Asatru Folk Assembly - 6⧸28⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 51 - Blot and Sumbel

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

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

00:03:20.720 Appreciate you guys being here and listening to us this evening, and as always, bringing your great questions.

00:03:27.300 I kind of forget to do this at the beginning of most of these lately.

00:03:31.640 So reminder out there, we're being broadcast live on YouTube, Entropy, Odyssey, Twitter, and VK.

00:03:45.240 So you can watch us live there or you can catch us in the replay on any of those things.

00:03:53.260 plus spotify and i believe bit shoot and rumble as well um but yeah if you guys want to participate

00:04:02.940 in the super chat tonight i know that episodes with sivan and i often get a really loaded uh

00:04:09.420 question section so if you want to throw in any super chat questions please feel free to do that

00:04:15.100 over on entropy also if you'd like to make any donations tonight um doing that on entropy is

00:04:21.260 always very much appreciated another announcement i guess before we get started we are we are all

00:04:33.020 looking forward to and i am certainly looking forward to sigger bloat at siggerheim and that's

00:04:38.780 going to be on the 22nd of july so if you can make that uh if you're able we would love to see you 0.98

00:04:47.180 there it's going to be a great event um if you're interested please reach out well first if you're

00:04:54.460 a member either way reach out your local folk builder they can get you all set up and get you

00:05:00.380 in the know on what's going on and get you set up to be there i'd love to see all of you guys there

00:05:06.060 um it is it is a truly magical place and it's going to be a really special event

00:05:10.300 I think that's what I might as well. Coming up in August, we're going to be celebrating

00:05:18.800 Freyfaxi at Baldershof. That is always a spectacular event. If anybody has not been

00:05:27.540 to Baldershof, it is beautiful. It is amazing. The folks there do a fantastic job of making that

00:05:37.120 place. They do so much work on it, improving it, that every time I see it, it's so much work has

00:05:47.500 been done since the previous time. It's so impressive. I know they put in a lot of work

00:05:51.280 on the floors this time around, but it's going to be a great event. I'm looking forward to it.

00:05:56.500 We'd love to see you guys there if you can make it. That's at Baldur's Hoff in Murdoch, Minnesota.

00:06:00.700 and uh without further ado i would like to get the show started and

00:06:08.920 so the show is about bloat and sambal specifically and i think ritual generally

00:06:18.480 but what i think would be most important to start with because this is what it's all built around

00:06:26.180 is the idea of the gift cycle. So Svan, could you, I'm assuming we've got new listeners that

00:06:36.060 have never heard of and are completely unfamiliar with the whole idea of what we mean when we say

00:06:41.220 gift cycle. Could you kind of break that down for folks? And we'll do that first and then

00:06:46.560 we'll break into the different rituals. Yeah, absolutely. I think first and foremost,

00:06:55.560 if you're considering the gift cycle uh this is a reciprocation process and it depends differently

00:07:04.600 who you talk to i think that amongst the astro folk assembly the gift cycle is firstly given

00:07:12.760 to humans by the gods and then we in turn gift in thanks to that and that's the first and

00:07:20.360 foremost prior prior toriel or uh you know uh pinnacle gift but then thereafter there's there's

00:07:29.000 gifting cycles in relations to timing a lot of our holidays are and and bloats um are based around

00:07:38.040 times times in the cycle of the year and so we give thanks oftentimes right before or right after

00:07:47.000 you know, a season or a time. And then there's other times too, where we even do one like in

00:07:55.980 the pinnacle of the summer and giving things right in the moment. But for the most part,

00:08:03.300 I think people need to realize that when we talk about doing large group community holidays and we

00:08:10.020 give gifts, what we're doing is we're holding a ceremony that can take many forms. But for the

00:08:18.740 most part, 90% of the time, it's going to be a libation, a communion through gifting of a liquid,

00:08:28.300 usually mead. It can be ale or cider. Those are all very historically accounted for and

00:08:35.900 traditional, but we pour our devotion and our piety into the liquid and then gift that to the

00:08:44.760 gods. And so the, the liquid becomes, um, uh, like a, from a physical manifestation to a spiritual

00:08:55.140 manifestation. And this can happen in, in many different forms, whether it's physical gifts,

00:09:00.100 like uh you know ancestrally we talk about finding weapons and things that were gifted

00:09:06.180 but we also like even today gifting flowers and ribbons and letters and items and other things um

00:09:15.780 but ultimately at its core it is about exchanging a spiritual currency if you will in thanks or in

00:09:23.780 debt or in obligation or whatever it may necessarily be um if we're talking about

00:09:32.340 blessings from the gods simply for being alive and being humans and being folk and we want to

00:09:37.940 give thanks to the gods for the breath of on that right there is a gift in return immediate immediately

00:09:44.820 and i think that a lot of modern alsatru uh needs to understand that because i think a lot of times

00:09:50.180 they have the more the notion that there's there's this uh you know like on the table

00:09:56.820 level bargaining with the gods and i don't think that that's a wise nor um particularly

00:10:03.380 uh pious view of of things um but when we go into gift cycling we create we we it's it goes back to

00:10:13.220 kind of like what we're talking about weird and orlog weird kind of being like dharmic action

00:10:19.860 creates a correct way and orlaw being a cumulative of those actions so if something has layered laws

00:10:30.740 of the past building up it it gains a might to it it gains a weight to it the orlog is heavy

00:10:39.460 with the orlaw is heavy with with uh say you know if if the hof is is uh holding true to giving

00:10:47.060 gifts at at proper times that orlog begins those layers begin to build gravity um but the act of it

00:10:56.260 itself the correct action of doing it is what we oftentimes call weaving weirder uh and so the

00:11:01.780 gifting is part of that weaving it's creating those layers it's building that that mass of

00:11:07.860 power and connectivity between us and the gods and i think that's i mean obviously i didn't go into

00:11:14.900 boats and symbols but gift cycling that's kind of how i take it so

00:11:23.300 i mean yes to all of that obviously but on a on a very basic level culturally our people

00:11:33.300 have had the idea of reciprocal obligations

00:11:37.300 and reciprocal giving of things to build bonds to build alliances to build friendships

00:11:46.020 and a lot of this is exhibited in the hall culture of our ancestors

00:11:52.100 um and i bring it up because it's we don't believe in equality

00:12:00.180 there is no such thing as any two people or any two groups of people being equal

00:12:08.900 it just doesn't work that way even if it's super close there's always different strengths

00:12:14.680 and weaknesses and it's one of the beautiful things about existence but for example um in

00:12:20.340 in hall culture, the Lord would be entitled to fealty, to loyalty, to military service

00:12:31.440 from his retainers or his men. And in return, he would gift them with booty, with weaponry,

00:12:42.100 with feast, with drink. He would host them at his table, perhaps provide them with shelter

00:12:48.760 in a different time, perhaps provide them with land and dominions and territories and things.

00:12:56.560 But you still, you had an exchange of gifts. And so it was incumbent upon you to give based upon

00:13:03.080 your station. And I think we understand that too. If you get a gift, you know, if you give a gift

00:13:08.220 to your child and then your child gives you a gift in return, clearly you can provide a much

00:13:14.120 fancier more expensive gift to your child but they give to you based on their skill set they

00:13:22.720 give you a crudely drawn you know drawing that you're not sure what is but what they did by

00:13:28.380 doing it is showed how much they care showed an intention showed a love for you and that's

00:13:35.620 what that gifting is about and i like to think of the gifting with our gods as being in a similar

00:13:41.940 or familial way. Us giving our meager, you know, doing our best as humans to try to honor the gods

00:13:53.660 and giving them some mead or, you know, some food off of our table as an offering,

00:14:02.960 maybe some incense. It's not a real big deal when you consider that they give us the breath of life

00:14:09.780 and goodly hue and uh you know divine consciousness i think that that the gift exchange is not equal

00:14:18.820 it's never equal um but the idea of continuing doing that and that's the cyclical nature of it

00:14:25.460 this goes into the idea of hospitality amongst our folk as well one thing i'd like to say about

00:14:34.380 the reciprocity on it. There was a culture of, and still is today within, within Ausitru of,

00:14:42.480 of hosting people at your house and having, you know, alternating events like, Hey, how about I

00:14:49.640 have people over come over to my house and have guests and take care of them and treat them.

00:14:53.660 And then in return, sometime down the road, they invite me over to their place by doing so we build

00:14:59.960 relationship ah it's my turn this time by doing that we keep that cycle flowing and we keep that

00:15:06.520 gift cycle going and through familiarity through continued display of giving and receiving

00:15:13.160 hospitality we build bonds and connections in life that was very important to our ancestors

00:15:21.560 it's very important to many of us today and it's essentially how we build stronger ties with our

00:15:27.880 gods um in ancient arian it is theorized from linguistics that originally the word host and

00:15:38.280 guest were one word that implied that reciprocity where i believe sorry if i butcher this my best

00:15:46.040 understanding of the proto-indo-european is is ghosty was what it was called and it stressed

00:15:53.480 the reciprocal idea of as a host you have certain obligations to provide for the people who you're

00:15:59.720 who are your guests but as guests you have obligations to you know maybe bring something

00:16:04.920 for the table or bring something for the lady of the house or you know don't break stuff and

00:16:11.640 make a fool out of yourself and be burdensome and the same the roles are then reversed when

00:16:17.480 you exchange that relationship and you have you know you go over to their place all of this idea 0.98

00:16:24.280 of sharing and receiving of food of gifts of drink of hospitality of of service of loyalty

00:16:34.520 that is what builds the bonds in germanic culture and aryan culture generally and it's what builds

00:16:41.400 our bonds with the divine in the best ways that that we know how to do that so i think that's

00:16:49.080 extremely important to keep in mind as we go into the idea of our different rituals because this

00:16:55.400 idea of the gift cycle is at the root of all of these in its own way yeah it's uh the micro and

00:17:05.480 macro we have micro between each other and macro to the gods we see that gift cycle between us

00:17:13.720 in reflection to the way we treat each other often um and you know and and vice versa because

00:17:21.640 what is good in the micro between each other also emphasizes what is bad because if you have to have

00:17:27.880 something to compare it to so loyalty friendship fealty troth um gift cycles and and devotion to

00:17:37.000 deed with each other uh is juxtaposed by the opposites of those things or those things are

00:17:43.400 seen as culturally societally um you know not good and i think it's even more so to to consider

00:17:51.240 one thing is there is great grievance when you go against the micro and the macro to the gods

00:18:02.360 and to your folk. I think there's also what people lack, I think, the understanding or perception

00:18:11.780 of what they're doing sometimes in relation to each other or in relation to the gods

00:18:17.900 and how that can be perceived as, you know, it is wrong as opposed to rightful. It's wrongful.

00:18:27.320 And I think that proper gift cycle and premise like what we're setting right now is really,

00:18:32.960 really important.

00:18:36.500 So now that we've touched on, we've laid the foundation of gift cycle,

00:18:42.420 our our biggest also true ritual that i'm sure many of you are familiar with to one degree or

00:18:52.460 another and that most of our events are centered around is the idea of bloat it's fun for anybody

00:19:01.740 who's never heard this before can you break down the etymology of bloat and then can you

00:19:08.880 run people down, you know, what, what bloat is, if you're, if you're brand new, if you're not

00:19:17.720 also true, if you're Christian or atheist, and you've got no familiarity, what is an also true

00:19:23.600 bloat? So first off, it gets a lot of confusion with the, with the modern usage of the word bloat.

00:19:31.240 um but it we're we're using a nordic word and it's spelled b l o with a dash above it t

00:19:38.980 emphasizing that it's an o sound blot uh grammatically in in old norse and in even

00:19:46.780 in modern icelandic and things like that it it has its own sense of whether or not being you

00:19:52.060 know as a verb um but it derives from the word blood bloder um and it so there's only there's

00:20:00.800 very you know small difference between it the uh the way i could best say it is like if we have the

00:20:06.800 word for blood and then we have the word like bloodletting or uh blooding i guess would be

00:20:12.480 shorter um that's kind of the derivative of the two um it's it first and foremost was the

00:20:19.920 consideration of a holy and sacred act that often involved sacral butchering and it was often done

00:20:26.960 during corrective times when they were thinning the herds um towards the end of the year in

00:20:33.680 particular in the or you know in the middle of excuse me in the middle of winter and towards

00:20:38.160 the end of the year when uh our ancestors you know celebrated the end of the year uh

00:20:42.800 winter nights and then you know into into um midwinter uh there was a a culling and a smoking

00:20:49.760 and assaulting of the meat and so oftentimes one very specific animal may have been set aside and

00:20:56.720 they were brought into a thank like a thankful ritual in which we gifted in thanks for the

00:21:03.920 bounty of the herd and for the life that you know we can maintain throughout winter so the word

00:21:10.480 blooding or or bloodletting oftentimes obviously in usage in modern english would certainly throw

00:21:18.560 things off but we we realized by the um by the nordic period the word blotart could apply to

00:21:26.960 many different things they had a broid or like a bread bloat they had an an ale bloat or mead

00:21:35.680 um so at this point it became synonymous with the gifting in general and i think it became more

00:21:44.000 about the the the usage of the visceral liquid um in a in a bloat with an with with an animal

00:21:52.080 and sacral butchering the uh the animal would be you know made to cons for consumption and a part

00:21:59.120 of it would be gifted to the gods and then the other part would be kept for the folk some for

00:22:03.600 you know for preservation or to feast right away uh the blood however was seen as extremely sacred

00:22:09.680 and powerful and it was filled in a bowl called the hlaut bowl um how it means power uh and it's

00:22:17.760 it's the sacredness of that life and it would be sprinkled with a with a uh an aspergement tool

00:22:26.080 sometimes it was made or sometimes it was just a a natural um tine or twig um and it was utilized

00:22:33.920 to sprinkle the area, sprinkle thresholds, and it was seen as sacred. And this has transferred over

00:22:42.920 in the usage of mead and the usage of ale. But to say that somehow they're lesser, I would say

00:22:51.620 that there seems to be a lot more of a visceral point when we're talking about blooding.

00:22:57.360 So the bloat is that, but for the most part in modern Ausatru, a bloat is not a sacral butchering. It is now oftentimes the usage of mead, the usage of ale, and it's poured in a horn, and that horn is a symbol of weird being woven, a well, a receptacle of the liquid, the visceral words of the folk.

00:23:26.520 And as they speak over the horn, they give their prayers, their piety, their thanks, their desire for or thankfulness for certain things at certain times.

00:23:41.680 And then it is given to the gods and a small bit of it is then used in sprinkling the area or sprinkling the folk in order to kind of, you know, spread out that blessing.

00:23:56.020 And I think that's the most basic way I could put it, which is pretty hard for me.

00:24:02.480 So I'd like to add a couple of things.

00:24:06.320 um so in a uh in our ancestors time when they were primarily doing um live animal uh sacrifice

00:24:21.120 at bloat the communal meal shared after the bloat was you know went without saying there may be

00:24:31.440 certain parts of the animal that were offered to the gods. But most often it was that blood that

00:24:37.460 would be used. But then the butchered animal would be served amongst the folk. And again, 0.98

00:24:43.180 like I brought up earlier with the idea of that hospitality, the gothar or the lords or the people

00:24:50.740 in a high position would put on this bloat. And the common folk that oftentimes didn't get a lot

00:24:57.260 to meet in their diet, sometimes this would be the time of year that they were able to get,

00:25:02.000 you know, food that they didn't have access to at other times. And they would have a feast,

00:25:06.920 and they would share that communal feast together, and it would tie them together as a society,

00:25:11.880 as a people, and fundamentally would tie them together as a people connected to the gods

00:25:19.820 through that ritual that they would have undergone before this feast.

00:25:26.900 Today, all of our events, certainly in the Astru Folk Assembly, and I think most everywhere 0.97

00:25:34.520 else as well, people celebrate having a feast on the day that they do that bloat. 0.99

00:25:40.780 So we still get that element, even if it doesn't involve the use of a slaughtered animal at

00:25:48.360 that time. So that's really important is the communal aspect of sharing those things.

00:25:59.460 Some mechanics of people that, you know, may wonder what one of these looks like

00:26:05.480 in the Astro-Folk Assembly. Typically, you enter in some kind of a special way,

00:26:15.880 usually some kind of a procession. You enter whatever sacred space that you're going to do

00:26:21.380 your ritual clockwise or sun-wise. So unless there's some special ritual reason to do something

00:26:29.300 other, that's the motion that you do when you're in the sacred space. And we typically make a circle

00:26:37.580 if we're doing it outdoors if we're doing it indoors in a in a vey we do um you know again a

00:26:46.940 a circle but that circle may be an oval it may be a square it may be a rectangle

00:26:52.620 we fill the space as efficiently as we can with the idea being that the gothe is in the middle

00:27:00.140 and can circumambulate around the folk that way now as we get as we grow in numbers and

00:27:08.620 we have to accommodate more people it's subject to change but the idea with this is everybody is

00:27:14.060 in a circle facing the central fire perhaps facing a central altar space that's been set up

00:27:23.180 and the gothi can go around and have access to all of the people who are participating

00:27:31.420 perhaps the gothi or githya has assistance that can also access these people and once everyone's

00:27:39.340 gathered if it's you know if it's in a a temporary sacred space the gothi or githya will will sanctify

00:27:51.100 the space often that's done with a hammer right the hammer right was created by edrid thorson in

00:28:02.380 wish i could give you the exact date but in the early 1980s i believe

00:28:07.580 and uh it's calling upon thor's protection in each of the cardinal directions as well as above

00:28:13.900 and below if it's inside one of our vays or a permanent sacred space that's not necessary

00:28:20.780 because that area is already sanctified um then the gothi will perhaps invite the gods

00:28:32.060 invite the ancestors invite uh the the spirits of the land to be present to witness what's going on

00:28:39.580 um he may or may not say a few words of about the purpose about what we're there to do

00:28:51.400 call upon the deity most often it's a deity but there's times where there's a bloat to

00:28:57.220 the dc or the alfar for example but if it's a bloat to a deity invite you know that deity to

00:29:03.860 to be there call upon that deity praise that deity you know speak words of of praise and of worship

00:29:12.980 um and then and it depends on the size of the crowd on whether the horn is

00:29:22.580 whether people are drinking in the blessing or whether it's being a spurged svan talked about

00:29:28.660 the the hlautine um oftentimes that's a evergreen sprig of some sort but i've seen it used with

00:29:40.260 other you know typically it's used with some kind of a branch or i've seen it done with a flower

00:29:48.580 even um i've had to do it with my hands before because it's all i had um but it's it may be

00:29:56.900 distributed physically or it may be consumed anyways so in the afa we do one round of

00:30:04.100 going around with the people imbuing the horn with their gift imbuing that mead that is in the horn

00:30:11.460 with their sacredness and i skipped a step i apologize before any of this goes down in the

00:30:16.580 the AFA. Our ladies are led by Githya off to the side to perform incantations over the

00:30:25.760 mead to make it sacred and ready for the act that we're about to do. And that's an AFA

00:30:31.680 tradition that goes back, I believe it goes back to the late 1990s. So once the ladies 0.80

00:30:41.700 have prepared the horn, now we go back to where I was talking about that first round

00:30:45.800 that we do we have a saying from heart to hand to horn place your hand over your heart over your

00:30:53.240 chest and focus your love your worship your loyalty your all of your spiritual might that

00:31:05.420 you can muster for that god and then you put that into the horn you imbue the horn by reaching out

00:31:12.480 and touching it perhaps putting your hand over it and and filling that with your spiritual might

00:31:19.120 we go around i'm sorry go ahead oh is it weaving that weird yeah absolutely so the githya will then

00:31:28.160 very often it'll be a githya that performs this sometimes it's just a go-thee that's the only

00:31:32.240 officiant and he'll perform the function but it'll take the horn around and people will

00:31:37.360 from heart to hand to horn fill that with their might don't go all the way around the circle

00:31:42.320 and then make an offering of that horn of mead to the gods often that's poured out in the fire

00:31:52.160 just pro tip if you've got a whole bunch of mead and you pour it on a fire your fire won't be a

00:31:58.080 fire here in a second and that becomes awkward so maybe it's around the edge or if it's something

00:32:04.240 that's high octane it's really cool makes a big flame and it goes directly up to the gods

00:32:09.280 um but either way you make that offering then you take another horn or you refill that horn

00:32:18.720 depending on the supplies you have available lift that horn up to the gods and ask the gods

00:32:24.640 to fill that with their blessing once that blessed horn is filled it goes around the circle usually

00:32:34.080 by a githya if one is present sometimes by a gothi depending on how it works out

00:32:39.680 and people can either drink in that blessing from the horn if logistics permit or it's

00:32:46.000 a spurged out on the uh on the gathered folk um that's the fundamentals then something will happen

00:32:55.440 to where you close out and you'll leave the sacred space in the same clockwise way that you came in

00:33:01.440 there is so much more that you can do within that space and within that time but that's the very

00:33:08.440 basics of what that bloat is a couple of points i'd like to make on uh on the mechanics of that

00:33:20.920 the gift is the loyalty and the love and the worship that you are

00:33:30.980 imbuing into that horn our gods don't have a shortage of animals they don't have a shortage

00:33:40.220 of mead and this was done by our ancestors people would place their hands upon upon the animal while

00:33:47.060 was alive and imbue their power that way that was a specifically attested to with the yule

00:33:54.340 bore as a as a tradition but i we have every reason to believe that was done so similarly

00:34:02.660 because for lack of a better term that animal is a vessel of that blood you're imbuing that liquid

00:34:09.540 with your might. When the animal is slain, then that animal goes from this world

00:34:17.880 into the next, carrying your spiritual might that you've put into the blood to the gods across the

00:34:27.480 veil. That same thing happens to that horn of mead as it's poured out into the fire or around the

00:34:34.000 fire um i think go ahead it is worth mentioning too what you just said about um if anybody's

00:34:43.720 familiar with the first rune or the word itself in old norse the word fee and it translates into

00:34:50.620 fee in our language but fehu fehu uh in the anglo-saxon the idea of what that power is when

00:34:59.460 you imbue that power it's it's a culmination of things it actually like what you just said about

00:35:05.280 the touch it culminates in the touch because there's the the might and the energy it took to

00:35:11.840 make to care for to um even or to to gain um whatever the gift might be that culmination

00:35:22.540 that power that might in embodies itself in in fee the the the fail is the the um the value

00:35:33.020 of the gift in the sense that it's what we put in it's what we uh achieve in gaining that gift

00:35:42.540 cultivating that gift giving thanks so oftentimes the animal the uh is raised or the mead is brewed

00:35:49.340 or there's so much in accumulation to the giving that at that moment of touch in the horn or on

00:35:58.620 the animal or on whatever gift it may be that is a culmination that's the period at the end

00:36:03.740 of the sentence of all the the build-up of the of the fail given to the to the gods and i think

00:36:09.820 that's something that i i think a lot of people don't or they overlook if they've been experienced

00:36:15.900 now it's true they've held bloats they so i want to i mean i'm glad that you brought up

00:36:21.100 fehu and i meant to bring that up when we spoke about the gift cycle

00:36:28.940 one of the profound things about the rune fehu and in a couple of weeks um svan and i will talk

00:36:37.340 more in depth on this but it's this

00:36:46.540 it's fluidity it's liquidity of of wealth whatever that wealth is but it's the idea of

00:36:55.340 sharing it of circulating it you know with any kind of wealth in an economy everyone is raised

00:37:02.380 up when that wealth is circulated. When it's hoarded up by one party, then the system becomes

00:37:09.760 unbalanced and people become miserly and it's stagnant. When it's stagnant, it loses a lot of

00:37:19.380 its potential. When it's circulated, then everyone benefits. And one of the ideas of that continued

00:37:27.240 gifting cycle is to circulate that wealth. In this instance, the wealth is displayed in our

00:37:34.260 spiritual energy, in our spiritual might, in our luck. And we talked a few, you know, a number of

00:37:41.600 episodes ago about how luck is a, it's a commodity. It's a finite commodity. You can build it, you can

00:37:49.800 gain it, you can spend it, you can lose it, you can become without it, or you can become rich in it.

00:37:56.260 By spending our hymenya and our spiritual energy in this way and circulating it, it keeps things alive. It keeps that cycle going all throughout our mythos at all levels.

00:38:11.220 you see a spinning and a movement and a circulation of things you see cycles that's why we talk about

00:38:18.480 the gift cycle so continuing the flow of that giving receiving giving receiving keeps the tree

00:38:27.860 alive the world tree that is that we all make up it keeps it alive and healthy uh you brought up

00:38:35.400 the runes and we will be covering that but i did want to say yeah i've i've even taught about the

00:38:39.740 runes from, from, uh, fail to, uh, gifu or, or gift, um, the gift rune, um, that that is in essence

00:38:50.020 kind of, uh, in, in a micro sense, it's symbolically representing the bloat. Um, all of those runes up

00:38:56.720 to the gift cycle in the first ether are a bloat. And then what follows it is joy, the, the, the

00:39:03.480 feast, the happiness and all of this. So the first ether is in a way I've always kind of taught it

00:39:08.300 as it's the buildup of the gift cycle,

00:39:12.160 the first gift cycle of the gods,

00:39:14.460 of the universe, of time.

00:39:17.100 And it, you know, starting with Fehu 0.60

00:39:18.760 and moving to Urus and Ther'zaz, of course,

00:39:22.180 is the actual, you know, sacrificing of the moment

00:39:24.640 and so on to the gift rune.

00:39:27.920 So something interesting we should definitely hit on that

00:39:31.680 in the future on the rune, Vianessus.

00:39:35.500 so it's challenging when we get these episodes like today there's basically three main parts

00:39:44.700 of what we want to talk about but i wonder if we should intersperse questions in between each of

00:39:51.960 those parts or do all three at once and then do the questions we run into that a couple of times

00:39:58.640 when things are are complex and we're trying to figure that out the best way we can judging by

00:40:03.580 the questions that we've got. So this is imperfect, but let's hit the questions that we have

00:40:13.940 and then move into Sumble because most of the questions that we have

00:40:18.640 are about bloat specifically. So we can then move into Sumble and then any and all questions are

00:40:28.420 are good but uh i think that's that's going to be a good way to run this and again we're working on

00:40:34.420 our entropy situation with questions but i'm gonna have to be reading them off my phone that producer

00:40:39.300 nick is is sending them to me so first question is not really related to tonight's topic but that's

00:40:47.140 fine who slash what are the raven folk and what are your opinions of them so because of

00:40:57.940 the time that this is i'm assuming that you are talking about raven folk united um if that is the

00:41:05.540 case. They are a break-off group that consists of an AFA kindred, a former AFA kindred, and

00:41:22.980 And most of the skinhead-affiliated populace that were once AFA members into some kind

00:41:36.940 of a new group of folk claiming to practice house of truth.

00:41:45.100 What do I think of them?

00:41:47.920 I think that some of them are well-meaning, trusting, don't know any better folk that are more comfortable hanging out with their friends

00:42:03.560 and doing what they do in a more less structured, more democratic, more backyard, camp out kind of environment.

00:42:21.960 A number of their leaders are oath breakers, dishonorable, and dishonest, and that's really unfortunate.

00:42:31.960 um but yeah those are uh that's in short my my thoughts on on that situation

00:42:42.280 um and if if you have more questions to follow up please don't hesitate to ask them i appreciate

00:42:49.960 when people ask um questions that may seem controversial or may seem i don't know less

00:42:58.040 jovial than the rest of the broadcast one of the reasons that i started doing this is i want to be

00:43:02.680 able to answer the hard questions um it's always a better situation when somebody hears something

00:43:10.600 that seems not right or odd to go to the source and just ask it doesn't mean you have to believe

00:43:16.200 the person you ask or that you have to end up siding with them but i think we're all well

00:43:21.000 served when we hear both sides of a story than when we just hear rumor and innuendo we're always

00:43:27.800 better off if we ask second question uh i was harry gofi and witness fun can you touch on why it's

00:43:36.840 wrong to hail chaotic entities in bloat and stumble it's fun can you break this down yeah i kind of

00:43:43.960 mentioned before there's like wrongful action uh if there is rightful action in anything then there

00:43:49.880 has to be wrongful action and wrongful action for us is um the invitation of um unwelcomed or uh you

00:44:01.160 wouldn't you wouldn't um want to welcome someone who may be um against you in your home unless of

00:44:11.560 course they had made some plea for um you know communication or something of that nature and

00:44:18.360 even then that's a that's a touchy situation but on the general you don't want to invite someone

00:44:23.400 into your home that's against you in some way shape or form and um so inviting chaotic beings

00:44:32.440 and and our uh our our faith has a lot of them there there is just as much the the ordered gods

00:44:40.520 of heaven are juxtaposed by chaotic forces that are far more i think based uh in in chthonic

00:44:51.080 or emotional ways or or just ways that are not conducive to life especially amongst folk um

00:44:59.080 so you don't want to invite that in whatever that may be and it could be it has varied levels

00:45:04.840 Oftentimes we, we don't want to invite, um, uh, death into our, uh, into our, um, ceremonies or into our, our rituals. Um, but that's not because we, you know, see death as a, as chaos or, or just, um, ultimately even evil.

00:45:23.800 it's it's that death is just not welcome at a time of a of a joyous time um and but there's

00:45:31.520 other things as well obviously when we talk about um the bound king and we uh we talk about the

00:45:39.160 bound kin slayer we don't want that his being brought in if we talk about you know fenris and 0.98

00:45:47.400 the poisonous slobber of his of his consumption we don't want that invited either and there's 0.92

00:45:52.860 multiple other things that we just don't invite chaos into. I think structurally, it kind of also

00:45:59.400 is much like a plane. If you start inviting a lot of that turbulence into the flow of a ceremony of

00:46:09.480 bloat or of sumble, it begins to rattle things. And I think that the idea is to attain a place of

00:46:19.260 stability and i think that's ultimately what we are doing the the the gothar what go these

00:46:25.920 gidyas they're there stabilized that's why we have a masculine and feminine power there

00:46:31.300 uh representing in that bridging between uh those polarities keep balance and then the folk

00:46:38.260 um are there to maintain and to and to you know reside with us in this in this process

00:46:45.180 So when it becomes chaotic, when it becomes abnormal, when it becomes twisted or off, it usually starts with some sort of invitation of chaotic forces or if say, for instance, if the bloat is a dedication to Frey and suddenly someone, you know, and I'm speaking from experience.

