Our producer and folk builder, Nick Riese, joins us to talk about how he became a member of the AFA and how he got into Folk Building. We hope you enjoy this special edition of the show as much as we enjoyed recording it!
00:08:14.160i think i was a member for about a month and a half before i told jim and then jim reached out
00:08:20.240to you you reached out to me and i officially became a folk builder november or apprentice
00:08:26.400folk builder november first of uh 21 and then uh just rock and rolled got oath at lc fest last year
00:08:40.080so uh it's been it was early last year it was in april so it's been about 13 and a half months
00:08:47.360and you know over the summer of last year brandy i guess found out i knew a thing or two about a
00:08:53.280thing or two and um once you let brandy know that you know how to do something you done effed up
00:09:00.320because now i have a 40 hour a week job that i don't get paid for known as the afa you know0.67
00:09:07.920that bites both ways i've told brandy that too many times she messed up and was too competent
00:09:12.880so we put everything on her back um and that's that's no joke when it comes to you i don't think
00:09:18.640a lot of people on here may well i suppose we got a lot of uh afa leadership in the chat room
00:09:24.960and paying attention and i appreciate that you guys know how much nick does but i don't think
00:09:29.280the general audience may um nick handles all our day-to-day tech stuff just lightning quick he's
00:09:38.640been a huge help with website stuff and everything else in addition to being a a very solid folk
00:09:45.280builder something else about nick is he's recently relocated to tennessee so that he can be part of
00:09:51.920siggerheim and so that's that's an exciting adventure that like he said he doesn't halfway
00:09:58.640do something so he's really throwing himself into it um purpose of tonight's show though is to talk
00:10:08.320about one of our also true heroes and this one is one that we've recently honored as one of our
00:10:17.280heroes again a lot of the the original first round were i guess martyrs from the hymn scrangla
00:10:27.040and this is is different gentlemen from a different time and in a different area geographically
00:10:34.240can you tell folks as if they have no clue anything about him where he's from his time
00:10:40.160period can you give people an understanding of uh king of thaneric i definitely can and you know
00:10:51.040one of the things about having the producer on the show is um he has to pull out a few
00:10:57.200extra tricks because he can't he can't leave it up to chance so um we got a powerpoint presentation
00:11:04.800to go through excellent so let's see what we got here king uh thaneric uh folk hero he was
00:11:14.800the first king of the visigoths from 369 to 381 ce and luckily enough this um this episode falls
00:11:24.080right online in that his day of remembrance is in two days it'll be friday um the ninth of the
00:11:31.360month so we're doing good here at that so let's just talk about him he is um he was what's known
00:11:39.520is the first king of the Visigoths, who are a tribe, obviously, of the Gothic people. Specifically,
00:11:47.180at this time period, they were right around in the north of Greece, in Romania, in that,
00:11:55.360what is that, the Baltic region? Or is it the Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia?
00:12:02.060I, he was in Romania in that area. And, um, so they focus around in there and that was really
00:12:10.860a hotbed during his time period. He, um, his, he was, as I said, the first King of the Visigoths,
00:12:17.800his father was a ruler and, um, his whole life, um, and his, the time period was filled with
00:12:27.100strife. It was a very important time for his people. And even like his later, one of his
00:12:35.380later relatives, when they were a king, was known for sacking the Visigoth or the Roman Empire at
00:12:43.660the time. Because this is towards the end, the decline of the Roman Empire. Rome is now based
00:12:50.480out of constantinople um the the italian side of the roman empire has really gone downhill something
00:13:00.360major and um because this is uh what uh 400 years after the uh changing of the time the way we
00:13:09.640measure time this is a common era so long before most of our other heroes and all of that most of
00:13:17.660our heroes the original ones as you said based out of the heimskringla a lot of those are all um
00:13:24.700like plus on the plus side of 1000 ce um so that's this is definitely way before that um
00:13:34.280off the top of my head he is i think he's the earliest hero actually um i can't think of any
00:13:41.820that are older so this is definitely an interesting time period and we're going to go into that a
00:13:46.620bit more of course because he was um the king of the god at this time this is long before the the
00:13:55.100really the major christian invasion into europe or into germanic europe and uh so at this time
00:14:03.740of course they were all uh abide by their ancient faith um he i'm gonna have to look at some notes
00:14:10.620here for some specific names but he was a member of the noble balk's family and this is his tribe
00:14:17.740was the therovingian tribe and as i said earlier i mentioned the king that sacked rome that was
00:14:24.780aleric the first um he would have been just a little bit after him uh one or a couple kings
00:14:31.020in between so um king eric was known as what we would call a judge or in the italian you that
00:14:41.660and essentially he was the his his responsibility was to protect the uh the faith the religion um
00:14:49.580the culture of his people bodie's correcting me in the chat that armenius was 300 years before
00:14:55.980all right thank you bodhi this is why you are awesome um but essentially he was his whole job
00:15:04.360was um aside from being king and ruler was really it was predominant that he was protecting the
00:15:10.760culture and the faith of his people and with that he was known to uh basically um execute
00:15:21.480members of his tribe or other goths that were known to have converted over to christianity
00:15:28.680and he there's a story saying that he uh told his father that he would he swore to his father that
00:15:37.440he would never set foot on uh roman soil and would forever be an enemy of rome um i'll say
00:15:45.320at this point because it'll come up uh a bit later on in that um there are a couple different
00:15:52.580historical accounts and sometimes the details do get mixed whether it's which one of the ancient
00:15:58.780historians is uh relaying this information all righty i think um and of course i should have
00:16:06.360skipped this slide earlier um but this is a little portrait we have of king of thaneric
00:16:11.560and this is a bit of the area and you can see here all of these arrows showing
00:16:17.400um entrant uh like movement of troops and peoples and you can see how how much turmoil
00:16:24.960there was in this area um we'll go through a bit of the details but there's been there's
00:16:30.880roman attacks from the south from the continental area all over um there ends up being a civil
00:16:37.580war which uh thanaric takes part in and then later on at the culmination of all these events was the
00:16:43.900hunting invasion from asia so we want to go through this a bit and we're going to talk about
00:16:52.380so during his 12-year reign he was um there was a bit of as i said war and such and there was a
00:17:01.020at one point there was an attempted peace um he he had allied um with um
00:17:11.340which we call he had allied with another gothic king um and allied against the romans
00:17:18.700invasions and you can see here this is at one point where a couple pictures where
00:17:24.460where the Goths met up with the Romans on ship as, I guess, like some kind of peaceful history that did not succeed.
00:17:37.980Eventually, though, the combination of Fritigern and Xanaric and their peoples, they did fight back the Roman invasion.
00:17:48.540And so that was very successful. And then it followed up with a gothic civil war in that Fritigern passed Thanaric.
00:18:00.040And very quickly, Thanaric was winning these engagements, so much so that Fritigern ended up seeking help from the Roman Empire, specifically here.
00:18:19.040Where can we get the name of that fellow? Valens. The Roman emperor at the time was Valens, and Fritigern and his people converted to Christianity so that they could have the aid of the Roman empire on their side.
00:18:34.360And sadly, due to that, Athanaric did lose the battle, lose the Civil War.
00:18:42.900And following that, we find out that the Huns are invading.0.91
00:18:51.700And the Fritigern and his people seek refuge in the Roman Empire outside of the invasion of the Huns,
00:18:58.280leaving Athanaric and his people to fend for themselves.
00:19:04.360And through that, they, um, they ended up like kind of settling or hiding out or seeking refuge in this small area, which is called, where did I put it?
00:19:20.060Uh, the Lutus, the Lutus Valley, which is a modern day Transylvania.0.58
00:19:25.240And they, they sought refuge there, uh, I guess hunkered down through the Hunnic invasion.
00:19:31.220And then about three, this is where we get some of those differing opinions or differing interpretations, different writings of histories.
00:19:42.540um a couple of his uh ancient historians have said that um uh fritigern or sorry a fanric
00:19:52.200uh was exiled from his people uh for unknown reasons and sought refuge in constantinople
00:19:59.820or in the room of the empire and then other ones don't mention that exile they just say that um
00:20:05.460he he basically uh was attempting to broker some kind of peace um i think generally our
00:20:12.420our accepted uh interpretation used on runestone.org is the the portion of it where he was uh
00:20:19.780kind of kicked out of his tribe and seeking refuge there so we see that um at this time valens is no
00:20:26.740longer the emperor of rome it is now theodosius the first and uh fritigern nope again a thanaric
00:20:36.900goes and he meets up with him and actually um is accepted into the roman empire and he's only there
00:20:43.860for a week week and a half very short period of time and he uh passes away and we we see through
00:20:53.460this the theodosius actually gives him a state burial um showing appreciation for the gothic
00:21:00.500culture and um we'll notice um the visigoths are much more well known uh following this in in the
00:21:09.860next couple generations they make their way across southern europe and actually settle the iberian
00:21:15.780peninsula forming the visigothic empire that is probably much more well known at the time
00:21:21.540so um that's definitely a thing but we really want to keep in mind here um the entire time uh
00:21:29.620thaneric was king he was uh leading his people into battle he was very staunch in his uh pagan
00:21:39.860roots in his acceptance of his ancient faith he was willing to execute and exile anybody that uh
00:21:48.740was converting go and doing a civil war with another gothic tribe so throughout all of this we
00:21:58.020uh we do remember all this and for anybody that's interested there's a few further readings
00:22:04.020with some more information on fanric and his uh his history and people but that is what i got there
00:22:11.220pop us back up big so that's that's fantastic that's the best the best presentation we've had
00:22:23.060so far on one of our heroes uh certainly um and the little extra graphics and stuff i sent you a
00:22:29.620text but i'd really like to find and look more into that last picture you had up i thought that
00:22:35.460was really striking looking um hope you guys aren't distracted my daughter's come up here and
00:22:43.780done a little dance party and now she's down the hall screaming about something three is an
00:22:47.860emotional age there's there's highs and lows uh but no that was really really well done um
00:22:55.380um it was important to me to uh recognize athanaric as one of our heroes early on that story really
00:23:06.900really stuck out to me when I was first coming uh coming home to Alcetru there was a
00:23:17.580um I think I want to find what the uh book was it wasn't really a book it was a lecture series
00:23:22.920the roman and the teuton by charles kingsley and that was a uh lecture series from
00:23:30.900got it pulled up here on the screen i'm trying to get a good date yeah it was uh like 1889
00:23:37.260and it was really well done that's back when people wrote about history passionately it wasn't
00:23:43.960just dry scholarship without flavor people wrote passionately about different subjects
00:23:50.660The first time I had heard about Athanric and, you know, the story that when there were, when large portions of the Visigoths were moving to embrace Christianity and to turn their back on the gods, Athanric had a wagon.
00:24:09.600And you'll see this a lot in ancient Germanic worship, but they had a wagon pulled through the camp with an idol of Odin on it.
