00:17:02.600elevating and soul crushing with all the ups and downs process to go about trying to get
00:17:08.520off somewhere and watching you know things you think would be amazing and then they fall through
00:17:13.080and then maybe ones you don't expect turn out to be you know beyond your wildest dreams so
00:17:19.080So it's a really interesting process. And, you know, Jason mentioned how him and Anna were some of the first ones to get to check out the property.
00:17:26.720That's always hard for me because I'll scout these things from across the country and, you know, look at the pictures and I'll hope and I'll wish.
00:17:34.060But I always send these guys out here to look at the potential properties first.
00:17:37.280And I'm just sitting here, chomping at the bit, checking my phone incessantly, waiting to, you know, when are they going to send pictures?
00:17:43.100And it's always a really exciting thing. Can you tell folks?
00:17:46.080um you pretty much took minnesota from zero to having our third hoff can you describe that
00:17:54.880process for folks that you know talk about wanting a hoff where they're at what does it take to go
00:18:00.120from nothing to a hoff and then what does the responsibility of having that hoff mean once you
00:18:07.880have it well um it's it's it's pretty amazing going from from nothing you know i was i was by
00:18:20.580myself i was in the afa for quite a few years but it was probably five years before i even met another
00:18:25.400afa member before i started folk building so i was trying to get local people together and it was
00:18:31.000frustrating you know trying to do an event and people wouldn't show up so finally after i became
00:18:35.920a folk builder after you took what had the torch handed to you from steve you um became the el
00:18:42.400cheer of gothi i was one of the first um folk builders to come on and i remember i joke around
00:18:48.720that it wasn't until i got a fancy title that nobody wanted to come out and play with me but
00:18:53.040it was after that right before that i was doing a thing down in rochester minnesota with another afa
00:18:58.720member we called it rochester true folk and i was bringing right um several afa members down with
00:19:03.760me and then it was a couple months later i became a folk builder so i was building a foundation with
00:19:08.240those people there was a lot of people that were starting to become new members of minnesota people
00:19:13.200are getting really hungry because there was nothing here you know there was a couple of uni
00:19:18.240type things going on and stuff but there was nothing good solid focus nothing afa here so
00:19:23.280when we started doing things it was from the ground up it was brand new we had never done
00:19:28.160study groups there had never been bloats there never been this event so we went from doing nothing
00:19:33.440to having all these different events and all of a sudden we just it went from the bro show to
00:19:39.040families to little kids i remember my kindred sister jessica hansen i remember her going where
00:19:44.240are you going to have kids and i'm like no we're gonna have kids it just takes a minute there are
00:19:48.000gonna be kids we do have members but you know she come to events and there's just guys and
00:19:52.960whatever and finally the more and more and it like snowballs you know you that's why i always take
00:19:58.000pictures like you said from day one pictures tell a thousand words i can sit there and talk about
00:20:02.960bloat all day long but if i take a picture and i'm showing the families and i'm showing little kids
00:20:07.520up on shoulders of parents while they're in bloat and they're doing algaes and they're into it
00:20:12.160that that draws people i mean it literally snowballs you get a couple families before you
00:20:16.640know we had like 30 or 40 people i mean i can remember having like almost 50 people in the
00:20:21.760house here i remember coming inside from the house and i remember going what is that it was so loud
00:20:27.200it was the kids they were running around screaming it was the most beautiful sound i'd ever heard
00:20:32.160you know it was just amazing to go from not being able to do anything to having people
00:20:38.560hungry wanting to come up when's the next event what are we going to do so we went and did all
00:20:42.800that we started doing more and more stuff and as time went on we grew up got bigger here in
00:20:47.840minnesota so as that went on that was when i think you guys had decided that hop number two
00:20:54.160because we were originally supposed to be hop number two i remember being that midsummer 2018
00:20:59.600at odin's hop and you and mark mccloud came up to me and you go yeah i think hop number two is
00:21:04.400probably going to be in minnesota so as you remember we looked at five different properties
00:21:09.120in minnesota from like february 2019 to august 2019 and it was just we were getting blocked
00:21:15.520different people were finding out who we were different things and we needed a straw buyer or
00:21:20.000something so we finally had a place down in new home and that place was moldier than than the
00:21:25.760balder's hop was when we came in there i mean they there was water droplets everything so we
00:21:30.480came real close to my kinder brother and sister ryan and jessica hansen they had put their house
00:21:36.000up use their mortgage to get the to have that to get that property so they had an inspector come in
00:21:42.480well the inspector came in and he he he shook his head and their bank was like no we're not gonna
00:21:48.000give you the money for this so that we came that close and then after that we were having a hard
00:21:54.080time finding i remember the folklore said hey we need to come up with some money real quick or find
00:21:58.880something before it goes to somewhere else well then end up going down to down south somebody
00:22:04.960else and whatever there's more to the story than that but basically so it went from being so we
00:22:11.360kind of thought it was lost we were kind of not gonna lie i was a little disappointed there for
00:22:15.840a minute but it was like two months what three months after we got doors off boom there during
00:22:21.280the pandemic during a freaking lockdown where most people can't go to church or go anywhere
00:22:26.720we got two hops i i yeah i mean like like my um brother go see jason port says now it's four he
