Asatru Folk Assembly - 6⧸21⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 50 - Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 We'll be right back.

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

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

00:03:19.460 Just a forewarning to you guys, I'm going to do my best, but my chest and throat are killing me.

00:03:26.720 so mandy's gonna bring me some tea and we're gonna we're gonna push on through but uh my

00:03:32.640 voice starts getting wonky or if i'm coughing a bunch that is that is the reason um

00:03:42.080 any business at the top of the hour since last time i saw you or i last time i spoke to you

00:03:47.360 rather we had mid we've had midsummer a lot of places around the country but i was able to go

00:03:52.560 go to midsummer at Odin's Hoff in Brownsville, California. And it was a amazing event. It was

00:03:59.600 really, really nice this year. The whole attitude and the vibe was wonderful. The rituals were

00:04:05.840 powerful. Met some amazing folks that it was their first time out to the Hoff. It was a really nice

00:04:12.340 event. If I saw you there, then you know what I'm talking about. If I didn't, I would love to see

00:04:16.340 there for midsummer next year other things to let you be aware of next month july the 22nd 1.00

00:04:27.060 we're going to have sigger bloat at siggerheim before warrants going to be kind of rustic 0.92

00:04:34.500 some folks will probably camp out the night before maybe even that night 0.93

00:04:39.940 we're going to get some kind of porta potty situation set up we hope we have some water

00:04:44.500 happening by then but if we do not then we will truck in bottles of water water will be available

00:04:51.380 we'll have some tents set up some like party pavilion tents set up idea being one set up down

00:04:59.220 where we have where we will have the hall in the future the other set up on top of the ridge where

00:05:04.820 we plan on putting tears off so that'll give kind of a spatial understanding of where stuff's going

00:05:11.620 and it's an amazing place it's a beautiful place and i hope everybody who is able can

00:05:18.100 meet me there and celebrate with me um yes the next uh two months and then in august we will

00:05:28.580 be celebrating frayfaxi at baldershoff and that that's baldershoff's yearly event it's going to be

00:05:37.380 be awesome. I look forward to going out there every time. Our guest tonight is from there

00:05:45.060 and regularly leads things there at that Hoff and takes care of it. So he knows how special

00:05:50.140 it is. If you guys can make it there, that's in Murdoch, Minnesota. We would love to see

00:05:55.660 you. If you can't make it there, endeavor to find a way to make it there at some point.

00:06:02.900 It's not going anywhere. And if you're interested, if you're not an AFA member, please contact

00:06:06.820 your local folk builder and they can get you all set up um without further ado i'm gonna toss it

00:06:14.580 over to our special guest tonight folk builder nathan erlinson and he is going to tell all of us

00:06:23.220 what he knows about swain bjorn bjentensen and for the purposes of this let's just assume that

00:06:31.780 nobody's ever heard of sven bjorn before and uh tell us tell folks what they need to know

00:06:39.460 all right absolutely spen bjorn bainton's son he was a pioneer in iceland as far as

00:06:49.860 the asa true faith is concerned um he was in the 70s um a man a farmer sheep farmer specifically

00:07:00.900 who came from a very talented family of farmers, but also poets.

00:07:07.720 And in the 70s, it was finally had been legal for some time for folks to leave the church.

00:07:15.620 And he implemented a push for Osatru to be recognized as a national religion over there.

00:07:25.080 in which it didn't come easy initially, but through dedication, eventually him and a few others were able to get that recognized.

00:07:38.960 Sven Bjorn was born on April 4th, 1924 in Iceland, died the 24th of December, 1993.

00:07:46.780 And like I was saying, in 1972, he founded a group called Asatru Erfellag, the Icelandic heathen organization, where he was the chief gothi to the day he died in 1993.

00:08:01.920 His beliefs after lots of hard work were officially recognized by the Icelandic government as a religion in May of 1993.

00:08:11.920 So just before he died, he was fortunate to see the fruits of his labors pay off after 20 some years of practice.

00:08:20.920 Seven months before he died, it finally became recognized.

00:08:25.920 As I was saying, he belonged to a family of farmers.

00:08:28.920 of farmers he himself was a farmer and since early childhood they had a close connection with

00:08:33.720 the gods of the norse pantheon at 16 he started writing his own poems

00:08:39.880 about the norse gods inspired by the sagas that were written down

00:08:46.440 and as most of us know the icelandic people were very tied to the next beliefs

00:08:50.520 hey nathan your your audio is pretty rough we missed about the last sentence and a half okay

00:09:08.040 maybe i'll just speak up much better icelandic people are very tied to the norse beliefs

00:09:14.280 as most of us know and some some of you may just be learning uh before christianity came

00:09:20.520 And when the Christian faith started to spread all over the continent, the religion was forbidden, illegal, but not lost.

00:09:26.800 And for the next 970 years, people still worshipped the gods, hiding that from the eyes of the church because they feared it.

00:09:35.160 Only after 1874, people had the right of religious freedom of choice.

00:09:40.260 And so they, whoever wanted, could leave the church finally.

00:09:42.860 In the 70s, Iceland lost many devotees of the Christian faith and started to spread again its original faith. 0.79

00:09:52.220 In these times, it was in these times that Sveinbjorn founded the heathen group called Asatruilarpelag,

00:09:59.180 a group that still believed and worshipped the gods and also the land spirits of the area.

00:10:09.840 Sveinbjorn and the people of his group were Asatru.

00:10:12.860 They believed in the Aesir gods. It was the most important Norse pantheon to them. As you may know, the Norse gods are divided into groups, but Sveinbjorn's group was focused only in the Aesir, an important step to the future generations who wanted to learn more about their history, the old religion, and the beliefs, and also wanted to be connected with the land, which was in fact one of the main purposes of Sveinbjorn's group,

00:10:41.640 to be in contact with the land spirits and the spirits of their ancestors.

00:10:47.940 Sveinbjorn was a great figure who helped bring a lot of Norse beliefs back to our culture, back to our people.

00:10:56.460 They have always been there, but hidden because people feared the power of the church and the Christian faith.

00:11:02.020 But Sveinbjorn stimulated the awakening of these beliefs, and people now feel lighter and free to be what they are,

00:11:09.320 choose the spiritual path that they are original to one of the many things that we are fortunate to

00:11:19.800 have um in regards to al-shirya gothi's fianbjorn is shortly before his death um there were a couple

00:11:30.040 of interviews performed uh or done in iceland with him and a couple of translators that he was close

00:11:38.600 with and nick has a link that he can put up if anybody's interested in looking at these

00:11:45.240 conversations they're very informative i'm just going to read one of the questions here real quick

00:11:52.920 that is a common question among our people our folk and the woman that was interviewing him

00:12:00.600 she asked the question i would like to know some more of the reading that one could pursue to

00:12:05.560 learn the basis of Asitru. I know that there are some things available to people in the United

00:12:10.440 States so that one could get an idea of the background of Asitru." Sveinbjorn responds,

00:12:16.920 there are of course a number of scientific treatises on the history of Asitru available

00:12:22.600 in the English language, but this is more of a historical than a religious nature available.

00:12:29.000 Both the prosetta and the poetica are the main source for how our ancestors received

00:12:34.200 the gods and nature and this is actually best to go back to the source once you go to some of the

00:12:41.000 icelandic sagas which are available in the english translation where it is possible to see

00:12:46.280 how this religion affected those who confessed it this would be a more real experience than reading

00:12:52.920 a scientific or historical treatment of the subject if you read this with an open mind and

00:12:59.000 concentrate to interpret according to your own society and environment you cannot go very much

00:13:04.200 wrong and this interview goes on uh pages and pages and pages um a very good resource to get into

00:13:15.960 the mindset of the al-shir-yar gothi back shortly before his death in 93.

