Asatru Folk Assembly - 9⧸21⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 11

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:02:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:00.000 hello everybody and welcome uh we have a special guest today good friend of mine

00:03:20.640 an amazing folk builder jessica lambert is joining us hi jess hi matt

00:03:25.440 while we generate uh i guess a couple things on top before we start it um so everybody knows

00:03:33.960 coming up the looking at the wrong calendar anyways coming up and nick will show you here

00:03:41.200 in a couple of weeks in october we've got winter nights in ohio this year if you guys can make it

00:03:48.500 please do please think about it please reach out to your folk builder and let's get you guys there

00:03:53.320 I would love to meet each and every one of you and spend time with those of you who have already met.

00:03:58.720 And it's a really great opportunity to participate in Ausatru, meet the rest of your AFA family, and be involved in a wonderful weekend.

00:04:08.780 So if you can do that, please think about it.

00:04:12.540 Also, tonight, if you want to join in and participate in Super Chat or if you just want to throw us any donations,

00:04:19.380 you can come to us on entropy and Nick can post that link for you and that always helps out we

00:04:25.500 appreciate how generous you guys are it really does make a difference and rest assured any

00:04:30.520 questions you guys have we will get to them but if you do the super chat we'll get to them first

00:04:35.940 and without further ado Jess tell us a little bit about yourself how you got involved in

00:04:41.820 alsatru and how you got involved with the astro folk assembly um i got involved in also true

00:04:48.860 probably about 2015 through some friends i was more along the line of um odinism wotenism um

00:04:59.420 and uh didn't really i didn't dive right into it right away um but through talking to some friends

00:05:09.900 i would notice certain things happening in my life and some

00:05:18.060 i don't know kind of omens if you will and some of the things just started to kind of make more

00:05:23.100 sense and a friend of mine told me about it and of course on the website read the declaration

00:05:30.220 read everything else and was like yeah that's totally where i'm at um for me it was a big

00:05:36.540 big part was not the immediate draw was actually not so much finding a spiritual path but finding

00:05:43.500 a path of community with like-minded folk and kind of getting out of the political spectrum

00:05:51.180 something more family oriented um something softer and that and then when i applied to the

00:05:58.060 afa and got to meet some of the folks nearby um i was pretty pretty much sold just on the

00:06:03.740 warmth and the generosity from people. I didn't feel like I was talking to strangers. I didn't

00:06:10.620 feel terribly out of place. It really felt like I'd met a bunch of people that I've always known

00:06:19.480 but lost contact with. Became a folk builder in 20... Apprentice folk builder? Started 2019

00:06:30.560 and then personal issues stopped.

00:06:36.360 And then I came back,

00:06:37.560 apprentice wealth builder

00:06:38.220 and got my oath last year at Winter Nights.

00:06:43.260 All right.

00:06:44.200 Well, we got a couple of questions so far.

00:06:47.320 King of Cheese says,

00:06:48.940 sorry, Matt, ain't no rest for the wicked.

00:06:50.860 And I got metal to beat on.

00:06:53.500 Extremely question for both of you.

00:06:56.560 How are you doing tonight?

00:06:58.320 Jessica, how are you doing tonight?

00:07:00.160 I am doing fantastic, as always.

00:07:03.900 Excellent. Good to hear it.

00:07:05.640 Tony, I appreciate you always asking.

00:07:08.100 It was kind of you.

00:07:09.160 I am doing great, like I say every week, but I say it because it's true.

00:07:12.860 I look forward to this all week.

00:07:14.200 So, you know, this is a fun time for me.

00:07:16.640 And like I say, I get to talk to some of my very best friends.

00:07:19.740 How are you doing, Tony?

00:07:20.920 I hope you're doing well.

00:07:24.540 We've got from Tim.

00:07:25.820 jess could you tell us your journey within the afa as a folk builder and your part in creating

00:07:31.340 the powerhouse that ohio has become um the journey was actually not it was not easy

00:07:41.180 at all um when i started a role of leadership here in ohio it was very disconnected um not

00:07:50.380 in a negative way just there wasn't the for events um people were very spread out so it was a lot of

00:08:00.780 reaching out to people on the phone it was a lot of doing constant events all over the state um

00:08:09.100 really um you know i i have like maybe one person that came out to an event you know a month and

00:08:15.900 And just not getting discouraged. That was that was the biggest part, not getting discouraged, realizing that if you stay consistent and if you keep going, people as people join and they realize the community and the warmth you have to offer, it just builds from there.

00:08:33.040 and that's exactly what happened it took a few years it really took about a little over two

00:08:38.400 years before we really started seeing um more members in ohio and more more importantly more

00:08:44.080 members being active and coming out to events and we had more folk builders like timmy and joe um

00:08:50.640 christine uh mike we have so many good people uh doing consistent events and really providing

00:08:58.640 that family atmosphere for our folk to come out and and connect and and that's really what it was

00:09:06.560 about it was about getting people you know reconnected with each other and and feeling

00:09:10.880 comfortable in too so while we're on it can you talk a little bit about ohio generally it's been

00:09:20.960 for those guys that don't know um afa has always had a decent amount of members spread out

00:09:28.960 throughout ohio but it was it was vexing for me before i became uh i was harry goethe i was the

00:09:34.880 folk builder coordinator and trying to get stuff happening in ohio was always so difficult it seemed

00:09:41.680 like there was all the potential in the world but nobody would get together like it was pulling

00:09:45.600 teeth to get anyone to do anything and now ohio's on the rise it's not just got a lot of folks in it

00:09:51.920 it is i believe at present it's our second most populous state as far as afa members go

00:09:57.680 ohio and florida have kind of a back and forth rivalry going on on that but either way the afa

00:10:02.960 wins i'm a happy guy but ohio's really come a long way so much so that uh phrase off the next

00:10:09.840 off that the afa is is getting is going to be in ohio so tell us a little bit about ohio what's

00:10:17.680 going on yeah tell us the ohio story the ohio story um well like i said it was you know it

00:10:25.120 was very sporadic at first but as we got uh more folk builders um i mean really you know timmy and

00:10:32.880 his his charisma that he you know has with christine um on top of it really building

00:10:43.280 the southern portion and and that's kind of really what it took i think is

00:10:48.400 ohio isn't a terribly big state you know it takes about four and a half hours to drive

00:10:53.840 you know from south or north to south vice versa up and down um having more folk builders and having

00:11:01.440 more people putting events together offers more for people they feel less secluded and i think

00:11:08.560 that was kind of the problem before we had people that did not want to drive two or three hours and

00:11:15.600 even though it would be nice if every once in a while they'd come out to an event

00:11:20.000 to drive a few hours not everybody's going to do that not everybody has a means to do that either

00:11:25.200 and with us having you know me being in the northern part and timmy being in the southern

00:11:29.520 part part really tackled the state honestly um you know we'd have people joining up in the northwest

00:11:36.240 corner and then it's like cool you know you're closest to jess we'd have people in the southeast

00:11:41.040 or southwest corner especially like cincinnati area um they would join it's like all right you

00:11:46.000 got tim right there you got christine right there and now we have you know mike in the middle which

00:11:50.240 is great we have joe that's um northeast a little south of me i'm way up let me always says i'm

00:11:56.880 practically in canada um and it's just having having that leadership and having that presence

00:12:03.840 of leadership and leadership that's also willing to work really hard and not get discouraged

00:12:11.520 reaching out to people making it very personable and um we have so many different

00:12:19.680 people that are into different things I think that that helps too you know uh I'm kind of like

00:12:28.180 a metalhead a crazy metalhead so we've got people that join up like oh yeah you know I'm gonna talk

00:12:31.740 to Jess about metal stuff and you know Tim with his great wackiness you know people connect

00:12:37.740 immediately to that and I think that really it really helps and sometimes it's it's hard you

00:12:44.640 if you have a state that just has one folk builder they can't be everywhere they can try and they'll

00:12:50.080 do their best but they can't be everywhere and having more than one folk builder is really what

00:12:54.400 i feel it has is what built the state and also the surrounding areas um you know we have people from

00:13:01.760 west virginia kentucky that are not that far from tim we have people from pa that are not far from

00:13:07.600 joe you know myself also being kind of on the pa you know not that terribly far from michigan we

00:13:13.760 are able to accommodate even outside of our state borders so that was another big piece of it too

