Asatru Folk Assembly - 8⧸2⧸2023 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 56 - Prince Hermann of the Cherusci

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

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00:03:00.000 hello and welcome back to another exciting edition of victory never sleeps

00:03:11.600 it's good to be here with you guys this evening um tonight we have got go through rob stamm

00:03:19.040 um perhaps i should say dean gothe rob stamm um for those of you that may not know rob is

00:03:27.040 in charge of our alsa true academy homeschool program and we'll ask him some things about

00:03:32.400 that this evening as well it's a good opportunity um okay so top of the show

00:03:45.520 like share and subscribe if you like these or if you want other people to like these or get

00:03:51.280 get a chance to see them all those little stuff on little tedious clicking the likes clicking the

00:03:57.800 shares and subscribing it helps the algorithms it gets this in front of more eyes if you think

00:04:05.000 this is something that people ought to see please help us in that way and we can get the message out

00:04:09.980 i appreciate it um that being said we're broadcasting live tonight on rumble on odyssey

00:04:16.460 on Twitter, on Entropy, on YouTube, and on VK. So hello to our audiences on those different

00:04:28.900 platforms. Feel free to use those and get involved. Entropy and Rumble, we can take tips

00:04:34.120 and we can take super chats, get any questions to the front of the line and any tips that you

00:04:39.360 might want to give us goes towards good cause. We got a lot of great things the AFA is trying to do

00:04:44.760 And we certainly appreciate y'all's generosity.

00:04:51.900 Think of any other top of the hour stuff.

00:05:00.940 Don't know that we've got any this week that's different from last week, but I do know coming up very soon, coming up this month, we're going to have Freyfaxi at Baldershof.

00:05:12.200 that's Baldershof's big event of each year. It's going to be great this year. We've got a lot of

00:05:17.200 people signing up for that so far. I'm going to be out there. Would love to get a chance to meet

00:05:22.460 those of you I haven't met and spend time with friends that maybe haven't seen in a while. And

00:05:27.680 even some of you that I have seen recently. So we'd love to see you out there if you guys can

00:05:32.320 make it. That's in Murdoch, Minnesota. Again, you don't have to be a member to attend, but you do

00:05:38.160 to check with one of our folk builders and get uh get all that squared away before you show up

00:05:43.440 um and if you remember we would you know they're they're your hoffs if you're a member and we would

00:05:48.320 love to see you there um also this month we are having a texas uh i believe it's a texas harvest

00:06:01.520 fest trying to read it a little bit the graphics show up a little bit small on my screen but you

00:06:07.040 want to reach out to folk builder justin day he's been putting a lot of work in making that a really

00:06:11.280 nice thing something going on in a part of the country that we don't it's not often served by

00:06:16.640 some of our bigger national events this is a really good opportunity for folks in the area to

00:06:21.200 get together and we would love to have you guys come out for that if you're able again you want

00:06:27.040 to reach out to justin day jday at runestone.org if you want to be involved with that um

00:06:37.040 And so I figure the best bet will be to get to this up front and then we can answer any questions on it once we're done talking about Herman.

00:06:47.820 But can you tell people a little bit about if they've never heard about it before, about our Astru Academy and talk a little bit about what we learned or our experiences from year one of that?

00:07:01.940 Sure. Basically, it's a homeschooling program. So our parents are still in charge of instruction

00:07:11.480 and ultimately in charge of what they present to their children. But we do provide curriculum

00:07:18.100 to parents and we also provide a support network and we help them with their state requirements,

00:07:25.360 any forms or paperwork they need to file with their school district or the government some

00:07:32.500 dates require a letter of intent some don't and we help parents with all the regulations and

00:07:39.020 requirements for it and then we have an online learning platform where we present material to

00:07:45.300 the parents and then they can present it to their children we offer as far as academics go we go

00:07:51.900 with a Waldorf curriculum because it is developmentally based. And we find that that is the best

00:08:00.780 for children. It's not based off of, you know, some arbitrary standard decided. It's based

00:08:08.080 on how children's brains develop. And Waldorf also incorporates a lot of outside time. And

00:08:14.440 we think that's important for overall health and well-being of children. And then on top

00:08:20.100 of that, we offer religious instruction and activities. And then some of our leadership

00:08:27.000 have recorded videos doing storytelling, lore telling, things of that we also offer. And

00:08:35.860 we also offer a parent support group on our meeting platform so the parents can collaborate

00:08:43.120 and work together and also be in touch with us at all times. Basically, anything you could

00:08:49.680 ever think of and want for homeschooling we offer it any problems that you might have we hold your

00:08:55.440 hand through it so it is really the easiest way in the world to homeschool and then on top of that

00:09:02.880 we've got our clergy putting together excellent religious uh instruction that's you know tailored

00:09:10.640 to the age so it's age appropriate uh we have uh githia mcnalen sheila mcnalen who was a public

00:09:17.120 school teacher for years and years. She's on staff and she helps a lot with that. We also have

00:09:24.320 my assistant dean, Rachel Thompson, who is a Waldorf expert. She knows everything there is to

00:09:30.160 ever know about Waldorf. So she's a fantastic resource as well. And she homeschools all her

00:09:36.480 children. She has a lot of experience with navigating some state regulations and how best

00:09:43.040 to accomplish that um with small children because admittedly my my experience was with older uh

00:09:49.840 children and adults so uh both githia mcnalen and assistant dean johnson have been

00:09:57.600 absolutely vital to our success and have worked really hard with me to create

00:10:01.280 this wonderful program that we have and uh last year we had uh we we had some lessons

00:10:08.560 that we learned we want to do more collaboration more video meetups with all the parents and

00:10:15.120 children to work together and really more integrated into the folks and the kindreds

00:10:20.320 and the hoffs so that it really feels like it's not just an aussitrew school it's an afa school

00:10:27.680 it's you know we want to really tie that into the community and that's what we're working hard on

00:10:31.920 for this next year is to really uh integrate that more into the afa community as a whole

00:10:39.120 and how many kids did we have graduate kindergarten this last year

00:10:43.760 oh i i want to say if i remember correctly and uh someone can correct me if i'm wrong on this

00:10:52.000 nick actually volunteers for the school as well i believe we had either it was 11 i believe

00:10:59.680 that is that is fantastic for year one absolutely and this upcoming year i believe we have one more

00:11:07.680 now so i i believe the total now is 31 for this upcoming school year so um tell folks

00:11:17.280 so last year we just had a kindergarten curriculum and we we are absolutely committed to following

00:11:24.480 that kindergarten class up to what graduating in 2036 i think um to making sure there's

00:11:34.880 material for them as they get to each of these grades but you guys have gone above and beyond

00:11:40.480 tell folks about the grades that we're able to um enroll for this fall yeah absolutely uh this

00:11:48.320 fall we'll be enrolling k through third uh we wanted to make sure we got at least through third

00:11:54.240 we have and are working on material up to fifth and sixth but we didn't quite get that ready for

00:12:00.240 this fall we want to make sure that we absolutely have tons of content and everything is good to go

00:12:06.640 and great before we actually offer it kids we don't want to have a substandard program

00:12:13.760 for a grade level so we went ahead and we concentrated all our efforts on getting k

00:12:18.480 through three and we have got a excellent k through three program ready to go ready for our

00:12:23.360 our kids this fall. That is, that's an amazing amount of progress in just a year's time. I'm

00:12:32.020 very, very excited about that. What do people need to know if they have children eligible to

00:12:38.420 be in kindergarten through third, as far as enrollment and how all of that works?

00:12:44.620 To enroll, you go to our website and there's a form there to enroll. You have to be a member

00:12:50.460 the AFA although I'm very happy to report we've we have got members in the AFA because of the

00:12:57.900 academy they've come and joined the AFA because they want their kids in our academy that's

00:13:03.580 something that we take a lot of pride in that we are attracting members to the church and then the

00:13:10.220 whole family grows together so you just go to the website you fill out the form and right away

00:13:17.020 Sarah Alt will contact you and get you information talk to you see if you have any questions and then

00:13:24.220 from there we can enroll you depending on obviously your child's age and which grade is

00:13:29.420 appropriate and at that point depending on your state and the requirements for that we'll reach

00:13:36.380 out to you to get you started with how to get logged into our online learning platform how to

00:13:46.140 If you need a letter of intent, if you need any state reporting requirements, a few states

00:13:52.900 require quarterly reports.

00:13:54.580 They just want to see progress that you're doing something.

00:13:58.260 We'll tell you how to do that.

00:13:59.500 We'll give you examples on how to do that.

