Asatru Folk Assembly - 7⧸23⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 159 - Freyshof and the Future

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

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

00:01:30.000 We'll be right back.

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

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

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

00:03:12.840 As you can see, I have a co-host this time, which is awesome.

00:03:15.680 It's always a plus.

00:03:20.000 We live in exciting times, and we have an exciting episode for you this evening.

00:03:24.700 So I hope everybody's got enthusiasm and questions and talk about a variety of stuff this evening.

00:03:34.380 I suppose that's a good enough place to start as any.

00:03:39.900 Tonight's episode is going to be focused on Frazehoff, on what our plans are at present,

00:03:47.500 on what the future looks like with that as a as kind of a context and a jumping off point

00:03:55.000 we're very excited uh you guys have been really really generous and we're very appreciative of

00:04:00.720 that uh i believe in the last week we've raised about three thousand dollars towards that uh

00:04:11.500 war chest that we talk about if you got the cool pictures to put up nick that'd be awesome

00:04:17.000 Yay, look at all those little gold coins.

00:04:20.560 I don't know if it's the best way to show progress or not.

00:04:24.080 I thought it'd be cool.

00:04:25.540 I'm entertained by it.

00:04:27.080 So that's plus.

00:04:28.700 It keeps getting bigger and bigger because you guys are awesome.

00:04:33.160 But, yeah, that's significant.

00:04:35.720 And all of that is, you know, I mean, I'd have to check how many weeks,

00:04:42.320 but, like, that's, like, four or five weeks old.

00:04:44.800 That's not an ancient thing by any means.

00:04:48.280 You guys have jumped right in.

00:04:49.940 We've got a really, really special momentum right now.

00:04:54.640 Paying off New York's half as quickly as we were able to with y'all's generosity was a real big motivator, certainly for us in leadership.

00:05:02.860 And I think for membership and everybody.

00:05:05.440 And I think it also made a good impression on the ice here, at least I hope so.

00:05:10.860 So we got some good things going.

00:05:12.180 If you guys would like to donate, that's how you do it, runestone.org slash donate, and we appreciate you.

00:05:20.640 Also, as always, starting off the program, GW Farnsworth with a $50 donation.

00:05:29.700 That's much appreciated, and your consistent generosity is really something special and something admirable, so thank you for that.

00:05:39.120 Other stuff coming up very quickly. Coming up in like two days quickly. We have Sigur Bloat 3 at Sigur Hame in Jackson County, Tennessee. I'm very excited about it. I am looking forward to seeing all you amazing people there.

00:05:59.380 Uh, it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful weekend. I've got a special AFA history slideshow

00:06:10.640 presentation that, uh, I wanted to do and that our producer Nick created for me. So I appreciate

00:06:18.440 that and, uh, got some, got some cool pictures and some cool stories to tell on that. So I'm

00:06:24.460 looking forward to it. Got a number of things planned. I believe we have an Ancestors Bloat

00:06:30.060 planned for our graveyard that we have there, which is always a really special thing.

00:06:34.980 We also have Sigur Bloat to Lord Tear that we're going to do, that I'm going to do on Saturday.

00:06:42.980 So we'd love to see everybody out there if you guys can make it. If you're curious or you think

00:06:47.820 it might be something you want to do, reach out to any of us or your local folk builder and they

00:06:52.300 can get you all set up. And if you can go to that, awesome. If you can also or instead go to

00:07:00.640 Freyfaxi at Baldershoff in Murdoch, Minnesota, that'll be a month and a handful of days from

00:07:07.180 now. And I look forward to seeing you guys there. That's August the 22nd through the 24th.

00:07:14.820 Baldershoff is beautiful and amazing. Our people there are fantastic. It's going to be a great

00:07:20.440 event. I will be there, and I'll look forward to seeing all you guys there if you can make it.

00:07:25.260 I think that's what we've got off the top of the program this week.

00:07:31.200 I am welcoming Witten Erickson to talk about Fraze Hoff and his lovely wife, if she can make

00:07:38.000 it. I don't know if they're wrangling their children or just what, but, you know, hopefully

00:07:42.760 we get maximum Erickson participation this evening for everybody. So,

00:07:52.840 I don't know if you've given thought to how you want to present stuff this evening, but

00:07:57.480 assuming that, you know, for those listeners that may just be tuning in for the first time,

00:08:04.760 what is the concept of Phrasehof? How's that coming about? Why is it where we're thinking

00:08:10.760 about it being let's hit the ground running in case folks don't don't know or are unfamiliar

00:08:18.200 yeah of course so i'm really glad to be here tonight thank you for having me on it's always

00:08:22.920 a pleasure to speak with you my friend and to talk to all of our folk um githya katie hopefully will

00:08:29.000 be joining us soon she's actually traveling with the kids so they're up in vermont so i don't know

00:08:33.560 if they are back from their hike yet or if she has good reception but she did bring her pc so hopefully

00:08:40.760 We will be graced by her presence at some point tonight.

00:08:46.640 So Frazehoff and what will become Frazehoff District.

00:08:53.720 So it'll be the fifth half of the Assature Folk Assembly.

00:08:57.260 And, you know, it doesn't feel so long ago that I was traveling out to California as a relatively new AFA member and an even newer folk builder.

00:09:10.760 for the dedication of what we then called Newgrange Hall,

00:09:16.140 which was later rededicated as Odenshof.

00:09:18.620 And that was a long time coming, like literally a thousand years in coming.

00:09:26.560 And it was also the 20th anniversary of the Austrofolks Assembly.

00:09:34.640 In fact, I have one of those mugs right here.

00:09:37.800 um and you know if that was such a milestone in also true um you know i i want to say modern

00:09:46.620 also true but i think just in also true through all time um and you know what what founder mcdallan

00:09:54.540 and yourself and uh gothi thorgron and a lot of others did to make that happen um really can't be

00:10:02.120 measured and you know i think i mean for me personally it almost felt like that was total

00:10:09.120 victory at that point you know the awesome true folk assembly has a hall and then you know and we

00:10:17.980 had we had a lot of support from outside the australia folk assembly for that uh hall that

00:10:23.200 temple to be established too i don't know if people all know that but we had a lot of you know

00:10:28.920 tangential people that were you know supportive of our folk but not religious or you know generally

00:10:39.240 also true ish but for whatever reason not able to commit to to joining the aussage folk assembly um

00:10:47.800 and you know probably more more than just that and of course our members um who who really

00:10:53.160 made a big push to make that happen and like i said it it felt like it was a total victory

00:11:00.520 at that point but within just a few years and you know five years um we were talking about

00:11:10.760 dedicating thor's off because our alisher gothi made a promise to our fault and the clock was

00:11:17.720 ticking on that promise and um various opportunities had um presented themselves

00:11:26.120 and then challenges presented themselves and we were fortunate that um

00:11:33.320 we ended up getting two offs that year you know it was almost like we were mostly you

00:11:38.440 matt but most of the you know as a as a church we were up against this wall to make sure that

00:11:44.920 the promise to Thor and the promise to the folk of Thorsalf actually happened and you pushed it

00:11:52.280 man you really did I remember me and Katie were looking up in Pennsylvania for for temples and

00:11:57.220 we had people looking in Minnesota and we had people looking down in the Carolinas and probably

00:12:01.980 in other places too and North Carolina ended up being the place but because you pushed so hard on

00:12:09.360 it a second temple a second opportunity was found in minnesota so we were able to dedicate those two

00:12:15.520 hoffs um virtually simultaneously which um you know is is really amazing and then it took some

00:12:25.360 time but they got paid off and um we were able to dedicate new york's off down in florida which

00:12:32.240 again also presented challenges there were opportunities and things that um you know

00:12:37.600 that made some of those opportunities not work the way that we had hoped.

00:12:41.580 But it ended up being in the place that it belonged, like the other temples, I believe.

00:12:49.320 And it was a bigger bite of the pie than we were used to.

00:12:53.780 That was by far the most challenging one for us to end up having ownership of.

00:13:02.900 But we were blessed by many, many generous members, and then one particularly generous member recently. And we own that now. And, you know, Alshir Gauthier, Matt, and I have talked about the plan of establishment of Asatru temples all around the world for a long time.

00:13:27.820 we know what the first 14 of those temples will be named and sometimes we have fun talking about

00:13:35.420 what they might be beyond that and so immediately actually more like two years three years ago we

00:13:46.300 were already looking for for properties in generally the ohio pennsylvania and like northern

00:13:54.460 west virginia area knowing that you know that that area between pittsburgh and cleveland and

00:14:01.660 columbus was really kind of an anchor for um what had used to be the old northeast territory that

00:14:09.900 i had the honor of representing as a folk builder and the uh the the eastern part of the the old

00:14:16.780 midwest territory um and you know we've been we've been looking at different properties online

00:14:25.740 you know to to be familiar with what the market bears in that area for a really long time

00:14:32.060 and we finally got to move on it and and so since we announced the you know the the the payoff the

00:14:39.340 the ownership of new arts off um githia katie who i see is with us now hi babe um

00:14:46.780 that uh we've looked at four different properties um some excellent some not really meeting our

00:14:53.180 needs and i think that you know since we've been in that process there has been activity

00:14:59.100 almost daily absolutely several times a week um on on pursuing getting a temple dedicated to lord

00:15:07.100 frayer and you know for me personally there's some kind of synchronicities about phrasehoff like

00:15:13.180 i'll be honest i really wanted that thor's off temple back in in 2020 um me and katie were

00:15:18.460 looking at properties and we you know we we didn't fully like the ones that we that we were seeing

00:15:24.940 and i think we were hopefully wise not to have just you know jumped at the first one that we

00:15:32.460 could get even if it wasn't adequate even if it was gonna you know be ugly or have inadequate

00:15:38.460 facilities and and all that so um you know thor's hof in carolina is beautiful um what the youngs

00:15:47.260 and what witness fawn have done with it is amazing but i'd be lying if i didn't say i wasn't always

00:15:52.300 just a little bit jealous you know um i i know that up north here we we deserve a hof and i i

00:16:00.620 very much for both religious and for practical reasons have had a strong desire to have uh

00:16:09.580 you know a physical temple um and a physical community hall and offices and classrooms and

00:16:16.140 storage where we can really take assetru in this area to the next level it is just not the same

00:16:23.900 when you're operating out of campgrounds and backyards and people's personal kitchens that's

00:16:28.940 what you have to do and that absolutely um brings a lot of fulfillment for for me personally and

00:16:35.820 you know i hope for the folk and most importantly that our gods see it as worthy but you know we

00:16:42.060 already had four of these i knew there was another level to get to right um once once new grange hall

00:16:47.340 odinsoff was established i think everyone around the world knew there was this next level to get to

00:16:53.180 and so um for for me personally there's been some synchronicities like i was about to say

00:16:59.980 and then i distracted myself uh i don't know i may have mentioned this in in previous episodes

00:17:06.140 before maybe not i know um matt and katie know this and people that are close to me know this

00:17:10.860 but the first bloat that i ever led um before i was an ordained goethe before i was the leader

00:17:18.220 of a kindred um i think even before i was an apprentice folk builder just leading a local

00:17:24.060 study group and local bloke group was a frayfaxi bloke to fryer um and then some years later um

00:17:34.060 our our kindred keystone true folk based in pennsylvania we we took our formal oaths on a

00:17:40.460 fray fax so kind of inadvertently um there's been this long slow devotion to fray that you know i

00:17:51.820 have to admit wasn't even intentional it it sometimes just happens the way that it's supposed

00:17:56.940 to um i i've always wanted to be a good gardener my my grandfather wasn't was a farmer um and a

00:18:07.740 mechanic so i like to work on cars and i like to work in the yard and on the land but i've never

00:18:13.420 really been as good as i want to that's probably true for everyone but sometimes it's been pretty

00:18:17.740 bad um but it's it's really profound and humbling for me to see this so close at hand now and um

00:18:30.700 you know the the the longer history of the the northeast and and midwest region is full

00:18:36.540 of ups and downs just like the history of our fault we've had so many people come and and rise

00:18:43.180 to to great heights and then fall and it it really has been i guess in a way both heroic and tragic

00:18:52.620 simultaneously you can't have heroes without tragedy i suppose otherwise it's easy right

00:18:59.180 but um i'm really proud of our people who have helped to make this happen um and that are you

00:19:07.740 know working behind the scenes um you know we i i don't want to say too much because things aren't

00:19:14.860 done but you know so that so that people know a lot of things are being put in place um both

00:19:21.100 in practical um financial logistical terms um but but also in esoteric and spiritual terms

00:19:32.140 there's a lot of preparation going on for how phrasehoff is going to be operated um

00:19:41.340 what the spiritual and religious focus there is going to be um there's there's a whole lot

00:19:48.140 of stuff that that we want to do there and that we want to share with our folk and that we hope

00:19:53.340 will will glorify uh lord lord frayer um and i'll save some of that for the rest of the show i could

00:20:00.460 i could go on for too long hi alice

00:20:09.660 all right well first hi daddy

00:20:14.140 is Owen there too yeah he's being shy that's all right all right we're gonna get back to

00:20:26.620 the call now okay she will steal the show no that's awesome she's sorry guys no don't

00:20:32.860 we're up in Vermont at my sister's so everything's a little wackadoo right now all right so especially

00:20:38.860 kids well before all right so before we get to that and so i don't forget angela in new hampshire

00:20:47.660 donated fifty dollars to our current folk services uh fundraising drive for a family that's in need

00:20:55.820 and also fifty dollars to uh phrasehoff so thank you so much we appreciate it

00:21:01.340 that said as you guys have noticed we've got uh some folks that joined us on the call

00:21:05.660 githya erickson it is great to have you on the show how's how's things

00:21:11.180 things are pretty good uh like i said before we're up in vermont at my sister's house and

00:21:19.140 she lives in the middle of nowhere so the kids have been getting a lot of a lot of outside time

00:21:23.940 a puppy time uh but uh my sister and her partner go to bed very early they're they're all getting

00:21:33.380 in bed like now this is late for them so we're kind of hiding out in the guest room uh so i'm

00:21:40.900 sorry if i seem a little distracted mostly it's just because the kids are wild and uh no you're

00:21:45.380 fine you got stuff going on yeah so phrase hoff stuff that folks might be wondering um

00:21:57.700 As you guys may or may not know, and Nick may or may not have this handy. Nick, do you have a

00:22:04.300 current map of our existent Hoff districts? I've got the new one ready for us, but I don't have

00:22:15.440 the current one. Yeah. Yes, I do. There we go. So as you can tell by the comment he just made,

00:22:22.200 we'll show you something in just a second. And I appreciate that he is an overachiever.

00:22:26.740 so each of our hoffs is the center and i the center in the air quotes certainly the administrative

00:22:37.460 center of districts uh baldershoff district is over witten erickson's face he is high he is

00:22:44.260 looking just above it although if we extended it up he would still be covered by baldershoff canada

00:22:49.940 um are we have members in 12 countries and I don't mean to disrespect any of our international users

00:22:58.460 but the map makes more sense when we look at the United States and that's where we have

00:23:04.520 Hoffs right now um but as you can see this is the current hot Hoff district layout and uh

00:23:13.760 And Thorshoff, way down almost in the very bottom of the Thorshoff District there in North Carolina, is the center of the Thorshoff District, which goes all the way up the coast there, is a big chunk of, you know, all of the northeastern portion of the United States, into the Midwest, and then all the way over throughout potato Europe.

00:23:38.720 Yeah, and Ontario and Quebec, it keeps going north until you hit the Arctic.

00:23:42.880 So pretty much if you take the lines as they are now and you draw them straight up through Canada, just following the relevant province borders is what those districts look like to our folks in the north.

00:24:00.940 um as you can so we're going to have to break off a chunk of this to be phrasehoff district

00:24:11.440 uh nick do you have that map

00:24:14.380 ta-da there we go in this much smaller map you can see what i ain't made it pretty yet i'm sorry

00:24:27.100 well there's a funny gap is that white spot in the water there next to delaware that's just water

00:24:34.860 where the where the clipping didn't clip out the water ignore that to me all right so that is what

00:24:44.540 the new phrasehoff district is going to look like um it's it looks awkward it looks like

00:24:54.060 west virginia should not be there but the mountains and the geography make a difference

00:25:01.020 one of the things that we discussed on the new districting isn't as the crow flies or what

00:25:07.500 looks cool on the map but what areas are more likely to be able to make it to the

00:25:12.860 hoff and be part of the uh attendance there um something that i

00:25:23.820 no we have discussed all right yeah so i was gonna say thor's i i misspoke earlier thor's

00:25:29.740 hoff as it goes to our brothers and sisters in europe is currently all of europe and phrase

00:25:36.460 hof when it happens is going to bifurcate europe between potato and tomato potato europe going

00:25:44.620 with phrase hof tomato europe staying with thors hof um there you go behold it looks beautiful um

00:25:59.980 yeah so we've got some questions stacking up i'm trying to think if there's anything we should

00:26:05.420 hit beforehand but a couple of things i can think of i'm sure we'll come to in the course of our

00:26:09.660 conversation so i'm looking to see if there's any phrase hoff related stuff specifically katie

00:26:21.180 before we get going is there any stuff that you wanted to lead off with or put in here up front

00:26:28.700 about the future of freyshoff or the future of freyshoff of the history

00:26:37.340 you are muted uh because i what sorry because i missed the first 10 minutes of the call i'm not

00:26:43.740 entirely sure what wouldn't erickson uh explained but i talked about the past mostly he spoke about

00:26:51.900 the past and hoffs and getting hoffs and how that went with the kind of chain of events getting the

00:27:01.180 preceding hoffs gotcha um well i don't know uh it's gonna it's gonna be awesome um for anybody

00:27:11.980 who doesn't know we sent out an email recently we are running a fundraiser um to help get phrase

00:27:19.100 off as fast as possible so we can sorry keep kicking my table uh so that we can move on to

00:27:24.380 the next thing which will be very exciting but we don't want to we don't want to move too fast um

00:27:31.020 but if anybody donates ah there you go cliff showed um or i'm sorry not cliff nick uh

00:27:38.860 anybody who donates 500 or more will uh receive one of these horns that i am carving it's the

00:27:46.380 we're calling it just the phrase half horn it's uh from

00:27:53.580 sorry i'm easily distracted i saw cliff making funny faces in there between the two pictures so

00:28:03.340 the the horn will be i'm carving them uh on demand so if you if you donate 500 or more you

00:28:10.860 will get one of these obviously they will not all look exactly the same because of

00:28:15.420 the horns that i ordered uh they're gonna have slightly different size variations and colors but

00:28:21.500 they're cool you won't get one if you don't donate between now and the uh uh dedication

00:28:27.660 so you should all try to get a horn it came prepared more than i can say uh

00:28:35.900 i think they're pretty they're they're amazing you do really really good work on horns anybody

00:28:41.900 that's seen the horns that katie's carved will know that they are awesome and uh

00:28:49.180 every half horn is a horn that i've carved and dedicated so

00:28:54.060 they're not dedicated donated sorry i've got dedications on the mind there you go there you

00:28:59.980 go no they're beautiful and that's good to plug we did ask folks to donate but we did not make

00:29:05.740 the mention of the beautiful horn and uh that accompanying the 500 donation it also gets

00:29:13.020 your name on the donor plaque um don't want to disperse the uh the economics here but any hoff

00:29:22.060 that you donate 500 or more to get your name up on the hoff donor plaques and uh you know if you

00:29:29.500 have done it in the past be sure to look at the at the hoff next time you go to it because they're

00:29:34.060 there and we we really appreciate everybody who's been willing to contribute and help out that's how

00:29:47.980 so

00:29:52.220 one question that we have that's half relevant we will get we will get to everybody's any question

00:29:58.380 you have. We're going to hit the relevant ones to the conversation first, but we will

00:30:03.820 get to all of your questions, so please keep that in mind. So why is Frazehoff next, and

00:30:12.260 is there an order to things? Katie, why is Frazehoff next, and is there an order to things?

00:30:21.340 We are going in order of the gods as listed in the Gilfagoning, and Fraze is next on that

00:30:27.820 list. Behold, this is the list of what we're doing stuff in. Nick comes prepared with the

00:30:35.900 visual aids, and I appreciate that. To be fair, it was my question.

00:30:42.420 I wasn't telling people that you'd seeded the question. I was trying to keep the mystery alive,

00:30:46.540 but yeah. So Nick threw that question out, killed the magic, but that's okay. We appreciate you

00:30:52.940 anyways um yeah but a lot of people do wonder that and that is a very specific reason it's

00:31:00.060 something that my uh gothar mentor and i discussed years ago so cliff talked um a little bit ago about

00:31:13.500 how getting that first Hoff back in 2015 was to a lot of people like an end goal. It was like,

00:31:22.900 you know, that's the finish line. Once we get a Hoff, that's, you know, that's the peak of what

00:31:27.620 we can accomplish. And I think that part of that is because it was a goal that was so elusive.

00:31:33.260 I can remember reading Rune Stones from the early 70s to where, if you aren't familiar,

00:31:38.820 Our founder in 1972 started a publication called The Rune Stone, and, you know, we honored that tradition with our newsletters we put out once a month.

00:31:49.860 But, I mean, it was the very, very early days of, you know, the reforging of Ausitru and what the goals and ambitions and hopes were.

00:32:02.420 And it seemed like, you know, any day now we'd get this off.

00:32:07.400 And that was the dream of, you know, 40, 40 some odd years before it became a reality.

00:32:17.360 And there were some close calls in between there when there was almost, almost a Hoff.

