Asatru Folk Assembly - 8⧸31⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 8

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 Hello, everybody.

00:03:20.040 Thank you for joining us again this evening.

00:03:22.920 um this week we've got a very good friend of mine and a

00:03:29.160 leading gothe in the austral folk assembly we've got gothe daniel young joining us to

00:03:36.200 to talk this evening welcome daniel thank you for having me sir yeah we're glad you're here um

00:03:45.400 everybody out there i suppose uh to get stuff out of the way while we start here

00:03:50.640 um please feel free to ask any questions you guys want tonight your questions are what uh what kind

00:03:59.120 of steer this ship on what we're going to talk about so please feel free to ask any questions

00:04:03.280 you guys may want to know of either myself or daniel or both um we will stick around and get

00:04:11.260 all of your questions answered but sometimes questions back up if you want your question to

00:04:16.380 be first, or if you just want to throw us a tip, join us over on Entropy, and we've got a super

00:04:21.940 chat feature, and you can also just tip us there, but yeah, that'll monetize your question and get

00:04:29.820 your question up there quick, but you guys don't need to do that. We're happy to answer anything

00:04:34.600 you want for free, but we do very much appreciate anything that comes our way. It'll go to the AFA,

00:04:39.640 and we'll make good use of that, so thank you, and thank you, Nick, for posting up

00:04:44.340 the entropy link over on the side. Now, entropy has been glitchy with us the past couple of

00:04:50.800 weeks. So if it goes down or whatever, talk about it in the chat room. Nick will figure it out and

00:04:57.300 we'll do what we can to get it back on course and get you back in the room. With that, Daniel,

00:05:03.300 can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Ausitru and what brought you

00:05:08.160 to the Astro Folk Assembly? Sure. Well, for many years, my wife and I were wanting to raise our

00:05:17.220 children with, you know, spiritual values. And we had given a, we had tried to do the whole

00:05:24.780 Jehovah's Witnesses thing for several years, late 90s and the early 2000s. And while I very much

00:05:35.120 still respect that organization and the way they handle themselves

00:05:39.760 just wasn't for me it wasn't for my wife and it wasn't for my children

00:05:43.840 um one of the things that was really uh apparent to me is that while i was

00:05:49.040 studying scripture really heavily uh and it was all up here but it never

00:05:53.840 transferred to here and so for a while we were just kind of

00:05:58.880 in the spiritual wilderness for a bit and then um

00:06:02.240 i'm going to say around 2013 i was just uh bored one day and googling stuff and

00:06:10.080 being that i'm primarily of dutch and german ancestry i was interested in what

00:06:14.320 my answer before the uh church came to uh germany and uh the netherlands and i discovered

00:06:22.560 you know uh northern european paganism and you can't google the word austro without stumbling

00:06:29.360 across the name stephen mcnalen and uh so it kind of spiraled from there um i would say around 2016

00:06:37.600 or so i decided that rather than studying this and observing it that i would i wanted to take

00:06:44.320 it seriously and actually adapt it as a faith and um so myself and my youngest daughter became active

00:06:52.640 practitioners of uh of austro

00:06:58.000 well that's that's great i think uh you know that was my experience too looking for it and

00:07:03.600 in finding steve um we've already got a question for you it's gonna take a little bit of knowledge

00:07:11.280 so maybe you can explain the layout of thor's hof for folks that don't know and then get to

00:07:17.280 Trent's question. He says,

00:07:20.500 Goethe Young, what's the story behind the name of Rumpf Hall

00:07:24.140 at Thorshoff? Sure. So we had a

00:07:28.280 member from Georgia, who was a good friend of mine and

00:07:31.820 Trent's, named Terry Rumpf. And

00:07:35.060 we finally got to meet him for the first time in

00:07:38.300 2020 at O-Star in the South, which was held in

00:07:42.000 South Carolina that year. And

00:07:44.620 sadly we lost Terry that same year and because he didn't have his last will and testament all done

00:07:52.540 we couldn't get his remains interred at Thor's Hoff so we thought of the next best thing we

00:07:57.920 name our fellowship hall after him and it's funny because we still say fellowship hall but I think

00:08:03.480 we were leaning toward like Frith Hall or Feasting Hall or something like that and when I thought of

00:08:08.040 Frith the first person I thought of was Terry and I thought that that'd be a really cool way to honor

00:08:13.920 him and he was also one of our very first uh serious donors to the office his name

00:08:19.280 proudly sits on our donor plaque in the bay also yeah terry was a terry was a great guy i'm really

00:08:26.480 really glad i got a chance to meet him and get to know him um i really think that's a very nice

00:08:33.440 gesture of you guys and something that terry appreciates from beyond the veil uh sarah asks

00:08:40.720 when you were oathed as a gothy you stood and took the oath with two of your closest friends

00:08:45.680 can you describe what that meant to you

00:08:50.080 well sarah you'll have to forgive me if my words fall short um gothe stan and gothe east are two

00:08:56.720 guys that i consider to be family and i know that's cliche and people kind of throw that

00:09:01.040 around sometimes when we're talking about i mean it when i say that uh both of those guys have uh

00:09:06.720 been with me and good friends of mine throughout my journey through the

00:09:10.840 Austria Folk Assembly through Apprentice Folk Building and on into the Gothar

00:09:15.020 program. Two guys I have so much respect for. It's hard to even measure. But just

00:09:22.220 as cool as that was that same day at Winter Nights, I actually got to

00:09:27.340 witness my wife take her folk builder oath that same day and that was just as

00:09:31.260 rewarding. That was a really special day. That was neat. I remember that in the three of you

00:09:43.420 that took your Gothar oath and got your ordination. You guys have been such an effective

00:09:50.580 unit for the AFA in general, and each of you guys are Gothar that we're very proud of individually.

00:09:57.380 um heathen hammer asks as a goathy do either of you tend to use the old poetic meters in bloat

00:10:07.140 or do you prefer prose or maybe a combination of both let you take the first crack at that

00:10:14.820 certainly not poetic um i try to use poetic language um i use different kennings or things

00:10:22.260 like that but i uh i tend to shout a lot and uh so no i don't use poetic meters for sure

00:10:34.020 uh yeah for for my part um i've never been one that really plans all of what i'm going to say

00:10:43.700 during bloat i certainly don't use a lot of of poetic meter or even rhyming for that matter

00:10:52.260 my, uh, my approach has always been to speak from the heart when I'm out there in the circle

00:10:59.200 and to speak to the God that I'm, I'm bloating to. And I find that if I'm, I'm trying to remember

00:11:05.320 something or with a prearranged, uh, piece of prose, it, uh, it takes away from that connection

00:11:14.240 and the, the, I guess, authenticity of me communicating with the gods. Um, but that

00:11:20.600 doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. I know a lot of people do that or certainly do that

00:11:24.260 in elements. Maybe they have a specific poem or something that they've written that they do want

00:11:31.000 to use as part of their bloat, but not as the entirety of it. I know our law speaker is a fan

00:11:36.800 of rhyming cadence in his bloats, and that often works very, very well. But no, I don't use any

00:11:45.200 sort of poetic structure in my, in my bloats. Um, so getting to the meaty questions, Rob asks,

00:11:54.400 Goethe Dan, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

00:11:58.420 Net chocolate chip. There is no other flavor of ice cream.

00:12:03.020 Good man. That is, that is the right choice. All, uh, all other choices are incorrect. Um,

00:12:10.640 Hmm. So I'm trying to think the best way to get to the meat of this. One of.

00:12:25.180 All right. So you're one of the go that's been on the ground floor of the development of Thorshof.

00:12:32.540 And a lot of people don't know how that's all worked out. Can you I don't know, can you describe what that was like?

00:12:40.400 because that's our our second hof it was on a completely different side of the country than

00:12:44.640 odin's off and you guys were really breaking new ground there can you kind of describe

00:12:50.480 how that was with going from no hof to to having a hof to getting the hof being as successful as

00:12:56.560 it is today wow that's a that's a pretty meaty question and i don't think i can answer it with a

00:13:03.280 in a single way but uh i remember at uh ostar 2020 uh the one where we were talking about where

00:13:10.440 we met terry i just got done meeting uh founder mcnalen for the first time and i remember i was

00:13:16.040 trying not to go all fanboy like oh yeah he's real and uh i just walked away from doing that

00:13:22.560 and i was walking down by the lake and my wife said swan was looking for me and uh tracked down

00:13:28.200 he's down by the lake playing with his kids and that was when he first kind of you know looked

00:13:33.240 me in the eyes and said you know i need somebody in the carolinas to have my back with thor's off

00:13:38.120 and of course i said i was all in and it was that same weekend that i applied for the

00:13:43.320 the ghost bar apprenticeship in a folk building and so we went up the first couple of times um

00:13:51.480 i would say the first time we went up there was in may and i met spawn walked the property we took

00:13:57.880 a look at um mr bethea's grave and uh and took a look at the church structure but it was a very

00:14:04.920 very plain building on the inside um but still had a ton of character i think that speaks to the

00:14:10.440 architecture of a building so old in the in that part of the south and uh yeah a lot of plain white

00:14:18.200 walls and um but you could feel a palpable energy in the place when we first got there and i was

00:14:27.320 there my wife and i both were there when uh spawn began the painting and i remember watching him uh

00:14:33.960 hand sketching thor's face with a pencil up on the the recess part of the wall at the

00:14:40.440 dias and watching that come to life over a period of i want to say spawn poured about

00:14:45.880 40 man hours into it initially um what i remember most about all that was you know watching the

00:14:54.280 hoff come to life but i think what was most important to me was i built a friendship and

00:14:59.080 a connection with uh spawn at the time uh spawn was a guy that i knew and respected but and was

00:15:04.040 friendly with but wouldn't wouldn't have said he was a friend i didn't know him that way and it

00:15:08.360 certainly changed uh throughout that uh that period of getting it ready for dedication a lot

00:15:13.000 of sweat was and i mean a lot of sweat it was a really really hot summer uh and i don't think we

00:15:18.200 had any kind of climate control or even electricity until like the wednesday before dedication

00:15:24.280 So, yeah, a lot of lifting pews and moving that around, taking care of old beat up steps and a lot of, you know, elbow grease type stuff and watching that mural come to life.

00:15:37.980 And the laughs that we shared and the joy that we shared watching that happen.

00:15:43.200 That's that's a memory I hope I never lose.

00:15:49.340 Yeah, you guys have done amazing, amazing things there.

00:15:52.000 Thors Hoff's always going to have a special place in my heart. That was, you know, that was our first Hoff that we got under, under my leadership. And I was so, it was, it was an interesting thing trying to get that and looking at all the different properties and all the different steps we went through trying to make that a reality.

00:16:12.500 And so much went on behind the scenes. But it was it was hard doing, you know, being so involved with it, but being all the way across the country and not getting to be there physically to to help with the property, even to check it out.

00:16:27.720 So it's I really appreciate all that you guys put in there. You guys did amazing, amazing things.

00:16:33.100 And I think it really solidified a lot of our leadership in that part of the country.

00:16:37.580 If you guys haven't gone there, Thorshoff is a very special place, and I hope you guys get a chance.

00:16:44.980 You mentioned Mr. Bethea. Could you tell folks that may not know kind of the story behind that?

00:16:54.460 So, yeah, there's the original congregation.

00:16:57.440 I had only one grave on the side of the street where the temple itself is.

00:17:02.760 There's another graveyard across the street, which is still managed by the previous congregation.

00:17:12.080 And we know very little about Mr. Bethea, a woman named Sarah, who's actually buried across the street.

00:17:18.920 And when we first got there, his headstone was in tatters.

00:17:22.580 I mean, it was quite literally broken into, I'm going to say, at least two dozen pieces.

00:17:27.740 So I hadn't been cared for or any of that.

00:17:29.800 And one of the things that the Australia Goethe was really adamant about was that we put a new stone there and remember and honor that man.

00:17:39.100 Best guess, what his significance is to the place is perhaps he was the original donor of the property, but property records in North Carolina going back there are incredibly hard to track down.

00:17:52.240 Well, yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of us that we that we did that.

00:17:57.100 we were able to get them a very nice new stone created and fence off a nice spot and take care

00:18:03.620 of it. When we first got that place, it's hard to see the graveyard across the road be so

00:18:09.700 immaculately maintained. Yet this man's grave, it was just a scattering of broken stone that

00:18:18.840 somebody put a flag on to make sure that nobody broke their lawnmower on it. And that's the

00:18:25.080 extent of the care they showed to this man's memory. And it was really important that that

00:18:30.620 be one of our first things that we tried to put right. Sarah asks, does Thorshoff have any work

00:18:41.260 that needs to be completed that members could donate for to help out? Absolutely. Anybody who's

00:18:50.620 not been the Carolinas wouldn't understand but on this side of the Appalachian it gets incredibly

00:18:57.040 hot and humid in the Carolinas and our air conditioning in our in our main temple and the

00:19:03.340 Hoff structure itself is in need of replacement not just repair I mean we're trying to patch it

00:19:08.900 up to keep it somewhat serviceable for our members and we've been striking out in that regard and the

00:19:15.120 replacement cost for that is ridiculous so you know if you guys want to donate

00:19:21.440 you want to donate 500 or more your name goes up on the on the donor plaque but

00:19:27.360 we'll take anything if you donate at least $100 I'll have a separate plaque

00:19:33.420 for that but we need to raise funds and we need to raise funds fairly quickly

00:19:39.840 I'd like to have that furnace and AC unit and full locker before next summer.

00:19:49.020 That would be nice. Yes, indeed.

00:19:51.680 Guys, seriously, all your donations are very much appreciated.

00:19:56.960 You guys being generous is the reason the AFA is able to do the amazing things we've been able to do recently.

00:20:04.180 And we're very, very thankful for that.