00:24:22.260And anyone who wouldn't bow before the idol and worship Odin, he had them burnt along with their tents, all their stuff, completely wiped out from the camp.0.55
00:24:32.660that was very often the Germanic situation that was done to,0.72
00:24:39.700to traitors and people that were completely dishonorable as all remnants of
00:24:44.800them needed to be, uh, destroyed and washed away and not talked about.
00:24:51.500Well, I think part of that's a bit of important in that it's not like that
00:24:58.600they're doing this you know they they understand the importance of all that so much that they're
00:25:05.040not even willing to profit from it and you know take their supplies or anything like that
00:25:11.760apparently i have a motorcycle next door starting up if y'all hear that so no and you guys may find
00:25:18.640this uh familiar to the uh passages in tacitus that we've uh heard about about the germanic tribes
00:25:25.860three centuries earlier about how um cowardice and homosexuals deviancy cowardice people guilty0.93
00:25:37.600of that were stomped into the bog so that they completely disappeared so that they were so0.98
00:25:43.940disgusted by treason and cowardice disloyalty and that kind of deviancy that they they didn't want
00:25:53.020any remnant or any reminder of it. It was so disgusting and shameful to them. And these0.92
00:25:58.580people had turned. So another point that I think is really important, it's very, it's
00:26:07.440much easier to follow our gods when that's just what you do. If you're in a society where
00:26:16.120that's how you're raised and that's how you're expected to be, and that's where all the social
00:26:20.120capital is, then it's very easy to embrace our gods. It's much harder in a time where the
00:26:27.920political wind is moving the other direction. All of the people, including your fellow leaders,
00:26:35.580are moving that way. The might of Rome and power and influence is on that side.
00:26:41.920Staying true to our gods, staying loyal to our gods in adverse circumstances
00:35:15.480When you're behind the scenes so much, you don't know how often I want to just sneak my face on.
00:35:20.340I think I accidentally did have my face on VNS one time for about half a second,
00:35:24.060but, uh, no, we're doing good, Tony. I do appreciate it. And if anybody didn't see
00:35:30.660Tony, Tony got an article in the Baldur's Hoff issue of the runestone that just was released
00:35:36.100yesterday. So if anybody's not seen that, go on to a runestone.org slash library and check out the
00:35:43.780June 2023 issue of the Baldur's Hoff, uh, runestone and, uh, go read his article. Tell
00:35:50.760what do you think about it so question i saw up um a little bit ago and i'm trying to monitor the
00:36:03.480chat as well let me see if i can find it all right and this is a fair question given what i
00:36:11.160what i mentioned earlier where do homosexuals go in the afterlife that is a fine question um
00:36:20.760And so when we talked about the afterlife, Svon and I a couple weeks ago, yeah, a couple weeks ago.
00:36:31.000Anyways, when we spoke about that, one of the things that I wanted to put out there, it's the gods have not entrusted me with determining the final location of people in the afterlife.
00:36:47.500That is above my pay grade. That's something that the gods and the ancestors decide. Svan talked about this, and I think it's a very important thing. Your ancestors decide whether they find you worthy to be amongst them or whether you're isolated in the afterlife, depending.
00:37:05.880the gods decide whether you can ascend to something higher or not and then ultimately
00:37:13.340they decide if you are so villainous or so without value that you need to be broken down
00:37:19.220for component parts and recycled as it were and i don't i don't know there's a lot of factors to
00:37:28.860be considered. And though in oustertre, we certainly don't approve of homosexuality. And0.87
00:37:36.180it is something that we want to keep out of our society and away from our families.1.00
00:37:42.280You know, I can't, I can't say what happens in the afterlife for people of that persuasion, but
00:37:48.620I, I would think that would be a significant detriment to folks moving on. And also one of
00:37:57.920the big things that is a benefit in the afterlife to your ascension into your standing in the
00:38:06.800afterlife is your descendants and those who come after you. And for those in a homosexual1.00
00:38:13.960lifestyle, they don't have descendants. That was one of the big things that our ancestors1.00
00:38:21.520mentioned um and i'm not i'm not quick to quote the quote the sources as well as fawn does but
00:38:30.520the story of um you know it's thought ill of a man you know if he didn't have sons who was going
00:38:37.280to raise runestones to him who was going to raise markers to him and remember him after he passed
00:38:42.480And so having children and passing your heritage through your descendants is such a very special and very important thing.
00:38:53.240And those people don't don't have that option due to due to those choices.
00:38:59.380And I've also said along with that lifestyle comes a lot of other things that are.
00:39:06.220Oftentimes very sinister, and I don't think that reflects well in the afterlife as well.
00:39:12.480All right. Well, we followed this up with I guess I made the call out and a lot of people have answered. So we built up. Excellent. Very good. We're going to start here. Mr. Josh Rappin, folk builder up in Wisconsin. Question on our hero this evening. Do we know much about the king's chief general murderic during the war against the Huns becoming Rome's Dukes of Arabia for Rome later?
00:39:39.080and uh i guess this question goes to me and uh my my answer is i do not
00:39:48.100um so this is definitely interesting information i don't
00:39:55.460don't quite get the connection between how he how he works for rome but i'm guessing it follows
00:40:03.120some suit um afterwards so that's some interesting stuff you ever heard of that um no i haven't but i
00:40:12.000think it'd be easy enough to to look into um no both branches the east and the west empire were
00:40:24.080employing germanic germanics to do a large part of their mercenary fighting and putting them in
00:40:30.320far off provinces to uh keep the peace and to govern so that would that's not surprising to me
00:40:37.440uh but it is something i'd like to look into and read a little bit more about and matter of fact i
00:40:42.080will do that as soon as we're done with this episode tonight yep and just a quick wikipedia
00:40:47.040search because we know how great that source is literally that's all the information it gives us
00:40:52.160is that him and one other guy were generals under uh a fanric and then they later joined the romans
00:40:58.000to be warriors out in arabia that was a thing at the end of thaneric's life the eastern empire
00:41:07.360showed him a great deal of respect when he was on his own basically um we saw earlier um wasn't
00:41:14.960really a full-fledged question but just some commentary that he'd been exiled for you know
00:41:21.440because people had committed treason and embraced uh embrace roman gods embraced the uh the jewish
00:41:28.160god and the eastern empire gave him a they let him in he got to see all the amazing things in
00:41:40.160in constantinople and really appreciate that and they had a moment of you know
00:41:45.600reproachment there where they uh gave him funeral rights and treated him with respect there so
00:41:52.560his his lieutenant's finding work there is is uh kind of a cool thing and definitely something i'd
00:41:57.760like to like to read a little bit more on certainly all righty so the wonderful miss
00:42:06.000rachel kinsler great lady she's got a question here gentlemen besides this current one what
00:42:14.400episode of victory never sleeps has been your favorites um i know you like to throw it to the
00:42:23.040guests first so i will take it and that we're going to throw it back quite a ways um probably
00:42:30.880one of my favorite episodes actually was um the episode of the four githias with brandy uh
00:42:39.840witten brandy callahan githias uh katie erickson anna thord and sheila mcnallon it was a really
00:42:48.560interesting episode um to get all of the ladies together it was the most guests we've ever had
00:42:54.960and still the most guests we've ever had at one time and uh it was a lot of good back and forth0.99
00:43:01.680um in a lot of great conversation and it really shows um those are four strong ladies strong
00:43:10.000powerhouse ladies in the afa doing great things and serving a very very important role for us
00:43:16.160you know there have been a lot of really uh episodes that i've really enjoyed doing and
00:43:23.360being a part of yeah there's been a lot of episodes that we've gotten really good feedback
00:46:27.460And it was, it took different forms depending upon the location and the time period.
00:46:33.440um in sweden and in other parts of europe there was the idea of um
00:46:47.840sacral kingship where a king might be sacrificed if there was a series of bad seasons for the uh
00:46:55.360the bounty of the land if there was agricultural problems for a long period of time
00:47:00.240and that was an idea that maybe you know maybe that ruler was doing a poor job and by making
00:47:07.080that sacrifice of themselves for the community it would please the gods into into blessing them with
00:47:14.860more fertility of the land um i think we see something that's kind of similar and you did
00:47:20.480mention going into other um arian arian religions so in rome they would have what was called the
00:47:27.840devotio, I believe, where a general is a last ditch attempt to win a battle as an offering to
00:47:33.900the gods and offering to Mars would ride into the middle of the enemy ranks into the heat of the
00:47:39.540battle and offer himself up as a sacrifice for victory. And I think that was similar in a lot
00:47:47.340of aspects to that. As far as sacrificing, so it's, I think there's a fine line, but it's really,
00:47:57.040I don't know, something to consider. The execution of criminals versus the sacrifice to appease the
00:48:09.520gods. Execution of criminals was a really different thing. I mentioned the bog stomping of
00:48:18.320traitors and cowards earlier, and that wasn't a sacrifice. That was to get rid of them because0.97
00:48:24.740their existence was a disgrace to the tribe. But in combat, sacrificing high-ranking members of
00:48:36.060enemies. Specifically, I can think of the sacrifices after the battle of Tudor Burgerwald.
00:48:45.820Roman officers were sacrificed because that was a special offering to the gods. That was somebody
00:48:52.860of great value. That was an important person that would be an important sacrifice.
00:48:58.300It wasn't just wholesale slaughter of people. But you would see that other examples,
00:49:04.780again not sacrifice but was the i guess sacrifice in a way not to appease the gods but um
00:49:13.820it was mentioned that the the ruse would sacrifice slaves on you know on a noble's pyre to
00:49:21.340accompany them to the afterlife or sometimes um their wives would go with them dying on the pyre
00:49:30.540to go with them in the afterlife along with horses and animals of all kinds to go with
00:49:35.980them so they'd have a retinue on the other side um but i think something is important to remember
00:49:44.380when we talk about sacrifice and what it literally means yes we all understand that a sacrifice
00:49:52.220is involves killing when we're talking about a sacrifice of of humans that you mentioned
00:49:59.340earlier or animals for that matter but the word sacrifice means to make sacred um it's not about
00:50:08.220giving something up and it's not about the killing per se it's about transmuting the subject of that
00:50:16.780sacrifice as a vessel to take things from this world to the next world beyond the veil from this
00:50:23.820world to the world of the gods, the ancestors, and those who've come before. And that's a really
00:50:30.480important part of sacrifice. All righty. So let's see. Next up, we have John Horn. How is a Norse
00:50:43.700pagan wedding performed other than two rings, two swords, two feet? Okay, I'm going to press0.79
00:50:48.580pause on this. I'll hit this in a second. We've had a number of people ask, and I mentioned this
00:50:52.400earlier because I mentioned how important it was for people that and how important it was for
00:50:59.180our ancestors to have children to celebrate them and to raise horns to them after their passing
00:51:04.500and several people asked questions about you know what about folks that don't have kids
00:51:10.080and one of the things that is my duty as a gothi is to be honest and not just make everybody feel
00:51:21.440good. There's other times where it's tempting to come up with something flowery, but I think it's
00:51:29.060far better to come up with something true. Having kids is better than not having kids.