00:47:09.700 So, and this was a long time ago in a much different Ausatru, but, uh, suddenly, you know, someone, um, hails their friend who had passed away, uh, and then, and lifted the horn up and poured it out to the, on the ground, not the whole thing, just a little bit, but it threw everyone off.

00:47:28.020 i could see it ripple through um and we didn't manage to re-acclimate ourselves

00:47:33.360 um because we were all there to piously give you know um thanks and and and might to to the

00:47:42.420 lord fray and we have this one person who just didn't know or hadn't been around or perhaps

00:47:47.480 expressed that you know they just went into a totally different direction and it caused this

00:47:52.260 kind of fluctuations turbulence that's not that's cultural and we have we have to teach people

00:47:59.060 sometimes when they come into the into the faith what is culturally acceptable and what isn't and

00:48:04.080 one of the big things is is you know not inviting um these chaotic forces invitation is a big thing

00:48:10.560 we don't call the gods we don't draw a line and expect the gods to show up we we call to invite

00:48:16.820 We ask them to show up and to know that we are holding our obligation, our gift cycle, our giving to the gods in whether it's the timely matter of weaving our weird through the year or giving things at our home.

00:48:36.700 um so that's i think my take on the importance of why you shouldn't bring in those chaotic elements

00:48:43.080 whether it's um spiritual like of the gods and or of ill beings or ill ill um you know

00:48:50.560 things of ill repute or twistedness but also physically too this shouldn't be brought in

00:48:56.320 um so swan ended on a gift cycle thing and i want to make a note on that before i address the

00:49:04.120 question. I don't think it can be overstated that we don't demand stuff of the gods. First,

00:49:22.720 it's extremely rude and inappropriate. Secondly, it's laughable and silly. 0.99

00:49:34.120 There was a translation issue with the information about the rune, Gabo, and people, an old Ausitru, you know, sacred cow that everybody wants to say is a gift demands a gift. 0.58

00:49:54.760 No, it doesn't. When I give a gift to the gods, it's because I love them and I worship them.

00:50:00.480 It is not demanding they give me anything. I do not make demands of my gods.

00:50:06.580 It's really important. And I mentioned it earlier, how we do an AFA rituals.

00:50:10.740 I ask the gods to give us their blessings. And if they choose to do that, then I gladly accept those.

00:50:18.520 But the gift cycle was started overwhelmingly by our breath of life that's gifted to us by our gods.

00:50:30.360 No amount of stuff we do is going to outweigh that or even that scale.

00:50:39.080 We give freely.

00:50:40.840 You don't give gifts to people in a transactional, um, just thinking of how to phrase this differently

00:50:56.320 than I might normally, but you don't make a transactional giving someone a gift in order

00:51:02.400 to oblige them to give you something.

00:51:04.700 You give open heartedly to people that you love and care about, and they then, out of their good heart, give to you.

00:51:13.060 There's no demand involved in that, and that's one of the things that irks me.

00:51:16.780 But secondly, on the why not, why we don't hail Loki or the forces of chaos in bloats and symbols, it is, everything Svan said is absolutely true, but it's much simpler than that.

00:51:31.660 I never give a simple answer.

00:51:33.020 No, no, no. But I've said this, and I think it's important to keep repeating it.

00:51:39.040 Asatru doesn't mean you believe in the gods. It means you are loyal to, you have trough with the

00:51:47.000 gods. Being loyal to the Iser means standing with them against their enemies. You are disloyal to 0.86

00:51:57.780 the Aesir if you hail their enemies. It's as simple as that. Maybe if you're a Norse pagan 0.98

00:52:07.480 or whatever that is supposed to mean, then I guess do what you do. But in Ausitru, we are

00:52:15.420 loyal to the Aesir, and that defines us. Being Ausitru isn't just an embracing of Norse mythology.

00:52:27.780 You know, you wouldn't be a Christian if you just embraced Christian mythology.

00:52:34.120 That leaves you open to worshiping God or the devil or demons or angels or any of their figures in their mythos.

00:52:45.180 No, if you're a Christian, you're a follower of Christ. 0.52

00:52:48.260 If you're also true, then you are true. 0.61

00:52:51.300 You are loyal to the I seer. 0.71

00:52:53.800 And that's just the very simple answer to that question. 0.82

00:52:57.620 I can already hear people going, oh, you know, because of that equivalency.

00:53:02.540 But it is true.

00:53:04.260 And it's quite literally in our name. 0.99

00:53:07.020 It's trothful. 1.00

00:53:07.760 It's true to the iser, to the aus. 1.00

00:53:12.220 I can't get any more clear than that. 0.95

00:53:14.720 Well, but that's why I made the Christian analogy.

00:53:18.560 Christian means follower of Christ.

00:53:21.020 Nobody describes themselves as a Judean monotheist, you know, a Norse pagan.

00:53:26.900 What does that mean?

00:53:27.620 choosing to align yourself with christ makes one a christian choosing to align yourself with the

00:53:35.120 icier makes one also true uh worth noting too the vanir and the icier are one they have gone

00:53:45.640 through i think if you want to look at all of the arian mythos of every branch there's always a war

00:53:52.260 between these forces but let's specifically talk about ours don't these people that do the vana

00:53:58.620 true or vana true they are the they are the icier they are referred to right is is the brightest

00:54:06.500 house or the most beloved house that they are they are one but it's like understanding the

00:54:14.200 the earthly base of the of the uh the center to the heavenly top it is it is needed it's the

00:54:21.480 cosmic order and the, the natural law cycles and, and, and trajectories, if you will. And I think

00:54:29.500 a lot of people, uh, I don't think anybody within, you know, uh, I was so sure nowadays really does

00:54:35.600 it, but I heard it a lot before and it always irked to see that to create this, uh, again,

00:54:44.260 Divisions, creating divisions, disseminating, breaking apart. It is good for us to know the origins, but it is best to recognize the conflict and the resolution of the gods and understand them to be one. And I think that's important. Something to consider.

00:55:06.860 all right so our next question uh i should ask this before the backlog of questions become too

00:55:15.940 much how is y'all's evening going gentlemen going fantastic i look forward to it every week i love

00:55:23.000 doing these shows i love talking to you guys and taking your questions love talking to my friends

00:55:28.020 so i'm i'm doing pretty good how about you svan how are you doing i'm doing well i to be absolutely

00:55:34.600 fair when you when you leveled this uh the proposal of doing this and coming on i was

00:55:41.080 i was uh very weary of it but it is reminiscent of just our talks before on on it's just like

00:55:49.500 it's like a video aspect to the conversations we've had on the phone for hours uh oftentimes

00:55:56.580 spanning over week you know over the week just repeatedly touching down i think um yeah i i

00:56:04.040 greatly enjoyed i've come to to really really enjoy the the chat and all the all the folks

00:56:09.600 and to talk with you and and um uh here i think that one of the the best things is you take the

00:56:16.120 wisdom and you kind of cut right into it whereas i have a tendency to kind of really really

00:56:22.600 fluff the pillow make everything very complicated over you know i think it i think that we

00:56:31.580 We compliment each other really well on that, honestly.

00:56:36.200 I think that you and I approach this, and we get to the same point very, very often.

00:56:44.080 And if not, it's very, very close.

00:56:46.940 But the paths we take to get there are different, and I think that our audience really benefits

00:56:53.380 from hearing both of those.

00:56:54.680 I know that I benefit from hearing you, and I'd like to think that you benefit from hearing

00:56:58.520 me as well.

00:56:59.840 i think this i think it works out really well i had no idea you had an apprehension about doing

00:57:04.400 these at first because you've you've killed it like your episodes are everybody's favorites and

00:57:11.600 once you get on a roll on this we had one go for six and a half hours

00:57:15.920 so somebody in the chat say it was six hours don't rob me of those 23 minutes

00:57:20.160 oh uh to say i'm doing great i love i look forward to um you know coming in i i kind of

00:57:29.840 starting to shave off the last couple hours of work to make sure i can get in here and not be um

00:57:36.800 you know ruffled or anything of that nature i did want to say one thing uh this is actually

00:57:41.680 something that just struck me about our last question and how i'm doing i want to tell people

00:57:46.320 stop saying helsa i don't know why that just came into my head but helsa is the verb of giving

00:57:54.080 thanks to the gods it's it's a verb of honoring some some it's like third person honoring they

00:58:01.760 are honoring the gods they that's that's the usage of the word helsa always say hail if you

00:58:09.360 say it in old norse it's h-e-i-l and it's spelled hey or it's pronounced hey um or just say hail

00:58:16.960 or hello or what have you but stop saying hills yeah that's a thing it's something that got

00:58:23.040 started and so any of the quote unquote silly things that people did back in the 80s with

00:58:31.680 also true those folks have a lot less access to things than we do now especially in terms of

00:58:40.240 our uh our lore and linguistics and all of those things and they didn't have access to the internet

00:58:47.280 to where they can you know google translate and go talk to somebody in iceland and then talk to a

00:58:53.360 norwegian and then talk to a dane and see what's you can do those instantly now you guys can do

00:58:58.800 that over on the side chat while we're talking and i think it's easy to take for granted that folks

00:59:03.600 in the 80s couldn't they could write a letter um i mean they could spend a lot of money on

00:59:10.640 international calling to ask someone but it was a much more difficult process but that is certainly

00:59:17.120 a holdover from that time that uh you know svan is our resident expert on the linguistics so we

00:59:24.000 appreciate that and i i say that with all love a lot of times people uh try to uh they use lore

00:59:31.360 as like a weapon they they kind of emphasize that they know something or perhaps you've made

00:59:36.320 a mistake about something and then they want to correct you and and it's kind of like a it's a

00:59:42.640 it's you know it's it's almost aggressive it's like weaponized knowledge in a sense

00:59:47.440 to kind of demean or create so the idea i think is what what you just said is

00:59:52.880 an understanding of perspective understanding of the whole total story of how these these things

00:59:57.280 evolved and then once you learn it you know you go from there and if if we find out something else

01:00:03.840 then then we correct the trajectory but so here's another you know just note to that

01:00:11.360 if you say something wrong it doesn't mean you're forever condemned to walk the strand

01:00:18.320 to be dissolved by venom. But we should all want to do this the best we can. And I want to stay

01:00:25.640 open to I always want to stay receptive to ways to do this better. Altering what you do to make

01:00:33.460 it more perfect doesn't mean that what you've done in the past is terrible. Right. But it means we

01:00:40.060 honor our gods by being the very best we can be and by continuing to evolve closer and closer and

01:00:51.180 closer and closer to perfection even if it's not possible to get there i want to you know when i

01:00:57.740 pass beyond the bay of the veil i want to be much closer to that than i am now and i think there's

01:01:03.900 there's no shame in that to all of us because everybody everybody can you know we've all got

01:01:08.060 stuff we could do better improve on um we have a 15 donation from howdy do thank you very much we

01:01:15.980 appreciate you so and it is a it is a monetized question so we will jump right to it what exactly

01:01:25.100 is the difference between being a quotes focus even and being also true so

01:01:32.780 So I don't think, okay, so there's not a monolithic answer to that. And it's one of the reasons

01:01:41.120 that, you know, much to some people's chagrin, I try to take ownership of the word Alcetru

01:01:48.560 is I want these words to mean things. I want people to hear them and have an understanding

01:01:56.400 of what they mean. And not everybody have their own interpretation of everything.

01:02:00.400 Our gods deserve that. Folkish heathen is, and by the very nature of it, these are, everybody means a little something different when they say things like folkish heathen.

01:02:21.000 So that's the reason that I always use the word ousatru. 0.88

01:02:26.120 There are folkish people who call themselves folkish heathens that are ousatru. 1.00

01:02:31.880 Absolutely. 0.95

01:02:33.440 And then there's people that are noncommittal or don't want to conform to what other folks are doing and want to do their own things and call themselves that.

01:02:43.840 um that's most often something that people who don't want to be involved in any kind of organized

01:02:55.300 practice like to call themselves it separates them from um people largely non-traditional and

01:03:05.060 on the left that want to practice some form of paganism that they feel is related to our

01:03:12.820 gods in some way. Whereas people who would define themselves as folkish heathens believe that our

01:03:21.920 faith is an ethnic faith. And I think they like the term heathen oftentimes because it is very

01:03:30.500 much kind of an opposition term to Christian. I think that's part of it. But again, because you 0.89

01:03:40.080 can't clearly define it because it's one of those things that the people who don't want

01:03:46.640 to conform often use it's the reason that i that i reject it and i don't use it um

01:03:54.960 i don't know if that clears up anything that you're asking most often people who

01:04:00.160 claim to be folkish heathens have a very similar basic world view

01:04:06.080 that we're talking about here on this program, 0.85

01:04:09.240 but they don't want to quite go all the way

01:04:11.520 and be team Alcetru.

01:04:15.280 Svon, do you have anything you can add on that discussion?

01:04:19.040 Yeah, I think for once,

01:04:20.300 I got a straightforward on that one is,

01:04:22.720 I worship the gods of my people.

01:04:25.360 I give worship to the gods of my people.

01:04:28.140 I know who my gods are.

01:04:29.980 And linguistically, culturally,

01:04:32.420 there's so much in the symbology of the gods.

01:04:36.080 and how i relate to them if i can afford to say that i worship the gods of my people i know now

01:04:45.840 to who my people are it's it's it's uh there are variations and we we know this we talk about the

01:04:52.720 anglo-saxons and the danes and the the the alamani or the you know the swabians and on and on and on

01:04:59.760 and on and on and on but we share that connectivity through our our language through through our

01:05:04.880 culture through our expression um and that unites us so i i worship i worship the gods of my people

01:05:13.360 and if i say that i need to be able to know both who both are and so i think it's disingenuous to

01:05:24.000 um you know consider the argument that you know that everyone else has a cultural you know perhaps

01:05:31.920 religious expression uh you know and we know that that's those are the gods of those people

01:05:36.720 we call them aztecs or you know whatever uh but we can't do it for ourselves that i think is a

01:05:43.520 grievous um uh insult to us as a people so that's one of the reasons but as far as the difference

01:05:52.160 if you know if you worship the gods of your folk or the gods of your people and you know who your

01:05:57.260 gods and your people are um then also true i think encapsulates it because it's a newer title you

01:06:05.660 know it it sourced from a from an opera of olaf uh saint olaf i believe is the the opera where it

01:06:13.080 was coined um but it was one of the it was interesting because it was a usage that was

01:06:19.260 not derogatory that you know these are these are scandinavians when they created this opera

01:06:25.320 They had every opportunity to, you know, call whatever, you know, in this, in relation, they chose the word Ausatru, and it was a new kind of title that really hit home.

01:06:40.280 I mean, if we were to call our religion Thornsed or the old way, that's to be said, but that Ausatru specifically talks about the gods of our folk, and our gods are the Aesir.

01:06:55.320 All right. Next question. And we'll go into Sumble when I start seeing the first question

01:07:06.400 that's exclusively about Sumble or when we run out of questions. So how often should

01:07:13.740 one perform Bloat and Sumble? And I think that's, you know, I think there's much nuance

01:07:21.020 to that um svan what what say you on that i said something earlier and i i imagine because a lot

01:07:28.780 of people listen to vns when they're driving or doing things and um they might hear the word

01:07:33.660 obligation and i throw that around and that might you know particularly uh raise an eyebrow or you

01:07:40.060 know kind of throw a wrench into the mix i mean um i mean obligation i think first and foremost for

01:07:48.620 myself but i think obligation or obliging to the first gifts that were given is what i'll need to

01:07:57.420 realize i'm saying um how often is again yes very nuanced i would i would argue that it is best to

01:08:07.420 align yourself to the to the times of the year so holding um holy you know holy tiding bloats

01:08:16.060 is very important, but also doing them at your home. Some people want to do them daily. Some

01:08:22.980 people want to do them every morning. I would be lying to you if I said that I did them every

01:08:26.740 morning in, in, in, in a full sense. Generally, I, you know, I have a moment of kind of internalizing

01:08:34.020 and talking, but there's no necessarily like a gift cycle. There's no official cultural traditions

01:08:41.980 that I'm following. Um, but doing them during times of, of joy and sorrow, I think are very

01:08:51.140 important. Don't, uh, really, I think the biggest thing is, um, a lot of people get into the habit

01:08:57.980 of asking the gods for things, be wary of people who ask over much. Um, it, it is good to take

01:09:05.820 into reflection and, you know, call out to the gods and give thanks to them when you are celebrating,

01:09:12.480 when you are at height, when you are receiving blessings and doing well. Um, but also to,

01:09:18.840 when you need consultation or at least perhaps direction or, um, other things like that,

01:09:25.340 that, you know, those are great times, I think, to hold bloat. They get you a chance to

01:09:30.400 recalculate recalibrate yourself um and and and move forward so my my biggest thing is is 12 times

01:09:42.020 a year and however you see fit in between is always kind of my uh my go-to uh number if you will

01:09:51.260 um i don't know what what do you say i'll share with you about that like

01:09:58.060 there's no hard fast rule on that and uh yeah it intention is everything one of the things that i

01:10:06.860 would say to guide your choice in that and i would separate these things here for a second

01:10:12.620 going before your altar and lighting a candle or lighting some incense or pouring a shot isn't

01:10:19.980 isn't what we mean when we say blowtar. I suppose in a way, perhaps it is or falls under that

01:10:31.820 umbrella, but a private offering between you and the gods. You can do that as much as you want.

01:10:36.040 If you do that daily, that's really nice. Constantly asking them for stuff is rude and bad

01:10:42.780 form. Making an offering or saying, hey, thanks or here, you know, whatever. That's a really nice

01:10:48.960 thing to do whenever you want. Bloat, where you're getting together with a group of your fellow

01:10:55.280 Ossetruar to perform rites to the gods, you don't want to take the specialness away from it. 0.68

01:11:06.980 If you're doing something all the time, it ceases being special. Something is special

01:11:12.720 do in part to its scarcity so you don't want to like hold off and and never do bloat but once a

01:11:21.560 year so it's super duper special but you also don't want to make it so mundane like oh time

01:11:27.700 to go do bloat again and to where the magic's lost so in the afa as as a church we do we do bloat

01:11:36.440 you know, once a month. Um, it's no hard, fast rule. If you want to throw in a couple of extras,

01:11:43.440 cool. Um, but it's, it's keeping that principle in mind. And I think the same is true with

01:11:48.640 Sumble. Um, every time you and your buddies sit around and are drinking a beer, it doesn't have

01:11:54.400 to be a Sumble. You guys can just sit around and talk about stuff. If every time you're doing it,

01:12:00.400 You try to make it a sumble and your sumbles are less special.

01:12:05.360 But that said, there's no hard, fast rule.

01:12:08.540 There's special occasions.

01:12:09.620 Maybe you want to do a special.

01:12:10.680 And we'll talk more about sumble in a little bit here.

01:12:13.800 But maybe you want to do a sumble, you know, at someone's funeral.

01:12:17.460 Or maybe you want to do a sumble because you and a group of your friends are sharing a hardship or sharing a special anniversary that's relevant to you and your group of people.

01:12:27.360 right maybe you want to stumble for you know you or one of your friends birthday because you're

01:12:33.180 celebrating an occasion there's there's a lot of right ways to do it just keep in mind that

01:12:39.800 when you do it too casually you take away some of the specialness from what you're doing and you

01:12:46.100 want to keep your intention very strong when you do any of these things and the dating like you

01:12:51.520 said with um with bloat if you if you're honoring an ancestor perhaps on their birthday or something

01:12:57.480 of that nature as well um those that having those the the significance of the day the significance

01:13:04.880 of the timing to help escalate the intent is you know important if you're talking about like

01:13:10.860 self-affirmations and meditations and things that's different than like bloats but if you're

01:13:15.360 honoring say your grandfather your great-grandfather or someone or perhaps you don't know the date they

01:13:21.220 were born you might know the day that they passed so that way um you could honor them then or

01:13:27.160 perhaps a significant battle that they they uh you know fell in that all of those have intent

01:13:33.860 as long as you're following uh a sense of of timeliness to aligning yourself to the

01:13:41.040 flows of time is i think the important intent to that too all right um

01:13:48.500 next question uh i read in a vortru magazine from years ago that bloat comes from a word

01:14:00.820 or contains the idea of quote unquote to strengthen the gods um can you expound on this

01:14:10.100 I have I have heard that concept that that was a purpose of bloat but I have never heard it

01:14:25.060 linguistically linked to that it's fun what are you familiar with any linguistic connection

01:14:33.040 or with that, uh, that concept from the old days? Well, I think it, yeah, is referring to the act

01:14:43.720 is create strengthening, strengthens, or, and I think it might be better to say strengthens the

01:14:49.300 relationship between, um, as opposed to getting into the idea that, uh, the gods are somehow

01:14:55.940 weakened by the the absence of bloat and they are strengthened by the presence of bloat that's

01:15:03.860 another thing i i think that we should be very careful about expressing um so you know bloat

01:15:10.660 doesn't strengthen the gods it's not the um the fuel if you will it is it strengthens the

01:15:17.300 relationship but to my knowledge no it i i don't know of any connection to strengthening um i would

01:15:24.020 have to look it up to really go into um perhaps if there's some sort of connective tissue in

01:15:31.380 linguistics with bonding or you know bonding uh you know each other together in strength perhaps

01:15:38.500 but to my knowledge right off the top of my head i don't i don't recall and i think that um

01:15:44.420 um so i am i'm completely unfamiliar with a linguistic connection but conceptually and

01:15:57.380 i think this was much more the intention of bloat by early practitioners of modern

01:16:09.860 are true than it is today but as fawn said the strengthening of the gods through our

01:16:17.940 sharing our strength with them and again just like i said nothing is equal

01:16:25.940 nothing is all or nothing either um yes the gods are absolutely strengthened by our worship

01:16:34.180 but you know drops of water into an ocean are is it is is the ocean better off if

01:16:46.580 hundreds of us are dropping water into it sure is it still an ocean even if we don't absolutely

01:16:54.180 so i think it's much more of the intention than it is like the gods need your personal might and

01:17:01.940 if you don't like them you'll hold back and maybe they won't have it when when they need it that's

01:17:07.220 very presumptuous way to look at it but i do feel the gods are strengthened by our sharing

01:17:13.060 our might with them they are made stronger by us standing with them but much more of a gesture than

01:17:20.420 a you know they they need your personal you know if your hole is in their shield wall then they're

01:17:29.060 they're somehow doomed because you you're you know 20 years of life

01:17:36.740 is consequential to their thousands upon thousands of years of existence and and collected might

01:17:43.780 and i think that's not to diminish us but it's don't be presumptuous we're people and they are

01:17:50.660 gods and we need to never forget that we are dealing with gods not just bigger people um

01:17:59.060 uh next question any truth to a sacrifice to the idea that a sacrifice should be made more than

01:18:10.100 bought like a bottle of meat sacrificing a bought gift is the same as sacrificing the money used to

01:18:15.300 buy it but is buying a sacrifice worse than making something sacrifice what are your thoughts swan

01:18:24.820 yeah i uh i'm sorry i was looking at the some of the cross um linguistics of it uh you know about

01:18:31.700 speaking out or swearing to in it so there's more connections to perhaps speaking but beyond that

01:18:39.220 there's you know bloat is specifically connected to the to the um you know the polytheistic times

01:18:46.500 of of old north as opposed to the christian um i i think that again when we we emphasize on the

01:18:55.780 on the fail the of the the fee the power in it the the making the crafting the the buying

01:19:04.580 whatever it may take its form the raising uh i think all of those require effort perhaps the

01:19:10.740 value that you're asking about is in the value of the effort um but oftentimes i think that

01:19:18.660 that effort is cumulative it could be um the matter of the whole process of building towards

01:19:26.100 giving that gift and so is there more value in say um something that you make as opposed to something

01:19:33.780 that you buy um i think people are intimately aware of you know monetary value especially

01:19:40.180 nowadays with things like that everything is is more expensive and and people do talk about it i

01:19:46.180 think it's some people get it confused with the mundaneness of money and of the modern sense of

01:19:52.580 it but um in reality giving of your time giving of your ability to you know traverse uh to go to

01:20:01.380 sacred sites go to the hoffs or you know meet up with your kinfolk um you know you're often taking

01:20:08.100 your children there's a lot of things going into the process you're building that might

01:20:12.980 um and it could culminate to you bringing a gift that you made bringing a gift that you bought or

01:20:20.020 bringing a gift that you helped with everyone to attain whether it's oftentimes perfect example of

01:20:26.020 that is uh you know i've i've attended um bloats with um sacral butchering and oftentimes what it

01:20:33.300 required was one person you know watching the animal and feeding the animal and caring for

01:20:38.180 the animal and they put far more effort into the entirety of the process but we all you know

01:20:46.340 helped step in when we could obviously first most is in buying the animal cumulatively um

01:20:54.260 and this can apply to other things the the mead that we attain uh the gifts that we give whether

01:21:01.460 they're you know uh flowers you know whether we grew them ourselves or whether we you know bought

01:21:07.140 them this it's hard to quantify what has more value um certainly i think effort denotes merit

01:21:17.780 so merit i would say has a lot of value but i don't think that it entirely disenfranchises

01:21:27.140 the idea of buying or uh placing you know things that are are valued in our lives to give to the

01:21:35.060 gods um that's that's uh that's an interesting question i that's just my personal take on it i i

01:21:44.100 feel one is far more gravitas than the other but uh it doesn't shoot one in the in the foot if you

01:21:52.660 will you know it it's not i think we look at it um

01:22:04.580 at some kind of a distance as some kind of an alien thing that we're trying to interpret

01:22:09.220 and i don't think it works like that relating to our gods is fundamental to who we are

01:22:17.140 it is should be as natural as relating to our family or to our friends and how we do things

01:22:26.360 it's all built off of the concept of empathy of understanding how someone else is thinking

01:22:32.260 now to presume that we understand the level that the gods think on absolutely not but to presume

01:22:40.140 that they understand how we think and some of that is is you know reciprocated in in their

01:22:49.020 thought process as relates to us if you

01:22:58.780 your giving to the gods is about devotion not about seeing how much money you can throw into the fire

01:23:10.140 or how much time you can throw into the fire.

01:23:13.660 As we've said earlier, the gods don't really need that or have a shortage of that.

01:23:21.360 The idea is that you're giving a gift from your heart and it's well received.

01:23:29.360 That doesn't have to be with the most expensive bottle of mead

01:23:32.940 or something you've labored over for forever to give to them.

01:23:37.040 If that is a sincere expression of your heart, then I'm sure it's well appreciated.

01:23:42.640 But I think in terms of, you know, other ways of gifting the gods besides just in the act of bloat,

01:23:52.200 giving to the AFA so that the church of the gods grows and is magnified, that helps the gods.

01:23:59.920 The gods don't have that and would have more of that if we contributed that way.

01:24:05.460 contributing to and us collectively giving the gods Hoffs is amazing because they didn't have

01:24:14.180 Hoffs before we did that. So as a gift, maybe they want that more than they want, you know,

01:24:20.760 a really expensive bottle of scotch poured into the fire. You know, maybe they would rather

01:24:26.660 their Hoff have a new roof or something. You've got to think, and there's no exact answer to that

01:24:34.660 question you've got to think in your own life what would you rather receive from someone

01:24:40.100 um you know something homespun that they put a lot of time in making

01:24:45.540 that may or may not be exactly what you want or them going out and buying you a new car or them

01:24:56.100 taking you out on a really special day and showing you things you've never seen

01:25:00.020 how do you place a value on each of those things it's very difficult um you know sometimes somebody

01:25:06.180 will gift you with an experience as opposed to with you know a product and so i think we

01:25:12.580 overthink it on that a lot whether it's something you purchase whether it's something you make

01:25:20.260 i don't think that's really the point of it the point in gift giving has has never been that

01:25:26.980 you do what you can some people offer their gifts to the god in the form of

01:25:31.300 you know i've composing a poem or a song or maybe dedicating a performance um

01:25:40.660 there's a lot of things you can do and i know we're talking specifically about bloat but i don't

01:25:44.900 think that you know there is a special connection if it's me that you've made but there's nothing

01:25:50.420 wrong if it's me that you bought there's a special connection if it's an animal that you've raised

01:25:56.980 There's nothing wrong with purchasing an animal to hold the communal feast and give to the gods and share with your fold.

01:26:02.780 And I don't think looking at it that way does us any favors.

01:26:09.060 I think that all of those things can be done and is an appropriate thing to do.

01:26:20.740 Next question.

01:26:26.980 Hi guys. I know that the gifting cycle is the purpose of the bloat. What do you guys think

01:26:32.260 about different steps to the bloat and how important are those different steps and parts

01:26:36.760 of the bloat? Svan, can you share your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think one, it's very interesting

01:26:46.340 because when you were talking about the logistics of how many people are involved, if there's a lot

01:26:51.800 people involved the logistics of the bloat become based around making that happen uh sometimes with

01:26:59.800 you know with a with a comfort to the ceremony um so that can change uh the steps the steps are

01:27:08.920 cultural we have uh we have specific ideas of what we like to do during bloat but they oftentimes

01:27:17.880 can be changed based on the situation. You know, some people might say, or in essence,

01:27:24.500 what I'm trying to get at is if somebody says to you, you need to have this and you need to have

01:27:27.580 that, you need to have this. A lot of that can change based on logistics. It can change based

01:27:32.640 on place. And ultimately, you know, it is about giving a gift. But culturally, we have significant

01:27:42.900 things. And that's why, you know, we know that our ancestors had, you know, Godar. We know that they

01:27:50.180 had, you know, a clergy, if you will. The idea is that as these things build, giving gift to the

01:28:00.420 gods is one thing, but then it goes into, you know, is there a hlaut bowl? Is there a horn or a bowl

01:28:08.480 or, um, you know, a vessel, if you will, because they didn't always use horns. That's more of a

01:28:14.120 cultural thing now to use horns during, during bloats to use mead. When we know that they used

01:28:21.960 cider, they used ale, they used other things. Those are cultural things that we are doing now,

01:28:27.980 just like our ancestors had, you know, um, trends, if you will, that they culturally followed at

01:28:33.560 their time um and a lot of people don't think about that is that you know there are um these

01:28:40.020 specific parts of bloat um i would say for the most part bloat should be seen in three

01:28:46.660 three pieces if you will and this is very broad because as you go to different hoffs they have

01:28:54.320 different traditions and different parts and different things but i think first and foremost

01:28:59.160 there is the the beginning is the is the coming to uh whether it's you know making your way

01:29:06.520 towards a sacred place and in so doing you're kind of going towards a sacred place within yourself

01:29:13.400 and separating from the mundane you're you're you're making that place around you sacred um

01:29:21.560 Um, and however you do that can have different parts.