00:13:22.360 To sum it up, he was a pioneer for Ossetru, one of the first recognized El Shiryar Gothis in 970 plus years and held the float for the first time in Iceland in about that same time period.

00:13:47.300 The other thing that he was most notably known for was his reunion, his music that he recorded, sang, and his poetry.

00:13:59.880 And like I said at the beginning, his brothers and sisters, very, very talented poets, it seems out to be, even though they started out on a sheep farm.

00:14:09.720 and so you can by searching him pretty easily find recordings of this great man's but wait

00:14:18.460 while we're on that i've asked nick to cue up um and i'm told this is appropriate with fair use and

00:14:25.280 everything just uh just a snippet of svein bjorn doing some of his reamer and he's doing a section

00:14:32.000 out of the have them all reciting it in in reamer form nick do we have that ready

00:14:39.720 symbolism

00:14:46.600 h

00:14:55.100 in

00:14:56.100 h

00:14:56.700 h

00:14:58.680 and

00:15:00.240 customers

00:15:00.720 openings

00:15:02.660 with

00:15:05.340 a

00:15:06.720 ivals

00:15:07.500 to

00:15:09.040 Sjaldan verður víti vörum, við að óbriðra vinn færmaður aldrei en mannvitmikið.

00:15:21.040 Visstu ef þú vinn áttu þannir þú veldrúir og vilt þú af honum gott geta,

00:15:30.220 geði skastu við hann blanda og göfum skipta, bara að finna oft.

00:15:39.040 All right.

00:15:52.820 Yes, so we've lost our guest host here for a minute.

00:15:56.560 I'm sure he's getting back sorted out.

00:16:00.380 But it's really special.

00:16:03.900 Um, I think one of the challenges with our heroes is being able to connect with them

00:16:09.540 and see them as real people.

00:16:12.000 Um, I think that's something that's very, it's much easier done with people whose lifetime

00:16:18.520 overlapped ours, but it's much more difficult when we have someone like last month, like 0.85

00:16:23.440 a Thaneric who, who lived, you know, 1700 years ago, but each of these people are real,

00:16:32.020 real men and women who did real things. And I think as far as I know, and I'm not sure if there's

00:16:38.720 any audio of Stoba or of Elsie out there, but as far as I'm aware of, this is the only one

00:16:49.320 of our heroes that we have the opportunity to actually listen to his voice. And I think that's

00:16:55.160 that's something special. Sfana and I have talked on here many times about the magic of

00:16:59.400 a voice, of incantation. And certainly when he is chanting and musically, lyrically reading

00:17:12.380 our lore in that cadence, it's really something special. It kind of sends chills up your spine.

00:17:19.020 At least it does mine. Didn't mean to interrupt you there, Nate. You are back. What else do you

00:17:25.560 have for us on Sveinbjörn? That pretty much sums it up. One interesting story I did find is the

00:17:33.580 first time he went to their parliament of sorts, or what you would call it over there, to request

00:17:43.580 Osatru to be acknowledged. They were simply more or less turned away in a little bit of contempt

00:17:52.540 and told it would be considered.

00:17:57.020 Turns out it's recorded that no less than 20 minutes after they left,

00:18:04.180 lightning struck that building.

00:18:08.340 And for anybody that knows in that environment up in Iceland,

00:18:12.800 lightning, thunder is very rare.

00:18:16.100 And then within a very relatively short period of time,

00:18:21.060 that Ossetru was recognized then at that point because everybody knew about that lightning strike

00:18:29.700 at that building and that was attributed to Thor and then after that it's uh yeah it was just

00:18:41.220 marching forward and it blew up in Iceland they started their first bloat with maybe 50 people

00:18:49.740 And then it increased in magnitude exponentially after that, year by year, season by season.

00:19:04.100 That's a very special thing.

00:19:06.380 And something we have rarely attested to amongst our heroes is such an overt blessing shown by our gods.

00:19:19.740 um that's one of the reasons and and there's a number of just merit reasons for this man to be

00:19:28.900 considered one of our heroes one of the most compelling things that we had to do this we had

00:19:34.460 to honor him as a hero is if if for himself is acknowledging his efforts in something he's trying

00:19:43.020 to do that speaks volumes and uh yeah yeah i think that's uh i don't know it's it's different

00:19:53.020 like i say our heroes go over you know the millennia and i think that someone who did

00:20:00.380 live so close to us is easier in a lot of ways to relate to more tangible for the people who are

00:20:08.940 listening, but yeah, so that's a, that's a good, good start on talking about him. Anybody who has

00:20:21.160 questions, please feel free to ask. We are still working on some MeWe stuff, but we've got it

00:20:27.340 rigged where Nick's getting me y'all's questions. I forgot to do this at the top of the show,

00:20:35.480 but we are live on Odyssey, VK, Twitter, Entropy, and YouTube.

00:20:44.200 So I hope, you know, tell your friends to join us, any of those places,

00:20:47.320 if those are their preferred platform.

00:20:49.620 And also on Fridays, this is always uploaded on Spotify as a podcast to listen to later.

00:20:56.380 If you want to donate or contribute or, you know, get your question to the front of the line,

00:21:03.420 that's something you can do over on Entropy.

00:21:05.480 And without further ado, I will get to the first questions here.

00:21:15.480 All right. So, Woodcutter NPC, how many members does the AFA have?

00:21:23.480 And is there a map that shows how many members each state has?

00:21:27.480 Not exact location, but in each state roughly.

00:21:33.480 So first, we've got 947 members as of this moment.

00:21:39.540 As far as a map that shows that, no, not on your end.

00:21:44.460 So internally, for internal use, we have a really amazing Google map that plots all our members all over the world.

00:21:52.500 But it is very exact on addresses, and so it's not something that we publish out there publicly.

00:21:57.900 As far as a stripped down version that just kind of graphically shows the states and how many in each state, we do not currently that we have to share out.

00:22:11.360 One of our folk builders, Timmy Dumas, used to make up one of those for us pretty regularly.

00:22:18.320 Internally with the folk builders, I do something similar.

00:22:21.980 I run a report in our database to see the membership by state so we can see how many in each state like you're asking.

00:22:33.280 But we don't really have that put out graphically.

00:22:35.820 If that's something people are interested to see, I'm sure that's something we can mock up.

00:22:39.540 But we don't have that available right now.

00:22:47.580 Next question is from Allie.

00:22:49.680 which uh this one's for you nate which virtues would you say that swain bjorn embodied most

00:22:57.520 uh being a farmer with no electricity and didn't have phone till much much later uh self-reliance

00:23:10.360 is one uh that i would say he embodied the most um he knew from a young age um and connected with

00:23:18.580 the sagas at a young age and never looked back and pushed to make that become a reality,

00:23:27.280 Asatru being reborn again in Iceland.

00:23:31.900 I think that's something really important for everybody to consider.

00:23:37.060 And again, it's kind of a perennial thing we talk about on this program, but

00:23:42.100 the hardest thing to do is to go from nothing to something once you have momentum behind you

00:23:51.140 everything becomes so much so much easier but many of our heroes um specifically spang bjorn

00:23:58.760 uh elsie alexander rudd mills these people as well as our founders stephen mcnalen they

00:24:06.620 We were that first generation of, hey, I have an idea. I have something that I want to see happen, something I feel compelled must happen for our gods and going out there into the world and doing that by yourself, building this from the ground up by yourself.

00:24:29.020 and you know attracting a few friends along the way that is such that takes so much willpower

00:24:38.280 and like like nathan points out so much perseverance you have to make it through

00:24:44.540 all the times where it seems like nobody else cares where people look at you funny or

00:24:49.200 other people don't take you seriously or realize why you take this so seriously

00:24:54.500 these people were truly, truly pioneers of what we all love so dearly today. And, you know,

00:25:02.740 all of the things that we have are because these heroes of our folk went out there and spent their

00:25:09.780 lifetime building something out of nothing. And that's a, that's an amazing, amazing thing that

00:25:17.700 I think it's very easy to take it, take for granted, not appreciate as much as we should.

