Asatru Folk Assembly - 8⧸24⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 7

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:03:00.000 Hello, everybody, and welcome to Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:27.300 It's good to be back.

00:03:28.620 I'm sorry I missed y'all last week.

00:03:31.400 I was getting pretty used to these, so I'm glad to be back tonight.

00:03:35.740 Joining us, we've got Githya Katie Erickson, a very good friend of mine, a woman that has

00:03:41.240 been extremely active in the Astru Folk Assembly, and specifically, she's done a lot of work

00:03:49.920 and is running our GOTHAR training program.

00:03:55.340 Hey, Katie, how are you doing tonight?

00:03:57.080 I'm doing well.

00:03:58.100 How are you? Doing good. Doing good. Can you kind of start off this evening by telling us a little

00:04:06.980 bit about yourself and how you got involved in Ausitru and then how you got involved in the

00:04:12.820 Ausitru Folk Assembly? Sure. I'm Katie. I have been pagan or just, you know, randomly out there

00:04:25.760 in the pagan world for about 25 years now uh started when i was 12 um i'm not super excited

00:04:33.680 to admit it was because of the movie the craft but everybody starts somewhere and that's where

00:04:39.340 i got my start um i learned a lot after that like that the craft was entirely false and people can't

00:04:48.700 summon mono and change their faces using magic and all that stuff but um i found a connection

00:04:55.360 with the ideas of multiple deities and with the idea of finding our spirituality and nature and

00:05:05.560 things like that that appealed to me way more than my Catholic upbringing ever did. And so I

00:05:12.460 just followed that for a long time by myself until I met some some people in New Jersey where I grew

00:05:20.100 up and they introduced me to theodism and uh technically got my start with also true through

00:05:27.300 theodism um i was theodish for about 10 years ish yeah and then um eventually that

00:05:38.660 sort of fell apart and then i found

00:05:41.540 the afa through some at the time mutual friends uh i met my husband at one of their events and

00:05:51.340 it sort of all spiraled from there so i've been in the afa since 2016 um no looking back

00:05:59.380 It's been the best place I've been.

00:06:04.780 Well, great. I'm glad to hear that.

00:06:13.260 I suppose before we start going on questions, I want to, I don't know, give an update of folks of all the cool things that have happened the past couple of weeks.

00:06:25.260 it's been a been a busy two weeks on the 13th we did our dedication of newards off

00:06:32.540 the fourth half of the ass true folk assembly and that hoffs in white springs florida for those that

00:06:39.580 may not know and that was a really powerful really amazing event those folks down in florida have

00:06:46.460 worked so hard for this hoff and they were so

00:06:49.580 I don't know, so honored. And so it affected them so profoundly to be able to dedicate this

00:06:58.340 Hoff to New York. It was a really, really special thing to see. I'm sure a lot of you've seen by now

00:07:05.740 the mural that we have there, but Svon did a, did a fantastic job on that. He's, he's really,

00:07:13.240 you know, he's really up in his game with each one of these that, that comes around. And it's

00:07:17.920 really impressive if you guys ever get a chance to go see it I would highly recommend it um but

00:07:23.780 yeah and then I made a really quick turnaround last week and I went up to Baldershof for Fall Fest

00:07:28.680 and uh it is always very special to go to Baldershof but those people have put so much

00:07:35.600 love into the place every time I go there there's new uh new elements or things that they've

00:07:43.000 repaired or things that they've embellished and made prettier and made better um their

00:07:47.120 ancestor altar has been really beefed up and is is amazing their lc christensen altar is is amazing

00:07:54.560 and the framing in work to frame um where we have the mural of balder and the the dais up front

00:08:01.840 they did some some gabling work there and then some some gold curtains and it looks

00:08:06.480 absolutely beautiful so i hope everybody's gotten a chance to check out those pictures

00:08:10.400 so now is the time that i would uh plug plug our entropy but entropy is not working on my end so

00:08:22.700 i'm trying to get that figured out on the back end here um in the meantime any of you guys

00:08:33.940 questions please make sure you get those out there and nick will get them to me on the side

00:08:38.060 until i get uh my entropy situation figured out a little bit better once again i apologize for that

00:08:45.100 nick if you could throw up the entropy link because uh it appears that you are you are seeing it so

00:08:53.580 that's something

00:08:58.940 all right do we have any any questions to start us out tonight

00:09:03.580 and i guess while we're waiting on those could you tell us a little bit about what you do

00:09:10.460 with our go thar program and first i guess for people that want to know

00:09:16.060 what is that and then what do you do in regards to that program

00:09:20.460 our new godies go there um

00:09:33.980 sorry i got distracted by my screen it blinked at me um and it's a it's a i'd like to think it's a

00:09:41.020 comprehensive program uh whit and brandy callahan and i spent a lot of time going over all of the

00:09:47.500 the lesson plans and things like that. We designed our curriculum, I guess, to as best

00:09:58.600 as possible train our potential Godar to really understand what it means to be a Godar because

00:10:09.000 our Godar are not just people who show up and do weddings and stuff. We're the people

00:10:15.240 who answer our phones at three in the morning when somebody's having an emergency or some sort of

00:10:21.800 um crisis of some sort where the people who are there to to solve personal conflicts between

00:10:30.920 individual members and sometimes with people who aren't in the afa like if you're having issues

00:10:36.920 with your spouse who is not an afa member uh we are there to help with that um we've helped people

00:10:44.280 with all kinds of things, things you can imagine and things you can't imagine. Our Godhar are there

00:10:53.320 for the best things, but we're also there for the worst things and trying to help our members

00:10:59.000 realize that we are there always. You can reach out to any of us all the time, it's really hard.

00:11:05.400 And what we do in the Godhar program basically is to make sure that our Godhi and Gideas are as

00:11:11.720 prepared as possible to help our folks in every way that they can help our folks um

00:11:18.920 was there more to that question that i forgot

00:11:24.600 what you do and how you're involved with it um i don't i want people to really understand how

00:11:29.800 much work you put into making that work because i think it's it's one of those things that from

00:11:35.400 the outside folks may just assume some somehow spontaneously occurs and it's important that folks

00:11:43.480 realize we've got people behind the scenes that put in a lot of work to make sure that happens

00:11:49.000 the right way uh like i said brandy uh whit and brandy callahan and i spent many many many weeks

00:11:59.240 talking about the different curriculums and the different lesson plans we wanted to have in there

00:12:03.560 because we really wanted to make sure that our curriculum or our our course was designed

00:12:09.720 specifically for the AFA and not uh not just like a random anybody can take it and become a

00:12:18.280 a GOLAR sort of thing my job as the I guess administrator for the most part is to um communicate

00:12:26.760 with all of our mentors we have our GOLAR who mentor our new students and they are their

00:12:31.960 personal contacts throughout the course they speak often they're supposed to speak like twice a month

00:12:38.680 at least on the phone they are supposed to make sure that all of the assignments are being done

00:12:43.960 and turned in they're supposed to review all of them at the same time that they are doing that

00:12:48.680 my job is to make sure that they are doing that so i'm supposed to be in constant contact with

00:12:53.400 our our mentors i'm in constant contact with our students i read every assignment that comes in

00:12:59.320 through uh from our students i read every single one of them if there are issues with any of the

00:13:04.760 assignments i reach out to the students to talk about it to see where the miscommunication or

00:13:10.920 misunderstanding comes from and to help them understand why in the afa we might do things

00:13:17.960 differently that's not something that happens too often um usually it comes to like if we're

00:13:23.000 going over a counseling scenario and somebody's got a rigid stance on something that we shouldn't

00:13:28.920 we don't really have a rigid stance on our job is to my job is to like

00:13:34.440 help them move past that things like that um that's it not i mean it's more than that i that's

00:13:43.000 that's the bulk of the work though is talking to everybody and reading all of the assignments and

00:13:49.160 making sure everything is running the way it's supposed to run well let me just say you do a

00:13:54.440 a phenomenal job at that. I know that it's stressful and you guys have pretty much had

00:13:59.200 to restructure the program entirely and it's appreciated and you're doing an amazing job

00:14:07.200 at it. So I've got my entropy situation figured out now for a sec. I apologize about that

00:14:12.480 guys. And I got some questions up. I have a question from Brandy. What do you feel are

00:14:20.820 the major difference in this for you katie what do you feel are the major differences

00:14:24.580 between your theodish experience and the austral folk assembly

00:14:33.220 try to keep it brief um the biggest biggest difference is the structure of theism itself

00:14:40.660 in theodism you the entire structure is oath based so you have your

00:14:48.100 um equivalent of the al-shear godi at the top and he has his witten members and then he has

00:14:55.540 his thanes um we'll call them govar for the sake of understanding but and then you have your

00:15:03.380 everybody else everybody swears an oath to somebody who ranks above them so the witten

00:15:09.140 members swear their oath to the al-shear godi the thanes swear their oaths to one of the witten

00:15:14.340 members and you choose an individual it's not to all of the women members as a whole it's to an

00:15:18.420 individual um and then all of the the regular people down there just the regular members would

00:15:25.380 swear their oath to one of the thanes or one of the godar um and this way everybody it creates

00:15:32.420 like a web of owing um we obviously don't do that in the afa our our oaths are to the afa

00:15:41.060 um and i feel like this is a much more practical way of doing it because when you're theodish

00:15:53.140 theodism for me it was kind of like a men's club i was one of very few women outside of

00:15:59.060 family members who attended who was actually theodish and sore note and it could be complicated

00:16:08.020 sometimes not like it was a boys club and i was the the chick who showed up and gave people beer

00:16:15.620 when they asked for it basically and so uh yeah that doesn't happen and there are a lot of conflicts

00:16:22.660 with people in theodism because it's very ego driven everybody wants to be the witten member

00:16:27.780 not everybody can be the witten member um or the the wayford thing which is what they would have

00:16:34.420 have been called because they like to use all the pretty anglo-saxon um terms the biggest

00:16:41.300 difference after that would be that they were a reconstructionist group they believed in

00:16:48.260 reconstructing what our ancestors did so they read whatever they could from the editors from

00:16:55.060 from any historical sources that they had and they tried to recreate that um the biggest

00:17:00.900 problem with this is that it's a very backwards facing faith they they don't they're not looking

00:17:07.460 forward to the future they're not looking forward their faith they're not moving forward with their

00:17:13.300 faith they're moving it backwards and this becomes a really big problem because then you have people

00:17:18.340 who are like very focused on things like their honor in terms of martialness which is you know

00:17:25.380 fighting and if you if you hurt their honor they're gonna challenge you to home gang

00:17:31.300 um and for anybody who doesn't know what that is that's basically where you beat each other up and

00:17:35.300 whoever wins who's the winner and it's it's yeah that's

00:17:44.660 the failed men that i've seen don't strike me as the people that would be particularly good

00:17:51.620 at uh at that sort of combat probably not so much i'm sure some of them were uh could have been

00:18:00.580 surprising but fair enough i would indeed be surprised so we've got uh daniel's got a question

00:18:10.180 for you what misconceptions about women in ouster true would you like to clear up

00:18:14.500 um that were like the 1950s housewives who do nothing but you know make dinner for their

00:18:23.300 husbands and and are subservient i have never met a subservient woman in the afa we have respectful

00:18:32.340 women we have women who are proud to be married to their husbands and who are happy and proud to

00:18:38.900 fulfill the feminine role of a housekeeper and a mother i'm one of those women i don't have a job

00:18:43.860 outside of the house my job is to take care of my family i'm very proud of that um i don't do it

00:18:49.460 because i've been told i have to do it because i want to because i think it's important for my

00:18:53.860 children and it's important for my husband and it's important for myself i think that's probably

00:18:58.500 the biggest misconception people have about the afa right now they think that we're all into this

00:19:05.060 this 1950s larvae world day where the women are ready with hot dinner on the table and

00:19:13.780 will take your shoes off and put your slippers on and things like that first those things are

00:19:20.660 awesome but secondly i would like that's something i would like um understood about the afa in

00:19:28.260 general um and i think some of this has come about fairly when people are dissatisfied with

00:19:35.380 the state of the world that we're in it's very easy to get carried away with costuming and larping

00:19:45.380 something from days gone by instead of organically trying to i don't know reinstill some values or

00:19:52.740 some of the mindset and uh it's very important in the afa that we're not trying to pretend that

00:19:58.340 we're anybody we're not we're trying not trying to pretend we're living in any any age that we're

00:20:03.540 not living in we're we're modern folks living in 2022 and doing our very best to embody and live

00:20:14.580 values that uh values that are eternal and timeless and i think that's also a misconception

00:20:21.300 So Brandy asks, I'll tell you, Goethe, what was your best memory or experience from both the dedication of Njordzhof and Fall Fest?

00:20:35.140 It's hard because there was, you know, so many beautiful things at both of those events.

00:20:40.420 um as far as as far as a fun memory i've just got to throw out that uh folks in the kitchen

00:20:49.360 um mike and pam did amazing uh mike uh mike joiner our folk builder in the area made

00:20:58.120 homemade sausage for us with homemade uh pulled pork and homemade rolls and he made this amazing

00:21:07.540 homemade gumbo that was fantastic and the food there was really on point but a little bit more

00:21:14.660 serious on that one seeing both of them just in tears and literally in an ecstatic state

00:21:24.020 being able to take such good care of us and present the feast at njortzhoff was really cool

00:21:29.220 to see but uh my real favorite moment uh from yord's off dedication was when i believe it was

00:21:40.260 at the uh the wayfarer's bloat is it occurred to me and i was i was telling everybody there that uh

00:21:48.900 i was reiterating the the significance of that moment for the first time in

00:21:56.660 In thousands of years, we gave Njorther his very own hof to be worshipped in.

00:22:09.140 And on that day, when we gave him that, and he looked out from his altar, ours were the faces that he saw.