00:13:19.840 is making sure that really anybody with despite where they were at they are in a two to three

00:13:24.800 hour distance from you you really built a personal relationship with them because you want them to

00:13:30.320 feel involved and you want them to feel welcome so i think it just really it's that consistent drive

00:13:36.240 of tons of events tons of stuff to do doing creative things whether it's laser tag a bloat

00:13:44.080 you know nerf battles kids versus adults viking battles you know you really got to hit all this

00:13:50.960 different stuff to get people to want to come out and you know not that the spiritual connection

00:13:58.320 isn't enough but they want to make sure that there's that community that they can feel

00:14:02.560 comfortable in especially when you have families coming you want them to know okay well this isn't

00:14:08.400 just like a boys club thing like this is a family atmosphere and we really cater to that big time

00:14:17.200 yeah i think that uh you know i've said this a lot and people that

00:14:23.120 people that up to this point have only practiced house and true in a in a personal way

00:14:28.560 sometimes take offense. And I certainly don't mean it that way, but to really get the value

00:14:35.840 out of it, to really feel and participate in Ausatru in a full way, it's always been a community

00:14:41.760 faith. It's been about living out Ausatru within how you act in your community. And so it's so

00:14:50.740 much richer when you have that and you go out of your way and you get involved. And the more people

00:14:54.860 that do, the more widespread the activity is. And, you know, people that didn't have folks

00:15:01.440 close to them a couple of years ago now are surrounded with great people. We've got a

00:15:06.780 question from Steven. Jessica, what motivates you to continue building and helping our folk?

00:15:15.300 It's really, it's an inner drive. There's no one thing that motivates me. I feel,

00:15:21.780 So I feel, I don't want to say an obligation because I'm honored to be in the position

00:15:27.800 that I am in, but when I wasn't in leadership, I immediately took a stance of being in leadership

00:15:36.860 just with my forwardness, a need for something.

00:15:42.720 And I'm a, I'm a fixer kind of fixer kind of gal, if you will.

00:15:46.860 I see a problem or a gap or a need for something. And I try to do my best to fill that. And prior to being in the AFA, speaking with other women, that was always a big thing. We don't have something where we feel comfortable.

00:16:03.400 we don't have something where we feel that we are put in a place that we deserve that we that we 1.00

00:16:10.980 get the respect we deserve as women and not in some weird like feminist way but in a wifely 1.00

00:16:17.760 motherly way um for our children we need something that our children can grow into 1.00

00:16:25.260 that's going to build good habits to build good character and um that kind of was that

00:16:33.100 was really my drive to be honest that's totally what it was it's not about any kind of self

00:16:38.580 gratification or anything on that level um i'm actually incredibly shy so for me to have to put

00:16:45.280 myself out there is uh always kind of a big thing um yeah i guess that's pretty much it inner drive

00:16:52.800 good deal um nick asks matt how's your week been and how's the life of being a dad my week my week's

00:17:06.040 been pretty good so far um got nothing to complain about i'm excited i got a couple a couple of cool

00:17:12.180 things going on i'm having people coming over to okay so anybody who is within driving distance

00:17:18.460 of my house contact me if you guys want to come to dinner on uh saturday because i'm hosting a

00:17:24.620 dinner over here with with local members and so i'm excited about that planning a menu for that

00:17:30.060 so i'm doing good um how's life being a dad i mean okay first first well because there's just

00:17:43.260 so much to it i think sometimes these questions are are meant as just kind of casual how you're

00:17:47.580 doing but if if more comes to me i always like to give a little bit more on that um

00:17:54.140 my wife and i both waited too long in our life to start having kids and so it wasn't a guarantee

00:18:01.340 we're very very lucky that we have aubrey um mandy and i were both 39 when we had her so

00:18:08.140 we didn't know if that was going to be reality for us so we're so blessed having aubrey um it's

00:18:13.020 it's amazing. She's first, I think having kids in general, assuming that they're healthy and

00:18:20.120 stuff is probably always amazing, but we lucked out and have a particularly good one. Aubrey is

00:18:25.900 awesome. And it's been, it's just been so cool to watch her. And this is relevant to how it's

00:18:34.260 going this week. Just every couple of days, you notice some new things she learns or picks up or

00:18:40.520 new things she can do that she couldn't do the day before. And it's, it's really cool to be a

00:18:44.980 part of that. No, I love it. Now, can't say it's not challenging. And I can't say that kids don't

00:18:53.100 do stuff that gets on your nerves. I don't think people talk about that enough. It's the thing.

00:18:57.600 But no, it's amazing. And I'm extremely, extremely fortunate and blessed to have my daughter.

00:19:03.720 So I'm a happy guy. Katla. Jessica, what is the weirdest comment or question you've had about the AFA from non-members? Maybe something about being a woman in the AFA.

00:19:19.460 uh actually surprisingly no uh probably like my weirdest and most common if you will is is it a

00:19:30.640 cult and of course my response is no it's ridiculous um I have had some women that have

00:19:39.920 asked me uh about being a female uh in in the AFA and uh my reminder is this isn't a club 0.61

00:19:49.020 this isn't an emcee this isn't just a social thing this is a spiritual

00:19:54.780 path and this is the community that drives that spiritual path

00:20:00.300 all right well christine says matt and jess how do you incorporate spirituality and the gods

00:20:12.260 into your children's life jessica go ahead and go first um i of course

00:20:18.760 read to my son um the lore and i have some children's books that he really likes

00:20:24.940 we also would just kind of sitting down with him

00:20:28.740 when something comes to mind um we sit down and we talk about it and um i think where he's actually

00:20:39.300 learned the most not so much with what we do at home and we do we do things at home like honoring

00:20:45.480 ancestors. We talk a lot about the ancestors and their importance in our lives. Um, I always call

00:20:50.840 him a son of Thor. So we talk a lot about Thor. Uh, it, it thunders outside. You hear him in the

00:20:56.940 house go, hell Thor. Uh, he, he actually puts offerings, um, out in the backyard for Thor.

00:21:04.600 And, um, at night he'll say goodnight Thor. That's his personal relationship with the gods,

00:21:12.920 which i think is adorable and some of that is not necessarily something i implanted in him

00:21:18.460 i mean i encourage it absolutely when he does it and we talk about it but really going to events

00:21:23.800 um especially our national events drake my son really he is he's he's so involved during ritual

00:21:36.360 he looks when he's in the ritual circle and especially when matt does a ritual his eyes

00:21:46.180 are wide and he's just fascinated with what's going on and you'll hear him hailing the gods and

00:21:52.840 even during times that we will galder a rune he will try to galder that rune we'll actually talk

00:21:59.240 about it later on when we like go home after an event we'll talk about what that meant and

00:22:04.280 he i feel like for him he's listening to his inside whisper his ancestral whisper he's listening

00:22:13.980 he's connected he doesn't have this like christianized brain that he's got to break

00:22:19.960 through all these barriers to make sense of things he wasn't pre-programmed in any way

00:22:24.220 he was born into this and for him everything comes completely naturally which i think is

00:22:29.540 absolutely beautiful. And he realizes the family aspect. He recognizes people from events,

00:22:35.280 especially our local Ohio events. Everybody is aunt so-and-so, uncle so-and-so. He realizes

00:22:41.440 it's a family. And that is something that's really important to him. Actually, we went to

00:22:47.640 go celebrate Joe Drotos' birthday. Before we're leaving the house, Drake says to me,

00:22:53.860 mommy aren't you going to grab your horn so we can toast joe and i said drake i think that's an

00:22:59.780 excellent idea because we had kind of started this little ritual that whenever we would all

00:23:04.040 get together and celebrate someone's birthday we would sit around the fire and we would toast that

00:23:07.440 person and thank them for their contribution in our lives and also say something great about them

00:23:13.660 and um drake was the one that actually like he reminded mom like oh don't forget your horn like

00:23:18.980 want to do this right it's like all right yeah we're gonna do this so that for me is is the

00:23:24.660 biggest piece is just letting him naturally gravitate towards certain things organically

00:23:30.580 make sense of things in his way and then when he has questions he comes to me and we talk about it

00:23:36.660 so that way it's not in any way i'm not saying that i would have to force anything on him but

00:23:41.860 um i would never want him to feel like he's forced into anything and i love that if it's coming

00:23:47.300 naturally, it's more meaningful. Well, Jess has a really good and big answer, and all those things

