Asatru Folk Assembly - 7⧸27⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 3

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00:07:21.460 Hello. Welcome to our third edition of Victory Never Sleeps live stream.

00:07:36.380 Hello. Welcome to our third. We're working on some of the settings here,

00:07:42.960 but I appreciate you guys' patience. I appreciate you guys showing up.

00:07:46.280 this week we've got a very special treat for you guys a good friend of mine a very very

00:07:54.540 significant guy in the astro folk assembly witness von harrell um many of you guys may know spawn

00:08:01.900 and if you do you're fortunate some of you guys may not have gotten a chance to get to know him

00:08:05.780 at all yet and hopefully by the end of tonight you'll know him a little bit better um welcome

00:08:12.140 Fawn, good to see you. Hi, how's it going? Glad to be on here. Good, we're glad to have you. This

00:08:19.260 has been a really cool thing the past couple of weeks, and I have every reason to expect it's

00:08:24.620 going to continue to be a cool thing tonight. So folks know, thank you for those of you guys

00:08:34.720 joining us on YouTube, and thank you also for the folks joining us on Entropy. Folks on Entropy

00:08:41.000 are able to send tips and super chats, and if it gets super busy, those super chats are going to

00:08:48.960 go to the front of the line when we're in order of answering stuff. I know we had a lot of

00:08:54.940 questions last week that were backed up. Yeah, and everybody who donated last week, thank you

00:08:59.960 guys. Really appreciate it, and yeah, any donations, they absolutely get put to good use,

00:09:05.820 So thank you so much.

00:09:07.640 Svon, tell us a little bit about yourself and, I don't know, what brought you to where you are now in the Ausatru Folk Assembly.

00:09:15.460 Oh, wow.

00:09:17.880 Yeah, my name is Svon Harrell.

00:09:19.560 I'm from Virginia.

00:09:22.780 I was not born in Virginia, but I've lived here pretty much all my life since I was very young.

00:09:31.100 I came to Ausatru when I was very young.

00:09:33.640 I was about 13 years old back then in the early 90s.

00:09:42.560 Back then in the early 90s, there was not a lot of – there was no Internet.

00:09:45.880 There was not a lot of that stuff.

00:09:47.240 So I ended up mainly through books and book clubs, book, like, ordering sites where you could get them in magazines and things like that.

00:09:56.400 So I was picking up books and reading a lot.

00:09:58.900 And I, yeah, I practiced pretty much solitary by myself for a very, very long time up through until about after my time in the Marine Corps.

00:10:13.400 And after that, I ended up kind of realizing there was a larger community and kind of interacted with people that were available to me, like people that I had nearby.

00:10:27.000 And again, even then, in the early 2000s, there wasn't a lot of Internet interaction going on.

00:10:33.940 I think we were utilizing meetup.com for early kindred kind of things.

00:10:40.880 And then we eventually moved on to, you know, local gatherings and different things like that.

00:10:49.320 But I was pretty much unaffiliated for many, many years.

00:10:52.420 Um, I had, um, really started my own kindred and then it fell apart while at the same time,

00:11:02.360 uh, kind of, you know, moving in and out with the East coast thing. And, um, even I even attended

00:11:08.540 a trough moot, um, early on in 2009, I believe. Uh, and that was actually the first time I ever

00:11:16.120 heard um founder mcnalen hailed that sumble at a trough moot which was uh was i didn't know at

00:11:23.360 the time or it didn't seem to have that vibe i think i think the trough back then was a little

00:11:27.340 different and um but yeah so that was the first time i really got introduced and from then on

00:11:33.260 it was a steady and slow progress till um i kind of left and became solitary again and had a

00:11:39.820 religious I guess awakening if you will and I saw the Astro Folk Assembly out

00:11:49.300 on a winter nights and back in 2016 I believe and that was so the one that you

00:11:59.180 had spoken at and then from there on out and the rest is history

00:12:07.320 well you know what what year was this that you were saying that at a truth

00:12:13.540 mood they actually hailed Steve I believe it was 2009 it was a long time

00:12:20.980 back I mean again at my time in house a true has been it's by by 2007 so before

00:12:30.540 2007 I was pretty much solitary and then after that I I had interactions with

00:12:35.560 the Auschwitz community in large. 0.82

00:12:39.400 And me and a friend of mine had made a trek out to Ohio to the Trothamute there

00:12:46.480 to see what was going on, what it was about.

00:12:49.860 And back then there was a pretty eclectic, I guess, council or, you know,

00:12:58.120 their leadership was pretty eclectic.

00:13:02.520 I think there was even one Folkish kindred leader that was on back then, and there were people that had attended who hailed Founder McNallan at the Sumble.

00:13:14.260 So it was, like I said, it was an interesting time.

00:13:20.000 I think that really I was a novice as to things that were going on around me, but at the same time, there was not so much, I think, crazy polarization in the community at large from them.

00:13:36.400 I think the AFA is always maintained, but for them, they seemed pretty neutral back then.

00:13:42.720 But over time, I started to see things that I didn't really come to agree with.

00:13:48.640 and so I kind of went on my own for a long time and then uh when I had on a suggestion to come

00:13:56.360 to Winter Nights for the Alistair Folk Assembly and it just happened to be the one that you were

00:14:01.660 speaking at and uh yeah that was it what you you had a speech there um like an introduction speech

00:14:11.460 and just a an inner uh introduction to yourself and everything going on and uh it was I absolutely

00:14:17.620 knew i had hit hit the mark that i was home um and i had a great time and i ended up just uh i

00:14:24.980 made a kindred and we we started right then and there that that that by yule we had a kindred up

00:14:30.740 and running and uh we were all members of the afa and and then it started to proceed from there

00:14:38.180 then it got pretty clandestine as far as all the uh glory and uh temples and you know constructing

00:14:46.180 hoffs to our gods and then it went went far beyond i'd ever thought i'd i'd ever be involved in

00:14:53.300 well that's fantastic um we sure are uh are fortunate to have you you had kind of a

00:15:01.380 i don't know more of a meandering journey here than i think a lot of

00:15:05.020 a lot of our current members certainly

00:15:06.820 so one reason that i wanted to have you on this evening to talk to folks

00:15:13.500 for those that may not know Svahn is the artist that has

00:15:21.180 he has been responsible for painting all of our god murals at our at our Hoffs and those are

00:15:30.520 really special and I'd like to talk a little bit more about those but significantly Svahn spent

00:15:36.100 the last week down at njordshoff um painting a spectacular mural for njord and uh swan could you

00:15:45.300 tell us a little bit about about that experience uh specifically njordshoff or um just yeah

00:15:53.460 specifically kind of you know going down there checking out njordshoff what you thought and then

00:15:57.860 in the painting process.

00:16:00.540 I see Nick just pulled up the three murals

00:16:04.860 of our previous Hoffs, again, all done by Svahn.

00:16:08.820 If you've seen them in person, you know how powerful they are.

00:16:12.400 It doesn't do them justice to see them on here,

00:16:14.960 even though they're still beautiful.

00:16:16.280 But yeah, tell us a little bit

00:16:18.300 about last week's experience for you.

00:16:22.600 Yeah, so I ended up driving down to Florida from Virginia

00:16:26.680 And it was a, you know, a wonderful drive coming into the state of Florida.

00:16:33.960 I was, you know, I was blessed to see Thor just ruling the skies as I came in and big columns of lightning.

00:16:44.240 And it was a very surreal moment kind of coming into Florida as it is same here in Virginia, very flat.

00:16:51.820 And you can see a lot of sky. And so coming down in Florida, it was just all sky and thunderstorms.

00:17:01.140 And that was kind of how I entered the state. And I was met there by membership.

00:17:09.120 And they greeted me and got me in. And like most all other, you know, tasks with the murals,

00:17:19.560 um i pretty much live there for the duration uh there's no hotels or none of it's sleeping in

00:17:28.340 front of the murals um and working on them from about uh anywhere but 10 in the morning to like

00:17:34.660 three in the morning the following day um just trying to get a massive amount of stuff done

00:17:40.240 trying i've got a um a process now in which i can allow to paint things and then let it dry and move

00:17:47.800 on and so on and so forth and i i listed some help immediately as i got down there i had um

00:17:54.840 uh go the plored and give you plored helping so put them to work and they were

00:18:00.600 going at it right away and then uh go the east he came down and he helped out and um

00:18:07.160 had some other membership that were wanting to kind of weave their weird into the wall

00:18:11.800 uh and so they were they were putting in waves and colors and little things and then um basically

00:18:19.160 you know after getting that uh base coat down of color it was it's to move on into detail and

00:18:25.680 things like that and one thing about nordshoff is um i guess the difference between let's say

00:18:33.060 thor's off or balder's off and nordshoff is the horizontal space that's there it's it doesn't

00:18:39.420 have a lot of vaulted space but it's very very wide and uh one thing that was accessed to me

00:18:45.040 that i've never had before was was three panels of wall to work with and um to just kind of stretch

00:18:52.440 my whatever i wanted to do um and so it added a whole new dimension of some other elements i wanted

00:19:00.420 to place in but uh these these murals i mean i think it's really important for folk to know like

00:19:07.180 I'm I'm not a mural painter I never was a mural painter I was uh I started out doing calligraphy

00:19:16.660 um drawing on paper and then even like dabbled around in tattooing for a time in my life

00:19:23.440 when I was younger and uh I never thought I would you know I would never never thought I

00:19:30.280 would be doing something like this so when when it was kind of shot out I feel like you you tasked

00:19:35.260 me with addressing the vacancy of space at thorshoff and i i took up that challenge there

00:19:42.640 was something magical that happened that first time uh where all of a sudden the process just

00:19:49.120 like i i knew what to do even though i had never done it before i knew about spacing i knew how to

00:19:56.600 space things i i tried things with uh you know tape and other things to like make sure that

00:20:02.220 proportions were correct because we're working on such large scales of wall from you know 16 feet

00:20:09.180 wide to 15 feet tall and even at Baldershof like the bottom of the of the mural doesn't start until

00:20:16.000 I think at the eight feet mark so I was doing that all entirely on a ladder um so none of these

00:20:21.920 processes I know what I'm doing I like I don't know what I'm doing when I get there but for some

00:20:26.680 reason, it all seems to work out. It all seems to make sense.

00:20:33.160 Well, I think it's important for folks to, to realize, you know,

00:20:37.400 you say you're not a mural painter, I think by now you are

00:20:40.480 officially a mural painter. But you started, you started

00:20:45.400 painting these, as you know, in one sense, as a priest to our

00:20:49.840 gods, but in another sense, as a worshipper of our gods, and

00:20:53.900 these paintings aren't just beautiful works of art,

00:20:57.900 they're powerful acts of worship.

00:21:00.520 And I think that comes through

00:21:02.340 when you're standing in front of them.

00:21:04.800 I certainly feel that.

00:21:06.180 We got some questions for you over here on the side.

00:21:09.000 All right.

00:21:10.040 So Cody wants to know, Svan,

00:21:12.140 do you think that your time as a solitary

00:21:15.060 made your belief stronger with the gods

00:21:18.080 and brought you closer to the folk?

00:21:19.900 uh yes to the first and no to the second um well actually perhaps later it did yes i mean when i

00:21:31.260 was solitary that was the one thing that was always a void or it was devoid of was uh folk

00:21:37.280 community and perhaps that made me focus on it more when i finally entered into that sphere but

00:21:43.600 my relationship with the gods yes absolutely um i have been all over the world i've uh i've honored

00:21:51.520 the gods um on volcanoes in hawaii i've honored the gods on top of mount fuji in japan and i've

00:21:59.780 even held a bloat on the euphrates river um in uh in iraq when i was there so um i've carried

00:22:09.140 the gods with me and I've carried the gods with me through some very tough and troubling times I

00:22:16.760 think for um for our country and for any young man uh you know being placed in these situations

00:22:26.080 having to deal with certain things uh coming to terms with certain things about life and death

00:22:31.720 and all of this, and all the while, the gods were with me, and it built a rock-solid, extremely

00:22:41.100 burning, passionate relationship with the gods. I take that second to none. Of course,

00:22:53.360 I have a deep love for my ancestors, but the relationship that I had with the gods

00:22:58.540 throughout those years formulated so much of my spiritual growth and outlook and view of the world

00:23:08.060 and also, too, my readiness for a lot of what was to happen if bad things happened and good things, too.

00:23:17.840 So, I mean, yes, while I was solitary or alone, I practiced my faith in my gods,

00:23:25.100 as I would say, almost like, I don't know, a lone practitioner, a lone pilgrim.

00:23:35.880 I don't know.

00:23:36.600 I wandered the world with the gods with me and held bloat wherever I, you know, whatever

00:23:42.500 dusty, terrible places I stood in.

00:23:46.260 And, you know, I took time to, I had a horn, a small horn, and I put down my rifle and

00:23:52.380 and hold bloats sometimes with nothing more than mre electrolyte juice it was what i had

00:24:00.060 and um and it was yeah it's so it definitely formulated a lot for me but when i got out of

00:24:06.220 that solitary break when i finally got out of the marine corps i was desperate for community

00:24:13.660 but i was also coupled right then with a with some some troubling issues that i had

00:24:19.100 um i think for a long time i was dealing with things that i had seen and things i had been

00:24:26.140 and um so even though the gods were with me it doesn't make us um infallible of uh you know

00:24:32.700 mental problems things that we needed to kind of i needed to work out um i was you know depressed

00:24:38.780 for many years after the war um and i had to i went through a long process and i think at that point

00:24:46.060 I found community and community is kind of what well at first I think it didn't help at all it

00:24:52.340 may have been an outlet of some of my problems and things but over time and meeting the right

00:24:58.600 people in the community it eventually led me to healing and coming to an understanding about

00:25:05.080 things and then led me to the Ossetra Folk Assembly and and to the discipline that I needed

00:25:12.640 in my life again because i i had it in the beginning especially in the military and then it

00:25:18.000 it kind of dwindled and then it came back again it refocused me made me realize that there was a new

00:25:23.680 mission a new ideal something that you know the time can't be squandered perhaps even more

00:25:29.600 important than what i was doing uh overseas while i was in the military well i think that's a really

00:25:37.120 powerful story for a lot of folks. I know that I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I know

00:25:42.840 that on here frequently, I talk about, you know, how doing it right is not being a solitary

00:25:48.780 practitioner. Doing it right is doing it with a group. But I think this is really strong,

00:25:54.420 really strong testimony that, and I've always said this too, when you don't have that option

00:26:00.660 and, you know, for guys that are in a spot where you can't do it as a group,

00:26:04.500 There's a lot of power in doing it as a solitary practitioner, but it all comes into fruition and it all connects and becomes the way to do it when you're able to do it as a group.

00:26:16.260 And I'm really glad that Svahn's solitary practice has brought him to us.

00:26:20.580 I hope he's better for it and I know that we're better for it.

00:26:23.720 We've got a tip from Cesar Leo.

00:26:27.540 Appreciate you.

00:26:28.800 Thank you for the tip.

00:26:30.940 And he comes with a question.

00:26:32.260 he wants to know if we can explain how a baby naming ceremony works uh yeah i so

00:26:40.140 there okay so there's the purpose and the mechanics

00:26:44.420 in i don't know in uh the condensed version i suppose the purpose

00:26:51.760 is that when that new baby comes into into this world into midgard

00:26:57.700 there's a time where it's becoming a whole person and to fulfill its soul complex and to set that

00:27:11.180 baby's identity not just as an individual but as a part of a bigger whole that is our folk

00:27:17.520 and specifically that is our afa family they're in front of the gods and in front of our folk

00:27:24.520 we affix the name that the parents have chose for the child.

00:27:30.340 And from that moment on, that child is a full person with their soul complex.

00:27:40.900 Some of that evolves from a time where infant mortality was very high.

00:27:46.480 And so before we fully invest that child with the finishing touches of of that folk soul, we want to make sure that the child is viable and and physically healthy to to have a have a good start in life.

00:28:05.460 And so I think that's part of that. Usually it's done, you know, at least nine days after the birth. In this day and age, you know, stuff comes up and sometimes people will hold off until there's a gathering in their area. So it's sometimes a little bit more than those nine days. 0.99

00:28:21.300 one thing that's an AFA tradition that I do and that now the AFA does is

00:28:29.580 you know if you have time the night before if you get to meet the child meet the family

00:28:35.740 I draw runes and I ask each of the each of the norns to give that child a blessing and a rune

00:28:46.680 to to set their course and to kind of inspire and and instill gifts to them and so a rune for

00:28:55.320 uh earth verdandi and scold um yeah so i draw those and i i read those to the child and the

00:29:05.480 parent and my interpretations of those blessings to them and we affix those with mead drawing those

00:29:13.560 runes on the child's forehead and then when we give them their name we splash them with water

00:29:18.600 as our ancestors did to to imbue them with that name and announce them in front of the folk and

00:29:25.400 when we do that we also drink toast to that child into that family and as a group we make commitments

00:29:32.200 to to be there for to protect to help provide for to help raise that child in a way and really

00:29:38.920 welcome them into our faith community. And so that's really special. That's probably my favorite

00:29:45.720 thing I get to do as a go-thee. Svahn, do you have anything to add on that ceremony?

