Asatru Folk Assembly - 7⧸20⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 2

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:04:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:04:30.000 Thank you.

00:05:00.000 Thank you.

00:05:30.000 Thank you.

00:06:00.000 joining us this evening um trying a few different things with the opening to give folks time to

00:06:14.880 get in and and know that we're on i appreciate everybody that's in the chat room so far

00:06:22.240 um so tonight my my guest is a very good friend of mine and an afa leader that gets far too little

00:06:33.260 spotlight for the significance of his impact uh we got whitney clifford erickson with with us

00:06:39.020 welcome cliff hey thank you for having me i'll share with you matt and hello everyone watching

00:06:44.480 well you know going through what folks we needed to immediately get on here with me

00:06:55.040 you know you're right there at the top of the list you really you've really had such a significant

00:07:00.860 role certainly in my time as I was here you go for you I don't know you want to give folks a

00:07:06.180 little bit of background on how you got involved in the AFA and kind of what you've done at least

00:07:11.600 uh since since i've taken things over yeah absolutely that can that can either be a long

00:07:16.800 story or a short story i'll i'll go with a middling story um but i think like a lot of us i was raised

00:07:23.600 christian and fell away from that i spent some time as an atheist where you know the world

00:07:30.000 revolved around me and i thought i knew everything those things turned out not to be true um and as

00:07:36.640 i was trying to find something more meaningful um i was fortunate enough after searching around

00:07:45.120 to find the the australian folk assembly um i was skeptical at first not in the community aspect of

00:07:55.120 it but more in you know did did i believe in the supernatural you know i still had a lot of that

00:08:01.200 christian baggage and um this baggage honestly um you know if you couldn't prove something in a

00:08:08.240 laboratory um or at least by writing a really wordy theoretical paper about it then it must

00:08:15.360 not be true right um and of course that's not the way the world is um and i was i was fortunate

00:08:22.240 enough to have met um the the folk builder patricia who was the folk builder for the afa

00:08:28.480 in Pennsylvania at the time, and she was kind enough to allow me to hang around long enough

00:08:36.400 to become comfortable with the idea of religion again and with the idea that I'm part of something

00:08:46.600 bigger than myself and that I'm part of something really important. I hung around the AFA for

00:08:54.740 probably about a year before i actually joined the afa um which i you know is something that i'm i'm

00:09:00.580 really grateful i was allowed to do uh after i joined i was a i guess a regular member for

00:09:09.140 for a few years i remember coming to all kinds of different events and i was the nerd with the

00:09:14.500 backpack and the notebook going to all the different lectures and trying to learn as much as i could

00:09:20.420 um and uh fast forward a few years um i was i was asked to be a folk builder by patricia again

00:09:29.480 and at first i said no i didn't really like having to follow instructions or um you know i i wasn't

00:09:37.860 ready to be part of a team i guess um i was out there you know hosting some meetups and and trying

00:09:43.860 to promote our religion um but i was still doing it the cliff way just the cliff way because i

00:09:53.140 again i was coming from a history of having known everything in the world and that's something

00:09:58.340 that's tough to get over um anyway i i eventually realized that being part of a team of people

00:10:07.060 people that have got your back and that have the same fundamental ethics as you and that are never

00:10:15.700 going to quit you know no matter how many victories you have and no matter how many defeats you have

00:10:21.120 because it's a long long fight that we're in it's a long game that we're in however you want to

00:10:28.320 phrase that um and uh so i i became a folk builder which just made everything that i'd been trying to

00:10:36.240 do a lot easier. Suddenly, I had the resources of the Ashtore Folk Assembly behind me, and

00:10:42.480 I was able to get word out about things that I was hosting to a much wider audience, and

00:10:50.420 things picked up from there. And I've been involved in the AFA ever since. It's how I

00:11:01.060 met my wife. It's the reason I have a family. I'm definitely a lifer, and I'm really proud to

00:11:10.020 be able to help bring new people in and to help make this something that lasts forever.

00:11:18.760 And hopefully the rain's not too loud. Of course, it is raining here with my garage roof over me.

00:11:25.360 Well, you know, real quick, we've got a couple of questions coming up on the side. First,

00:11:29.460 people are commenting they enjoy your beard cliff oh thank you me too so uh reuben asks wait was that

00:11:38.100 the warrior ost i'm not sure what the ost is i know that theme music was a tune called legionnaire

00:11:45.620 um alister asks is there any plans to update the website we have the perfect guest to answer that

00:11:51.060 question for you cliff take it away sure well i mean we're we're constantly updating the website

00:11:56.580 and we have websites for the hoffs um if you mean a total redesign just because then no um

00:12:06.340 you know it does its job right now and you know we're always open to suggestions feel free to

00:12:12.980 to email us if there's certain things you'd like to see um but uh it it gets our message

00:12:19.220 out and stability is really important and continuity is really important but we're

00:12:23.460 open to ideas but not just for the fun of it all right well so also a quick a cliff question cliff

00:12:31.220 are you from pa yes yes i am born and raised he has transversed the state now though it's true

00:12:40.740 it's true yeah i was in southeast pennsylvania pennsylvania now i'm way up in uh in northwest

00:12:45.700 pennsylvania by lake erie so you told folks a little bit about how you got involved in the afa

00:12:51.620 And, you know, even from those early, you know, backpack nerd days or whatever, Pat always had her eye on you and said you were going to do big things.

00:13:00.260 And she, you know, she was spooky that way, but she was absolutely correct.

00:13:03.400 yeah uh patricia was really influential in i think the way that um i developed as an ossature

00:13:13.040 and in uh you know keeping the pressure on for me to get involved in the afa in a larger capacity

00:13:20.920 than i was willing to at the time i'm glad she saw some potential in me to to do those kind of

00:13:27.720 things um she she's one of the reasons that i i started to develop a more spiritual approach to

00:13:34.740 asatru it may sound strange because it's a religion so why would i have to develop a

00:13:38.280 spiritual approach to it but um you know i'm a lot more comfortable in not that i'm good at

00:13:45.980 these things but where i get excited and what i'm comfortable with is you know history and

00:13:51.700 archaeology genealogy and ancestry um which are close to being the same thing but not always

00:13:58.660 exactly um linguistics things of that nature uh you know studying all the stuff you can find in

00:14:06.420 the book but that isn't actually asitru it's um all the stuff that can support our knowledge about

00:14:13.060 asitru it can it informs what we do it's really important um it's part of our history and our

00:14:18.580 culture um but it's not actually worshiping the gods it's not the gift exchange that we always

00:14:26.900 talk about it's not developing a relationship with my own ancestors that have passed on

00:14:33.540 uh so patricia got me and others but patricia was was closest to me so i had the most experience

00:14:40.740 with her and uh as far as why why also true matters not just to me but why me being an

00:14:51.380 ossature matters to my deceased ancestors now not just when they were alive why it matters to

00:14:58.740 you know our our descendants that are going to follow us in the next and the 100th generation

00:15:06.180 from now and how we're our folk as a collect as a whole and each one of us individually are

00:15:17.380 proof of the gods in and of itself that we as a noble people and as a people that can understand

00:15:28.320 And, you know, in the limited way that we as humans can understand the gods, our confirmation that they exist.

00:15:37.660 And that's the sort of stuff that you can't write a thesis about and prove that that sort of circular thinking is real.

00:15:44.200 But she made a big impression on me.

00:15:48.500 Well, you know, I'm glad.

00:15:50.000 And I'm glad you brought that up.

00:15:51.480 So many people, when they're just getting involved in this, don't get it.

00:15:56.120 And it's I mean, it's even hard to explain on here, but until you experience something spiritual, it's very easy to think that that preliminary, you know, study, if you will, is is the be all end all until you've until you've gone to that next level.

00:16:12.600 And so it's really hard if nobody's taking a shot to participate for them to to get that feeling or to really understand the meat and the meat and taters of what we're saying here.

00:16:24.020 But I encourage everybody who's listening to this to go out and don't don't just learn about it.

00:16:30.200 Absolutely learn about it. But, you know, once you've once you've done some of that, go out and be part of it and experience it.

00:16:37.440 And there's you'll see the difference because it's really profound.

00:16:41.260 You know, another another thing that a lot of people don't understand is there was a there was a whole lot of work to be done when I first became all Saria Goethe back in 2016.

00:16:54.280 And, you know, I really I needed a whole bunch of people to help me.

00:16:58.320 There was enormous shoes to fill and a lot of important stuff for us to do.

00:17:03.580 And, you know, select handful of people.

00:17:06.860 But you you you were in that handful.

00:17:08.840 um so much behind the scenes on how we constructed our messaging on the update that we did to the

00:17:16.700 declaration of purpose and the statement of ethics you were you were very significantly

00:17:21.620 involved in that certainly the the statement of ethics um tell folks a little bit about that if

00:17:26.900 you would sure um I mean I remember when you know our founder Stephen McNallan um announced that he

00:17:34.580 going to be retiring and turning the responsibility, the role, the title of Alshir Goethe over to you,

00:17:43.860 Matt. And I don't think I was alone. It was scary. There had never been modern Ossitru or an Ossitru

00:17:52.260 folk assembly without Stephen McNallan at the helm. And we really didn't know what we were going to

00:18:00.180 do there there was a moment of panic i think okay steve's retiring what are what are we going to do

00:18:06.900 and you know we knew we weren't going to quit but we really had no idea if we were going to see

00:18:13.540 you know a whole bunch of people leave because you know it you know when you know when ozzy

00:18:19.940 quit black sabbath it wasn't the same right so um we we weren't sure and so we we did our best and

00:18:28.100 And I think we did a pretty good job looking back on it now, but it wasn't a sure thing at the time.

00:18:32.400 We did our best to make sure that, like I was referring to with the website, that there was continuity and stability.

00:18:39.220 And at the same time, we were able to take the opportunity to bring new blood and to bring some new people into prominent roles and to, you know, guiding the AFA where we knew that it could go from the foundation that Stephen and others around him, Sheila especially, had built.

00:19:03.140 and um you asked me to uh to revamp the statement of ethics because we had as folk builders um

00:19:11.540 and of course you were a gothi at this point as well but when i met you i think you were still

00:19:15.900 just a folk builder just a folk builder it's an important thing but you hadn't been ordained yet

00:19:20.220 and um we we had various experiences where you know we had people that were

00:19:26.920 confused about what the Ossachou Folk Assembly stood for and about what Ossachou was even,

00:19:35.260 you know, about what our folk meant. And, you know, there were various phrases that were used

00:19:44.460 that we decided to get rid of, you know, Northern European people or Northern European descended

00:19:51.720 people I think was a very very prominent in the uh the original language that we were revamping

00:19:57.500 and you know we we made the decision to just say white because that's what we meant and you know

00:20:04.920 that was almost scary in and of itself because you say that word and you get accused of being

00:20:11.040 things and people don't know what they're talking about of course because they've never met us or

00:20:16.020 attempted to understand our religion or anything like that but we had people that were confused

00:20:21.520 you know, about what we were doing and what our intentions were and who our gods were.

00:20:30.220 And so it was really important for us to, I guess, just simplify the language, really.

00:20:37.420 You know, if you can take a three word phrase and turn it into a single word,

00:20:42.860 then you're being more direct. And that's what we tried to do.

00:20:46.240 Well, so I think it's a good time to mention this. A lot of the time folks wonder, you know,

00:20:54.580 why we use the word white. And they almost take, you know, white as fighting words. If you say

00:20:59.940 white, you must be, you know, adversarial to someone. And this may be of interest to our 0.73

00:21:06.480 international audience. I've seen a couple of people in the chat room that aren't in the United

00:21:10.400 States. Certainly here in the United States, we're all very, very used to filling out surveys

00:21:16.560 or applications or, you know, questionnaires. And they always ask your race on there. And

00:21:24.120 there's various other descriptors, but we all know what white means. And people were genuinely

00:21:30.600 confused at the time about Northern European heritage. You know, if they were one small

00:21:35.300 fragment of some northern european heritage but predominantly something else they would never

00:21:41.300 click white on their on their job application or on you know a medical form we all know what

00:21:48.260 that means and it has a value so that's the only reason we used it is to be absolutely clear it's

00:21:53.540 never been something we've wanted to do to trick anybody or to you know play those games to sound

00:22:00.020 nice and have people here under false pretenses or spending their energy with us if we weren't

00:22:08.000 really the right fit for them or really a place they wanted to be putting in their energy. So

00:22:12.700 it was more about being honest and being clear and upfront. We've got a couple of questions I

00:22:17.560 noticed over in the side. If you guys want to make sure your questions get asked, a really good thing

00:22:22.200 to use is entropy. If we could throw up the entropy link, that would be awesome to see you

00:22:26.960 guys there uh also to throw us a little bit of money if you'd like to for donations we've got a

00:22:33.540 number of projects coming up i think some of those cliff and i'll talk about here in a little bit

00:22:37.440 but over on entropy you can you can do that or do a super chat and throw some throw some money at us

00:22:43.820 to get questions answered i promise i'll answer your questions regardless but donations are always

00:22:48.720 appreciated uh reuben asks what is the biggest change inside the afa if any you two perceive

00:22:57.200 from your original days uh compared to now and do you see some kind of evolution or improvement

00:23:03.760 i'm going to go ahead and talk because i get to and then cliff gets the leftovers which is

00:23:07.920 unfortunate i think a lot of these things cliff and i would both see but i think some of them

00:23:12.720 maybe more personal than others. Certainly, what I have seen overall is a very significant movement

00:23:24.200 away from a kind of a, I don't want to diminish it, but early on there was very much a group

00:23:35.560 camp out feel a membership charitable organization feel and the afa is really involved as a religious

00:23:44.200 body as a church in our time um i've also really enjoyed seeing the increase in women and in

00:23:52.840 families cliff and i have both benefited from that we both met and met our wives and built a family

00:24:00.200 within the AFA. When we were first coming around, it was a whole lot of guys and not a lot of ladies,

00:24:08.280 certainly not a lot of kids. And now if you look at any of our group pictures, it's full of ladies

00:24:13.400 and kids. I can't think of the last time we've had a picture that didn't either have a baby in arms

00:24:19.180 or a pregnant lady prominently in the picture. So the families, that's been huge. I think overall,

00:24:26.500 there's just a big increase in maturity and piety I'd say within the AFA what do you think Cliff

00:24:33.060 yeah absolutely I mean the the demographics of our membership are a lot healthier and more balanced

00:24:41.100 there were a few times at winter nights that you know I I jotted down this is when I was really

00:24:48.180 excited about it because it had just changed I still am but it was new and you know we we had

00:24:54.780 of a good breakdown of married couples and men and women and children whereas when i first was

00:25:03.100 coming around to things in you know like 10 or 12 years ago it was almost all guys

00:25:12.940 we we've matured a lot as you mentioned there used to be there used to be a lot more drinking

00:25:20.620 There used to be a lot more kind of LARP-y kind of stuff.

