00:07:44.620sadly we lost Terry that same year and because he didn't have his last will and testament all done
00:07:52.540we couldn't get his remains interred at Thor's Hoff so we thought of the next best thing we
00:07:57.920name our fellowship hall after him and it's funny because we still say fellowship hall but I think
00:08:03.480we were leaning toward like Frith Hall or Feasting Hall or something like that and when I thought of
00:08:08.040Frith the first person I thought of was Terry and I thought that that'd be a really cool way to honor
00:08:13.920him and he was also one of our very first uh serious donors to the office his name
00:08:19.280proudly sits on our donor plaque in the bay also yeah terry was a terry was a great guy i'm really
00:08:26.480really glad i got a chance to meet him and get to know him um i really think that's a very nice
00:08:33.440gesture of you guys and something that terry appreciates from beyond the veil uh sarah asks
00:08:40.720when you were oathed as a gothy you stood and took the oath with two of your closest friends
00:08:45.680can you describe what that meant to you
00:08:50.080well sarah you'll have to forgive me if my words fall short um gothe stan and gothe east are two
00:08:56.720guys that i consider to be family and i know that's cliche and people kind of throw that
00:09:01.040around sometimes when we're talking about i mean it when i say that uh both of those guys have uh
00:09:06.720been with me and good friends of mine throughout my journey through the
00:09:10.840Austria Folk Assembly through Apprentice Folk Building and on into the Gothar
00:09:15.020program. Two guys I have so much respect for. It's hard to even measure. But just
00:09:22.220as cool as that was that same day at Winter Nights, I actually got to
00:09:27.340witness my wife take her folk builder oath that same day and that was just as
00:09:31.260rewarding. That was a really special day. That was neat. I remember that in the three of you
00:09:43.420that took your Gothar oath and got your ordination. You guys have been such an effective
00:09:50.580unit for the AFA in general, and each of you guys are Gothar that we're very proud of individually.
00:09:57.380um heathen hammer asks as a goathy do either of you tend to use the old poetic meters in bloat
00:10:07.140or do you prefer prose or maybe a combination of both let you take the first crack at that
00:10:14.820certainly not poetic um i try to use poetic language um i use different kennings or things
00:10:22.260like that but i uh i tend to shout a lot and uh so no i don't use poetic meters for sure
00:10:34.020uh yeah for for my part um i've never been one that really plans all of what i'm going to say
00:10:43.700during bloat i certainly don't use a lot of of poetic meter or even rhyming for that matter
00:10:52.260my, uh, my approach has always been to speak from the heart when I'm out there in the circle
00:10:59.200and to speak to the God that I'm, I'm bloating to. And I find that if I'm, I'm trying to remember
00:11:05.320something or with a prearranged, uh, piece of prose, it, uh, it takes away from that connection
00:11:14.240and the, the, I guess, authenticity of me communicating with the gods. Um, but that
00:11:20.600doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. I know a lot of people do that or certainly do that
00:11:24.260in elements. Maybe they have a specific poem or something that they've written that they do want
00:11:31.000to use as part of their bloat, but not as the entirety of it. I know our law speaker is a fan
00:11:36.800of rhyming cadence in his bloats, and that often works very, very well. But no, I don't use any
00:11:45.200sort of poetic structure in my, in my bloats. Um, so getting to the meaty questions, Rob asks,
00:11:54.400Goethe Dan, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
00:11:58.420Net chocolate chip. There is no other flavor of ice cream.
00:12:03.020Good man. That is, that is the right choice. All, uh, all other choices are incorrect. Um,
00:12:10.640Hmm. So I'm trying to think the best way to get to the meat of this. One of.
00:12:25.180All right. So you're one of the go that's been on the ground floor of the development of Thorshof.
00:12:32.540And 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?
00:12:40.400because that's our our second hof it was on a completely different side of the country than
00:12:44.640odin's off and you guys were really breaking new ground there can you kind of describe
00:12:50.480how that was with going from no hof to to having a hof to getting the hof being as successful as
00:12:56.560it is today wow that's a that's a pretty meaty question and i don't think i can answer it with a
00:13:03.280in a single way but uh i remember at uh ostar 2020 uh the one where we were talking about where
00:13:10.440we met terry i just got done meeting uh founder mcnalen for the first time and i remember i was
00:13:16.040trying not to go all fanboy like oh yeah he's real and uh i just walked away from doing that
00:13:22.560and i was walking down by the lake and my wife said swan was looking for me and uh tracked down
00:13:28.200he's down by the lake playing with his kids and that was when he first kind of you know looked
00:13:33.240me in the eyes and said you know i need somebody in the carolinas to have my back with thor's off
00:13:38.120and of course i said i was all in and it was that same weekend that i applied for the
00:13:43.320the ghost bar apprenticeship in a folk building and so we went up the first couple of times um
00:13:51.480i would say the first time we went up there was in may and i met spawn walked the property we took
00:13:57.880a look at um mr bethea's grave and uh and took a look at the church structure but it was a very
00:14:04.920very plain building on the inside um but still had a ton of character i think that speaks to the
00:14:10.440architecture of a building so old in the in that part of the south and uh yeah a lot of plain white
00:14:18.200walls and um but you could feel a palpable energy in the place when we first got there and i was
00:14:27.320there my wife and i both were there when uh spawn began the painting and i remember watching him uh
00:14:33.960hand sketching thor's face with a pencil up on the the recess part of the wall at the
00:14:40.440dias and watching that come to life over a period of i want to say spawn poured about
00:14:45.88040 man hours into it initially um what i remember most about all that was you know watching the
00:14:54.280hoff come to life but i think what was most important to me was i built a friendship and
00:14:59.080a connection with uh spawn at the time uh spawn was a guy that i knew and respected but and was
00:15:04.040friendly with but wouldn't wouldn't have said he was a friend i didn't know him that way and it
00:15:08.360certainly changed uh throughout that uh that period of getting it ready for dedication a lot
00:15:13.000of sweat was and i mean a lot of sweat it was a really really hot summer uh and i don't think we
00:15:18.200had any kind of climate control or even electricity until like the wednesday before dedication
00:15:24.280So, 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.