00:51:33.700Having a lot of kids is better than just having one. My wife and I were very fortunate. We had
00:51:39.380Aubrey really late in life. We were both 39. We didn't necessarily think that was going to be
00:51:46.040something that happened for us. And we were prepared for that as unfortunate as it was.
00:51:53.100And we're very blessed that we have Aubrey. But yeah, you're better off if you have kids than if
00:51:59.460you don't. That said, that's not the only thing, but it is a big factor. But what was also mentioned,
00:52:05.180and I forget who mentioned it in the chat room, is if you don't have kids, you can be there for
00:52:09.500other people's kids and you can help them out with it. And that's important too. You can be
00:52:14.480an important part in raising, caring for, and educating the next generation and being
00:52:22.180significant enough that they remember you, that they celebrate you, that they raise a
00:52:26.760horn to you. That's the thing. If you have kids, then they're going to remember you and
00:52:37.100your grandkids are going to remember their grandparents. It's much harder for someone
00:52:41.520without children, to have a name that's celebrated through the generations. So it's much more
00:52:47.900incumbent upon those people to do even bigger and even greater deeds so that their name stays
00:52:53.980on people's lips and in living memory for longer. But yeah, it's certainly better for folks that
00:53:03.220have kids. It's better for folks to have a whole bunch of kids. But it's not the only thing,
00:53:10.280but it is something that's better. Uh, it's just like, you know, I, I've never served in the
00:53:16.520military. I've never done that in my life. Um, there may be some cataclysmic thing where I find
00:53:23.160myself in battle at some point in the future, but honestly, I'm, I'm in my forties. That's probably
00:53:28.400not how that's going to work out. It's better if it had worked out that I did see that, that would
00:53:35.100have been an absolutely and objectively better thing if I were a veteran, but I'm not. So I've
00:53:41.560got to try hard to earn my fame and other in different ways. So we all can't have everything
00:53:47.200and there's not an answer that makes everyone happy, but we do have to embrace the truth and
00:53:53.220celebrate those that have had kids and do what we can to help celebrate them and honor them and
00:53:57.980help those kids to be successful and speaking of having kids uh our number right now is 12
00:54:05.98012 kids born to the Austin True Folk Assembly this year that's just beautiful this last event
00:54:13.420at LC Fest it was we were outnumbered by by the the ladies and the children it was something
00:54:21.080really beautiful to see so many kids and the kids were just meeting each other and a second later
00:54:27.280their best friends and playing and having a great time yeah all right so uh we mentioned it earlier
00:54:35.360i mentioned earlier but the next question how is norse pagan wedding performed other than two
00:54:40.560rings two swords two keys so i appreciate that i just want to make a note on terminology for a
00:54:50.080second while that is phonetically absolutely an appropriate thing to say it's one of those things
00:54:56.560that's important to me. I believe that Alcetruar or practitioners of Alcetru don't ought not
00:55:09.920describe themselves as Norse pagan. Christians describe themselves as Christians because they
00:55:17.520love Christ and they follow Christ. They don't describe themselves as Judean monotheists because
00:55:24.960that's flavorless and without uh zeal and reverence so it's important we try to refer to it as also
00:55:32.640true because loyalty to the gods is is such an important thing to us and maybe a small note but
00:55:38.880i the reason i mentioned it is it's a term that i've seen come up mostly in the last 10 years
00:55:45.520that this this word norse pagan i would encourage people that want to practice our faith to embrace
00:55:52.240that term alsatree because it really is so much more meaningful i have been very fortunate i've
00:55:57.760been able to do quite a few um quite a few weddings and perform a number of those for
00:56:06.640very close friends of mine my wife and i had an ausituse service that was performed by
00:56:15.120law speaker allen turnage so it's very very similar to you know any other type of wedding
00:56:25.120some people like to use the term hand fasting and i've done this twice now and i think it's
00:56:30.480a nice custom to do the tying of the hands um i think that's very special and we incorporate it
00:56:38.240into an afa wedding we also have a period in the wedding and this was innovated by uh
00:56:44.160witten brandy callahan where we pour pour water over the hands grasp together and we save that
00:56:52.400water and and for ritual use later but very similar to a normal wedding in the fact that
00:57:00.240you're gathered before our gods before your family and your friends if you you know if you choose to
00:57:06.640have them there and if they want to come and you say your vows just like you do in a normal wedding
00:57:14.960uh the wedding rings a lot of folks believe those are an evolution of the oath ring that you make
00:57:21.120oaths on um those are incorporated in an aussiture wedding and it's really important in the afa we
00:57:28.240only perform real legally binding weddings and that's it frustrates some people that you know
00:57:36.320have different plans or want to do multiple ceremonies for multiple audiences but we believe
00:57:40.720really strongly in the afa that you don't halfway do this this is this is your faith and if you want
00:57:47.920to have an official wedding you have an official afa wedding that's legally binding that the
00:57:53.600paperwork's all signed out that it's a real deal and if you want to have a you know a show wedding
00:58:00.480for different people at a different time we say make this your real one you can do something else
00:58:06.720for them if you want to but we take it really seriously so it's very important to us that
00:58:14.400we only perform services that are legally binding and people for real for real wedding and not just
00:58:23.520kind of a separate or a less official thing
00:58:29.680all right so next up somebody's been pretty active in the chat tonight but first time i'm
00:58:34.560seeing them in the chat so welcome um i have become a pagan through the music of wardroona
00:58:41.680danheim and from learning about the runes my understanding is we are not supposed to convert
00:58:47.200people but gather those seekers it's kind of a statement but i think it needs answered so
00:58:56.480there was there's a number of you know
00:59:00.960long-standing Ausitru tropes that we really need to rethink and re-examine. And one of those is
00:59:10.900this idea that we don't proselytize. This comes from a time where a lot of people came to Ausitru
00:59:17.540not because of love of the gods, but because of rejection of Christianity.
00:59:24.900And eventually they developed love of the gods. That's not what I'm saying,
00:59:28.200But their major impetus was to see how not Christian they were. So they took everything that Christianity did, threw it all away and defined themselves by how opposite of that they could be. And that serves a purpose when there was an initial separation time. But I think anybody who sincerely believes in their faith would want to share that with others.
00:59:52.440In the AFA, we absolutely believe in proselytizing. We don't believe in harassing people and being
00:59:58.840obnoxious, but we want to share the things that are meaningful to us and our love of the gods.
01:00:06.820And our people, heterosexual white people, we want them all to come home to have a relationship
01:00:13.400with our gods. And I think it's important to bring that up today when we're celebrating this0.67
01:00:19.280particular hero. So often today, because of the world that we live in, and I don't think we
01:00:27.800always realize this, but we're all infected with modernity and the degeneration that comes with
01:00:35.620that to one degree or another, and we have to be really consciously aware of it. It's become
01:00:39.840almost virtuous for us to say, well, everybody has their own path. Let's just let everyone do
01:00:44.540what they want. No, there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. And our folks should
01:00:51.740worship our gods. If they don't, they're doing something wrong. You don't need to be a jerk.
01:00:58.040But there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. Everything's not equal. Everything's not0.99
01:01:03.540just as good. Following our gods is the right way for our folk. And we need to encourage others to
01:01:10.600do that the best we can. It's part of the mission of the Ashtore Folk Assembly, to bring our folk
01:01:15.900home. And I think that's the second point of it, is to talk about the idea of converting people.
01:01:24.540It's a strange term, and it comes from a different place.
01:01:33.840So Christianity is an evolution of Judaism, and there wasn't a, let's convert the Jews.
01:01:40.600The Jews were ethnically the children of their God, Jehovah, and Jews that followed Christ.
01:01:50.320That was just a progression of that faith.
01:01:53.280Conversion was when people went out to other groups with their own ethnic faiths and had to reject those and convert to that Jewish Christian faith.
01:02:06.480What we're doing isn't a conversion away from someone's natural state.
01:02:11.420What we're doing is bringing people home, bringing them back to their baseline, back to what the faith of their blood is, to their ancestral gods.
01:02:21.560So the word conversion isn't quite accurate in what we want to do.
01:02:27.560What we want to do is bring our folk home.
01:02:29.860And so often, one of the biggest things, it's not strong arming people into being Alcetru.
01:02:35.600So many people don't know it's a legitimate option.
01:02:38.840I know that was that was my case before I found out.
01:03:04.480So don't be obnoxious. Don't go out and, you know, harass people to join our faith.
01:03:11.360But no, there's right way and wrong way to do things spiritually and the right way for our focus to come to us.
01:03:17.000It is right there in on our homepage in our motto.
01:03:23.980It is about roots. It's about connections. It's about where we started.
01:03:28.140It's about where our connection to the gods and it's about coming home.
01:03:32.880this isn't um it's waking up it's not changing who you are you are this you just you you may be
01:03:44.960there may be a little fog in your eyes there may be a little you may not know it yet but this is
01:03:50.080who you are this is who you were born to be this is who your family and your ancestors were um you
01:03:56.880just gotta come home. Alrighty. So next up, another one of these that I definitely feel
01:04:08.520needs addressed. It's not exactly a question. Kind of. He's asking if we know that the FBI
01:04:16.720has a hate group. Thanks to the idiots from the SPLC. It's a really simple thing. So what?1.00
01:04:27.600oh daddy so here's the thing no we're not we're not labeled by the fbi as a hate group that's not
01:04:35.600so we are labeled by the we are labeled by the splc as one um we've had a number of interactions
01:04:45.600with the fbi honestly and uh those have most often been with us as the victims of
01:04:56.880I say say victims of and I think that overplays that as people who have been threatened with hate crimes and hate activities by other groups and other people.
01:05:09.880I'm certain that the FBI is is very aware of our existence, but they've said to us that, you know, they believe we're much more likely to be the victims of hate crimes than the perpetrators.
01:05:24.880And that's because we're not. We're not about hate. We're not about criminality. We're not dangerous. We never have been. And honestly, as simple as that may sound or as cheesy as that may sound, it's the truth.
01:05:43.340Our best defense against those accusations is the truth.
01:05:48.740And the AFA has always been very open about who we are and what we're up to and very welcoming of the community and of, you know, people to shine a light and see.
01:05:59.640And we try to be open with all the things we do.
01:26:55.960has office space to be the AFA headquarters.
01:26:59.360The idea is that other people will move
01:27:01.300the same county in the same area to be part of this the ones that don't have a space on the
01:27:07.220actual land itself and will have a community of our folk within driving distance of one another
01:27:14.260being that community for one another employing each other if we can in whatever industries we
01:27:20.100find there as far as a you know one-stop shop that's completely self-sufficient no we're not
01:27:25.700we're not there yet and i don't know if that's desirable at this time but a place where we can
01:27:30.660all come together have our own special place to meet to live have an afa neighborhood absolutely
01:27:37.300we have that it's called sigerheim and nick moved down there for that very purpose about a month ago
01:27:44.660what can you tell them about i don't know anything relating to that all right well yeah um let's see
01:27:52.820I want to say tomorrow, actually, marks one month since I officially, I guess, moved to Tennessee.