00:25:23.280 There would be people wearing furs or weird hats.

00:25:27.780 That was part of this fringe religion at the time.

00:25:33.640 We hadn't grown up yet. 0.80

00:25:34.760 And I think that was a stage that was necessary in order to set it apart from Christianity. 0.97

00:25:42.480 It had to have a little bit of an edginess to it in order to initially get any traction at all. 0.94

00:25:48.320 um and yeah the i'm i'm glad to see we we still like to drink but it's done in a responsible way

00:25:55.820 more like a a dinner party kind of drinking as opposed to um you know the frat house kind of

00:26:02.920 drinking there there was there was some peer pressure drinking when i first came around

00:26:06.600 um and i think we've done a pretty good job of discouraging that and that's that's not something

00:26:10.900 the leadership ever wanted to have, but the maturity of our members has increased. And,

00:26:17.300 you know, of course, we'll still occasionally get some goofball that comes around and drinks too

00:26:22.280 much, just like you will whenever you get a group of people together, but it's a lot healthier that

00:26:28.380 way. The fact that the Ossetree Folk Assembly has haves that give back to their communities is huge

00:26:37.160 too um when i first came around the afa could help its members to a bit um but really was um

00:26:47.320 was was focused inward and it needed to be because we needed to develop

00:26:53.400 the religion of ossature into something that's meaningful for modern americans and modern

00:26:59.400 europeans and modern australians anywhere our folk are um in midgard it needed to be something

00:27:06.440 that was applicable to somebody in practical terms in the 21st century um and you know the

00:27:15.960 the viking larp stuff is not a lot of that stuff may be cool in a certain context but it's not if

00:27:22.600 you are trying to address the needs you know of a father of four who just lost his job or of a

00:27:28.840 single mother who's you know struggling to to keep her sanity because she you know gets two hours to

00:27:36.040 to herself every day and that's counting sleep that's the sleep um so it is a it's

00:27:43.900 a much it's a lot more practical now when i when i first came around it was

00:27:49.380 it was for me it was something that i did outside of my normal daily life you know a big

00:27:57.340 os true event would come up and i would go to it and as far as my friends and family knew at the

00:28:03.740 time oh there goes cliff on one of his secret camping trips because i didn't tell them what i

00:28:09.540 was doing at first it was just like well i'm going camping for the weekend bye and that must have

00:28:13.900 seemed really strange because they didn't know who i was going with or where i was going um

00:28:18.740 and yeah it's it's just really grown up and i'm glad that i'm glad that each generation that's

00:28:27.980 been involved went through the different phases of things that they needed to um because we're

00:28:32.780 able to enjoy the benefits of that here now. Well, you know, everybody listening, I want you

00:28:39.580 guys to take away from this broadcast that the AFA has evolved hugely in the past several years,

00:28:47.800 and Cliff has been right there through all of it helping me. He's absolutely one of the guys

00:28:52.860 I lean on and one of the guys that's contributed so much to the success that we're seeing in the

00:28:57.860 AFA lately. Uh, Brandy's got a question. Witten Erickson, you've been, uh, the driving force for

00:29:04.460 the Rune Stone. How has that evolved? Well, um, I, I took over, you mean the website or the

00:29:13.580 newsletter or both? I guess we're not sure. So for a while I was, I was in the driver's seat on,

00:29:20.260 on both of those things. Um, I, I took them both over basically just by volunteering to do things

00:29:27.320 for the Ossetree Folk Assembly when I was an apprentice folk builder.

00:29:33.160 And I guess I got things done in a timely manner and well because

00:29:36.920 the stack got higher and higher.

00:29:39.820 And the newsletter was something that I inherited.

00:29:44.840 So the changes that have happened to it most recently are the mark of our folk builder,

00:29:55.860 jessica in ohio i couldn't even tell you the changes that happened to it from when it was the

00:30:02.740 voice to when it became the runestone um because there were little things issue by issue that would

00:30:10.820 have changed um i tried to reshuffle it so that we put you know more religious oriented articles at

00:30:19.780 the top, you know, so that, you know, for those who aren't familiar with it, our newsletter

00:30:24.580 had, at least now, it starts off with a column by Alshir Gauthier, Matt, and then it'll have

00:30:32.660 articles from our Witten and our Gothar, and then it will have standing things like event

00:30:40.660 announcements and our calendar and so on. And then it goes into the monthly updates from each state

00:30:48.580 each half district and so on um it used to kind of just be jumbled as far as the website man the

00:30:55.300 wayback machine will tell you a fun story um if you're not sure what the wayback machine is just

00:31:00.340 google it but uh the i took over the website when it was something somebody else had created and

00:31:08.580 then uh lucky lucky for me it crashed on my watch not by my doing but um i had to put up a temporary

00:31:16.420 page got to got to play with putting fracture up on the main page and then finding out that that's

00:31:21.540 not a good idea um and it's gone through a few different versions most of them again were

00:31:27.540 incremental changes that were done for the sake of practicality um you know either something we

00:31:34.740 had been using broke and i had to find a way to fix it or we got feedback from our members or

00:31:40.740 a clever idea from from matt or me or one of our leaders and and we implemented it and there's a

00:31:46.020 there's a whole stack of ideas that we never implemented as well

00:31:51.060 so cliff we got another question for you uh humanipulation nation wants to know we always

00:31:56.820 get the same question what books do you recommend but how about you cliff

00:32:00.820 also true related or not for that matter also any favorite media films and youtube channels etc

00:32:08.660 so um i'm a i'm a father of two i got a full-time job so a lot of my own

00:32:16.740 music consumption is you know uh preschool oriented um but as far as books relating or

00:32:25.860 related to asa true um i i have a list that i recommend to anyone who's new to us true

00:32:34.180 and what i recommend is that the first thing that someone who

00:32:38.740 doesn't know the stories of our gods to a level where they think that they're comfortable if you

00:32:44.260 walked into a room with other people who knew the names of the gods and knew stories about them and

00:32:51.300 knew the name the names of a few of the giants and knew what was what um read the children of odin

00:32:59.620 by padrick column it's written for like 10 to 12 year olds but it was written about 120 years ago

00:33:06.820 so not dumb 12 year olds and uh it basically is a retelling of the etta in chronological order

00:33:15.540 well you know mythic time chronological order but in the supposed order that things probably happened 0.88

00:33:21.860 to make it make sense as a story and uh it's it's an easy read it's a fun read and when you're done

00:33:30.180 with it you're gonna be able to understand what people who have read 30 books about the gods

00:33:36.840 are talking about roughly it's going to make it not feel stupid which is a really good starting

00:33:42.320 point um after that i would recommend the prose edda all of it read all those kennings there's a

00:33:50.940 lot of good information in there um then the the poetic edit don't don't start with the poetic

00:33:59.360 edit um icelandic scaldic poetry is hard but if you read the other two books first you're going

00:34:04.540 to have a frame of reference and it'll be a lot less hard and if you haven't read all those three

00:34:08.820 things then i would say don't even bother with anything else get that core stuff in first

00:34:12.580 that's something that i've really noticed with um this whole sphere because it's not just like

00:34:20.140 there's a bible you read there's anything from linguistics to literature to history to

00:34:26.940 archaeology and so many things and it's easy to get lost where you keep plugging through

00:34:34.220 the more pieces start to fit connections start to be made and you'll get it so if you're reading 0.85

00:34:40.140 a text that's a little bit difficult hang in there it'll pay off um sunshine sucks donated 0.85

00:34:46.860 to us and i appreciate that sunshine sucks thank you i appreciate it um that's our first donation

00:34:54.140 we've got on entropy and like i said much appreciated we have a question that came in

00:34:59.180 from the look nets um a while ago they actually sent it to me it wound up in my spam folder and

00:35:05.020 i didn't get to it so it may or may not be timely but their question was why the afa has chosen to

00:35:13.420 celebrate sigur bloat in july um some of you may be aware that historically uh sigur bloat is often

00:35:21.900 attested it happening in the springtime at the beginning of a rating season

00:35:28.700 i could i could try to come up with some amazing reason to blow your minds but honestly the reason

00:35:35.180 was as we filled in our calendar we had this big hole in july to where we didn't have a reason to

00:35:40.700 to get together. And so I figured one of the certainly one of our ancient ceremonies that

00:35:46.160 was really important was Sigur Bloat and getting together at least once a month with our people is

00:35:51.780 very important. So I want so I plugged Sigur Bloat into July and as Sigur Bloat in the past

00:36:00.200 was often for success in a raid or in battle, I wanted to spend Sigur Bloat in a modern context

00:36:09.240 asking for success in our various endeavors in the battles we face in the world, the battles we face

00:36:16.720 to help grow Ausatru, to achieve things as the AFA, and also our personal struggles. But I wanted

00:36:22.980 to also be a time to celebrate the victories that we've achieved over the last year. And so we do

00:36:28.600 that at Sigur Bloat as well. Creating our calendar of events, some of it is based on

00:36:34.060 attested events at the right times of the year for solstices and equinoxes and things of that

00:36:41.180 nature but a lot of it is taking a religious tradition from england and scandinavia and the

00:36:48.540 continent and trying to fill up a calendar with enough of those special days to where it's

00:36:55.340 balanced and to where we honor the important things our ancestors honored but that we honor

00:37:01.500 the things in a modern way in a modern context so that's kind of the the thought behind that

00:37:07.580 uh we got another cliff question from katla cliff messages question a few weeks ago about

00:37:13.340 winter nights but didn't get a reply is there parking at the site uh with or without hookups for

00:37:20.060 rvs so there is parking at the site i apologize if i uh didn't didn't see your message i'll go

00:37:28.860 back through do you it will probably email me um and i'll get back to you that way i'm not sure how

00:37:34.140 you reached out initially um but uh there there's plenty of parking rvs are welcome i don't believe

00:37:41.660 there will be hookups for them though so you'll need to be prepared to be self-contained but you

00:37:47.740 can bring an rv or a camper i just can't promise you'll be able to empty it or plug it in so i

00:37:55.180 appreciate everybody we're getting a lot of great cliff questions tonight um before we go on to some

00:38:00.140 more questions and we do have some stacked up this is a good chance cliff can you tell us a little

00:38:04.860 bit about winter nights uh you've been involved in all of the winter nights um if you can tell

00:38:11.740 us a little bit about how that's evolved and kind of what the difference is this year between the

00:38:15.820 past years i sure can so yeah winter nights was one of my first australian folk assembly events

00:38:25.020 i've been to a few things at people's houses but um winter nights in the poconos in 2012 was

00:38:32.700 uh when i first met you matt and um when i first met uh the the mcnallans and a lot of other people

00:38:40.380 that um you know i've become good friends with and that's that's the one that really sold me on

00:38:46.220 also true being a real religion um as opposed to you know a cool club um winter nights i see it's

00:38:57.020 scrolling by at the bottom right now but winter nights is going to be in ohio right this year

00:39:00.980 uh the the camp that we had a long-standing relationship with in pennsylvania

00:39:05.480 is no longer doing group rentals to anybody so that relationship ended on good terms i'm a little

00:39:12.300 bit sad about it that's where i met my wife i know matt that's where you met your wife

00:39:16.460 so there's a you know it's a bittersweet thing but i'm glad that that ended on

00:39:21.820 good terms uh that uh you know we can we can go to the camp director for a good referral where

00:39:29.540 we might need one uh and you know not not for other reasons we've seen other camps due to us

00:39:36.360 winter nights is going to be October 14th 16th there as you can see the tickets are on the

00:39:44.240 website we have an event schedule in progress right now we have a lot of things that we're

00:39:51.120 going to be doing just to tease a few things we always have a DC or bloat led by Githya Katie