00:22:18.080 And that moves me very much, even right now, recounting it.

00:22:22.340 um my favorite thing from fall fest

00:22:26.180 i don't know there's there's wonderful things uh you know brandy you you got us set up with the

00:22:35.420 most amazing uh b&b that leadership shared so we had a place to stay and it was this

00:22:40.500 spectacular victorian mansion it was absolutely ridiculous in the best possible way

00:22:46.940 um but also a real serious one on that was our sumble and it wasn't a massive sumble but it was

00:22:55.060 a very very special very emotional very intimate sumble and uh i mean there wasn't a dry eye in

00:23:02.180 the house it was really special and i was honored to be a part of that

00:23:05.140 um pam says i assume this is for katie is it hard being a githia married to a gothy

00:23:14.580 uh luckily for me it is not i don't know if that would be true across the board um but uh

00:23:26.420 witten erickson and i often don't cross paths in the go the give you a world we're usually working

00:23:33.220 on completely different things and we are um very much we think very similarly about a lot of things

00:23:41.540 so we don't clash very often which is nice um usually he he helps me when i'm having issues

00:23:47.700 figuring certain things out and occasionally i do the same for him so no i don't i don't find it too

00:23:52.980 terribly difficult cody asks giffy katie uh what would you say to those young women wishing to

00:24:04.660 join the afa but thinking that it's nothing but a boys club i'd say join

00:24:13.380 um i hope that the misconception that we're a boys club is starting to kind of go away

00:24:20.260 because the more pictures we post the more often we find ourselves just inundated with women

00:24:26.180 uh many people know this because i've said it before or somebody else who isn't me has it uh

00:24:32.340 10 years ago it would have been impossible to imagine a world where also true had this many

00:24:38.260 women in it and uh it was even more impossible to imagine also true with this many children in it

00:24:44.020 and we you're never going to find pictures of another group with this many women and this many

00:24:50.460 children in it and i hope that that helps a lot with convincing women that we're not a boys club

00:24:55.540 and they should just join we have certainly been blessed with with wonderful ladies and

00:25:01.820 and so many amazing children. It's been really special to see. Apparently, while entropy was

00:25:08.140 was acting up on me, Sunshine Sucks donated $10. We appreciate that so much. Thank you.

00:25:17.500 Pam asks, Katie, do you ever feel less than because you are a woman?

00:25:23.580 um no the only time i ever feel less than as a woman is when i let my own personal

00:25:34.220 self-esteem issues get in the way like i think most women do

00:25:37.980 uh society being what society is uh in the afa i don't know um i have maybe when i was

00:25:47.900 thanish being a woman was a lot harder um and i could be a little more hard on myself because

00:25:56.300 of the way i was treated but i've never had that as an issue in the afa ever

00:26:06.140 um don asks as a religion with no so-called ten commandments how can modern alsatru help someone

00:26:16.060 be a better person in daily life today katie go ahead and take a swing at that one

00:26:23.660 um i feel like being a good person is sort of a universal thing uh we know what it means to

00:26:31.660 be a good person whether or not people follow through with that is a whole other thing but we

00:26:35.500 shouldn't need anybody to command us to know that it's not cool to go kill someone or that it's not

00:26:41.740 cool to take things from other people that don't belong to us um obviously i know our viking

00:26:47.340 ancestors you know went out and viked and stuff but back then it was a lot more of a necessity

00:26:54.060 than it was not because they didn't have the things we have or access to the things we have

00:27:01.020 um i also know that the afa is forward-facing and as a forward-facing faith that means we also

00:27:07.900 follow the laws of the land we live in so if something you want to do breaks the law

00:27:14.460 don't do it it's probably not good for you it's definitely not good for your reputation or for

00:27:22.460 the way people will know you and if people know you as a bad person then that sort of makes you

00:27:26.860 a bad person at least in the eyes of the people you want to see you as not a bad person and like

00:27:33.580 we want to matter and we want our names to be remembered when we die and would you rather your

00:27:39.920 name be remembered because you did stupid stuff and were bad or would you like your name to be

00:27:45.180 remembered because you were awesome and did great things for our folks you know i think that's a

00:27:51.700 a really important point and it's a it's a point of contention i have with um a lot of the faith

00:27:59.340 community. And specifically, I've heard a lot of Christian faith leaders propose that their

00:28:06.780 religion is the only thing that, you know, would help mankind know the difference between right

00:28:12.160 and wrong. And I think that, you know, I would like to, I would like to, and it'd be a cool

00:28:19.120 selling point to say that, you know, you need Alcetru or else you have to be a terrible person.

00:28:26.080 but i think that human experience and common sense tells us that's not the case i think also true

00:28:31.120 does a lot to maximize being a good person but on basic things we have an inborn sense of right

00:28:39.120 and wrong and specifically us as a folk have an inborn nobility to recognize good and bad behavior

00:28:48.320 and unfortunately and you know katie brought this up a little bit too with the different

00:28:52.480 historical situations context is everything and what may have been a good thing to do in 750 is

00:29:01.280 not necessarily a good thing to do in 2022 it's the challenge of our folk to be able to

00:29:10.000 use wisdom to pick the right action in the right time that so much of the rune rido which is the

00:29:18.560 the rune of our priesthood, is the right action at the right time. There's much in Ausitru to

00:29:26.660 teach you how to be a good person. And, you know, I'd say there's much in Christianity that goes

00:29:30.960 beyond, you know, just 10 commandments that teaches you a way of living. Certainly in Ausitru,

00:29:37.400 the example of our ancestors, the wisdom of our Gotharan, our leaders, the counseling of our

00:29:45.060 are in leaders. And thousands of years of our history inform us very well on actions that are

00:29:54.760 noble hearted and actions that aren't. And Ausitru does a good job in emphasizing those

00:30:01.360 because the values are eternal, whereas the actions, you know, have a lot of situation to

00:30:07.320 them. But because Ausitru is a traditional faith, that tradition, these values have been

00:30:14.220 eternal since the dawn of our folk and we'll continue into the future it's a matter of

00:30:19.100 interpreting the situation and how how to enact those in the situation that we're in

00:30:26.060 sarah asks katie how do you balance being a mom wife and githia

00:30:34.940 i'm not sure that i do um that's definitely been the hardest part of

00:30:40.620 becoming a Gidea. I went through my training right after my son was born and I was breastfeeding and

00:30:51.900 every time I tried to read anything that I was supposed to read and there was a lot of reading

00:30:56.460 I would fall asleep. But I managed to make it through and I am grateful and honored to be able

00:31:03.660 to be a giddio but trying to balance the time um and it i think it's harder too because with

00:31:11.100 cliff also being a godi and a witten member our time is pulled in so many different directions

00:31:17.180 and sometimes we just have to say no we're not going to do that thing for the afa right now

00:31:24.940 we're going to spend some time with our kids but at the same time sometimes we have to say no we

00:31:29.100 can't spend time with our kids because we've got a phone call we have to make and um it could be

00:31:33.500 hard but luckily our kids are young and uh they're resilient and they get over things really fast

00:31:39.740 they don't really care sometimes that we're not in the room with them because they're doing their

00:31:43.660 own thing um but it's worth it for me for two reasons it's worth it for me because i have

00:31:49.980 never wanted anything really more than i've ever wanted to be a giddy i mean i wanted outside of

00:31:57.340 my family i've always wanted to be a giddy i've always wanted to be somebody who could be there

00:32:01.740 to help my folk um even when i was theadish i was i was trying to do the same thing but it was a lot

00:32:09.420 harder um to make that happen so when i got the opportunity i took it i won't ever regret it um

00:32:17.980 but i'm also doing it because i want my children to grow up in a house where

00:32:23.340 where also true is everything and so far they are and they're seeing me and my husband putting

00:32:29.960 in all of this work to make our church better for them and i'm hoping that our passion for it

00:32:35.680 will rub off on them and that they will one day grow up to also want to be um godar for our folk

00:32:41.260 or if not godar at least some other sort of leadership for our folks i really like the last

00:32:50.160 part of what she said specifically. And I think oftentimes a false paradigm is created where

00:33:00.160 people, you know, ask what's more important, your family or your faith or your marriage or your

00:33:05.840 children or your work as a Githya or some other aspect of your life. And I think the goal for all

00:33:13.660 of us should be to make the different aspects of our life synergize. Yeah, there's only 24 hours in

00:33:23.400 the day and necessarily, you know, necessarily if you're doing one thing, you can't be doing

00:33:27.740 another thing at the same time. Some of us multitask better than others, I suppose.

00:33:34.320 But in the big picture, the work you do for your family should

00:33:39.720 be congruent with the work you do for your faith. The work you do for the House True Folk Assembly

00:33:45.560 should be work that involves your family. I find the more that you get every aspect of your life

00:33:53.640 to connect and to synergize and to literally be wholesome, the better things work out. And that's

00:34:00.920 certainly how it's been in my life. Katie, can you speak on winter nights and what everyone,

00:34:06.880 especially the women can look forward to winter nights is awesome um we

00:34:16.660 haven't really thought about this one sorry um winter nights is always my favorite uh some of

00:34:28.480 it is because i'm in charge of helping to run it and so i'm kind of partial to it uh i've always as

00:34:36.320 woman had a strong connection to the desir and to the feminine aspect of things um and so this

00:34:45.360 is a really good time for our women to to bond over something more than just the regular not

00:34:53.840 that the regular spiritual stuff isn't awesome the regular spiritual stuff is awesome but this is a

00:34:59.840 very female centric holiday and a very female centric ritual um and that can be really special

00:35:06.960 for a lot of women because a lot of women don't necessarily have access to that um

00:35:13.360 we focus a lot of our energy towards the masculine side of things and that's not bad i'm not i'm not

00:35:21.200 trying to downplay that i'm just trying to ramp up the idea that winter nights is awesome because

00:35:25.920 we get to be really feminine and uh um yeah we have the desir bloat which i will be running

00:35:33.760 uh can't tell you much about that because there's not much to tell the ritual to the

00:35:38.560 desir you have to show if you want to know more um but we also have our women's group which is

00:35:44.240 one of my favorite things we started the women's group a couple years ago and i've made it a mission

00:35:51.040 of mine to make sure that there's a women's group at as many of our national gatherings as possible

00:35:55.360 because it is a chance for our women to get together in a room with no men and talk or learn

00:36:03.360 or bond or all of those things um you can look forward to that i know if you have children we're

00:36:08.720 going to be having a lot of amazing children's things there will be a costume thing going on for

00:36:14.720 the kids since it's so close i know that a couple of our folk are going to be coming wearing some of

00:36:20.240 their authentic german garb and they have invited all of our folk to bring and wear theirs if they

00:36:26.080 have it on saturday because i think they're trying to put together like an impromptu

00:36:31.040 uh photo op for them they have children so lots of little children running around in

00:36:36.400 trindles and um the boy ones that i can't remember the name of right now

00:36:43.040 yeah so it's the later chosen uh seeing a bunch of little kids like five and under wearing those

00:36:47.760 will be pretty awesome because who doesn't want to watch a little kids running around in those

00:36:51.120 things so that's going to happen i mean there's a lot if you want to know more about winter nights

00:36:55.840 you should show up it's gonna be amazing solid advice everybody you guys should all come to

00:37:02.000 winter nights in ohio uh and what weekend in october is that katie the weekend of the 13th

00:37:12.560 14. i know it's that weekend i just don't know which one is saturday excellent all right we'll

00:37:18.080 mix on it he's got at the bottom of the screen already uh ali asks uh githya is there any

00:37:24.320 possibility of a doula program at some point in the future i would love to have astro guidance

00:37:30.880 and involvement in future births there's always a possibility for that i know we don't have one

00:37:39.760 right now there are only four givyas and none of us are particularly doula certified in any way but

00:37:47.520 we have lots of members who are interested in it and um we can if there are women who need help of

00:37:54.640 that nature we can certainly find somebody who can help you in the afa um but it's definitely

00:38:00.640 an idea for something to do moving forward yeah i uh just to chime in on that i would love to see

00:38:07.520 that if uh if that or if that develops there's got to be a certain amount of organic growth to that

00:38:15.200 um but if we have some ladies who are certified and skilled in that i'd love to see that happen

00:38:22.080 at some point i'm not there yet but uh that's definitely something that would be nice katla

00:38:28.560 asks katie do you feel that your previous practice of magic has enhanced your practices

00:38:35.280 as a githya and asa tree i'm gonna go with yes uh for many years i was you know i like i said

00:38:44.640 before i i bounced around and did the wiccan thing for a little while um that never suited

00:38:50.240 and when i was just randomly pagan um i was i didn't have any rules about what i could or

00:38:59.120 couldn't do because i didn't really believe in the whole white magic black magic evil

00:39:04.320 not evil i believed that energy is energy and so i was able to really like explore that and

00:39:11.120 explore the magic side of things i was lucky enough to have friends in my life at the time

00:39:16.880 who were very magically inclined and and very gifted and they helped me a lot um

00:39:26.000 and uh before i knew what saith was i was basically doing saith and my friends were

00:39:32.640 doing it with me i don't think we had a particular name for it um and now that i'm also true and i

00:39:37.920 have uh i have a right a better path for that i think i think it did help me a lot yeah because

00:39:43.760 i didn't i wasn't held back by like the idea that i had to do things a certain way i didn't have to

00:39:49.520 do them the way some book about ancient things told me i had to do them and i wasn't held back

00:39:55.440 by the the wiccan ideas that all fluffy bunny wiccans have you know the fluffy bunny stuff i

00:40:02.720 don't know i never cared for that very much it's why wiccan didn't last very long but uh yeah i do

00:40:08.560 i think it helped a lot um pam asks how important do you feel the female role is in aussitrew

