you are

00:31:58.340 in oklahoma later this year i appreciate how you slid that in there shay

00:32:04.740 um man that's uh that's a tough one um but access to outdoor cooking i would definitely you know

00:32:16.420 roast a like a whole hog or something um if i could get an elk that would be ideal i've done

00:32:24.100 that before to feed people but you know then again that's a huge undertaking um yeah maybe some kind

00:32:32.740 of you know herbs and roasted meat i think would be really good just looking at the side chat

00:32:41.700 somebody's talking about venison biscuits and gravy is a southern classic i've never heard that

00:32:47.140 before but it sounds amazing i am certainly down to try some um you had me at biscuits and gravy

00:32:53.940 i don't you put pretty much any animal on there with biscuits and gravy and i'm i'm game for it

00:32:59.940 um you know if it's a dog or cat or rat or something don't tell me but i'll still eat it

00:33:06.820 so if i were feeding a bunch of hungry iron her yard i would feed them tropical schnitzel

00:33:16.740 because it's delicious and i'm excited about it and enthusiastic and i think they could they could

00:33:22.000 mound down some and i am planning on coming to feast of the iron yard in november in oklahoma

00:33:27.680 and everyone listening to this broadcast should as well it's a great event if it's anything like

00:33:32.760 last year. It's at a really cool campground. And our Oklahoma, our Texas, and our Missouri folk

00:33:40.680 really do a good job of hosting that and putting that on. So Brandy is willing to donate $50 to

00:33:54.180 balderhoff if and only if steen tells us if balderhoff is balderhoff is the best hawk

00:34:01.940 and if anyone else says that um i i would say that balderhoff is the best i'm sure people would uh

00:34:10.260 fight me on that but um we've got this half it's in murdoch minnesota it's the best i'm

00:34:17.940 not saying it's the best some people would say that but fifty dollars all right we we will take

00:34:27.300 it for the good of baldershoff um i'm sure there are three other groups of people that might

00:34:34.100 disagree with you on that but uh if anybody anyone in the audience or anyone hearing this

00:34:42.180 at any point in time if you haven't been to baldershoff you should do yourself a favor and

00:34:48.420 go there it is a really really special place um our folk up there and uh you know brandy who who

00:34:56.420 asked the question she personally and everyone up there has put so much love into that place so much

00:35:05.140 devotion into making that truly a temple to balder and it's beautiful and it the love they have for

00:35:15.060 that place and for balder resounds from the walls of that place it's amazing one of the coolest

00:35:22.100 things if you can be up there at an event that goes into the evening after the sun goes down

00:35:28.660 you can walk out those front doors down those steps and out by the street and look at it

00:35:32.500 it. Baldershof has really, it has really pretty multicolored stained glass. And seeing in the

00:35:44.760 dark, seeing the light shine through the doorway and out through that stained glass at Baldershof

00:35:51.080 is just such a beautiful sight. So yeah, you guys should all go to that and check it out.

00:36:02.500 Matt or Stan have you guys heard of the book The Children of Odin

00:36:09.700 um patriarch column by Patriot column I assume and if you know anything about it what do you

00:36:19.060 think of it what are your thoughts Christian yes uh I actually reread it twice while uh falling

00:36:29.140 sleep uh at night just because the uh the audiobook is really uh calmly narrated and

00:36:38.500 like just nice to listen to you know it it kind of follows the uh

00:36:46.580 the measure and like tempo of the eddas like the poetic eddas so yeah i would 100

00:36:54.900 recommend it it's really easy to dig into and it's you know um concise

00:37:05.140 so i tell you what dirty secret i have never read it

00:37:08.340 it is something that i um frequently hear very good things about though

00:37:16.740 ah next question from katie stan what's your favorite meal to make for the folk

00:37:24.900 and why and you don't get to use the one you used earlier um well one of the favorite meals that i

00:37:33.220 got i got to make was for yule uh this last year and uh book builder mike joiner came up

00:37:42.340 from uh nurtof and helped me cook it in the kitchen it turned out uh wonderful it's uh

00:37:48.900 which is essentially just a very rich beef stew served over like French mashed potatoes.

00:38:02.900 What makes the mashed potatoes French?

00:38:06.900 The amount of butter. It's astounding.

00:38:11.900 are french mashed potatoes more buttery than southern mashed potatoes i would not

00:38:20.300 see i'm from the north so i have no idea but it's uh it's it's a lot copy that

00:38:33.260 so if you want some potatoes with your butter eat mashed potatoes in france

00:38:37.260 all right

00:38:41.100 okay so this is a i assume this is some kind of an inside question but from nick so skiing to work

00:38:58.840 yeah is that because a mustang probably ain't the wisest decision somewhere where it's winter

00:39:05.240 10 months out of the year yeah there were a couple times where i did ski to work just because

00:39:12.140 my car always snowed in so uh yeah i mean it's good exercise you know if uh you enjoy that sort

00:39:20.720 of thing um i only live about 10 blocks from work and cross-country skis are you know you can kind

00:39:27.760 of slip slide along pretty easy but when it's the summer i really enjoy that car so

00:39:34.640 that's the thing nick i think you would like cross-country skiing cross-country skiing is kind

00:39:42.380 of kind of cool i like downhills more fun but as far as being able to just kind of glide along

00:39:47.820 it's been a long time but i used to do that with my dad uh growing up in alaska

00:39:51.660 um all right so uh tyler asks uh stan something i see brought up occasionally

00:40:02.740 is what, if any, ritual do you do after harvesting an animal? As an avid hunter,

00:40:10.180 is there anything special you do after the kill? I'll generally, you know, thank the animal for

00:40:22.200 its life um and you know utilize as much as i possibly can of it um

00:40:32.440 and i completely mean that um you know just like as a thank you to that that animal that you know

00:40:40.760 gave its life to feed myself and my family

00:40:45.000 excellent

00:40:49.480 you know i it's it's been too long since i've gone hunting um

00:40:59.920 been been too long talking about talking about all this and talking about eating game is really

00:41:06.640 really got me missing that king of cheese asks so stein which do you prefer hand forging or stock

00:41:21.040 removal um it depends on what i want to do if i'm making a knife um and forging is really fun

00:41:33.900 it's a lot of hard work um if you know the intended use for the knife

00:41:44.300 kind of if it seems like it go one way i'll do hand forging or you know you're gonna have to

00:41:53.420 remove some stock anyway from it from you know your forged piece so it's situational

00:42:03.900 So, guys, we're having a technical difficulty with the entropy, so I am reloading that right

00:42:13.760 now.

00:42:18.340 Bear with me, if you will, and we'll have that back up and set up for you guys.

00:42:24.240 um so that was my last question i had in my in my deal before i realized that that entropy was

00:42:37.560 down but one question i saw on the side that didn't get uh loaded by our producer or whatever

00:42:44.240 before um entropy got knocked down is what um what i'm trying to think of how it was phrased

00:42:55.920 and i apologize if you get it wrong but basically uh what's the afa's stance or what's my opinion

00:43:01.920 something along those lines about the norena society this is something we continue to get

00:43:07.600 um i don't like to come on here and speak badly about people or about groups of people

00:43:17.980 unless asked but when asked i do feel that it's it's my job to give an honest opinion on on things

00:43:27.040 also in the question it says the norena society seems to be something to the effect of all about

00:43:35.140 scholarship and not about community, whereas the AFA is a good mix of both. And again, if I'm off

00:43:42.280 on that, I apologize. So I always have to throw this out there. The founder and a big part of

00:43:52.720 the Norana Society is a gentleman named Mark Puryear. Mark is a great guy. If he was here

00:43:59.060 right now we would have a beer i would give him a hug and we would be great friends i like mark a

00:44:05.460 lot i do not like the narana society um a lot of different reasons uh so

00:44:18.900 this is a serious religion and this means the world to me this is what i've devoted my life to

00:44:33.860 religion isn't just studying about something it's active worship of our gods

00:44:43.940 um i don't feel that the norena society is built around piety i think it's just built around

00:44:53.380 scholarships it's around scholarship of ancient works and i also think that it fetishizes

00:45:05.700 obscure theories because it's cool to be the first person to have a really strange out there idea

00:45:13.700 and so i think that they often make the exception the rule i think it's really confusing um

00:45:29.540 studying no amount of studying about something makes you a participant

00:45:33.940 i think at best it makes you a expert on at worst it makes you a stalker somewhere in the middle it

00:45:45.740 makes you a fan of but actually engaging in the gift cycle with our gods and being in a worshipful

00:45:53.680 relationship with our gods and our ancestors that's what makes you a practitioner of our faith

00:46:00.920 and it's a really important distinction the other thing and I don't know if this is going to make

00:46:07.640 sense or not I think me and Svan have covered it differently in different versions of this or

00:46:12.660 episodes of this but so let's take science for instance science is an attempt to explain reality

00:46:26.980 Science is beholden to reality. Reality is not beholden to science. So whatever the current

00:46:35.160 scientific climate says is real doesn't have an effect on what's actually real or not. It's just

00:46:43.720 our best attempt at this time to explain or conceptualize what's real. In the Norena Society,

00:46:51.760 i think it works the other way around to us in the afa it's about our gods and building a

00:46:58.960 relationship with them if scholarship helps us to better understand them fantastic

00:47:07.040 but our gods are what's important piety to them is what's important and that affects how we

00:47:13.840 interpret the data when we read lore or when we look at archaeology we start from a position of

00:47:20.960 of these gods are our gods. We love them and worship them. Now let's try to better understand

00:47:27.000 them through the stories of our ancestors. In the Norena Society, it appears very much,

00:47:32.680 this is our scholarship, so let's make the gods fit in the boxes that we've made for them.

00:47:41.360 Over time, that difference makes all of the difference in the world. So no, the Astro Folk

00:47:47.420 Assembly is in opposition to the Norena Society and thinks it's harmful to Alcetru.

00:47:56.700 Carl asks, music, what is Stian's musical vibe?

