00:03:00.000hello welcome to another exciting edition of victory never sleeps
00:03:14.400um so for the very first time in the history of victory never sleeps
00:03:20.720uh producer nick is on an airplane he is flying out to
00:03:25.040I forget exactly which airport he's going to, but he's flying out to California. I assume he's
00:03:31.460going to Sacramento airport, but he's coming out for midsummer at Odenshof. And that's going on
00:03:37.840this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and first part of Sunday. It is extremely late notice, but
00:03:46.200there's still time. You know what? Most parts of the country, if you jump in a car now,
00:03:51.960you can get there you can make it happen if you are interested if you're kind of in the area if
00:03:57.640you're still on the fence and you want to show up there are folks that are there all weekend and
00:04:01.400there's also folks that will show up just for saturday so if you're interested there is still
00:04:06.360time if you want to be at midsummer at odin's off this is our longest standing uh what we call a
00:04:13.080national event it's likely to be the biggest one of the year but that's never guaranteed we've had
00:04:18.600some close rivals before we'd love to see out there it's a really special place and just meet
00:04:25.240some really amazing people there this year matter of fact when i get off the broadcast tonight i'm
00:04:30.120going to go pick up uh witten erickson and his lovely wife katie githya erickson and their kids
00:04:37.320and they're going to ride up with me so they're going to be in attendance it's their first time
00:04:41.560out at odenshoff in quite some time so that'll be awesome i believe this will be producer nick's
00:04:47.160first time out there so it's gonna be a really neat event with some great folks love to have you
00:04:51.640come out if you can um before i go any further as he always does ronald thank you so much mr ronald
00:05:01.800blake has donated 35 to our current uh folk services push to help a loyal member build
00:05:10.280himself back up so folk services if anybody doesn't know um we try to raise money internally
00:05:18.840to be able to help out members that fall on hard times for a variety of reasons so we can be there
00:05:25.720to support our folk um and through generous people like yourselves we're able to do that so thank
00:05:32.520you all very much um please feel free to ask any questions you guys might want to we'll see where
00:05:43.640the night takes us this is kind of an old school episode it's just uh me and ashley chopping stuff
00:05:50.280up answering questions chatting and uh having a fun conversation this evening hopefully you will
00:05:56.840all get to know a little bit more about her, what she does. And that's a neat opportunity.
00:06:07.720Like I said, ask anything you want. We're live on a variety of platforms. We're on VK.
00:06:20.360Sorry, I'm having a brain fart. I apologize, guys. On VK, we're on Twitter. We're obviously
00:06:25.880here on YouTube, on Entropy, on Twitch, Odyssey, and Rumble. And you can ask questions all those
00:06:35.960places if you find yourself there. We'd love to answer them on the air. And you can also listen
00:06:43.040to this as a podcast coming up in a couple of days on Friday on a variety of podcast spots on
00:06:50.320Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Amazon. So the links to all that stuff is in
00:06:59.140the description. If you guys want to donate, we've got links on how to do that in the description
00:07:04.400too. You can do the little buy us a coffee thing. You can also donate at roomstone.org.
00:07:13.520We have a donate link there. Whether you want to donate or not, I encourage everybody to go
00:07:18.480check out runestone.org. It is newly revamped, redesigned, and it's beautiful. Nick did a lot
00:07:27.740of work on that with the help of Madison East. They spent a lot of time and effort, and it's
00:07:34.620something we're all pretty excited about. One of the coolest features on there that I'd encourage
00:07:39.280everybody to look at, if for no other reason, just to ooh and ah at it, is we now got a
00:07:44.420comprehensive calendar of events all across the AFA. So that's got the virtual stuff we do is in
00:07:52.240gray and everything else is in color on there as far as upcoming things. So check it out. Likely
00:07:57.900there is something relatively close to you and yeah, you should come on out. If you're listening
00:08:04.080to this right now and you are eligible for membership, I hope you're a member. And if you're
00:08:09.800not, you should join up. We'd love to have you. We're doing great things. We'd love to do that
00:08:13.800together. So give that some thought. Plugin stuff coming up. Midsummer's coming up quick. Still a
00:08:20.940chance if you can go to it. If not, our next event is Sigurheim as a Sigurbloat at Sigurheim. That's
00:08:28.860coming up, I believe the third weekend. There we go. Quick draw. Appreciate that. It's coming up
00:08:36.260on the 19th through the 21st of July. That's at Sigurheim in Jackson County, Tennessee.
00:08:43.800It's going to be spectacular. I'm excited to see you guys there. It's a, you've got to see it for yourself, but it's a really special place and we'd love to share that with you as we bloat for victory.
00:08:57.420And then following that, got a really big star-studded Freyfaxi up at Baldershof in Murdoch, Minnesota. That's August the 16th through the 18th.
00:09:11.200um it's gonna be a pretty big deal uh i'm gonna be out there my wife
00:09:14.720and childs will be able to go out there for the very first time which would be really cool to
00:09:18.480show that to them um got some other special guests gonna be in attendance uh law speaker turnage
00:09:27.600should be up there um witten daniel young and his uh wife folk builder heather young should be there
00:09:38.880i believe go the body mayo and go the trent east and uh trent's lovely wife madison who did so much
00:09:47.440work on our website should also be there so we got a lot of folks coming there from far and wide
00:09:53.120and you should be one of those folks so get with your folk builder we can get you there
00:09:58.480um so ashley was on kind of sorta once before doesn't really count that was the 100th episode
00:10:07.200where we cycled through lots of people and i think i underestimated that time cycle so
00:10:13.600not everybody got a whole lot of chance to say stuff um for anybody who might have missed it
00:10:20.880uh first welcome ashley glad to have you on the show
00:10:24.240do you want to tell people a little bit about yourself and what you do for the astro focus
00:10:28.880um i am actually i'm up in minnesota at baldur's hawk um i joined back in 2020
00:10:45.760when we acquired baldur's hawk and um there's lots and lots to be done it's
00:10:50.960it's much different than it is now um but it's a really awesome opportunity
00:10:55.600um and period of time to come in as we had you know everything was up um for grabs so to speak
00:11:02.560we there was a human needed for everything and so um really i got to kind of step in and then
00:11:09.600do what i could and what you know i have passion for and just kind of run with it um
00:11:16.240it was a really neat time to to step into bouldersaw um probably my my not favorite but
00:11:24.560one of the things i'm most proud of is our food distribution that we do each month at the hop so
00:11:30.800it's the third saturday of every month and we serve a community that their closest community
00:11:37.520center or really resource is is about a 50 mile round trip drive and you never know what you're
00:11:44.320gonna be able to to find when you go to those places so when you're already struggling and
00:11:50.320then adding this 50 mile trip onto your weekend uh for a maybe you know it's um not always
00:11:56.000necessarily helpful so us kind of stepping in and being this this uh resource and place for
00:12:03.440for um for our community has been one of the biggest driving forces i think for
00:12:08.960uh building our relationships with the people of of uh murdoch in the surrounding area we
00:12:16.240We also have a back-to-school distribution and a toy drive that we do every year.