00:22:34.400used to say three hops don't lie you know i mean yeah people can sit there and say what they want
00:22:39.440about us but when you go out and you do great things until you actually i've only been to
00:22:44.320baller's hop and older top but until you go to hop like being at baller's hop all the time
00:22:49.440it's such a beautiful thing the more in there just being able to have a place to do things
00:22:54.960and to see the kids i mean you're tripping over little kids and there's little kids zinging zinging
00:22:59.040out of you and it is such a beautiful thing to know that one day they are going to be future
00:23:04.320elsewhere gold team key holders managers of the hop folk builders gothar that that god pull that
00:23:11.360gold team rob stanton made out there that will stand for 100 years or more you know all that
00:23:16.720stuff we hope as i said the afa is just going to keep snowballing from that member to that member
00:23:22.080to that member so and now to go on to the responsibility part because yeah when we were
00:23:28.400thinking about getting a hop we didn't realize too about how much really goes into it you know
00:23:33.520and i'm i'm the furthest away for leadership right now i'm two hours almost two and a half hours away
00:23:38.480so i'm lucky that we have brandy nate and ashley and jesse and all them that are like an hour hour
00:23:43.520and a half away to get out there because like if a tree break falls down or plumbing issues and
00:23:48.480you need to have somebody right there you need to have that support system like you talked about if
00:23:52.800you don't have the kindreds and the dedicated members that hop ain't going to continue because
00:23:57.920you can get that hop if you don't have the people that put in the time the energy to keep it running
00:24:03.440and to do all the work to maintain it and believe me as you know it takes a lot to maintain and
00:24:10.240stuff so yeah yeah no um a lot of people don't know what all goes into it and uh
00:24:20.880it you guys do an amazing job there's a lot of work that goes into it you guys do amazing with
00:24:26.000it some people don't know kind of the story of how that happened like you said um the plan was for
00:24:32.000baldur's off or for our second half which would have been uh which is thor's off to have gone in
00:24:37.920there and there's so much that goes into establishing these hoffs um
00:24:49.680i believe very very strongly uh you know there's a lot of prayer and a lot of
00:24:55.840approaching the gods with it and i believe that the gods and that weird plays a plays an effect
00:25:02.400in there. You know, we want to make sure that we're really busting our hump to do everything
00:25:07.400we can. I don't want anything to be held up by me not doing enough. But, you know, we tried so hard
00:25:14.260to get one in Minnesota. We must have looked at five, six different places. We tried so hard,
00:25:20.280nothing was working. The second we opened it up and said, you know, maybe it's not where it's
00:25:24.380supposed to be. Let's look down in the Carolinas. Thorshoff came right to us, right to us at an
00:25:29.600amazing deal and we got that but then right on the tail of that we found the the deal of the
00:25:35.860century on Baldur's Hoff and sure enough we had that Hoff in Minnesota very very quickly
00:25:41.220it was meant to be and it was meant to be dedicated to Balder and that worked out really cool yeah I
00:25:47.680think we're more of a Baldur's Hoff here I really do think that you know versus the Thor's Hoff I
00:25:52.420it would have worked good but i think all the top up here um so sarah asks you've been an amazing
00:26:00.340folk builder what is your approach to bringing people home just being welcoming that was one
00:26:07.860thing early on was trying to to welcome people in because i know what it's like to be on the outside
00:26:14.900to to to show up somewhere where people have already been established you know like
00:26:19.940like people have been together for months so you come to an event and people have known each other
00:26:24.340for years and their kids are running around they're like cousins and you're this outsider and
00:26:27.860it's very hard that people don't talk to you so my my approach when i first started folk building
00:26:33.300and hosting events was to make sure people felt welcome i mean i would like go running out the
00:26:38.340door i'd see somebody pulling up i remember somebody telling me that the first time i met
00:26:42.660them we were doing a thing at a german restaurant he's like jason damn near tripped over the table
00:26:46.980did a flip and came running at the door when you see me come walking in and that's what i like to
00:26:51.060hear i like to hear people say hey i was at your event and that i felt so welcome i felt like i was
00:26:57.220at home it wasn't it wasn't scary so what we want a friendly environment you know a homie environment
00:27:03.780because we are family a lot of us are actually related so yep those of you guys that may not know
00:27:11.700jason um jason is the most hospitable he's probably the most hospitable guy in the afa
00:27:20.580everybody's always blown away by it every time i'm in that part of the country jason comes
00:27:24.900picks me up at the airport at all hours of the night you know lets me crash at his house and
00:27:30.900takes really good care of me and he does that to all our folks that travel through there um
00:27:36.020Jason, specifically, and our Minnesota folk in general are some of the most hospitable people
00:27:41.840in the AFA, and I hope you give them an opportunity to offer you some hospitality if you can.
00:27:47.880King of Cheese asks, a question to start off. What advice do the both of you have for trying
00:27:54.880to bring folk home? If they're confused or even resistant to the idea, it can make it difficult to
00:28:02.220do. Jason? I start talking about the ancestors and our customs and stuff. A lot of times that
00:28:13.000hooks people. You talk about the ancestors and your connection and stuff. Sometimes if you come
00:28:20.120out with like the gods right away, that can be a little intimidating, especially if you got some
00:28:24.000weird Christian in the background, you know, it can be tough. So I think sometimes there's
00:28:30.320something that they feel familiar with, something that they can connect with right away,
00:28:35.140a lot of times, that's a good thing, I think.