01:28:07.120So Sigurheim is pretty cool, but it does – people have different ideas when they think of intentional communities.
01:28:14.340And I know, as this question says, a lot of people in our circles and in Ossetru want that or think they want that self-sustaining community.
01:28:29.100But that's not where we're at at this point.
01:28:32.220That's not what Sigurheim is set up to be.
01:28:36.020Um, at 70 acres and maybe what, uh, 10% of it is buildable field land and the rest is
01:28:46.680Yeah. So, um, essentially if we want to get any amount of people actually on the land,
01:28:56.440it's, it's all houses. It's all buildings and infrastructure. Um, gardens, people have
01:29:02.900lot plots of land a little guard little home garden some chickens something like that but
01:29:08.000that's not what it that's not what this land um is but um it doesn't as matt mentioned that's if
01:29:16.100that's what you want but you still want to be uh you know associated connected to with community
01:29:22.820with our folk we can we can definitely accomplish that and i promise you it's it won't be that hard
01:29:29.320to find you somewhere. Um, I had a member come out last weekend. Uh, he drove over from Missouri
01:29:35.180and we went land shopping. So we spent eight hours driving around. He picked out five or six,
01:29:42.180uh, pieces of land in the area, all within, you know, 25 minutes of the Hoff. Um, so,
01:29:50.520or of not the hoth of siggerheim and um we we looked at all of them um1.00
01:29:58.520really three or four of them would be okay for certain people depending on what they want and
01:30:03.800there are plenty of other pieces of land too and if you want something of a price range for this
01:30:09.800area i'm gonna be i'm gonna be realtor in this area for you um we were looking at anywhere from
01:30:15.800six to 10 acres in the $40,000 to $60,000 range. It's not the cheapest thing, but those give you
01:30:27.480some ideas of some of the options out here. We did find the last property we looked at was
01:30:34.380actually probably the best. He said it was a consideration, but I think he's going to come
01:30:40.500back and we're going to do a few more uh shops and look around so we've got other full we've got
01:30:47.000other members who have been talking about it they want their own land so they can do farms and
01:30:52.660animals and stuff like that and that's awesome get close build connections that way you know
01:30:59.740we can hang out all the darn time and it's it's it's not any less not living on the property
01:31:08.120um just get close come jackson county tennessee i'm gonna be the biggest spokesperson for that
01:31:14.040now because i just uh uprooted my entire life to uh do it here's the thing it's so easy it's
01:31:21.720it's very hard to be the first one once people are doing it it's much easier to be part of a
01:31:28.040wave of people doing it and fortunately for us we have a woman that moved out there a couple
01:31:33.640months previous and we have nick that's moved out there and we have another gentleman that moved out
01:31:38.120in the general area there um i think like in january or february so you're not the first if
01:31:44.440you want to move out and be part of what we're doing the thing is too so we're building an afa
01:31:48.840neighborhood on that property yeah but we're also we're getting people in the general area if you
01:31:55.000want to come there and you want a homestead and you want to you know raise cattle and do whatever
01:31:59.080you want to do fine do that there's tons of places you can get out there and as nick said a lot of
01:32:04.200people are going out there uh searching for properties and building their dream and that's
01:32:09.480that's what this is about and that's what we're trying really hard to do and i don't want to leave
01:32:13.400out the rest of the hoffs um it's still sigerheim is one thing and it's in tennessee and it's going
01:32:19.480to be the future home of tears off but it's not a bad idea if tennessee is for some reason not your
01:32:25.080cup of tea um brownsville california murdoch minnesota uh white springs florida and linden
01:32:33.960north carolina we have four places all over the country and um aside from florida all three of
01:32:43.080the other ones have somebody in the afa living really close so you're not going to be the only
01:32:48.520ones in the area and even florida i don't think we have anybody super close no and you know that's the
01:32:53.800that's you're not the only person there there's
01:32:59.320everyone um i think often conceives of what's the answer the perfect solution or the
01:33:07.160thing that's going to fix it it's not one thing it's all the things
01:33:11.560if you can move out to segerheim great we would love it my family and i are moving out there um
01:33:17.080Gauthier Young and his wife are moving out there. We've got a number of people who are actively
01:33:24.080engaged in that. And if you want to and you can, come on, be part of it. That's great.
01:33:28.340But as Nick said, building that dream means getting closer to other AFA members around you.
01:33:36.060And ideally, we have these rallying points now over Hoffs. They're all in little towns that we
01:33:42.700could be a very significant piece of that community if we had our members move there
01:33:48.400and move close. Each of those communities and those towns would benefit from us being
01:33:53.400there and we would benefit from being close to our AFA family. So we've got a lot of options
01:33:59.300and in the years to come we'll have even more. We're fixing to have Freyshof. Between now
01:34:05.320tier or in tears off we're going to establish phrase off that will either be in uh western
01:34:12.520very far western pennsylvania or eastern ohio uh anybody that wants to help make that happen
01:34:19.560if nick's quick draw on this he'll throw up the link to that we first have to pay off the loan
01:34:25.640that we have for new york's off and then we can move on to phrase off and i mentioned that'll be
01:34:30.120in western pennsylvania very far western pennsylvania or eastern ohio and there's a trick
01:34:37.320we have uh the locations for phrasehoff and tearshoff decided but uh broggieshoff comes
01:34:43.880after that and if you want if you want to determine where it goes build a community
01:34:49.880somewhere become become a folk builder get it get get people in the area leadership get some
01:34:56.440gothard your area that's how we do it so here's something else that i think needs to be said on
01:35:02.680this um if every place that we have afa activity every place that we have a hof every place that
01:35:16.280we have an active community that we have a kindred that we have anything great with the afa
01:35:20.760is because somebody, when there was no one else around, stepped up and said, hey, I want something
01:35:31.720here. What can I do? And we said, hey, how about you folk build? How about you be a folk builder?
01:35:38.800And when people apply, we'll direct them to you. And if you know people that want to,
01:35:42.420and if you can find folks that want to be involved in this, bring them in and see what you can do.
01:35:48.220and some faster some slower but through consistency and through blood sweat and tears they built a
01:35:54.700community there um that's how all of this has happened uh you know maybe one day we'll be so
01:36:03.340well off economically that we can just send out missionaries different places and the afa can
01:36:08.620make stuff happen but when people want afa things happening near them i can't cast a spell
01:36:17.180from here in reno to to make afa sprout up there what happens and i'm happy to help any way i can
01:36:24.940but what happens is somebody steps up and says hey i looked around for hero and it wasn't anybody else
01:36:32.060so guess what it's me i want to build something and then we back them 100 and they build something
01:36:37.980beautiful and that's how every instance of the afa being successful has happened the other thing
01:36:44.540that i'll say um i originally was folk building in alaska and i tried really hard i got some great
01:36:52.460group people up there matter of fact one of those people is just on the side here messaged me he's
01:36:58.780coming down to california for midsummer so i'm very excited about that but i wanted to be part
01:37:04.060of something bigger and i wanted to be close to where the afa was happening at that time we had
01:37:08.540a lot of stuff going on in florida and my wife my future wife at that point lived in florida
01:37:16.380so i packed up my life moved all the way across the country to go there and be part of that there
01:37:21.500was actually a community we were going to start making happen that didn't work out so moved all
01:37:28.140the way across the country to florida then about two years later packed up her whole life packed
01:37:35.500up mine again we moved all the way out to california because that's where odenshoff was
01:37:42.220we ended up settling over here in reno which actually ironically is an hour closer to the
01:37:49.340hoff than we were when we lived in california but now because that's where the dream is going
01:37:54.860and that's where our future is we're gonna pack all the way up again and move to tennessee so
01:37:59.820it's not always easy it's not always something that'll come to you sometimes you have to go to
01:38:03.900it but if you want that dream you can make it happen i promise you no when i uh joined the afa
01:38:12.140um the closest member to me was two hours um i made drives up there when i started folk building
01:38:22.300i found out very quickly that unfortunately if i held a a moot or something close to me
01:38:28.860nobody showed up so i went where the people were uh held all my moots up there very successful
01:38:35.980one of the members who frequented my moots is now uh folk building and uh keeping everything
01:38:42.140strong up there so uh i didn't leave them in any uh turmoil and then uh what do i do
01:38:49.900i mean similar thing i i was in a fortunate situation where i owed my house outright no
01:38:54.940rent no mortgage sold it and moved to tennessee um there are sometimes there are things worth doing
01:39:05.660and uh sometimes you have to determine what those things are for yourself but when you do
01:39:12.780uh don't don't let anything hold you back absolutely and i see over in the chat that
01:39:18.140monk is thinking about uh packing up and him and his wife heading out to sigerheim and to
01:39:23.900the tennessee there's plenty of acreage out there for whatever you want to do that gets you close
01:39:29.100and gets you within the county with us we would love to have you and your wife out there and
01:39:34.300that's awesome i'm glad to hear that i hope that works out all right i see somebody else on the
01:39:42.220same on the same topic uh are there afa communities or plans to have communities in europe we would
01:39:48.220love to so um we were getting a really really healthy so okay the afa has certainly our most
01:39:57.340members are in the united states but we have members in 14 i haven't done the math it could
01:40:03.820be 15 now we have members in at least 14 countries we have as far as europe goes
01:40:11.100uh we have members in switzerland italy france the netherlands england ireland
01:40:21.300denmark sweden and norway right now i believe that's it um we had a very very healthy uh thing
01:40:33.480going on in sweden and we were very much considering early on perhaps one of our
01:40:39.480first couple of Hoffs being over in Sweden. Very big community over there. It was working great.
01:40:48.040All of the different government's reactions to COVID-19 made that much more challenging.
01:40:57.140Lost a lot of international momentum that way. And I think a lot of folks did.