00:20:06.560 got cody asking what does it mean to you to be at the gothy i assume that's for you daniel

00:20:15.080 again that's such a very simple question it doesn't have a simple answer

00:20:22.220 um i think because because of the the standard set by the gothar that i'm

00:20:33.160 um peers with uh you know mentioned trent and rob and those names can go on and on you know

00:20:38.980 the ericsson i was here to go through flabel uh sheila mcnalen just to be

00:20:45.340 mentioned in the same breath with any of those names uh i still sometimes have to pinch myself

00:20:52.020 like i can't believe that this is real and it's a huge honor um wearing this ring uh and and

00:20:59.340 having this title is much more than that um but i think above everything else uh

00:21:07.260 just the hard work that goes into not only getting here but after you know crossing that

00:21:12.140 threshold and getting across the ice uh the real work begins and it's something i take pretty

00:21:18.860 seriously not pretty seriously i take it very seriously it's quite literally a full-time job

00:21:23.740 even when i'm doing my regular job i'm still doing this job whether it's you know receiving

00:21:29.580 text messages from members in need or other leadership or stuff like that but what it means

00:21:35.100 to me is it it's as important to me as it is to be a husband and a father

00:21:45.100 it's

00:21:48.380 i don't know the value of this to the people listening to this but it's very apparent

00:21:52.700 to me and everyone else that it is that important to you and that's one of the reasons that

00:21:57.820 having you as a gothi is such an asset nathan asks what did it take to become a gothi for you

00:22:07.900 well we had to do a year of academic study and typically we would do a year of like

00:22:13.900 practical application of that study i was fortunate and in some ways where i was doing both at the

00:22:20.940 the same time. But what did it take? It took a lot of leaving the dinner table and taking members

00:22:30.360 calls and counseling folks through difficult times and a lot of study. I remember I would

00:22:39.840 have to set up a spot in my house to be as quiet as possible while I sat with my laptop and a pile

00:22:46.660 of books up to here and trying to turn in you know many essays as i possibly could i was really

00:22:53.940 fortunate i had a very good mentor uh through the uh gothar program and uh githya katie erickson

00:23:00.020 was my mentor uh i also was fortunate where i could lean on spawn when i saw him in person at

00:23:05.860 the hoth and of course you know had the ulterior growthy to help me out and also uh trent and rob

00:23:11.780 you know we literally went through the program together a lot of times we would do crams at

00:23:17.540 2 30 in the morning especially rob and i and um yeah it was a lot of we have we don't have infinite

00:23:25.540 time time is finite so time that i was spending doing that was taken away from something else

00:23:31.620 and that wasn't lost on me that level of sacrifice

00:23:35.620 yeah one of the things that uh folks you know wouldn't have any way of knowing but

00:23:45.140 you were your progress as a gothe student was accelerated

00:23:54.420 but with the cost of quite a bit of stress because you being in a position with a new

00:23:59.620 Hoff there. And in a situation where you had a lot of folks in your area that really, really

00:24:05.980 needed some counseling, you had a lot of on the job training. One thing that I've always really

00:24:10.980 respected was, you know, people don't, people don't realize this. So much of the job of being

00:24:15.760 a Gothi is counseling and it's never, it's never what you expect. It's always the most out of 1.00

00:24:23.640 nowhere and sometimes very difficult situations to counsel. And you jumped right in on that and

00:24:30.340 have been very willing to step outside of your comfort zone in your counseling. And I think

00:24:34.640 that's, you know, paid dividends for you and your maturation as a go-thee, but also certainly for

00:24:40.260 our members that have had the benefit of your help with that. That's my primary focus. That was

00:24:45.620 one of the main, that was the main motivator and deciding to put my name in the hat to join the

00:24:52.600 go with our class all right well uncle krampus asks what aspect of being a goathy do you find

00:24:59.740 to be the most challenging um well the counseling can be challenging sometimes um but i would say

00:25:11.920 the most challenging is that the the time spent away from the dinner table or uh having to tell

00:25:18.700 my little girl hold on a minute you know daddy's got to take care of some stuff for the for the

00:25:23.340 church but that's that's the most challenging part but luckily i've got a family that's you know as

00:25:27.900 all in with this is totally understanding but still sometimes i can tell she's disappointed

00:25:33.180 when i have to step away to take care of business well you know i'm going to throw in an answer on

00:25:39.020 this because he didn't throw a name on it so i'm gonna put out there what i've found in being a

00:25:43.500 go through that's the most challenging is is that counseling aspect when somebody has

00:25:53.420 when somebody comes to you with a particular tragedy you want so badly to be able to help them

00:25:59.500 and sometimes sometimes you feel like there's not much you can do to fix broken situations

00:26:09.500 that they come to you with it's very difficult to uh to do that and want to help so badly and

00:26:15.820 and to find yourself you know unable to fix their situation you know i'm always hopeful that you

00:26:22.300 know listening and what uh what little counseling may be able to give is is of help to them but it's

00:26:29.020 very difficult to uh to feel like you you want so badly to fix situations that there's not really

00:26:36.140 anything you can do to make it better other than listen that's really hard for me well if i can

00:26:41.980 expand on that of course uh the other thing too is the weight that comes with that when people

00:26:48.780 are unloading their burdens to a person on the other side could be a person and i again my words

00:26:56.380 may fall short here and i may not be articulating this in a way that's easily understandable but

00:27:01.420 when you're offloading that bird someone's got to pick it up and there's been more than one time

00:27:07.500 that uh you know someone's had you know dealing with worst tragedy imaginable uh whether it's you

00:27:13.660 know personal with family members or whatnot and it affects me and you know sometimes it can affect

00:27:20.300 me for a long time i've had a member that was struggling early on when i when i started uh in

00:27:27.340 the growth our program and i carried around that weight uh personally for a year and um because you

00:27:35.260 know the i i think when our our web is so connected with the folk that we serve that their pain

00:27:42.140 becomes our pain whenever we're trying to help them through whatever it is they're dealing with

00:27:46.700 well it's it's hard to describe it to people because i am so very honored to carry that weight

00:27:55.980 i it would kill my soul if i didn't get to carry that weight it's nothing i'd rather do than carry

00:28:04.220 that weight but it's heavy and it is it's it's very bittersweet and i wouldn't trade it for

00:28:09.580 anything in the world but uh i you know our gothar gives so much of themselves in the process of

00:28:17.420 being being a gothy or a githya that i i'm not sure you know there's and you all wear it so well 0.97

00:28:24.300 there's there's nobody who's going to realize the immensity of that weight and that responsibility 0.99

00:28:29.740 but i think we're all very grateful that uh that you guys are carrying it and i know i'm

00:28:34.380 very happy to to carry the portion of that that i'm able to

00:28:39.260 nathan asks how was the bear decided on to represent thorsov

00:28:46.140 i'll tell you that's a me question uh let's start there yeah well my understanding of it

00:28:51.580 that was more of a witness fawn call of course on and also but the bear represents

00:29:00.460 an animalistic representation of what thor is thor is a god that deals with things in

00:29:08.380 single combat uh much the way the bears don't hunt in packs bears usually take on problems

00:29:15.180 one-on-one uh much the way that thor does and that's my understanding of why that was selected

00:29:20.860 perhaps matt has more on that than i do a little bit um just going through stuff i mean there's a

00:29:29.900 there's a matrix of things that go into deciding on mottos deciding on mascots deciding on a color

00:29:38.940 scheme um there's a lot of stuff that goes in there and though these hops are absolutely

00:29:46.060 temples dedicated to the god that they're named for they're also houses of worship for that local

00:29:54.060 community and so that local those local community aspects are you know as relevant in in choosing

00:30:04.380 those factors so one thing the black bear specifically is you know an animal that is

00:30:13.580 local to that area and that uh that is persistent and it's a symbol of strength in that area in

00:30:19.500 particular and i think that's one of the things that went into into spawn's line of thinking

00:30:24.460 going ahead and choosing that um they're also and i'm sure this fact in the back of our mind

00:30:29.020 there's a lot of attestations to people being named in uh conjunction with thor and bear names

00:30:38.140 like thor bjorn is a very common name for our ancestors so it's one of the things in designing

00:30:44.060 it when there was some spindly bears i'm like no this isn't just a bear this is this is thor bjorn

00:30:48.860 this is this is thor's bear this bear needs to be be solid um brandy threw us ten dollars i

00:30:56.300 appreciate that brandy and she says the ring is heavy and there are few who carry that as well

00:31:02.300 as the men on the screen well thank you brandy it means a lot especially coming from you brandy

00:31:07.100 that means a lot thank you yeah um on the short list of the all-stars that carry that ring brandy

00:31:13.660 is brandy's up at the top of that list absolutely um so also for you from nathan what is the thor's

00:31:23.260 hof motto and what does it mean to the both of you well i suppose we'll start with you and i'll

00:31:28.780 add my two cents afterwards well the origins of that motto come from the uh the iron guard

00:31:34.860 kindred out of virginia which had been uh disbanded isn't the right word it was basically

00:31:42.220 consumed by the hoff because the large portion of that kindred was heavily involved with the

00:31:47.100 founding of thoris hoff and what does it mean to me it means that we can talk all day uh about what

00:31:53.740 we want to do but it's what we do that matters uh oftentimes whenever i'm speaking to the gods

00:31:59.900 i'll use that i'll use that motto and uh whether it's in prayer or whether it's in blue or i'll

00:32:06.140 ask the god hear my words and see into my heart and notice those words and that my deeds match

00:32:13.500 those words and hours yeah i'm trying to think uh you know what more is to add to it because it's

00:32:25.260 it's very simple but it means it means so much one of the the very common

00:32:32.780 i guess slogans since the the dawn of modern alsatru is that we are our deeds

00:32:38.940 i think i don't think enough people internalize that though um you can have the best intentions

00:32:45.660 and you can be the smartest guy in the room you can be the most well read on the lore you can

00:32:52.780 you can have all the potential in the world but if you don't go out there and do something with it

00:32:57.500 it's all wasted um what counts at the end of the day is what you accomplish and what you'll be

00:33:02.940 what you're able to do and the things that you manifest into the world and you know the best

00:33:08.780 plans the best intentions the best potential is all meaningless unless you put that to the test

00:33:17.180 and put that out in the world um so yeah we've got a couple monetized things uh brandy threw us

00:33:25.900 another ten dollars thank you brandy for those of us with teenage sons what is the best advice

00:33:32.060 uh you both have for living aussitrew go ahead and take the first crack daniel

00:33:38.380 all right put me on the spot living austral i i think looking no further than the uh than

00:33:44.460 the hoff mottos themselves odin's hoff you know do right and fear no one thor's hoff you know being

00:33:49.900 words are wind deeds are iron say what you mean mean what you say and rather than observing the

00:33:56.860 game on the field and critiquing it get out there and play you know get on the field and

00:34:02.460 and do your part and don't be afraid of failure um there's no better teacher than failure in my opinion

00:34:09.020 Absolutely.

00:34:12.020 I mean, yeah, what Daniel said specifically is young men.

00:34:25.020 Look at the bigger picture, I'd say.

00:34:28.020 I think that especially you mentioned teenage sons when you're in your teenage years.

00:34:33.020 So many very immediate things seem so very important.

00:34:38.020 And they're things that wouldn't matter in six months or wouldn't matter in a year.

00:34:42.860 Six months or a year to a teenager seems like, you know, a huge quantity of time.

00:34:49.120 Six months, once you're my age, seems like it goes by in a flash.

00:34:53.180 certainly the idea of reputation and deeds and thinking about the goal you want to get to and

00:35:06.180 the steps it takes to get there it's really easy to squander a lot of time and make a lot of mistakes

00:35:12.660 early on and certainly like Daniel said you learn from those mistakes but it's you know I go back

00:35:20.520 And I wish I would have seen where I wanted my life to go further back and I would have used opportunities differently as a teenager and as a young man in my 20s.

00:35:33.900 So I'd say focus, you know, keep your eyes on the prize, keep your eyes on the goal and on the man you want to become and make your actions, things that contribute to becoming that man and things that are worthy of that man.

00:35:47.000 That's probably the advice I'd give.

00:35:48.580 We also have Sunshine Sucks gives us another $10. One of our very steadfast donators here

00:35:57.940 on Victory Never Sleeps. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Bobby asks, Goethe Dan, could you touch

00:36:05.220 on the difference between practicing house to true individually and practicing with others

00:36:11.220 so

00:36:14.700 if you're not practicing with others it's common you hear people say this all the time but if

00:36:21.680 you're not practicing with others you're doing it wrong and i i'm not a i'm not a proponent of that

00:36:25.820 individual connections with the gods is important

00:36:30.000 i try to describe that link uh between us and the gods almost like an electric current

00:36:37.480 and especially being a gothi standing in the center of that circle you know you're kind of

00:36:43.840 like the ground wire and that energy starts to build around that circle of people and spiral

00:36:49.240 on up to the gods i think the the more powerful the energy going around that circle the more

00:36:55.560 is and the gifts we give to the gods. And I think, uh, the gifts we've received are that much more

00:37:03.560 potent. Uh, Steven says, Matt hit us with some awesome updates.

00:37:14.040 Trying to think, cause I'm doing these, uh, these every week. I'm trying to think what's

00:37:18.560 new since last week. One update is on Tuesday before the next time I speak with you guys,

00:37:24.200 we're going to officially start the school year, the first school year of the Astru Academy.

00:37:30.420 And that's something we're all very, very excited about. We're looking forward to that. This is

00:37:35.320 really, it's hard because it's not such a physical thing for everybody to see, but this is one of the

00:37:40.360 most important things I think we've ever done. And I'm very excited to get that started. I'm

00:37:46.400 excited for the kids involved. I'm excited for the parents. And I'm excited for our staff that

00:37:51.620 are so very excited to do that. This is going to be a really beautiful thing. So I think that's the

00:37:56.860 biggest update since the last time I've talked to you. Our membership continues to grow. That's

00:38:04.720 also a cool update. We're doing great. I'm about to put out the stuff for next month because

00:38:10.240 today is the final day of August. So I should have some good numbers for you guys as far as

00:38:15.320 our progress towards paying off New York's Hoff and towards getting financial goals in place to

00:38:21.840 get phrase off going. I'm very excited about moving forward on that. Again, y'all's generosity

00:38:27.720 is amazing. This month, we're going to be able to put a substantial chunk down on that principle

00:38:32.640 that we owe on, on your top. So you guys are, you know, I knew that we would be able to pay

00:38:41.480 that off relatively quickly but you guys and your continued support is making that even quicker than

00:38:47.880 i'd imagine so thank you for it um got another um got another monetized question 10 canadian dollars

00:38:57.320 from lawrence forbes thank you very much lawrence we appreciate it uh good evening gents uh for the

00:39:03.880 counselor training portion of the gothar program do you use secular written materials afa developed

00:39:10.440 materials or material gleaned from old pagan texts and lore um so

00:39:21.400 yes all of those things um one of the so we certainly try to use all of those things i was

00:39:30.520 talking to spawn right before the the broadcast i i'm usually sitting in the in the green room on

00:39:36.040 the broadcast you know 20 minutes early talking with nick our producer or whatever today i think

00:39:42.120 i got on with about four minutes to spare because i was on a call with spawn but one of the things

00:39:46.840 we were talking about was that very thing we uh we were talking about consulting with a volunteer

00:39:53.320 who is a uh a psychologist that wanted to go over and do some training with our go thar

00:40:00.360 about different counseling scenarios we're also talking about some written material and resources

00:40:08.600 on dealing with folks that are experiencing autism and the biggest thing that's been an 0.98

00:40:14.760 asset to us in counseling has been the school of hard knocks that the gothar have gone through these

00:40:20.840 past 25 uh 28 years in the astro folk assembly um we're getting to a point where our gothar have

00:40:30.120 seen and dealt with a lot of different scenarios and situations and we try to to talk about those

00:40:37.640 frequently behind the scenes and help each other there's a a wealth of knowledge from folks who've

00:40:44.200 been gothees for gothees or githias for for years and all the things they've seen every counseling

00:40:50.600 scenario we've been in, we've learned from. The ones that we've been successful helping,

00:40:56.820 we've certainly learned there. Ones that we found ourselves ill-equipped to help.