00:14:02.580 We've got it all.

00:14:05.100 So I want to hit this question now because it's timely and it's in the chat over there.

00:14:12.640 we have a Nordic hockey fan asking, you know, what if, what if people live somewhere where

00:14:17.680 homeschooling is illegal, for example, in some parts of Europe, where there are AFA members

00:14:22.760 like Sweden, if I remember correctly, homeschooling is illegal. I want to ensure, I want to assure

00:14:28.160 you guys that, well, a couple of things, we'll always be honest with you. And we may not always

00:14:34.180 have the answers that you like, but we'll always give you the honest answers. I wish that we could

00:14:38.720 go fix Europe and make them all act right. But unfortunately, that's a little bit beyond our

00:14:44.720 scope. What I don't think is any way illegal is supplementing what they're already doing with

00:14:51.220 some of our materials, if you'd like to, or if you find, you know, in part or in whole, any of

00:14:56.160 the things that we're doing valuable to your children over there. One thing we did learn is

00:15:01.480 there are some provinces in Canada that do support homeschooling, and we're trying to figure out

00:15:06.540 the best way to be compliant with those. One of the things that I just want to make a big point of

00:15:12.740 that as the Alls Harrier Goethe, I'm super proud of, but also as a father with a daughter that's

00:15:21.400 going to be taking this homeschooling in just a couple of years now. One of the scariest things,

00:15:29.280 at least to me, comprehending it is wanting to make sure it's all legit with whatever state I'm

00:15:35.940 in wanting to make sure that, you know, I don't miss something or don't not know how to do

00:15:41.380 something, especially if my state's got, you know, rules that may sound scary up front. What I love

00:15:47.080 so much about the Astro Academy is, especially with Rachel's help in there, we're learning how

00:15:54.740 to navigate each of these different state governmental systems with each student that

00:16:00.080 we have enrolled in them. And we're learning as the student grows. We have a team of people to

00:16:05.000 hold your hand through that process and help have your back and make sure that that everything is

00:16:11.400 done the way it needs to be and that everything is compliant by your state and you know you have

00:16:17.480 a partner there so you're not just stuck worrying by yourself and uh this is so accessible i occur

00:16:24.760 encourage everyone out there if you're able to do this if you are able to get your children

00:16:30.680 in an environment where you can teach them the things that you believe that are valuable to you

00:16:36.360 and that are going to be healthy for those children, please do that. If it's with us,

00:16:42.220 great. If it's not, that's fine too. But if you're able to, this is a really, really great

00:16:48.880 thing that you can do for your kids. And we'd love to be a part of that if you want to be part of it.

00:16:52.980 um with that oh and i also might as well say this right now hello to our new zealanders that are in

00:17:02.660 the chat that's fantastic i love that you guys are listening over there you have a beautiful

00:17:06.920 country i went there a number of years ago and drove all over the southern island and you know

00:17:12.060 i was just in auckland to get you know for a couple of days either side flying in and flying

00:17:16.400 out but it was beautiful amazing place and i love having you guys here in the audience

00:17:20.160 um if no one has ever heard his name before first that's shameful but we got people out

00:17:28.220 there who haven't if no one's ever heard of him can you please introduce our audience to

00:17:34.460 herman slash armenius and tell them what they need to know uh sure first thing though uh go

00:17:45.080 go the mayo uh no balls challenged me so i have to do it um it's not bad i promise

00:17:52.040 uh the aura linda book is absolutely fake it couldn't get any faker

00:18:00.360 uh also uh something that's kind of a pet peeve between some of us when we were talking about it

00:18:05.800 is and it's been going on for years and years and years and it is it is it is a part of the

00:18:11.720 conversation tonight um the word germanic it does not just apply to continental germans it applies

00:18:20.360 to all of us it's an ethnic ethanim for all the people uh norwegians swedes swiss icelanders

00:18:28.600 germans it's english uh it's it's an ethnic term for all of us that speak a germanic language so

00:18:35.880 there rant over and we'll begin with herman uh herman um as also your gothe said um

00:18:46.120 he's also known by arminius and actually we don't know that herman was his germanic name

00:18:51.480 uh that is working backwards to reconstruct what arminius would have been in germanic

00:18:58.600 um but he was born in 18 or 17 bc we're not sure exactly and he was born a prince of the

00:19:05.880 chriski tribe which was a germanic tribe who was pro-roman um his father was a chief who was pro-roman

00:19:15.880 and as such brother uh both joined the uh the roman military at a young age

00:19:24.120 um hermann himself uh he served with distinction in the great illyrian uh revolt um in the roman

00:19:32.440 legions and he was in the rank of equus which is uh we might think of that as like a knight

00:19:39.080 they were mounted um that meant that they could afford a mount and and weapons so in the roman

00:19:45.320 world that was kind of like a knightly rank and he was a roman citizen as was his brother

00:19:51.400 Uh, and that's how he found himself back in, uh, Germania. Um, he was posted to, uh, to kind of help, uh, keep the peace up there with, uh, under General Varus. Um, and that's what kind of set things in motion. Um, Herman got back up there and instead of just toeing the line and being a dutiful Roman officer,

00:20:19.620 He started to talk to his Germanic brethren and get start getting the tribes to work together and to unite.

00:20:27.620 Now, it's got to be said that would be against, you know, what his family had done.

00:20:34.620 His family had been pro-Roman and his tribe had been split, basically.

00:20:39.620 But there was a strong faction within his tribe.

00:20:44.620 But he started to get the tribes to work together and to challenge Rome for supremacy in Germania.

00:20:53.640 So in 9 AD, the legions were marching to their winter quarters and Hermann convinced them that there was a revolt in the north of Germany by some of the tribes.

00:21:09.720 And this was this was fake. This was a lie.

00:21:11.640 So he convinced Varus to turn the legions to march, you know, to go down the revolt and mark them right into a trap in the Teutoburg forest where Herman led the tribes against Rome.

00:21:28.880 And over a three-day battle, they destroyed three whole legions, which is 18,000 troops, three cavalry cohorts, six cohorts of auxiliaries.

00:21:39.360 A grand total, we think, about 20,000 Roman soldiers died in Tudelberg.

00:21:45.600 And essentially what that did was that drove Rome out of Germania.

00:21:50.620 There was some fighting for the next few years, but Rome never, they pulled back and stayed on the west side of the Rhine.

00:21:59.380 They never went back into Germania like that.

00:22:03.540 So Hermann, it cannot be overstated how important his role was.

00:22:08.880 He changed the course of history.

00:22:12.340 If you're familiar with Europe, prior to Rome, the Gauls spoke a Gallic language, Celtic.

00:22:20.620 um and they no longer do uh the french speak a a latin based language um the spanish they no longer

00:22:31.100 speak a celtic based language they speak uh they speak a latin based language when rome goes into

00:22:38.780 it completely changes the culture completely language it changes history so herman was able

00:22:46.620 to stop that for germania and who knows where rome would have gone they may have gone into

00:22:53.820 scandinavia they were already in england there's nothing to say they wouldn't have gone further so

00:23:00.540 really higher germanic world owes their culture to that one german prince that said no had enough

00:23:12.220 and it also can't be overstayed he was a roman citizen of knightly rank and he was an officer

00:23:18.140 in the legions and rome offered heated bath and marble floors and food from all over the known

00:23:27.500 world and all you know silk from china untold luxuries and he was and he had that as a royal

00:23:36.460 from a germanic tribe and as a in the noble class in rome he enjoyed all those luxuries

00:23:44.700 and he gave that up to fight for his folk and to keep his folk the bulk uh so

00:23:53.820 that in of itself speaks so much to his character um as i said after tudenberg there was some

00:24:00.380 sporadic fighting um for instance his brother um i had it written down here but his brother did come

00:24:11.180 up to uh germania to germania and fight with germanicus who's a roman general sent to put

00:24:17.020 down herman uh so herman fought against his own brother uh in the continuing wars uh that occurred

00:24:24.060 during that time and in fact herman lost his wife his wife disnelda was kidnapped

00:24:31.420 she was pregnant at the time he never saw her again and he was so upset and distraught

00:24:35.980 he never married again but eventually they were successful and um and rome never ventured across

00:24:44.620 the rhine again as i said unfortunately in 21 a.d uh herman was assassinated by his own nobles

00:24:53.100 who were concerned that he was gaining too much power and there were some that were pro-Roman

00:25:00.060 but for the most part we believe that he was assassinated by his nobles because they were

00:25:05.020 worried he was gaining too much power he had put down another rival uh Germanic king of the

00:25:10.540 Markimani and had absorbed that king's power as well so out of jealousy and not wanting to see

00:25:19.420 him rise and continue to consolidate germanic power he was unfortunately assassinated but

00:25:25.820 the good thing is rome still did not come back

00:25:30.460 um as a as a historic figure germany honors or did honor in the past especially during

00:25:38.860 the times of german unification they viewed herman as that consolidating and um and unifying

00:25:47.100 personage in their history so he was very much uh romanticized during the times of german

00:25:53.100 unification and also historians have tied herman to the sigurd saga actually uh some

00:26:00.060 historians believe that sigurd is based off of herman interestingly

00:26:11.180 so there you have it i see in the uh chat they mentioned that there's a

00:26:14.860 very famous statue in new ulm minnesota that commemorates herman and there's also a statue

00:26:21.500 in in germany in the tudor burgerwald that a similar statue that the new ulm statue was based

00:26:29.180 on um so he is certainly a a celebrated figure in history at least he was when

00:26:37.900 it was okay to celebrate our heroes historically um

00:26:44.860 A couple of really, really important things about his life that stand out to me that I think are are particularly meaningful.