01:41:02.580But we're trying to build things over there. Sweden is where we have our most members,
01:41:09.080but we need some consistency we need some frequency of afa get-togethers and things
01:41:14.440but we would love to build something in sweden we've always dreamed of having a half in sweden
01:41:21.400myself and a few other members of afa leadership traveled to sweden in
01:41:28.6802018 i want to say 2018 and it was awesome so we would love to see something happen there and i i
01:41:36.920believe that we will one day um how far away i couldn't tell you but that is that's probably
01:41:41.240the most likely candidate at this point for us to have something like that in sweden or in europe
01:41:47.160and i'll just say if you're in europe uh we got three fine folks over there to reach out to
01:41:52.680um steve uh stefan uh popin yak uh jacqueline verway and eric lugnit reach out to any of them
01:42:04.040hit us up in the chat if you need their emails um they're pretty simple or go to uh thorsoff.com
01:42:12.360and go to contact us and uh you can find all the information for all three of them there
01:42:19.640yep you sure can as the way our districts are our districts look kind of squirrely when you
01:42:26.440get international because we got to put people somewhere and we loop everybody into one of the
01:42:31.240hoffs but as it stands now thor's hoff is handling potato europe and uh njords hoff no okay thor's
01:42:39.720i'm sorry thor's hoff is handling both of them we're a little bit of prior planning i was ahead
01:42:44.280of myself when we get phrase hoff we'll split i'm sorry yep yep um definitely uh and as of right now
01:42:55.480we don't have very many members in tomato europe but uh parlo italiano so if you're over there in
01:43:02.840italy reach out tomato europeans let's let's see you guys come out and join the afa we'd love to
01:43:08.440have you and just for administrative purposes i think we're going to end up putting france
01:43:13.560in tomato europe oh okay france is one of those countries it's about 50 50. and if we have any
01:43:21.800frenchmen listening uh no offense the the tomato europe potato europe is a it's a funny inside
01:43:27.640joke to us americans um it may be less funny to you guys all right so next up we have uh miss sarah
01:43:42.280nick working on both the runestone and the websites why should people take the time to
01:43:47.480read them so i feel like this is some kind of inside joke because you also work on the runestone
01:43:53.800and the websites but why should people take the time to read them really there is a plethora of
01:44:00.520information i can tell you i just um the websites in and of themselves have tons of information of
01:44:06.440course every single one well the runestone.org has all has our store has our our base documents
01:44:14.360uh declaration of purpose statement of ethics law of the hall and it has our store it has basic
01:44:19.880information on our gothar our hoffs and all kinds of fun stuff like that and then when you go over
01:44:25.880to our hoff websites that's where a lot of the great information is um odenshoff.org thorshoff.com
01:44:33.000baldershoff.org and njordshoff.org really all four of them have um the contact us page is really
01:44:42.680important because that is where you can find out um who the local leadership are the goth are the
01:44:49.320folk builders and all of that and i'll say if you don't know which district you are in probably the
01:44:56.320quickest and easiest way to find that out is go over to runestone.org click on hoffs and that
01:45:02.120lists all four of them and it has little maps and descriptions of what states what prop canadian
01:45:08.680provinces and what other countries are in each district just so you know and i'll tell you
01:45:16.120you could talk to anybody it's perfectly fine it's mostly just for organization district
01:45:23.160and you know keeping track of things and that sort of thing
01:45:27.240talk to anybody you need to um but contact us page on all four of the hoff websites
01:45:32.280There's also the our events page, which has a calendar with all of the events happening, all of the moots that are scheduled, what the dates are for the Hoff events and any virtual events that are going on, whether they be lore studies or sister chats, book studies, Victory Never Sleeps, our virtue recovery group, lots of great information in there.
01:45:59.020and then we come to the the rune stone and matt did you want to cut in on me
01:46:11.100so a number of different reasons um first because people spend a lot of time and effort to put it
01:46:24.380together and it takes you know it doesn't necessarily take that long to look through
01:46:27.620read and show appreciation but in a very in a very serious way when you
01:46:35.940and this specifically not for anybody for anybody interested in what we're doing
01:46:40.660they showcase individually we've had to break it up now because it was just
01:46:46.020too big we used to have one for all of the afa now you can find all of them in the library at
01:46:53.220at runestone.org. But it shows all of the amazing and
01:47:00.760beautiful things that we have going on. And if you're not in
01:47:07.520the AFA, I want you to see those things, see what we're doing.
01:47:12.160And hopefully decide you want to be a part of that. Because
01:47:16.440we're doing amazing things. If you are in the AFA, you are a
01:47:20.600part of it. We, we have members over the entire surface of the world, the sun never sets on the
01:47:33.500Austria focusing. We have done amazing strides in building communities, we still have a lot of
01:47:43.400people that are far away from other folks. It means and this
01:47:49.400meant a lot to me when I lived in Alaska. When I was first
01:47:53.660starting out, I was a folk builder in Alaska. Sometimes
01:47:56.900we'd have stuff going on. Sometimes it was a you know, we
01:47:59.660wouldn't have any activity. But it meant so much to me seeing
01:48:04.880all of my AFA family across the country and across the world
01:48:09.080doing things and knowing that I was a part of that and getting
01:48:12.260share in that joy being able to share and just seeing pictures of our afa family and their kids
01:48:20.900and our hoffs and all the beautiful things going on is such a nice thing we all need that in the
01:48:27.860world today it is easy to get weighed down by our stress by and this is the thing all the kali yuga
01:48:36.660the world sucks things those are real and i get it but even if it wasn't the stresses of regular0.92
01:48:44.980everyday life it is such a beautiful thing to take a moment and just see the really amazing
01:48:51.780things that are going on in the afa and i would encourage you guys to do that it's got pictures of
01:48:56.660you know stuff from all the states we have things going on in every month
01:49:00.580those that the folk builder remembers to get their articles in on um
01:49:06.660It's really nice to just be able to get that breath of fresh air and see what these people, what we together are doing and to know that you're a part of that.
01:49:16.560You're a part of our AFA family. And that's the thing. I love seeing pictures and hearing about achievements of my family.
01:49:25.760I love seeing pictures and achievements of my AFA family, and that's what's in those rooms.
01:49:30.700and i'll throw in on top of that now on top of all of the amazing articles that all everybody posts
01:49:39.980about the moots and the meetups um people always want you know some of the best episodes are the
01:49:48.720episodes with sivan and some of our uh busiest episodes are the best questions are really are
01:49:55.480the ones where we get deep into lore or some kind of spiritual thing um all of the runestones have
01:50:05.400articles written by our gothar about asatru about the lore um this past issue had an article by
01:50:15.980Wynton Brandy Callahan on Choices. I had one by Gauthier Daniel Young on Leak, the first part of
01:50:25.880the soul that we were discussing. Gauthier Trent East wrote an article, and Gauthier Joe Rosanick
01:50:35.400wrote an article. His was on The Runes as Mysteries. And aside from that, a lot of the
01:50:43.540folk builders whether they be in the gothar program or just really interested in our faith
01:50:51.440and devoted to it they take a lot of time to also research and write articles um of of merit a lot
01:50:59.420of history and a lot of uh other things uh topical things so there is a lot of meat to those runestone
01:51:08.580articles and those rune tone issues uh i wish i had got the number um but if you if you add up
01:51:16.600every page of all four issues the afa published over 500 pages just in june's issue and we've
01:51:29.320doing this for years go to runestone.org go to the library and there is so much there
01:51:39.800and apparently your lighting it just got dark so we got some good lightings now finally
01:51:45.400yeah mandy had to help me out last week as the seasons come and go
01:51:49.160it's real different everybody you know usually gets this pretty late all throughout the year
01:51:53.160when they're over on the east coast but out here on the west coast i'm kind of at a
01:51:57.160sunset time that show overlaps throughout the years so i gotta have folks help me with my
01:52:03.740lighting um but yeah people put a lot of time in uh we had to stop when the runestone was regularly
01:52:10.200over you know 80 pages per per issue we had to start breaking it up and uh it's
01:52:17.820hell we're over 100 for all each one of them yeah that's crazy
01:52:21.580all righty so next up is uh speaking of
01:52:27.940gothi trent east asks nick what's your favorite part of the of my afa duties um we're gonna
01:52:37.100be honest here and i i'm going to say having my hand in a little bit of everything
01:52:46.280um one of the things about me is i like middle management uh i don't want to be
01:52:56.860in charge of everything but i don't want to be at the bottom either i like
01:53:01.420getting to know all the little things and the one fortunate part of being on the it side and
01:53:08.160the tech side and being in 1200 projects is i hear a lot of stuff but i i i i'm nosy but um
01:53:19.620we're gonna go we're gonna go with a follow-up and uh i had an amazing moment in the other day
01:53:26.480just in that um i just moved to tennessee a month ago and i ran into a member in uh
01:53:37.660cookville which is like 30 minutes south here i was down there shopping it's 30 000 people it's a
01:53:42.860big town running into a member just walking into a store and being able to go hey and and come over
01:53:52.540and talk to them it it's really making me um like it was one of my favorite things and it's making
01:54:01.900me happy for what we got coming up with sigurheim getting to see folk uh on the regular basis and
01:54:11.500not and not having to wait for another couple weeks or a month or for those folks who if you
01:54:21.500don't get to the hof too often a couple months a year even um being hanging out with our folk
01:54:29.580Really, it's some of the best times, and people talk about it every time.
01:54:32.300The hardest part of being in the AFA is when it's time to leave the moot
01:55:19.420At that time, it was at Camp Nourga in Alta, California.
01:55:25.320And I went down there and I just got hooked on events.
01:55:29.920And I, you know, very soon after that, we had our first winter nights in Poconos.
01:55:35.460And I would, you know, I found myself after a couple of years, I was spending my whole year looking forward to those two events.
01:55:44.880I was spending, you know, three hundred and fifty five days so that 10 days out of the year I could live the life the way it should be, the way I wanted it to be around my people.
01:55:57.320And that that realization has motivated so much of what I've done that I want to have that every day, to have that all the time.
01:56:09.120and uh Sigurheim Sigurheim is going to get me there uh I've gotten to where now I'm so fortunate
01:56:16.360just about once a month I get to first once a month regardless I get to be at a hof celebrating
01:56:24.520my gods with my folk at Odenshof you got a busy summer though assuming that assuming that the
01:56:32.800pass isn't closed. But almost once a month, every month, I get to go to a big event somewhere where
01:56:41.800I get to see the rest of my AFA family. And I love it. I want more of it all the time. I want
01:56:49.080that to be my life. That's how we're meant to live is in a community. And I say this, and people,
01:56:56.880I think, especially if they don't have that community, maybe off put when I talk about how
01:57:03.840Alcintree is meant to be practiced as a community and not as an individual, but it is. And I think
01:57:10.060it's easy when we don't have that to grumble and I'm just as good as everybody else as a solo
01:57:14.620practitioner. But yeah, it's not, that's not as good as everything else. It's better than nothing.
01:57:20.880it's great if that's all you can do but this is meant to be celebrated with our community
01:57:28.960and with our afa family and the more you can do that the better i've seen a couple of things over
01:57:34.720in the chat and i hope that you're getting all these questions got faith in you but i'm not
01:57:38.880seeing them over on the side where i see them every every time we do these so it's a little
01:57:42.800bit different for me um i've got 17 on the queue right now good so monk i'm reading the things that
01:57:52.000you post over there and i want you to know that i see you and i appreciate you and it means a lot
01:58:00.320that you're saying what you're saying and i just want you to know that i know um and i'll call out
01:58:07.760uh robert over here he said when he built when we build the old folks home he'll be there
01:58:12.800I mean, that's, to be fair, that is part of the goal.