00:41:02.400 We go in afterwards and try to devote ourselves to making sure, you know, that we may make

00:41:08.460 mistakes in the future. We won't make the same ones and we'll be prepared if that same scenario

00:41:12.700 comes up. And I found that to be a really big asset that new Gothar get when coming into

00:41:19.560 coming into this fraternity that we have is getting to share in that wealth of knowledge.

00:41:25.800 We absolutely work as a team, and our Gothar team is something that I'm very, very proud of.

00:41:32.340 Do you have anything to add on that, Daniel?

00:41:35.420 Not much, aside from, I remember there being some counseling materials that we read during

00:41:40.720 the program. It still sits on my bookshelf, and I found it to be pretty useful, but I think

00:41:46.060 life experience was the biggest teacher in that regard. Something I'll just throw in to the point

00:41:53.220 that I was saying, not only have our Gothar counseled people going through so many different

00:41:58.920 scenarios, but our Gothar themselves come from such a wide range of backgrounds and life

00:42:05.820 experiences that they're able to reflect off of when we consult each other, that we're able to

00:42:13.140 add to any of the counseling that we do. And we're a long way from perfect, but we have gotten

00:42:20.520 exponentially better with adding people like Daniel to the team. Vril Vanier, question for

00:42:27.920 both of you. Do you believe the Eddas are to be taken literal word for word, or do you believe

00:42:33.620 they are just metaphors and can be loosely interpreted? Daniel, what do you got to add on

00:42:39.540 this one um of course i i'm not going to take them word for word but i think uh there's a

00:42:48.340 there's some exoteric interpretation but and and esoteric um but certainly i i don't think man was

00:42:57.860 originally a piece of driftwood but i think that there's some symbolism behind that um i i i was

00:43:05.860 just talking about this very this very story at the thor's office uh past week at frey faxie

00:43:11.620 um i view the the lore as a way of storytelling um for instance the driftwood uh where odin and

00:43:21.140 his brothers breathe consciousness and goodly hue into into those pieces of driftwood to make the

00:43:27.700 first man and woman i i don't view that as literal of course i think the ask and embla was more of a

00:43:34.340 generation of men and women who have maybe washed up from the sea of humanity and that the way we

00:43:41.460 view time viewing it in a cyclical nature rather than linear i see that as has happened is happening

00:43:47.860 and will happen i i think this uh worldwide awakening to the austral faith is another

00:43:54.500 example of the god's breathing consciousness into european man and woman right now and representing

00:44:00.900 this generation yeah i uh in the afa we absolutely don't treat our lore in the same way um

00:44:17.140 that the abrahamic faiths do and and i think that that's the case with most indigenous faiths our

00:44:24.820 Our lore is absolutely truth, and it's extremely valuable, but it tells truth in a poetic way

00:44:30.760 and in a way that explains big truths to people at different stages of their development.

00:44:39.640 Our lore contains truth, but it's not a sequence of literal true events that happened in a

00:44:47.940 traceable timeline.

00:44:50.120 stories that illustrate you know the profound meanings of our existence and help us better

00:44:56.120 understand the massive spiritual forces that our gods are um but no we don't we don't treat the

00:45:03.960 lauras as literal or obsess over minute details of those things because i think when you do that

00:45:11.480 you you cheapen the bigger message of it uh tracy says i admire goethe daniel young and his wife

00:45:19.480 heather because they are very genuine and kind they certainly are

00:45:29.960 ah all right

00:45:34.600 so i think this one comes from nick he's asking but my question is for you for you is what are some

00:45:41.160 of gothe young's reckon uh reading recommendations sure uh we hear i'll hear you talk about culture

00:45:51.240 of the teutons um of course that one is phenomenal i think the chapter on frith especially uh it

00:45:58.760 being the first chapter i don't think that's an accident but that chapter on frith is worth

00:46:02.520 rereading as often as you possibly can it's uh so eloquently written um and i think

00:46:09.720 i think that's one of the more foundational tenets of australia is how we interact with

00:46:14.680 each other so that's my take on that particular book other recommendations are the one i got by

00:46:21.880 chris kershaw um for rune stuff uh if you're more esoteric more advanced i recommend alu

00:46:30.680 by edra thorson and the serpent and the eagle by chris travers

00:46:35.080 so i'm gonna throw in their bonus because uh it was pointed out rightly last week by james that

00:46:43.920 stephen polington's works are very often overlooked and they are because they're

00:46:50.600 they're very expensive to get a hold of so i think often people don't and they're really really

00:46:55.120 valuable um the mead hall is a fantastic book and i'd recommend that to anybody out there

00:47:03.440 It speaks so much about the importance of community, the importance of that structure of interacting as as a group and how much that meant to our ancestors.

00:47:19.600 And it's addressed in a much more in-depth and much more specific way than in a lot of other sources.

00:47:26.040 So I would really recommend that one. Nathan asks, what does victory mean to you, Daniel?

00:47:32.620 how have you applied it in your life um again a simple question and not a very simple answer um

00:47:44.940 victory is what you make it um whether it's uh you know achieving financial goals uh personal

00:47:51.820 physical goals spiritual goals or whatever um i view victory as almost like unattainable

00:47:59.340 like i'm constantly chasing it our ancestors chased horizons discovered new worlds discovered

00:48:06.540 actual new planets um visited you know the moon so victory is what is of course whatever you make it

00:48:18.700 victory for me would be seeing a time where uh also true isn't something that's obscure and

00:48:26.540 largely unknown to the vast public and it's and i'm seeing that all the time i can't tell you how

00:48:31.580 many times especially living where i live in the bible belt where i see valk nut tattoos or um

00:48:37.580 the helm of all tattoos see guys wearing hammers so but seeing that become much more mainstream

00:48:46.300 isn't the right word much more widely accepted and widely known that would be victory in my opinion

00:48:51.180 And I'll have all of our people come home to us true.

00:48:59.260 Don asks, how do you feel it best now to promote us a true to others you encounter?

00:49:05.080 What's your take on that, Daniel?

00:49:07.520 Be a walking billboard for it.

00:49:11.420 I can remember one of the first times I had a conversation with the one on one through a phone call.

00:49:17.600 about it and it's before i decided to take part in leadership but i remember saying to him that

00:49:24.080 every time i step out the door and step in the door to my house that i'm representing the try

00:49:30.160 horns um even when no one is looking but i think i can give you a really good example i've got i

00:49:37.680 have two adult children and uh my oldest daughter uh not a practitioner of ostry but

00:49:44.640 But seeing, like, my personal changes over the last four years now that I've been in the AFA, seeing how proud she is, how far I've come as an individual, as a person, seeing my wife and youngest daughter and watching them rise up with the tide, lends a lot of credence.

00:50:10.180 And when people ask, you know, where does that come from? Certainly being surrounded by successful people.

00:50:16.120 And I've never found more of that than I have as a member of the Austria Focus Assembly.

00:50:20.580 So I think being an example of what an AFA member is, is the best way to pull new people in.

00:50:31.100 You know, I absolutely what you said. And I think to add to that.

00:50:36.160 don't be afraid to talk about Ausatru. I think there's a barrier for people

00:50:42.960 to where when you say you're Ausatru, it requires explanation. And it's a harder thing. If you're a

00:50:49.480 person of faith and somebody notices that you're an exemplary person and says, hey, why are you

00:50:56.540 such a good guy? And they talk about because of their love of Christ, it automatically makes

00:51:02.400 sense to the audience and it's it's not a hard thing to explain i think that we have a reticence

00:51:08.320 to say you know it's because of my relationship with the icr oh what what's that who's that

00:51:15.200 and then you have to explain it so it may take a minute but it's worth doing um you know this

00:51:21.680 is kind of a theme tonight but words are wind deeds are iron you are a living representation

00:51:26.560 of our gods and of our faith. And when people, you know, when you live in a noble way that

00:51:33.240 brings attention to yourself from positive things and people, you know, ask what you got that's

00:51:37.880 going so right in your life, mention Ossetru. Mention the Ossetru Folk Assembly. Mention our

00:51:43.140 gods. That's what I would suggest. Cody asks. Being very, is just as important as what Matt

00:51:53.680 was just touching on being open and honest about it not you know ashamed isn't the right word but

00:52:00.120 you know being hesitant to to mention that's where it comes from i have no problem with that i'm very

00:52:05.460 open and honest about my faith with anybody who comes across me uh cody asks gothe young

00:52:12.000 what would be the biggest difference you've seen in your life since becoming a gothe

00:52:17.600 wow 0.88

00:52:20.000 that's that's a heavy question the biggest difference in my life

00:52:31.140 it's being responsible for so many people it's not just uh

00:52:36.100 as both of you represent gods to our folk and we represent our folk to our gods and there is a

00:52:41.760 very very heavy weight in that um i have a hard time articulating the gravity that comes behind

00:52:48.420 that but um yeah because i mean we're not just responsible for performing rituals and and

00:52:56.980 weddings and stuff like that we're responsible for the hundreds of people pushing almost a

00:53:01.880 thousand people now um they're all looking to us for spiritual guidance and that's that's a heavy

00:53:08.740 load it's one i gladly take um so nathan asks which of the gods do you each do each of you

00:53:23.860 identify with uh which attributes and why over the course of your lives daniel go ahead and go first

00:53:29.620 on that one nathan's bringing the questions tonight um what god do i most identify with

00:53:38.740 I've always had a healthy respect and admiration for God's thresholds, Thor being one of them, and Heimdall being the other.

00:53:56.840 Thor being a guardian of the folk, I think that's something we certainly, I think, embody as Gothar, and Heimdall being the watchman of the gods, the ward of heaven.

00:54:08.740 um and also you know the one that's there to protect and keep chaos out of the gate

00:54:17.080 but those are the two gods i think i identify with the most that's a really tough question

00:54:23.480 though is that i could do this about many many more gods yeah so um on my end

00:54:32.780 And I know that and I think this comes and goes in popularity, but a lot of people will pick a particular God that they feel closest to that our ancestors would call a full truly or a God that they have, you know, a particular friendship with or loyalty to.

00:54:55.600 i'm i'm always resistant to that to a degree because i don't want to be impious i don't want

00:55:08.020 to neglect um other gods and goddesses or you know by by necessarily showing a predominance

00:55:17.340 of worship to one because I think when one does that, you become monotheistic in a different

00:55:25.940 way. I think one of the beauties of polytheism is keeping that open so you have these very

00:55:39.080 deep and perhaps different relationships with each of our gods and goddesses. And this really

00:55:44.680 is all about relationships. You know, early on, when I first got involved in Alistair True,

00:55:51.800 I would definitely say that Thor was the exemplary God in my way of doing things.

00:56:00.640 And I don't think that's become any less. I just think that as I've matured, my spirituality has

00:56:07.580 expanded. The idea of strength and of passion and of standing against giants and crushing your foes

00:56:21.020 and, you know, that over-the-top bravado of Thor really, you know, appealed to me a lot as a young

00:56:28.000 man. That was, you know, I was much younger in my life when I first started getting into this.

00:56:33.300 I've been outstanding now for 20 years. As I've become a gothe and become more active in leadership positions, Odin certainly has has been inspirational to me in a great many ways and has has blessed me in many ways.

00:56:53.800 Also, Tyr has been a very powerful example to me in a lot of ways as well, but so have many other gods.

00:57:05.380 One thing I've noticed with relationship building as I've been there to dedicate these Hoffs, the relationship with our gods when you're actually there at their particular altar, giving them worship and interacting with them in their Hoff.

00:57:23.800 it, it builds that in a way that, that I don't think you get in a different way. It builds that

00:57:30.880 in a very unique and very special and very powerful way. And I have definitely felt that,

00:57:36.040 um, behind the scenes, you build a relationship when you're going through the process. Like

00:57:43.500 there's, there's so many things that go into getting a Hoth. Um, and there's all of the,

00:57:49.420 there's all of the mundane things that are very necessary. There's raising funds. There's trying

00:57:55.140 to find the right location. There's plotting where we have the right membership. And there's

00:58:02.220 all those things. And those are essential. We need them. But at least on a personal end,

00:58:07.820 and I believe this is true with many of our other members, there's a relationship that gets built.

00:58:14.600 There's there's promises that get made at your at your altar.

00:58:18.440 There's there's prayers that go out.

00:58:21.280 There's a very sincere desire to want to find the right place and want to find a place that is is worthy of the God that you're that you're you're giving it to.

00:58:33.780 Hoping to get everything right. Hoping you're not the guy that does something stupid that screws it up. 0.99

00:58:38.660 So now one of our gods doesn't get there off. 0.99

00:58:42.280 Through that whole process, there's a lot of prayer, a lot of meditation, a lot of offerings and a profound spiritual development goes on while those Hoffs are being contemplated and worked towards and ultimately dedicated.

00:59:00.660 And that's really strengthened my relationship with Odin, with Thor, with Balder and with Njord so far.