00:29:52.600 Yeah, I'm a particular fan of your formulation of our current and way that we fasten names to

00:30:03.640 babies i think you know a long time ago people did them certain different ways they had like

00:30:09.080 locality traditions things that they would do in order to uh affix names um things that maybe

00:30:16.920 if they weren't able to get to uh the hoffs or back then there were no hoffs so um you know

00:30:25.800 one of my children we we were lucky enough to have great grandmother and uh grandmother and

00:30:32.600 mother all there with the baby, holding the baby while the name was being, you know, fastened and

00:30:39.240 sprinkled. And that was done, you know, at the house because, you know, especially for my first

00:30:45.840 boy, there were no temples then. So yeah, I think that there's a lot of beautiful things that can be

00:30:52.420 added or done. But when you have a community and you have a priesthood that you can now

00:30:59.540 kind of rely on or ask for help or uh seek guidance or or you know even to wait or some

00:31:06.280 people do like they'll name fasten their child at home but then they'll wait to the next event

00:31:11.680 and they'll come and introduce them and do a name fastening ceremony at the temple and get a chance

00:31:17.120 to uh introduce them to all the folk i i think it's beautiful it's a it's a huge and momentous

00:31:24.540 evolution that's happened in such a short period of time from having nothing to now you have hoffs

00:31:32.380 and gosar that can perform the ceremony and join in with the parents uh and and introducing the

00:31:39.340 child to the folk all in the in the span of a couple years that's huge we've got some more

00:31:47.260 questions for you we got quite a bit of them piling up about your uh your mural work uh

00:31:53.260 Sarah wants to know how do you come up with the scenes you decide to use for the murals? Do they

00:31:59.100 have hidden messages in them as far as the symbolism? I suppose let's take it from in the

00:32:06.060 order that you did them and break that down for folks or as much as you feel comfortable breaking

00:32:11.180 down for him um so i think with thor's hof uh yes there was a it was absolutely um drawn uh from

00:32:26.300 you know thor's fishing trip if you will um and uh yeah there was some there was some symbolic

00:32:33.400 meaning there about action and about uh committing to the moment and having the right time to

00:32:40.960 strike in juxtaposition to people who may, um, stand in, in awe or in fear of the, the coming

00:32:49.640 action and the, the pinnacle moment of weird. So, uh, that, that was a lot of the symbolism there,

00:32:55.440 uh, with Thor's off, especially with, uh, Hamir, you know, with his knife on the rope,

00:33:01.380 um and showing this kind of action of duality of thor being that which is action and that which

00:33:11.080 is doing things completing things having these moments trying to attain them using strength and

00:33:16.060 to get there and then there are there's that energy of folk or just you know in that

00:33:23.860 symbology there that there might be you know hesitancy fear or even outright cowardice to

00:33:30.560 the idea of it and uh and and and all it takes is that cutting of the rope and it seems like such

00:33:36.900 an easy way but what a great loss if it's taken so that was kind of the symbology of thor's um

00:33:44.940 mural but as we went on uh with baldershoff it was more or less um a concept of space i ended

00:33:54.020 up working in a gable and the bottom of the picture is about eight feet up so everything's

00:33:58.620 done on a ladder and i wanted to dominate the space and so the the idea was simply um the

00:34:05.580 returning of balder the uh the the idea of ascension outside of stasis outside of outside

00:34:14.460 of hell guard outside of um the time out of time and back into the divinity of the of of heaven

00:34:21.840 and um a kind of a resting moment and there's some there's other symbology in there as well

00:34:28.360 um obviously the kinfilkia of the temple being the wolves so we place the wolves in there but

00:34:33.640 the way that they're positioned and and uh uh particularly with uh nana and uh nana to me has

00:34:41.600 always been the asenya of of devotion and piety um the idea that she dies of a broken heart and

00:34:50.080 follows balder into the into the land of shade beyond the shade and into helgard into the time

00:34:57.520 beyond time and um and so she is intrinsically tied uh he is the folk soul and she is the piety

00:35:05.860 and devotion of the folk kind of feeding back to him so that's why she's carrying that horn

00:35:12.020 um so there's symbology there uh again space defines things so with with um with odin at

00:35:21.160 odin's hof the biggest thing for me and i i have a lot of full trui or trough to to uh odin so i

00:35:29.420 wanted to encapsulate some things and actually i ended up um running into problems i think um

00:35:36.200 And the first and foremost was to capture or to – not even capture, to try to emulate the best I could the focus and the idea that Odin is watching, that Odin is always watching, and that his eye is unescapable.

00:35:54.400 and once i got past that and i think i i that just came to life on on the wall uh everything

00:36:04.060 thereafter i started running into some logistical problems and i had to change some things and

00:36:09.220 so i i just started easter egging everything i could at that point it became very disjointed

00:36:16.060 uh there was no specific story and mention it was just odin in front of the well or mimir's well

00:36:23.400 and um and then i began to uh you know incorporate certain things like little easter eggs and things

00:36:31.460 and started writing in runic and of course by this time that was when the folk food art

00:36:36.080 became full uh and was and it started to evolve at thor's hof and and at balder's hof but it

00:36:44.500 became fully manifested by odin's fitting actually that it was manifested by then

00:36:50.940 So with Njörð, it was kind of the same thing.

00:36:53.420 I got a lot of space, and I make allusions or, like, I allude to the story of the marriage of Njörð and Skadi.

00:37:03.920 But beyond that, it's not any particular moment in a story.

00:37:09.380 There's more symbolism there.

00:37:11.600 And there were some other things I took some liberty on, and I really think that I addressed some pan-Germanicism or some pan-Aryan religiosity in there as well.

00:37:25.760 I thought that was quite a good time to address some of that.

00:37:30.840 And I – yeah, I went on through there.

00:37:35.320 So a lot of things have developed. Everything from the sun and rod behind the gods to the folk futhark that's used in the murals and all kinds of things.

00:37:45.280 So some of it's hidden. Some of it has story. Others, it's just it's out in plain sight.

00:37:50.980 It's just ready to be read and understood. Or, you know, it depends on if you're close up and you can see little things.

00:37:57.660 I remember talking to someone and they said that they had seen the mural at Odenshof for almost a month and a half before they realized there was something in the corner and that the tree was bearing strange fruit, if you will, as he is the lord of the gallows.

00:38:13.920 So there was a there was a little thing there. So there's all these little Easter eggs, little things that come to me as as we're kind of going through.

00:38:21.840 But first and foremost is always focusing on the asa that's in the house that's in the in the wall.

00:38:31.040 I'm making a godstead. I'm asking them to come and sit and have this place. 1.00

00:38:35.800 This image will always be their resting spot in their own home.

00:38:42.180 It's very, very honoring.

00:38:46.660 You say that, but until you're there, I don't know if there's a way to communicate to the folks listening to this just how true that is.

00:38:57.820 Something profoundly spiritual happens with those to where the God resides in a way.

00:39:04.520 a piece of that God is then in that Hoff. You talked about what you wanted to accomplish with

00:39:10.060 the Odin mural. That one eye, it follows you. His eye follows you in that Hoff, no matter where

00:39:18.580 you're at. It's very strange and magical how that works. So along those same lines, could you kind

00:39:24.780 of best guess? We've got Catherine asking, how big are they? So could you best guess some

00:39:31.760 dimensions for us on each of those? Well, so Thorshoff, his is about six and a half feet wide

00:39:40.360 by eight and a half feet tall, roundabout. I would love to give you exact measurements,

00:39:47.680 but I can't remember. And then Baldershoff was, of course, it didn't even start until about

00:39:55.840 the uh i want to say the seven or eight foot mark i think it was eight feet and uh and and of course

00:40:02.800 it stretched up almost to 22 feet because the ladder was a 20 foot ladder and um it could

00:40:09.140 it it could go up there so maybe maybe a little it's a little shorter first i'm thinking of angle

00:40:15.500 and safety but um yeah it would run all the way up and then you know it it dimension wise a width

00:40:21.000 at the base of the triangle i i would almost guess would be 15 16 feet wide um and uh that

00:40:29.880 was an interesting one again working on a ladder and going up and down and and kind of traversing

00:40:35.640 in at that gabled angle um and uh you know strangely enough i had a knee injury right before

00:40:43.400 then and uh i thought i was gonna i thought i was gonna die but in in actuality when i

00:40:48.680 Pause, pause, pause. Brandy does not want you to cheat her ladder. She says it is, in fact, a 35-foot ladder.

00:40:55.560 Oh, okay. So maybe that's why in my mind I knew there was a little bit of safety in there, so maybe my numbers were wrong.

00:41:02.640 But yeah, I think it was about 22 feet up, but there was enough room to kind of relax and be in there.

00:41:07.620 But the strange thing was is when I left Baldershof, my knee pain was gone as opposed to being – I was figuring it would be flared up and hurting in massive proportions, and it wasn't.

00:41:20.280 It was I guess some sort of recuperation or workout was happening there that allowed it to heal even though it was going up and down this ladder.

00:41:30.280 uh olenshof was an interesting one and uh i'll tell you that you know this um we had dimension

00:41:37.820 issues especially involving the the structure of the temple um there was a rafter that was kind of

00:41:45.360 centering everything and was in but also kind of intruding into the situation and we were worried

00:41:50.160 about that and uh there was a doorway off to the left that um dominated more space than off to the

00:41:56.520 right and so even though we wanted everything to be centered we just had to contend with those

00:42:01.900 issues and then there was also some actual structural issues with the wall um and some

00:42:07.220 resurfacing and we just kind of it was like you know what this is this is the time we have it's

00:42:12.700 midsummer and we made made time for it you know blocked off work and flew out and got to meet

00:42:19.620 everybody and it was a joyous occasion it was wonderful and um but really really focusing on

00:42:25.480 this uh we just pushed through it so there was really not a so much a dimension i guess

00:42:31.080 at odenshof um i would say it was maybe seven feet eight feet wide by seven to eight feet tall

00:42:40.640 with a stanchion kind of placed in the middle there and um all all of these uh all of them

00:42:49.660 except for Nürzhoff, which I would, you know, is an interesting thing, is all of them were slightly

00:42:55.860 off the ground, set apart by some sort of divider. Nürzhoff's a little different. I had

00:43:01.200 ceiling to floor, but still had to make some room for us to have a harrow underneath

00:43:08.740 the house. So, you know, I had to adjust some things. I couldn't do some things that I have

00:43:16.840 done for the other house uh on on their godsteads instead of um positioning i'll just say that much

00:43:23.800 i don't want to reveal too much i want it to be for dedication but i i so yeah those are about the

00:43:29.160 dimensions i have uh niorsoft's dimensions i would say are uh maybe uh 10 feet on the face wall and

00:43:35.780 then six or seven six and a half feet to seven feet on the side walls so i had three panels

00:43:42.920 of a panoramic view of for for for north and it was very very fitting well i think this is a good

00:43:51.320 time to plug it um those of you who can uh white springs in florida on the 13th is our dedication

00:43:58.740 if that's something that you're able to and you'd like to attend uh we would love to see you there

00:44:04.480 reach out to your local folk builder um actually uh nick if you could throw up lanes contact if

00:44:11.420 need to talk to somebody lane is the guy i would suggest you speak to unless you're a member if

00:44:15.820 you're a member you're just welcome to come on out and yeah if you'd like to be part of that

00:44:19.980 it's really a historic uh it's really a historic thing this is certainly the first hoff to njord

00:44:27.900 in thousands of years um and as far as we have any proof of it you know it's it's one of it's

00:44:37.580 it may be the first Hoff that we have definitive proof exists for New York, though I believe in

00:44:43.340 our ancestors' day there was probably plenty. But yeah, it's really a special time. Svon,

00:44:48.860 you already kind of hit on this, but if there's anything you'd like to add,

00:44:53.180 Hugh Manipulation Nation wants to know,

00:44:56.540 I'd love to hear the inspiration behind each mural. They stood out to me in the past.

00:45:01.180 hmm well again I mean I kind of touched a little bit on on some of the things I wanted to do like

00:45:11.400 for Thorshoff of course there was a dynamic meaning but as we went along the inspiration

00:45:16.220 um again uh with with Baldur's Hoff there I climbed up that ladder and the first thing I

00:45:24.620 I put pencil on wall and I drew a face and that face was the face it there was nothing

00:45:32.860 that changed about it I didn't adjust it I didn't work at it nothing it was 100% supposed to be

00:45:40.900 there um I wish I could say the same for Nana I had I had I had to struggle uh again working with

00:45:49.800 ladder and spacing but um you know her being the goddess of devotion and piety being able to take

00:45:58.000 the the the might of the folk into the horn uh and on the horn it says you know strength piety

00:46:05.500 and devotion and that she bears that horn like all uh you know the ladies that bear them the

00:46:11.360 mead cup to balder feeding him the might of the folk replenishing him keeping him and the hope

00:46:19.680 of him alive within our hearts and you know it's it's it's um there's symbology there i think

00:46:25.740 with odin's um of course the story of him you know uh receiving his knowledge in mimir's well

00:46:36.040 or you know as as being one of the the steps of of the entirety of the wells uh being able to see

00:46:44.600 all that which was in order to see what will become um so the symbology there i mean it's

00:46:51.240 pretty obvious the eye in the well and then of course really attaining the the premise that

00:46:57.540 that odin is watching at all times um and then with north and north uh symbology really

00:47:05.900 was about laughing and having fun and being happy and absorbing the sun and um so smiling faces was

00:47:16.080 kind of a hard thing for me i'm again i i you know drawing at large scale has always been difficult

00:47:21.840 for me so this last mural really conflicted with a lot of my my already kind of set habits

00:47:28.080 smiling faces and upturned heads and fingernails and and toes and feet uh and um anatomy as far

00:47:37.660 as like not being able to use clothes to cover things up it was pretty north is out there he's

00:47:43.100 in the sun he is he is fully basking and he's mighty and he's strong like like the like the

00:47:49.700 waves that hit the ocean so i i really really kind of got inspired with that there was a lot of like

00:47:54.960 almost a beach vibe. It was a, there was music being played. There was a lot of laughter and

00:48:02.280 people were helping. And it was kind of the whole time was just about relax, relax. You've got this,

00:48:09.100 everything's okay. You can do no wrong. There's no, I kind of sound like Bob Ross,

00:48:13.660 happy little accidents, but everything, everything happened for a reason and everything was good.

00:48:18.220 but it was very, very relaxing

00:48:22.200 compared to a lot of the other murals.

00:48:25.580 But other than that, I mean,

00:48:27.060 inspirations are just as they kind of hit me

00:48:31.500 or are laid out in front of me.

00:48:35.940 So Tim would like to know,

00:48:37.740 Witten Svahn, do you have a request of the folk?

00:48:40.900 Everyone comes to you for so much.

00:48:43.060 What would you like to see from the folk?

00:48:45.640 Ooh, that's a good one. That's a very good question. I think the biggest thing would be twofold. One,

00:49:03.600 devotion and piety both within the temples and at home so I would I would lump those two together

00:49:14.540 and the other is stop being fearful of telling other folk about us telling other folk about

00:49:25.140 what we're doing why we're here and and and being afraid to bridge that gap to say hey

00:49:31.160 you know um this is who we are this is this is our native faith this we are these people and we

00:49:37.600 have a right to exist and a right to be devoted to our gods and you should come down and and see

00:49:43.520 what we're doing like abolish all a lot of those uh misconceptions um i mean just today i i managed

00:49:52.260 to talk to somebody i'm not saying proselytize i'm just saying don't be so guarded the you know

00:50:00.440 we want to shine we want to be noble we want to move forward um and show by example so i would

00:50:07.820 say first and foremost really work at talking to other people and and letting them know like what

00:50:13.360 this is about what we are doing why we are devoted to the gods and um how we're we're building

00:50:19.440 something that hasn't been done in thousands of years and then at the same time back to the

00:50:27.040 devotion and piety, the idea of applying both Hoff devotion, coming to large events,

00:50:36.160 baby naming ceremonies, weddings, funerals, helping out at the Hoffs, just helping the

00:50:43.600 Godis maintain the Hoffs, if you're able. Or again, maybe focus on your local community and

00:50:50.740 kindred just as if you would to a temple and then at home applying and practicing and praying at

00:50:58.380 home big one praying pray to the gods pray to them and and ask them for guidance and and and open

00:51:07.040 yourself up to them that's that that's the one those are the or excuse me those are the two

00:51:10.980 things i would i would ask of the folk okay so human manipulation nation uh wants to know what

00:51:19.660 was your job in the Marine Corps? He says that he was a medic in the army and has been in solitude

00:51:24.600 and in need of community and he can relate to you. I was a rifleman. I was an 0311 basic rifleman.

00:51:33.780 I was in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii initially, but I joined before 9-11. So I'm dating myself in my

00:51:42.560 my age um i was i was 21 when i joined so i was a late a late bloomer or an old man in the marine

00:51:50.560 corps by those standards most everybody was 17 or 18 i was 21 and it was in the year 2000 that i

00:51:56.200 joined um and i ended up very luckily getting sent to hawaii and um but 9-11 happened and pretty much

00:52:07.380 I never saw the island, but maybe for seven to ten months.

00:52:12.120 Otherwise, I was deployed repeatedly for about four years.

00:52:19.020 As far as you being a medic in the Army, I absolutely get that because one of the things is you're integrated into life-saving.

00:52:28.680 First and foremost, I would say devotionals to air, like absolutely to her as in learning your craft, a craft that can apply to you even after you get out.

00:52:44.360 Uh, there's job opportunities for you with medical skills and things like that, but having devotion to the care of, of people, uh, and being noble in your care, um, making sure that you, you're always abide by that, which is noble within you.

00:53:01.420 um so i i would say creating harrow space create a harrow uh you know find a way to devotionally

00:53:12.260 express in an item or a godstead or a picture or something of the gods and of i would say like

00:53:18.760 start off with air if you're a healer that's the first place to start but not by no means the end

00:53:24.740 And create meditation, prayer, mantra, if you will.

00:53:31.280 I guess that's a word that everyone's familiar with.

00:53:35.380 In order – I would say it's a galder, but, you know, a mantra to affixate your mind and your body and your soul to the processes that you need to do. 0.54

00:53:47.720 Conduct bloat and give gift. 0.99

00:53:49.600 Give gift cycle.