00:26:57.280 Um, our people have always had this very dangerous problem of balkanizing into ever

00:27:17.140 smaller and increasingly insignificant units of, of folks and having trouble getting along

00:27:23.840 and working together. And it was amazing that, you know, naked technologically relatively primitive

00:27:34.000 peoples were able to, with just that spark of unification, defeat the strongest army the world

00:27:45.540 had ever seen in such a spectacular way. And I think it's such a profound lesson that when we

00:27:54.660 put aside pettiness and work together, we are able to accomplish truly miraculous things.

00:28:04.340 So much so that that was not only culturally significant to the Germanics, and it didn't

00:28:14.220 just militarily keep Rome from expanding, it became a cultural terror to Rome. It was something

00:28:23.860 that, you know, the greatest, one of the greatest and most powerful rulers in the history of the

00:28:29.860 world, the first Caesar, you know, the first emperor of Rome, Augustus would, you know,

00:28:37.200 he's driven half crazy, and he would walk the halls lamenting, you know, Verus, give me back

00:28:42.040 my legions, because this defeat was so devastating. When we stand together, we can do truly, truly

00:28:51.840 amazing things. And I mean, that same thing comes in at the end of his life, they were at the cusp

00:28:57.800 of some really, really great things. But pettiness and jealousy took over and you're not the boss of

00:29:04.280 me took over and uh ended up killing their greatest hero and who knows who knows what

00:29:11.640 amazing things they could have they could have done if they had united and stayed united

00:29:15.400 um cautionary well it is it's a cautionary tale and it's just as relevant if not more

00:29:24.920 so today uh than it's ever been and the other thing that i wanted to point out that's

00:29:29.400 very relevant to why he is one of our our religious figures that we revere

00:29:37.800 is there was a great amount of piety the

00:29:41.400 celebrations after the victory included

00:29:47.280 included religious observance there was bloat to our gods there was sacrifice made

00:29:56.580 to Nerthus and to Odin. There were sacrifices hung in the trees. There were sacrifices

00:30:02.340 deposited in the bogs. The victory was truly seen in a religious light and as a religious

00:30:09.380 bounty from our gods. And that very important recognition of that was really significant.

00:30:19.420 And I think it's one of the reasons that Herman's not just someone who is militarily

00:30:24.780 important as a historical figure or who is culturally important. He's very religiously

00:30:30.260 important in that aspect. Looks like Mary in Las Vegas is extremely excited, as she should be,

00:30:43.100 about Herman, one of our most spectacular, most celebrated heroes. Let's get to some of our

00:30:49.500 questions uh trent asks gothi stam is there a particular god or goddess that you are especially

00:30:56.220 devoted to uh well as a polytheist and as a priest i'm devoted to all of them

00:31:05.660 however uh i am uh very partial to two in particular um you know being a priest at thor

00:31:15.500 toff uh lord thor absolutely and also uh ostara i i'm actually writing a book on ostara uh it's

00:31:26.060 it's been in the process for a few years uh i promise i will finish eventually

00:31:31.820 uh but uh yeah we hold ostara in the south at thor soft and that's kind of what started that um

00:31:38.300 but uh yes thor and osara all right jason gallagher wants to know gothe stam

00:31:46.300 how many god poles have you carved for our gods i have carved one uh one at balder soft

00:31:57.340 oh great time i love singing up there i'd love to do more

00:32:00.860 uh i think i'm not the most talented wood carver but i do okay

00:32:07.340 All right, Bodhi, Gauthier, Bodhi Mayo, Gauthier Stamm, why is, why is Meister von List so

00:32:15.960 important to us in Ausitru? Ah, well, Meister von List is part of that German reawakening

00:32:24.540 in the 19th century. You know, I think we owe a lot of the reawakening, of our own reawakening

00:32:33.360 later on to those those folks in the 19th century that kind of lit the spark that continued on down

00:32:40.560 the ages um and also i i believe that uh meister von list was divinely inspired uh and received

00:32:50.400 the arm and rune set so i do believe that uh meister von list is important to study and um

00:32:58.880 to understand to to some degree at least for most folks um but yeah i think he's definitely

00:33:05.920 important to also true because he was part of that german germanic reawakening in the uh in

00:33:12.240 the late 19th century and that kind of lit the spark that continues um even today in germany

00:33:20.560 uh armen and armen and runes are the most popular rune set

00:33:28.240 yeah that's that's one of those things and first you know i don't you don't need to couch that in

00:33:33.680 your personal belief um my servant list was absolutely uh blessed by odin with with runic

00:33:41.120 vision and runic insight and with the insight into the arm and the runes um not only is it

00:33:50.240 you know was it the popular runes when people were first rediscovering runes you know it's

00:33:57.040 it's arguable that you know maybe we wouldn't have the runic

00:34:03.280 practice the runic cult that we have today if it wasn't for that runic uh reawakening

00:34:11.360 that maestro von list heralded um it is and here in about a month we'll come back and we'll talk

00:34:22.400 about him specifically and have a specific episode on him but it's very easy to look back

00:34:30.640 at someone who has less resources and an earlier stage of knowledge than we have and to see all

00:34:39.520 the things that are different or all the things that could have been improved or were incomplete

00:34:45.280 or we're imperfect but it's often slips our mind that the pioneers in these fields worked with

00:34:55.440 so much less resources than we have now and their zeal their reawakening of our folk and

00:35:03.040 their reestablishing our connection with our gods went so far to pave the way for all of the things

00:35:10.240 we take for granted today and have it at our fingertips if it wasn't for people who pioneered

00:35:15.840 that like meister von list who knows what kind of information we would have or not have today

00:35:24.880 you know it sparked the reawakening of rediscovery of these things that had at that time certainly

00:35:31.680 been lost to history largely um it was truly truly a remarkable thing and you know it wasn't

00:35:40.480 just a scholarly pursuit as you know which would have been great and really valuable but not only

00:35:46.720 was it scholarly it was pious it was religious it was an absolute reawakening of his connection

00:35:55.120 with our ancestral gods and it's a connection that we're still building upon today

00:35:59.360 um sarah asks do you agree that prince herman would have encouraged uh the germanic tribes

00:36:09.560 to enroll their children in the astrue academy what say you rob 100 i think uh herman would love

00:36:17.400 it herman wants me to sign up so here's the thing yes it's funny and absolutely but in a really

00:36:27.200 serious way, absolutely he would. We hope he would. Everything that we do is never done flip.

00:36:37.540 It's done aware that our gods are watching us, aware that our heroes and our ancestors are

00:36:45.940 looking on. And it's absolutely at the forefront of our mind that we want them to be proud of the

00:36:50.820 things that we're doing. If we didn't believe that our heroes want their descendants and our

00:36:56.960 descendants to be in this house true academy, then it's not something we'd be doing. So no,

00:37:02.040 absolutely. We, we believe that Herman would want that. And just anecdotally.