00:23:55.440 are really cool. I don't know, Aubrey's too, so I don't have a whole lot of stuff for her to wrap

00:24:01.060 her head around on things. One thing that I talk about on here that I always do is we've got this,

00:24:06.600 you know, on our staircase, and I've always wanted to have this up my staircase, we got this wall of

00:24:12.080 pictures of of my ancestors and so we point out the ancestors to Aubrey you know every morning

00:24:17.720 when I take her her rooms upstairs and we go downstairs where the living room the kitchen

00:24:21.340 everything is so when I take her down the stairs I always point to the ancestors and you know

00:24:27.200 depending if she she's excited about them I don't know what about the pictures she can't quite tell

00:24:33.940 me yet but if she points at one then I'll I'll tell her you know who it is and you know I point

00:24:38.920 out that, you know, those are the ancestors, all those people love you. And she seems excited and

00:24:44.220 happy about that and goes about her way. So we do that. When she goes with me up to the Hoff,

00:24:49.640 Odense Hoff's about two and a half hours drive from here. So Aubrey and Mandy don't always get

00:24:54.220 to make it with me. She's kind of temperamental on that car ride, so we'll see. But when she does,

00:25:00.580 she's always... One thing that, and I've said this before, kind of a cool perspective since 0.54

00:25:08.120 having her is my child, my daughter is growing up in a world where Hoffs to our gods is her reality.

00:25:16.200 She's never known a world where that wasn't a thing. And so it doesn't seem like an odd thing

00:25:21.940 to me. Us having Hoffs is such a huge deal to me because when I started in Ausitru, that was,

00:25:27.960 you know, that was this distant dream that no one had. That's her reality. This is her norm.

00:25:34.420 She's not having to come to this and wish that we had stuff we don't have.

00:25:39.800 She is surrounded by this her whole life.

00:25:42.380 And it's a really special thing.

00:25:43.960 I really came to me when I she was, you know, one or so.

00:25:47.760 And she's playing in the dirt outside the Hoff and playing with the other kids there.

00:25:51.420 And that was really special to me.

00:25:53.200 What I was going to say is since she's, you know, literally since she was born, she's been with us in in bloat.

00:26:01.580 And I've seen other kids and other babies that aren't used to that.

00:26:04.700 And I'm notorious for freaking those kids out because I get kind of loud and enthusiastic in my bloat and it terrifies some of the children.

00:26:12.920 And if that doesn't get it, then when I'm splashing people with the meat, I always splash the babies in the eyes unintentionally most of the time.

00:26:19.240 And they don't like it. But Aubrey's always been really cool with it.

00:26:23.960 That's her reality. You know, her dad's out there giving bloat and it's completely normal.

00:26:28.700 she can even sleep through it when i'm out there you know full throttle doing a spirited bloat

00:26:34.060 it's kind of neat to me that that's that's a comfortable place for her um hey guys we've got

00:26:41.740 a couple of donations over on the side uh first from lawrence 10 canadian dollars thank you so

00:26:48.540 much lawrence we always appreciate you good evening matt and jessica jessica what is your favorite

00:26:54.460 metal band, and if you can't decide on one, your top three. Lawrence always contributes. Give him

00:27:01.360 three. I'll give him three. All right. Probably my top favorite is Demi Bourguer. I love everything 0.92

00:27:10.920 that they do, even their super early 90s stuff. I'm a huge fan of their symphonic black metal.

00:27:18.680 However, I don't like all symphonic black metal, so they're sort of like the oddity for me. I met

00:27:24.020 those guys actually were super cool um my next up is this actually it's an ohio band they're now

00:27:31.900 an international act uh called midnight and they're just like i call them party thrash

00:27:37.240 because their shows are just so much fun and they're just totally wild on stage and it just

00:27:43.820 it's music that you absolutely can't help headbanging to like you just have to you regret

00:27:48.720 it after the show because your neck's killing you but like you have to headbang um

00:27:52.760 oh one more um oh shoot i'm i'm really big my my biggest love is industrial music

00:28:04.900 i could go on and on and on and on about that um oh man like on the spot trying to think of

00:28:11.420 like another metal band um i don't know i i'll get back to you on that i'll have to think about

00:28:18.160 that but those are my top two all right so jessica owes us one um nick threw us ten dollars uh just

00:28:26.000 supporting the stream keep up the solid work for the folk absolutely we will and your support means

00:28:30.640 a lot to us thank you thank you um tyler threw us twenty dollars appreciate you tyler thank you

00:28:38.800 my wife and i want to get more involved is it beneficial to the afa for a husband and wife

00:28:43.920 to both be folk builders absolutely it is um and you know as you would expect there's going to be

00:28:52.560 some overlap in that case it's not necessarily like we have two folk builders it's more like

00:28:59.040 we have one and a half in some ways but being a folk builder is kind of the entry level to

00:29:05.200 all of to a lot of the volunteerism in the afa to other projects and other things that we work on

00:29:11.360 And sometimes a husband or a wife on that team really finds an area like the Astro Academy or something where they really excel at and can put a lot of benefit in that.

00:29:23.740 You can balance strengths and weaknesses to where you can maximize what comes easiest for the both of you.

00:29:29.500 And it's it's really an ideal situation.

00:29:31.740 Um, when the Witten and I talk on stuff, we always really like to see AFA power couples

00:29:38.280 and it works out really well because there's a lot of work that goes into this that people

00:29:43.980 don't realize.

00:29:44.900 So sometimes when one, uh, one member of a couple gets very, very involved, it can feel

00:29:52.520 like that's taking time away from your relationship and that should never be the case.

00:29:57.560 and when both are AFA folk builders, the AFA activity also counts as doing something together

00:30:04.480 with your spouse. And so it synergizes there. Got a number of really good examples. Cliff and

00:30:11.080 Katie Erickson are both Gothar in the AFA and they do a ton for us as a couple and we're lucky

00:30:17.940 to have them. I know I'm going to end up leaving somebody out here. In Ohio, we've got Tim and

00:30:23.360 Christine Dumas doing great things as a couple. Mason and Rachel Johnson out in Washington State

00:30:32.400 are working really well as a folk building couple. Daniel and Heather Young?

00:30:39.760 Yeah, Daniel and Heather Young down in South Carolina. Daniel is a gothy now and Heather's 0.68

00:30:45.040 a folk builder and they're doing great. As far as people that are married that are couples

00:30:51.340 currently doing it. I think that's what we've got. What'd you say, Jess? The plurids. Oh,

00:30:59.600 yeah. Jason and Anna plurid are both gothar, which is awesome. That's why I said I know I'm

00:31:05.880 going to miss people because we have quite a few of those and it's really an ideal situation if

00:31:09.660 that's something you and your wife want to do. The alts. James and Sarah alt. Yeah. I, yes,

00:31:17.800 I'm doing you guys all a disservice. I apologize just because I'm on the spot. I do remember you

00:31:22.180 guys and know you exist. I'm sorry. King of Cheese. Matthew, what advice would you have for men who

00:31:29.860 are looking to become fathers or already are, but are looking for help from another father?

00:31:36.140 It can be difficult to ask for advice, so I'll do it for them. All right.

00:31:42.820 so as far as people who are looking to become fathers

00:31:51.540 i would get get married first but after that's the case and you're in a stable relationship

00:32:04.460 um there's no perfect time if you're waiting for the perfect time where all the money's right

00:32:12.100 or, you know, you and your wife are at the right point in your life or, you know, all the stars

00:32:17.320 align, you're going to wait yourself out of some really, really good opportunities.

00:32:22.940 Don't do that. Men and women get married first, because I think that's really important to be

00:32:28.520 in a stable relationship to have your children in if you can. But after that, there's no perfect

00:32:34.980 time. Perfect doesn't happen. Don't ever let perfect be the enemy of good. As far as fathers

00:32:40.260 that need help from other fathers. Man, just ask. There's so many things. And I know this. We had

00:32:48.260 Aubrey Wright in the worst throes of the reactions to COVID. So we were very, very isolated

00:32:56.020 in a lot of ways. And it's hard. It's hard being a new parent. It's hard being a dad

00:33:04.220 and trying to deal with the emotional upheavals of, you know, your postpartum wife and all the

00:33:11.020 things she's going through and all the things, an infant and infants are hellacious and they're

00:33:18.340 amazing at the same time. There's tons of really great things, but nobody prepares you for the,

00:33:24.340 the just extremes. And it's hard when you're helpless and you don't know what to do.