00:15:37.980And the laughs that we shared and the joy that we shared watching that happen.
00:15:43.200That's that's a memory I hope I never lose.
00:15:49.340Yeah, you guys have done amazing, amazing things there.
00:15:52.000Thors 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.
00:16:12.500And 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.
00:16:27.720So it's I really appreciate all that you guys put in there. You guys did amazing, amazing things.
00:16:33.100And I think it really solidified a lot of our leadership in that part of the country.
00:16:37.580If you guys haven't gone there, Thorshoff is a very special place, and I hope you guys get a chance.
00:16:44.980You mentioned Mr. Bethea. Could you tell folks that may not know kind of the story behind that?
00:16:54.460So, yeah, there's the original congregation.
00:16:57.440I had only one grave on the side of the street where the temple itself is.
00:17:02.760There's another graveyard across the street, which is still managed by the previous congregation.
00:17:12.080And we know very little about Mr. Bethea, a woman named Sarah, who's actually buried across the street.
00:17:18.920And when we first got there, his headstone was in tatters.
00:17:22.580I mean, it was quite literally broken into, I'm going to say, at least two dozen pieces.
00:17:27.740So I hadn't been cared for or any of that.
00:17:29.800And 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.
00:17:39.100Best 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.
00:17:52.240Well, yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of us that we that we did that.
00:17:57.100we were able to get them a very nice new stone created and fence off a nice spot and take care
00:18:03.620of it. When we first got that place, it's hard to see the graveyard across the road be so
00:18:09.700immaculately maintained. Yet this man's grave, it was just a scattering of broken stone that
00:18:18.840somebody put a flag on to make sure that nobody broke their lawnmower on it. And that's the
00:18:25.080extent of the care they showed to this man's memory. And it was really important that that
00:18:30.620be one of our first things that we tried to put right. Sarah asks, does Thorshoff have any work
00:18:41.260that needs to be completed that members could donate for to help out? Absolutely. Anybody who's
00:18:50.620not been the Carolinas wouldn't understand but on this side of the Appalachian it gets incredibly
00:18:57.040hot and humid in the Carolinas and our air conditioning in our in our main temple and the
00:19:03.340Hoff structure itself is in need of replacement not just repair I mean we're trying to patch it
00:19:08.900up to keep it somewhat serviceable for our members and we've been striking out in that regard and the
00:19:15.120replacement cost for that is ridiculous so you know if you guys want to donate
00:19:21.440you want to donate 500 or more your name goes up on the on the donor plaque but
00:19:27.360we'll take anything if you donate at least $100 I'll have a separate plaque
00:19:33.420for that but we need to raise funds and we need to raise funds fairly quickly
00:19:39.840I'd like to have that furnace and AC unit and full locker before next summer.
00:34:28.020I think that especially you mentioned teenage sons when you're in your teenage years.
00:34:33.020So many very immediate things seem so very important.
00:34:38.020And they're things that wouldn't matter in six months or wouldn't matter in a year.
00:34:42.860Six months or a year to a teenager seems like, you know, a huge quantity of time.
00:34:49.120Six months, once you're my age, seems like it goes by in a flash.
00:34:53.180certainly the idea of reputation and deeds and thinking about the goal you want to get to and
00:35:06.180the steps it takes to get there it's really easy to squander a lot of time and make a lot of mistakes
00:35:12.660early on and certainly like Daniel said you learn from those mistakes but it's you know I go back
00:35:20.520And 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.
00:35:33.900So 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.
00:45:34.600so i think this one comes from nick he's asking but my question is for you for you is what are some
00:45:41.160of gothe young's reckon uh reading recommendations sure uh we hear i'll hear you talk about culture
00:45:51.240of the teutons um of course that one is phenomenal i think the chapter on frith especially uh it
00:45:58.760being the first chapter i don't think that's an accident but that chapter on frith is worth
00:46:02.520rereading as often as you possibly can it's uh so eloquently written um and i think
00:46:09.720i think that's one of the more foundational tenets of australia is how we interact with
00:46:14.680each other so that's my take on that particular book other recommendations are the one i got by
00:46:21.880chris kershaw um for rune stuff uh if you're more esoteric more advanced i recommend alu
00:46:30.680by edra thorson and the serpent and the eagle by chris travers
00:46:35.080so i'm gonna throw in their bonus because uh it was pointed out rightly last week by james that
00:46:43.920stephen polington's works are very often overlooked and they are because they're
00:46:50.600they're very expensive to get a hold of so i think often people don't and they're really really
00:46:55.120valuable um the mead hall is a fantastic book and i'd recommend that to anybody out there
00:47:03.440It 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.
00:47:19.600And it's addressed in a much more in-depth and much more specific way than in a lot of other sources.
00:47:26.040So I would really recommend that one. Nathan asks, what does victory mean to you, Daniel?