00:37:09.320 Yeah, of course he would in a, in a, in a time period where the education of children,

00:37:15.960 especially noble children, children was being taken over by the Roman state and they're being

00:37:20.480 taught Roman customs and Roman language and Roman ways and deliberately disabused of their

00:37:28.080 local customs and traditions, would absolutely want the children of his tribes to learn where

00:37:36.400 they come from, to get passed on the culture and the values of their parents, of their grandparents,

00:37:42.400 of their ancestors next question hi matt and rob can you tell us where frayers harvest feast will

00:37:54.640 be held this year absolutely frayers harvest feast will be held in montana um nick do you

00:38:03.200 have a better location in montana montana's a big state

00:38:14.720 well hold on one second because i got resources let me check something

00:38:22.720 um looks like smack dab in the middle of montana

00:38:25.440 so yeah in the central central montana um and that is going on at the end of next month

00:38:37.960 nick's got the dates up there but for those of you listening on uh spotify or something where

00:38:44.980 you can't see the the screen at least september 22nd through the 24th

00:38:49.760 tickets on sale at runestone.org and the folk builder hosting that is Tyler Heinlein

00:38:58.320 t-h-e-i-n-l-e-i-n at runestone.org and he'd be happy to give you more information on that

00:39:08.340 and get you all set up if it's something you'd like to attend

00:39:10.600 what is frayers harvest feast it is a

00:39:22.920 autumn celebration uh in honor of lord fray in honor of the harvest and it's a good opportunity

00:39:35.060 for folks within driving distance or flying distance, if you're so inclined, of Montana

00:39:43.200 to go up, get together with local folk up there and to celebrate the harvest, our folk,

00:39:50.860 Lord Frey, our gods in general, and it's a good time to get together. I would really like to make

00:39:56.260 it there this year, and I'm going to try to do that. I missed out on the Freyers Harvest Feast

00:40:01.720 last year and i i don't want to repeat that mistake i would like to be able to well i had

00:40:07.240 other stuff i was i was having to do but i'd really like to make it up there this year um

00:40:14.280 beautiful beautiful country and it's it's a good time with great people

00:40:22.120 next question is was armenius an aussitrew

00:40:25.480 So absolutely, Arminius was also true. I saw law speaker Alan Turnage's response over in the chat. And that's true. He, the name also true wouldn't have, you know, wasn't developed at that point, because it wouldn't have made any sense.

00:40:45.200 Herman, as a Charusi, would have worshipped the gods of his tribe.

00:40:51.440 And that's just how that was.

00:40:55.200 There was no question.

00:40:56.320 There was no religious smorgasbord, certainly amongst the Germanic tribes.

00:41:00.660 When you got into Rome, it was a little bit different.

00:41:02.820 There was a lot more options of your faith.

00:41:05.880 the question with folks like Herman was, you know, well, I suppose as a Roman

00:41:12.840 Equitas, he could have adopted a Roman cult, but he was absolutely also true. As I mentioned,

00:41:21.220 after the battle, they made sacrifices to Odin and to Nerthus and to others of our gods

00:41:30.640 on the battlefield and in celebration. The question back then wasn't so much what your

00:41:38.380 religious choice was. It was how pious you were with your religion. But religion and

00:41:45.780 culture weren't, they were inseparable at the time.

00:41:59.120 Next question. Hi, Goethe Stam. I'm loving this discussion, especially since I named my son Armin.

00:42:06.940 I had a slightly off topic question, though. Where is Frayer's Harvest Feast? And is it truly

00:42:14.420 on an AFA homestead. It is absolutely central Montana, like I said, and it is absolutely

00:42:20.300 on the homestead of an AFA member in that area that he is inviting us all to come out and

00:42:26.480 celebrate on. So yeah, he's got a great thing going there. He's doing a really nice job with

00:42:34.840 he and his family. We'd love to go out there and be supportive of that and see his homestead and

00:42:41.480 celebrate that as well. So one more good reason to come out to Frayers Harvest Feast. Next question

00:42:50.560 is, can you go into a little more depth on the curriculum and how it works? Day-to-day itinerary,

00:42:58.100 things like that. Are there Zoom class meetings with fellow students? Does the AFA provide

00:43:05.000 books slash material so what we provide is we provide all the curriculum uh for say for example

00:43:15.980 second grade waldorf curriculum we provide all of it and and the uh the book the waldorf book

00:43:22.580 digitally um and then it's all available on our online learning platform i i don't have the a day

00:43:29.600 to day lesson plan handy. But there is day to day lesson plans in the curriculum. And there's also

00:43:39.160 things that we coach you on. For example, we don't really think of it, but when we go grocery

00:43:44.780 shopping and we bring our children, that's an opportunity to learn. And the states where you

00:43:50.960 do have to keep track of instruction time, you can use that, for example, adding up prices or

00:43:58.680 adding up or you know calculating tax things like you don't even really think about that we just do

00:44:07.560 naturally that can be counted as instruction time so we coach you on that uh as far as books we have

00:44:13.960 a reading list that we provide uh and some of those are available digitally um but uh the the

00:44:22.520 waldorf curriculum book itself we we do provide and we provide the curriculum um and that includes

00:44:28.840 worksheets etc as far as zoom classes we don't we don't use zoom uh we we use a different platform

00:44:36.040 video uh these teams uh but yes that is one thing that we got feedback on is that the parents wanted

00:44:43.960 more of that so we are going to be implementing more of that this upcoming

00:44:47.640 all right um following along that line uh gofi rob is there anything that parents should be doing

00:45:01.000 to prepare their children to start at the academy uh before their kindergarten age

00:45:08.360 uh well the good thing like i said about waldorf is it is developmentally uh designed so the

00:45:14.680 curriculum and what they learn in for instance k1 kindergarten one is specifically designed

00:45:22.280 for that child's age so that they can uh to learn it and comprehend it correctly

00:45:27.960 uh as far as prior to kindergarten things that you want to do uh you know things that i do with my

00:45:35.160 three-year-old are say counting uh you know practicing counting blocks or learning their

00:45:40.200 colors um you can see art if you want uh toward getting closer towards kindergarten age learning

00:45:47.720 abcs um but again that's that's that's pretty advanced but you you we do have kids that come in

00:45:55.080 prepared with that um being one thing that's big is identifying things that are alive and things

00:46:02.280 that are material um that that's part of kindergarten and that's something you can

00:46:07.080 prime your children with pretty early uh so basic preschool type stuff uh we are we we've we've

00:46:15.320 been wanting to to do a preschool uh type program for a while um it's just getting the stuff

00:46:23.800 together and we've been really focused on making sure that uh our current students are have their

00:46:29.400 next grade uh we do anticipate having a preschool program at some point but uh i i'm not sure

00:46:37.960 exactly when but yeah basic stuff like counting colors uh animal identification stuff like that

00:46:49.160 all right um

00:46:51.160 rob do we know any of anything about prince herman's offspring if he had any

00:47:01.880 we do know his wife was pregnant when she was captured by by rome um he he never saw his his son

00:47:13.480 for what we know his son grew up in rome uh as a roman essentially um

00:47:19.240 Let's see, I have the name here, and I'm probably going to butcher this name, Themelichus.

00:47:28.760 I did a little bit of Latin, but not enough to get some of these names right.

00:47:33.520 But his son did grow up in Rome as a Roman.

00:47:40.160 All right.

00:47:44.160 So you mentioned the figures for Roman losses.

00:47:48.700 Next question here is, Rob, if the Romans lost 20,000 troops in the Black Forest, how many did Herman lose?

00:47:58.300 I don't have the figures for how many Herman lost.

00:48:04.640 It was a, like I said, it was several tribes allied together, which would have made accounting that much more difficult.

00:48:15.240 and and we we didn't really have a whole lot of written records at that time there are some

00:48:21.740 basic runic writings from the Volkswanderung which is the migration era but they're very

00:48:29.140 basic if you find somebody's name on a comb or the name of a god on a figurine or some something

00:48:36.840 very basic we have some of the earlier runic writings from the Volkswanderung but uh we didn't

00:48:44.000 have fast written records at the time um so unfortunately i wasn't able to find figures

00:48:50.320 for how many we lost in that so wikipedia says unknown but minor

00:48:59.920 again um rome's accounting system for these kind of things is very very advanced they had good

00:49:06.160 numbers on unit strength and they kept those kind of records so it's a lot easier to figure out

00:49:12.240 a confederation of barbarian tribes much less so as far as written records of you know how many

00:49:19.840 people mustered and what kind of casualties and their uh record-keeping system just wasn't

00:49:28.000 that wasn't something that they excelled at certainly not to the degree that rome did

00:49:32.080 it's amazing that 2 000 years later we can have relatively accurate information from uh any

00:49:39.520 people during that period and that's a testament to rome's um administration and ability to

00:49:46.560 keep track of those kind of things um are any of you familiar with terry jones book barbarians

00:49:58.400 i am not are you rob no i'm not either

00:50:01.680 i'm familiar a little bit with the series the netflix series i only saw season one

00:50:11.680 yeah that's why i didn't watch season two those of you who are listening to this on spotify miss

00:50:17.920 rob making a really cool face i watched 10 minutes of season two and the fur bikinis

00:50:26.400 that cisnelda was wearing i'm like no i can't do this not as an historian i can't watch this

00:50:36.240 all right so our next question is frayfaxi from a wiccan holiday

00:50:44.480 no but it over it certainly overlaps with one and that's because our celebrations are

00:50:51.680 are based on common Aryan festivals around certain times of the year.