00:32:22.640 We almost had Hoffs and it was, it was always just exceeded the grasp of, of folks at that time.

00:32:30.040 So it was a huge, huge accomplishment to get Odin's Hoff in 2015.

00:32:34.000 and uh so i think that that generation um certainly under our founders uh administration

00:32:42.520 that was a big you know when we get the hoff and it was funny i remember the really cool transition

00:32:50.020 because for five years there it was the hoff you know when something's happening at the hoff the

00:32:55.440 hoff the hoff and we had to like specify the which hoff are you talking about that was a cool

00:33:01.660 just triggering your head of like, wow, that's an awesome problem to have.

00:33:09.640 So, yeah, so my Goethe mentor and I at the time, we've been talking about what this looks like

00:33:19.200 in the future and, you know, what's what and how to figure out the order of how these things should

00:33:27.720 go we worship the gods of order it's important to have a plan and so this was

00:33:36.840 i'd say in 2014 this is something that we've given a lot of thought to and come to a

00:33:43.480 an understanding of what we'd like to do with hoff dedications and moving forward and uh it's nice to

00:33:49.720 be i don't know four steps into that almost five now so that's why that looks the way that it does

00:34:00.600 um another question if i'm in phrasehof district do i have to worship frayer more than thor

00:34:10.040 uh cliff is he obliged to worship frayer more than thor if he lives in phrasehof district

00:34:17.720 no no one is required to worship any of our gods more than the others although i do think it's

00:34:23.840 important to make sure that you give them all their proper honor and and worship but you know

00:34:31.920 it's it's common for people to have a particular devotion to one god or or one goddess um now

00:34:40.520 Well, that said, I would ask that you'd be open to more connection and more devotion to Freyre.

00:34:49.240 Hopefully you'll be attending the Hoff regularly and the environment there and the devotion to Freyre that we build up, you know, hopefully can become part of your religious practice.

00:35:04.400 but we're not only going to have bloat to frayer at phrasehof we're going to honor all of our holy

00:35:11.120 tides so at thor bloat we will be making gloat to thor in phrasehof just like they make bloat to

00:35:19.520 fray at frayfaxi at thor's house so and that's a good question i think that and i appreciate um

00:35:27.600 aiden i appreciate you asking the question a lot of the times people wonder a lot of

00:35:33.840 different things and may be afraid to ask them or whatever but they're really informative we

00:35:38.400 have an audience here that has practiced house true for a very long time we also have people

00:35:44.080 that have practiced for a short time we have brand new people that haven't practiced at all

00:35:49.040 and we also have people that go back and look at these episodes at different times so

00:35:52.960 So the questions are really valuable.

00:35:55.420 No, at each of our Hoffs are, I mentioned that we worship the gods of order.

00:36:01.200 The Iser are united and bound by loyalty to one another.

00:36:09.120 There's not a conflict or an animosity between, you know, celebrating one of our gods at a different god's temple.

00:36:21.240 And that's really not part of what we do.

00:36:23.460 We honor all of the Iser at the different temples to our gods.

00:36:27.800 We often, you know, we certainly make a special point of honoring the god whose temple it is.

00:36:37.440 But we've got people throughout the AFA that have a different level of closeness with different of our gods and goddesses.

00:36:48.740 And that's okay.

00:36:49.540 And there's a place for that. We're not theoretical or soft polytheists. We're hard polytheists, and we believe that our gods exist as individual differentiated beings that exist in bonds of kinship and loyalty with one another.

00:37:10.600 but what i do think might tend to happen is i think a lot of folks that maybe

00:37:16.600 don't have that strong of a connection with lord frayer will hopefully build that through attending

00:37:23.960 his hof and being part of the culture there i think that we've seen that grow up in a lot of

00:37:30.120 the different hosts one of the one of the hopes because we're we're going to um establish a hof

00:37:36.120 to all of you know to 12 of our is here and two of the austin year and there are gods that have

00:37:47.320 a lot less notoriety or awareness in popular consciousness and i think that them having their

00:37:57.320 own hofs and dedicated worship there will hopefully increase our folks awareness of them

00:38:05.480 and um through the gift cycle increase our our relationship with them and hopefully our

00:38:13.080 understanding of them so i'm i'm excited for that in in all cases but i think we see it already in

00:38:18.600 the case of lord balder um at balder's off i know a number of people who are regularly in attendance

00:38:27.960 and worship there that you know that wouldn't have been their initial god they felt closest to

00:38:34.760 but after years of worship there they certainly feel very close to balder um

00:38:45.480 i think we are doing phrase hop questions if you go up to caleb's

00:38:49.240 two three and four we'll tell you three and four would be relevant

00:38:59.800 you don't tell me what to do nick

00:39:01.160 It was such a big block of text and it wasn't in the first sentence, so I kind of overlooked it. Cool.

00:39:16.980 Can you show us one of the phrase hop horns for the fundraiser?

00:39:21.100 We already did that, Caleb, but we'd be happy to do it again because they're awesome.

00:39:24.320 And you know what, because we'll answer the question in its entirety because it's something

00:39:33.840 that we'll do, but we'll answer number one last.

00:39:37.700 So point three to your question, what will be the national event holiday for Frazehoff?

00:39:44.500 Katie, would you like to tell us about that?

00:39:49.120 hi so at present uh the national event at phrase hoff is and will continue to be

00:39:57.920 well isn't yet because we don't have a hoff yet but it our area does winter nights or

00:40:02.800 what do we call it again now i can never say it correctly

00:40:07.080 i need to get better with it literally winter nights

00:40:12.860 veteran i know but i'm like oh no no i'm just saying for anybody who's curious out there it's

00:40:22.140 just old norse for winter nights but what's cool about it is that's not like just something we came

00:40:29.180 up with which would be cool if we did but it's absolutely something attested and it's something

00:40:34.160 that our ancestors did in the way back and uh it's special so that brings up something and yes

00:40:42.960 caleb we'll get to the other two of the pieces of your question but

00:40:49.680 the reason that phrase hoff is happening in this part of the country comes on the back of of a long

00:40:58.880 tradition there and folks might not know so cliff can you tell people a little bit about

00:41:05.760 winter nights in that part of the country and the i don't know kind of the roots of the afa's

00:41:11.760 presence there sure can so once upon a time when i was younger but still had no hair um

00:41:20.560 Um, my very first, um, big Austria Folk Assembly event was Winter Nights in the Poconos.

00:41:30.880 It didn't have a number.

00:41:31.880 It was just Winter Nights in the Poconos.

00:41:34.180 And, um, my friend and the local Northeast, um, region folk builder, Patricia Hall, um,

00:41:43.140 vouched for me.

00:41:43.820 I was not a member of the Austria Folk Assembly yet.

00:41:46.660 I was a bit of a tire kicker.

00:41:48.000 um so i was going to various kindred events and went to a few larger events than that to

00:41:57.360 you know to see for myself what everything was about um and the you know the australian folk

00:42:03.160 assembly did not have um a particularly strong presence in the east in general at that time

00:42:10.200 wasn't non-existent but um there was it was a different kind of uh dynamic at that time

00:42:17.140 When you say that time, what are you thereabouts?

00:42:21.440 2012 is what I'm talking about right now.

00:42:23.820 I had started to explore Asitua in person starting in 2011 and met Patricia during that time.

00:42:31.840 And then in October 2012, attended that Winter Nights, which was the first time that the Asitua Folk Assembly did a large event in the Northeast.

00:42:43.540 I know there were some things in Florida and in the South, but this was the first time that then Alshir Gauthier, McDowell, and Sheila came out to something in the Northeast, or at least for an AFA event.

00:43:00.340 I can't say they've never been to anything.

00:43:03.720 I believe that is where I met you, Matt.

00:43:05.900 um i met a number of other um afa leaders um some some gothar some folk builders but it was

00:43:15.420 something that had happened on the heels of um you know recent successes at that time in in

00:43:24.280 recognizing that the northeast was a place where folkish also true where folkism could thrive

00:43:30.520 because a lot of times, not just the AFA, I've done this personally, we tend to think of like,

00:43:37.300 oh, that area, yeah, that is a picture of that event. Outstanding. And I think sometimes we

00:43:47.000 fall into the trap of thinking that, you know, because of what we perceive the politics of an

00:43:50.620 area to be, that it might not be open to what we have to offer. But that wasn't true at all. And

00:44:00.120 And it was an event that changed my life personally.

00:44:05.680 I don't think I'm the only one who would say that either.

00:44:09.040 That convinced me to join the Osage Folk Assembly.

00:44:13.560 And, you know, after a period of stubbornness to get on the team as far as leadership goes, I like to do things my own way.

00:44:23.280 I have to basically be proven wrong.

00:44:25.560 And then once I am, which always happens, I'll go along with things.

00:44:30.120 But yeah, it came out of that. And so Winter Nights in the Poconos was successful and we're going to be celebrating Winter Nights 14 this year.

00:44:40.660 So it's got a very, very long history.

00:44:45.220 I took over management of that event when Patricia Hall stepped down and have more or less been in charge of it since.

00:44:55.560 And my my lovely wife, Katie, has offered me a great deal of assistance in that over, gosh, the past seven or eight years, at least.

00:45:08.280 Yeah, it's it's so something I'd like to add before we get too far from it.

00:45:15.140 You made an interesting point about people's preconceptions of, you know, where might be fertile ground for us and where might not be.

00:45:28.940 There.

00:45:32.920 Earth has a plan of a plan of its own on these things.

00:45:36.720 there is a mystery in how all of the different threads of the tapestry go together to make the

00:45:46.180 things happen the way that they do um it's one of the things with getting these hofs

00:45:51.800 cliff mentioned earlier about njord's hof and how we had some struggles here struggles there and

00:46:01.220 you know things fell into place to get it right where it should be and i think that's how things

00:46:06.580 tend to work what is incumbent upon us is to do the very best we can with what we have to

00:46:14.580 create an environment for good things to happen you know we can't guarantee victories on

00:46:19.940 everything but we can do our best and if we're leaving it all on the field and doing our best

00:46:25.140 then we're positioned to take advantage of synchronicity of the will of the nornir

00:46:32.980 of the will of the icier on these things and there's a significant hand to play in that but

00:46:39.380 as far as like what works some place and what doesn't you'd think off the top of your head that

00:46:45.540 the places that would be most friendly to our faith are maybe areas that have the most germanic

00:46:51.860 or scandinavian immigration history or maybe places that demographically have you know the

00:46:59.220 the most white people who are eligible to be AFA members. And sure, you see that there's a bump from

00:47:04.920 that. But you also see it the places where people are, quote unquote, enriched the most by the

00:47:12.120 diverse environment that they live in. You see that where there's a scarcity of appreciation

00:47:17.840 of our gods and our folk. There's all these different reasons that come together. And

00:47:24.780 And quite frankly, there is pluses and advantageous reasons for membership and HOFs every place our folk find themselves, even if it seems very distant from our homelands or very distant from, you know, politically favorable environments.

00:47:41.220 So it's always kind of a special thing to see how that plays out.

00:47:47.040 Same thing as a random note with membership applications.

00:47:50.580 Every time we get a surge of applicants, I try to, you know, sleuth, like, where did this come from? And there's usually not, you know, occasionally there's, you know, one big watershed moment that makes something happen, but we will get, you know, a whole bunch at one time.

00:48:06.280 And they'll be from all over the place, all different ages, all different situations in their life.

00:48:13.000 Seemingly no commonality, but something, you know, there's a current out there in the web of Earth that compels that to happen.

00:48:22.720 And it's cool when it does. It's just, you know, we don't always have a perfect answer.

00:48:25.920 So there's a lot of right answers.

00:48:27.920 But Winter Nights, at that point that Cliff talked about in 2012, AFA had members a lot of places, but it was pretty solidly a West Coast and a Northern California specifically phenomenon.

00:48:45.120 It was, you know, very much great ambitions and a lot of good things going on, but something, you know, run out of Steve and Sheila's home with their close relations and then friends they built around the country that would kind of come in for it.

00:49:02.200 so winter nights in 2012 was the first thing that really made us you know

00:49:13.080 bi-coastal in our our american membership it was really special and it's something that we've

00:49:22.040 looked forward to ever since and it's something i don't know special for this call because you know

00:49:29.160 You know, both of our families in different ways came about, you know, due to or certainly surrounding that event.

00:49:37.900 Winter Nights 2014 is when I met Mandy.

00:49:42.680 And within two months, I moved down to Florida.

00:49:45.460 And, you know, now we've got a beautiful five-year-old daughter and, you know, everything's history from there.

00:49:52.680 But it's certainly real significant to the development of our family.

00:49:57.400 and uh cliff something special happened to y'all at winter nights too tell us about that a few

00:50:02.680 things yeah um i i met katie at a fulkish summer hallowing which was a uh fulkish event at the

00:50:11.160 same camp we have uh had winter nights i should say um and i proposed to katie uh during sumble

00:50:19.320 at at winter nights in the poconos um

00:50:22.120 um so yeah and she said yes everything worked out that was wonderful spoiler alert yep and

00:50:29.800 funny funny backstory to that she actually wasn't feeling too great that weekend and wasn't there on

00:50:34.120 friday so my plan to propose to her during stumble because that was the plan all along almost got

00:50:40.840 foiled by a cold um but then she showed up with uh with her dog's little and I was super happy to see

00:50:47.320 her so that you know so that we could start our family or that I could get

00:50:54.080 embarrassed in the middle assemble was gonna go one way I still to this day I

00:50:59.980 have no idea what he said to me because the minute he turned around and dropped

00:51:04.360 to me everybody started screaming I just heard screams and yells and people

00:51:09.700 cheering and no idea what he said I mean obviously I have some idea of what he

00:51:14.380 said but the specifics just what was i gonna say yeah i was part of the cheering audience i remember

00:51:21.580 that the playhouse was very loud at that moment the ladies definitely out decibeled the men though

00:51:27.980 the these squeals were top notch mandy got lazy and stayed up at the at the the main house

00:51:37.500 she missed it still kicks herself about it that's what she gets yeah we also announced being

00:51:46.620 pregnant with alice to everybody for the first time at winter nights a couple years later when

00:51:51.820 i got my my ordination uh during winter nights with you and uh steven mcnallon matt and uh i was

00:51:59.420 like i guess i can can't drink this horn because i'm having another baby and that was how everybody

00:52:05.900 found out so you know probably and mostly those same words too because he seems like a valid reason

00:52:16.220 yes that's that's the best reason so that's awesome um yeah winter night's a really special

00:52:22.620 event and so everything else aside all of the spiritual reasons and everything else it's just

00:52:29.740 beautiful in that part of the country winter nights in the northeast generally but in that

00:52:37.020 you know in that pennsylvania in the poconos specifically for those events it's beautiful there

00:52:46.300 so yeah that uh has been a tradition in the afa for i mean i could math it but since 2012

00:52:55.740 so there you go 14th year coming up wow it seems like it was the 10th anniversary just

00:53:03.900 wow we got super bowl looking roman numerals going on on this stuff it's pretty cool yes

00:53:10.220 that's awesome that makes me happy um so back to caleb's questions uh are there any competing

00:53:18.220 mottos for phrase off yes you can answer yeah you can answer affirmative or negative without

00:53:24.940 giving anything away if you want or do whatever you like i can give a little bit away so so yes

00:53:29.820 there are um for as long as we've been you know looking at properties basically since the

00:53:37.100 dedication of of nurtof i have had a pretty clear idea in my mind of what i believe it should be

00:53:45.420 sometimes like you know matt you were talking about discussion of the the naming order for

00:53:51.260 the temples there's certain things that you just kind of know in advance what you want it to be

00:53:57.740 but i will be honest um now that it is close to being i can't change my mind time um i have been

00:54:07.900 kind of vetting what i thought was such a certainty for the past couple of years so i've

00:54:13.660 intentionally you know asked people what uh what you know what they think of it and you know a

00:54:22.780 small group of people um the the gothar in our district basically and and now she go with the

00:54:29.020 matt and the witten um and have really you know tinkered with wording some and

00:54:35.180 pitched alternate ideas you know to make sure that i'm on the right track and i i think i'm

00:54:44.060 going to go with the original one but um that i don't have to decide that just yet um and i i

00:54:51.900 don't intend um alshir gothey can always veto this stuff but i don't intend on that actually

00:54:57.660 being announced until dedication i would like for the flag and the coat of arms and the motto to

00:55:05.180 not be known until that day of dedication well that's something that i'm going to leave in y'all's

00:55:11.840 court i'm certainly not going to be the one to out it uh prematurely cool i might be we'll see

00:55:19.440 how it goes yeah that's you can tell people right now if you want to but i'm i'm fine with letting

00:55:24.700 it go up until uh until we are celebrating the dedication um okay and so then to his first

00:55:33.260 question which is unrelated but we'll ask or we'll uh answer it because it's included

00:55:38.140 do you think it's harder for christians to be elevated and enter a hall of the isere

00:55:43.500 in the afterlife could someone who is not ausitru be elevated to hero status within the afa

00:55:53.180 katie take the first stab at that if you would like to

00:55:55.740 so as far as somebody who is christian going into the halls of the aesir if you mean specifically

00:56:06.840 like valhalla and stuff i don't know i don't think anybody could answer that question because

00:56:13.060 i don't i can't speak for the gods i do know or i at least i personally believe that

00:56:19.220 Our Christian ancestors do absolutely go to the halls of our ancestors.

00:56:24.720 As long as they weren't crappy people, that's where we're all supposed to go when we die.

00:56:30.720 And I don't blame our Christian family members for being Christian.

00:56:37.360 It's not their fault.

00:56:38.480 They don't know any better.

00:56:40.540 Yes, we introduced them to the idea of Asatru, but they've all been raised and firmly believe,

00:56:46.820 most of them for so long for all of their lives that anything that isn't christian is evil um

00:56:54.260 and that's like i said it's it's not their fault we can't always convince them to change their

00:57:01.000 minds most people have to come to this on their own uh through some sort of experience that brings

00:57:09.220 takes them away from christianity so that's my own personal belief as far as a a christian person

00:57:15.260 becoming an a hero um i feel like that that could be very nuanced it would depend a lot on what it

00:57:24.380 is exactly that they were doing but i can't imagine a christian person doing anything

00:57:29.340 heroic enough to become a hero for also true

00:57:35.980 but that's my opinion cliff do you have additional

00:57:39.660 didn't happen sorry no you're fine finish what you were saying katie yeah go ahead i wasn't

00:57:46.220 trying to cut you off i just i i can't imagine it i'm not saying it's impossible i don't think

00:57:51.420 anything's impossible i just i can't picture a scenario is all so i think um for for part one

00:58:02.300 do i think it's harder for christians to be elevated and enter a hall of the ace here in

00:58:07.500 the afterlife um yes for at least some of them um some examples so you know katie mentioned that

00:58:16.700 most christians especially the ones that we know in in current times didn't necessarily

00:58:23.500 choose christianity um you know they're they're more a a victim of circumstance they were born

00:58:30.060 into a catholic or a lutheran or a baptist family and that's just what you do right so um for for

00:58:38.740 those people i i don't you know i don't think i don't think that any of them go to heaven or to

00:58:45.440 hell or limbo or purgatory or or any of that i think that when they they pass on that they are

00:58:51.060 surprised and find that their souls are connected to their ancestors and to our arian gods no matter

00:59:01.860 what they worshipped while they were alive um and i think that for most of them they probably

00:59:10.180 go to the halls of the ancestors and find their family um welcoming them home and happy to see

00:59:17.940 them and um having a generally sympathetic attitude to them because they are kin um some

00:59:26.100 of them might even be laughing because they got the same surprise when they passed on they're like

00:59:29.700 yo check it out this isn't what we thought it was going to be um and then there's you know much more

00:59:35.140 ancient ancestors that were also true in you know in in ancient and and prehistoric times and

00:59:42.500 And, you know, may remind them that they were there the whole time, you know, wasn't a guardian angel.

00:59:48.520 It was your hundredth grandpa who, you know, who bloated to Thor.

00:59:55.880 I think that for some of them, it may be nearly impossible.

01:00:00.120 The generation of people that turned from Osatru to Christianity, it's much more complicated.

01:00:07.740 now some of them did so under duress and under threat of death and it's really difficult for me

01:00:17.100 to blame them because it's uh like yes it would be good to have the courage to be martyred for

01:00:28.120 your faith in the aesir but if all of them did that none of us might be living today

01:00:34.320 so that makes it complicated um there are others though who who did it willingly and were part of

01:00:43.120 the coercive and violent conversion of our ancestors um i think that their souls don't

01:00:50.700 exist anymore i think that they are are knifings and have been cast out by their ancestors and

01:00:58.740 um found their home in the in the belly of knee hog um that's what i think i don't know exactly

01:01:06.420 how sympathetic our ancestors might be to to people like that they you know they may be more

01:01:12.260 sympathetic than i am in this assessment but that's my gut feeling that those who um you know

01:01:19.540 i mean they're they're oath breakers those right so um i think that context really

01:01:25.380 really would harm them i think of course um another category of a christian who would

01:01:31.300 have real trouble entering the halls of their ancestors would be those who in modern times

01:01:38.740 found us true and know about their ancestral religion and know about our natural religion

01:01:48.340 and know about the ossaroo folk assembly and know about our gods but then for some reason

01:01:53.620 turn their back on that in in this life and return to christianity or go to christianity

01:01:59.780 you know after having been asitru in this time when we know better um i can forgive what you

01:02:06.260 don't know until you know it but once you know it that opportunity is no longer available so um

01:02:14.180 sometimes i think and then you know as far as them being elevated to um you know you you

01:02:19.380 specifically caleb asked about the halls of the aesir i don't think that most souls get that

01:02:24.740 opportunity at all whether they're ossaroo or not that is for the remarkable in some form or other

01:02:31.140 you know katie mentioned valhalla that's the most well-known but um you know i believe that any and

01:02:37.220 all of our gods probably do call souls up to be of some service to them in some way in the afterlife

01:02:45.060 they don't all have names and well-known stories like the iron here are do but i i think that i

01:02:51.880 mean look they're gods they if they want to do that they can um the second part could someone

01:02:59.860 who was not asa true be elevated to hero status within the afa no um it's really difficult for

01:03:07.320 me to foresee a scenario where that could happen because the reason that they're a hero of the

01:03:11.020 Asitru Folk Assembly is for performing great deeds in their life that defended or promoted

01:03:21.240 Asitru. Like Katie said, I guess nothing is impossible, but it's really difficult for me

01:03:27.420 to envision a scenario where someone who is not Asitru meets that standard.