01:58:17.460That's okay. So, and I get ahead of myself on some things and I don't want to be the guy that
01:58:25.540promises and doesn't deliver. So I tend to not mention things until they're in the works. And
01:58:32.120this is still a long ways off. Honestly, if I had several million dollars, I would get to this right
01:58:38.720now, but it don't. So I'm going to have to work with the timetable that we have. But that's part
01:58:45.920of the big vision of Sigurheim is eventually we're going to have either some either cabins,
01:58:55.640cottages, or dormitory area set up to where we can house our elders or people who have illness
01:59:05.960and, you know, cripples, various things, so that they can be with our AFA family. I've seen,1.00
01:59:15.640and every one of these things has a face, and that face may not be the person that's actually
01:59:20.460going to take me up on it, but especially in that first generation of Alcitru, we have a lot of
01:59:27.720of older people that haven't lived um a very conventional 20th century 21st century life when
01:59:36.600it comes to you know planning for retirement and things like that we've got people whose values0.98
01:59:45.960and religious things separate are very different from their families and cause a lot of problems
01:59:52.680we have a number of elders that find themselves too old or too you know old and broke down to work
02:00:03.300in their golden years but who don't have stuff saved up who don't have who are economically
02:00:11.180struggling now we're not in a position where we can make everything perfect for them but we can
02:00:18.940help them have a place to stay with their AFA family. And, you know, they can raid the kitchen0.99
02:00:25.900at the hall we're going to build and we can eat together and celebrate together. And they can be
02:00:30.680in a community of people who love them and that they can be part of worshiping our gods there.
02:00:36.400Other than having to be somewhere where they can't. Now, stuff where you need a medical staff
02:00:41.020or whatever else, we don't have that, obviously. But if the thing is, you just can't get around,
02:00:46.040you need somebody to drive you around, somebody to check in on you, and somebody to make sure
02:00:49.480you're taken care of, we can do some of that. Same with people that have various
02:00:53.980things where they can't, you know, can't drive on their own, can't live completely on their own.
02:01:02.520We want them to be able to have their faith, have their AFA family around them, have access to what
02:01:09.200we do, and be part of our community. And we can have that, and we'll have that at Sigrun.
02:01:14.260And that's a big part of why we're doing it.
02:01:42.260Sarah's right. This is a real thing that we find ourselves having to answer questions on, is the nice way to put it.
02:01:51.660Defend ourself, I think, is another accurate way to put it.
02:01:56.840Who would have thunk that you had to defend yourself for wanting to look nice?
02:02:04.300Just break that down in your head for a second.
02:02:06.520man you guys look too nice dressing up all nice and stuff for your worship services
02:02:14.060what are people thinking what why has the self-esteem of our folk gotten so low
02:02:23.700that we're going to be mad at other people for trying to look their best
02:02:28.900when presenting themselves before our gods
02:02:31.520We don't turn people away or shun people or look down our nose at them if they show up in, you know, whatever they feel comfortable in.
02:02:48.620We do if you're wearing something that's intentionally offensive, that has, you know, curse words and just, you know, obnoxious, vulgar slogans on it or something.
02:03:01.520But nobody gives anybody a hard time if they don't come wearing a shirt and tie.
02:03:07.740But we do encourage people to present their very best selves before our gods and our ancestors.
02:03:15.500If you would wear a certain, you know, level of dress for a wedding that you went to because it's your sister's wedding.
02:03:24.580why shouldn't you dress up to approach the gods of our race if you would dress up to go to a court
02:03:35.360appearance why wouldn't you dress up to stand before the all father if you would dress up for
02:03:44.040any special occasion in your life why wouldn't you put your best forward and treat it as just
02:03:50.560is special when you go to the to the half of one of our gods and stand before their altar in their
02:03:58.400temple and worship them why would you not present your very best self and i don't think it requires
02:04:06.960any more than that i'm not into criticizing people if they they don't dress as nice as i might at
02:04:15.200some occasions but i am into celebrating people who do and it's so backward in
02:04:25.600a sad statement of where we are as a folk and on our soul sickness
02:04:29.600that we have people that would criticize us for trying to dress our best for our gods
02:04:37.440and that is uh one of the important things i know you said
02:04:41.760um if you dress up or at least night uh you know clean up a little bit to go see your grandma do
02:04:47.760it for your guys all righty so next up uh mr don ricardo asks thoughts on the alien info leaked by
02:04:59.520the af whistleblower i'm gonna start off by saying i don't know the afr i don't listen to conspiracies
02:05:06.240i don't know anything about any of this all right so i know that the air force has recently
02:05:13.040declassified and admitted to a number of ufo sightings or i what do they call them now they
02:05:20.640don't ufo is not the cool term anymore there's some other term that means ufo um
02:05:26.800Um, here's what I think. And I don't have any, you know, that's not my thing. But
02:05:35.680when the government covers things up and tells you this is not true, don't look over here.
02:05:44.760it leaves it wide open for speculation our people our mind is built to make order out of chaos
02:05:57.780to take chaotic information and to put it into order and catalog catalog it make sense make
02:06:06.540connections find patterns. When we ask the folk that are it's their job to tell us things
02:06:14.740or to keep us informed. And they lied to us and tell us things that are obviously not
02:06:21.300true. Then our only recourse is to well, then what is true. And we come up with wildly
02:06:28.320different ideas on that. And it's really unfortunate. I wish that we had more transparency
02:06:37.000and more openness on some of these things. And then we would all have a much better
02:06:42.900basis to make decisions on. But again, when you get, you know, when the government and the media
02:06:50.780tell you something that you know is not true, then it leaves you scrambling and flailing for
02:06:57.300things that might be true and that's the unfortunate part about that
02:07:04.660um one thing i can think of is the fact that we had questions for like three weeks in a
02:07:09.300row about have you seen the bigfoot people that's the only thing i think of when i think of conspiracies
02:07:16.020so all right the wolf throne for us solo asatru practitioners what are some blots that can be
02:07:27.140done without the guide of a gothi any ideas for offerings to wilton thor balder etc all right so
02:07:35.780here's the thing don't overthink that your best bloats go to where there's a gothi or a githy and
02:07:44.980be part of the group because it's a big deal if you can't or even if you can and you want to do
02:07:50.660things on your own privately don't overthink like i said earlier our gods this isn't house true
02:07:59.940isn't a science project it's not like you have to have the right secret code and do the macarena
02:08:09.220in front of your altar and get all the movements right and somehow you unlock this communication
02:08:13.940with the gods it's about relationships our gods are at the very least the very best of people
02:08:23.460and they're much much more than that they see into your heart
02:08:29.780go before your altar make an offering an idea is pour them a shot of something
02:08:42.960and speak from your heart words of love and worship or just openness saying here i am
02:08:54.300i'm i'm coming before you in respect and i'm listening it can be as simple as that if you're
02:09:01.900just starting out. Come before your altar, speak to your gods from your heart and give them some
02:09:10.700kind of token of appreciation. It's really that simple. As an example, when I first started out
02:09:20.680and didn't know exactly what to do, I remember very seriously I made an offering to Freya
02:09:31.380because she had cats that pulled her chariot, and because Freya liked gold, because she cries
02:09:38.900tears of gold. I got a shot of Goldschlager and a can of Fancy Feast with the shrimp in it.
02:09:49.860And that was my offering. And I just said, hey, here I am. I'm listening. I want to have a
02:09:57.560relationship with you. I want to know more. And I sat there and I meditated in front of my altar
02:10:03.640and I made an offering. And I felt like it was well received. I felt like Freya listened.
02:10:11.000And it was really special to me. And it was that cheesy and simple and whatever, but
02:10:16.160it was from the heart. It was meaningful. And I think it was really good. It can literally be
02:10:21.780that simple so please don't overthink it it's not the best bloat you've created in your head
02:10:29.860is worthless if it doesn't actually happen going with something simple and something from your
02:10:37.220heart and doing that tonight when you're done listening to this program and i'm not more
02:10:42.980important from the gods cut the program off now if you're going to go in front of your altar please
02:10:47.220but just doing that is the biggest thing the biggest distance is from your couch to your feet
02:10:55.820that's the biggest distance everything from there is easy getting breaking that initial resistance
02:11:01.240and doing something that's what counts
02:11:04.620all right so the princess travis botish over in uh colorado said he's sorry he's late to the show
02:11:18.540not sure if this was asked and kind of sort of not holy how is sigerheim nick
02:11:24.220um sigerheim's okay sigerheim's doing good sigerheim will be doing better as we advance
02:11:32.940It's one of those things, it's a slow process, and it's going to get built, and it's going to get easier as it goes, and right now the big step is getting the utilities all squared away and making sure everything's good to go from there, but I think once that initial step is done, and we have all those steps in place, and we know exactly how the process goes, it's going to smooth out.
02:15:01.280And he was clearly blessed by Odin with the Armin and runes
02:15:07.600and the understanding of those rune spells.
02:15:10.120um they had much less complete source material than we do now they were coming from a time where
02:15:24.760ceremonial magic and things were much more well known in elite circles but actual
02:15:33.820So scholarly studies of our runes were very small. And they had to, you know, do the best they can with what they had. I think that, you know, in the past hundred and, you know, hundred and fifty years, we have advanced quite a bit in our understanding of the runes.
02:15:55.560i would hope that 150 years from now they've advanced much further beyond what we have
02:16:04.040um i think it's very easy to look back at a time previous and point out all the things that
02:16:13.140you know hindsight's always 2020 all the things that we know that sound kind of hokey or we would
02:16:19.180have done different but would we be here doing that at all if those people hadn't laid the
02:16:24.760foundations for us. And so I respect those early runologists tremendously. I don't take all of
02:16:34.080their stuff as gospel truth because I think we have some different resources and different
02:16:38.960better understanding now. But as far as people, I revere them. Meister von List and
02:16:57.940Yeah, their stuff was, some of it was kind of strange.
02:17:02.460And I don't think all of it stands the test of time, but some of it absolutely does.
02:17:06.780And they reawoken that and opened up our folk soul to the reemergence of our gods amongst our folk. And that's huge. And we're indebted to them and always will be for that.