00:33:30.100 you don't know what this child wants. You don't know how to help them. All you know is that

00:33:34.900 you're tired, your nerves are fried, and this little potato is nonstop screaming.

00:33:41.620 No, it can be really hard. So reaching out is really important and realizing,

00:33:48.760 and this is the secret that nobody told me, no, it's way harder than it looks.

00:33:53.280 It is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do in my life is getting through infancy, being a dad.

00:34:01.760 I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but it's so much harder than people realize.

00:34:09.020 And know that the rest of us have had to be through the same things you're going through.

00:34:14.080 and any of us would love to give you advice and and tips or at least you know commiserate with

00:34:21.980 you about some of the hard things we've all had to just keep our head down and and push through

00:34:26.500 um but yeah i think just knowing that i know it's not necessarily super helpful but it's it's kind

00:34:32.040 of what i got hey matt i'd like to um uh do a kind of an offshoot on that if i can you know

00:34:41.180 being a dad not not being a dad uh of course you can't jessica i'm just playing

00:34:49.100 uh something for the uh the the women to out there to know um and something that i've seen

00:34:55.980 and something that i i do constantly check on with our new moms postpartum it's a real thing

00:35:02.060 And if anyone ever feels the effects of postpartum depression coming along, there is absolutely no shame in reaching out to any woman in the AFA.

00:35:16.700 If you need a folk builder, talk to a go the talk to Katie, reach out to somebody.

00:35:23.980 That's my public service announcement, if you will.

00:35:26.000 You know, to keep playing off of that, this is something that I don't think people realize often enough.

00:35:37.580 The AFA is a family, and most people get into it for that reason, or that's their favorite thing about it once they become a part of it.

00:35:47.840 our gothar literally you know talking to them most of our current gothar the reason that they

00:35:54.880 wanted to pursue it is because they want to help people and they want to have those exact

00:36:00.180 conversations with people um please take them up on it and as far as anybody else and members go

00:36:06.980 again there's nothing i'm going to say that applies to 100 of people

00:36:13.360 but in general people want to help when we see people that we care about struggling

00:36:21.920 we want to help them and so often we are so powerless to do anything to help these people

00:36:28.160 with the stuff they're going through we want to be able to help if you reaching out and wanting

00:36:34.160 some advice for getting us to talk to you about something provides us an outlet to help you

00:36:38.880 we feel good about ourselves we feel happy we did something positive most people want something to

00:36:45.200 do to help so give us something to do to help not just as leadership but other afa members

00:36:51.360 when you need to help because most of us are just itching for opportunities to do that

00:36:55.600 makes people feel good about themselves it gives them something to do and heck if they're going

00:37:00.400 through a hard time themselves it gives them something to focus on outside of their own

00:37:04.720 problems they're dealing with most people want to help and are ready and just wish folks had asked

00:37:08.880 for it um christine jess tell us why fleck tarn is a staple to everyone's wardrobe

00:37:19.840 i'm like the only one that doesn't have like turn in ohio um it became a oh my god maybe maybe you

00:37:27.680 can help me out on this it became a thing and i don't even remember how uh we had a few members

00:37:32.960 that just always had fleck turn on and it then a couple other people started wearing it and then

00:37:41.040 at like events everybody's like you're everywhere fleck turn fleck turn ohio um i honestly can't i

00:37:48.640 know we did it at ostara we all made sure that we took a picture with like turn on but uh i don't

00:37:53.760 know is is mike the culprit for that potentially him always wearing his fleck turn i can't i can't

00:37:59.520 remember how it actually who's who's the one that brought it to the table and then it just like

00:38:04.000 dominoed after that became like a thing it's a case of of peer pressure imperialism

00:38:13.360 sarah says jessica how do you encourage spiritual growth for afa women

00:38:20.720 uh there's there's a lot of different ways um you know really really talking

00:38:29.280 to just talking just talking i guess there might not be a totally ton of different ways just

00:38:36.320 talking and finding out what what is their connection how are they connected how can we

00:38:45.840 make them feel more connected um do they need resources to you know academic material do they

00:38:53.440 just need to sit down with other women and talk about their connection to the gods and

00:39:00.400 incorporate that at home um we uh we have a lot of within the afa especially now we have um

00:39:12.080 lore studies we have rune studies we have the crochet coffee group we have um oh my god there's

00:39:19.760 like i i think some new ones even added that i gotta be honest i'm not even sure i i know i've

00:39:24.560 seen them but i'm i haven't been to them yet um as far as it's it's the connection it's the

00:39:31.520 connection that they will feel when they start moving in a spiritual way and sometimes sometimes

00:39:41.440 to how they define their connection because everybody's connection is different how they 1.00

00:39:46.560 define their connection might actually make them feel a little bit easier inside women are always 1.00

00:39:54.880 feeling some kind of anxiety about something whether it's you know their their mothering 0.98

00:39:58.880 skills their job their their home life their marriage their relationship sometimes they will

00:40:06.000 i don't want to say they'll find an answer on that but things will make sense as they learn

00:40:12.800 and as they are with other people as well and grow those connections with other people

00:40:17.760 i hope that matches that um brendan asks question working covert armed security right now but would

00:40:27.360 love some advice on materials to study during downtime jessica what advice you got for him

00:40:34.080 uh materials to study well of course there's um steve mcnowlin's book um

00:40:39.440 um um i know great matt you recommended a rune book that i absolutely love um by uh something

00:40:53.120 wild the rune workbook um i found that to actually be incredibly helpful to use that as a guide in

00:41:02.080 in day-to-day and finding a connection uh with the runes in that um

00:41:10.160 i'm trying to think of another uh culture of the tutons i mean that's that's that's an excellent i

00:41:17.120 admittedly i haven't made it through the whole book yet because it's a dry read and i have the

00:41:21.040 attention span of a chipmunk so it's really hard for me to sit down and read stuff like that

00:41:25.040 however i love i love love love love love the historical context um sometimes i feel like that 0.95

00:41:31.920 actually puts things into a little bit more perspective when you have kind of a historical

00:41:37.440 context to i don't want to say it's like nothing's a how-to but it kind of helps certain things make

00:41:45.440 a little more sense because certain people when they first get into ozitru and if they dive right

00:41:49.680 into the poetic eddies uh or the pros that is it seems a little heavy and it seems like you're

00:41:56.720 missing like a little bit of foundational knowledge to make it feel easier to digest

00:42:03.040 and that's a book that i found to help a lot

00:42:11.760 being that it's so helpful jess i think you should finish culture of the two tons

00:42:15.600 uh yeah i need to so that being said uh all of the things that jessica just said it really

00:42:22.400 depends what you're interested in on what to dive deeper on um as far as personal

00:42:30.720 personal exploration i think that the nine doors of midgard is a really good

00:42:36.960 thing to study as far as something that's like study material and a program to go through

00:42:42.400 i always think that's a really neat book and that's by edward thorson so i'd suggest that

00:42:48.500 than anything jess said and if you have a more specific interest i'd be happy to speak on that

00:42:53.420 too if you throw that in the chat as well um rob jess what is your favorite black metal band and 0.90

00:43:00.160 why is it drud with a k-h i don't know how you'd even pronounce that drew drew drew dick i think

00:43:08.880 it's how you pronounce it it's all you just uh all right well i'm not i i like them i like them 0.53

00:43:17.280 they're they're not my favorite um but i do really enjoy some of that good old russian folk metal um

00:43:25.760 i feel like that's what they they fall a little more under under the lines of maybe some like

00:43:30.080 earlier enslaved if you will um arcona is another good one along those lines they're fantastic

00:43:39.280 favorite blackmail i think earlier i had said uh demi borgir

00:43:44.800 so our next question is from katlyn i think it's a follow-up uh for you jess but because

00:43:50.000 she didn't put a name on it i may chime in at the end um maybe you could expand on why

00:43:56.480 slash how the afa is a religion and not a cult and the difference uh

00:44:08.320 i mean it is it is a religion i guess some cults would claim that they are a religion um

00:44:14.000 this is something that's not out of left field this is something that is you know we're not

00:44:22.640 we're not a recreationalist group but the roots of

00:44:28.240 ozitru are obviously a lot greater than something like the spaghetti monster or some of those other