00:47:32.620how have you applied it in your life um again a simple question and not a very simple answer um
00:47:44.940victory is what you make it um whether it's uh you know achieving financial goals uh personal
00:47:51.820physical goals spiritual goals or whatever um i view victory as almost like unattainable
00:47:59.340like i'm constantly chasing it our ancestors chased horizons discovered new worlds discovered
00:48:06.540actual new planets um visited you know the moon so victory is what is of course whatever you make it
00:48:18.700victory for me would be seeing a time where uh also true isn't something that's obscure and
00:48:26.540largely unknown to the vast public and it's and i'm seeing that all the time i can't tell you how
00:48:31.580many times especially living where i live in the bible belt where i see valk nut tattoos or um
00:48:37.580the helm of all tattoos see guys wearing hammers so but seeing that become much more mainstream
00:48:46.300isn't the right word much more widely accepted and widely known that would be victory in my opinion
00:48:51.180And I'll have all of our people come home to us true.
00:48:59.260Don asks, how do you feel it best now to promote us a true to others you encounter?
00:49:11.420I can remember one of the first times I had a conversation with the one on one through a phone call.
00:49:17.600about it and it's before i decided to take part in leadership but i remember saying to him that
00:49:24.080every time i step out the door and step in the door to my house that i'm representing the try
00:49:30.160horns um even when no one is looking but i think i can give you a really good example i've got i
00:49:37.680have two adult children and uh my oldest daughter uh not a practitioner of ostry but
00:49:44.640But 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.
00:50:10.180And when people ask, you know, where does that come from? Certainly being surrounded by successful people.
00:50:16.120And I've never found more of that than I have as a member of the Austria Focus Assembly.
00:50:20.580So I think being an example of what an AFA member is, is the best way to pull new people in.
00:50:31.100You know, I absolutely what you said. And I think to add to that.
00:50:36.160don't be afraid to talk about Ausatru. I think there's a barrier for people
00:50:42.960to where when you say you're Ausatru, it requires explanation. And it's a harder thing. If you're a
00:50:49.480person of faith and somebody notices that you're an exemplary person and says, hey, why are you
00:50:56.540such a good guy? And they talk about because of their love of Christ, it automatically makes
00:51:02.400sense to the audience and it's it's not a hard thing to explain i think that we have a reticence
00:51:08.320to say you know it's because of my relationship with the icr oh what what's that who's that
00:51:15.200and then you have to explain it so it may take a minute but it's worth doing um you know this
00:51:21.680is kind of a theme tonight but words are wind deeds are iron you are a living representation
00:51:26.560of our gods and of our faith. And when people, you know, when you live in a noble way that
00:51:33.240brings attention to yourself from positive things and people, you know, ask what you got that's
00:51:37.880going so right in your life, mention Ossetru. Mention the Ossetru Folk Assembly. Mention our
00:51:43.140gods. That's what I would suggest. Cody asks. Being very, is just as important as what Matt
00:51:53.680was just touching on being open and honest about it not you know ashamed isn't the right word but
00:52:00.120you know being hesitant to to mention that's where it comes from i have no problem with that i'm very
00:52:05.460open and honest about my faith with anybody who comes across me uh cody asks gothe young
00:52:12.000what would be the biggest difference you've seen in your life since becoming a gothe
00:52:20.000that's that's a heavy question the biggest difference in my life
00:52:31.140it's being responsible for so many people it's not just uh
00:52:36.100as both of you represent gods to our folk and we represent our folk to our gods and there is a
00:52:41.760very very heavy weight in that um i have a hard time articulating the gravity that comes behind
00:52:48.420that but um yeah because i mean we're not just responsible for performing rituals and and
00:52:56.980weddings and stuff like that we're responsible for the hundreds of people pushing almost a
00:53:01.880thousand people now um they're all looking to us for spiritual guidance and that's that's a heavy
00:53:08.740load it's one i gladly take um so nathan asks which of the gods do you each do each of you
00:53:23.860identify with uh which attributes and why over the course of your lives daniel go ahead and go first
00:53:29.620on that one nathan's bringing the questions tonight um what god do i most identify with
00:53:38.740I've always had a healthy respect and admiration for God's thresholds, Thor being one of them, and Heimdall being the other.
00:53:56.840Thor 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.
00:54:08.740um and also you know the one that's there to protect and keep chaos out of the gate
00:54:17.080but those are the two gods i think i identify with the most that's a really tough question
00:54:23.480though is that i could do this about many many more gods yeah so um on my end
00:54:32.780And 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.
00:54:55.600i'm i'm always resistant to that to a degree because i don't want to be impious i don't want
00:55:08.020to neglect um other gods and goddesses or you know by by necessarily showing a predominance
00:55:17.340of worship to one because I think when one does that, you become monotheistic in a different
00:55:25.940way. I think one of the beauties of polytheism is keeping that open so you have these very
00:55:39.080deep and perhaps different relationships with each of our gods and goddesses. And this really
00:55:44.680is all about relationships. You know, early on, when I first got involved in Alistair True,
00:55:51.800I would definitely say that Thor was the exemplary God in my way of doing things.
00:56:00.640And I don't think that's become any less. I just think that as I've matured, my spirituality has
00:56:07.580expanded. The idea of strength and of passion and of standing against giants and crushing your foes
00:56:21.020and, you know, that over-the-top bravado of Thor really, you know, appealed to me a lot as a young
00:56:28.000man. That was, you know, I was much younger in my life when I first started getting into this.
00:56:33.300I'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.
00:56:53.800Also, Tyr has been a very powerful example to me in a lot of ways as well, but so have many other gods.
00:57:05.380One 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.
00:57:23.800it, it builds that in a way that, that I don't think you get in a different way. It builds that
00:57:30.880in a very unique and very special and very powerful way. And I have definitely felt that,
00:57:36.040um, behind the scenes, you build a relationship when you're going through the process. Like
00:57:43.500there's, there's so many things that go into getting a Hoth. Um, and there's all of the,
00:57:49.420there's all of the mundane things that are very necessary. There's raising funds. There's trying
00:57:55.140to find the right location. There's plotting where we have the right membership. And there's
00:58:02.220all those things. And those are essential. We need them. But at least on a personal end,
00:58:07.820and I believe this is true with many of our other members, there's a relationship that gets built.