01:03:32.200 so i guess first last part first

01:03:37.720 no at least in my administration as i was here you go the no christian would ever be elevated

01:03:47.800 to a day of remembrance hero status barring and i don't say this facetiously or disrespectfully

01:03:54.840 literally if there was some kind of revelatory experience where one of the gods communicated to

01:04:01.700 in a clear way no this one gets hero dave and okay because we we serve the isir but barring that no

01:04:11.620 um as far as the other you know again it is nuanced and i think it's it's important to

01:04:20.900 i think the default position for our folk is to go to our ancestors at least first in the

01:04:28.500 pass through that level of acceptance or not and i think that happens regardless um as as katie

01:04:37.620 mentioned there's like there's there's three periods here and one is like a generation and

01:04:46.900 it's a different generation in different areas of europe but there is a first person in the family

01:04:55.380 line that started out worshiping the isir and at some point decided to betray our gods

01:05:04.100 i tend to be with cliff that i don't think their judgment in in the afterlife is kind

01:05:12.820 um there's a whole lot of amazing people between those people and you know modern

01:05:21.460 usatru that existed that may very well have earned the favor of the gods even if they didn't know it

01:05:27.720 they may have just been that impressive um and that is certainly a decision for our gods to make

01:05:35.080 um and us to perhaps speculate on i think it is certainly within their power to call up any of

01:05:43.560 our folk to their halls if they would like to the other thing that i want to put out there

01:05:46.980 it's a concept that I don't know if a lot of people think about. We use the term afterlife,

01:05:52.980 but I don't think we give it a lot of thought. If you died in 1250, you've had a lot of time

01:06:03.640 existing in a realm beyond ours. And I don't know what deeds you've accomplished there that may have

01:06:11.020 earned you elevation on a, you know, in a different way that we're not aware of.

01:06:15.980 I absolutely believe in posthumous ascension, and perhaps there are deeds that are done in the life

01:06:23.580 beyond ours that, you know, change that equation and earn you a spot. I don't know, and I can't

01:06:28.800 speak to that, but from what we do know, I can't, the thing that I can affirmatively speak to is

01:06:36.940 gets elevated to afa hero status and unless i get word from from on high that i need to up somebody

01:06:45.180 that's not also true that's literally their criteria for elevation is the service that they

01:06:51.260 perform for our gods sometimes that's folks that were martyred for for their faith other times

01:06:57.340 it's folks that were proactive in fighting for uh our faith versus you know versus opposition

01:07:05.100 Um, but no, that's awesome. It's an awesome bunch of questions. Thank you for that.

01:07:12.260 Um, back into some stuff here.

01:07:25.080 Um, okay. So following on that, I guess in a, in an interesting way that I haven't heard before,

01:07:35.100 Uh, we have, but could a Christian await our heroes outside the doorstep of Valhall as an honored enemy? Or did I just receive bad info? Is honored enemies even a thing?

01:07:53.760 Katie, is honored enemies a thing? Is that, is there some kind of, what is your reaction to both of those questions in whatever way you want to take it?

01:08:03.460 uh my reaction is in the 20 years i've been also true i have never really heard of an honored

01:08:11.780 enemy because usually if you honor someone i don't know maybe that's not entirely true i don't

01:08:18.320 know i probably shouldn't be the person to answer this so why don't we ask cliff instead

01:08:22.960 right i'm sorry you guys what you got no don't be that's fine you guys you guys are couple you

01:08:30.360 guys work it out i don't care erickson of your choosing answer this question i mean we're a team

01:08:35.240 right um so i've i've never heard anything about um you know honored enemies waiting at the

01:08:48.680 that the the door to to valhalla to like have one last challenge or something to one of the warriors

01:08:57.400 um entering that hall i'm not saying that doesn't exist but that would be a new concept to me

01:09:02.520 i mean it sounds interesting it then you know it might be kind of cool but i've never heard it but

01:09:07.800 the general concept of an honored enemy i don't think is is ridiculous i definitely think that

01:09:13.640 there can be respect for rivals on the battlefield or in business or you know in anything where

01:09:23.880 there's competition um you know if you know if if you are a great warrior or a great businessman

01:09:31.560 um and you know your opponent conducts themselves with honor and with skill um and would be your

01:09:39.880 friend if not for having been born in that other kingdom or other tribe i i think there can

01:09:47.080 certainly be honor and respect between rivals like that um but not to an extent where you're

01:09:54.280 not going to do what you need to do that would lose you the respect um i can't think of any

01:10:02.120 but i'm pretty sure there are quite a few tales about such um such such rivalries i guess the um

01:10:09.800 the the the christmas that was celebrated between the the british and german soldiers

01:10:16.520 in the great war is a good example of that they they put aside their you know they're they're

01:10:23.480 fighting and probably welcome to break from it given the conditions of it um for for a christmas

01:10:29.960 day meal there's a there's a formal name for it i forget what it is off the top of my head but

01:10:35.000 you know obviously these were enemies you know the the the english the british on on one side

01:10:41.320 and the germans on the other are you know machine gunning and fragmentation grenading and gassing

01:10:49.000 each other from across no man's land but uh you know managed to put that aside and and and share

01:10:57.000 respect and um and and religion for a day and even though it happened to be christmas and and

01:11:03.960 christianity in that context this is the one of those generations that we were talking about that

01:11:08.920 um probably on both sides earned a great deal of respect from our gods for you know great

01:11:16.920 deeds performed in the service of their their countries during that time all the other details

01:11:22.280 aside you know a soldier doing his part for um you know his people is is something i think our

01:11:29.960 our gods would look with with pride on um and you know if they could put that aside there for a

01:11:36.520 moment i think that uh yeah the concept of an honored rival or honored enemy is not um

01:11:44.920 not crazy to me but yeah as far as at the gates of valhalla never heard of that that um

01:11:50.440 sounds interesting though i'm gonna have to look into it so as a random side note just following

01:11:55.640 the chat i appreciate monk uh saying positive things about general forest i think as far as

01:12:01.000 christians uh general forest probably the greatest warrior of the confederacy i think there's maybe

01:12:07.960 some folks who are also in that discussion but i think it would be no slight to him to include

01:12:12.600 him in that discussion and he'd probably fight him if he needed to um but big fan appreciate

01:12:21.960 you general forest that said a big personal hero of mine in a lot of different ways um

01:12:31.000 So the question that you ask is an interesting one. And again, I appreciate all of the questions, even if they seem, you know, out there a little bit.

01:12:40.060 as kind of building on the previous question and i guess building on talking about general

01:12:50.440 forest if you're in a time where that's not really um an option that our folk are aware of

01:12:59.640 i think you know as i said previous there may be great warriors that are just so awesome that

01:13:05.920 you know they've earned the respect of our gods even if they didn't know them in life

01:13:10.980 that may be a thing it may not be um as far as folks that are christians like standing outside

01:13:24.060 the gates of valhall at that point they know they're wrong so if there's some kind of i don't

01:13:30.300 know afterlife exchange of the worlds to where Hebrew afterlife and Aryan afterlife somehow

01:13:41.220 interact in some way, then no, they've chosen they're on the other team. And I don't think

01:13:45.400 that's a thing. I also don't think it works like that. I don't think that Hebrew gods

01:13:52.400 can like co-opt the souls of people that they don't have a right to so i don't know how all

01:14:00.480 that sorts out it's certainly interesting to think about the concept of honored enemy absolutely

01:14:06.080 but i think if your enmity between you and us is your siding against our gods then no i don't think

01:14:15.200 our gods like no i don't think that's a thing to wear a god's respect if you're you know some kind

01:14:23.680 of you know nubian person and you're an enemy of our folk and you are awesome in your own right i

01:14:32.080 think there's a way for you to be an honor enemy that way and i think you're probably celebrated by

01:14:36.800 you know your african gods for that and i think that there's certainly respect amongst warriors

01:14:42.240 that way but i don't think there's any relationship between other other people's afterlife and ours

01:14:53.120 i'm glad you mentioned that matt we had a great conversation at sigur bloat in pennsylvania

01:14:57.360 last weekend about how the like that jehovah yahweh is a real entity and and shouldn't be

01:15:05.920 trifled with but that its power to divert our folks spirituality is something that exists in

01:15:15.480 this world only it can certainly you know cause our people to misdirect or or waste their spiritual

01:15:23.900 energy and and and probably is stealing that but that it cannot separate you from your ancestors

01:15:30.660 um after you pass on um you know that deception is not so strong as to

01:15:38.400 sever your bonds with your folk because we're we're connected it can't do that um but certainly

01:15:45.240 there's a big deception or distraction going on that could uh you know sap our folks energy

01:15:53.340 in this world. Absolutely. A question over in the chat, Rover, how many members does the AFA have?

01:16:03.660 727 at the moment. And we'll go back because we're kind of far afield from Frazehoff,

01:16:11.780 so we will just answer some questions and see what's up, and we have more Frazehoff stuff to

01:16:17.960 talk about when we get to it. When Loki had great gifts made to compensate for taking Sif's hair,

01:16:27.400 Odin and Freyr received two gifts. I take that to infer they are equal in certain areas,

01:16:33.920 question mark. Odin is king of the gods and goddesses of the Aesir. Freyr is the general

01:16:41.540 of the Vanir gods and goddesses what parallels do they share as leaders of the folk question mark

01:16:49.460 or is Loki as Odin's blood brother up to a divide and conquer move trying to create jealousy

01:16:57.300 Katie what do you think about that

01:16:59.780 is that question in the chat somewhere

01:17:10.960 It is in the private chat. It is the first question at 5.57 p.m.

01:17:17.600 You can't see private chat messages from before you joined the chat, unfortunately.

01:17:23.280 Or before I kicked myself off by accident earlier.

01:17:26.460 Okay, so I'll peace him out, Katie. That's not fair then.

01:17:29.680 Sorry.

01:17:30.440 No, that's my fault. It's a big complex question.

01:17:33.740 When Loki had great gifts made to compensate for taking Sif's hair, Othyn and Freya received two gifts.

01:17:39.400 I take that to infer they're equal in certain areas, question mark. Are they or aren't they? What are your thoughts?

01:17:49.820 Well, sorry, I'm trying, I'm trying to take time to think about things before I start speaking, because

01:18:03.360 well okay and i guess a follow-up while you're on it what parallels as leaders of the folk do they

01:18:11.280 share and answer those individually or all together or whatever you would like yeah hold

01:18:20.360 on cliff i'm gonna cliff just sent me the message on the side i think i'm gonna read it i'm sorry

01:18:25.820 guys i uh don't be i'm i just i'm sorry all the time it's kind of just quit being sorry you're

01:18:33.820 amazing cliff answer in the meantime while she thinks on it and gets that she's happy with

01:18:41.420 so um first of all loki knows he is in trouble and is a sucker so loki is spreading gifts around

01:18:54.220 to save his hide that's one of the reasons why loki is doing that i don't know um that it's

01:19:01.820 any more complicated than that but to answer the other parts of the questions anyway um

01:19:08.860 odin is king and and chief of the aesir and by this time in

01:19:15.420 in cosmic time um the the aesir and vanir have already had a war which they fought to

01:19:27.980 effectively a stalemate but even though neither side could best the other

01:19:33.340 it was the aesir who won that war by agreement and treaty they agreed to

01:19:39.420 to stop fighting because no one was going to win but the vanir were adopted into the aesir and nord

01:19:50.140 frey and freya were taken into the aesir as hostages but not you know like isis hostages

01:19:57.420 a lot more like a fosterage of a noble um of a noble person with a different um family so

01:20:09.420 They are not equal. Odin and the Aesir were not able to vanquish or overcome Núrd Freyja and the Vanir, but the Vanir did acknowledge the Aesir's leadership in godliness and therefore Odin's kingship over them in that agreement.

01:20:35.600 um and now the part about um parallels that they might share is as leader of their folk i guess

01:20:45.720 um

01:20:46.900 you know i i suppose you could look at it in a few ways that the uh

01:20:57.500 the vanir are either vassals of the aesir um or that they are in-laws of the aesir is how i would

01:21:03.900 think about it um and both of them on good terms not in a you know a a subjugated kind of way so

01:21:12.960 much um and then loki as odin's blood brother i believe is always up to a divide and conquer

01:21:21.380 kind of move i think that almost every motivation that loki has that we can find in um in our

01:21:28.720 stories is

01:21:30.320 malicious.

01:21:33.560 It's at a minimum

01:21:34.560 mischievous, but usually a lot

01:21:36.820 more malevolent.

01:21:43.500 Katie, have you

01:21:44.420 come to any additional

01:21:46.320 stuff you'd like to add on that?

01:21:49.340 Yeah, Cliff

01:21:50.440 covered it pretty well. I do believe

01:21:52.780 that there are parallels between

01:21:54.700 Odin and Frey in some ways because

01:21:56.660 as we acknowledge

01:21:58.560 often and also true our gods are not relegated to one simple faucet facet they're all multifaceted

01:22:05.620 there's a ton of overlap so we also don't really believe in equality we believe in equity but not

01:22:15.580 really equality uh there there are some people who are worth more than others there are some people

01:22:24.060 who are better than others um there are some people who can be on the same level but still

01:22:30.520 are not equal because somebody is better at this while somebody else is better at that but you know

01:22:35.400 there's there's overlap and there's divides and so no um odin is the the all father he is the king

01:22:43.880 of the gods fray frayer cannot stand on the same in the same spot as as odin i'm not saying that

01:22:53.660 they don't have parallels or that uh or anything like that just they're they're different they're

01:22:59.040 not the same when we can't we can't we can't look at everything in terms of equal because that's

01:23:03.960 just not really realistic with the way the world works um i was going to say something else too

01:23:10.040 Oh, as far as Loki goes

01:23:17.000 I do believe that Loki's

01:23:20.440 very essence is chaos

01:23:22.760 It is literally what his kind do

01:23:27.380 So even if he isn't always 100% aware

01:23:31.420 of the fact that he's causing chaos

01:23:33.340 It oozes from everything he does

01:23:36.740 right uh but i do believe that he's always aware of the fact that he's causing problems because

01:23:41.860 he enjoys it it's what tickles his fancy i don't know words but uh

01:23:50.660 uh what was i saying uh sorry trying to create jealousy always trying to to divide and conquer

01:23:59.300 always why because he is in his he's doing his best he is literally in his glory when the things

01:24:09.540 everything around him is falling apart or or fighting or all of that stuff because chaos

01:24:17.940 he is chaos and that's why uh he's bad we don't like him there you go i had a thought that can

01:24:26.920 Demonstrate how Freyja is not Odin's equal.

01:24:31.180 He had to sneak up to the Lidskjalf to look on it.

01:24:37.540 Odin did not give him permission.

01:24:39.220 And the fact that he would need permission from Odin tells you everything you need to know.

01:24:45.780 So, equality is a lie.

01:24:51.500 And I know it's just turn of a phrase.

01:24:53.520 I get what you're saying.

01:24:54.520 But it's always a good time to make the point. There is no such thing as equality. There's not equality amongst kings. There's not equality amongst gods. There's not equality amongst emperors. There is not equality amongst twins.

01:25:10.700 there is no equality the concept of equality negates the heroic it negates

01:25:21.060 in a way it negates the meaning of life um we are in a constant measuring contest between

01:25:31.100 ourselves and our peers or those above or below us and sometimes that is you know to the death

01:25:38.640 competition but other times it's just friendly trying to be the best you can be which is awesome

01:25:45.540 that elevates all of us but yeah none of our gods are equal the very concept of equality is anathema

01:25:54.580 to our faith but as far as things that are similar I will say this they're both gods of kings in

01:26:01.120 different contexts. Most often in European cultures that I'm aware of, Odin tends to be

01:26:10.880 the god of kings, but really distinctly in Sweden, Lord Freyr is the god of kings that they trace

01:26:19.780 their royal lineage back to. His cult there is particularly prominent, or at least it was for

01:26:27.420 really significant time um i don't think it's the same as equality but he is very significant

01:26:35.260 as is lord thor when we talk about the period that we have sagas and written information from

01:26:44.300 and there's you know thoughts that at different points in our folks history at different regions

01:26:50.640 and different places at different times uh different gods had greater i don't know greater

01:26:56.800 prominence or a greater number of worshipers um there are times when thor is the god of of you

01:27:06.160 know the working man and odin is the god of of nobility or of whatever else but then you see it

01:27:12.320 different at different times um the accounts of the temple at opsala um you know lord thor is in

01:27:19.360 the middle with with odin and frey are flanking him i think things sort out really different we

01:27:26.960 do know from the lord that's the reason that odin is called the all father a lot of people have

01:27:32.560 these rainbow coalition diversity things oh he's the father of all peoples and stuff

01:27:38.800 no our lord makes that really specific he's the all father because he's the father of the gods

01:27:43.200 in the sense that each of the gods serve him as children to their father he has a

01:27:50.280 paternal relationship to all of our gods and again it's not I think that we

01:27:56.040 overly literalize our lore because that's you know what our minds grasp the

01:28:01.500 easiest and what there's a tendency to do as if you know our gods are somehow

01:28:07.320 how physically copulating with other beings to create and and birth gods i don't pretend that

01:28:16.260 the process of god creation is maybe it is just that literal likely it might not be but the idea

01:28:25.220 that they all give familial fealty to him as though he is their father talks a little bit

01:28:34.060 about the relationship in a way that I think we understand in a functional way, but also in an

01:28:42.220 emotional and just instinctual bonds of loyalty way. But no, I think that's a really interesting

01:28:49.360 question. And then what his motivations are? No, Loki's trying to not get in trouble. He messed up

01:28:55.440 big and now the gods are angry at him. So he's trying to, you know, appease them and placate

01:29:03.300 them so that they don't you know exact bad punishments on them um our gods are very good

01:29:14.340 at being able to recognize chaos and bad things and reshape that towards the good or towards

01:29:23.320 their purpose and this is kind of an instance of that there's nothing good or noble or intentional

01:29:32.280 about loki's mischief other than to sow discord and to be chaotic and to be bad but our gods take

01:29:41.360 that as an opportunity to get good things and to make things better from it which is inspirational

01:29:47.280 in and of itself

01:29:48.240 okay sorry I was having trouble reading the chat over here there is a multi-part question

01:30:09.600 which always kind of throws me off first or hello first I would like to say that I took

01:30:17.040 our family to our nearest Hoth, Thorshoff, for Sigger Bloat, and that it was incredible to

01:30:23.360 finally participate in the AFA community. I'm glad you were able to do that. It looked like

01:30:29.240 Thorshoff had an amazing Sigger Bloat, so that's awesome, and I'm glad you were able to do that.

01:30:37.540 For those who haven't done so, make it a priority to get to your local Hoth and be a part of the

01:30:43.100 action it really does change you for the better uh now for my question i waver back and forth on

01:30:51.500 working with christians for the furtherance of safeguarding the future of our folk and a

01:30:56.700 christian recently said to me quote pagans don't really have the privilege to choose not to work

01:31:05.020 with christians most of the white population population identifies as christian and if pagans

01:31:11.100 can't ally with them, they have no chance, unquote. Thoughts? Hail the Aesir, hail the folk,

01:31:18.980 hail the AFA. Katie, what are your thoughts on that statement by the Christian he encountered

01:31:29.720 and the concept of working with Christians generally for the betterment of our folk?

01:31:35.260 Oh sure. I don't know that it is true that we can't not work with them. I don't see

01:31:47.240 what the benefit is in not working with them though. My experience with people and Christianity

01:31:57.040 is that 90% of us were raised Christians in one form or another. When we leave Christianity

01:32:03.700 we're angry and we treat christianity with this this animosity that may or may not be deserved

01:32:11.220 i can't say it's not but just because a person is christian doesn't make them a bad person

01:32:17.540 uh just because christianity is not what we are and what we would we want all of our folk to come

01:32:24.660 home to usitru right it is it is our birthright it is our heritage they should all become

01:32:29.940 also true but this is a thing that's going to take generations to happen uh and in generations

01:32:36.980 we may not have all of our white people as also truths but if we have a thousand people

01:32:44.180 who are also true in the next 10 years that weren't also true at this moment when we're

01:32:49.700 talking we're winning um it's it's the concept of the slow but steady you know we have to

01:32:56.020 we have to approach this from being christian doesn't make people bad and we want our folk to

01:33:04.420 succeed we want them to be also true but we need them to succeed because the more they succeed the

01:33:10.740 better chance we have of bringing them home to also true that is my my opinion um i think we

01:33:17.140 need to start to stop approaching these things with animosity and anger and start remembering

01:33:24.500 that just because they practice a faith

01:33:26.620 we don't believe in doesn't mean that they're not still

01:33:28.560 our folk. They're still white.