00:12:26.000The back-to-school is great because we get backpack, we fill them up with school supplies,
00:12:29.960and all the kids get to come and pick their favorite in the community.
00:18:44.400So the snarky point I get and I agree with.
00:18:50.240But looking at it a little bit deeper, first, as a caveat, sure, the gods can call whoever they want.
00:19:00.000It would be completely impious of me to dictate to our gods who I think they can and can't call.
00:19:10.740it's entirely different from being honest about who we have every reason to believe
00:19:19.240that they call or don't call i think that one phenomenon that we notice and we noticed it with
00:19:25.820our folk too for a time before you know i think we still see it but certainly before alsatru was
00:19:31.840you know re-established in the modern age at least in a you know in its current form
00:19:38.760And we had a we had a lot of white people going to, you know, going to powwows and trying to pretend they were, you know, they were Native Americans because they felt like something wasn't right and that something was calling them.
00:20:01.620and we don't like something we like to attach a name to that thing
00:20:08.780if you are in a vacuum i think a lot of our people feel this and you
00:20:15.460experience spirituality if your only frame of reference is jehovah and jesus and the angels
00:20:25.040and saints or whatever your tradition is that your family and your community do
00:20:30.100that's often what things get attributed to if that's your lens and I think that if you want
00:20:38.500to break free from that you want a something else it's easy to jump on what other something else is
00:20:46.600you know in your in your view it's harder to actually go through and determine you know who
00:25:10.140i'm trying to be kind but the oddball set of people that just don't fit in and are very confused
00:25:16.300those people in my experience when they do become part of also true or when they do something that
00:25:21.980they think is also true they very quickly move on to three or four different things
00:25:29.100until like ashley said they do find something that feels like home and that's a little bit different
00:25:38.140gozi bode over there in the comments says you know a quicker you know more direct answer is
00:25:43.340you know it's usually the ancestors that call us home or redirect us to the appropriate course of
00:25:49.580action and i do think more often than not that's the case i think beyond the veil there's a lot
00:25:56.140of spiritual forces kind of tugging at you or affecting your life in ways that you may not know
00:26:03.340and important influence if you open your mind to look for it and pay attention for it is your
00:26:13.020ancestors and very often they are the ones trying to call you back home and i you know
00:26:26.140so i think a lot of it's about lens and what you're aware of but we get a lot of confused people
00:26:30.780the other thing is there's a lot of people that
00:26:35.020it is much easier to recognize a problem than to know what the cure is for the problem
00:26:43.020So I think there's a first stage where people, ah, you know, what I've been doing isn't the right way to go. Man, these guys have their stuff together. Maybe I should do what they're doing. I think that's a legitimate initial thought. I think the follow up thought is, okay, now that I'm not doing the thing I shouldn't be doing, is this in fact what I should be doing?
00:27:05.500and that's a whole different set but you know there there's something to the to the thought
00:27:11.900process and if people come to us because they see us you know having our life squared away i think
00:27:18.140that's complimentary and i think it's nice if we can redirect those folks into a place that's
00:27:24.860healthy and appropriate for them to be when i think there is an appropriate separation between
00:27:29.900learning you know and being you know there's there's a whole reality that exists of learning
00:27:37.020of different cultures and religions you know for for everybody um without being in it so if there's
00:27:43.260somebody who has an interest in in in the bare bones of things and and what it's about that
00:27:48.780doesn't necessarily mean that it's uh it's for that you know just because there's an interesting
00:27:54.540story behind it absolutely uh daniel asked uh whitney daniel young wants to know hello ashley
00:28:03.580what motivated you to become a folk builder and what motivates you now
00:28:09.580um well um i definitely wasn't super about the idea when i was first brought to my attention
00:28:17.980just because i wasn't sure i could do it um and so i would i kind of push off with you know
00:28:25.420well no i don't want to do that um and then when um witten brandy facett and um goethe erlinson
00:28:37.420um bullied me into it i'm just kidding um but seeing the progress that they were making
00:28:44.860you know right right in front of me in a very short period of time and all the the um the
00:28:50.460successes we were having there and all the the problems we were coming into with you know just
00:28:55.740getting an electrician and like all the little things that you need to do when you buy a property
00:29:01.020um i wanted i wanted to help i wanted to uh do that and um those those lilacs out at balder's
00:29:08.620softs are they're kind of my little plant babies because when we uh when we we got them and we
00:29:14.940we planted them as kind of like a fence line on the property there um they needed to be watered
00:29:22.140twice a day in the dead of summer and everyone was at midsummer so i lived rather close and so
00:29:29.100i went out there uh twice it twice a day and and um and i watered that we watered them and
00:29:35.420we didn't have a spigot yet so we had i had like five gallon bucket and went downstairs and fill
00:29:40.540it up and bring it back out and i was so proud the whole time doing that you know there's nobody
00:29:46.540there like seeing me doing it but it was just i felt so much pride in in making sure that these
00:29:52.060little little plants um were gonna make it on this property that i was a you know a part of
00:29:58.620And, you know, just really building the Baldur's Hoffman itself is what got me started.