00:39:58.260 who is my wife um we will be having um some kind of um dance or

00:40:07.780 um like kind of relaxing jam thing going on friday night uh we are going to have lots of

00:40:17.680 activities for the kids october is an awesome month to have little kids around so you can

00:40:23.300 count on there being candy. If you're bringing kids, bring a costume. There'll be either a

00:40:30.080 Halloween party or a costume contest or something to that effect. And as with all of our big

00:40:41.640 ticketed Asset Shufalk assembly events, all of your meals are included. Tenting is permitted

00:40:49.760 at the the venue we have if you aren't going to be tenting or bringing a camper or something like

00:40:55.420 that there are hotels within about 15 and 20 minutes and we've priced it accordingly uh the

00:41:01.280 ticket prices are significantly lower than they have been in previous years because we're um not

00:41:07.220 providing um indoor lodging you can tent but it's not the same thing as uh having a cabin might be

00:41:15.660 warmer than it was at uh the old camp though it might be um great yeah i hope you guys all come

00:41:21.780 out and join us if you can uh singles you heard it here folks winter nights is the place to

00:41:27.200 to find yourself a mate work for me work for cliff it could work for you

00:41:31.520 um we have another question from bruce is that a boston scally cap

00:41:37.120 no this is a cheap thrift store cap shame on you sir

00:41:43.200 so bruce i i enjoy the boston scallies we got to get cliff on board because they're amazing hats

00:41:51.920 um cody asks or first derek tidwell threw us uh threw us a 10 donation thank you so much we

00:42:00.220 appreciate it um like i say thank you much appreciated and the the caption on it says

00:42:07.200 the AFA give hope for the future. Cody, Wittencliffe, can you explain the benefits you've

00:42:14.800 seen in raising your kids within the AFA and Ousitre? Yes and no. That's the only way that I

00:42:25.960 know. I'm really blessed in that Katie and I talked about how we were going to raise our kids

00:42:35.220 long before we were married or had kids and you know we we knew that we were going to be raising

00:42:42.920 them within in ositru with a germanic worldview with our ositru ethics and so the only thing i

00:42:54.440 can compare it to is to to my own upbringing which was still pretty good um i went to catholic school

00:43:00.200 for those who don't know so the religion thing you know that's that's why i needed my decade of

00:43:05.640 atheism um but uh i i can tell you that the benefits that i see is that my son knows who

00:43:20.280 the gods are um when when somebody shows him marvel thor he doesn't recognize that as thor

00:43:26.580 we call him Greg

00:43:28.200 because we needed a name

00:43:31.160 because he still plays with Hulk

00:43:32.800 and stuff like that

00:43:33.720 but it's really kind of cool

00:43:36.000 that my four year old

00:43:38.120 whose favorite god is Thor

00:43:40.480 and who will hail Thor loudly

00:43:43.840 when he's in ritual

00:43:46.900 even at a large event

00:43:49.400 we might need to encourage him

00:43:51.440 a little bit

00:43:51.800 but when he does

00:43:52.440 he's loud about it

00:43:53.940 yes he is

00:43:54.900 that he knows Thor as a god.

00:43:58.720 He knows Thor as the Thunderer. 1.00

00:44:01.220 He knows Thor as the one who smashes the Jotun's heads 1.00

00:44:04.920 to the little pieces when they try to attack Midgard 0.98

00:44:07.360 and do harm to people that he loves. 0.65

00:44:12.600 In the Asatru Folk Assembly,

00:44:14.760 there are other families doing the same thing, 0.97

00:44:17.040 raising their children as natural-born Asatruer

00:44:20.080 who aren't going to have any confusion

00:44:24.920 about who they are or where they come from.

00:44:29.080 You know, the story of Askenembla,

00:44:31.920 of the ash and the elm trees that were driftwood,

00:44:34.340 I think most of us who found Asatru as adults

00:44:38.800 can relate to that story because we were that driftwood.

00:44:42.100 We know what it was like in between

00:44:45.440 when we had our crisis of Christian faith

00:44:48.320 and when we felt comfortable worshiping something again 0.98

00:44:53.320 and when we knew that doing that was right.

00:44:56.720 And our kids aren't going to have to worry about that.

00:45:00.960 I do sometimes worry about them taking it for granted,

00:45:03.720 but if that's the worst problem that comes up,

00:45:05.560 then I think we've done pretty well.

00:45:07.680 Also, this is a really good time to plug the Osset Shrew Academy

00:45:10.980 because when my son and daughter are old enough,

00:45:14.500 they will absolutely be enrolled in that.

00:45:16.940 It is, for those who aren't familiar, a home school program for your AFA member children and for anyone that wants their children to be raised.

00:45:30.160 Also true. And it's going to be issuing diplomas.

00:45:36.480 It's you know, it's there's the logo. I love that.

00:45:38.920 Um, it is, it's, it's a real school. It gives you somebody to work with and to have, um, daily lesson plans to guide you through homeschooling. Um, it's, it's a scary prospect when Katie and I look into that, the amount of things that are required in some states, um, can be intimidating and it's tempting to say, oh, you know what?

00:46:04.680 we're not going to do that. It's a lot of work. We'll just ship them off to the Tommy farm. But

00:46:10.240 we're not going to do that. And it's really nice to know that there will be other students enrolled

00:46:17.140 that they can interact with and learn from and learn with, that there will be a collection of

00:46:23.240 parents that are involved in it as well. And Gauthier Rob is absolutely doing a fantastic job

00:46:31.200 putting that program together and you know i'm excited to be able to observe it and to help in

00:46:38.000 any way i can as that first class kicks off in september and i'm looking forward to it i guess

00:46:43.600 it'll be the third enrollment class that uh that my son will be eligible for um and yeah i mean

00:46:51.280 those are those are the benefits um and you know i i guess i i expect my children to find their

00:46:59.680 mates in the afa as well um you know the the way something i wanted to touch on i'll just go into

00:47:07.440 a tangent here is how it's good it's generally speaking good to be normal um that's why

00:47:16.400 we dress nice when we go to worship that's why we do good things for our neighbors where our

00:47:23.040 hoffs are and it's why all of us should do that where we live you want to be a good member of

00:47:29.360 your community and something that christianity provided for centuries for our folk and did a

00:47:37.360 good job of there's other issues about it that maybe are problematic but something that christianity

00:47:42.320 was really good at and that the austria folk assembly is good at and needs to be good at to

00:47:49.040 to really be serving our folk well is providing that communal touchstone for our people if our

00:47:56.560 people um have some place they can go where they know that the people there are trustworthy and

00:48:05.040 share the same values as them and that by default you're comfortable with your kids being around

00:48:12.160 and that is where families are born. That's winning. That's victory.

00:48:23.700 So Cliff, you touched on something very important that I'm so, so proud of. We've heard this from

00:48:28.740 a lot of our parents and being a father myself, I feel this way. It's scary to have your kids

00:48:38.060 unattended at any time in this world we live in. But something magical happens when you're at an

00:48:44.400 AFA event. When you're one of our Hoffs, all of a sudden you're in this high trust environment of

00:48:51.120 people who share the same background, the same values. And a lot of that fear is alleviated.

00:48:58.800 We have a whole community looking out for our kids whenever there's an AFA gathering. And it's

00:49:04.320 it's really a beautiful thing to see. So yeah, parents, you know, please know that you're very

00:49:11.220 welcome to bring your kids to our events. They're full of kids, and everybody there is looking out

00:49:16.640 for our kids' best interest. Folk the Rude donated $25 to us. Thank you so much, Folk. We absolutely

00:49:24.620 appreciate it. We're filling up with questions for you, Cliff. People like you turn out to be

00:49:30.720 pretty good guest so brandy says winton erickson uh what do you feel your most spiritually powerful

00:49:38.400 moment event or bloat has been since you joined the az true folk assembly

00:49:46.480 well there have been a few that really stuck with me but i i'd say probably the most significant one

00:49:55.840 was actually one that i did in private but i did it at the direction of um patricia and

00:50:03.120 i'm glad we kind of are able to come back to this because ancestor worship is really important in

00:50:11.760 true um and before i wrapped my head around the whole spirituality of it and i

00:50:18.480 you know uh wasn't comfortable using the word worship or religion or church which i understand

00:50:25.280 is something that people need to go through.

00:50:27.440 It's part of the process of, you know, of developing and, you know,

00:50:34.900 the term reprogramming is used a lot as far as what we were taught growing up,

00:50:40.960 which is, you know, obviously a generalization.

00:50:43.100 But I was having trouble, like I was going through the motions, right?

00:50:48.220 I would go to a bloat and I would say the words

00:50:52.040 and i would take the horn and drink from it it was i was following the formula i was going through

00:50:58.200 the motions because that's that's where i started i was gonna do the deeds first and let the faith

00:51:04.360 come afterwards that's i'm a catholic that's how it works and i was a catholic was a catholic and um

00:51:12.360 so i'm going through you know the rituals and you know it was at first i was it was it was a very

00:51:23.240 strange feeling i'm like okay i'm doing this is that feeling you know the hand of a god on my

00:51:30.200 shoulder or is that just the incense um what what's going on and uh my my friend and mentor patricia

00:51:39.000 told me well if it's if it's feeling disconnected when you're trying to make a bloat to odin or thor

00:51:47.240 or frigga or freya try making a bloat to one of your ancestors that's passed away that you knew

00:51:58.280 while they were alive and um so i did i i made a bloat to my grandpa harvey who had passed away

00:52:06.280 only a few years earlier and um something patricia told me as well is make sure that whatever you

00:52:12.040 give them that it's something you know they like this isn't you know you're not guessing here you

00:52:18.120 knew this person for real so you know what they like and it doesn't matter what it is because

00:52:24.360 it's a personal gift from you to them and um i may be about to offend some people here but

00:52:31.640 my grandpa harvey loved hawaiian pizza and i know that's a controversial topic

00:52:36.760 um but so i i took a a good slice of hawaiian pizza no dominoes i i got it from a real italian

00:52:45.000 grease pit um in in the philly area because we have good pizza around there another controversial

00:52:52.040 topic but um you know i i made this offering to my grandpa and i spoke to him the way that i would

00:53:02.840 have when he was alive and i left him the uh the the the slice of hawaiian pizza and uh a soda pop

00:53:14.200 and i called it soda pop don't call it soda pop on a daily basis but he was from south dakota

00:53:19.480 and he called it that so um i left those for him and

00:53:27.320 that one felt real that when i knew that by doing this gift exchange you can have a real

00:53:40.120 living relationship with with spirits um and the gods are a kind of spirit and they are

00:53:49.080 are our ancestors um the god i mean my belief in it is that the gods are our most ancient ancestors

00:53:58.440 and i believe that they are literally alive right now and that they are literal literally alive in

00:54:07.800 our blood and in our dna there is a chain reaction that started with boor and bury and odin

00:54:19.080 that has never stopped to this day we're all still moving and breathing because of the energy

00:54:27.640 that happened then and there's a real physical connection to our gods and goddesses through

00:54:40.020 our our ancestors and it's a it's a responsibility that i take seriously too because once once i

00:54:47.880 I came to this kind of realization that the gods are alive and that my ancestors are alive and

00:54:55.440 that there's this unbroken chain of events that connects me to them directly, I realized that I'm

00:55:03.200 part of that chain too. And that for my son and for his great, great, great grandson, that if I

00:55:10.640 don't keep that gift exchange going and that if i don't um do right by them that not that they

00:55:20.240 can't fix it but that they're at a disadvantage because of things that i did or did not do and

00:55:26.400 it's it's an awesome responsibility it's also an awesome blessing because i'm the benefactor

00:55:32.480 of all those good things that my ancestors did or said and i inherit

00:55:40.000 some of the you know repercussions of the bad things that they did that is

00:55:46.800 that's really foundational to the way that also true and also true approach the world

00:55:51.760 i referred to that germanic world view earlier and that's a big part of it

00:55:55.280 Absolutely. Thank you very much for sharing that story with us. It's really personal. And I think

00:56:02.680 a lot of people had their first real spiritual experience in Alcetru by connecting with an

00:56:12.420 ancestor, especially one that they knew, they got to know while that person was living.

00:56:17.900 Keeping that connection through the veil is so very strong when it's somebody that you actually

00:56:24.600 got a chance to know uh during life so daniel asks you mentioned meeting your wife in the afa

00:56:32.440 can you tell us how that happened and its impact as far as growing within the austro family or

00:56:37.480 within an outsider family and how it how is it as a family uh being in a leader so i'm gonna assume

00:56:47.320 that's for you cliff so go ahead and break it down for us sure so i stalked her for a while

00:56:57.320 no not seriously a little bit but um i was persistent uh katie's a shy person and so i had to

00:57:07.800 be assertive in courting her um to the point that i told her i am courting you

00:57:14.200 and uh you know she she was kind enough to let me take her on a date and um we we had a good time

00:57:22.680 and it was a long distance relationship not as long as uh matt and mandy's was ours was a couple

00:57:28.440 of hours rather than a couple of 12-hour flights but um uh when we when we would go on dates early

00:57:38.840 on it you know it was two hours one way so we would you know make a weekend of it so there'd

00:57:44.280 be these big gaps of time in between when we were together um in person and you know we would do

00:57:49.960 facebook because we hadn't been kicked off of that yet and we would um text and all that stuff um and

00:57:57.080 then when we got our quality time in it you know it was really it was great i mean i don't know how

00:58:06.040 else i can describe it you know we we had lots of time and long car rides to discuss what our

00:58:12.440 beliefs were um so you know we discussed asatru we discussed politics we discussed what our

00:58:20.920 vision for ourselves and a family would be we we had like some serious dates we talked about

00:58:26.600 everything that we ever would want to do um but it was good because we agreed on 99 of it and um

00:58:36.040 And that was really important to, you know, us deciding that we were going to, you know, be mates for life and get married and have children and all the rest of it.