01:33:30.860 They still deserve to be

01:33:32.140 Asitru. They still deserve to be

01:33:34.500 good and to succeed until we can convince

01:33:36.640 them to be Asitru. If we can't

01:33:38.600 convince them, maybe we can convince their children.

01:33:40.900 So we should be approaching

01:33:42.300 this from a point of

01:33:44.780 long-term success, I guess, if that

01:33:48.600 makes sense.

01:33:52.040 I don't know if that answered the question, but

01:33:54.500 no of course it does it absolutely does cliff do you have any thoughts on that

01:34:00.580 always always um one of my favorite topics so um

01:34:06.580 firstly i think it's really important to note that the christian who is giving you this advice

01:34:13.060 you already know is profoundly wrong about something very important so their advice

01:34:18.740 and input should at least be taken with a grain of salt um that said i think that it's important

01:34:26.500 to work with anyone we have commonality with whether they're christian or not if they want

01:34:35.780 to make the water in your town safer so that your kids can all be healthier do that um and what you

01:34:43.300 know whether they're white or not if you have people that have a common interest in protecting

01:34:49.780 the integrity of all the peoples in the world if they are you know practicing their own ethnic

01:34:57.940 religion and are interested in maintaining their people the way that we want to maintain ours

01:35:02.660 there's common interest there and if there's common interest there can be common cause and

01:35:07.140 common goals that can be beneficial to everyone you know it's important that in any of those

01:35:13.460 um dialogues or or cooperations that we you know we don't compromise what is important

01:35:19.860 for our folk while we do it but there aren't that many of us right now we need we need to

01:35:27.380 we need to lead by example we need to be out in the world we we shouldn't isolate ourselves because

01:35:33.140 for for the people that should be also true they need to see us and they need to work with us and

01:35:39.940 know us to have the opportunity to see how that makes us great and to see what they're missing

01:35:47.620 um you know not like flaunting things or making them feel bad but i think that inherently these

01:35:52.740 people have a sense that something is wrong and if they see something so right it's going to register

01:36:02.020 eventually um so i don't think there's any problem with having common cause with those that are

01:36:08.980 that are different from you as long as you maintain the proper boundaries

01:36:13.220 and you know don't compromise your own interests and as far as

01:36:20.100 we have no chance this person is just absolutely wrong they're a victim

01:36:24.980 we are victors choose the side of victory

01:36:27.780 random thing over on the side um human slayer talked about uh he could have gone for a visit

01:36:38.560 to sigurbloat uh but he's had stuff come up whatever got an opportunity still if you can

01:36:44.060 make it out to uh tennessee we'd love to see you there you should come out i'd love to meet you

01:36:48.260 Be awesome. Make it happen if you can. On to the question at hand. It's all situational. We have to play the hand that we're dealt.

01:37:04.600 If there was some fictitious, you know, while Christians are slaughtering our ancestors, and it's 950 or something, should we team up to do something?

01:37:22.160 Maybe not.

01:37:23.580 It's not the time that we live in.

01:37:25.680 Most Christians don't know we exist.

01:37:28.020 you specifically use the term pagans that's what your christian friend said most people that would

01:37:37.120 call themselves pagans are purple haired gender ambiguous mentally deranged perverts and i

01:37:47.680 wouldn't want to make common cause with those people either we're still establishing our fame

01:37:53.320 And we don't do that well by foregoing opportunities to be victorious.

01:38:03.620 Don't compromise your principles and don't compromise who you are, absolutely.

01:38:09.680 But if we need to unite for the interests of our race and for our children and our families, we can certainly make common cause with them.

01:38:19.360 we have much more in common with conservative christians than we do with you know progressive

01:38:27.520 atheists that want to destroy us don't miss opportunities to be successful

01:38:36.720 for no reason our folk have a moth to the flame

01:38:40.320 tendency to atomize into ever smaller groups and that's how we lose all the time

01:38:50.720 standing together with other people of different beliefs for the greater benefit of our racial

01:38:59.860 interests as a people and to oppose various forms of ethnic cleansing that face us and I don't think

01:39:08.280 that's too strong of a word i think it is a slow ethnic cleansing and not a fast one

01:39:14.360 that's absolutely something worthy to do and think about there's ways to do it in a dignified way

01:39:19.880 versus you know giving in and uh the other thing that i think is an interesting thing to ponder

01:39:28.600 most of those christians don't know we exist but if they're our folk

01:39:32.040 they can come home to alsatru and a big step of that is by seeing that we are noble and dignified

01:39:42.360 people us taking losses just because we're stubborn doesn't help build our fame us being

01:39:50.560 proud of who we are not giving in on our core values and participating alongside our brothers

01:39:58.360 and sisters that have yet to come home, that builds a powerful reputation for us. And I think

01:40:05.160 there's a benefit in doing that. I'll say this. I had a really nice conversation yesterday at the

01:40:11.480 park with two Mormon elders. Say elders, they were in their early 20s, but they were on their mission

01:40:19.200 and they have the title of from their church to be elders. And now we talked for about 45 minutes.

01:40:25.540 it was really cool honestly i gave them afa cards and they asked me about they asked they offered

01:40:32.820 for me to join their faith and i offered for them to join ours but the rest of it it was you know

01:40:39.780 hey what do you guys do and me like hey tell me about you know jesus and the americas or whatever

01:40:46.580 like we talked for like 45 minutes it was a really good conversation hopefully hopefully they're

01:40:51.780 listening to the show right now if they are hey guys appreciated talking to you yesterday don't

01:40:56.740 know that they are but i invited them to being proud of who we are and interacting and not just

01:41:02.500 being hostile is nice especially with folks that maybe didn't know this was a thing that's those

01:41:09.780 opportunities to awaken our folk and bring them home one of the something that our founder steve

01:41:16.340 mcnallen talked about and still talks about is the idea of an in gathering of the folk

01:41:23.060 and bringing the folk home so many of our people that should be here are so okay i will i'll put

01:41:31.860 it this way so many of our people that will be here 10 years from now are staunch christians at

01:41:41.860 at this very moment. They don't know we exist. They're doing the best they can with what they

01:41:47.600 had. I'll say from my vantage point, I tried really hard to be the best Christian I could be.

01:41:56.120 I didn't know this was an option. It seems so silly in retrospect, but I didn't know we had

01:42:02.120 options. I'm not a Jew. I'm not, you know, Middle Eastern, so I can't be a Muslim. That must mean I

01:42:09.980 have to be Christian. So I tried the best I could. I realize how silly that was now, but

01:42:17.560 I didn't then. And I hope that a great many of our brothers and sisters will come home,

01:42:26.100 but they can't do that if they don't know about us. And they won't know about us if we hide and

01:42:32.300 are insulated and refuse to participate in the world. So take every chance you can to build your

01:42:38.840 reputation in a positive way and to build the reputation of our gods and our church.

01:42:44.920 I waxed over long on that.

01:42:48.880 Anyways, oh, so Nick reminds me, wherever you are hearing this or seeing this right

01:42:56.220 now, disregard this if you don't like it.

01:43:01.160 If you disapprove, then that's fine.

01:43:03.120 Keep that to yourself.

01:43:04.080 But if you do like it, like, share, and subscribe.

01:43:08.840 It sounds cheesy. We say it all the time, but it really does. It helps the algorithm. It helps all the stuff. As I was kind of saying a second ago, the biggest hindrance we have to growth is simply that so many of our folk don't know we exist.

01:43:23.200 um the way things are curated currently it is harder for us to break through and get our

01:43:30.700 message out to the you know hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters that should be here

01:43:38.660 you guys liking sharing subscribing do all those algorithm things but also word of mouth

01:43:46.100 tell your family tell your friends maybe this is spiritually enlightening maybe it's entertaining

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01:44:09.640 If you're a member of the OUSA TRUE Folk Assembly, awesome, thank you.

01:44:17.840 If you're not, why not?

01:44:20.500 There's a lot of people out there that, hey, this is pretty cool, maybe one day.

01:44:25.080 And I challenge you, make one day today.

01:44:29.660 If you like this, if you agree with us, if you're a heterosexual white person, come home

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01:44:45.600 So formally, we invite you to come home.

01:44:51.480 Give it some thought.

01:44:52.480 We've got a lot of kids for your kids to play with too.

01:44:57.340 Absolutely.

01:44:58.340 Ah, so from Scott, does the AFA feel that numerology has a place in modern Ausitru?

01:45:07.160 Which thoughts, Giphyah?

01:45:14.440 So I know next to nothing about numerology.

01:45:17.480 It's never been a thing I was interested in because it didn't strike me as being very

01:45:20.940 ostentatious.

01:45:23.060 But I know that Whitten Fassett does do cardomancy, which is doing fortune telling with a deck

01:45:32.180 of playing cards.

01:45:33.460 So she believes very much in the number thing.

01:45:39.000 But that's a question really that I would suggest reaching out to her if you want to talk about.

01:45:44.280 Because, like I said, it never seemed also true to me.

01:45:48.480 So I never really cared.

01:45:49.800 And I wasn't super into a lot of the different kinds of divinations.

01:45:55.940 So I don't know anything about it.

01:45:59.620 What are your thoughts on the orthodoxy or not of astro-numerology?

01:46:09.620 So I think it's tangential.

01:46:13.040 There are numbers that have special or sacred value.

01:46:20.660 Three, nine, twelve come to mind.

01:46:24.600 um i don't know that this is specifically a numerology related thing but the the golden

01:46:31.560 ratio is really important in all things nature um i'm i'm sure that the van here have something to

01:46:39.880 do with that um um um you know i think that you know if if one were to practice numerology in

01:46:51.160 in relation to Asatru, which I know some people do. I also am, I'm not one of them. I'm not very

01:46:57.640 knowledgeable on it, but it would make sense to me to, to key in on numbers that we can find in

01:47:02.520 our lore. You know, I think the, the, the three, nine and 12 are obvious, but you could go with

01:47:09.000 the 500 doors that Valhalla has, or the 800 men that can pass through simultaneously. You know,

01:47:17.620 there are significant numbers um that i'm sure can be worked with um you know there's there's

01:47:24.940 three heads there's eight runes in each et there's 24 runes there's you know each each rune you could

01:47:32.420 give a numeric value based on its et in position so while i'm not knowledgeable on it i i think

01:47:40.560 that it has its place. Magic has a place in Asatru and you know at its core

01:47:47.100 numerology is a kind of magic so I don't think it's inappropriate. Can I add

01:47:53.640 something Matt? No. Yes please do. For what it's worth I personally do believe in

01:48:02.940 divination as a very useful tool. We use runes almost all of the people I know who

01:48:10.200 are Asadru have have cast the runes before with the intention of receiving some kind of message

01:48:16.320 from it um I personally enjoy osteomancy which is bones um I only use like two bones though all of

01:48:24.040 the rest of it is little trinkets the point is we know that divination is a tool that our ancestors

01:48:29.740 used kings used to reach out to people to have the bones thrown for them or the runes uh the

01:48:37.100 staves or whatever so divination is a thing and if numerology is a form of divination that is

01:48:45.820 practical for some people to use i don't see why it would be inappropriate to use i just i don't

01:48:51.560 know how um i yeah i lost my literally in the middle of my thought i lost it which is a very

01:49:00.600 common occurrence for me but uh yeah divination if we recognize as being a real thing then

01:49:05.840 i guess numerology can't be discounted right if you're throwing the bones and you only use two

01:49:11.400 bones does that mean that two of whatever kind of bones or are there particular bones you use

01:49:18.320 i'm really just first this may sound funny or odd or whatever i will get to the why's here in a

01:49:27.880 second I've never done that so I'm kind of curious is there a particular type of bone that you use

01:49:38.240 for that when you say two bones is that like a femur and a phalange or is it you just do two

01:49:46.800 bones at a time or whatever kind of bone they are it's a serious question I know I know so when I

01:49:54.920 say i use two bones i mean i only have two bones in my i call it a deck it's not a deck it's a

01:50:01.680 little box of trinkets um i didn't have access yes i didn't have access to a whole lot of bones

01:50:12.840 and i was putting together my kit for throwing so i have little objects instead i have a tooth from

01:50:19.740 uh my dead cat and i had a like a piece of a tail from i think it was a mouse or something but i

01:50:31.800 used to have two bones i still have the cat tooth i think i've lost the the mouse tail piece but uh

01:50:37.920 no when you when you can do a lot of people who are doing um osteomancy in particular

01:50:45.040 it's just it's throwing objects so i have like a button and a little like i have like 15 things

01:50:52.420 in my thing so when i throw each item has a different meaning if i were using just bones

01:50:57.440 i'd have to choose bones that looked dissimilar enough that i could ascribe a meaning to each one

01:51:02.280 and then how it falls when you throw them and where it falls and all that stuff kind of

01:51:07.140 create the message but no just two bones would not be enough you need to have a minimum of five

01:51:13.580 objects in order to be able to throw to read a message two bones won't tell you anything there's

01:51:20.300 there's just not enough there if you know we have a bag of bones that you can you can we do now but

01:51:27.340 they're too big they're like the big bones you need little bones for throwing big ones but

01:51:34.620 a little yes and i could go on and on it's the thing i feel passionately about but no it's

01:51:40.300 it's really another time maybe it's really interesting so um numerology stuff i

01:51:54.620 again i will admit ignorance on numerology related things i don't know is it divinatory

01:52:01.980 is it the same as sacred geometry i don't know about the sacred maths so

01:52:14.380 a couple of things first if it's something you're interested in for

01:52:20.220 numerical relationship to ostrich practice i know that edrid thorson has written on that

01:52:28.460 and i'm trying to think of

01:52:34.700 i want to say rune lore maybe the rune caster's hand rune magic the rune caster's handbook

01:52:45.900 i want to say in one of those two and you should buy those because they're awesome and because

01:52:52.380 they're kind of fundamental to our rune practice but he goes into a lot of numerical significance

01:53:00.140 in a way that i don't really relate to but you might i don't think that's illegitimate

01:53:07.740 i think a lot of things depend on what the practitioner puts into it

01:53:14.540 um i think that most forms of divination if that's what you're doing and it might not be

01:53:23.240 the significance comes from like there has to be a medium there has to be a context that you can use

01:53:34.720 to as a lens to translate your interpretations what you're receiving your insight

01:53:46.220 for a lot of people in our practice that's runic but to our ancestors in different branches

01:53:59.200 of our faiths there were folks that would throw the bones there were people that would scry

01:54:06.880 there were people that were horror specs and they would do they would read entrails

01:54:13.000 um somebody mentioned in the chat but the the observance of flocks of birds

01:54:18.480 or of special horses there were a lot of different contexts to do that and i think

01:54:27.080 In a way, it's kind of like a Rorschach test in the sense that you are using something to overlay or to contextualize.

01:54:48.000 I would like Disney operatic music going on.

01:54:52.900 Sorry, I thought I needed it.

01:54:55.660 the kids were watching the the amazing panda adventure i think it is where some white kid

01:55:00.540 goes and saves a panda in china so i didn't realize that was that's not muted sorry maybe

01:55:07.500 aubrey needs to check it out but it is it is it is uh not muted at present it might be now um

01:55:15.180 no but what i was just going to say is a lot of that is a context you use to make sense

01:55:21.180 and to organize your understanding of what you're receiving.

01:55:29.720 And that's the most clumsy way to describe it.

01:55:32.460 Please don't.

01:55:33.580 There are people that are able to express it a lot more eloquently than I am.

01:55:37.920 But most of those tools that you use for any kind of divination

01:55:42.340 is the Vitke or the Gauthier uses that as a lens

01:55:49.940 by which to interpret their understanding or their received knowledge about whatever they're

01:55:56.800 trying to understand and i think for people that connect well doing that with numbers that's

01:56:03.380 probably a very useful thing um i that's not something that i utilize but the idea of connecting

01:56:13.120 that with ousted true isn't isn't new it isn't something that hasn't been thought of and edward

01:56:19.240 thorson is one who put pen to paper on some of that so hopefully that's helpful and i think

01:56:26.920 like i said i think uh runecaster's handbook or runelore but i couldn't be certain on which i

01:56:36.040 could check it out after the program i might and send you a message we'll see um next

01:56:49.240 Did you address when you think we'll get Frazehoff?

01:56:58.440 We did not.

01:57:01.620 Cliff, what would you like to say as your prediction of when we might get Frazehoff?

01:57:10.720 I'm optimistic that it will be very soon.

01:57:14.780 I am extremely confident it will be this year.

01:57:19.240 I think that's as much as I can say without diminishing our luck in the matter.

01:57:29.220 I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but we are very busy on it,

01:57:33.560 and I think everyone will be very excited very soon.

01:57:41.260 Katie, do you have anything to add to that timeline or to adjust or to contextualize?

01:57:49.960 that will not result in domestic in tranquility

01:57:58.040 i'm i'm a third i'm a third i can't no uh nope

01:58:05.240 i didn't say domestic violence i implied it but i didn't say it

01:58:08.920 i'm sorry i was i know i'm so bad

01:58:18.860 whatever that's to not incur your wrath cliff it looked funny

01:58:25.580 i forget that people can see my face so i'm sitting over here going all right you're making

01:58:32.040 faces and then i remember it adds to the show it adds to the show yeah that's something also

01:58:39.240 wherever you're staying looks awesome it looks like it's got the cool like raw wood like cabin

01:58:45.080 feel to it uh i'm a little bit jealous that looks awesome my sister's house is kind of cool and her

01:58:50.680 property is even cooler so good for you yeah i know i'm jealous of her but i like our house and

01:58:57.160 where we live so not that jealous just a little um

01:59:11.160 yeah what cliff said so

01:59:15.640 yes we're playing some of our car our cards close to the vest because we've got to behind

01:59:20.680 the scenes to make sure things work out the way that we'd like to um one of the pieces of advice

01:59:29.640 in the have them all is to you know praise the ice once it's crossed so we don't want to you know

01:59:36.760 as i guess the common colloquialism is we don't want to count our chickens before they're hatched

01:59:43.320 we are very excited about where we're at currently and i think we'll have really really

01:59:49.880 cool news for you relatively soon i am very hopeful that we'll be able to have phrase off

01:59:59.320 by the end of the year and i will do everything in my power to try to make that happen we're all

02:00:04.600 very committed to it and we all have reason to be pretty excited when we're able to we'd like to

02:00:12.760 you know fully share with everybody and we will all celebrate together but i will tell you this

02:00:18.920 as Cliff said earlier in the broadcast, we have daily conversations going on just about certainly

02:00:25.640 many times a week. We have plans and we have backup plans. Something that's really important

02:00:34.380 to me personally. I mentioned earlier that so much of what goes into this is, you know,

02:00:43.120 the will of the gods and and things and so

02:00:47.280 it's really cool so we just about every day my daughter and i when we're getting ready for the

02:00:56.040 day we we light some incense we light the candles she really likes going all out with all the candles

02:01:02.080 And we and we pray. And one of the things that we frequently ask is we put forth our plans and we ask that Lord Frey, if he approves of what we're trying for, that he blesses it with success and that he lets us know if that's not what he'd like and that we hope that it does him honor and makes him proud.

02:01:30.240 And it's cool because we do it so often that sometimes she'll start talking and want to do it herself and she'll say words to that very same effect.

02:01:39.680 That's what we're trying really hard for, but I believe really strongly, and it's always been my position as a leader in the AFA, is to, if plans don't work out, I don't want it to be because we didn't have our ducks in a row.

02:02:00.880 so i try to make sure we have a number of plans cooking at a time to where we have backups in my

02:02:10.080 typical plan that i like to do and i can't say this is in place i think we have

02:02:16.880 at least in my head i have double redundancy on this i don't know that i currently have

02:02:21.760 triple redundancy but triple redundancy is what i like to have on all the afa plans just in case

02:02:29.920 i can't always get there but that's certainly what i shoot for so we've got we've got some irons in

02:02:35.680 the fire and uh i'm very confident we'll have some really cool news for you guys soon and i will

02:02:44.160 pressing for triplication of redundancy as one of the people i push on awful often for that

02:02:51.840 that is that is something we believe in i wouldn't want to tease something and have us not be able

02:02:58.400 to follow through on it like if i said well it's going to be tomorrow and then it doesn't happen

02:03:03.680 that's going to be really disappointing not just to me but to so many people and that um

02:03:11.600 it's just not the right way to do things you know and as

02:03:17.520 as emilio estevez said as billy the kid there's many many a slip twixt a cup and a lip and uh

02:03:25.040 Again, won't praise the ice when it's crossed. And Young Guns is an awesome movie. If you

02:03:34.100 haven't seen it, you should see it because it's wonderful. Also, Young Guns 2 is really

02:03:43.020 good. It's not as good as the first one, but you should still watch it. So, next question.

02:03:49.700 this one, we've got it. Okay, so I'll put this out there as a plug now. A number of

02:03:55.000 our questions tonight come from different sources. If you are not able to watch this

02:04:01.280 live, at any time, you can email vns at runestone.org, and we're happy to answer your question in

02:04:10.820 the next episode that we have. So we appreciate that everybody can't watch it live. It's always

02:04:16.740 kind of a challenge to pick when to do it because we've got members in 12 different countries

02:04:22.240 currently. There's no perfect time. People work different shifts. People have different stuff.