00:40:19.600 i can answer this one i feel like the female role in aussitrew is extremely important and

00:40:24.560 super underrated there's the first part of the whole men can't do it without women uh we are

00:40:32.080 partners in this we are pairs and um that's just the way it is you can't make children without

00:40:40.400 both the male and the female you can't raise families properly without both the male and the

00:40:45.840 female um we do what we have to do but um yeah something that that isn't often talked about but

00:40:54.240 that i bring up um as often as i can is the role of the frith weaver uh women are inherently

00:41:01.200 magical it's just in our blood so to speak um and we have the ability whether it's practiced

00:41:09.920 or natural or both to control the energy around people and when i say that i mean if you have

00:41:18.080 somebody who's around you who's really anxious about something or or really worked up about

00:41:23.280 something sometimes a woman walking up and just putting their hand on their back or on their arm

00:41:28.560 and patting it gently and saying hey how are you doing how's it going there's enough to calm that

00:41:33.280 person down not always but it can be and as a frith weaver if you know how to to work that energy

00:41:39.920 can really control that mood in a room and help just prevent things from escalating in a bad way

00:41:46.480 and i think that's really important i i can't remember i think it was in beowulf i don't

00:41:52.800 remember it's been a long time since i've looked it up but um there's actual evidence of this

00:41:58.640 written in some of our lore about the lady of the hall walking around the people who were

00:42:03.600 being frithful but only because they were in a hall and they had to be like enemies who were

00:42:10.860 getting along for the sake of the hall and she was able to weave through the room and can like

00:42:16.680 help smooth things out that that's a real thing another thing that women do that men can't do

00:42:24.160 um is if you're in a high stumble the man can carry the horn around the circle but that's really

00:42:30.300 it's supposed to be the woman a woman is supposed to carry a horn around and stumble and the reason

00:42:35.320 why that's so important is because a woman is fruitful and men are chaotic by nature their

00:42:40.380 energies are very masculine and very martial which is the word i used earlier it just means

00:42:46.040 they're the warriors they're martial um and because of that it means that their their their

00:42:51.340 energy is very different i say chaotic chaotic isn't probably probably the right word it's just

00:42:56.480 word i have right now and a woman hands the man a horn and when she takes it back

00:43:01.920 back her energy and her frith basically wipes that negative not negative it's not negative

00:43:10.480 but that chaotic energy out and makes the horn frithful again so that when she hands it to the

00:43:15.360 next person she's handing them a frithful horn and uh that's one of our most important things

00:43:21.280 that women do and it's one of the reasons why our Gideas do it but it's also one of the reasons why

00:43:27.520 i always try to make sure that a non-Gidea does third round during symbol because it's because

00:43:35.760 it's one of our most important roles it's one of the best ways i have of excuse me of honoring a

00:43:41.440 woman for going above and beyond when she doesn't have to for hard work for helping set up an event

00:43:49.040 or just hard work in her district in general um yeah that's what i got

00:43:56.960 because there wasn't a name attached on the question i'm gonna go throw in my two cents here

00:44:00.960 also um what katie said about the group dynamic is so essential and has always been essential to

00:44:10.720 our folk and we see it in you know we see it in mundane life as well but it was raised to

00:44:15.920 a level of sacrality with our ancestors women have the ability to

00:44:23.920 create peace and to build frith they also have the ability to destroy those things and i think

00:44:32.880 we've all seen that um when women want to help everybody get along they have an amazing power

00:44:39.120 to do that and when women want to stir strife behind the scenes they also have an amazing power

00:44:47.200 to do that uh it's been a number of i worked as a bouncer in bars for a long time there's been a

00:44:52.480 number of guys that have ended up getting fights with me because their girlfriend you know prompted

00:44:58.240 them into it and they've literally mouthed to me you know i'm sorry i i don't want to do this right

00:45:05.040 before they came at me so it's it's an important thing that women have that power for good or for

00:45:10.080 ill um in a room full of people if you have a man that's uncomfortable or lacks confidence

00:45:19.280 if our women show him deference it builds his stature and builds his confidence in a really

00:45:25.760 important way whereas you know if you have somebody that that's full of themselves but

00:45:30.960 the women don't pay them attention it diminishes that women have a tremendous power to do social

00:45:38.560 selection and social engineering in in the hall and in our society in general and it's it's very

00:45:46.080 important um all of that is just the uh the group dynamic aspect when we talk about women being

00:45:56.240 involved in our ritual function our ancestors always believed that the women connected to

00:46:03.200 the other world be that through the to the divine to the ancestors across the veil in a very special

00:46:09.840 way that men were were not built the same way to do so having our gipheas be able to charge the horn

00:46:17.520 and engage in a lot of metaphysical practice with the afa is a huge asset

00:46:27.040 i think having balance is really important but i've never been one and i will never be one to

00:46:36.240 to stack the deck in such a way that i think you know we need to balance things without merit

00:46:42.840 So we're really blessed that right now so many women in the AFA have risen to positions of authority within the AFA that are worthy and capable.

00:46:53.700 We've got amazing Gipheas and very proud to have them with us.

00:47:03.700 Looking at some other stuff here, I believe Katie is away for a moment.

00:47:09.140 It seems like you get there. She's back. I was going to say you guys got a lot of questions for Katie and not as many for me to sort through.

00:47:17.280 Now is also a decent time to plug entropy. It's back up. It's working.

00:47:22.040 And you guys can go there if you feel so inclined to give us a tip or if you want to engage in the super chats.

00:47:28.600 We get a lot of questions back up. If you want me to ask yours next with a little donation in that super chat section, we'll get yours asked quickly.

00:47:39.140 please don't feel obligated.

00:47:40.540 I would love to answer all your questions for free

00:47:42.700 and I'll stay on here as late tonight as I need to

00:47:44.900 to make sure all those questions get answered.

00:47:47.240 But it's a fun thing and it gives us, you know,

00:47:49.500 a few ducats here and there to further the cause

00:47:52.420 and we appreciate it very much.

00:47:55.900 Heather asks, Githya Katie,

00:47:57.520 what are some of the Ask the Truth things you do

00:47:59.520 with your kids at home?

00:48:05.740 I'm glad you brought that up.

00:48:07.780 Since my children are like the most important things

00:48:11.040 in my life, this is something that's very important to me.

00:48:15.820 And I hope that a lot of women can also take something

00:48:21.320 from this.

00:48:22.200 I'm going to say the most important thing that we do

00:48:25.000 is we read to them.

00:48:26.400 We read to them every night.

00:48:28.040 We take turns reading to each child.

00:48:30.420 Like I read to Alice while he's reading to Owen.

00:48:33.420 And we read to them Dallaires

00:48:34.720 and we read to them Children of Odin.

00:48:36.200 Those are our two favorites.

00:48:38.560 We'll probably invest in some more

00:48:40.180 now that we've got a couple of other recommendations

00:48:42.600 from some of our fellow Godar, but those are our favorite.

00:48:46.140 And the reason why reading to them every day,

00:48:48.880 reading our lore to them is so important

00:48:50.500 is because it introduces our gods to them.

00:48:52.380 And we don't tell them that they're stories.

00:48:54.080 We tell them that we're reading them stories

00:48:55.640 about our gods and our gods are real.

00:48:57.840 So to them, the stories are real.

00:49:00.220 And it's just, it's so important.

00:49:02.480 My son, Owen, asks so many questions about Thor, who's his current favorite, but he's

00:49:08.740 okay with Odin.

00:49:12.080 He asks questions constantly, all the time, questions that you wouldn't even think about.

00:49:16.220 And I couldn't even begin to tell you what the questions are right now because I brought

00:49:19.800 it up and so obviously I can't think of them, but also because they're the kinds of questions

00:49:23.640 a four-year-old asks, but they're so much more insightful than you would think they

00:49:27.620 are.

00:49:28.620 And when we don't know an answer to the question properly, we, I remember saying that we make something up at the New York Talk dedication when I was in the leadership panel, but we don't really make up the answer.

00:49:41.620 We just, we find an answer that best fits the question.

00:49:45.620 So it's not necessarily the most straightforward answer or the most accurate answer to the question, but it's a good enough answer that Owen is usually satisfied.

00:49:55.620 outside um another thing that we do every day with him is we do our meal blessings

00:50:02.340 uh usually just at dinner because uh my husband is usually gone for breakfast and it's usually

00:50:09.540 they eat when they tell me they're ready to eat so it can be scattered it's not always at the same

00:50:15.460 time but we always do our meal blessings at dinner and sometimes we follow the uh

00:50:20.180 the traditional um version uh where you choose the four gods you know any four

00:50:27.460 gods you want uh Odin, Balder, Brer, Ljord and we we bless this food that kind of

00:50:36.940 thing we do that often pretty much all the time because my son prefers that one

00:50:40.500 but I also really like the uh the blessing from Alan Turnage, Witten Alan Turnage

00:50:46.180 that they use at Thorsoff. I know that I can get it for everybody. I sent it to our friend

00:50:57.920 Nick earlier and then promptly closed it so I don't have access to it right now, but it's

00:51:03.880 really neat. There it is. We bless this food to might and main our bodies needs to fill

00:51:12.300 to keep us hearty whole and hail so that we may work our will ancestors guide us walk beside us

00:51:17.580 help us in our needs keep us on a path that is true because we are our need hail the gods

00:51:23.980 i really like that one personally um i think some of it is because i grew up catholic and we always

00:51:28.860 you know we said we we held hands and said grace and um i like the routine

00:51:35.820 of something like that it's very regular and it's very easy to remember and um

00:51:42.300 i don't know i like it but my son prefers the traditional one so that's what we do most of the

00:51:47.580 time um and it's really cute because now my son he gets really shy some for some reason when we're

00:51:54.540 um we're doing it he'll tell me he wants to do he wants to bless the meal but then he'll say

00:52:00.060 he wants to bless the meal to thor and then daddy has to say it but he's going to say the

00:52:04.460 thor part and it gets complicated but he's interested and he's learning about it and

00:52:08.220 And every once in a while, he'll say he'll stand up and he'll be like, in the name of Thor, hail.

00:52:13.840 And that's that's his meal blessing. And I'm OK with it because he's actively engaging and actively trying to do what we're doing.

00:52:21.340 My daughter now says, hail, eat, which means. The food is blessed time to eat, but we do it every night and they're learning and they're trying to be a part of it.

00:52:32.300 And that's really important because the more every day you can make it, the better.

00:52:36.000 other things that we do is try and find associations in everyday life so the most common one is when

00:52:44.460 it rains and there's thunder that's Thor beating up the Jotuns so we say hail Thor whenever we hear

00:52:50.660 thunder or if we see two crows because we don't really have ravens where I live we see two crows

00:52:56.080 we say oh do you think those are Odin's crows do you think they're watching us we know they're not

00:53:00.240 Odin's crows or they're probably not Odin's crows but if my son looks at crows and thinks of Odin

00:53:05.200 and every time he looks at uh crows he thinks of odin that means that the gods are now part of his

00:53:10.720 life every day or at least every time he sees crows the same thing can be said for a cat you

00:53:16.000 see a cat run across the street while you're driving oh do you think that's one of freya's cats

00:53:20.160 or um just anything like that anytime you can find a little association every day that brings

00:53:27.040 offspring to your children um that's what i'm i work on uh we also do little mini bloats and

00:53:34.240 i say mini bloats because they are always very short and they never follow any particular rules

00:53:40.800 because my children are involved and anybody with little children knows how

00:53:46.240 easy it is for things to veer off course drastically and quickly so we do mini bloats

00:53:51.600 pretty much anytime my son asks which is getting to be about once a week now um and he loved doing

00:53:57.120 stumble one of my greatest joys is when he raises his horn to terry rumpf as his ancestor in the

00:54:07.040 ancestor round my son met terry rumpf one time at ostara when he was two or just shy of two

00:54:13.520 and they sat on a bench and played for like half an hour and they had a grand old time and it's

00:54:18.340 the only time they ever met and my son remembers him by name and calls him his ancestor and he

00:54:24.800 talks about him every once in a while. But every time we do Ancestor Round, when we do our little

00:54:29.840 mini symbols with his little kid horn full of pink lemonade, he hails Terry Rumpf. And that's

00:54:35.280 amazing to me because he's remembering one of our folk who was passed on and hopefully he'll be

00:54:43.320 hailing Terry Rumpf all his life. But yeah, I had a couple other things that I can't think of right

00:54:51.360 now so those are the main things we do to try and make asa true every day for our kids

00:54:58.240 republic of vinland asked what do you guys think about the community

00:55:02.160 around the wisdom of odin youtube channel katie do you have any thoughts on that

00:55:13.040 sorry i am unfamiliar with it so i have no thoughts on it you know i i don't have any

00:55:20.080 thoughts on it as well i was under i was unaware there was a community built around that channel

00:55:25.760 i know that channel exists periodically folks on here ask me to reflect on it

00:55:32.080 anything i've heard about it's been anecdotal i've never listened to it myself so i really

00:55:36.400 don't have anything to offer on that but corey asks what is assemble and katie would you like

00:55:43.360 to explain what a sambal is sure excuse me sambal is a community ritual where we share frith and

00:55:59.280 in three rounds we pass a horn around and we hail our

00:56:02.800 gods first our ancestors or our fallen heroes second and then our community third um

00:56:09.600 um it sounds simple but it can be very very charged there's a lot of energy and a lot of

00:56:17.520 intention that goes into the one when we share it and it's a very super powerful community

00:56:23.520 building thing because when you're doing symbol you are hearing people talk about things that

00:56:31.440 they care about passionately people they care about passionately and things that make them

00:56:36.160 emotional and i have found myself crying during the ancestor round in particular i find myself

00:56:41.360 crying when other people speak often because they're putting so much of their energy and so

00:56:46.320 much of their emotion out there when they speak so you really you really get to know people and