00:59:12.280 uh maybe i don't know more different than what you're asking for but that's what comes to mind

00:59:17.240 trent asks gothe young what's the most powerful bloat you've attended

00:59:28.380 um i have an answer to that but there's it's a really really

00:59:39.020 more to it than just bloat i think it was situational and more to do with the event

00:59:45.380 than anything so in uh 2019 was uh my first o-star in the south my first uh national event

00:59:52.920 and my first time meeting the ulterior goethi it's first time i met a lot of guys i met rob

00:59:58.040 and cliff and you know a bunch of other people there um my wife and i have i have an adult son

01:00:05.940 and uh we were estranged at the time leading up to that particular event and uh so when he came

01:00:15.860 back home he came back home because he had fallen on hard times and was dealing with some uh

01:00:19.660 substance issues so rather than leave him home we said okay we're gonna come with us 1.00

01:00:26.400 and he came with us and we'd had some conversations with uh with a gothy at the time

01:00:37.560 brian wilton to kind of counsel uh heather and i through this thing it was really hard hard to

01:00:42.920 deal with and uh what motivated me afterwards to get into the gothar program because of

01:00:49.540 brian's counseling and matt's also so anyway that friday night uh was the first time i've

01:00:56.900 experienced that an odin bloat and um i don't know if it what was that one's always stuck out

01:01:03.700 in my mind for a multitude of reasons but i mean i could still hear the harrier father song in my head

01:01:11.140 and uh as matt was spurging the blessings from the horn and many of you were watching have

01:01:17.540 experienced one of matt's bloats and you know it can get thunderously loud and extremely high energy

01:01:24.580 and i remember when he had the horn and was going to empty the horn upon the fire i'm not sure if

01:01:30.980 the horn slipped but at least from my perspective it looked like he spiked it like a football like

01:01:36.100 you know if he scored a touchdown and if he didn't spike it on purpose he sure played it off really

01:01:41.140 well he was you know matt's a big you know big man and uh a lot of energy coming forth from him

01:01:47.740 he's kind of like flexed when he was still you know hey hello and it hit me in the chest it was

01:01:53.460 i'm having a hard time finding the words but it hit so hard and i remember walking away from that

01:01:59.660 just trembling and i remember turning and looking at my son and my son just tears streaming down

01:02:04.880 his face and uh he and i exchanged some words that i'm not going to share but i look back at

01:02:14.140 that bloat as a beginning to my son's healing and uh yeah i'm trying not to get emotional

01:02:20.620 watching him get over that particular issue and become the man that he's become in the last

01:02:28.980 um three years uh all of it began there and i'm super proud of him and i always look back at that

01:02:35.240 that particular ritual with uh an insane amount of piety and emotion i yeah a lot went into that

01:02:43.980 and uh i got a lot out of it and that my whole family did and uh it kick-started a big change

01:02:50.320 in my family's life all began at the start of that bloke

01:02:54.420 so the horn absolutely slipped and i tried to play it off and i'm glad that was successful

01:03:02.540 i was so worried i'd destroyed the you know the nice afa horn that we had but i was in

01:03:07.200 the moment so i just went with it um but yeah it was totally a slip

01:03:11.840 um so robert asks do you ever get tired of a question if it's previously answered in

01:03:22.700 a other video. No. And that's one of the cool things about doing Victory Never Sleeps versus

01:03:33.800 the once a month that I was doing is, you know, you guys get to hear the perspective of other

01:03:42.840 people involved in the AFA and not just me, because it's a question you may have asked me

01:03:46.680 over and over. But each time we have a new guest, you know, they can, they can offer something

01:03:52.820 different or the books that, you know, like the book recommendations, always a question we get

01:03:57.140 asked, but each person has different stuff that has really stood out to them. And yeah, there's

01:04:01.840 a lot of commonality, but there's also some different ones that have been, you know, very

01:04:06.760 meaningful to different, different AFA personalities. I mean, we get relationship

01:04:12.940 questions about how do we find a mate every time and gets repetitive because the answer is so much

01:04:18.260 the same. But hearing the same advice from a variety of people, both men and women of different

01:04:25.140 ages, maybe that'll hit the right person at the right time. And, you know, at worst, you guys got

01:04:31.320 to sit through a few minutes of hearing the same thing from us. It's a good time for a bathroom

01:04:35.600 break or get yourself a beverage or whatever you got to do. But no, I don't I don't get tired of

01:04:39.580 get the same questions over and over. Mandy asks, Goethe Daniel, who would win? Arne

01:04:49.340 Anderson in his prime or Shawn Michaels in his prime?

01:04:57.580 Arne Anderson. The horseman would be there to jump in and make sure Shawn Michaels went

01:05:04.580 down all right sean michaels could have had diesel or he could have had dx with him you don't know

01:05:16.500 in the ring sean michaels would absolutely win in the street iron would destroy him

01:05:21.540 they would that would happen today it would happen then it would happen 20 years from now

01:05:26.900 yeah um nathan matt and daniel what really drives you to do what you do in the afa

01:05:38.980 and in life go first daniel

01:05:41.700 and nathan's bringing the questions hard tonight um wow uh what drives me

01:05:51.900 so personally for myself i i want to be remembered um i would like to have in uh

01:06:03.020 a hundred years from now people raising a horn in in my honor um whether that's through

01:06:09.980 an afa day of remembrance or the fact that you know myself and so many other people

01:06:15.660 we're the first that throws off uh but what motivates me is service to the gods for ancestors

01:06:24.380 and and the folk um our people are our people are in in desperate need for spiritual food

01:06:34.140 and i think that's our primary job is go thars to make sure they get that um

01:06:40.780 because we've been floating around individual individualistically for so long now i think

01:06:45.660 as important as it is uniting our people with our gods is just as important as

01:06:50.920 uniting them with their people in the kin fence.

01:07:01.840 That's heavy, man.

01:07:03.640 Well, it really is.

01:07:06.940 You know, I answered this a little bit last time, I think in a way, but

01:07:11.900 this is this is true throughout but especially as i hit 40 i'm aware that that life is finite

01:07:26.720 and you know i'm not not dying or anything but we've got a limited amount of time here

01:07:33.880 in midgard to build reputation and to do things and to accomplish and i want to

01:07:40.040 I have been blessed with some very unique responsibilities in that regard.

01:07:47.740 And I want to do the best and the most that I possibly can with the time that I have

01:07:54.860 for our gods, for our folk, and for the AFA to move Ausatru forward and to

01:08:01.500 do deeds worthy of recognition from the gods. I want to build that for my ancestors. I want to

01:08:09.460 build that for my daughter. I want to build that for myself and my reputation. And you mentioned

01:08:16.760 earlier about, you know, it's like you're constantly chasing victory. I think that you

01:08:20.340 can achieve victories, but you stack big victory by all of the little victories you're able to get.

01:08:27.380 But I don't ever want to stop. That's why I named this series of shows, Victory Never Sleeps,

01:08:35.120 is because I don't ever want to rest with it. I'm hungry. I want to accomplish and I want to do and

01:08:40.920 I want to build things worthy of the gods and worthy of being remembered. That motivates me

01:08:49.040 all the time. And on a really personal note, for a sense of self worth, or for, I don't know,

01:08:58.760 regrets, or things that I wish I would have done, or, you know, any of the any of the little

01:09:04.560 demons that nip at your head and your brain, the more I can throw myself into this and

01:09:11.740 do this well, the more I make up for shortcomings, the more I redeem myself from things I would

01:09:20.980 have, could have, should have done in the past, and the more I build worth and I feel

01:09:26.720 worthy of of this and that drives me and it drives me 24 7 and I'll wake up in the middle

01:09:36.100 of the night with an AFA idea or something that I need to do for the AFA pushing me forward

01:09:46.080 but that's something that's a that's a an impulse that I feel 24 7 and I think that my family would

01:09:55.320 probably appreciate if I felt that impulse a little bit less. But yeah, that's definitely

01:10:01.800 something that drives me. Cody asks a question for both of you gentlemen. How are you able to

01:10:10.140 embody the mottos of the Hoffs in your personal lives? So I guess I'll take a crack at this one

01:10:20.540 first um how do i embody that keeping those

01:10:26.700 keeping those models you know at the forefront of your mind

01:10:30.860 um because all of them carry a lot of weight and a lot of meaning

01:10:34.220 but i think the do right and fear no one is uh

01:10:37.740 always first and foremost if i if i'm thinking along those lines

01:10:42.140 um is that fear is crippling uh it's a hindrance i mean there's there's a

01:10:48.380 healthy fear of course but uh but but fearing no one and fearing nothing is uh first and foremost

01:10:59.020 in my mind in a way that doing nothing is much greater than doing something and failing at it

01:11:06.220 yeah um

01:11:12.200 so i so first to to take them each individually uh do right and fear no one

01:11:21.160 to live that out in my life that motto helps me when i reflect on it to reset my priorities and

01:11:33.440 and make sure i'm not acting out of fear fear is such a such a very common human experience that

01:11:40.400 we all deal with and it's very instinctual and it's not even like you have to give a thought to

01:11:46.320 it to let fear curtail you from doing the right thing and so i constantly reiterate that to myself

01:11:54.800 do not let fear be a deciding factor in preventing me from doing the right thing and i think that's

01:12:00.720 really important. The words are wind, deeds are iron. I mean, we've been over that a lot tonight,

01:12:06.580 but making sure that. So this is something as I'll share your guilty, it's been important to me.

01:12:15.360 And I've, you know, I've seen different things in the past coming up in AFA leadership. And I,

01:12:19.900 I don't ever want to be that guy that makes promises. I don't keep, I don't ever want to

01:12:25.360 be that guy that, that projects something or, or that, that says things and then doesn't have the

01:12:32.280 follow through. Um, I'm always really aware of that. And I know that circumstances and things

01:12:37.480 come up, but I'm very aware that when I make a commitment, I, I want to, to be the man that

01:12:44.400 completes that and that fulfills the commitment. And I want to do that in my own life as, as a man,

01:12:50.840 but also it's my responsibility because I represent the Astru Folk Assembly to make sure

01:12:57.000 that the Astru Folk Assembly's word carries weight and that I uphold the integrity of the Astru Folk

01:13:03.880 Assembly by following through. So that's very important to me. Baldursoff, guided by True North,

01:13:13.880 just checking in on my priorities, you know, making sure that the right principles are guiding my

01:13:20.200 actions or thinking about actions in terms of, you know, what will this achieve? Will this bring

01:13:25.420 me closer or further away towards the things that really matter and the things that are very

01:13:30.660 important? Um, and your top, uh, the, the strongest winds make the harshest wood, um, or make this

01:13:39.660 the harshest winds and make the strongest wood. So new half. So bear with me on that. Um,

01:13:46.580 seeing and realizing the strength that we gain through struggle um

01:13:57.560 I've said this consistently as I was here you go the but

01:14:02.900 you know the right thing is very seldom the easy thing and uh you know all of these you can see

01:14:10.440 how they they harmonize together but remembering those slogans i find helpful in uh just as as a

01:14:19.560 personal evaluation a personal check-in on where i'm at and what i'm thinking and what i'm doing

01:14:25.480 um let's just pass the top of the hour uh remind you guys of a couple of things coming up next

01:14:33.640 month and Nick will pop up the dates for you and a link for registration, hopefully. But we'd love

01:14:40.800 to see you guys in October at Winter Nights, this time for the first time Winter Nights in Ohio.

01:14:49.080 Very excited. We've got amazing people. We've got a community in Ohio that has just exploded with

01:14:55.360 activity and with membership over the last year. And we'd love to check in on that and see how

01:15:00.700 that's going. I'm very excited to go there and I would love to see all of you guys there if you

01:15:04.420 can make it. If you're a member, awesome, please come on out. If you're not a member and you'd

01:15:09.380 like to attend and check it out, please reach out to Witten and Githya Erickson and Nick can throw

01:15:18.260 some addresses for you on there and we'd love to see you guys come out and get vetted and see what

01:15:25.560 it's all about but yeah if you guys can make it i believe it's going on in

01:15:33.000 you know what i don't want to misspeak it's going on in the state of ohio exactly where in that

01:15:36.680 state my ohio geography is is not as great as it could but yeah make sure you come out to winter

01:15:42.200 nights in october um also if you guys want to participate throw us any any tips or do super chat

01:15:51.240 come on over to entropy um it's nice it's really nice service it's a it's a cool thing

01:15:57.720 and we appreciate you guys there uh and we like entropy a lot because it's specifically

01:16:03.880 dedicated to to free free uh free speech and free expression and i think that's really important um

01:16:12.760 also remember any questions you guys want throw them up either in entropy or over on youtube

01:16:17.880 And we will go ahead and get to those and answer those.

01:16:22.620 Robert asks, is it possible to connect with all the gods simultaneously without losing piety?

01:16:30.160 I think it is.

01:16:31.140 I think that the best way to answer that, I don't know if this was feeding off of my earlier question or my earlier answer or not.

01:16:42.560 But you certainly can. And I have no reason to believe that our gods are petty or jealous that way, especially not with with their kin, with with other Aesir.

01:17:02.160 I think it's yeah, you can absolutely connect with them and not, you know, all of them at different times and not feel impious.

01:17:11.060 And I also think that doing, you know, connecting with them as a group, as a community, as a family is also something to do.

01:17:19.380 And that's something I very commonly do at Yule bloats, as opposed to it being a specific bloat to a specific God. 0.87

01:17:26.500 Very often I do it as a general celebratory bloat to all of the Aesir. 0.91

01:17:32.680 And and that's something that I've done a lot.

01:17:36.260 And I think that that's pious and taken, you know, taken as a reverend act.

01:17:41.060 So so I absolutely think that you can. I don't think you should feel uncomfortable reaching out to a particular God or goddess at whatever time you feel moved to do so.

01:17:51.760 I just think it's also important to to make sure that you that you honor all of the gods as best you can to not leave anyone out and to be, you know, to be fully pious.

01:18:06.100 What are your thoughts on that, Dan?

01:18:07.680 i really don't have much to add i think you put that better than i can all right so william asks

01:18:15.640 coming from an atheist background raised that way by my parents how would you suggest beginning to

01:18:22.580 introduce faith to my family uh kids especially go ahead and take a swing at that daniel

01:18:29.080 i think first and foremost the practice of also true is uh ancestor worship

01:18:35.800 and while sometimes we sometimes in the last couple of hundred years particularly we've

01:18:47.360 over rationalized the existence of divine beings so getting the first step toward that i think is

01:18:57.440 the worship of ancestors you know your grandparents for instance if they passed on those are people

01:19:02.600 that you've known, touched, held, shared meals with, and happy memories with.

01:19:11.460 So I think the first step toward embracing that is the worship of ancestors.

01:19:22.760 Apologize, guys.

01:19:23.740 Bear with me.

01:19:24.300 Our entropy is not working again for some reason, unfortunately.

01:19:29.900 So I'm trying to get that fixed.