00:25:24.500 uh again our question system is a little bit clunky I appreciate y'all bearing with me and

00:25:35.060 cutting me a little slack on it uh next question is also from Allie would the AFA at some point

00:25:40.520 in the future have interest in developing an English language song version of the have them all

00:25:46.880 sure uh that's one of those you know all we would let I saw over in the comments you know

00:25:53.540 to hear svan do that in icelandic because he is a native icelander um yeah any and all of that

00:26:02.340 we have far too little art in alsatru at this stage and it's something we'd really love to see

00:26:09.620 and that includes poetry and music as well as the visual arts um i think it would be cool i

00:26:18.900 just listening to that kind of inspires me to want to learn a little bit more about raymer myself

00:26:23.540 Um, I don't know if the cadence fits or just how that works to translate over to English, but I think that would be, you know, something really beautiful to listen to and something we'd absolutely love to see happen.

00:26:38.600 Oh, as a side note, I didn't want to interrupt Nathan earlier, but Monk, I saw your comment about your close call on your motorcycle, and I'm really glad that worked out well for you.

00:26:51.480 I appreciate the opportunity.

00:26:54.780 That was the first bike blessing I'd ever done for you and your friend.

00:26:59.440 And I hope that was helpful to you in your time of need there.

00:27:04.300 And either way, I'm really glad that you made it through that safe.

00:27:08.200 It was nice to meet your friend this weekend, and great to have you guys both out to Midsommar.

00:27:14.280 Next question is for you.

00:27:16.700 Nathan, what was one of your favorite bloats, and where was it? 0.63

00:27:21.480 A favorite bloat, and I'll tell you what, not much comes close to an Odin bloat at Odinshoff.

00:27:36.700 Yeah, hands down, favorite bloat I've attended would be the Odin bloat at Odinshoff done by R.L. Shuryargothi.

00:27:46.880 Well, thank you for that, Nate. I always try really hard on that. It's going to any of our 0.99

00:27:54.360 Hoffs and being able to give bloat to that God at his specific Hoff is such a special thing that

00:28:05.580 none of the modern heroes that we talk about have been able to do. We live in a time where

00:28:13.680 that's available to us, and it's such a blessing to be able to do that. Yeah, I think we had a

00:28:21.840 really good odin bloat this weekend as well. It seemed auspicious. It felt really powerful. It's 1.00

00:28:27.540 the start of whatever's going on with my throat, so I tried to knock it out the park. I hope it

00:28:34.280 did all right. I'm still paying for the sacrifice on that one right now. Our next question,

00:28:43.680 From Real Madrid fan, when lightning strikes something, do you think that's a sign from the gods?

00:28:51.000 What are your thoughts, Nathan?

00:28:55.300 I guess that depends on context entirely.

00:29:06.180 Our faiths are chosen for us.

00:29:09.260 All but how we decide to act in the interim.

00:29:13.680 anyway. And so when something like that happens, its magnitude and its direction has to be

00:29:28.980 acknowledged. They say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot. Well, we know that

00:29:37.680 that's not true. But again, pay attention to things like that. Obviously, not every lightning

00:29:47.040 strike you see is going to have meaning behind it as far as we can tell ourselves. But who are we to

00:29:57.820 say that it doesn't either? I guess that would be my take on it.

00:30:02.440 Yeah. Context is everything in those kind of circumstances. Do I think every lightning strike

00:30:11.600 is a sign? No. Do I think every time lightning strikes, you know, a building is observed by

00:30:18.680 people, is that a sign? No, probably not. But the key is the discernment on these things,

00:30:26.780 being able to determine when something is special and when something is is mundane and it's it's an

00:30:35.580 art form and you're not always going to get it right but for example the lightning strike that

00:30:41.500 we spoke about earlier in reference to svenbjorn it happened so these are kind of things that i

00:30:47.980 look at to evaluate whether i think something was you know a sign or whether it was just something

00:30:54.220 that happened at random it happened at a very specific time it happened in a place where

00:31:05.100 thunder and lightning happened very very rarely so to happen in a very specific way at a very

00:31:13.180 specific time involving a decision about our faith specifically for a man who was inspired by

00:31:22.220 as of thor i think all of those things coming together with the timing of it make it very

00:31:27.500 auspicious and obvious to my eyes as being a sign of of divine recognition and divine action

00:31:39.580 but like i said the context is everything um

00:31:43.500 we get this a lot with animal sign animal signs one of the big things that people notice

00:31:47.660 and take things away from. And very often when people see ravens,

00:31:56.640 it's very meaningful to them every single time. Well, I grew up in Alaska and there's ravens

00:32:01.000 everywhere all the time around every dumpster in the winter. So every time you see ravens,

00:32:05.740 it's not the all father speaking to you. Sometimes it is. Oftentimes it might be.

00:32:11.780 And figuring out what, figuring out when something feels different, when certain things are aligned, when there's a synchronicity, that is a challenging thing, but that is one of the big keys to maximizing your luck, your destiny.

00:32:32.680 one of the big themes in Ausitru is the ribo rune. It's the rune of our priesthood,

00:32:40.180 and it means right action at the right time. And by acting rightly, you pull things towards you.

00:32:49.400 But you've got to know and you've got to recognize when synchronicities occur,

00:32:54.080 and you've got to be able to recognize opportunities and capitalize on them.

00:32:57.420 And that's, you know, that's so much easier said than done.

00:33:02.900 But the better you're able to do that, the more you can maximize your potential in your life.

00:33:08.360 So looking for signs and being open to that is valuable.

00:33:12.520 And the next step of being able to view that with discernment is even more so.

00:33:23.000 A bunch of questions just came in.

00:33:25.800 All right.

00:33:27.420 next question um from ryan orion from my understanding his group became woke and

00:33:37.020 multi-culting has the afa reached out to those members to see if they want

00:33:41.100 to genuinely honor our ancestral gods and ancestors

00:33:47.340 it's a very good question um in your research into swain bjorn did you look into what's happened with

00:33:56.620 the astro feeling since his time

00:34:04.700 nathan i did not um

00:34:09.580 uh no i guess simple answer there i did not look at what they've been doing lately

00:34:15.980 um i was generally focused more on the man himself for the hero purposes so they're uh

00:34:24.140 you're absolutely right they become super woke and super multi-culty and

00:34:30.620 really not an organization that we share much in common with or want to celebrate

00:34:40.060 but as far as i can tell most of those things in the overt way happened after swain bjorn's time

00:34:46.140 um we have interacted with some Icelanders that were involved or at least were aware of that of

00:34:59.640 that their group and tried to join the AFA for a time but that's been very few and far between

00:35:06.420 we haven't had any kind of contact with them um the the troth and other leftist um

00:35:19.060 quote unquote also true outlets here and back in the 90s at some point brought over swain bjorn's

00:35:28.500 successor and tried to utilize him for political purposes and get him to condemn the AFA and

00:35:37.280 think a couple of other groups as being evil racists or whatever. And so that was kind of

00:35:45.060 a misuse of that. But that's the last big interaction between U.S. Ausatru and Icelandic

00:35:53.360 that I'm aware of. Like I said, as it's evolved, there's not a lot in common. Since it's become a

00:35:59.880 state religion over there, or one of the options for state religion, what happens often, I'm told,

00:36:07.340 is that there's a church tax. And I think this happens in many European countries,

00:36:14.500 to where a portion of your taxes go to a church. For the longest time, it was,

00:36:19.860 i believe the lutherans that it would go to in iceland but recently since as nathan talked about