01:29:26.640 Um, you know, we process, uh, to the vey and, you know, we ring the, the bells to the, to

01:29:32.940 the Lanvertier and, um, you know, then we galder and the women bless the horn and, uh,

01:29:39.700 bless the mead within the horn.

01:29:40.940 And then we, you know, we call out and ask the gods to invitation to, to please come

01:29:47.900 be with us.

01:29:48.600 And sometimes that involves blowing a horn. Sometimes that involves poetry or just, you know, reciting out. These steps are all just facets and cultural inclinations towards the beginning of the bloat, which is separating from and making sacred the place that we are, including ourselves.

01:30:11.480 um then that you know the middle part of course is is that exchange that gifting um where we

01:30:19.040 give to the gods our devotion our piety our our our might and then we ask that if we are worthy

01:30:28.620 and if we are saw fit by them to give us their blessings then we are receptive to do so we are

01:30:38.040 we are uh you know we we are absolutely willing to continue on and and doing the cycle and and

01:30:46.120 carrying the name of the gods to the to the folk and bringing people home that part in the middle

01:30:51.880 there is that that exchange um and then you know we we uh spurge out that blessing by the gods

01:31:01.960 in, in devotion. And then from there, the last and final part is, is leaving. Uh, and that has

01:31:10.120 its own, you know, again, uh, various things, whether it's some people blow a horn at the end,

01:31:16.880 one single horn. Um, some people say a specific, um, prayer, some people, um, you know, douse a

01:31:25.140 light or douse the flame. Um, there are lots of different ways in which people end. And then they

01:31:31.060 sacredly leave because you just don't, you know, it's over. And then you just kind of

01:31:36.740 get up and walk away. The process is about moving in, having the exchange and then leaving with

01:31:44.140 reverence and respect and, and thoughtfulness of the next time you're going to get bloat.

01:31:49.560 So really all of the stuff in between, um, I know that like, um, uh, Dr. Flowers, um,

01:31:58.660 or edward thorson it under his pen name you know he listed nine and if you talk to certain people

01:32:04.220 perhaps like theodes the theodish groups or whatever they have uh different steps and and

01:32:10.420 points that they feel build um maybe more clarity or verification or hold more true to the tradition

01:32:18.260 that they wish to follow but ultimately one of the beauties i think of the austral folk assembly is

01:32:25.000 with the numbers that we we have have a bloat we could have 150 people um

01:32:30.680 we accommodate based off of keeping it very simple in those three realms and what happens

01:32:38.800 within those realms another thing i wanted to bring up is the third part oftentimes not only

01:32:42.980 does it contain the leaving it also contains an activity perfect example would be like mayday

01:32:48.860 the the dancing around the maypole so you know there's the entry in there's the exchange and

01:32:54.860 there's going to dance around the maypole as a cultural activity and then a leaving but there's

01:33:00.300 generally always three parks and um anything in between there is uh for instance if you do come

01:33:07.900 to the hof and you hold you hold bloat you will see that we have significant steps and significant

01:33:12.780 prayers that we conduct but those have been organically brought about in the gothar in our

01:33:20.780 traditions. Oftentimes we build on each other and we see connectivity in certain prayers. If

01:33:29.640 one gothar has a prayer that I find particularly devotional and poignant, I want to learn it and

01:33:37.460 I want to recite it and I want to hold that intent as well. You know, the lighting of a light,

01:33:44.500 The burning of incense or smoke to give as a gift, the calling out to the gods and asking them to be with us, the exchange of visceral might, prayer, piety and need or that exchange.

01:34:00.280 and then a spurgement and giving out of blessings, um, and then holding cultural,

01:34:07.020 uh, specific, you know, if it's, if it's like midsummer just happened. And at the end we go

01:34:15.280 out, we burn a sun wheel and then we hop the fire. That's something that Thorshoff does.

01:34:20.160 Not everybody hops the fire, but generally the sun wheel is burned at every Hoff. And it's a

01:34:25.160 symbol of the height of the sun and also to the lament of the the from that day forth is drawing

01:34:32.640 down of the light and it's coinciding with the loss of balder amongst the gods and so

01:34:38.440 we um we have you know based on individual holy tides lots of different meanings in which we do

01:34:48.280 that but i've always tried to consider it in just three major steps and even if it just means

01:34:54.240 setting your space having your exchange giving thanks and leaving everything beyond that i think

01:35:02.760 is more of our our um our cultural merit of of our giving gifts for so long has created a culture

01:35:11.580 and steps within itself that are worthy of witnessing and being a part of coming to and

01:35:19.020 enjoying your gothar helping guide you through and then you take that knowledge and apply it

01:35:26.380 at home so i don't want to belabor this but i think there's you know the two points of that

01:35:35.180 or the i guess one point about two parts that i'd like to make that's really important um

01:35:41.020 well a couple points so i'll go i'll go into it it'll be brief on this one um

01:35:54.620 everything you do needs a reason don't ever just go through the motions

01:36:03.340 if you're at a bloat and you don't understand don't interrupt but afterwards

01:36:10.460 ask the gofi why each of those things happen that you have a question on because it's important that

01:36:17.060 you know um if you guys are chanting something or singing a song or or there's parts of it in

01:36:25.880 old norse or another language that you don't know ask because it matters everything matters when

01:36:32.540 you're doing it in a ritual context. Some people get confused and do like one horn that's giving

01:36:41.460 and receiving and whatever else, and it's not thought out. It's very, very important to me

01:36:47.140 that during blow, we have two separate rounds with that horn, that there is a giving

01:36:53.840 completely separate and then a receiving completely separate separating those two

01:37:02.520 things is extremely important because

01:37:06.240 we're not just out there with me that we need to figure out how to do something with and we know

01:37:13.660 that people need to have some of it and some of it needs to get poured out the act of we are giving

01:37:18.980 you this gift, the end. We are now receiving your gift to us, the end. Those two completely

01:37:28.160 separate things need to occur for that cycle to be complete. And it's really important that we

01:37:35.540 keep those two very distinct to my mind. And I think that's, that's what I got on that.

01:37:41.280 Yeah. I think just what you just said, Elzer, is another thing too, is like,

01:37:45.640 um whether it's two horns if we're out outdoors and we're at a horg and uh or we're in a um

01:37:54.600 only a fire um the the two horns uh could very well be the functioning way uh for thor saw for

01:38:04.120 instance we do our two rounds the first round of of giving the gift to the gods by uh passing

01:38:10.120 around the horn um once we pour it in we have a givia or a or a lady of the house

01:38:18.760 or uh the the mead bearer she goes forth she pours that mead our gift into a vessel of the gods and

01:38:26.440 then she brings down the vessel um to a spurge with so there is that distinction there but that's

01:38:34.120 not entirely always capable like sometimes you only have one gothar or you don't have

01:38:40.120 a gidia or a um someone willing to do those those things so i think that the beauty of

01:38:47.960 ousatru is that when you go to certain places you see the the way it has evolved internally in in the

01:38:55.800 a half or um based on the situation at the same time um they always seem to follow that that key

01:39:05.880 cycling of um giving gift and receiving blessing

01:39:12.000 all right so our next question um from sarah how mindful should you be about who you stand in

01:39:22.620 circle with for bloat? When at larger events, how can you be sure about the people you don't know?

01:39:28.720 So my answer to that is different than I think a lot of the old timers might answer that.

01:39:44.700 Because I wondered that too. That was something that I really wondered going to

01:39:48.440 uh, my first event. So I, I was used to, so, okay, turn the clock back. It was,

01:39:57.300 you know, 19 or not, it wasn't 19 anything. It was 2010. And I was going, I went to my first event.

01:40:09.360 And before that, before I went to my first AFA event, I'd had a lot of bloats and symbols at

01:40:15.420 my house with, you know, anywhere from three to maybe 10 people. And it was people that I knew

01:40:23.340 really well. And that was the only environment that I performed the function in. The rule of

01:40:31.240 thumb, and we talk about this, and it's not unimportant, it's absolutely important. But the

01:40:35.960 idea that you're sharing your hymenia with the group, and like you don't want to be in those

01:40:44.000 kind of intimate rituals with people that, you know, are unsavory and will over, will diminish

01:40:51.400 your, your luck and your amenia, or will make you look bad in front of the gods or hurt your

01:40:56.340 reputation in that spiritual context. So I went down to this first bloat and AFA was at a much

01:41:04.980 earlier stage then. And some folks were in that, at that event that wouldn't be allowed in the AFA

01:41:14.820 at this point in time. And I came back and I was, you know, concerned. I, you know, I loved it when

01:41:21.200 I was there. I loved everything I was doing, but then I started thinking about this. And I asked

01:41:24.740 a mentor of mine at the time. And it's not just the negative that you get, but it's the positive

01:41:35.760 that you get too. And you have to balance those two things together. Yes, I stood in ritual with

01:41:44.000 some folks that I wouldn't, you know, ideally want to stand in ritual with,

01:41:51.860 But I also stood in ritual with Steve McNallan, the founder of Modern Ausitru. I stood with heroes of our folk and of our faith. And my choice was either accept the good with the bad of that, or don't and miss out on all of that.

01:42:14.260 And I think that that's what's really important. I think the good of the amazing people that I did ritual with vastly outweighs the bad of some oddballs and homosexual folks that were there at the time that I wouldn't normally want to do that with. 0.97

01:42:37.620 So I think that it was a net positive and I don't look back on it badly. 0.98

01:42:43.540 That same mentor of mine that I asked, he said that, you know, you build up the hymenia as your spiritual armor to a degree.

01:42:54.600 And yes, you're maximally safe if you keep that armor in your closet and you never go out.

01:43:00.160 But the idea is you build up a certain amount of that so you can take some hits and you can do some things.

01:43:06.000 And you can successfully go through life instead of, you know, we're all most, we're all 100%. We're all very, very safe in our own homes. Every time we get in our car, we are less safe. Every time we go do anything, we are less safe and exposing ourselves to risk.

01:43:25.560 but life is about exposing ourselves to risk, but getting the reward from the experience.

01:43:33.420 And it involves, you know, some taking the good with the bad. If you imagine,

01:43:38.800 so when people really started harping on that, hey, we don't stand in circle with anybody that's

01:43:43.820 not, you know, 100% down or whatever, that originated out of groups of people that were

01:43:50.340 having bloats in the five to 10 range. And when you don't know a lot of other outs are true, I

01:43:56.820 mean, that makes a lot of sense. But you've got to imagine in the world of our ancestors and in

01:44:01.980 the world we want for our children and grandchildren, you're doing bloat with hundreds of

01:44:08.060 people. Your town gets together, your city gets together to do bloat together with tens of

01:44:16.060 thousands of people perhaps and i know that sounds ambitious from where we're sitting now

01:44:21.420 but keeping the principle in mind and absolutely in our ancestors time your village did bloke 0.98

01:44:28.540 together um and yeah maybe if there was a complete scumbag in town you that everybody knows about you 0.96

01:44:35.340 ask that guy not to be there or they're outlawed and they're kicked out and not allowed but you 0.94

01:44:40.220 you only have so much of that hyper quality control when you've got a very small number.

01:44:46.140 If you have a village or a city at the time of 10,000 people that you want all to show

01:44:52.140 up for bloat, you're going to have some people in there that diminish you a little bit, but

01:44:57.160 you're going to have more in there.

01:44:58.400 You're going to have your chieftain, you're going to have your warriors, you're going

01:45:01.060 to have your elders in there with you as well, that the net gain is so much more than the

01:45:06.620 net loss on it.

01:45:07.600 So it's not that it's unimportant, but it's really important to keep it in perspective and not just look at the negative you potentially face, but look at the positive that you gain as well and balance the two.

01:45:21.240 What are your thoughts, Svon?

01:45:23.760 That is 100%.

01:45:27.300 That's the bulldozer cut to the bone point of it that I think people lose perspective on.

01:45:35.440 They do have a tendency to focus on the negative. They do have a tendency to focus on something. And sometimes it's very valuable and it's very worth noting. Other times it can be arbitrary. Some people have, you know, they don't want to share space with people for certain reasons or perhaps the way they look or something of that nature.

01:45:55.460 um and at what point you know i often think to myself too is like my intention is to live a life

01:46:02.220 and live according to my deeds in hopes to bring that that power that might to the rest with with

01:46:11.900 the people standing to the left and to the right of me and i think everybody should be incumbent

01:46:15.560 on doing that and sometimes you have people that show up and they they don't have that until they

01:46:21.100 get there and then they realize i should bring forth my best i should try to live and be trustful

01:46:28.700 to the gods i should move forward and and improve from here and they get that from seeing other

01:46:35.180 people so if you i i understand again like keeping um outlaws keeping um nefarious out having

01:46:46.540 standards is good and important, but also to not fracturing or spiraling into a form of

01:46:55.060 complete, you know, just I only trust three people here. So those are the only people I'm going to

01:47:00.520 bloat with. That is negative. That is not helping. That is not moving forward. That is not bringing

01:47:09.340 the community together. And I think that we have to find that balance. And that involves, again,

01:47:15.660 understanding that people come to the faith, uh, and come to the community, um, under different

01:47:22.220 reasons, under different, uh, contexts. And if you bring that positive and if everyone brings,

01:47:29.760 or as many people can bring that positive, that could be that moment that changes that person

01:47:34.940 to also want to bring the positive, to change their life, to be better, to look better,

01:47:39.460 to, you know, be healthier, to be clean of mind, clean of body and go forth into those things. And

01:47:47.720 you never know those opportunities you might miss if you just consistently, you know, bar the door,

01:47:54.160 you know, on and on and on and on and on until there's only three people around you.

01:47:59.920 So that is, you know, deep into consideration. I think Sumble and we'll get into Sumble too is

01:48:06.640 is uh important in the sense that uh there's an exchange between the folks but specifically too

01:48:13.280 and again it was your community you would have people traveling over land to get to a place

01:48:20.080 uh oftentimes a you know the host was well off and able to hold many people or perhaps it was a

01:48:27.200 designated and holy place where everyone got together and they held their honor and their

01:48:32.800 towards the gods even though they may have had some sort of rivalry or um maybe disagreements

01:48:39.840 or opinions about what somebody has done um you have to take those seeking middle knowledge

01:48:48.480 seeking midwise in the sense of it you can't be open to everyone obviously but you can't also

01:48:55.040 just whittle yourself down into you know nullifying it uh to where you just become

01:49:00.240 monastic and cloistered and and it's only yourself at this point you know that does

01:49:05.680 no good at community building yeah i think it's it's um

01:49:12.240 it's really important to remember that as opposed to um other faiths that i think sometimes

01:49:21.840 so in uh it's not to say there's not a community aspect in some of the um abrahamic faiths because

01:49:29.760 there is but it's very overt in ours it's about the communal worship of our gods it's not just

01:49:37.360 about your own personal development or you know oh then being your personal lord and savior that's not

01:49:46.160 how this works it's done as a community it's done best as a community and so that's what these

01:49:52.640 things are really structured for um that's why it's different you know i specified the difference

01:49:58.720 going before your altar and making an offering is a little bit different than when we talk about

01:50:02.800 bloat bloat is a community event where we come together as a folk to worship our gods and our

01:50:10.720 numbers there are a testament to the gift that we are giving to the excuse me i'm getting over

01:50:19.360 a cough that i've had since midsummer but yeah doing that as a community standing before our

01:50:25.040 gods is a testament and is a much more significant way to worship than just one guy in the privacy of

01:50:33.920 his home um so yeah and we've got uh several more questions here but we'll have the break

01:50:41.840 into stumble here shortly as well we want to get to i think like eight more of these first

01:50:48.000 uh do you think it's necessary to dedicate a specific bowl to poor offerings of bloke

01:50:53.680 i'm not eating soup out of it but can it be used for other altar work swan what are your thoughts

01:51:02.400 i think again when we talk about cultural sense there you know um having a specific

01:51:08.880 bowl that you conduct bloat with is important um it's certainly you know again separating

01:51:16.720 from the main mundane making the the the sacred but it's not sacred separate it's sacred in

01:51:23.920 in usage and in merit of its use um so i think if you have a specific bowl that you

01:51:31.760 give offerings in but perhaps use them in other ways that also kind of express

01:51:37.440 offering and worth i wouldn't see it as a problem it's just again like you said if you use it you

01:51:43.360 know as a just a mundane um object i it's very strange because i've actually given gift in a

01:51:53.280 canteen cup and uh i that sounds so ugh to me when i say it but it's what i had and it had

01:52:03.120 significance because it was very important to me you know losing that item was not good and um so

01:52:10.320 So I would be amiss to say, if you don't do it in a bloat bowl, it's wrong.

01:52:17.640 No, you're working towards perfection.

01:52:19.500 It's the effort of your fee, of your fail, of your might.

01:52:23.960 It's constant effort towards working towards a perfect way.

01:52:28.980 But sometimes it is about giving what you have at the time that you have it.

01:52:34.940 So that is, I think, the most important.

01:52:38.100 And if that ends up separating a bowl from all the other bowls that you have, and that's the only one you share with the gods, then you are making it that merit, that value specifically to the gods.

01:52:52.700 If you use it to, I don't know what you might otherwise use it for, but perhaps, I don't know, some people would say like maybe perhaps looking into a bowl of water or something of that nature has significance to them for personal practice or perfecting themselves.

01:53:12.300 But the idea, again, is it really is about what you have and what you continue to build that effort towards.

01:53:19.180 So don't let perfect be the enemy of good. That limits all of us. If you want to have a special gold bowl that you use for bloat, awesome. If you can do that, fantastic.

01:53:38.840 um i think that what we all can do is get a a bowl and make it special and set aside for ritual

01:53:47.840 but using it for bloat and then also using it during a baby naming and also using it during

01:53:54.860 another ritual i don't think damages it maybe you have a special horn or a special bowl you

01:54:01.500 just use for a bloat to a god that you're particularly close with there's a lot of

01:54:07.180 stuff you can do to add extra pizzazz to what you're doing. And the more you do that, the more

01:54:13.800 you build spiritual might in a special object that's richly set aside. But don't let that

01:54:22.480 prevent you from using what you have on hand, if that's what you've got. I've done bloat in

01:54:28.680 when I've gone in to do prison ministry with a paper cup and Mountain Dew. It's not ideal.

01:54:36.800 It's not what I would have chosen, but it's what we had access to, and together we honored our gods, and that was the point.

01:54:47.380 I've been at major AFA events, and we didn't have a bloat bowl that was big enough.

01:54:51.560 We didn't have something suitable, so we went into the camp that we were in, and we got one of their big stainless steel bowls from the kitchen that I'm sure they used to mix up cookie dough and whatever else.

01:55:03.680 And we use that because it was best we had and we needed something that was going to hold the liquid.

01:55:08.940 And I don't think that was a dishonor to the gods.

01:55:15.080 But again, if you have stuff that you can make separate just for those things, that's even more special.

01:55:22.940 And it builds up. It builds up a might of its own over time.

01:55:28.560 Ritual implements build up a spiritual power when you take them from your home.

01:55:33.680 or to a Hoff or from a Hoff to something else, they retain that over the years. You pass those

01:55:39.980 down, they retain that and they have a spiritual might to them that adds to your ritual. And you

01:55:46.040 forgo some of that with disposable things or with things that you use for other things. So

01:55:52.760 So there's, you know, there's good and then there's better.

01:56:02.620 Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

01:56:05.420 Let me get the next one here. 0.83

01:56:08.440 Can you talk about the AFA etiquette for non-believers observing bloat? 0.92

01:56:13.320 What should those people keep in mind?

01:56:17.300 Yeah, and I've got a couple of things I want to add on this.

01:56:22.760 so we don't require that you be all in to stand in the circle and perform blow with us

01:56:36.620 you can't be something else though if you are a practicing christian or a practicing

01:56:46.800 something else, then we do ask that you don't stand in our circle with us and perform love with

01:56:53.700 us. That would be improper. But if you don't know, and you want to open yourself to the gods,

01:56:59.680 and your intention is right, and you're, you know, you're one of our folk, then absolutely,

01:57:06.180 you know, having you in the circle would be a nice thing. If your heart's in the right place,

01:57:10.640 you don't have to be a devout Al-Satruar to have your first bloat, because if you do, 0.91

01:57:15.940 some of those people will never have that experience that would bring them back to

01:57:21.260 their guides unless they can experience it and be part of it. So that's the first stage.

01:57:27.760 So for people who do want to just observe and don't want to participate for whatever reason,

01:57:33.980 maybe they're just not right in their life. Maybe they've just got a bunch of stuff going on and

01:57:37.860 they don't feel like they're bringing a good energy to it. Maybe they're not sure, but they

01:57:43.900 want to kind of see how it goes. Maybe they're close family to people who are there participating

01:57:50.340 in bloat, and they want to understand what their loved one's doing. What those people need to be

01:57:56.760 made aware of, and it's not that you can just trust they're going to get it. Some people don't.

01:58:02.640 Some people are dense, honestly. Some people aren't bad people, but if they're not religious 0.98

01:58:08.120 people, they may not understand the seriousness of what you're doing, and so they may be goofy or

01:58:13.820 whatever else so it needs to be said that we need those people to observe respectfully and quietly

01:58:22.860 they need to not do things or make noises that distract from what we're all there to do

01:58:31.340 so you know you may have someone at a ritual that it's their job to take pictures

01:58:36.220 great do that outside of do that in an appropriate way that doesn't disrupt the

01:58:41.420 experience for those participating i've had well-meaning people but they're you know like

01:58:47.820 in my way when i'm trying to process in the circle doing ritual and like all up in your space

01:58:57.180 no the most important thing is worshiping our gods everything else comes secondary so you

01:59:03.180 don't want to distract from that that connection so people should not be intrusive not get in the way

01:59:09.580 not make noise um whatever that noise may be their cell phone ringing they're you know hollering at

01:59:18.980 something if they have a child with them the child's screaming and wailing and getting in the

01:59:23.340 way be respectful that a ritual is going on and observe it respectfully and i think that's common

01:59:31.360 sense but we can't trust that so it does need to be said to folks before they observe do you have

01:59:36.880 anything to add to that spawn yeah just what you said a lot of times when uh we have people that

01:59:42.560 are um going to observe or be there most often the case is because they want to see what their loved

01:59:50.240 one holds sacred and special to them and they're so they're they're going that step to see that

01:59:58.000 oftentimes we'll have in the beginning hey if you guys turn off your cell phones and we don't want

02:00:02.640 any like ringing or buzzing or or uh clocks going on um in the uh in in the middle of of um bloat

02:00:13.200 so we you know we have a tendency to cover that or sometimes we might we might step them off to

02:00:18.240 the side and say hey look we're gonna walk there um we're going to um you know be holding special

02:00:25.760 prayers we're going to be doing certain things and if you could just be respectful uh be open

02:00:31.600 and at the same time not do anything to detract from the folks that are there to

02:00:37.760 hold this special moment with the gods and you're more than welcome and i think that

02:00:44.080 every experience i've ever had when someone isn't is observing um they they participate with like

02:00:50.800 entering in and then standing back but they are watching but they are quiet respectful cell

02:01:00.560 phones are off they're not taking pictures there's um you know things that are going on

02:01:05.840 and then when it's time to leave they leave with everyone and um you know many a times i've had

02:01:11.840 folks do that and then the next bloat they participate so there's also levels of participation

02:01:18.400 uh sometimes i've had uh folks who are not of you know they say they're they're not devout

02:01:24.000 christians because again as elsewhere ago they said you know if they're if they're in a religious

02:01:29.280 practice and especially one that says that they're not allowed to participate in other practices it

02:01:34.240 becomes that has that that trough sometimes has value in in our society in the sense that you

02:01:41.840 shouldn't be unless you you really need to reconsider your word devout you know or something

02:01:47.760 of that nature if you're if you're here with us but um if they're if they're open to it they may

02:01:53.840 want to see because they want to see things go and then the next time they come in they may not

02:02:00.160 understand the divine in the heavenly sense of the gods but they will honor their ancestors or they

02:02:07.360 will honor the folk or they will honor everyone's might that's brought them there and things like

02:02:12.880 that and then eventually as they become more knowledgeable they do become part of the entirety

02:02:19.200 of it all but um for the most part you know um entering in with the right mindset if they are

02:02:26.480 willing to do that then standing and observing and um you know keeping reverence and and quiet and not

02:02:34.880 distracting i think yeah that's the key so it's important to note that when svan talks about

02:02:39.600 entering in um he conducts bloat at uh at thor's hof where the ve is is inside at odin's hof we

02:02:48.960 have our ve we do our rituals outside we have a big ritual circle wherever you're at may be

02:02:54.480 different so the entering into the sacred space depends on you know depends on the the logistics

02:03:01.360 right yeah yeah the procession in might be more easy to just observe or or to uh be respectful

02:03:09.600 but be remain outside especially if you're in a sacred place where there is a hog or a stone

02:03:15.840 and and an open space but for like thorsof we have the bay so oftentimes we process from the hall to

02:03:21.920 the bay and so they either if they don't leave the hall they're not participating but if they are

02:03:29.120 there to observe and to and to give respect to people there they will go with us and then they

02:03:34.160 will leave with us at um at the designated times and just to follow on mine i should note that's

02:03:40.320 something that uh whit and cliff erickson always talks about you don't have to be

02:03:48.800 all the way in and a hundred percent convinced to start trying but you do need to have a good

02:03:55.600 intention and be open um sometimes and speaking and just thinking about thorshoff specifically

02:04:06.400 one thing that i've heard from people um that weren't also true

02:04:14.480 is being able to feel a presence places and if we don't allow them in those places

02:04:22.160 they can't feel that presence. If you walk into Thorshof, there is a presence in that place.

02:04:30.640 When you look at Asa Thor in the beautiful mural that Svan painted,

02:04:38.160 some of Thor is in that place and you feel that. And I'm not going to say maybe everybody can't

02:04:45.760 feel that, but many people can feel that. If you never get to go in there, then you don't

02:04:52.400 have that experience that could be what brings you home i uh conducted a funeral one time

02:04:59.920 and uh the widow was was christian i'm not sure how super christian but had christian iconography on

02:05:09.040 and we were in a the funeral um the funeral parlors room that they conduct funerals in

02:05:17.760 um usually they'll have a separate space for that and it's usually a non-denominational just

02:05:25.280 space that you can conduct funerals when i invoked the all-father and

02:05:31.040 asked for him to be there and to witness what we were doing

02:05:36.080 um this woman told me afterwards that it really shook her to her core because she felt a presence

02:05:43.520 and she she felt that odin was with us at that and it really um really made some changes in

02:05:53.840 in her personally and so if we didn't allow people to have that experience if they had to

02:06:00.960 you know claim to be we don't ask for completely blind compliance with the gods we ask for people

02:06:07.840 to build a relationship with the gods the way that you would do otherwise and you do that first by

02:06:12.720 meeting people if we don't allow them to have an introduction it's very hard for to ask them to

02:06:18.960 have a sincere faith so it's important to keep that keep that in mind um so this one's from monk

02:06:30.480 i'm going to build an outside place uh altar will i need to set the land apart before i complete it

02:06:37.360 or after it's built svan what are your thoughts uh i you know i would say yes do that um it is

02:06:46.480 in the uh the land in in in the sagas of taking the land by fire and what that means is of course

02:06:53.120 carrying a light or carrying a flame um and and setting that place apart um making that place

02:07:00.880 and sacred and creating that barrier that you know that when you walk in or walk to that place

02:07:09.560 that place is sacred i would say land taking is one of the ceremonial um uh cultural things that

02:07:19.360 we do uh you know we have bloat and we have symbol but there there are threshold ceremonies

02:07:25.840 we often refer to them and you know land taking uh as we call it where we we set aside that place we

02:07:32.880 we ask the gods to bless we ask this the the spirits of the land to witness that we are taking

02:07:39.200 that land in into our responsibility um and that you know our duty to that land is uh symbiotic to

02:07:47.280 to respecting that place and i think that's really important so if you if you're building

02:07:54.320 a hog outside or a sacred place, definitely taking the time to walk that area with a light

02:08:05.920 and speaking out, saying that you are taking the responsibility of that place, and that place will

02:08:12.520 then reflect your spiritual giving, your efforts, your piety, your fee, your fail, will be

02:08:23.020 exemplified in that place. And that makes an obligation of responsibility upon you

02:08:29.780 to keep that place clean and, um, respectable and, you know, well in, in the, uh, parameters

02:08:39.300 of practicing your faith there. Um, especially if you take that step, I know a lot of times

02:08:45.560 I've been places where I just held bloats in a place that was not separate. It was just,

02:08:51.480 i was off alone or i was you know in a in a faraway country or something like that and i might not ever

02:08:57.000 be there again but you have this place now the sacred place so you know exemplify that and doing

02:09:04.120 that i think would be in um you know starting from that place and carrying that flame and bringing it

02:09:10.440 back to the center of that place and and making your proclamations of responsibility for that

02:09:16.680 place and what it will mean to you. And from that point on, and then live your deeds in maintaining

02:09:23.120 it and doing sacred things there. I would do it in two steps. And again, I, there's many right

02:09:32.720 ways for you to do this. But I would do it in two steps. I would do something to set the land apart

02:09:40.080 before you start, like right before you start. And then I would follow it with a,

02:09:47.420 you know, inauguration of it for its purpose once it's done.

02:09:55.960 I think that, you know, kind of opening and closing that process

02:09:59.760 would, that would be the best way to do it, in my opinion.

02:10:03.560 next one will there be a new book published on our blowtarm ritual i know the old book

02:10:14.660 released from the afa is no longer recognized um

02:10:19.880 maybe but it would look really different um currently no there's not a real plan

02:10:29.820 to do that. And the idea is for a couple of reasons. First, some of it as a mindset. The

02:10:41.580 last book of Blotar was at a time in the AFA where it's easy to look back at our history and

02:10:53.220 see imperfections or things that we fixed now that weren't good then, that aren't the way we

02:11:00.740 would have done them then. But I don't want to disparage our history because we had to go

02:11:05.200 through it to get where we are. At that time in the AFA, folks were a lot less pious. It was a lot

02:11:11.620 more about your own personal artistic flourish with your bloat writing than it was about the

02:11:19.040 fundamentals of religion and piety and worship of the gods. So we have a book of a whole bunch

02:11:26.220 of people's like, well, this is how I do it. Well, this is this cool thing I came up with.