00:53:50.720 and um until you're able to move which again it's outside of your control when you're in the

00:53:56.580 military and i understand that 100 so uh basically let go let weird take you um i never i never hid

00:54:06.700 from anything i never uh when they asked me you know you guys got a choice you can go here go here

00:54:12.980 and that place is pretty bad i was like well i'll go to the bad place i guess and then just

00:54:16.400 went so so just open yourself up to the process of weird and really focus on forging your own faith

00:54:23.080 with internally until you can find a space of freedom i don't know if you're going to be a

00:54:27.480 lifer and and do this for the rest of your life or if you get out you know at that point seek

00:54:32.440 community because there's there's no substitute for it use this as a foundational time to forge

00:54:38.380 your faith um and open yourself up you have to let go you have to stop applying logic to the gods

00:54:46.780 um and and just really let go and once you do once you break that void and pass through that

00:54:53.500 threshold they show up and they are not subtle at all so you finding community um

00:55:03.500 Um, I noticed over on the side and I can't read all the side chats.

00:55:07.580 So guys, if I miss stuff, uh, we've got our producer, Nick, filtering the questions to

00:55:13.140 me separately.

00:55:14.240 So, but any of the little just side comments, I cut a little bits here and there, but, uh,

00:55:19.440 yeah, human manipulation wanted to know if anybody wants to carpool down from the Northeast

00:55:23.940 for, uh, the Hoff dedication.

00:55:25.900 I think that's an amazing idea.

00:55:27.560 And I really hope, you know, if some of you guys want to take them up on that and be part

00:55:32.080 of that, that would be awesome.

00:55:33.160 just throwing it out there we've got a big tip from sc says that uh they love us and hail the

00:55:40.160 gods hail the folk hail the afa and hail me and he'll use fun so that's cool uh alistar asks

00:55:48.960 can you explain the significance of the rhido rune on your ring and on the vestments that are worn

00:55:56.800 uh yeah i'd like to take a stab at that so um that is the rune of it's the rune of our priesthood

00:56:08.640 um a couple of reasons for that it was back in the also true free assembly days and those who

00:56:19.120 you may not know that was the predecessor organization to the astro folk assembly

00:56:24.080 a red ribo rune on a black field was the the symbol of that of that organization

00:56:32.640 and so taking that history into the future

00:56:35.760 there's a lot to that rune um so much of it it it translates roughly to writing a lot of people

00:56:48.000 associated with a journey it's all of those things but it's a lot about right action at

00:56:53.500 right time the idea of the rider or the man on the horse has a lot of connotations to nobility

00:57:01.020 to our most ancient ancestors the idea of being noble and taking those right actions at the right

00:57:07.340 time i feel is the key to capturing synchronicity and to advancing our faith so that constant

00:57:16.940 admonition to do the right things in the right time and to bear yourself nobly is why that was

00:57:24.680 important to have symbolizing our priesthood. And so that's why that's as prominent as it is.

00:57:32.080 And on our vestments, if you notice, they're outward facing on both sides. So they're mirrored

00:57:39.020 and they're they're faced outward and the idea is as the uh as the gothi you're projecting that

00:57:45.820 to to the folk that you're presiding over you're projecting that from yourself you're a source of

00:57:51.900 that right action and a source of that nobility to inspire those around you so exuding that is

00:57:59.100 is the idea behind that and that's that's why we chose that Svon do you have any other thoughts

00:58:03.820 maybe on the Rhylo rune in that context?

00:58:07.380 Yeah, I think the best thing is it's a great reminder for us

00:58:11.560 that we're not resting on our laurels.

00:58:13.420 We don't get to.

00:58:14.820 We're in constant movement.

00:58:17.660 That rune symbolizes that we're agents of a traveling power,

00:58:25.980 a power that is unmoving but yet still moves

00:58:30.220 and moves heavily and changes weird around it.

00:58:33.620 And so, you know, as as the sun and the moon and the stars gained their seats in heaven and and and as the gods ordered things, all things came into cycle.

00:58:45.260 And that rune kind of reminds us that at this rotations, we are coming back from a great chasm.

00:58:52.600 We're coming back from a great drought where the gods, you know, there was these cyclical moments where, you know, these returns are slowly coming.

00:59:02.500 And so I think the Raido rune really – or the Raid rune, it encapsulates that reminder.

00:59:11.160 As we look at it, as we bear it, we realize that we are war priests on the move.

00:59:19.940 You are the highest of the war priests, and we are the war priests.

00:59:23.980 I say that, and I mean that, you know, from the Marine Corps, it really relates to me, the idea that this is a battle, this is a struggle, this is a return, and yes, we are trying to make community, we're trying to be noble, but at the same time, we have to keep moving.

00:59:40.920 we have there there is the constant reminder in that room that we are establishing order as we

00:59:47.640 move we are existing within the order that already was constructed by the gods and then we too uh

00:59:54.360 must never stop victory never sleeps exactly um sunshine sucks thank you very much we appreciate

01:00:03.160 twenty dollars it is very appreciated seriously thank you any of you guys on entropy that are

01:00:08.360 throwing donations away it's much appreciated thank you so much thank you um

01:00:16.280 how old is too old for a baby naming ceremony so that's a good question uh

01:00:21.560 corey asked that question i think that's a really good question um

01:00:27.320 you know we don't want we don't want any teenagers with their voice changing trying to get

01:00:32.040 get their baby naming done um realistically i don't think there's a hard answer to it

01:00:38.360 but the further it goes out the the less visceral the meaning behind it and the more

01:00:49.640 it's just kind of a going through the motions um i i would say within the first year is really

01:00:58.520 important i think keeping it in the first month or so is is what you should do but i think past

01:01:06.040 that first year it kind of it's kind of missed that window but i don't think there's a hard

01:01:11.160 rule on it siphon do you have any thoughts on that um yeah i would say if you're past that window

01:01:17.960 you could always ask the gods and your ancestors to bless and protect your your your child and then

01:01:24.120 And yeah, wait till now it's time to focus on the time in between to, you know, man making or woman making and entering into the threshold of young adulthood. 0.60

01:01:35.980 You know, focus on on that time. I don't think there's wrong with asking for protection over over your child. 0.64

01:01:43.840 But yeah, that after about a year or so, you know.

01:01:50.080 I think the gods and your ancestors and the folk are fully aware of who's here.

01:01:54.120 but that's again that's part of the the kind of the the rawness of us coming through that chasm

01:02:00.040 we have to deal with these things and not all of us were born into ousa true not all of us were

01:02:06.120 raised ousa true and so we have to deal with a lot of that kind of missed steps and um but

01:02:13.480 there's no wrongness in it we just uh a fix and and move on to the next step noticing over on the

01:02:22.360 side uh a lot of chat going on around that carpool idea i hope you guys take

01:02:27.880 i hope you guys are serious hope you guys do it if you do i'd love to to share a horn with

01:02:33.240 you and raise a horn to tenured with you guys there i'll be down there as well so i'll be right

01:02:41.160 so the republic of vinland asks are they are are they inspired by the greek uh greek orthodox

01:02:49.400 christian icons i'm gonna let swan get to this in a second but first i am really happy that you said

01:02:57.880 that yes in a way they are i'm gonna go ahead and take ownership that's one idea that i really

01:03:05.480 stressed when we were doing this because i think that um as far as as european art goes

01:03:12.520 those greek iconography is is really beautiful i really like their metallics and what they do with

01:03:17.880 the gold and i like that they fill the space with stuff that's beautiful like that um

01:03:25.160 i think that goes on in a lot of uh different european european art i was at the uh the rat

01:03:31.080 house in copenhagen and in there every surface on the inside or the outside is full of beauty

01:03:38.920 these intricately carved i mean the doorknobs are intricately carved every little recess and

01:03:44.760 And even beautiful things that you couldn't normally see up, you know, up 10, 20 feet in the air or hiding in a corner are little elements of beauty.

01:03:53.880 So really fill in that space. And yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that. Svan, what do you have to say about that?

01:04:00.320 Yeah, definitely. Definitely. The idea of of intricacy and detail and beauty, the idea of reinstating beauty and color was a big one for me and brightness.

01:04:13.500 And I definitely think you had expressed early on about the Orthodox use of the Orthodox Christians use of gold or uses of the metallics.

01:04:27.220 And so, yeah, that was definitely an influence.

01:04:29.980 I think that as far as people might look at, say, the sun and rod behind the gods as being a direct correlation.

01:04:38.580 I mean, I would definitely point out that the idea of the solar symbol around the head definitely predates Christianity.

01:04:45.520 Absolutely. They have a they have huge iconic lexicon of iconography towards, you know, halos and things like that.

01:04:54.960 But these do predate Christianity, the Etruscans, the Greeks and the Hellenics.

01:05:00.580 But also, too, there's a special meaning behind the sun and rot, I think, culturally within the AFA and the idea of the attainment of the twelve.

01:05:08.580 And the stabilization of our faith and the representation of their illumination and their divinity.

01:05:17.660 So the sun and rod became a huge part of that.

01:05:24.120 And, yes, I mean, you could clearly say, oh, that's, you know, inspired by this.

01:05:28.520 But also I was looking at, again, winged iconography from the Etruscans and their haloing.

01:05:35.840 uh sun wheels and and stones in sweden stone carvings with the sun wheels around their heads

01:05:41.400 um so it did come from everywhere but the the the use of color and the use of gold absolutely i

01:05:48.320 think um really inspired it if you look at some of the greek orthodox artwork it it is very

01:05:53.920 two-dimensional and sometimes i think it it doesn't have a lot of what i think we're putting

01:06:00.580 in, whereas the might and the largeness, the power, there seems to be a heavy sense of

01:06:09.600 like cloth and perhaps, you know, downcast eyes and held up hands and kind of, you know,

01:06:16.720 devotional spots, but there's not this kind of activated action going on in a lot of them.

01:06:22.460 Even when you see like, you know, Michael slaying the dragon or, you know, something

01:06:26.640 like that is it's it's kind of very uh place but the color that they've captured and the metallics

01:06:33.840 that they use are beautiful so yeah but i wanted to add something that's uniquely our own and at

01:06:41.900 the same time incorporate something that's a little bit of the elder uh iconography with the

01:06:47.740 the sun and rod but also the new meaning behind it for us with the with the attainment of the 12 so

01:06:53.580 um yeah i think that's kind of an important thing to note i mean we're not trying to ape

01:06:59.900 anything but fundamentally you had arian greek people worshiping the divinity that they were

01:07:09.820 trying to worship and i think that our people worship in a really specific way with with

01:07:14.620 specific art and uh that's beautiful and i think that you know had some things had happened

01:07:20.220 differently in the course of history those those you know that greek orthodox art could very well

01:07:25.820 have been of of apollo or of uh athena in and not of christ and michael so yeah i think it's

01:07:34.460 beautiful and it's just really cool that they picked up on that because i thought it was kind

01:07:37.580 of a subtle a subtle nod to it but it is something that's fun and i both discussed is as an element

01:07:43.180 we wanted involved in it so that's i think that's really cool we've got a couple other monetized

01:07:48.460 things sc is our folk builder sierra chapman i'm glad to to hear from you i thought it was you the

01:07:55.260 first time but i didn't want to want to assume she asked why should folks be on the hof toller

01:08:01.340 as opposed to simple membership levels what are the benefits for the afa um so

01:08:11.260 fundamentally the biggest benefit is the shift in culture and attitude for those of you who

01:08:18.140 don't know the hoftoller is a percentage-based giving to our church um we ask a minimum of one

01:08:27.100 percent if you'd like to do more that's fantastic um you know if you make very little one percent

01:08:34.780 is is a very small number if you make a lot then it's a big number and us contributing that percent

01:08:42.380 of our success helps us rise and fall together and share in that way and i think that's special

01:08:48.620 but it also gets us in a place where we're donating to our church we're donating to our gods

01:08:54.460 and we're donating to something that we believe in whereas the previous the the membership model the

01:08:59.820 you know x dollars a month is much more of a paying for a service or there's a mindset that

01:09:07.900 you're you're paying to get something back and that it's transactional and even if it came out

01:09:13.340 the exact same dollar wise um the attitude is much better to what we're trying to do the piety

01:09:20.940 of donating to something as opposed to feeling like you're making a purchase so we're really

01:09:26.140 working on that culturally um truth of it though uh the hoff toller that one percent i think for

01:09:33.100 most people with an average american income just running the numbers the average probably comes out

01:09:38.460 to you know that one percent being about thirty dollars and uh you know that helps that money

01:09:45.020 goes a long way when we started doing the hof toller it immediately elevated our ability to

01:09:51.020 do things and coincidentally very shortly after we were able to get both thorshoff and baldershoff

01:09:56.780 so it's really made a big difference for us um folk the rude uh threw 25 dollars at us thank

01:10:03.340 you so much it's much appreciated says he loves the wednesday talks and keep wants us to keep

01:10:08.060 them coming i've got them scheduled for a month out now with all the guests i'm excited uh i love

01:10:13.820 these i hope our guests like them it's a lot of fun i literally look forward to it all week so

01:10:19.180 uh as long as you guys still enjoy them and they're they're beneficial we'll keep them coming

01:10:23.100 um and as usual we've got a bunch of questions backing up which is which is really nice to see

01:10:29.940 uh bob asks um to have someone with such visual intelligence is unique it would be interesting

01:10:38.900 to know if swan has ideas on how people can see the world around them in an art artistic

01:10:46.380 slash worshipful manner. A lot of people have seen this in the comments.

01:10:54.580 Internally, we all tell Svon this. I think it's very self-evident that he's a guy with a lot of

01:10:58.840 wisdom and a real good head on his shoulders. And people in the side are noticing that. Svon,

01:11:04.400 where he's sitting, can't see the comments. So I just want to let him know,

01:11:07.820 folks think that you're a smart guy, Svon, and they are correct. What do you have to say to Bob?

01:11:12.060 uh visually seeing the world uh one thing i would say is attain the mythic uh understand that the

01:11:22.700 gods exist in the meta they're they're in a in a in a world deeply connected to us i mean they're

01:11:30.300 not separate from us they are connected but you need to really start to break off a lot of the

01:11:38.840 mantle of modernity. I'm not saying that we should, you know, cast things off and go living

01:11:43.940 in the woods and things like crazy things like that. But I mean, the idea is to really begin

01:11:48.680 to open your ears, open your eyes, hear people's words, seeing things. And I don't mean in a

01:11:55.840 clandestine way. The world is filled with weird. Weird pervades around us. And the gods interact

01:12:05.420 with us through weird predominantly. And I think that once you begin to realize that,

01:12:12.120 that all the things that are flowing around, all the ripples moving in and out,

01:12:15.660 that connects us to the gods. And that you can't forget. I mean, we're already,

01:12:22.320 once you've noticed the ripples, once you notice things coming in and leaving out and your actions

01:12:26.860 kind of, your noble actions leading to noble deeds and your noble deeds leading to greater

01:12:33.280 things that's when you begin to realize that the connection between you and the gods is ever

01:12:37.600 pervading all the time and uh it's always through or lock or or or law or law and and weird so um

01:12:48.220 i like to use the word weird but um it's you know ever pervading so first and foremost once you

01:12:53.860 realize you're connected deeply that way um the other thing is to see yourself and see things in

01:13:02.340 the mythic see things in the meta um understand that uh in in essence you should i i i would say

01:13:11.100 live for greatness project yourself towards greatness and do this with the intention of

01:13:18.620 of um being worthy of the gods impressing them um asking yourself would they be impressed with me

01:13:26.140 would they be impressed with what i'm doing and i mean really ask yourself that it's not a

01:13:31.440 showcase thing it's not about beating your chest it's about the actions that you you think you're

01:13:36.320 alone in a room asking yourself and you're really not and and and to have that again because i think

01:13:43.540 that a lot of people in um also true there there's a studying aspect to the gods but there's never a

01:13:50.680 a moment where they just like wow i'm in weird and the gods are in weird and they're actually

01:13:56.740 affecting weird and they're moving things around and i'm moving things around and in that medium

01:14:01.700 we are absolutely connected there's no separation between us so if that's the case they can see

01:14:09.220 they can hear they can feel what i'm doing and now that takes on a whole new consideration do

01:14:16.260 the gods really if they see me then i should be concerned with the way i act the way i talk uh

01:14:24.420 The moral issues that you might come in on a day-to-day basis that we might not think are deeply connected to the gods, and they are.

01:14:34.380 And then once you do project yourself into the meta and kind of live, you know, with that, growing into that, being glorious in your heart and in your mind, I think that those deeds kind of begin to project more and more and more until you begin to see the world in a very beautiful way.

01:14:56.480 uh you that that almost uh and i i don't want to sound if somebody tells you crazy things and and

01:15:07.880 you say like wow that's kind of crazy and that's okay you should have that ability to say wow i

01:15:13.280 don't i don't know but there's a meaningfulness that you should feel almost like you're on the

01:15:18.440 edge of the mythical and and reality that that veil becomes very very um uh shimmering not

01:15:29.200 intangible i don't i'm not saying you realities to be put in the back seat not at all but there

01:15:35.580 is a sense that the gods do move in our world in a very mythical way there there is beauty there

01:15:41.340 There is joy. There is there is honor. There is vengeance.

01:15:46.180 There's frith. There's these huge concepts moving around that the gods are are interacting with, whether it's it's staving stability of the cosmos and keeping the edge to even the finite child rearing.

01:16:01.680 And having your children taking that time to teach them to step forward and show them things and stop being on the phone or stop stressing about your job when your child wants to interact with you.

01:16:14.700 You know, all of the gods and goddesses are involved in all of these spectrums from the very, very big, the very, very little.

01:16:23.220 So becoming a conscious of that, I think, is really important.

01:16:27.100 That's how you begin to see things differently.

01:16:28.980 yeah you that absolutely what Svan just said and and one of the key things that stood out that he

01:16:37.140 just said that I want to stress living your life in a way intended to make your gods and your

01:16:46.800 ancestors proud of you um that idea of striving to be worthy and striving to to make them proud of

01:16:55.720 One of the, I think we all conceptualize the gods a little bit different in our heads and in our hearts, but the idea really occurred to me a couple of years ago about wanting to make the gods smile, wanting the things that I do to bring a smile to their face.