01:19:32.600 what i will say is in the meantime um

01:19:40.680 i like daniel said i think that um ancestor worship is

01:19:49.320 the most accessible path to that um because i think that when you have picture you know and

01:19:57.400 i'm not sure if your parents are with you still or if you're if your grandparents are still with

01:20:01.800 you but when you have pictures on the wall of people that your children can see they know

01:20:08.520 those people existed there's not a question there's no you know fundamental existential

01:20:14.680 questions about the existence of gods these people clearly existed um and it's so fundamental

01:20:21.800 to human nature in all of our uh expression to be able to commune with our ancestors even people that

01:20:30.600 don't uh don't admit to it or don't like to we speak to our dead loved ones often um even atheists

01:20:41.560 do it without thinking about it you'll have something you wanna you wanna share uh or you

01:20:48.760 wanna ask your grandpa about or you know you'll you'll come in those moments where you're in your

01:20:55.720 feelings and you'll do that i think encouraging that in a more structured way with your children

01:21:00.920 is a really good start and i think if your children can believe that your ancestors listen

01:21:08.520 on from beyond the veil it makes it that much easier to get your children to uh to believe in

01:21:15.480 the gods i'm not sure um i'm not sure the ages of your children and i think that makes a difference

01:21:24.440 whether you're starting them out fresh or whether you're trying to get older children who have been

01:21:30.120 atheists to be um to become religious one of the things is i would stress especially with the rest

01:21:40.040 of your family with older children is um is openness i think it's a huge ask to demand that

01:21:49.960 someone goes from no belief to devout faith with nothing in between i think that's a that's a very

01:21:57.720 big ask and i think that's you know kind of a non-starter for a lot of folks so in the afa

01:22:03.640 we try not to do that what i would encourage people to do is to be open and to reach out

01:22:10.280 to make an offering to the gods and see what happens with an open heart an open mind

01:22:17.560 And and just literally say that, say, hey, you know, I don't know if you guys are out there, but I hope that you are.

01:22:26.500 And here is an offering, you know, some incense or some meat or a shot of whiskey or, you know, literally whatever that's respectful.

01:22:37.360 And say, hey, you know, I'm here and I'm listening and see what happens.

01:22:41.420 And I think you'd be surprised. Some really great things can happen from just that.

01:22:46.180 Also, I would encourage you to get with your local AFA membership and get your family to participate in a ritual or at least to witness a ritual.

01:22:57.620 The power when a group of people come before our gods is.

01:23:02.820 there's a synchronicity that's built and there's a momentum that's built that makes

01:23:09.500 us worth more than some of our parts when we're doing it as a family or as a as a group as a

01:23:16.660 congregation um and those are occasions where i've i've seen that light come on in people's

01:23:23.920 eyes where all of a sudden the gods are real to them so i would encourage those kind of experiences

01:23:29.040 You can't you can't force a belief and you can't force a relationship.

01:23:34.580 But that openness, I think, is a key in in moving that forward.

01:23:40.720 Matt, can I add something to that? Absolutely. You can.

01:23:44.620 So it's interesting you said that you'd mentioned, you know, bringing your family to an AFA event.

01:23:49.800 So I'm going to tell a little bit of my story when I first joined the AFA.

01:23:54.300 a um so i'd uh you know had found a folk builder in north carolina through a facebook group that

01:24:02.220 was related to folkish heathenry but not necessarily just the afa and uh they put me in

01:24:09.980 contact with a guy here in south carolina and at the time at the house anyway it was just my

01:24:15.420 myself practicing and my daughter who was mine at the time and i got invited to i believe it was

01:24:23.260 a winter finding event which was only about an hour from my house told my wife i said you know

01:24:28.980 i'm gonna me and lauren are gonna go check that out and my wife made fun of me about this stuff 0.55

01:24:34.060 she's like oh you want to pretend to be a viking you're gonna go pillage our neighbor's houses

01:24:37.380 la la la so i told her we're gonna check this thing out and um she said well i'm gonna come 0.53

01:24:43.720 with you and i said why are you just gonna make fun or whatever she's like no i just want to make

01:24:48.240 you're not bringing our kid around some you know weirdos or whatever so my wife tagged along and

01:24:54.960 uh we we gave uh we exchanged gifts with uh pray that day i remember looking back at my little girl

01:25:02.240 and again she was overcome with emotion because it was it was finally real and uh we finished up

01:25:08.880 with the ritual and uh shared a meal and did a sambal which is a wonderful icebreaker i always

01:25:15.200 recommend that to for newcomers to participate in sambal and before we got out of the driveway

01:25:21.120 heather had applied for membership with austral folk assembly and it was less about the connection

01:25:25.280 with the divine it was more about the connection within the community so there's always little

01:25:29.760 stepping stones there and we talked about ancestor worship i think that's a that's maybe a second

01:25:35.440 step i think uh getting involved with the community and seeing what it's about in real life is probably

01:25:40.480 the most important thing you can do you know it's it's not the popular answer but i think that it's

01:25:47.120 true when you see something it's easy to come into this or come at this from

01:25:59.280 from regular 2020 modern american society or western society in general

01:26:05.760 and be unsure and feel that maybe it's silly or not really, you know, not really feel like it's

01:26:13.340 a real thing. And you can't not feel that when you're at, uh, when you're at one of our events

01:26:21.100 or better yet, when you're at one of our Hoffs, practicing it in real life, especially with other

01:26:28.740 real people with families, with good looking, nice people. It makes it very real being able to

01:26:39.320 see that we have Hoffs that you can reach out and touch them. And as silly as it may sound 0.91

01:26:43.880 that they're on Google Maps, like they're a real location. That legitimacy makes it easier for

01:26:51.060 people who are just starting out or who haven't considered house a true before to feel like it's

01:26:56.340 real thing and to take it very seriously and uh i think that does go a long way

01:27:03.300 so rob asks and gothi dan can you explain for gothi trent why metallica is clearly superior

01:27:09.300 to megadeth just kidding you do not have to answer that you don't need to answer that

01:27:14.100 dave mustaine and his his lack in metallica is clearly the reason why metallica is superior

01:27:19.860 wrong

01:27:29.140 poor misguided people um jason asks brother young can you share your experience in the

01:27:37.700 rooms and how you feel journeying through has affected your growth and development

01:27:44.260 as an individual and a gothy ah again that's another heavy one um

01:27:52.740 the best way i can explain this is uh i'm a lot more exoterically minded than esoteric

01:27:58.820 um but i could share a single a singular experience with the runes um where

01:28:07.060 the work we were doing alder that we were executing i actually saw that happen in real life

01:28:12.660 so we had a member whose husband was in a really bad way uh suffering from uh the effects of covet

01:28:21.220 there was several times that she was called to the hospital to uh tell her husband goodbye and

01:28:26.420 uh he would just pull out of it and we had gathered at thor's off uh for for our yule celebration

01:28:33.940 and uh one of the things that goti spawn wanted us to do was to galder the rune urus for healing

01:28:39.620 and that's what we did and it was one of the most uh in tune gaulder sessions i've ever been a part

01:28:50.000 of i want to say there was in the neighborhood of 30 people there that day and uh this was like

01:28:56.040 before we actually started doing the uh the bloat structure we were just doing the gauldering session

01:29:00.520 for this man's healing and there was a lot involved and

01:29:08.680 the ebbs and flows of the sound was echoing throughout the hoth in a really beautiful way and

01:29:15.160 i i could feel that energy going out and protecting into the web into the well

01:29:22.200 so i'm gonna i'm just gonna throw around i think this would have been

01:29:27.000 number 20th of that year on the 21st or 22nd i got a text message from the wife of the guy

01:29:35.160 and said that he had woken up and i was thinking wow that's awesome and she explained to me that

01:29:40.920 he had he had been having i guess dreams or whatever because he was fully in comatose at the

01:29:46.440 time and that he had in the dream that he was laid out on an altar in the center of an old white

01:29:54.200 church and there was a bunch of people around him singing and that all of his ancestors were there

01:30:00.840 telling him to wake up and when she told i'm getting goosebumps talking about that now when

01:30:06.680 she had told me about that that was one of the that was the first time that i i realized that

01:30:11.960 what we do actually works beyond what beyond the worlds that we can see

01:30:17.000 Yeah, that, that story is really powerful. Um, you know, I, I've, I've also seen that and felt

01:30:30.760 that in, uh, in healing rituals, there was one we did, uh, for a member's daughter that was

01:30:36.660 going through a surgery and we, and we did that at, uh, winter nights a few years back. And,

01:30:42.560 and I feel like that worked very well. I agree. Not sure what that was to. Okay, cool. That's

01:30:58.400 from Nick. A question for both of you. Would you agree that people in the general population

01:31:03.680 aren't serious about anything and tend to wrap everything in sarcasm?

01:31:08.540 uh and also what is the remedy for that daniel go ahead and take the first crack at it

01:31:14.900 well i think that's a that's certainly a generational thing um i mentioned earlier

01:31:21.140 that i have an adult son i can remember when he was in his early teen years that

01:31:25.560 everything was a joke everything was funny and nothing was taken seriously

01:31:29.320 i think the remedy for that is just life experience because you know when everything's

01:31:35.260 funny and nothing is serious and then there are real world consequences for your action or inaction

01:31:39.860 it's not so funny anymore um but yeah i certainly do agree with uh with the first part of that

01:31:49.320 statement that there seems to be a lot of irony and sarcasm uh wrapped around everything and that

01:31:55.100 everything is a joke and that's unfortunate but there is a you know levity is good i mean having

01:32:02.820 a sense of humor is uh is uh one of the best things like so i mean i i laugh and joke constantly but

01:32:10.900 also knowing when when it's time to switch that off and get down to business and be serious about

01:32:16.260 something is you know there's a skill that i don't think is taught this is you know one of the things

01:32:25.060 that that i find most troubling with uh the generation that we're in yeah absolutely i think

01:32:31.700 that that's a massive problem certainly in the west of it's cool to not care it's popular to

01:32:43.460 you know we irreverent is a uh a positive term that we use to advertise things now

01:32:52.020 as if that's that's a good value to have um and i think that speaks to it there's been so much

01:32:59.300 in the last i don't know 60 or 70 years that has been structured to devalue

01:33:10.900 faith in general as a concept uh traditionalism the values that built western civilization

01:33:21.940 toxic masculinity all of the things that our ancestors cherished

01:33:27.380 uh there's been a very conscious effort to devalue those and make them a laughing stock and

01:33:35.140 what is much more effective than villainizing something is making it a joke and making

01:33:42.180 a person or a thing or an idea a laughing stock it's a much more effective way to devalue it

01:33:48.900 um and that's tragic and i think that we see we see that we see the disposable

01:33:54.980 society we live in where relationships are disposable faith is disposable family is disposable

01:34:03.940 everything's disposable and for people that want to live for pleasure all the time we find people

01:34:11.300 that are consistently miserable and unsatisfied we've seen a drastic increase in suicides

01:34:19.060 i think some of that comes from you know if everything's a joke then life has no meaning

01:34:23.460 nothing has meaning and when you're done laughing and you sit quietly and reflect on that

01:34:29.540 that's terrifying um

01:34:33.760 i don't think that there is a quick easy answer to sweep the world of that but i think to fix our 1.00

01:34:44.160 people one at a time uh the astro folk assembly and what we're doing is the answer to that 1.00

01:34:50.400 I think that it's very easy to laugh at the concept of spirituality and to laugh at those 1.00

01:34:57.040 things. But when you participate in a bloat, it's much harder to when you see and you feel

01:35:03.740 the gravity in that room when a God is present. Experiencing these traditional things, sometimes

01:35:14.660 for the first time with a lot of our young people, I think that's the best we have for a remedy

01:35:21.280 to that. And, and so I hope, and I'm watching more people build that seriousness in their lives.

01:35:34.760 So another question, could someone who had a stronger connect, Otto asked this, could someone

01:35:43.440 had a stronger connection to celtic or other european pantheons be a member of the afa

01:35:52.320 yes and i think it's a i think it's a

01:35:58.080 complicated question um

01:36:05.440 so first off the bat yes uh

01:36:09.680 Uh, second, I don't think the two are necessarily different, certainly not different in the

01:36:19.460 fundamentals. I think that our gods share a commonality in your Indo-European Aryan pantheons.

01:36:29.880 I think that, you know, there are some culturally specific deities, but I think

01:36:35.140 a lot of overlap occurs. And I think that if one starts out that way and joins the AFA,

01:36:46.220 very likely they would begin to express that piety in a more dramatic context. But yes,

01:36:56.820 absolutely. Anyone who is worshiping gods of the Aryan pantheons is welcome to join the AFA. 1.00

01:37:05.940 And I agree. I did not realize that I agree was somebody's handle in here. 1.00

01:37:11.780 So I was a little bit confused by that. My apologies.

01:37:14.100 do you think possibly people are scared of true spirituality so they try not to care

01:37:30.500 because they think that they're trying to manifest quicker instead of giving care to

01:37:36.560 their spiritual practice uh what are your thoughts on that daniel

01:37:40.560 i think a lot of it's got to do with some kind of uh issues with accountability um and if you

01:37:48.480 don't care you're not really accountable i think whenever you take things seriously especially in

01:37:52.900 a spiritual way there's accountability on the other end of it that's pretty much all i've got

01:37:58.940 on that yeah i think you're absolutely right that it's fear i think people are this is a

01:38:04.860 But to go off on a little bit of a tangent on your question, we've seen that a lot.

01:38:13.040 And I don't know if it's just our people or not.

01:38:18.040 Our people are of primary concern to me.

01:38:21.500 But there is a fear of real things.

01:38:28.740 There's certainly a fear of commitment.

01:38:30.580 We see that in the sense of marriage and other things, but I think that's very true also with spirituality.

01:38:37.840 There's a fear of commitment and there's a fear of success.

01:38:43.360 There's a fear of doing things and those things being real.

01:38:47.840 It's very convenient when you have ideas about something to pontificate from your mom's basement.

01:38:54.120 But to go out and put your ideas to the test is scary, because what if you're wrong to go out and have to prove your ideas in front of an audience and in a world where there's consequence is terrifying to a lot of people in this generation.

01:39:15.200 And I think that that's one of the reasons we have people that don't like organized religion, because when they're just making their own rules, especially if their religiosity is insincere, they're kind of the judge of their own stuff, and it's very easy for them to make excuses.

01:39:36.660 You know, we've seen with our Hoffs, we've seen with two of our Hoffs, with Thor's Hoff and with Baldur's Hoff, two groups of people, you know, that we were really counting on that were the biggest wanting to have a Hoff.

01:39:49.140 We need a Hoff. Can we please get a Hoff close to us?

01:39:51.760 As soon as we did, we had people hide and wallow in their own cowardice because all of a sudden what they said they wanted was real and they were completely unprepared for the reality of it.