00:48:05.100 Well, honestly, a little bit of everything, but primarily very esoteric black metal.

00:48:13.420 Well, that's something I used to do very, like, it's one of my main hobbies is drumming

00:48:31.920 and then also collecting records that are kind of rare and obscure that really, I think

00:48:41.120 I'm about the only one in the state that likes them so a lot of that I used to play in a country

00:48:49.620 band too so I got really into country and some southern rock that I really enjoy I really really

00:48:57.340 enjoy folk music as well. I'm talking like American folk music. That's pretty much it.

00:49:14.220 And some silly Japanese anime intro remixes.

00:49:19.740 is so so i'm reading over in the side comments and again if i'm a little bit out of the loop

00:49:30.380 please forgive me uh entropy dropped out on me so i'm picking up here and uh cow guy i'm not sure

00:49:40.140 if you are the one who asked the question about the norena society but he says i've studied

00:49:45.420 abrahamic text and read the entire bible and am a pious pagan it is interesting to study without

00:49:51.500 being of that religion i don't know if it connects or not but i think this goes to a follow-up on the

00:50:00.300 norena thing if you were to want to and you say you're a pious pagan so that's that's fine but

00:50:07.660 for someone who wanted to study christianity

00:50:11.340 just reading a scholar's treatise on the historicity of biblical texts

00:50:24.120 that teaches you something but it's not learning what the essence of Christianity is

00:50:32.520 to do that you would study that practice and how Christianity is practiced and what Christians say

00:50:39.400 about christianity and their relationship to christ and so if somebody wanted to learn about

00:50:44.840 also true i think the norena society is dangerous because it speaks from a position of authority but

00:50:51.400 it's 20 people who there's not evidence that they actually practice our faith and it's their

00:50:59.960 scholastic theories not devotional work if that clarifies so we have a next question here question

00:51:07.880 for you both what are some big struggles that you faced in your faith and how have you dealt

00:51:14.120 with it uh christian what what are some big struggles that you've faced in also true and

00:51:19.560 how have you dealt with it um well uh on one hand just a little bit of you know doubt um

00:51:29.480 self-doubt you know when things weren't going well you know i wasn't quite sure i was doing

00:51:35.000 the right things and or practicing in the right way um and uh second criticism from you know

00:51:42.920 people that don't like us and like to say nasty things about us so other than that um it's you know

00:51:53.880 been amazing and it's really changed my life so you know i'm very thankful for it

00:52:05.000 You know, I'm trying to think because I owe you guys a good answer on this, but I don't.

00:52:18.940 I haven't faced a lot of struggles, um, in Ausatru, uh, at least as far as I haven't

00:52:30.140 encountered a lot of negativity or rejection from people. I haven't, or at least not that

00:52:38.640 has affected me or been a big deal. I haven't had, you know, any issues with, uh, my faith

00:52:48.220 in the gods or my faith in Ausatru. I think that my struggles within Ausatru have been

00:52:58.940 personal with people and with situations. And I'm in a fairly unique spot with that

00:53:09.100 in leadership for a very long time and as the Ausheri Gauthier for

00:53:18.220 coming up on seven years here this summer. Time goes by really fast.

00:53:27.240 For a long time, when I was a member of the AFA leadership team, but I was a ways down on the

00:53:37.720 totem pole, I had a lot of things that I really wanted to do that were burning inside of me with

00:53:43.540 my faith that I wanted to see accomplished. And I wasn't in a position at that time to accomplish

00:53:50.600 those or to move forward as much as I wanted. And that was difficult. And, you know, there's a lot

00:54:01.940 of, man, if I was calling the shots, I'd do this different and that different and this other thing

00:54:06.240 different. But I was in a position where it wasn't up to me to make those choices. And that was hard.

00:54:11.800 and I had to sit back and hope that those who were in charge

00:54:16.880 were making those choices or would listen to me when I would advise them.

00:54:21.960 And I guarantee there are people listening to this right now

00:54:24.920 that feel the exact same way about me, and I understand that.

00:54:27.880 I think that comes from a place of deep devotion

00:54:31.600 and wanting so bad to do things right and being enthusiastic.

00:54:36.340 And so I don't fault anybody for that.

00:54:38.560 And I also know that once I once I sat in the big chair, a lot of the ideas that I had before when I didn't face those same pressures and those same things, and when that much of, you know, the map was not revealed to me, you know, became obvious why things weren't done necessarily the way I wanted to sometimes.

00:55:00.260 uh one of the other things within also true that's been very hard for me and again i'm gonna

00:55:06.340 i may be in a really unique position on this is dealing

00:55:13.300 there's no way that you can do my job right without being deeply

00:55:23.300 connected and deeply deeply personally devoted to what you're doing

00:55:27.380 um there's not professional distance this is about friendships and it's about family and so

00:55:37.160 you make relationships with people and you build things with people and you feel like they're your

00:55:42.740 friends and they're your family and all too often and I think this is a symptom of the soul sickness

00:55:49.780 of our folk and the world that we live in a very small difference and all of a sudden your best

00:55:56.960 friends become your worst enemies and that's been really hard i mentioned this on previous shows

00:56:03.280 it's very you know every time we lose a member it personally affects me every time we lose a member

00:56:10.160 that was someone that i worked with and that i felt like was a friend of mine it affects me even

00:56:15.040 more and watching the effect it has on my wife has been hard for me um dealing with those things i

00:56:23.200 I just, you know, the first way when I wanted to get things done and they weren't done just the way I wanted them, I didn't pick up and leave.

00:56:33.440 I stuck around and in the capacity that I had, I tried to make things the best I could make them, work my way up the chain and continue to do the very best I could and to trust those above me were doing their best.

00:56:48.220 and that helped me on that as far as dealing with the relationships and the friendships that

00:56:52.860 have fractured over seemingly trivial things still working on that one um i've i think remaining

00:57:02.840 the okay so this is kind of a baldershoff episode so you know heeding the the motto of

00:57:12.180 Waldershof, being guided by True North, keeping my focus on our gods and the things that really

00:57:21.620 matter and just pushing forward. And that has helped me deal with it. And the other thing that

00:57:28.700 helps me deal with any kind of angst or disappointment or frustration is throwing myself,

00:57:36.920 you know redoubling my efforts on making stuff happen and doing things for

00:57:42.840 the advancement of house of truth it gives me something to focus on that's positive

00:57:48.040 and it helps me comfort myself with tangible results of success and of doing

00:57:55.560 and so i think that's how i cope with those things

00:57:57.800 ah anna asks are you a lefsa maker stein i am not um my family however uh would always make

00:58:12.440 lefsa around yule and uh those are my favorites growing up here in the northland

00:58:18.520 but i have never made it myself although i do enjoy it

00:58:22.840 all right

00:58:31.000 so question what is your vision about sigerheim and self-sufficiency mainly about trade between

00:58:39.640 similar communities i think that's directed at me um

00:58:44.680 um so I think that just to put it out there I have no illusions about any degree of self-sufficiency

00:58:56.980 um none of Sigurheim is geared towards self-sufficiency as far as food as far as production

00:59:06.220 what it is geared towards in terms of self-sufficiency is having a community

00:59:13.340 that's able to care for the needs of members of that community.

00:59:20.820 I don't think we're going to grow our own food. I don't think we're going to produce our own

00:59:25.260 textiles, do any of those things. But what I do think is out there when one of our members falls

00:59:31.440 on some hard times, they're going to be surrounded by family that love them, that will feed them and

00:59:35.980 take care of them and help them make it through. So, you know, living paycheck to paycheck or

00:59:42.640 finding themselves in hard financial times will not be an existential crisis to any individual

00:59:49.620 or any family because there we'll look after each other and we'll have each other's backs

00:59:55.300 and take care of each other. That's the dream. And I think that is the more realistic to me

01:00:03.160 more accessible to me version of self-sufficiency that is the dream of sigurheim quite frankly you

01:00:10.520 know sick 70 acres sounds like a whole lot it's not especially not when so much of that is taken

01:00:17.960 up by hills um there's only so much that can be done but i want to make sure that we take care of

01:00:26.680 each other as best we can and if situations get worse in the future we'll adjust accordingly as

01:00:34.920 those things come up as far as trading between similar communities again i don't think that's

01:00:41.720 necessarily a thing if there is communities that share our values that do stuff that we need then

01:00:49.800 purchasing from them might be a very realistic thing we'd look towards doing um finding ways

01:00:56.840 to support their uh their endeavors and you know all things being equal to purchase products or

01:01:02.600 services from those communities would be a really good thing that i think we would like to do

01:01:08.280 i hope that answers your question um sarah asks steen is margaritaville now open for the season

01:01:19.800 Margaritaville is not yet open for the season.

01:01:22.660 I have a lot of work to do on the house this spring,

01:01:25.260 but hopefully sometime this summer when the weather is real nice,

01:01:30.940 we'll get everything set back up.

01:01:35.540 So, yeah.

01:01:36.940 So give us more.

01:01:38.700 For everybody who's not in on the inside joke there,

01:01:41.940 break that down for us.