01:17:17.080 And I think thinking, Ausatru is about those relationships with the gods. And I don't, you know, those relationships aren't exactly the same as a human relationship, and the gods are certainly far above us.

01:17:34.600 but having the idea that something you do would make one of the gods of our race

01:17:41.240 proud enough to to smile or to nod their head in approval is really a profound thing

01:17:47.640 or it certainly is to me so i i'd throw that in there um got a question back on the baby naming

01:17:53.720 same question do you name the baby at the hospital for the birth certificate and then

01:17:57.640 head to the ceremony so well as far as practicality goes the perfect scenario you keep the name a

01:18:06.280 secret only the mother and the father know what the name is going to be and the grand reveals at

01:18:10.680 the baby naming um in practical purposes in this day and age when you've got forms at the hospital

01:18:17.400 and whatnot um you can be a purist about it if you want but i think in order to make it all work

01:18:23.640 smooth certainly what we did with our daughter we kept the name private to us until the uh the

01:18:28.600 ceremony but you know with the exclusion of in the hospital with the with the birth certificate

01:18:34.440 whatnot we put her name on it just because it's practical and it makes sense i think a lot of that

01:18:39.880 is fun and extra that you can add to it as part of the tradition and part of the celebration but it's

01:18:47.880 it's about so much more than someone knowing what the name is. It's about speaking that name

01:18:55.400 in front of the gods, in front of the folk, and the gods and the folk accepting that child as

01:19:01.960 one of theirs, as somebody that they recognize by that name. And I think that goes on at the

01:19:07.680 naming, whether people know beforehand or not. So this is another thing, and I've seen this in

01:19:14.340 the chat, too. Everybody wants flags and posters of the murals. Svahn, I would really like if,

01:19:21.660 you know, when we get off of here and into the future, if we could maybe see about making some

01:19:26.260 prints of those murals. I think that would be a really special thing if we could figure out ways

01:19:31.160 to do that. Yeah, and I think, too, maybe we could process that with the tech department where,

01:19:38.500 you know, our lady of talent can maybe smooth some things out and frame it so that we can get 1.00

01:19:46.480 that printed out. That would be good. That'd be an awesome idea. I think it would be great. I'd 1.00

01:19:51.100 love to try to make that happen. So more from a human manipulation nation, considering Panarianism, 1.00

01:19:58.120 have you all studied Buddhism or the Bhagavad Gita? I think it would be presumptuous of me 0.94

01:20:09.260 to say that I've studied Buddhism and studied the Bhagavad Gita. I've read the Gita. I've

01:20:16.280 learned about Buddhism, but I don't claim to be an expert on either by any means.

01:20:24.280 What about you, Svon?

01:20:27.100 Yes.

01:20:27.660 I mean, I've read the Bhagavad Gita.

01:20:34.960 I always say it wrong.

01:20:36.400 It's terrible.

01:20:38.360 I've been to Hindu temples, and I've been to numerous Buddhist temples all over Southeast Asia.

01:20:45.400 So actually, I've gotten a lot more, I guess, a glimpse into the orthopraxy of those religions than a lot of the reading.

01:20:52.380 um yes i to be honest i have some problems with i think the foundations of buddhism as far as uh i

01:21:00.440 think uh with siddhartha and some of his movements but um you know i again it's this is uh whether or

01:21:09.720 not we're talking about buddhism as a philosophy or as a religion um you know understanding the

01:21:15.640 precepts and understanding you know mahayana buddhism and and uh i'm gonna say it wrong again

01:21:21.440 And probably I think it's a Thravindavi, the southern style of Buddhism and their philosophical views.

01:21:28.740 I mean, I'm familiar with pretty much the onset after with Buddhism and how it kind of affected Asia and how it migrated and moved through China and into Korea and how it affected Japan and things like that.

01:21:41.200 But as far as foundationally, it's I wouldn't say have studied it again.

01:21:48.100 That would be improper to to say that.

01:21:51.440 Familiar, yes, but studied by any length, not as much as our own corpus of lore. 0.74

01:22:00.940 I think a core point I would like to make in relations to the Buddha and some aspects of a lot of forms of Hinduism, one thing that I think separates what we do from that is the very active nature of Al-Satru. 0.82

01:22:26.360 Ostrotry is about doing and accomplishing and building and succeeding, and it's not about 0.77

01:22:33.620 escaping the world or escaping the responsibility. That's not necessarily the way I want to put it.

01:22:42.220 I don't mean any disrespect on when I say escaping the responsibilities of life,

01:22:46.100 but I mean embracing them. The Buddha was an Aryan prince, and he was in a position in

01:22:56.220 his life where he could have put all of his spiritual acumen into forceful use to make the

01:23:03.360 world around him something better. And that's not the fundamental of what that religion embraces.

01:23:11.140 And it certainly is the fundamental of what our faith embraces. So I think that's one of the

01:23:16.000 things that struck me about a difference between Buddhism and Asatru. That was a point of contention

01:23:22.400 for me as well but i did want to say the stories uh uh in the vedas um i'm a storyteller i love

01:23:31.180 stories i love the the uh the power and a lot of the dynamic again there's color there's vibrance

01:23:38.760 there's war there's death all of these great concepts in there i i'm a fan of those i've read

01:23:44.260 those but i've read them as uh you know reading the story of another of another people and i

01:23:50.960 realize there are connections clearly there obviously indra and many other things and i we

01:23:56.440 could go down a rabbit hole of explaining and connecting those tissues but for the most part

01:24:02.020 to just read them and enjoy them as as stories i've you know reading the stories of of all people

01:24:08.040 all over the world from the shinto and uh the vedic to all the way in you know uh siberian

01:24:15.180 and finnoergic to uh african to native american and uh whether it's you know south american native

01:24:23.600 or north american native i've read all those stories with a fan of of just seeing the vibrance

01:24:29.600 of their expression of their spiritual native spiritual expressions so speaking of uh storytelling

01:24:36.620 and spawn the storyteller could you give us a little bit of a i don't know preview of what we

01:24:41.880 can expect on story time with Svan in the Oustru Academy? Yes. So right now I'm working through

01:24:51.060 the audio aspect, but eventually what's going to end up happening is there will be a visual or video

01:24:56.520 aspect as well. And the intention really is a time and a place for both adults and children

01:25:05.000 who are enrolled in to hear the stories and share with them

01:25:10.880 and maybe hear parts of the stories that they don't remember

01:25:15.780 or maybe that they were expressed in a different way.

01:25:20.300 You know, something that's lost, I think, on a lot of people

01:25:22.740 is how our stories came from song to poetic form,

01:25:28.080 but both of those styles came from stories.

01:25:31.080 And so we're bringing them back to stories

01:25:33.400 And we're allowing to paint again a mythical picture of what was, you know, going on with the gods in creation and things of that nature and kind of express a lot of the emotional, of the tangible emotional power that presides, that sometimes aren't always found in the prose.

01:25:57.700 um and so uh that's my that's my goal is to bring that to life to bring a lot of that expression

01:26:06.100 and to allow uh even though it is for the children it is also for the adults to kind of

01:26:11.140 hear the stories again i've done a couple at national events and uh they really met with some

01:26:17.300 some good uh feedback so that's what started all of this so i was great at storytelling he

01:26:24.420 he's able to keep us children and adults but especially the children he's able to keep them

01:26:29.700 riveted uh if you haven't had to have the privilege of it svan really is a beautiful

01:26:34.900 storyteller and i'm looking forward to those uh not just for for my daughter but i'm looking

01:26:39.460 forward to those for myself um svan could you you mentioned earlier about when you're doing

01:26:45.860 specifically the odin mural um you talked about the folk futhark for the people who aren't familiar

01:26:51.620 with that we have sarah asking could you speak a little bit more about the folk futhark and it's

01:26:56.500 uh the meaning of it coming together yeah absolutely um so uh one of the things that

01:27:04.260 started to formulate during thor's mural was uh a chance or a medium to express ideas and and um

01:27:13.060 we wanted to do that in runic but the idea of so many people in uh in aussitrew in the astro

01:27:20.820 Book Assembly, they have different specialities within the runes. They have different interests

01:27:26.720 within the runes, whether they're, you know, the Elder Futhark and some from the, you know,

01:27:33.200 from Kelberstone and from the Vatstana Brekte to, you know, Edward Thorson's books and many of the,

01:27:41.980 you know, modern writers, Nigel Pennick and all of these things. So we have so much lore

01:27:48.740 and uh all the way down to the armanin so i wanted to kind of pay homage to all of that corpus of

01:27:58.180 lore and it was it was really inspired by something that our alzharagoti said was that we

01:28:02.880 have a we have a very we're in a pinnacle time of information we have oftentimes more information

01:28:09.180 than even our ancestors may have had at any given time 10th century sweden um and a lot of people

01:28:14.880 have a tendency to forget that we see a broader picture of things and in doing that i realized

01:28:20.560 wow we have a broad picture we have all these futharks so i wanted to hand pick uh individual

01:28:27.600 runes and put them into the mural in a a formalized futhark that would be used to convey these messages

01:28:35.600 so uh you know going through each of them whether it was the elder via the kelver stone elder via

01:28:43.120 the vets on a break day um the anglos anglo-frigian uh the icelandic and the younger um uh and the

01:28:52.800 armanin and started picking and even some manuscripts i found it of the german medieval

01:28:58.080 uh runic futharks the tiny little one that only had eight runes in it and um kind of pulled each

01:29:04.880 from there and uh and i found that one through nigel pennick's work um and uh started to put

01:29:12.080 them together and place them in and and then started basically constructing some rules uh

01:29:19.280 for us to be able to translate these these meanings and these meanings i think are kind

01:29:24.000 of more or less poetic inspiration that hits me during the process of painting so uh some of them

01:29:31.440 are meant to be read and some of them you'll notice will wrap in and out of sight they might

01:29:36.560 go around an item in reality the whatever goes around the item isn't necessarily meant to be read

01:29:43.360 it's what you can see that's ultimately meant to be read but to keep consistency with the artwork

01:29:49.680 i would and add a three-dimensional uh view to it instead of the two-dimensional flatness

01:29:55.440 you know that stuff was kind of written off but that's what form formulated the the what we come

01:30:00.480 to call the folk futhark and its intention was not to um uh esoterically you know push something over

01:30:08.560 or say to people like no no don't use that use this no this is an absolute a homage to all the

01:30:14.800 futharks and an understanding that we have people who have all that knowledge and and if we want if

01:30:21.840 you want to read what the um the murals say you know you might want to look into all of those

01:30:27.920 futharks so you can understand each symbol uh how it might be different from say some one particular

01:30:33.600 futhark that you're used to so it was almost like prodding people to look at the other futharks

01:30:39.520 in hopes that they'll learn more and and we can convey those messages so that's how that was

01:30:44.000 developed all right svan what does your day-to-day worship look like do you have specific times where

01:30:51.040 where you hold ritual in your house,

01:30:53.400 or do you let it happen organically?

01:30:55.400 Asks Vril Vanir.

01:30:59.260 It's predominantly organic.

01:31:01.360 A lot of times it's based off of either,

01:31:05.200 I guess it would be a combination of thankfulness or need.

01:31:09.160 I'm just being honest.

01:31:10.400 Sometimes I'm needful for insight.

01:31:13.860 I'm needful for, I'm in a point of confusion.

01:31:17.580 And I don't think it's not a sense of groveling.

01:31:21.800 I'm needful of the insight of the gods who are, you know, they're the eldest of our ancestors.

01:31:28.640 They're the gods who I think, if they're inclined to, will help us if we, you know, so deserve it.

01:31:38.560 And so I always leave that option open.

01:31:40.940 Yes, I'm needful for perhaps advice or insight or an understanding of things.

01:31:46.260 Sometimes I don't get answers. Sometimes I do. I realize that the gods are much bigger than me and I'm not exercising some form of narcissism. So my needfulness is more or less a message in the wind. If there's any insight that could ever be offered, I would be more than happy to take it.

01:32:09.380 But I also, you know, with my ancestors who are always deeply connected to me, sometimes I address them more often with need.

01:32:18.860 As far as everything else, I would say, for instance, like going to the temples is pretty regular and aligning my weird with the wheel of the year and with the holy tides of the AFA.

01:32:32.280 It brings me closer together.

01:32:34.680 I have certain daily devotional things that I do.

01:32:37.700 Um, I follow a, you know, I have a kind of a semi-religious calendar that I like to, to employ.

01:32:44.780 Um, and we, we, uh, every meal that we sit down at the children, my wife, me, we sit down, we hold hands and we give thanks to the gods.

01:32:56.080 We have a food prayer that we say, um, that is actually, uh, given to us by law speaker Turnage of the AFA, um, and his, his, uh, wonderful poem.

01:33:06.620 So we took that and now our children, sometimes it's great now, like I'll come in from work and the children are sitting down by themselves getting ready to eat because I'm running late and I'm going to slide into home plate right at the end of it.

01:33:21.460 And they're already saying the food, the food blessing and asking the gods and the ancestors to bless them.

01:33:27.160 So little things like that. If I'm outside, I have a garden. I've got chickens. I grow potatoes.

01:33:36.620 So a lot of times, simple little things of pouring gifts out to the land, asking Gerda and Freire for blessings of fruitfulness in the field, things of that nature, bounty out of the chickens.

01:33:54.400 So it's kind of at home. I've never really kind of revealed a lot of this, but, you know, I have some common practice that I do to ask for protection over my livestock and my small amount of chickens that I have and my garden.

01:34:15.780 So, yeah, it's more or less steady with the temples, and then it's dependent at home.

01:34:23.700 It could be every other week or so, or sometimes every night.

01:34:30.180 It just depends on what's going on.

01:34:33.480 So we had a question sent to us outside of this system earlier today.

01:34:39.160 Actually, I think it was yesterday that somebody wanted us to address on the live stream.

01:34:43.220 I mean, I think now's a good enough time.

01:34:45.940 They wanted us to speak on Survive the Jive's Pagan Futures Conference that happened.

01:34:55.400 I've given my two cents on it, and I'll follow up here.

01:34:58.820 But Svon, do you have any thoughts or feelings or anything you want to say about that conference?

01:35:08.600 Well, one, I mean, it was over in Europe, and it was in England, I believe.

01:35:13.220 Yeah, I'm almost positive it was in England.

01:35:15.880 And I think that, you know, Survive the Jive and all of them,

01:35:21.140 they got some interesting points, very, very cool stuff.

01:35:23.600 You know, I've listened, driving around, definitely playing,

01:35:27.600 and a lot of that motivation.

01:35:29.700 But as far as, I don't know, I think it's kind of interesting

01:35:34.700 from our perspective, because here we are doing things,

01:35:38.420 or the projecting the future of, you know, Teutonic faith in the future in America and all over in South Africa and Australia and all these places.

01:35:50.780 And this was kind of a separate thing.

01:35:55.880 They were doing that and projecting ideas and good on them.

01:35:59.820 But, I mean, it's kind of weird when you're – I mean, we're off doing our own thing.

01:36:04.880 I think there could have been maybe some sort of unification.

01:36:07.720 I really wish they would have reached out to you, Alex Hiragudi, and kind of maybe asked, come on out and speak or do something.

01:36:17.900 But there wasn't any of that there.

01:36:21.140 Again, when we talk about lore, and I think there's a big push for a reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European.

01:36:28.220 I think there's some people calling it – it's like Sudenheim or it's almost like a religiosity form of reconstructing the language and the faith.

01:36:44.800 I think that that's not projecting us forward.

01:36:50.000 I think that's not where the gods and our ancestors were going in one direction, and I think some folk are trying to go backwards.

01:36:56.540 And so I have some contentions with a lot of that. But, you know, good on them if they're moving in that direction. But we're moving in our own. And it was made clear that way that they're doing their thing and we're going to try to do ours. So that's my opinion on that whole situation. I didn't pay too much to that. I was focusing on the temples and things like that.

01:37:20.440 busy being a priest of also true and building a pagan future um that's one of the again i really

01:37:29.640 like uh thomas rousel um he's a good guy i've got a chance to meet him i'm not trying to be

01:37:35.400 disrespectful or be rude i only bring this up because we were asked there's a lot of

01:37:46.440 we've mentioned this before and brandy certainly mentioned it when she was on

01:37:49.320 here a couple of weeks ago also true you know the real the real experience of asa true isn't found

01:37:56.360 in books uh so many people think that this sphere of what we're doing here is about study and

01:38:06.200 archaeology and research and not applying it in a meaningful way which is unfortunate to me

01:38:13.880 um i mean study and research are great but talking about our ancestors and concepts

01:38:23.480 isn't i mean maybe the conference was was misnamed i don't know i know a lot of the

01:38:30.600 focus was on europe but i know that within europe there's thriving um pagan movements

01:38:37.560 in eastern europe certainly i know there's uh hellenic movements in europe there's folks that

01:38:45.080 there are practicing priests that could have been on there to speak about religion and about

01:38:51.240 actual paganism into the future as opposed to kind of political talk mixed with history and

01:38:59.560 archaeology their two speakers were various historians to talk about what was to talk

01:39:05.880 about pagan pasts as opposed to the pagan futures um it's just very strange to me when we spend so

01:39:15.160 much time actually practicing paganism to have a conference a big international conference about

01:39:22.680 pagan futures that the speakers are two academics it would be you know having a christian futures

01:39:28.840 conference and no pastors no priests but you know a couple of an archaeologist and a guy who's a

01:39:38.040 history expert on first century judea um that would seem really odd and out of place and i

01:39:45.480 think in the same way this was odd and out of place to me uh we have another question witness

01:39:52.280 fun. How do you get so knowledgeable? If this hasn't been asked, which books or what has helped

01:39:58.640 you? Oh, a lot of books. I mean, ever since 1994, I mean, my first book was A Book of Troth by

01:40:10.480 Edward Thorson. That was my first real introduction. I got it off of a book list called The Abyss

01:40:17.240 or something like that. It was a, like a pagan book list, uh, that you could get mailed to your

01:40:22.580 house. And I ordered it. Um, and that's what started me along. I think it really, I, I took

01:40:28.800 the, the, uh, the professing right that was in that book when I was 14 years old and I haven't

01:40:35.760 looked back since it's been, that was an oath that I made and have kept. Um, but beyond that,

01:40:43.000 I think some interesting books, definitely the tier essays, the tier volumes one are one of my favorites in there.