02:11:30.200 And it's much more about their own personal artistry than it is about proper bloat or about

02:11:38.580 the gods. Now, we may issue something on how a bloat is done, how a wedding is done, how a funeral

02:11:46.580 has done. We may do that at some point, but what we really want to have happen in all of those

02:11:53.080 instances is to have our gothar conduct those rituals when they're able to, because that's

02:12:00.220 the beauty of us having priests to our gods, is having people who are versed in that, who are

02:12:07.920 accomplished at facilitating that relationship between our gods and our folk, and to have them

02:12:17.020 who are sacredly recognized to perform that function do these rituals. The AFA book of

02:12:26.020 Blotar that you talk about was done at a time where, you know, bloats were something that

02:12:32.040 individual groups of friends were doing in their backyard, as opposed to things that our

02:12:38.540 Gothar were officiating. And so that's, that's the direction we're certainly trying to go.

02:12:44.660 You know, we don't, if that's not available, we don't want that to prevent you from doing,

02:12:49.020 doing bloat to our gods by any means. But when that is available, that is the best way to have

02:12:54.980 it done. And we, I've had, I've had people reach out to me and say, because they're of the

02:13:00.580 proximities of where they're at and ask you know uh what what what would be a good way what would

02:13:07.540 be uh a way to do this or to do that and things like that and our gothar do offer offer guidance

02:13:14.020 in those things as well um giving ideas and insights some people come into ousted they have

02:13:19.300 kind of their own set ways but when they they reach out to ask the gothar like what what what

02:13:24.740 would be a good way to um do something because i can't go to the hof or i can't have a gothar come

02:13:31.860 to me or or things like that we help in guiding in that too and i think that's where we become more

02:13:36.980 of a living tradition and an orthopraxy based church where we we build upon uh you know the

02:13:46.660 set and organic cultural things whereas opposed to you know like an instruction manual booklet

02:13:53.700 with um you know poems that you know a person could open up the book and and simply read from

02:14:01.060 um and i have seen people conduct bloats that way and it's we're moving more towards a a uh

02:14:12.340 a way in which is far more organic from that and again because of the disbursement and the

02:14:18.420 the lack of organization i think in the past that's the one of the real reasons why it's not

02:14:23.620 recognized if you will is um because we're we're moving towards a

02:14:30.180 more cohesive expression culturally as as folk so reach out there you go a follow-up to

02:14:40.420 travis's question will the gothar be adding bloats to the website like witten callahan does um

02:14:56.740 so you're catching me flat-footed because i wasn't sure i wasn't aware that brandy was doing that um

02:15:02.340 Um, they certainly can if they'd like to, uh, but I, I don't think that's necessarily a regular

02:15:09.960 thing that all of our go-thar are going to do. Uh, I don't, and when I said that, I don't,

02:15:15.340 sure, Brandy can do that and that'd be awesome. And honestly, I'm about to talk to Brandy about

02:15:20.420 a wedding I'm going to be performing. So I, I don't, that's not a bad thing to do,

02:15:25.440 but I don't think it's going to be something that, that all of our go-thar are doing. Um,

02:15:29.500 that's going to be a case-by-case basis, I think.

02:15:34.300 I try to communicate that with our folk at Thorshoff,

02:15:39.280 how to take the structures of our blokes home with them,

02:15:44.360 and then they can understand it there and understand it at the Hoff.

02:15:49.900 And I think that's a huge learning thing that people gain from coming to the Hoffs,

02:15:54.640 is they can see, as opposed to just reading a blueprint,

02:15:59.220 they actually see the application of the faith

02:16:05.380 all right um so i'm going to go out of order and answer the question that just popped up

02:16:12.340 because i want to answer it um while the person who asked it is still with us

02:16:17.940 user one two three just asked please explain the reasoning behind the recent member expulsions

02:16:24.340 it sounds like there were some valid concerns raised over security issues

02:16:28.820 were the expulsions in retaliation no absolutely not and what i think is important to realize

02:16:39.780 you are not being told the truth there wasn't expulsions of members that didn't happen

02:16:46.660 there were a couple of people who were removed from positions of leadership

02:16:54.420 when they did grossly inappropriate things with information it wasn't that they raised concerns

02:17:01.420 but rather than raising concerns through channels and getting situations handled

02:17:08.080 they were broadcasting concerns to membership and encouraging those members to leave

02:17:15.780 when member when people within leadership act contrary to their leadership oaths part of one

02:17:25.120 of the things they oath to is that they serve at my the Witten and the Gothar's discretion

02:17:30.080 and so some people were removed from leadership for that and the people who were quote unquote

02:17:36.840 expelled that wasn't the case when people posted on social media that they had left the AFA or had

02:17:45.120 quit the afa then we removed those folks as members but um no those folks were still members

02:17:53.760 in the database and just fine until those events occurred and i'm really surprised that they would

02:18:00.240 say anything different because that's just not true but one of the big issues during this that

02:18:06.400 went on those people cut off all communication with me and with higher leadership while they

02:18:15.040 were expressing concerns to the masses rather than talking to us and so that was a part of why

02:18:22.720 maybe that wasn't communicated right or maybe they thought that they were when they really weren't

02:18:28.080 but no those people were not removed as members until they

02:18:30.800 They either told us they wanted to be removed or broadcast on their social media or other

02:18:38.240 places that they had left.

02:18:44.100 Yeah, no.

02:18:47.160 Concerns being raised, that's always encouraged.

02:18:50.620 It always has been encouraged.

02:18:53.180 I know you're taking, you know, their word or my word, and I understand that, but I do

02:18:58.620 promise you um concerns are always encouraged to be expressed we always want to address security

02:19:05.740 things immediately and as soon as these concerns were brought to attention we did address them

02:19:10.540 immediately that's always been something we want and have asked for and try to handle immediately

02:19:17.260 when it is raised but there was nefarious purposes involved in the way this was handled

02:19:22.940 and uh that's really really unfortunate but i so thank you very much for coming on and asking

02:19:30.700 um i said it earlier when we had a similar question at the beginning of the broadcast

02:19:35.980 please always feel free to ask questions and i appreciate you doing that

02:19:44.780 so back to our um the the normal flow we were doing i just wanted to make sure that that was

02:19:50.540 answered while while that uh that person was still on um this one is a really complex one

02:19:59.340 but i think it's really important one i'm gonna have you go first on this fun matt and svan

02:20:05.420 how have the god's blessings manifested in your lives and how have your lives changed since

02:20:11.740 becoming also true the manifestation quantifying blessing from the gods first and foremost it's

02:20:23.820 worth noting um when you when you have an interaction with the gods when you have

02:20:29.100 a relationship with them um there is a presence that comes into your life and then to quantify

02:20:37.260 the blessings of the gods is kind of seen gradually and or at least in my case it's it's

02:20:42.460 it's sometimes it's very immediate but um sometimes it's it for me it was it was gradual

02:20:48.860 as i was working through times in my life uh certain issues i had to bring myself to be worthy

02:20:56.540 i felt like i was um receiving guidance or directions i was perceptive to the things that

02:21:03.260 were around me and i felt like i was being um led towards the things i needed to in order to make

02:21:11.820 myself whole um and once i started making progress towards that and and devoting my my mind and my

02:21:21.020 body to doing that i began to feel that those blessings became more prevalent more tangible

02:21:27.820 and and and and more integrated within my life and to the to the point now where i feel i i see it

02:21:34.860 um one thing that i think a lot of people don't know is like being a gothar a perfect example um

02:21:43.340 is in the sagas you know there is a a man who becomes a godi and he's he's devoted to fray but

02:21:50.780 he refuses to pay his his ware guild he refuses to to uh reciprocate during uh problems that that

02:21:58.780 are coming his way and he he falls flat culturally towards his obligations and he then experiences a

02:22:07.420 series of just consistent on uh you know fortune and and and blessing are kind of turned off and

02:22:15.820 we see that when we talk about our ds here we see that when we talk about our ancestors

02:22:20.060 we see that when we talk about the gods so in reverse of that there's also the living towards

02:22:26.140 or moving towards or acting in accordance to the a better way more order in our lives more

02:22:33.020 discipline more openness more perception becoming wiser and trying to act in accordance to that

02:22:39.100 wisdom then integrates these events that you know is it's different for everyone but you begin to

02:22:46.380 see them and take note to them um and you then you become thankful and continue the cycle so

02:22:53.020 um first and foremost you know i i had massive amounts of confusion when i was younger

02:22:59.660 i had a great need and desire and i felt a spiritual uh like investigativeness that i had

02:23:09.020 to seek out and to understand things and as i began to find my way home i i began to get answers

02:23:18.780 to the questions i deeply had and i also began to realize that much of my questioning and much

02:23:23.500 of my desires had been put into context also true without fully even knowing i was also true

02:23:33.660 i had been outside true before i could even quantify what that meant and then once i realized

02:23:39.900 that that was the case it didn't let me rest on my laurels it let me pursue even more and with a

02:23:47.100 focused mindset towards understanding bigger perceptions to reaching out seeking that wisdom

02:23:53.500 and so the blessings that i have received um in in relationship with the gods is numerous but

02:24:02.380 it's kind of nuanced to me and i you know like i could pick out you know the bounty of my life or

02:24:09.500 coming back from the military and healing some of the problems that i had there and a huge part of

02:24:15.580 that was being guided by the gods i feel that they guided me towards getting into a better

02:24:21.580 understanding of myself and where i was and where i am now and you know the these these things have

02:24:29.500 happened even before i you know joined the military i was confused as a young teenager and

02:24:34.300 i didn't quite understand and i i rolled in thinking and having perceptions and i've always

02:24:39.740 met people who've challenged my perceptions of things and made me think differently or try to

02:24:44.220 think differently or you know uh mentor me as i've as i've gone and i've always felt that the gods

02:24:50.060 have kind of connected me from point a to point b in this this uh pilgrimage or this this quest

02:24:58.220 um to understanding them better really it all ended up just i i always had the desire to

02:25:04.460 understand more and what what that did led me down the path that i have been at and it's always

02:25:11.340 brought me you know it hasn't absolved me from pain or anything of that nature in actuality i

02:25:18.380 wouldn't want it to life is about experiencing all of those things and that's one of the the joys of

02:25:24.780 life is experiencing all of those things and i wouldn't ask the gods to absolve me from

02:25:29.020 from the ups and downs of life but they have always guided me towards the correct way if i'm

02:25:35.020 not clouded in my mind if my actions are correct and if they're not correct

02:25:40.380 i have felt the loss of that or at least maybe it's in me and i i feel very importantly that

02:25:48.220 the gods are are watching me and if i'm not meeting those standards it bothers me

02:25:55.420 and that is part of that kind of rudder system that guides me it's the the wind and the sails

02:26:01.020 and the rudder my actions are the rudder and the wind and the sails are as that divine um push

02:26:08.220 towards the horizon towards the proper paths towards the the the better way to understand

02:26:14.940 things um and so those blessings have led to a better understanding of things i've never been

02:26:22.860 at a point where i felt that my understanding in the past was better than where i am now

02:26:28.540 and i realize now that my understanding will be better as i go forward so what those manifest into

02:26:36.380 are different for different things um you know that my children um my wife my home my life all

02:26:46.220 of these blessings that i've received and seeing other people um you know and their challenges in

02:26:52.780 their life uh and i know i could have those challenges too but i have felt that because

02:26:57.660 of my willingness to bring the gods into my home to accept the divinity much like the folk accepted

02:27:03.420 the divinity of heimdall into their life and come back home and move forward has led me down the

02:27:08.940 path that gives me blessings and at least the the spiritual wherewithal to to be thankful for those

02:27:18.460 things um as they come into my life and they've also given me the strength when i you know

02:27:23.740 encounter challenges or encounter um loss and you suddenly begin to realize that the blessings even

02:27:31.260 happen in the worst of situations they help you calibrate yourself for those situations because

02:27:41.100 you're not absolved from them and that into is a you know is a blessing in and of itself

02:27:46.140 in a lot of ways and so it's kind of hard for me to quantify i couldn't give a list but i feel that

02:27:51.900 it all started with me wanting to know more and have those perceptions and i feel that the gods

02:27:58.380 have led me down those path that path to a better understanding of the whole the perception of it

02:28:05.340 all and understanding the fabric what it all means and why and it's it's it's ongoing now still

02:28:17.020 so this is really a challenge for me because

02:28:21.500 and this is one of the blessings of the gods to me but my life has become about the afa

02:28:35.580 um so how the gods bless the afa

02:28:42.860 has a big reflection on how i feel the god's blessing in my life because of my involvement

02:28:50.960 with the afa not just now as i was here you go see but you know ever since i've joined the afa

02:28:57.120 i've been very active in it so the god's blessings for the afa i feel them personally um but separating

02:29:05.920 it from that uh to just me and my life also true is about coming home it's not about converting

02:29:16.560 to also true it's about reverting to also true also true is our our natural state and it's our

02:29:25.200 natural it's what we should be it's what we're meant to be it's how we were designed to be

02:29:32.640 and coming home to that everything fell into place and i say everything life's never perfect

02:29:40.240 but so many things that were incongruent became congruent so many pieces that didn't fit

02:29:48.440 did fit um i wasn't trying to beat a square peg into a round hole and when our folk embrace

02:29:58.200 you know christianity or a foreign faith no matter how no matter what it is

02:30:06.960 there's a conflict between that and the very core of your makeup that you have to

02:30:14.000 that you have to force or manipulate or try really hard to make work and make balance and

02:30:24.260 whereas OstraTrue flows naturally and all the pieces of my life came together in really

02:30:30.560 special ways that way. You know, I feel that my marriage to Mandy is one of the blessings

02:30:41.700 of the gods. You know, we were brought together by friends of ours within the AFA at an AFA event

02:30:49.160 at winter nights in the Poconos. I was living in Alaska and she was living in Florida. We

02:30:55.260 couldn't have been further apart in the United States. But that almost instantly worked. And,

02:31:04.200 you know, and, and now she's my wife, and that's been huge. The friendships that I've made in the

02:31:13.240 AFA, and some of them have ended dramatically in heartache, unfortunately. But my friends are

02:31:25.020 are afa members my friends and my family are afa members and that has added so much to my life

02:31:32.380 overall it's it i can't describe how much that's been to have deep friendships with people that

02:31:39.100 share my world view and my faith it means the world to me um my daughter aubrey is a blessing

02:31:47.260 from the gods mandy and i were both 39 when we had aubrey we didn't know that was gonna be

02:31:53.020 something that we could have and the fact that we do and how amazing she is that's a blessing of the

02:31:59.900 gods in our lives um all those times in in ritual and uh the way that i felt honestly i'll say this

02:32:14.460 is a blessing of the gods you guys see me on here and i promise none of it's put on

02:32:21.020 And I get really moved by some things and I tear up by stuff often, I'd say more so than a lot of people.

02:32:32.660 And I think that ability to feel those things on that level is a gift from our gods.

02:32:42.040 I feel so blessed that I've had those experiences and that I'm capable of internalizing them as deeply as that.

02:32:51.020 Yeah, all of my life since I've come home to my gods has started to synergize and work together and complement the other pieces of my life instead of being separate and incongruent.

02:33:09.240 um i truly feel the blessings of our gods each and every day and uh i feel it much more so than

02:33:19.800 i could possibly explain but that's a that's a stab at some of the ways i feel those blessings

02:33:25.920 in my life um what's next here i think we're almost to stumble time all right last question

02:33:38.440 before we start talking about Sambal two and a half hours in. This one's from Super Honky.

02:33:47.160 What? I just had to read the name because it entertains. What's the Astro Folk Assembly's

02:33:53.840 criteria for deciding European heritage? Do they have to be 100% or can they be 70%, etc.?

02:34:03.300 Whatever you guys do, it's working better for European cohesion.

02:34:10.160 So we refuse to play that game.

02:34:14.360 And I know your question was genuine.

02:34:16.520 I don't mean any disrespect that way.

02:34:18.280 But when people get hyper focused on a number, it takes within reason, there's a certain amount of art to it rather than science.

02:34:39.780 Your soul complex is a little bit different than what ancestry might say your DNA percentage is.

02:34:48.780 Um, animal life, biological life on earth has been able to smell us or other since the dawn of time.

02:35:10.300 um if you look at someone and so this is and and all right my preamble

02:35:20.420 you can tell whether somebody's us or not us and that may not be as clean as some people

02:35:30.220 whose minds are very very analytical um because a lot of people are very very analytical they

02:35:35.580 need numbers and categories and some people's brains work that way more so than others

02:35:43.180 but it's the honest answer um the afa standard has always been if you look like us and are

02:35:52.380 clearly identifiable as us and you don't say you're not us then you're us and that's kind of

02:36:01.260 the standard and it's not a perfect standard no one claims that it is but it is a good and useful

02:36:09.180 standard um it's one and one of the reasons that i use white in our verbiage white has become you

02:36:17.500 know some kind of dirty word or something that when you say it it immediately makes people entrench

02:36:24.700 into political stances on this that or the other and and it shouldn't because saying black doesn't

02:36:33.100 identifying white is very meaningful and this may be different to international audiences and

02:36:39.180 i understand that because stuff may be different but in the united states we all since we're kids

02:36:48.940 when you fill out paperwork at the doctor's office or job applications or surveys or any number of

02:36:58.540 things when it says race or ethnicity you have boxes that you check and if you check that white

02:37:06.220 box that's that kind of tells you we all know who checks that box and who doesn't you know what box

02:37:13.900 you're supposed to check if you check that box then that's us and i i know that's clunkier than

02:37:20.700 some people would like but it that is the standard and and it's worked for us and we'll continue to

02:37:26.380 do so it's fun if nobody had ever heard about sumble before and they have no idea what we're

02:37:37.340 talking about because if you type sumble into your phone it comes up with the red squiggles

02:37:41.820 under it it's you know it's you misspelled it or it's not a word so tell folks the basics of what

02:37:52.060 symbol is okay symbol is remove the red squiggle okay symbol uh i want to go like immediately into

02:38:05.180 the etymology of the word because it is quite an interesting story especially when we talk about

02:38:08.700 like words like church and things that there might be actually some evidence that the word

02:38:14.780 sumble has congruence in greek and in germanic showing again the origin of where language is

02:38:21.900 derived from um proto-indo-european or the aryan folk um but the ultimate thing i would say is for

02:38:31.100 people that are coming in it's a cultural ceremony that involves the gods our ancestors

02:38:39.180 and the people present building and unifying them or creating tangible connections between them uh

02:38:50.540 in in a formalized setting and that setting is inside a hall or in a sacred place or a place that

02:39:00.780 is set aside to where the folk gather and they conduct a toasting ceremony

02:39:08.380 so it is a a toasting ceremony that involves three rounds and which is focused on

02:39:15.340 the leader of symbol who designates when it's going to begin when each round is going to take

02:39:20.540 place and what's going to happen and for the most part it is always three rounds so it's a three

02:39:28.060 rounds of toasting that involved building sacred connections between everyone present so the first

02:39:35.660 round is always dedicated to the gods and people will stand and hold their the the horn the sacred

02:39:42.780 horn is filled and they are given the horn usually by a mead bearer and she will hand off to you this

02:39:50.540 this uh horn and the first round is is given in thanks to the gods oftentimes people will speak

02:39:57.980 why they are giving thanks other times they don't and they hail or give thanks to the gods

02:40:05.500 a specific god or all of the gods in general um it can vary uh sometimes it's based off of

02:40:12.700 people's knowledge other times it's based off of people's experiences once that goes all the way

02:40:18.060 around um to to the head of the symbol the next round is is begun and that round is to ancestors

02:40:30.220 and it is generally given up in thanks for those who have sacrificed to get us here sometimes uh

02:40:40.940 people don't have a full knowledge of of their ancestry unfortunately in modern times a lot of

02:40:46.860 people get displaced or disjointed or things get lost or something happens so sometimes it's just

02:40:53.500 to the ancestors in general but again it's all based on the individual some folks honor um

02:41:01.420 maybe a small group of ancestors um as it goes around through you will often hear the stories

02:41:08.380 as we speak of these events uh about the person because again the the point is to speak to others

02:41:16.140 about the goodness or the or the value or the worth of the ancestor that we're talking about

02:41:22.060 so the second round has a tendency to be very personal and often involving learning about

02:41:28.300 ancestors of the folk around you that you never knew before um and it it can be something as

02:41:36.460 simple as stating a name other times it could have a whole entire story behind it and so the

02:41:42.940 middle round has a tendency to be the one that i think has the most um intricate gravity to it

02:41:51.180 uh as it goes around the third round begins again starting with the head of the symbol

02:41:56.940 they state forth now that the horn that's going to be passed is to heroes and there is something we

02:42:05.420 called toasts boasts and oaths and this is where it becomes very open at this point in the third

02:42:15.820 round you are looking at the possibilities of people reciting poems to the gods to their

02:42:22.700 ancestors to the folk some people will just simply give thanks to the hosts or to the event or to the

02:42:28.940 to the the folk you know by and large um other times it can be heroes people that they're not

02:42:36.540 related to but feel a great calling to give honor to or it can also be a time in which they boast

02:42:45.260 about a a a hurdle that they have they have had set before them or they challenged themselves

02:42:53.900 and they achieved that and that is a time in which you can take great pride in something that

02:42:59.420 you were trying to do and explain to the folk there that you you achieved it um and that's

02:43:05.660 what we mean by the boasting and then there's also a chance there sometimes there's gift giving

02:43:10.780 sometimes it's something as simple as giving recognition to a person at the table that has

02:43:16.460 helped you or physically giving a gift uh can be done more often that's done during like say around

02:43:23.100 yuletide but um that that third round is is very very organic and and open it can it can go into

02:43:32.380 um truly interesting and beautiful directions um and once that third round ends it is usually

02:43:40.700 closed by the head of the symbol and then the folk are are you know free to move and to go about but

02:43:49.660 generally during that time the the area is closed off unless you need to go to the restroom

02:43:56.540 this you know completely but you you want to move in and out as um nondescript as possible and

02:44:02.780 it's to not give offense to the the folk that are there speaking um and generally afterwards

02:44:11.340 things are opened again uh symbol is usually done by natural light oftentimes we you know we put

02:44:17.020 candles on the table we we quelch the the the electric lights and go to flame that's more of a

02:44:23.580 cultural expression of how we we want to bring things into a serious note um and this ceremony

02:44:32.140 becomes this three-round uh toasting process that again at the end of it is building connection to

02:44:38.780 the gods it's building connections to our ancestors and it's building connections between us as people

02:44:44.060 and that's ultimately uh the purpose of symbol as as its iteration now in modern house of true

02:44:53.360 it's it's had various forms before for various purposes but in modern house true that is

02:45:00.100 if you've never done a symbol that's what you're looking at getting involved in

02:45:04.400 so this is funny because we're flipping the script

02:45:07.700 swan gave a very matte answer i'm going to give a swan answer

02:45:11.460 so

02:45:13.980 our existence our cosmos is centered around a tree

02:45:22.200 this world tree is that which is manifesting that which we inhabit that's that which exists

02:45:31.500 this is our existence and all those things reside within this tree the tree is fed by a well

02:45:42.260 what our deeds and our actions events feed into that well if bad things and poisonous things

02:45:53.620 flow into the well the tree withers and is unhealthy and you know branches die and leaves

02:46:00.980 fall and it's not maintained well if it's cared for with beautiful things with things that uplift

02:46:08.340 with things that with achievements with victories then the tree flourishes and it grows and it's

02:46:17.060 strong and it's healthy sumble is a microcosm of that we're sharing our collective weird

02:46:29.060 for a time when we're doing sumble that's why it's very important that we speak powerful

02:46:36.820 good words into the horn and everything that spawn said is absolutely correct but by doing that

02:46:45.300 something magical happens in ritual we become worth more than the sum of our parts

02:46:53.060 recounting the deeds of heroes celebrating our ancestors honoring our gods celebrating the

02:47:02.180 achievements of our folk strengthen that and they strengthen us and it strengthens us far beyond

02:47:10.100 if we just sat in front of our altar by ourselves and recounted these things to our gods doing it

02:47:15.940 as a united folk we share in the experience of of others if we sit there and you honor your

02:47:23.620 great grandfather who is a hero i get a little bit of that benefit from sitting with you who's

02:47:31.060 honoring your grandfather in that circle i'm made more than i was before by that when you share and

02:47:38.020 you boast it's not in the it is bragging it's literally where the word came from was the braga 0.99

02:47:46.820 full but it's not the mundane bragging that we think of today where you're being a jerk 0.97

02:47:57.540 it's genuinely acknowledging accomplishment so that we can all share from it and we can 0.98

02:48:02.980 all celebrate it together so conversely if you speak ill over the horn if you make oaths over

02:48:11.460 the horn that you don't fulfill if you brag about things that are lies that aren't true

02:48:18.180 if you raise a horn to evil things, if you, you know, are sloppy drunk and slurring your speech

02:48:28.380 and you say disrespectful or crass things over the horn, we're all disproportionately hit with

02:48:34.900 it too. We all take a hit that's bigger than just the infraction of, uh-oh, somebody said a curse

02:48:41.600 word no we all have a little bit more of a hit than we would have had normally so that's going

02:48:48.800 to lead into another question here that we'll answer but that's the the esoterics of the ritual

02:48:55.680 the mechanics of it is exactly what's fine just i explained very well to you i wanted to say to

02:49:02.560 the uh when i was talking about the greek and latin in connection to um so there there are two

02:49:10.080 kind of theories about the etymology of the name symbol it's very akin to like say the latin or

02:49:15.680 greek word of like symposium the idea of a or gathering of people but there are theories that

02:49:22.320 it could have survived in germanic sense as being uh kind of a cross between council and siblinghood

02:49:29.760 so like a sibbing or a a simul uh simul being council and siblinghood or sibbing as being

02:49:37.760 family so there's kind of a both are there and then alu or ale and the idea is again the focal

02:49:45.040 point is the horn and the ale and so the council are gathering together around the sacred ale

02:49:52.400 that's being passed and that that ale becomes a visceral almost like a microphone or a um

02:50:00.720 um you know it is the transferable substance that takes our words to the gods to the ancestors and

02:50:10.020 also to weird itself that interweaves with us you know I wanted to talk about the rounds because I

02:50:16.980 wanted to make sure that people understood exactly what was going on but yes the metaphysical part

02:50:21.660 of that is that that horn is that connective liquid that is represented represented as the

02:50:29.620 represented as the weird itself and it's at first yeah i'll say ago they will always you know

02:50:36.740 say the sacred word ale aloo into the horn and igniting that sacredness through the word and

02:50:45.860 through the vibration and that has even though it's very subtle has a very important point

02:50:51.700 is that from that point on all words that are spoken over that horn reverberate with that

02:50:58.660 with the the initiation of that power so it's very important that you have

02:51:04.820 sambal etiquette which also brings us into a thuller um i wanted to cover that too sorry

02:51:11.860 that was my segue into what a thuller is no it's important that's actually the next question that uh

02:51:17.540 oh that brought up the switch to sambal but i'm throwing in a question before that that i skipped

02:51:23.220 because I noticed I skipped one on accident. Producer Nick asked a question. What would you

02:51:30.480 recommend for a mead blessing prior to bloat when no women are present? Would the aloo chant 1.00

02:51:36.780 suffice similar to the imbuing for sumble? First, unless it's very intentional, if there's no women 0.98

02:51:45.760 present, then you have other things that need to be worked on. No, I'm trying to think of honestly.

02:51:53.220 unless it has been a very specific manner booned kind of thing or the the few um bloats that i've

02:52:03.060 conducted doing prison ministry i can't think of one in a very long time within the afa that

02:52:09.060 hasn't had women at it but your question is still a valid question and yes that's what i would revert

02:52:14.900 to um but what i think is also worth noting if you do have a woman going to be at your sumble

02:52:23.220 that's not a member of leadership, not, you know, hasn't been in the AFA long, this is new to her

02:52:29.160 as well, I would encourage her to reach out to Agithya and learn what they do so that she can

02:52:37.680 do that function. But our next thing is from Cody, Alsheria Goethe and Witten Svahn.

02:52:46.620 uh when in sumble what is the purpose of the file or fuller right so um it again if you're talking

02:52:58.380 about like if the origin of the word anglo-saxon people will say um like a modern english they'll

02:53:04.920 say thial uh in old english it was thila and amongst the norse it was tuller but it has a

02:53:12.300 very kind even though linguistically separate they're actually very very connected fun while

02:53:19.020 you're on it i do have a question why is it pronounced file yet symbol is not pronounced

02:53:27.660 symbol because it's also spelled with that y that was an anglo-saxon thing that i was

02:53:33.260 curious about well and that's the thing i've seen it spelled with a y i've seen it spelled with a u

02:53:39.180 and um the i the only thing i can get is the gray zone between sibling and uh like the the council

02:53:49.420 is is that sometimes it's spelled with u sometimes it's spelled with a y i've seen it more spelled

02:53:54.300 with a u than with a y but i you know when it comes to the the the the the um the usage of

02:54:03.900 that as being a double e sound uh it's is known as whereas you know symbol or sumble um you know i

02:54:15.180 i've always seen it with a u so where the y comes in and still making the the sound i i'm not 100

02:54:24.300 sure because i'm not 100 on anglo-saxon linguistics um i mean i maybe should reach out to like uh

02:54:31.820 So the, the file or tool is one who's designated off to the side, to make sure that etiquette is

02:54:53.420 the file or, or thular is one who is designated off to the side to make sure that etiquette is

02:55:02.080 maintained. And if there is a correction, if there's somebody, if the file speaks out,

02:55:06.860 if the thular speaks out and says, Hey, perhaps this is out of time. This is not good here in

02:55:15.740 this place. It is not seen as an offense unless you go against it. If you acknowledge and then

02:55:24.760 make sure that you're within that maintenance of etiquette, it is seen as acceptable and without

02:55:32.020 losing face or honor because you're corrected and then you listen and you continue on within

02:55:39.140 the realms of etiquette if you go against that that is considered very much a cultural um wrong

02:55:46.580 if you go against the thuler in um sambal um and it's it's i think it's mainly because when we're

02:55:57.380 talking about feasting sometimes some sambals people are eating and drinking while the horn 0.97

02:56:02.980 is going around and then others they might be partaking in uh you know a drink while they're

02:56:10.820 the horn the sacred horn is going around but the idea again is is that in these situations you have

02:56:16.180 to make sure that it is done with etiquette and being imbibing too much and showing a loose tongue

02:56:24.020 and a loose mind and having your your your mind being unfettered by and and undisciplined is also

02:56:30.740 seen as a you know as a faux pas again as you said like if somebody you know starts speaking um

02:56:36.980 unpiously and incorrectly or swinging out and uh saying foul words and things like that the

02:56:43.540 fooler may simply raise the hand or stand up and say you know that's not correct you should you

02:56:50.180 should the words you're speaking right now well and i wanted to add a couple of things first um

02:57:00.740 Well, OK, so to follow directly on where Svan's at with the drinking, it's a fine line.