01:01:45.020 It's kind of an inside joke between myself and my fiance

01:01:48.480 say that we are um rabid Jimmy Buffett fans uh because we find it quite funny and not I'm not

01:01:57.940 saying that I do not dislike Jimmy Buffett I very much enjoy Jimmy Buffett but oh you double down on

01:02:05.240 um yeah that that uh i suppose we'll leave you on for the rest of the show um

01:02:24.280 katie asks when can we expect you down in the deep south it's a fine question christian when

01:02:31.080 you when are you going south hopefully soon uh yeah great to see you guys again

01:02:42.760 yeah you were supposed to go down to uh njordshoff for uh

01:02:49.320 charming of the plow and and unfortunately the weather was not cooperative

01:02:53.960 yeah i was uh really disappointed uh to not make it um

01:03:04.120 the uh protocol for my airport is um you have to arrive there hours before because they have

01:03:13.880 to de-ice the plane and take off so i did not take that into account and uh yeah couldn't make it

01:03:22.120 really disappointed well so

01:03:27.320 may not be the deepest part of the south but it's certainly the south

01:03:31.960 are you planning to make it to siger bloat at sigerheim this year

01:03:36.280 i'm gonna try that would be really awesome to come down and see the property

01:03:41.400 yeah we would love to have you down there i'm so excited about it i would love to

01:03:45.640 to get you out there and show it off to you and everybody else for that matter

01:03:49.480 that's going to be july 22nd um scowl and hale who is stein what role does he play in the afa

01:04:03.880 so i think you're the best one to act to answer that question christian

01:04:09.780 who are you and what role do you play in the house true folk assembly

01:04:13.540 um well my uh full legal name is christian a a penner um i usually just go by steen because i

01:04:24.780 for obvious reasons i don't really care for the name christian um but anyway

01:04:30.780 um my role in the afa is an apprentice folk builder at balder south district um

01:04:40.340 and uh yeah that's uh pretty much it you know help out with whatever i can we're gonna have

01:04:51.560 a work day coming up um this weekend so if you want to attend to that help us help us out with

01:04:59.720 and projects uh get in touch with uh our folk builders

01:05:08.680 so that's so that's a weak sauce humble answer um

01:05:14.280 i want to brag well i'm saying so

01:05:21.400 christian is a lot more than that um he's he's a folk builder for the district so his afa

01:05:27.720 responsibilities he's a folk builder for the district but what else he does is he helps a lot

01:05:32.200 with afa art stuff and he's got a lot of art talents the horn carving stuff is a very obvious

01:05:40.440 one and he carves a lot of horns that have raised a lot of money at our hoff auctions

01:05:46.440 he made this a dumbla horn for

01:05:49.960 uh fall fest last year that was really impressive and it was so neat and one of the things that he

01:05:59.380 does that's really cool is he fills a lot of the negative space with uh with stippling and detail

01:06:06.940 so there's so much texture to the horns they're really amazing um but no I I'm bothering him all

01:06:17.580 the time about little art and construction projects, some of which he knows how to do,

01:06:22.140 some of which he doesn't. I'm still going to bother you about that flag thing because I think

01:06:25.100 you know more about that than you let on. But no. So the other thing is,

01:06:32.660 and I look forward to getting to know him a little bit more. I met him for the first time

01:06:39.460 last year and I've enjoyed talking to him. But one of the things is everybody in and around

01:06:46.360 Baldershoff just loves the hell out of him. And everybody talks about his sense of humor,

01:06:53.280 how dedicated to this stuff he is. And he has made a profound impression on all the people

01:07:04.700 that have gotten to know him there. And that's something that we hear time and again. Our chat

01:07:10.420 is filled with uh christian fans over there uh not not the jewish zombie but fans of uh

01:07:17.940 of christian our folk builder and uh yeah so and he's he's a hunter he's an amazing chef

01:07:25.300 his house is full of taxidermy i don't know how much of that he uh

01:07:29.860 he is responsible for or not i assume quite a bit of it um

01:07:34.740 Um, but yeah, real solid guy and a guy that, uh, we're very glad we have, and a guy that

01:07:41.580 a lot of us have our eye on for, um, becoming a Goethe in the future.

01:07:46.920 I don't know if that's something he wants, but that's something a lot of us want, myself

01:07:49.960 included.

01:07:52.260 Well, thank you, sir.

01:07:53.220 That's very kind.

01:07:55.220 And to the taxidermy question, it's a bit of a hobby.

01:08:00.120 So, yeah, a lot of the, you know, carving materials and stuff that I get come from the same kind of sources that I can get taxidermy from.

01:08:16.440 So, if I find a good deal on something, you know, I'll pick it up.

01:08:20.620 It's something I don't have yet.

01:08:22.600 So, yeah.

01:08:24.720 so

01:08:27.600 Nathan asks

01:08:29.540 Stan are you familiar

01:08:31.320 with one arm push ups

01:08:33.220 I am indeed familiar with one arm

01:08:35.740 one arm push ups and I

01:08:37.760 don't think that I could

01:08:39.520 even come close

01:08:41.900 to beating him on those

01:08:43.100 so

01:08:44.280 remember the first time that I met Nate

01:08:47.740 I was impressed with

01:08:49.180 how good of

01:08:51.520 shape he's in

01:08:53.460 I was like guys

01:08:54.720 checked so that's a that's a pretty high bar so uh another those of you following this another uh

01:09:02.320 one of our folk builders and a guy that uh is soon to become one of our gothar is nathan erlandson

01:09:12.160 and first the guy's in ridiculous shape i think he's probably in the best shape of anybody in

01:09:17.840 in the Astro Folk Assembly, no homo, but good looking dude in real good shape. And he is a fan

01:09:27.300 of challenging folks to one-arm pushups. I have never seen someone capable of doing more one-arm

01:09:34.740 pushups. I've gone out there and tried. I can hold my own. I'd do all right, but it's not at his

01:09:41.200 levels so i think that's a pretty high bar and then there's uh some members of afa leadership

01:09:48.160 and they know who they are who uh cannot do a one-arm push-up and that really needs to be remedied

01:09:59.280 putting it out there um so brandy says steen you often hail leadership of the afa ensemble

01:10:07.680 can you share with us who have been your biggest influences um firstly one of my uh

01:10:16.880 closest friends and one of the first people that i really hung out with um

01:10:25.280 like when i first decided to start being active and you know really join in

01:10:30.640 is uh one of our folk builders cormac jamie allen um he's a spectacular guy and he's such a

01:10:37.920 you know solid example of what it means to be you know leadership um secondly the first

01:10:46.080 to ask the question i'm maybe biased because they're both in my kindred but yes and also

01:10:55.200 Nathan Erlinson, Jason Gallagher. Definitely. And yourself, sir.

01:11:04.300 Oh, no, I appreciate that. Jason Gallagher is one of the most inspirational people we have.

01:11:12.960 Jason is awesome. If any of you out there get a chance to meet him,

01:11:17.780 do yourself a favor and just soak that time up he is such a great guy he's so hospitable

01:11:25.200 he's hilarious um really good friend of mine uh jason gallagher is an amazing amazing man

01:11:33.940 if you get a chance to meet him you you will be better for it uh also from brandy steen how long

01:11:42.080 you've been playing drums and how did you get so damn good i've been playing drums since

01:11:52.080 ninth grade in high school so about 15 years sometimes more consistently than others especially

01:12:00.320 like being in a band you know uh playing a lot of uh a lot of live stuff um

01:12:14.720 you know just that rehearsal time like as with any instrument like if you put 10 000

01:12:24.320 hours into anything you'll be an expert at it so you know it's a it's a huge time commitment

01:12:30.000 um but very rewarding um when you can see yourself improve and be able to do stuff you

01:12:37.680 weren't able to do before especially with the kind of music that i play it's very technical

01:12:42.480 very difficult uh drawing um that and also lessons you know lessons are key you know um

01:12:53.040 Um, having to go back and unlearn bad habits that you develop, um, with, you know, and

01:12:59.860 it's like a proper instructor really helps.

01:13:03.120 So I guess that's how, but I will take this time to, uh, plug the fact that Baldur's

01:13:10.280 now has its very own drum set.

01:13:13.300 So what I'd like to do is fall test, very faxy for Baldur's ball, is maybe try and

01:13:22.620 put together some kind of live music you know folks want to bring their guitars or instruments

01:13:27.260 try and keep it acoustic and you know just kind of get a little bit of the jam going so folks can

01:13:36.240 dance around and enjoy themselves so reach out to me if you are interested in that so

01:13:43.320 i think that'd be real fun all right so at fall fest uh or i'm sorry at fray faxie this year

01:13:51.760 you are my guy when i need a drummer to help me uh our law speaker alan turnage has informed me

01:13:57.100 that that i drum like a white man um and i think i think that is a fair assessment of our race

01:14:05.080 perhaps i i lack the see my trouble is doing two things at once a lot of the time i like to

01:14:10.820 first incorporating a drum into ritual i think is really for a lot of reasons i'll be serious for a

01:14:20.240 second um incorporating a drum into ritual is really powerful in that if you keep that beat

01:14:30.380 going it's a big tool to help focus people on the ritual especially if you have a large group of

01:14:37.720 people one of the things um when people are very used to and this is a lot of our comfort zone

01:14:46.440 where a lot of us came from i myself am used to doing rituals with you know 10 people

01:14:54.440 a 10-man ritual and a hundred man ritual one of the biggest differences

01:15:00.200 is it the way we do ritual it takes so much longer to go around for that many people

01:15:08.020 and maintaining focus is very hard and it's not a reflection on the piety of the people there

01:15:16.200 um but the human mind just is what it is we you know man my leg hurts man i'm tired my back hurts

01:15:25.600 hope he hurries up what do i gotta all right man i gotta go home tonight and then i gotta pick up

01:15:31.280 you know this and that at the store or what i hear kids in the background what are they doing

01:15:36.960 is my kid getting in trouble all of these things go on in our brain when you can focus

01:15:43.040 your senses on what's going on and at quiet times and um low lower energy or lower frequency points

01:15:51.680 in the uh in the ritual having a drum beat there to focus on it does it does wonders but my thing

01:15:59.840 is i have trouble keeping a good beat i have trouble keeping a good beat in general and then

01:16:04.960 i have trouble drumming keeping the beat while i'm performing the ritual so i always always need help

01:16:11.440 of some good drummers the reason i took to doing it myself is unfortunately i get guys that say they

01:16:16.720 can drum and keep up with it but out of not wanting to disrespect me or not wanting to mess

01:16:22.800 me up they keep the drumming you know almost silent and i need a pretty vigorous drumming i

01:16:28.880 can i can raise my energy to where the drums at but it's hard if the drumming is too low

01:16:35.760 it's probably more than you guys really wanted to know about my ritual uh drumming situation but

01:16:41.840 But no joke, I'm probably going to bother Christian come fray faxing on that.