01:40:06.660 Um, so that's very much a thing. I think that's absolutely a part of that culture of sarcasm

01:40:16.180 and sideline speculation and armchair quarterbacking. Uh, Lawrence Forbes coming at us

01:40:24.060 with another 10 Canadian dollars. Thank you very much. Christianity is dying in the West

01:40:29.560 and out true slash pagan slash heathen sentiments are rising. The pendulum is swinging back

01:40:35.540 And we will once again become a healthy, honorable and respectable tribe.

01:40:40.720 Absolutely. Absolutely.

01:40:49.200 From me says, what's a kindred and why slash how is it different slash better than just a group of friends slash members hanging out and mooting?

01:41:02.960 And what's the story behind Riggsblood?

01:41:06.060 Is it really the bee's knees?

01:41:10.600 This one's for you, Daniel.

01:41:13.620 Kindred is similar to a local congregation.

01:41:20.520 How is it different or better than just a group of friends?

01:41:24.280 It's neither.

01:41:25.600 It's neither different nor better.

01:41:28.140 It's really struggling to find words to find us. So Riggsblood Kindred is run by myself and go through Trent East. And we span a couple of states. Is it really the bee's knees? Of course it is.

01:41:45.420 um i think i think it's uh it's a way of giving a certain geographical area and identity um

01:41:55.300 culturally because uh it would be hard to explain somebody who lives in like missouri like what the

01:42:01.320 difference between south carolina and north carolina is and some might say it's a difference

01:42:05.320 in barbecue sauce but there's cultural differences uh certainly that same way between georgia and

01:42:10.540 south carolina um but it's like having a uh one branch of a family as part of another and showing

01:42:20.940 up to the family reunion as a group that's what i feel about it and yeah

01:42:29.900 well a little bit of you know for people who are brand new and may not understand what uh what

01:42:34.700 kindreds are and how that works it's a concept that really predates hoffs i mean as everything

01:42:42.860 does before 2015 and at the time especially when there was less afa membership places

01:42:52.060 and there's a greater distance between afa members a kindred served as a rallying point

01:42:58.540 and a local congregation for afa folk it gave them a banner to rally behind an identity for

01:43:06.620 their own local group to feel like they were part of something bigger than themselves

01:43:11.500 and i think it served that function a lot and i think it still does in areas where we don't have

01:43:15.980 hoffs i think where we have hoffs the line of what the purpose of a kindred is and what's not

01:43:23.180 is still getting sorted out. As we mentioned earlier in the broadcast, the Iron Guard didn't

01:43:29.940 dissolve. They basically just melded into Thorshof, and that became, you know, what they rallied behind

01:43:35.580 as opposed to a smaller local kindred. But, you know, those kindreds, it's a concept that's been

01:43:42.620 active in modern Ausitru all the way through, and it's, you know, it's something that, you know,

01:43:47.900 I was reading an AFA kindred handbook from the 1980s a while ago from the old Ausitru Free Assembly.

01:43:54.920 So it's a concept that's been around for a long time.

01:43:57.560 But I think that it's most useful when people are at a large distance from our offs.

01:44:03.780 so we've got uh one more question left on the docket we've been going for about an hour and

01:44:20.260 40 minutes if you guys have any more questions or anything you'd like to hear us talk about or hear us

01:44:26.660 um give our opinions or our thoughts on please don't hesitate to to throw that up

01:44:33.780 And we'll get to we'll get to this question and see what we get in the meantime.

01:44:39.380 William, do you think the traditionalist Christianity and AFA have the ability to exist and to build a better society in modern times?

01:44:49.260 What do you think, Daniel?

01:44:54.420 Part of me wants to say yes. And there's also parts of me that would say.

01:44:59.160 um i think christianity was uh is uh poison in the blood of european man and woman

01:45:08.580 but i think we we have we have the same issues and i think we we face the same challenges

01:45:15.360 um and that's the attack on traditionalism uh from some of the previous questions we're talking

01:45:21.680 about irony and sarcasm and not taking things seriously i think a lot of that's got to do with

01:45:25.700 the generations that are separated from sunday services every month every week i think that's

01:45:33.380 one of the reasons why uh piety is at the level that it is at thor's off because in the deep south

01:45:40.060 we're only a generation removed from going to church every sunday um so the answer to the

01:45:48.900 question is yes. I think it could be both ways. Again, I view Christianity as a double-edged

01:45:57.160 sword. My brother is actually a minister. And while we disagree on things unseen, we 0.99

01:46:05.460 agree on the challenges I think traditional-minded people face in Western civilization.

01:46:11.060 I like that. I like that you guys agree on or disagree on the unseen, but agree on the challenges that are right before our eyes.

01:46:22.380 I, you know, I'd have to say that's the case. It's a matter of scope. I think right now when traditional values in general are under attack so much, certainly Asatruar and Christians who are traditionally minded can find a lot of common ground and a lot of practical ways to be supportive of a resurgence of tradition in

01:46:52.380 healthy normalcy in life. I think in the long run, in some kind of a perfect world,

01:46:58.160 no. I think if society was completely back to traditional, and we didn't have such a massive

01:47:06.200 leftist Marxist plague killing the world around us, I think that would be a very difficult

01:47:16.960 uh alliance of values and not just from our end um but from their end it's it's always

01:47:25.200 it's always difficult from for me when we have you know supportive christians um on the one

01:47:31.920 hand i very much appreciate the goodwill and i much appreciate the support from those people

01:47:36.640 as individuals but it makes me question their christianity um we are fundamentally doing

01:47:46.400 the wrong things uh to christians and if you're a good christian that believes your your holy book

01:47:52.320 and and the tenets of your faith you're not supposed to be supportive of us so it makes

01:47:58.320 me question your christianity um i certainly appreciate the support and i appreciate all

01:48:02.720 those people if they're willing to support a pagan organization honoring other gods than theirs

01:48:10.720 I wish they'd just go ahead and rip the bandaid off and come join us and be part of what we're

01:48:16.580 doing. And I'd love to see that. And I think that that might be a much more likely situation of

01:48:22.360 what will happen. Michelle asks, you can go through Dan, how do you incorporate the

01:48:30.240 also true faith into your marriage i think what's uh what's been most beneficial as far as the

01:48:39.920 also true side of our marriage is that it has become the totality of our relationship

01:48:45.040 uh we parent as also true or we are you know a couple an also true couple that's become our

01:48:51.880 identity i think um i remember the first yule that we celebrated as a as a family as an afa

01:48:59.740 family we were unpacking our yule tree from the previous year and most of the ornaments that that

01:49:06.900 were in the box or whatever related to our favorite nfl team and uh just silliness like that

01:49:14.260 i remember thinking that this is all we had to say about ourselves before now and all of those

01:49:18.460 ornaments are gone now and you know we have runes and yule box and stuff like that but i think one

01:49:23.900 of the biggest steps toward um accomplishing it a marriage as a house true couple was when

01:49:32.620 my wife decided to start fault building and both doing the same job for the uh for the afa so

01:49:39.420 it's funny because if i were to call matt right now off of this call and say hey matt how's it

01:49:46.220 going he would answer me with how the afa is doing much the way the conversations happen in

01:49:51.360 in my household and i'm talking to my wife aside from dealing with you know raising kids or what's

01:49:56.400 for dinner but a lot of the conversation that we have between the two of us is afa related i think

01:50:03.040 that's been one of the biggest things that we've incorporated into our marriage and i

01:50:06.880 i think it's improved our marriage because we before we would come home from work and talk

01:50:11.760 about work or talk about a football game or something like that within minutes

01:50:17.360 conversation would be dead and it's not that way now

01:50:24.400 yeah there's there's a lot of truth in that um that's absolutely what i do and and i like that

01:50:31.680 i do it but i think sometimes it may feel impersonal to the the people that talk to me

01:50:36.560 and i hope it doesn't but yeah whenever people ask me how i'm doing that's my answer you know

01:50:46.400 My answer is the state of the AFA or how things are going in the AFA, with an exception.

01:50:51.720 Since I've become a dad, if Aubrey's doing something cool, I throw that in there as well.

01:50:56.140 But it's very seldom a map thing.

01:50:58.560 And it's mostly my role as Osheri Gauthier and some of my role as father.

01:51:06.700 And I don't think it's I don't think it's not genuine.

01:51:09.900 This is kind of a point I wanted to touch on here because I was reading some of the chat over in the side.

01:51:16.400 the root of our folks understanding of health has been wholeness or the idea of something being

01:51:29.900 wholesome for your all aspects of your life to be congruent and to synchronize and to build off of

01:51:38.320 and work and interplay with one another is the best thing that I would strongly encourage all

01:51:46.660 of you guys to try to do the best you can. It has rendered so many blessings in my life,

01:51:53.020 the more that I'm able to accomplish it. I mean, you're going to have things you do for

01:51:57.920 just recreation and distraction to get your mind off of stuff. And that's fine. We all need that.

01:52:03.160 But in general, if all of the things that matter to you in your life are all woven in to a unified, a unified whole, then you're never shortchanging the one or you're never feeling pulled away.

01:52:18.780 if your marriage is built around your relationship to the gods, if your family includes the gods and

01:52:26.320 includes the rest of the AFA, it makes everything just work together in a special way that's hard

01:52:34.480 to describe if you don't have that in your life. But the more I've had that, the better things are.

01:52:40.460 Someone over in the side chat said that they're a folk before faith person and they just want

01:52:47.000 what's best for our people. And I mean, I, I also want what's best for our people. So I'm not

01:52:54.040 knocking anybody. But my comment to that is that with Christianity, the court, the traditionalism

01:53:03.120 of traditional European style Christianity is much, much closer to something healthy for our folk

01:53:10.860 than modern leftist completely anti-traditional um poison but fundamentally christianity

01:53:26.140 is toxic to our people um it teaches values that are what have brought us to the place we are in 0.97

01:53:34.620 in a negative sense and worshiping a foreign person who's not one of our folk in a foreign 1.00

01:53:44.540 creed that's not inherent to to us to our blood to our ancestry separates your wholeness as a

01:53:55.020 as a functional white person and your your religiosity over here and it separates those two 0.68

01:54:00.780 and I think that's bad overall I think having our faith be part of this identity of who we are

01:54:08.700 is really the glue that holds so much of it together and it's what we can build that life

01:54:15.740 we want off of but again I think those are long-term goals I think we have much more

01:54:22.020 immediate problems that we don't need to be squabbling with traditionally minded well-meaning

01:54:27.560 christians over um uncle krampus did you study jung while going through the gothar program

01:54:37.400 daniel no i did not

01:54:43.080 um i did when i was going through the course we had to read not a lot but we had to read his uh

01:54:48.520 his votan essay that was part of the core curriculum um but i in my time in aussage who i have

01:54:57.560 you know, picked up a smathering of Jung. He's such a voluminous writer that I, you know,

01:55:03.000 I doubt very many people have fully read his material or digested all of the writings of

01:55:11.220 Carl Jung, but yeah, I've been exposed to that through my Goethe training.

01:55:19.880 Vril Van Eyre, do you hold ritual at specific times every day or do you let it come naturally

01:55:25.760 or and organically do you include your children if so how go ahead and start with this daniel

01:55:32.880 um no i don't do it specific times of the day um

01:55:37.280 if i had to if i had to pick a time that i i think is best i i always prefer outdoor bloats

01:55:46.800 after sundown if i'm not at the hof um but typically i let everything about bloat if

01:55:54.660 especially if i'm the one directing it um there are certain things that i might have memorized

01:56:00.900 that that become ritualistic within my ritual i always do uh an offering to heimdall in the

01:56:06.580 beginning of uh most of my rituals and if i yes my children um specifically my youngest daughter

01:56:15.060 who is also austria um she is the very reason i began this spiritual journey uh back when she

01:56:23.780 and i were practicing just the two of us and she was eight or nine years old at the time

01:56:28.740 um i remember she came to me one day and said that she was tired of being the only

01:56:33.700 the only kid she knew that believed the things that we believed in and she wanted me to find

01:56:37.620 a community to practice with and that was initially what got me into the afa as a member

01:56:44.100 so absolutely include your children and absolutely i believe things should occur organically

01:56:49.220 um so it it depends the purpose of a bloat um on certain holidays like uh

01:57:04.900 at midsummer the closest to high noon when the sun's highest in the sky is always

01:57:10.180 is the time that I most like to do bloat. At Ostara, I like to do a, you know, as close to a

01:57:19.700 sunrise or an early morning bloat as I can. Typically, if I'm doing an Odin bloat, I like

01:57:25.240 to do that at night or maybe just at dusk where it's that middle ground between day and night.

01:57:32.580 You know, for those kind of bloats, there's things that you shoot for. I don't think that

01:57:37.260 there's a wrong time to do bloat or particularly inauspicious time. But it all depends on the

01:57:45.320 purpose on more, more bloats for an occasion celebration or, you know, for a particular

01:57:56.020 God for Thanksgiving or for something that way. I don't really shoot for a time. When I was first

01:58:02.880 starting to do this with my kindred up in Alaska, we used to be very strict on doing our solstice

01:58:12.460 and equinox bloats at the moment of solstice or the moment of equinox. And that was really cool.

01:58:19.520 I miss that in a lot of ways. I'm certainly game for doing it. That becomes difficult for a lot

01:58:24.420 of people depending on their work schedules and other things in life and family. Sometimes it's

01:58:30.080 not, uh, not doable for everybody to have a, you know, three Oh seven in the morning bloat, uh,

01:58:37.940 on a weekday, but we did it. And there's a lot of times that, you know, regardless of whether

01:58:44.700 we did it and we would do it outside and driving rain where we had a can of gas that, uh, we keep

01:58:51.420 the fire going by splashing gasoline on it as we're out bloating in the middle of the rain.

01:58:56.220 because that's when, you know, that's when the autumnal equinox happened to hit. So that's when

01:59:02.560 we're out there doing it. So other times I remember doing it the moment of solstice for

01:59:08.240 winter solstice at Yule and we were, it was so cold. We had this tin pallet bonfire, which was

01:59:15.960 amazing. And it was scalding hot, but behind us was so cold. I think it was negative 25 or so.

01:59:23.540 and so we would constantly be rotating and rotissering ourselves with the heat so like

01:59:30.840 we make sure to move around the fire sun sun wise but we also rotated ourselves sun wise because

01:59:36.500 the front of you just be scalding in the back freezing so we'd have to move around in a circle

01:59:40.900 but it was it was cool to do that that was a lot of fun um as far as incorporating my children

01:59:47.320 Aubrey's little, she's two and a half now. So, um, yes, I want her there. She's been,

01:59:55.840 you know, standing in bloat. When I say standing, her mother's been carrying her,

02:00:00.740 holding her in bloat, um, since she was, since she was first born. Um, and that's been really

02:00:09.720 cool. Other kids and babies, sometimes when bloats are particularly animated or everybody's,

02:00:14.840 you know, hailing very loudly or enthusiastically, it, it scares them and they're not used to that.