02:57:07.900 There is a reason that this is a drinking ritual.

02:57:13.780 And you don't have to.

02:57:15.860 There's situations where maybe you don't want to.

02:57:18.320 Maybe you are struggling with addiction.

02:57:22.100 Maybe that's a reason not to. 0.99

02:57:24.180 Maybe you're pregnant.

02:57:25.720 Maybe whatever the situation might be where you don't want to drink alcohol.

02:57:29.380 But there is something special about drinking the alcohol. The idea being that when you're, you know, get a little bit buzzed, you more freely open of yourself, you more freely speak, speak your heart was relatively recently, just a few years ago that I realized that the term in vino veritas from wine truth was a Roman reference to the Germanic tribes,

02:57:58.200 because they had this drinking ritual you're inclined to speak more honestly when you when

02:58:06.500 you've had a little bit but the balance and this was honestly to our ancestors this was an art form

02:58:13.020 to be able to be a little tipsy but also keep your wits about you and maintain that balance

02:58:20.920 correctly was an art and fought very well of a man to have the ability to do that

02:58:26.340 Um, so there's, there's inspiration and there's special things that happen when you are a

02:58:35.060 little bit intoxicated and it's a very fine line between your, when you're a little bit

02:58:39.760 too much intoxicated and you make a fool of yourself or you, uh, you know, act improperly.

02:58:47.560 So one of the things, and this is something we do within the AFA, um, I appoint,

02:58:56.340 a thuler before each of our afa symbols the times i remember and don't have to

02:59:03.940 scurry at the last minute um and i do that for a reason they've got to be the bad guy

02:59:12.060 they're the guy that when you're toasting about your mom and you curse or you start getting out

02:59:19.200 of line or whatever they're the ones that have to stand up and say hey now watch what you're doing 1.00

02:59:24.020 hey watch what you're saying they've got to be that that jerk and it's important to me that i 0.99

02:59:31.140 take the heat from that like no this is what i've asked them to do i've they didn't step up and 0.99

02:59:36.500 volunteer to be this guy i told them that's their job to do because it is really important that

02:59:44.180 person's not out to out to be rude or out to mess up your toast their job is to protect the sacrality

02:59:52.420 of the event that we're doing for the benefit of all of us and it's a really important uh job for

02:59:59.140 them to do um i i wanted to bring up too in anglo-saxon it's spelled s-y-m-l-e simla and uh

03:00:10.340 the modern is s-u-m uh s-u-m-b-e-l so there is a uh difference there and i would pronounce it

03:00:19.620 simla or simle because it's uh spelled quite different than the modern version of sumble

03:00:26.660 um i just wanted to bring that up because i have the the uh the beowulf where it says you

03:00:32.580 know sit now to stumble and unseal your thoughts of victory's glory to men as your mind encourages

03:00:40.180 you and so that's one of those things i i know very little about being able to read anglo-saxon

03:00:47.300 in the vocabulary, in the word usage, and in the pronunciation of letters that would seem

03:00:52.960 common, because it's not. Your pronunciation of letters in Anglo-Saxon is different.

03:00:59.260 So next question, and this one harkens back to the first question of the broadcast.

03:01:05.600 Matt, now that you mention Raven Folk, I wanted to ask your thoughts on the Wisconsin Rural

03:01:11.020 Folk Society. Wasn't the leader of that organization also a former AFA member?

03:01:17.300 I did not bring up Raven Folk. It was asked as a question and I and I answered on it. I don't like to bring up other groups of people or talk ill of them unless somebody asks. If you ask, I'm going to give you an honest answer because that's my job.

03:01:31.300 but i don't want to sit around trashing other people that's not really what i what i want to

03:01:38.680 spend my time or focus on yes the uh but i say that no thank you for asking your question i'm

03:01:44.860 glad that you had that you asked yes the member of that group is a former afa member um

03:01:52.660 that group doesn't have a great reputation and from what people bring to my attention

03:02:03.260 they spend a lot of time talking negatively about the AFA the gentleman that runs it

03:02:08.880 one of the reasons that I one of the things that I'll say

03:02:14.960 Um, most of the breakaway organizations by people that were former AFA members, one of the commonalities is a step backwards in Ausitru to a more, you know, to a less, um, high religion form of worship and a more sitting around the

03:02:44.940 campfire and lawn chairs kind of version of doing things. And I think that's something that he finds

03:02:52.200 himself much more comfortable in. And that's kind of a thing that he's going for. But yeah, I don't

03:03:00.600 have anything positive to say about him or that organization. Our next question. I have a question.

03:03:12.520 I felt apart from the folk for no reason at all. How can I contribute more with the AFA community?

03:03:23.060 There are lots of ways you can contribute more to the AFA community.

03:03:29.420 First and foremost, get out there and interact with other AFA members. Not sure exactly your

03:03:36.040 geography or how close you are to other members, but assuming that you're within a reasonable

03:03:41.740 distance, get together with AFA members, worship our gods with AFA members, honor our heroes and

03:03:51.340 ancestors with other AFA members, and that will get you more involved. You can volunteer for the

03:04:00.700 AFA in a number of capacities. I don't know what your skill set is, but if you talk to your folk

03:04:06.040 builder, there may be some good ideas of something that you do particularly well that could

03:04:11.560 you know, help the AFA along in ways. Participate online if you can, or if you can't get to

03:04:22.640 interacting with people in your area, you can always get on our various MeWe groups

03:04:29.100 and interact with other AFA members there. And that can make you feel closer and can be a very,

03:04:36.260 very real thing in building bonds and relationships and if you you know are economically able you can

03:04:42.560 certainly help out by contributing we've got you know we've got a Hoffer trying to pay off another

03:04:48.640 one we're trying to get here soon and land at Sigurheim that we've got stuff to do on so

03:04:54.120 contributing that way is always appreciated but there's a lot you can do reach out to your local

03:04:59.520 folk builder and they can you know work with you on ways that you'd like to contribute more to the

03:05:04.000 AFA. Next question. What advice can you give to young men who maybe didn't have a strong masculine

03:05:21.560 father figure in their life? How can they learn to be more masculine and manlike? It's fun.

03:05:27.720 Go ahead and take a swing at this one first, if you will.

03:05:34.000 Well, that's very broad in the sense, I mean, first and foremost, I think, again, much like the last question, seeking out mentorship, if you will, finding people who can help guide you towards that achievement, whether that is, that may take the form in many different ways.

03:06:00.240 um for me growing up um i found a lot of mentorship in martial arts and in um you know

03:06:11.040 teachers that were teaching me um self-defense and martial arts of those things i learned from

03:06:17.240 a core group of men in there that helped me understand things as i was a young teenager

03:06:24.320 um, oftentimes, um, and just, or just for context, my, my, my father, um, on the onset of teenage

03:06:34.840 years, um, separated from my family and left. And so I did not dwell alone in that. I actually

03:06:45.820 sought out mentorship and, and in many ways, um, whether it was, you know, uh, I had a wrestling

03:06:51.820 coach and I had, um, Brazilian jujitsu, um, teacher and, um, uh, many other like members of

03:07:03.300 the, uh, the school that were of, of age. If you're connected to a community, if you're connected

03:07:09.400 to, um, you know, if you have house of true folk in your area and you have people that have skills

03:07:14.880 and, and things seek out mentorship, seek out people that can help guide you. It does open you

03:07:21.260 up it is a trial and error it is about learning what you might need at the time and trusting

03:07:27.900 people because again when you go looking for information some people you know you have to

03:07:32.380 be able to kind of gauge their intentions you have to be able to gauge the worth of their knowledge

03:07:37.180 especially in the time of your life but when you're a young man i think it's important that

03:07:43.420 if you're missing it from your from your father seek it in mentorship amongst your community and

03:07:49.900 amongst your folk that's the first place um i would i i again this is before the internet so

03:07:57.580 i didn't have a lot of these kind of um internet celebrities that that espouse themselves as being

03:08:05.340 some sort of kind of like masculine paragons and again everything on the internet has a tendency

03:08:11.260 to be uh you know glittery on the front but under the surface can have a lot of issues there um

03:08:18.540 i think that it's more worth to have a more localized connection um so you know finding

03:08:26.700 interests that you have whether it's martial arts or mechanics or um even if it's intellectually

03:08:34.940 like maybe not so much hands-on finding people within those your community around you that

03:08:41.420 exemplify masculinity and that the tenants of what you think is important to learn or things

03:08:49.180 that you might need um again learning you know about the the value of yourself as a man comes

03:08:57.900 oftentimes from mentors that have a better understanding of that other than say notions um

03:09:05.900 Um, they have notions of what being a successful man is that, but that success is based around

03:09:12.420 perhaps money or just, you know, or women or, or a clout within your, um, field, but you need to

03:09:21.340 take a stock of their success based on what you desire. If they have a solid, you know, family

03:09:27.840 life if they are a an honorable father they have children you could you should reach out to um and

03:09:37.280 learn from them try to spend time with them uh build community with them um or perhaps again

03:09:44.000 like it is it's maybe in a controlled state like at a school or um you know at the hof or within

03:09:52.000 within a kinfolk that gather um you know reaching out to them and also i think ultimately once you

03:10:00.320 kind of surmise that they are a fit telling them what you're doing give them your intentions i

03:10:08.320 i'm out here looking for knowledge i'm looking for for help i'm looking for guidance and

03:10:14.000 everything i see about you right now is is what i i want to try to achieve can you guide me can you

03:10:21.680 help me because sometimes a lot of it too is is about being open and honest and a lot of people

03:10:27.440 that have grown up may never even realize that they're being looked upon by other people as an

03:10:34.800 exemplar of what they're doing they're just doing as they do and that will really i think build

03:10:42.880 those bonds and relationships uh that can that can help but this is i'm talking very very broadly

03:10:50.720 because again you know the that definition of things and even after i received mentorship

03:10:56.400 i still joined the military because i felt like that was one of my uh attempts to achieve uh

03:11:04.000 towards masculinity and that expression of what i was trying to do in my life so you have to

03:11:09.440 realize too it's it's they're not it's not constant it's not permanent it's timely and

03:11:15.600 you use the the skill sets that you gain to move into the next sphere and the next sphere until

03:11:22.080 you know it may never end or to your point where you reach where you feel like you've you've gained

03:11:27.520 all the positive that you can and then you should try to seek out and become a mentor

03:11:33.920 to uh young men that might be looking for guidance and those things

03:11:37.040 And so this is one thing that a lot of young men face these days, and there's a lot less

03:11:48.840 opportunity for it, certainly as overtly as there has been in the past.

03:11:55.900 um what i will say is don't larp masculinity

03:12:06.700 don't realize that you have a deficiency and then go try to become a

03:12:16.780 a parody of what you think men are supposed to act like um i think that always looks bad

03:12:28.420 always is delivered bad i think men and women both can smell that a mile away

03:12:35.360 and any actual improvement has to be authentic i don't think you do anybody a service pretending

03:12:43.660 you're something bigger and better and better than you are what i do think is really important is to

03:12:53.260 pick the things that you wish you were better at and try to fix those um

03:13:02.380 and you know the way to do that is going to be different depending on your opportunities

03:13:07.180 your inclinations, and where specifically as a man you feel that you are lacking.

03:13:17.580 One thing that's really nice is in the AFA, we have a lot of people who do a lot of different

03:13:22.460 things. So depending on what that might be, there's a lot of people to help out younger men

03:13:29.420 to help them develop those skills for those care excuse me or those characteristics within themselves

03:13:38.860 um you know i was i didn't have a lot of interaction i didn't have almost any interaction

03:13:48.220 with my father between you know when my parents got a divorce in sixth grade i think and then

03:13:59.420 know i don't know a couple years into being an adult an adult so like that time as a young man

03:14:06.860 going through you know puberty into into young adulthood i didn't have i didn't have an active

03:14:16.300 male role model that way and i had a lot of things that conceptually you know all all my heroes are

03:14:23.820 you know i grew up as a kid in the 80s and the early 90s and all my heroes were these big larger

03:14:29.100 than life pro wrestlers or stallone and action movies and things but in reality um i found myself

03:14:40.300 scrawny and like skinny fat and with no ability to talk to people socially much less talk to girls

03:14:49.980 socially no ability to do any of these things and so far away from the person i envisioned myself as 0.85

03:14:59.100 or i wanted to be and it had never occurred to me like why don't you start trying and you could be

03:15:05.980 a lot closer than you are now so um you know right right around the time i graduated shortly

03:15:14.780 about six months a year after I graduated high school, I decided, you know, I was going to fix

03:15:20.480 some stuff. So I started going with a friend of mine to the gym. He had been a high school

03:15:29.160 athlete, knew a little bit about lifting. So we went in there and gave it a shot. First,

03:15:33.900 I didn't know what I was doing, but I looked it up. I used to read the bodybuilding magazines and

03:15:40.200 trying to you know look at some of the websites and figure out how to how to do different exercises

03:15:47.680 and how to how to make it all work you know and I tried to figure out you know what how do I eat

03:15:53.740 to get bigger how do I how do I do these things and this took this took a long time you know

03:15:58.720 getting in better shape especially as a young man building muscle is very difficult

03:16:05.620 um so it took me a really long time you know it took me a lot of years to to get that where i

03:16:11.060 wanted to go but i felt good when i went to the gym i felt like i was getting better i felt like

03:16:16.260 i was making progress and it may have been slow but i felt good and i felt good that i was surrounding

03:16:21.300 myself with other people out there trying to improve themselves you know i always wanted to go 0.96

03:16:28.420 to real gyms not like planet fitness or little you know senior citizens get kind of a little

03:16:38.340 bit in shape gyms but like meathead gyms um gyms with athletes in it because surrounding myself

03:16:45.380 with other people that were doing that i could learn things i could watch them do things and

03:16:49.700 figure out how that's done and i could just be around other people trying to achieve excellence

03:16:55.460 at something. And that helped me a lot. And, uh, you know, I, I will always remember I got really

03:17:03.540 used to, um, you know, just being this mousy person and, you know, you'd be somewhere and

03:17:13.260 other folks, sometimes folks that don't look like the rest of us would bump into you

03:17:18.540 and then turn around and act like it was your fault. Or, you know, you'd get treated that way.

03:17:24.920 And I remember one day when people's perception of me really changed because of some of the things that I was doing.

03:17:32.220 I was at the bar and this guy bumped into me and like it caused him to spill some of his drink.

03:17:40.720 And he turned around to, you know, give me a piece of his mind.

03:17:45.500 And then he's like, oh, whoa, man. Hey, I'm sorry. My fault. My fault. Can I buy you a drink?

03:17:49.560 and it occurred in my head like wow this is you know I've made some progress here that's cool

03:17:57.480 another thing you know I'd never been in a fight I I'd watch all this stuff but I didn't know how

03:18:03.100 to handle myself in a in a confrontation so I found the you know the roughest bar in town

03:18:09.520 and I joined being a bouncer there and there was a team of guys so I got a little bit of that

03:18:16.300 manner booned. I got all these guys have been doing this for a while. I got the ability to

03:18:22.060 figure out how to do some things myself, but I had, you know, there was 13 guys at the time. So

03:18:30.480 if I got in over my head, I had people there to look out for me and make sure that I was all right.

03:18:37.300 But I learned a lot about myself and I've got cool stories from, you know, fights and other stuff

03:18:42.360 that were fun and awesome. But I learned so many more things by the interaction with other people

03:18:50.500 and how to deal with people outside of what I was used to, how to deal with different types of

03:18:56.060 people, with people who are angry, with people who are on drugs or drunk or having a mental,

03:19:03.580 you know, psychotic episode or various other things. I got comfortable with conflict to where

03:19:10.180 could deal with it and i could manipulate the conflict in a way to keep people safe to protect

03:19:16.740 people to keep my guys safe or to handle stuff if things had to go there and i learned a lot i was

03:19:23.860 so very fortunate to find that and i think that's going to look different for every guy but um

03:19:31.460 you know my biggest thing is target those and so another thing like socially again i still wasn't a

03:19:37.940 social butterfly but i could be in a situation where i was at the happening you know night spot

03:19:43.220 and people had to talk to me because if i'm working the door you have to come to me you have to talk

03:19:47.620 to me if i'm uncomfortable i can touch my little earpiece and go take a call and i'm working so it

03:19:54.980 all you know find the things that you are weak at and do stuff to get better at those things

03:20:02.420 and uh that's what i would recommend but like i said earlier and i've seen this i've seen this

03:20:07.460 with people in some of the circles that i think we all run in is you get these guys that maybe

03:20:14.180 didn't have a strong male role model and want to be hyper masculine and white sharia now and all

03:20:20.180 this other stuff and it just becomes silly and inauthentic and i don't think that that helps

03:20:30.420 anybody um is okay so all right this i want to get your take on this fun can you explain how the

03:20:46.660 horn is cleansed after an inappropriate subject during sumble and why it's important to do so

03:20:52.820 absolutely sometimes um sometimes the horn is switched i've uh i have seen um the the entire

03:21:04.900 process stopped oftentimes the thuler determines this um in which the uh the the horn is switched

03:21:13.620 and refilled but it's i that that is very rare and oftentimes i you know i could say like 99 of

03:21:24.180 the time it's never been that grievous but that one time that it did happen the the the the horn

03:21:33.540 was removed um but the the decision to keep going was there the person was removed the horn was

03:21:39.780 removed um the libation was given out and then the horn was refilled because again the idea is that

03:21:48.820 if you let one situation ruin it entirely for everyone um but oftentimes though though in the

03:21:57.940 time that i've seen it the horn was completely switched the other horn was taken libation was

03:22:02.740 given and then it was it was cleaned and you know and left till the next time um you know generally

03:22:13.620 salt and water is usually just kind of swished and then you go in there and clean it clean it

03:22:18.180 out clean the outside and then you put it up um but yeah some thankfully the benefit of having

03:22:25.060 multiple horns was there and so the you know the person got irate the thuler actually stood up and

03:22:32.180 said you've gone too far you can't be in this this is this is not good people were again that

03:22:38.100 turbulence was there uh and then it was restarted and the head of the sambal took over the situation

03:22:44.740 from the thular and said we're gonna start this round anew and we're gonna go without this person

03:22:51.780 who uh clearly overstepped their bounds in the sacredness of this ceremony so the leader of the

03:22:59.140 assemble is also very important about resetting and smoothing things out the thuler of course

03:23:05.620 um has his position oftentimes like when we call the the fleeting the f-l-y-t-i-n-g the fleeting

03:23:13.460 when the when the thuler gives the fleeting or opposition against someone who's speaking

03:23:19.300 out of turn sometimes that can be resolved there but if it is particularly egregious

03:23:26.100 either you know libating out the the the sacred mead and then refilling and having the leader

03:23:35.480 restart while also having that person that's out out um is a good way because i don't think it's

03:23:43.040 good to if let's say for instance if you don't have two horns um to stop everything and throw

03:23:49.080 everyone off uh because again the idea is to continue on despite um you know again people's

03:23:57.100 misgivings or are very unwise actions and you continue on with the ceremony um

03:24:04.360 but if you you know if you do have two horns definitely sometimes that's required i've i it's

03:24:12.860 been so long that was so long ago and that was only it's only one symbol i've ever been in

03:24:18.760 that that ever happened because i think everyone that comes into symbol is there with that purpose

03:24:25.080 a lot of people might not be in the right mind they might feel under the weather they don't want

03:24:30.040 to be involved so they might stand out so a lot of times you'll have people that don't participate

03:24:35.000 in symbol and generally they do it if you're around good folk they'll do it with the right

03:24:40.600 mindset but they're not going to get involved but um you know that's like i've never been in

03:24:47.160 a situation where that's happened i've heard that some people have taken it to the point where

03:24:52.760 they've destroyed the horn like nope not we can't we can't clean this let's throw the horn in the

03:24:59.800 fire and start fresh um i've never been in a situation where that's happened i'm trying to

03:25:10.040 think and there's one time that i think you know maybe we should have poured out the horn and

03:25:15.400 refilled it and we didn't because it would have just been too just two times a couple of times

03:25:21.560 so we try to learn from that in the moment very often it's it's hard to discern and then it goes

03:25:26.840 on um but yeah it's important to stop and i would say the the entry level and again some of this

03:25:35.800 depends on intention i've had symbols where people were asked to to leave but not because they were

03:25:45.400 openly hostile or completely disrespectful, but because they were, they were too drunk for it to

03:25:52.180 be appropriate. And I've had that, you know, happen and be okay. And that's not an instance

03:25:57.540 where I think the horn has been fouled. Um, if somebody intentionally put something bad in there,

03:26:03.200 then absolutely. I think that's, uh, that's an obvious, if somebody completely does that,

03:26:09.420 then they need to be asked to leave, like intentionally does that. They need to be asked

03:26:12.900 to leave and then the horn at minimum dumped and refilled um but yeah that's a very rare occurrence

03:26:23.060 one thing that we've really learned a lot about is to give good instructions before some or

03:26:33.140 i have this whole thing i do and i think people think it's a comedy routine and it's not

03:26:39.060 it's because i have to say these things so when i do stumble you know all right the first round

03:26:45.140 is for our gods remember we worship the gods of order we don't worship the forces of chaos

03:26:51.540 so we don't hail loki or any chaotic forces also please remember white man gods and i get

03:27:00.100 a chuckle and i'm like no seriously i wouldn't say this if i didn't have to

03:27:05.380 because you'll get somebody that is just and again they may not even be trying to be disrespectful

03:27:11.880 they can just be confused and raise the horn to you know some african deity or whatever and it's

03:27:20.740 just not not okay um and then i say the second round is around for ancestors please keep this

03:27:29.480 to your ancestors who have already passed beyond the veil. If you have friends, if you have family

03:27:36.560 members that you want to raise a horn to that are still alive, that's a great thing to do in round

03:27:40.700 three. But during round two, please keep it to ancestors that have already passed. Then I do do

03:27:46.620 this for a laugh. I say, now we're not going to break out the skull calipers, but please make sure

03:27:53.100 that your ancestor looks like the rest of us that second part the scope calipers is for being funny

03:28:01.580 the other part is not you'd be surprised i've had people do some stuff and reveal some family

03:28:11.100 secrets that that wasn't the time or the place to do so that's why i say that then i also do

03:28:17.740 So in round three, I make a similar thing that, you know, and this is important. We haven't touched on this. So I say, all right, in round three, if you haven't already cleared your oath with one of our Gothar, do not make an oath in round three.

03:28:36.900 oaths during symbol are particularly important and i always forget to i remember it at the

03:28:42.020 beginning of symbol and i'll say hey if you have one please tell it to you know i'll assign a go

03:28:47.380 fee please tell it to this go fee now and clear it with them before we start i should say it earlier

03:28:53.220 in the day and i always forget to it i've always forget to but it's very important that a person

03:28:59.300 one of our our gothar approves an oath because sometimes people come in there with the best of

03:29:05.060 intentions, but they have an oath that wasn't very well fought out. And they make some big

03:29:10.000 grandiose oath that they're very unlikely to fulfill that we don't want to place bets on.

03:29:17.240 Because that's what we're doing, in essence. If we allow an oath, we are betting on you to

03:29:22.980 succeed in your oath. And we're obliging us to help you succeed in your oath if there's a way

03:29:29.080 that we can. And we don't want to do that unless it's something that we find appropriate and well

03:29:35.680 thought out. And then I also say, if you have friends that you want to honor, please make sure

03:29:43.180 they're friends that look like the rest of us. There's other chances, other times to honor,

03:29:47.640 you know, the rest of your friends, but this is a time specific for our folk, because this is an

03:29:53.280 exclusive event that's just for us. And so that's important. And I've had that come up where

03:30:00.080 military guys will want to raise a horn to a member of their squad or something that

03:30:09.420 is not of our folk. And I think it's really nice to want to honor that person. I don't

03:30:14.240 disrespect that at all. That's just not the time and place to do it.

03:30:18.480 um but yeah I think those are important add-ons that we haven't uh haven't touched on yet yeah

03:30:26.520 I briefly mentioned I said toasts boasts and then kind of oops at the end there but that the O thing

03:30:33.660 uh in the third round and and the thule the the thuler is there to gather those oaths if there

03:30:41.820 are any but oftentimes you know it's one of those things where people want to oath something that

03:30:48.060 it'd probably just be better for them to oath for themselves, perhaps make a proclamation

03:30:52.960 in their own personal bloat to the gods to ask for, you know, they want to attain something.

03:30:59.500 Bringing everyone in to an oath is a very touchy thing. And so, yeah, passing that through your

03:31:08.960 thular before you do that is important. And don't hesitate. If that's something you want to do,

03:31:15.080 bring it up and and ask we don't want to dissuade people we're not against you making oaths we just

03:31:21.640 want to make sure that they're taken with the gravity that they're due and that they're agreed

03:31:27.560 upon beforehand by the people conducting the ritual and the the thuler uh will often more

03:31:35.560 or less contextualize your your oath maybe not saying no but saying well what is the

03:31:42.120 purpose or they might ask you a question the other the other big one that gets thrown out there is

03:31:47.000 what is your where guild and aware guild is an interesting component to the othing part of the

03:31:53.720 third round is if you don't make your oath how can you atone to build people's luck because if you

03:32:01.480 don't make the oath it affects people's humming you it's that that spiritual currency and aware

03:32:07.720 guild is often asked in congruence with the oath i'm i i swear that i will do this if i do not do

03:32:18.280 this then i will do this in atonement or i will do that in what is called the man price the where to

03:32:24.440 where guild the the the the price you're willing to pay in order to substantiate you not attaining

03:32:31.160 the oath and i think people hesitate because we've got this idea money's a dirty word

03:32:37.720 I don't think that at all. I think the idea of, Hey, you know, if you fail in this oath,

03:32:42.420 then you're going to donate X to this half. I think that's completely appropriate. That's a

03:32:47.800 very literally appropriate use of the term. Yes. And the Godi that I was talking about before in

03:32:53.080 the saga, those were guilds were prices, literal money that he did not pay. And it caused grievances

03:33:00.480 the gods clearly he fell out of favor and started it that's the whole premise of of the the of the

03:33:08.080 sagas the subsequent faults that happen after that because he didn't pay his price all right so um

03:33:17.760 i've heard a symbol refer next question from ali i've heard some referred to as high symbol

03:33:23.360 why is that is there a low symbol as well what is the difference it's fun can you explain that

03:33:29.600 yes there's a couple things that i would say this is a nuanced term that has kind of formulated in

03:33:36.320 itself sometimes symbols are done in like say a kindred setting at a person's home and there may

03:33:44.320 be a small amount of people sometimes that is considered like a you know a low symbol or

03:33:50.800 something like that it's all basically a high symbol is a symbol that has

03:33:54.080 structure to it that is beyond what i would say is on a family or kindred level and what that

03:34:03.060 really applies to is that the symbol that's in beowulf the people that are there are

03:34:09.700 they're warriors all the men folk are there um there is the lord and there is the thuler and

03:34:17.960 then there are all of the things that are gathered there there are there's no one else there's no

03:34:22.780 um you know lay people these are all the warriors that are gathered there

03:34:28.060 to conduct this battle against the the threat of the hall um and that kind of is what sets

03:34:35.900 the tone for what i think people conceptualize as a high symbol whether it's um hierarchy in

03:34:42.540 let's say like clergy uh if you have like um you have the alas her go the and you have gothar there

03:34:48.780 and witten there um and there there's an appointed thuler and there's a large amount of people and

03:34:55.740 it's done in a place that's not like a family home now we're talking about high stumble there's

03:35:01.980 seating sometimes involved in which you will clearly see the head elsewhere go the that uh

03:35:09.420 or you'll see like the head of of let's say the witten is there and there's gothar subsequently

03:35:14.220 sitting next to him um there are you know again some people could consider the ideas like if you

03:35:20.340 have a um a mead bearer oh if you have three mead bearers you have three women that bear the horn

03:35:28.140 um this is the makings of more of a high sumble in which there's designated positions there are

03:35:35.420 etiquettes and and hierarchy in the room going on to maintain the order of the ceremony so i mean

03:35:43.700 is it a is there an official line as to what it is i don't think there really is i think that what

03:35:49.420 more of it is is when you get like uh say a kindred together and they're holding a a community

03:35:55.960 building symbol with perhaps just a leader who is also kind of the one that's going to designate

03:36:01.920 that everyone's behaving themselves and it's you know you have you have children around and uh you

03:36:08.940 horn is being passed hand to hand to hand that's kind of like more of a low symbol high symbol

03:36:15.500 there are honored roles there are women that are handing the horn and frid and if you speak against

03:36:21.020 that you're speaking against everyone in the room and you're kind of insulting the mead bearer and

03:36:25.340 you're insulting that the leader of the symbol and the subsequent positions um around there

03:36:32.300 that's what kind of makes high symbol different than low low symbols you know um all of those

03:36:40.460 things sometimes you know you can have a symbol around a campfire you and a group of your friends

03:36:46.940 and it's an important you know i mentioned earlier on how often to do symbol when we do

03:36:51.660 symbol at one of our hoffs at an event it's high sample when you're doing symbol in your home or

03:36:59.100 you know again with your buddies to commemorate something sometimes the rules can be different

03:37:05.100 then it doesn't have to be three rounds still needs to be treated seriously but there's a level

03:37:10.700 of formality if you're out camping in some camp chairs out in the woods you know dressed in your

03:37:16.220 hunting gear and you you want to have a nice sumble that's fine but and it can be as many

03:37:21.740 rounds as you'd like it to be as long as it stays respectful yeah maybe it's about a particular

03:37:27.100 theme maybe rather than all the different rounds with different stuff maybe you're only honoring

03:37:32.380 heroes or only honoring the fallen those who've passed maybe it's a group of of veterans wanting

03:37:39.980 to honor you know their military buddies maybe it's you know family just doing some will to honor

03:37:47.820 somebody who's recently passed or somebody that they're trying to commemorate so there's a lot of

03:37:52.700 different ways that you can do those kind of low symbols if that if that helps um angelina has a

03:38:03.500 question when doing bloat how do you choose which rune or runes to be galdered so this is something

03:38:09.500 that i do that not not everyone does um i don't think this is uh essential in the bloat process

03:38:18.700 but it's something i like to do is to galder a rune at the start of of a ritual and i like to

03:38:27.100 do it for a couple of of reasons and those are about harmony it literally when you when you

03:38:39.020 galder in the way that i called her now different people have different rates and intonations and

03:38:45.340 some people have one group of people galdering one rune other people there's a lot there's no

03:38:51.500 i'm sure there are wrong ways but there are many right ways to do it the way that i like to galder

03:38:57.020 is intentionally for group harmony so when i galder especially when you intone the vowel sounds

03:39:04.780 of the rune everybody can modulate to match that tone and you literally harmonize by literally

03:39:17.660 harmonizing chanting a rune that is important to you for that occasion you symbolically and

03:39:26.020 spiritually harmonize to that purpose as well and so that's why I really like to do that at

03:39:31.460 the beginning of my rituals. Oh, so what, so I was distracted by a question in chat. I was

03:39:47.780 noticing, I was starting to look at myself off camera. I do a lot of looking up in the air when

03:39:52.700 I'm thinking, I apologize. It looked like kind of a doofus want to do that. I just realized

03:39:56.580 um i choose the rune based on what i want people to either focus on or to feel during the ritual

03:40:08.940 sometimes it's thematic to the ritual um you know for like a midsummer boat bloat

03:40:16.380 so we low is a good choice it's a solar rune um for victory or for you know things that way maybe

03:40:25.480 Tiwaz, Brecano for a Desirblot, or for Ostara, perhaps. There's a lot of reasons to choose that.