00:30:05.440And what keeps me going now is, you know, just the exponential growth that's happened in our area.
00:30:15.160You know, people, our folk have been called home, you know, subconsciously.
00:30:21.660they've been called home in a way that they are so drawn to coming out to this little tiny town of
00:30:28.300you know not really near anything to be with the folk and to be at the hof well that is such a
00:30:33.500magical um special thing that i i couldn't not want to do it um so folk builder jason gallagher
00:30:47.340wants to know ashley can you talk about the virtue recovery meetings yes um so the recovery meetings
00:30:54.860um we run those via zoom every thursday evening um it's 7 p.m central times it is a um it's an
00:31:05.900alternative to a traditional 12-step meeting 12-step meetings are wonderful for many people
00:31:14.140they really got me through um some very hard times and to a secure space of recovery
00:31:21.980they are technically non-denominational but there are some specifics in there that do not fall in
00:31:26.460line with our beliefs and so a lot of our people use use a 12-step program and then they feel like
00:31:33.260they don't really fit in a lot of them have also evolved to you know you end a meeting with saying
00:31:39.020the lord's prayer and and things that we wouldn't be comfortable with and it really keeps that you
00:31:45.020at bay from the people at the meetings um and so the virtue recovery meeting is a a nine-step
00:31:52.540meeting which is based around the virtues um and my kinder brother uh josh emington and i started
00:32:01.340that um way back in 2020. it's only on thursdays because that's the only night that the uh
00:32:09.020the library had an open slot that we could, we could rent and go to.
00:32:14.300But our idea of behind this and using these nine steps,
00:32:20.120which I'll clarify, we did not write these nine steps.
00:32:22.920This was an odinous group in a Texas prison that put this together,
00:35:44.600So pin in that for a second, because I want to set this up for people who may not be aware.
00:35:50.420the media in minneapolis got wind of our our hoff going in in murdoch and
00:36:05.300everybody within a you know a few hundred mile radius decided they needed to
00:36:11.960i don't know perch on the shoulders of it to get attentions and get stuff so there's a lot
00:36:20.700of sensationalism and we had this uh one instance of that was the guardian doing a story on us which
00:36:30.120thank you guardian that brought us a lot of members um but it was really dishonest it was
00:36:37.600really dishonestly conducted all around and one of the dishonesties in it was there was some claim
00:36:45.840that the hispanic community was terrified of us and like they had to put together their own little
00:36:52.320watching out for each other's kids because i don't know we were gonna like make a stew out
00:36:59.640them or something crazy and nonsense so i asked i said you know which you know which hispanics are
00:37:08.840these that are scared of us well the hispanic community yeah cool like like who well the
00:37:16.760the hispanic people yeah i i i'm aware we we know quite a bit of them who who's scared of us
00:37:24.680and seems likely it was something that she just made up because she seemed very unfamiliar but uh
00:37:32.120yeah how is how has your interactions been with the town and in specifics
00:37:36.680you know have you encountered the the terror from the hispanics that the news talks about yeah so
00:37:43.880So there has been such great interaction because of what we had to go through to make those
00:37:55.700connections because of all the propaganda and ridiculousness.
00:37:59.800The only people that had a negative thing to say at first was the outsiders, the people
00:38:06.060that were not in Murdoch at all or from anywhere near it.
00:38:11.160it was 2020 they were at home George Floyd just happened like it was just it was all just this
00:38:15.920perfect storm um to get people stirred up um there so people were were scared from from media and
00:38:23.960and whatnot um but at the end of the day there's been so much just honestly just beautiful
00:38:33.920conversation that's happened with every most every person in the town which again is not
00:38:38.120it's you know it's not tens of thousands of people it's a very small community um and so
00:38:44.240we'll we'll have often people that'll come through the um food shelf line that don't want anything
00:38:50.960um that just want to say hi and say they're sorry and say thank you you know we're sorry how the
00:38:56.060everything happened and it was just kind of crazy and people are saying crazy things and just
00:39:00.660we see what you're doing and thank you so much and um you know and it's just it's just great
00:39:06.280it's just good you know there's there's not been one altercation or incident or anything
00:39:11.720bad with the community at all um and and no i have not encountered one um hispanic family that
00:39:19.000was scared of us um you know i think um you might remember the first false fall fest at um at
00:39:26.360falder's hop and the first people to come over to get their backpacks was one of the larger families
00:39:32.120in the community, and there's these two, the two younger girls are twins, and they, one loves
00:39:40.040kitties, one loves unicorns, and I had a kitty backpack and a unicorn backpack, and they were
00:39:43.900so excited and jazzed, and, you know, and mom was happy, and everybody went away smiling, you know,
00:39:49.100so that's, that's the interactions that I have.
00:39:51.620just gonna say i you know looking up the demographics of murdoch 7.2 hispanic
00:40:08.820i think more than 14 hispanic persons come to the food pantry for counting the family which
00:40:21.940demographics count and is our neighbor that comes over and has beers with folks i think that you
00:40:28.420know most most of those numerically are accounted for being our friends so it's it's interesting to
00:40:33.940know um yeah there that dried up really quick um we had
00:40:50.260what was it last year somebody left us a nice little note on saint patrick's day saying what
00:40:56.420a blessing that we were to have in the community there it's common occurrence you know so it's it's
00:41:03.940People drive by and wave every time I've been there for our, our, you know, our plans, you know, or everything, you know, so it's, um, yeah, there isn't, there hasn't been one, um, that I've felt and I there for most things, um, any feeling of, of anger or tension or conflict with anybody, you know, it's a great.