00:28:40.640You know, I think, first, what Jason was saying a second ago is absolutely true.
00:28:46.580Be friendly and hospitable and just be a nice human being.
00:28:51.520I say it a lot, but because it's the right answer.
00:28:55.760be a living billboard for what Ausatru should be live nobly be a good person be a kind person
00:29:12.220be a caring person be somebody who's useful and helpful to your society look good and then when
00:29:18.460people ask hey what's your secret tell them that it's the AFA and it's a relationship with your
00:29:23.040gods. That is a huge, huge thing to bring people in. And you want to look awesome and amazing,
00:29:29.600but you also want to look normal and not scary or deranged or, you know, you want to look good
00:29:41.040and look like the kind of person somebody wants to be around and also like the kind of person
00:29:45.300somebody wants to bring their family around. And the more that we have that, the more the members
00:29:51.260come in that's the best piece of advice i have don't try to sell them don't try to force them
00:29:58.220to believe in the gods there's no you can't intellectually convince people of the gods
00:30:04.620that's not how it works i mean maybe you can but in my experience i haven't found that to be the
00:30:10.780most effective what i've found to be the most effective is to be an example to share my
00:30:16.860experience with the gods with other people and to ask them you know at most when i'm asking them
00:30:23.180i'm not demanding that they all of a sudden change their life or believe everything i believe but
00:30:27.260i'm asking them to participate with an open mind and an open heart if they just go before
00:30:35.740a picture on their wall of one of their ancestors with an open mind and an open heart and they they
00:30:41.980say a prayer something that small may make the biggest difference in their life more than that
00:30:47.340if they you know have an altar and do that or if they get together with a group of people
00:30:51.740and participate in bloat and they enter that circle with an open mind and an open heart and
00:30:55.980they give it themselves and try amazing things happen um so i think that's that's probably what
00:31:03.180i would say on that rachel says does everyone in the afa need to wear a mjolnir or are there
00:31:11.740other pendants slash symbols that you can wear for other gods like Freya. Well, Rachel,
00:31:18.740no, everyone doesn't need to wear a Mjolnir, but the symbolism of Mjolnir has
00:31:28.240gone much beyond just Thor himself. It's a symbol of our faith. It's been the symbol of our faith
00:31:37.040since the beginning of modern Ausatru.
00:39:27.560There's only eight of those that have been distributed so far, and those are for people that have gone above and beyond in making our AFA what it is.
00:39:45.780And, yeah, the stone that's in there is dark blue like the AFA, and it's in the center of the trihorns in that circle on the face of it.
00:40:01.260And that symbolizes the AFA being the center of our lives, the center that everything else revolves around.
00:40:08.280um it's got uh got four runes on it as well as the wolf's angle wolf's angle so that we
00:40:16.940know that we're we're in a struggle for our people and a struggle for tradition
00:40:22.180we've got ansuz because of the inspiration of the gods um soilo for victory othala for our
00:40:32.120celebration of our heritage and our tradition and rido our priestly rune of right action at the
00:40:38.500right times but it's a it's a special ring and jason is a very special guy i'm very honored for
00:40:45.320both of them and like i said i i i can just go on and on but i'm very happy and very appreciative
00:40:51.600to be part of this team and to be part of the afa our church well we we appreciate having you you've
00:40:57.300made a massive impact and you continue to do so. Christine says, Jason, you have been an AFA member
00:41:04.460for a long time and have attended many AFA events. What would you say your most memorable event
00:41:11.020you have hosted or attended and why? That would be tough. There are so many, but I'll just pick
00:41:21.120random one i i was out at um odin's house three different times 2017 2018 and 2020 and just being
00:41:30.800out there is just magical in itself if people have never been there you need to get out there
00:41:36.000the the area it's at and the hop itself is just a beautiful place and um yeah
01:05:54.940would a braggies hoff ever be an idea like a music hoff dedicated to bragging braggies hoff is
01:06:01.260absolutely more than an idea braggies hoff is going to be our um seventh hoff so when we get
01:06:08.700to hoff number seven it will be dedicated to braggie and i really hope that we can encourage
01:06:15.260music and storytelling and those kind of vocal uh arts there i would love to see that and i'd
01:06:23.500love to see that happen um and i think that that just would go hand in hand with with that hoff
01:06:29.740and with you know a more a more structured and more prominent worship of braggie
01:06:38.700um shovelhead I've been doing some research research since last week and I think Christ
01:06:46.680and Odin are one in the same um I think that you're mistaken um I'm not sure what in your
01:06:55.800research has led you to believe that um other than both were were crucified in in a way um
01:07:06.780I think that the fundamental character of the two is very, very different. And I think that a fair reading of the source material would indicate that the fundamental character of those two persons is extremely different.