02:17:24.440absolutely and with others it gets broad but it gets a little too broad
02:17:35.040to uh probably go into everybody who's ever talked or wrote about the rooms
02:17:39.460give us some specifics and if you had anybody else in mind from another time period absolutely
02:17:46.420all right um miss sarah again i think she's on question number five or six tonight i do
02:17:54.180appreciate it keeping me busy just remember i have to sleep at some point i am not svon
02:17:59.240we're only two hours and 15 in it's one one third of our our epic one one that's 10 15 my bedtime's
02:18:09.880at 11 i don't ever make it on a wednesday night because of y'all but it's okay you're welcome
02:18:16.700uh king of theatric story happened a long time ago and it is hard to remember that he is a human
02:18:23.160rather than a story in a book like a lot of our heroes um why is it important to remember his name
02:18:30.920and story i'm gonna fix the stress on that real quick and uh the story in a book like a lot of
02:18:38.860our heroes makes me think that's not that's not what she means he's they're all human they all lived
02:27:14.760um it's just like we hear all the time when somebody when somebody stands up and calls a
02:27:20.980spade a spade and says hey this is right and this is wrong well who are you to say what's right and
02:27:26.700wrong and people throw up their hands honestly who are you to say what's right and wrong the one who
02:27:34.380had the courage to stand up and do it we see that with a lot of leaders what makes a leader worthy
02:27:40.180to rule. Certainly our ancestors felt that it was important that a leader be from a noble bloodline,
02:27:49.380but it wasn't the only thing that mattered. And you could find people that established their own
02:27:54.920noble bloodline by taking that lead themselves. It's a combination of people who had the courage,
02:28:02.780the strength of self, and the blessing of the gods to be victorious. That's one of the reasons that
02:28:09.700victory was made our tenth noble virtue. Victory meant so much to our ancestors because it implied
02:28:17.060a blessing from the gods. Somebody who is capable of standing up, of achieving, of leading, and being
02:28:25.620followed, that's one of the prime ways to determine somebody who's worthy of leading and being a king.
02:28:33.980but that was done and it was very often seen by acts of valor and acts of being out there and
02:28:44.840doing it wasn't just handed off to our ancestors it was a responsibility passed on to be the first
02:28:55.480and the best of all things and this is something that's important within the AFA we encourage
02:29:01.620people to be ambitious. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious. But be worthy of it. If you want
02:29:09.400to lead, that's great. That's noble and I respect it. Be worthy of it. And to our ancestors, yeah,
02:29:18.520there was huge responsibility. So many people don't want to actually be the king. The king has
02:29:26.700to carry a huge burden, but somebody who shows the desire, the commitment, and the ability to
02:29:34.160be successful and a successful leader of men, that means a lot of things. You know, who's to
02:29:40.360determine what's, you know, how do we determine what's hard rule versus what's unjust tyranny?
02:29:46.960um you don't there's overlap what ideally a king or a ruler does is consult the gods
02:30:01.000consult people that he trusts and endeavor to always check back in with those things
02:30:09.780to make sure that they're doing the right thing one of the biggest things is not
02:30:16.960And I would say this, I think one of the things that's most important to a leader that wants to be a just ruler as opposed to a tyrant is to have people around him that will tell him the truth.0.94
02:30:36.940It's awesome to have people just kiss your butt and praise you and talk about how great you are.0.97
02:30:42.560No, seriously, that's amazing. But it's so much more valuable to have people that will tell you when you're doing something wrong, give you a heads up, give you a perspective, give you intelligence of what other people see and think and feel so you can make informed decisions.0.87
02:31:04.940And I mean, I think that's the delicate balance. The question itself is hard. There's no clear answer on what the perfect list of 10 things you got to check the boxes are on who's worthy of kingship.
02:31:23.980And you check these other boxes on what equals just but strict rule and what equals tyranny.
02:55:41.260I mean, that's what you get when you ask a vague question.
02:55:47.140rod again asks again question on the subject of governments using aliens as distractions
02:55:56.500to be clear oh well this isn't a question oh no it is uh aliens have uh to be clear aliens have
02:56:04.340never visited earth but somewhere in the vast cosmos you know life certainly exists do you think
02:56:10.740that our cosmic struggle between beauty and ugliness friendliness and sadism honor and
02:56:17.300corruption is also experienced across the universe so this is a really
02:56:26.740i think it's a fun question to try to ponder and answer because it
02:56:32.820takes you out of the paradigms that you usually are confined to um
02:56:40.740As I've said earlier on these, all of these broadcasts, our way of relating to other people, to other entities, to the world, to animals, to just anything is by empathy based on ourselves and our understanding of ourselves.
02:57:03.000i can't conceive of a situation to where the same um eternal struggles between
02:57:18.120good things and bad things aren't experienced by them but again i don't know i have no context
02:57:28.280and that's what i think is so fascinating about aliens
02:57:33.000So their context would be completely different from ours. I have no idea what that would look like. And their starting point, I have no points to relate with them on other than to assume they're just like us and try to go from there.
02:57:53.500But I don't think it works like that. So that's what's truly fascinating. I have to think that the concept of order versus chaos is universal, that darkness versus light, you know, honorable behavior versus dishonorable behavior, beauty versus ugliness.
02:58:16.260though those standards may be different depending on context I have to think that those themes
02:58:23.060are universal but that's me coming from you know my prejudices and my you know the context that
02:58:33.800I've experienced the 41 almost 42 years of my life in so I think it's a fascinating question
02:58:41.720what do you think nick um the main thing that makes me think of is our declaration of purpose
02:58:50.200um i i know back in the day when we had uh some of the prior rune stones and all that we had some
02:59:00.760different fun things in the afa we had guilds and one of the guilds was like a space guild
02:59:07.720and uh our founder mcnellan he's got a bit of a fascination with uh outer space and the universe
02:59:14.760and stuff number eight on our declaration of purpose is literally the exploration of the
02:59:19.280universe in keeping with the faustine instinct of our kind so if we can't answer those questions
02:59:24.840um hopefully one day we can and it's simple in that
02:59:29.360our i mean our people you and you could say the vikings went exploring and raiding and all of
02:59:37.260that. But it's not just that. Our people all the way back from the Pontic Steps, they traveled all
02:59:45.760over. They literally domesticated horses and invented the wheel and the chariot so that they
02:59:53.660could move. They carried their peoples into Europe. And from there, the British and the
03:00:04.240portuguese and the spanish and the french colonize the rest of the world our people0.99
03:00:10.720cannot sit still so at some point one day we're going to end up in the stars
03:00:17.900looking to see what else is out there and
03:00:20.800it'll be fun but the the big questions
03:00:27.980it's interesting um but i definitely believe it's all contextual i think because everybody's
03:00:38.200got a different experience in life and there's something to say about
03:00:43.260i don't if unless there's some carbon-based life form that originated on a planet very
03:00:52.020much like ours they may not be so their experience their outlook their thought process culture all of
03:01:02.640that is going to be wholly different so I see something over on the side another question
03:01:09.340about the whole can the AFA write us religious exemptions for having beards absolutely not
03:01:16.460The AFA has no position on beards or not beards.
03:01:37.460There is absolutely not now, not ever been some kind of religious requirement for Alcetru that you need to have a beard.
03:01:47.340Please don't use our faith as a reason for you to be different or special or not have to follow the standards at your place of business that other people do.
03:01:59.780Um, one of the reasons that we don't do that is so when we do face an actual issue that is
03:02:08.520also true related, that our integrity is intact when we want to take a stand against it and we
03:02:15.640want to provide an exemption. You're not wanting to shave your beard is not something that you need
03:02:23.480to bring our holy gods and our church into. If you don't want to shave your beard, get a different
03:02:29.180job. But that's not a relevant issue to our faith. It's a fashion choice. At various times
03:02:39.520throughout our history, there's been fashions for mustaches and no beards, beards and no
03:02:44.760mustaches, big beards, full beards, no beards, all of those things, because fashions change
03:02:52.860over time but it's really important to me as the person who safeguards the reputation of the afa
03:03:02.300that we don't use our position as a recognized 501c3 as a church to make exemptions on things
03:03:13.340that are frivolous we save that up so that we can use it when there are real issues that affect our
03:03:19.660faith and i'll say um it's important to remember that even if the stereotype of our norse viking
03:03:30.220germanic ancestors had beards this is 2023 not 1070 um we this is modern we are modern people
03:03:41.900we don't necessarily have to have a beard now it's it undoubtedly probably looks cooler
03:03:48.140and stuff but it's not it's not important
03:03:54.300the wolf throne asks in a two-parter can you explain your reasoning as to why ositru
03:04:03.740is pan-arian religion as opposed to only being for northern european tectonic peoples
03:04:11.360Also, if Asatru is Pan-Aryan, wouldn't that make Hellenism, Celtic and Slavic, Paganism Pan-Aryan as well?
03:04:21.720So, this isn't a theory, it's a fact.0.62
03:04:38.200Um, I don't think that those are illegitimate faith structures, but also true is the most recent, the most complete, and the best access we have to Aryan religiosity.0.77
03:04:55.200The source material and things that we have for authentic Hellenism before it became a joke and a literary device to make ridiculous are very few.
03:05:10.080The sources that we have for Celtic belief are relatively few in the authentic period that it was practiced.
03:05:21.400We have the best opportunity to put into frame, into names and context, Aryan spirituality as expressed by Norse practitioners.
03:05:37.680That's the best thing that we have, and it's the only thing that we have that is moving forward and being successful today.
03:05:45.740by virtue of, as we talked about earlier, it's what's winning. We invite people to get on the
03:05:53.540team. It is born of the same Aryan spirituality as the other things you mentioned, yet it is the
03:06:02.280one that has been shown favor by the divine. It is the one that has caused success and victory,
03:06:08.600So it's the one that we are attaching to and moving forward with.
03:06:14.020But this is all Aryan religion from Aryan gods that go back to the very beginning of our folk.
03:06:24.600Certainly. All right. The hardest question of the day.0.93
03:18:47.280So often today when we use the term boasting or hear the term boasting, it's an idea of people with inflated things.
03:18:55.580No, the idea of honestly taking credit where credit is due.
03:19:02.920also means being honest where credit is not due um
03:19:11.400this is the idea about boasting all the time is a modern
03:19:17.160bastardization of what our ancestors did
03:19:22.600so you would again you want to advertise if nobody you know who's going to be for you if not you
03:19:29.800you. You need to advocate for yourself, but fairly. And knowing your place was such a huge thing.
03:19:39.220We talk in Austertru, you know, there was a meme that went around a couple of years ago,
03:19:43.980and I guess still goes around about how equality is a false God. There is no equality in this world.
03:19:51.260No man is equal to any other man. No woman is equal to any other woman. No man and women are, none of them are equal. We are all individuals with our own very complex web of strengths and weaknesses. There's no such thing as equality.1.00
03:20:13.180so when we're in a new situation figuring out that pecking order is important but also realizing
03:20:21.860you may very well not be at the top of that pecking order so your question wasn't about
03:20:28.480boasting but it was about humility knowing your place recognizing your betters and falling in
03:20:38.240line where you are. Have an ambition to become more than that. So when it's time to re-evaluate,
03:20:45.800maybe you move up a few rungs. Maybe you fall down a few rungs. But an honest assessment of
03:20:53.000who you are and where you're at compared to your neighbor, one way or another, is extremely valuable.
03:20:59.800The idea isn't that arrogance is an out-of-truth thing and humility is a Christian thing.
03:21:11.940Honest self-reflection is an also true thing.
03:21:16.300And yes, at times, certainly our ancestors, you know, drank the mead and got puffed up and talked about how great and how amazing they are.
03:21:26.000If to the degree that that's accurate and fair, good on them, we should all stand up and celebrate.