00:44:38.040 asinine ufo cults um you know we don't we don't do your typical gathering in a commune and all 0.77

00:44:46.040 wearing a uniform and having some ridiculous manual that we follow and some kind of strange

00:44:52.920 set of rules it is it is a spirituality and it has extremely old roots and it's a very family driven

00:45:03.720 you know the afa is very family driven i think we've said that many times um i don't know

00:45:11.480 matt how how would you expand on that oh so here's the thing to be completely honest

00:45:18.040 it's a matter of semantics cult is a word that people have ascribed certain connotations to so

00:45:26.200 now it's just an insult word that you use against religions that you find to be nuts

00:45:32.200 um in a traditional sense any of the religions devoted to any of the gods were

00:45:38.280 by definition a cult um so i don't think there's a there's a real answer to this because it's a

00:45:44.120 it's a linguistic conundrum because in the modern day so many terms have taken on a life of their

00:45:50.360 own um one of the things that when people talk about modern cults a lot of it has to do with

00:45:59.960 enforcement um because people refer to cults in a in a very derogatory sense

00:46:07.000 people tend to identify cults as things that try to forcibly cut you off from family members

00:46:14.360 and find mechanisms of control to get cult members not to leave or to stay in the cult

00:46:21.400 and i think it's important in the afau that folks know we don't do that yeah we want to encourage

00:46:26.120 you guys to to stick around but um we we're not into we're not into forcing anybody to be here

00:46:32.360 that doesn't want to be here uh it's very voluntary in that sense um i think something

00:46:39.000 else with cults is people's is legitimacy versus not legitimacy the afa is a religion in every

00:46:46.040 sense of of the word and we've got nice things we've got stuff figured out we've got um families

00:46:55.000 and happy people and we have none of the the negatives that people tend to to directly

00:47:00.520 associate with cults nobody's being taken advantage of um there's no mechanism to to

00:47:06.760 force people to not be friends or family with anybody that they'd like to be and so none of

00:47:12.120 that's really relevant and i think that's the biggest issue certainly in the united states

00:47:16.120 when people talk about cults is the exploitation and the means of controlling impressionable people

00:47:24.040 and that's not that's not what we're after yeah within the afa we have we have certain amount of

00:47:28.940 rules and standards but you know nobody's a member that doesn't want to be everybody's free to leave

00:47:34.260 whenever they'd like um so i think that's that's probably the main thing i'd say and i'm watching

00:47:39.760 some of the side chats first steve thank you i'm glad that you think orange looks good on me i

00:47:45.500 appreciate it um also in the side chat i saw somebody said they watched the interview i did

00:47:53.220 with desert heathen a couple of weeks ago i'm glad somebody did i don't think that got a whole

00:47:59.380 lot of views but he i'll tell you this um you know i don't agree with the guy on everything

00:48:04.980 or whatever but he was very he was very nice to me it was a very respectful interview i appreciated

00:48:10.260 that i appreciated him having me on and and having the courage to ask me some questions directly

00:48:15.620 that a lot of people just assume and and make up answers to so kudos for that for the courage to

00:48:22.180 ask and and the hospitality to have me on and to be very polite i really do appreciate it um

00:48:30.020 thor asks what books would you recommend jessica um i know we touched on a little bit before

00:48:38.980 with just good um good material from what i have read of culture the tutons i really do enjoy it

00:48:45.140 even though it's dry um i'm trying to think uh so one thing that when i was first

00:48:55.780 reading the lore and i read the poetic eddas and i i did have a hard time digesting the information

00:49:02.820 having no good foundational knowledge i actually read and i still read it to drake the uh delaris

00:49:10.180 if that's how you pronounce it um norse mythology book that really actually gave me a good

00:49:18.180 really good easy foundational knowledge i actually recommended that to a few people that were

00:49:24.020 getting into ozitru asking me about the lore um

00:49:29.860 trying to think what else um of course the the runic workbook uh there's also a um i don't

00:49:37.140 I don't remember who did it.

00:49:39.300 There was a rune book called The Beginner's Guide to Runes, which I found.

00:49:42.820 I know there's a bunch of those.

00:49:44.180 There was one.

00:49:45.100 I just picked up one one day just to kind of get like an intro.

00:49:49.160 And that one was very useful because, again, it was just it was it was easy to digest as being a beginner and not having any pre pre knowledge of Azitru or the runes, the lore or anything like that.

00:50:06.360 All right.

00:50:07.140 And Joe asks, what in life brought both of you back to the gods?

00:50:12.920 Jess, let's have you go first.

00:50:17.820 So when I, 2015, when I first started learning about Odinism, I had a friend and I was telling him about a reoccurring dream I had of ravens, ravens coming.

00:50:34.600 Then I kept kind of seeing them everywhere.

00:50:36.180 And then I was having really odd things with cats.

00:50:39.640 Now I'm like crazy cat lady.

00:50:41.200 So like it wasn't too, too odd, but like they started really showing up everywhere.

00:50:46.180 And my buddy had said to me, I think I think the gods are trying to talk to you, Jess.

00:50:53.060 And I'm like, what do you mean?

00:50:54.800 And we sat down and we started talking about it.

00:50:57.200 And that's when I started kind of the wheels started turning a little bit as to my spiritual path and where I was headed.

00:51:04.920 and it was more of a calling than a stumbling upon, if that makes sense.

00:51:14.800 All right. So at the time that, that I came home to Alistair True,

00:51:24.620 I was at a I was at a crossroads I was you know I've always been a very spiritual person and I've

00:51:36.180 always certainly felt the need for spiritual fulfillment and I had just broken with Christianity

00:51:43.620 I was a Jehovah's Witness at the time and I I rejected that and the entire premise behind it I

00:51:51.780 I basically part of my rejection of it was having read my Bible very thoroughly several times to try hard to beat a square peg into a round hole. 0.83

00:52:02.320 I finally came to the honest conclusion that the values of the biblical God are not things that that I think are right.

00:52:12.580 And not knowing what else there was, I knew that at the minimum, I didn't want to be part of that.

00:52:19.260 And so it left me in a very strange spot.

00:52:21.260 And I really didn't know what other options I had for this was this was around 2001, 2002.

00:52:31.260 So being a young white man in the United States, I didn't really know what there was.

00:52:40.460 You kind of if you don't really examine it or think too hard on it coming up, most of the different religions out there do tend to have an ethnic context.

00:52:52.280 Christianity is really unique in that it doesn't.

00:52:55.720 Islam doesn't, I guess, technically.

00:52:57.880 But you have a thought in your head, certainly at that time in the United States, that that's for for Arabic people or Turkic people.

00:53:04.240 um you know i'm not i'm not jewish so judaism wasn't really an option and i'd already rejected

00:53:13.180 that god um so there was christianity what what else was there and you know i wasn't uh indian

00:53:19.820 so i didn't think that hinduism was a was a thing that so i i sought for what our ancestors had

00:53:25.380 before christ came because i knew that was a thing i knew that jesus was you know a jewish

00:53:31.140 man in the Middle East. And that was an ethnic God of the Hebrews. So what was going on in Europe?

00:53:36.860 What did we have? And, you know, I had an understanding of mythology, I guess. But I

00:53:42.340 decided to take that seriously and try to reconnect with it. And that's what brought me

00:53:47.840 to this, generally speaking. But at that point, and I've heard this from a couple of people,

00:53:53.680 Jason told me this was a similar thing that he had last week. I thought I was the only person

00:53:58.900 in the world doing this and i was initially just google searching for um you know archaic viking

00:54:05.220 age material on it because i thought that you know those were the last people that that worshipped

00:54:10.020 our gods and come to find out i found the afa and i found uh steve mcnellen and i found some of his

00:54:16.260 uh his early videos and things and immediately i knew this is where i needed to be and and i've

00:54:22.580 never looked back so that's that's what brought me home lawrence with another 10 canadian dollars i

00:54:29.220 appreciate that uh yes what matt said cult has so many definitions i studied cultic phenomena

00:54:36.500 after my christian experience and the three things that almost always come up

00:54:41.780 in classic cults are psychological manipulation emotional abuse and undue influence avoid at all

00:54:49.460 costs um yeah just to follow up those are all things that just aren't a part of the afa we

00:54:57.380 don't want to twist anybody's and so and i really mean this it's not just like

00:55:03.860 you know i wonder who would say that they do want to do these things but realistically