00:36:29.500 since your ability to leave the state church and they recognize some other churches you can specify

00:36:35.560 where that tax dollar goes and so one of the things that atheists and people who were non-religious

00:36:43.860 generally had to put their money somewhere. And this was a, I don't know, fun, whimsical place

00:36:50.400 to put your money if you don't want it to go supporting the Lutheran church. And that's

00:36:55.680 been a source of a lot of their membership. Another thing that folks were doing is homosexuals 1.00

00:37:03.320 were using it as a place to get married because the Auschurch-Felegeth would recognize and perform 0.93

00:37:10.180 homosexual weddings whereas the lutheran church would not so it kind of became a uh 0.89

00:37:18.820 a pool for all the people who didn't want to share any sort of christian values or have their

00:37:24.820 money go towards that more than it was a group of people who actively wanted to worship the

00:37:30.420 iser and certainly i can't say that about every member of that organization and i wouldn't try

00:37:36.420 to but that seemed that's a theme that's been going on at least since uh the early 2000s

00:37:45.300 perhaps more than that i'm not really an expert on it but yeah if anybody had connections and

00:37:52.180 wanted to offer those people an opportunity to experience house the true and uh what we

00:37:57.220 feel is a much more authentic way we would be really happy to have that conversation

00:38:01.060 one second i gotta pull up our quest our questions each time here um

00:38:08.820 uh also by ryan orion do you think the afa should publish its own poetic edda

00:38:15.780 one that doesn't hide or mistranslate folkish passages

00:38:19.620 i think in general it would be nice to have um our lore produced in-house

00:38:31.060 Um, that way we can add commentary and have, you know, special, um,

00:38:40.300 it's rough guys. I apologize. Appendices at the end of it with different things that we think

00:38:49.560 are useful and we can package it the way we'd like doing a full trans retranslation.

00:38:55.840 I think it's kind of beyond our scope.

00:38:59.840 I would be very open to that.

00:39:01.700 And if we had any members that were linguists that could do that, going back to the source retranslation, I'd be very curious what that turns up and what we would find different than the existent translations.

00:39:14.580 And I'd be very, very open to that.

00:39:15.920 We just don't have anybody right now with that specialty that I'm aware of.

00:39:19.960 Because there's so many.

00:39:21.820 There's countless translations of that material.

00:39:24.980 And so each translator is going to have their own take on it, and it's always up for debate who's wrong.

00:39:34.520 That's one thing you'll find when you're looking for source material is there's countless translations out there.

00:39:42.800 I think that that's a great goal for us to have as a church is to one day maybe be able to do that.

00:39:50.700 That would be fantastic.

00:39:52.700 Absolutely it would.

00:39:54.980 Allie asks, you both do so much for our folk. What inspires you to persevere and seek victory? Nathan, what inspires you to keep on trucking until we're victorious?

00:40:08.900 Well, I guess I asked myself what the alternative is to victory, and I don't have a comprehension for giving up, quitting, surrendering.

00:40:25.900 I do acknowledge that sometimes you lose and some battles you win, but the ultimate goal is to win the war.

00:40:35.900 And for me, with my background, that's kind of how I was brought up as a man anyway, and that was as an infantry soldier, and that's carried over to still today.

00:40:49.540 And so when I approach the Austin Troop Folk Assembly, I am working towards victory in everything that I do.

00:40:57.320 You know, I, so many things inspire me to persevere and pursue victory.

00:41:09.580 Um, certainly the gods themselves, it's one of those, um, it's one of those things. Once you

00:41:21.460 experience the reality of the gods in your life, uh, you can't go back, or I certainly couldn't

00:41:30.120 ever go back to not realizing that and not feeling that and not knowing that that's there.

00:41:36.960 knowing that the gods are real they're our gods they're my gods and feeling them

00:41:47.340 work in my life and in ways that that affect my family and I I owe them so much how could I not

00:41:56.220 do my best to achieve victory for them to build things for them to make hoffs for them and to

00:42:02.520 bring people home to them. My love of my folk, absolutely. I love my family. One of the most

00:42:10.380 amazing things, and you guys have heard me on and on about this on here is building this for my

00:42:18.700 daughter and for my descendants after her. Just looking at how far we've come

00:42:25.480 from when I started to the world she was born into where she was born into a world with 0.98

00:42:33.780 well she's born into a world with one half but her the year of her birth we got the next two

00:42:39.460 um she's grown up there's never going to be a time in her life there's not temples to our gods

00:42:46.260 and that's an amazing thing seeing how far we've come in that time certainly inspires me to

00:42:52.400 wonder how far could we come by the time of my grandchildren. And I want to do my best to get

00:43:00.940 us as far ahead and to build as great a legacy for them as I can. The other thing

00:43:08.040 that really inspires me on a personal level.

00:43:16.200 I am deeply, deeply committed to trying to do everything I can to do this job the best that I can.

00:43:28.520 I feel this is, you know, this is my purpose in life is to do this and do this as well as I can

00:43:37.960 possibly do. Any times that I fall short of that are devastating. And the way that I cope with

00:43:49.020 stress or anything else in life is to try to throw myself at this as hard as I can

00:43:57.160 to move closer and closer to victory, to win more for our folk and our gods, and to

00:44:04.060 be worthy of being Osheriagothi. And it's something I don't ever want to slack in. I

00:44:12.980 don't want to ever let up in. It's, you know, this is why I named the show Victory Never Sleeps,

00:44:18.020 is you've got to stay on your toes and you can't rest on past successes. Every day is

00:44:27.060 a new opportunity to win for us and for our gods. And throwing myself into that as hard as I can

00:44:35.180 is what stills any kind of stress or doubt or uncomfortableness in my life. And we talk about

00:44:47.860 this as far as righting wrongs or building reputation or making things right. And one of

00:44:55.180 the things in our faith is stuff, just bad things don't disappear, but you outweigh them with good

00:45:02.820 things. I want to outrun all of the ways that, you know, all of the things that I'm not perfect at,

00:45:10.940 all of the things that I mess up at, any of the things in my life that aren't perfect,

00:45:16.020 can't undo, but all I can do is run forward as hard as I can to do more, to build more,

00:45:24.640 and to make more happen. And that brings me a certain amount of inner peace that inspires me

00:45:32.200 to always keep moving and trying to build that, build that hymenia as mighty as I can.

00:45:39.440 That's kind of a long answer to a question that maybe wasn't meant that long.

00:45:46.020 Rachel asks, can you speak on the schedule of events for Cigar Bloat and elaborate on the victory games?

00:45:57.580 Yes, because wouldn't you know, attached to this question, Nick gave me the current schedule of events.

00:46:06.200 This may be the first time I've seen these events.

00:46:08.720 So this is not this is not gospel.

00:46:11.220 This is this is just what it's looking like right now.

00:46:14.500 We're going to have an early breakfast at like 9 a.m. is what we've got on the schedule at present.

00:46:19.980 10 a.m., we're doing a welcoming of the gods.

00:46:24.600 10.30, an ancestor's ceremony.

00:46:28.200 11 o'clock, a discussion with me on the progress and future goals of Sigurheim.

00:46:35.140 12.30, we're looking at doing lunch.

00:46:38.840 13.30, ah, he did it in military time.

00:46:41.600 I see what he did there.

00:46:42.420 1.30, we'll be doing the Tournament of Victory and Children Activities.

00:46:49.680 At, I'm not going to math, 3.30, we'll be doing Victory Games.

00:46:54.260 We'll be crowning the award winner of the Victory Games.

00:46:58.060 Now, so in the Victory Games, that's been kind of out of my hands.

00:47:01.420 It's something that other people have been developing and getting implements for.