01:07:25.540Finn, even though it's called Ausatru, is it trying to work with more gods than just the
01:07:34.700Aesir? I've heard people saying that they don't identify as Ausatru because they work with more
01:07:40.660gods than the Aesir. That's an interesting question. I'm curious what other gods that
01:07:50.100they're working with, where they're not consider themselves loyal to the Aesir.
01:07:56.540One thing that comes up a lot that I think is a linguistic problem more than anything else
01:08:03.480is people who are concerned about the term Aesir because, but what about the Vanir?
01:08:12.060And I think they misunderstand the Vanir and Aesir linguistics.
01:08:19.020When the War of the Gods was resolved, the gods that we worship, that we know, that we talk about, that these people likely refer to, that are Arvanic deities, are absorbed into the Aesir and become Aesir.
01:08:35.600And you find that in our source material a lot when they list the Aesir in the poem that we take the ordering that we're doing our hafs from, the Gilfagening, it lists the Aesir and that's why we do our hafs in the order that it is.
01:08:49.720And on that list, you know, are Freya and Arnjord, gods that are frequently associated with the Vanir.
01:08:58.900When he lists the Esenjord or the female, the goddesses, Freya is on that list, also known as the Vanadis, the Desir of the Vanir.
01:09:13.380So if that's the question, no, those gods have are part of the Aesir and linguistically that term overlapped into those as well.
01:09:25.460And that might be what you're asking. And I hope so. If not, feel free to ask a follow up question on that.
01:09:33.360Stephen asks, where is Jason's superhero suit?
01:13:48.480that's a fact of mammalian existence since the dawn of time and that's that just is and everyone
01:13:58.720agreed that it just was until about two three years ago when all of a sudden that fundamental
01:14:05.220changed somehow in in the public consciousness um they believe number two that or we believe
01:14:13.620number two, that there is a biological component to race. Well, how silly. Of course, there's a
01:14:20.940biologic component to race. That's why people's children look like them. That's silly. Every
01:14:27.280doctor, every anthropologist, everyone engaged in forensics knows that race is a thing. And every
01:14:36.580other group of people, except for some very mentally disturbed white people, understand
01:14:42.940that race is a thing in fact it's such a common thing that you can't escape hearing about it on
01:14:48.140the news for two seconds you're just not allowed to talk about it in a positive way if you happen
01:14:53.340to be a white person unfortunately um and the third one is that the afa spreads white nationalist
01:15:01.580propaganda about a white genocide in south africa if you listen to the news about south africa and
01:15:10.940you look into it yourself in any way. White farmers are being targeted because they're
01:15:19.500white farmers and they're being murdered, they're being raped, and they're being depossessed
01:15:27.180of their land. By the United Nations definitions of genocide, that that is a genocide. And
01:15:36.620And because it's explicitly aimed at white people, it's a white genocide.
01:15:43.060We could use different words, but it's a thing.
01:15:45.540You can look it up and it's happening.
01:15:47.500And our hateful acts to that are feeding poor people that live in the camps for the folks that are displaced.
01:15:54.240And the AFA, for those of you who don't know, once a quarter, we spend all quarter generating donations.
01:16:03.140And then once a quarter, we pay those out to the South Africa Family Relief Project in a lump sum for them to buy groceries and to feed the white farmers over there that live in some of the squatter camps.
01:16:19.220So that's something we do. And thank you, Nick. I was just going to ask for that.
01:16:23.120If you'd like to contribute to that, Nick just threw up that link for you guys.
01:16:27.060But that's that's what we think of the SPLC thing.
01:16:29.680Unfortunately, they've got infinite pockets and there's not much we can do to get them to treat us fairly or to stop lying about us.
01:16:41.780We found in real life when people meet us, they know very quickly that what the SPLC says is wrong.
01:16:48.700And hopefully, as the SPLC continues to misrepresent people and organizations, people will put less and less stock in what they have to say.
01:17:01.940Sarah, for $3, thank you, Sarah, for the $3, asks, Jason, I hear you're a fan of karaoke.
01:22:01.880I've dealt with new applicants and stuff that were just came from Christianity.
01:22:11.960I've also had people that they're not 100% sure.
01:22:16.500They think that they want to become Asitru, but they just haven't felt the spiritual part yet.
01:22:22.220So I've told people the best way, I think, is to come out to an event, to actually come out.
01:22:27.920to if you can come to a hop to be around people to experience a ritual to be there and be in that
01:22:33.920circle and to be there when you're calling upon the gods and the different things i think that
01:22:39.740is a good thing and also reading up about our stuff too if you for me reading about our ancestors
01:22:46.880about the different things things that we actually did that were the christians took over and stuff
01:22:51.340like the christmas tree and things like that so i find that that helps sometimes too
01:22:57.140Um, you know, I, there's lots of different things that would be advice in that situation,
01:23:07.900but I think the question itself says something. Um,
01:23:15.440I don't know if they're asking the question, how Christian are they still? Um,
01:23:23.840one of our values, one of our core values, one of our noble virtues is truth.
01:23:30.160And that starts with being honest with yourself. It is, it is scary. It can be absolutely terrifying.
01:23:38.420It can be existentially terrifying. If you come from a place of being a devout Christian
01:23:45.540at one point in your life, and then you choose to forsake that and go this very different route
01:23:54.400to come home to your ancestral gods. That can be very scary, and I freely admit that.