02:04:28.780 What's cool is you can always, you know, watch the backlog of these on all of the places that

02:04:37.280 we have it on YouTube, on Odyssey, on other stuff. And you can listen to it on where we get your

02:04:47.060 podcasts on Spotify, on iHeartRadio, on Apple Podcasts, on a bunch of different things. So

02:04:55.540 yeah, if you got a question, ask whenever you want and we will get to it. And I appreciate

02:05:01.320 all the questions and I appreciate our audience wherever they're at. And I think Rumble we're on.

02:05:07.280 We're on a bunch of different stuff, I apologize. Yay, there's the graphic. We're on Twitch. We're on Twitter live right now. I know that we're on there. That's silly. I've even looked on there while we've been on this broadcast. We're live on VK as well. Thank you to our audience, wherever you find us, and I apologize if I spaced your preferred platform.

02:05:29.540 So this question comes in again, I think it was emailed to one of our contact things on one of our websites. Hello, all hope your evening is going well. I was curious, what separates a Gothar from a Witten?

02:05:44.680 It would be a Gothi or a Githia. Gothar is a plural. It's like priests.

02:05:50.800 What separates a Gothi from a Witten? And is it years of service as one of the clergy,

02:05:57.860 or do Wittens go through extra training? Thank you for all that you do.

02:06:07.720 All right. So I could put this out to the field, but I'm just going to answer it because

02:06:13.200 Because I'm the guy that elevates people to the witten. So I think that's kind of the horse's mouth on it. It's, it's a couple of things. Certainly years of service factors into it.

02:06:30.100 um there was a time where our folk builders were a separate thing from our gothar now that's kind

02:06:41.740 of a linear progression of things but the original Witten that I called up was not

02:06:51.400 ordained clergy per se but were people that had worked very hard for the

02:06:58.540 building and maintaining

02:07:03.780 and running of the Alstrou Folk Assembly.

02:07:09.560 Just so happens on this

02:07:11.700 broadcast, Cliff's been with me since the beginning, certainly the beginning

02:07:15.980 of my time as Ausheri Gauthier.

02:07:19.320 But for

02:07:22.400 about two years prior to becoming Ausheri Gauthier, Cliff

02:07:27.240 was about one quarter of the operational capacity of the Astro-Folk Assembly.

02:07:34.540 So when I decided to establish the Witten, Cliff was one of those first no-brainer,

02:07:47.620 I need to have him with me if he wanted to serve in that capacity, guys.

02:07:51.520 And his elevation there was because of his consistent and over and above sharing the burden of running the AFA and making it work.

02:08:07.100 and he has faithfully served in that capacity.

02:08:12.140 You know, my entire period has lost Harry Goethe

02:08:14.900 and has earned a lot of appreciation, a lot of reputation,

02:08:21.720 and a lot of attention of the gods in doing so.

02:08:28.640 As far as subsequent people, one of the deciding things,

02:08:33.640 it's not just years in office because there's people that,

02:08:37.100 Spend those years at different levels of engagement, depending on their personal situation, on their job, on their family, on, you know, a variety of things.

02:08:48.020 But the Witten is entirely called up at my discretion as a council of wise men and lady who I want their voice and their assistance in making the crucial decisions for the governance of the Astro Folk Assembly.

02:09:14.320 and their their help in shouldering that burden um and now that the requirement is that you be

02:09:27.840 an ordained go-fi in order to to get to that level because again our organizational tree is

02:09:34.940 is linear now as opposed to many different paths because we're we are a church we're a religious

02:09:43.400 organizations so it's not like there needs to be a laity and then they're an ecclesiastic path no

02:09:50.360 they should all run up one one one pathway that way there's a lot of people that could be great

02:10:00.780 choices for that but the choices of people that get there are either due to an overwhelming

02:10:10.100 expertise or to an overabundance of hard work or ideally a combination of both of those things

02:10:19.300 but also you know somebody who is it's not just about how much somebody does

02:10:28.040 and it's not just about their capacity to do it's about both of those things but also about

02:10:38.460 trusted loyalty to what we're doing and a shared commitment to our success and to our future.

02:10:46.520 Cliff mentioned at the very beginning of this broadcast, when we start reminiscing about the

02:10:52.960 good old days and about lots of things, there are a lot of people who will shine very, very bright

02:10:59.620 and then they'll burn out. Or a lot of people who, for a variety of reasons, will do a whole

02:11:07.940 lot for us and then will disappear so a certain amount of longevity of being loyal and being

02:11:20.660 being people whose vision and commitment is a good match for building our house of

02:11:42.340 true folk assembly moving forward so it's a lot of those things combined and making

02:11:49.060 a reasonable decision out of that of the you know the folks that have earned that much trust that

02:11:57.540 much i don't know preeminence in that decision and i feel like adding more words but i don't

02:12:06.340 think it gets any closer i think it's the best i have there again it's a complex decision

02:12:12.420 but i'm really proud of of the men that are in that spot and the the woman that's in that spot

02:12:18.660 currently can i build my own hoff cliff can a i suppose can anybody build their own off

02:12:33.700 no i don't think so um i think that it is appropriate to build spaces to honor our gods

02:12:48.920 um one can erect um shrines one can erect god poles um you know you can have a designated

02:13:00.280 sacred space on your property that is used exclusively for worship.

02:13:08.500 But I don't think it's appropriate to call those Hoffs because a Hoff is a

02:13:12.400 is a temple. And a temple is not just

02:13:16.860 it's not it's not just a personal worship space. It is not just a place where

02:13:25.280 you and your family pray or make offerings it is where people come sometimes from very far away to

02:13:35.120 to worship a god or gods and to to to make sacrifices and to make offerings to them

02:13:45.920 um i think it's really important that

02:13:49.120 also true as a legitimate religion has priests that preside over those offerings and those

02:13:59.300 services and that um we have full legal recognition and that we have um all the

02:14:08.160 responsibilities and benefits that come with that at our house we prioritize giving back

02:14:15.560 the community the number one way that we do that is by our food pantries but there are also other

02:14:24.920 community activities that we we get engaged and we want to very much be part of the communities

02:14:30.920 where we are present we want them to be a place that our folk know they can go to if they if they

02:14:40.520 have a trouble or a need we want them to have regular religious services we want them to have

02:14:49.640 religious education we want them to do all the things that um you know an ancient or classical

02:14:58.040 temple would do and everything that your modern neighborhood church would do for our people

02:15:05.080 and i don't think that it's something that someone can do by you know building a really nice

02:15:10.920 shrine to a god in their backyard but you should do that too like that's not a bad

02:15:16.360 thing to do i just don't think that it it rises to the level of a hof

02:15:24.360 so it's an interesting question i certainly agree with everything cliff said like can you build a

02:15:34.360 hoff depends on what that means first i don't know your technical skill levels so i'll take

02:15:44.040 the technical answer i don't know if you can't build off or not i can't build a hoff i can make

02:15:49.080 a hoff happen but i can't build a hoff um but realistically something

02:15:56.440 there are a lot of people that will get a I say a lot of people no there's a handful of people

02:16:07.360 that would get like a shed you know those sheds that you see outside of Home Depot that are built

02:16:14.560 already that you can get they'll get one of those and they'll dress it up and they'll call it a

02:16:21.340 Hoff that's not really a Hoff that's a stalli perhaps it's really cool if you get a if you get

02:16:34.360 any kind of a structure and you turn that into a covered worship space to honor our gods that's

02:16:41.740 awesome that's a great thing to do and it's a really special thing to do a Hoff something

02:16:47.200 different off is something that regular people would understand as a house of worship

02:16:57.280 um and that rises to a little different standard and

02:17:03.520 can you do that maybe i think it's a lot of people say they're gonna do that i've been hearing

02:17:12.560 i'm gonna build my own off and it's gonna be better than all your hoffs and i've heard that a

02:17:19.520 lot yet i look around and i don't see these amazing hoffs so i think that it takes a lot more

02:17:30.000 economic commitment than people think it does but one of the things about

02:17:37.520 getting Hoffs that's interesting for a long time the idea of getting Hoff was elusive like we

02:17:46.980 couldn't put the money together to get one Hoff that was really really hard to come by

02:17:53.460 but now that we have been blessed with a certain amount of success the money for the Hoff isn't

02:18:02.600 the hard part it's the commitment to maintain a half because you could buy a half or you could

02:18:15.080 have the material ability to construct the half but it's not just the building of the half but

02:18:24.920 it's the spiritual maintenance of having that hof be active having the gods be worshiped there

02:18:34.120 regularly having the gift cycle be maintained taking care of the hof and not letting it go

02:18:41.400 into disrepair or go into ruin there's a lot that goes into a hof that one may not

02:18:47.880 think does from the outset i would never deny our god's worship

02:18:57.320 due to trying to force everyone to do it the afa way i think they should do it the afa way

02:19:06.520 and i believe the iser approve of them doing it the the afa way

02:19:11.640 could someone else technically erect a Hoff and supply it with regular worship and take care of

02:19:22.160 it I suppose possibly but I think we'd all be better served if that was done through the

02:19:30.600 Astru Folk Assembly through the way that we are currently being blessed by the gods with being

02:19:37.200 successful at. If all of the energy that individuals wanted to put in building their own

02:19:44.220 Hoff were put towards the next AFA Hoff, I think we would have several more Hoffs than we have

02:19:52.420 right now at present. And I think that would be the best and most responsible way to apply your

02:20:00.580 desires for hoffs for our gods is to put that effort or that money or whatever that might be

02:20:08.920 that you have into future afa hoffs and i always tell everybody when they say they want to hoff

02:20:17.480 close to them your fastest route to a hoff in wherever you might live is to help us get the

02:20:26.980 HOF that we want in Western Pennsylvania or Eastern Ohio. Helping us get phrase HOF is the

02:20:36.300 quickest way to get a HOF in Texas or the quickest way to get a HOF in Nova Scotia or wherever you

02:20:42.500 are. The quickest way to get a HOF where you are is to help with the current AFA plan for a HOF.

02:20:50.400 And I hope that becomes a, I know that's an audacious thing for me to put out there,

02:20:56.380 but I hope it becomes more and more reasonable the more Hoffs we get.

02:21:03.060 Brandy says, each Hoff seems to have its own personality, in quotes.

02:21:07.780 What do you think the focus of Frey's Hoff culture will lean on, Cliff?

02:21:13.900 Well, so first I want to share with everyone that Githya Katie says good night.

02:21:18.200 She had to get to bed, and that's a shame because this question is ideal for her.

02:21:26.380 but i know it pretty well so i think i can handle the question um so i know for a fact that um you

02:21:32.780 know and first to all of my friends at the other hops when i say that we're going to focus on

02:21:37.420 something don't take that to mean that you don't already do a good job at it these are just things

02:21:41.820 that we want to do at phrasehoff um katie wants to be a very strong frith and hospitality culture

02:21:51.340 um it's it's really important that um when people come to phrase off that they immediately feel

02:22:02.060 welcome and that they are well fed that they you know have a place to hang their hat and their coat

02:22:10.540 that they have a place you know that they can come in and be warm we i don't know maybe we will have

02:22:16.060 a fireplace probably not looking at most of these properties but if there is a hearth we would

02:22:20.940 welcome them to come warm themselves by it if not that we'll at least make sure that the

02:22:25.980 climate control is set at a nice comfortable level the modern equivalent of a hearth we want it to

02:22:34.620 to really be warm and welcoming to people we want people to be comfortable there we want

02:22:38.460 it to be more than just a place of worship we want it to be someplace that the people

02:22:43.580 of phrase off district can come and you know be a community we really want that community hall to

02:22:51.780 have a lot of use you know um we we want there to be a lot of children's activities ideally

02:23:00.140 we'll be able to have you know a a some classrooms or a playroom or something like that and some of

02:23:07.860 properties we've looked at do have options for these things um you know i want there to be uh

02:23:15.780 social activities um you know a a poker night or once we get a little older a bingo night or you

02:23:22.660 know a board game night access and allies night whatever fun things people want to get into i i

02:23:30.500 want to encourage that kind of thing um so you know maybe we'll have we'll start a board game

02:23:35.940 collection or something like that you know um uh something that has been talked about um

02:23:44.500 in pennsylvania and ohio for a really long time um going back at least to when katie and i moved

02:23:52.740 to western pennsylvania from the philadelphia area and i think going back farther than that

02:23:58.020 both in ohio and in eastern pennsylvania when i was there we would very much like for there to be

02:24:04.340 a library at phrasehoff and i encourage other hoffs to beat us to the punch if you never thought

02:24:09.860 of it and want to steal the idea go ahead and do it but i think it would be a really good thing to

02:24:14.340 have some of the harder to find works that are important to our religion available to people

02:24:23.060 whether it's a lending library or not i don't know some of those books may be hard to come by

02:24:28.660 and hard to replace so it may be more of a you know you can work in the library at a desk if

02:24:34.900 you need to do something um you know maybe we start to digitize those things if we get our

02:24:40.260 hands on stuff like that and that none of that stuff is free so this is all long-term thinking

02:24:45.300 these are aspirational goals that i think should exist making them happen is going to take time

02:24:51.940 and effort and and money of course um point of fact we have a small library at odenshoff

02:24:59.460 fantastic do people use it not at all that's a shame use your library it's a blessing it's a

02:25:07.540 treasure okay so yes i use it okay we've had some people that have donated interesting things there

02:25:16.820 that i haven't seen other places i have made use of that we've tried to make it more or less

02:25:22.740 available to members over the years and i don't think it's gotten much use but we do try to have

02:25:29.780 it there so it is something that we've worked on awesome i know the awesome true folk assembly

02:25:35.700 wants this on the whole but if if we can help to make it happen or move it forward at phrase

02:25:42.500 off we really want to incorporate music into our ritual and into our community so um you know a

02:25:52.340 lot of churches that we look at they may come with some kind of sound system or or built-in speakers

02:26:00.420 or you know they they may come with a piano or something stuff like that we want to try to really

02:26:06.540 leverage into making things happen and encourage people to bring in their own instruments um and

02:26:14.940 to you know to add to it um and something really specific to to frayer that we want to do at a

02:26:24.540 phrasehof if we get a property that is suitable for it um we want there to be a community garden

02:26:33.820 and we want there to be fruit bearing trees now that depends on acreage of course if if we don't

02:26:41.980 get green space then you know we may have to scale it down and you know maybe maybe we get a place

02:26:48.940 that has lots of classrooms but no outside space and we got to turn one of those rooms into uh you

02:26:53.900 know um an indoor potted plant kind of garden but i think it's really important at a temple

02:27:00.620 to Freyr, that we have living plants there that we try to honor Freyr and the Vanir in a way

02:27:14.620 that is specific to them. The Aesir and the Vanir are united and the Aesir are the gods of order,

02:27:22.960 but growth and fertility is really important. And we want to try to make that manifest as a way

02:27:30.520 of devotional worship long term um there's some other ideas that i know katie and i have talked

02:27:37.880 about extensively that i won't share because i i want there to be some fun surprises at

02:27:42.520 at dedication or through the years as we implement them cliff did you ever read

02:27:49.320 i think it was called something like fray the god of the world no but i'm sure

02:27:56.520 who wrote that it was uh it was likely somebody that's not necessarily on our team but it was a

02:28:04.840 fairly devotional and it was a book that i read very early on in alistair true and i'm

02:28:12.600 trying to remember who wrote it i don't believe i still have a copy but it talked about

02:28:19.400 you know keeping with order but him being such a god of you know the abundance of the world

02:28:25.720 here in nitgard around us i just thought of that at random but i didn't know if that was something

02:28:31.400 that you were familiar with or not no but i will i would like to become familiar with it um

02:28:37.800 and and you know going back to kind of the uh yes nick is well done nick yeah thank you nicholas

02:28:45.000 i appreciate you um you know i was gonna guess that but i didn't want to sound silly if i was

02:28:52.760 wrong i don't know her affiliation i would highly bet she's not on the team

02:28:59.640 90 pages it's nothing it's not going to be anything revolutionary but it you never know

02:29:06.760 have you read it i read it it was nice at the time i don't think it i think it's

02:29:14.840 like 5 000 pages i recall it being devotional in nature which was cool

02:29:20.280 of it and speaking of devotional in nature you know something that i would like to establish

02:29:25.640 a tradition of which you know is important to me is you know almost all of the frayfaxi bloats that

02:29:31.880 i have um that i have led um you know they incorporate bringing stuff from one's own garden

02:29:39.560 or something that someone has made of their own productivity literally bringing produce if it's not

02:29:45.240 a tomato or an apple or an ear of corn than bringing you know something that that someone

02:29:53.080 made and and you know offering that back to fray i tell my son owen like okay now

02:30:01.560 when we have fray faxley at our home next month we're gonna pick two tomatoes and the best one

02:30:09.240 we're given to fray the second best one is going to be where we get seeds for next year

02:30:13.720 and uh the rest of them we can think about eating but those first two things have to come

02:30:19.280 you know first and second i guess if it's two but um i i you know being able to do that on

02:30:27.220 premises at a temple dedicated to fray i think would be really special um plus it'll have

02:30:34.300 benefits in the kitchen when we're feeding those people we want to be hospitable to so you know

02:30:38.900 there you have it and more i mean this is totally a topic for katie she has grand plans of how to

02:30:47.820 make the culture of that place strong in frith and hospitality in particular she tapped out she

02:30:54.740 had the audacity to want to go to sleep managing those two young kids of yours i will i will tease

02:31:00.760 one thing that i that that i don't think will uh will will diminish our luck or or tempt any any

02:31:08.040 fate or anything like that um you know when we were talking earlier about the order naming the

02:31:13.480 naming order of our our hoffs um something that occasionally people ask um about um is you know

02:31:22.200 when the heck are frig and freya gonna get their their honor you know we have four temples to gods

02:31:30.040 now when is there going to be a temple to a goddess and the answer is not for a while

02:31:34.440 because the first that will be 13 and 14 right so um you know hopefully that's within a decade

02:31:41.240 but that's quite a few hops down the line so it's going to be a little while so we have a

02:31:47.880 friggs off and freya's off but um we definitely are going to make sure that both freya and guard

02:31:56.280 get the recognition in some place in this temple there will be a place for uh devotion to um to

02:32:05.560 those goddesses so um that's something to consider we we live in a grumpy time where

02:32:18.120 the question is always well why don't you do x well how come you're doing that instead of this

02:32:26.280 A lot of that's a product of the time in which we live, and I know that different people for different reasons, well, why is my God or goddesses not getting the next thing?

02:32:39.800 i'd ask everybody to rise above that because i think that if your preference were getting

02:32:48.940 the next one and you would have people on the other side wondering well how come this

02:32:53.720 or how come that there's probably hundreds of right ways to do it

02:32:59.980 but we have a particular right way that we have asked for divine guidance in setting out

02:33:08.580 that we're doing with the very best of intentions

02:33:12.240 and that so far is being blessed.

02:33:15.620 We're trying to get there.

02:33:17.200 We have currently plans for 14 Hoffs,

02:33:22.200 four of which we've completed plans on.

02:33:26.620 We'll get there.

02:33:28.620 And there's none of us who don't wish

02:33:32.000 that all of our gods and goddesses

02:33:34.180 don't have the most amazing Hoffs.

02:33:36.320 we're working hard to make that happen so if the god or goddess that is particularly meaningful to

02:33:46.260 you that you want to see a hof happen for just like i said on an earlier question

02:33:51.780 if you want freya to have a hof the best way to get her a hof is to make sure her brother has his

02:34:01.740 off and that's a commitment like I will do that for the rest of my life and if in the rest of my

02:34:09.760 life I can accomplish all 14 of these Hoffs then by that time we will figure out what the next steps

02:34:19.040 are but I will keep trying to get Hoffs and the very best worship for our gods and our goddesses

02:34:29.000 for the entirety of the rest of my life.

02:34:32.260 I promise you that.

02:34:33.580 We will get there.

02:34:36.920 That said, has there been thought of what Frazehoff,

02:34:41.400 Hoff Hero will be?

02:34:45.660 Cliff, what do you want to divulge on that?

02:34:47.880 So we had, I mean, as with many things related to Frazehoff,

02:34:53.300 we started thinking about that stuff literally when Nuretshoff was dedicated.

02:34:59.000 especially up in these parts you know Katie and I and Matt and um and our way in as well but I mean

02:35:08.000 you know Katie and I are like hyper invested in this right we've been thinking about it for a very

02:35:14.340 long time and I can tease this much the phrase off here was already determined I'm not going to tell

02:35:20.440 you tonight, but we know who that person is going to be, and we intend on doing things

02:35:29.480 to make the devotional area for that person very special and particular.

02:35:38.200 So, Sarah, the answer is yes.

02:35:41.300 That's the short answer.

02:35:42.380 I don't like the short answer, though.

02:35:43.460 This is a show.

02:35:44.140 We're trying to both entertain and inform.

02:35:47.300 Yes, and it will be exciting.

02:35:48.960 yes and they are very worthy of having their shrine there and then being a half hero

02:35:54.480 um and yes we're very excited to dedicate a shrine to them

02:36:04.000 uh matt bean our champion donor has a question thank you so much sir for all that you've done

02:36:13.760 for us very much appreciated uh one of the guys that's absolutely getting one of these horns

02:36:21.680 um maybe this is jumping ahead but are there long-term thoughts about

02:36:26.720 dedicating hops to other goddesses besides freya and frigga

02:36:35.200 thoughts yes firm plans no um

02:36:43.760 So our goddesses are recorded and celebrated differently in our lore.

02:36:56.500 They are listed out in the Gilfagining in a particular way.

02:37:03.760 Some are the Al-Senior and some are Him and Varther, as far as heavenly wardens.