00:51:01.540 So yeah, it certainly overlaps with and coincides with, isn't that the loaf mass?

00:51:10.900 Isn't that the case, Rob?

00:51:13.200 I believe so.

00:51:14.660 The theids use loaf mass as well.

00:51:18.160 um but yeah it's important to note that you know those uh that calendar of celebrations is

00:51:28.480 common to Aryan peoples generally especially in that part of Europe and so there is a lot

00:51:35.820 of overlap Freyfaxi very specifically

00:51:39.640 is at least as far as the name goes is referenced to uh an icelandic saga about a uh

00:51:57.960 i don't want to call it a a farmer and his horse who is specifically dedicated to fray

00:52:04.120 And a very interesting story that goes along with that. But that's where that name ends up coming from.

00:52:17.120 Rob, the Astro Academy is truly a legacy project. And as such, what are your pie in the sky goals for it?

00:52:25.020 fly in the sky goals uh i mean eventually i'd like to see a brick and mortar cool

00:52:33.300 at segerheim probably run along the same kind of uh guidelines um i would like to see some

00:52:45.100 eventually in this you know pie in the sky i would like to see also a skilled trades program

00:52:52.920 offered in the high school ages. Where I went to high school, they had this option for students

00:52:59.300 where they could go to this trade program and learn a trade while they were still in high school

00:53:05.740 and getting high school credit. And I thought that was a fantastic program. I'd like to see

00:53:10.660 something like that. Now, again, that's going to kind of require more of a brick and mortar type

00:53:17.240 situation but if we could work with some kind of you know trade school or whatever uh while they're

00:53:24.520 in our program and they could get they could still get elective credit for it i think that'd be

00:53:29.720 awesome um you know maybe my great great grandchildren there will be an aussitrew university

00:53:39.160 that would be great uh you know if we're talking really deep into the future

00:53:43.640 uh but that's what was asked you know your pie in the sky big goals for it

00:53:52.600 realistic goals i'd like to see every member child in the austro academy i think that's

00:53:58.760 a realistic goal that i can achieve in my lifetime and with

00:54:07.880 with getting three grades worth of curriculum figured out in this last school year you well

00:54:13.160 on your way to making that happen um so

00:54:22.040 our next question does the astro academy allow international enrollments we absolutely will be

00:54:28.680 homeschooling just starting kindergarten kindergarten homeschool now and for what

00:54:34.840 it's worth this is one of our new zealanders asking the question i believe i'm not familiar

00:54:42.200 with the New Zealand laws, but it sounds like that New Zealand allows homeschool. So as

00:54:48.740 long as your country, you're legally able to homeschool, we will look into the requirements

00:54:57.740 and the regulations and whatnot. And as long as your country legally allows it, absolutely.

00:55:06.080 Like I said, our academic curriculum that we use Waldorf is used internationally. It's

00:55:10.680 very well known uh it's not something that is uh you know brand new or seat of the pants i mean

00:55:17.320 it's very well respected and known so it's a quality program um as long as it's legal in your

00:55:22.680 country uh yeah i'll i'll have uh our folks look into new zealand absolutely yeah that's i just

00:55:29.880 want to throw that out there it's something we're absolutely committed to doing we would love to do

00:55:33.800 in every place that it's legal one of the things in order for us to you know go down that rabbit

00:55:41.880 hole we need someone who's interested who wants to enroll their kid when we have that in a

00:55:47.240 particular country then yeah we'll bend over backwards to see what we can do to make it work

00:55:52.040 because we're very committed to making it work so if it's at all possible within

00:55:57.560 our means and capabilities and you know without great ethical compromise we you know we're willing

00:56:05.800 to do what we need to do to try to make it compliant for you know any jurisdiction that

00:56:11.640 that accepts homeschooling so please we would we would love to have your children involved

00:56:18.120 um next question from cliff go through rob and also go through matt is there a virtue that you

00:56:25.080 think herman embodies above others what do you think rob well uh it's hard to pick one

00:56:34.280 uh because herman is such a fine example of a hero of our folk um

00:56:43.400 courage um and and like i said he pretty much as a hero and note and a noble person uh that we look

00:56:53.160 up to i mean he really embodies most of them or all of them but courage to me um is probably his

00:57:00.600 biggest as i said he he gave up a real life of luxury uh to go back and fight for his people

00:57:08.280 and that takes courage i mean it does take courage to say you know what i don't want those heated

00:57:12.920 baths and those silk robes i'm gonna go uh throw on some wool pants and and uh and live in the cold

00:57:21.720 Germany's cold. Rome is warm. I know that seems silly, but, you know, I'm going to give up all

00:57:30.260 these fine things and go and fight for my people. That takes courage. It takes courage to try to

00:57:35.960 go to these different tribes that have never been united. And some of them even fight against each

00:57:43.540 other and say, hey, let's stop doing this. Let's get it together and be one and work as one and

00:57:49.660 and we can accomplish great things.

00:57:51.220 It takes a lot of courage to think you can try that.

00:57:55.760 And then it takes courage to fight

00:57:58.400 20,000 trained professional soldiers.

00:58:03.800 Roman soldiers were professional soldiers.

00:58:06.600 That was something that just was unheard of

00:58:08.480 in the ancient world.

00:58:09.420 They were paid full-time soldiers.

00:58:11.540 They devoted their entire life to soldiering.

00:58:15.660 They were good fighters.

00:58:17.140 You can say a lot about Rome,

00:58:18.460 their army was awesome they were good fighters so that takes a lot of courage to go up against that

00:58:24.220 machine so courage i wish i had the quote in front of me right now but um tacitus and i think in

00:58:38.620 annals eulogized herman in a really in a really special way and if you get on a roll

00:58:47.340 answer one of these questions i might look it up um but basically from a roman uh living you know

00:58:57.340 within a generation of this time he celebrated the accomplishments of herman against rome when

00:59:08.140 rome was at its height and that's one of the things that was really important um yeah i'm

00:59:14.060 going to go with courage as well rob stole my answer but that's what i get for letting him go

00:59:18.460 first um but courage on so many fronts uh he from within the roman army arranged this

00:59:31.740 and pulled off the deception while he was still in enemy hands

00:59:37.420 anybody would could have called the bluff and it would have been over for him right then

00:59:41.740 um with all of these different tribes that were so self-interested so many people that did have

00:59:49.820 a tendency towards disloyalty he could have been ratted out at any time and he still marched there

00:59:58.460 with the you know with the legions for part of the march he still was amongst the enemy while

01:00:06.460 this was getting put together and anybody blowing the whistle and it would have been the end for him

01:00:11.740 um if that was taken seriously and then to stand with you know a ragged poorly armed poorly equipped

01:00:23.020 not professional soldier fighting force against the most overwhelming force in the world

01:00:30.700 that's terrifying um I mean in any of Rome's enemies at the time or 500 years either side

01:00:42.160 of it could testify how terrifying that was and having the courage to do that with an uncertain

01:00:48.880 outcome um that took a lot having the courage to

01:00:54.400 take a stand and be involved in the tribal politics of that day when there was so much

01:01:03.720 jealousy and there was so much backstabbing, being willing to stand up and be that guy that

01:01:10.540 was going to step up and take charge. Everybody throws their hands up and shrugs their shoulders

01:01:16.440 and like, well, who's it going to be? Who's to say? He decided it was him. He was the one to say.

01:01:24.400 And because he did, for that brief moment, our people had glory that they never conceived of before.

01:01:31.580 So, no, his courage, I think, is the standout virtue.

01:01:37.040 Our next question is, didn't he, Herman's son, become a gladiator?

01:01:41.720 I heard something like that somewhere.

01:01:47.200 That I'm not sure of.

01:01:48.760 The only thing I could find was that he lived out his life wrong.