01:24:01.040It can also be very socially scary if you've built friendships there, if your family are
01:24:07.160involved in the Christian church. For you to leave that is a scary prospect, but I think you need to
01:24:15.020be honest with yourself, is the reason that you're staying because you're scared of venturing out and
01:24:21.840trying something different. And if it is, and you acknowledge that fear is what's keeping you
01:24:27.440Christian, then you should choose to make the courageous choice and come home to our gods.
01:24:36.160I know that's a thousand times easier said than it is done, but it's liberating once it's done.
01:24:43.060And that's that's absolutely something that I went through back in 2001.
01:24:52.540It's something many of us have gone through and you got a ton of us over here that want to welcome you in and help you get situated.
01:25:01.740My biggest advice for somebody who's sitting on the fence, get off the fence and make a choice.
01:25:07.320make the courageous choice and what's really scary today won't be a year from now so i would
01:25:14.960encourage that person to find find the courage within themselves to make that choice and to come
01:25:21.540home to our gods especially once they already know it's what they should do if fear is the only thing
01:25:28.280holding you back you owe it to yourself to your gods and to your ancestors and to your descendants
01:25:34.160to overcome that fear. Michael asks, any thoughts on the Wotan statue in Munich? I heard it was
01:25:45.220out there before World War I, so this is why the Tula Society was given leeway in Germany when
01:25:51.400Hitler was in power. Yeah, it's a cool statue, and I think it's neat that it was there.
01:25:58.160Um, I know that Munich has a long history of, of pagan traditions that lasted into a really long, uh, process into, into the Christian era.
01:26:12.400And, uh, certainly there was a lot of Germanic revival things that went over, went on during that time.
01:26:19.880i can't speak to 1930s politics about it but i think the statue is really is really cool and
01:26:28.680and i do think that statue dates back from from that romantic period that was the same period
01:26:34.120pre-world war one where uh meister widow von list was you know reintroducing our folk to our gods
01:26:41.480and to the runes and so much of that was was developing there um not just in germany but in
01:26:47.800Austria and all around Central Europe. So no, I think it's really neat. And I think that Munich
01:26:54.940is a special place. I'd love to go see that someday. Rachel asks, how important is meditation
01:27:03.240in Ausatru? Jason, what do you think? I think it is important. In fact, it's something that I need
01:27:10.660to get into more. I have been thinking about it a lot, but I think it's very powerful and it is
01:27:16.420important thing. I know a lot of the different goals that are doing on a daily practice and
01:27:21.880stuff, but it's the connection or whatever. What are your thoughts?
01:27:29.840So I think that meditation means different things to different people.
01:27:39.340There's a lot of things that are meditative acts.
01:27:42.180that recentering yourself spiritually is really important. I think there's a lot of people when
01:27:52.100they think about meditation, they think about sitting in a lotus pose in silence, freeing
01:27:57.520their mind and doing that. And that's fantastic. If you can do that, that's great. And if it if
01:28:03.220it helps you, then by all means. One of the things I've found with myself, my mind is constantly
01:28:09.320going. And the idea of emptying my mind or shutting it off is next to impossible for me.
01:28:15.760That's always been a struggle. You know, my mind constantly going about all these things,
01:28:20.720I think has proved a benefit to the AFA. But personally, it's difficult sometimes. So one
01:28:27.680of the things that's really helpful to me when I do meditations is something with a mantra to it
01:28:36.040or with a galder. That allows that very repetitive intonation is repetitive, familiar enough,
01:28:50.180and you don't have to think about it to continue doing it after you've done it for a certain
01:28:55.640amount of time. And there comes a point in your rune galder where you're no longer telling
01:29:04.020your mouth to make the noise your mouth is just going and you're not telling it to do it you're
01:29:10.980just stuck on that autopilot and you know biologists out there i'm not i'm not asking
01:29:18.980this to be taken literally but that part of yourself that you want to be outside your body
01:29:25.380and to to do things when you meditate is separated from the part of yourself that's controlling your
01:29:31.380your speech at that point and i hope this makes sense to folks but you're almost outside of
01:29:37.220yourself hearing the rise and fall of the intonation of the rune that you're galling
01:29:42.340but your mind is lifted to that meditative place and that that really helps me in meditating
01:29:50.740something that i also think is a meditative act um because it gets your mind off of whatever
01:29:59.860whatever daily stresses that you have and focuses it on repetitive action, that's repetitive
01:30:09.320physical action in a way that you need to be very present for. I find martial arts to be
01:30:15.940meditative. I do Japanese jujitsu, danzenru jujitsu, and I find that to be very meditative,
01:30:26.020or it certainly can be, depending on how intense the training is that day.
01:30:32.260King of Cheese asks, how animist is the AFA in general? If I recall, some weapons in old
01:30:41.800Aryan stories were given names and said to have desires and personalities. Does that survive today?
01:30:49.000Okay. So I don't know where the boundaries and the spectrum of animism is.
01:31:03.280We do in the AFA believe that objects or places can carry power. You can imbue them with power.