00:58:14.600There's there's promises that get made at your at your altar.
00:58:21.280There'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.
00:58:33.780Hoping to get everything right. Hoping you're not the guy that does something stupid that screws it up.
00:58:38.660So now one of our gods doesn't get there off.
00:58:42.280Through 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.
00:59:00.660And that's really strengthened my relationship with Odin, with Thor, with Balder and with Njord so far.
00:59:12.280uh maybe i don't know more different than what you're asking for but that's what comes to mind
00:59:17.240trent asks gothe young what's the most powerful bloat you've attended
00:59:28.380um i have an answer to that but there's it's a really really
00:59:39.020more to it than just bloat i think it was situational and more to do with the event
00:59:45.380than anything so in uh 2019 was uh my first o-star in the south my first uh national event
00:59:52.920and my first time meeting the ulterior goethi it's first time i met a lot of guys i met rob
00:59:58.040and cliff and you know a bunch of other people there um my wife and i have i have an adult son
01:00:05.940and uh we were estranged at the time leading up to that particular event and uh so when he came
01:00:15.860back home he came back home because he had fallen on hard times and was dealing with some uh
01:00:19.660substance issues so rather than leave him home we said okay we're gonna come with us
01:00:26.400and he came with us and we'd had some conversations with uh with a gothy at the time
01:00:37.560brian wilton to kind of counsel uh heather and i through this thing it was really hard hard to
01:00:42.920deal with and uh what motivated me afterwards to get into the gothar program because of
01:00:49.540brian's counseling and matt's also so anyway that friday night uh was the first time i've
01:00:56.900experienced that an odin bloat and um i don't know if it what was that one's always stuck out
01:01:03.700in my mind for a multitude of reasons but i mean i could still hear the harrier father song in my head
01:01:11.140and uh as matt was spurging the blessings from the horn and many of you were watching have
01:01:17.540experienced one of matt's bloats and you know it can get thunderously loud and extremely high energy
01:01:24.580and i remember when he had the horn and was going to empty the horn upon the fire i'm not sure if
01:01:30.980the horn slipped but at least from my perspective it looked like he spiked it like a football like
01:01:36.100you know if he scored a touchdown and if he didn't spike it on purpose he sure played it off really
01:01:41.140well he was you know matt's a big you know big man and uh a lot of energy coming forth from him
01:01:47.740he's kind of like flexed when he was still you know hey hello and it hit me in the chest it was
01:01:53.460i'm having a hard time finding the words but it hit so hard and i remember walking away from that
01:01:59.660just trembling and i remember turning and looking at my son and my son just tears streaming down
01:02:04.880his face and uh he and i exchanged some words that i'm not going to share but i look back at
01:02:14.140that bloat as a beginning to my son's healing and uh yeah i'm trying not to get emotional
01:02:20.620watching him get over that particular issue and become the man that he's become in the last
01:02:28.980um three years uh all of it began there and i'm super proud of him and i always look back at that
01:02:35.240that particular ritual with uh an insane amount of piety and emotion i yeah a lot went into that
01:02:43.980and uh i got a lot out of it and that my whole family did and uh it kick-started a big change
01:02:50.320in my family's life all began at the start of that bloke
01:02:54.420so the horn absolutely slipped and i tried to play it off and i'm glad that was successful
01:03:02.540i was so worried i'd destroyed the you know the nice afa horn that we had but i was in
01:03:07.200the moment so i just went with it um but yeah it was totally a slip
01:03:11.840um so robert asks do you ever get tired of a question if it's previously answered in
01:03:22.700a other video. No. And that's one of the cool things about doing Victory Never Sleeps versus
01:03:33.800the once a month that I was doing is, you know, you guys get to hear the perspective of other
01:03:42.840people involved in the AFA and not just me, because it's a question you may have asked me
01:03:46.680over and over. But each time we have a new guest, you know, they can, they can offer something
01:03:52.820different or the books that, you know, like the book recommendations, always a question we get
01:03:57.140asked, but each person has different stuff that has really stood out to them. And yeah, there's
01:04:01.840a lot of commonality, but there's also some different ones that have been, you know, very
01:04:06.760meaningful to different, different AFA personalities. I mean, we get relationship
01:04:12.940questions about how do we find a mate every time and gets repetitive because the answer is so much
01:04:18.260the same. But hearing the same advice from a variety of people, both men and women of different
01:04:25.140ages, maybe that'll hit the right person at the right time. And, you know, at worst, you guys got
01:04:31.320to sit through a few minutes of hearing the same thing from us. It's a good time for a bathroom
01:04:35.600break or get yourself a beverage or whatever you got to do. But no, I don't I don't get tired of
01:04:39.580get the same questions over and over. Mandy asks, Goethe Daniel, who would win? Arne
01:04:49.340Anderson in his prime or Shawn Michaels in his prime?
01:04:57.580Arne Anderson. The horseman would be there to jump in and make sure Shawn Michaels went
01:05:04.580down all right sean michaels could have had diesel or he could have had dx with him you don't know
01:05:16.500in the ring sean michaels would absolutely win in the street iron would destroy him
01:05:21.540they would that would happen today it would happen then it would happen 20 years from now
01:05:26.900yeah um nathan matt and daniel what really drives you to do what you do in the afa
01:16:31.140I 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.
01:16:42.560But 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.
01:17:02.160I think it's yeah, you can absolutely connect with them and not, you know, all of them at different times and not feel impious.