00:58:47.140 I'm lucky that I was able to meet Katie in the National Court Assembly for a few reasons.

00:58:54.060 One is just that, you know, Katie had joined the AFA not long before all of this.

00:58:58.940 And I'm glad I was able to scoop her up before somebody else did, because they would have.

00:59:03.920 um also because my my my friends including patricia and uh and dan um from my kindred

00:59:12.840 had had encouraged me not only to ask katie out specifically but to not settle um and you know go

00:59:22.920 go fishing in the wiccan pond um because that was advice that was out there back in the old days 0.94

00:59:28.820 that oh yeah you know you're a viking man so go raid the english village essentially um 1.00

00:59:35.860 but it's bad advice um the english are just fine but the wiccans um are are misguided um because 0.99

00:59:42.820 the the ethical foundations just aren't there um so if you're a single man or a single woman out

00:59:50.660 there and you know you're you're looking to find someone to start a family with be patient and and

01:00:00.660 find them within the afa um i know that you can't control all of that you could have the plan to

01:00:07.700 marry an afa member and then you're at the library one day and that lovey music plays like in the

01:00:13.300 movies and then history is written but as far as like the things that you do proactively to

01:00:20.660 to try to find love um be the best person you can in person for everyone to see in the afa

01:00:34.480 and everywhere else you go you know if you are a decent and respectable person um walking down

01:00:40.720 main street or um you know walking wherever it is that you are people will see that and that's

01:00:47.600 especially true in the afa and i can i can um i can say that i know secondhand but from more than

01:00:55.520 one of our afa ladies that they are well aware of who the men of worth are in the ostrich folk

01:01:01.980 assembly so if you make sure that you um build your own bright fame and do good things for your

01:01:09.540 folk the ladies are going to hook you up with somebody that's going to work itself out um

01:01:15.660 there was a second part to that question and i have forgotten it but i think that's good

01:01:21.400 yeah no that was that was really good um and the point you make about building your reputation

01:01:26.700 within the afa it's nice to when you're trying to build your life with someone it's great to

01:01:34.480 have all that commonality but also for people to judge you on the right kind of criteria and i

01:01:43.120 think the AFA provides that. Ruben donated $10 to us. Thank you so much, Ruben. And he had a

01:01:48.940 question. In the hyperpolarized America of today, the AFA has done a tremendous job of avoiding

01:01:54.800 confrontations, always staying calm and cool. Do you ever receive some kind of, I was wrong about

01:02:01.740 you guys? Absolutely we do, Ruben. One of the things that I'm really fortunate to see being in

01:02:08.940 the AFA for as long as I've been, a whole lot of members that leave under misunderstandings

01:02:15.820 or the world turns them around, those folks come back. A surprising amount of those folks come

01:02:23.860 back. Sometimes we have the opportunity, we certainly see in the communities, every community

01:02:32.720 we have a Hoff in that folks, you know, may make an initial judgment of us based on the sensational

01:02:40.460 journalism. But we've had several instances of those people apologizing or, you know, changing

01:02:47.840 their opinion from, you know, being one of the town gossips saying negative things about us to

01:02:52.600 coming by and shaking our hand and touring a Hoff and really appreciating what we do in the community.

01:02:58.720 Specifically, there was a group, I talked to Brandy about this last week, there was a group

01:03:03.040 in and around Murdoch, the Murdoch Alliance Against Hate or something that took to persecuting

01:03:10.840 us early on because they believed the hype. And there was a reporter up there that was intentionally

01:03:15.580 trying to stoke hate, ironically, against us. This member of that, the founding member of that

01:03:24.700 Murdoch Alliance Against Hate actually came to the Hoff and apologized and said that they were

01:03:30.340 wrong about us. So that does happen, not as often as we'd like, but hopefully in the years to come,

01:03:35.480 that'll increase how much that happens. We've got another, Bobby donated $20 to us. Thank you so

01:03:44.900 much, Bobby. Matt wins the next visit to Thor's Hoff because he just finished a batch of that

01:03:50.280 apple pie. And he also says he's loving the weekly interviews. Well, I'm glad that you like

01:03:55.060 them, Bobby. I hope everybody likes them. These are a lot of fun. I love doing them. And I really

01:03:59.760 like that we get to shine a light on some of our folks making this happen, besides just me.

01:04:06.460 Next visit to Thorshof. You never know. There's always stuff that comes up for sure by Ostara,

01:04:12.460 but I would suggest that you, if you can, get a ride and make it down to the Njordshof dedication

01:04:18.380 coming up in a couple of weeks it would be great to see you there if you could do it um cliff

01:04:23.900 which translation uh translation of the edits do you recommend i'm old school i like bellows

01:04:35.820 easy enough um

01:04:42.060 so we have a question uh does the astro focus simply

01:04:45.180 require reading memorization slash memorization prior to allowing seekers or new folk to wear a

01:04:54.420 hammer? No, we don't. And I know this is controversial depending on where you come

01:05:00.600 from. I know there's certain traditions to where people would have to do certain things to earn

01:05:06.620 their hammers. And I think that happened a lot of places, but I do know that's a very prominent

01:05:10.740 cousin for incarcerated folks. We in the AFA believe that Ausitru is your birthright.

01:05:18.240 You know, we don't want scumbags and little lives who don't know anything and are ignorant 0.99

01:05:23.340 of our faith wearing a hammer, but they have the right to that hammer. We would hope that 1.00

01:05:29.380 they would rise to the challenge that that presents to be worthy of it, but that's really

01:05:34.500 between them and in four and we don't try to prevent them from doing that um as far as to even

01:05:41.780 become a member we don't require memorization but we do require that folks read our dedication of

01:05:46.820 uh declaration of purpose and our statement of ethics to make sure that we're on the same page

01:05:52.740 and again we're all adults here and we hope that folks when they take this seriously will do their

01:05:58.420 do their reading and do their studying and try to really bring this into their life

01:06:02.420 um okay so this brings us to a topic that i wanted to make sure we talked about and it's a good

01:06:09.500 segue thank you the salutrian any updates on phrasehoff cliff tell us about phrasehoff

01:06:16.700 well i am i'm very excited about phrasehoff uh we're gonna be we there's no timeline um we

01:06:25.720 there's the logo i love it nick you're doing a good job um

01:06:29.540 um phrasehoff is going to be in ohio um probably northern ohio somewhere um we are currently

01:06:41.100 fundraising for it and we have a lot of members and leadership in a good position to be able to

01:06:47.580 support that when we're able to start looking for properties uh the first thing that has to happen

01:06:53.500 though is we have to pay off nords off um because we aren't going to bite off more than we can chew

01:07:00.780 every half that we establish we need to be able to maintain in perpetuity so we are not going to

01:07:07.980 rush faster than we can and have ourselves disgrace new word or balder or thor or odin

01:07:17.020 by having to close one of those halls or having to you know not make some necessary repair so though

01:07:26.780 that's something that's really important that we need to do um at a responsible pace i want it

01:07:33.340 tomorrow if i can have it but that's not going to be the case i'm i'm hoping for next year but

01:07:39.820 more realistically it's probably going to be two or three maybe even four years that said

01:07:45.100 what we need to make it happen are we need an increase in the number of members or an increase

01:07:59.180 in the contributions from our current members. That's most likely going to be a combination of

01:08:04.800 both of those things. But that's how we get to having the appropriate funds on a monthly recurring

01:08:14.820 basis to support um a fifth temple and that is how um we can do that in a way that we never

01:08:24.340 you know we never lose any ground because that would be disgraceful

01:08:27.780 um but it's going to be somewhere in the northern ohio area that is subject to minor

01:08:37.380 change depending on what things look like at the time that we're actually ready to do it

01:08:41.620 anyone who you know is out there property hunting for us something to keep in mind is that we are

01:08:49.560 looking for churches specifically the you know the cool old hotel may be really cool but it's

01:08:57.040 not particularly well suited to our purposes for legal reasons in most part you know you find an

01:09:06.120 old castle mansion that's cool and that's not well suited to our purposes both for legal and

01:09:10.940 for for practical reasons church structures or structures that were at some type of house of

01:09:17.740 worship in the past um they have everything they need and that they have a sanctuary as a place

01:09:24.460 of worship they have a community hall they have um they have you know uh an industrial or community

01:09:32.380 sized kitchen and um the proper permitting and licensure to go along with it and some of those

01:09:40.380 details i can't be more specific on because it's really going to depend on the you know the local

01:09:45.420 municipality county and state as we get closer to that but githya katie and i are ready and

01:09:54.780 waiting to start that process as soon as uh new york is secured forever

01:10:04.140 so that some folks may not know that's kind of i talked about cliff transversing the state

01:10:08.620 there that's part of their move is to uh prepare for for phrase hoff um we may or may not have a

01:10:15.820 new gofar ordained in that area by the time uh phrase hoff happens but as it is now uh cliff

01:10:23.420 and his wife katie uh both of which are ordained they would be the the leadership of that hoff

01:10:29.100 and uh it's going to be a really exciting thing it's kind of a you know we want it to be i'd like

01:10:34.860 cliff said he'd like it to be here tonight if it could happen and uh if we get anybody donating in

01:10:39.740 the the donate box for you know north of 200 000 then we can we can maybe make that happen close

01:10:46.700 to tonight but barring that we do have a little bit of work to do so folks know um we're about

01:10:51.980 33 paid off of new york's off right now so we still got to work on that um but it's amazing

01:10:59.900 to you know we it came up earlier how the afa has changed since um you know in the since cliff and

01:11:06.140 i have been involved and specifically since uh i've been also harrier gothe and cliff's been on

01:11:10.700 my witten when we first when i became australia gothe we had just had odin's hof for about five

01:11:22.860 it was officially midsummer so we've had had odin's off at that point for about three quarters

01:11:27.580 of a year and we didn't know how we were going to pay it off and man we finally have a hoff after

01:11:33.820 you know at the time uh what 22 years of the austral folk assembly's existence finally we

01:11:40.540 had that one hoff and it was this insurmountable goal and now you know just a few short years later

01:11:46.700 we're we're paying off hoff number four and we're we're planning very solidly for hoff number five

01:11:54.620 and couldn't have done it without cliff couldn't do it without you guys and all your generous

01:11:59.020 donations and sticking with us on it we really do appreciate that and i hope you know that

01:12:05.420 um got a couple more questions to go over as a parent myself i am always searching

01:12:13.020 for new and exciting ways to teach my children about also true and the ways of our forefathers

01:12:17.980 do you have any recommendations or link on links or books for that purpose cliff do you have anything

01:12:24.940 on that yeah um the lair's northern myths is a fantastic bedtime story um i read that to my son

01:12:36.700 and my daughter over and over and over um there's also a really cool book on trolls that they have

01:12:44.380 if you want to read them something a little scarier um there the the book i mentioned

01:12:50.220 previously the children of odin is a good one there there's actually a wealth of that stuff

01:12:55.100 i don't have it all off the top of my head um but if you email me at see erickson at runestone.org

01:13:02.060 i can dig up the things that i do have um and i know that our our leadership and folk builders know

01:13:09.900 many many other resources like that as well um as far as um

01:13:20.620 something that's you know not lore or story based i think it's really important that

01:13:25.660 as early as possible um the you have your children participate in below and then when

01:13:33.980 ready sumble sumble is a little harder to sit through depending on the size of the group you've

01:13:37.820 got there um but have them actually participate in the gift exchange um we do several things in

01:13:46.700 in my home um that really make that make ossature real for our kids and one of them is um when we

01:13:58.060 when we moved into the new home we scared away all the best spirits by having them march around

01:14:04.780 with pots and pans and me and katie had candles and we went and went into each room and lit it up

01:14:14.700 and scared all the monsters away all the bad spirits away with with pots and pans um to

01:14:22.380 take the the house as a place that was going to be our inn and guard um

01:14:28.860 um we we do that at um at new year's eve as well that's actually a common thing in in western

01:14:39.080 tradition um the the pots and pans is a lot about scaring away bad spirits and bad omens from the

01:14:47.640 previous year um yeah i mean actively participate in a real way on a daily and regular basis making

01:15:00.760 it something that's something they are something that they would complain about if you stopped

01:15:06.700 doing it um we we also have a a dragon bell it's like this dragon mounted bell that we have um in

01:15:16.000 the doorway to the kitchen. And we use that to represent our housewife. And so when we are

01:15:26.260 making an offering to the housewife, we ring that bell so that he knows that we've got some goodies

01:15:31.460 for him. And sometimes when, more my son, because he's a little older, he's four, when he's pooped

01:15:40.360 out or scared about something, he will come to me and say, hey, daddy, I want to give something to

01:15:45.920 are white and ring the bell, which is really cool because he's choosing to participate in

01:15:53.760 the gift cycle then. That's the best thing I can recommend is it's real. Participate with them

01:16:03.460 every day. That's great, Cliff. I appreciate some of these stories that you're telling.