01:01:52.220 yeah perhaps i don't think that's something that's known but i think that's some like

01:01:57.480 popular fan fiction uh and which maybe we don't know that he didn't

01:02:06.500 um roman really really uh respected rank though and someone coming from a royal cast or a noble

01:02:18.260 cast I don't think they'd make him a gladiator but well it's odd that his name is completely

01:02:24.580 lost to history because for the exact reason you're mentioning they would want to use him

01:02:30.220 as political leverage in dealings with the tribes it would be or in leading forces of you know

01:02:39.480 federati or things it would be really strange for them to put him in a gladiatorial spot unless it

01:02:46.320 was just as a humiliation because they were so spicy about getting getting trounced in the woods

01:02:54.200 um but maybe we don't know um could you give us a little bit a little insight on how the

01:03:03.280 germanic tribes understanding of the gods compared to our modern understanding i.e names traits and

01:03:10.920 any known stories. I mean, names, you could dial things back. They wouldn't be the Scandinavian

01:03:25.920 names of our gods. They'd be the Germanic names. I think their worldview would have been much,

01:03:34.860 much smaller. I don't think they would have seen the unity of our gods back to

01:03:42.660 the period of Aryan migrations. I don't think they would have that sense of history.

01:03:48.420 I think that they would view their gods much more intimately as the gods of their tribe and a

01:03:57.800 couple surrounding tribes. But I think their idea of the size of the world and the connectivity of

01:04:02.700 our Aryan spirituality was much more limited than ours. I think it's fascinating because we don't

01:04:11.700 know what stories they had back then, or certainly not very many of them. So much of our lore comes

01:04:19.500 to us through the early medieval period in Scandinavia that it's hard to tell. I mean,

01:04:30.840 even attested at the time that these things come from you know long-standing oral tradition

01:04:36.520 but how far back each of those stories went i don't know i think that's kind of fascinating um

01:04:46.280 rob what do you what do you have to add on that um it's hard like like you said it's hard to say

01:04:54.840 we can look at a little bit of of archaeology and linguistics um at that time they were probably

01:05:03.960 speaking still common germanic everywhere in the germanic world um so we can reconstruct

01:05:11.240 the names of the gods and goddesses into common germanic but that's just a reconstruction we're

01:05:17.480 not 100 sure um we can we i mean we found figurines um and we can we can suppose from there we i mean

01:05:29.720 we know they had the basic germanic lore or uh uh cosmology structure but beyond that um as also

01:05:40.040 your gothe said things were so tribally specific um if we go to the north sea we we have a a god

01:05:46.360 Saxon that does not show up anywhere else but in northern Germany and then eventually in England.

01:05:54.840 Now different scholars have tried to tie Saxon up to various different other deities but that is a

01:06:01.880 very tribal specific Germanic god and I'm sure there were very specific tribal gods on the

01:06:10.040 continent and in Scandinavia wherever our people were they had very specific tribal gods but then

01:06:15.960 they had the the main ones as well uh the main is here that that we know and love so

01:06:23.720 a lot of it's guesswork uh like we said there weren't written records back then

01:06:29.080 they would have had local you know local river goddesses they would have had

01:06:36.920 deities you know like small level like like the river goddesses as opposed to the the great gods

01:06:45.400 of our race they'd have local local cults to heroes and ancestors and things that

01:06:52.200 we've probably never heard of but that were you know everything to that tribe um

01:06:59.240 the other thing and i think this is interesting this is fascinating in general but i really like

01:07:07.960 this icelandic manuscript and i'm sure you've all seen pictures out of it i didn't

01:07:13.960 foresee this question or i would have had one for example but it has our lore in it and

01:07:21.320 our gods are wearing you know renaissance clothes and their swords are much more like

01:07:28.760 you know cutlasses and uh they've got pantaloons and you know things from the

01:07:36.040 time period from which it was written and i think that you know when you when you read our lore

01:07:40.760 if you read the niblungen lead and the volsung saga it's working from the same source material

01:07:50.260 but in one the characters are very much described in a

01:07:56.360 scaled down icelandic farmers saga way whereas in the other it's high medieval and they've got

01:08:07.940 full suits of armor and you know armies in the the tens of thousands and castles and and things

01:08:14.900 of that nature and i think it's the nature of our folk it's very unique in the time that we're in

01:08:21.140 because we tend to envision our gods from the viking period and we all do i'm not looking down

01:08:27.780 my nose at that we we all do but our ancestors when that was a there we go nick i knew you'd come

01:08:34.980 through um when it was a continuous tradition

01:08:44.100 the way that our ancestors conceived of their gods was in ways that was relevant

01:08:49.700 to them and we see some of that through the periods that we do have and so we can only assume that

01:08:58.500 in the dramatic tribal period their gods would be

01:09:05.140 wearing the clothes that they would wear they would be you know wearing the things that were

01:09:14.060 culturally significant to them fighting with the weapons that were significant to them

01:09:18.540 we know that you know as thor developed his hammer looked really different at

01:09:23.320 you know a very early period it was just a club

01:09:25.960 um i think that the the imagery would have been different one of the things that we do

01:09:35.180 see in older sources it's like the idea of the valkyrie we develop this like

01:09:42.540 wagnerian view of the valkyrie as this you know maiden in shining armor with you know swan's wings

01:09:52.240 wings on like Pegasuses that goes and and swoops in the battlefield and it's this beautiful thing

01:09:59.980 the further you go back the imagery is much more you know like

01:10:06.160 carrion and you know scavenger creatures it's much more you know modeled after riding on the back of

01:10:15.700 wolf with raven wings as the things that pick bodies clean on the battlefield. I think you get

01:10:22.440 to a much grimmer time, and I think the imagery of our gods was probably much grimmer then. But

01:10:27.240 it's hard to tell. You know, we weren't in the minds of those folk. But it's really interesting

01:10:32.340 to put ourselves there as best we can and imagine what that would have been like. And like Rob says,

01:10:39.780 there's there's fragments of archaeology there's you know we know a little bit about this right

01:10:46.140 around this period from Tacitus's writings but again they're filtered through his lens with

01:10:52.680 their the Romans just Roman and you know before that Greek ethnographers describing what these

01:11:00.420 foreign people did in terms that made sense to their audience so it it gets filtered through

01:11:06.120 lenses but um again the stuff is so scattered and fragment the fragmented in the things that make

01:11:17.400 it into tacitus but we see the processional nature of nervous we see that later in scandinavian

01:11:27.400 stories about fray in you know processing through the land in a wagon you see that nerfus at the time

01:11:34.600 was processed by a team of oxen through the land. It talks a little bit about the Nerthus cult and

01:11:44.440 the slaves that prepared the Nerthus statue. You're not allowed to look upon the statue.

01:11:50.720 The only people who saw the statue were these slaves that tended to it, and afterwards they

01:11:54.980 were ceremonially sacrificed or ceremonially executed. So living people couldn't gaze upon

01:12:02.020 nerthus at the time um this is when you have discussions of bog sacrifice and you see that

01:12:11.460 with the germanic tribal period you see that less in country that's less boggy um

01:12:18.820 but it's few and far between one of the things as far as sacrifices being made in the woods

01:12:25.140 you have attested to um like skulls of roman officers nailed to trees so you have the

01:12:33.140 sacrifices left in the trees that's one of the things we see here that's i don't know kind of

01:12:40.180 unique or an interesting reflection that we have attested to because when the roman armies came

01:12:44.420 back through to collect you know what they could when they went through the battlefield

01:12:49.140 i forget how many years later but there was still you know evidence of these there's still bleached

01:12:53.940 bones and and the the folks that have been left behind to sacrifice in the battlefield

01:13:01.940 um but yeah it's it's fascinating there's so much so much lost to history that i'd love to

01:13:08.020 i'd love to you know go back and just have some kind of insight into that

01:13:15.380 um ali asks what was the impetus for the academy and will we one day see a prom

01:13:23.300 at Sigurheim. So last question first. Yeah, or something like it. I would love to have dances

01:13:33.180 at Sigurheim. We want to have this big hall there. I'd love to have that kind of stuff there.