01:16:48.760 So our next question, don't be a stalker of our gods, be a gift giver and receiver.

01:16:54.720 Am I understanding that right?

01:16:57.140 One hundred percent. You are understanding that perfectly.

01:17:02.060 Scholarship is should all be done in an effort to better build a real relationship.

01:17:09.220 Okay, I say this. By an Ausitruar, scholarship should be done with the whole purpose of to strengthen and build a better relationship with our gods and to better understand them.

01:17:23.160 Somebody who really is just a fan or a scholar of Ausitru, by all means, their motivations are very different.

01:17:31.080 But if you are also true, you're defining yourself by your loyalty to the Aesir.

01:17:37.320 That means you having a living, actual relationship with our gods and your deeds and your life working towards their goals and their their benefit.

01:17:50.040 It means being, you know, united with them in purpose.

01:17:54.300 so by all means yeah don't be creepy and sneak around the edges and you know dig through their

01:18:02.080 trash and I say that I love our lore and I love archaeology and I love history and I think we all

01:18:08.840 do and you know I've read the same sources that so many of you have and if there's new ones or

01:18:15.200 ones I haven't read I I try hard to bone up on that all of that is very important but all of it

01:18:21.460 is masturbatory if it doesn't end up with you building a relationship and actually worshiping

01:18:29.320 our gods and being part of that gift cycle. So yes, study up, but reach out and meet them.

01:18:38.480 Extend your hand to them. Extend offerings and prayers. Build a relationship with our gods.

01:18:45.960 Strengthen that through research and through knowledge, but build that relationship because

01:18:51.380 that means everything. We would, we would still be Alcetruar if all of a sudden we didn't have

01:18:59.900 any of that lore. If we started fresh tomorrow with no lore and just us and reaching out to the

01:19:08.380 divine, we would build relationships with our gods and we would carry on our faith.

01:19:13.580 we would develop you know differently than we are able to with the knowledge that we have

01:19:22.160 but our relationship with the gods transcends book learning um it's so much more than that

01:19:29.760 I would just like to add that um also it really becomes real to you when you get out and you

01:19:38.760 really, with full, you know, intention, really practice it in real life, you know, otherwise,

01:19:47.340 like some people, it just, you know, it doesn't really mean anything to you without actually

01:19:55.820 doing it, you know, like, I remember when I went to last year's Free Faxy,

01:20:08.760 Um, I was driving in from another town and, uh, after the welcome of the gods that we

01:20:18.080 do at Aldersoft, um, there was three rainbows and I was like, oh wow, that's, you know,

01:20:28.400 that's very significant.

01:20:29.580 Uh, it's like when you start, you know, meeting new people, making those connections and,

01:20:34.360 you know, putting yourself out there.

01:20:35.960 so it really becomes real then

01:20:39.080 so the next question

01:20:45.160 have any of you guys read um

01:20:50.220 vargan his wife's book series on paganism explained uh this would also include as one book

01:20:58.340 reflections on european mythology and polytheism what do you think of them

01:21:03.800 christian have you read any of those any of those works um i have read some of them um

01:21:14.160 paganism explained one is okay he kind of has some wonky ideas in there and

01:21:21.600 i think that he is more of like an atheist than anything he wants to believe in the gods as

01:21:28.240 concepts and you know constructs when they're not um and uh see you know it like i don't think that

01:21:43.840 he really uh believes in it um he has some wonky ideas i guess i i don't know

01:21:51.840 yeah so i'm i'm going to be completely honest i have not read those books i am familiar with i

01:22:07.120 have heard it has been shared to me much of things that varg has said over the years and things that

01:22:16.720 they have written about but again i'm not getting them first person so i apologize if i get any

01:22:21.760 of it wrong or if any of it is excuse me misrepresentative in any way my understanding

01:22:30.320 is that too uh it sounds very much like they are pagan in the sense that they are anti-christianity

01:22:42.720 not in the sense that they have a genuine belief in relationship with our gods

01:22:47.200 It very much seems like they like a folklore version of atheism. And that's not what we do. And I don't think that's fair to project modern atheism upon our ancestors by trying to denigrate their faith, because you don't have faith of your own.

01:23:15.580 And I don't think it's necessarily evil intentioned, but don't stand on the backs of very devout people and devalue their faith in an effort to explain or project your own atheism.

01:23:35.420 And I think that's what he does a lot of the time.

01:23:38.760 I think that he likes attention.

01:23:41.000 He likes focusing everything about him and his ideas.

01:23:44.700 And he does it at the expense of the faith of generations of our ancestors that had a very good relationship with our gods.

01:24:00.180 From Katie, what is the daily practice that you would like to share?

01:24:05.420 Christian, what daily practice do you do for Alistair that you would like to share with folks?

01:24:12.000 My kind of daily thing, just me.

01:24:16.460 You know, I will, before I leave for work, most days, I will go and, you know, give my

01:24:26.720 I call through something and ask for success and protection and, you know, to see me about my day so I can have, you know, be victorious in my pursuits, you know, with my job.

01:24:41.940 I have a pretty stressful job. So, you know, it helps me to start my day like that.

01:24:50.700 you know, usually when I see the sun, especially in the winter, um, you know, I'll greet, I'll greet

01:24:57.380 the sun. Um, and, you know, um, in the evening, uh, my fiance and I will, you know, do something

01:25:10.680 together it's just just us and you know uh you know say our thanks you know do a little bloat

01:25:24.440 you know right at usually 9 p.m um and uh you know

01:25:32.360 just like little daily things remind you about you know the importance of ritual and

01:25:40.440 your faith and you know keeps you pious and devoted i think

01:25:50.440 also what are you sipping on do you have a drink there with you christian yes i do um this is a

01:25:58.280 summit brewing company from minnesota i can't see that yeah saga after the gauze ipa it's very

01:26:07.960 hoppy and delicious so i am i am also drinking an ipa uh i'm drinking an atomic torpedo imperial

01:26:17.320 ipa from sierra nevada i'm actually drinking my second of these and i think it's pretty good i'm

01:26:24.840 growing to like the hop juice um i wish craft brewers made stuff that wasn't ipas perhaps one day

01:26:37.960 Excellent. Thank you very much, Sterling, for asking a question about the hero who is the focus, initially, of today's broadcast.

01:26:51.960 As a hero to our folk, which of the ten noble virtues does John Gibbs Bailey best represent?

01:27:01.600 what say you christian um if i had to give a bad answer it'd be all of them but my

01:27:08.080 what i had written down was definitely courage industriousness and perseverance um you know just

01:27:14.960 for him to kind of uh be brave in like an environment that was extremely extremely christian

01:27:26.640 in the time he was alive, and, you know, do the work of, I guess, you could call it folk

01:27:37.380 building, you know, bring folks together, and just perseverance for doing it for what

01:27:44.820 seemed like, you know, most or whole of his life, you know, that's very inspiring to me.

01:27:51.660 Absolutely.

01:27:56.640 Fidelity and perseverance, staying loyal to our gods and our folk and doing it for so long without, without all this that we have today.

01:28:14.900 will uh one of the things that that stands out to me and we one of the only sources of

01:28:29.060 information that we have about john gibbs bailey is an article written

01:28:36.340 written by the odenic right or for the odenic right um a number of years ago

01:28:44.740 but it it talked about how and this this is funny to me because i used to do this as well

01:28:52.360 so he'd ask folks you know how many members do you think we have

01:28:56.940 and he'd be you know he'd smile to himself or he'd be amused because everybody thinks there's

01:29:04.340 more than there are. And I used to do that too. I'd ask, you know, and so whenever anybody asked

01:29:09.660 me the, there was a time I was a lot more protective with our member number, but truth

01:29:14.960 is one of our values. So I've been, you know, I put that out there. As of this second, our member

01:29:22.880 number is 987 um and i have honesty on that's really important but i'd ask people how many do

01:29:35.760 you think very commonly they would think you know tens of thousands and we will get there someday

01:29:45.920 but i know our reality is much smaller than tens of thousands right now

01:29:49.760 in his time i think that his uh the odinic right of that day and you know they've largely

01:29:58.880 disappeared today but of his day you know i if it was triple digits i'd be surprised um

01:30:08.960 and this i mean this is something he was asking folks in 1980s i if it was triple digits i'd be

01:30:14.540 surprised. He maintained his faith in our gods from the 1930s until the end of his life, which

01:30:23.740 was at least the 1980s. Without the Hoffs that we have today, without all of this amazing community

01:30:35.320 that we're surrounded by, without all of the luxuries, all of the things that we've built

01:30:40.960 on the backs of men like him to have for us and for our children. He maintained his faith

01:30:49.200 through all of that. And that speaks volumes. We are so fortunate to have what we have.

01:30:59.360 And it's because men like him were willing to maintain this and keep this flame going,

01:31:06.280 even when they were essentially alone in doing so. And that's what we want to really honor

01:31:14.280 when celebrating him as a day of remembrance. Our next question, did the AFA have the need

01:31:25.960 to place a need stand sometime in its history?