01:40:53.460 Just the collected essays.

01:40:56.000 I believe you can find them on Oster Press.

01:41:02.960 I'm not 100 percent sure.

01:41:04.900 Yeah, but any of the tier volumes, volumes one, two, three and four.

01:41:09.300 But volume one was one of my pivotal one.

01:41:13.000 An interesting one. I think the biggest thing to answer your question, all knowledge is applicable. It's just that you have to have the wisdom to be discerning. And so I have found me liking parts of books as opposed to the entirety of books and being able to kind of ruminate and meditate on different ideals within the books.

01:41:40.920 And so a whole title, I could recommend one, but not necessarily say that I agree with everything that's written in it.

01:41:48.940 But there was some really interesting stuff that I got from it.

01:41:52.940 Masks of Odin was an interesting one.

01:41:55.400 I think that the connectivity there, there is a lot of Pan-Arianism that's mentioned in there.

01:42:05.200 And so there's a lot of good, cool stuff in there that I would recommend.

01:42:09.480 And I think that when you engage the book, you know, realize that also, too, your time.

01:42:15.400 I've read books when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, 17, and didn't understand them at all.

01:42:23.240 And then maybe a decade later, I pull them off the shelf and I read them, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, I absolutely understand what that is now.

01:42:30.960 So understanding, too, that a lot of times it's reiterating, going back and reading books.

01:42:39.480 I'm trying to think of some other interesting ones. I was a fan of almost the how-to Ausatru books for a long while there. Hammer of the Gods by Swain Wodening and Germanic Heathenry by James Heuka. I read that while I was in Iraq.

01:42:57.320 Um, uh, yeah, I, I think over time I became more, um, obsessed with kind of, uh, like the road to hell was a great book, um, that I, I really, really delved into a lot.

01:43:16.500 um hollander's translation i know a lot of people are going to be like

01:43:21.900 boo hollander's translation of the adas i'm a huge fan of because i'm a storyteller

01:43:28.100 and i i would like to pretend i was a poet maybe and um and so the poetic uh value that hollander

01:43:36.620 puts into that adas is one of my favorites um another little lesser known two books that i

01:43:44.340 really really enjoy again storytelling is a big thing um storytelling i think makes more a dynamic

01:43:51.120 relationship with the with the with the stories of the gods and that they're great to read and then

01:43:57.340 cross compare with the prose uh out of those two i would say um tales of norse mythology

01:44:05.620 by a and e uh kiri is their last names uh uh that's a and the symbol and e the two authors

01:44:17.340 there i believe they were sisters uh kiri and this was written in the turn of the century um

01:44:22.320 they presented the gods in a very very noble beautiful way almost in an arthurian level of

01:44:30.020 beauty. They talk about the gods in their palaces and the crystal salons and things that they reside

01:44:37.980 in. I think that's just so amazing. And that's great for children too. That's a great one to

01:44:42.820 read story-wise if you're more of a, I want to read from book to the children. And there's another

01:44:51.220 book I really like too. It's called The Northern Path by Douglas Rossman. That was a pivotal one

01:44:57.600 because that's written as a storyteller would tell the stories now are they all 100 percent

01:45:04.960 based on you know the pros adas of like folks uh translation or or hollander's translation

01:45:11.700 no they're they took some liberties but they're beautiful nonetheless and i think that they're

01:45:17.480 great for the children and they're great for us to kind of reiterate so i think that's the biggest

01:45:22.420 thing is reiteration of knowledge taking it in different forms seeing it in different lights

01:45:28.900 has really helped me over time layer after layer start to learn lore and retain it just because i

01:45:37.940 was uh seeing it from different angles well one thing you know we always get the the what books

01:45:44.100 do you recommend question but something that came up while you were were uh reading these i just

01:45:48.660 want to throw out there um the one-eyed god it's a hard book to get a hold of but i got a lot out of

01:45:55.060 that and then something that i really like but i don't ever recommend on here i certainly don't

01:46:00.100 recommend enough was this book um deep ancestors and it's really it's really interesting i like

01:46:09.460 the book a lot um the guy who wrote it is probably doesn't share our world view um the intro has some

01:46:17.780 obligatory pc things in it but the scholarship and the and the thought in the book once you get past

01:46:23.860 the you know trigger warnings or whatever is really nice it's a really interesting book and

01:46:30.180 i got a lot out of it so i'd recommend uh deep ancestors or what i like to call the wheel and

01:46:35.220 the donkey um a monetized question here uh tim wants to know spawn can you explain the iron mark

01:46:45.460 to us uh yeah the iron mark is not official in any way shape or form so i want to bear that in mind

01:46:55.860 um the iron mark was a just a little pet project i was working on i think it kind of started off

01:47:00.900 with the idea that that uh priests go these druids uh you know uh scalds or or shoulds

01:47:08.180 uh they were time keepers and so the idea of keeping time in a a different way

01:47:13.140 became an interest of mine. And I just moved into the Runic calendar, looking at

01:47:20.980 constant cyclical calendars that maintain their days and some of the differences that lie with

01:47:30.160 them outside of the Gregorian calendar. And so I also looked at the Anglo-Saxons and a lot of

01:47:36.800 Their timekeeping, a lot of stuff that was coming out from the modern Theodish groups and some of their timekeeping techniques.

01:47:45.220 And I ended up formulating kind of my own timekeeping scale. 0.96

01:47:51.420 And I wouldn't call it a calendar per se right now.

01:47:54.020 It's a timekeeper.

01:47:55.440 It allows us to kind of see how our holidays move in correlation with the moon tides and the solar tides.

01:48:04.300 It's a solar calendar first with a secondary lunar aspect, but it's a way to count the days and to kind of keep in mind the moons and as they pass and the holidays that reside with them.

01:48:21.720 I don't necessarily promote it in the sense that we should use a different calendar.

01:48:26.760 I don't think that we need to be alien. I have my own like, I guess I would say nerdy problems with the Gregorian calendar. But nothing like I'm not stating the idea that we need to be some sort of alien kind of way. But it's a hobby. And it's an interesting way to look at things once you start to get it rolling.

01:48:46.560 um it utilizes a lot too of what i think some of the foundations of also true back in the early

01:48:52.900 days back in the 70s back in the 80s people were you know talking about frost moon and you know and

01:48:59.460 and lenting moon and austera moon and all of that so that's incorporated in there um as kind of more

01:49:06.240 or less a nod to the actual tangible use of it i think when people were doing it back then they were

01:49:11.580 it was a novelty. And so to actually make it work and be serious was, I think, another intention I

01:49:18.200 was doing. So, you know, right now we use the runic era as a year mark. And, you know, we use

01:49:25.080 a 12 to 13 moon cycle. And then we use a solar reckoning of the days from, you know, seven days

01:49:34.160 a week, 52 weeks with a day zero being on Mother's Night. And it just repeats every year. So it's

01:49:40.340 just an interesting project but by no means am I a promoter of of it in the

01:49:47.360 sense that we should forego that which is clear that I'm not trying to fix

01:49:52.100 something that isn't broken temporal heresies so Bobby asks Matt are you

01:50:01.460 aware of any outrage over the new Hoff being established or is it been rather

01:50:06.580 they're quiet from those groups. So not a lot. I think there's a complex matrix of who gets in

01:50:15.220 whose ear on how those things end up happening. There's a little bit of concern in one of the

01:50:22.600 local groups by the community there. And when I say by the community, I think there's maybe

01:50:27.220 seven comments on it um so the the idea i guess is they don't want any hate in their community

01:50:37.460 and they want to stand together against hate and so to counter our uh dedication they're

01:50:42.340 going to have a special unity rally um that's odd to me to have a demonstration to oppose

01:50:53.700 our church coming into their town under the guise of they don't want hate um they're the first ones

01:51:00.420 doing something in uh opposition to us and not certainly not the other way around one of the

01:51:06.420 other things that i'd add though to be fair the media has done such a despicable job of painting

01:51:14.820 us dishonorably and dishonestly that you know if you just google us and go off the media articles

01:51:22.660 i could understand why they're concerned um very you know over time they will certainly see that 0.62

01:51:29.140 we are an asset to their community and not not a problem and i will say that you know the the the

01:51:35.940 quote-unquote outrage has been let's have a rally a rally to support unity it hasn't been threats

01:51:43.060 or anything else at baldershoff we had uh we had folks threatening to chain us in the hoff and burn

01:51:51.300 the hof down with us in it and we had several of those threats so far we haven't had any threats

01:51:58.340 of violence or anything you know mean-spirited directed at us uh in white springs and and i

01:52:05.220 hope we can continue to to not have any of that and i know that will be a very good addition to

01:52:09.940 their community and they will see that um okay from so this one's for you svan from one devil

01:52:18.660 to another suggestions for those of us getting out i recently joined the a the afa and feel much

01:52:24.740 better otherwise the public has no camaraderie i was an optics tech by the way uh

01:52:34.900 by the way your rifle is dirty

01:52:36.420 um as if as you getting out i mean obviously um wow uh i got out in 2005 out of active and then

01:52:49.400 i went into the reserves a couple years later um first thing uh you know definitely pay attention

01:52:57.020 to all those classes that they're going to be shoving down your face when you just want to

01:53:00.960 get out and drop your pack. Those definitely do help. I didn't pay attention to those. So I'm

01:53:07.340 speaking from the experience of the other end. I kind of came out at a deficit because I was not

01:53:12.820 wise. I was very young and stupid then. And so as an older man now, I would say pay attention 1.00

01:53:18.980 to those classes. Once you do get settled, you know, as far as economics right now, I got out

01:53:29.320 in 2005. And right around that time was the housing bubble that happened. And so economically,

01:53:37.860 things were really bad then. And many could say, you're facing that right now. But you know what,

01:53:46.120 you can get through it. It's possible. The biggest focus is where you're going to move with your

01:53:51.100 career. Uh, and, and again, finding community. Um, I, I didn't right away, but over time I found

01:54:00.100 community and that did help me and kind of guide me through, um, you know, connectivity with where

01:54:08.100 you're at. If you have the ability to choose where you're going to go, uh, if you're going back home,

01:54:13.640 I understand sometimes there's obligations there that keep you and, and you might not, you have

01:54:18.040 what you have around you. But if you have the ability to pick and choose where you're going to

01:54:21.840 go, definitely think about your faith. Think about the temples. Think about the AFA. I mean,

01:54:32.060 there's nothing wrong with doing that. You are a member of a reemergence of the gods in over,

01:54:39.440 you know, a thousand years. And so there's nothing saying like, oh, well, I want to move

01:54:44.720 close to like my people i want to move close to my temples i want to move close to my gods you

01:54:50.800 think about some of the religious sects that that have founded this country and uh how they moved

01:54:57.740 crossing oceans which might as well have been like crossing space to to be in community with

01:55:04.400 their faith um so considering that i would say that's not like a big uh ask or something out of

01:55:12.200 the realm find community build community if you can't find it uh start your own uh build build

01:55:21.540 uh plant that flag start a kindred uh encourage people to join the afa to to get the get the

01:55:31.000 kindred into the afa kindred program and then from there um again you know uh work on building

01:55:39.340 and establishing that foundation uh you need that spiritual foundation as much as you need an

01:55:43.660 economic foundation as much as you need a filial foundation so i would say add it to your list

01:55:49.160 make sure it's an actual definitive thing not something that you just kind of um maybe

01:55:55.680 think about or project make it tangible write it down how do you want to to spiritually express

01:56:03.700 yourself are you looking to start a family do you already have a family you know do you want your

01:56:08.060 kids to be in in community or do you want to find community and hopefully uh start something start

01:56:15.660 a family within the community so these things are write them down tangibly focus on them so when you

01:56:22.300 get out your boots hit the ground you can just start going straight for the throat on them i

01:56:27.340 mean that's my advice there i would love if you ever want to message me about some maybe more

01:56:31.980 personal details of that and how to help i would love to talk to you about that so reuben just

01:56:39.020 threw us a five dollar tip thank you so much reuben uh he wanted to say he loves how every

01:56:44.060 guest has shown a different set of skills and personalities aristotle was right about the

01:56:49.100 sum of the parts gothe's fawn is our raconteur braggie's influence is strong in him hail our

01:56:56.700 creative folk well hail to you reuben and thank you very much for for um cody asks

01:57:06.860 what has been the most and he asked this to both of us what has been the most

01:57:11.340 moving ritual you've performed in your gothi duties it's fun i'm gonna let you take this first

01:57:19.740 uh

01:57:20.060 Hmm. I would have to say. I mean, the weddings, the weddings, I think, are by far my favorite.

01:57:35.180 They seem to be the predominance. And I could focus in on one wedding in particular, but I do think overall the weddings in and of themselves and the vow renewals I think are some of the most beautiful and fun that I've ever performed.

01:57:57.160 I haven't performed a ton of name fastenings, and I have performed funerals, but those aren't often fun.

01:58:05.660 Those are dutiful and an expression of life and very, very somber.

01:58:12.820 So I would say the weddings have been my favorite, absolutely.

01:58:16.260 Just so joyous to see these two people come together and start anew, start afresh, and kind of build more towards our community.

01:58:24.500 And sometimes they, you know, if it's a vow renewal or if they perhaps have children from a previous marriage and then they're deciding to come together in our church and moving forward, you can see this kind of happiness that starts to re-foundation their house.

01:58:41.660 It's very, very moving.

01:58:44.760 So I've seen all three of those different things and they're all beautiful.

01:58:48.560 so i this is a this is a hard question to answer because i think any goethe will tell you this

01:58:57.600 no two rituals are the same um you know no two weddings no two funerals no two baby namings

01:59:04.880 no two bloats even if they're you know the same kind of bloat to the same god

01:59:09.680 in the same place but just a time apart the energy is always different um

01:59:14.680 weddings and baby namings. I'm, I'm a crier. I can't keep a dry eye and not weep when I do

01:59:22.920 those. Um, those are, those are certainly really moving, uh, in that way and in a, in a positive

01:59:29.080 and joyful way. Um, but funerals are very moving in a, in a very different way. Um, I've been

01:59:38.240 very honored to perform a number of funerals and a family trusting you with that

01:59:46.940 kind of last earthly send-off and honorable treatment for their loved one who's passed.

01:59:57.160 It's a really heavy responsibility. It's not fun, but it is a tremendous honor. And it means so

02:00:05.720 much to me that people have asked that of me. And I hope I've done those well. I hope I've done

02:00:11.540 those in a way that honors the family and also the fallen. I was asked by a family that wasn't,

02:00:19.000 I was asked actually by a couple of families that weren't AFA members. They were looking for a go-fee

02:00:24.920 because, you know, a member of their family was also true and they didn't have someone to turn

02:00:30.300 to and i've it's you know come by my email and i was able to help um one was a family out in uh in

02:00:39.100 elco nevada that i happened to you know they reached out and that's you know maybe four hours

02:00:43.500 from me and i was very honored to go do that that was very very special um the son of the man i did

02:00:50.860 the funeral for actually a couple years after that became an afa member and so that that was really

02:00:56.540 special and then i i was able to do a or i was asked to do funeral for um a marine that lost his

02:01:03.180 life in a training accident down in uh off the coast of san diego and i was able to come on the

02:01:08.460 military installation down there and perform his funeral um yeah lance corporal chase sweetwood

02:01:16.940 and uh it it was a tremendous honor to uh perform that for his family and for him as well

02:01:23.020 um other just bloats in general there's been too many to name that have been very very powerful but

02:01:30.260 there's a moment that happens and uh it's it's not all me but if i can feel like i'm a part of

02:01:38.380 making this moment happen that's one of the most special and most powerful things as a gothi there's

02:01:43.540 so many of our people um claim they believe in the gods and i mean claim it honestly

02:01:50.800 But there's a difference between, yeah, I believe in the gods and being awestruck.

02:01:55.760 And in that moment, knowing the gods are there, they are listening.

02:01:59.040 This is 100 percent real and never being able to go back.

02:02:02.940 And the difference between those two, you don't realize until you've crossed that threshold.

02:02:07.360 But there's a moment when you're conducting a bloat and either during the bloat or after you finish,

02:02:13.860 you see in that person's eyes that they went into that bloat thinking the gods were real and they

02:02:21.020 left knowing our gods are real. And if I can be some small part of that process of making that

02:02:27.840 happen, that is tremendously moving. And I've been fortunate enough to have that happen on

02:02:32.860 several occasions. So we got another question up here from American Beowulf. Why do you guys use

02:02:42.800 word church is it a political thing i wouldn't say it's a political thing i'd say it's a practical

02:02:48.960 thing um our houses of worship are hoffs we have a name for those we have a historically

02:02:57.840 attested name for those and you know we'll refer to those as hoffs or you'll hear us

02:03:02.720 fawn does this i do this as well we'll refer to them as temples and certainly those are both

02:03:08.160 accurate to what those are um when we talk about our buildings in a context to folks that may not

02:03:14.640 know what a hof means we use temples or houses of worship because that carries a meaning that

02:03:21.280 everyone understands but when we talk about the overarching organization of the asa true folk

02:03:27.600 assembly the only thing that comes um comes close in you know anybody's english lexicon that they

02:03:36.160 know what means is that we as a whole are a church um historically that that has most often been used

02:03:45.360 to designate uh both christian houses of worship and uh and christian organizations

02:03:52.960 but the word itself isn't a isn't a hebrew word it's it's ours um depending on where you read it

02:04:01.280 it comes from a lord's house or it comes from a circle and i choose to think that it derives from

02:04:08.160 that circle our ancestors have have often uh say often have most often historically in the

02:04:16.000 situations we can find gathered in in circular formations to to worship our gods it's certainly

02:04:23.120 part of our practice in this day and age and the idea of the connectedness of a ring or a circle

02:04:31.280 I think is a really, you know, good way to describe the overarching international organization

02:04:37.800 that is the Astro Folk Assembly. And when we use the word organization, it sounds too sterile.