03:40:39.520 And there's, you know, as long as you have a good reason, any of our runes could be appropriate,

03:40:44.900 depending on what your reason is. Sometimes I do manas, because man is the joy of man,

03:40:53.160 and I want to focus on brotherhood in that.

03:40:56.400 Sometimes, you know, that's kind of a generic one

03:40:59.160 for any of the rituals if that's something you want.

03:41:02.660 So, Willow, if I just want us to focus on winning and victory,

03:41:06.280 that's good for a lot of different occasions.

03:41:09.940 Wuno is good for a lot of occasions.

03:41:12.260 Wuno is a good thing for, you know, joy and celebration.

03:41:17.000 So, it really depends.

03:41:18.500 But there could be a very good reason for whatever you do

03:41:23.080 I think it's important to say. So this is another thing on bloat. Just like at Sumble, it's important to break down the pieces. And we haven't talked about this yet. I'm glad that I'm glad you asked. I'm glad I thought about this.

03:41:36.780 it's really important when you conduct a bloat, especially around a group of people that is mixed

03:41:44.920 company, that some of them may never have done a bloat with you before. Some of them may never 0.84

03:41:49.660 have done a bloat in general before to tell them what you're doing and why you're doing it so that

03:41:55.300 they can be fully engaged in what you're doing. If you have any parts of it that you're going to

03:42:00.220 speak a foreign language, I say foreign, and I think there's different uses of the term. But

03:42:06.460 If you're going to speak a word beyond English, or if anybody is, you know, international audience, please forgive me.

03:42:15.820 This is geared towards most of our members in the United States.

03:42:19.640 I realize the nuance of what I'm saying, but not the common language of the country that you're in.

03:42:27.860 Explain that.

03:42:28.920 Explain the words that you're going to say, because you want everyone there to be fully engaged and committed in the ritual and to know what they're doing.

03:42:39.160 And so if you have a rune that you want to galder at the beginning, maybe some people there don't understand that rune.

03:42:46.800 Maybe they're not familiar with runes, or maybe they don't know why you're choosing that specific one.

03:42:52.700 So tell them so that they can galder with full intent when they're doing that.

03:42:57.400 Those kind of instructions before a bloat, I think, are very, very important.

03:43:08.860 Svan, do you remember, or what do you remember about living in Iceland?

03:43:15.260 Is it as beautiful as the images on Google?

03:43:19.760 Yes. I have gone back numerous times since my childhood.

03:43:25.240 A lot of what I remember from my childhood is these kind of brutalism buildings in Reykjavik at the time and the 1980s.

03:43:36.580 It was gray block apartment buildings that were very kind of built for against the weather.

03:43:43.120 And there was a lot of the kind of color and vibrance was elsewhere in the city.

03:43:49.540 But I was a kid, so I didn't get to see that often unless I was like on a bus.

03:43:53.580 um but they uh you know when i grew up and i i went back um i got to explore more and see more

03:44:02.700 and see the houses and see the the colorful buildings and um i think the one thing that

03:44:08.860 when when people go there to vacation uh if you're going there in the summertime you're going to see

03:44:14.620 lots of beautiful things but it's very expensive um but one of the things that's worth kind of

03:44:19.340 of noting is there is a kind of still a element of that brutalism and a lot of industriousness

03:44:25.660 there's sometimes there's like still buildings with you know like uh heating and things like

03:44:31.300 that that go into the building so that they can work throughout the year um even in the

03:44:36.800 conditions uh and and things seem on the west very like you'll see um you know just flat expanse of

03:44:45.080 rock and things like that and and not much else there's ocean and then there's like the land and

03:44:50.460 everything's kind of built up but the moment you start to drive out into the country that's when

03:44:54.960 you start to see the real beautiful uh waterfalls and and you know moss that's really really thick

03:45:02.320 you know going up into the north or going uh you know southeast a little ways um not too far because

03:45:08.560 once you get out there this is where the glaciers and things it gets really brutal again um but yes

03:45:13.940 it is a place where you really feel um the power of of the earth and the sky and the water it's all

03:45:21.280 there and you are very finite part of it it's much it makes you feel very tiny sometimes even

03:45:28.400 though you're on an island uh you end up feeling almost like you're in a much bigger and almost

03:45:37.420 constructed place because sometimes the stones look um like they've been carved or shaped so

03:45:45.900 it's it's it's amazing um but it's not like say for instance like there's not a lot of forests

03:45:52.060 in iceland and i think a lot of people don't realize that it's it's grassland and it's

03:45:57.900 mountainous and there's lava spouts or you might be driving along and just see nothing but fields

03:46:03.100 filled with horses you know um and lots of grazing you know but yeah beautiful

03:46:13.340 so i see a conversation going on in the chat about how alcohol kills your gains

03:46:21.900 so i don't think that's entirely true and i think it depends what's going on with it i know that

03:46:27.100 it was a big drinking culture and drinking beer after they got done working out was a big thing

03:46:31.900 that arnold used to do back in back in the day and i also wanted to uh share the anecdote that

03:46:38.140 i have uh i have mixed vodka and protein powder now not just vodka and whey protein powder that

03:46:50.380 would be awkward i have mixed it i have poured vodka into a protein shake that i was drinking

03:46:57.980 at the time when i was a younger man um i have also because i didn't want to lose my gains and

03:47:04.780 i was doing stuff and i was in a period where i was drinking two gallons of milk a day

03:47:10.140 you know gone to a party or whatever you know had my my uh cocktail or whatever in

03:47:17.020 one hand and my jug of milk in the other and have alternated um also and not entirely the

03:47:24.060 same thing but came to mind and worth mentioning um in florida there is a cocaine problem

03:47:33.260 um some of you may have watched miami vice like it's a thing so i was working at the bar in florida

03:47:40.060 and a gentleman who was a friend of mine and a regular there was engaging in that particular

03:47:47.020 activity which the afa does not in any way approve of um but i was sitting there drinking a protein

03:47:53.500 shake and he went off to the back to do what he was doing he somehow wanted to be included in

03:47:59.740 what i was doing and he did a a line of protein powder i don't i don't recommend that but i

03:48:06.540 thought it was an interesting happenstance that was remotely related so i'll put it out there

03:48:13.580 um i i uh i it's funny to me when this conversation comes up i don't drink anymore

03:48:19.900 and i think a lot of people uh get into how do you incorporate the idea of doing a toasting ceremony

03:48:25.980 with alcohol if you don't drink i think um first some people in uh they don't drink recreationally

03:48:33.900 or they just that maybe they've oath to take it to swear it off but they keep it for only for bloats

03:48:39.980 and for um stumble which is what i do um so uh you know drinking from the horn only in those three

03:48:47.660 rounds uh and not partaking in any alcohol in between i'm usually you know drinking water or

03:48:54.060 coffee or something else um it is possible too that you can be a person who doesn't

03:49:01.660 really it's it's i think people get confused sometimes or they feel that a great pressure

03:49:06.220 that there's a a need to it should be done if you are well with it if you're not for whatever

03:49:14.860 reasons there's nothing wrong with saying no i'll just hold it for symbol and take one

03:49:19.740 sip and sometimes too again you don't even have to drink from the horn if you're having a substance

03:49:24.780 abuse issue um and you want to participate in symbol you don't have to drink from the horn

03:49:29.500 you speak over the horn heart to hand just like you do in bloat and then give it back to the horn

03:49:35.900 bearer um i think it's just worth noting if people have some sort of you know stipulations or

03:49:41.580 grievances against drinking for whatever reason you can still participate in symbol so it's it's

03:49:49.260 again balancing things and it's very easy to get stuck in our head on you know just seeing the

03:49:57.580 negatives of something yes all things being equal you should stumble with alcohol it's

03:50:03.180 thing it's cultural things just like you don't make toasts with something non-alcoholic typically

03:50:07.900 but which does more to honor your folk and your gods and build your reputation you maintaining

03:50:16.180 your sobriety or you participating in you know one ritual one time at one round of something

03:50:24.880 you know it's there's there's a big balance there and choosing the best of your options we get stuck

03:50:33.020 on perfect or not perfect. And it's, it doesn't work like that. It's a, it's a balancing of what's

03:50:40.340 going to be the most good for you and the most productive. Um, our next question, if you, and

03:50:48.660 this is, I don't really know how to go on this one. So if you were to associate Hymenia to a

03:50:56.120 god in particular who would it be the same question for other soul parts uh filkia hammer leak

03:51:06.120 ick uh huger mini and on um so i i wouldn't because i don't think that it works like that i

03:51:18.280 wouldn't i wouldn't do that i suppose for

03:51:29.720 philgia i would associate either uh frig or freya probably freya because when i think of that i

03:51:39.720 think, to a degree of our desir, and Freyja is the vanadys. For the last three, Hygur, Minni,

03:51:56.360 and Ond, I would associate Odin because he is the god of Ond, and I think his ravens literally are

03:52:09.720 thought and memory um other than that i i wouldn't do that i don't think of our gods

03:52:19.960 in terms of relating to one of those or another spawn what what are your thoughts

03:52:24.600 yeah i was i was thinking about it as it as you're reading it and um i mean it's it's a fair

03:52:30.760 assumption to say when we speak about odin and we speak about the connection in our soul to aunt

03:52:35.560 so you know what would that could beckon the question oh well if if odin is connected to

03:52:41.660 are there other gods connected to other kind of components of the soul not really but at the same

03:52:48.380 time like hamina you know when we refer to that we talk about our luck we talk about our dc

03:52:53.920 controlling luck especially luck that's passed genetically not ones that are cultivated by our

03:53:00.920 deeds um but yeah when we're talking about like on um maybe the leak the ek the thought and memory

03:53:11.640 i mean that's clearly kind of associated with odin lily vey and the creation of of of the

03:53:19.640 the soul complex itself outside of that i mean

03:53:23.240 it starts to get interesting i i i mean i've i've associated you know balder as the soul of the of

03:53:33.080 the gods so could view that in connection as our our soul is connected to the folk soul and the

03:53:41.160 folk soul is connected to the soul of the gods but specifically connection one-to-one and one-for-one

03:53:47.880 um and and again the god uh the gods and or the the house and our senior they have

03:53:55.160 many of them have uh symbolic animalistic connections to denote their taming of those

03:54:00.600 chaotic forces so you can apply that to like the idea of a philkia but uh sometimes the philkia is

03:54:08.440 associated with as a um again the the valkyrie the valkyrie um yeah i i don't think that there's any

03:54:18.520 in specifics um other than of course owned with oldenville and perhaps heimdall in the general

03:54:26.440 sense of the um making the the awareness of spirituality within us within our souls more

03:54:36.840 but not not one for one not on all right so uh next question asked true folk assembly i don't

03:54:49.000 ask this question to be rude but what is the difference between anglo-saxon gods

03:54:53.880 in aussitrew and in scandinavian tradition um

03:54:58.440 there's not um i think fundamentally the gods are the same i think there's like local uh deities of

03:55:11.880 a place um local heroes local deities of of rivers or of a particular area that might be different

03:55:20.280 because of location but um the gods are the same gods i think the only difference is you know a

03:55:27.640 slight variation in linguistics and in maybe how they're conceptualized um like for example in

03:55:37.960 anglo-saxon tradition they didn't hear of or didn't get transmitted or they didn't know about

03:55:44.760 or whatever the uh story of thor's hammer and why it was short handled so in in anglo-saxon england

03:55:53.880 you'd find hammers thor's hammers with very long handles whereas in scandinavia the handle's always

03:55:59.880 very short because of the story we have that attests to that but no fundamentally uh there's

03:56:08.440 not a difference the differences are the way the anglo-saxons grew to know our gods versus the way

03:56:17.320 the scandinavians develop their relation in the generations since the two or one connected people

03:56:25.000 which is closer in that instance than in most any other what are your thoughts swan

03:56:32.280 i i've seen this before where people would say like odin and and woden are different and uh

03:56:40.440 that is um i think that's a that's a misunderstanding from people that are looking

03:56:45.400 into the polytheistic practices of these people as like totally different separate groups without

03:56:54.280 seeing any connectivity whatsoever and and absolutely not even considering language

03:56:58.920 connectivities um and it's unfortunate that there are people out there that do that uh like scholars

03:57:06.920 that do that um it's not so much anymore but it used to be that way um but there is no real

03:57:13.800 difference and i you know good on you for saying i'm not trying to be um uh insulting that's that's

03:57:20.360 really i think wise and good of you and i think that's a good mark i think um you know when we

03:57:26.920 talk about odin and we understand that like the w in the name was dropped because of the linguistics

03:57:33.160 of the norse they dropped the w's many times and or they added a v sound instead and and you know

03:57:40.600 a v letter um because again linguistics and language and and the alphabet that the roman

03:57:46.680 alphabet was being used they were switching over from runic and so there's a lot of stuff going on

03:57:52.360 there that created these linguistic issues whereas in anglo-saxon you know they were they converted

03:57:59.640 to christianity far before the norse did but they wrote about the rune poems in the 10th century

03:58:05.400 whereas the icelandic room poems were written most likely in the 11th or 12th um and they were

03:58:12.120 freshly converted whereas the anglos had been for a long time um it's just also to understand the

03:58:19.720 dominion each of the teutonic branches have had their own understanding of context in dominion

03:58:27.560 of the gods um some of our like say the anglo-saxons might look at the very strong warrior aspect of

03:58:37.000 the lord fray who they called envy or in infray or froing they called him froing and they saw you

03:58:45.400 know connected the the boar and his symbol of prosperity but also to battle and to war whereas

03:58:52.680 the svayar or the the people of svil the uh which means the svayar people who became the swedes

03:59:00.440 they had by the time it was written in upsala had a um more focus on fray in his fruitfulness

03:59:08.040 and not so much in in any sort of war aspect and again that's because they're pulling

03:59:15.880 uh their their relationship is different and the way the best way to view that would be um

03:59:22.680 for yourself there are friends you may have that see you in in a context differently than say

03:59:30.020 another group of friends who um you know interact with you and and and you know see you as something

03:59:38.880 else uh if you're a you know a mechanic and they they they focus in on that but then another group

03:59:44.220 of friends knows you from high school or something it's those those cultures will pull

03:59:50.060 based off of how that god has interacted with them so um it's it's an interesting thing it's

03:59:59.460 it's the i i call it the thrones when when when certain gods um interact with certain folk um

04:00:07.660 it builds organically through experience but it's oftentimes very different than say other folk

04:00:12.140 um even though you know that linguistically they're very close even geographically they're

04:00:17.160 very close um but they are the same they just have the ability to interact with us differently

04:00:24.840 based on um how they can help and what needs and blessings they wish to give us and what

04:00:30.760 value we show to them next question does the afa make subjects this taking into objects

04:00:44.520 animals or places content as mentioned hanging access because of the blows in the legendary

04:00:59.880 only to the gods but also reports about

04:01:03.320 out. Oh, I think we're experiencing some difficulties here. I don't know if I'm, I'm

04:01:17.060 shut out or if. Can you hear me? It's very, very choppy.

04:01:22.160 Yeah, I'm just hearing something about that as well.

04:01:28.080 Anybody here can ask, I apologize.

04:01:34.400 Once I know that things are all up and working again.

04:01:39.340 So in relation to that question, though, when you're talking about bloats involving, oh,

04:01:47.440 there you are.

04:01:49.400 very clear uh when we're talking about um bloats in relations to um non-spiritual or non um

04:02:05.640 if we're talking about physical things so i'm paused for one second can you hear

04:02:10.760 the entirety of the question when i read it no i did not okay i was gonna say because i was reading

04:02:16.920 when i looked up uh i was frozen so for those that haven't that didn't hear all of it um

04:02:25.960 does the afa make bloats to non-spiritual subjects this taking into account the accounts of bloats

04:02:30.760 to objects animals or places context in one of the last questions i asked uh i mentioned hanging

04:02:38.280 animals on sacred trees i asked this based on the description of the bloats in the legendary

04:02:43.160 temple of upsala in which the sacrifices are made not only to the gods but also to the sacred forest

04:02:50.600 that surrounds the temple um no the afa does not uh do bloats to people to things that cannot

04:03:00.680 contribute in the gifting cycle and i don't think our ancestors did either and i think that comes

04:03:07.720 from a very common misconception we don't practice animism we don't worship

04:03:18.120 trees or forests or rivers or rocks but the confusion lies in spirits of the land inhabit

04:03:29.560 those things the sacred tree wasn't worshipped as the tree it was worshipped as the

04:03:41.720 um representation the house of the uh embodiment of a spirit if of that land

04:03:54.120 so doing a special bloat or an offering to the land vetir is something that individuals do

04:04:01.960 typically we don't do that as the afa at whole as a whole we acknowledge them when we do other bloats

04:04:09.080 but doing a bloat to a specific land spirit maybe of your property maybe of a river that you that's

04:04:16.920 important to you of something like that if you feel a spiritual presence that's who you're

04:04:24.120 engaging with you're not doing a bloat to the water that's in the river because the water can't

04:04:30.360 engage in the gift cycle the water can't appreciate your gift it can't give you

04:04:35.640 blessing in return it's water now the spirit that inhabits the river perhaps she can give you a lot

04:04:41.720 of things um so that's a really important distinction that i think when uh descriptions

04:04:52.680 are were written about the temple at upsala it was written by christians and they were very

04:04:59.800 disparaging of our practice and they didn't fully understand it anything that wasn't

04:05:05.080 a worship of their god was idolatry to them and like ah they're worshiping statues and rocks

04:05:12.600 and trees no we're worshiping the deities that are represented by each of these things

04:05:17.660 and that's a that's a christian prejudice that i think came to us in the descriptions of some

04:05:22.980 of these practices uh sfan what do you have on that i just i just spoke of the like the dominions

04:05:29.340 or the thrones that the gods uh exude through and that is again the example of what you just said

04:05:36.700 the the it's the it's the the stead we call it the stead uh i think in the last episode we're talking

04:05:43.020 about what the meaning of the word stead means it's the home it's the house it's the throne it's

04:05:48.380 the it's the receptacle through which the power is interacting but that the world is made up of

04:05:56.780 primordial forces and natural forces that can be interacted with by divine spirits

04:06:04.780 that can give us boon in the gift cycle but it could be confusing and so here's a

04:06:11.420 the best way that i could put it if an outsider went to thorsof and saw me pouring out the mead

04:06:19.260 at the base of the oak tree outside of thorsof they might miscue that with me worshiping

04:06:25.660 the tree. Instead, what I'm doing is I'm incorporating that as a sacred place for me

04:06:31.140 to place the offering in respect. In respect to the offering, I place it at the oak tree

04:06:40.340 because oak trees have sacred symbiosis to Thor. I'm not worshiping the tree itself. I'm just

04:06:48.560 giving a the gift of our bloats to that place um and so in essence there is a power that's built

04:06:58.000 by me doing that it's much like using the bowl itself i don't worship the bowl because it's been

04:07:04.560 in hundreds and hundreds of bloats instead it builds a might based off of deed but it's not

04:07:13.040 uh a spirit unto itself um it it's more utilized and i think that's what that that intention of

04:07:20.480 honoring the trees around a hof would become is it's a it's part of the process not necessarily

04:07:29.440 that the tree itself has or perhaps even too to consider that possibly the the forest and the

04:07:37.040 land around was seen as a place where some of those uh the parts like of the soul like the huer

04:07:45.680 or the hammer um were there in amongst the trees and in between the trees and so it was seen as

04:07:53.280 sacred in the sense that there was again something taking stead there not just the tree itself um and

04:08:01.280 that's a that is i think a very big misconception and it could be so easy because they see the

04:08:06.560 process of it being but because a bowl is a bowl they would not see that as the same usage as a

04:08:14.320 place where you pour the the mead at the tree they see a tree and think oh they're worshiping this

04:08:20.400 tree that's not the case so you know i think an easy way to to see it is art we like to have things

04:08:30.160 to focus on we like to look at something as a visual representation to direct energy towards

04:08:40.960 an example of this and i don't think this is far-fetched because it's exactly what we do

04:08:46.960 when you go to one of your ancestors tombstones

04:08:52.480 you speak to the tombstone you're not really talking to the stone you're talking to your

04:08:58.800 grandfather but you're looking at the stone because it's something to direct you to and the

04:09:05.280 stone is a representation that embodies what you're doing and who you're you're speaking to

04:09:11.920 who you're honoring who you're worshiping and that's that's what this is

04:09:18.960 um our next question uh matt and svan listen to any nordic folk music high lung wardroona

04:09:30.240 danheim could this be viewed uh as the ossaroo equivalent to christian gospel music um

04:09:39.360 no i mean first no i think that that doesn't mean to disrespect it all um

04:09:56.480 i think that some of it's really cool i'm i have listened to quite a bit of wardroona

04:10:03.040 i've listened to less high lung i'm not sure what danheim is um

04:10:12.000 but the equivalent would be if christian gospel music was

04:10:21.040 like if they were dressed up in like sandals and desert robes and were

04:10:29.520 singing in Aramaic or something. That stuff's, especially high lung, it's way too ooga booga

04:10:41.440 for me. That's just like, yeah. And it's not even if, so here's the thing. It's not even like

04:10:47.920 if Christian gospel were sung in Aramaic or Hebrew with robes and sandals, it would be, 0.83

04:10:58.140 I don't know what their version of primitive, like with ashes on their face and their hair in like strange dread, like desert dreadlocks. 0.95

04:11:10.140 And I don't know, some kind of that, that ram with the horns they use in the little Jewish ceremonies. 0.96

04:11:16.880 Maybe those like glued onto the side of your head and like some shoulder pelts.

04:11:22.160 Like, it's really strange, and I'm not trying to be ridiculous, but they don't just try to be traditional and to be a representation of something ancient.

04:11:36.140 They also get very fanciful in their attempt to be as primal or whatever as possible.

04:11:48.840 And they look like things that I think would be terrifying to actual Vikings.

04:11:58.060 What are your thoughts, Svon?

04:12:00.840 so um like yeah uh when we when we compare like say like uh there's a band called goldier goldier

04:12:10.280 or danheim or uh i would even say like ward runa um they have a tendency

04:12:17.880 to be a little bit more subdued than say like highlight uh helion or um they you know and

04:12:24.920 you know you have one that's trying i guess the biggest thing is to understand they're all

04:12:28.600 performance artists they're performing and they're artistically expressing some aspects

04:12:34.680 that they want to create visual effects for that right there makes it not necessarily say like

04:12:41.720 gospel because we're talking about praise and we're talking about religious function of song

04:12:49.560 whereas um you know there could be say a performance element added on to a praiseness

04:12:56.360 or a worth ship of the gods but in a lot of times it's you know i don't know it depends on whether

04:13:03.320 or not the performance artists actually believe in the gods or not but at the same time at what

04:13:08.760 point are you doing it in honor of the gods and in honor of your ancestors or are you doing it

04:13:14.040 as a performance art to gain and elicit an emotion whether it's you know spookiness or edginess or

04:13:20.840 you know kind of crazy shamanic um wildness um versus um you know actual praise and honor

04:13:31.800 um there was a band too the uh there was one called valraven it was very modern uh they didn't

04:13:37.640 dress up in any way shape or form but they were very very clear they were just they were honoring

04:13:43.080 they would do songs from iceland and from the faroe islands and things like that traditional

04:13:48.440 folk songs but they would do it in a modern kind of way in honor of their heritage and i think

04:13:54.680 that was kind of like one of the closest ways i could ever conceptualize a band doing something

04:14:03.000 in honor of their ancestors the songs that they were singing were about keeping those songs

04:14:08.360 alive but they were also about seeing if they could instrumentally bring them up into a more

04:14:14.360 modern sense and kind of play with those songs but all done in like respect of the people that

04:14:20.040 that wrote those songs the folk that brought those songs about outside of that once we get into like

04:14:25.560 performance art and stuff i mean i think they're it's good to sometimes have his background music

04:14:31.640 i i've listened to it sometimes when i'm working out or you know doing things but is it an

04:14:37.640 equivalency to say uh religious praise and dedication to ancestors gods and and heroes

04:14:49.160 uh i don't know i i would say erring on the side of no um but it does work in one function it does

04:14:59.960 um speak uh there's a there's a band a metal band named therian and they have a a album called

04:15:10.440 secret of the runes and in it they do the cosmology of of all the the nine realms um it's

04:15:19.960 that's an interesting one in the sense that they are transferring knowledge and lore through their

04:15:26.280 songs almost to the point of reverence and they even mix like wagnerian opera with with it and

04:15:33.640 there's kind of this magic that's going on there as far as transferring the knowledge they speak of

04:15:40.360 of lore and things that a lot of people don't and they turn stuff that i wouldn't even consider song

04:15:47.880 like be able to be a song and they made it into a song uh you know direct quotes from

04:15:52.120 the album all and things like that amazing in their ability to do it but is it an equivalency

04:15:59.480 to praise in song and worship i i don't think so well it's it's different a lot of ways and

04:16:09.560 i know my answer was kind of flippant high lung is just a little bit ridiculous for my taste but

04:16:15.000 But no, some people in those genres are legitimately trying to worship our gods with their performance.

04:16:25.800 And even if they do that in a way that is off-putting to me visually, I'm not saying that's inappropriate or bad.

04:16:35.120 I am saying it's dissimilar in a number of ways from gospel music.

04:16:38.960 if it's meant to be done in praise of one of our gods then there's something similar there over in

04:16:46.820 the chat and i've seen this sometimes some metal which i like to listen to far far less the like

04:16:56.380 cookie monster metal some of that is made by practicing asa true are that genuinely mean it

04:17:03.640 as a song of praise to our gods um and i don't find that inappropriate at all it's just not my

04:17:11.320 thing um i would really like to hear some people singing pretty music that was about praising our

04:17:22.360 gods i think it would be nice to have something pleasant like that that really was done from a

04:17:28.840 devotional way but i also think it's really cool and i was asking swan about this and i

04:17:33.800 you know just started getting thinking about it again when we did our heroes episode

04:17:38.120 on svainbjorn but uh his reamer is kind of cool the meter that it does is hypnotic it was really

04:17:46.040 neat to hear him do that and i think something like that would be really nice as well

04:17:52.680 either you guys have lost me or we have lost swan i'm not sure which is which

04:17:58.840 It seems like we are hitting some technical difficulties the last little bit here.

04:18:04.360 I'm going to keep talking like you guys can't hear me and hope that's the case.

04:18:11.720 Let me find where I was.

04:18:14.640 I've got to find it again on these questions.

04:18:19.000 This is one I really would.

04:18:21.140 this is one of the things that i'd like to get sfan to comment on but i'll go ahead

04:18:34.100 have you ever done bloat entirely in the germanic prose verse meters

04:18:40.460 um no i have not at all and i would not ever want to do that and i'll explain why i don't think it's

04:18:54.140 it's terrible if somebody does but if you're by yourself and you

04:19:03.500 want to give bloat in germanic prose meter and you know how to do that that might be really

04:19:13.980 meaningful to you and you might do that as a way of honoring the gods but

04:19:20.860 when i give bloat it's with a group of people

04:19:24.860 and as a priest when i'm as a gothi when i'm performing a bloat to our gods i it's my duty

04:19:38.120 to you know first and foremost to be pleasing and honor the god but also to connect our gods

04:19:47.680 and our folk and that connection isn't well served when everyone there doesn't understand

04:19:55.040 what's going on or when it's done in a way that is unengaging for them that disconnects

04:20:03.520 them that makes them think more about the process than about the point of what's being done

04:20:08.480 um and i say that i know there's a lot of people including um some some gothar in the afa that like

04:20:19.680 to plan out their bloats and even write down what they'd like to say and do that to give a good

04:20:27.280 bloat and i don't think that's wrong or bad but it's very much not the way that i do bloat

04:20:32.480 I feel like I do bloat much more successfully when it's from the heart, when it's engaging, when it's reflexive of the situation and the audience and the moment.

04:20:47.420 And when it's done in a simple way that connects our gods and our folk in an easy, easily accessible, easy to engage, easy to understand from the heart way, the more.