01:31:32.520 um I am unaware of the AFA actually constructing a knifing pole at any point in time for those of

01:31:47.640 you who may not be familiar uh knifing pole is something that in uh in ancient Alcitru times

01:31:55.260 they would construct often with the carcass of a horse certainly the skull of a horse

01:32:03.560 and they would aim it at a person that was dishonorable and somebody they wished to curse

01:32:13.140 and this would be an ever-present talisman to focus ill fortune or shame upon a person

01:32:20.760 that was shameful. And I don't believe, I'm unaware of a time that an actual knifing pole

01:32:32.120 was raised by the Astro Folk Assembly. There have been times to where curses have been cast by

01:32:41.020 members of AFA leadership towards people that have done wrong by them in the past. I am aware

01:32:48.800 that that has occurred. So there have been magical or esoteric efforts towards people

01:33:00.280 who are shameful. I think it's important to me to be open on here, but a lot of stories

01:33:07.280 aren't necessarily mine to tell. And I think when it comes to magical practices, going

01:33:14.080 too deep into you know esoterics that other people have engaged in wouldn't be appropriate

01:33:20.880 for for me to do but yeah um

01:33:27.600 that kind you know magical

01:33:33.200 sending of negative things towards uh shameful people has occurred in the past

01:33:38.480 question Stan and Matt how important is exercise for physical and mental health and can you inspire

01:33:54.480 me to go to the gym this evening I'm tired Christian go ahead and start well firstly I

01:34:00.880 don't know if you can hear it but I apologize for my puppy who's currently found a skews ball

01:34:05.200 um but uh yeah um you know getting it in when you need it uh especially if you're feeling a little

01:34:15.040 down get getting that blood flowing um really helps um so yeah i'd encourage you to get to the

01:34:22.640 gym it's it's it's definitely important i used to be uh much heavier and uh put a lot of work

01:34:32.200 in my diet and exercise and i'm very pleased where i'm at you know now so yeah yeah it's definitely

01:34:41.320 important yeah um exercise is super important to physical and mental health

01:34:50.200 it is you know in a way your diet and exercise is perhaps the

01:34:59.400 most accessible way that you have to better yourself in an immediate way

01:35:08.340 if i'm feeling like a fat slug that needs to make something better

01:35:14.580 i can get in my car assuming it's open and my gym has uh relatively short hours but i can get in the

01:35:23.340 i can get in the car i can go to the gym i can go in there i can put in the effort and i can feel

01:35:29.560 like i've accomplished something and that's a very um immediate thing that we can all do

01:35:36.680 to make some things better in our lives

01:35:39.440 it's essential it's huge for me I work out every single day and I don't necessarily advise that

01:35:52.860 everyone has to work out every single day for their own people get on here and one of the

01:35:58.360 things about working out with diet and exercise almost every theory of exercise almost every diet

01:36:04.120 is good. If you're taking somebody who's out of shape and they do any of those things,

01:36:09.240 if they stick with them, they all are good. Now, almost all, some people have some really

01:36:14.640 ridiculous ideas, but generally they're all good. And there's going to be people that say,

01:36:22.080 you know, taking days off for recovery is really important. I believe life throws you those days

01:36:27.300 enough and you'll get enough of those. But even if it doesn't help physically, it helps me mentally

01:36:33.660 to go to the gym to be around other people who are excelling and doing great things and to be

01:36:40.540 around those people daily is really important to me um so yeah i think uh i think that's that's

01:36:50.160 essential and it makes you better it makes you look better but we talked about the soul complex

01:36:58.400 last week spawning myself it makes you hold yourself better if you feel proud of yourself

01:37:06.460 for accomplishing and for going to the gym you stand taller you hold your head higher you stick

01:37:13.020 your chest out you feel good about who you are and how you look and that projects to the world

01:37:19.800 it's extremely important i don't care if you're tired get up and go to the gym once you start

01:37:25.140 going you're going to be a lot less tired and you're going to be glad that you did

01:37:28.560 i've never pushed myself to go to the gym and then regretted it i have often regretted times that i

01:37:34.320 you know whipped out on going to the gym when i should have if that makes any difference um

01:37:44.480 are there any afa members in latin america not nearly as much as i'd like i want there to be

01:37:51.760 afa members everywhere that uh that we have our folk that aryan people exist we do have one

01:38:02.000 member right now in south america i would love for that to get bigger and better but currently

01:38:07.040 we only have that one south american member and then i assume this is a follow-up question communes

01:38:14.560 as if you know are there communities in south america as i said we only have that one member

01:38:19.920 but we would love to see communities and kindreds is what we'd call them in the afa developed in

01:38:24.880 south america so chelsea asks uh chelsea fan rather asks are there afa members in france

01:38:38.240 there are so i'm pulling up my membership map right now

01:38:42.720 because it's cool and i like to do it we have two french members currently including um

01:38:52.960 you know actually we have three french members including our folk builder in france

01:38:59.600 stefan pompagnac is in i believe the normandy area of france so we are absolutely trying to

01:39:08.640 build our french membership we have a lot of european members and we would love more french

01:39:12.960 members if you are interested if you are in france if you know french uh french men or

01:39:18.720 french women that ought to be involved in the astro folk assembly please direct them to s

01:39:25.600 pompignac at runestone.org and uh our producer nick rice is already on it and he threw it up

01:39:35.200 on the screen i appreciate that that's excellent uh king of cheese so stein how did you find your

01:39:45.440 way to the worship of the gods and when was that how long have you been an aussituror

01:39:50.400 um well kind of funny um when i started to you know look at more um music and art that you know

01:40:06.660 has a germanic focus with a lot of um you know some of the design elements that i really

01:40:16.060 appreciate i was like okay so like why you know so for instance why did the vikings dress a certain

01:40:23.740 way why you know the thing that they left on runestones you know what was the significance

01:40:29.260 behind that because like you know i thought that was really cool especially with you know the carving

01:40:37.660 so yeah going through and reading all of that like all the lore and you know

01:40:46.060 And finding out about how to practice spiritually was really kind of an awakening.

01:40:59.600 So I want to say 2020, I think I really, you know, buckled down and said, you know what, let's actually really give this a try and see if it works.

01:41:14.320 And it did immediately, you know, immediately felt that that real spiritual connection.

01:41:24.840 And I feel very blessed.

01:41:29.780 So, yeah.

01:41:37.340 All right.

01:41:38.580 um carl asks what tools are needed this weekend at baldersoff

01:41:44.580 um well if you don't have anything i mean just bring yourself you know we can always

01:41:55.060 find a way to put you to work there's plenty to do um i know we are going to have some cleaning

01:42:01.620 there is you know usually always cleaning um i have a few projects that i'm working on um

01:42:12.180 but i think i have all the tools i need if you just have you know basic basic toolkit drill uh

01:42:19.780 screwdrivers hammers nails maybe i'm not quite all sure what left there is to do but

01:42:27.780 But, yeah, you could either reach out to me or Mr. Nathan Erlandson, who he would actually probably have a better idea.

01:42:40.080 And we look forward to meeting you this weekend.

01:42:45.100 So it looks like it worked.

01:42:46.780 We got a gentleman that was wavering to decide he is going to the gym today.

01:42:51.380 If you do, put in your earpieces and continue listening to Victory Never Sleeps, and it will add weight to your maxes.

01:43:07.220 All right.

01:43:08.580 Shay asks, what is the best breed of dog based on your biases?

01:43:14.680 Christian, you first.

01:43:15.820 uh well kelly probably would not agree with me but i do enjoy newfoundland as uh

01:43:26.940 large and smelly and stinky and slobberies they are they're very nice dogs um very kid friendly

01:43:33.980 um we recently got a german shepherd puppy who is very energetic but uh

01:43:42.060 uh also very smart and uh very protective so

01:43:47.180 so

01:43:51.220 they seem awesome I wish they weren't slobbery not a slobber fan I am a uh so more more than people

01:44:05.060 really wanted to know but I'm a sympathetic vomiter one of the things so if I see a bunch

01:44:10.900 a slobber um I may have an unfortunate reaction to it not a big fan of the slobber uh bar story

01:44:21.160 so some of you may be aware I used to for about 10 years I was a bouncer at different bars and

01:44:26.960 when I started out they'd try to sick me on the hey deal with the vomit and you know because that

01:44:33.460 was a fun thing to sick the new guys on but they found out very quickly it was a poor choice because

01:44:39.100 i would i would add to the problem instead of fixing it so uh yeah newfoundlands if if we could

01:44:45.340 control the drool i think them and saint bernard's are awesome honestly these are useless dogs but

01:44:52.460 they are the coolest dogs ever i love them and i wish i had one uh english bulldogs i had one his

01:44:58.860 name was piper he was a great dog he ended up uh dying prematurely of some um neurological problems

01:45:07.260 but he was a great dog one of the coolest things about bulldogs is their ridiculous freakish

01:45:12.620 skulls i used to like to to snuggle him in his eye pit there's kind of between the bulldog's

01:45:19.100 eye ridge there's this like little pit you can scratch in there and he used to like that

01:45:23.820 but i miss my piper dog um yeah english bulldogs are my favorite breed always have been since i

01:45:29.260 was a little kid um where we at here we go stan i believe your girlfriend became a member after

01:45:39.340 you stepped up how did that go and why is it important to be open with friends and family

01:45:46.940 and bring them home um well when we met she uh

01:45:53.740 uh, I had just become a member and, uh, that spring we met, uh, that summer. Um, so I was

01:46:02.820 like, Hey, you know, I'm, you know, with these people, you know, can we believe she's like,

01:46:06.080 yeah, okay. Like, that's cool. Never really mattered to her. Um, but you know, as she

01:46:11.820 kind of saw me practicing, um, she kind of followed and now it's something that we really

01:46:20.420 enjoy together um you know it's just um you know kind of our little check-in for the day you know

01:46:32.980 to just get something to really connect over and it means very much to me um being open with

01:46:42.820 friends can be difficult sometimes because not every friend is gonna really understand

01:46:50.840 um you know so I mean relationships with people come and go but you know being you know courageous

01:47:03.360 and speaking truth like uh i i it's like it's very important to just really be open and honest

01:47:16.480 and be yourself all right so i this is an important question and i'm going to answer

01:47:22.880 or i'm going to add my two cents in on this but i did see a clarification the communes uh comment

01:47:28.480 that i mentioned earlier was a question about sigerheim and i appreciate you anytime we answer

01:47:36.000 a question if we get it wrong or we're not understanding what you're asking please do

01:47:39.600 throw it in the side chat because it's important and i want to get it right so sigerheim is

01:47:48.960 i don't like saying commune because communism is bad it is absolutely an intentional community