01:31:15.080um we don't think that every rock and tree is its own spirit like a true animist would
01:31:24.440but we do think that rocks and trees sometimes are places that are special to beings that that
01:31:30.360are powerful that either inhabit that space or that those places and those objects serve as a
01:31:36.840way of connecting with with those spirits um you talk about uh weapons having their own
01:31:47.720their own life force to them in a way with their own desires and their own personalities
01:31:53.400and that's true that's kind of a special it's a very specialized thing but yes there's there's
01:32:01.000thing and we still do believe in that today although um a weapon like that is such a
01:32:10.120such a distant concept for most of our people in a way to where you actually interact with it
01:32:15.880and it's a essential part of who you are but it's you know you can do things to magically charge
01:32:22.360something with a bit of its own spiritual gravitas. You imbue it with a certain amount
01:32:34.740of life force. And this is all kind of esoteric to talk about. But yes, there are objects that
01:32:43.380retain energy. And if that's passed down for a time or if that's present in ritual for a time,
01:32:50.040It becomes powerful in and of itself. And so we do believe that's a thing. Phantasm. Odin is and
01:32:59.480always will be my god, but I've recently dabbled in trying to venerate some Celtic gods because
01:33:04.740it's such a significant portion of my bloodline. Is this acceptable as an ossature? It's an
01:33:17.620interesting question. The gods of the Aryan, the Aryan peoples share a common root and
01:33:30.000commonality. I think that it would work better and be more holistic to worship the gods of
01:33:43.880our folk under the Norse-Germanic conception of them with that name and that personality and
01:33:51.980that understanding, I think that would be much more congruent and more appropriate. And I think
01:33:57.920that you wouldn't be missing out on anything that our cultural brothers are practicing in
01:34:07.920any sort of a Celtic faith. It gets tricky because I don't think there's a one-for-one
01:34:16.000exchange of who's who when you compare Arian pantheons. I think there absolutely is sometimes,
01:34:23.900but I think that can get a little bit trickier. But I think that if you worship the Aesir,
01:34:30.420you will give worship to all the powers that need to be worshipped by our folk. And I think that
01:34:37.600And that's what I would advise you in that way.
01:34:45.600Tracy asks, question, does it make a man less masculine if they connect more with the DCer?
01:34:57.600I think what would make him less masculine is depends on how he acts for him to.
01:35:06.600um connect with uh that can mean a lot of different things um
01:35:14.600yeah that can mean a lot of different things but I don't think connecting with your female ancestors
01:35:21.800makes you less masculine I don't think having a good relationship with your grandmother
01:35:26.600takes away from from your manliness um and I think that shouldn't be concerning to someone
01:35:32.840I think, you know, an example is when you come to someone for counseling, in spiritual counseling or otherwise, there's some things and some people, there's some men who would are much more comfortable talking to another man about certain problems, be they health problems, be they emotional problems, be they counseling or spiritual advice.
01:35:54.440But there's other guys that are depending on their circumstances, the exact opposite.
01:35:59.380They function much better talking to a woman about their problems.
01:36:03.800They can feel like they're not in a competition with them.
01:38:27.700trying to think where to start on it um
01:38:29.220when i started out you know i used to dress like a slob and i'd go to stuff when i first my first
01:38:38.420couple of afa events until i had that conversation with brad that i talked about before
01:38:44.660to where it just the realization you know if i would dress nicely for a special occasion for
01:38:53.460for a wedding for a funeral for a family reunion for you know something that way why would i not
01:39:02.260dress when i'm approaching our gods and you know if i would dress a certain way if i was going to
01:39:11.140a christian church or when i was jehovah's witness if i went to the kingdom hall
01:39:16.100why are our gods not worthy of that same level of of piety and caring for yourself so i started
01:39:22.020trying to up my up my dressing game at that point. And it's absolutely about reverence,
01:39:30.180it's about piety, but something happens when you dress good, and you look good, you feel good.
01:39:35.060And so it's become important to me to really try to do that and step it up
01:39:40.820over time. And that's built a lot of self confidence.
01:39:44.740um and as the self-confidence builds and as i feel proud of myself and good when i'm when i'm
01:39:53.040dressed a certain way um i think that's where some of the the more bold fashion choices come in
01:39:59.100because you know you can't pull it off if you're dressed loud but you you you're shying away and
01:40:06.360looking at the floor and you don't have the self-confidence so i think you know it's a it's
01:40:11.600it synergizes. Dressing good, looking good, makes you feel good, makes you hold yourself a certain
01:40:18.840way, which makes you look better. And the better that is, the more self-confident you are,
01:40:24.780the, I don't know, the more fun it is to dress up and get excited about the stuff you're going to
01:40:31.460wear. And especially being the Elshary Gothi now, it's my job. I'm literally the spokesperson for
01:40:38.300the AFA, I represent the AFA before the gods, and I represent the gods before our folk.
01:40:45.460It's an absolute must that I try really hard to look my best and look a way that that represents
01:40:52.140our folk and our gods the best that I can. So thank you for noticing. And yeah, I enjoy dressing
01:40:59.420up and finding things that I think look good, look dignified. And yeah, I like doing that a lot.
01:41:08.300I've got a question from, cool, another question from, or a statement from Lawrence with another 10 Canadian dollars. Thank you again, Lawrence.