01:16:08.780 As Aubrey gets a little bit older, I'd really like to incorporate some of these things.

01:16:13.140 We've got a beauty question.

01:16:16.120 Our law speaker noticed that, Cliff, you are looking so young.

01:16:19.960 Do you exfoliate?

01:16:22.960 No, but I did take a shower today.

01:16:24.940 Well, that counts.

01:16:25.780 We'll take it.

01:16:29.180 I appreciate that, even though we are at a distance.

01:16:33.400 Another question.

01:16:35.300 Guys, I appreciate your patience on these questions.

01:16:37.940 It's a really good thing when we have so much to talk about that our questions are backing up.

01:16:42.320 I promise I will clear all of the questions before I sign off tonight.

01:16:49.180 Cliff and me, what kind of stuff from the Ausitru community are you looking for?

01:16:56.400 And what would you say to folks looking to be more active in the Ausitru community?

01:17:03.720 So I certainly understand the last half of your question.

01:17:06.480 The first half of your question, I'm not certain on the best way to answer.

01:17:10.420 First, I believe very strongly that the AFA is the Ausitrue community.

01:17:19.340 We are the community of folks that are out there practicing Ausitrue as a community.

01:17:24.220 So what I would recommend for folks wanting to be more active is first and foremost to join the Ausitrue Folk Assembly.

01:17:31.100 In doing so, that'll get you connected with your local folk builder and or Goethe or Githia.

01:17:36.400 and just getting out of your comfort zone and being willing to go to an event, even if it means

01:17:44.260 traveling a bit. I know it's daunting, but I've never heard someone travel to an AFA event and

01:17:49.840 then regret the travel time. That's where the magic happens. It happens when you do this

01:17:57.300 as a community. When we get together as our AFA family and stand before our gods,

01:18:03.820 that's where the magic happens in Ausatru. So anybody wanting to get more involved,

01:18:09.580 if you look at any of our websites, and they're linked in the description of this video,

01:18:15.020 but each of our Hoffs has a website and on it has a calendar of events. And you'd be surprised,

01:18:21.260 there's a pretty wide dispersion of where events are. And chances are certainly if you're in the

01:18:26.620 United States, you can make it to an event. Other selected international places, you can make it to

01:18:31.820 an event as well but in the united states it's going to be rough if you're in hawaii

01:18:36.860 barring that we can we can connect you with some folks um so yeah reaching out and doing that as

01:18:43.260 far as what we're looking for we've largely found that personally and we're just looking to grow

01:18:50.940 and expand that and to build a tighter connection with the gods we see

01:18:55.900 our faith so often in in a cyclical way and i think that that's a very

01:19:02.380 two-dimensional way of looking at it yes there's a cycle but if it's done right it's a spiral

01:19:08.540 and so we're increasing and we're growing and moving upward the more we're in that

01:19:12.780 gift cycle the more we're doing the right things at the right time um what are your thoughts cliff

01:19:19.420 well yeah i was gonna i was gonna hammer in the uh the the notion the the truth that um

01:19:30.880 the aussitude folk assembly is the aussitude community heathenry odinism any such uh such

01:19:41.920 term that sometimes people use for that um i i firmly believe and and and this is with some

01:19:48.400 experience because in that time before i joined the afa i was i was shopping around with uh with

01:19:54.000 groups that don't do things the way that we do um because i wanted to know what was what and

01:19:59.520 the also true folk assembly is the only religiously focused group that there is dedicated to

01:20:11.680 our folk our ancestors and our gods um so joining the austral folk assembly is um the biggest first

01:20:21.040 step um or if you're not sure then contact your local folk builder and you know come come check

01:20:28.720 us out in person they'll they'll want to know a few things about you before they'll be comfortable

01:20:32.320 having you around to you know bring you around our our people because their their safety is

01:20:38.400 important but if you know they they check you out and you know maybe meet you one-on-one first at a

01:20:43.760 coffee shop or something like that um you know come and see what we do in person if uh you know

01:20:53.120 if if you're like i was and you need to see it firsthand in order to to believe it or to you

01:20:58.400 know to trust it um once you're sold then uh the best thing that you can do is to participate come

01:21:06.080 to every event that you possibly can. That's something that most of us just do once we're

01:21:13.760 involved because we want it so much and we love it. Tell your friends and family. I referred

01:21:22.000 earlier to being normal as a good thing. What we're doing isn't strange. It's the most natural

01:21:30.220 thing we could possibly be doing and being openly also true to your friends to your family uh to

01:21:40.220 your employer to any other social or political or whatever things that you're involved in you know

01:21:50.460 your hunting club your gun club the crochet club whatever doesn't matter what is all the

01:21:56.700 those extracurricular and hobby type things be asa true every day because that's what's gonna

01:22:04.780 give some person out there who has asa true as a birthright

01:22:12.140 and just doesn't know it the opportunity to claim that birthright um

01:22:18.940 yeah be be asa true is the best thing that you can do and if you still haven't had enough after

01:22:25.820 doing all that, then talk to your folk builder about becoming an apprentice. You know, if you

01:22:32.500 want to make things happen and you want to build, you know, a stronger Asatru community where you

01:22:41.420 are, you know, in your own town, in your own backyard, if there isn't one, then make it happen.

01:22:47.380 There's nothing stopping you. We will back people up who want to form kindreds, who want to, you

01:22:54.180 know see if they are a good fit for being an apprentice and and and want to do the work um

01:23:00.820 a lot of it is very rewarding it is not always fun sometimes it's discouraging because you know

01:23:08.080 you you see our folk at their best and at their worst and sometimes they let you down and

01:23:14.120 sometimes they surprise you and exceed your expectations but yeah i mean take on the

01:23:20.620 challenge. We'll give you work if you want it. Absolutely. Another question. I've talked to a

01:23:30.940 couple of people about it, but how should I be reacting to coincidences? Example, I talked to

01:23:36.520 Thor for the first time today and our store lost power four hours later. Massive retail store too.

01:23:42.000 so that's there's no one answer to that um

01:23:46.960 power probably just went out in your store but you know what i always hold out that maybe

01:23:56.200 there's something more to it maybe you reached out and in a way uh thor reached back to you

01:24:02.440 Um, I would, the significance of coincidence or what I like to refer to as synchronicities

01:24:12.440 is most profoundly important to you and how you perceive it. Um, wondering what, what I would

01:24:21.660 think of it, or, you know, maybe as a priest that matters, but what, you know, the average person

01:24:26.400 would think of it is beside the point. It may hold value and meaning to you and you are living

01:24:33.380 the context of it. I always want to hold out that, you know, that possibility that things

01:24:42.400 are more than they appear. And I think that's very important. It's very easy for people to

01:24:47.080 get carried away and, you know, think every raven they see is a messenger from Odin.

01:24:51.760 but depends where you are. Are you an area with a lot of ravens? Is the raven in your house? Like

01:24:58.180 the level of the, of the coincidence matters a lot too. Something else I think that's very

01:25:03.720 important is keeping track. And, you know, if lots of coincidences are happening at very

01:25:11.340 auspicious times, then I think there's absolutely something to that. But I think you, you feel in

01:25:16.640 your bones, whether there's something significant to them or not. And another thing I would caution

01:25:20.960 on those things. Take them for what they are and savor the mystery of them. Ponder them,

01:25:29.920 think on them, but don't overstress trying to figure out the exact particulars.

01:25:38.800 Let them reveal themselves to you on their own terms and savor and appreciate that.

01:25:46.240 Cliff, do you have anything to add on it?

01:25:48.840 Yeah, you don't really have to figure out if Thor did that or not.

01:25:56.040 You noticed it.

01:25:57.860 And you don't have to prove that to anyone else.

01:26:00.340 If it causes you to have a deeper faith in the gods and it spurs you to positive action, then it's real.

01:26:11.980 You know, I mean, I don't mean to be disrespectful to Thor or to anyone when I say this, but

01:26:18.660 if I see Thor in a potato chip and it makes me a better person, then that's good.

01:26:27.780 Absolutely.

01:26:29.460 Got a website question, Cliff.

01:26:31.580 Could the website show who is best to contact to meet local AFA using zip code or by a map

01:26:39.680 to show all of the similar subgroup area in theory it could um if you are on the the main website

01:26:53.280 runestone.org and you go to the hoff section though i think they'll serve you better um the

01:27:00.400 the hoffs list all of the local folk builders by state um and that is who you're going to want to

01:27:09.600 want to touch base with we don't have i don't think a zip code search on those or the main site

01:27:14.480 um but if you go and you look at the the list of folk builders you'll see that in most states we

01:27:18.640 have one or two folk builders anyway so if you input your zip code it's still going to just

01:27:23.600 give you the folk builder for your state anyway and if you're not sure um just email any of them

01:27:30.240 they'll get you in touch with who the best person is all right uh next question again i'm gonna let

01:27:39.360 you take this one cliff because um uh alistair asked me this quite a bit and i think he just

01:27:45.040 wants a a different person's take on it uh speaking of meeting your wife at an event

01:27:51.040 he's always got to ask what would you suggest for young single asa truer slash afa members

01:27:57.920 looking to meet someone and start a family uh and then this question kind of cut off but yeah

01:28:03.840 to start a family uh next few years there we go well i think i kind of addressed this one already

01:28:10.480 i bet alice there asked the question before we got talking about it but be your best self in public

01:28:19.840 literally um you know don't and another thing don't go chasing don't like don't have a checklist

01:28:26.320 other than that they must be asa true um if you pigeonhole yourself into you know only someone

01:28:35.280 who is five foot seven with green eyes and red hair you're gonna rule out all kinds of people

01:28:42.320 that are wonderful potential mates um i young people do this a lot they have a wish list right

01:28:51.920 it's a bad idea um be present in the moment um don't don't be a tourist basically don't you know

01:28:59.920 don't don't stand around taking pictures and trying to to remember everything be there

01:29:06.320 in the moment be your best person in the moment and do what's right and do things to build the

01:29:13.840 community around you and it will happen in its own due time partly because as i mentioned um our our

01:29:22.240 ladies are watching and if uh if if you're someone that they wonder why you're not with someone they 1.00

01:29:30.880 they know who all the single ladies are better than any of us fellas do 1.00

01:29:34.640 so we got another question here and i think i understand this one um what would you just

01:29:45.920 say to someone who has only met with christianity like jehovah's witnesses or w w

01:29:55.680 cg um buddhism wicca and northern myths were as the grief were as the greek myths

01:30:04.640 just that and by the way you're in a cult um so i'll take a stab at it i suppose um

01:30:22.240 first uh trying to think because there's a number of angles on this

01:30:27.040 first and i think cliff would agree with me on this you start with your ancestors

01:30:32.240 there's no debate your your grandparents were real they existed um most people who have any

01:30:39.920 degree of spirituality and even people who would claim to be atheists often will speak to their

01:30:46.720 ancestors in times of you know times of trouble they'll go before you know whatever whatever they

01:30:53.040 do in the privacy of their own home maybe we go before an ancestor's altar and they don't

01:30:58.000 your ancestors are real and i'd build it from there well you know your grandparents are real

01:31:03.440 certainly their parents were real and if their parents were real then your family was real all

01:31:08.640 the way back to the beginning and we believe that our gods are that beginning so i think

01:31:13.840 connecting organically through your ancestors is a really good way to start on on those kind of

01:31:19.280 things um i'd also point out that myth doesn't equal not true i think that's taken on a colloquial

01:31:29.760 meaning that does a disservice to the word um there's mythos to all faiths if they were

01:31:36.880 jehovah's witnesses or other sects of christianity buddhists wicca any of the things you mention

01:31:42.080 they all have myths and I think that your myth that our myths should be treated like their myths

01:31:50.720 in the sense of you know to their practitioners those speak of profound truths if the other

01:31:57.380 faiths that they are familiar with can be based off of those mythos then certainly ours can as

01:32:02.500 well and we take ours just as seriously and I think I'd also go on to differentiate there's a

01:32:08.020 difference between taking it seriously and taking things literally, as some of the faiths you

01:32:13.980 mentioned do. One of the other disservices to mythos is to try to force it in the box of

01:32:21.940 historicity. Myths were never meant to be historically accurate glimpses of historical

01:32:31.260 events they were ways to tell profound truths in ways that we can best uh comprehend and understand

01:32:40.140 and yeah so but i think i would demand the same respect of your faith as the faith that they are

01:32:45.580 comfortable with or that they have the past experience to and it also goes to what cliff

01:32:49.740 was saying about be also true every day the conversation is going to go a lot better if you're

01:32:56.220 a successful upright right acting person and you link your faith to that character that you are

01:33:04.460 to the character that you've built that's a huge testimony to the fact that we do take

01:33:10.620 our gods and our beliefs very very seriously uh cliff what are your thoughts on it

01:33:17.740 well you're absolutely right about um if you're able to link your being a good

01:33:23.900 um righteous happy strong person to us true it makes a big difference my mom

01:33:32.500 um she really didn't understand at all what i was doing and like i mentioned i kept it secret

01:33:38.720 for a while so my family had some reason some some valid reason to be suspicious at first that

01:33:43.340 i was joining some crazy cult um and we're not technically a cult by the way um cults make you

01:33:50.360 cut off your family we're never going to ask anyone to do that so there you go if they want

01:33:54.640 to know why we're not a cult because i'm talking to your mom um but um she she my mom said to me

01:34:02.340 you know i don't know what's going on in your life exactly but i know that in the past few years

01:34:08.500 you've been stronger and happier than i've ever known you to be so something must be going well

01:34:14.000 And that, you know, let me explain why Asa Shua was important.