00:55:10.180 we want enthusiastic support on things we want people that want to be here it's too much work

00:55:17.140 on something we don't want to do to try to find ways to manipulate and enslave people into forcing

00:55:24.660 them to be part of house to true that's that's not something we're at all interested in doing

00:55:28.900 and we've got things we'd much rather do with our time and our effort than to to hold people down

00:55:34.340 in that way so i hope you guys i hope that makes sense and answers the question a little bit uh

00:55:41.220 sarah matt this last weekend you did a journey to manhood ceremony could you explain what that is

00:55:47.620 and the importance uh sure first the name it's not copyrighted it's just something i came up

00:55:53.700 with on the fly to tag that picture in uh the afa we've been going back and forth over how to do

00:56:00.340 this for too long we need to go ahead and solidify some ritual on it but coming of age ceremonies

00:56:06.340 are things that some parents have wanted us to engage in and there's been some some demand to

00:56:13.540 be part of so this was one of those scenarios um there's a young man and he's you know

00:56:21.380 trying to think how old he is at the time but he's he's pretty young uh so we didn't want to do some

00:56:27.460 kind all right you collect my thoughts so i'm not babbling so one of the things

00:56:33.460 that we've always been opposed to and we still are we're not going to do a ceremony that pronounces

00:56:40.100 a boy to be a man and then still treat them like a boy and certainly here in the united states it

00:56:46.340 becomes very awkward to do that ceremony until someone is 18. so in the afa we don't want to do

00:56:53.380 do those ceremonies until somebody's legally an adult because we when we ritually accept a young

00:57:00.100 man or a young woman as an adult, that means something. We are then accountable and we've

00:57:07.600 agreed that we're going to treat them that way. You can't do that and then go home and tell them

00:57:12.460 it's bedtime or who they can date or this. You can't go do that. So you need to trust them as

00:57:18.540 an adult at the point you do it. But what is important to us is that it's a process and

00:57:23.700 there's that period. So in this particular child's case, the idea was to start this at

00:57:31.100 however old he is, 10 or whatever he is, to say, hey, today you're going to start learning to

00:57:37.960 become a man. You're going to put aside the childish things and start learning manful things.

00:57:46.720 So there's going to be another ceremony for him when he's 13, a midway point to to mark that amount of his progression to see how far he's come.

00:57:58.180 And then there'll be a follow up final ceremony when he's 18 and he officially becomes a man.

00:58:03.980 But it's a really special ceremony. And it was something that that his dad put together that was very, very nice.

00:58:10.460 And I thought it was really powerful. It was just with the men because, you know, this is about accepting him as someone who's who's trying to become one of that group.

00:58:21.940 And it was it was really nice to be a part of. And it's the first one of those ceremonies I've been an active part of.

00:58:28.200 tim asked jess what's your favorite thing about being the lead roomstone editor also the websites

00:58:40.260 look great thank you sir um

00:58:44.940 so it's gonna sound weird but my favorite thing about being the lead of the roomstone editor is

00:58:53.680 that I was able to do something on the back end that I knew that was necessary that I also knew

00:59:02.040 would take the workload off of somebody else. I knew it was something that I was fully capable

00:59:07.720 of doing once I was trained on everything to do and allowing that other person to go

00:59:14.820 and do other things that they need to do and taking that workload off is probably the biggest

00:59:21.720 gratitude from that um aside from also seeing it grow we have an amazing runestone team everybody

00:59:30.200 that is on it is top notch we really all work together great ideas have been put in uh timmy

00:59:38.760 himself has also given us some fantastic ideas for some new sections that we can put in growing

00:59:45.160 it past just events going on giving it more content giving it something that people actually

00:59:52.120 want to read um and there's a lot of work that goes on you know behind the scenes on that making

00:59:57.880 it a reality um it's probably but but like i said one of my favorite things is just being able to

01:00:03.160 contribute um to something that that helps move the afa forward and taking something and making it

01:00:10.520 the best it can be. All right. Tim also asks, Matt, do you have any requests for the folk listening?

01:00:22.440 Sure, Tim, since you asked,

01:00:30.680 got all kind of requests. So first, if you're listening to this, and you are a heterosexual

01:00:37.480 white person my request is that you consider joining the astro focus symbol um you know i

01:00:44.920 don't want you to join under false pretenses but if you're in agreement and you worship our gods

01:00:50.680 or you want to get off the fence get on board we'd love to have you um

01:00:58.840 if you are already a member and you haven't

01:01:01.880 or you don't actively engage with other people local to you,

01:01:06.520 reach out to your folk builder and get involved.

01:01:09.200 Take that first step.

01:01:10.220 Sometimes it's tricky.

01:01:11.660 Sometimes we've got nervousness about meeting other people,

01:01:16.980 especially people in a group that we've never really engaged with in the real world.

01:01:21.960 Sometimes we can come up with any number of excuses to where we'll do it next month

01:01:26.500 or maybe next time around, or maybe we'll go to the next big event.

01:01:29.440 get out and meet your local AFA members. You will not regret it. It will be something you love.

01:01:35.480 And I would encourage you guys to go do that and get active. If you are active and you want to be

01:01:40.960 active and there's nobody around you, then consider becoming a folk builder and helping

01:01:46.880 build something around you. That's how all of our successful areas have started is by one person

01:01:53.080 saying, hey, I'm going to do it. I'm going to invite people over or I'm going to go host a

01:01:58.100 mood at parks or host one at a bar or restaurant I like and start getting people together. And

01:02:03.860 through consistency and through, you know, hard work, we've seen amazing, amazing things happen.

01:02:10.360 So that's absolutely something. And if you guys can, the AFA is able to do what we're able to do

01:02:20.060 because of y'all's generosity. Our big project that we are working on right now is

01:02:26.840 sorry aubry want to say hi for a second our big project that we're working on right now

01:02:34.780 is trying to get positioned to make phrase hoff happen so we have a donate link for phrase hoff

01:02:44.180 on our website if you can contributing to that would go a long way to helping us

01:02:49.000 we're always you know that's how we're able to do things so since you asked that would be helpful

01:02:54.120 um yep that's what i got for right now hey mandy can you come turn that back on

01:03:01.080 sorry my daughter was messing with my lights it's bath time and i think she wants to do 0.96

01:03:07.400 anything other than take her bath um can you please uh christine asked can you please tell

01:03:14.480 us what we have to look forward to at winter nights this year in ohio jess

01:03:19.160 entice the people with what they're going to get at winter nights what you're going to get at

01:03:24.780 winter nights is um and and i can actually pull up the schedule which i happen to have here because

01:03:32.040 i knew somebody would ask so we have uh obviously there's there's going to be ritual multiple

01:03:39.580 rituals well two of the days there's multiple rituals but you have a ritual every day um we

01:03:46.380 also have a ton of kids activities this year um i think uh i think witten erickson told me that it

01:03:55.820 was the most uh heavy children's scheduled events that they've had at any event yet um

01:04:04.860 i've had a myself and jess keller i just spoke with the jess keller i've been working um really

01:04:12.840 hard um jess color's been working really hard also uh getting getting it organized so we have

01:04:19.500 some fun things uh we're gonna have a children versus adult battle which will be super fun um

01:04:25.980 there is a uh oktoberfest dance for the uh well for everybody if the kids are still up but

01:04:34.000 uh for the adults to have some some fun let loose party um we have um

01:04:42.240 we actually have a really cool uh project for the teens to build a uh yadrasil tree

01:04:50.760 and that's going to be displayed actually in the great hall so they're going to work on the

01:04:55.300 saturday and it's going to be displayed there um great hall as in the room that we will be eating

01:04:59.900 in and doing other things um we will have uh men's and women's groups as always the uh

01:05:08.620 desire presentation by uh witness von harrell and we're gonna have a little um

01:05:16.780 uh let's see here what else we have we have a rights of initiation um there is a the great

01:05:24.860 desire bloat that miss katie erickson does which is always super powerful and super awesome um

01:05:32.060 halloween parade for the kids give them candy and they could get in costume and just kind of get you

01:05:37.500 know the the fun october october halloween thing on um of course stumble um and we are going to have

01:05:48.540 actually a children's bloat um that's going to be led by witten erickson so um lots of fun activities

01:05:54.780 i didn't give you everything i didn't want to spoil too much so that's just some of the stuff