03:21:33.400When it's not true, we should, you know, throw a flag on the play and be honest about that, too.
03:21:39.660I think one of the values that you'll see in Tacitus and the other writings about our ancestors, our most ancient ancestors,
03:21:49.080you would also have people who would challenge these things.
03:21:52.320When people stepped up and boasted about stuff, you'd have people who'd call BS and say, hey, now, that's not true.
03:21:59.260Hey, now, I was there for that battle. I saw you and that's not what happened. So I think the question is much more of realism and honesty than the false self-deprecating humility that modern society has embraced and that Christianity institutionalizes.
03:22:19.820Because this is something that I, you know, I was talking to my Christian friend that I had in high school.
03:22:27.820One of the biggest things that was a factor between me separating from Christianity and then coming home to Alcetru was that idea about humility.
03:22:40.500And the idea that in Christianity they conceive of their God as a father.
03:22:45.440every time you accomplish anything great in christianity it's not you it's god that did that0.65
03:22:55.160all credit to god you are lowly you are a sinner you're imperfect you're0.68
03:23:00.480all this litany about how terrible you are but how great god is and every time you've ever had a
03:23:06.020success. If you were a father and your son were to win a spelling bee and you were to go up there
03:23:15.880and kick him out of the way for the acceptance speech and say, yes, that's because I taught him
03:23:21.080how to read and I taught him how to spell and yay, I'm better than him. How horrible and petty
03:23:26.840would that be? It's absurd on the face of it. And I'm not trying to be silly. I'm dead serious
03:23:32.640Because this was my thought process. What kind of terrible parent would want to take credit for the great things their kids did, rather than celebrate how great their kids are for doing those things?
03:23:44.540that's something that i love about aussitrew is you're celebrating heroes for being heroic
03:23:51.540our gods want people of worth to be their people and to serve them not
03:23:59.840lame people that are terrible that are saved by the grace of our gods decided to be nice to a
03:24:14.520with victory. And I think I and I hope that gets to your0.75
03:24:17.940question. I know it's kind of roundabout.
03:24:23.640Real Madrid fan. How much does it cost to be an AFA member?
03:24:31.140So that's a complicated question. Honestly, what we've
03:24:35.280tried very hard to get folks to do is to donate to this like
03:24:40.800would other faiths and have percentage-based giving.
03:31:38.420But my plan for Tennessee in the next five years, well, we've already got a foundation of great people out here.
03:31:45.100uh folk builder russell uh brown over uh just north of tennessee uh nashville
03:31:51.100oh and then um got a solid group in western uh tennessee uh or eastern tennessee rather
03:32:00.600apprentice tyler bethe and some members out of out there have been holding some awesome things
03:32:06.760but i'm kind of alone in central tennessee we've got one member um well we've got one member besides
03:32:16.280the two others that have recently moved here with along with me so we've got four now so it's pretty
03:32:23.480awesome and you know think about that two months ago we had one now we got four yeah we're growing
03:32:30.760pretty quick cigarette's gonna bring big things i am holding um yes next month is cigarette at
03:32:39.080cigarette heim but um before that and after that every single month we're having something at
03:32:46.520sigerheim so if you're in the area come on out we will be making sure that our 70 acres are put to
03:32:56.120work uh we have midsummer coming up and then cigarette blocks and then following that the
03:33:03.400awesome one i really wish they could have made it out for for cigarette but uh get the uh
03:33:10.200sheila mcnalen and founder steve mcnalen will be out in at fray faxie to see sigurheim
03:33:16.680they're already going to be in the area and they're coming by so um and we're going to just
03:33:22.520keep going um sigurheim is going to grow it's gonna it may be slow um getting the land ready
03:33:31.000and getting people on it but it's going to compound it's going to be it's going to be
03:33:35.240exponential um it just takes those first couple people getting there working out the kinks
03:33:42.040and uh once we get talk to mandy get mandy out here and then we're gonna get matt yeah we'll be1.00
03:33:49.640good yeah everybody harass my wife i'm sure she will appreciate that when she wakes up to emails0.91
03:33:57.000absolutely um if i were a 20-something single guy i'd be out there right now0.93
03:34:03.800my wife and i and aubrey are absolutely going to move out there
03:34:07.880um we're coordinating our move with uh gothe young and his wife and uh one of his daughters
03:34:13.880and we're going to get that all figured out but we're absolutely going to do it there's not
03:34:20.500there's very seldom an hour in the day that goes by that i'm not dreaming and planning and making
03:34:27.200that in my head trying to make that happen so that's absolutely happening it's a thing i'm so
03:34:34.140excited for seagr bloat. Sorry guys, I'm sleepy. And I drank two of these Jamaican Me Happy Seagram's
03:34:45.420Spiked Escapes. So realistically, we're very committed to this. I don't know if you guys
03:34:54.440have heard before, but there is a old graveyard on the property that actually has a revolutionary
03:35:00.620a war veteran there. One of the things that I'm doing at Sigur Bloat is bringing my mother's
03:35:07.840ashes. I've already got a tombstone that's at Folk Builder Russell Brown's garage.
03:35:15.980We'll move that over and I'm going to enter the ashes of my mother there because
03:35:19.900that's where we're going to go and live and build this future for ourselves.
03:35:24.160The question was asked what the plan is there in relation to all the degeneracy and mess we see around us.
03:35:33.960And it's the idea is to build the future we want, regardless of what's around us, in a way that's sustainable.
03:35:49.240So if the world gets a whole lot better, awesome.
03:35:55.220We'd love to be a part of it, and we would love to help things be better.
03:36:00.920If it gets worse, then we'll be there together to share resources, to help each other, and to be family for each other through whatever happens.
03:36:13.200So we'll be best positioned if everything works out great. Awesome. We'll be in a great spot to maximize that. And if everything goes down the tubes, we will be in the best spot to share, to take care of one another and to look out for the world that we want and to have that within our within our community.
03:36:37.160So we are building our outpost of the golden age within the Kali Yuga.
03:36:45.120And if it catches on around us, great.
03:36:48.220And if we're just sharing it together, also great.
03:37:55.600all righty i ask and i shall receive there's a bunch more questions in the chat
03:38:02.040look what you did three and a half hours in i know and we're half an hour past my bedtime i love it
03:38:09.840yeah you have no time on wednesday oh i know trust me i stay up just as late as y'all victory
03:38:16.520never sleeps oh the wolf throne asks does the afa accept people who have led degenerate lifestyles
03:38:26.740in the past but are making a serious effort to turn their lives around not necessarily people0.52
03:38:33.340with criminal background but people who have who generally led ignoble lives so the devil is in
03:38:40.880the details. It all depends on what that means. So a couple of things. It is one of the core values
03:38:50.300of the Ausatru Folk Assembly that we want everyone of our folk to have the opportunity to come home
03:38:58.460to embrace Ausatru and make their life better than it was for them, for their family, for us.
03:39:04.500But that said, our community, excuse me, is more important than any individual.
03:39:14.140The safety of our families is more important than any individual.
03:39:18.300We have a prison ministry to deal with convicts that hopefully are going to get out to support their families, to help them to transition into a better way of life.
03:39:30.020when you say degenerate i don't know what that means um for males who that degeneracy includes0.97
03:39:41.580homosexuality no we don't allow them to join the astro folk assembly we believe that in general0.92
03:39:51.060homosexual men tend to victimize children and propagate the increase in homosexuality through0.96
03:40:01.900the sexual exploitation victimization of children. I don't believe for a second that every homosexual0.98
03:40:11.500that's the case. But far too many of them it is. And it's not worth our children to sacrifice for1.00
03:40:22.860somebody who has been mentally ill in that way. If someone's degeneracy in their life has
03:40:33.660included a habitual, you know, habitual sex crimes against, you know, people who are victimized.
03:40:44.940No, we're not going to have that. If people have a consistency, a consistent history of domestic
03:40:55.960violence, we're not going to have that. We're not going to make our families unsafe for those people.
03:41:03.660other than those things though absolutely we want folks to turn their life around and we want to
03:41:09.420help them turn their life around we do run new applicants through our security team so that if
03:41:17.180they have convictions for sex crimes and domestic violence and things that we get to the bottom of
03:41:23.100those and we get that all sorted out so that we don't have dangerous elements around our children
03:41:29.900or you know things that are completely ridiculous dangerous elements around our children
03:41:36.860but yeah we want everybody to make their life better and you know you can only start today
03:41:42.620you can't go back in time you can only start with what you have and we want to help people make that
03:41:47.500better europa the last battle.net asks uh mr rice do you think we can create an afa bible
03:41:59.580belt or an afa belt out of bible belt folks should come home a lot of white folks there um
03:42:10.940we're not creating an afa belt it's not gonna happen you know why because we're gonna create0.92
03:42:16.060an afa suit and tie put some nice shiny shoes on it and uh put a put a flat cap on top um
03:42:26.540And, you know, one day there is going to be a Hoff on every street corner, just like Waffle House and McDonald's.
03:49:48.780Ah, still there. Yep, we're at 981 right now. And one of the reasons for that, again, I, we could come on here and it all be roses and tell you whatever we wanted you guys to hear, but we don't do that.
03:50:09.220we're committed to being honest and anything that we tell you is going to be absolutely honest one
03:50:15.140of the things is we have folks that are really fired up and they join and then
03:50:23.540they drift away because they don't know what to do they will be somewhere that's at a distance
03:50:29.300and they won't engage when you join your folk builders and everybody reaches out we want to
03:50:36.020to bring you in it's about community and you've got to be willing to be part of that and see what
03:50:41.860happens and sometimes that means going outside your comfort zone but yeah we try to keep a very
03:50:47.700accurate count and an accurate database so hopefully we got more folks that apply tonight
03:50:54.260because they listen to this program if you're on here and you're listening to us and you should be
03:51:00.820with us but you're debating it and thinking about it get on board join us get off the fence be part
03:51:09.060of what we're doing we would love to have you um yeah anybody on here who should be with us
03:51:17.220let's make that happen today anybody on here who knows people that should be with us get them to
03:51:22.740join or at least get them to listen to to this uh podcast or live stream whichever ways you're
03:51:29.220consuming it and let's see what we can do we're making great things happen together and we'd love
03:51:35.060you guys to be part of it absolutely that's what we got in the chat sir all right well nick thank
03:51:43.220you so much for that presentation like i said that is the the best most detailed presentation
03:51:49.060we have had so far on one of our heroes i think you did a good job to honor a thaneric today
03:51:55.380thank you for that also thank you so much for all of the work you put in making this program look
03:52:04.180like a million bucks you do an amazing job and i don't think people realize just how much you add
03:52:10.100to this broadcast so thank you so much i appreciate it sir thank you all right well you have a great
03:52:16.100night everybody else i hope you guys have an awesome night too if you can make it out to
03:52:20.740midsummer at odenshoff in brownsville california week and a half from today please do i would love
03:52:26.420to see you guys there till then hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa and remember that victory