01:34:20.800 And, you know, she doesn't get it at all.

01:34:23.000 For a while, she called it ostrich, like the bird, which I don't know if she was trying to be funny or not, but it kind of pissed me off.

01:34:30.860 But, you know, it helped her to see.

01:34:35.680 And then the fruits of that, it took a few years, but once, you know, I met Katie and had a family and everything that's come from me being in the AFA, you know, it's really given some confidence that, you know, whether they think it's a real religion or not, you know, they know that it's good for me.

01:35:00.120 And that's good enough for me. I think, you know, if you're trying to explain it to somebody who doesn't get polytheism, you know, if you're talking to an Abrahamist and all they know about is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and that's all the religion they've ever heard of in their whole life.

01:35:21.240 um you can remind them that you know every people on the face of the planet earth through all of

01:35:30.600 time has had a natural religion um the only one that was abrahamic was the israelite religion

01:35:39.160 everyone else and and theirs is i would say a folk religion and everyone else has a folk religion

01:35:44.620 an ethnic religion that their people had before they can remember time it's just always been there

01:35:53.820 the you know shinto um yoruba the various native american religions every people that you can think

01:36:03.120 of has something that they did natively before some christians or muslims came along and changed

01:36:10.840 that in almost all cases um and if they can understand native american religion or if they

01:36:18.640 understand shinto even you know not deeply just that it exists and it's a real religion

01:36:23.920 then you can kind of explain what you're doing it's like what's kind of like that but different

01:36:31.720 of course and with a european germanic context to it and like matt said the starting with your

01:36:41.240 ancestors is really important if you know in two words if you have to describe ositru ancestor

01:36:48.440 worship is a good go-to they may not understand why you're doing it but they'll at least conceptually

01:36:55.320 understand what it is you know i found that that's really interesting it's kind of to the

01:37:00.760 the point and kind of an aside. I always love when I go into Asian restaurants or Asian businesses

01:37:06.460 because very often right at their front counter, they'll have an ancestor's altar. They may have

01:37:13.340 an altar to one of their native gods. They have an altar to their ancestors. A Thai restaurant

01:37:19.940 down the road, the guy has an altar also to the king of Thailand. So what I've seen the most

01:37:25.420 acceptance from to our stuff and i've seen this when asians have um you know there was an anecdote

01:37:31.260 a friend of mine had he had his family altar right by his doorway and when asians came and delivered

01:37:38.300 his he was getting some chinese food they looked over at uh at the altar and this ah ancestor and

01:37:44.140 they absolutely understood what that was going forward and i think people that are more connected

01:37:50.780 with their indigenous faith would understand it easier but i always thought that was kind

01:37:55.100 of a cool story and a cool um i don't know point of understanding if i might add something before

01:38:01.580 we move on um something not to do when you're talking you know with a christian in particular

01:38:09.100 especially if you know a christian that's your family member that you love and want to keep that

01:38:13.420 relationship positive don't go on a rant about how awful christianity is even if you know all the

01:38:22.140 reasons why that might be and can list them and you know that's a great conversation to have

01:38:27.900 with other people who are also true or who have uh have moved away from you know monotheism like

01:38:37.580 that but all it'll do is insult the person that you're talking to you want to be respectful

01:38:43.420 And most of the time, people aren't ready to hear that something that they care about is, you know, maybe not good for them or not as good as something else might be.

01:38:56.440 I mean, for me, when I, you know, left Christianity, that was a traumatic experience.

01:39:01.460 It was a really big deal.

01:39:03.460 It wasn't a triumph on my part.

01:39:06.080 It was something that was devastating to me.

01:39:09.100 So, you know, don't crush them.

01:39:12.100 You don't have to win the argument. It's not something that should be approached as an

01:39:16.660 adversarial thing like that, I don't think. Well, that's a really good point, Cliff,

01:39:20.320 and I'm glad you brought that up. In the question, the question kind of presupposes that

01:39:25.280 these people don't have a respect for your faith.

01:39:31.240 It's fundamental if you're feeling that these people are disrespecting and not taking what

01:39:36.440 you believe seriously, it does you a disservice to then treat their faith with disrespect or not

01:39:43.440 taking it seriously. I think that's going to, you know, only push them further from you rather than

01:39:48.440 bring you to any point of understanding. Yeah, your God was nailed to a hammer or your God was

01:39:53.920 nailed to a cross and my God has a hammer. It doesn't win any arguments. It's a funny meme,

01:39:57.920 but that's all. So Cliff, are applications still on the website for Odenshoff? Do we have those

01:40:06.240 on our hoff websites i think we do let me pull one of them up i'm at a computer how handy

01:40:15.360 excellent so while cliff is checking the go to where you can always apply

01:40:20.160 is at www.runestone.org and click the join link that always works

01:40:29.280 yeah it's in a big white box right at the top all right big white box right at the top when

01:40:34.400 the odenshof website and the other hofs websites though it's in a different color on those should

01:40:39.600 be it is they're pretty well cloned um how do you folks handle maintaining meetup security

01:40:49.440 or filtering out those with hidden bad intentions i very much appreciate the wholesome community

01:40:55.440 spirit that you're cultivating and want to visit um well that's something that we've you know had to

01:41:01.120 refine over the years. Something that's just true, there's an inverse balance between maximum safety

01:41:14.800 and growth and being able to grow. So finding the right balance to where we make sure our families

01:41:22.100 are safe, we make sure we maintain a good environment, but to also to where we can

01:41:27.380 welcome in new people and be open. It's been an interesting challenge. So the AFA has a security

01:41:33.100 team. First, I'll address our members and then I'll address events. So for membership, we have

01:41:37.980 a security team. We ask a number of things on the application, vital stuff like your birth date

01:41:44.760 and your real name and your address. And we do a background check before we allow anybody to join

01:41:53.140 to search any kind of, you know, sex offender registry, obviously, but also to search criminal

01:42:00.560 records. And we have a section where you have to list if you've been convicted of a felony and what

01:42:04.760 that was. That doesn't automatically mean we don't let you join, but depending upon the nature of the

01:42:10.580 crime, it certainly means we have some questions and want to interview that person and come to an

01:42:17.060 understanding of those circumstances. And we also have a mental health field. And again,

01:42:23.440 we don't want to push anybody away because they are suffering from mental health things. We want

01:42:27.920 to make sure that's under control and that that also doesn't present a danger. One thing that

01:42:33.780 people may not be familiar with because it's very different than Christianity, but also true is a

01:42:39.720 community religion, whereas some of the other faiths are an individual-based religion. Their

01:42:45.880 Their big focus is on what's best for the individual often.

01:42:49.920 In Ausatru, we focus on what's good for our community.

01:42:54.220 Yes, we want to help all the individuals, but not at the cost of our families, not at the cost of our community.

01:43:01.380 So that goes into the membership.

01:43:04.760 As far as vetting on events, for people to attend events they're vouched for by an AFA member, the vast majority of folks at any of our events are members.

01:43:14.900 um and we had a more mixed you know non-member crowd versus members when cliff and i first got

01:43:20.740 involved but these days it's almost all members with a couple of folks that are vouched for and

01:43:25.700 vouched for means that that member keeps an eye on them that member lets us know so that the rest

01:43:31.460 of us there while welcoming them and introducing them and getting to know things we also keep an

01:43:36.100 eye to make sure everybody's safe but that's worked out very well from for us um it's been

01:43:43.380 a long time since we've had any kind of an incident um only incidents we've had i mean

01:43:48.580 we've had people that have drank too much in the past and then our leaders have stepped right in

01:43:53.060 to ask them to go on their way um so yeah i would encourage you to come out i'd encourage you to

01:43:59.140 bring your family out and i can guarantee you that the leadership that are there will absolutely keep

01:44:04.180 an eye and do their great best to make sure you guys have a great time and are safe any any thoughts

01:44:09.540 on that, Cliff? You covered it pretty well. It's a balancing act, right? We need to protect

01:44:18.760 our members and their families. That's the number one priority. But the mission of the

01:44:24.860 Asatru Folk Assembly is the promotion and the dissemination of the religion of Asatru. And

01:44:30.600 You can't do that privately without meeting people for real.

01:44:35.760 So, I mean, there's risk involved with meeting anyone new.

01:44:42.240 You know, people in theory could lie to us or whatever.

01:44:47.500 But I don't think any more dangerous than going to the mall or going to, you know, see the races or something like that.

01:44:55.740 You know, I'd say much less so because we do have eyes that are there looking out. 0.98

01:45:00.600 It's a group to where we know who's there that's not one of our regulars, and we are keeping that eye out always.

01:45:08.900 That vigilance is always there for our folk.

01:45:12.320 Son of Woden, thank you very much for your donation.

01:45:16.240 I appreciate that.

01:45:17.960 And Brandy, thank you for your donation.

01:45:20.680 We're doing really good on the donations tonight, guys.

01:45:23.460 105 so far.

01:45:24.820 That's amazing.

01:45:26.040 Thank you.

01:45:26.440 um so you know these donations are going to go into our general fund and help uh pay off

01:45:33.160 njordshoff and get us to where we can make phrasehoff a reality this all this all goes

01:45:38.740 to that and we are 105 closer than we were when we started this uh this broadcast um are the afa

01:45:46.360 are there afa events in scandinavia or other parts of europe yes so um we have members in

01:45:55.540 of European countries. I believe we have members in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden,

01:46:04.340 Norway, the Netherlands, and Italy at this time. We have our folk builder who's in Europe,

01:46:11.620 Erik Lognet, who is in Sweden. He's way far north in Sweden. He's up kind of close to the Finnish

01:46:17.300 border. But yes, he hosts events. We have numerous active members in Sweden that hosts events.

01:46:25.540 So if that's something, you know, if you're in that general area, let us know.

01:46:29.820 Let Eric know. His contact information is elugnet at runestone.org.

01:46:37.420 And he can get you set up in that area if you want to meet some Scandinavian AFA members.

01:46:47.140 Where can I find the information about the Hoftholler?

01:46:50.800 Cliff, you want to take this one?

01:46:53.420 Absolutely. I love the Hoftholler.

01:46:55.540 um so for those who don't know what half taller is it is percentage based based contribution to

01:47:02.260 the ossaroo folk assembly and um it comes from uh scandinavian or norse um for half toll literally

01:47:12.280 a toll that you pay when you go to the half um like a half tax i guess you could say and um it

01:47:19.800 is the best way to contribute to the the Asshu folk assembly um Alshir Gothi Matt likes to say

01:47:29.000 that's the christians give ten percent that's why they can have nice things they have gold in their

01:47:34.440 temples so um you know we we ask for a minimum contribution of one percent if you are interested

01:47:42.760 in doing that you want to contact your folk builder um your local folk builder or your

01:47:49.000 your favorite go through your githia and ask anyone in leadership and we can get you started

01:47:52.520 on that we will accept pretty much any method for contributing that but some of the easiest ones

01:48:01.000 are direct deposit if your employer supports it and you get a regular paycheck that does

01:48:07.640 direct deposit many but not all employers are set up to let you allocate that direct deposit

01:48:14.200 to more than one account based on percentages um that is a super easy way to do it and you can go

01:48:21.240 in you know if your company uses adp or something like that and just adjust the percentages when

01:48:27.720 you get a raise you can up it if you have hard times you can lower it all we ask is that you

01:48:32.520 keep it at one or better um if um that's not something that you can do you can just you know

01:48:39.560 know estimate it do it at tax time and figure out what one percent of that would be or whatever

01:48:44.860 percentage you decide to go with and then do that you know as a recurring e-check or credit card

01:48:53.180 or debit card payment and your your folk builder will guide you through the process for that

01:48:57.680 if you attend the hoff regularly bring a stack of cash we'll record it um the the basic the

01:49:06.400 important thing about half taller is that uh it does end up um numerically being generally more

01:49:14.160 than uh people who are on you know the the subscription-based memberships which helps

01:49:19.200 us achieve our goals obviously you know our our mission as a church is religious and spiritual

01:49:26.720 but to really implement all of that we need funds and assets so that we can acquire hoffs most

01:49:35.760 importantly, so that we can, you know, fund the events that we have in advance. You know, we have

01:49:42.460 to spend several thousand dollars before anyone shows up, you know, to do one of the events at

01:49:47.680 one of the Hoffs, the big ones, or, you know, at some camp or something if we're in a region where

01:49:53.420 there's not a Hoff yet. And it helps provide for other services. The Asatru Academy, for example,

01:50:01.580 we are not charging any of the families of those students that is a free service for parents to

01:50:09.100 have children that are in the afa we you know use the funds to help make sure that our gothar can

01:50:16.220 get to our folk when they have a need for them to be there if it's a funeral or a wedding or

01:50:22.940 a baby naming we're going to make sure that we make a go through or get the available to you

01:50:28.860 among many other things. Now's probably a good time for me to just mention, if nobody asked

01:50:37.040 about it, our folk services program. It's one of the things that has been around in the Ossetree

01:50:42.760 Folk Assembly since I joined, and it's really, really important. You know, for those who don't

01:50:50.020 know what that is, if an AFA member has some struggle or hard time in their life, we have got

01:50:56.960 your back. We have helped people who had, you know, some kind of flooding and it damaged their

01:51:04.660 computer and they, you know, work from home and their computer was their livelihood. And,

01:51:09.020 you know, $500 means that they get a paycheck for the rest of you. And if, you know, we can do that

01:51:16.120 kind of thing for someone if they have a need for that. We've had people who've had medical issues

01:51:20.500 or who have had um you know a loss of employment or or other struggles and um we take our end and

01:51:30.100 guard seriously um which is why we need everyone who is not struggling to be chipping in so that

01:51:36.580 we can achieve our goals but also so that we can take care of our people when a need rises well

01:51:42.500 there's something else i wanted to mention while we're talking about you know the different uh

01:51:46.180 funding things and different causes that we you know use those funds on another thing that we

01:51:52.100 have that you guys can feel free to donate to is uh i'm sure great many of you guys are aware

01:52:01.540 of the atrocities that have been going on pretty steadily in south africa targeted at uh at our

01:52:07.940 people at people who share our same ethnicity and they've been targeted largely because of their

01:52:13.940 ethnicity um so we we saw this we don't know how to fix it we don't know how to fix everything

01:52:21.860 but we know what we couldn't do was doing nothing so what can we do well um every quarter we we 0.74

01:52:29.860 pull together those donations and we send them to an organization the south uh it has traditionally

01:52:35.860 been the South African Family Relief Project. And that gets, most often we donate towards their

01:52:44.560 grocery list, towards their food. So that feeds a lot of poor and struggling South African white

01:52:51.880 folks that have found themselves marginalized at this time and have trouble feeding their families.