01:17:11.060And I also think that doing, you know, connecting with them as a group, as a community, as a family is also something to do.
01:17:19.380And that's something I very commonly do at Yule bloats, as opposed to it being a specific bloat to a specific God.
01:17:26.500Very often I do it as a general celebratory bloat to all of the Aesir.
01:17:32.680And and that's something that I've done a lot.
01:17:36.260And I think that that's pious and taken, you know, taken as a reverend act.
01:17:41.060So 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.
01:17:51.760I 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.
01:19:40.680i like daniel said i think that um ancestor worship is
01:19:49.320the most accessible path to that um because i think that when you have picture you know and
01:19:57.400i'm not sure if your parents are with you still or if you're if your grandparents are still with
01:20:01.800you but when you have pictures on the wall of people that your children can see they know
01:20:08.520those people existed there's not a question there's no you know fundamental existential
01:20:14.680questions about the existence of gods these people clearly existed um and it's so fundamental
01:20:21.800to human nature in all of our uh expression to be able to commune with our ancestors even people that
01:20:30.600don't uh don't admit to it or don't like to we speak to our dead loved ones often um even atheists
01:20:41.560do it without thinking about it you'll have something you wanna you wanna share uh or you
01:20:48.760wanna ask your grandpa about or you know you'll you'll come in those moments where you're in your
01:20:55.720feelings and you'll do that i think encouraging that in a more structured way with your children
01:21:00.920is a really good start and i think if your children can believe that your ancestors listen
01:21:08.520on from beyond the veil it makes it that much easier to get your children to uh to believe in
01:21:15.480the gods i'm not sure um i'm not sure the ages of your children and i think that makes a difference
01:21:24.440whether you're starting them out fresh or whether you're trying to get older children who have been
01:21:30.120atheists to be um to become religious one of the things is i would stress especially with the rest
01:21:40.040of your family with older children is um is openness i think it's a huge ask to demand that
01:21:49.960someone goes from no belief to devout faith with nothing in between i think that's a that's a very
01:21:57.720big ask and i think that's you know kind of a non-starter for a lot of folks so in the afa
01:22:03.640we try not to do that what i would encourage people to do is to be open and to reach out
01:22:10.280to make an offering to the gods and see what happens with an open heart an open mind
01:22:17.560And 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.
01:22:26.500And here is an offering, you know, some incense or some meat or a shot of whiskey or, you know, literally whatever that's respectful.
01:22:37.360And say, hey, you know, I'm here and I'm listening and see what happens.
01:22:41.420And I think you'd be surprised. Some really great things can happen from just that.
01:22:46.180Also, 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.
01:22:57.620The power when a group of people come before our gods is.
01:23:02.820there's a synchronicity that's built and there's a momentum that's built that makes
01:23:09.500us worth more than some of our parts when we're doing it as a family or as a as a group as a
01:23:16.660congregation um and those are occasions where i've i've seen that light come on in people's
01:23:23.920eyes where all of a sudden the gods are real to them so i would encourage those kind of experiences
01:23:29.040You can't you can't force a belief and you can't force a relationship.
01:23:34.580But that openness, I think, is a key in in moving that forward.
01:23:40.720Matt, can I add something to that? Absolutely. You can.
01:23:44.620So it's interesting you said that you'd mentioned, you know, bringing your family to an AFA event.
01:23:49.800So I'm going to tell a little bit of my story when I first joined the AFA.
01:23:54.300a um so i'd uh you know had found a folk builder in north carolina through a facebook group that
01:24:02.220was related to folkish heathenry but not necessarily just the afa and uh they put me in
01:24:09.980contact with a guy here in south carolina and at the time at the house anyway it was just my
01:24:15.420myself practicing and my daughter who was mine at the time and i got invited to i believe it was
01:24:23.260a winter finding event which was only about an hour from my house told my wife i said you know
01:24:28.980i'm gonna me and lauren are gonna go check that out and my wife made fun of me about this stuff
01:24:34.060she's like oh you want to pretend to be a viking you're gonna go pillage our neighbor's houses
01:24:37.380la la la so i told her we're gonna check this thing out and um she said well i'm gonna come
01:24:43.720with you and i said why are you just gonna make fun or whatever she's like no i just want to make
01:24:48.240you're not bringing our kid around some you know weirdos or whatever so my wife tagged along and
01:24:54.960uh we we gave uh we exchanged gifts with uh pray that day i remember looking back at my little girl
01:25:02.240and again she was overcome with emotion because it was it was finally real and uh we finished up
01:25:08.880with the ritual and uh shared a meal and did a sambal which is a wonderful icebreaker i always
01:25:15.200recommend that to for newcomers to participate in sambal and before we got out of the driveway
01:25:21.120heather had applied for membership with austral folk assembly and it was less about the connection
01:25:25.280with the divine it was more about the connection within the community so there's always little
01:25:29.760stepping stones there and we talked about ancestor worship i think that's a that's maybe a second
01:25:35.440step i think uh getting involved with the community and seeing what it's about in real life is probably
01:25:40.480the most important thing you can do you know it's it's not the popular answer but i think that it's
01:25:47.120true when you see something it's easy to come into this or come at this from
01:25:59.280from regular 2020 modern american society or western society in general
01:26:05.760and be unsure and feel that maybe it's silly or not really, you know, not really feel like it's
01:26:13.340a real thing. And you can't not feel that when you're at, uh, when you're at one of our events
01:26:21.100or better yet, when you're at one of our Hoffs, practicing it in real life, especially with other
01:26:28.740real people with families, with good looking, nice people. It makes it very real being able to
01:26:39.320see that we have Hoffs that you can reach out and touch them. And as silly as it may sound
01:26:43.880that they're on Google Maps, like they're a real location. That legitimacy makes it easier for
01:26:51.060people who are just starting out or who haven't considered house a true before to feel like it's
01:26:56.340real thing and to take it very seriously and uh i think that does go a long way
01:27:03.300so rob asks and gothi dan can you explain for gothi trent why metallica is clearly superior
01:27:09.300to megadeth just kidding you do not have to answer that you don't need to answer that
01:27:14.100dave mustaine and his his lack in metallica is clearly the reason why metallica is superior
01:38:28.740There's certainly a fear of commitment.