00:41:26.940so yeah don't believe the hype folks um yeah we're not as exciting as people thought
00:41:37.020from gothi trent east ashley when are you and gothi erlinson coming to visit and yours off
00:41:44.460yeah good question um soon we wanted to come down for charming this year and then we decided to
00:41:52.220then we you know we're buying a house and um and getting married this year so we couldn't swing
00:41:58.540the travel but but soon we will we will come down for sure because now we got two on us so we have
00:42:05.340to we have to uh so questions about your necklace what is it made out of it is made out of um elk
00:42:20.220antler i'm pretty now i just i can guess myself this was a gift from nathan um go the erlinson
00:42:28.700when we were just friends um so this was a gift from him and he brought it back after um
00:42:37.340see it would have been lc fest 2021 and that's kind of on mother's day i got this so that's um
00:42:44.940he spent a very long time trying to find he's anybody knows him he's pretty particular and
00:42:50.220so he spent a very long time trying to find the right right one so this is um hasn't really come
00:42:56.380off since so reach out to uh go the erlinson if you are in need of enchanting gifts for
00:43:07.420just friends people if you're looking to improve that status um
00:43:16.780question from the wolf throne would you ever do a reading of the culture of the teutons
00:43:22.460on victory never sleeps it could end up being one of the longest running multi-part episodes
00:43:29.580um yeah i wouldn't be opposed to that at all like i'm i'm a fan um
00:43:37.420it's not perfect i don't agree with every conclusion that uh professor groenbeck
00:43:46.220makes in there but it is a very important work and i'd be
00:43:52.180yeah i think that's a really good idea and something we'll absolutely consider
00:43:56.940today. I'm just scanning for the questions over here. Bear with me, if you will.
00:44:17.660So, Ashley, you can take this first. What do you think of the race-changing trend? I guess
00:44:23.920changing your gender just wasn't enough. For those that may not be familiar, apparently
00:44:31.120transracial is a thing in some very mentally ill sectors of our community.
00:44:41.200So, and I'm not trying to like be super comical, but the first thing that comes to mind is there's
00:44:48.640a south park about that where um one of them kyle i think wants to be a basketball player and be
00:44:55.920better and so then he gets this transracial and then his dad becomes a dolphin like that's it's
00:44:59.920the whole premise of the show and it's a hilarious cartoon you know um i think there's like there's
00:45:06.720this push for for extremism to be as extreme and you know have as many jaws on the floor as you
00:45:15.840possibly can and also this this idea of being unsure of who you are growing up and figuring
00:45:25.600your stuff out that that is not a part of growing up and that must mean something wrong with you and
00:45:30.880you're something else um and as far as like the gender thing goes you know that's um irreversible
00:45:37.440choices are made at very young ages and that's it's terrifying for for young adults to um and
00:45:45.840and and children to be given those lifelong consequences from from those as far as the
00:45:52.080transracial thing goes i mean i i'm offended about that because what do you do what do you
00:45:58.480do to become something else that seems pretty stereotypical for a uh a course of of medical care
00:46:05.440there um so some of these things hit on a couple of different levels
00:46:19.200yes it is comically absurd it just is it's it's so absurd and out there it's hard to even discuss
00:46:29.440without you know chuckling a little bit when you step away from it for a minute though it's
00:46:39.040deeply tragic that the absurd is now not only commonplace but um
00:46:47.760large folks are large chunks of our society are bullied into being forced to
00:46:53.840a being forced to nod and pretend to go along with it um
00:47:01.360i think we've all in a very different context seen or heard stories about you know people
00:47:11.780living in really extreme you know like communist dictatorships things like north korea to where
00:47:18.480if you don't actively stand up and cheer for crazy stuff that their supreme leader does
00:47:27.580really bad social consequences happen to you if not really bad physical consequences
00:47:34.220it's a real similar spot when so many people realize that these things are
00:47:42.820mental illness run amok but you're not really allowed to say that in a lot of places or you
00:47:51.580fear for your job or your ability to participate in sustainability and that's really sad
00:47:57.200one of the things that i think harkens back a little bit to what ashley was talking about
00:48:08.480about the virtue recovery is when something internal is broken, it's, it's not fixed by
00:48:21.980external stuff. It has to be, what's broken has to get fixed internally or else you can't,
00:48:28.680you know, counteract that with forcing people to pretend that your mental illness isn't an
00:48:36.260illness, but some kind of strength. Because that's unfulfilling. It doesn't address the
00:48:42.100real problem. If you don't have dignity within yourself, and you want to pretend that you
00:48:49.660are something that you're not, it's really sad. And I think we should all be sad about
00:48:55.100that. There was a time not too long ago to where, you know, anyone in society would have
00:49:02.500promoted the idea of being accepting who you were being proud of who you were and building self-worth
00:49:21.860There was a time earlier when blacks in America would try to, if they were, you know, if they were mixed race, would try to pass as whites or would try to do things to make themselves more like white people to elevate themselves or be more acceptable.
00:49:51.860and we all were really sad that that was a thing and that that's something that folks felt they
00:50:00.060needed to do was to try to make themselves not who they were because that was devalued. And it's
00:50:06.740really unfortunate when we see that going a different direction that we have a really
00:50:11.040different and less healthy reaction to it. Whatever the case may be, having pride in
00:50:20.360yourself for who you are and building strength around that, that's real. And it's not an issue
00:50:26.940of pretend or it's not dependent upon those around you pretending, you know, going along with a
00:50:33.840delusion that you have. It's something solid that you can rest your, that you can take peace in and
00:50:40.360take comfort in. And it's really sad that folks feel the need to pretend that there's something
00:50:48.660different than who they are. And sometimes that's, our folks suffer from soul sickness.