01:41:23.740to any Christians watching who are feeling the call to explore Alcetru. I respectfully
01:41:29.540encourage you to research the origins of Judeo-Christianity. You will be surprised at
01:41:36.160what you discover. The work of Acharya S, aka Dr. D.M. Murdoch, helped me drop Christianity
01:41:47.240forever, but there are many others. So I think that's definitely some good advice.
01:41:53.160The more you research and the more you look into things, the more clear some things become.
01:42:02.100We've got four more questions. If you guys got questions out there or things you want to hear
01:42:06.280me and Jason talk about, please go ahead and throw those in there. We'll stick around as long
01:42:11.580as we've got questions. Been on for about an hour and a half. And as of right now, we've got four
01:42:16.880more questions in the lineup. Kenny, I know it's been brought up already in episodes.
01:42:23.480What is the AFA doing about bringing bluegrass music into the faith? I'm down for that.
01:42:28.980The AFA is doing nothing because I don't have any bluegrass skills. I have nothing to contribute to
01:42:33.100that other than I'd love to see it happen. And I'd love to push forward. You know, as that happens,
01:42:38.740I'd love to encourage and broadcast that kind of stuff. So if you're if you've got skills in that
01:42:46.520regard please talk to some of our folks that do and let's get something together i would
01:42:51.960it's always been a dream of mine i would love some house true bluegrass i think that would be
01:42:55.760amazing yeah that'd be awesome yeah i was gonna say what do you think you're you you like your
01:43:00.420music jason yeah i i tend to like the heavier music but yes i think that would be cool especially
01:43:06.680in a folk setting awesome true bluegrass would be cool because it's pretty awesome just when a
01:43:12.180member picks up a guitar and sings or plays the drums so anything like that would be awesome
01:43:17.500now out here at odenshoff we have um i think they did something last month but i was at
01:43:22.800fall fest hopefully here this weekend when i go up there for uh winter finding both folks will be
01:43:29.840around we have one member that plays a banjo and another member that plays a guitar pretty well and
01:43:34.600i'd love to see how that that works out there um finn do afa members do or have considered learning
01:43:44.520uh gleema scandinavian martial arts wrestling which i heard is partly based on viking combat
01:43:52.280um we've got a lot of members so i don't think i could confidently say that no one does but i don't
01:44:00.600know of anybody that does that um it's tricky i know a lot of folks especially you know in our
01:44:10.040circles want to do something martial and want to do some form of martial arts but are hesitant to
01:44:17.240do an uh culturally asian martial art and unfortunately european martial arts schools
01:44:26.040that just wasn't a thing for a very long time um so attempting to reconstruct some very old
01:44:34.120european fighting styles i think that that's probably really cool for historical interest
01:44:39.480and i'm i'm not going to say that's that has no worth or value but the asian martial arts systems
01:44:47.240have been developed and used in very effective ways for a really long time so if your point is
01:44:53.880to do something that's effective for handling yourself in in a self-defense or a fight situation
01:45:00.680in real life i think that those traditions have more practicality to you right now than some of the
01:45:08.760the newer newer newly resurrected um supposed ancient european martial arts schools
01:45:17.080but i don't know anybody who does do uh gleema so i'm not sure i can't really speak educatedly
01:45:22.200on it jason do you know anybody who does gleema i don't know anybody but i've known a few people
01:45:26.760that were interested and have brought it up and brought us some links to stuff and read it but i
01:45:32.440haven't actually seen people physically practicing it or organizing events for it but that would be
01:45:38.840something you need to see yeah yeah i think it'd be fun certainly i think it'd be fun um cory when
01:45:46.280you look at society do you ever think that loki is behind all of the chaos or at least enjoying it
01:45:53.720or is he still tied up with venom being dripped on him so
01:46:00.840one thing we've explained this on past episodes and i know it's a it's a difficult concept but
01:46:07.160we believe very very much that mythic time and linear or historical time are two very different
01:46:16.840things so mythic time is very often cyclical and overlapping and i know that that's hard to
01:46:29.880understand if it's not something that you're used to. But we believe that the events in our myth
01:46:40.740cycle have happened, will happen, and are happening simultaneously. So yes, it's hard to say. I think
01:46:58.280that Loki being a force of chaos like he is, I'm sure that he does find chaos to be pleasing to
01:47:07.660him. And I think that he finds, in a lot of ways, detriment of our folk to be pleasing to him.
01:47:15.680I honestly have to say that I haven't given much thought to things that Loki likes or doesn't like
01:47:22.980because we stand in opposition to Loki and his.
01:47:29.560I don't think that he is behind all of the chaos or responsible for the chaos.
01:47:35.260I think there's plenty of malevolent forces causing chaos,
01:47:39.040and the vast majority of those aren't spiritual entities.