02:00:21.540 Aubrey's been great with that. She's always been

02:00:24.080 not only well behaved during bloat, it's not so much a behavior as she's not afraid of that.

02:00:32.100 The energy that's there in the intensity of the folk, I think because she's been doing it so long,

02:00:38.140 she doesn't get startled by the loud noise. She, all of that's comforting and home to her.

02:00:44.840 in that in that situation and that's always been really special to me and i think sometimes you

02:00:50.760 know she started out hearing me do it so when daddy raises his voice in bloat she knows i'm

02:00:56.840 not mad she's excited and she recognizes it i it's hard to tell i hope that's part of it um

02:01:05.560 so jason asks and i'll let you take this one first daniel how inherently pagan do you feel

02:01:11.240 christianity is in its values in its practices in its structures etc it's funny you should ask that

02:01:19.320 because my understanding of christianity was through the lens of jehovah's witnesses which

02:01:24.520 was a strictly scriptural um first century recreation of christianity so to answer it

02:01:33.560 in the greek scriptures uh the new testament absolutely not it was a heavily monotheistic

02:01:41.080 you know one had a guy preaching a single god and love for all peoples or whatever um as it evolved

02:01:49.080 over the coming centuries yes it became much more pagan where they started taking in you know

02:01:57.320 deities from uh from pagan face and turning them into saints but it's part of what uh

02:02:04.280 attracted me to the idea of uh practicing outs of truths because uh according to my bible teacher

02:02:10.760 when i was with jehovah's witnesses all of those celebrations that made church cool

02:02:18.360 were inherently pagan you know there was no such thing as christmas christian uh jehovah's

02:02:24.280 witnesses don't celebrate christmas because it is a ripple fuel so when they took away

02:02:29.800 everything that was cool about it i wanted to go practice what was cool instead of what was not

02:02:34.360 well it's my own fault for letting daniel answer this first i know we have that in common um yeah

02:02:43.720 daniel stole my answer um no that's one thing that i'll always be very very grateful to the

02:02:50.520 jehovah's witnesses for their presentation of christianity was honest they had removed

02:02:56.360 all of the ill-gotten and appropriated things from christianity with a caveat and i'll address

02:03:02.200 that in a second um but they kept it strictly uh biblically based and like daniel said they

02:03:09.080 removed all of the things that i think your question presupposes all of the pagan elements

02:03:16.840 to european christianity and the christianity that i think most people are familiar with

02:03:21.640 all of the very best and the coolest things and the things about it that stir your soul and are

02:03:26.440 just amazing those are all appropriated from from paganism and specifically from our from

02:03:32.360 european from aryan paganism um and what's left is very unappealing and so as jove's witness going

02:03:41.080 through that and and cutting out all those things you get to see that that kind of pure middle 0.85

02:03:52.200 eastern very jewish christianity doesn't speak to our soul and so you really get to see that the

02:03:58.920 other thing i was going to say and this isn't i'm trying to answer the question honestly because it

02:04:05.320 was asked that way this isn't meant as a slap out there but when you go through and you look

02:04:11.480 at the development of christianity and a lot of the core documents and the concepts in those documents

02:04:19.400 the the plagiarism from other near eastern uh pre-christian pagan cults is

02:04:30.360 really glaring uh with a lot of of egyptian things with mithraic things

02:04:39.480 with zoroastrian themes there's a lot of those things that are

02:04:44.840 fundamental in the structuring of both old and new testament that i i think is very difficult to

02:04:55.180 overlook um but that's just being being honest on that ah rob asks gothi dan thorshoff fashion

02:05:08.960 icons or the greatest fashion icons style is iron

02:05:17.760 i'm not sure the question there what is what is your response to that statement

02:05:22.160 so we've gotten uh i say we i mean the crew at thorsoff uh every time we arrive somewhere uh

02:05:27.760 outside of our normal place or whatever at thorsoff we're usually dressed pretty well

02:05:33.740 And I get asked all the time, you know, when did that start?

02:05:37.620 And Rob is kind of the guy, really.

02:05:41.640 He's the first one I remember showing up in Tweed.

02:05:45.180 And he wears the most off-the-wall stuff sometimes.

02:05:51.500 Like, he'll wear that boater hat.

02:05:53.000 And nobody else could pull that off.

02:05:54.740 But, no, it all begins with the ulterior goatee.

02:05:58.880 He shows up always in a well-fitting shirt with a tie.

02:06:05.460 His shoe game has been up, so we're trying to up our shoe game.

02:06:09.280 But there's almost like a culture of trying to out-suit each other with the group at Thorsoth.

02:06:15.040 And a lot of it starts with Rob.

02:06:16.540 So Rob is out of the big mass group of us there at that particular location.

02:06:22.740 Rob's best dressed, I think.

02:06:25.360 So it's fun, and it's neat to see.

02:06:28.180 i know you guys have fun with it but yeah you guys are also very well dressed and i think that

02:06:34.260 how you dress and how you carry yourself affects your mindset when you go into something and it

02:06:41.380 affects the reaction that you get from others on how serious you take something yeah i think

02:06:46.820 you know it's it's no coincidence that thor's hoff is the best dressed of our hoffs and it's

02:06:52.420 it's also the most pious of our hoffs i think those two are connected um and yeah rob likes

02:07:00.120 to have fun with it sometimes but uh it's it's a serious thing as well um don asks go

02:07:08.420 through dan how far to go in trying to build and fulfill frith while over sacrificing for

02:07:16.280 close family? I'm not sure of the question. It's hard to go and try to build and fulfill Frith.

02:07:28.440 So, Frith is reciprocal. It isn't just something that you do, it's also something that's received.

02:07:36.840 i think um i'm really struggling with this question um

02:07:47.720 so the gift cycle that we give to our gods is important for that which is unseen to get those

02:07:53.720 unseen gifts that you know may not take shape in a material way but i think the gifts we exchange

02:08:00.360 with each other is is what frith is i think that is equally as important as if cycle with our gods

02:08:07.640 and ancestors uh with the people that right in front of us i'm not sure if that answers your

02:08:11.880 question don that really wasn't clear on what you were asking so taking a swing at it um i

02:08:21.640 this just me guessing i think it may have something to do with earlier when we were talking about how

02:08:25.560 you know we we do goathy stuff sometimes at the cost of doing family stuff okay i i and i don't

02:08:38.420 know this is just what i'm reading into it i think that as i was talking about earlier i don't think

02:08:43.260 it's an either or proposition all the time and i don't think that there's a right answer i know

02:08:48.700 people are tempted to say you know family first always that's not really the case you know if my

02:08:54.680 daughter needs to show me a block construction she's made. And I have a member that's calling

02:09:02.340 me because, you know, their, their wife just died. I think it's clear that one of them needs

02:09:09.160 my more immediate attention. I think it's a balancing act on priorities, but I think that

02:09:15.500 both of them are extremely valuable. And ideally the relationships and Frith built with our greater

02:09:22.100 AFA family are conducive to having a secure and a healthy and a happy place for your immediate

02:09:33.840 family to exist in. The two feed off of one another. The folk in general are made off of 1.00

02:09:40.720 happy, good families. Happy, good families are made off of, you know, happy and good individuals.

02:09:47.160 And all of that synchronizes and structures into that whole happy and good society.

02:09:53.820 So, again, ideally, they don't come at a cost to one another.

02:09:57.360 They synchronize with one another.

02:09:59.640 And as Daniel mentioned, Frith is reciprocal.

02:10:04.880 The ancient Arian, Proto-Indo-European word for guest and host was originally the same word.

02:10:15.720 and it later got broken in two. But that concept, and I unintentionally was doing this with my

02:10:25.880 hands, but the Rune Gabo talks about that, about the reciprocity of those things that you do. And

02:10:36.360 that's in a spiritual sense. It's in a physical sense. It's in the relationships that you build

02:10:42.700 and those people being there for you and your family when your family's having a hard time.

02:10:47.600 So, yeah, I don't think it's all I don't I don't think it's ever truly an either or proposition.

02:10:54.220 I don't think there was a in the past, especially, I mean, things have changed in the last hundred years for sure.

02:11:00.880 But there wasn't a big separation between tribe and family. And I don't think there should be now.

02:11:05.840 absolutely um

02:11:10.880 william asked a question important question for gothi dan is that a boston scally cap

02:11:18.680 yes it is this one is the uh the black peaky it's the eight panel one that i have

02:11:25.580 Good man. I like the eight panels.

02:11:34.880 Jason asks, how do you observe Balder? Is it recognizing the AFA practice that Balder is in hell or has he really died yet?

02:11:48.320 So, Jason, this is this is something I've been asked a number of times recently, as a matter of fact.

02:11:55.580 And in the AFN, Goethe Dan mentioned this earlier in a previous question, but the question was about how literal our lore is taken.

02:12:06.520 And this is the thing.

02:12:09.880 Time for us is chronological, and that's how we see it.

02:12:17.000 And it's very, it makes sense that way for humans and human existence.

02:12:21.520 sense. Mythic time is very different. Our myths tell eternal truths. In the AFA, we believe

02:12:33.640 that Balder is existing in all of his glory, in full life and youth and splendor. He is also

02:12:47.020 simultaneously being feasted in and residing in Helheim. And he is also simultaneously

02:12:56.160 reborn and restored and resurgent after Ragnarok. All of those events are cyclical,

02:13:04.700 have happened before, are happening now, can happen again. And those truths don't fit a

02:13:11.400 chronological order, if that makes sense. And I know it's a really out there concept for people

02:13:18.580 that are new or haven't had that much exposure to indigenous mythology. But yeah, we very much

02:13:27.380 believe that our lore and our gods, time functions very different in a mythic sense than it does

02:13:36.900 in our mundane existence.

02:13:41.440 Tony, I had a question about Midsommar.

02:13:44.500 When I was honored with the opportunity

02:13:47.740 to perform the Balder Bloat for Midsommar,

02:13:50.380 I remember walking around the Ritual Circle there,

02:13:53.080 which is a beautiful space out there.

02:13:55.760 And I remember going over just little things in my head,

02:13:58.800 like where do I look when addressing Balder? 0.95

02:14:02.720 Do I look up or do I look down?

02:14:05.100 And I remember posing that question to you

02:14:06.740 at the time and that was how you explained it to me and uh really as a go-fi i'm i'm not the

02:14:15.380 i'm not i'm not the big lore guy um i know the lore and i understand the lore but

02:14:20.500 something about that conversation was like uh really twisted my mind up and i started looking

02:14:26.260 at all of the stories i mentioned earlier in the creation story so uh that was a big

02:14:32.260 pivotal conversation that you and i had back at midsummer well and i think it's something else

02:14:38.660 to consider and even if you're even if you're not with me yet on the mythic time um one thing

02:14:45.460 to consider about balder is there was no period of like non-existence death um even in death

02:14:56.820 balder was honored and feasted and treated you know as a celebrity guest in the halls of hell um

02:15:06.740 he still very much exists and was very much answering prayer and answering you know the

02:15:11.700 interaction of other deities and you saw that you saw the right the hell and and that in our

02:15:18.980 in our myths so there was no position to where balder wasn't in regal splendor

02:15:25.140 and wasn't in a powerful existence um and i think that's worth noting as well but i think that so

02:15:32.420 many many of the aspects of our gods and the portions of their life that we know from lore

02:15:40.420 hit us at different times and we relate to them differently at different stages in our life

02:15:46.260 and so i think that those cyclical truths that are expressed in in our mythos are are meant to

02:15:53.620 be that way and to be looked at from different angles looked at when you're when you're a child

02:15:59.540 looked at when you're a young man looked at when you're a husband when you're a father and then

02:16:04.500 when you're a you know when you're an old man looking back at life i think the truths

02:16:10.980 display themselves differently to you at different stages in your life

02:16:16.100 um jason also asked matt where did you get your mule near um i got mine

02:16:23.620 So this one here, I want to say 2015, and I got it from a group of folks that we used to have a decent relationship with, and they make some nice products.

02:16:40.220 They're folks that I don't think highly of anymore, and I really don't want to advertise their business.

02:16:46.700 But it's a it's a recreation of a a Swedish one that was found.

02:16:53.980 And it was it's always really been a cool design to me.

02:16:57.460 It was. My very first Mjolnir, which was a this one silver and it's overlaid with gold that's largely rubbed off on the face of it.

02:17:08.600 But it's based on the same design of the very first hammer that I found.

02:17:12.600 The first hammer that I ever wore when I first discovered Alistair was a brass one.

02:17:17.500 And it was at the museum shop in the Fifth Avenue Mall in Anchorage.

02:17:23.060 There was this shop back then.

02:17:24.460 And I don't know if this still exists, but it was a thing.

02:17:26.860 And they had all these, you know, I guess, museum kind of curiosities there.

02:17:33.920 And they had a little one of those little spinny things up at the counter of different pendants.

02:17:42.260 And that was the first time I'd seen a Mjolnir pendant pendant in real life.

02:17:47.120 And I liked it. It was squared off. It was beefy. It it felt right.

02:17:51.900 And so that was the first hammer that I ever had. I gave that to my daughter at her naming.

02:17:57.340 And she's got it on a on a little piece of yarn. Now it's still kind of too big for her.

02:18:03.380 But, yes, that's a little bit about this hammer.

02:18:08.380 So we've already answered this, but if you could give us the rundown again.

02:18:15.380 Not sure if this has been asked, but can you tell us about the grave at Thorshof, both the man and the restoration?