00:51:00.220We talk about it a lot. The same group of people who would want people to be proud of
00:51:07.400themselves for odd things also support people trying to pretend they're other than themselves
00:51:19.520too. It's strange when the absurdity goes so far beyond the bounds that it starts coming
00:51:25.380back in on itself. I think we see a lot of that and that's part of the decay we see in
00:51:32.440wolf age and it's something that we're working really hard to uh help our people not have to
00:51:38.760not have to suffer with so yeah i'm sad that's a situation people find themselves in
00:51:44.520i think there's this whole culture behind like there being a special circumstance you know
00:51:50.840there's a generation brought up mine on like participation trophies and all those things you
00:51:55.560know everybody's special right and now there's kind of seemingly this next kind of wave of
00:52:01.720everybody's specialist so how are you going to be how are you going to be you got to be specialer
00:52:08.120yeah especially and have a special circumstance too you know there's a reason why life is hard
00:52:12.520for you you know and that's being fed so much and masculinity that's being taken away and um
00:52:19.080my last point on that is is just something interesting my son's speech pathologist had
00:52:22.920been talking with me the other day about um when they do their evaluations one of the main
00:52:29.160not one of the main but one of the big portions of it is identifying identifiers and so um and
00:52:35.320it's pronouns so if if the child can identify he or she him and her um they've found out through
00:52:43.160years and years of research that there's this one specific um speech delay which my son does not
00:52:49.240have so i don't remember the name of it but um that is the trouble identifying and and storing
00:52:55.320that information of what he and she is not that they don't know it but it's just the words get
00:53:00.520lost in the middle and when they evaluate and they find that gap they know that that's the
00:53:06.120specific therapy they needed and now they know that it can be fixed super quick um but now they
00:53:12.120have this new wave of kids coming in who aren't allowed to say he and she and so it's taken this
00:53:16.760whole you know years and years of research going in and developing this treatment for
00:53:21.800or a specific speech impediment and speech delay,
00:53:51.800What are you enjoying tonight for a beverage? I'm enjoying Guinness. I don't know why I'm having such a brain fart on the question. Anyway, you're drinking Guinness. Good. Guinness is fantastic. What I'm drinking is disgusting, but it's what I got, so I'm getting rid of it.
00:54:10.840it's some gas station steel reserve spiked cherry slushy i like fruity things i like
00:54:20.520i like a lot of stuff but no it's kind of gross but uh
00:54:25.960it's eight percent so the more i drink the less gross it gets i suppose
00:54:29.640you see where we're at oh i should note and i've neglected to do so we have got
00:54:41.960siggerheim merch on sale now there you go get your siggerheim stuff
00:54:50.600it's exciting it's fantastic we'd love to see you guys wearing that when you come out to
00:54:55.160sigger bloat at siggerheim here in july also if you like the merch and you want to get more it's
00:55:01.560the last opportunity to get the what would jason gallagher do products and the elsewhere your gothic
00:55:07.880disapproval products so get them while supplies last and uh yeah we appreciate you guys support
00:55:15.480Ashley, can you tell us about the Feast of the Einherjar? How many years have you hosted
00:55:25.080it and where will it be located this year? Yes, so the Feast of the Einherjar, this would
00:55:33.480be the fourth running year that, I'd say maybe the first year I was less, the least involved,
00:55:40.680But Nathan started hosting it four years ago, so it would have been 2020 or 2021.
00:57:50.460Next question, can female warriors go to Valhalla?
00:57:54.220I think that we talked about this a lot before,
00:57:58.580People get way too hung up with being hyper-specific about lore elements because, again, they're meant to teach bigger truths in stories that are digestible to us in ways that we understand.
00:58:28.580First, the gods can invite whoever they would like to invite into their halls.
00:58:36.160They can cause ascension for any of our folk that they want to pull up to that next level and have commune with the gods.
00:58:46.380Valhalla is one example of that, and we see it talked about most frequently.
00:58:51.760i think in large part the same reason that we see so many
00:58:59.120typically male-oriented and battle-oriented things talked about in the lore that's exciting
00:59:10.500and that's the stuff that heroic sagas are told about there's much less
00:59:17.100excitement and appeal when you talk about the
00:59:25.980the calmer things of everyday life of home of raising children of caring for
00:59:33.680halls and estates it's not that we don't find women in roles that are
00:59:39.900you know celebrated within the sagas you do but so very often the lore is
00:59:50.200about these peaks of excitement that are told in a warrior society to a warrior elite so i don't
00:59:59.480think you see you see some of those other things would include more women but our gods absolutely
01:00:07.260call up women for for places of ascension now we don't see examples in the lore of women being
01:00:17.860called to Valhalla but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen or it can't happen it doesn't mean any of
01:00:22.660us are in a position that we can dictate who the all-father can call into his hall but our other
01:00:30.500gods host ascended mortals into their halls as well and i don't see why that's not the case but
01:00:38.740what i do think is i think female warriors that that is their defining characteristic is their
01:00:48.180you know prowess in warfare it's very very very few and far between in the course of
01:00:54.500you know the entirety of the history of our folk um but i think there's a lot of females
01:01:01.940that have ascended to places of honor with our gods and uh yeah so the question of could that
01:01:11.380happen sure odin can call whoever he'd like and if there's happens to be a female warrior that that
01:01:17.940as their defining characteristic and they are so glorious in their warfare that that they're worthy
01:01:25.460of a spot with the warriors in valhalla then sure i think that's a really rare and odd example and i
01:01:33.540think it's i don't know unless there's a specific woman you have in mind i think it does our ladies
01:01:39.140a little more dignity to celebrate them in a role that's you know traditionally theirs that they're
01:01:47.060inclined for and that uh so many of them have excelled at in the history of our people
01:03:53.180There we go. Let me find where we're at here on our question.
01:03:59.620just one other thing for uh midsummer that we did um i like to for the kids um crafts i like
01:04:05.940to incorporate what's going on and um yeah at the event specifically and so there we have little
01:04:14.020um father's day things that they made with a hand-printed son a little poem um that included
01:04:20.820balder until we low and father's day into it and um some an opportunity to put some intent into a
01:04:26.820gift for for father's day because on on sunday of our event was if it fell on father's days
01:04:36.900um so i am going to celebrate midsummer at odin's off it's
01:04:47.860so talking a little bit about it it is the longest standing afa national event
01:04:54.180um in the early days the astro folk assembly was their members kind of spread out but it was
01:05:06.540disproportionately weighted in and around northern california and so in started out as midsummer in
01:05:17.840sierras and truth be told it's kind of a switcheroo originally what they were doing was winter nights
01:05:24.960in sierras and i don't recall what the impetus was to change the national event from winter
01:05:32.000nights to midsummer uh might have been you know kids being off of school i'm not sure because
01:05:37.440that was right before my time but um yeah it was held
01:05:47.840I'm trying to think of fairly close to where it's being held now, a little bit further up in the
01:05:52.320mountains in a place called Alta, California. And those midsummers kind of laid the foundation for
01:05:59.380a lot of, a lot of things that we do now and got a lot of, served as the start for a lot of us.