01:13:38.120 One of the things that we've always talked about since the beginning is we can get enough of our

01:13:42.420 folks to move to Sigurheim or to greater Sigurheim, which I'm calling the county surrounding

01:13:49.480 Sigurheim then yeah we would absolutely love to have dances there and love to get together and

01:13:57.720 set up increasingly a school facility there for the children in that area that are commutable to

01:14:05.720 it to be able to come there and get educated together even if they do span you know many

01:14:10.520 different ages we'd love to have that we'd love to have a dance there um and i think that's

01:14:16.920 something that you know we could certainly see within our lifetimes um as far as the impetus

01:14:23.720 for the academy rob can talk to the specifics of how it got developed but as for me it's one

01:14:33.080 of the things that our folk have wanted for a really long time and until i want to say this

01:14:41.560 last year but this last year was when we actually enacted it probably until the year previous so

01:14:46.920 about two years ago was when we finally had the right people in the right places to be able to

01:14:54.520 make something happen i think we all knew it was something that we wanted and that our folk wanted

01:15:00.120 and part of the impetus is the truly disgusting things that have happened in society as a whole

01:15:09.480 that unfortunately largely target our children um and knowing that we wanted to provide a resource

01:15:17.000 for our folk to get their kids out of that system and into a place that's much more healthy when i

01:15:23.480 was going to school and my mom was a was an educator she was a first grade teacher for

01:15:28.440 better part of 30 years i remember growing up the idea of homeschool or religious schooling was

01:15:35.800 really you know kind of neat and there's a lot of talk about it but there's all these pros and cons

01:15:41.320 i'm like well but they need the socialization at regular public school and yeah but public school

01:15:46.360 can provide this or that that was you know shoot in the mid and late 90s since then that balance

01:15:55.400 has gotten drastically skewed the the pros of public school have in many many cases gone to

01:16:05.800 zero or very close thereto. And the cons have just skyrocketed. So, you know, I've said this

01:16:14.680 before, but life has a way of red pilling folks. And I think that life has, the way things have

01:16:20.340 been going has made the necessity for this even more dire every year that goes by. So it's

01:16:28.420 something that we had to do for our folk. But Rob can talk to you a little bit more about

01:16:34.140 the impetus for going with a waldorf method with you know structuring it how we have

01:16:41.900 what what's what forces have driven you to structure it the way you have rob

01:16:48.620 uh well honestly when i was starting to put it together i looked at some of the traditional

01:16:55.260 instructional methods and by chance um Rachel Johnson and her family with Mason and their kids

01:17:04.080 came out to uh Ostara at Thorshof and uh someone said you know uh Rachel homeschools all her kids

01:17:13.920 and she knows a lot about it you should talk to her I said okay so I I had a conversation with

01:17:19.100 her and she told me about Waldorf and uh she's very passionate about it and told me all the

01:17:23.960 great things about it. And I said, well, that does sound good. I'm going to research it.

01:17:29.460 And I did. I looked into it. You know, all the pros and cons. There are actually

01:17:35.420 brick and mortar schools all over the country that use Waldorf as their base,

01:17:41.600 their Waldorf school. So I looked into it and read on all the pros on it, that it's

01:17:48.180 developmentally based, that it incorporates a lot of outside time and physical activity.

01:17:53.960 well as academics. And that sounds really good. That's something that appeals to most people and I like it quite a bit. So I, Rachel, volunteered as staff for the academy and I said, we started initially being kind of a both Waldorf and like, quote unquote, traditional instructional style.

01:18:20.960 And, you know, everyone really, we had a lot of good feedback on the Waldorf, and we said, you know, let's just stick with what people like, what works.

01:18:31.700 And, you know, that also allows us to purchase academic materials.

01:18:37.660 And there are some things that we kind of have to tweak and change a little bit to fit Ausitru because it is a traditional, you know, based program.

01:18:49.080 so there's like there's a there's a a part where you're going to learn about saints well we're not

01:18:53.880 going to learn about saints at aussitrew academy so we we plug in our heroes instead um so that's

01:19:03.080 how we decided to go with waldorf and then like i said we do write uh religious material to go

01:19:10.200 into lessons. And so you can teach Ausatru as well as academics. And then we decided,

01:19:20.200 we went with just a story time. And then we went and did a couple of story times where

01:19:25.640 we had, Timmy Dumas was reading and his wife, Christine, was reading books, children's

01:19:33.840 stories uh that are traditional and that was wildly popular so that kind of drove us well

01:19:43.440 we've got to get more of that for next for next year and in the subsequent years so that's that's

01:19:48.960 what made us decide to go with more of that uh and then we were looking to parents feedback on

01:19:55.600 what they liked and what they didn't like and that's how we formulated the programs going forward

01:20:03.840 So I think this one's interesting. Dean Stamm, what state or jurisdiction has proved the most challenging to accommodate in terms of regulations, reportings, and that kind of thing?

01:20:20.820 We've got a couple of difficult states, and there's some that you wouldn't think would be. Washington State is fairly bureaucratic.

01:20:33.840 um believe it or not tennessee is one of the more difficult states uh with their requirements but we

01:20:41.040 we successfully navigate it uh florida is another one that's got a few uh you know hurdles that we

01:20:48.160 have had to cross but it's nothing that's not that's insurmountable it's absolutely doable

01:20:54.400 we have to make sure that it gets done and that you know all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed

01:20:59.520 it's one of the things i love so much about it is that as our student base grows

01:21:09.520 we learn these things and we pave a way to where it's going to be so much easier for

01:21:13.600 the students that come in behind them i think it's it's really nice to watch how this is evolving um

01:21:21.440 Um, so Nick, Nick has a question. Um, he read recently a post where someone said Njord and

01:21:34.060 Skadi, uh, can and should be treated as trannies, said that was a perfectly acceptable way to

01:21:41.500 approach Alcetru. The tiny bit of reasoning they gave was saying that Njordr, uh, was a masculinized

01:21:48.260 version of the name nerfus and that scotty was a feminized version of some other male word

01:21:55.220 obviously it's disgusting and

01:21:58.340 an incredibly far stretch but just how wrong is it um

01:22:06.620 as wrong as you could possibly imagine times 10 or or thereabouts um

01:22:18.080 Um, this is, unfortunately, this is where scholastic approaches to religion lead.

01:22:32.560 There is no, um, it's hard to say not knowing the person that said this, but anyone who

01:22:40.280 would conceive this, and their reasoning would be based on the

01:22:45.740 linguistics of names. They're not seeing our gods as living

01:22:53.900 entities. They're seeing them as linguistic concepts. And

01:23:02.240 that's, that's not religion. That's not what religion is.

01:23:06.560 If these gods were real to this person and he was engaged in worship of them, I think that the question is this, the whole concept would be ludicrous.

01:23:16.020 the fact that they're not real to this person means that he can you know come up with exotic

01:23:24.740 theories that sound politically hot button relevant today based on obscure linguistics

01:23:32.900 and think that's okay because there's not a lot of skin in the game there's not a lot of

01:23:38.400 idea of consequence. I feel blasphemous reading the question out loud. I don't think that whoever

01:23:49.380 posited this has any genuine faith in our gods, or they would be ashamed of saying something like

01:23:59.240 that um as for the the naming concept i've never heard the scotty one i've heard the

01:24:08.520 the northern one before but i think that i think that when you come with names it becomes really

01:24:15.720 tricky we've seen in our own time names transcend gender a lot um which can be confusing i can only

01:24:25.320 imagine going that far back because things share a common root shows a connection but it doesn't

01:24:32.680 necessarily mean two things are the same and i think that it's it's a theory for me to declare

01:24:38.920 one of our gods to be something that's so abhorrent to any traditional human being to think

01:24:47.800 based on you know a theory is

01:24:52.920 again if you genuinely are pious and have belief in the gods you would need something a lot more

01:25:01.980 definitive than that for you to say that out loud or to genuinely have that affect your worship

01:25:10.920 um there's no indication from any cultic practices associated with these deities that

01:25:19.920 there's any whiff of that there's some scholar who you know a thousand years later looked back

01:25:27.060 at two names that are different variations that are different gender variations of a root word

01:25:34.660 that's that's not nearly enough to disavow every other bit of information we have about these

01:25:42.100 characters and secondly

01:25:44.860 tranny's

01:25:51.400 the other produced offspring and i don't think you know again we're in high mythology but

01:26:02.380 But once you deviate from biological common sense that far, the production of offspring isn't really forthcoming.

01:26:13.820 Do you have anything to add to the discussion, Rob?

01:26:18.540 I think you put it really well, but it just seems like folks that start from a position of I need to justify my weird, I'm not going to say it.