02:18:24.380 sure the the gentleman's name is phil buffet um the grave what we i think we dated it at almost

02:18:32.600 120 years i might be off a little bit on my math there um when we first uh acquired the property

02:18:40.900 the uh the stone was staked out uh by a couple of like uh almost like surveyor's flags so people

02:18:49.300 don't run it over with a mower or park on top of it but it was in at least 20 pieces when we got

02:18:55.620 there um and the ulterior was uh really passionate about us getting a replacement stone which we

02:19:03.860 we did uh just before ostara of 21 maybe yeah 21 and uh you know we got the the life and death

02:19:14.100 runes on there and it's fenced off with some nice gravel but we don't know a lot about the guy

02:19:20.180 except for that he was married to a woman named sarah who is actually in the graveyard across

02:19:24.020 the street from thorshof and we're assuming because as is uh fairly typical in in the carolinas uh

02:19:33.620 somebody that would be buried on the property that close to the temple was likely a donor of

02:19:38.180 the land or perhaps the founder of the original congregation that was there when the temple was

02:19:44.340 built um yeah so a couple of things that i didn't mention at first and i'm trying to pull up a

02:19:54.500 a picture here that i'm going to throw to nick and maybe he can throw up on there i'm not sure

02:19:58.500 how fast we can do it of the grave so we wanted to we wanted to honor him and because the stone

02:20:05.380 was in so many different pieces and in such a bad state we only had a little bit to go by um

02:20:13.940 we were able to get his name off of a couple of the pieces it didn't i mean we were confused at

02:20:20.740 first but some deductive reasoning and figuring it out we're able to get that figured out and

02:20:25.380 we were able to find an old document that uh talked about um all of the graves so originally

02:20:32.900 the graveyard we spoke of across the road and the church property itself were all one property

02:20:38.660 uh that got split up with the sale to us but there was a manifest of who was in the graveyard and he

02:20:44.340 was on that list as as the first person in there but again not with a lot of information so we

02:20:50.020 don't have um we don't have birth and death dates on there for the man because those as far as we

02:20:57.620 know don't exist but we spent quite a bit of time trying to figure that out and really wanting to

02:21:02.980 to honor him the best we could svan went ahead and designed and got set up the stone that we

02:21:11.300 that we currently have there um but it's it's very nice and that was it was really important

02:21:19.300 for us to do it it's hurtful to me for me to think that they they cared more about their lawnmower

02:21:28.500 and potential damage to their lawnmower than they did about respecting this man's grave and uh that

02:21:38.020 that's wrong on so many levels um so i'm i'm glad that i'm glad that we uh we're able to correct

02:21:47.940 that um aha right uh right here let me see if these will go through and if there's any way for

02:22:01.380 nick to throw them up it'd be awesome but that's kind of bonus features but he is uh

02:22:07.860 he is amazing at uh at producing this and making this look like a million bucks i really appreciate

02:22:13.700 that rowdy dude with uh 25 us dollars thank you very much for that um thank you for your explanation

02:22:25.460 on my folk first comment never thought about it that way uh maybe that's why i was unhappy

02:22:31.380 at church well i'm i'm glad that that meant something to you and again i didn't didn't

02:22:36.900 mean any offense with it just a little perspective so cool i'm glad you appreciated that and thank

02:22:42.260 you very much for the donation that that also means a lot uh jason asks how can i convince my

02:22:50.580 family it is okay to attend a gathering at balder's off daniel do you have thoughts on that

02:23:00.020 well i think what's really important is is understanding a perspective and i can just

02:23:05.060 tell you from my perspective um when i first uh tracked on uh the folk building that brought me

02:23:12.260 into the afa i actually checked them out uh his kindred on facebook for about a year before i

02:23:19.780 committed to checking them out i don't recommend that for everybody but i think one of the things

02:23:24.500 that struck me was just how normal everybody looked um that's super important not everybody's

02:23:32.340 is going to be wearing uh nobody actually in the afa is going to be wearing like a you know a bear

02:23:36.180 pelt or something like that um or looking silly with uh some other kind of costuming i think

02:23:43.860 i think letting your family know they're going to be surrounded by normal people that are

02:23:47.780 um frithful and pious and take the religion very seriously i think it's up in that direction i

02:23:55.780 think uh you know if you show them pictures from our websites our different half district websites

02:24:00.660 and the main website our social media and just show them just how normal they look because we

02:24:07.700 are just normal people um we're a group of hard-working people that are care for our families

02:24:15.220 even more so i think than any other religious bodies out there

02:24:21.940 so jason thinking about that and nick can probably throw up a link to this as well

02:24:26.900 the baldershoff website will give your family a good indication of what baldershoff is about

02:24:32.740 and help them understand it but i'd also uh if you are listening to this or you know participating

02:24:40.020 in this on uh on youtube show the the videos from baldershoff um we have a number of videos from

02:24:51.620 fall fest now and fall fest in the past and a picture is worth a thousand words and i think

02:24:58.820 looking at that you know i don't know where your family's current stance is on it but it really

02:25:05.860 shows that we're you know happy nice families doing something that we love and there's nothing

02:25:13.220 you know nothing scary or bad about anything we're doing and i think those are really good

02:25:19.060 ways to put our for our best foot forward um and invite your family to go with you if they want to

02:25:24.820 come i think putting that out there even if they don't take you up on it just the gesture has has

02:25:31.300 a power within itself i think um so i saw cliff over on the side i don't know if nick's going to

02:25:38.580 throw it up because a lot of it was about uh terry rumpf and we'd already addressed that but the the

02:25:45.300 part about getting your will in is really important one thing that i want to urge all

02:25:51.140 of you guys to do and nick can throw the link up to to the um do your own will dot

02:26:00.180 couldn't even get it out of my mouth before he had it up look at you nick i appreciate it um

02:26:07.380 i've seen a lot of people in the afa i say a lot of people i've seen a number of people

02:26:13.060 who death has hit them and they didn't have a will in place and as a result the things that

02:26:23.980 they wanted done with their remains and their funeral service and those type of things

02:26:30.760 their wishes and their family's wishes were different and they didn't end up getting what

02:26:37.260 they wanted in the end. And that's tragic. You know, some of these men, men and women died as

02:26:44.200 as elderly people and, you know, saw this coming for some time. Some folks, you know, had had

02:26:50.100 diseases that they knew were coming others in a much more tragic sense. Others, one one gentleman,

02:26:58.400 you know, at a very young age, I think at 30 years old, was murdered. And, you know, so death can

02:27:04.320 come at any time and a very, very simple, but very important thing to do is to get your affairs in

02:27:10.580 order and get a will done. One of the, you know, people are scared to do it. Nobody wants to think

02:27:14.920 about it, but also there's a fear that it's expensive or difficult to do. I found that

02:27:21.980 website and again, I'm not getting any commission because it's free, but I advertise it. I was

02:27:27.460 looking because I can be cheap too. I get it. It's got for, for all of the states in the United

02:27:35.480 States, certainly it's got templates to do your own will and to add in the things that are important

02:27:42.840 to you in that will. And it literally takes 10 minutes to do. It's absolutely free. There's no

02:27:50.480 excuse not to do it, but there's a second step. You know, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's

02:27:56.440 there to hear it doesn't make a sound. Get that will with people, a signed copy of that will

02:28:05.700 that's legal with your family, but also please send that to our law speaker, an address that

02:28:15.440 hopefully Nick can also throw up for you so that we have it, whatever you want, whatever you want

02:28:21.300 your will whatever your last what you want we want to have that somewhere so when you pass

02:28:28.260 we can be aware of what you wanted and we can show that to the people making

02:28:32.660 the decisions and ensure that you get what you want in death

02:28:39.300 i'm very passionate about it it means a lot to me and please do that

02:28:44.580 um michelle asked daniel could you talk a little about the upcoming event winter finding at thors

02:28:54.120 hoff absolutely i would have to check out uh date i can't remember it right off the top of my head

02:29:01.160 but it's typically going to fall on the last saturday of the month i will be holding a food

02:29:05.840 pantry as we typically do from 11 to 1 p.m and then the event starts immediately following that

02:29:12.920 um this is a favorite of uh witness fawn and being a hunter so we exchange gifts with the god ular

02:29:21.500 place for respond after the bloat to bless people's uh hunting weapons so you have a successful hunt

02:29:31.040 all right um vril vanir asks is it ever important to distinguish differences between the branches

02:29:40.280 of heathenry i.e nordic germanic anglo-saxon etc um no i don't think that's important it's fun and

02:29:49.960 it's interesting if you're doing it uh for a deeper understanding of history or for a scholarly

02:29:56.440 insight into something or if your ancestry is very specifically tied to a particular region

02:30:03.800 in europe those things can be fun and meaningful to you but fundamentally important no i don't think

02:30:11.960 so because fundamentally these are our gods and their relation to you exists now and not in an

02:30:21.320 ancient period the three cultures that you mentioned all overlapped and the same family

02:30:27.880 through the generations of their life could have gone through with one line father to son

02:30:32.760 on all three of those different cultures you mentioned.

02:30:39.520 It's less important to try to practice Ausatru

02:30:42.520 as in an Anglo-Saxon context or a Nordic context

02:30:47.660 or a Germanic context,

02:30:49.580 than to try to practice it in an American context

02:30:52.780 or wherever you find yourself.

02:30:55.020 Ausatru is here and now and today,

02:30:57.260 and it's not confined to a specific region

02:31:02.260 or a specific time of the past. It lives in our blood. It's confined to us as a race, as a people.

02:31:11.700 Fro Van Eyre also asks, did you guys ever look up his name to find more info on sites like

02:31:17.660 Ancestry? Yes, we did. We tried to look up his name in a lot of places. Trouble is,

02:31:23.720 there is a number of Bethes in the Carolinas, and there's another Philip Bethes that we know

02:31:29.840 for a fact is not this guy that uh also lived in north carolina very very close to where this guy

02:31:35.760 lived so it's been very difficult but no we spent um because to get a tombstone made and everything

02:31:42.160 that way takes a very long time we spent probably a year trying to research it to find out more

02:31:49.280 information and uh and we really can't on the gentleman we found out as much as we can and

02:31:54.880 that's what we ended up going with. But no, we did. We absolutely tried that. Lawrence Forbes

02:32:01.520 with another 10 Canadian dollars. Thank you so much, Lawrence. We appreciate it. While on the

02:32:06.280 subject of death and dying, does the AFA have a stance on medical assistance in dying for

02:32:11.400 chronically ill people slash patients? No, but we have a stance on getting what you want done.

02:32:24.880 Part of that will site that I mentioned also has advanced medical directives on it. And you can do that at the same time. And that's worthwhile to file with us. Brandy was talking about this, but she has, I don't know what you call it now, but I make a note of this.

02:32:44.180 to encourage people to do this but um a card in her wallet that says you know that she is also true

02:32:52.260 that she doesn't want uh catholic or christian last rights administered to her and with contact

02:33:00.020 information for her family but also for her clergy so that if there needs to be you know

02:33:05.940 if there's a dying process and someone needs to be there to to see to the see to the um

02:33:11.860 you know, those last moments of life and any ritual practice that they contact Agothi or Agithya

02:33:20.200 and not a faith that isn't hers. So in that sense, we encourage everybody to

02:33:29.820 take responsibility and take ownership of their life and of their death in the way that they can

02:33:37.000 and to have those directives in place and to, you know, as best you can make it clear what you want

02:33:44.820 done. Because I've seen people in this situation too, where they will have a loved one that

02:33:51.620 finds themselves incapacitated and they don't know what that person wanted. And it's important

02:34:00.120 for you to get your will done in that circumstance, but it's also a kindness to whoever

02:34:07.400 your next of kin is or whoever has to make that call for them to be confident in what you would

02:34:12.260 or wouldn't want. There's a lot of guilt, a lot of regret, a lot of stress if people worry that

02:34:19.500 they made the wrong call by either having your life extended by machines or other means that

02:34:25.820 wouldn't have wanted or by not doing that and maybe you did want that extra little bit or that

02:34:31.500 extra chance at life that's a big weight on your loved ones that you can help with by having those

02:34:38.860 things in place and again i noticed you donated the canadian dollars so i'm not sure exactly how

02:34:44.780 that works in your country but certainly those advanced medical directives are are very important

02:34:51.820 here in the United States. Is there a second language that the AFA suggests to learn slash

02:35:03.700 use to communicate between members other than English? Depends where you are. No, I don't

02:35:13.900 think there's any doctrinal AFA suggestion on that. Depends who you want to talk to and where

02:35:22.040 you got family and where you got other members. We have, just thinking of all the different

02:35:27.460 countries that we have AFA members in, I would say, if you want to talk to other AFA members,

02:35:36.740 your most useful would be, well, I say this, but the Scandinavians all speak English.

02:35:43.920 So I think the most bang for your buck would probably be to learn Italian right now.

02:35:51.780 Because I'm not sure how well all of those guys speak English. Again, if you want to,

02:35:58.960 because it's fun and you want to talk to other AFA members, the biggest international membership

02:36:04.780 in a non-english speaking country is our members in sweden so learning swedish i think would be

02:36:10.720 useful that way um but that's uh that's what i have for suggestions i don't know daniel do you

02:36:16.840 have another suggestion i'd say any european language other than english would be good to

02:36:23.160 learn um i mean some folks may need to speak other languages for their job or something like

02:36:29.580 that, but as far as like within communicating with our European folk, pick another European

02:36:37.020 language and use that. All right. And so really quick, you know, we've been on for two and a half

02:36:50.300 hours now. If you guys have more questions, let's go ahead and get them out. If not, we'll call it

02:36:56.900 a night here in a second, but Nick was able to pull it off. He's got a picture of the tombstone

02:37:05.000 and the two pictures of the center are actually both the same stone. One is just up close and

02:37:09.160 one's at a distance. So that is the stone that we had made. There's a lot of glare on it. I

02:37:17.280 apologize. I took those pictures, but that's the nice new stone we got for Phillip. And then that's

02:37:23.660 We kept the original pieces that were there the best we had, and yeah, that's what we did to honor him, and hopefully that's something that he appreciates.

02:37:38.560 Very happy Svani and his family were able to take care of that the way they did.

02:37:44.540 It actually came out better than any of us expected.

02:37:47.320 Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

02:37:50.560 So I think that's really important.

02:37:54.620 all right guys well thank you guys for being here tonight thank you for all of the questions

02:37:59.980 all of the participation um let me have the evening talking to my friend here is always

02:38:07.420 nice i appreciate you guys uh being here and sharing it with us daniel thank you so much

02:38:13.660 thank you for all that you do thank you for being on the show tonight it's it's been a pleasure

02:38:19.100 having you, and we hope to have you on again. I appreciate it, man. It was a huge honor.

02:38:26.220 Just to let you find a string of all of my best friends that have already been on here, so

02:38:30.780 hanging out with you and talking to Ossetree, man, a fun way to spend the evening. I appreciate it.

02:38:37.580 All right. Well, you have a good night, and everybody out there listening, I hope you guys

02:38:41.180 have a good night. Hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and remember, victory never sleeps.

02:38:49.100 Good night, guys.

02:38:51.000 Good night, guys.

02:39:19.100 Thank you.

02:39:49.100 Thank you.

02:40:19.100 Thank you.

02:40:49.100 We'll be right back.

02:41:19.100 We'll be right back.

02:41:49.100 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - September 01, 2022

8⧸31⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 8

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