00:47:06.600 uh the idea in concept was for it to be a bit more serious than some of our

00:47:12.580 our more fun viking games at events with a little bit more

00:47:16.040 i don't know a little bit more serious about scoring and and athletic prowess as opposed

00:47:23.760 to just having a good time ideally we'll do both but i think that was the original concept

00:47:28.680 um nick could probably direct you on who best to talk about about some specifics on victory games

00:47:35.220 though, as well. Then after that, at five, we're looking at doing bloat, dinner at 6.30,

00:47:45.940 auction at 7.30, sumble at 8.30. I'm sure people will be hanging out, but it's important to keep

00:47:55.200 in mind we have neighbors there. We don't want to be bad neighbors and be up hooting and hollering

00:48:00.960 and yelling in the middle of the night. We want to be respectful of the people that live around us

00:48:04.500 there. We really want to, from day one, which I guess technically we're a little bit past now

00:48:12.940 because we actually have people living out there, but from as early as we can, we want to be good

00:48:19.320 neighbors and we want to build a good reputation in that community

00:48:32.600 our next question is what kind of lesson can we learn from swain bjorn's story

00:48:40.280 nathan what kind of lessons do you think we can learn from the life of this hero

00:48:45.080 well if you look back to where he how his life was and where he originated from grew up

00:48:55.880 the challenges he had to overcome at that time with the church in in europe

00:49:04.020 being a sheep farmer like i said with no electricity never had electricity out there

00:49:11.080 His entire life had a phone eventually, but that was it. And so something I think we can definitely take away from his existence and everything he did for our folk was that no matter, no matter the stage, as long as you are acting in right action for your folk, your gods.

00:49:41.080 don't ever give up. Perseverance, selfless service, you know, freestanding, all of that,

00:49:52.800 that this man, El Shiryar Gothi Sveinbjorn, literally started studying the sagas at 16

00:50:01.680 because they spoke to him. And, you know, that's rare. So something that I definitely,

00:50:09.460 definitely believe that we can take from his existence and everything he accomplished was

00:50:16.040 to fight for right action and what you believe in, especially when it's concerning our gods and our

00:50:23.880 folk. You know, I think it goes along with what we were saying earlier on perseverance, but

00:50:35.660 that idea of continuing to try, even when it's not the popular thing, even when you may not be

00:50:47.280 in the majority on something, if you know it to be the right thing, continuing to push forward

00:50:53.060 and make what you know is right happen. Those things, you know, those things can and do work

00:51:01.540 out. It's very easy from the outset to just assume failure or assume it's unlikely and scrap it.

00:51:08.860 But putting your whole life behind it and your whole self behind it, you can make big things

00:51:14.080 happen. One person who's committed, one person who has faith in his gods can do amazing things.

00:51:22.140 Sometimes it's lonely, but if you stay the course and stay committed, amazing things can happen.

00:51:29.120 And that official recognition, you know, just a short time before his death is kind of a poignant illustration of that, because it took his entire life to make it happen.

00:51:39.960 But it did happen.

00:51:48.720 Pull up next question here.

00:51:53.960 All right.

00:51:55.560 This one's for you, Nathan.

00:51:56.880 When did you realize Ossetru was right for you?

00:52:02.000 Great question.

00:52:04.340 So it was, I didn't realize this until it actually happened.

00:52:10.640 But once that spark ignited that flame within me, I realized that this is what I had been searching for and doing from a very, very young age.

00:52:24.280 And when I finally realized or came to find the information, the names of our gods and our lore and everything like that, everything just fell into place at that time.

00:52:44.860 And ever since then, everything's fallen into place as well, which is a testament to where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing for our folk and for our gods.

00:52:58.520 So I've been doing this for probably close to six or seven years now with the AFA-3, and it's been nothing but energizing the whole time, absolutely energizing.

00:53:20.480 um things things were rough for uh quite a while for me um in which i was i was looking for this

00:53:31.260 i was searching for this i knew what i wanted i just didn't know what it looked like if that

00:53:38.640 makes any sense and when i finally found it like i said it just it ignited a plan within me that

00:53:46.300 has been growing exponentially ever since um to where it's become a driving force

00:53:54.780 um every day for me in doing this for my folk and my gods for the afa

00:54:02.540 this was a two-part question first part was just for you second part's for us both but while

00:54:07.740 while you're on a roll here what uh what future afa goal excites you the most and

00:54:16.540 do you like the metal and judging by his hand gesture afterwards i'm assuming he's talking

00:54:22.140 about music absolutely um for future goal um what i want to see i want to see i want to see

00:54:32.940 I want to see my kids do this as adults. That's what I'm doing this for. I want to see

00:54:42.140 Tier and Rowan grow up in this. I want to see Lily take off with this. I want to see

00:54:48.620 Ashley and I's kids live this life. And I'm excited to see what it becomes when,

00:54:59.220 And, you know, they're adults themselves to see where we're at with all the hard work we're all doing, laying that groundwork and that foundation that had been laid before us by our founder and such, Stephen McNallan and Sheila.

00:55:17.820 Where can we be in 20 years?

00:55:20.480 That's what I'm looking forward to.

00:55:23.740 Yeah.

00:55:24.300 So as far as a specific AFA goal, I'm going to cheat and talk about two of them.

00:55:35.280 But in the spirit of your question, which AFA goal am I most excited about?

00:55:41.560 Sigurheim and the development of Sigurheim.

00:55:43.920 I'm kind of obsessed about it.

00:55:46.460 uh it's there's so much potential to do really amazing things there to build a community there

00:55:54.180 and around it to be able to do this every day when i first uh first became yeah it's not when

00:56:03.080 i first became house true i suppose when i first went to my my very first afa event was midsummer

00:56:09.720 of 2010. And, uh, it, it sounds cliche because it's what a lot of people say, but I think it's

00:56:19.040 very real. It changed my life. Um, I went to every other national event I could possibly go to since

00:56:27.020 then. And at every one, every time I wanted that to be my life. I realized, you know, at that point

00:56:36.520 we had one national event a year that I was spending, you know, 360 days every year so that

00:56:43.980 I could live five days the way it ought to be at, you know, when our folk are together.

00:56:50.060 And my life's gotten so much closer to that. We've got events all over the place. I'm flying

00:56:55.560 out every month to some AFA gathering somewhere. And I'm so blessed to be able to do that.

00:57:01.060 But still not close enough. Sigurheim is that dream where I can live there on property with a hoff, with our great hall, build a community around it and do this every single day of my life with my AFA family.

00:57:17.020 And that's something I'm so excited about. I'm excited about building that hoff to tier and building that hall and gathering our folk in that hall.

00:57:26.560 But what's probably the most important AFA goal that I'm also extremely excited about is the continued development of our Auschew Academy.

00:57:40.240 It's hard because it's not visually as shiny as any of our Hoffs or things like that.

00:57:48.160 So it's hard to give it the attention and the, you know, the pizzazz that it's due.

00:57:54.520 but last year we started just with kindergartners at first but something that's going to change the

00:58:04.220 world we're going to educate our own children and be able to help each other accomplish that

00:58:10.360 so that our kids don't have to suffer the misinformation and the indignities of public

00:58:18.180 school and can be educated side by side with other members of their afa family

00:58:27.860 learning together growing together and educated in a way that we can be proud of

00:58:34.500 this next school year we'll be taking k through third so that's a huge leap just there and our

00:58:41.380 folks are very committed to making sure this continues all the way up till we have a full

00:58:45.300 K through 12 curriculum. And that's such a big deal. And I say that as the else area go for you,

00:58:54.140 but I also say it as a father who is going to homeschool his daughter and has had all kinds

00:59:00.480 of fears and worries. And what if I don't do it right? And how do I comply with state rules on

00:59:05.640 this? And what about this? And what all those things disappeared once we started doing this.

00:59:11.980 And I'm so excited for that with parents. I want everybody to know that's the biggest thing that we're focused on is handholding because you can do it. This is not an unachievable goal.