04:21:07.400 and i found over the years of doing bloat the more moving pieces that you have and the more

04:21:13.080 memorization that you have the more you're focused on the dance steps and the meter and

04:21:23.640 remembering your lines and remembering the different bells and whistles than on actually

04:21:31.480 giving to the gods and connecting with the folk and everything you do that takes you out of the

04:21:39.000 moment makes your bloat less powerful with intention and less powerful with the energy

04:21:45.480 and the connection between our folk and our gods svan what are your thoughts have you ever done

04:21:51.400 bloat in germanic verse meter uh not entirely i think first if you're going in that route one of

04:21:59.720 the biggest things to realize is if you're by yourself and you're doing it to create a bloat

04:22:06.920 um what you're doing is seeking to connect through uh your again it's like an art that's what the

04:22:15.480 poetic meter is to begin with um so if you're you know attempting to speak in uh a germanic language

04:22:25.320 on a dead germanic language or an ancient germanic language and you're trying to do

04:22:29.880 say like for me the slug style or or something of that nature you're doing that in in that's

04:22:35.480 kind of a form of of artistic ancestral or and cultural traditionalism and if you're doing that

04:22:44.760 by yourself i think that is uh you know it that's a personal devotional thing and i don't think

04:22:51.240 that's bad um again what else here ago they did speak about those like when you do that at a

04:22:56.760 ceremony and you start speaking and people don't quite understand what's going on because they

04:23:03.240 don't speak that language again i because i you know did not i grew up in learning two different

04:23:10.120 languages growing up um i i found the importance of yes communication is is important especially

04:23:17.720 when you're doing things communal communitively you know it wasn't i i don't think the icelanders

04:23:24.680 of old you know were like i'm gonna speak swabby and low german or or bronze age swedish uh you

04:23:35.480 know they they spoke of the language of their time um but one interesting thing that you could

04:23:40.920 incorporate that remember how i said there were three parts if you do the end the the coming into

04:23:47.480 the gift exchange and then at the end there's this uh the time in which you can do like the

04:23:52.440 maypole or jumping the fire there could be a moment where perhaps you tell everyone there

04:23:59.880 you're going to do a uh a poetic song like icelandic riemur or and and they're not going

04:24:06.760 to quite understand what you're going to say but you're going to you sing it and then you explain

04:24:10.200 to them you do that at the end and you do that as both a dedication to the gods because it's still

04:24:16.520 within the holy time frame but you're also doing it as a learning experience as a cultural and

04:24:23.160 traditional experience you could also do it during sumble at like third round um a lot of times

04:24:30.280 people will do poems um you know in english or or what have you or sing a song but you could also

04:24:37.480 you know take that moment i think the only thing is is in that time frame with sumble and there's

04:24:43.000 many other people involved keeping it short is courtesy because if you go too long and the

04:24:49.960 performance becomes a very long and and and drawn out performance it draws away from the time of

04:24:57.320 other people to speak especially if you know symbol is held late you know taking those things

04:25:02.040 into consideration are important but you can put them in but i think you should have them in context

04:25:08.360 and really what you should do is do it for the purpose of um showing connectivity in our language

04:25:16.520 or allowing people to hear what perhaps um you know it would sound like and then explain to

04:25:23.400 them what you're saying and and and you know i wouldn't say like go and you know read you know

04:25:30.440 24 uh stanzas in old norse one right after the other without without them and then not explain

04:25:38.680 anything and just go from there um that that has a that that loses a lot i tried to a long

04:25:46.280 time ago really incorporate old norse with english and sometimes i would say like i would

04:25:53.480 say like leo's alvar and then i would say light elves and i would say them right near each other

04:25:59.400 so that way people could see there was a connection in in the language and i could

04:26:05.080 you know see if somebody was say practicing ostrich in sweden and they're speaking swedish

04:26:10.360 and then they want to say something maybe in old norse or in anglo-saxon and not necessarily

04:26:17.480 with the necessity of speaking another language but to maybe show the connectivity

04:26:23.000 between our languages and build those that understanding for the folks around them

04:26:27.960 that we are very very deeply connected but outside of that you know it's it's um

04:26:35.080 most poetic stuff that i've ever seen is alliterative poetry that's done in english

04:26:41.400 kind of in a very loosely based meter format of alliterative rhyming um where you know they they

04:26:49.080 take a strong alliterative sound they combined it twice in in in the first line and then they start

04:26:55.960 the second line with that same sound and that creates that kind of alliterative meter that is

04:27:03.720 very traditional but usually it's done in english or at least um english you know uh

04:27:10.920 english without latin sometimes it isn't sometimes it is but yeah not an entire bloke it's it's um

04:27:20.280 it's got to have purpose and I think that purpose is to teach or to educate or to at least let

04:27:26.180 people hear it but explain to them and don't let it disconnect them yeah I think there's a time and

04:27:33.220 a place for a little bit of that like in uh Odin bloats we do a Harry a father chant and it's in

04:27:40.260 another language most of it and but we explain the words beforehand so when it's done people

04:27:46.640 know what they're saying and it's not overly complex and it's done while the horn's going around

04:27:53.600 and not as a not as the main body of the of the bloat um and the words are simple enough

04:28:05.440 that people who have never done it can join in and it it does have its own power there but yeah it's

04:28:11.680 It's very, very light and kind of incorporated in the whole.

04:28:18.500 All right.

04:28:22.360 Do you some from a thin wraith?

04:28:24.900 Do you think people may feel the gods and maybe even serve them in some way without knowing it, since they may not have heard of them or lived during a time when all our people were Christian?

04:28:38.980 Yes, absolutely.

04:28:41.680 I that is a fascinating question to me and I've often wondered about that

04:28:50.200 I believe that has always been the case to some degree I think what's happened more often has

04:29:03.600 been confusion. I think, I know that our gods call to us through our blood, through our memory,

04:29:14.780 literally. And I have to believe that that has happened throughout the centuries where our

04:29:23.940 people have not been a house of truth. I don't know how that manifests. What I imagine happens

04:29:30.500 often is doing serving our gods or doing also true stuff and putting a Christian coat of paint

04:29:48.420 on it or if you're hearing from any deity and the only deity you're aware of is you know Jesus

04:29:57.500 maybe attributing the voice of our gods to Jesus in medieval times or something similar.

04:30:05.880 I think we search when we don't have, we try to find patterns. And if we don't have a context

04:30:11.240 to put information, especially esoterically, and we have to cobble it into what we know the best

04:30:19.340 we can. So I'm sure there was a lot of confusion from that. But I think you see some of that in

04:30:25.800 just the development of medieval Christianity in Europe, it's very, very pagan in how it's done.

04:30:37.100 So many elements are so very overtly our folk soul peeking through. And yes, some of that was done

04:30:46.020 in conversion things to not alienate people and get our folk more comfortable in converting.

04:30:53.100 I think others was our people have a natural way of doing things that relates to our gods and

04:30:59.360 in Ausatru. And I think we try to apply that to whatever the situation is, because it's so

04:31:06.400 integral to who we are. But I also have to believe that there was probably some people here and there

04:31:12.840 that worshipped our gods with the appropriate names and everything, or maybe with their own,

04:31:22.400 maybe not knowing the names, maybe not knowing the stories, but worshiping them as something

04:31:27.760 other than Christ in their own way. It's a fascinating thing to think about. I don't

04:31:34.000 have a lot of accounts of that occurring, but I like to speculate that it did. What are your

04:31:41.220 thoughts, Svon? Well, I've always been moved by something you said a long time ago. You said,

04:31:46.220 you know, if we didn't have the aid as if we didn't have the stories, would the gods still

04:31:51.380 be amongst us and i i see these manifestations of the way we interact with the gods even though

04:31:59.620 it might not be in the context of teutonic religion um you know uh the i was speaking

04:32:09.420 about that with like the ausenior uh when we talk about like gevion and her connection to the land

04:32:15.360 the plow and then we kind of see like columbina or the manifest destiny maiden floating above the

04:32:24.080 the prairies that's the gods they're they're manifesting and bubbling out of us just the

04:32:29.120 context is completely disassociated from like a nordic concept but yet still very or uh not nordic

04:32:37.600 but nordic period context but it's very teutonic it's very germanic it's very all the imagery is

04:32:42.960 still there she's coming out whether and she's manifesting in people's desires and connections

04:32:50.800 without being called um and you know i see this a lot too i think with our folk when they

04:32:58.240 um when they have dreams or when they encounter something and they describe it and it to me

04:33:04.480 that's an alvar or a desir and they'll explain it and and contextualize it but not go down the

04:33:13.520 christian rabbit hole because at a certain point they either have to think it's an angel or a demon

04:33:19.520 and again those are greek words and when you look at what like i guess like malox of the of the

04:33:26.080 torah an angel the malox were like you know eyeballs and you know lots of crazy stuff going

04:33:33.360 on there um and they're talking about you know someone coming to them in the middle of the night

04:33:38.480 kind of in a shape and in a light speaking to them and helping them so i was wow that you just

04:33:45.280 got visited by an alvar or you got it visited by one of your ds here and that they they can't

04:33:52.800 they can't contextualize it to you know our faith and our because they don't have the words they've

04:33:58.080 been so disconnected from it but then if they go down that road well if then if what was it was it

04:34:03.440 an angel was it a demon it's pretty much what they got it's like they don't have much to kind

04:34:08.400 of contextualize or it's just part of their psychological subconscious and then they just go

04:34:14.000 into a scientific route um but i've seen it manifest in people um and it's like it's like

04:34:20.960 like having a book of words to help define things that other people don't quite have um and so you

04:34:29.280 start to see it bubbling out i remember a local uh group where i'm at they had a song and the song

04:34:38.260 is is about the woman in the marshes the woman in the the the like the um the spring that's nearby

04:34:46.840 there's a woman there and she she's uh the queen of the cypress trees and she's there and as they're

04:34:53.760 coming back home they realize they're entering into her realm and into her kingdom and that

04:34:58.480 immediately makes me think of narthus or yord and they're kind of expressing that understanding of

04:35:04.760 coming back into her domain and there is a spring here that is you know very very sacred um it has

04:35:12.100 been for generations to to virginians um so yeah i see it bubble out but they don't it's just in

04:35:21.700 their blood it's not quite in there on their tongue all right can you describe from your

04:35:28.180 personal experience what the presence of a god feels like and how do you differentiate that

04:35:35.380 from the presence of an ancestor it's fun go ahead and go first on that one um

04:35:45.540 so

04:35:48.420 the the the best way i can go about saying this is that i've had two kind of experiences

04:35:54.260 one in which i felt a kind of overlaying wisdom or uh knowledge or expression of knowledge

04:36:05.380 that was like laid upon me and it was oftentimes built around perhaps i i'm in emotional state

04:36:15.320 i'm in a mental state and oftentimes it's always seems to be around a sense of confusion or or

04:36:21.760 frustration suddenly there's like this just like a like a fortune cookie ribbon just a little bit

04:36:30.440 of wisdom kind of laid out almost like it's typed over a telegram and it's just coming in on that

04:36:35.780 strip of paper and once it fully is understood all of a sudden it's like oh why was that you

04:36:42.820 know oh like all of a sudden the wisdom of that i've had experiences like that um i think i've

04:36:49.040 spoken about it in victory never sleeps uh in the earlier episodes about like looking up into the

04:36:55.940 sky and seeing a plane and going oh humans are even here you know and then suddenly there's

04:37:01.540 this kind of overwhelming calmness that comes over and it's like you know um just like the

04:37:08.480 ocean the sky is you know that ship is susceptible to all of the possibilities there man doesn't is

04:37:15.400 not master of the sky they have they they live amongst just as much as a sailor lives upon the

04:37:23.400 ocean and um that was just kind of a really almost like sense a wave of getting hit with a wave of

04:37:31.060 wisdom um to my own folly and i think that's one of the things that i've ever i felt um and i can't

04:37:40.400 quite explain it because it's not i'm not verbally hearing anything not hearing voices but it just

04:37:46.640 kind of like washes over the other is a presence in the air and that is the more it's it's a little

04:37:56.400 bit more uh i'm not terrifying it has the possibility of being terrifying but it isn't

04:38:04.240 it's it's just there something's in the air and it you can feel it it almost like uh bridles on

04:38:10.700 your head or shoulders i've i've felt it um at uh odin's hof you know during um uh odin's bloat

04:38:19.580 that you conducted and the sky and i'm looking up and there's this kind of like feeling or presence

04:38:25.800 of suddenness that like there's something on above on top or around the head of everyone there and

04:38:33.340 i'm feeling it and it's almost scary but also at the same time very very like

04:38:42.060 invigorating to to acknowledge it to feel it um it's almost like a thunderstorm in the air

04:38:48.700 it you know in a way um that's the only way i i can truly say that as opposed to

04:38:57.420 anytime i've ever had a dream about an ancestor anytime i've ever had a dream about

04:39:03.340 or or a kind of a feeling of one of my ancestors being nearby it's always been very subtle and

04:39:10.700 oftentimes um uh there's there's not there's an intensity level that seems to be less it's more

04:39:19.340 intimate and personal when it comes to ancestral it's very very electrifying when it seems to be

04:39:28.300 from the gods from them up above that's all i got on that so

04:39:39.180 the question is can you and i think the easy answer is no like i can try to but i don't

04:39:46.300 think i have the words to do it justice but i will may i will i will do what i can but whatever i'm

04:39:55.500 about to spill out here is doesn't capture the depth and breadth of it um

04:40:07.900 so maybe the last question for or the last part first you know how to differentiate ancestor

04:40:13.820 Interaction feels lighter and more comfortable or more familiar in my experience.

04:40:31.000 um and it's kind of subtle i mean

04:40:39.440 yeah i think that it's a matter of what you're doing when you're doing it and then there is a

04:40:51.180 and i hold open that this may feel different or be described very different by

04:40:59.720 everybody i don't know um when i feel the presence of the gods and you say how i feel

04:41:09.240 not so much things that i notice i notice certain things but how i feel um

04:41:18.200 sometimes it's almost like the air pressure changing that you feel when a storm's coming

04:41:28.760 um i feel a weight and not a debilitating weight but i do feel a weight and if anything

04:41:40.440 it's invigorating and i stand up under it it's not like it's oppressive or holding me down

04:41:48.200 But I feel it physically. Sometimes it's as though other ambient things stop and I feel fully in the moment or fully like little like there's a stillness in the air.

04:42:18.200 Sometimes there's not. Sometimes it's a gust of something. But other times there's an unnatural stillness. Like everything stops with bated breath and waits because a God's talking like there's something about that that goes on.

04:42:38.380 I feel bad. I wish I could present it more eloquently than that, but it'll often, you know, you'll notice it in the movement of the trees or the movement of the fire or in animal sign or in just the kind of hairs on the back of your neck, like someone's watching you different.

04:43:05.100 Like there's a presence there that wasn't previously or wasn't, you know, because again, when I'm doing bloat, you know, I don't, I'm not cool enough that I get to just go hang out with the gods.

04:43:22.000 when a God makes themselves, their presence felt to me is usually when I am in ritual

04:43:30.240 or adjacent to ritual some way. So it's hard to describe like somebody's watching you because,

04:43:45.140 yeah, usually, you know, quite a few people are watching me, but it's entirely different.

04:43:52.000 the the standouts i think are the stillness of other things like the unnatural stillness

04:44:07.960 for a moment and then that pressure change feel of weight um

04:44:14.220 yeah i i wish i could do better but i think that's the best i've got

04:44:21.120 so i have never seen or heard this word before so i am not sure and it does not google so i don't

04:44:38.880 know what to do with this question maybe swan has some answers that i don't

04:44:42.480 does the afa have some rules taken or inspired from the offload slog so the offload slow

04:44:57.360 law the law uh the wolf leot is this um that's a song like blog

04:45:08.480 no it's not lios it's liots

04:45:16.800 like this song like a song the wolf song i have no idea if you can see it on the screen and piece

04:45:25.680 through because it's got some letters with different little stuff i hope the person is

04:45:30.720 still on here so they ah yes he is person says the the the first laws of iceland um no the afa

04:45:38.240 doesn't have any rules or connections with um any icelandic law code at least not overtly there may

04:45:44.880 be some unintentional overlap are you talking so i i know of the first founder or one of the first

04:45:52.080 founders in in uh the laws of ice his name was harold um oh yeah i that's the first thing that

04:46:04.320 if you're talking about icelandic law i mean maybe it's in reference to herald for and his um

04:46:12.080 first establishing one of the the what would become the all thing but um no i mean is um

04:46:21.440 i believe some of the we've referenced some of the later laws like when we were talking about

04:46:26.320 the divorce laws of some of the women that could leave their husbands for being too

04:46:30.960 and feminine and things like that um to make note of cultural points but as far as pulling from them

04:46:40.880 no i'm writing that down i'm gonna look more into that

04:46:51.040 all right um and you know one thing that i would say in

04:47:00.960 the establishment of the governance of iceland isn't something that we hearken to as some kind

04:47:11.000 of golden age of of alsatru um it does it is a time period where we have a lot of stories from

04:47:18.520 and we cherish those absolutely but we realize that the institutions and the structures that's

04:47:25.500 very late stage of kind of the dying of our faith to a degree so i think that you know when we look

04:47:36.700 for stuff we realize that some of these traditions that come down to us especially then when you know

04:47:43.980 very short order after that um that very same law institution abolished our faith in iceland

04:47:52.940 um so we don't look to early medieval iceland as if it's you know the the example of the the

04:48:02.780 perfect functioning australia society um i i think that traditions that stem a lot further

04:48:11.580 and deeper into antiquity are closer to the way things ought to be or whatnot um but again i don't

04:48:21.180 we we have to deal with the information that we have and i'm sure in that early law code

04:48:25.100 there's probably some really cool things i'm looking forward to looking it up yeah i'm so i

04:48:29.820 just i just referenced a bunch of pages first off uh the name of uh is is like wolf song um but it's

04:48:39.740 his law and that that is the same uh that i'm referring to but um yeah no as far as like looking

04:48:48.380 into his writings and i'm seeing it now and a lot of this is in icelandic so it's going to take me a

04:48:53.900 hot minute to go through it but um yeah i don't

04:49:01.020 yeah interesting but yeah not in the afa

04:49:07.180 no and just the simple answer to the question is i don't think anybody is familiar with it enough to

04:49:11.900 where it takes the inspiration from um i certainly don't believe steve is particularly familiar with

04:49:17.420 that and i know that this is the first i've heard of that word and i've never looked into the actual

04:49:24.620 law code of iceland's original law code um next question is from gothe young or witten young

04:49:34.300 um oh also since last yeah no we acknowledged him last week it wasn't since last week weeks

04:49:39.340 are running together so i've gotten a question on the spiritual authenticity of the afa recently

04:49:45.500 can you touch on that and explain why this is the case yes so

04:49:58.140 authenticity

04:50:01.420 implies a lot of things and i think to our mind we assume really old stuff is authentic because

04:50:11.580 it's old and what i think is very important to realize is everything has to start somewhere

04:50:20.540 everything that our ancestors did one of those ancestors was the first person to come up with

04:50:28.620 it and implement it um we don't have any conception in our lore of a you know

04:50:42.300 muhammad in the cave writing the quran we don't have you know odin carving some stone tablets

04:50:53.820 and handing them off to a viking guy that's not how inspiration has been transferred to our folk

04:51:03.660 there's no time in the ancient past where the gods handed ready-made this is how you practice

04:51:13.900 also true right these are the also true things that you're supposed to do there's times of great

04:51:19.700 inspiration but in each of those instances learned men of our community gothar

04:51:28.780 collectively or individually decided what to do and how to do it and decided

04:51:40.400 when to alter that when to add to it when to reform it when to change it based on their

04:51:49.880 interactions over lifetimes and generations of their interactions with our gods finding out

04:51:59.420 things that worked things that didn't things that seem to get the approval of the gods things that

04:52:04.720 seem to displease them um that's very much what the afa has done since its inception and before

04:52:14.040 that what our founder Steve McNallan did in all of his other efforts in Ausatru before

04:52:20.760 the inception of the Ausatru Folk Assembly. But he has been the longest, most consistent,

04:52:31.720 and most successful of the people during that revival period of establishing a tradition and

04:52:40.440 a way of doing things and over the years we have refined that tradition advanced that tradition

04:52:49.640 added to and developed our faith and that's a huge part of our responsibility as gothar

04:53:00.040 also true would not exist today in the way that it does and i maybe the gods would have found

04:53:06.600 a different way. But the way that they found was going through and interacting with Steve

04:53:14.060 McNallan over the course of his life to bring us to where we are. And even his enemies attest

04:53:23.280 that Odin worked through and with Steve McNallan. And that's, you know, potent testimony right there

04:53:31.860 if your enemies say that. So the things that he put into motion, his ordination that he's passed

04:53:40.800 on to our priests and to myself, that is a living connection to doing the will of the All-Father.

04:53:52.340 It's not perfect. Never said that it was, but we're doing our best and what we're doing is

04:53:59.500 working and making valuable connection one of the one of the best things that i've heard

04:54:08.140 from people who've been to one of our bloats for the first time and maybe everyone doesn't hit

04:54:14.140 like this but very often we've heard you know wow i really felt that there was something there i

04:54:20.700 You know, I felt the gods there. People feeling that they interacted with their gods at an AFA ritual at one of our Hoffs means the world to me.

04:54:36.460 And it means very much, I believe, especially the consistency that that's the feedback we get, that what we are doing and our method of doing it is approved of by the gods.

04:54:48.860 That is authentic in and of itself.

04:54:53.040 Authenticity doesn't mean there's one right way to do something since the dawn of time.

04:55:00.460 I believe fully that if you witnessed a bloat in Iceland in, you know, 970, it was probably very different than a bloat by the, you know, Cherusi in, you know, 2 AD.

04:55:22.840 was probably extremely different than their ancestors doing a bloat in Denmark in the

04:55:31.960 Viking period was probably very different than the people who erected the stones that they would

04:55:38.080 often do those bloats in in the sacred circles that were erected back in the Neolithic times

04:55:44.200 but I have no reason to think that our gods weren't present at all of those and didn't

04:55:51.840 appreciate understand and reciprocate during all of those but times and cultural context change

04:55:59.440 and ideally evolve and get better um so we are absolutely it is it's not only

04:56:07.600 our privilege to evolve the practice of also true it's our sacred duty to do that if we were to

04:56:15.680 to allow Alcetru to stagnate and not bring it to the level that it's worthy of our gods,

04:56:23.400 that would be us failing in what we're doing. And the success, the blessings that our gods

04:56:30.620 have poured out upon us as the AFA are a really potent testament that in general,

04:56:36.540 they've approved of many of the things that we've done. And we hope to maintain that approval

04:56:42.080 by doing our very best to honor them

04:56:46.820 in the way that we conduct Ausitru.

04:56:49.400 But our authenticity is built on 28 years

04:56:56.860 of the Ausitru Folk Assembly engaging in the gift cycle

04:57:00.500 with our gods, built upon 50,

04:57:04.840 I think 59 years of Steve McNallan's relationship with the Allfather

04:57:15.700 were based on on a lot of history and it's not centuries old yet but it will be one day

04:57:22.600 but we're based on on a powerful lineage that's the longest in modern house of truth and

04:57:31.000 And yeah, that's a really, it's a really powerful and important lineage to our Gothar and to our

04:57:41.560 Ausitude practice. And like I say, we have detractors that can't deny the gods participate

04:57:50.860 in our bloats, and they feel that to their very core. And that says all that needs to be said.

04:57:58.140 If the God's approved, then it's authentic and it's the right way to do things.

04:58:02.680 What are your thoughts, Svon?

04:58:04.900 Yeah, there's only two ways you can go with that.

04:58:06.780 If anybody says authenticity, I kind of smile because it's like, okay, if they're looking for pedigree,

04:58:15.700 oftentimes the people that claim that there is no spiritual authenticity don't have any pedigree in the religious form like the AFA does.

04:58:26.240 all the way with founder mcnalen or if you look at results you know they the the folk and the

04:58:34.600 people that are present and even even some of our detractors today were not detractors in the past

04:58:39.720 and have attested to um feeling things so you have two routes you can go with that and beyond that

04:58:48.240 that pedigree which is there and often not in the people that are questioning uh or the results which

04:58:54.660 oftentimes they felt but perhaps you know detract for other reasons um but at what point you know

04:59:02.420 does the authenticity become redundant like if you go back and say was the germanic revival in

04:59:09.780 the 1920s 30s and 40s was that authentic or was it not authentic and all of those uh like

04:59:16.180 processions with you know hundreds and even thousands of people carrying uh you know sun

04:59:23.140 wheels and wearing the corded dresses and no that's not authentic then okay so you know was

04:59:31.460 the late nordic period authentic comparative to say bronze age sweden i mean at what point does

04:59:38.900 it become so ridiculous as to what exactly they're ultimately trying to do which is just

04:59:44.740 displace the pedigree and the results in lieu of what i guess to maybe make room for themselves

04:59:54.420 um but they don't really have pedigree to go on and very little results so it's like

05:00:02.100 uh it's just kind of a it's it's a it's a funny thing when i hear it leveled because

05:00:06.740 it's um it's it's a it's a hard word for people to quantify and if you do quantify it correctly

05:00:15.940 again with history and results it they don't often like that that answer even though that's

05:00:22.180 what they're ultimately asking for and um yeah i just i find it funny it's like it's like

05:00:28.740 how far back can you go you know it's um this is a theme that we we hit on on the show very often

05:00:36.740 But most often the people who want to question authenticity are approaching this from a scholastic perspective where they venerate really old stuff, but they're not going at it from a living religious perspective.

05:01:04.540 do the gods approve if the the only measure that matters are we doing things that are pleasing to

05:01:17.980 our gods and secondly are we building a beneficial connection between our gods and our folk

05:01:29.160 If we are doing those things, you cannot get more authentic, authentic than that.

05:01:35.060 You can. And anyone who is a detractor of the AFA, if you have ever felt the God's presence in things that we do and not in whatever other things you do, you are wrong and we are right.

05:01:54.000 That's how that works.

05:01:56.180 And it may not be popular, but it is true.

05:02:00.060 If we are pleasing to the gods, that is what matters in a religion.

05:02:04.800 If it's more about you wearing the big hat or you having your group of buddies doing whatever cool thing you're doing,

05:02:16.120 And if it's not about whether the gods approve or not, then it's it's vanity and it's not it's not a genuine concern for authenticity.

05:02:29.960 Next question is, what is the most moving thing you've ever heard at Assemble?

05:02:35.120 What is the most moving thing you've heard at Assemble, Svon?

05:02:38.420 Oh, I've heard a lot of really amazing things.

05:02:46.120 oh i'm trying to think of like i i picking i guess um

05:02:57.880 i think that what what makes it moving is another great point to attack that question at is um

05:03:05.240 so it just hit at the right time yes um was uh the um the poem by yeats that was or yates that

05:03:20.600 was um sorry yates that was uh spoken at the poconos 2017 i think uh of the um the enemy at

05:03:32.680 the gates um that poem if i read the poem it wouldn't have the same effect as when it was

05:03:43.260 recited and it was recited from memory so that made it even more powerful because it's just like

05:03:48.860 he stood up and he spoke it and it's not really about who spoke it i'm not even talking about

05:03:54.200 that it was the poem itself in resistivity uh recitation that was so poignant at my life at

05:04:03.640 that time why i was even in the afa why i was why i joined why i had come there and um it was an

05:04:12.840 extremely powerful poem that um just kind of hit me when i heard it um outside of that i think

05:04:30.520 i this is going to sound kind of corny um being witness to a um

05:04:38.280 to like a proposal in marriage and then this is in context to i was shocked at the proposal it

05:04:50.040 was really cool and then to later preside over the wedding was amazing like i was at the proposal

05:05:01.400 and then like i was a year and a half later was was presiding over the wedding and that

05:05:07.880 like completely brought to full circle the power of that moment where these two people

05:05:14.760 had decided they were going to join their lives together forever that's that's pretty cool but

05:05:21.720 the yeah uh there was uh i'm gonna look it up right now too and i believe it's called the

05:05:27.080 enemy of the gates that poem was like very powerful to me so this question um

05:05:35.560 man it's hard i'm the wrong person to ask because i have been at and presided over so many symbols

05:05:50.680 and i mean

05:05:55.880 there are very few that haven't brought me to tears at one point or another um

05:06:05.560 man trying to think so and then there's different things as fawn said on like why why they're moving

05:06:13.360 um certainly i've had toasts that were made to me that were extremely moving because somebody that

05:06:26.040 cared about raised a horn to me. Sometimes it was who raised the horn. Sometimes it was,

05:06:37.400 you know, what they said. Sometimes it was me needing to hear it when they said it.

05:06:44.280 Other times I've been profoundly moved by people talking about their ancestors, especially when

05:06:52.440 When it's about a mother or a father, somebody they knew closely, or a sibling, or even a deceased spouse, or a deceased child.

05:07:12.180 uh i'm not ducking the question but i really can't think of one particular one that's the

05:07:23.140 most profound that's the beautiful thing about sumble is i am deeply and profoundly moved

05:07:30.940 by toast just about every single time um

05:07:35.480 Um, sometimes I'm just moved by the obvious outpouring of emotion of the person who makes the toast. Sometimes you see people that are just so overcome. Um, the, I moved, not just like by witnessing their reaction, but also by the fact that they'd be willing to share something so deep of themselves with me.

05:08:05.480 and with the group means a lot too so uh no i've i've heard many many very profoundly moving things

05:08:14.760 over some and i just can't get just one out of there i wanted to reiterate to the poem is the

05:08:21.880 stranger by kipling but again again it's the it's the reciting it's the yeah like what you said the

05:08:29.960 ceremony itself exemplifies the moment and then it's almost like it's hard to even remember all

05:08:39.480 the details of the symbol it's the emotional ride and the kind of influx and outflux of people's

05:08:48.040 emotion it's there's a magic to it that makes it hard to quantify afterwards um but that one

05:08:55.640 was the first thing that popped into my head as i remembering so that warrants something so i'm at

05:09:02.760 i'm gonna ask one of the last questions right now because it's going on in the chat and i think

05:09:10.840 there's stuff to be added to it that i don't want to miss by waiting um so question is what is the

05:09:22.040 afa's position on people who are born intersex i.e hermaphrodites but grow into either being

05:09:29.560 a man or a woman are they welcome to join the afa so yes with the caveat of i don't know exactly how

05:09:40.440 all that works um i assume at birth they have to pick one or the other and

05:09:52.840 their i mean their parents have to pick one or the other and raise them that way based on

05:10:00.280 the predominance of their genital formation again i'm not a not an expert at that it's

05:10:07.240 an extremely extremely rare thing the follow-up which and again this is no no judgment to the

05:10:17.640 person who wrote it but um he says i asked the question because clearly the afa is opposed to

05:10:24.840 transgender people which i agree with but then it begs the question about intersex people i don't

05:10:31.400 think that it does they're two completely different things one is an actual medical problem 0.74

05:10:40.520 and one is a very very popular uh but very deep and destructive mental illness right um

05:10:50.440 Um, yeah, one is there. One is real and one is imaginary. Um, yeah, if you're born with

05:11:01.840 different parts, and I believe hermaphrodites are sterile. Again, I, if we ever got a actual 0.96

05:11:12.420 hermaphrodite that applied for membership, I would have to read up on the subject on exactly 1.00

05:11:17.920 how some of these things work, but one is an actual medical problem that I'm very sympathetic

05:11:24.580 towards. The other I'm sympathetic towards because of the people who are inflicting that

05:11:36.580 mental illness upon our children and upon very vulnerable adults going through hard times in 0.53

05:11:43.140 their life. It depends what steps people have made in that process of quote unquote transitioning

05:11:55.860 and what can be fixed and what can't be fixed and just what's going on. But I feel very,

05:12:03.280 very sympathetic to the children. And beyond that, the teenagers, that's doctors and parents

05:12:14.220 have allowed such horrible, horrible abuse to go on to them, both physically and psychologically.