01:52:58.080 So we're really proud to be able to be part of trying to make that a little bit better.

01:53:03.060 um can't make the whole situation better but we can can make some folks eat a little bit easier

01:53:08.220 and that's uh that's always a really special thing so thank you for everybody who's contributed to

01:53:13.020 that thank you for everybody that donates the afa in general we appreciate you guys

01:53:17.700 everybody who's paying by hoftoller thank you um you know we ask one percent for hoftoller

01:53:25.980 but very often we have folks that give you know much higher than that so we appreciate it

01:53:31.560 The big theme is not paying membership dues to a club to where you are exchanging money for a service. That's not what we're doing. We're donating to our church, to our gods.

01:53:46.600 this is a this is an act of of giving and of sharing with your faith community

01:53:53.140 not of of paying for a service and we really want to get that mindset in with folks and the more

01:54:00.820 we've done it not just financially but with the afa culture it's it's moved us in a really really

01:54:06.700 good direction um is there a roundabout way we can know how much more is needed i sent ten dollars

01:54:14.300 for Frase Hoff as soon as it was mentioned and would gladly send more. So the first leg of the

01:54:20.100 Frase Hoff endeavor is to pay off New York's Hoff. I think the number for a payoff on New York's

01:54:29.160 Hoff at present is somewhere around 155,000. As far as in order to start on Frase Hoff,

01:54:40.840 our current level of donation needs to increase by about 24 percent now that includes growth in

01:54:49.020 numbers this year compared to last year we're up 14 percent membership wise so you know however

01:54:55.360 that works but those are some of the numbers we're looking at when we look at purchasing phrase off

01:54:59.500 it's it's really tricky when you look at when you look at properties we have purchased one of our

01:55:06.220 Hoffs for $45,000 and another one for, I believe, $230,000. So that can be kind of all over the

01:55:19.680 map. But those are the best I can do on numbers, and those are as close as I know them to be.

01:55:26.280 Another question is, why does the AFA focus on built Hoffs? Why not start with sacred groves

01:55:32.780 or circles would it not be cheaper to buy undeveloped land well first certainly it would

01:55:39.020 be it would be much cheaper to buy undeveloped land um but we've had sacred circles and sacred

01:55:47.260 groves for a very long time most of us when we started out set aside portions of our property

01:55:52.940 for that purpose the evolution to having hoffs is the same reason that our ancestors built hoffs 0.67

01:55:59.740 the same reason that other um Aryan religions have always had temples when they're able

01:56:07.100 um to build something first something serviceable where you can get in out of the weather

01:56:13.180 into where you have a special set-aside space where people can gather and be you know separate

01:56:21.500 from the elements has always been something nice that our folk have tried to do when they

01:56:25.420 have the availability um also getting something grand to showcase the glory of our gods uh is

01:56:36.700 really really important a half is very impressive and you know for the same reasons that an

01:56:42.540 undeveloped plot of land is cheaper it's also less impressive i mean then another reason quite simply

01:56:48.860 a house of worship is something. It looks like something. People recognize it as something.

01:56:56.420 And Western mankind knows that that is where you go to worship whomever you worship.

01:57:04.620 Having that for our gods, certainly they deserve it. And it puts our faith on

01:57:11.140 a reasonable playing field with the other faiths that people are coming from and surround

01:57:17.940 themselves with so i think it's it's very worthy of our gods to try to hold them you know to worship

01:57:23.460 them at that standard and not in a primitive way you have anything to add on that cliff

01:57:30.980 i don't know if it's an addition but um the the main reasons i think that we

01:57:35.380 are targeting existing houses of worship churches all so far is accessibility and credibility

01:57:42.900 asatru is a real religion but as a lot of you know not everyone who is not asatru shares that

01:57:50.760 opinion so we we focus on making asatru a real religion even to people who do not practice asatru

01:58:01.120 so that they see bouldershof and they know that that is a place of worship and they know why

01:58:07.320 people go there um and accessibility is really important too a lot of cheap undeveloped land

01:58:13.640 is in some remote county that nobody can get to and that doesn't really do most of our full

01:58:17.560 county good we're trying to get as many people to be able to practice in a practical way um

01:58:25.000 and you know that means churches in towns a lot more than it means you know a meadow on top of

01:58:31.320 100 acre mountain or something absolutely so um all right i see the family first approach

01:58:40.200 uh does the assembly have a moral ethical ethical view about homosexuality cliff said that wiccans

01:58:48.200 don't have the same morality and sexual sexual immorality has kept me from pagan roots first

01:58:56.360 absolutely we have a a moral and an ethical stance against homosexuality for a variety of reasons um 0.84

01:59:06.360 first and in a very basic way it does not further our folk it does not make children 0.99

01:59:13.480 it is askew from the natural order of things we worship the gods of order and we stand against 0.96

01:59:20.120 the forces of chaos and homosexuality is very much a a symptom or a an aspect of chaos 1.00

01:59:31.880 in a very real way um we believe strongly that homosexuality is a form of mental illness 0.99

01:59:40.440 and uh unfortunately it's been something that's been championed by certain elements in society 0.86

01:59:46.200 today so there's a lot of people who are very damaged that don't get treated and don't get help

01:59:53.160 because they serve a use as a mascot for progressive causes and i think that's tragic 0.90

02:00:00.840 another thing is we want to keep our children safe and we believe certainly that male homosexuality

02:00:07.880 is a very clear threat to our children. I'm not suggesting that every male homosexual 0.95

02:00:17.320 does anything wrong by children at all, but I think that the percentages speak for themselves 0.97

02:00:24.200 and it's a, when your mind is deviated in that way in a sexual way, we think that's unsafe for

02:00:33.240 our kids and our families and i wouldn't want to expose any of our children to any predation or

02:00:39.320 any of the consequences of that cliff do you have anything to add to that yeah check out our

02:00:45.800 statement of ethics and read the family principle that is one of those things that we put some

02:00:52.840 thought into making more clear for some of the reasons mentioned the uh the pagan umbrella we

02:01:00.360 We are not part of that by the technical definition of pagans, as in, you know, European polytheists.

02:01:07.900 Yes, we are that. But that's about as much as we share in common with those groups that I think you're worried about.

02:01:16.620 We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers.

02:01:21.700 Absolutely. How is a good way to discourage well-meaning Christians to refrain from 1.00

02:01:32.300 praying for you, hoping to not offend them? You know, I wouldn't encourage them not to pray for

02:01:43.000 us. I think that's, I think most, well, you specified well-meaning Christians. If they

02:01:52.720 mean well and they're concerned about us and they want to pray for us, that's between them and their

02:01:57.860 God. I think we do better to not dissuade them from that and appreciate the goodwill that

02:02:06.700 they're putting out. I don't think that they're, you know, they're praying to their God about us

02:02:11.880 is going to put any kind of bad hoodoo on us. So I don't fear that. And I think that it's just a

02:02:17.960 nicer thing to, you know, appreciate the thought and move on, move on to the next thing. What are

02:02:25.640 your thoughts, Cliff? Very much the same. I don't discourage that. If somebody wants to give me

02:02:35.620 some extra good spiritual points by having a God that I don't have a kinship relationship with

02:02:43.500 throwing some goodwill my way. I don't feel like I'm tainted by that. I know for sure

02:02:50.920 that they're not going to be able to pray their God into seducing me, especially if it's Christian, 0.98

02:02:56.500 because I'm well versed in that after 13 years of Catholic school. So, you know, my 0.74

02:03:04.120 uh my traumatic break with christianity was very permanent um and personal so you know um i as a

02:03:13.940 side note i i do believe that that god is real i i believe that the gods of any ethnic religion

02:03:22.640 are real and the christians of course aren't an ethnic religion but they're worshiping somebody

02:03:27.440 else's ethnic god so um you know i don't think they're praying to nothing i just don't think

02:03:34.880 it's going to be harmful to me i'm quite confident in uh in my relationship with my ancestors and my

02:03:42.080 gods and another sort of side note i uh i had a kick for a few years where i would say gesundheit

02:03:49.760 all the time instead of bless you and uh that just didn't sound very natural so i'm back to bless you

02:03:56.320 there's nothing wrong with that we can uh you know we don't we don't need to offend people

02:04:02.960 and if they want to send goodwill our way then great you know this is another thing that i want

02:04:08.960 to bring up and it's not necessarily timely but every every year around uh yule we have

02:04:14.880 concerns of you know people will take offense if somebody wishes you a merry christmas um

02:04:20.480 Um, if people, if people with different belief systems than me wish me a happy anything,

02:04:28.740 um, I think that the response is thank you and appreciating it. You know, I don't care if

02:04:34.540 somebody, if somebody wants to tell me Merry Christmas, I appreciate it. If you want to tell

02:04:38.020 me happy Hanukkah, it's a little bit odd, but sure. I appreciate it. You want to tell me happy

02:04:42.100 Kwanzaa again, kind of strange, but okay. I think any, any gesture of, of goodwill is nice. And

02:04:50.440 And I don't think, I think it's noble of us to accept that as it's intended, as opposed to,

02:04:57.300 you know, be easily, easily to take offense. Are there AFA members in Finland or Estonia?

02:05:04.780 Not at present. I would love to see that change though. If you find yourself there,

02:05:08.700 you have family there that ought to join us, you know, send them over. We'd love to see that.

02:05:13.420 I've got a question. How to make a donation? Right now, Nick is going to throw up a bunch

02:05:20.500 of options on how to make donations. Any way you want is how to make a donation. We have

02:05:27.680 a donate link to a number of specific AFA causes on our website, but we also have the

02:05:34.220 general fund just donate button, and that's the easiest and most versatile way to donate

02:05:39.620 to us um if you'd prefer to donate by check we could provide you an address for that if you want

02:05:46.580 to donate by cash we can get you in touch with the closest folk builder folks have already done

02:05:52.340 it during this broadcast if you want to donate money over on entropy that's a really nice way

02:05:56.820 to donate to us as well but thank you for asking and thank you for you know wanting to donate it's

02:06:03.380 much much appreciated um looks like last question here we have done exactly two hours i think this

02:06:12.420 is the longest uh longest stream i've i've been a part of doing and uh really appreciate our amazing

02:06:20.020 guest uh cliff for joining us daniel asks where do you guys see the afa in 10 years um

02:06:30.260 um cliff go ahead and take this one first everywhere um no really uh i mean you know

02:06:39.120 we're talking about half five but you know in private matt and i are talking about hoss 9 10

02:06:49.140 11 and 12. um we're gonna keep pushing forward i mean i i don't know exactly how far into the

02:06:57.400 list we'll get in 10 years time uh i would hope that we're talking about maybe nine by then that's

02:07:03.960 a long time and if you think about you know we've got four done in six years is it and at an

02:07:14.320 accelerating rate so that's possible um i i would like to see us with agothi or githia in every one

02:07:25.140 of the u.s states and several in canada and europe as well um we have members internationally and we

02:07:36.020 need to do a better job of serving them we do the best we can and they do a lot of hard work to make

02:07:40.820 things happen but we certainly um want to grow our our our clergy our our gothar and githia to make

02:07:49.460 sure that we can make practicing Ossetree more accessible to as many of our folk as possible.