01:06:09.240That was midsummer in 2010. And I think we have a slideshow of that on the videos. If you go back
01:06:16.640look at our videos section on youtube midsummer 2010 was you know i may just take that and share
01:06:24.240that now that i'm thinking about it that was my first afa event that i went to and i i'd been
01:06:32.480folk building i think for about a year up in alaska and uh midsummer 09 i think sheila did a slideshow
01:06:43.680and i wasn't there for it and i was like you know i thought about going and i decided not to at the
01:06:48.900last minute and she did that slideshow and i regretted it like you know what i'm going next
01:06:53.020year no matter what i'm going to make it happen it's gonna be awesome and i went and it changed
01:06:59.200my life it's the reason that i'm sitting here right now talking to you guys um
01:07:04.340it literally changed my life it was that cool it was the first time i was you know around
01:07:13.760you know a room full of or a you know area full of people who shared our faith um
01:07:23.680you know you looked around and everybody had a hammer on and everybody was also true and i got
01:07:28.400to meet our founder steve mcnallen for the very first time and it was just such a magical weekend
01:07:35.600for me that i started doing everything i can to go every major afa event i could go to
01:07:41.520to be at everything that just make this my life from then on and it's really what put me on the
01:07:46.320road to where i'm at and i think it's done that for a lot of folks as an event um that community
01:07:53.360kind of grew and thrived over the years and was the uh the core of what we built odenshoff around
01:08:02.640We got Odenshoff in the fall of 2015, so the first midsummer we had at Odenshoff was in 2016.
01:08:14.100It's just such a special event. It's going to be at a very special place, and I believe Whitten Clifford Erickson is going to be doing the midsummer bloke for us this year.
01:08:24.400So I'm very excited to celebrate that with my folk here in just a couple of days this upcoming Saturday.
01:14:42.600And if you look at any of our social media or here on YouTube,
01:14:46.100I share pictures of them all the time.
01:14:48.320There's bigger ones or smaller ones. There's a lot of different settings or things you can do, but at its most fundamental level, it's a group of AFA members getting together to do stuff.
01:15:03.460Sometimes they're just fun socializing and getting to know each other.
01:15:09.140Other times they include a bloat and a stumble and are more worship related and kind of overtly also true.
01:15:18.400But they take a lot of different shapes.
01:15:22.760I'm trying to think of one in particular that was like my favorite I've ever done or favorite I've ever been to.
01:15:33.460I don't mean for it to be a cop-out answer, but I, I hosted dinner at my house every month
01:20:10.260something that i you know is a really special thing about about weddings um it's great when
01:20:22.500our people are able to bring their families around and we encourage that i mean obviously
01:20:27.140their wife and kids around we'd encourage that and they should join but the parents should join
01:20:33.140too but it's something different when you get are able to bring your parents around to to see this
01:20:39.380and to experience it and it explains it in a way that sometimes is awkward to folks or sometimes
01:20:49.560you know your parents might have not have the context to really understand the seriousness
01:20:54.280of what we do it's really special when you're able to have your parents at at something and
01:21:01.240weddings are really really nice opportunity for that so that's fantastic i remember that was a
01:21:08.700And that was the moment that I think my dad and my stepmother really took this very seriously is when they came to attend Mandy and my wedding seven years ago now.
01:21:23.560But, yeah, it's just really cool for your parents to get to get to see and appreciate something that you take very seriously.
01:21:38.700oh okay so we have a question has there ever been an afa member
01:21:47.340that has run for a place in politics i'm going to say yes because i think the odds are that that's
01:21:54.940been the case for some minor office like school board or you know zoning commission or whatever
01:22:02.940but not that i know of i don't know of any specific case where any afa member is run for
01:22:18.700so uh wolf throne ask thoughts on guido von list's interpretation as valhalla being a metaphor for
01:22:25.260reincarnation so I think some there's a lot of different angles to that question first we don't
01:22:39.380believe in one for one reincarnation as being a common occurrence I don't want to negate it
01:22:48.060as ever being a possibility if our gods will that to be so in a very special set of circumstances
01:22:54.060but we don't see a lot of that that doesn't seem to be the norm at all um but what happens and this
01:23:02.800is this is why i that's why the details matter on what's being asked there are many parts to our
01:23:12.260soul some of those parts do get bequeathed down the family line to members of our folk
01:23:20.740Some of those things include luck and memory and certain skill sets and personality traits and things, and those are much more likely to be manifested if a naming is done in that person's honor traditionally.
01:23:44.000But that's a difference than being that person. The I, the Ick, that part of the soul conjoins with some other really important parts to form the fundamental of who you are that transcends the physical and the things necessary for existence in Midgard.
01:24:06.060we absolutely celebrate meister von list as a hero of our faith his initial
01:24:18.860awakening started a lot of what we did and what we do it was also you know
01:24:27.920incomplete um i think a lot of it was taking some first steps that we have
01:24:38.840evolved on and made better and learned you know learned from errors and adjusted to
01:24:47.340it isn't a criticism we all start at different places but a lot of what he was working with
01:24:55.420were Eastern traditions where full reincarnation was a very, very common thing.
01:25:02.220There's a lot of reintegration at that time between, you know, Hindu, exotic, oriental schools of thought and schools of religion,
01:25:12.340especially since there's a common, very ancient connection between Vedic religion and our, you know, our faith in ancient Ausatru.
01:25:22.160i think he leaned on that really heavily i think a lot of the time looking at there was a need by
01:25:29.260that early generation to attribute a lot of things to metaphor that i don't think
01:25:35.520are metaphorically or beyond or belong there but you have to understand this is a generation
01:25:42.560of people that were awakening from, you know, shoot, in Austria, 16, 1700 years of, you
01:26:00.580know, the unhealthy spirituality for our folk of Christianity, and they were trying
01:26:11.120to do a lot of mental gymnastics there and breaking from that.
01:26:15.940And I think a lot of those things are a result of that.