00:56:50.640 bond with them during some form that's um probably the most powerful thing about it to me yeah symbol

00:56:59.440 is one of our one of the most beautiful things we do um when we share that horn and tell our

00:57:07.280 stories and open our hearts to the folk we're in that circle with um depends how much you

00:57:13.040 want to give of yourself some people you know very brief or very uh uninvolved uh toasts and that's

00:57:22.880 fine but some other people really really unload their heart in their toasts and brings us all so

00:57:30.320 much closer together uh kingdom of vinland asked uh does the afa use the nine noble virtues

00:57:39.360 absolutely we use the nine noble virtues those are amazing things and a very very important

00:57:44.880 part of house to true um we also uh honor the 10th noble virtue which is victory

00:57:53.520 um finn wraith asks but couldn't one point be that also true can be a good way to find

00:58:00.800 purpose in life i'm not sure what this is a follow-up to

00:58:07.200 but certainly also true is an amazing way to find purpose in life

00:58:11.120 um i can speak for myself also true is the way that i found a purpose in my life and i'm very

00:58:18.480 blessed for it uh brandy asks for both the alzharia gothi and githya erickson how has your

00:58:27.280 relationship with the gods and goddesses of our folk evolved over time go ahead and go first katie

00:58:33.040 sure um when i first came out of catholicism i was still catholic i just didn't know it

00:58:44.880 um i i didn't really internalize or have a really good conception of the idea of

00:58:53.280 paganism as in we have these other deities who are real separate individuals i had a

00:59:01.240 spiritual connection to it but it takes years sometimes to overcome the the ingrained monotheistic

00:59:10.640 mindset that most of us grow up with um and i was only 12 so uh my my ability to comprehend those

00:59:19.600 things was probably limited by the fact that i wasn't mature yet and i don't mean necessarily

00:59:26.300 mature in like my attitude i mean physically and mentally and all of that stuff i hadn't

00:59:32.620 grown up yet i didn't know enough so it took me a lot but when i became fevish uh even before that

00:59:40.540 i you know i didn't really have a particular pantheon that i was super close to but i know

00:59:45.980 that at one point when my my cat died i don't know that sounds stupid but i kind of found freya

00:59:51.260 because cats go with freya and that just made sense to me and i found comfort in that and

00:59:57.180 through freya i found asitre in the form of theodism but theodism had a very very catholic

01:00:05.280 approach to things too in that everybody stood in a circle around our our high godi who would

01:00:15.280 do ritual oftentimes not in english so you never really had a super strong connection to what was

01:00:21.100 going on um so we had to find that on our own um and that's kind of hard to do sometimes

01:00:28.300 um finding those connections on your own because sometimes you don't know where to look and there's

01:00:34.700 a lot of very misleading information out there more now than there was when i was doing all of

01:00:38.860 this because the uh the pagan books were usually limited to like silver raven wolf and whoever else

01:00:47.900 white woman with an indian name um there was uh losing my train of thought because i got

01:00:55.740 distracted by white women with indian names i'm sorry um my relationship with the gods has

01:01:02.220 changed a lot over time i think um it started off weak because i didn't really understand them

01:01:09.100 there was a period where i was super strong in my faith with them um before i became thetish

01:01:14.300 because i had grown up a little bit and i had discovered a lot of things on my own um i went

01:01:21.700 through a regression sometime around the time i came out of fadism because a lot of things in my

01:01:27.800 life sort of crashed and burned and i couldn't figure um i couldn't figure my way out of it and

01:01:35.860 so i sort of i sort of i won't say i lost faith i never lost faith but i stepped away from faith

01:01:42.580 in honor of other things in honor of that's that's the wrong term too but um I stepped sort

01:01:49.920 of back from things and I lost that connection I had to things and then I found the AFA and

01:01:54.320 suddenly everything clicked back into place um and I really do believe that being surrounded

01:02:00.800 by so many people who really believe what I believe and who who practice what they preach

01:02:09.060 instead of just preaching it has made it much easier for me to find that connection

01:02:17.060 and and to really but it also helps that i can talk to people who know our gods

01:02:23.300 um because i i don't think any of us can ever really know our gods we can know of them and

01:02:29.460 we can know a lot about them but they are bigger than us and that makes it hard to

01:02:35.620 properly understand them all the way if that makes any sense but through the community of

01:02:41.460 people that i have in the asa i've learned i've learned them better because everybody has a

01:02:48.740 different understanding and all of the different understandings come together and create sort of

01:02:53.620 like a clear understanding i'm sorry i'm not sure if that really answered the question but

01:02:59.860 that's what i got no that was great um

01:03:05.620 something that something that you said that that's also affected uh how my relationship

01:03:11.700 with the gods has grown i think that just like any of the friendships in our lives or you know

01:03:19.380 even our relationships with our own parents evolves over time as we mature and as we enter different

01:03:26.820 stages in our life um you know where i was when i was 20 and i found the gods

01:03:36.340 my life's gone a very different direction now um i have uh i have a wife i have a daughter

01:03:43.140 i'm y'all's here you go the of the afa and as these different things change in our lives

01:03:48.180 the nature of or the depth of our relationships with everything and everyone we care about uh

01:03:54.820 evolves. I would also say that one of the most profound things that has developed in my

01:04:03.380 relationship with our gods is being able to worship them at their hafs. You connect, at least I connect

01:04:17.680 with our gods in a very different way after I'm at one of their temples in their presence,

01:04:27.300 connected in that way and giving gifts to them in that way.

01:04:37.180 Learning the lore about our gods is the very entry level of understanding them, and it's

01:04:42.300 important to do, and it's valuable. But developing that faith, developing that relationship over time,

01:04:49.380 that's the very essence of what Alcatru is about. And I've been really fortunate to connect with our

01:04:57.000 gods on a very deep level, I feel, and it's very blessed to have been able to develop those

01:05:03.740 relationships. Cellar door. What is the AFA's position on the

01:05:11.380 gods? Were they ever flesh? Did they ever have? Did they have

01:05:16.340 fathers? And are people living today literally related to them?

01:05:22.100 So, so that there is no confusion and completely unequivocally,

01:05:27.560 our gods are real. They're absolutely real. And they're

01:05:32.140 absolutely gods. In the AFA, we have no belief that our gods are somehow super evolved humans

01:05:42.580 that attained godhood. While I do think that people can ascend to things higher than themselves,

01:05:50.880 the great gods of Aryan consciousness are gods with a big G in the biggest sense of the word

01:05:59.540 gods and to break them down to being just big people is a great disservice um

01:06:12.020 no our gods are absolutely gods they're not ideas they're not merely archetypes they are they are

01:06:19.780 gods. As far as how one God begets another God, the closest thing we have to understand that is

01:06:29.940 describing it as, as, you know, parentage. It's all we really have to go on. So I don't think

01:06:37.140 that's wrong to, uh, to say, but our, uh, yeah, do they have fathers? Clearly some of our gods

01:06:50.640 have gods that predate them that brought them into existence. And in that sense, absolutely

01:06:55.580 they do. And I think that goes to the next portion of your question. Are people living

01:06:59.900 today literally related to them? At first, yes, absolutely. They are our oldest ancestor.

01:07:08.940 But I don't think that that is because of, you know, a physical copulation. I think that

01:07:17.500 the very essence of our soul emanates from them. Our lore talks about when Odin, Vili, and Ve

01:07:25.260 literally would breathe life and blood and and people-ness into our ancestors our gods made us

01:07:36.780 who we are and the genetics and the blood and the breath of life that they breathed into us

01:07:43.100 and imbued us with has carried on through the successive generations to this very day

01:07:48.920 and in that sense they are very literally our our oldest ancestors

01:07:52.680 uh king of cheese can't get over that screen name it's probably my favorite screen name that we get

01:08:01.160 on here um matt and katie coming in with my extremely question how are the two of you doing

01:08:09.680 tonight well i hope how are you doing katie i'm doing pretty good i can't come down having fun

01:08:21.320 sitting here talking to all of you people i gotta say tony i am doing doing pretty good myself i

01:08:29.160 love doing these i look forward to them i was you know doing something important last week but i

01:08:34.840 said i missed it i'm glad to be back with you guys how are you doing tony hope that you're doing well

01:08:40.520 and i'm very glad that you're with us you're one of our most devoted fans on these i'm not sure if

01:08:45.880 you've if you've missed one yet uh daniel the desir song is great how important do you find

01:08:54.280 music to be when it comes to spiritual practice katie what are your thoughts

01:09:01.720 i wish we had more music that was ours and uh that's actually a side project that i am

01:09:07.640 working on very slowly um is creating more uh devotional songs for us for the afa

01:09:14.920 that we don't have anywhere else because i know there are there are songs out there and there is

01:09:19.000 music out there that can either be used by us or that can be adapted to suit us but i don't want

01:09:26.760 that i want us to have our own music um it's one of the reasons why i created the dc your song

01:09:31.800 um because i was struck with the inspiration and so i did it and also because it it's very

01:09:38.440 important uh i love love love our harrier father song that we use during that um i sing that to

01:09:45.880 myself sometimes and i try to focus or meditate or i'm going to do like a room draw or something

01:09:50.840 i might do that to sort of center myself um but yeah i think music is super important and i can't

01:09:57.640 wait until we have uh mountains of our own yeah music is fantastic um i wish that we

01:10:08.360 We had more amazing, overtly spiritual,

01:10:12.200 as to true music.

01:10:14.000 We talked about that a little bit before on the broadcast,

01:10:16.340 but I really wish that we had more music.

01:10:18.180 I think it's great.

01:10:19.540 I think music in the form of chants is fantastic.

01:10:22.620 I agree with you, the DeSeer song is beautiful.

01:10:26.480 Even if the music is just a simple drum beat,

01:10:29.440 I always try to incorporate that in my rituals

01:10:33.420 because I think that sound matters a lot

01:10:37.680 it's a really good tool for focus but yeah i would love to love to see more of that develop as time

01:10:42.960 goes on um vril vanier asks all modern religions have their specific holy book uh that they

01:10:53.440 reference and study amongst themselves are there any plans to have an afa specific holy book

01:10:58.960 written in the future. So, yes and no. I think that developing a

01:11:12.080 a collection of things that we want AFA members to be familiar with and to read

01:11:17.440 is important. I think, you know, having something that talks about our history

01:11:22.400 is important. And I don't mean ancient Viking history, that's certainly important, but I mean

01:11:28.160 our history is as modern aussitur the history of the austral folk assembly

01:11:32.720 so we're working on developing those type of things um having explanations for our heroes

01:11:40.000 that we honor in the afa and for the reasons that we do ritual the way that we do i think is very

01:11:46.960 important but i don't think that all modern faiths have their holy book i think that all

01:11:56.880 All Semitic faiths tend to have their holy book, but one thing that makes us very different is that we are not beholden to the letter of a certain book.

01:12:07.620 One thing with indigenous faiths, many of which are older and are ancient, is the accumulated knowledge of the folk.

01:12:17.180 The folk knowledge and folk traditions that are passed down through books, yes, but orally and through other things all accumulate the huge tapestry that makes up our faith.

01:12:30.840 When we get too overly literal and obsessed with a book, it's just fundamentally not what our faith is about.

01:12:40.640 none of our sources of lore are that literal or rigid to where every letter of them was

01:12:48.780 inspired by, you know, one of our gods. That's never been a claim that any of our folk have

01:12:54.240 made. Our gods guide us through a myriad ways over time and over space to lead us to where

01:13:02.940 they want us to be. And the accumulation of that knowledge isn't as clean as, you know,

01:13:07.680 here's our Bible. Unfortunately, or maybe not unfortunately, but

01:13:14.380 not sure the best way to put it. It just isn't that way, but it do.