02:04:42.940 And it could be a political organization. It could be a charitable organization. There's all kind of

02:04:48.680 utilitarian organizations. We're not that. We're a spiritual organization. And certainly in the

02:04:57.240 United States and I'd say in the West in general church is the best thing that encapsulates you

02:05:03.060 know a international spiritual organization so that's why we choose to use that word do you have

02:05:09.460 any thoughts on that's fun yeah um I've always said that the church for me and especially when

02:05:16.100 I speak of the church I speak of the frith guard um I speak of the of the of the inner guard if

02:05:25.860 you will. But if you talk to people and say, my inner guard or my frith guard, they might look at

02:05:30.960 you a little weird. Church is the same meaning for me. It's that unilateral connectivity that

02:05:40.040 I have with my folk. And I use the word church, I think, you know, once kind of removing more a

02:05:49.100 mental uh fetter on your head about what that could mean in relation to christianity and

02:05:58.220 thinking about what it could mean in relation to ausitru and what it could mean in relation to

02:06:02.820 myself once that fetter was removed um i began to realize that my church uh especially for

02:06:10.460 talking to you know to people who are not ausitru talking to people uh in america that might not

02:06:17.660 understand what a frith guard is or an inner guard or something of that nature it allowed me to

02:06:23.580 communicate the same meaning but in a in a in a word or a language that they could understand and

02:06:30.080 we could go down the rabbit hole trying to understand the meanings behind it and i think

02:06:35.400 it is important but you know and that it has indo-european roots to expansive power and a

02:06:40.800 place in which power resides and spreads all of that fits all of that fits our definition but

02:06:47.920 you know instead of uh of again painfully seeking to be alien the idea is to release the fetter in

02:06:55.680 your head and understand that that's the frid guard that's the the people around us together

02:07:01.200 and once you release it you can move forward and and it's it it doesn't cheapen it or making it

02:07:08.820 make it less it's just one more word in the lexicon you know i know lots of latinish words

02:07:15.360 and english words and nordic words and i never fret about them that much either so once you

02:07:22.760 once you do it you move on and and then things grow that's my take on it so this is how far

02:07:30.640 behind in the chat we are because you know we've we've had such a conversation no seriously

02:07:36.040 everybody who's participated in asking questions thank you guys so much for your participation

02:07:41.400 and for your patience i realize it's taken everybody a long time for us to get to your

02:07:45.400 question i promise we're not going to leave you guys without answering all of the questions that

02:07:51.400 we have over in the side i don't know svan has a hard end time tonight we're already over two hours

02:07:56.920 and it doesn't feel like it wow but i i will stick around and make sure you get answers to your

02:08:02.680 questions the other thing is if you want them quicker the folks that uh that donate and do the

02:08:07.720 super chats those pop right up to the top and i'll definitely get to those first but you guys don't

02:08:12.680 owe me anything to answer your questions i would love to answer all of them and i do promise to

02:08:16.680 get to them but i know like this one is i think coming from uh when we were talking about the

02:08:21.960 greek orthodox art which over an hour ago i think so uh we've got a question uh hello matt does afa

02:08:31.640 leadership thinks similarly about catholic art from the italian renaissance many of them were

02:08:36.760 greco-roman pagan scenes um uh yes and no so yes we absolutely i say i can i suppose i can officially

02:08:48.680 speak for afa leadership but i'm sure everybody's got their different preferences and art styles um

02:08:55.000 um renaissance art is beautiful uh it's beautiful in so many different ways depending on the medium

02:09:04.120 and depending on the artist um I would say less I'm I'm less moved by the pagan art in the

02:09:14.560 renaissance because I don't think it's coming from a genuine place um I'm more moved by the

02:09:21.640 art of the Renaissance, when I know the artist is a devout Christian, because they put their

02:09:27.780 soul into what they're doing. And it's a it's a testament of faith. And there could have been

02:09:33.300 some of those artists that that did have pagan proclivities that let that go in the Greco Roman

02:09:38.200 pagan scenes, but I don't think that was the norm. The art, especially spawns art is this matrix

02:09:46.020 of good art and piety that come together to make a really beautiful whole. And I see that

02:09:54.420 more in the Renaissance Christian art than I do in the recreation of pagan scenes. But no,

02:10:00.600 I think most all Renaissance and Baroque art that I've seen is really beautiful to me.

02:10:07.840 And I like the realism just blows my mind and is amazing. I'd say of the two, what's gone into

02:10:15.580 certainly the requests I've made or the commentary I've given on Svahn's work is I like the iconography

02:10:25.160 of the of the orthodox but I think that both are really beautiful European expressions of piety

02:10:30.780 I've got a question from Tim so I'll hear you go through Matt I asked Witten Svahn this question

02:10:42.380 earlier and i would like you to answer if you don't mind what would you like from the folk thanks

02:10:52.220 so just like spawn this is a really good question and it is worth giving a little bit of thought on

02:10:59.980 um and i think that my answers are similar in a lot of ways to spawns and i think rightly so

02:11:12.460 because he and i and the rest of witten discuss this a lot um piety and courage and uh

02:11:22.460 just a couple of things like

02:11:23.900 i would encourage everyone and ask everyone to approach our gods with the reverence the worship

02:11:33.500 and the piety due to the literal gods of our folk um i think it's hard for us to adjust the

02:11:44.300 way we behave if we're not if we don't come from a place of being pilots or being religious

02:11:50.940 to integrate that as an adult into how you behave in a religious context is a challenge and it's a

02:11:57.980 it's a process and i understand that but the more i've seen the afa worship the gods instead of you

02:12:04.860 know yo thor's my dog homie the more that we actually treat them like gods the more that i've

02:12:13.820 seen them bless us and that relationship grow stronger and closer. And the next thing I'd like

02:12:20.880 to say is courage. And when I say courage, one of the things that our folk truly need to rebuild

02:12:30.300 within themselves is courage. We've got some hard guys. We've got some guys that have seen a lot of

02:12:37.260 different things in their lives. We've got veterans. We've got guys that have been involved in a lot of

02:12:42.780 scary situations on the street and in other avenues of life. And they're courageous when

02:12:49.640 it comes to a fist fight. But when it comes to putting their name and their face out in

02:12:54.880 the public sphere and standing proudly as an Ausatru are and as a member of the Ausatru

02:13:00.940 Folk Assembly, very, very scared of a lot of things, very scared of their identity being

02:13:07.380 out there very scared of taking a public stand with us and i would ask those people to shore up

02:13:14.180 their courage and to where they can be proud of who they are and stand proudly with us and the

02:13:21.300 more of us do that the better it'll be for for the next group of us coming up the better it'll

02:13:26.740 be for our children and for their children so that's what i would ask um still catching up

02:13:36.500 up with questions here. This is for Matt about the icon question. I am Greek, so being Greek

02:13:44.720 Orthodox is all I know. How similar will our time in the AFA be compared to what we know?

02:13:50.740 All of us that were Orthodox. Well, though I really love Orthodox iconography,

02:13:57.460 I have never attended an Orthodox service, and I'm not really, you know, I'm certainly not an

02:14:06.140 expert on how what we do would compare with that one of the amazing things about an orthodox

02:14:14.140 service and setting from what i have seen is the uh the continuous time honored tradition and

02:14:24.300 grandeur um over the you know over the past two millennium the uh they have beautiful basilicas

02:14:35.340 they have beautiful art they have very established priesthood and a very established tradition

02:14:42.620 and all that's done by uh you know thousands of years of of state assistance and of millions

02:14:50.860 of congregants that are donating of themselves to make it happen and to be honest also true is not

02:14:56.460 at that stage yet we are what about 54 years into the rebirth of alsatru and i think we've done a

02:15:06.460 lot in recent years to establish our hofs and to codify and elevate our priesthood in our standards

02:15:15.980 and in our competency i think we've done a lot to establish traditions but uh you know everything is

02:15:22.060 not gilded and a lot of things are are still in a building phase in a new phase so i think expecting

02:15:31.180 you know that

02:15:35.660 that venerable um church traditions that they have we're still in the very early phase of

02:15:42.540 building those so i think that'll be very different but again other than that i'm not very

02:15:47.260 sure how one of their uh their worship services occurs i think ours is probably different than

02:15:52.780 most um yeah i wish i could answer that question a little bit better for you and you know what i'm

02:15:58.700 gonna i know it was my question but i'm gonna throw it over to spawn and see if he has a little

02:16:02.460 bit more to offer you on that well can i can i see that question again i i saw it flash up on the

02:16:08.220 screen briefly is there any way that to to do that again yeah he'll do that but i'll read it for you

02:16:13.980 for those listening on the side or listening later to the podcast of this. I am Greek,

02:16:21.340 so being Greek Orthodox is all I know. How similar will our time in the AFA be compared

02:16:27.500 to what we know, all of us that were Orthodox? I mean, it seems, I understand that I'm

02:16:37.780 Interpreting that question in a certain way. I think that one thing that's a big misconception about Ausatru, how similar will our time in the AFA be compared to what we know, all of us that were Orthodox?

02:16:59.180 I mean, I think that the biggest thing to understand is that we are noting, we are taking note and honoring certain key aspects of their spirit in the sense of their ideals towards beauty, their ideals towards devotion, their ideals towards creating art.

02:17:27.540 And I think that's something that a lot of people have this misconception about, that Ausatruer are these shoulder-pelted, rune-paint-faced troglodytes that are going to come in and try to rip down churches and spit in the face of traditional art.

02:17:47.540 art and and to be honest that's not i mean we have no inclinations of that at all we respect

02:17:54.020 traditions that were uh established um you know before us even even christian ones in the sense

02:18:01.260 that the european christians have shown great traits that i think we should absolutely look at

02:18:10.060 think about and incorporate some in in our our own expression about by no means are we are we

02:18:18.320 really digging down deep and and and you know we could really start to cut into the sinew of the

02:18:24.940 subject about whether or not the faith is is native to the european folk and you know i have

02:18:30.880 strong opinions about all that but on the surface you know i can absolutely look at at those things

02:18:37.220 and find the beauty in them, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us trying to also achieve that European proclivity towards beauty

02:18:48.720 that I think that in a way we share.

02:18:51.480 We find a union together in that.

02:18:54.820 It's just ours is to our gods and theirs is to theirs.

02:18:57.800 uh but if you're orthodox if you're coming over from orthodox into ausitru um you know one of

02:19:05.760 the things is that you are already kind of bringing some of that attributes that you

02:19:11.880 know that we were looking at um but you know it's it's a it's about removing certain things

02:19:19.420 that are clearly not house-a-true and sectionally section uh section or compartmentalizing i'll say

02:19:29.300 compartmentalizing other things that are important and you know good to have around but

02:19:36.260 uh it will i think evolve into its own thing there's just some certain things i'm by no

02:19:43.280 means a traditional painter i i would love to say like i was trained in italy and uh you know

02:19:48.460 i was given the insights of masters of european knowledge before me i wish i could say that

02:19:56.140 but um you know we have absolute respect for for that i think that that and and my devotional art

02:20:04.620 is trying to capture something of that nature without all the training and i try to make up

02:20:11.120 with that in devotion um so i i hope that over time these these things will evolve and uh become

02:20:20.860 uniquely also true for you uh and you know a sharing point that we can find across the table

02:20:30.440 for those folks who are european but maybe of a of a um you know uh judaic faith or judeo faith

02:20:39.440 uh but they're still europeans and they still express a lot of their beliefs in european ways

02:20:44.880 and i think we could i'm sorry uh go ahead i was gonna say i think this next question relates

02:20:50.780 okay brandy asks uh witness fond can you give our folk new to this faith a tidbit of advice

02:20:58.540 on how to start their worship of the gods in their homes

02:21:01.940 uh yeah um as you can kind of see behind me i have a cabinet that i i've converted it's it's my

02:21:13.600 my harrow uh i did this mainly because i've got small children so getting things out of

02:21:19.340 reach of children sometimes is very important i don't want you know my children to uh be running

02:21:25.520 around and and breaking godsteads or getting into candles and things but um i would say first and

02:21:32.500 foremost is try to find a sacred spot creating creating a harrow uh some people know this as an

02:21:38.820 altar um but the harrow in your home uh as opposed to maybe a horg outside if you're doing a a

02:21:48.840 a standing stone outside, um, or creating one of those, but finding a spot, sacred space,

02:21:55.840 and then finding a repetitive sense of getting yourself out of the mundane. Um, you know,

02:22:03.600 I would say a great place to do that is to attend the, the Hoffs, go to, go to the Hoffs and watch

02:22:11.260 the Gothar and learn from them and then apply almost like a mini structure of that at home.

02:22:17.360 that orthopraxy that they do at the Hoffs can be applied. But speaking of that, I'm intending to

02:22:26.800 do some mini videos on how to express faith at home. But something as simple as obtaining a bowl

02:22:35.800 and a vessel to give gift in. And then that's pretty much all you really need. Outside of

02:22:43.580 that everything else is it whether you've got a blowing horn or bells whether you're lighting a

02:22:48.960 candle or you're lighting resource and and and giving um gifts of of incense to the gods um

02:22:56.260 whether you're you know giving fruit or things like that you really need a bowl and a vessel

02:23:01.920 and something in order to accumulate your prayer into the vessel uh through a form of gift usually

02:23:08.620 through libation it doesn't have to be alcohol it doesn't have to be mead i know some people

02:23:13.740 i've often asked that uh whether or not you know it's it's milk or it's uh something that you've

02:23:19.340 made maybe i know some people have even given like kombucha because they brew it themselves or

02:23:23.660 something uh or something you pay for something that you put time in holding that vessel with

02:23:30.460 that liquid praying to the gods whether verbally out loud or silently and then pouring it into the

02:23:36.220 vessel asking the gods to receive it and then gifting it somewhere sacredly outside you don't

02:23:42.200 just toss it out you find a tree find a horg outside build a horg of stones outside and and

02:23:50.200 and pour the library libation down onto the the horg stones and um you know and and start doing

02:23:59.560 that build your gift cycle and i think the the key fundamental part of that is when you go into

02:24:04.660 loading the libation with your prayer and understanding that you're you're placing

02:24:12.160 your faith in the well itself um that's where you'll begin to find your communication with

02:24:17.940 the gods coming to life your ability to speak to them maybe through poetics or um you know

02:24:26.200 things like that and be be careful don't ask over much you know seek wisdom and give thanks

02:24:32.920 Lots of thanks just for anything and incorporate your ancestors as well.

02:24:38.380 That's the best place to start.

02:24:40.420 The gods, the ancestors and libation through prayer over a gifted bowl and placed out. 0.85

02:24:49.400 And then just get more detail as you become more knowledgeable and comfortable and find your own way or maybe learn from the Gothar at the Hoffs and apply a lot of what they do there into your home life.

02:25:00.200 All right. Next question from Jeff. What is the AFA's view on nature-based things like guardian

02:25:09.120 trees or local water spirits? Are those things more pagan than what the AFA is focused on?

02:25:18.460 It's a good question. I think that those things are often much more individual. I think that

02:25:26.760 the the things by the very nature um no pun intended of what you asked

02:25:34.280 those things are localized to a specific area so i think those come into play a lot more

02:25:43.240 in individual practice at locations because that's where those spirits are um i know that

02:25:50.600 you know typically in an afa bloat we invite the gods in we invite the ancestors in but yet we also

02:25:57.320 invite the land vatera the land spirits that are there in to to participate and to witness

02:26:03.160 the ritual with us um i think those things are very important but they're much harder to put

02:26:09.000 your finger on and they're so they're very often something that uh you know in a broadcast like

02:26:14.520 this we don't talk about i think those things incorporate like i said much more localized and

02:26:20.680 individual practice but we absolutely believe in various spirits that occupy the world around us

02:26:27.400 that perhaps occupy our homes or our lands we try to make sure we honor the land spirits

02:26:34.520 that occupy our sacred space on all of our hof grounds but yeah that is something that we we do

02:26:41.480 believe in um but we don't personify every you know every stick every rock is having its own

02:26:51.960 spirit we believe that spirits abide in those places and i think that's kind of a fundamental

02:26:58.520 distinction as well but i think that comes up in what's fun just mentioned about home practice

02:27:04.760 it's a way of respecting the land spirits to pour your your libation out on a special tree

02:27:11.480 or a natural thing that's a focus of the worship for your family and for the land spirits in that

02:27:19.460 area. And that's one of the kind of hallmark reasons that our ancestors would find a spring

02:27:25.360 or a tree or a grove or an area particularly powerful is they would get a sense that that

02:27:30.700 was an area that the spirits showed favor to or inhabited in some way. And so I think we do carry

02:27:37.980 that on most of us you know in a very small way in our own yards i mean if we if we have a big

02:27:43.420 amount of land certainly that's different but even if we have a yard with a tree in it

02:27:48.060 we make that tree a focal point for that energy um alister asks is there any literature you can

02:27:56.140 share on the folk futhark it's fine specifically on the folk futhark no this is a brand new thing

02:28:05.260 um i mean again you would have to look at uh each of the individual futharks i think that would be

02:28:11.100 the best place to start is to understand each piece but i will say one book uh that's very

02:28:18.780 very interesting is uh exploring the runes by nigel pennick uh it's a it's um it's a visual

02:28:26.540 book it's got a lot of pictures in it of different futharks and i found that really really uh

02:28:32.140 interesting it's i don't know if it's even still available um it's a very large uh book um

02:28:39.980 collages of photographs put into this book but uh that's one that i i you know that inspired it

02:28:46.460 to begin with because it had all the futharks in it right next to each other and it really started

02:28:52.060 to get the get the ball rolling on that um but outside of that i mean again uh you know your

02:29:00.060 your usual sources of of runic knowledge um and and of course the internet itself but you know as

02:29:07.260 far as uh individual meanings i mean they apply across all the futharks i didn't change any of

02:29:13.660 the meanings or anything like that so it's not nothing official has come out about it from our

02:29:20.220 end or from my end all right we got a question another question from zammo uh about the producing

02:29:29.660 of food, chickens and crops, for example, it just happens for everyone else. What is different for

02:29:36.000 us when we talk to the gods and offer to them in return? Chickens? I think his question might 0.88

02:29:43.840 have been cut off. Svan, can you go ahead and speak to that? Yeah, I have chickens. I may be

02:29:51.800 a bit of a chicken farmer myself. No, uh, I, I have, um, always accompanied the fruitfulness

02:29:59.280 of my, my garden and my animals to Frere, especially during the time in between, uh,

02:30:09.380 charming of the plow and Freyfaxi that, that seems to be, uh, you know, it's, it's culturally

02:30:14.920 and religiously our growing period, our, our time of preparation for the fields and for

02:30:20.820 the animals. So, uh, I, I hold a lot of devotion to Frey, uh, in regards to the fruitfulness and

02:30:26.060 protection of the animals that literally feed my children and, uh, the, the plants and things that

02:30:32.020 I pull out of the ground. And, um, I think as, uh, if you're, you know, commercial farmer,

02:30:38.000 this might be something, you know, in consideration if you own cattle or, uh, livestock,

02:30:43.280 or if you're doing things like, uh, harvesting wool from sheep and llama, I mean, that's huge.