01:47:57.920 where we have a piece of land the afa owns or is in the process of owning rather and

01:48:06.480 we're building a neighborhood on that land with a great hall eventually and tiershoff eventually

01:48:15.040 and we want to have other housing there for folks on hard times for people who are are crippled

01:48:24.320 for elders uh we want to take care of our folk and we also want to have a neighborhood on that

01:48:29.440 property that that shares um it's not a commune in the sense that the community doesn't own

01:48:38.320 everything or own all of people's possessions but we are committed to sharing with one another

01:48:46.240 and helping each other to succeed and that's the beautiful thing about it that i'm i'm very excited

01:48:54.320 to move myself and my family there here in the coming you know i say years but i really hope

01:49:01.280 it's quicker than that um but yeah that's the idea of it so on the on the topic of having

01:49:09.040 your family your friends certainly your significant other involved with your

01:49:14.160 also to practice early on yeah i say early on early on in my experience with house of truth

01:49:22.000 i'd say in the early 2000s it was commonplace for guys to be also true their girlfriends or

01:49:31.440 wives to be something completely different maybe they were wiccans at best very often

01:49:39.040 they were were still christians and they kind of let their wife raise their kids

01:49:46.480 and threw up their hands and i will let them make a choice when they're adults

01:49:51.760 and i'm very glad that has changed

01:49:57.600 it is this is important your faith should be the bedrock of who you are

01:50:06.160 and of your relationships. If you have friends and family and you can't honestly express who

01:50:15.180 you are, it puts a very unfortunate restraint on your ability to have a meaningful relationship

01:50:26.300 with them. If you're putting on a face, are they really friends or are they just acquaintances?

01:50:32.640 so some of you may know my my mother passed away last month and she was very polite

01:50:42.720 and with her friends you know she didn't really talk politics she didn't really talk religion

01:50:50.220 she didn't talk a lot of those deeper things she would kind of smile and nod and tell everybody

01:50:57.140 everything was okay all the time and i watched growing up and in her later years how it affected

01:51:05.700 her ability to form really deep relationships if you're not willing to be mentally

01:51:14.580 religiously intellectually vulnerable with people and let them know exactly who you are and what

01:51:20.500 you think and what you believe it's impossible to form the deep bonds that you need to have a

01:51:27.460 successful marriage a successful friendship successful familial bonds and i've watched

01:51:36.180 too many people have to stifle that or shut off a part of themselves in order to go along and get

01:51:44.340 along and i know that it seems hard but ripping off that band-aid is the best thing you can do

01:51:52.820 it is really hard tomorrow but it's better a year from now or for the rest of your life

01:52:00.420 than to be stuck living you know a half-hearted existence not being your full self

01:52:06.340 you know i've had since i've been involved in aussitrew my wife and i've been married

01:52:12.820 now i gotta think honestly she's really cool about this so she's probably not going to be mad at me

01:52:23.040 um almost six years i think we're coming up on our sixth anniversary if i'm wrong i

01:52:30.200 sincerely apologize. But before I met Mandy, and we've been together for a little bit longer than

01:52:37.960 that. We've been together for about a year and a half longer than that. Nah, about a year and a

01:52:44.100 month. Nope, two years and a month longer than that. I don't know what I'm talking about. Don't

01:52:49.340 listen to me. So what I was going to say is we've been together since December of 2014.

01:52:55.220 Being with somebody who, and so this is the thing, Mandy is not a plus one.

01:53:01.660 Mandy was also true, I'm not going to say before I was, but I think she became an AFA member

01:53:09.160 about the same time I did, completely separate from me.

01:53:15.980 So she was also true on her own when I met her.

01:53:19.660 And I met her at an AFA event.

01:53:21.300 I met her at Winter Nights in the Poconos in Pennsylvania.

01:53:25.220 building our relationship and our marriage around the AFA and around our faith and our loyalty to

01:53:35.100 our gods. It's amazing because I've had girlfriends before. I even had my first wife

01:53:42.760 was with me and she wasn't House of True. I know what that's like. My partners have been supportive

01:53:54.060 of me doing what I wanted to do. So I was lucky in that regard. But having

01:53:59.900 my significant other be Alcitru, I would never advise anyone out there to do it any other way.

01:54:09.920 It has made all the difference. It has allowed my life to synergize with all the pieces of my life

01:54:18.060 functioning together instead of it being compartmentalized and spread out.

01:54:25.320 So, yeah, I would encourage everybody to find a partner within the House True Folk Assembly

01:54:30.320 and build your life and your family through our church. It makes all the difference in the world.

01:54:40.480 And I know there's folks that aren't in that situation, and I don't mean any disrespect,

01:54:45.500 but it makes everything work so much better and so much closer to what it was intended to work

01:54:53.220 ali asks steen what's your favorite part of balder's hof events and why is it balder's ball

01:55:06.480 um well it's uh you know one of our traditions that we do usually on either friday or saturday

01:55:18.960 night and uh getting together you know with folks in music and you know everyone kind of

01:55:25.760 dancing around is is really fun cool thing to see um people just being able to let loose and

01:55:34.480 and have some fun together that's not just discussion

01:55:38.720 or, you know, ritual.

01:55:40.560 So, yeah, I love it.

01:55:44.500 It's one of my favorite things that we do.

01:55:47.560 All right, so Steve,

01:55:48.520 and our audience has been spoiled with Witten Svahn,

01:55:52.000 who's very verbose.

01:55:54.480 You need to tell us more about this Baldur's Ball.

01:55:56.880 What is this?

01:55:57.780 Break it down for us.

01:55:58.780 Those that might not know.

01:55:59.960 Well, it's what it sounds like.

01:56:03.120 We, you know, get a couple drinks, go out on the hot floor and dance music.

01:56:11.080 So, it's a really cool, unique thing that we do.

01:56:18.060 I know Whit and Brandy really likes to dance.

01:56:21.900 So, it's always very fun to see.

01:56:28.680 Brandy is a dancer, and she got to dance with our law speaker.

01:56:32.440 i didn't know alan could cut a rug but there you go that's awesome no that's one of the things that

01:56:40.600 we do at a number of our events is kind of have a have a dance and spend that social time because

01:56:49.320 it's really important to connect with each other and have that time socially together

01:56:53.320 and i think that's a really cool thing that folks do um

01:56:57.400 um all right so an hour or so later gothe trent east comes back at me and i i only assume this

01:57:09.640 was a jab at my trent when i talked about the his inability to do one-arm push-ups which is

01:57:16.360 disgraceful um gentlemen please discuss the importance of calf muscles among the ancient

01:57:23.320 indo-europeans so i'm gonna preface this by uh i've got little girly calves i can move a lot of

01:57:32.600 weight with my calves but my calves are not impressive i'd like to think they're more

01:57:37.720 impressive now than they were when i started but i'm gonna keep it real so uh oh shoot 20

01:57:47.480 18 just guessing um my wife and i and a number of members of afa leadership went to sweden for an

01:58:00.600 event uh for an afa event we were having in sweden and we got to hang out meet some amazing amazing

01:58:09.320 people our members in sweden i love them i miss them i want to go back over there and see you guys

01:58:14.840 uh a man who was full building at the time he's no longer folk building still a good member for ours

01:58:20.360 uh anders i miss you andrews i don't get to talk to you as much as i used to

01:58:27.400 you guys are awesome their hospitality was amazing we stayed with them he drove us around

01:58:31.880 he showed us all these things and there's another gentleman uh a norwegian so we found really

01:58:38.360 amazing tickets from uh of all things oakland you'd think uh san francisco but right across

01:58:48.200 the bay at oakland they had these amazing tickets non-stop from oakland to these different

01:58:53.800 destinations in europe where our tickets worked out is uh we're flying into uh into oslo

01:59:00.920 so a member of ours hans picked us up and it was really cool that first little bit there hans got

01:59:11.240 to show us some really cool things you know i'm not going to say i got to see the sights of all

01:59:16.840 of norway but that little section between oslo and then down into sweden i got to see really

01:59:22.680 cool things i got to see stone circles i got to see some really uh cool graves got to eat some

01:59:30.440 sausages got to hang out with hans and learn some things well so he uh he hung out with us and our

01:59:37.160 members over there they stayed with us and like basically camped out with us for you know the week

01:59:44.680 we were there and it was beautiful to get to spend so much time with those guys um i made some really

01:59:49.880 good friendships that i really care a lot about anyways we went and we saw all these stone carvings

02:00:00.440 And they're, you know, Bronze Age and whatever, and they're really cool.

02:00:05.900 A lot of you have seen them, and you'll see these, like, red stick figures on the stones.

02:00:12.220 Now, originally they weren't red.

02:00:14.000 That red has been put in there to see these faint stone impressions because they've eroded over time.

02:00:19.960 So that red's a modern thing, but really cool.

02:00:24.300 And I'm so thankful to Anders for showing us all this stuff.

02:00:27.920 it's right in uh tanninshida i think is what you call the area but man these these rock carvings

02:00:38.480 are are amazing and so here's the thing they're stick figures and the only distinguishing things

02:00:48.640 is you see the indication of long hair on women and on men you see an erect penis

02:00:55.120 the rest of them are complete stick figures except they have these bulging calves

02:01:03.520 it's kind of ridiculous um but that was a standout feature they thought you know you need long hair

02:01:09.280 if it's a lady you need an erect penis if it's a man so you can tell gender and then you need these

02:01:14.400 enormous calves to show these guys are awesome so hans went up to this one and you could get up close

02:01:22.320 to it and i believe it was thought to be a uh carving of odin and he went up to it took a

02:01:33.680 picture pulled up his pant legs flexed his mighty arian calf and he's got this massive

02:01:41.200 he doesn't have calves he has bulls and he uh he flexed this next to it and talked about his

02:01:48.160 these arian calves and then unfortunately comment was made to me that i i've got old europe uh

02:01:54.480 the old europe calves of the conquered whereas he has the mighty arian calves and uh i've got

02:02:02.640 no defense against that but i promise don't skip leg day i can move a lot of weight on uh on the

02:02:07.760 calf machine but fair enough i will i will take that one um but yeah this was a really prominent

02:02:17.360 thing when you saw the conquering forces they had really big calves and the people that they

02:02:24.960 conquered in these pictures we can only assume that's what they meant didn't have the same calf

02:02:30.160 indication on their uh on their stick figures so do with that what you will cody says our heroes

02:02:39.600 and their stories can teach us a lesson what do you think we can take away from gibbs bailey's

02:02:46.640 story christian well i mean i think that he can serve as strong as example of you know even though

02:03:00.000 he seemingly didn't want to um be very public he still put the work in you know to build something

02:03:11.600 that he deeply cared about so you know maybe just think on on that you know some of the virtues that

02:03:19.680 he helped establish and then you know lived by so i think we can take that away from his story

02:03:28.340 Yeah, I mean, I'll piggyback on what I said earlier, but

02:03:41.660 it's easy, easier, certainly, to be also true when we have the structure that we have.