01:38:30.580We see that in the sense of marriage and other things, but I think that's very true also with spirituality.
01:38:37.840There's a fear of commitment and there's a fear of success.
01:38:43.360There's a fear of doing things and those things being real.
01:38:47.840It's very convenient when you have ideas about something to pontificate from your mom's basement.
01:38:54.120But 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.
01:39:15.200And 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.
01:39:36.660You 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.
01:39:49.140We need a Hoff. Can we please get a Hoff close to us?
01:39:51.760As 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.
01:40:06.660Um, so that's very much a thing. I think that's absolutely a part of that culture of sarcasm
01:40:16.180and sideline speculation and armchair quarterbacking. Uh, Lawrence Forbes coming at us
01:40:24.060with another 10 Canadian dollars. Thank you very much. Christianity is dying in the West
01:40:29.560and out true slash pagan slash heathen sentiments are rising. The pendulum is swinging back
01:40:35.540And we will once again become a healthy, honorable and respectable tribe.
01:40:49.200From 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?
01:41:02.960And what's the story behind Riggsblood?
01:41:28.140It'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.
01:41:45.420um i think i think it's uh it's a way of giving a certain geographical area and identity um
01:41:55.300culturally because uh it would be hard to explain somebody who lives in like missouri like what the
01:42:01.320difference between south carolina and north carolina is and some might say it's a difference
01:42:05.320in barbecue sauce but there's cultural differences uh certainly that same way between georgia and
01:42:10.540south carolina um but it's like having a uh one branch of a family as part of another and showing
01:42:20.940up to the family reunion as a group that's what i feel about it and yeah
01:42:29.900well a little bit of you know for people who are brand new and may not understand what uh what
01:42:34.700kindreds are and how that works it's a concept that really predates hoffs i mean as everything
01:42:42.860does before 2015 and at the time especially when there was less afa membership places
01:42:52.060and there's a greater distance between afa members a kindred served as a rallying point
01:42:58.540and a local congregation for afa folk it gave them a banner to rally behind an identity for
01:43:06.620their own local group to feel like they were part of something bigger than themselves
01:43:11.500and i think it served that function a lot and i think it still does in areas where we don't have
01:43:15.980hoffs i think where we have hoffs the line of what the purpose of a kindred is and what's not
01:43:23.180is still getting sorted out. As we mentioned earlier in the broadcast, the Iron Guard didn't
01:43:29.940dissolve. They basically just melded into Thorshof, and that became, you know, what they rallied behind
01:43:35.580as opposed to a smaller local kindred. But, you know, those kindreds, it's a concept that's been
01:43:42.620active in modern Ausitru all the way through, and it's, you know, it's something that, you know,
01:43:47.900I was reading an AFA kindred handbook from the 1980s a while ago from the old Ausitru Free Assembly.
01:43:54.920So it's a concept that's been around for a long time.
01:43:57.560But I think that it's most useful when people are at a large distance from our offs.
01:44:03.780so we've got uh one more question left on the docket we've been going for about an hour and
01:44:20.26040 minutes if you guys have any more questions or anything you'd like to hear us talk about or hear us
01:44:26.660um give our opinions or our thoughts on please don't hesitate to to throw that up
01:44:33.780And we'll get to we'll get to this question and see what we get in the meantime.
01:44:39.380William, do you think the traditionalist Christianity and AFA have the ability to exist and to build a better society in modern times?
01:44:54.420Part of me wants to say yes. And there's also parts of me that would say.
01:44:59.160um i think christianity was uh is uh poison in the blood of european man and woman
01:45:08.580but i think we we have we have the same issues and i think we we face the same challenges
01:45:15.360um and that's the attack on traditionalism uh from some of the previous questions we're talking
01:45:21.680about irony and sarcasm and not taking things seriously i think a lot of that's got to do with
01:45:25.700the generations that are separated from sunday services every month every week i think that's
01:45:33.380one of the reasons why uh piety is at the level that it is at thor's off because in the deep south
01:45:40.060we're only a generation removed from going to church every sunday um so the answer to the
01:45:48.900question is yes. I think it could be both ways. Again, I view Christianity as a double-edged
01:45:57.160sword. My brother is actually a minister. And while we disagree on things unseen, we
01:46:05.460agree on the challenges I think traditional-minded people face in Western civilization.
01:46:11.060I 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.