00:59:27.020 So educating your children through homeschool is something you can do.

00:59:32.340 It's something we will hold your hand through doing and help be a partner in making you successful at doing.

00:59:40.200 And that's that's something I'm extremely excited for.

00:59:49.020 What's next on our list here?

00:59:51.620 Um, what is the current relationship between the AFA and the Ossetreur-Feligeth?

01:00:00.040 I mentioned this earlier, but there is none.

01:00:04.060 We have had no, I guess, no official interaction between the two organizations

01:00:12.380 ever in my time, certainly.

01:00:16.840 um as i mentioned there was something called i think it was an event called the gathering of

01:00:21.660 the gothar and it was a number of a number of different um groups because this was back in

01:00:30.700 the 90s when there was a lot of overlap uh the afa was much much smaller but there was their uh

01:00:37.740 their alzharia gothi at the time was flown over and had some interesting interactions i think some

01:00:45.220 it was good there was also some you know trying to use him as a political prop by um leftists at

01:00:52.660 the time that were claiming to be practicing house true but since like i was going to say since the

01:00:59.380 the mid 90s i don't think there has been any official interaction between the afa and the

01:01:04.100 that's true or fail i guess um next question which of you are better at cube

01:01:18.580 i i've never observed nathan playing cube so i don't know do you bring a strong cube game

01:01:26.100 um i you know i've played a handful of times i guess i'm more of a sniper than i am a grenade

01:01:35.860 thrower so all right so that there's a lack of confidence in the man's cube game i'm going to

01:01:44.660 go ahead and say that i'm the better cube player but i would love to test that out next time i see

01:01:48.980 yet absolutely um so we are we are starting to wind down here we have two questions left so if

01:02:01.860 anybody else has got questions um let's see them on here i know that uh this is kind of a side note

01:02:07.940 for nick but i know there's been some questions that i don't see on the end here so maybe he's

01:02:12.340 got some more to populate for me um how do you guys celebrate midsummer i think that

01:02:24.420 context is so much of of a thing it depends both myself and nathan got to celebrate midsummer at

01:02:32.180 hoffs uh he had uh oh well i say that i don't know if he did or he didn't um i got to celebrate

01:02:38.660 midsummer at odenshoff at odenshoff we have a tradition we do our midsummer bloat outside in

01:02:45.140 in the vey space and we have a permanent sacred circle there we do things in um we have a big

01:02:52.740 midsummer fire and we typically prepare a sun wheel of you know a flammable like made out of

01:03:01.620 wicker sun wheel wreath that people tie ribbons to this year we tied yarn we wove yarn to it

01:03:08.660 and imbue that with our might, with our wishes for the coming year, with our love for balder.

01:03:16.620 And then we conduct a balder bloat. And during that bloat, we'll offer that sun wheel up and

01:03:21.300 burn it as an offering and do a standard bloat, but we do bloat to balder. That's how I celebrated

01:03:29.680 this year. That's how we celebrated Odenshof. I suppose that's the highlight of the celebration.

01:03:35.680 We actually celebrate it with a three-day event at Odenshof where we have, as a prelude to it, 1.00

01:03:42.780 we had a Frigga bloat to Baldur's mother, we had a Odin bloat to Baldur's father, 0.99

01:03:48.880 and then we did a bloat to Baldur himself. Nathan, how did you celebrate Midsummer this year? 0.71

01:03:56.860 Very similar. At Baldur'shof, we had a spectacular Midsummer. Our setup is a little bit different.

01:04:05.680 out here whereas we don't have the outdoor space to do things like you can at odin's hop however

01:04:12.400 we do have a spectacular indoor venue for our bloats and our ceremonies at that point but again

01:04:21.680 balder um you know the focus for the weekend we do a lot of kids stuff as well as i think

01:04:31.920 in our kindred alone we have what is it seven or eight kids uh young kids at that so everything

01:04:42.080 we do out at balder's house usually has to incorporate them at some point in some aspect

01:04:48.000 many times it's removed from our main bloats in the hawk we for example we do children's bloats as

01:04:58.080 well um in conjunction with the main bloats that happened um just in the basement downstairs in the

01:05:07.120 hall and so that's how we do it out at balder's hof um to make it simple anyway all right so

01:05:18.560 So the best. All right. Go ahead, Nate. The best is Hoff. Right. Incorrect.

01:05:31.740 No, honestly, I feel like a little kid, but we've got four bestest Hoffs. Absolutely.

01:05:42.320 So the next question, what is the AFA's position on psychedelic use for spiritual growth?

01:05:48.560 It's an interesting question.

01:05:58.760 So, again, context is everything.

01:06:02.680 The AFA in no way encourages any illegal activity anywhere ever.

01:06:07.940 That's not something we encourage anyone to do.

01:06:10.400 So that would leave this to the realm of theory or to, you know, practicing it somewhere in the South American rainforest.

01:06:18.560 or perhaps somewhere where it is legal and okay.

01:06:22.580 Certainly, there's things that can alter your mind, alter your perception,

01:06:26.720 and get you in a spiritual space that allows certain spiritual things to happen

01:06:34.780 and can better facilitate communication between gods, ancestors,

01:06:41.360 anything else for that matter, and you.

01:06:44.180 And that can bypass some of the impediments that people might have.

01:06:48.420 So I think that theoretically, in the theoretical realm, there's absolutely substance to that.

01:06:55.320 I don't, however, feel that that's necessary to practice House of Truth.

01:07:00.080 And again, the House of Truth Folk Assembly is not encouraging anyone to do any substance that is illegal to do in your state or country that you find yourself in.

01:07:10.360 What do you got to say on that, Nathan?

01:07:11.960 i think the important part of it all is that you have a solid solid foundation

01:07:19.240 in the practice and in the beliefs um what you do with that um

01:07:27.480 we can't condone or acknowledge um if it's illegal because that doesn't happen um just ask alan um

01:07:37.080 um anyway so that i would encourage anybody that were anyone to do those things

01:07:50.440 i think it's really important that it's done in the right context

01:07:56.040 as with any ritual you pursuit you do involving that or anything else

01:08:00.920 all the pieces fitting together help make it the best it can be um when we do a bloat the more you

01:08:12.200 can keep people focused with smell with sight with sound you know perhaps you use incense or the flame

01:08:19.440 of the fire or even one thing i notice as you come around with the asperging of mead i smell

01:08:24.720 the mead when it splashes on me things that incorporate your senses your sense of touch

01:08:29.760 All of those things go into making an experience better or worse.

01:08:37.500 And I think having all those things in place and having people who are not altered there to help you out and to help guide that in a spiritual direction, in theory, would probably be a really good thing to do.

01:08:53.200 And with that, too, I mean, just like you said, Matt, it's it's the senses that really make it powerful, triggering those senses, the smells, the feeling of what's happening around you to where you don't need any type of mind altering drug or chemical or anything like that to get outside of yourself to feel the power of

01:09:23.200 a good bloat um that's that's where that's where the strength and the power really lies

01:09:31.820 is in the connectivity of your folk around the group um that's around you in a bloat and having

01:09:40.800 everybody in the same mindset on the same page whereas if you had somebody that was using some

01:09:47.540 mind-altering drugs or something like that I think it would take away from a bloat personally

01:09:54.320 because they would be experiencing something different yeah everybody experiences something

01:10:00.060 different but when everybody's on the same page the focus is all in the same direction

01:10:06.480 whereas you risk using anything mind-altering to losing somebody that's also part of

01:10:15.180 you're weird at that point. All right. And so the next question is, again, very circumstantial.