02:03:55.000 we have our very active afa family you guys may see um those of you watching on twitter i post

02:04:05.080 all the stuff on there and all over our social media every weekend we have afa events

02:04:10.800 you know probably have 10 afa events a week at least all over the place we've got four

02:04:19.160 hoffs we've got so many beautiful and amazing blessings now but i can only imagine how hard it

02:04:27.720 was in those lean times when very few people were house of truth and those who claimed to be were

02:04:35.000 probably often just people who wanted to be eccentric to maintain that faith through you

02:04:44.760 know from the 1930s to the 1980s or perhaps the 1990s that was quite a feat

02:04:55.560 that was through a time especially post the second world war where it was very

02:04:59.560 unpopular to have any beliefs that bordered upon alsatru um

02:05:08.440 to be so disconnected from large bodies of our folk and he had he had a couple he had some people

02:05:13.800 that he worked with certainly but that was hard to hold that candle during that kind of aloneness

02:05:25.880 his staying the course and finishing the race that is this life loyal to our gods

02:05:34.200 that means everything and i think that's the lesson that we all need to learn from him

02:05:43.800 Okay, so next question. The AFA had a thousand, I thought. Thirteen left then? That sucks. Does suck. One of the things that's been a truth of modern Ausitru is we have people that pass through.

02:06:01.000 Getting people to treat this as a real religion and not as a club or a social group has been a big struggle for Alistair Truth for forever, and certainly something that I've tried really hard to fix in my time in the AFA.

02:06:19.380 But yeah, I remember a number of ebbs and flows.

02:06:21.360 We were up to 1,016 a couple of weeks ago.

02:06:26.520 A lot of this is because we try to be honest.

02:06:28.860 Truth is one of our virtues.

02:06:29.920 So we keep a clean database. And if we have people in there that don't respond for a certain amount of time and their memberships lapse and they won't answer or get a hold of us, we do we do make those cuts.

02:06:43.020 And we. It would be very easy and very tempting to leave people in there indefinitely and have a bigger number to grow about.

02:06:51.260 But we want to be honest, not just with everybody we advertise to or talk to. We want to be honest with ourselves.

02:06:59.920 So yeah, I think we're down 29 people from our height, but we'll get back up there in a short

02:07:13.780 amount of time. The turnover is higher than I'd like, but we have people all of the time that

02:07:18.680 come back that didn't realize they were expired or for whatever reason. But yeah, good on you

02:07:27.840 for for remembering that and uh and checking in on that but yeah uh the member churn is is much

02:07:35.040 greater than i wish it was but it's much better than it's ever been before so uh we'll get back

02:07:41.680 there uh next question mr penner good to see you here what are your five favorite books that are

02:07:50.720 not lore related and what is your favorite saga thank you

02:07:59.920 all right uh five favorite books number one is going to be the terror by dan simmons uh number

02:08:08.480 two probably be the lord of the rings series just the trilogy um let's see number three would

02:08:18.640 probably be dune the dune series by frank herbert um let's see the indifference stars above i forget

02:08:30.000 who that's by um let's see i'm thinking i got four um

02:08:48.640 i don't know maybe the hobbit

02:08:52.720 and then uh favorite favorite saga would probably be the voluspo

02:09:05.680 fair enough um now voluspo doesn't count as a saga give us a favorite

02:09:12.960 no it's an edict poem there's a difference

02:09:15.600 i'm not sure they kind of all run together for me ouch

02:09:24.080 ouch

02:09:27.280 the uh the one with um sigurd and fafner i would say it's probably my favorite right

02:09:35.040 okay fair enough i'll take that

02:09:36.720 uh volsung saga i like the niblungen lead um a lot and i know it's told in kind of a

02:09:49.920 high medieval epic scale but i really like the way it's presented there more so than i like

02:09:56.240 in the in the volsung saga so i think anybody who reads one of those definitely needs to read the

02:10:01.760 other um so another question do children participate in ritual currently at balder's off

02:10:17.840 christian yes definitely um at some of our bigger events um

02:10:24.480 you know usually when we have a whole gaggle of kids they'll do a you know their own children's

02:10:30.560 bloat and then there's always children's activities throughout the day so you know yeah it's uh

02:10:38.480 it's really great so that's important that all of our afa events children are

02:10:45.440 always always welcome and encouraged now sometimes they're squirrely and it's up to the parents

02:10:52.560 and you know after that it's up to those kids whether they want to be involved in ritual or not

02:10:58.560 sometimes the kids are off playing by themselves doing their own thing

02:11:03.140 but sometimes and very often they're actively involved in the ritual uh there's been beautiful

02:11:10.700 beautiful toasts and memorable toasts made during sumble by children

02:11:17.380 sumble's tricky because it's late it tends to be late in the evening at our events

02:11:22.100 but you know some of the most from the heart just honest and really beautiful toasts that

02:11:31.220 i've heard at sambal have been from children uh we do encourage our kids to participate

02:11:36.620 it's it means so i've got a mixed reputation for this at odin's off i terrify the children

02:11:46.520 a lot of the time because I get loud and I get really into it. And also if I'm a spurging the

02:11:52.420 mead, I get a little bit juicy with it at times. And, you know, I might splash some kids in the

02:11:57.980 face or the eyes with the mead. They can consider themselves extra blessed, but, you know, my,

02:12:04.920 my godson is terrified of me and, and weeps bitter tears when I host a ritual because he's a little

02:12:11.860 baby and i get really loud i guess i'm really proud that uh my daughter she's always been cool

02:12:18.580 and even when i'm in a really intense odin ritual she doesn't cry she's cool she realizes it's daddy

02:12:25.380 and she's not not upset so that's neat but we encourage our kids to be as involved with

02:12:31.460 with what we do as as possible always kids at the Hoffs tons of kids

02:12:40.820 it was joking it wasn't always the case it was a really long time that we didn't have all those

02:12:45.380 all those young families and it was a lot of single guys um but it's uh

02:12:52.340 yeah I was just me and Cliff were joking about this a while back but it's very rare to see a

02:13:01.500 picture of an AFA event that there's not children babes in arms and pregnant ladies in the same

02:13:11.340 picture uh so that's been a really beautiful thing to see one of the things that has stood

02:13:19.140 out to me that i think is a really special thing that we in the time that we live in my daughter

02:13:25.780 and you know my daughter just turned three my daughter and children born since her

02:13:32.420 they're never gonna know a world that doesn't have hoffs to our gods when i first got involved

02:13:39.140 in this and started this the idea of a hoff was this distant dream that maybe one day we could

02:13:44.260 have now people treat it like it's just the norm like hey i thought you guys had hoffs everywhere

02:13:50.740 you guys only have four and it makes you stop and chuckle for a second but it's a really

02:13:59.620 cool testament that we've been able to change that perception it's assumed now of course we

02:14:05.220 have hoffs why wouldn't we have hoffs and my daughter will never know a world that doesn't

02:14:10.980 have hoffs and that's the times we're living in and it's it's a really beautiful thing and i'm

02:14:15.940 very blessed to be participating in austro in the time that i am um apologize if this has been asked

02:14:26.340 how does home ownership work in sigerheim it's a fantastic question i wish that i had an awesome

02:14:36.100 answer for you so we're still in the early stages we've got our first pioneer out there

02:14:42.340 and we have two more that are kind of floating around the perimeter there and trying to get

02:14:46.340 services established so they can get out there um we're figuring out all of the particulars

02:14:54.500 on that uh through our lawyer and our law speaker alan turnage he's getting that um

02:15:01.060 um he's getting that all figured out with a local uh Tennessee real estate attorney

02:15:09.700 so we're working on all of that but certainly you know we don't ask that you give up ownership

02:15:14.980 to your home or you give up a bunch of things that's not that's not it we want to figure out

02:15:21.400 exactly how it goes and I don't want to make promises that I can't keep but the idea is

02:15:25.600 We want to protect your, you know, your property, your, your equity. We're not,

02:15:30.840 we're not trying to take anything. We just want us all to get there and share and do things.

02:15:36.980 So we'll have more for that a little bit down the road.

02:15:47.520 Hey, everyone coming in late. So I'll definitely catch the full replay later,

02:15:52.320 But I wanted to say hello. I log in and the first words Matt says is communism is bad. Perfect. Perfect place to come in. Communism is bad. So there you have that.

02:16:09.200 From Guthy Daniel Young, Stian, who are your musical influences and why is it Dave Lombardo?