01:26:28.320 almost did i i need to justify my mental illness by finding it somewhere in religiosity or history

01:26:37.600 or whatever they're they're starting off their pursuit with an agenda with an end goal in sight

01:26:44.080 and they're going to skew anything they find to fit that point that they're trying to make

01:26:51.440 and if you have to search for something so hard to justify your deviation from from normal

01:27:01.680 then it's probably not the right thing to do you know it's not it's not okay

01:27:06.880 uh and that's sad that it's unfortunate into our faith um and they're trying to use our faith to

01:27:16.160 justify their their mental illness but i guess it's the nature of the beast

01:27:24.000 yeah that is disgusting offensive and more than that it it's completely unfounded and wrong

01:27:32.720 um yeah not not sure who said that but they should be cast out of association with with

01:27:39.840 good people that are people of dignity and perhaps checked into a mental health facility

01:27:46.160 um the next question uh do you look at what your kids watch on TV because I heard that there are

01:27:55.940 now cartoons for kids that promote anti-white ideas they absolutely are um I try to you know

01:28:04.640 pay attention to what's on TV not just what Aubrey's watching but what you know I'm watching

01:28:12.260 around her as you know stuff for her to pick up on and we have we found cartoons that have you know

01:28:21.460 gay characters or you know

01:28:28.020 it's strange when it's animals when it's animals it tends to be a little bit safer but

01:28:33.460 sometimes at random you have a you know an owl and a pig that have a child that's a rabbit it's

01:28:41.780 not how that works so i mean i try to stay to where the rabbit family has rabbit kids

01:28:47.620 and you know the two goats have goat kids and you know that with with the stuff

01:28:53.300 there are definitely some and unfortunately some that we used to like that have recently adopted

01:29:02.500 degenerate agendas and we've had to stop watching so yeah they do try to slip that in

01:29:08.980 in a lot of places surprisingly there's a lot of places um specifically like australian government

01:29:19.380 funded tv shows that don't have a lot of that that surprisingly have very traditional agendas

01:29:26.420 and really nice things for kids and that was a surprising thing to me

01:29:29.780 um also i found there's a a number of like chinese things that are very traditional and not

01:29:40.180 infected with wokeness that uh you know are dubbed in english that are cartoons with like

01:29:45.960 little pandas and stuff i'm trying to think of the name of the show right now but yes that's

01:29:51.180 something we've had to be very aware of with aubrey what what have you found in your experience rob

01:29:54.920 you've got you've got a different age range of kids yeah um definitely uh you know my my youngest

01:30:04.280 is about the same almost exactly exactly the same age as aubrey and and like you said you really

01:30:09.360 got to watch it because they'll sneak it in uh mine watching a a show on youtube and like you

01:30:17.340 know crayons dancing and you know so you can learn the colors you know going on little adventures in

01:30:23.080 nature and i wasn't paying attention and i come back uh and there's a new show on and it's like

01:30:29.720 robots and cars preparing for pride day what you know how did this happen so yeah you you do have

01:30:39.240 to watch they'll sneak it in and you might find something that's good on youtube and then it

01:30:45.240 immediately goes to another video that's not even related and it'll be bad so you have to you really

01:30:50.280 have to watch so um at the risk of biting the hand that's feeding us we're broadcasting on

01:30:57.320 youtube right now but a youtube thing that i noticed um with their commercials and i don't

01:31:03.560 know why it's targeted this way but early on we'd be watching kids stuff for aubrey and then they

01:31:12.280 would have these commercials or whatever but instead of it being a regular sized commercial

01:31:18.120 it'd be like a 30 minute rap video commercial that's not even about like kids oriented stuff

01:31:25.720 it's completely not targeted to the audience and it's you know adult rap booty shaking videos

01:31:35.320 for you know 30 minutes in the middle of her cartoon about colors and how to use the potty so

01:31:41.080 So you got to be vigilant on those things.

01:31:45.280 And I mean, stuff, we all do the best we can.

01:31:51.060 But some is, you know, just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean that the effort you put in on trying doesn't count because it does.

01:32:03.840 Every little bit helps.

01:32:11.480 so if you guys have any more questions please get them out there if you don't this is the last

01:32:16.040 question i see for this evening um are there any other programs you would like to see develop within

01:32:24.520 the afa rob um that's a good one uh i think we've got a lot of project great projects that are in

01:32:39.960 the works. Um, one thing that I did, um, and I think some of the Hoffs are already doing this

01:32:47.840 and I'd like to see it done at a national event level too. Uh, and they have been done at national

01:32:53.820 event levels and it's kind of within the stream of the Academy is, uh, is having a children's

01:32:59.940 bloat or children's ritual and, and, uh, really focusing on, you know, because a lot of times

01:33:07.360 the kids we think they're there they're having fun with other ostrich kids they're running around but

01:33:12.800 are they really participating in the religiosity of the event well we want them to but we want them

01:33:17.840 to do that on their level so i'd really like to see that develop more um and i've spoken with

01:33:24.080 like i said whitney young to uh to implement some of that so you know it's it's such a broad question

01:33:37.360 um I mean yes there's infinite programs I'd love to see develop within the AFA but there's a couple

01:33:44.320 of things that go into it that I don't think I don't think people necessarily realize and you

01:33:50.140 know I don't I don't think I realized until I was you know in the big chair on it um

01:33:57.100 you've got to have this sweet spot of having the right people with the right skill sets at the

01:34:03.580 time and the right interest from members to really make things be successful. There's a number of

01:34:13.660 things that we, you know, wish we had or would love to have someday, but the dream you have in

01:34:21.980 your head isn't necessarily how it develops based on the resources you have in your hands.

01:34:26.580 um and responding to the needs of our members and the needs of the times that we're in

01:34:37.900 with the tools that are available to us and what i mean that i mean funding yes but specifically

01:34:45.640 volunteers with the right skills and the right um amount of time and amount of stick-to-itiveness

01:34:53.440 Because the one thing that I don't want to do, and I've tried really hard not to do, when the AFA puts our weight behind something that we're going to do, we want to succeed.

01:35:07.380 We don't want to halfway do it.

01:35:09.360 We don't want to start it and then not complete it.

01:35:13.540 We don't want to advertise it and then not follow through.

01:35:17.380 We don't want to do that.

01:35:18.800 And it would be easy to do that on a lot of things.

01:35:21.280 And so sometimes we're more reserved or we'll plan something on the back end until it's much more certain before we announce it and make a big deal out of it.

01:35:32.540 And I know this is, you know, not a sexy way to answer the question, but it is something that goes in that I don't think a lot of people think of, like this homeschool thing.

01:35:42.940 In a perfect world, I mean, this is something I wanted us to have day one when I became Al's Heria Gauthier in 2016.

01:35:52.080 it's something that i wanted us to have probably at least two years before that when i was the

01:35:58.160 folk builder coordinator um but we didn't have the people we didn't have the right people at

01:36:03.120 the right time we didn't have you know we didn't have the right resources in the right place at

01:36:08.880 the right time we do now um same thing with you know any of the things that we do very often

01:36:17.440 they're things that we've wanted to do for a long time and just didn't have those right folks we

01:36:21.680 have to wait until the right people are there and things coalesce one of the things that i really

01:36:29.280 want more of is our history getting recorded i want us to be able to produce and write more

01:36:39.680 literary materials for folks these are all things that i would love to see but again we haven't had

01:36:45.920 Had the right people come along with the right skill set and consistency of being able to devote their time to make some of those things happen.

01:36:53.540 And I'm sure we'll see that in the future, but it's a very exciting journey and we've got a lot of really great things ahead of us.

01:37:01.920 And as those things come up, I'd love to meet those needs.

01:37:04.920 One of the things people want to do, and this, you know, has some overlap with at least in the realm of talking about kids, we've always wanted to do, you know, something akin to ostrich scouting.

01:37:19.280 But again, we have issues with distance.

01:37:22.540 Our kids live so far away from each other, especially ones that are the same gender and the same age, that it's made that, you know, something to dream about, but a really hard thing to put into practice.

01:37:34.920 Well, you know, the more people we get to move closer to one another, if we get more people to move to Sigerheim, if we get these things developing in the future, it makes those things much more realistic to make happen.

01:37:48.460 So we're always looking for ways to make tighter knit and bigger, more functional Ossetru communities.

01:37:57.020 And we're doing a lot in that regard.

01:37:59.040 But I think we'll see amazing things develop in their time.

01:38:04.920 just checking one last thing to make sure we don't miss something here I believe

01:38:14.280 believe that was our last question for the evening Rob thank you so much for everything

01:38:20.560 that you do thank you so much for all the amazing work with the academy and thank you

01:38:24.900 for coming on and being our guest tonight and teaching people about

01:38:27.300 yeah thank you for having me i always enjoy being on well we we look forward to having you all on

01:38:37.220 again soon um yep hope all the rest of you guys have a good night

01:38:42.820 hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and remember that victory never sleeps.

01:39:12.820 Thank you.

01:39:42.820 Thank you.

01:40:12.820 Thank you.

01:40:42.820 Thank you.

01:41:12.820 Thank you.

01:41:42.820 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - August 03, 2023

8⧸2⧸2023 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 56 - Prince Hermann of the Cherusci

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