01:05:58.460 off the schedule some highlights all right sarah says jessica how many cats do you have these days

01:06:09.260 uh i have three i wish i had more but i'm not allowed more actually i'm going to be down to

01:06:15.900 two i have one that's super old that every day i look at her and i'm like are you still breathing

01:06:21.260 still breathing okay so soon i'll be down to one um i'm not allowed more i wish i was

01:06:28.780 i i have one that's just kind of like a little too feral to stay inside so um gotta kind of

01:06:34.620 re-home her because she's not she's not catting like she should be in the house so

01:06:44.540 all right well cody wants to know jess can you tell us about the feelings you had when

01:06:49.580 taking your fault builder oath oh cody was right there you know how i felt i was

01:06:57.180 trying really hard not to ball like a baby um

01:07:02.540 of course i couldn't because i had like laryngitis or something that weekend so

01:07:06.220 i couldn't even talk i had to like whisper everything um but i was man i was so overwhelmed

01:07:13.500 it was just it was such an amazing privilege to be seen as um to see the hard work and everything

01:07:23.100 that i put into it because that that that when you're a folk builder like what you put into it

01:07:28.300 that's that's your soul like you're putting your soul into this you're putting such a huge part of

01:07:32.860 you and it is such a huge part of you you're putting into it so to get that to get that

01:07:37.820 recognition to realize that you know you've you've achieved to a certain point where

01:07:42.860 you can take that oath that is something you take for life that is not something you take like

01:07:47.740 lightheartedly um that that's something that you take with intent of dying with that title

01:07:54.700 to be honest i mean and and it's just it's there's it's just it's super overwhelming and

01:08:00.940 it's unbelievably happy and you just i don't know it filled my heart so much

01:08:11.900 i'd say it's a very special time i remember when i took my folk builder oath in midsummer 2010 it

01:08:18.300 was certainly an honor to oath you and jessica and uh you're doing great things i'm very proud

01:08:24.460 to have you with us shay says good evening matt and jessica thank you both for making the afa

01:08:31.420 better through your efforts hail the doers and do you do either of you have an interesting

01:08:36.940 ancestor story that you wouldn't mind sharing go for it jess uh interesting ancestor story

01:08:48.860 i don't want to say not terribly interesting because she's so

01:08:53.660 always ensemble i always hail my grandmother um on my mother's side because she is a very

01:08:59.260 inspirational woman um she had four kids severely alcoholic husband spent all the money on booze

01:09:09.740 and whatever um she had to work to basically provide for the family and she also battled

01:09:18.300 cancer for a really long time she was always sick i always remember my mom telling me she

01:09:22.780 was always sick even when like my mom was a teenager she was she was six stuff wasn't right

01:09:27.420 but she was always pushing through that and one of her biggest things was through art and being

01:09:34.780 creative she had opened a ceramic studio um in like the 60s and made actually a very good business

01:09:44.220 out of it for a while she was just so warm and caring and she was just my favorite person to go

01:09:51.180 to she always painted beautiful paintings and crocheted and was always doing something different

01:09:58.940 um i didn't find out until later on in life when my mother told me that the reason she was always 0.51

01:10:03.980 doing these artistic things is because she basically was trying to get her mind off cancer

01:10:08.540 and how she felt and the pain that she felt every single day but she was just you never know she was

01:10:14.220 so strong so happy she loved her kids and her family were the world and she would do anything

01:10:19.740 for them and I take great inspiration from her journey through life and just always thinking

01:10:26.420 like if I start to be like oh man this might be too hard I think about I think about my grandma

01:10:31.540 and how my grandma would react and I always think that when I'm doing something and how I'm doing

01:10:38.300 in life that she's she's there I really think I know she's there you know she's she's there she

01:10:42.720 cheering me on she's going right on you know I knew you could do this being proud making her proud

01:10:48.780 is put from a heart.

01:10:54.600 So Jessica had a real deep story.

01:10:57.960 I'm trying to think of some interesting stuff

01:11:00.220 because I've been asked this on here a few times.

01:11:02.040 So what's something that I haven't mentioned

01:11:04.840 about one of my ancestors?

01:11:08.160 My grandfather, my mother's father,

01:11:12.340 actually we lived very close to him when I was growing up

01:11:15.960 and I got to spend a lot of time with him

01:11:17.420 when I was growing up until he passed when I was in eighth grade,

01:11:24.580 but I got to spend a lot of time with him up to that point.

01:11:30.280 Trying to think, he was a veteran.

01:11:32.300 He was in Korea, and he got a Purple Heart because he was a Jeep driver.

01:11:39.760 He did a lot of stuff as a general's aide for a lot of his career.

01:11:45.420 and he was i don't know the occasion he was driving a jeep and his his jeep one of the tires

01:11:50.060 that wasn't the one under him thankfully ended up hitting a mine so he got thrown out of the jeep

01:11:56.540 all kind of chaos and pandemonium and he had shrapnel in his in his leg you know for the rest

01:12:01.740 of his life that for whatever reason they couldn't remove and it was probably pretty uncomfortable

01:12:06.380 but as a kid i didn't realize all that i remember as a little kid it was cool because i could like

01:12:12.460 feel the metal in his legs so i'd always go like poke on it all the time and he was a

01:12:17.660 he was a good sport about that looking back on it probably didn't feel very good

01:12:22.220 but uh there was that and one time he was really proud of one time he was working back in

01:12:26.460 washington dc and he was the aid for general uh macarthur for one day and that was really cool he

01:12:33.020 just happened to be the guy that was able to do it and he got to take him around and be his his

01:12:36.780 aid for that day but it was it was kind of a special thing that he talked about when i was a

01:12:40.860 kid that's what i got for that right now he's actually uh the man that i named um that i named

01:12:47.900 my daughter after his name was aubrey allen davis and i always thought that aubrey was a pretty name

01:12:53.580 and i know over time it goes back and forth between a male and a female name but that's uh

01:12:58.620 that's the ancestor that i named my daughter after uh sarah says jessica could you talk

01:13:05.740 about your hula hooping and how awesome it is i love to hula dance i dance with a hula hoop uh

01:13:14.220 practice for a really really long time it's kind of become my thing whenever i go to events i

01:13:19.020 always bring hula hoops to teach other people how to hula hoop because they're always like

01:13:22.540 oh i can't hula hoop and i'm like bet i could teach you um really good exercise excellent core

01:13:29.260 workout helps lower back pain um and it's just it's fun to kind of as they say be free in your

01:13:38.140 circle i know that sounds like hippy-dippy or whatever but it's it's nice you know you just

01:13:43.260 sort of put on a song and you hoop and you start learning other tricks and you flow with with the

01:13:49.420 the gravity of the hoop and hula hoop at clubs and events and my yard my house i read my hula hoop

01:13:59.500 so there you there you go guys if you want a hula hoop uh and come to winter nights you may 0.99

01:14:05.700 have an opportunity to hula hoop with jessica um fuck the rude 25 thank you so much we appreciate 0.98

01:14:14.420 it uh says thanks for being so inspirational guys well we we really appreciate it and we're glad you 0.99

01:14:20.900 you're always here you're always generous you always listen we appreciate it uh king of cheese

01:14:26.020 matthew when does having a special connection to one of the gods become a sort of monotheism

01:14:31.860 and how do we avoid that where is the line crossed

01:14:37.140 i think an uncomfortable truth with most

01:14:44.420 with a lot of things and also true certainly is i don't think there's i don't think there's a line

01:14:49.620 i think there's a big gray area that can shift that way and perhaps that's what makes it something

01:14:58.820 we need to pay special attention to because there's not like one moment that you necessarily

01:15:04.500 have gone too far on it. What I do think is there is a neglect that goes on that you can become

01:15:15.060 aware of. Just like it stumbled during the ancestors round, if you always raise the horn

01:15:22.400 to the same ancestor, maybe you should spread the love around a little bit because you have other

01:15:28.120 people that need to be remembered. If you find yourself and all of your devotional work is aimed

01:15:36.140 at just one deity, you should ask yourself why, and you should think of ways to incorporate our

01:15:43.200 other gods and goddesses in your practice. There's no reason for any of that to take away

01:15:52.540 from any of your worship of our other gods and goddesses. It's one of the beauties of polytheism.

01:16:00.400 And the danger, I think, is in us as a people being neglectful.

01:16:08.440 It's great to lump praise and worship upon one of our gods. That's fantastic.