01:13:26.040 Katla, Katie, you say women are naturals with magic and the horn has to be cleansed from

01:13:32.900 masculine energy by a woman what do you think of men being gothi then are they the exception to the

01:13:40.340 rule um i'm i was speaking specifically in terms of symbol um symbol is so

01:13:52.500 when you read beowulf or some of our older sagas you read stories about symbol and you read about

01:14:02.440 how think of the all things that they used to have all thing was a time where everybody from

01:14:10.340 every clan got together and they had to be they had to get along in a space where normally they

01:14:18.620 might fight each other to the death or have bicker or whatever so during symbol which you

01:14:24.680 would have these big gatherings where you had all of your people together even when they weren't

01:14:29.900 always the best of friends to have a woman who is frithful and sort of help cleanse the horn of

01:14:36.240 that negative not i know it keeps saying negative i don't it's not negative energy just that

01:14:40.100 masculine energy um it has it's a twofold thing for one it takes the the the sort of jumbled

01:14:47.720 chaotic energy of the man and it calms it but it also helps to calm the man who you're taking the

01:14:53.880 horn from and giving the horn to because of that natural energy um it's just it's a a thing that

01:15:04.160 women are inherently good at because we can manipulate energy and fritz um it's why we can

01:15:10.360 do save and it's why men can't men have different energy they are men they fulfill a different role

01:15:17.860 they are naturally more chaotic and it's redundant to keep saying that but this is it just is what it

01:15:27.060 is their energy is very different and so they serve a different role um it goes back to what

01:15:33.380 i said in the beginning men and women are not the same we serve different roles but we we need to

01:15:40.420 work together for the whole because we're partners in everything we're doing our go these do a

01:15:46.900 wonderful job at everything that they do they perform ritual they hold the horn but during

01:15:52.580 symbol when you're doing a high symbol in particular at a national gathering where you have

01:15:56.580 so many different people from so many different places with so many different relationships to

01:16:02.660 each other it's always wise to have a woman who can take the horn and give the horn to our people

01:16:09.620 because it helped just keep the frith and to maintain that that

01:16:20.260 let me interject for a second to squash katie's um sexist anti-male heresy

01:16:27.780 no i kid i i think that i just want to add a little bit to what katie said

01:16:32.660 we're very different i wouldn't describe the male energy as chaotic but i would describe it as

01:16:37.540 inherently um aggressive and assertive in a way that a woman's energy isn't um one of the things

01:16:46.660 that i honestly think is beautiful to hear katie describe i don't know how to communicate this well

01:16:55.620 but the fact that the fact that she doesn't best know how to explain male energy is because she is

01:17:02.820 whole and complete as a woman and there's there's not it doesn't occur to her because our githias

01:17:09.540 are so steeped in their femininity that that's just a strange diversion um male and female energy

01:17:19.860 comes across really differently in our in our lore and traditionally women are very good conduits

01:17:26.260 of energy um they're very good receivers in a more passive way of of absorbing and then

01:17:36.500 distributing energy whereas men inflict our will on things and we're much better at

01:17:43.860 directing a ritual in a you know um in an assertive way or um

01:17:51.380 it just becomes different and i don't think that that one of them is necessarily superior to the

01:18:00.940 other in in its ritual efficacy but it is different uh you see a lot of our our magical

01:18:06.980 practice especially runic practice tends to specifically favor men in that practice

01:18:12.840 it's much more about inflicting our will and i don't think inflict is the right word but

01:18:19.860 inserting our will into the world into the world or into things and like breaking something down

01:18:27.320 and shaping it according to will whereas a female's energy is much more about about receiving

01:18:36.240 about receiving communication about receiving things and being and transmitting things from

01:18:41.320 the other side and about bestowing power and bestowing energy bestowing authority women were

01:18:48.500 always very important in the establishment of a new ruler. They would very often be the ones to

01:18:54.100 place a crown on someone's head or give that preferential drought of mead to a chieftain,

01:19:00.940 and their act of doing that bestows that mantle, bestows that power upon the man that they give

01:19:07.860 that to. So they're just two very different ways of approaching spirituality, and we're very

01:19:12.460 fortunate that we have both of those active in the afa

01:19:17.500 lawrence forbes with 10 canadian dollars thank you so much we appreciate it

01:19:22.860 uh he says great answer to the holy book question

01:19:26.460 no book is holy judeo-christians think theirs is

01:19:30.060 but no the gods and goddesses are holy and perhaps we are

01:19:34.860 again thank you very much for your donation anybody who

01:19:37.820 wants to get their question moved to the front of the line or just wants to

01:19:41.820 throw a few few dollars our way please go to our entropy link michelle asks matt and katie

01:19:49.740 how do you incorporate the ask true faith within your marriages katie

01:20:00.540 so daily most of our focus is on our children not on ourselves or each other

01:20:06.140 um i think because we are so involved in the afa and so involved in in um raising our children to

01:20:17.280 be also true uh it just sort of is there i don't know if that makes any sense but we don't do

01:20:25.940 anything super out of the way for our marriage as far as also true those because our whole lives

01:20:32.300 are also true so it's just there katie stole my answer so um

01:20:43.980 i'm gonna be completely honest i really wish that i could say there was you know some big ritual

01:20:48.860 hoodoo that we do all the time as a family and it's it's much more subtle than that i found my

01:20:56.060 wife through the afa so we're both also true coming into the relationship and i think that

01:21:03.100 makes a lot of things very natural that way um as opposed to you know a lot of ritual work together

01:21:14.700 so much of what mandy and i do is uh afa related together i know she's very very active with our

01:21:22.140 women and she talks to me about that we talk through different things going on within the afa

01:21:27.660 i'm constantly running uh coming to her with in need of counsel about a different situation or

01:21:34.140 wondering her perspective on an email or something i've written up or an interaction i'm having with

01:21:42.060 a member of the afa leadership um or maybe a situation within uh counseling and so

01:21:51.180 ausitru is always there in our life but it's not so much made a big production about because it's

01:21:57.660 such a natural course of what we do as people and it's the very foundation of what our relationship

01:22:04.460 was based on so i think that's probably different for different people depending on when they came

01:22:09.580 to alsatru and their their lives in general um katie your husband asks hi katie have you ever

01:22:19.580 had family or friends reject you for being alsatru how'd you handle that and how did it play out long

01:22:27.660 um not specifically for being also true i've had uh i've lost many friendships for being in the afa

01:22:37.660 um they're the same but yeah it's not about the faith so much it i believed in our gods when i

01:22:48.940 was thetish and that did not um that did not lose me my friends my mom has always been a little

01:22:54.800 concerned she's very catholic she doesn't understand what i'm doing but she has long

01:22:59.360 since accepted the fact that i'm doing it she can't stop me um she's even been to some of our

01:23:05.660 events. She came down for the dedication of Thorshoff when we named my daughter Alice,

01:23:10.860 and she loved it. She said it was beautiful, and the people were amazing, and the church was

01:23:14.780 really nice. And, you know, she never had anything bad to say, except for the fact that I'm not

01:23:20.320 Catholic, which is bad. So, you know, I definitely have had people question me for being off the

01:23:32.840 true um i chose my husband and the afa over relationships um in the past which means that

01:23:45.180 i lost out on a lot of um very good very old friendships i don't regret it for a lot of reasons

01:23:52.220 but mostly because i don't think that i i mean i was only dating my husband at the time but we

01:23:58.880 are married and have two beautiful children and a wonderful life and i would have lost that if

01:24:03.520 i had chosen to give up all of my connections to the afa in honor of those friends and uh it's hard

01:24:11.440 and um sometimes i miss those people because they were part of my life for a very long time

01:24:19.360 but i have to i have to look forward and sometimes it has to be about me

01:24:24.800 and what is good for me and not what it's good for them and i like i said i don't regret it

01:24:31.760 because i've built a really wonderful life for myself and i'm in a position now where i get to

01:24:36.240 build a really wonderful life for my children and hopefully for many other people's children

01:24:43.200 i gotta say i was really lucky i got to be the i guess fifth wheel with katie and her family at

01:24:49.040 after Njortzhoff dedication. We all shared a B&B down there, and then I was there for an extra,

01:24:56.820 you know, an extra day with them, and they were nice enough to give me a ride to the airport.

01:25:01.000 They were kind of doing a little bit longer family vacation, and it was really neat to be

01:25:05.340 around them. I can tell you, somebody who knows these guys, that what they're talking about about

01:25:11.240 their family is absolutely, absolutely the real deal, and it's neat to get time with them because

01:25:18.300 they're good friends of mine, but also with, uh, with their son and their daughter. Um, it was

01:25:24.440 really special to get, get that time with their family and just to just watch that. And I'm happy

01:25:29.260 I got to do that. Uh, Pam says, gotcha, Katie. Do you have any books you recommend for women,

01:25:38.600 especially newer women to the AFA?

01:25:48.300 Thank you.

01:26:18.300 Sorry, apparently I was muted that whole time.

01:26:24.940 Thank you, Nick, for trying to remind me three times before I notice.

01:26:29.860 So I was expecting that question.

01:26:31.740 I had a whole book of a whole list of books that I made up that gets asked every time.

01:26:37.280 But I was writing in a book, a regular, I wasn't expecting one for just a female perspective.

01:26:48.300 I'm looking at my bookshelf now and I have I have a couple books up here of questionable

01:26:53.220 authorage um so like I have one book that I like that was written by a woman named Patricia

01:27:00.420 Lafayville she's definitely not one of our she's not one of ours she's a uni all the way through

01:27:06.560 but her book Freya Lady Vanities was actually pretty decent um you have to be careful when

01:27:14.520 reading it just to to pick out any of the clearly overtly uni stuff that might be in it but it's

01:27:21.880 about freya and it's um one of the only books i've read that's it's just a real it's small

01:27:27.240 small book it's all about freya and i i really liked that one um i have another book

01:27:31.640 peace weavers and shield maidens uh women in early english society is a very good one

01:27:45.320 um by kathleen herbert i have uh i'm sorry i'm looking looking i had another one that i can't

01:27:52.840 remember the name of the the true hearth a practical guide to traditional householding

01:28:01.080 Again, it's written by Chisholm, which I know we all know, James Chisholm, so it's not a horrible, horrible author, but that one's a really good one.

01:28:10.620 And the last one that I have that isn't really technically a female-centered book, but that I think a lot of our women, I don't know, if there's anything like we, they're drawn to the more natural side of things, is called Elves, Whites, and Trolls.

01:28:23.040 Now that's written by Keldorf Gundersen, who is definitely not one of our folk and is questionable in many, many ways, but that particular book of his is pretty well written.

01:28:36.720 My husband could tell you more about it because he's the wordy guy. I'm just, I'm just here. But those are, I hear him laughing from up here.

01:28:44.840 sorry um those would be my my biggest recommendations as far as female uh for just

01:28:50.880 basic new beginners i could give you another list of like the more academic dry stuff because i have

01:28:57.520 read them all but uh that's what i got for right now rachel does the afa have any stance on psychic

01:29:07.600 ability premonitions uh the spiritual side of life uh being very real in the stance of magic work

01:29:17.520 um i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and strike at this first and then pass this off to katie

01:29:21.760 because i think she's got stuff to add on it but first um i'm trying to think the best way to

01:29:30.880 encapsulate the afa's position on this um yes all of those things are real things but they are

01:29:44.560 the percentage of people who claim those things is much

01:29:50.880 much askew in favor of people making stuff up or people who are just silly so one of the times

01:29:58.720 in the afa most i'd say most of our leadership don't talk about those things very often and the

01:30:06.960 reason that we don't is because so many charlatans and buffoons talk about those things like they're

01:30:15.040 such a common and mundane occurrence that you feel a mixture of between silly and perhaps

01:30:25.280 irreverent slash disrespectful to speak about those things very openly because the well has

01:30:32.480 been poisoned by so many just ridiculous individuals. There absolutely are folk with

01:30:41.640 psychic abilities, with second sight, with the ability to have premonitions,

01:30:47.440 with the ability to use various forms of divination.

01:30:54.400 All of that, all of those things in and of themselves

01:31:00.020 are very real and very powerful.

01:31:03.540 Again, I am so turned off by so many of the people

01:31:07.900 that make things up or are lunatics

01:31:14.360 that talk about those things

01:31:16.060 that it makes it really uncomfortable to talk about sometimes and maybe that's our fault we

01:31:20.860 should talk about it a little bit more what are your thoughts katie so i agree 100 that there's

01:31:29.660 almost like this taboo out there about talking about the magic and i think of it whenever i say

01:31:35.340 it i think of it with the ck like the the dumb wiccan magic with a ck because people make fun

01:31:43.820 of you they they don't take it seriously and i've found that uh even people in our circles

01:31:50.220 tend to look down on those women who talk about magic and that kind of thing um a lot less now

01:31:57.260 than they used to i think they're a lot more open to it than they were 10 years ago when i was doing

01:32:01.340 all this stuff um so i've always had kind of this stigma there's always been this stigma in my head

01:32:07.580 about talking about that kind of stuff so you'll hear me i'll always talk about it like oh that's

01:32:11.420 spooky stuff overall spooky stuff because um because women do spooky stuff like i make fun of

01:32:17.420 it while at the same time trying to legitimize it and it's sort of a thing i do i make fun of things

01:32:25.660 i'm self-depreciating humor and all that but um i really would like to see it become a more serious

01:32:32.380 thing um i can't speak for everybody i'm not particularly like naturally gifted at like

01:32:40.860 sensing energy i just tend to think of magic as being energy everything has energy every

01:32:46.220 we can manipulate energy um there's all kinds of different games that i used to play when i

01:32:51.180 was a kid before i knew what i was doing where i was i could feel energy and manipulate it you

01:32:55.980 can see energy the idea of auras that is seeing energy literally um uh there's one thing i wanted

01:33:09.900 energy and people sorry I gotta talk myself through that one so something as far as like

01:33:19.900 premonitions and stuff I have always had what I guess you would call prophetic dreams they're

01:33:26.160 not really I have dreams I can remember almost every dream I've had since I was a little kid

01:33:31.900 and every once in a while I'll dream of something and 10 years later five years later three years

01:33:36.220 later I'll be in a store putting something on a conveyor belt and I'll be like I had I dreamt

01:33:41.620 about this moment I remember very specifically the dream the context of the dream everything

01:33:46.400 that was happening in that dream and I remember dreaming of this moment I've had dreams of the

01:33:50.680 house I'm living in now I've had dreams of my children I think I had a dream about my husband

01:33:55.560 one time but probably not because I don't usually see too many faces in my dreams which

01:34:00.720 it's neither here nor there but like snatches i've never had like hundreds of prophetic dreams and

01:34:07.360 they don't never tell me anything about my life and in the moment when i'm dreaming them i don't

01:34:11.440 know that they're things that are going to happen but it's little little like two or three second

01:34:17.320 snatches of dreams where i can remember the dream four years later in a moment where i had that

01:34:24.380 snatch so i really i believe in that stuff i believe it's real um i believe all of it's real

01:34:31.120 and it needs to become more of a serious a more serious thing but like matt said i do believe that

01:34:37.680 uh it's not something that is supernatural for a lot of people uh women in particular this stuff

01:34:46.360 tends to uh apply to more um i'm not saying that men can't have the spiritual or magical

01:34:54.680 experiences or whatever um but there's a reason why women are more naturally attuned to it literally

01:35:02.600 like i said part of being a frith mover it's in our blood um i don't think most women are

01:35:08.680 super naturally inclined towards a lot of that stuff it's something you have to work for you

01:35:13.080 work for it by learning how to meditate you work for it by learning how to control your own thoughts

01:35:18.840 and how to control the energy around you and eventually all of those other things sort of

01:35:22.600 come with that but if you don't put in the work you're not going to be one of those people who

01:35:26.360 can like oh not that i think many people are going to do that anyway have like visions of the future

01:35:34.120 and stuff but it does happen some women do happen have it happen and i know a few women in the asa

01:35:39.480 who are a lot more naturally in tune with the things going on around them than myself

01:35:45.720 um without the hard work that goes into it so yeah that's something i think we agree with matt

01:35:53.080 we should uh talk about more seriously and less ability you know an extension of this because i

01:36:01.960 think it runs in the same current, is people's ability to see ghosts or other kind of metaphysical

01:36:11.720 manifestations of things. I've known some really, really gifted people that have been able to

01:36:19.060 see things where the rest of us couldn't, and some folks that I really believe in their power,

01:36:24.040 And then I know some lunatics that claim they see a lot of stuff and I wouldn't believe them as far as I could throw them.