01:46:22.380I, 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
01:46:52.380healthy normalcy in life. I think in the long run, in some kind of a perfect world,
01:46:58.160no. I think if society was completely back to traditional, and we didn't have such a massive
01:47:06.200leftist Marxist plague killing the world around us, I think that would be a very difficult
01:47:16.960uh alliance of values and not just from our end um but from their end it's it's always
01:47:25.200it's always difficult from for me when we have you know supportive christians um on the one
01:47:31.920hand i very much appreciate the goodwill and i much appreciate the support from those people
01:47:36.640as individuals but it makes me question their christianity um we are fundamentally doing
01:47:46.400the wrong things uh to christians and if you're a good christian that believes your your holy book
01:47:52.320and and the tenets of your faith you're not supposed to be supportive of us so it makes
01:47:58.320me question your christianity um i certainly appreciate the support and i appreciate all
01:48:02.720those people if they're willing to support a pagan organization honoring other gods than theirs
01:48:10.720I wish they'd just go ahead and rip the bandaid off and come join us and be part of what we're
01:48:16.580doing. And I'd love to see that. And I think that that might be a much more likely situation of
01:48:22.360what will happen. Michelle asks, you can go through Dan, how do you incorporate the
01:48:30.240also true faith into your marriage i think what's uh what's been most beneficial as far as the
01:48:39.920also true side of our marriage is that it has become the totality of our relationship
01:48:45.040uh we parent as also true or we are you know a couple an also true couple that's become our
01:48:51.880identity i think um i remember the first yule that we celebrated as a as a family as an afa
01:48:59.740family we were unpacking our yule tree from the previous year and most of the ornaments that that
01:49:06.900were in the box or whatever related to our favorite nfl team and uh just silliness like that
01:49:14.260i remember thinking that this is all we had to say about ourselves before now and all of those
01:49:18.460ornaments are gone now and you know we have runes and yule box and stuff like that but i think one
01:49:23.900of the biggest steps toward um accomplishing it a marriage as a house true couple was when
01:49:32.620my wife decided to start fault building and both doing the same job for the uh for the afa so
01:49:39.420it's funny because if i were to call matt right now off of this call and say hey matt how's it
01:49:46.220going he would answer me with how the afa is doing much the way the conversations happen in
01:49:51.360in my household and i'm talking to my wife aside from dealing with you know raising kids or what's
01:49:56.400for dinner but a lot of the conversation that we have between the two of us is afa related i think
01:50:03.040that's been one of the biggest things that we've incorporated into our marriage and i
01:50:06.880i think it's improved our marriage because we before we would come home from work and talk
01:50:11.760about work or talk about a football game or something like that within minutes
01:50:17.360conversation would be dead and it's not that way now
01:50:24.400yeah there's there's a lot of truth in that um that's absolutely what i do and and i like that
01:50:31.680i do it but i think sometimes it may feel impersonal to the the people that talk to me
01:50:36.560and i hope it doesn't but yeah whenever people ask me how i'm doing that's my answer you know
01:50:46.400My answer is the state of the AFA or how things are going in the AFA, with an exception.
01:50:51.720Since I've become a dad, if Aubrey's doing something cool, I throw that in there as well.
01:50:58.560And it's mostly my role as Osheri Gauthier and some of my role as father.
01:51:06.700And I don't think it's I don't think it's not genuine.
01:51:09.900This is kind of a point I wanted to touch on here because I was reading some of the chat over in the side.
01:51:16.400the root of our folks understanding of health has been wholeness or the idea of something being
01:51:29.900wholesome for your all aspects of your life to be congruent and to synchronize and to build off of
01:51:38.320and work and interplay with one another is the best thing that I would strongly encourage all
01:51:46.660of you guys to try to do the best you can. It has rendered so many blessings in my life,
01:51:53.020the more that I'm able to accomplish it. I mean, you're going to have things you do for
01:51:57.920just recreation and distraction to get your mind off of stuff. And that's fine. We all need that.
01:52:03.160But 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.
01:52:18.780if your marriage is built around your relationship to the gods, if your family includes the gods and
01:52:26.320includes the rest of the AFA, it makes everything just work together in a special way that's hard
01:52:34.480to describe if you don't have that in your life. But the more I've had that, the better things are.
01:52:40.460Someone over in the side chat said that they're a folk before faith person and they just want
01:52:47.000what's best for our people. And I mean, I, I also want what's best for our people. So I'm not
01:52:54.040knocking anybody. But my comment to that is that with Christianity, the court, the traditionalism
01:53:03.120of traditional European style Christianity is much, much closer to something healthy for our folk
01:53:10.860than modern leftist completely anti-traditional um poison but fundamentally christianity
01:53:26.140is toxic to our people um it teaches values that are what have brought us to the place we are in
01:53:34.620in a negative sense and worshiping a foreign person who's not one of our folk in a foreign
01:53:44.540creed that's not inherent to to us to our blood to our ancestry separates your wholeness as a
01:53:55.020as a functional white person and your your religiosity over here and it separates those two
01:54:00.780and I think that's bad overall I think having our faith be part of this identity of who we are
01:54:08.700is really the glue that holds so much of it together and it's what we can build that life
01:54:15.740we want off of but again I think those are long-term goals I think we have much more
01:54:22.020immediate problems that we don't need to be squabbling with traditionally minded well-meaning
01:54:27.560christians over um uncle krampus did you study jung while going through the gothar program
02:14:05.100And I remember posing that question to you
02:14:06.740at the time and that was how you explained it to me and uh really as a go-fi i'm i'm not the
02:14:15.380i'm not i'm not the big lore guy um i know the lore and i understand the lore but
02:14:20.500something about that conversation was like uh really twisted my mind up and i started looking
02:14:26.260at all of the stories i mentioned earlier in the creation story so uh that was a big
02:14:32.260pivotal conversation that you and i had back at midsummer well and i think it's something else
02:14:38.660to consider and even if you're even if you're not with me yet on the mythic time um one thing
02:14:45.460to consider about balder is there was no period of like non-existence death um even in death
02:14:56.820balder was honored and feasted and treated you know as a celebrity guest in the halls of hell um
02:15:06.740he still very much exists and was very much answering prayer and answering you know the
02:15:11.700interaction of other deities and you saw that you saw the right the hell and and that in our
02:15:18.980in our myths so there was no position to where balder wasn't in regal splendor
02:15:25.140and wasn't in a powerful existence um and i think that's worth noting as well but i think that so
02:15:32.420many many of the aspects of our gods and the portions of their life that we know from lore
02:15:40.420hit us at different times and we relate to them differently at different stages in our life
02:15:46.260and so i think that those cyclical truths that are expressed in in our mythos are are meant to
02:15:53.620be that way and to be looked at from different angles looked at when you're when you're a child
02:15:59.540looked at when you're a young man looked at when you're a husband when you're a father and then
02:16:04.500when you're a you know when you're an old man looking back at life i think the truths
02:16:10.980display themselves differently to you at different stages in your life
02:16:16.100um jason also asked matt where did you get your mule near um i got mine
02:16:23.620So 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.