02:30:48.760 I don't have a lot of experience in that. So I wouldn't really speak on that. But, you know, homesteading, homesteading, weekend setting, you know, doing things in which, you know, you're doing things in your backyard or you're doing things on the plot of land you have.

02:31:11.640 yeah you can absolutely incorporate them into your religious life because they do

02:31:15.880 feed you it's it is a form of your uh feo or your your fehu it's that power that you put in

02:31:23.880 the work you put in and oftentimes the things you get out and sometimes the things that are

02:31:27.620 outside of your control um you know i having bouts of where your livestock begin to uh

02:31:33.340 to pass away or sometimes the funny stories that you have where you have to deal with them because

02:31:39.120 are particularly ornery or particularly not intelligent so some of that is funny and you

02:31:45.320 and you you'll learn a lot about life i think it's also very very important that you you do it with

02:31:49.820 your children i i had a couple of my um you know they they got afflicted with blindness and we had

02:31:56.180 to put them down and it's a big explanation for my eldest son what the menfolk needed to do in

02:32:00.820 order to stop the suffering of these these poor animals so um my son and i you know went through

02:32:07.040 the business of taking care of them. And I think there's huge lessons that we can learn about the

02:32:13.560 spirits of animals and how they return back to that tree, to the source of all that life and

02:32:20.840 begin the cycle again. So I hope that answers. Sierra asks, not sure if this has been asked yet,

02:32:28.700 but Witten Svahn, you are hailed as one of the most knowledgeable about the lore and sagas and

02:32:35.240 such which of the sagas is your favorite oh uh icelandic sagas or uh like what stories in

02:32:47.280 in the adas um i mean i have to say like okay icelandic saga a yellow saga a skala grimson

02:32:57.000 is top-notch reading it was just great uh he got fighting on the baltic sea to fighting in

02:33:04.920 scotland to the tragedy of losing his sons and uh his poetic um nature and the dichotomy of how

02:33:14.920 he could be a wretched wretched foe or a really really um uh

02:33:23.880 you know beautiful poet and and and a lamenting father um

02:33:28.520 um, and dealing with, like, Eirikur Blodax and that, you know, all that intrigue with York and

02:33:35.060 all that, so as far as the sagas go, I would, I would definitely say Eil Saga would be my first

02:33:40.300 and foremost, uh, favorite, um, as far as the, uh, as far as the, the, the prosadas and the adas,

02:33:52.600 Um, I mean, the Velospow is probably I spent so much time studying the Velospow in its variant translations.

02:34:02.820 The Havamol is is very good. And I have a lot of love for it and studying it.

02:34:07.720 And it's the iterations of how it could possibly be three poems kind of comprised into one and a lot of the mystery behind all of that.

02:34:15.540 But the Volusbau is by far my favorite because it just gives the front to the back.

02:34:25.040 And the way that it's done, Odin going down and seeing the Volva and raising her and retching her out of the ground.

02:34:35.400 and and then the interactions that they have with each other and the and the portents of doom

02:34:40.200 that's breathed from her her her death lungs is that's so amazingly awesome that

02:34:48.920 i can't express it enough that's one of my favorite is the volus valve

02:34:53.800 so guys it's been uh it's been two and a half hours and we're still going um realize people

02:34:59.800 on the east coast and certainly some of our international folks the time is not perfect for

02:35:05.240 you guys please be aware that you can watch these replayed or this does come out on fridays on

02:35:11.320 spotify as a podcast so if anybody's got to go to bed or whatever please please do check back in

02:35:18.840 on those as promised we will hit all these questions before we sign off tonight

02:35:25.240 um human manipulation wants to advise us to pray for south africa absolutely i think we should all

02:35:32.920 take the time to pray for our folk in south africa but more than just praying for our folk

02:35:37.400 in south africa if you would like and you're so inclined um if you wanted to donate to our south

02:35:42.840 africa fund at runestone.org every quarter we pay out um the south africa family relief project

02:35:51.640 that has um that gives food and provides housing and and takes care of some of our folks over there

02:35:59.040 who are who are suffering some of the the violence and the persecutions over there

02:36:03.260 um what's witness fawn's opinion on marvel thor and marvel odin and marvel frigga

02:36:09.880 can i hide my disdain for all of that no i don't think

02:36:19.640 video um i i would yeah the the the franchise and and and the only i i was told by a very wise man

02:36:31.560 to always try to find the silver lining in things so i um i think silver lining of course would be

02:36:38.360 that keeping the names of the gods alive in our overall arching society is about the biggest

02:36:49.000 benefit i could find out of that outside of that i the the mixing of things that as far as

02:36:55.320 the lore uh it's a it's abysmal it's it's really hard it's really hard to to to stomach in a lot

02:37:04.520 of times where i'm just like what are they why but i've come to also understand one thing that's

02:37:10.920 very very interesting is um our gods are heroic our gods are uh bombastic in our uh especially

02:37:21.960 with interactions with our kids our children love to hear about the gods and the stories and when

02:37:25.560 you read them the stories uh the actual stories there's no less a difference i think it's just

02:37:31.960 you know you have one that's on a media drip that's like right on you know it's right into

02:37:37.720 the veins from the television and we have to combat that by by um telling the actual stories

02:37:44.280 of our gods and and really just getting into it um i think also too you know we've been making some

02:37:50.680 moves towards the idea of of building children's books and having you know i be and maybe some

02:37:58.040 others doing art and to show the gods in in the stories actually you know red thor with red beard

02:38:07.000 you know, leaping over and crushing his enemies and reclaiming his hammer or, you know,

02:38:15.340 driving them out and off the edges of cliffs and things.

02:38:17.860 Just really, really great stuff.

02:38:19.900 But as far as Marvel goes, I'm not a huge fan at all.

02:38:24.540 All right, Svahn.

02:38:25.440 So which of the Hoff murals that you painted do you feel really touched you spiritually?

02:38:31.220 As I'm sure they all did, which one invoked a feeling the most?

02:38:37.000 Oh, that's, again, I hold great faith to Odin.

02:38:43.700 I always have, and to Frigga.

02:38:48.300 But I cannot lie at all. 0.94

02:38:51.660 It's Thorshaw.

02:38:53.000 I had a moment at Thorshaw.

02:38:56.060 I was in the middle of, I was about three quarters of the way, actually, painting.

02:39:01.020 And I was almost near the end.

02:39:02.640 And all of a sudden, I heard some strange noises going on outside.

02:39:06.380 and it just sounded like almost like static uh being played over a speaker and i came down from

02:39:13.360 the ladder and i opened the door and looking out across i see this thunderstorm is just loaded

02:39:21.600 in front of the hof and right as i open the door and kind of step out the the wind the pressure

02:39:28.300 drop uh the movement and i had no doubt in my mind at that moment what was going on so i opened the

02:39:34.620 doors to thor's off and i politely stepped out of this off to the side and all i could do

02:39:40.240 was pensively wait and hope that and i was 100 sure that i was going to get a thumbs up or a

02:39:49.540 thumbs down like i i had no doubt in my mind i was just pensively waiting for for the results of

02:39:56.140 this inspection and uh the the wind started to die the storm showed up a light rain started to

02:40:05.240 come down and i was i knew right then i was given permission to go back in and continue my work

02:40:11.800 and that was something that truly happened and i still have that picture it's actually

02:40:16.000 on my uh personal profile uh i'll i'll i'll post it in our um in our social medias but i still have

02:40:23.700 picture i recently found it again because i got a new phone and uh yeah that was a moving truly

02:40:29.460 moving moment for me uh yeah and i remember you telling me about that as it happened um

02:40:38.980 yeah that's really it's really special and there's got to be something to that being your fear

02:40:43.300 your first one as well um cliff asks i'll hear you go through matt you mentioned that you did

02:40:50.100 funerals for non-afa members does the afa do weddings or baby namings etc for non-afa members

02:40:57.540 why or why not i'm glad you asked that cliff i think this is good for everybody to kind of

02:41:01.620 understand as for if we do weddings or baby namings for non-members no we do not um the

02:41:07.380 difference in funerals is that person's life here in midgard is has ended and what's done is done

02:41:19.380 that is an opportunity to honor that person's life and to you know do them that honor in that

02:41:26.500 service and to do something nice for the family um and we're and we would like to do that we

02:41:32.660 really encourage everyone if we're good enough to perform your wedding and if we're good enough to

02:41:39.220 perform your baby naming then certainly we're good enough for you to be a member of our faith

02:41:45.060 community and for you to to be a participant in our religion um we don't for the same token we don't

02:41:54.500 do um show weddings you know if we do a wedding it's a legally binding wedding um

02:42:03.300 because this is this is very serious to us and we're not going to exp

02:42:07.460 I expend our spiritual, our spiritual might, our spiritual hymenia to people that don't want to

02:42:16.000 actually participate in what we're doing and being a part of it. And so it's because we take

02:42:20.560 it very seriously. It's not meant as any slight. But yeah, I think that's good for folks to know.

02:42:26.480 And if people want us to do their wedding, then by all means join. We'd love to not only perform

02:42:30.800 your wedding, but be a part of your lives and be a part of your relationship with the folk and the

02:42:35.160 gods. Looks like we've got another donation from Reuben. Thank you, Reuben. Reuben says,

02:42:45.600 I would love to see a movie about Jesus being a comedic relief with his apostles like some

02:42:51.560 kind of dirty dozen traveling. Oh, and Mary being a stunning and brave woman oozing with

02:42:59.280 girl power. I hope Marvel gets to do it. You know, as silly as that may sound, I certainly, 1.00

02:43:06.820 that's apples to apples. I don't think that's a reach. That's exactly what's being done. And I 0.87

02:43:11.440 think that's what a lot of us feel about the Thor and Asgardian references in Marvel.

02:43:21.480 um so we have another question about the spirits we have an apple tree with all of our past animals

02:43:33.380 buried under it with rocks as markers for each is this uh is this spot one I should consider

02:43:39.560 designating for offerings absolutely I think that's a great idea and I think that's really

02:43:44.340 cool that you that you have that um yeah that's really special i think that that's

02:43:52.340 you have already made that a powerful space and i think directing your spiritual energies towards

02:43:58.660 that space where you when you place your offerings is you're only going to add to that and and help

02:44:03.860 that uh that cycle of spiritual energy that you have there i think that's that's the perfect spot

02:44:09.700 for it lots of power in the apple tree to fruit bearing trees fruit bearing trees were were

02:44:15.860 certainly you know the evidence that we have suggests that that was you know a preferred

02:44:20.820 medium to carve runes in because trees that would bear fruit and bear life in that way had had an

02:44:27.140 extra power to them michelle asks what are the qualifications for building an afa kindred

02:44:35.140 uh basically three or more adult afa members uh that gets you started then contacting our kindred

02:44:43.860 coordinator jason gallagher at j gallagher at runestone.org and there's i believe a six-month

02:44:52.660 probationary period to get that going the idea isn't just to be a kindred but an afa kindred

02:44:58.740 kindred where the afa is central to what you guys are built around and to to your faith

02:45:06.820 so those those afa kindreds are something we're very proud of and they're defined by their loyalty

02:45:12.020 to the afa and that gives them something solid to uh to build around uh witness fawn the michelangelo

02:45:21.620 of the afa uh i have made that i've made that reference before

02:45:31.540 sorry i made a joke i i uh yeah i mean uh i think that you have really really helped me understand

02:45:43.380 actually that i was here ago they has really helped me understand my my place in this all

02:45:47.300 because i think um you know i came into it not seeing myself as a mural painter or these things

02:45:54.100 but that was here ago he has really kind of said you know this this there there could be a time in

02:45:58.900 which your art is seen as an expression of an era um just like there are expressions of art in eras

02:46:07.060 before from the 80s and the in the late 70s and also true when it and when it was formulating

02:46:13.060 and getting started and and and that there's possibilities of more art and and uh expression

02:46:19.920 from genuine also true faith believers in the future so i'm hoping and i really think it'd be

02:46:27.220 really cool uh that my my children and uh and folk in the in the church or their generations

02:46:33.960 thereafter might look back and say oh this was during the time that um you know swan was doing

02:46:39.380 lot of the artwork in the temples and this is kind of the stuff he introduced and i think that

02:46:44.260 would be really cool um i'm humbled but honored at the same time do people get non-participation

02:46:54.180 trophies in the afa um not sure if i understand the question take a stab at it um certainly you

02:47:03.940 know on the face of it no we're not going to give anybody a reward for not participation

02:47:08.660 i think maybe you're asking if we do give any kind of awards for people that do participate

02:47:14.740 if that's the case um i mean we always try to acknowledge our people that go above and beyond

02:47:19.780 and do nice things um usually one of the ways people show of that going above and beyond is

02:47:25.700 by volunteering for one of our leadership positions and if they do that and they uh

02:47:31.620 you know become a folk builder then we do give out every year a folk building excellence award to

02:47:38.660 know the folk builder that we think has performed the best in that previous year and so that's

02:47:43.380 something we've been doing for six years now i believe um so i think that's my best attempt at

02:47:52.020 that question kind of to follow up sierra asks what are the qualifications for becoming an

02:47:57.940 apprentice folk builder folk builder and gothar respectively well as sierra laid out that's a

02:48:04.500 a progression of things within the last couple of years we've made that that the case we've

02:48:10.660 unified that tree to where the steps to getting to be a gothi are you first need to become a folk

02:48:17.060 builder in order to be a folk builder you need to do your time apprenticing to be a folk builder

02:48:22.020 qualifications for that are you have to want to and you have to be willing to make the time

02:48:27.780 to devote to doing it it's not something you need to come in with a great amount of

02:48:32.820 qualification other than with piety and a desire to to build the afa now so much is involved in

02:48:40.820 that and our apprentice folk builders and folk builders work very very hard um you know uh and

02:48:46.740 a gothi something to keep in mind isn't just a gothi they're a folk builder as well they have

02:48:53.300 all the responsibilities a folk builder has and then their additional gothic responsibilities

02:48:58.980 but yeah uh some of the things that are really important for a folk builder is to be reachable

02:49:05.240 and interactive on our social media to build relationships with other afa leaders um it's a

02:49:12.600 lot of back-end stuff that doesn't necessarily sound glamorous but it it allows us to have things

02:49:18.800 work as efficiently as they do now we're really lucky to live in a time we have amazing folk

02:49:24.460 builders that have done such an amazing job um so much of what they do you guys will never see or

02:49:30.060 never know but i assure you it's it's one of the reasons that we're able to be so successful and

02:49:34.380 we'll get some of our folk builders on in the coming weeks and months on this uh this program

02:49:40.060 um so sierra also asks which hoffs are you guys most excited for obviously we can't wait to see

02:49:47.260 them all erected but which one uh are each of you which ones are each of you looking forward to the

02:49:53.900 most fun let's go you first tears off definitely tears off uh i also i really like uh i think

02:50:04.860 tears off first but also braggis off and the idea of of the arts and and poetics and and music and

02:50:11.900 and things of that and also uh for set these off because i think that's uh something that we

02:50:19.420 we really we greatly need in our society is an understanding of of um of both legality and uh

02:50:27.420 the ability for us to to reach agreements and to find wisdom in him and in order to better

02:50:34.860 correlate our law our internal cultural law but um yeah tears off is my first answer

02:50:41.900 You know, I'd say that I would also say Tiershof. We've got some special plans for that. I think Tiershof is going to be a really important one for us. And on a personal note, one that I think, you know, I'm very excited to see is Ullershof.

02:50:58.560 I think that would be really special. And it all depends on where we end up putting that. But yeah, I think that would be a really special one. And I've always kind of been hopeful and excited about that one.

02:51:11.900 Just another note to you guys, on the 13th and next month, we're having the dedication at Njortzhoff.

02:51:18.260 And then the following weekend, we're having Fall Fest at Baldershoff in Minnesota.

02:51:23.380 I'm going to turn and burn, and I'm going to be at both of those.

02:51:26.000 If you guys can make it to either or both of those, I would love to see you guys there.

02:51:33.300 I think we're running about to the end of the questions, and it's running pretty long.