02:07:59.200 10 years is a long time. Also, when we get there, I'm going to say how quick it went, but

02:08:06.340 something that I, it may be a little bit more than 10 years from now, but something that I'm

02:08:12.260 really looking forward to as an eventual milestone um is when we have the first two afa babies

02:08:20.900 marrying each other in one of our hofs that's going to be a big deal for me personally that

02:08:25.780 will let me know that we have i guess passed on the torch at that point that the afa the

02:08:35.860 the Ossetree Folk Assembly will truly be a multi-generational cultural institution for

02:08:43.640 our folk, for Western people. And the, you know, if I get hit by a meteor and Matt gets hit by a

02:08:53.000 meteor and Brandy gets hit by a meteor and, you know, lots of bad things happen that it's not

02:08:58.200 going to stop because we want to get to a level of depth where, you know, all of us are kind of

02:09:10.380 expendable in a way. And I don't mean that in the negative sense, but we need it to be that way.

02:09:15.320 We need it to be so that if any one of us goes crazy and quits, that nothing changes, essentially,

02:09:24.940 except that you know there's some hurt feelings um but yeah that's something i'm really looking

02:09:30.840 forward to and we're we're just going to keep growing so we've got a got a lot of things we're

02:09:37.540 working towards a lot of things planned some stuff i'm not ready to talk about right just yet

02:09:42.460 but melinda and folk we're on the same page

02:09:46.680 as far as a 10-year if you gave me 12 years i'd like to see the first graduate that's

02:09:54.880 gone all the way through the AsaTru Academy, I think that'll be a big day for us. But that's

02:09:59.140 two years beyond the scope of your question. Realistically, in 10 years, I would like to see

02:10:04.840 Freyshoff and Tiershoff be a reality. And I would like to be well on the way or also having Braggieshoff.

02:10:17.060 Like Cliff, you know, I'd love to see a broader disbursement of the AFA. I think we're doing

02:10:22.200 great, but I would like to see a folk builder up in Alaska. I'd like to see somebody in 0.92

02:10:28.280 Hawaii. I'd like a folk builder in all of the United States states. I'd like at least a couple

02:10:35.560 of folk builders in Canada by then. And I'd like to really revitalize our folk in Australia,

02:10:42.320 New Zealand, South Africa, and in Europe. I'd like a folk builder in Australia and New Zealand

02:10:50.260 and South Africa within 10 years. And I'd also like at least three more folk builders in Europe

02:10:56.800 actively hosting things there. I mean, 10 years is not a whole lot of time, but I think we can do it

02:11:04.620 within 10 years very reasonably. And that's certainly what we're shooting for. Within 10

02:11:11.900 years, we're going to have a minimum of 10 years worth of curriculum added to the Astro Academy.

02:11:17.320 but I think in 10 years we can get the whole K-312 done for us to a true academy. So that's

02:11:22.560 what I'm going to try to hold us to and try to push on. That's kind of what I see the next 10

02:11:28.320 years. Got a couple more questions popped up. If anybody has any last questions, go ahead and

02:11:34.140 throw them in. It's been two hours and change, and we're probably going to wrap it up here pretty

02:11:40.400 quick, but I appreciate you so much for being here and all the great interaction tonight.

02:11:44.860 um i've been wondering for several days what is our version of bless me for when we sneeze or

02:11:53.100 you know or is there nothing for it uh hard to pull myself away from it

02:11:57.760 it being so ingrained cliff do you have thoughts on that yeah just say bless me or excuse me

02:12:04.160 or gesundheit um you know i mean i mean i'm the one sneezing i say excuse me i don't know if

02:12:11.460 that's proper etiquette or not, but that's what I do. And if somebody else sneezes, I'm going to

02:12:15.820 say, bless you. I guess, you know, it depends on what you're going for. If you want to be in your

02:12:22.100 face about it to people, you could say, God bless you and make it plural and, you know, turn everything

02:12:27.820 into a wedge if you want to. But again, I would just be normal. That's not the sort of stuff that

02:12:36.300 I would worry about. It's always strange when people want to, you know, add some Alistair

02:12:42.060 Spice to common phraseology, or they'll, you know, feel the need to exclaim things like,

02:12:47.880 buy Thor's beard. And it just sounds kind of goofy if you're doing it unironically.

02:12:56.260 What do you say to people who are just out of Christian? I assume Christianity. 0.65

02:13:00.880 what I would say to the folks that are fresh out of Christianity

02:13:06.080 search yourself now that Jesus is out of the picture and see if you still feel a strong

02:13:16.860 spiritual need a strong spiritual calling I know that I did and what worked really well for me

02:13:23.500 was positing and this goes for all people not just not just white folks what did your people have

02:13:30.680 before Christianity. Cliff mentioned this earlier, but that's exactly what happened to me. When I

02:13:36.080 left Christianity, I didn't leave for Ausitru. I left because I fundamentally didn't agree with 0.98

02:13:43.040 Christianity or their God. And so I was searching, what did my people have before Christianity?

02:13:51.340 And that's what brought me to Ausitru. The other thing I'd say, if you're trying to pursue

02:13:57.560 something new spiritually to open yourself up and to make that effort studying all day long

02:14:04.680 is never religion it only becomes religion when it's practiced by that same token you can practice

02:14:13.160 your religion on day one without feeling like you know everything or like you've done all of

02:14:17.880 the study i think making simple offerings and opening yourself up to the gods that's the first

02:14:26.200 step and it can be a really powerful experience or like cliff said opening yourself up to your

02:14:31.720 ancestors and asking them to help guide you to uh the right spiritual path where you belong

02:14:39.320 but i would encourage those things cliff do you have any advice

02:14:43.160 yeah definitely pray to your ancestors everybody's got them even if you don't know their names if you

02:14:48.600 knew them in life and they've passed on that can make it easier but you know if you're adopted or

02:14:54.440 or, you know, prefer not to pray to ancestors that you knew in life for whatever reason.

02:15:00.720 You've got ancestors whose names you don't know.

02:15:03.480 You know, most people, it's just a few generations back.

02:15:08.620 I mean, that's the foundation of religion for all peoples, I'm pretty sure about.

02:15:16.480 And we know right and wrong.

02:15:19.600 right and wrong are real and we know them when we see them we know when we know them when we do

02:15:26.960 them you you all have had this feeling when you do something that you know is wrong you immediately

02:15:31.080 feel that internal guilt you just know it like a little kid you know um they're more honest about

02:15:37.020 it than we grown-ups are most of the time um we that that's really important for someone leaving

02:15:47.520 Christianity because um they they may be having a crisis of relativism where they're gonna go down

02:15:58.820 the path of you know there is no good or evil and therefore I can do whatever I want and

02:16:06.840 that's not really true um I mean maybe you can do whatever you want but that doesn't mean it's

02:16:13.400 without consequences and that doesn't mean that it's not good or evil and um just reassuring them

02:16:20.400 that they're you know that they're allowed to take their time they don't have to make their

02:16:26.020 mind up right away as i explained a few times for me it was a really traumatic experience and i

02:16:30.640 think that that's something that needs to be assumed if someone's been raised christian and

02:16:34.800 if they were a devout christian not being christian is probably a bigger deal than getting

02:16:41.420 divorce it's for a lot of people their whole identity their family identity their community

02:16:48.220 identity um you know they they they may have considered being a priest or a minister and

02:16:55.820 fallen away from that over time they may have you know been an altar boy or i mean they they were

02:17:02.620 there's a good chance if if they're even bothering to talk to you about it that they were all in

02:17:06.780 because casual christians don't tell you when they're not anymore you know they're just still

02:17:12.780 doing all their secular stuff so let them take their time talk about right and wrong

02:17:19.260 and where they see that in the world and the truth they see in the world and how they can

02:17:29.900 their ancestors have a vested interest in them no matter who they are they you can trust them

02:17:35.420 no matter what so guys let's call let's call a stop to questions at this point we've got

02:17:42.060 three more that we'll go ahead and answer here and then uh you know it's cliffs over on the east

02:17:47.500 coast so it's it's very late for him uh we're gonna let him go i'm gonna go and see about

02:17:53.740 tucking my daughter in but i really appreciate this has been this has been great tonight um

02:18:01.100 oh also i i just caught over i can't catch all of the side chat it's just too much while this

02:18:07.180 is going on and that's a good problem to have but i did see that the person who asked the question

02:18:11.180 about leaving christianity only left just recently and you may not be aware of this

02:18:17.820 but what i found really really encouraging when i first discovered also true and i was still at

02:18:24.060 that place where it was very traumatic for me breaking with christianity i was very encouraged

02:18:29.340 by the story of king radbot of freesia so i would encourage you to look that up and look up his his

02:18:37.020 story and why we celebrate him and hopefully that gives you some encouragement uh that being said

02:18:43.580 what is the totem for tear i'm not sure if i understand the question if it is like what's the

02:18:51.660 mascot when we do tears off that has not been fully decided yet but we do have some ideas on

02:18:58.540 it but we haven't fully fully gotten on the on the other side of that at this point i'm not sure of a

02:19:06.060 historical totemic animal for tear uh cliff are you aware of one

02:19:14.780 i'm not i can brainstorm some fun ideas but that's probably not appropriate here

02:19:19.980 copy that um we will see when tears off comes about i will i will divulge what i was thinking

02:19:26.460 about was the eagle i think the eagle as far as arian sky gods is a you know appropriate uh

02:19:34.700 appropriate animal for a lot of reasons so i think that's where i'm leaning but we'll see when that

02:19:39.660 comes about in its due time that's where i was leaning to it just does make sense but i don't

02:19:45.900 know of anything in the lore that connects here with eagles specifically there's there's something

02:19:52.780 in the in the folk soul though cliff cliff and i were both on the same page i think that's where it

02:19:57.100 may end up going uh do we have any solid book recommendations on runes that are not by edrid

02:20:04.220 i've got one that i always recommend it's a kind of an entry level one it's

02:20:10.860 it's for people who are new to the runes or for younger people but i think it's very solid i love

02:20:15.980 it and i plug it every chance i get it's the runes workbook by leon wilde i really like it

02:20:22.220 i think it's very accessible and i think it's a really good thing for people that aren't very

02:20:26.620 familiar to get that foundation in the rooms what about you cliff not books specifically no i would

02:20:33.740 recommend working with the rooms um you know you can do this online mostly learn about their

02:20:40.780 phonetics learn how to write and read with them in english you don't have to like you know translate

02:20:48.940 into old north to do this but if you just transliterate some stuff in english in runic

02:20:54.300 um and start doing some basic rune pulls and and meditating on the rune's shape the rune's sound

02:21:04.220 um it's alleged esoteric meaning which does have some foundation which is where some of

02:21:10.060 the books would come in but um gosh this could be a long topic and we've talked about this before

02:21:16.860 but how the runes themselves are almost um entities in and of themselves and that you can

02:21:23.660 develop a relationship with the runes you know almost as a spirit of their own um

02:21:33.100 becoming familiar with them on your own and then you know seeing what you want to do with it from

02:21:41.020 there. But at a minimum, be able to read them because there's some cool stuff written on

02:21:47.480 Hordons and in our hops and stuff. All right. Well, since you guys have made this be a two-hour

02:21:56.620 podcast or a two-hour live stream, you can probably tell the lighting in Reno has changed

02:22:04.380 and the sun's going down. So we've been trying to work on my light and get a little bit better.

02:22:08.600 but no, this is really nice. I've really enjoyed it. We've got one last question,

02:22:13.280 a little bit more mundane, but still a good question. We used to have a genealogy page

02:22:17.760 on Facebook. Are we still doing that on another platform? Take it away, Cliff.

02:22:23.200 There is a genealogy page on MeWe. It is not as active as the Facebook one, but it does have

02:22:33.540 people sharing details about their ancestors sharing things about dna tests that they've taken

02:22:42.180 they have you know tips and tricks and resources about how to do genealogical research if you are

02:22:51.060 not on mewe get on mewe and search for me or matt or any of our leadership and we can get you added

02:23:01.140 there all right well cliff thank you so much for joining me tonight it's always a pleasure

02:23:07.540 to talk to you and i'm really glad that we're you know all our audience here is getting a chance to

02:23:13.060 talk to you as well yeah me too this was really great um thank you everyone for all of your

02:23:19.060 questions um i'd love to do it again sometime i mean matt and i've talked for twice this long

02:23:26.100 sometimes um these conversations can kind of just bounce around so i'm happy to do it

02:23:32.340 all right well we'll definitely have you back on the program uh everybody who's

02:23:36.500 participated tonight everybody who's donated everybody who's asked good questions and all

02:23:40.980 the people who've kept a really lively side chat going on thank you guys so much

02:23:46.180 i'm looking forward i'm excited for next week next week we're going to have

02:23:50.260 go or witten spawn harrell on to talk about what he's been up to and i think that'll also be a

02:23:57.300 good show uh if you're just catching this late and you want to listen to it at the gym or on the road

02:24:03.380 or something this is also being released as a podcast on spotify i believe it will be it will

02:24:10.100 drop on friday so thank you guys so much for all the support hail the gods hail the folk hail the

02:24:17.860 AFA. And remember, victory never sleeps. Thank you.

02:24:47.860 We'll be right back.

02:25:17.860 We'll be right back.

02:25:47.860 We'll be right back.

02:26:17.860 We'll be right back.

02:26:47.860 Thank you.

02:27:17.860 We'll be right back.

02:27:47.860 Transcription by CastingWords

02:28:17.860 Thank you.

02:28:47.860 You

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 21, 2022

7⧸20⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 2

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