02:37:13.760 And what we want to do with that hasn't really been decided, but thought has been given to it.

02:37:25.640 A great many of them are described as the handmaidens of Frigg.

02:37:34.140 And I think there is an importance to that.

02:37:40.420 what we'll do as far as individual Hoffs or just how that works out remains to be seen but it is

02:37:48.200 something we've given thought to and it's something we're currently considering and if you have

02:37:52.040 particular thoughts on it or something you want to express let us know let me know next time you

02:37:59.180 see me at the Hoff write us let us know because it is something that we're thinking on and it's

02:38:04.560 something that we're praying on and trying to figure out so if that were to happen it would

02:38:09.380 happen after half 14 they'd be half 15 and and on but if you have thoughts or you know

02:38:17.140 if you're strongly moved on something like that let me know oh where are we at next

02:38:30.580 oh so next question was how many members of the afa have i answered it earlier but somebody applied

02:38:35.700 while we were on this broadcast so uh 728

02:38:44.020 pam asks when you are with a christian and they are praying

02:38:50.580 when they close the prayer they say amen how should an ouster truer how should i as ouster true

02:38:59.620 the question okay how should i as house true uh is it wrong to say amen or should i not say amen

02:39:13.780 i believe amen is a hebrew word meaning like so shall it be or something

02:39:23.540 are do you am i correct in that cliff i think you might know the answer to this really perfectly

02:39:29.760 it means like truly or it is so something like that um and it is hebrew so you should not say

02:39:37.380 it no don't say jew stuff um and honestly that's all it is it is a foreign word saying

02:39:46.680 you know like affirming the prayer that's been offered if it is a christian prayer

02:39:53.480 to their god i would not affirm it um as an outsider it is typical for us

02:40:04.840 to substitute pale as the thing to say at the end

02:40:09.800 doesn't really mean exactly the same thing isn't really necessary but it's kind of

02:40:19.220 culturally and I don't know I have no way of knowing if our ancestors did this or not

02:40:24.740 in the modern age where we are accustomed to a bookend uh blah blah blah blah amen

02:40:32.600 we have taken it as our custom to when we give prayer to end it with you know hail or hail the

02:40:42.520 ice ear or bookending it with something that way and it doesn't mean the same thing as in you know

02:40:50.080 like so shall it be or or whatever but it does end with a affirmation or a wish of wholeness

02:41:00.640 and elevation to the Iser.

02:41:04.560 So we often end it, you know, hail the Iser

02:41:07.260 or just a hail, you know, wishing, you know,

02:41:14.400 as in a toast when you wish someone well

02:41:17.960 or you, you know, add that kind of a bookend to it.

02:41:24.040 I would refrain from saying Jewish stuff whenever,

02:41:28.920 especially in this case

02:41:30.780 as it's kind of a Hebrew

02:41:32.380 charm

02:41:36.760 as it were

02:41:37.920 but yeah

02:41:40.740 if you're doing an Ausitru prayer

02:41:42.700 and you feel the need for a

02:41:44.700 you know an exclamation

02:41:46.660 point on it, hail tends

02:41:48.880 to be what we do

02:41:49.920 Cliff do you have any additional thoughts on that?

02:41:54.140 Yeah I do

02:41:54.700 so the

02:41:56.580 question is sort of specifically when you

02:41:58.760 are with a christian and they are praying and they close the prayer and say amen um

02:42:05.420 so there's a few different contexts like when you are with a christian and they're praying if you

02:42:11.060 are at like a public assembly where you know they open with a prayer you know i mean sometimes they

02:42:21.620 even do that at you know sporting events or um you know maybe at your kid's school function or

02:42:28.380 something like that i mean um you know i you want to be respectful i don't think that it's i don't

02:42:36.580 think that it's appropriate or more important to you know make a spectacle of your spectacle

02:42:41.340 of yourself or to be disrespectful to what people are doing um but i would not say like matt mentioned

02:42:50.420 it's a it's a charm there's a there's a specific intent and power in the word amen which is not

02:42:57.260 just you know i mean partly it means like i believe that this is true and if you don't you

02:43:03.360 shouldn't say it but it's also like like when we say good luck as also true we should be really

02:43:11.560 careful with that because really what you're doing is giving someone a piece of your luck

02:43:18.060 and you shouldn't be so free with that and you shouldn't be so free with affirming things

02:43:23.920 of another religion at the same time you don't you know i i wouldn't suggest you know if you are

02:43:31.060 um you know don't don't be disrespectful to what they're doing i would simply

02:43:37.940 you know be respectfully quiet and and say nothing i think that would be the best thing

02:43:44.300 to do in a situation like that i mean you know we all have christian family members i think and

02:43:49.640 And so I've been to, you know, Christian weddings, Christian baptisms, which are, you know, a little bit more tricky.

02:43:59.380 I don't really want that to happen.

02:44:02.280 But it's also the naming right for someone in our family.

02:44:06.120 So I don't want to not be in there for something like that.

02:44:08.860 so you know if you're at a a christian wedding or a baptism of you know like your your cousin's

02:44:16.680 children or or something like that i you know the the way that i handle these things is i go

02:44:23.300 i dress properly i um you know i sit and stand but i don't kneel so at the appropriate times i

02:44:31.860 i sit and i stand i don't say the prayers though um and then you know i enjoy the time

02:44:38.040 with my family at you know what is a a celebration of a new life of the celebration of a new family

02:44:44.300 and a marriage and those are things that we should be you know attending and witnessing and affirming

02:44:49.820 even if the religious part of it isn't isn't correct isn't what is the the most healthy because

02:44:56.020 much like with cooperating with people who are christians we're not gonna we're not gonna show

02:45:00.740 our families and our friends that we know something that is going to help them be more

02:45:05.960 healthy by, you know, you know, by being assholes about it, frankly. So, you know, we want to be

02:45:12.160 there for these important moments in their lives and be someone they can rely on while not

02:45:16.600 compromising our beliefs. You know, another thing that comes up sometimes, which people can find

02:45:23.980 tricky is the Pledge of Allegiance. I find it fairly simple. I just pluralize God to gods in

02:45:31.560 that and i can say the pledge of allegiance at a sporting event or you know in a courtroom or

02:45:39.260 wherever these things come up and you know don't feel like it compromises my faith i haven't been

02:45:46.760 put in a position to you know have to give a sworn testimony and be asked to swear on a bottle or

02:45:52.140 anything like that but um i think we do need to be consciously aware not to do things that are

02:45:58.760 affirming of not our religion, but always

02:46:02.880 in a respectful way. Well done. Thank you for

02:46:06.960 covering there. I had to go give

02:46:10.920 my daughter a hug and a kiss, tell her good night.

02:46:15.060 Yeah, don't participate in Hebrew prayers,

02:46:19.480 but that's not the same as being

02:46:22.760 disrespectful. There is very much a way to

02:46:26.160 be quiet and respectful that's not the same as bowing your head and saying amen and it seems

02:46:33.100 like a really fine line but it's really important that we be intentional about the things that we do

02:46:39.080 we need to be intentional about our proactive worship and we need to be intentional on the

02:46:45.620 things that we choose not to participate in and but that's a really good question and I think

02:46:52.300 when we're in a habit of doing that all the time it's an interesting it's something that i think a

02:46:58.240 lot of people wonder or have a have a question about so i'm glad that you asked the question

02:47:02.400 something i want to add to another another common situation that comes up will be a meal blessing

02:47:06.800 right you're at a family member's house and they say grace because they always do it

02:47:10.800 you know be be quiet and respectful and don't say the the charm but there's no reason to make

02:47:21.700 a big deal out of it you know they're not doing anything wrong when they do that at least not

02:47:26.680 so wrong that you're gonna affect positive change by by stirring the pot but also expect the same

02:47:34.800 in return when they come to your home and you bless the meal with an asa true prayer if they

02:47:41.800 start to do things that are inappropriate you call them on it and you ask that at a minimum

02:47:46.820 them they sit there in quiet respect while you bless the meal otherwise they can leave

02:47:52.340 that's really important and I think people are hesitant to do it

02:47:58.420 if it's just your family's thing that you guys don't do any of that I get that I'm not saying

02:48:07.160 that's the best course of action but I get some kind of neutral no blessing

02:48:11.560 but if you're expected to be respectful and quiet for a meal blessing to jesus or whatever

02:48:20.920 then they should also extend the same courtesy to you when you do a meal blessing they don't need to

02:48:30.980 you know hail our gods or whatever else they do but they can be respectful and be quiet and

02:48:36.540 respect your table and what you're doing, or if not, the conversation needs to be had and

02:48:44.380 an understanding needs to be reached. And that's, I think, an appropriate thing to ask from

02:48:52.040 everybody. You know, there is a fine line. Don't be obnoxious. There's a thing, a rebelliousness

02:49:04.580 of like

02:49:05.420 I don't know

02:49:08.000 either when someone is new to our

02:49:10.520 faith they need

02:49:12.540 to

02:49:13.060 denounce whatever

02:49:15.660 Jewish nonsense that

02:49:17.800 their parents are doing or whatever

02:49:20.220 that's not necessary

02:49:21.460 but there's the other

02:49:23.980 tendency to

02:49:25.740 just not say

02:49:28.140 anything to try to not bring attention

02:49:30.380 you should

02:49:32.540 be proud of who you are and what

02:49:34.420 you're doing. And family is built around a bonding over core, core things and things that

02:49:46.840 matter, at least a respect for it. You have every right to practice, you have as much right to

02:49:53.540 practice your faith as anyone else has. And we do well to make

02:50:03.220 respectful use of that right when we can. Don't abdicate

02:50:09.680 opportunities to express your faith when they're extended to

02:50:13.760 everyone else. It's an important chance for you to, to

02:50:20.420 participate and to

02:50:22.260 I guess

02:50:26.180 express loyalty to the

02:50:28.560 I see-er is by filling that

02:50:30.620 gap. If every

02:50:32.620 time you go to your family's house for a meal

02:50:34.540 they're going to give, you're going to say grace

02:50:36.540 cool, but when they

02:50:38.600 come to your house

02:50:39.540 show them that you are

02:50:42.600 a person of faith that is

02:50:44.660 thankful for what they have as well.

02:50:48.180 That

02:50:48.740 example is really important.

02:50:50.420 you don't have to do it in a way that's offensive but it's important that you take

02:50:56.140 those opportunities because they matter and and look for the opportunities and things too i have

02:51:02.460 seen where people will be shy and like if someone so maybe someone knows that you are

02:51:13.280 are asa true or as they probably think of it pagan and maybe they throw out like what they

02:51:19.660 think is a gotcha at you they'll you know the whole family's gotten like oh would you like to

02:51:24.540 say grace what you know say well yes thank you and then do it and if it causes a big discussion like

02:51:35.660 like i'll sure go with the amount was saying if it causes a controversy you didn't start it

02:51:39.900 you graciously accepted an offer to bless the meal in the name of your family and your friends

02:51:45.420 and if they don't like your prayer they shouldn't have asked you to do it and you know it could be

02:51:51.680 an innocent thing too maybe it's not a gotcha maybe they just have no idea and then that's a

02:51:55.900 nice bridge into discussing your faith with them without you know without being pushy about it they

02:52:01.680 say well will you bless the meal and you say yes and maybe give them a little bit of a heads up

02:52:06.380 like oh this isn't going to be what you're used to and then just without missing a beat do it and

02:52:12.060 it it'll start a conversation i guarantee you that it's an opportunity a lot of people

02:52:19.400 don't believe that we take this seriously to a lot of people they don't understand that this is real

02:52:29.380 that is an opportunity to show them it's real not by being performative and putting on some big

02:52:37.380 act for them. But if they say that you are a person of faith and you are sincerely invoking

02:52:46.620 your gods to bless the meal and you're giving thanks, it's an opportunity for them to see

02:52:53.360 that you take this seriously. And that plants seeds that I think are potentially very beneficial

02:53:01.520 for your family. Whether they're beneficial or not, they're certainly very important for

02:53:07.060 your family to see and to pull that thread just a little further um don't hesitate to include your

02:53:14.340 family in all of the important rights related to your life the naming of your children weddings

02:53:22.420 um naming you know man and and woman making of your children these are things that you should

02:53:28.900 invite your family to unless you give them the benefit of the doubt even if you suspect they

02:53:34.260 might be disrespectful about something related to it invite them anyway let them prove you wrong

02:53:39.860 because most of the time especially if you come to one of our halls which is recognizable as a house

02:53:45.300 of worship as a temple they aren't going to do it there they're going to they're either going to not

02:53:51.460 show up or they're going to be respectful i have i have yet to see someone invite their christian

02:53:57.300 family member to an ositru wedding and for there to be some you know i protest this satanic nazi

02:54:07.540 wedding or whatever they might come up with it it just doesn't happen that way i had an ositru

02:54:13.220 wedding with all of our family there the number of ositruer there were about 10 and there was

02:54:21.700 you know something like 60 or 70 people at the wedding in its entirety and it was very recognizable

02:54:28.420 as a wedding for one thing you know katie was in a white dress and walked down the aisle and

02:54:33.060 i was in uh you know a nice suit and there were there were aspects of the wedding right that um

02:54:39.700 were were unique to us true um the exchange of a sword and uh and keys and the um you know

02:54:48.340 the the toasts over a horn the the hand fasting those were the things that if they recognized

02:54:55.220 them it was probably from like a fantasy movie as opposed to you know real life but um i had some

02:55:02.180 devoutly catholic you know members of my family come up to me and tell me how it was a really

02:55:06.420 beautiful right and that they they they gained some insight into what we do and also there was

02:55:11.620 really good food and cake and booze so everyone had a good time you know it was a wedding the

02:55:17.060 way that they recognize the wedding to be and uh that's the sort of stuff that can really advance

02:55:25.300 not only our our our religion in general but your family's understanding of it because i find that

02:55:32.980 where where people really struggle is with being open with this about the people they

02:55:36.820 love the most and that's upside down um you know you you found something that means a lot to you

02:55:44.020 and that really you believe can help them too even if you're not going to be pushy about it

02:55:48.420 you know they'd be better off being here and giving them the chance to see it and and see

02:55:54.420 how it makes you better and you know how it's not scary and all that stuff is is really something to

02:56:00.820 be open to it it takes some bravery at first though it's you won't be super comfortable with

02:56:06.420 it the first time you do it but after that it starts to become very natural so everything

02:56:12.900 cliff said but i'd add that we fear the unknown a lot if you're proud of who you are and what you

02:56:23.360 do and what you believe doing that in front of your family rips the band-aid off and you're not

02:56:31.660 scared of it anymore it's out there and you can have the relief of you're not worried about when

02:56:41.220 they find out you're Ausitru do that and it's nine times out of ten it's better than you think

02:56:49.060 it's going to be Ausitru weddings are a good example that a lot of people's family have really

02:56:57.080 come to appreciate and respect what we do at Ausitru weddings that helped in my family that's

02:57:06.260 helped in a lot of people's family. Now, Cliff City's never had a thing. I've had something

02:57:11.160 to where the groom's dad wouldn't shake my hand one time. And that was awkward. But it wasn't

02:57:18.520 awkward for me, like I'm standing there with my hand out, it might have been awkward for him.

02:57:23.960 But it was a chance to show that we're honorable, good people doing something nice. And they're

02:57:30.360 going to react how they're going to react. But there's value in you doing it, you making the

02:57:35.840 effort um no one's throwing any tomatoes at you not yet not yet we'll see um quick question what

02:57:49.620 do you think of swedish quote-unquote viking music such as amanomarth with songs such as

02:57:56.880 twilight of the thunder god that's not my kind of music i don't like the cookie monster vocals

02:58:07.280 cliff what are your thoughts if any on amana marth or swedish quote-unquote viking music

02:58:14.160 in general i mean i don't hate it um it's it's got an energy to it um you know my thing is more like

02:58:23.600 late 80s and 90s metal or um you know much to my own and the embarrassment of my family uh

02:58:33.040 like 70s pop

02:58:37.440 that's fun you do you cliff i gotta be able to sing along um i will i enjoy my go-to if i am

02:58:47.360 if i'm in my cups is like

02:58:54.000 70s rock 70s easy listening rock like i can go down rabbit holes on that with pandora but uh

02:59:06.400 yeah

02:59:06.800 so what's up there's nothing wrong with heart nick's trying to out you and there's nothing

02:59:18.520 wrong with heart love me some heart i wish that ann wasn't obese but i love me some heart

02:59:26.980 uh and it's amazing and uh i will gladly sing along i will sing along sober but i will sing

02:59:34.440 along epically uh when i'm in my cubs are we working on getting to visit

02:59:47.400 okay i'm trying to understand the question and maybe i'm reading it wrong

02:59:51.240 are we working on getting to visit what's going on in maine because we are here in broke

03:00:00.280 i have no idea what's going on in maine i feel like i am completely out of the loop to understand

03:00:10.040 this question it is in your future hoff district so cliff do you have any insight on uh what are

03:00:17.000 you going to visit what's going on in maine because we are broke we are here and we're broke

03:00:24.120 talk to boardman i'm so confused yeah so this person apparently is in maine and they want to

03:00:33.960 participate but they're broke and that makes it difficult um so yeah ron boardman is your man

03:00:41.400 he's in new hampshire i know maine is a fairly large state especially as new england states go

03:00:47.000 and the roads are minimal you don't have a whole lot of interstates up that way but um

03:00:53.480 yeah new hampshire has a lot going on um ron boardman also does stuff in massachusetts and

03:00:59.480 i'm sure he would come visit you in maine um to to get some activity there i read that real stupid

03:01:08.200 and i i nick had to kind of translate i didn't get it made no sense to me when i read it but

03:01:13.720 when nick expressed it to me it made all sense in the world what cliff said um

03:01:19.480 um it's hard I realize there are distances out west it big drives aren't a big deal for us it's

03:01:29.980 just really common I know that in New England everything is really condensed depending on

03:01:36.880 where you are in Maine it might be tricky New Hampshire is really close I know that our folk

03:01:42.760 to ron boardman is willing to drive and do things you are not the only person in maine there are

03:01:49.960 other folks up there that might really like to do something and r boardman at runestone.org

03:01:58.520 he would really like to help facilitate that happening and he's awesome he's a great guy

03:02:06.440 he's very willing to you know do what he can to help facilitate things and i think he'd really

03:02:12.280 like to help you get involved so yeah reach out to ron and uh he would he would be happy to help

03:02:20.280 make some of that happen and at least get you connected with other members in maine

03:02:27.000 do you think there are more vanir gods that have been lost to history what are your thoughts on

03:02:33.880 that cliff absolutely we had a fantastic discussion about this on another episode about how um the

03:02:42.280 names of the gods and other entities that are in you know entities of great power let's say like

03:02:53.280 we as mankind as men know only the ones that they've revealed to us um and only the ones that

03:03:01.940 they've revealed to us plus that we've bothered to remember we've forgotten some that they have

03:03:06.620 revealed to us for sure and i think there are you know probably more that may be revealed to us

03:03:13.500 in time um the you know the the vanir if if the vanir were able to battle the aesir to a stalemate

03:03:24.420 it's reasonable to assume that they had some kind of equivalent force and we don't have anything

03:03:30.680 like that as far as a list of names of vanic gods um so i think that there are quite a few that um

03:03:39.800 that that we don't remember their names or that we simply never knew

03:03:43.560 um the same thing is true of the aesir i think there are aesir who perhaps just don't have

03:03:51.080 anything to do with midgard and have no interaction with men but you know that certainly odin or thor

03:03:57.800 are familiar with that we are not um and i think that there is the you know matt referred to it a

03:04:05.000 little bit earlier as far as you know the the stories about how you know a god and a goddess

03:04:10.200 may may be intimate and that would result in you know godly offspring um i don't think that process

03:04:17.160 stopped when snorri wrote down stories i don't know that it's necessarily occurred in the thousand

03:04:24.360 years since then but uh the potential is always there i think for new divinity and for um you

03:04:33.960 know our our gods are living beings they they grow and they learn and they they have new experiences

03:04:44.040 like we do either their understanding of time and space is different from ours but they are

03:04:49.240 are beings of will with agency so they're not static there's there's change occurring amongst

03:04:58.200 the gods all the time i don't know if it happens faster than it does here or if it happens slower

03:05:04.760 than it does here both simultaneously that's not you know that's not for men to know but

03:05:10.680 um because they are alive that you know alive means moving so yeah i'm sure

03:05:20.760 there have been and will be members of the the vanir tribe that

03:05:27.720 we don't know their names and some we may learn and the same with the acer and and so on

03:05:36.920 yeah i

03:05:39.960 And one thing that is, honesty is really important to us.

03:05:54.220 It would be very self-serving for me to say, I know this and I don't know that and I know all the things.

03:06:01.940 But I don't think that's honest.