02:51:37.520 So let's let's go ahead. And if you have any last things you have to get in, go ahead and get them in.

02:51:42.320 And then let's let's close off questions. We're almost at three hours tonight.

02:51:48.460 And we'll try to get these last ones answered for you guys.

02:51:53.100 At Midsommar, we do a Viking Games. Would it be possible to start a Odin Olympics of a sort once a year,

02:52:01.080 once every other year, hosting a weekend of just showing up or showing off different skills and feats of strength?

02:52:07.520 Is it possible? Yes. Do we have plans on doing that right now? No. But I think, you know, if we first, I think that any of those games to where we can show strength and skill and athleticism and have fun brings our folk together and is a cool, fun thing to do.

02:52:27.860 If we did do something that you're suggesting like an Odin Olympics, I'd want it to be serious athleticism and not just goofing around backyard games.

02:52:38.400 If we did it, I would want it to genuinely be a rigorous, athletic, very serious events to where much in the spirits of of the original Olympics that it would the athleticism itself would be a devotional honoring to our gods and something a little bit more serious.

02:53:01.080 But, yeah, I'd be open to that at some point. I don't think we're we're at that point just yet.

02:53:05.380 all right another question might seem silly but genuine question about offerings pets

02:53:11.700 mainly because mom doesn't know i went pagan and a nice ritual for our cats dogs ducks geese deer

02:53:20.580 would be a bridge for her swan you want to take this one sure uh well wait first and foremost uh

02:53:28.120 i pagan yeah i say first shed that uh uh that word you you are you're coming back you're if

02:53:38.180 you're if you believe in the gods you are also true you are true to the aesir and or the aesir

02:53:43.680 and so claim that and uh so that way you know you're not you're not working from a deficit

02:53:49.980 word like pagan or heathen or you know again some sort of insulting word but that's just

02:53:55.440 is semantics. Um, one thing that you could definitely do is a blessing of the animals.

02:54:01.760 If you're, if you're doing a blessing of the animals, um, the idea of taking some sort of

02:54:07.280 medium, whether it's, uh, you know, milk, uh, mead, um, sacred water, water drawn from somewhere

02:54:16.020 water that take, even if you draw water from a source that say, for instance, um,

02:54:20.360 a river source or a lake source that might not be where it looks murky and you go through the

02:54:26.260 process of purifying it you actually take time to uh filter it and go through it you're actually

02:54:33.860 weaving a lot of your weird into it you can then uh ask the gods to bless that water to protect

02:54:40.560 your your flock to protect your uh your herds um and incorporate your if you're trying to get

02:54:48.440 your family into it um you know absolutely uh ask them to uh hold the bowl with you and pray

02:54:56.820 into the water or pray into the milk or into the mead or or whatever it might be because obviously

02:55:02.540 you know you might not want to cover your hands like a sticky sweet substance it's like it's kind

02:55:08.100 of kind of intuitive in certain sense but um you know placing your your faith into that medium

02:55:15.100 and then sprinkling the animals or one of you taking the animals and walking them by the person

02:55:22.300 that's holding the bowl that has the prayers in it and that they brush the animals with a with a

02:55:27.880 tine or a small twig uh that's you know uh that's dipped into the bowl and then blessed over the

02:55:35.680 animals i think that's a good way if you're talking about blessing and giving offering and

02:55:41.940 asking the gods to protect and to also incorporate your family.

02:55:46.340 And they could pray really as they fill the pool.

02:55:51.260 I think the idea would be praying to the ancestors,

02:55:53.720 praying to the land spirits, 0.99

02:55:54.840 or just praying for protection and placing that within that median

02:56:00.420 and then blessing the animals with it would be a great first step

02:56:04.400 for them to understand the process of our gift cycling

02:56:08.260 and how we gift cycle and how we we kind of interact with with uh divinity whether it's

02:56:16.220 the land spirits our ancestors or the gods so okay next question braggies off when i can't give

02:56:24.560 you an answer on that chronologically but i can give you an answer that in order so uh we need

02:56:31.820 to pay off New York's Hoff. And once we've paid off New York's Hoff and met a couple

02:56:37.220 other qualifications that we're working on, we're going to get Fraze Hoff. Following

02:56:44.460 Fraze Hoff, we're going to establish Tiers Hoff. Following Tiers Hoff will be Braggie's

02:56:50.540 Hoff. So it's all how fast we can get those things accomplished. At the rate we're going,

02:56:56.800 I don't think it'll be very long. American Beowulf asked, can you get a hoff made near

02:57:02.560 Holiday, Florida, mid Florida? Yes, we have one. It's called Newhart's Hoff and it's only three

02:57:08.420 hours away. Absolutely. It would be great to have, to live in a day where, you know, every town has

02:57:16.820 a hoff in it and we'll get there one of these days. But in the near future, one of the challenges 1.00

02:57:23.260 is to get our Hoffs spread out enough to where all of our folk are able to attend these events

02:57:29.240 and come and worship the gods at one of our Hoffs.

02:57:32.420 A three-hour drive to one of our Hoffs is, you know, it's a long drive,

02:57:38.660 but it's very doable for a lot of our people.

02:57:40.660 I know people drive substantially more than that to go to our Hoffs

02:57:45.180 on any of our scheduled days that we have an event at a Hoff.

02:57:49.420 um so yeah it's a little bit of a distance but it's well worth traveling to i think it'll be

02:57:55.520 you know before florida comes up in the rotation again it'll probably be a little bit um we've got

02:58:01.260 a lot of other folks to to make sure they have a hof close to but i would encourage you to do

02:58:06.140 what it takes to to go that three hours up to that hof if it's important to you i think a lot

02:58:11.920 of people don't a lot of people don't realize the gas time that you and i uh i think a lot of

02:58:18.380 leadership put in. I travel three and a half hours with my children and my wife and we all go.

02:58:24.940 So if you can make it, if we can make it, you can make it, you know, get that road time.

02:58:31.160 All right. So do you have to be a folk builder to get folks together and do moots in your area? 0.65

02:58:36.420 If I'm not a folk builder, how do I know who's in my area and who to contact in order to have

02:58:41.260 a successful moot? First, no, you do not have to be a folk builder to get folks together. We would

02:58:46.900 love for all of you guys to get folks together. And our folk builders would love to help you do

02:58:51.500 that. If you want to find out how to make that happen, how to contact people, how to set up an

02:58:57.120 event in your area, reach out to your local folk builder. You can find your local folk builders

02:59:02.180 on each of our Hoffs sites. Nick will go ahead and throw those sites up for you guys to take a look

02:59:08.720 at. And then the follow-up question to that, also by Sierra, is, and what is a moot? A moot is a

02:59:15.480 word that basically means a meeting. It's, you know, any of our meetings where our folks get

02:59:20.880 together outside of a, you know, a Hoff event, we typically refer to as moots. And that's all that 0.94

02:59:28.040 is. Don't be intimidated by the word. If you just want to have people over your house, we call it a

02:59:33.260 moot and that's great. If you want to have people over to a restaurant to share a meal or out to the

02:59:37.340 bar to share a drink, if you're doing that to get together with other AFA members, call it a moot

02:59:41.860 that's fantastic um llamas plans it's fine you want to take that one uh you mean the the celebrating

02:59:53.620 of llamas that is the question uh is that i think it's about lorenzo right the renegade uh

03:00:06.820 And we're talking about Laufmas or what we call Freyfaxi. Freyfaxi is, I mean, for us, especially the culmination of Laufmas or Loafmas at the end of the harvest season, the second harvest season, I can tell one thing.

03:00:25.580 I can't wait because I'm going to start seeing the bread horses.

03:00:29.860 That's a cultural thing for us to see those horses being made and decorated and pictures of them and all their glory, whether good or bad.

03:00:40.160 They're awesome. Just a great time in that year.

03:00:42.280 I know that each of the Hoffs will probably be holding, you know, harvest festival and, you know, bread, beer, things that be showcased there.

03:00:55.640 I think we always kind of do a thing where we try to have people bring food that they want to showcase specifically in relation to the harvest.

03:01:04.820 um uh you know oats and wheat if you're on the low carb diet it's the day to lament and shed a tear

03:01:11.860 and then let go and let carbs um happen um it's a beautiful time i think uh obviously that's the

03:01:19.160 it's the end of the planting season it's the end of the it's the end of the entirety of the season

03:01:23.540 and it brings close uh the what started at uh charming of the plow and so that once

03:01:31.640 freyfaxi lofmas llamas uh once that begins to pass um you know we turn our our our faces towards

03:01:42.100 the twilight of the year and we begin to see the celding and we begin to see the winter time come

03:01:48.200 so it's the last hurrah i'm really i think all the all the temples are going to be you know given

03:01:54.260 to that and i think that um you know if you're an afa member or if you're looking to celebrate at

03:01:59.440 home there's a lot of cool stuff and i you know i'll post recipes for that horse and let's see

03:02:06.000 some bread horses and and um and give thanks to frey as he returns back to the uh the ethereal

03:02:14.400 realms as he goes back to the with his retinue of light and uh and girtha bids him farewell

03:02:23.440 i mean i guess that's all i got on that one i don't all right well do we have any thoughts

03:02:28.160 on armaninism let's go get you first spawn uh i have i do not have as much uh a a huge background

03:02:42.640 on it um i i know of some uh maybe two in particular uh within the afa that have a very

03:02:52.320 uh huge corpus of knowledge about the arman and futhark and um and uh you know i would always

03:03:00.780 guide people to them my my knowledge of it is is um more or less structural to understand

03:03:08.600 uh the movements um and i still see it as a possibility of delving into hero worship when i

03:03:15.880 I can try to turn my head towards Maestro von List and look at him and give homage to him as he is a hero of Othenshof.

03:03:27.780 So maybe at a certain point I can turn my devotionals towards him and kind of delve into his works and pray to him and ask him for guidance as well or at least give homage to him as an ancestor of the pinnacle parts of runic lore that he's given.

03:03:45.880 But as of right now, it's just structural for me.

03:03:50.280 So, I mean, my thoughts, first, in the AFA, we honor Maestro Guido von List as one of our heroes.

03:04:00.320 His reawakening of our spirituality at that time was very important to what we do today.

03:04:07.800 And I think that there's genuine inspiration behind his runes.

03:04:12.660 I can't say I'm super familiar with the current iteration of the Arminen order or how that all

03:04:21.220 works. I think that the AFA is the vehicle for Alcetru and for the worship of Odin,

03:04:32.000 which Maestro von List was all about. And as a child, he vowed to build a temple to Odin.

03:04:40.300 And we honor him at our temple to Odin in a way of posthumously fulfilling that for him.

03:04:48.320 And so I think that there's great things that way.

03:04:50.680 But as far as a vehicle moving forward and moving that mission ahead, I think the AFA is the option for that.

03:05:01.840 Zamos says, no insult meant, I say, pagan as an outsider, understand.

03:05:08.040 uh how do we describe ourselves to others folkish it's hard to perceive it from an outside view

03:05:15.720 that's one of the reasons uh that i always use the word ausitru i want us to own that i want us to

03:05:23.480 define that it's not a it's not so some people prefer heathen or pagan but those are terms that

03:05:33.560 others called us in relation to themselves um i like the word also true because it is a self

03:05:42.440 defining and a lot of people think it means a belief in the gods but it doesn't

03:05:48.040 it means a trough with a loyalty to those gods so it doesn't just mean we believe in in the

03:05:55.400 icier it means that we we are loyal to the icier uh so i use that i use that exclusively the more

03:06:04.360 you use other words to describe it the more it loses its power and its meaning the more you

03:06:10.920 keep all of that meaning harnessed in one word that defines what we are uh the more powerful it

03:06:16.440 is so we we refer to ourselves as also true when you say folkish i think we're getting past a time

03:06:24.360 where you need to say folkish the only also true that's legitimate is folkish also true

03:06:30.600 anything else is simply not also true and we've seen others who are you know universalist claiming

03:06:37.960 to be also true no longer want to claim that because it's too too associated with us instead

03:06:44.440 they'd rather call themselves anything else and that's uh that's fine by me uh vril says i've

03:06:53.240 worn an erminsel around my neck for over a decade now since it speaks more deeply to me as opposed

03:06:58.360 to the mjolnir is this sacrilege no of course it's not sacrilege i think it is less practical

03:07:05.560 just like i think that um just like i said earlier about using the term also true instead of

03:07:10.840 something else it's not wrong to call our faith a different word but it it scatters that cohesiveness

03:07:19.160 and it makes it less recognizable to other people if we all wear mjolnir's then people have a very

03:07:26.280 strong association of what the mjolnir is and what it represents if you know those of us particularly

03:07:33.880 connected to thor wear a mjolnir and the ones to odin wear a spear and perhaps the ones to tear

03:07:39.320 wear an ermensel and with frey wear a boar it scatters that cohesion and it's it doesn't have

03:07:47.080 the same impact when somebody sees it like aha a hammer that guy's also true so i mean i'd suggest 0.66

03:07:52.920 wearing it for that purpose but it's not sacrilegious i'm sure the gods are very honored by

03:07:57.320 your your choice of religious medallion and culturally culturally inside i think everybody

03:08:03.000 inside our faith wouldn't take that as a fence or anything at all it's it's more or less engaging

03:08:09.400 with people outside the guard outside the the yeah all right guys it's over three hours i've

03:08:17.720 got two more questions and then i'm gonna call a hard stop and we'll make sure we have svan back

03:08:22.680 with us very soon because he's doing an amazing job uh matt and svan any plans or thoughts on

03:08:29.640 establishing hoffs outside the u.s it's fun go first oh i uh wow uh you just threw that right

03:08:39.720 on me um i think first and foremost our brothers and sisters overseas have a certain they have

03:08:48.280 obligations and things that they need to hurdle over they need to really get organized and start

03:08:53.400 uh you know um not getting caught up in a lot of the stuff that um you know this is the way we do

03:09:00.840 things here this that's the way things you do things over there no just do things that succeed

03:09:05.720 and the things we're doing here are succeeding so do them there and succeed and then i think that um

03:09:13.880 you know there's a lot of modernity in especially like i i you know i'm i live in america i've been

03:09:19.560 here since i was very very little but i have family i i have very close siblings in in iceland

03:09:25.080 and um and things like that so i'm familiar with uh especially like scandinavia i understand

03:09:31.480 there's modernity there's a lot of uh notions of things where they have a hard time getting

03:09:37.560 into the spiritual life of things sometimes and um but i think that there's a lot of potential

03:09:43.400 for all of them to move and get together and once they do and start to create that community uh

03:09:51.000 absolutely i think we should look at them as viable things i think there's nothing uh the

03:09:56.520 auslature folk assembly i know i would be very much in support and would and would lean to ask

03:10:03.320 the else here to really consider it that you know building temples in the ancestral homes of our folk

03:10:11.560 are paramount we just when it comes to the freedoms of real estate the freedoms of property

03:10:18.680 the freedoms of tax uh in other countries it becomes very very difficult uh and so i think

03:10:25.640 those are hurdles that we need on both sides of the water to really tackle and get down we need

03:10:31.720 somebody on the ground they're really working through the network of whatever type of legalities

03:10:38.200 they have to go through the linguistic stuff obviously we're coming from a linguistic deficit

03:10:43.480 if it's in italy or if it's in eng or i mean not england but uh sweden or you know in denmark or

03:10:49.560 something like that we we would have to move with a lot of guidance and help but i think that would

03:10:55.560 be awesome south africa australia so i think that would be awesome too all the logistical challenges

03:11:04.680 spawn mentioned are a real thing now they're challenges we would rise to and i would very

03:11:10.040 much like to make happen uh first and foremost we need to establish healthy and sizable communities

03:11:19.880 of afa members in these other countries on top of that we need to have reliable leadership in these

03:11:27.640 other countries that will you know we've learned that it's not just about establishing a hof

03:11:34.600 that's a challenge in and of itself but it's about maintaining and caring for it and being there to

03:11:42.200 to occupy it and to make use of it and to sanctify it for years to come um and we need those stable

03:11:49.960 communities and those stable leaders uh right now we're not there internationally i would love to

03:11:55.640 see them i think that sweden would probably be the first if everything went the way that it's

03:12:02.520 currently going they would probably be the first country for us to have an international hoff in

03:12:08.120 but i think that you know within our lifetimes a hoff in sweden uh one in perhaps australia and i

03:12:14.920 would love to see one in south africa but again that all that all depends on folks in those areas

03:12:21.800 stepping up and it it making sense um we have to put a hof where it's where it's going to be well

03:12:27.960 attended to where we have leadership to where we have gothar we need we need a priest to officiate

03:12:34.040 at our hof so all those things would need to happen in order to make that a realistic situation

03:12:39.080 and i hope it does very soon uh and last question of the night american beowulf does newfoundland

03:12:47.400 have a hoff no it does not um i think a canadian hoff would be a neat thing as well i think if we

03:12:56.040 did one in canada it would probably be in ontario right now with the way things are growing or

03:13:02.280 perhaps british columbia but we'll see um thank you guys so much for the amazing talk tonight

03:13:10.120 with all the great questions i appreciate your patience thank you so much everybody who's donated

03:13:16.520 and thank you very much my good friend witness von harrell you have been an amazing guest it's

03:13:22.360 been a pleasure to have you on and talk with you this evening thank you for having me all right

03:13:28.040 guys well it's been over three hours it's late for spawn let him get some sleep and get myself

03:13:33.320 some dinner uh hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps hail

03:13:46.520 Thank you.

03:14:16.520 Thank you.

03:14:46.520 We'll be right back.

03:15:16.520 Thank you.

03:15:46.520 Thank you.

03:16:16.520 Thank you.

03:16:46.520 Thank you.

03:17:16.520 We'll be right back.

03:17:46.520 We'll be right back.

03:18:16.520 Thank you.

03:18:46.520 Thank you.

03:19:16.520 Thank you.

03:19:46.520 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 28, 2022

7⧸27⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 3

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