01:10:26.700 Mr. Skinner here, what is the correct way to interact with those who are now known hostile

01:10:32.920 to the AFA, but still are personally cordial to myself and my family? Should I, should I just

01:10:40.140 rip the band-aid off that's entirely up to you one of the things that i mentioned um before

01:10:47.020 about recognizing recognizing signs is the development of discernment um

01:10:58.700 people are grown and i'm not gonna sit here and tell you that you have to

01:11:04.300 you know who you can and can't be friends with i don't think that's my place to do and i don't

01:11:09.020 think it's appropriate um it has always been my stance as i'll share your goethe but before that

01:11:19.100 when i was a folk builder even when i was a regular member if people were openly hostile

01:11:25.020 to the afa then out of loyalty it was really important to me i i would cut those people off

01:11:30.620 i would stand with the afa no matter what because those were my folk and my gods and my people and

01:11:37.020 that was my team um that was how i handled it doesn't necessarily mean that's how you should

01:11:43.660 handle it um again those are choices that that each and every person is going to have to make

01:11:49.740 but there's certainly no eat it from the top that the afa demands you you know cut off anybody who

01:11:56.620 isn't pro afa um that's a choice that you've got to make do you have any thoughts on that nathan

01:12:02.460 I agree with what you said. It's just, you got to have balance. And so if you are interacting

01:12:18.180 and have friendships outside or are hostile to the AFA, man, you're just going to have to watch

01:12:26.640 your step. Um, you got to stay in balance with things and follow, follow your gut, follow your

01:12:33.740 heart. Um, you know, it's either going to work for you or it's not, um, nobody's going to tell

01:12:41.220 you who you can and can't hang out with and associate with. Um, but yeah. You know, so I,

01:12:50.900 I will say this. What I think, what I think the best way to do, and what I've done in my life

01:12:59.960 that's helped me a lot, is try to develop an existence that all works together. And I know

01:13:08.600 different people are at different stages of this. Some people can't do it or, you know, choose not

01:13:13.700 to, whatever. But the more that I've structured my life to where the pieces all fit together,

01:13:20.900 to where my friends are in the AFA, and they get along with the other AFA friends that I have.

01:13:28.160 My family is involved with the AFA. All of my life is involved with the AFA, so I don't have

01:13:34.920 this pocket over here that thinks one way, and this pocket over here that's different,

01:13:41.040 and this pocket over here that's different. Inevitably, to interact in those groups,

01:13:45.820 if they don't all function together, then you have to keep up appearances of, you know,

01:13:56.660 a slightly different person around all these different people, around all these different

01:14:00.600 groups. I've found it's much, much better to make sure my life is harmonious, that the people that

01:14:07.940 I interact with, I can be proud in who I am, that I can do that with my family, that I can do that

01:14:14.560 while I'm, you know, involved in AFA activities, that I can do that when I'm hanging out on the

01:14:19.140 side, that all those things kind of work together. And it's made my life much better to do things

01:14:23.860 that way. Current AFA membership. I had mentioned that earlier in the broadcast. It is, let me

01:14:36.380 refresh aha glad that i did so it was previously 9 47 it is now 9 49. so we've had two new people

01:14:49.500 apply during the course of this program that's always cool to see um to my knowledge was mr

01:14:59.420 mcnallan ever in contact with svenbiorn no to my knowledge they had no contact

01:15:07.420 and i've asked that specifically so forgive me if i'm wrong and i and i mix something up but

01:15:12.060 no as far as i know there's no contact between between steve and svenbiar

01:15:16.380 and so it's the last question I have but I saw another question on here early so there's at

01:15:30.480 least two questions here um for Nathan how do you guys do children's bloats we've been getting our

01:15:36.860 daughter to join we have been getting our daughter to join in the bloats

01:15:40.840 so that's something um witten callahan actually implemented out here at baldershoff

01:15:51.500 we typically do a very low-key uh bloat for the kids obviously it's got to keep their attention

01:16:00.120 do a what kind of bloat children's bloat no you said a low-key bloat and i was making a pun my

01:16:10.080 fault gotcha yeah keeping the bloat low key um thank you for the correction see um no but that's

01:16:20.960 something that's important um get our children especially the younger children used to it

01:16:26.320 obviously the older children can participate in our formal bloats um but having something for the

01:16:33.200 kids to do as well and bringing them up in our practice and our faith we do a children's bloat

01:16:42.240 simultaneously with our formal bloats but yeah it's it's just kept low-key because they're not 0.99

01:16:50.640 going to stand in a circle for very long and so usually we have a couple of our women folk 1.00

01:16:56.320 in leadership that lead that up at the same time as our formal bloat

01:17:03.200 So as far as including kids and stuff, that's also a context thing, because it's really

01:17:19.840 different depending upon the kid, depending upon the bloat, depending upon the age.

01:17:24.840 it's one thing we always kind of try to figure out at Odenshof is

01:17:34.180 you know what what to do on that and what to not certainly our children are always welcome at all

01:17:42.700 of our bloats but if they're squirrely and they don't want to be there and they're running around

01:17:46.620 and they're they're unmanageable sometimes you know it's not right to hamper everybody else's

01:17:53.440 experience just to have your kid there if your kid is going to be disruptive. So it's a difficult

01:18:00.040 balance. And oftentimes, it's our ladies that have to figure it out. I know Mandy brings Aubrey in. 1.00

01:18:05.320 Aubrey will be great most of the time. But if she hasn't had her nap or she's fussy or whatever,

01:18:09.880 then Mandy's got to take her out of the circle and go try to get it figured out.

01:18:16.380 Aside from just doing children's bloats, one thing that I have seen work very well with children at

01:18:22.560 Odinsoff is just exposing them to it often and giving them the opportunity, starting them out

01:18:29.000 in the bloat. And then if they can't settle down or whatever, then, you know, stepping out with

01:18:33.680 them perhaps, but it being a normal thing that they see, that they see often, that they understand

01:18:41.420 why, and then see them experience it. It's really interesting because especially my Odin bloat,

01:18:52.480 But other bloats as well, I'll get very, you know, for lack of a better word, I'll get furious with inspiration and I'll be loud and yelling.

01:19:03.540 And it can all be a lot for a kid that's not used to that.

01:19:07.000 But one of the things that I've seen is the more these children have been raised around it, the less, you know, the less scary or the less, you know, jarring that is for them.

01:19:17.420 And and the more they the more they enjoy it and look forward to it.

01:19:21.540 It's been specifically really fun to watch Witten Erikson's kids grow up and take such an active role in things.

01:19:30.780 His son loves to hail for every opportunity that he gets.

01:19:35.920 And he's very, very active and he's very inquisitive about our lore and all of the things that we're doing.

01:19:41.960 so you know i would say offer the opportunity to your kids you know frequently and uh and really

01:19:51.160 encourage that and they'll surprise you some of the best toasts at sumble that i can remember

01:19:56.360 were children's toasts and they just moved me to my core because they were just very simple but

01:20:02.280 very very genuine and uh yeah it's great it's great to have that um another question i guess

01:20:11.320 a question i skipped someone in the chat asked what is cube cube is a lawn game of norse origin

01:20:22.520 it's um trying to think of what it's most similar to i guess in a way it's similar to like bocce

01:20:30.120 absolutely um but yeah you've got you've got a certain number of sticks your opponent's got a

01:20:40.780 certain number of sticks and you throw them at a central king figure and there's i can't go into

01:20:48.640 all the rules right now it'll make sense when it's there but yes it's a it's a yard game very

01:20:53.920 similar to bocce in a lot of ways um i think we got some more questions coming in but we had a

01:21:00.320 question a while back and i think because of how we're routing these things that i was the only

01:21:05.280 one who saw it not nick due to our entropy interface so from a heineland question matt

01:21:12.160 and nathan since swain bjorn was a bit of a scald it got me thinking that it's uh something we lack

01:21:18.080 today from scaldic poetry to flighting there are numerous options and paths to pursue but

01:21:24.560 in your opinions what ways can we revitalize the poetic nature of our folk within the afa

01:21:31.680 do you have thoughts and ideas on that nathan

01:21:39.760 you know um i think it's going to be really come down to

01:21:44.640 members just starting to implement that for themselves in their lives initially become

01:21:55.380 become that which is which you speak of and bring it to our events bring it to our hoffs and

01:22:03.600 share it with people share it with the folk

01:22:06.680 you know i think that

01:22:14.480 i'm certainly open to very traditional ancient styles of doing things i mentioned that earlier

01:22:22.960 with with reamer um if someone wants to take up skaldic poetry or traditional you know traditional

01:22:33.220 Old Norse flightings. Cool. That's great. And I think it's fantastic. I think as far as stuff

01:22:41.660 for us to encourage, though, that tradition can manifest itself in many different ways.