03:06:03.800 there are things that i do know and when i know things affirmatively i will tell you that

03:06:10.260 but what i think is in a way beautiful about our faith is that we don't claim to know everything

03:06:22.020 i mentioned earlier about you know what happens beyond the veil as far as posthumous ascension

03:06:28.320 and what the afterlife looks like for someone who's been dead for centuries they've likely done

03:06:34.880 deeds beyond the veil that we don't know about i certainly think there's potential for

03:06:41.680 uh vanic gods that we're not aware of certainly i don't know that there is i don't know that there is

03:06:50.160 excuse me um cults related to them in antiquity doesn't mean they don't exist um

03:07:03.440 if our gods can create new gods through their coupling there's always these really interesting

03:07:14.320 potentiality for things i think we do ourselves a disservice to limit our understanding of divinity

03:07:22.480 to you know the ultimate understanding is the viking age i don't think that's the case

03:07:30.320 our gods continue to exist and to do things and express their agency

03:07:35.200 throughout eternity and i think that there's certainly the possibility of gods or goddesses

03:07:45.120 that we're not currently aware of one concept in the afa that's very important to me is that we

03:07:51.740 have openness that we have openness in how we approach the gods and that we are always

03:08:00.860 always listening we're not always speaking we spend our time listening to them

03:08:09.420 sometimes what they say is is subtle sometimes what they say is more profound

03:08:16.460 but i always want us to be listening to new revelation to increased understanding

03:08:23.260 to better relationship with our gods and that could very much include you know

03:08:30.140 the rediscovery of perhaps panic deities that we don't know about

03:08:38.620 everyone

03:08:41.820 okay just an advice uh tomorrow i've been invited to be on no more news tomorrow morning i'm looking

03:08:49.740 forward to that um we'll see i've listened a little bit to the program i know a lot of people

03:08:56.220 have suggested that he have me on as a guest so i am honored to have that opportunity and yeah i

03:09:03.180 appreciate everybody here being in the audience that would be great um does the afa have a thinkery

03:09:12.060 uh would be of benefit to the folk so cliff what do you know about thinkeries i have never heard

03:09:23.340 that term before i have to assume that it means like a scholarly contemplative theological body

03:09:30.700 in in our context silly but um i i would say that that is our gothar um the formality of it is

03:09:42.120 is fairly loose but um you know i think that the benefit of

03:09:47.820 of study and of of learning is of course important to our folk and to our gothar

03:09:56.080 so i had never heard the term before either and i because i saw it in the queue i decided to google

03:10:05.940 it so that i would have deep wisdom to share with you when this came around that's some good

03:10:12.360 thinkery there's there's a band i think called thinkery that's on tour and i've got information

03:10:20.840 on that um what i what i think he might mean there's like um again i have no idea of this i

03:10:29.560 again i've never heard the term what i did find also that is not the band is it being like a kids

03:10:38.120 discovery and learn stuff place and i think that the nomenclature is similar enough when i grew up

03:10:45.320 in anchorage alaska there was a place called the imaginarium that was a similar kind of kids

03:10:53.640 learn through you know kind of through play learn different little science things play with

03:11:00.920 stuff i think that's awesome that kind of thing is really cool i know that i had a lot of fun

03:11:07.720 at the imaginarium when i was a kid um i don't know if this is what the question pertains to

03:11:15.000 but if it does those places were awesome I remember there's this bubble thing you get into

03:11:20.120 there's all kind of different stuff you do on like how to make different shapes with bubbles that was

03:11:27.160 cool there was a thing where you climb on this polar bear that was awesome there was like there

03:11:35.800 was this dinosaur looking snapping turtle thing in a tank that was cool there's a bunch of little

03:11:42.520 stuff there that it was really cool to see the kids engagement in um i don't have any idea if

03:11:50.360 that's the question but no we don't have the proximity of our children being close enough

03:11:55.720 together where there's like an house of true themed version of that but that'd be beautiful

03:12:02.520 it'd be cool if we had that um i think this is a good enough time as any to plug that the austro

03:12:09.240 academy is now taking enrollment and i'm really proud of those folks they put in a lot of hard

03:12:15.640 work we are taking enrollment at present for k through seven so um for our kids all the way up

03:12:25.080 through seventh grade and that is open to afa members uh to the children of afa members i should

03:12:31.480 say so yeah they're doing great things there and we would invite you guys to be a part of that if

03:12:37.720 you'd like to so it might not qualify as a thinkery but you know i mentioned you know children's play

03:12:44.920 and and classroom is something that we want to have at phrasehof um you know it may not be

03:12:52.840 imaginarium level um you know i remember that the franklin institute in philadelphia has like this

03:12:58.600 giant heart that the kids can climb up in and it's got like little lights where you know blue

03:13:04.520 and red light strings showing where the veins and arteries go and it's got like speakers going

03:13:09.880 i'm thinking it's that kind of stuff um you know it wouldn't be on that scale i don't think we

03:13:17.580 have enough kids in close proximity for that or the the space to do that but something that we

03:13:25.920 do want to do is make sure that the the play that we have there is tied into ossaroo in some way

03:13:33.000 one thing that we you know have and we've used them before at um at winter nights but we have

03:13:38.120 uh some coloring books squirreled away um that we ordered online which have um both like they have

03:13:46.760 some medieval and viking themes but we also have some that specifically have our gods in them so

03:13:52.440 we made sure to never let our children actually color them and instead we use them to make copies

03:13:59.000 so that people may color the copies but we have these you know original versions of them and we

03:14:05.240 intend on mass lots and lots of copies like that in the playroom at uh phrasehof so it may not be

03:14:13.240 a thinkery but there will be much coloring of papers of our gods people ask the difference

03:14:19.720 between a gothi and a witten that level of forethought is a defining characteristic

03:14:26.280 so also um our producer nick is good at figuring out coloring stuff for our guys people

03:14:37.960 there you go there were two coloring pages in this past month's runestone

03:14:43.080 and i do it almost every month nick is a is a of coloring books so nick has got the coloring down

03:14:52.280 um cool though some of them are like sigurd and fafnir fighting no there's there's there's cool

03:14:59.320 stuff i know that there's it's very much a field where a lot of people are trying different stuff

03:15:07.000 the academy people are working hard nick as part of that is working hard also i'll say this at

03:15:13.320 odenshoff uh githya mcnalen sheila mcnalen is working hard at that she always is really good

03:15:19.960 about getting the kids together and trying to encourage them to play and be creative and do

03:15:27.160 stuff but also to link it to our faith in the ways that she can and that's really neat we appreciate

03:15:34.120 her efforts on that she's always been really good on that she has employment history as a teacher

03:15:41.960 and she's a really really good person at that um okay so pam asks this and cliff i'll let you take

03:15:54.440 a stab at this from your perspective what are the personality of the other hops

03:16:02.040 all right well i'll take a stab at it since you asked me to but i think you're going to be the

03:16:05.320 expert on this having uh well traveled at all it's curious and i think that we both might have

03:16:12.280 different things to say and both not be wrong yeah yeah i mean it's a matter of perspective

03:16:17.640 right so i know thor's off the the best because we've been there almost every year since it was

03:16:23.960 dedicated i think we missed one no we've been there every year since it was dedicated we missed

03:16:28.600 one Ostra because we went to the Young's what's it called marriage vow renewal and they were

03:16:39.640 two months they were like a month apart so we couldn't do both

03:16:43.560 but I think you know Thorshoff has that southern hospitality and also a

03:16:52.440 a gravitas um part of it i think is just because of thor the striker and the beautification that

03:17:04.600 they've done to that temple in particular that first mural the witness fonded um but but also

03:17:12.440 the the you know they they've done a really good job of um making that place very welcoming um you

03:17:20.520 you know, adding a kid's playground behind the Terry Rumpf Hall.

03:17:27.820 But yeah, very welcoming with a mix of serious piety there.

03:17:35.560 Odinsolf, the personality has changed.

03:17:39.940 I remember when I first went to Newgrange Hall,

03:17:42.640 It was very much very, very masculine energy, very kind of raucous, kind of untamed, you know.

03:17:57.640 But on our most recent visit there last year for Midsommar, I found that that energy had been really, really channeled.

03:18:07.760 um you know it's still there but i mean partly it may just be because it had been many years

03:18:12.960 in between visits so you know you you see a kid once a year and you notice how much they grow

03:18:19.360 whereas their parents see them every day and it happens by not you know they don't really notice

03:18:24.400 it but the the focusing of that raw energy there at odenshof um was was really really impressive

03:18:36.240 Um, Baldershof, um, there is, there's a similar piety as there is at, at Thorshof.

03:18:53.440 Um, but it's a different sort of hospitality. Um, the, the Midwest hospitality is not the

03:19:03.200 same as the southern hospitality both are very good um it's it's really hard for me to articulate

03:19:10.400 um but they're nicer than us yankees i'll tell you that um and then um

03:19:19.920 muertzhoff um has kind of uh a wild energy about it too similar to similar to odenshoff only human

03:19:29.840 it's different though there's sort of like the the energy itself is different you know the

03:19:37.820 the the that kind of wild almost like mustang energy of the west is really evident at odens

03:19:47.320 where is the wild energy um that i seem to

03:19:52.460 i don't know observe or feel or whatever um at at new york's office a lot more um

03:20:04.620 a lot more visceral a lot

03:20:11.320 it's a different kind of the energy struggling against something different like they're kind

03:20:18.200 of polar like it's it's very hot at both locations right but the struggle at odenshof is all about

03:20:25.100 it's very dry and there's fire and water is hard to come by whereas at new york's off it is you

03:20:33.360 know gators and and swamps and gigantic insects and i don't i don't mean that in like a a negative

03:20:43.220 of way. I like it down there in Florida. It's awesome. Um, and the, the, you know, the, the

03:20:50.780 people are very, are, are very welcoming. It's, it, it's, it's hard to describe. Um, especially

03:20:56.480 because when I go and visit these places, it's, you know, once every three or four years, and it's

03:21:03.380 kind of a whirlwind of, um, you know, seeing in many cases, people that I've seen more frequently

03:21:11.100 than that but at um you know at different locations uh around the country at different

03:21:16.700 events and at different offs um but because i see a lot of the same people at different events

03:21:24.700 that's why i'm kind of describing the the physical location um and you know the the local culture the

03:21:32.620 people that um that i haven't seen around as much as as anything i don't know that was i'm more

03:21:40.940 disjointed answer than i would have liked but that's that's what i got so um

03:21:53.660 it's

03:22:00.140 it seems like a really simple question to ask it's a harder question to answer

03:22:05.980 and i think because we take these questions really seriously we could give you a like generic

03:22:14.620 i don't know stick answer on these things but describing a culture and an energy of a place

03:22:25.520 is really different a lot of it depends on perspective it depends on who's there

03:22:33.200 It's something that takes shape over time in different ways.

03:22:39.700 I will say this for Odenshoff.

03:22:44.560 And Odenshoff is, you know, the Hoff that I'm at every month unless I'm at a different AFA event

03:22:54.880 or unless for some reason the pass is closed.

03:22:58.000 going through the Sierras

03:23:00.520 and the winter is kind of a crapshoot

03:23:02.500 sometimes on when it's

03:23:04.240 going to be open or when it's not.

03:23:07.500 But Odin's

03:23:08.500 Hof is our first Hof.

03:23:11.200 And it's

03:23:12.140 a Hof that

03:23:13.640 a couple of things

03:23:18.240 I guess. So the

03:23:20.300 Hof and the grounds there

03:23:22.480 have had

03:23:24.720 this year and not

03:23:27.980 quite in october it'll be all the way 10 years since the dedication but almost a decade now of

03:23:38.460 active worship of the icer in that place and people who go there frequently say that they feel

03:23:48.700 like the spiritual energy of the place i think that's true but it happens to be a spot where

03:23:57.260 i do a lot of of blowtar in and so it's a spot where i feel really connected to

03:24:05.660 but it also it sets the tone in a lot of ways um yeah initially when it was founded a lot of

03:24:13.660 the folks there were you know wild and crazy and eclectic and different and a whole bunch of

03:24:27.260 free-thinking, wild people that didn't have a spot

03:24:34.120 and didn't have a direction, but knew they needed something.

03:24:38.300 Some of the people that populated that

03:24:42.020 hoff over the years have been

03:24:44.540 a wilder sort.

03:24:53.860 Out west, you get such a different

03:24:56.680 atmosphere of people that show up, people that have been raised in a variety of different ways

03:25:04.020 that are looking for something different. You still get, you know, the California

03:25:08.960 feel or the California attitude to stuff. But a lot of people who want to transcend that and

03:25:16.460 harken back to something different that don't necessarily have it. So you have a lot more in

03:25:22.020 for whatever it means in the in the sake of uh also true practice i think that you get a lot more

03:25:30.260 diversity at uh odin's off you get a wildness and a restlessness and people coming home from

03:25:38.980 a lot of different different places a lot of different walks of life i think you see that

03:25:45.220 But you also see a devotion over time, and what you see as well is a transitional state of Ausatru tempered over time.

03:26:01.160 So you have a number of elderly people who are there practicing Ausatru finely at a half that didn't have one for a very long time.

03:26:15.220 the building of the astro folk assembly occurred in northern california the refinement of our

03:26:23.620 membership largely around the personality cult of our founder steve mcnalen occurred there

03:26:31.700 and you have you know steve still in regular monthly attendance at odin's off so you have

03:26:38.660 a number of people that helped forge this with him in the early days you have

03:26:46.660 the institutional practice of a lot of people from different

03:26:54.740 different fringes of the 1980s and 90s that have come together and that are elders in that place

03:27:03.300 and so there's a really special feel there it's also it's also the first place that we have

03:27:13.220 interred our loved ones that we have a real connection to so um it's a habit of mine to

03:27:21.780 when we receive the blessings of the gods and bloat to take the horn with me after the ritual

03:27:29.140 and to pour out some of the remainder on the graves of you know people all of whom i've met

03:27:37.300 and knew in life and those spirits of those people embody and are at rest in that place

03:27:47.540 so it's got a it's got a specialness cultivated out of that that's a little bit different flavor

03:27:54.580 and i don't think i've articulated it well at all but those things go into play there

03:28:02.500 thor's hof is a very pious place people in that part of the country have a greater

03:28:11.940 church culture in their blood going back longer they have the southern propriety in worship

03:28:21.140 that i think is really exemplary and there's a strong deep religiosity at that hoff that i think

03:28:31.180 permeates everything the piety and the religiosity of thor's hoff i think is its characteristic

03:28:38.420 and i know this is a quick way to characterize thor's hoff and thor's hoff in a lot of ways is

03:28:44.280 extremely important to me. It was the proving

03:28:49.080 ground for whether I could do this for our folk or not.

03:28:56.160 We got

03:28:57.320 Odenshoff in the last days of Steve

03:29:01.140 McNallan's term as Ausheriakothe. And so

03:29:04.940 it was up to me to like, hey, can I

03:29:09.100 do this? Can I keep this going? Can I get more Hoffs for our

03:29:13.220 gods and thorshoff was really special to me as a as a proof that our gods would bless me with

03:29:23.060 those accomplishments and that i could provide that for them and for our folk

03:29:28.140 so it's really special to me but yeah i would say piety is the chief characteristic of thorshoff

03:29:36.800 um and a lot of that has i think it has to do with the culture of the people there but it also has to

03:29:44.800 do with the piety of the leadership there i think spawn and daniel are both exceedingly pious

03:29:56.160 and we've got our gothar that are amazing at a lot of different things

03:30:00.240 but the piety the like respect and just overt religiosity of those two men is something that

03:30:11.060 is admirable and a real standout quality of both of them and i think it you know

03:30:17.440 permeates that place in a really beautiful way

03:30:20.280 baldershoff is different um i'll say this in southern you know my family comes from the south

03:30:31.880 but i'm a generation removed from that but other current southerners will attest

03:30:39.200 midwest hospitality is better than southern hospitality and it's more honest

03:30:45.520 the hospitality I think is a huge thing at Baldur's Hoff I also think that Baldur's Hoff

03:30:54.600 is imbued with a spirit of overcoming and of you know triumph over difficulty

03:31:04.480 it's the Hoff that we've had the most resistance over and the most

03:31:10.940 call for the people at that hof to overcome and to literally rebuild much of the hof and to

03:31:20.020 you know carve that out of a hostile environment and create something beautiful

03:31:26.360 and i think that spirit of of overcoming really permeates that place and

03:31:34.200 him imbues that place with a certain spirit. And I feel that

03:31:39.900 really strongly there.

03:31:45.900 York's Hoff is different and it's a little bit harder to

03:31:50.900 place. It's newer so it's had less time to you know, it's like

03:31:58.700 When you make a dip or a soup or a thing to where you need to put it in the fridge overnight to let the different flavors come together, I think Njortzhoff is still figuring that out.

03:32:14.240 I will say that Njortzhoff came with the most energy.

03:32:17.800 Florida is a place where we had a bunch of people join that were completely, you know, not necessarily connected, didn't have a bunch of commonality in their practice with one another.

03:32:31.640 We have, you know, random people for all over the place.

03:32:36.600 And Florida is kind of like that.

03:32:39.420 You have a whole bunch of different people coming together to worship at New York's off.

03:32:45.800 It's really cool.

03:32:47.160 It was cool to me because. So I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. And in 2014, as I mentioned earlier in the show, I met my wife at winter nights in Pennsylvania in the Poconos.

03:33:08.220 and in two months time I had divested all of myself from Alaska and moved down to St. Augustine

03:33:19.340 Florida to get to know and cement my relationship with Mandy and at the time there were a number of

03:33:29.280 AFA notables in the area that I was trying to further my pursuits in the Astro Folk Assembly

03:33:36.680 and events happened that some of that relationship went south not my relationship with mandy that

03:33:44.020 was tremendous but with those people who had been important um there was a there was a break in

03:33:51.660 in trough with uh the afa with them and i had stayed loyal and doubled down on my afa loyalty

03:34:02.300 And there was a, you know, thoughts of, you know, you'll never do anything and you can't accomplish and you can't whatever.

03:34:08.780 And when I became Osheria Goethe, I was in I was living in Florida and I needed to move because our our one half we had when I became Osheria Goethe was in California.

03:34:25.300 So we packed up, we moved out west, and it was really personally special to me that when I returned to Florida for the first time was for the dedication of our Hoff, that I was able to bring a Hoff back to Florida to show that we could.

03:34:47.440 um it Florida Hoff in a lot of ways is a homecoming and an in-gathering and a very

03:34:58.920 it feels like a much more of a homey homecoming kind of thing some of that I think is because

03:35:07.620 my wife's family's down there but a lot of it was that ability to bring this all home

03:35:14.540 um my wife's first afa event first house of true event she ever went to

03:35:23.060 just as you know as earth would have it was in white springs probably you know if you try

03:35:33.580 really hard and you had a good arm you could probably throw a rock from uh mjordshoff and

03:35:39.140 hit uh stephen foster state park where she had her first uh also true event where she met our

03:35:46.100 law speaker uh alan turnage and it's a really special place um york's off is amazing and it's

03:35:57.060 still developing and feeling out its culture and what it's got going on but it's a very special

03:36:04.180 place and some place that really is like has that feeling to me of a homecoming and it might be a

03:36:14.660 very different feeling to different folks depending upon their circumstance i don't know if i can

03:36:19.060 express it right but it feels that way to me and we have been re rejoined by uh witten erickson

03:36:26.980 i was here i waxed long on that question well you know it's it the question is

03:36:32.820 way harder than i think people understand it's kind of like asking someone about what a sunrise

03:36:38.500 looked like or trying to take a good photograph of the moon it just never can be expressed without

03:36:45.460 the experience that said each and every one of you listening to this go to aha and if you can

03:36:54.660 go to all of them we have what's uh bloat fair is a concept of like pilgrimage to our hafs

03:37:04.980 and a number of people have done that recently but there's kind of like the like grand prix of

03:37:10.820 that where you go to where you go to all of them i am very blessed that i am able as a function of

03:37:21.540 being also here you go the to get to visit all of our hafs every year i am tremendously blessed

03:37:30.020 that i get to do that i understand everybody's not so fortunate but the folks that have made

03:37:38.180 that effort made it to all the different hafs i think have a really special perspective and i

03:37:45.780 think that's a ability that we have in our modern times that our ancestors would have been very

03:37:52.100 jealous of the ability to do travel is so much easier for us now and it's really cool if you can

03:37:59.540 do that there is something very beautiful and very powerful about worshiping one of our gods

03:38:08.340 in their very own hoff it's extremely special and i'm so honored that i get to do it so if you guys

03:38:16.900 can whatever we can do to help you make that happen we'd love to it's a special experience

03:38:23.700 we want to share with all of our folk is your dog snoring he is he is in fact snoring okay

03:38:33.780 just check it dogs are awesome i'm glad you got a dog that's fantastic it so we lucked out we've

03:38:40.900 been resistant to getting a dog because we travel so much and we do stuff uh my wife works at the

03:38:49.220 morgue and this dog's owner passed away and his uh remaining family couldn't take him so this dog's

03:38:58.900 11 and a half years old and they were gonna you know they weren't gonna they put him in the pound

03:39:05.300 he's gonna spend the rest of his life locked up and incarcerated through no fault of his own

03:39:11.460 and he's a very loved dog that had you know a really good life and i didn't want him to go

03:39:17.060 out like that so we uh we adopted him he's really cool he's gets a lot i mean he's nice to the cats

03:39:25.460 doesn't eat the cat turds which is awesome uh doesn't mess with the cat food gets along really

03:39:34.100 well he's a lap dog um he's a good boy i'm glad that we have him

03:39:40.580 cliff what do you think of people who call themselves vanatru

03:39:45.580 close they're close but they're missing the mark it's like when i uh when i bought a bunch

03:39:53.820 books on wicca and that awful book on runes by ralph bloom they're they're they're so close

03:39:59.740 they're so close they're right on the cusp um so it depends um if

03:40:07.980 it's kind of like what i was saying about christians like an hour ago if it's because

03:40:11.820 they don't know any better yet then i see a lot of potential in them and i would like to

03:40:17.820 bring them along um to a greater recognition of of asa true and recognizing that the vanir

03:40:27.500 are now part of the aesir and that um they can they can honor the vanir

03:40:36.140 as part of us true and you know as as part of our folk there's another kind of people that

03:40:45.020 call themselves vanitrue because they are um trying to be like hippy dippy edge lords

03:40:54.780 if you know the type i don't know i don't know where the question's coming from but they're at

03:40:59.660 least in the united states there are people who who call themselves vanitrue because they want to

03:41:06.140 embrace promiscuity and like drug use they basically want woodstock but with the you know

03:41:15.820 veneer of like neo-pagan religion on it and those people have a much longer way to go

03:41:23.180 than someone who just happens to be building a devotion to fray or freya and stumbled upon

03:41:30.220 that term on the internet but they in both cases they should finish their path to becoming asa true

03:41:39.660 the first class i think is almost there the second class has a lot further to go

03:41:47.660 yeah

03:41:50.700 words are funny that way because i don't know where the question comes from and the term

03:41:56.860 is not a real thing so i have not seen that exist a lot in real life a friend of mine

03:42:05.820 went to sweden looked for other alsatruar found a group that claimed to be vanitru and then they

03:42:13.740 were like here have my wife you guys can you know go make whoopee it was like a strange license to

03:42:22.460 have hedonistic you know stuff that's not what we're trying to do um what else i've seen though

03:42:34.620 is people that want to be

03:42:40.300 people that are drawn to be also true but can't shake their edgelord non-conformity so everybody

03:42:49.100 needs to come up with a different name or a different title to what they're doing rather

03:42:54.060 than get on the team that is a really strong instinct in our folk especially in modern times

03:43:02.300 it's like yeah well i like what they're doing i like all the stuff that that house true has but

03:43:08.560 i need my own thing so i'm going to call it whatever and come up with your own branding of

03:43:14.080 stuff. There was, you know, there's always been this very toxic thing in Ausatrude where

03:43:20.300 every new batch of people likes what's there, but thinks they can do it better. So they need

03:43:27.140 to rename it, rebrand it. And every couple of years, when you start back at year one,

03:43:34.720 and unfortunately, you can't ever make progress that way.