05:12:24.000 But yeah, those are two extremely, extremely different things.

05:12:28.940 um back to the normal flow of the no it was a good question to ask

05:12:35.940 i'm not faulting the question i just wanted to address it while it was fresh there

05:12:42.680 um why do women bless the mead before bloat but not before sumble

05:12:51.700 honestly angelina because they just don't i think i think it really is as simple as that

05:12:58.480 Um, it was, uh, a tradition that I believe Goethe David James introduced in the AFA early on, um, to have our women go and bless the mead for bloat.

05:13:15.040 And I just don't think it was ever something that got done to apply to Sumble.

05:13:24.140 um i don't think that would be inappropriate as a matter of fact i've wondered that myself a little

05:13:28.940 bit we do incorporate the women into sumble with their um special women magic for lack of a better 0.94

05:13:40.140 term in the fact that they're the ones that bear the horns and that each time the horn is passed 0.98

05:13:46.300 back to them so they're distributing the sumblehorn during the ritual and i think that's the

05:13:54.780 way that we incorporate that same kind of principle to it but i really just think that

05:14:01.500 those two traditions developed within the afa separately and so we're kind of honoring those

05:14:08.540 traditions now but making sure that we have women involved with sacred women's only thing

05:14:16.220 with the horn in both instances, but they're displayed very differently in the two rituals.

05:14:21.580 And I think that's a really good question. I know that those two practices aren't something

05:14:29.580 that I've implemented. They are things that I inherited from Steve McNallan's administration.

05:14:39.260 The things that I do over the horn are very similar to things that I've witnessed him do

05:14:44.700 when i was first learning and the uh you know i the first bloat i ever went to of the afa

05:14:53.500 the ladies were led by sheila to do the blessing of the horn the way that they do for bloat

05:14:59.340 so i really think it just didn't happen to go down that way i think that's the

05:15:05.500 it'd be nice if i had a much more theological answer for it but i i think that's the truth

05:15:11.500 of it honestly uh i coming in didn't um i thought when i became a member and everything

05:15:20.940 it was kind of like if you're giving a horn to the gods all the all the women are behind

05:15:25.340 the giving of the horn like by loading it up and then uh at symbol it's given to the individual

05:15:33.180 from a single woman so it's kind of like all the women are charging the the mead because that's

05:15:40.540 being given to the gods but at symbol it was one woman giving you the horn directly to you 0.86

05:15:47.820 or you know i'm it's like you're not you're you're getting like the gods get all the women

05:15:54.620 putting all their power and might into the into the horn but at symbol it's one woman

05:15:59.580 handing you the horn and that i kind of saw that connection there and i thought that was deliberate

05:16:05.740 and just became cultural well and so one of the things is it's important to realize that

05:16:14.300 before gothe james implemented this at an afa event in

05:16:25.500 maybe the early 2000s maybe the late 90s i remember it it got answered this quote

05:16:31.820 So the origin of the women blessing the horn for bloat got asked when Sheila MacNallan was my guest. And she remembers that it was a Goethe David James innovation.

05:16:44.060 i'm it leads me to believe that wasn't what happened in bloat before that time and so

05:16:57.260 yeah it got implemented then and either gothe james didn't think of it or wasn't there to

05:17:05.060 implement it at sumble and it just never got picked up it's interesting to watch the

05:17:09.580 just kind of go back and sleuth the history of why we started doing the things we do and when

05:17:16.860 they were incorporated. So, you know, pre, I don't know, at the earliest, like 97, 98, before that,

05:17:28.200 I don't think women did bless the horn before some. So I think that's kind of interesting

05:17:34.060 to go back and think on. So this is funny because I can only imagine it's been well over an hour

05:17:43.700 since this question was asked. I don't know if questions are still being answered, but I am

05:17:48.760 wondering the difference between the AFA as a whole and the AFA kindreds. Are they themselves

05:17:54.620 separate organizations or AFA clients, so to speak? This is really important. I'm glad you asked that.

05:18:00.780 An AFA kindred is the local congregation of AFA members. AFA kindreds are made up of loyal members to the AFA, and they're a way of organizing members when we don't have, you know, a haw for other things to organize them together and get a collective sense of unity and face on.

05:18:22.500 If they are anything other or anything trying to be separate from the AFA, then that is not what an AFA kindred is or is about.

05:18:30.780 That has never been what they were supposed to be about. As a matter of fact, we have a handbook from the House to Free Assembly, which is our predecessor organization from the late 80s.

05:18:41.480 And at a time where they use much less church terminology than I'm comfortable using, it was written in there that an AFA kindred is local congregation of AFA members.

05:18:54.980 And it is, you know, inextricably woven into and bond and bound to the Astru Folk Assembly.

05:19:08.800 Does the AFA serve the sacred horse meat at the Bloat Vesla food table? 0.74

05:19:17.280 um no it's to my understanding it's not legally attainable outside of like

05:19:27.280 reservation indian reservations in the united states um i'm not opposed in an area where that's

05:19:37.360 you know legal and appropriate to do i have no particular objection to that

05:19:42.800 but uh no to my knowledge the afa has never served any uh horse meat at its at its bloats

05:19:49.120 yeah um i tried to get it sent here and they they can't i i don't know if that's changed as of

05:19:57.600 like 2015 that was around that time um so maybe it has changed since then that's a long time ago

05:20:04.160 now that i'm thinking about it but um yeah unless there was somebody who owned a horse and you know

05:20:14.800 was going to turn it into meat for fabricated into me i don't yeah it's it's it's so strange

05:20:23.840 because that's one of those things where um i think people don't realize like that the eating

05:20:28.800 of horse is really not it's one of those christian cultural things that that has pervaded in

05:20:37.200 especially in the west and in america like the two things that i recall coming up in america is that

05:20:44.000 like one and this is going to sound funny but in america that you're not even jewish and they'll 0.87

05:20:50.240 circumcise you so like that's not something they do in iceland the other thing is they don't eat

05:20:55.360 horse and i didn't understand why and i realized because it's written that you're supposed to

05:21:02.400 i guess in the bible you're you have to eat um it has to have a cloven hoof and since it has

05:21:07.760 a singular hoof christians don't eat horses always thought that was very very strange because it's

05:21:14.880 it's not normal like all the time but it is there in iceland you can you can eat it um they always

05:21:21.440 joke and say we only kill the bad horses so to make few people feel better the fact that you

05:21:27.840 know when you're in iceland meat is meat not in a ritual context but i may have eaten a horse

05:21:35.680 because when i was a little kid i ate glue so there you go the kevin bacon of horse meat

05:21:44.880 by five degrees or something take them to the knackers they'll make glue out of them

05:21:52.380 all right so next question uh also from angelina i know you don't have to drink at the at of the

05:22:02.120 horn during sumble but has there ever been a non-alcoholic option for those who do not consume

05:22:08.560 alcohol um no not to my knowledge and i think it's just because we haven't um

05:22:17.120 and i think that the sim the symbology of it is that it's you know one shared horn

05:22:25.440 so much of it is about the horn as a centerpiece of it that i think two horns

05:22:31.360 kind of going in dilutes the inner but again it's it's semantics i don't think it's fundamentally

05:22:41.180 different from the fact that sometimes in bloat we do have two horns and the reason that i do that

05:22:48.620 in bloat is like you said so folks that don't drink can feel like they're fully engaged in the

05:22:54.180 ritual i think there's so much more happening at some bull to where you're speaking over the

05:23:01.200 The ritual action in Sumble is you are speaking over the horn.

05:23:08.660 The drinking from the horn, I think, is secondary in its function in that instance.

05:23:15.920 The drinking from the horn during bloat is a receiving of blessings.

05:23:23.760 So it's not about a communal sharing of the same horn because we will offer the one horn that we've all blessed because you don't have to drink from it.

05:23:34.600 You're putting your might into it.

05:23:36.740 When we have the second horn for people to drink from, when I do that, I hold up both horns and ask the God's blessings so they're both blessed by the gods.

05:23:49.040 And then, you know, you can take your blessing out of which horn you choose if you've got an issue that way.

05:23:55.360 And I like that because it distributes that blessing to children and folks that are, you know, don't want to drink for whatever reason in a way that they can feel like they're fully part of it and that they can ingest that blessing.

05:24:13.140 The other option that I've done in bloat is, you know, I'll have a sprig, and if everyone's drinking and I come to a child or someone who doesn't want to, then I'll dip the sprig into the mead and asperge them with it.

05:24:30.840 um but i do i think that the the issue over the sumble horn is a little bit

05:24:37.560 a little bit different it's the words that are going in as opposed to the liquid that's going

05:24:42.880 out so that's i mean that's my only thought on it and i honestly this is the first time i've

05:24:48.960 heard it suggested in in assemble what about you swan no i've never i've never seen that um

05:24:57.560 However, yeah, I think the focal point is speaking over the horn and imbuing the power of the horn with the story and the words.

05:25:06.960 And so I think that makes it even more poignant that the consumption of the alcohol isn't necessarily the entirety of the ceremony.

05:25:15.760 It is about the horn itself.

05:25:17.800 in a way it's kind of like um it's like a bloat uh but there's the horn is being imbued with power

05:25:27.560 and then also drained and and spread and then refilled so there's like it's it's hard to

05:25:35.000 explain but really like i have been in a stumble where i didn't drink from the horn simply because

05:25:41.640 i didn't feel well not not i wasn't uh completely like out of out of sorts but i was just i wasn't

05:25:49.480 quite feeling i felt like maybe i was um i was very stuffed up and i felt like maybe i was coming

05:25:55.800 down with something it was a weekend and i was gonna be there and i didn't want to miss out

05:26:00.280 because i traveled very far so i decided responsibly i'm not going to drink from the

05:26:05.240 horn i just don't want to spread anything if it is something but i did you know put my hands on

05:26:10.520 the horn hold the horn ups i didn't speak directly over it but held it up and spoke and then passed

05:26:17.160 it back and i still felt very much a part of of the ceremony because that's what it's about is

05:26:24.040 about what is being said in incorporation with the horn all right so this question is just for you

05:26:30.680 question to svan isn't it simpler to use the word uh visla festivity instead of

05:26:41.480 sambal vis visla is constantly associated with the act of bloat as bloat visla and is and i

05:26:52.280 say that maybe i'm butchering that word please correct me if i am and has the clearer etymology

05:26:57.800 related to give so okay uh it this is similar to the the usage of the word feigning in um in uh

05:27:11.560 anglo-saxon so there was a time in which people would say feigning and bloats and a bloat was

05:27:17.720 only by blood it was a blooding or a sacrificial butchering and anything outside of that was a

05:27:24.280 feigning and of course feigning in latin has terms to like faking but feigning in anglo-saxon

05:27:30.840 is closer to again a festivity like like you said but um utilizing that in those differentiations

05:27:42.920 the attachment of words onto bloat um has its points but that's kind of like saying

05:27:49.880 a bloat is both a festivity and a giving in the word itself not it's it's not it's almost like

05:27:58.660 being redundant it's like saying like tuna fish tuna is a fish i mean it fits it makes sense to

05:28:06.880 us because we use it all the time but is it kind of redundant so like a bloat is a giving festivity

05:28:12.440 um you know or you think of i i was just looking it up to like all the the connections to bloat

05:28:20.840 like um there's uh you know bloat staller and that's a place where the bloats were conducted

05:28:28.980 especially indoors uh so there's lots of different connections that you could put to bloat

05:28:35.300 but at the same time it was just understood what a bloat was um perhaps you know if you're if we're

05:28:43.900 talking about the idea of incorporating the feast afterwards too but culturally that we know

05:28:51.940 that's what we're going to do we're going to feast as well um so i mean i wonder if if at a

05:28:58.420 point it's if it's redundant or and it's the same like i said with the word feigning after a while

05:29:03.800 people were saying that for for uh anything involving liquid and then uh or you know mead or

05:29:11.240 ale and um there was another word that was kind of coming into popular use for a while there

05:29:17.560 um anglo-saxon wise for for like drinking from the ale cups but it all just kind of

05:29:23.640 went away because culturally what was going on was a gifting festivity

05:29:28.520 you know, with religious context and a feast all in, in the sense of what, what a bloat would be.

05:29:41.900 And honestly, I think it's worth noting, um,

05:29:46.780 because we've been using Sumble since the 1970s and it works and it's not improper.

05:29:56.400 if it was doing something wrong, then I'm all for changing it. But it's what we have called

05:30:03.980 that ritual since the inception of modern Ausitru. And it would, there's no reason to

05:30:11.520 change it. If we were starting fresh, then yeah, we might choose an Old Norse variant of a similar

05:30:19.840 word instead of having, you know, bloat from Old Norse and then sumble from Anglo-Saxon.

05:30:28.400 But that's not how it was. That's not how we got founded. That's not the tradition that got started.

05:30:34.960 And we've got a really proud tradition with it going back, you know,

05:30:41.460 now I've got a math, but going back, you know, well over 50 years. So

05:30:46.220 as long as it's not wrong or improper, it's developed its own might and its own fame using

05:30:57.520 that term. If we're constantly reinventing terms and reinventing everything, then we lose that

05:31:06.920 built-up reputation and hymenia these things have. By sticking with terms that we've used

05:31:13.460 instead of consistently altering them, we build a meaning that becomes collective to where

05:31:21.840 when people, and I don't pretend that we're there yet. I think people outside of Ossetree

05:31:26.860 Circles probably are not familiar with either of these terms. Internally, we all know what a bloat

05:31:32.780 is. We all know what a sumble is. If all of a sudden tomorrow we start calling it a,

05:31:39.840 um what was the word you used I apologize yeah a visla no one's going to know what we're talking

05:31:49.520 about and we will have lost the cultural connectivity that we've built with the term

05:31:55.160 symbol over the time that we've used it so unless there's a significant reason to do so we try not

05:32:01.820 to do stuff like that that continuity with our history and where we come from is really important

05:32:06.920 to us there's one other thing to just looking it up and um translation so bloat uh is the sacrificial

05:32:18.040 banquet or consumption of so when we were talking about the idea of sacral butchering and sharing

05:32:24.360 with the gods there's that secondary part of the preparedness of the meat and eating amongst the

05:32:29.960 folk that is what that's referring to so if there was a uh sacral butchering of an animal and that

05:32:38.760 animal was then eaten like smoked or stewed or whatever and eaten amongst the folk around a

05:32:44.920 table that's the blood vessel yeah so i was wondering in um in the sagas when they mention

05:32:55.480 the rounds of ritual toasting is there any sort of a old norse word that's used because sumble

05:33:04.120 is exactly is exactly based on sumble the use of the term from its origin in anglo-saxon and

05:33:13.400 we see that exemplified in bail um and describing a symbol that took place in denmark for that matter

05:33:21.560 yes and there is um i would need a moment because i have to look through no no worries no worries

05:33:31.020 we'll move on to the next question and you can you know let us know what you find at your leisure

05:33:36.020 uh since the else here you go if you spent a couple of minutes tonight speaking ill of other

05:33:41.580 organizations what are some aryan religious orgs that you have a positive opinion of uh that ought

05:33:49.160 That ought to balance things out. 0.93

05:33:50.920 Well, I appreciate the opportunity to balance things out.

05:33:55.480 It's hard because I genuinely have the belief that we should all be doing that together under one banner.

05:34:05.300 So it's hard to pick other Aryan religious organizations that...

05:34:13.300 like I there's not another religious organization I would encourage folks to join anybody who wants

05:34:22.220 to join an Aryan religious organization should be joining the AFA but I'll say I'll say a couple

05:34:28.140 of things you may have noticed our new count this year we've recently added two of the founding

05:34:39.140 members of the odenic right to our list of heroes that we celebrate when they were around the odenic

05:34:47.620 right did a lot of really great things to advance ausitru in you know the past 15 20 years they've

05:34:55.620 become virtually non-existent and invisible so i don't see that as a as a living organization

05:35:03.780 but we certainly appreciate their history and many of the things they've contributed

05:35:10.580 the alsatru alliance is still around i think it is much less active than it was at one point

05:35:18.980 they are folkish i don't think they're doing alsatru wrong per se but they are

05:35:25.620 practicing Ousitru as if it was in a time capsule from the 1980s. And I think intentionally so.

05:35:37.340 I think it's become a lot of very, you know, guys that are very advanced in age,

05:35:42.940 just kind of living out their existence in that, but not really trying to build a future with it.

05:35:48.120 But I think those are, you know, good enough people doing good things.

05:35:52.860 As far as more active things, I think something interesting is the International Dharma Society.

05:36:08.520 Those folks have always been very, very kind to us and had very kind things to say.

05:36:15.020 um their leader is is conversed with you know our law speaker i know they've they've talked

05:36:23.720 quite a bit um i have with him indirectly he's been very complimentary of steve mcnalen

05:36:30.860 uh so i think that's nice um i met the leadership and some members of the arts

05:36:39.500 Gemeinschaft from Germany when we did an AFA event in Sweden, and they seemed fantastic. We had a

05:36:46.880 great time with those guys. I don't know, you know, I can't give a glowing endorsement to

05:36:52.340 all of their material because I haven't really looked at it in depth and it's all in German, but

05:36:57.900 as people, they were fantastic, and I think that's great.

05:37:03.080 uh i'm waiting for the interview to come out and i'm not sure they didn't ever say what

05:37:09.400 group they were affiliated but there was some um also true are in moscow area that did an interview

05:37:17.240 with me a while back and i'm waiting for that to get done again they seemed great i know that

05:37:23.460 there's some really great um pagan organizations in eastern europe that that do some beautiful

05:37:30.760 rituals but i don't have any relationship with any particular of those organizations to give

05:37:36.040 them any kind of glowing endorsement but um but yeah i do definitely see see positive things

05:37:45.320 and uh you know i wish and hope that all those uh all those folks doing the positive things

05:37:53.240 will come under the afa banner so we can all do it together unified so

05:38:01.560 got it confirmed it all right okay so uh and just the other reason why i don't want to speak and

05:38:08.840 then because there's always interesting things but so sumbl s-u-m-b-l is the old norse for sure but

05:38:18.680 it was also used this is where it causes confusion in modern i was sure i know we we talk about the

05:38:24.520 braga full at third round but oftentimes it was referred to as that like the the ritual itself

05:38:32.760 wasn't called sumble it was called the braga full the braga full was at the sumble and the sumble

05:38:40.120 is the feast so that that causes confusion but um yeah it is uh and there's some interesting

05:38:47.960 things i just wanted to bring up just double checking on it um so they they talk about the

05:38:54.200 oaths and and the braggarful in helga uh at yule feast the men lay their hands on the sun the the

05:39:05.960 the boar the the pig's head um they lay their hands on the holy boar and swear of the most solemn of

05:39:12.520 oaths at the braggar fully which is in essence the sumble um and that's why those two words are

05:39:19.640 so interchangeable and cause a lot of confusion that's um that was the one thing that really

05:39:25.640 caught me um and the braggarful is oftentimes referred to but is not always the full round of

05:39:34.120 sumble but rather a singular round or singular boast depending on the story and where it where

05:39:41.160 it's mentioned even in olaf triggerson's um when king swain he serves the young v kings

05:39:48.120 he gives them one drink and then asks them to swear oaths upon those drinks so those get kind

05:39:53.880 of confused with the rounds but yes sumble s-u-m-b-l feast excellent thank you for looking that

05:40:04.040 up for us um can either of you please give an example of galder any rune it doesn't matter um

05:40:15.000 yes absolutely um

05:40:24.200 i overthink everything so now i've got a all right cool

05:40:27.560 I'll repeat that with a full breath for however many times I wanted to.

05:40:53.360 with lots of emphasis on the vowel

05:40:59.260 and only a brief emphasis on the consonant

05:41:03.660 in runes that I would galder.

05:41:07.700 A lot of that comes from Dr. Flowers

05:41:12.040 and his discussions on runes and how that works.

05:41:16.940 But I find that those long notes of vowels

05:41:20.400 is where you can get the beautiful harmony

05:41:22.960 and the vibration so much to me about sambal in a group is harmony and individually to me

05:41:31.200 when performing a ritual just by myself in front of my altar is the vibration it creates

05:41:39.920 and i find those with the vowel sounds but there's lots of ways that people do it that's how i do

05:41:46.800 galder yeah and generally uh when we do it don't we do it in succession about three times uh or

05:41:56.800 more depending on i guess the the vocalization um yeah and i know this i know some uh like again in

05:42:06.080 futhark uh when he talks about it you know in the idea of utilizing the proto sounds and

05:42:12.960 um things like that can be altered in that but that's when we start getting into like golden

05:42:17.200 magic um question idun is the goddess of the tree with golden apples and her husband is said to be

05:42:31.360 bragi the bard god more or less does this relation of idun and bragi strengthen the idea

05:42:42.000 that the apples represent our bloats and symbols to the gods I think he's saying like are our bloats

05:42:54.900 and symbols the might and the devotion of our folk in essence feeding the gods

05:43:06.420 I have never heard it expressed that way or thought of it in those terms

05:43:11.860 What do you think about that, Swann?

05:43:13.480 I have thought about this in relation to a couple of things.

05:43:20.440 Mainly when we were talking about the rights to Balder and giving of devotion to Balder in the mural at Baldershof, Nana is holding the horn.

05:43:30.460 And that horn has strength, devotion, piety written on it.

05:43:34.440 And the idea is the correlation of our faith giving strength to Balder for his return.

05:43:40.260 Um, as far as even, and the apples, I honestly think that when I spoke about this at a mid

05:43:54.420 summer, when we talk about the gods and their ability to hold dominion over forces, primordial

05:44:02.660 forces that are in constant ebb and flow from beginning to end as cycle ends and cycle

05:44:07.900 begins i have always taken it that even is the goddess that feeds the gods a primordial power

05:44:21.500 of creation in an essence and then if they're separated from that uh it it affects them and i

05:44:32.220 i know that sounds it could be trite if we're if we're talking about the stories i mean the stories

05:44:39.020 are are kind of like that if they're separated from the apples then they are somehow cut off

05:44:46.620 but i never correlated the apples to the faith of the folk mainly because i

05:44:51.980 I, that's an interesting question because it makes me think of some things, but I've never

05:45:02.020 correlated that necessarily the, the gods would cease to exist if the folk ceased to exist. But

05:45:11.500 some people have expressed, they feel that way that we're so interconnected, but I believe,

05:45:17.540 And, you know, I think that would be the question is, do you as a person believe that if the faith of the folk ceased, which in essence it did for a long time, or it was chopped up and broken up and minuscule, that the gods would somehow cease to have the powers that they've had?

05:45:39.180 And I don't believe that they have. I believe that they have bubbled up within us, even though they didn't necessarily need bloat or stumble in order to attain that power or that power, I think, is representative of something deeper.

05:45:56.180 deeper. And I've always associated it with cosmic light. And that Bragi is sound. So if we're

05:46:05.720 talking really big metaphysical ideas, I've always taken that the golden apples are manifestations of

05:46:13.940 like the primordial light and the primordial sound are kind of associated with the gods and

05:46:22.400 they manifest through what I've often called the prism which is the gate or Heimdall and that is

05:46:31.400 representative of Bivrost is that light and sound flowing through into the middle world

05:46:37.120 but I don't know that's very interesting

05:46:39.800 yeah I'm gonna have to give that some thought I think it would be flippant just to to bust

05:46:47.840 something out. It's the first time that I've, uh, heard that theory, but I do think it's

05:46:52.540 really interesting. So I do want to think some more on that. Um,

05:47:04.860 Svan question. Have you heard of the Assyrian, the Assyrian code of nine and has

05:47:11.860 also your gothy matt yes i have svan have you heard of that yes uh a while back but i haven't

05:47:19.700 heard i mean i like i can't recall it uh but yes a while back i have and

05:47:31.060 i don't

05:47:31.780 it seems like a so the proponents of it or some proponents of it have proposed that it

05:47:45.940 has ancient origins and it goes back to to um uh arch also true times

05:47:54.900 I have seen no reason to believe that is the case, and it does not read like that is the case.

05:48:02.840 I think very much it's a modern invention, and I don't think it is as

05:48:09.280 useful or has the gravitas that the noble virtues have.

05:48:17.020 I think it's one of those redundant things. There was some need to make these

05:48:23.520 nine part codes at a certain period where everybody wanted to kind of make their own

05:48:30.900 and we use the one that Stoba and Hoskold created in the Odenic Rite with the additional

05:48:44.460 virtue of victory added to it but I think that you know they're all fine things I don't think

05:48:52.520 i i've read it i don't think there's anything wrong with it but i don't think that it dates

05:48:57.080 back to any with any great antiquity yeah i i thought this was kind of in line with um

05:49:02.920 like i remember for a brief moment there the the the the the anglo-saxon thews there was

05:49:10.760 like 12 of them i think that came out and i remember reading them around the same time

05:49:16.200 that i read the codes um and i i don't know i think um having those as personal things like

05:49:25.240 there's a i personally still hold true to um the six-fold goals are actually i've expounded to the

05:49:32.760 eight-fold goals that edward thorson spoke of um in some of his earlier books but i hold those as

05:49:39.560 like personal kind of views, almost like, uh, theosophical points. Um, but they're written

05:49:47.460 that way. The, the, the codes are a little bit more like, I guess, in depth specifically to like

05:49:55.100 honor and flourish and all that. Um, but yeah, it doesn't have the same, I guess, cultural gravity

05:50:02.240 that the nine noble virtues does um and i find the nine noble virtues really do um my old kindred

05:50:10.160 flag had nine rungs in in the rope to represent um the uh nine virtues that bind us together um

05:50:19.600 but i really found it it helps me with my with my children it really starts to establish

05:50:25.680 deep uh foundational concepts that they can start tackling around 10 years old you know

05:50:36.880 um that i i have found and i still you know hold true to them kind of every once in a while we'll

05:50:43.040 try to i'll sneak up on gothar and be like what are the nine noble virtues

05:50:49.040 but um yeah i always thought it was just part of like what was going on with like

05:50:53.120 the thews there were all these kind of variations coming out

05:50:58.560 so something crazy happened i just looked at the the little clock on the computer screen and

05:51:04.480 i i don't know where the last hour went um

05:51:10.400 but we're coming down to the end here so uh angelina asks if the kindreds are supposed to

05:51:16.000 be local why was there was a kindred allowed to gain members across different states it's a fine

05:51:22.560 it's a fine question isn't it um and i think it's very telling that that kindred ended up

05:51:35.280 being disloyal breaking away and now actively trying to poach from slash damage the afa um

05:51:43.760 Um, so we try very hard not to get up in kindred's business on how they do things all the time.

05:51:54.140 We like kindred to have a certain amount of autonomy and we don't like to overly get in

05:52:00.180 everybody's business. Um, these are things that are meant to be built on loyalty and respect and

05:52:06.660 and honor and this kindred behaved very very dishonorably and uh it was tried to be you know

05:52:13.620 hey why are you guys getting these members all spread out that's not what a kindred is

05:52:19.380 and i think that you know the the truth of of our concerns is now proven

05:52:25.780 self-evident by by how things have gone couldn't go ahead couldn't be said too that kind of like

05:52:32.100 that the blame of that might be laid on my shoulders as well no and here's the thing because

05:52:38.340 you um when your kindred was kind of spread out you ended up breaking off into into two separate

05:52:44.900 kindreds and it's something that we've talked about and there's cases where people move and you

05:52:49.780 don't necessarily kick out your kindred member if they move somewhere and they've been a long-term

05:52:54.500 remember, I get that. Some of that happened in this case, but not a lot of it. But yeah,

05:53:06.100 so needless to say, we're much more explicit about that now when we're taking on new kindreds.

05:53:12.100 And then our final thing is an announcement more than a question. Matt, please remind people that

05:53:18.760 are struggling with addiction that the AFA has a recovery group Thursday nights at five Pacific

05:53:23.940 standard time and on saturday mornings at 7 a.m pacific standard time and that's uh yeah thank

05:53:31.540 you for reminding me about that and people may not be aware of that um but yeah we've got a number of

05:53:39.060 people that have found a lot of success and been able to make some really good changes in their

05:53:44.420 life uh in that group and anyone who's interested please reach out to your local folk builder and

05:53:50.180 we can see about getting you connected and um it's a really positive thing it's something i'm

05:53:55.540 very proud that that our folk are doing well with that um it's been just about six hours i don't

05:54:04.740 really know how that happened it doesn't feel like it no no not at all i didn't realize it's like on

05:54:09.780 the cusp of three yeah um so thank you guys all for we've had some really really great questions

05:54:16.500 tonight thank you guys very much uh swan it's been a pleasure as always um like i said everybody

05:54:24.420 loves your episodes they are are very very useful and uh it's fun to do them yeah um really fun

05:54:34.580 evening an evening well spent i appreciate you guys and i will talk to you all a week from now

05:54:43.300 if not sooner. Until then, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and remember that victory never sleeps.

05:55:13.300 We'll be right back.

05:55:43.300 Thank you.

05:56:13.300 Thank you.

05:56:43.300 Thank you.

05:57:13.300 Thank you.

05:57:43.300 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - June 29, 2023

6⧸28⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 51 - Blot and Sumbel

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