01:26:18.120So no, I don't think that that's what Valhalla is about,
01:26:40.560and puts him even higher than odin in the hierarchy thoughts on this interpretation
01:26:45.520well obviously i don't agree with that interpretation i think that's i think that's
01:26:52.960i think a lot of those things are are just objectively wrong and mistaken understandings
01:26:58.400of a lot of things and i think some of it was on unnecessary levels of mental gymnastics that
01:27:05.920don't need to be there um you know i would never claim to be an armonist or to buy into a lot of
01:27:18.960a lot of those more out there theories that came in those circles
01:27:26.480it's it's hard when you go back because it's one of those things it hasn't been a linear progression
01:27:30.960And so it's really hard to, when what we have as a point of commonality is the big religions we're familiar with, like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, their claim is that it's always been perfect.
01:27:53.620Everyone who's ever come before is perfect. Those who follow are perfect because everything they ever said is direct revelation from their God.
01:28:03.940And that's not something that we believe in our faith.
01:28:09.880We have a lot of of mortal people that are doing their best to understand our gods, to learn from and to develop wisdom in our faith.
01:28:22.500and our faith grows and evolves in a natural way and i think that's very much the case with
01:28:28.900all ethnic faiths that i'm familiar with aside from judaism which the other two that i mentioned
01:28:35.620evolved from so we're not pretending that everyone who's come before has had it just right and
01:28:43.700perfect no we evolve all the time to come to a better understanding we have so much more available
01:28:48.420to us now and we've got since meister von liszt's time we've got you know depending what part of
01:28:55.940his life we've got a hundred years of gift cycle with the gods that we've built and learned from
01:29:01.540and a hundred years of our gods exchanging and giving to us blessings and wisdom and helping us
01:29:09.860come to a better understanding of their truths and so i know i don't buy into that either i
01:29:15.620obviously very opposed to you know the i don't know the uh deific the
01:29:24.820one of deification is even the right word the celebration of surter
01:29:31.780ultimately that is a destructive force of entropy and so much of what we do is battling against
01:29:39.540entropy it's very obvious if you read our lore that our gods are in a constant battle with
01:29:47.220chaotic forces of entropy and to escape that it's very it's one of the things i'll say true
01:29:57.380doesn't i think this is kind of a i don't want to put this
01:30:02.420accepting the same cosmology of something doesn't make one a practitioner of that religion
01:30:12.760it's hard because using the term satanist it's come on with an entirely different
01:30:20.000meaning at this point but like literal devil worshipers
01:30:23.680are in the same you know they accept the same cosmology as as christians do
01:30:31.920But they're clearly on the other team. Those are two very different views of the world and two different religions with two different allegiances. Understanding our ancestors' cosmology doesn't automatically make you Ausitru. Being loyal to the Aesir makes you Ausitru.
01:30:52.640and that means you know being on the good guys team and not on the bad guys team i hate to
01:30:58.920simplify it that much but i think it really starts from that level of simplicity and you work from
01:31:04.840there and it's worthwhile reducing it down to that i think there was and still is a current
01:31:12.460to where people like to go way farther than necessary
01:31:18.200to try to come up with innovative theories
01:35:46.660And, you know, they're ready to abandon the gods and they they're wavering on their faith.
01:35:51.540And they saw these displays of power by the Christians and, you know, all right, I guess this is what we got to do.
01:35:59.360And, you know, he's getting ready to. And he he was, as the story goes, he was about to be baptized in front of all the assembled tribesmen.
01:36:08.720Because at the time, if a leader was baptized or embraced a faith, their whole country went with them.
01:36:15.340so he's getting ready to and you know he's putting his foot in the baptismal font at the
01:36:21.920last minute he's you know he asked um the bishop who was going to baptize him you know where hold
01:36:28.960on what you know where are my ancestors because it's been an inherent thing i think for probably
01:36:37.120all of humanity certainly for our folk that we look forward to being reunited with our ancestors
01:36:45.220after death that's just something we inherently know is right and how things work and so he's like
01:36:53.360you know wait where are my ancestors if i do that what you know what's this going to do and the
01:36:58.000bishop says that your ancestors you know they're surely burning in hell and he and he thought about
01:37:05.840it and he took his foot out and he said you know as it's come down to us he said you know i'd rather
01:37:12.300burned for eternity with my ancestors in hell
01:37:16.120than to be in heaven with a parcel of beggars.
01:37:20.480And with that, he maintained his people's troth to the Iser.
01:46:04.120And once you begin to approach them as beings with will, with thought, with personality, then you really can experience that relationship because it truly is about relationship building.
01:46:34.120We got another question on this second time we've heard about this. Do you guys know about
01:46:53.780the Declaration of Tradition, which is being pushed by some heathen communities? If so,
01:46:59.780what is your opinion on that uh ashley are you aware of the declaration of tradition um
01:47:07.380no not specifically no like i haven't heard of that but i think i could just
01:47:14.900sure um but i and i looked it up last time because somebody asked about it
01:47:20.180like track like trad you know trad um trad trends it's
01:47:31.620it's basically a group of people that i haven't heard of before trying to get a bunch of different
01:47:39.860folks that claim to be some form of vows to true to sign off and agree on kind of like
01:47:49.740declaration 127 but it's not a woke like gross document it's about a lot of pretty
01:47:57.380good traditions it didn't look bad from what i saw um is it controversial is there a reason
01:48:06.360that's being noticed i i don't know i don't that's the thing i don't
01:55:31.500uh matt and ashley what is the austro stance on fate slash destiny versus free will thanks
01:55:39.340That is something that, like reincarnation, I think is often misunderstood in Ausatru.
01:55:46.840What is really important is to not meditate on our religion or read our lore in a bubble as if it exists outside of the things that you know in the life that you've experienced.
01:56:16.840free will is absolutely a thing you know that we all know that we all know like and if you take it
01:56:25.440to its most basic level you know like what are you doing right now are you picking your nose did
01:56:30.680the norms really weave in that you were going to pick your nose right now or did you just feel an
01:56:35.100itch or something going on that you needed to scratch it it's kind of ridiculous to think that
01:56:40.880every little anything is somehow written in fate. And it's also a very convenient excuse not to take
01:56:50.580personal responsibility. So much of our lore is very much built upon the expression of will.