03:43:38.140 so if your call to be quote-unquote vanatru is that you want to worship

03:43:46.520 your other and freya and freya cool come do that with us and become also true

03:43:54.220 if your call to do that is you want to be edgy and you want to have orgies and stuff

03:44:01.400 then just go have orgies and stuff

03:44:05.460 and don't have to implicate our gods

03:44:07.580 in your hedonism

03:44:10.960 side note, over on the side

03:44:16.180 they were talking a little bit about

03:44:18.260 the interviews that Svan and I did

03:44:21.540 for the hit piece that ended up making it

03:44:24.540 to the Turkish media

03:44:25.940 no, that's awesome, it was beautifully filmed

03:44:29.140 uh the guys were really cool um guy who interviewed me was great they you know felt like a big deal

03:44:37.620 because they had they did the interview in like a fancy hotel room that they got here they flew

03:44:43.600 people out to do the interview um it was really cool I'm glad that they went as hard with being

03:44:50.360 silly as they did um the funny sound effects and whatever were you know they kind of made the case

03:44:57.440 I appreciate a person over in the comments, William Colmer, had kind words for Svon and I's interviews that we did.

03:45:08.040 I'm glad that you appreciated those.

03:45:10.020 As Nick said, they did those for a long time.

03:45:13.060 I think they did about a two hour interview of me and a really long time of Svon.

03:45:18.440 So they were not getting the scary, you know, poke him with a stick and ask him to do a racism.

03:45:25.560 They didn't get that that they wanted. But it was cool. I'm glad that, again, we're not afraid of people knowing who we are and what we're about. We're very proud of that.

03:45:39.580 i appreciate the opportunity to get you know to get the exposure um i don't know that we have a

03:45:48.880 whole lot of our folk in uh in turkey but uh to those of us that find ourselves in turkey i hope

03:45:56.540 you guys enjoy the interview and you come home um i hope it gets picked up by other outlets or

03:46:02.640 whatever, but I thought it was beautifully filmed. There was a Arab gentleman with a Swedish name

03:46:09.880 that was the cameraman, but he did a good job. It was really pretty how they filmed it.

03:46:17.120 Obviously, I wish all of those were more fairly done. I know that current media, what sells is

03:46:26.380 race baiting and whatever they're doing at fear mongering but again we're proud of who we are

03:46:33.680 we're proud of what we do and we appreciate the opportunity to get our message in front of the

03:46:38.600 every time a hit piece is done we get membership from it so um i would rather have it done fairly

03:46:46.180 and have people celebrate the good things we're doing but uh i appreciate the opportunity to get

03:46:53.380 our message and the AFA in front of more eyes.

03:47:03.120 Svahn at Thorshof explained Odin, Thor, and Tyr as a tripartite continuity.

03:47:11.320 Odin as the catalyst, Thor as the striker, and Tyr as the stabilizer.

03:47:16.420 How do I embody this over Christian triple belief?

03:47:21.920 Cliff, what are your thoughts?

03:47:23.380 so i think that uh you know fun is correct in the way he would describe

03:47:33.060 orden odin thor and tear as a tripartite continuity um they're not the only one though

03:47:42.000 there are others um but i don't understand the question i'm not sure what embodying this

03:47:49.000 over christian triple belief would mean um having a hard time getting in with alsatru as much as

03:47:57.240 he'd like embracing it christian baggage that sort of thing how do you know that because he

03:48:06.440 been we clarified in the chat all right thank you um so i mean if the i guess if the hang-up is simply

03:48:14.760 the belief in in in a in triple deity or in tripartite gods the answer is quite simple in

03:48:25.540 that the christians got that from outside of themselves that's not something that's inherent

03:48:33.920 to to christianity um there you know there's there's basically like three stages in life

03:48:45.900 there's there's childhood adulthood and old age um there there are a lot of instances in nature

03:48:55.760 where uh three stages or or triplicate kind of states of being are are true so um i don't think

03:49:07.340 it's unique to christianity i think that it's either imported into christianity or is one of

03:49:12.160 those things that is just self-evident like the water is purifying and good for you that's not

03:49:19.200 a christian thing that's an everybody thing yeah um so i think that

03:49:34.160 think that spawn may answer the question differently than i would because we come

03:49:38.240 at it from different angles it's one of the reasons i really like to have spawn on a lot

03:49:42.000 with me is i think that we come to similar conclusions but spawn and i you know approach it

03:49:49.200 differently or certainly express it differently um seeing triplicate nature of things i think

03:50:00.240 happens too often to be just coincidental in arian religiosity

03:50:11.200 but i think what's always very important to remember is our gods are gods

03:50:19.200 They don't serve functions.

03:50:22.780 They have no obligation to conform to religious theories.

03:50:30.700 They exist as spiritual beings who have their own agency.

03:50:37.800 Now, I think in their ordered existence, we do see a commonality against a more mystical, inspirational spark of motivation deity.

03:50:57.340 We see a striker or a proactive warrior expression, and we see a stable, bring things back to center, continuity, unmoved mover function a lot in our mythos and a lot in our understanding the worlds.

03:51:21.600 but I think that our gods

03:51:24.000 do this in different

03:51:25.980 ways at different times under different

03:51:28.080 circumstances

03:51:28.960 and I think that each of them has the ability

03:51:32.300 to serve

03:51:34.000 that function in one way or another

03:51:36.160 I don't

03:51:38.420 as far as

03:51:39.120 excuse me as far as their embodiment

03:51:42.260 into Christianity or how

03:51:44.100 do you whatever

03:51:46.160 I don't think that you need

03:51:48.140 to I don't think that there's a

03:51:51.080 take odin tyr and thor and somehow put one in place of the father the son and the holy ghost

03:51:59.000 i think that's not how things work our gods exist and our and they exist as our gods

03:52:09.160 we try to understand them so we come up with different theories and stuff

03:52:12.920 the gods don't read a book by dumazil and decide they need to fill those functions that's the wrong

03:52:22.680 direction of understanding um so yeah i would say that you don't need to overlay them with

03:52:31.320 the father's son and the holy ghost that's not really a thing i think that you can look at each

03:52:37.600 is our each of our gods as being powerful and having dominion in their own way in their own

03:52:44.000 expression as much as tear is a god of stability um you know courage was described with his name

03:52:54.320 in the description often he his name became cognate with courageous action not just stability

03:53:03.280 but action so i think you see all of those things you see thor displayed sometimes you know as going

03:53:11.020 out and adventuring as as the warrior god but you also see him with his hammer in the form of a

03:53:17.140 scepter and you see him in a regal and central position i mentioned earlier tonight at the

03:53:23.960 temple at upsala thor sat in the center um so at different times in different places our gods

03:53:31.060 her different functions and that idea of inspiration of action and of stability

03:53:38.340 so i wouldn't i wouldn't over focus on that if i were you

03:53:44.980 good evening gentlemen i am happy to see the hunt for phrase hoff continues

03:53:49.860 question what areas are in prospect for the hoff hill the folk hill victory hill victory indeed

03:53:58.900 uh cliff if you could narrow down our search for phrase off where is our where's our target sure

03:54:07.860 so first i want to just say hi bill it's good to see you around i'm glad you're still following

03:54:12.340 what we're doing that's awesome i hope you're doing well and you you should come back um we

03:54:18.180 we miss you and this is a really exciting time in the altitude folk assembly um phrase off we're

03:54:23.700 looking at northeast ohio northwest pennsylvania or maybe and it's pretty unlikely so if you're in

03:54:31.220 west virginia don't get too excited but maybe that little tip that's wedged in between ohio

03:54:36.660 and pennsylvania um nick can you put the map back up the one of the soon to be phrasehoff district

03:54:44.500 all right so um if you look at that map there um the part of west virginia you can barely

03:54:51.940 not see um and then like basically somewhere along the state line between ohio and pennsylvania

03:54:58.820 that's that's where we're looking to put it it's a pretty big area but it's going to be

03:55:06.580 central to the most people that we can make it um so that's where we're looking for it that's

03:55:14.740 not too terribly far from you um especially if it ends up on the ohio side of that line

03:55:19.620 so hopefully we can see you there sometime in the near future

03:55:22.580 so i will narrow it down even further perhaps my hope has always been there is a triangle

03:55:31.880 between cleveland erie and pittsburgh i have always wanted us to find the hoff in that triangle

03:55:43.260 Now, it doesn't have to be there, but that's always been my target zone that gets us the best of all the worlds.

03:55:53.400 So the closer it is to that triangle, the better.

03:55:57.660 But that's been where I've been focusing on where we're looking.

03:56:03.680 And, you know, something in that triangle is where I would really like to find it.

03:56:08.040 But I am certainly open to other options.

03:56:10.280 But that's where I've always been focusing, and that's where I'd like to see this happen at.

03:56:16.300 I guess I can tease or tell everyone that we've looked at four properties so far.

03:56:22.080 Three of them have been in that triangle.

03:56:24.460 One of them has been outside of it.

03:56:27.360 The one outside that one has got big pluses.

03:56:33.300 It's got some big pluses, and it's got one big minus.

03:56:36.700 it might be our runner-up choice it might be number three choice

03:56:47.080 I think Cliff and I may need to fight that out if number one choice doesn't come through

03:56:54.580 we'll see but there's others that we haven't seen that are still on our list too so there's

03:57:00.940 possibilities. I will say this, and this is

03:57:05.340 a beautiful and amazing thing. There's a lot

03:57:09.720 of good options. It's not like we're

03:57:13.720 stuck making do with, it has the best we can get, so I guess

03:57:17.940 maybe this one in a long shot. No, there are a number

03:57:22.020 of good options that we will be well served being able

03:57:25.980 to do. So that is an awesome place to be.

03:57:30.940 um how would we approach swearing on a bible in a court setting or how to avoid it

03:57:43.300 um that's a good question I wish our law speaker would be here I believe that that is

03:57:53.140 in the modern era not something that you have to do I think that if you express a religious

03:58:00.360 subjection there are other things that you can swear on to swear your oath that are viable but

03:58:07.960 that could be district by district yeah i don't think that's a legally required thing these days

03:58:13.400 i think that it's more like when um you know you raise your hand and you swear to tell the truth

03:58:21.160 the whole truth and nothing but the truth but i don't think that they make you swear to god or

03:58:26.680 um put your hand on the bible um you know it's it's traditional in some settings but i don't

03:58:31.480 think that it's legally required so i think if you express a concern i mean mo i don't look most

03:58:37.800 judges aren't going to go and go down the path of of compromising your testimony because of

03:58:44.040 uh first amendment issue interestingly the question came up um there's the differentiation

03:58:51.720 between sweat of the word swear to start with the quakers had issue with that because they didn't

03:58:57.880 want to do an oath so they actually made a change to the to it where you can choose between swear

03:59:04.680 or affirm so i affirm to tell the truth and then in united states versus ward the ninth circuit

03:59:13.560 court of appeals ruled that certain other modifications of the oath were acceptable

03:59:18.120 so long as they demonstrated a moral or ethical sense of right and wrong quotations um so yeah

03:59:24.760 you can you can put your hand on bible um on a constitution or just don't put your hand on nothing

03:59:35.960 yeah i've seen that happen places there's people that'll put their hand on a quran

03:59:40.760 or a torah or whatever else and california's even stranger they have their own entire verbiage for

03:59:48.440 the entire swearing i was gonna say if you wanted to swear oaths on a copy of the etta i think you

03:59:55.480 can make that happen um so you have a lot more freedom in that in 2025 than perhaps at earlier

04:00:04.360 times uh question for mr flavel what adorns the back of your chair i've always wondered what it is

04:00:14.920 it is the fleece of an icelandic sheep um

04:00:24.680 it's a gift that was given to me by our law speaker alan turnage

04:00:30.920 way back when i can't remember how long ago now uh he also gave my daughter one that's white

04:00:38.280 but this is the the fleece of an icelandic sheep

04:00:46.760 ah would you allow an african-american into the flock absolutely not

04:00:52.440 we are an ethnic faith for white people fellow to find his ethnic faith exactly if an african

04:01:04.280 american fellow were to apply we would encourage him to find his own ethnic faith and pursue that

04:01:12.120 and to my knowledge that has happened one time well okay it's happened in one instance dude

04:01:21.160 applied like three times bob the viking but we uh have told bob uh all of those times that that's

04:01:30.520 what he should do and he was respectful each of those times but no this is an ethnic faith for

04:01:36.040 white people ah how do runes fit into outs of true spirituality cliff well they are

04:01:47.640 embodiments of a spiritual wisdom

04:01:56.040 they can be used for meditation they can be used for divination

04:02:01.560 they can be used for adornment of holy or or ritual objects

04:02:11.960 there's there's quite a bit on it i

04:02:13.400 I think that, honestly, I'll share it with you and Svan could do an entire episode just on the full Futhark or on any other, you know, particular, you know, runes, Dave.

04:02:29.200 So I won't take all that time, but they're they're an important one eight episodes on the runes.

04:02:36.540 Oh, sure. Yeah. But I think that.

04:02:39.660 um yeah they're they're they're very important i think that um you know it it it says in the

04:02:50.060 have them all that you should learn your runes you should learn to write them you should learn

04:02:53.500 to read them. So you should do that. So there are a lot of things that can be done with

04:03:10.940 runes, but fundamentally a couple of things. The straight line designs that we think of when we

04:03:24.440 talk about runes, and we all knew that, it's really important to realize those aren't the

04:03:31.660 runes those are sigils that embody the runes the runes is the rune means mystery and hearkens back

04:03:45.600 into the the area the ancient indo-european the proto-indo-european to be like a whispered

04:03:54.600 whispered council so it's like a secret mystery the runes are the mysteries of the universe

04:04:02.360 in their totality they explain our existence and the elements that go together in it

04:04:09.720 to be familiar with each rune and what it embodies helps you shape your

04:04:19.560 worldview your velton shown your understanding of our existence in our place in the cosmos

04:04:31.400 Fundamentally, and again, you can take them to a lot of different places, but what I think is a fundamental in understanding our rooms, they are a very potent lens through which you can understand your place in the world.

04:04:54.720 which you can

04:05:00.960 establish an orientation

04:05:04.320 from which to proceed

04:05:06.560 with the things that you do

04:05:08.180 a way for you

04:05:10.000 to interpret

04:05:11.480 reality as it presents

04:05:14.260 itself to you

04:05:15.480 and kind of

04:05:18.300 a matrix that you can

04:05:20.140 fit the pieces in

04:05:21.640 through that understanding

04:05:24.600 and all of the other expressions of the runes i think go to that concept of them being a lens to

04:05:34.440 help you order your thoughts order your understanding and express it in a particular way

04:05:42.220 one of the best ways to express thoughts and understanding is through language and so the

04:05:49.960 Runes have lent themselves and developed themselves to do that in a way of spelling and writing.

04:05:58.940 But it's important to realize that they are an alphabet, or a futhark, if you will.

04:06:07.000 but they are a way of expressing our place in the cosmos

04:06:15.960 and our orientation to the forces that shape reality around us.

04:06:25.620 They're very fundamental in communicating.

04:06:29.080 If that communicating is casting a spell,

04:06:32.260 If that communicating is understanding a divinatory impulse, if that communication is rationalizing a dream, sometimes that communication is simply ordering your own thoughts and ordering yourself.

04:06:50.320 but understanding the futhark as it's presented gives you a ordered display of the forces that

04:07:04.060 surround us and that we act within and i think that's really fundamental and i hope that makes

04:07:11.940 since um please feel free to ask more questions if it doesn't

04:07:20.180 is there a location set for winter nights cliff

04:07:26.180 so last year we had winter nights in new hampshire um we had it scheduled for new hampshire again

04:07:32.660 um but i don't know if anyone noticed but i actually just some inside stuff i'm telling you

04:07:39.620 now i actually took down the tickets for winter nights because i am cautiously optimistic we will

04:07:47.300 be able to do that um at a as yet undisclosed location so um it's going to either be in new

04:07:59.140 hampshire as planned and we'll make an announcement as soon as we can open up ticket sales for that

04:08:04.420 again or it will be at that undisclosed location we'll see so bill colmer you have

04:08:18.500 you've asked a good question that forces people a little bit outside of their comfort zone so

04:08:24.260 good for you sir well done made me wink

04:08:27.940 uh after phrasehoff where will the next hoff be located

04:08:35.440 so that is one thing we can just say for sure all of these other things are speculative

04:08:42.380 um hoff number six tiershoff will be located at sickerhaime in jackson county tennessee

04:08:53.020 On that property, those statues right there that Nick is showing you, it will be to the northeast of those statues in the field that is close to them.

04:09:09.040 It will be on that property. We have plans. We got things we're working out.

04:09:14.480 That will be where Tiershoff is located.

04:09:18.620 So there you have it.

04:09:19.980 so those are all the questions that we have this evening

04:09:26.860 cliff do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to leave people with

04:09:31.860 uh about anything you want or specifically about our uh our quest for phrase hop

04:09:39.480 i'll leave one i'll put out one more thing that i don't think has been actually announced or or

04:09:48.680 made clear the the phrase hall fundraiser to help us get the down payment um for a property to to

04:09:57.480 dedicate as this temple um the donations at the carl and the arl level are cumulative so um if

04:10:07.800 you have given before and you know you want to get to that level to get one of these awesome horns

04:10:18.040 or if you want to get to the uh the the the yarl level to get the horn plus uh a card that gives you

04:10:26.200 um access to the next three events at no charge to you um that are held there um

04:10:37.000 you can do that so you know remember that you don't have to make that donation

04:10:41.720 all in one lump sum it is cumulative um back to the beginning of time

04:10:51.720 there you have it so um final plug on stuff because he's got the graphic up

04:10:58.680 thank you everyone who's been so generous we have seen in the last six months a tremendous

04:11:07.080 increase in generosity and giving to the afa and i know that some folks that maybe hear this

04:11:14.760 may you know money is a bad word to a lot of our people but it shouldn't be money is currency

04:11:25.080 it's how we you know the the phrase to put your money where your mouth is means a lot it means

04:11:32.040 it's really easy to talk about it it's harder to invest of yourself and things of value in

04:11:39.680 making things happen we are at a time where more than ever our folk are willing to invest and give

04:11:49.060 of themselves to honor the isere and to move this forward and we're very grateful for that

04:11:56.960 If you want to donate, runestone.org slash donate.

04:12:01.740 Thank you to everybody who's contributed.

04:12:05.740 I hope that you guys, as many of you as we can, will see me in the next couple of days here at Sigraham in Jackson County, Tennessee.

04:12:15.720 If you can, I would love to meet you there.

04:12:18.880 I've already met you.

04:12:20.220 I'd love to reacquaint myself with you there.

04:12:22.860 um also and if not we would love to see you a month from now in murdoch minnesota at baldersoff

04:12:32.980 thank you so much for everybody who contributes everybody who brings their questions and their

04:12:39.240 enthusiasm and uh consumes these broadcasts i love doing them it's always i'm just really

04:12:49.800 blessed that i can spend wednesday night with some of my very best friends talking about things that

04:12:56.200 i deeply love so thank you guys for sharing it with us uh cliff thank you for being here this

04:13:01.480 evening thank you to your lovely wife that had to turn in early so she can wrangle your children

04:13:07.640 um always appreciated till next week hail the ice here hail the folk

04:13:14.040 Hail the AFA and remember victory never sleeps.

04:13:44.040 Thank you.

04:14:14.040 Thank you.

04:14:44.040 Thank you.

04:15:14.040 Thank you.

04:15:44.040 Thank you.

04:16:14.040 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 24, 2025

7⧸23⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 159 - Freyshof and the Future

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