01:36:35.140 So, yeah, the picking and choosing on who you're going to listen to on that is so very important and the credibility within the individual.

01:36:44.220 That's why so often these are conversations that get had in person between two people as opposed to broadcasting to a group of people, because many of us have, you know, seen absolutely foolish people talk about these things.

01:37:00.720 We don't want to cheapen it by adding to that pile. We'd much rather express it with people that we trust or people that trust us and talk about it in that context.

01:37:13.140 It just seems to add a level of seriousness to it.

01:37:21.400 Nick asks, so what about your book choices for kids or for adults in general, Katie?

01:37:30.280 He's only asking that because I sent him the book list earlier.

01:37:35.280 So I'm pretty sure most of these books are books that you guys have already been recommended to for kids.

01:37:41.040 I cannot recommend enough, Dallaire's Book of Norse Myths. It's my go-to. It's definitely the

01:37:46.720 top of my list. My son loves it. He loves the pictures. I think the pictures are kind of cheesy,

01:37:51.680 but it doesn't matter what I think about him. The stories are easy to understand,

01:37:56.000 super easy to read, and none of the stories are super long. So there's like one or two stories

01:38:01.280 in there that are actually really long, really long for a four-year-old at bedtime. And then

01:38:08.240 children of odin by uh patrick column also a really good one uh written in the early 1900s

01:38:18.880 like 1907 or something like that my husband is a particular fan of that one but i agree i really

01:38:23.760 like it a little bit harder to read though if you're not familiar with reading some of the

01:38:27.840 older stories because the the sentence structure is a little different but it's still a really good

01:38:33.120 good one. As far as books for adults, Culture of the Teutons cannot stress that one enough. The

01:38:39.200 first three chapters are like the best chapters of any book I've ever read about our faith. From a

01:38:47.340 older perspective, read it. Everybody needs to read that book if you can get it, which it's not

01:38:59.100 hard to get though it used to be um lady with a mead cup by michael j uh enright the road to hell

01:39:05.840 by hilda r ellis that one is a particular favorite of mine it's a little bit dry and

01:39:10.760 quite a lot redundant but the book is it basically explains

01:39:16.120 it's basically explaining the way our ancestors um conceptualized death and dying and

01:39:29.040 and all of that stuff. It's a fantastic book. I really think everybody should read it.

01:39:35.100 The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England by William A. Cheney. That one is a little bit of

01:39:41.600 a harder book to read through, and it covers... I'm sorry, I don't know. I keep looking at my

01:39:49.920 bookshelf instead of just looking at the camera and talking. It covers the concept of kingship

01:39:56.540 and uh godly kingship or um right there um kingship as it is related to god like um from

01:40:10.380 paganism to christianity so it covers a lot um and it's just really good it talks about the um

01:40:17.340 the gods of kingship which would have traditionally been odin tier and frere uh talks about the the

01:40:24.380 cult of frere a little bit in there which i know i was brought up um with um somebody in a different

01:40:31.820 chat that i did um it's just a really really good book to understand our ancestors relationship with

01:40:39.100 gods um obviously steven's book steven mcnalen's book uh austere native european spirituality is

01:40:47.260 a fantastic book um also a well in a tree the the well and the tree rather a lady with a mead cup

01:40:55.100 all of those books really good really dry academic books but for anybody who really wants to get to

01:41:01.660 a deeper understanding of the culture and the way our our ancestors related to the gods is a good

01:41:10.780 one um and if anybody is interested in a really good rune book for more of a beginning stance um

01:41:21.180 so the runes work book by leon wilde leon d wilde i know matt has uh talked about this book i got

01:41:29.500 that book as a gift from somebody many years ago and it's my go-to book i love it to pieces

01:41:34.860 um it's a really good one for anybody who doesn't want to get into the deeper

01:41:39.820 more complicated um stuff that you would find in person stuff which is not for beginners as a rule

01:41:49.260 that's it

01:41:53.020 thank you for that katie um one thing i wanted to make sure we got to this evening was something

01:42:00.540 called the circle of air for anybody who doesn't know about that can you explain that a little bit

01:42:07.100 to folks sure so we have a thing called um air's blessings or the circle and it's um basically our

01:42:17.660 ladies will if anybody has any kind of health issue or any kind of um issue that needs healing

01:42:27.580 so it doesn't have to be health if you have if you're suffering from some kind of depression

01:42:31.980 we had a member who was suffering from extreme ptsd from being in the military and couldn't

01:42:36.620 travel and he asked for um for airs healing for that and i know he was able to at least small

01:42:44.620 distances to make it to some events that some local members were having and that was really

01:42:48.540 important to him because before that he couldn't get to anything because he couldn't be in a car

01:42:53.100 for more than a few minutes we've had people reach out to us to help them with

01:43:00.060 being pregnant complications like i said um depression health issues we've had people reach

01:43:06.780 us out to us when they are uh very sick um sometimes when they are dying just for that extra

01:43:14.140 that extra oomph i guess um but basically we have um our ladies in the afa who are interested in

01:43:23.100 participating uh if you need help or healing of any kind you let us know and we let the ladies

01:43:30.460 know and all of the ladies in the group will perform rituals to air on your behalf um we are

01:43:37.660 going to be getting back into doing a monthly ritual where all of the women try to do the

01:43:41.980 ritual at the same time kind of like they do with the uh odin odin odin odin's odin world fair day

01:43:50.300 can't speak sorry we used to do that um it kind of fell to the wayside a little bit when the um

01:43:55.820 the transfer from facebook happened because it was hard to organize that stuff on telegram and

01:44:01.100 then on wiwi but now that we are firmly ensconced on me we're going to be getting back into the

01:44:06.540 regular thing so if anybody has anything that they feel they would like energy from air from

01:44:12.780 healing from air from you can feel free to reach out to me or to any of our other guineas or to

01:44:19.980 any of your folk builders female folk builders um most of them are involved but you can also email

01:44:25.420 me uh directly or you can email us at our heirs blessings brunestone email address which i think

01:44:32.780 is ariesblessings at runestone.com um yeah and uh yeah for anything reach out our women are very

01:44:42.300 happy to do what they can to help our folk feel better in any way

01:44:51.740 so guys a couple of things a couple of housekeeping things first i am coughing and clearing my throat

01:44:57.340 an awful lot tonight i appreciate you guys bearing with me and pretending you don't notice that

01:45:02.300 um also i've had to reload entropy a couple of times so anybody who wants to be on there

01:45:08.140 needs to log back in i promise you it's a really cool platform they've been really nice to work

01:45:14.380 with but uh i'm we're going to look on the back end and try to figure out why it's so glitchy

01:45:18.700 tonight but it is back up and running now if you're interested um so stephen thinks this is

01:45:27.420 a simple question but it's it's more complicated than you think uh simple questions what do you

01:45:33.900 enjoy most in your positions as australia gothi and githya and what keeps you moving forward

01:45:41.660 katie go ahead and take a shot at this first i mean the very basic face value answer is it's

01:45:49.500 really freaking awesome to name somebody's baby and to perform somebody's wedding um i had the

01:45:59.100 profound joy of being able to do both um a couple weeks ago i traveled up to new hampshire for a

01:46:05.820 couple of um who live up there who wanted a baby naming and they just happened to have their

01:46:10.460 marriage certificate available because they thought they were going to go to the justice

01:46:14.860 the piece when they were ready um and we performed a very impromptu but very legal

01:46:19.340 wedding right there on the spot and it was i mean it was super awesome it was fun i really really

01:46:26.940 i really love being able to do that kind of stuff performing ritual for folk so that we can help

01:46:32.060 them connect to the gods is amazing i love being able to do that um but on a less obvious

01:46:38.780 route there um the hard stuff is i love doing the hard stuff as much as the good stuff the

01:46:48.700 counseling people who are going through crises um people who are dying or who whose relationships

01:46:55.820 are falling apart or who are just having a crisis of faith i don't love them because our folk are

01:47:04.180 suffering or going through them i love them because the greatest joy in my life aside from

01:47:10.660 my children is to serve and help my folk um so i love being able to do that for them and that

01:47:18.260 is what moves me forward that and the that my children my children keep me moving forward

01:47:26.820 because as awesome as the afa is for us right now imagine how much more awesome it could be

01:47:32.420 in 20 years when my children are adults and imagine how much more awesome it could be

01:47:40.180 35 years or 40 years from now when my children are having children who are being

01:47:44.740 born into the afa that's that and helping with folks

01:47:53.140 um yeah so you said this is a simple question and maybe i just overthink it but man i am the

01:47:59.940 i am the luckiest most fortunate guy in the world uh to be else harry go through the astro folk

01:48:07.140 assembly um my favorite things about it you know i've been at all different levels of leadership

01:48:16.020 in the afa but as the else harrier goethe i get to see i get to see the whole picture in a way that

01:48:25.940 other people don't necessarily. I'm in the know on so many of our members' lives, so many of the

01:48:33.780 things we have going on around the world. And I get to see all of those things. And it's beautiful

01:48:41.820 and it's amazing not only to see them, but to have some part in making those happen. I also,

01:48:47.860 So just as a personal inside baseball deal, it's hard at previous times where I've had

01:48:58.320 things I wanted to do, but there was stoppages ahead of me in the hierarchy to where I couldn't

01:49:06.520 get those things done that I desperately wanted to accomplish.

01:49:11.140 And I don't have that anymore.

01:49:13.720 It's a double edged sword of, you know, everything that we don't do that we should do is ultimately my fault.

01:49:19.180 And I accept that. But I am able to to do a lot of things and have an active hand in making some really special things happen.

01:49:28.120 And that's that's a huge blessing for me.

01:49:29.880 i get to travel around the country and share in ritual and stand in the circle with so many of

01:49:43.320 you guys i get to meet amazing amazing people and not only do i get to meet them but being around

01:49:49.160 as long as i have i get to watch them grow and develop and watch their families grow and develop

01:49:54.720 And that's really special. As far as just, you know, regular Goethe things, one of the most special things ever is when you get to look in somebody else's eyes and see that moment when our gods become real to them.

01:50:12.040 A lot of people think our gods are real and think they believe, but there's this mind is blown moment where you know that our gods are real.

01:50:24.720 And being able to be a part of that and to see that happen for someone is a very special thing.

01:50:32.060 And it's it's absolutely my favorite thing that I get to do as a go through or be part of.

01:50:38.180 As a side note, I watched law speaker Alan Turnage do his balder ritual this last weekend, and I watched a person that he did that for.

01:50:48.800 And it was really nice to be able to see that even from from an outside perspective.

01:50:54.720 But like Katie mentioned, other really, really special things certainly are baby namings and doing funerals.

01:51:03.360 And again, like Katie said, it's not because it's awesome that somebody died, but they're going to die anyway.

01:51:08.620 It's something nice to be able to have the honor of presiding over that last ritual for them here in Midgard,

01:51:18.500 that the family you know that the family would trust me to do that and that

01:51:25.300 i get that opportunity to honor that person that's passed is is very very special

01:51:31.860 the other thing is with all these you know hoffs that we're establishing all these things that

01:51:35.700 we're doing um this is go seg segways into what keeps me going on it um as a as a relatively

01:51:45.460 new father i get to watch my daughter experience these things and i get to watch her grow up in a

01:51:50.500 world where this is very very alive and vibrant in a way that it wasn't when i first found it

01:51:56.820 and building that future for her is huge to me other things that keep me moving forward

01:52:05.620 i have a tremendous and beautiful weight on my shoulders

01:52:11.380 And I am aware of the weight of it every single day. I would never cast it off. I would never not want all of that weight on. I love feeling that weight, but I'm aware there's a weight and a responsibility and living up to that keeps me going.

01:52:31.260 living up to that responsibility, being able to do something that, um, in a way, really

01:52:42.080 trying to think of the best way to put this, but on a personal level,

01:52:54.000 when I have stress or I have things in my life that are difficult,

01:52:58.060 doing this and attempting to do it well is my redemption is my ability to ascend past things

01:53:12.560 in my life is my ability to make the world better through something that I'm doing and I'm in a very

01:53:19.540 unique spot to do that and uh it it means the world to me um i want to leave the most powerful

01:53:29.380 legacy i can for my family to honor my ancestors to make my ancestors and my gods proud of me

01:53:38.260 and to set the bar ridiculously high for whoever takes over this position after me and uh

01:53:45.540 yeah i am tremendously motivated all day every day by and about that that was probably more

01:53:55.920 more answer than you were looking for with the question but i appreciate you asking it because

01:54:00.380 it is something i'm very passionate about folk the rude someone at new york's off uh thank you

01:54:07.360 first thank you for donating the 25 that's awesome and it means a lot it's very appreciated

01:54:14.340 Someone at Njortzhov showed me several different pages slash groups on MeWe that are AFA oriented.

01:54:20.720 I can't find them.

01:54:22.860 So first, it was great to get to meet you at Njortzhov.

01:54:26.780 That was fantastic.

01:54:27.900 I'm glad you came down for that.