02:16:17.540 Um, it is not Dave Lombardo. Um, uh, well, compared to, uh, most of the music that I play,

02:16:29.860 it's, uh, my stuff's a little different. It's a lot more, uh, blast beats and, uh, like

02:16:37.460 extremely complicated fills and stuff so uh I do enjoy Dale Embar's work but uh some of my

02:16:47.720 major influences would be um uh I guess let's see uh Gene Hoagland from Death Clock I grew up

02:16:58.140 playing a lot of Death Clock when I was in high school and a lot looks as one of our favorite

02:17:02.460 shows um but outside of that um just a lot of different artists that i really enjoy so

02:17:17.180 kind of vague but you know i have a very obscure taste in music i can't name every drummer

02:17:25.500 fair enough

02:17:32.460 Um, there we go. Mr. Penner, I don't know if it was asked before, but can you share the story

02:17:43.780 of the taxidermy piece cat behind you? Thank you. Yeah, he actually came out of

02:17:52.740 an oddity shop

02:17:56.640 in Sioux Falls,

02:17:58.760 South Dakota.

02:18:00.960 It's a really nice guy that owns it

02:18:02.980 because

02:18:03.760 I collect a lot of oddities as well as

02:18:07.020 just like

02:18:09.040 taxidermy

02:18:10.380 and he's really good with

02:18:12.320 stuff like that and he had this

02:18:14.560 come up for sale and I jumped on it

02:18:16.180 because

02:18:16.480 I really like

02:18:19.660 cats.

02:18:22.740 well there you have it um

02:18:27.720 so that is the last question we have in the queue for tonight

02:18:35.760 don't know if we have any others if you guys want to throw out anything

02:18:43.200 um there was a question that was asked in some of our chat groups earlier this week that I did

02:18:52.720 want to respond to on the show today um it was and i think that it's i think it's really relevant

02:19:06.160 to us talking about john gibbs bailey hoskold and his uh and his legacy

02:19:14.400 And it's something to the effect of, and this was kind of an ongoing kind of argument about why is the AFA so insistent?

02:19:40.780 All right, am I back?

02:19:44.400 Okay, cool. So awesome. Yeah, I wasn't showing up on the video for a second. I apologize.

02:19:54.360 What I was saying was, why is the AFA so insistent that we are the voice of Alistair

02:19:59.220 and everybody else doesn't count? And that's a really rough way of seeing it or a rough way of

02:20:09.080 putting it but i mean it's honest and i put and i'll stand by it

02:20:19.080 we we talked earlier in the program about we are our deeds we aren't what we what we

02:20:24.520 wish we did what we should have done what we'd like to do we are what we actually do

02:20:31.960 and men like hoskold and our heroes tried really hard to build something to move this forward

02:20:39.080 and right now we've watched the organizations that so many of these people spent their life

02:20:46.760 contributing to we've watched them fall by the wayside and dwindle into obscurity and not

02:20:54.920 move forward we are the current torchbearers of aussitrew we are moving aussitrew forward

02:21:04.600 We are advancing the will of the Aesir and the destiny of our folk, and we're making progress.

02:21:11.680 Every little splinter group, everyone who practices Ausatru or anything else they want to apply a strange oddball name to that means Ausatru,

02:21:23.200 if they're not here with us moving it forward, then that's all energy that's dissipated in all these different directions.

02:21:32.480 It's not accomplishing anything.

02:21:34.600 and our mission is bigger than that. It's our job together to accomplish and do deeds to move

02:21:44.520 forward. One of the things on that that makes a big difference is some folks see religion or

02:21:57.280 Alistair Truth specifically as an individual pursuit and certainly you can spiritually advance

02:22:03.120 as a solo practitioner by yourself in the middle of the woods and it may make you better it may

02:22:09.680 help you understand the divine better but it doesn't move the move also true forward better

02:22:16.960 and it doesn't make a better future for our folk and our children you only do that when you

02:22:24.320 contribute to building and that's what we're doing all of this we do in the afa

02:22:30.960 all that we build is for our future for our children for our legacies for advancing

02:22:40.560 the glory and the will of vi seer and we do that by moving forward together

02:22:49.520 we've been blessed we've been shown favor from the gods and if we didn't own that

02:22:56.800 and accept that and move it forward it'd be disrespectful to the blessings that we've been

02:23:02.480 given so that's why the afa takes the stance that we are also true and everything else

02:23:09.440 doesn't count individually there's plenty of people that have a good relationship with our gods

02:23:16.000 i want all of those people to join us and be involved in what we're doing um

02:23:21.200 Um, yeah. So I hope that clears it up. I know some of the people listening tonight were part

02:23:28.600 of that discussion and I hope that makes it make a little bit more sense. Um, and I do believe we

02:23:36.100 have a couple more questions that have come up since then. Uh, Sierra asks, Matt, will you be

02:23:42.080 at the Lovelock Cave expedition this weekend? Yes, but I need to get in touch with Sheila and

02:23:47.040 her know exactly because i want to try to do it as a family with mandy myself and aubrey i'm

02:23:53.840 probably not going to do the camping out part i think that i'll be showing up saturday morning

02:23:59.040 and leaving you know saturday evening but i do absolutely want to be part of that if anybody is

02:24:04.800 curious um in northern nevada we are doing a deal this weekend where we're seeing a number of

02:24:12.800 different sites in northern northern nevada and we're specifically going to spend some time at

02:24:17.680 lovelock cave it's a cave that there's a lot of local legends and people found um remains of such

02:24:26.880 that there was these quote-unquote red-haired giants that occupied these caves and they were

02:24:34.400 you know different from all of the you know native american tribes people they were very different

02:24:40.720 in their stature in their appearance in their culture and what they did and they did battle

02:24:46.640 with the with the native americans and eventually um i believe the piutes they had they got these

02:24:53.440 giants trapped in this cave love lock cave where they where they were dwelling and they tried to

02:24:58.320 smoke them out and they ended up killing a lot of them in that cave and they found big skeletons

02:25:04.240 there with caucasian features and so it's an interesting place i've been out there before

02:25:10.400 i went out there in the height of the all the covid lockdown situation and um my uh mandy and

02:25:18.080 aubrey and i went out there and walked around and spent some time in these caves and really cool

02:25:23.600 it's a nice easy hike for you know it's not really even a hike it's nice even easy walk up to these

02:25:29.680 caves and uh it's really special so we're gonna do that here this weekend if anybody is interested

02:25:36.800 in the area, please reach out and let us know. But yeah, I'm excited to be part of that and

02:25:45.580 see that this weekend. Nathan asks, Stian, did leaving the military leave a hole in your

02:25:52.500 life? The AFA filled that space, if so. Yeah, I mean, I think that every service member,

02:26:01.860 um you know like whether they serve for a short period of time or for a very long time like

02:26:11.380 when they leave you know the service that you really kind of wind up losing a lot of your

02:26:19.540 friends it's very hard to stay in touch with those people after you leave because you know they uh

02:26:25.780 uh, military puts people everywhere constantly, you know, people are geographically not

02:26:33.480 close and it's hard to stay in touch, especially like in a personal sense. And, uh, you know,

02:26:43.480 you wind up from, wind up going from having a whole, you know, a company or platoon of friends

02:26:50.240 to uh having just you know going back to the town you grew up or the like being friends with the

02:26:59.280 people that you were friends with in high school and that's really not always the best um because

02:27:05.360 i left for the army when i was newly 18 and then was enlisted for six years after that um

02:27:17.600 Um, and, uh, you know, yeah, that definitely left a big hole, especially coming back off

02:27:25.920 deployment and going home again, you know, so having a group of, you know, like-minded

02:27:34.260 people, uh, to really call, uh, a home has become very important to me.

02:27:43.080 um you know especially now spiritually like

02:27:47.840 it's a much closer connection to you know to people than you know you may have been just

02:27:58.820 friends with when you're serving so yeah definitely i'd encourage any like you know

02:28:04.680 of our former service members or you know service members to look into the afa and joining

02:28:11.440 yeah we have uh i think that's something that a lot of people may not realize

02:28:20.960 but we do have quite a big um veteran community in the afa a lot of our members have

02:28:32.000 been in the military a lot of our members are still in the military

02:28:36.560 but we have have a whole lot of veterans in the afa we're very proud of that

02:28:41.440 uh our last question that i see um mr pinner did you use official afa hair product gorilla snot

02:28:53.680 for today's stream or did you make uh witness fawn proud and use something else thank you

02:29:02.800 um i can't remember what it's called but it is neither

02:29:07.600 um but i did shave and groom and like do my hair and beard so

02:29:14.920 so the hair and beard look good but i promise you they'd look better with some gorilla snot

02:29:22.120 you have to invest in that then ah you do gorilla snot is a is a fine product from

02:29:28.880 from south of the border uh i forget what the uh the spanish which is the prominent

02:29:35.800 language on the packaging says uh their uh spanish language for i think it's mocha mocha de gorilla

02:29:44.120 yeah but grill snot is good product i have the spork in my hair right now it smells minty and

02:29:50.680 is blue and it holds rock solid and you can reapply it if you wet your hands it it readjusts

02:29:59.160 and re-hardens so there you go so we have one more question that has come in

02:30:09.720 steen your baby boy is confused hearing your voice in the office

02:30:14.600 on the tv and on my phone he makes many squeaks

02:30:18.680 yeah uh our uh puppy's very very vocal uh she's a puppy sitting in the living room right now so

02:30:32.280 he's been a really fine addition to our family so that's a german shepherd yes yeah my newfie's five

02:30:42.520 and that's also the same amount of brain cells that he has so

02:30:45.000 i appreciate we got a translation over on the side it's moco de gorilla

02:30:52.440 there you have it um excellent well go give your dogs some attention we very much appreciate you

02:31:00.200 having on having you on the program tonight we would love to have you back uh yeah thank you

02:31:05.720 very much for being here tonight christian thank you for having me sir all right guys um we will

02:31:13.240 see you all or talk with y'all rather next week until then hill the gods hill folk

02:31:20.760 Hail the AFA. And remember that victory never sleeps.

02:31:50.760 Thank you.

02:32:20.760 Thank you.

02:32:50.760 Thank you.

02:33:20.760 Transcription by CastingWords

02:33:50.760 Thank you.

02:34:20.760 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - May 11, 2023

5⧸10⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 44 - John Gibbs-Bailey ＂Hoskuld＂

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Transcript