01:47:46.800I think chaos is a natural state that exists if you don't stay beyond it
01:47:52.640and stay ahead of it. That's why I think entropy is one of the biggest problems that our gods and
01:47:59.960our folk try to overcome. I think entropy is that force that drags order down into chaos perpetually
01:48:06.660unless we're striving and trying to do, trying to succeed, trying to move forward, trying to move
01:48:14.080upward. As soon as we stop, we get pulled down and we get pulled back. And so I think that there's a
01:48:21.740lot going on that makes the world chaotic. And I don't think it's all, you know, some grand Loki
01:48:27.800plan. I don't think it quite works like that. Our understanding of the world isn't quite as binary
01:48:35.380as, you know, our gods and then Loki being, you know, our version of the devil. It's not quite
01:48:41.800that simple. Freya asks, how does the AFA view Freya and Frigga being the same? I'm a Frigga
01:48:52.380devotee. Through my practice, I think I've found that Freya is for short-term relationships and
01:48:59.460Frigga is long-term. Your thoughts? I don't think that Freya and Frigga are the same.
01:49:07.500um i think that they have very different energy on those kind of things
01:49:14.700um i some of this is fundamentally uh how the afa views our gods compared to perhaps
01:49:27.300how some other folks do um the people that i've heard that think that uh frigga and freya are the
01:49:36.420same, tend to do that from a linguistic or a scholarly background, because some ancient
01:49:44.080texts merge the two, or some linguistic variant. And that's not how I know our gods and goddesses.
01:49:55.060That's helpful, and that gives us a place to start. But building relationships with our gods
01:50:02.740and goddesses through worship over time and through being in that gift cycle
01:50:08.260you get to interact with them in a in a personal way um
01:50:16.100they're not a math problem to solve with enough you know nerd study you're going to somehow
01:50:22.740unravel the mystery it's something that you build a relationship through the exchange of gifts and
01:50:29.060the exchange of energy. I think that Freya tends to be more for, so there's a concept in
01:50:42.980Aryan mythos in general of horse goddesses and of cow goddesses. And meaning the horse goddess
01:50:52.820is more more wild and untamed and uh represents the unmarried women and women in a in a more raw
01:51:02.740uh elemental context often a more sexual context and the the cow goddesses are goddesses that are
01:51:11.800more about the home and the hearth and the raising of children and women in relationships as as wife
01:51:19.240as mother. And I think you see Freya and Frigga as exemplars of this dichotomy.
01:51:30.280But I don't think that those things don't overlap. And I don't believe that our gods
01:51:34.860or our goddesses are one dimensional. Thor's not just strong. He's other stuff too. Freya's
01:51:45.120not just sex and magic she's other things as well so um i i don't view our gods as archetypes and i
01:51:52.480don't view our gods as the result of linguistics i view our gods as actual spirit persons and one
01:51:59.040thing that you know i will say i understand that i understand that if we go back there are undoubtedly
01:52:08.960If we take all of the continental sources, all of the British Isles sources, all of the Scandinavian sources, I'm certain that there are some deities and some personages that overlap or that are a confusion of one or the other.
01:52:26.460But when practicing religion piously, I would much rather err on the side of worshiping two different aspects of a God as two separate things than mistakenly assuming that they're the same God and only worshiping one and excluding the other.
01:52:48.320at the end of the day if one of our gods happens to be worshipped under two different names
01:52:56.260in two different ways they still get that worship and that relationship still exists
01:53:01.860if I make the mistake and only worship the one and not the other if I'm wrong one of our gods
01:53:10.800doesn't get that worship that they're entitled to and doesn't get that love and worship from
01:53:16.540from their folk. And I would never want that to happen. I think it would be impious. So that's
01:53:21.700why we tend to err on the side of always assuming that they're distinct and different, even when
01:53:27.840sometimes that may or may not be the case. So a reminder to plug Winter Nights. Winter Nights
01:53:34.820coming up in one month. Nick, could you throw up the Winter Nights information and dates?
01:53:42.800anybody who can make it to winter nights winter nights in ohio this year for the first time
01:53:48.800it's going to be at a new place we're going to see a lot of new faces we haven't seen before
01:53:53.560um jason how do we get you out to winter nights sometime
01:53:57.720i would love to go that's my thing it's just um it's um right after fall fest and fall fest
01:54:06.800always takes me two or three weeks to recover and this year it's been a month i'm still so
01:54:12.560So I would like to, let's say next year.
01:54:37.440the AFA originally was doing Winter Nights in the Motherlode was the event the big AFA event
01:54:44.280and that happened for a few years before they did Midsummer in the Sierras and Midsummer in
01:54:51.420Summer in the Sierras was always our big national event for a number of years after that well when
01:54:57.600the AFA really expanded you know we've had members around the world and across the country forever
01:55:03.420But when we had those insignificant numbers to where we really had a strong presence on the East Coast, we started doing winter nights in 2012, I'm guessing I could.
02:07:50.820When I do a Yule bloat, it's a celebration between the Aesir and our folk.
02:07:56.500And we celebrate all together as one, as one big family.
02:07:59.740And, and we go around and hail the different gods and goddesses of our folk and, and share
02:08:06.660that, that celebration with all of them.
02:08:08.840I think that's absolutely something you can do.
02:08:10.820And I would encourage you to do so if you can't pick or choose or if you're new and you're not that familiar, you can just bloat to the A-Sier as a whole.
02:08:20.860And I think that would be taken very well.
02:08:27.860So back to Winston's Minnesota band question.
02:08:33.020Bound for Glory is who he's asking about.
02:08:35.120What do you think about Bound for Glory?