01:22:48.980 I think us encouraging all poetry, us encouraging music generally, I think those are things that

01:22:59.800 can help rebuild that. And I think if we focus over much on trying to make them

01:23:07.160 conform to old Icelandic meter, I think we lose some of the interest. But if we have people who

01:23:13.900 are passionate about music or passionate about poetry, to get them to direct the inspiration

01:23:19.680 for that music and poetry towards our faith, towards our gods, towards our heroes, towards

01:23:24.880 our values, I think that's a really good thing to do. And I want to encourage that at every time.

01:23:31.940 Our last question that we have is, okay, and again, okay, so last question is, 1.00

01:23:42.180 Matt, you've spoken before about how male homosexuality is not welcome within the AFA.

01:23:47.420 So it begs the question, is female homosexuality welcome? Or is it just as bad? I'm asking this 0.78

01:23:53.660 because in a previous stream, you talked about how male homosexuality in particular is dangerous

01:23:58.440 for children specifically. No, homosexuality generally in all of its forms is not welcome

01:24:06.600 in the AFA. The differences come outside of that. It's not just as bad. I don't think anything is

01:24:16.840 just as anything. In the AFA, we don't believe in equality. Everything has its own strengths,

01:24:26.640 weaknesses, and place in the hierarchy of things. No two things, no two people,

01:24:32.540 no two actions are equal. So the difference when I specifically said that about male homosexuality 0.98

01:24:44.260 is consensual male homosexuality at any point is kind of a bridge that once you cross you can't go

01:24:51.140 back um i don't think that's the case with female homosexuality and i'm not a scientist i couldn't

01:24:58.340 give you the scientific breakdown but i think a lot of us just know that that's kind of true

01:25:05.300 the other thing is you don't or in any of the research i've done in any of the life experience

01:25:12.580 I've had. I have not seen the direct correlation between female homosexuality and child predation

01:25:19.780 that I have seen with male homosexuality and child predation. So I think that they are very different,

01:25:27.060 but I think that male homosexuality is a much greater threat to children. But either way, 0.99

01:25:35.700 homosexuality is not welcome in the Austro-Folk Assembly and is contrary to our values. 1.00

01:25:42.580 I think that's all we have tonight. 1.00

01:25:48.780 I'm going to check one more time and see if we have any lingering questions.

01:25:53.080 Nope, I think that is it.

01:25:55.360 It's been a short stream tonight, but I'm a little bit thankful for it

01:25:59.140 because I don't know how much more talking I can do.

01:26:02.980 Nathan, thank you so much for your presentation on Sveinbjorn

01:26:07.400 and for coming back on the program.

01:26:09.600 It's great to have you on here.

01:26:10.660 hail the folk hail the afa hail the gods

01:26:14.800 aha somebody slipped one in right before the wire how do you respond to claims that all this modern

01:26:24.100 lgb lgbt pride stuff was normal in viking times one argument i hear people make is comparing loki

01:26:32.900 to transgenderism um it's ridiculous uh how do i respond to the the claims that 0.86

01:26:42.580 all this nonsense was normal in viking times because it's absurd it's absurd on the face of it 0.95

01:26:48.580 um there's plenty there is large amounts of evidence that that's not the case at all um

01:27:00.260 And one of the big things, just thinking off the top of my head, in the Viking Age thing specifically, the concept of ergi was terrible and was like a huge, huge, huge insult and had huge social consequences.

01:27:20.460 And that was basically being the female half of a gay couple, I guess. 0.55

01:27:30.260 or being a man that behaved femininely there were specific rules on that like you couldn't 0.65

01:27:34.820 cut your shirt a certain way because depending on how you cut the top of your shirt would make

01:27:41.060 the difference on whether your garment was a male garment or a female garment a man that was wearing 0.91

01:27:46.340 women's clothes that was extremely frowned upon with a high social consequence for the principle

01:27:51.620 of ergi that i talked before um we see writings in tacitus's day of the germanic tribes

01:28:01.620 stomping homosexuals into bogs because the idea of male homosexuality was equated with their

01:28:10.100 disgust of cowardice and other things um no these people like to make stuff up and it besmirches 0.99

01:28:16.580 our ancestors it's really unfortunate uh perhaps loki and so here's the thing we also take humor

01:28:23.860 for granted the idea of loki turning into a female horse to uh give birth to slepner isn't

01:28:32.500 to loki's credit is an illustration of how loki is an aberration and how he is an element of chaos

01:28:40.900 and something that's repulsive to our gods and our folk. That was never something that was okay

01:28:47.140 or celebrated. It was pointed out as an object of disgust and ridicule. But no, that's really

01:28:54.480 unfortunate for people to take the voice of the dead and twist it to meet their own political

01:29:02.520 cause. That's not right. And it's very disrespectful, especially when they know that

01:29:06.680 it is not true. Well, that's exactly what it is, too. It's their political agendas, taking a very

01:29:14.520 masculine people, history, and folk that took tremendous pride in masculinity and the separation

01:29:22.860 of men and women in their sexuality and using it and trying to twist it for their own agenda

01:29:30.180 and political purposes. And again, as we continue on this, other questions sneak through. So one

01:29:40.540 more last question. I have one more question. Thoughts on the lost continent of Atlantis being

01:29:48.920 the origin of the Aryan tribes? First, Nathan, do you have any thoughts on this?

01:29:56.720 none all right so origin of the aryan tribes i don't know i think that's a that's a reach

01:30:04.480 we just know too little to prove that or to make that assumption i will say this i find

01:30:14.740 the idea of atlantis fascinating i find that kind of ancient archaeology to be very very interesting

01:30:21.200 I don't buy all of Graham Hancock's theories, but I think Graham Hancock's work in that kind of field.

01:30:29.300 And I could listen to and watch that all day long. I think it's fascinating.

01:30:34.200 But no, I don't think we have enough have enough evidence or I have any reason to to say that in any way Atlantis was the the original Aryan homeland.

01:30:45.340 land. I tend to think of that being Hyperborea and put it in an Arctic setting. I think a lot

01:30:53.580 of things attest to that. Arctic home in the Vedas, I think, is a really compelling

01:31:00.340 work on that subject. But again, that positions it much further north and away from where Atlantis

01:31:10.680 as traditionally thought to have been.

01:31:17.180 And that is all we got for tonight.

01:31:19.480 Thank you guys very much for showing up.

01:31:21.240 Thank you, as always, for your amazing questions.

01:31:24.920 I appreciate you guys.

01:31:26.940 Nathan, thank you for being on the show.

01:31:31.200 Talk to you guys this same time next week.

01:31:35.000 Hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA,

01:31:37.920 day and remember that victory never sleeps.

01:32:07.920 We'll be right back.

01:32:37.920 Thank you.

01:33:07.920 Thank you.

01:33:37.920 Thank you.

01:34:07.920 Thank you.

01:34:37.920 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - June 22, 2023

6⧸21⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 50 - Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson

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