01:54:30.280 Secondly, I will get that fixed.

01:54:35.160 What you need to do is talk to any of your folk builders.

01:54:40.240 You happen to be in a state with a bunch of them, but specifically I would advise reaching

01:54:45.060 out to Tim Dumas, tdumas at runestone.org.

01:54:49.920 Hopefully somebody can throw that address up for you and he can get you set up in those

01:54:54.140 different me, we groups.

01:54:56.200 If not, if there's any hassle on it, please email me at mattflavel at runestone.org and

01:55:05.340 I will personally get you shuffled into those groups.

01:55:10.240 um don asks do you have any recommendations for parents with uh younger or not so young children

01:55:19.440 who encounter others who may be hostile to their beliefs or are actually curious katie

01:55:30.160 so that's a really tough one

01:55:31.440 So I know we have a member whose daughter is 11 or 12, 13 now I think, and she has experienced

01:55:43.200 a lot of bullying from her peers because of her faith. She is very ostrich by herself.

01:55:56.000 her parents are very austere and i from everything i've heard she has no intention of denying her

01:56:02.640 faith or pretending like it doesn't exist but they live in a very religious area and it's created a

01:56:08.960 lot of hard work and i've watched and talked to her parents about it and i know how hard it is

01:56:14.880 on all of them i don't know if there's really a right answer for that um the best thing i can say

01:56:21.920 is do your best to raise your children naturally ostrich and i say naturally ostrich but that

01:56:29.200 naturally ostrich i mean i don't mean don't like force them into it don't try to like jam it down

01:56:36.240 their throats not that i'm saying any of us are doing that i'm just you have to let them find

01:56:42.240 ostrich in a natural way kind of like when i was talking about you know hail thor when it thunders

01:56:46.880 and oh look there's oh no you see crows if you make it so naturally a part of who they are and

01:56:51.920 what they do every day um then there is less conflict on their own personal level with what

01:57:01.760 they believe and if there's less conflict in their own personal lives about what they believe in then

01:57:07.680 there's going to be less it's going to be easier for them to brush off people who don't understand

01:57:14.160 because if there's any confusion for them and what they believe or in in what we're doing then it's

01:57:22.480 going to create confusion when it comes from outside of that it's never going to be easy to

01:57:27.440 watch our kids have issues with other kids or even adults because sometimes the adults are as mean to

01:57:32.160 your children as the kids um about what they believe and it's never going to be easy there's

01:57:36.720 no right answer for that except for just to make sure you're doing everything you can to teach your

01:57:42.720 kids what also true is as far as answering questions for the people who are curious if they

01:57:47.520 are 100 also true because it's what they firmly believe because it's all they've ever known that

01:57:52.800 answering some of those questions shouldn't be too hard um hopefully the adults who are asking the

01:57:58.480 questions or the kids who are asking the questions but mostly the adults they're they're respectful

01:58:03.440 enough not to do it when you're not around but we can't always control that yeah i'm sorry i wish

01:58:10.080 i had a better answer for you on that one i just i don't think there's an easy question or an easy

01:58:15.440 answer to that people are bullies and kids are the worst of all sometimes you know it's it's hard

01:58:26.800 that question is so very dependent upon the circumstance dependent upon the child um

01:58:32.560 depending on so many different factors but i think instilling the courage in your children

01:58:40.800 early on for them to be proud of being also true even when under fire for it

01:58:48.480 is going to make them much better equipped as adults to not break when something doesn't go

01:58:55.120 their way for them to have that pride and have that pride reinforced at home that's an example

01:59:02.880 to to all of us i think that's a powerful example to our adults as well um so some of the kids going

01:59:10.480 through that unfortunately hopefully that that strengthens them in their resolve so they can

01:59:15.520 live out such as adults with pride and with their head up um question i ordered a stephen mcnallen

01:59:23.760 book a while ago from the site how long does it take to be shipped and delivered

01:59:29.520 well that depends so first that's on me um i can try to check and see what the status is

01:59:39.280 and if it continues to be a problem please email me and i'll get you sorted out i'll get it all

01:59:43.440 straight um i have to run those to the post office and i do my best to do that at least once a week

01:59:51.360 uh trouble is with all of my traveling i was literally home for one day last week

01:59:56.800 so that didn't happen so i'm looking to get a whole bunch of things shipped out this week

02:00:03.280 but like i said it usually takes you know within that first week for me to get it shipped out and

02:00:10.320 then however long the postman takes to takes to get it to you but if it doesn't show up please

02:00:15.840 let me know and we'll get you all sorted out and i apologize for any delay um so sierra it's not

02:00:23.040 really a question but nick put it in my questions section so she's very excited to see you katie

02:00:27.920 she says katie with like six exclamation points it's a lot of exclamation points um sierra asks

02:00:35.680 what is your favorite memory during your time in the afa githya katie

02:00:41.120 first of all sierra um i don't you're gonna have to give me a minute i have a lot of really really

02:00:50.880 good memories um one of the favorite things was uh mandy's face when she walked into the

02:01:04.400 uh theater amphitheater room in at the camp we were holding winter nights at previously

02:01:10.800 and realized she was getting a surprise baby shower um because i know she's worried she

02:01:17.680 didn't really have a whole lot of friends in arizona not arizona you guys live in nevada

02:01:23.280 but you guys had just moved there so you didn't know anybody and she was about to have a baby and

02:01:27.200 she was so excited but also kind of depressed because she didn't really know anybody and

02:01:31.440 she couldn't have a baby shower and then there she was having a baby shower and i think she

02:01:36.080 legit straight up cried which is not something mandy does very often if you know mandy

02:01:40.640 but i think she probably cries more than she likes to admit but you know i shouldn't throw

02:01:45.040 her under the bus when she's not here right um but little things like that watching people's faces

02:01:52.240 when they experience those moments of joy that they're not expecting to have we get those

02:01:57.840 every when you see people for the first time in a year that's an amazing experience

02:02:05.120 one of okay here's one ravenna swan's daughter when my son was six five five or six months old

02:02:11.840 he was lying on the floor um on some blankets in the camp um main hall and ravenna was sitting

02:02:18.400 there telling him to roll over roll over roll over and he he rolled over for her it was two

02:02:23.840 months after that before i got him to roll over for me but he did it for ravenna um and that's

02:02:29.760 one of my favorite memories only because every time we go to an event owens is ravenna there

02:02:35.200 is ravenna there is ravenna there except for the dedication where he was excited to see ravenna but

02:02:39.920 he was very sad when elver left because i think they're now the besties um most of just i don't

02:02:47.600 know i lost track of myself on that one but i i couldn't give you one favorite moment i love

02:02:53.760 all of the moments there's so many good times so many good times that i've had with my folk in the

02:02:59.440 afa wait i changed my mind i just thought of one when at our last winter nights we

02:03:06.320 oathed in um some of our new members in my kindred that was a really good member the greens are very

02:03:14.320 different of mine and we got nights in front of everybody and that was wonderful i really like that

02:03:20.320 oh i have another one i'm sorry cliff proposed to me at winter nights one year

02:03:26.440 in the middle of stumble and i remember specifically one or two people screeching

02:03:30.920 so loud i have no idea what he said to me when he proposed by the way as soon as he dropped on

02:03:35.380 one knee everybody was like and i have no i still have no idea what he said to me when he proposed

02:03:40.140 but you know that was a pretty good one i like that one i'm done for real that's okay i was

02:03:47.300 there for that and it was really special and uh yeah i was not one of the screechers but i was

02:03:52.280 very very happy for you guys um james asked is the price point the main factor in not recommending

02:04:01.020 books from stephen palmington uh yes but maybe not in the way that you think um

02:04:09.460 I think the price point prevents so many people from getting those and being familiar with them

02:04:18.580 that often we overlook recommending them and that really is a um an oversight on our part uh Stephen

02:04:25.800 Paulington's done some amazing work on this specifically in how Alistair is practiced

02:04:31.580 practiced by the anglo-saxons um i think his books are very very good i enjoy them i own

02:04:39.860 three of them um very good work he's an amazing scholar uh can't say enough good about i actually

02:04:48.300 got to meet him at, um, at a midsummer, I want to say 2010, 2011. Uh, we, we flew him out and

02:05:02.780 had him at a midsummer and that was, that was really nice. Uh, he's a great guy. He does not

02:05:08.440 like root beer. I think that's a, he's an Englishman and I think that they're not big root

02:05:12.960 beer fans over there. He thought it tasted like toothpaste. Um, but no, Stephen Paulington's

02:05:19.200 great. And, uh, I'd encourage everybody to read his books. His meat hall book is fantastic.

02:05:24.240 His elder God's book is also fantastic. And I'm going to butcher the name of it. So I don't have

02:05:28.640 it right here in front of me, but there's one about, I believe the English warrior. That's

02:05:35.320 a very good book as well. But yeah, I think roundabout, they are very expensive. Um,

02:05:41.620 Um, and that's unfortunate. I think they would get much, much more use if they were at a more

02:05:48.280 affordable price point, but I don't begrudge him any of the profits from him. I hope it makes him

02:05:53.640 rich because he does a great, great job. Um, but I would like for more of our people to be able to

02:05:58.020 read that, uh, Matt and Katie, what is your favorite memory from the dedication? So we kind

02:06:05.740 already hit that but katie what do you want to add to that um i have two one was odin lanon

02:06:15.500 that was a very very happy moment for me um he was not my godar student but i worked with him a lot

02:06:22.620 and i think he's a wonderful man and i think he's going to be a very wonderful goody for a folk

02:06:29.020 so that was definitely on the top of my list of favorite moments

02:06:32.780 my other was when uh assemble ended and we were all getting up my two children and one of

02:06:41.100 our members sons were all curled up in the corner on a couple pillows we had brought and my daughter

02:06:47.660 was like all passed out with her mouth open and her arms everywhere on like laying on this kid's

02:06:54.220 back and he was you know it was just it was really cute and uh naturally we took plenty of pictures

02:07:00.060 so that we could tease her and maybe even him in the future and be like oh look at this but yeah

02:07:07.020 those are my two favorite memories the whole weekend was really amazing though and i met

02:07:10.540 some really awesome people like all of the newer talk people were pretty awesome the little kid

02:07:19.100 snuggle pile was very cute uh very cute

02:07:23.980 i'm trying to think of what in additional to what i what i mentioned earlier um i think this is

02:07:32.940 obvious but it warrants saying i was working behind the scenes for so long on getting york

02:07:40.620 to happen that just going there and you know seeing it and taking it in in person

02:07:48.540 was very special. I mean, I'd looked at the property on pictures and whatever else

02:07:55.220 before we purchased it, but really getting a sense of it, walking the land and feeling it out. I mean,

02:08:03.700 just stuff that you wouldn't see on the pictures is beautiful there. The two ponds are much more

02:08:10.480 grand than they look like in pictures. There's some amazing live oak trees there, one right as

02:08:16.100 you drive in that's just stunning um getting to go in and see the mural that Svan painted there

02:08:22.400 uh it looks really cool on the internet and Svan sent me pictures as he was making it

02:08:28.380 but standing there and looking at it there's so much more depth and more power to it when you're

02:08:34.400 when you're there uh so that was that was one of my favorites um yeah and I mentioned the amazing

02:08:41.840 food earlier but it was so good it's warrants mentioning again it was fantastic um but yeah

02:08:49.040 it was it was really special really special event i'm glad i was able to share with those folks

02:08:54.400 uh pam asks what if any is the difference in an outsider wedding and a justice of the peace

02:09:02.720 wedding differences one is getting married and taking those oaths in front of our gods and our

02:09:10.720 folk in a sacred environment in the sacred context both of them are legally binding weddings

02:09:20.640 but one of them is making your wedding a spiritual act whereas the other is a mundane legal act

02:09:29.840 so an afa wedding is not only legal but it's also a spiritual act in front of our gods and

02:09:35.760 invoking our gods into the wedding and into that relationship. And I think that is very significant.

02:09:45.200 But yeah, I think the question is, you know, almost identical that what's the difference

02:09:49.760 between an out or a justice of the peace wedding and, you know, a Hindu wedding or a Christian

02:09:56.160 wedding or any other religious wedding, is it's the fact of making that life commitment

02:10:01.840 a religious and a spiritual act and so uh yeah we take those very seriously and we only do legitimate

02:10:08.080 um legally binding weddings in the austral folk assembly

02:10:12.240 uh githya what bloats do you look forward to attending slash hosting the most example

02:10:19.600 midsummer bloat because of the powerful feeling

02:10:22.400 uh so it's been a very long time since i've been to a midsummer in california not that that's the

02:10:32.560 only time when we have midsummer celebrations but the national event celebrations and rituals

02:10:37.920 are always my favorite um i i am in charge of our desir boat at winter nights and uh despite

02:10:47.680 the fact that i experienced a great deal of like existential dread the first time i did it i've

02:10:52.880 come to really love and cherish being able to do that um i really enjoy it that's it's a good one

02:11:00.240 for me to perform whether it's good for everybody else is up to you i can't i can't speak to that

02:11:05.280 but uh um i am never ever going to be sad to be in attendance at one of matt's odenberg or

02:11:14.160 i'll share godi is the only person who can do odin bloke matt's way uh yeah everybody could

02:11:23.280 do an odin bloke but not like our out there it just might be on that but uh but yeah those are

02:11:29.760 my two fingers well thank you um lawrence forbes again with uh 10 canadian dollars thank you so

02:11:38.960 much we appreciate it a question for me in the short time i've been a member i've noticed the

02:11:44.560 afa is mostly silent about and certainly not critical of christianity my sense is this is a

02:11:51.440 better to light a candle than to curse the darkness kind of thing

02:11:55.200 but is this honest considering the damage christianity has done to our folk um

02:12:00.640 Um, yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. First, uh, you're right. It is a focus on positivity

02:12:09.320 instead of dwelling on negativity. And mostly because it's preaching to the choir, everyone

02:12:15.220 on here. I say that we have some folks on here that are not necessarily usitru that just want

02:12:20.800 to learn and that's fine. But the vast majority of the people we're talking to, they already get it.