02:16:40.220They're folks that I don't think highly of anymore, and I really don't want to advertise their business.
02:16:46.700But it's a it's a recreation of a a Swedish one that was found.
02:16:53.980And it was it's always really been a cool design to me.
02:16:57.460It 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.
02:17:08.600But it's based on the same design of the very first hammer that I found.
02:17:12.600The first hammer that I ever wore when I first discovered Alistair was a brass one.
02:17:17.500And it was at the museum shop in the Fifth Avenue Mall in Anchorage.
02:30:57.260and it's not confined to a specific region
02:31:02.260or a specific time of the past. It lives in our blood. It's confined to us as a race, as a people.
02:31:11.700Fro Van Eyre also asks, did you guys ever look up his name to find more info on sites like
02:31:17.660Ancestry? Yes, we did. We tried to look up his name in a lot of places. Trouble is,
02:31:23.720there is a number of Bethes in the Carolinas, and there's another Philip Bethes that we know
02:31:29.840for a fact is not this guy that uh also lived in north carolina very very close to where this guy
02:31:35.760lived so it's been very difficult but no we spent um because to get a tombstone made and everything
02:31:42.160that way takes a very long time we spent probably a year trying to research it to find out more
02:31:49.280information and uh and we really can't on the gentleman we found out as much as we can and
02:31:54.880that's what we ended up going with. But no, we did. We absolutely tried that. Lawrence Forbes
02:32:01.520with another 10 Canadian dollars. Thank you so much, Lawrence. We appreciate it. While on the
02:32:06.280subject of death and dying, does the AFA have a stance on medical assistance in dying for
02:32:11.400chronically ill people slash patients? No, but we have a stance on getting what you want done.
02:32:24.880Part 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.
02:32:44.180to encourage people to do this but um a card in her wallet that says you know that she is also true
02:32:52.260that she doesn't want uh catholic or christian last rights administered to her and with contact
02:33:00.020information for her family but also for her clergy so that if there needs to be you know
02:33:05.940if there's a dying process and someone needs to be there to to see to the see to the um
02:33:11.860you know, those last moments of life and any ritual practice that they contact Agothi or Agithya
02:33:20.200and not a faith that isn't hers. So in that sense, we encourage everybody to
02:33:29.820take responsibility and take ownership of their life and of their death in the way that they can
02:33:37.000and to have those directives in place and to, you know, as best you can make it clear what you want
02:33:44.820done. Because I've seen people in this situation too, where they will have a loved one that
02:33:51.620finds themselves incapacitated and they don't know what that person wanted. And it's important
02:34:00.120for you to get your will done in that circumstance, but it's also a kindness to whoever
02:34:07.400your next of kin is or whoever has to make that call for them to be confident in what you would
02:34:12.260or wouldn't want. There's a lot of guilt, a lot of regret, a lot of stress if people worry that
02:34:19.500they made the wrong call by either having your life extended by machines or other means that
02:34:25.820wouldn't have wanted or by not doing that and maybe you did want that extra little bit or that
02:34:31.500extra chance at life that's a big weight on your loved ones that you can help with by having those
02:34:38.860things in place and again i noticed you donated the canadian dollars so i'm not sure exactly how
02:34:44.780that works in your country but certainly those advanced medical directives are are very important
02:34:51.820here in the United States. Is there a second language that the AFA suggests to learn slash
02:35:03.700use to communicate between members other than English? Depends where you are. No, I don't
02:35:13.900think there's any doctrinal AFA suggestion on that. Depends who you want to talk to and where
02:35:22.040you got family and where you got other members. We have, just thinking of all the different
02:35:27.460countries that we have AFA members in, I would say, if you want to talk to other AFA members,
02:35:36.740your most useful would be, well, I say this, but the Scandinavians all speak English.
02:35:43.920So I think the most bang for your buck would probably be to learn Italian right now.
02:35:51.780Because I'm not sure how well all of those guys speak English. Again, if you want to,
02:35:58.960because it's fun and you want to talk to other AFA members, the biggest international membership
02:36:04.780in a non-english speaking country is our members in sweden so learning swedish i think would be
02:36:10.720useful that way um but that's uh that's what i have for suggestions i don't know daniel do you
02:36:16.840have another suggestion i'd say any european language other than english would be good to
02:36:23.160learn um i mean some folks may need to speak other languages for their job or something like
02:36:29.580that, but as far as like within communicating with our European folk, pick another European
02:36:37.020language and use that. All right. And so really quick, you know, we've been on for two and a half
02:36:50.300hours now. If you guys have more questions, let's go ahead and get them out. If not, we'll call it
02:36:56.900a night here in a second, but Nick was able to pull it off. He's got a picture of the tombstone
02:37:05.000and the two pictures of the center are actually both the same stone. One is just up close and
02:37:09.160one's at a distance. So that is the stone that we had made. There's a lot of glare on it. I
02:37:17.280apologize. I took those pictures, but that's the nice new stone we got for Phillip. And then that's
02:37:23.660We 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.
02:37:38.560Very happy Svani and his family were able to take care of that the way they did.
02:37:44.540It actually came out better than any of us expected.