01:57:01.040Will has no meaning if there is no free will. I was going to try to look for something else,
01:57:10.440But if will doesn't exist, then will doesn't have a meaning.
01:57:14.500Will and heroic action are kind of the point of so much of our religion.
02:01:11.820I'm glad that you used the word current because with fate being incorporated, you know, past,
02:01:19.820present, future, our forward right action really can change the trajectory of that current.
02:01:29.820You know, like you were saying, if you came from making bad decisions and you're continuing
02:01:34.820that current is going to go that way, you know, but that forward, right, action, that
02:01:38.840building a momentum for good is, you know, what pushes you the right way.
02:01:45.700Another thing being, you know, the tapestry is weaving.
02:01:50.040It hasn't been completely woven, you know, it's not done, it's not, it's never, the web
02:01:58.600is intertwining with every human that you meet and every choice that you make and every
02:02:03.640action that you take those things are are happening um you know presently and not not an already
02:02:09.880decided um thing but to go on into um hand in hand with the virtue recovery meeting is a huge part
02:02:19.000of our separation from the 12-step meeting you know it's all that you know i am in the 12-step
02:02:25.800meetings that you're here for god's will and i am here to you know he will guide me and i will give
02:02:30.520it to my god and all those things and it takes away that that personal responsibility and that
02:02:35.240personal ability um you know to either be better or to take responsibility for what you know um
02:02:42.440what you have gotten yourself into and that whole concept seems to be such a fundamental
02:02:47.720difference um in the majority of other religions and it's almost um it's when you break it down
02:02:55.000like that it's surprising and how big of a difference that is because it seems common
02:02:59.160sense that of course you should be in control of the things that you do in the life that you're
02:03:04.200living because if not then what's even what what would the point be of of being here in this world
02:03:09.960and in this life if you were just this you know video game placeholder to just do what you know
02:03:16.600somebody is controlling you to do what would be the point of you being here you know so
02:03:21.400and we know that logically that's kind of my an overall thing that i would really like people to
02:03:29.520take from that that's just that's just true and we know that logic um
02:03:36.540and the other truth that kind of comes to that and this goes back to the reincarnation question
02:03:46.420and swan and i will do a little bit more on that here coming up we've already talked about it
02:03:50.880because a lot of people have questions on it.
02:03:54.320Whatever the answer is, we know certain truths.
02:03:58.900We interact with our dead ancestors beyond the veil.
02:04:03.040They come to greet us when we die and we pass on and go into that journey.
02:04:10.000We're greeted by our ancestors if they find us worthy.
02:04:13.800We know that they hear us when we make offerings at our altars.
02:04:19.620We know that they are with us and they watch over us.
02:04:22.900They become our desir and our alfar and they look after us and care for us.
02:04:28.620That's one of the also fundamentals to existence that we all realize.
02:04:32.860Whether people are religious or not, in moments of they're in their fields or for whatever reason, you know, they reach out to their ancestors like, you know, hey, mom, I miss you.
02:13:28.880You'll recognize so many things on Christmas and Easter and our traditions on lots of different
02:13:37.460stuff, including how we do funerals and weddings. There's a lot of similarities. There are obviously
02:13:43.320differences on what gods we invoke and things that way, certainly. And the other thing is,
02:13:49.500and this is like Christian weddings too, all depends on what the bride and groom want to do.
02:13:54.860if they've got some themed wedding they want to do or some special element that's really important
02:14:01.340to them and as long as it's not overtly offensive to our faith in some way we're happy to accommodate
02:14:08.780that and so yeah if somebody's got a off the wall you know someone wants to do a pirate themed
02:14:15.180wedding or something then that's going to look you know that's going to look different because
02:14:19.500they want it to be different but the fundamentals of the the wedding ceremony are you know the way
02:14:25.340that we experience it in the west are traditional and pre-date christianity and in lots of ways are
02:14:31.420very similar i think the aspect surrounding asa true weddings and afa weddings is a little less
02:14:38.300of the um like the showboating or like you do this just because you do you know it's it's less
02:14:47.340of a superficial show and for everyone else like traditional not all of them but i guess the ones
02:14:54.780that i've experienced in my life have been very um very expensive and very stressful and very um
02:15:01.740very just because because this is what we do you know kind of deal and it creates this whole just
02:15:08.380ball of stress and chaos um going into it and in debt and all those things and um
02:15:13.900that superficial factor is something that isn't included in my wedding much.
02:15:19.580So cool. This is a, it's a good time for a detour.
02:15:35.980Shouldn't have to be like that. And I don't know that it's like that in a normal Christian context.
02:15:43.180i don't know if you can i don't know how they're set up for you celebrating the entirety of your
02:15:48.220wedding at their facilities or whatever that's we it's very important to us the astro focus
02:15:56.620we don't charge people for our the services of our priests that said we gladly will take
02:16:05.660donations that way and if you want to do that please by all means that's much much appreciated
02:16:11.260But that's not the point and should never be, you know, being involved in the sacred rites of our faith shouldn't be about that.
02:16:22.680Just like I talked about with the gods, it's not transactional and it shouldn't be.
02:16:29.600So very often people will do their wedding at one of our Hoffs and they'll also have their reception there as well.
02:16:38.080people can do what they want if you want to rent out a different space then you know a go through
02:16:43.680your githia will come to that space and perform the service that's fine um but that doesn't have
02:16:50.420to be that way and the other thing i want to say is about um funeral services and uh interment of
02:16:58.440people's remains at our hafs and at sigerheim trying to figure out how that world works
02:17:06.020I was calling around before we entered our first loved one anywhere, and I couldn't get any answers from anybody trying to figure it out.
02:17:16.520And there's all these state regulations and this and that.
02:17:19.780And so I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
02:17:22.660In order to do that, turns out that's by the Bureau of Consumer Affairs, because that doesn't have much to do with the disposition of remains.
02:17:40.280It has everything to do about the financial agreement as far as paying for like grave plots and such.
02:17:50.480i didn't realize that is a shockingly expensive thing when i went over in europe