02:12:25.480 They already get that, you know, Christianity wasn't, you know, isn't right for our folk and they've already chose to come here.

02:12:35.560 With so many things, I like to focus on the positive and things that we celebrate as opposed to things that we don't like.

02:12:46.240 That being said, I'm always open for any any questions.

02:12:49.380 Some people don't like when I get on here and speak negatively of different groups.

02:12:55.200 Like I've said negative things about the Norena Society, but I've done it in the context of answering a question.

02:13:01.020 I don't ever like to just uncalled for bash on something.

02:13:06.080 And I'm not perfect. I'm sure that if you go through and look at these, I've had occasion to do that.

02:13:11.340 But I try not to as a rule. But I do want to answer honest questions.

02:13:15.820 There's a couple of other things about Christianity.

02:13:17.620 One of the reasons that we don't talk about it is so much of previous modern Alcitru has been the definition of their Alcitru was how not Christian they were.

02:13:33.160 And that's done a couple of different things.

02:13:34.740 First, it's a disservice to our gods to not worship them on their own merits, but to instead always compare them to something else and then be the default other option.

02:13:47.620 Um, and I think a lot of the time people were being also true as a reaction to Christianity

02:13:53.800 as opposed to a genuine, genuine faith.

02:13:56.080 And I like that we've moved beyond that.

02:13:58.920 And so I think that's, I think that's one reason that I'm sensitive to that.

02:14:04.040 The other thing is people mistake a lot of what's bad about Christianity.

02:14:10.060 and I don't want to attack Western spirituality. I don't want to attack church. I don't want to

02:14:20.820 attack all of the great things that exist or people are familiar with within the Christian

02:14:26.820 tradition. What's bad and unhealthy about Christianity is its otherness and its

02:14:33.180 Semitic tradition. And when I say bad, I mean, bad for us, because it's not ours. And it's trying

02:14:43.700 to fit a square peg, our folk soul into a round hole of a Middle Eastern faith. Their values and

02:14:53.360 the value, certainly not all of them, but quite a bit of their values are very incongruent with

02:14:58.000 our values. But I don't want people to get the wrong idea about what elements of European

02:15:05.320 Christianity are undesirable and what elements are our preservations of our folk traditions.

02:15:12.120 But those are some of the reasons. And I'm always happy to answer any questions about

02:15:16.960 Christianity if they do come up. But that's kind of what I'm thinking and why I don't bash

02:15:22.480 Christianity. The other thing in this day and age, you mentioned the damage that Christianity

02:15:28.800 has done to us, and certainly that's true in a larger historical context, but in 2022,

02:15:35.880 other traditional people of faith are much less of a problem for us than those

02:15:41.460 who don't have a traditional worldview, who don't have faith.

02:15:45.360 the extreme and mentally deranged Marxists that are literally destroying everything

02:15:55.260 that we believe in or doing their best to do so, that's not coming from Christianity. It's coming

02:16:00.980 from a source that's very hostile to Christianity. And so that's one reason that I don't focus on

02:16:07.140 that. I think Christianity is by and large losing a lot of its influence, but I think those other

02:16:12.880 things are the things that are truly scary in this day and age. Falk the Rude with another $25.

02:16:21.460 Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Oh, never mind. It's the same $25. I was scrolling

02:16:28.660 the wrong direction on that. Thank you anyways, but disregard on that one. I got one window I

02:16:36.100 scroll down on and what I'm supposed to scroll up on. Nick asks, so you moved across the state

02:16:47.320 for HOF. How'd that go? And how's the requirements for phrase HOF coming?

02:16:57.880 That one's you, Katie.

02:16:59.100 Sorry about that. We didn't technically move across the state for a half. We moved across

02:17:09.820 the state because that's where we found a house we liked. We also moved across the state because

02:17:14.860 we were trying to stay in Pennsylvania and get as far away from Philadelphia as we could get.

02:17:22.380 And I think we managed pretty well because Erie is about as far away from Philly as you can get.

02:17:27.740 We also had to stay in a well-populated area because Witten Erickson works from home and

02:17:35.300 needed reliable internet, which we could not have gotten in the mountains, which is someplace

02:17:39.600 we seriously considered for quite a while.

02:17:44.800 We love where we live.

02:17:46.220 We love being close to Ohio so that we can be close to some of our friends.

02:17:50.120 really miss being closer to our kindred members who live more um south central um but we're making

02:17:58.280 it work and um the fact that we will be getting the next half as a bonus as far as i'm concerned

02:18:10.200 um to our but the move in the the hop were unrelated technically

02:18:14.840 may have been in consideration a little bit but mostly it was we found a house we liked

02:18:21.880 as far as what uh we need to do for um acquiring next half i'm going to pass this one to matt

02:18:28.080 because he's got more information than i do all right so um

02:18:34.040 where we're at and i put this in the most recent rune stone but um

02:18:41.200 there's two steps that we kind of need to do preliminarily before we're actually shopping

02:18:48.880 for a location or for a property. We have a general location and that general location is

02:18:57.160 very far Western Pennsylvania or Eastern Ohio, most likely Eastern Ohio. So the first step

02:19:06.860 is we need to pay off the debt that we've incurred on New York's Hoff. So New York's Hoff is

02:19:13.220 currently 35% paid for. The next thing that we need to do is raise our monthly income average

02:19:22.780 by 18%. And this is, this is important. The challenge is not only to be able to afford a

02:19:32.720 new HOF, but it's also to be able to afford to maintain it over the long run. And that's kind

02:19:40.560 of an unforeseen thing that maybe folks don't focus on. So we have a budgeting plan to where

02:19:46.260 we can pay the bills of the recurring bills of each HOF, as well as have a substantial general

02:19:53.520 fund to do all the other things that the AFA needs to do. In order to meet that budget where

02:19:58.960 we want it, we're going to need to raise our income by a total of 18%. And this is a lot of

02:20:04.720 progress just in a month. So we're raising that average. I will keep you guys informed on that

02:20:10.140 in the Rune Stone every month until we get there. But that's where that's at.

02:20:19.080 Daniel asks, Katie, you have a flair for the dramatic when it comes to your ritual style.

02:20:24.560 Where does that come from? And what inspires that?

02:20:31.360 So I chalk that up a lot to my experience being thetish.

02:20:39.080 I do not think thetism is a functional model. I don't think it is ever going to properly work

02:20:45.920 for anybody. I think most thetish groups implode, but I learned a lot of good things.

02:20:51.800 and there were a lot of good people who are theodish.

02:20:55.640 So I'm not constantly referring to it

02:21:00.080 to make it seem like it's this big bad thing.

02:21:03.860 It's not, and it works for other people.

02:21:07.080 But there were things that they did

02:21:10.420 and things that they didn't do that I learned from.

02:21:13.180 For one, they really liked ritual drama.

02:21:17.060 For example, when we did our May Day celebration,

02:21:20.320 we'd have the the fool paraded through and the women or the the the sticks and they'd beat the

02:21:26.880 the um they beat old man winter with the sticks to chase him out so that the

02:21:31.840 summer king could come in and sit on the throne and that was always a lot of fun things like that

02:21:37.280 but what they didn't do was engage people in ritual um they like i said previously in the in

02:21:46.160 this video we walked into a circle and we stood there while somebody performed a ritual often in

02:21:55.680 a different language that like a lot of times they would do it in old norse and then they'd

02:22:02.400 have somebody sitting there repeating everything in english to understand it so it's not that we

02:22:06.320 couldn't understand it it's just it was extremely boring and when things are very boring or very

02:22:12.960 dry or when there's a lot of empty time for your mind to wander it's it's very easy for a lot of

02:22:18.480 people to lose focus of what they're there for your mind wanders you start thinking about other

02:22:26.720 things you notice that you're you know you're standing on a rock and it's a little uncomfortable

02:22:31.680 so you start shifting around a lot and i've always had trouble standing still so being

02:22:36.720 bored and standing still are like two things that just don't go together in my world um

02:22:43.680 and because of that it's always been extremely important to me to try and find ways to keep

02:22:49.280 people engaged when you're doing ritual there's a lot of things that you can do to make that happen

02:22:54.880 engaging people senses do something uh lighting incense so that everybody has that smell of

02:23:01.280 instance when they walk into the circle um playing music is a good thing uh doing um just anything

02:23:09.600 that can get people engaged i love making sure that there's gauldering during ritual maybe

02:23:13.600 sometimes i do too much gauldering but i don't like i don't want there to be a lot of empty space

02:23:18.640 for people to just stand there so that's a lot of what drives me to make sure that there's

02:23:25.680 things for people to see things for people to do ways for people to be engaged so that's

02:23:32.320 that's my main motivation so steven already married do you let the couple renew their vows

02:23:40.400 and consecrate a marriage within the afa absolutely um i mean i know of several vow renewals i have

02:23:54.720 I have participated and done one of those, but I know of several that have been done. That's absolutely a great thing to do. And we do offer that for people who would like to do that.

02:24:09.160 King of Cheese. I have a question about the Hoffs. Are they all abandoned churches that have been retrofitted? Or are they chosen for suitability regardless of whether they were churches or not?

02:24:24.720 So a couple of things. First, Odenshof used to be a Grange Hall. And so it was kind of a fraternal meeting hall for a long time. But it's a very old building. It's been around since 1938. And it has served a couple of different charitable functions.

02:24:43.200 So it had a charitable zoning. It had been like a church, like a religious school for a time.

02:24:51.420 And I believe it was also at one point used as a church briefly. But the zoning really is the well, there's a couple of issues in in this process.

02:25:01.280 We have looked at a lot of different buildings. There's a lot of buildings that are suitable to our needs, but churches are almost always suited to our needs.

02:25:11.360 fundamentally um there are houses of worship that very very often come with a ritual space

02:25:21.520 and a kitchen and a multi-purpose slash dining room space and that's certainly very serviceable

02:25:30.520 to what we do um now you can find um other like fraternal lodges are set up that way some event

02:25:39.700 centers are set up that way there's other buildings that also have those amenities

02:25:43.940 but what it also really comes down to is zoning zoning is such a big deal and can be a very

02:25:50.980 difficult process and it depends on how the zoning laws are written in an area

02:25:57.620 in looking at this we've seen zoning that's pretty much an automatic guarantee you get zoned right

02:26:02.660 if you want to have a church places but we've also seen places to where it's very difficult

02:26:07.040 We've seen places where you have to go to every neighbor within 300 yards and they have to all not just say it's OK, but actively say they want you there to operate as a church.

02:26:20.220 Most places will grandfather in churches, though.

02:26:24.120 So if something is functioning as a church and it goes from church to church or from house of worship to house of worship, it's you get to grandfather in the zoning.

02:26:34.440 And that's really an ideal situation. So that's mostly what we look for.

02:26:39.760 Honestly, right now, that is all that we look for unless somebody brings something really special to our attention that does keep that charitable zoning.

02:26:47.860 But, yeah, that's our that's our target zone is is redone churches or other houses of worship for that matter.

02:26:55.220 all right guys we've got one more question left on here uh you guys have been great we've been

02:27:05.380 on for about two and a half hours if anybody has additional questions that they want to get uh

02:27:11.140 answered please go ahead and get those up um and if not we will uh we'll talk to you guys next week

02:27:19.540 so any any questions get them up and i'll make sure to answer all of those for you

02:27:23.540 uh cliff asks hey katie i will be in trouble but uh but owen wants you to know that he ate

02:27:35.780 six jalapeno slices and he is super proud

02:27:39.520 way to go owen he loves spicy stuff when he was a baby and then he stopped loving spicy stuff so

02:27:48.040 this is a big step forward daddy's probably very proud right now no that's awesome i'm really glad

02:27:53.000 you let us know that cliff good job owen um all right so i think we're gonna call it a night on

02:28:03.400 owen's triumphant uh jalapeno eating can i throw something out there real quick you sure can

02:28:11.400 sure uh there was a donation or a fundraising event that was going on for a little while

02:28:17.720 with Thor's Hoff. I don't know if it's gotten lost or like in the shuffle because I know those

02:28:24.880 things can kind of disappear on our Mewy pages, but they still would very much appreciate any

02:28:30.880 donations you can give because they are working on fixing some things in the Hoffs that really

02:28:37.940 need to get fixed. If you have items that you make or sell or anything like that, you feel like

02:28:46.640 sending an item down to them as a donation for one of their future auctions that would be cool too

02:28:51.920 um because we would really like to make sure it goes doors off it remains awesome

02:28:57.920 and doesn't have falling in roofs and stuff like that so donate or send items for auctions please

02:29:03.760 and thank you absolutely reminding us of that katie um katie it's been great to have you on

02:29:11.280 uh it's always really nice to talk to you i know our audience had a ton of questions for you and

02:29:18.800 you did amazing we look forward to having you back on thanks and bye hey everybody who has

02:29:28.400 asked questions tonight thank you everybody who has uh gone on and and given us tips and super

02:29:34.400 chat stuff over on entropy even though it's been glitchy tonight thank you guys so much we appreciate

02:29:39.120 it. I'm looking forward to talking to you guys again next week. And thank you guys so much. It's

02:29:45.620 been really nice to share the evening with you. Hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA. And

02:29:51.460 remember, victory never sleeps.

02:30:09.120 Thank you.

02:30:39.120 Transcription by CastingWords

02:31:09.120 Thank you.

02:31:39.120 Thank you.

02:32:09.120 Thank you.

02:32:39.120 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - August 25, 2022

8⧸24⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 7

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