01:16:14.420 But I would never want to see that go to the point where others of our gods don't get

01:16:19.060 their their due worship and don't get that attention and at worst eventually fall into

01:16:26.260 to obscurity or or are forgotten by our folk. That's a terrible fate. And I would want none

01:16:32.580 of our people to ever, ever do that to one of our gods. So just being mindful of that and

01:16:38.940 always making a point to when you recognize that you do it to go outside of your box and make an

01:16:46.040 offering to one of the gods and the goddesses that you don't often do that for. And I think

01:16:51.500 being conscious of that and doing that with regularity really had a lot of benefit to your

01:16:55.680 life and would be appreciated by our gods and our goddesses. Matt, your thoughts on the idea of

01:17:06.840 damnation in alsatru um yeah so

01:17:15.800 alsatru isn't anti-christianity it's its own religion unrelated to other systems so i think

01:17:22.680 people get in a in a binary thing to where if christianity does one thing then australia has

01:17:30.360 to do the opposite if there's rules then there can't be rules over here and that's that's not

01:17:35.400 the case um but it's a lot more tricky it's not uh you know one sin equals death and you're redeemed

01:17:46.200 by by a savior but it is a complex matrix of your personal honor and the honor bestowed upon you by

01:17:56.280 the group and how that fluctuates due to your actions over time and whether your honor increases

01:18:03.320 or decreases. There's some people that are just terrible people. And at some point of terribleness,

01:18:11.960 and we see this from our lore, it talks about those people in the afterlife going to the strand.

01:18:19.000 And it talks about venomous snakes and venom. And we believe that the venom is a source of

01:18:25.880 disillusion um it's not the way of our people to be sadistic and to torture someone in an eternity

01:18:37.400 of hellfire every single day for the rest of eternity that's extreme but there is a point where

01:18:44.280 your your raw materials are going to such poor use that that you get dissolved your

01:18:55.160 you-ness gets dissolved and put back into the folk soul to be put to some kind of better purposes 0.91

01:19:01.240 and there's some people that are just terrible folks to where they're that big of a dirt bag

01:19:04.920 that that's that's what happens but i think for most people it doesn't quite work like that i

01:19:10.600 think for most people they just end up leaving their family at much worse inheritance and i think

01:19:18.360 their existence in the afterlife is probably going to require a lot more work before they

01:19:24.600 they ascend to something better um one of the one of the other things is

01:19:30.920 we we know a lot of truths but we don't know a lot of the details especially about the afterlife

01:19:36.120 and i think that any of us that claim we know exactly what happens to folks after they pass

01:19:41.080 with with a whole litany of specifics is uh is not being truly honest about their confidence in it

01:19:47.800 but yeah absolutely i do believe there is a certain degree of damnation for people that are

01:19:51.960 of that low honor and that terrible of people. And I think that their raw materials are

01:19:57.680 dissolved, broken apart, and then put back into the folk soul to be used for something better. 0.97

01:20:06.280 Lawrence, with another 10 Canadian dollars, thank you so much. Jessica, how do you deal

01:20:11.620 with Northeast winters? And if I'm not prying too much, what are you drinking from the yellow

01:20:17.660 label bop well of course you know tis the season jacko my favorite sam adam seasonal beer uh

01:20:29.100 northeast winters where i am in ohio i'm in the snow belt so when everyone else in ohio is like

01:20:36.620 oh man we're getting four inches i'm getting like two feet um i got a car that can drive through it

01:20:42.460 that's kind of all you can do between that and the snow blower then you're good

01:20:47.660 throw my cat in two feet of snow see how she reacts there you go gotta entertain yourself

01:20:55.260 um martin asks question for both both or either of you uh how do you approach the subject of

01:21:04.220 our faith when it comes up with a christian family member jessica uh i actually uh recently

01:21:12.460 recently had this um somebody asked me about um if i was willing to take my son to a church

01:21:20.920 a christian church and let him experience jesus uh i said well i'm not going to do that because

01:21:29.920 that's not you know and and i'm not hostile towards it or anything just that's that's not

01:21:34.920 what what i would do um he's six you know let him grow up choose his own path if he still feels

01:21:42.280 that this is his path. And I'll support that if he feels in something else, I'm not going to

01:21:47.200 chastise them for it. I often have the question that they find it difficult that I believe in

01:21:58.760 something other than Jesus Christ. And my response always is what I worship is older

01:22:09.340 and I feel more of a connection to it. And I always have. I left the church when I was about

01:22:14.560 10 and I left because I felt nothing towards it. And I knew my connection was always to

01:22:24.960 the earth. My connection was always something beyond just worshiping one thing in the sky.

01:22:34.360 I always express that, that this is something that I've gravitated towards naturally.

01:22:40.220 and when i try to talk about the lore and the gods you know their their rebuttal is you know

01:22:48.620 well what about the bible where does the bible play of this bible has no place bible has no

01:22:53.980 place here and they sometimes can find that um they're they're almost stunned you know what do

01:23:02.700 do you mean it has no place oh my the the words of my gods are older than the words of your god

01:23:09.500 you know it's just the way that i look at it um i don't know i guess i guess it just it's a lot

01:23:15.340 of kind of going back and forth on things it's a lot of you know pushing um or not really pushing

01:23:21.740 but stressing the point of you know this is this is an ancestral faith as well that you know you

01:23:28.860 you, that's a whole nother part of it. Worshiping your ancestors and becoming a better person,

01:23:35.940 you know, not just following a guidebook like the Bible and using that and going to church

01:23:42.100 once a week. And then, you know, you're like this super awesome person. There's more involved to

01:23:46.460 that. And there's more involved to the connection with the folk soul. And I don't know, there's just

01:23:52.560 so many different things. And I usually end up tend to go, I tend to go down like this rabbit

01:23:56.060 whole i never get into arguments with them about it i never want to seem hostile and that's always

01:24:00.460 one of my biggest things when i'm talking to somebody about why i believe in what i believe

01:24:07.420 i never want to get into some kind of like verbal you know oh my god's better than your god you know

01:24:11.820 because i don't feel that that's the right approach if that makes sense

01:24:18.140 yeah no it absolutely makes sense um my answer is less fulfilling honestly i don't have that scenario

01:24:34.060 my family was so my immediate family was never very religious i think my mom was

01:24:41.740 raised religiously her family's from the south so they tended to be more religious but again

01:24:48.540 my grandparents in my lifetime didn't go to church my mom in my lifetime didn't go to church

01:24:56.380 she had a basic a basic faith in in jesus and the bible because you're supposed to but i

01:25:02.940 don't think she was particularly familiar with either of those things and in a very very deep way

01:25:11.100 So when I became involved in House of True, it, the conversation never really happened because I don't think it was a very important thing to her. I think at first she thought what I was doing was, was kind of silly or kind of fun or like a fun hobby thing.

01:25:31.000 and as some medical things happened with my mom and she ended up living with me for a time

01:25:37.760 she had a series of strokes and she had some early onset dementia and there when she was still very

01:25:43.260 with it and she lived with me for a while and and was there when we'd have people over to the house

01:25:49.080 for for feasts and for celebrations she actually went out in the circle with me for bloat once or

01:25:54.920 twice. And I think she learned very quickly that it that it wasn't a, you know, just a hobby or

01:26:01.460 something silly, that it was very serious. But also, she saw me and she was involved the whole

01:26:07.900 time. She was very close with me the whole time. So she watched the fulfillment that it had in my

01:26:13.280 life. And she also because of the way she was introduced to it, it wasn't scary to her. So I

01:26:19.840 think that we really had to have much of that conversation um but again i also didn't push it

01:26:26.480 and i didn't make an argument where one wasn't necessary i just lived my life and lived my faith

01:26:31.040 and she didn't really have a lot of questions about it um and you know our as her dementia

01:26:37.440 progressed now she's she's not really capable of of having those kind of questions so with my dad

01:26:43.760 is a little bit of a different story he was not religious at all and i don't believe that he's

01:26:48.160 in any way religious uh currently but a similar experience you know i'm not sure what he took from

01:26:54.160 all of it it all sounded kind of odd but you know it was something i was happy doing he came to

01:26:59.840 midsummer when my wife and i got married in 2017 at odin's off and he got to see not just and and my

01:27:07.280 dad's he's got very practical views on life and he's got um

01:27:18.160 money and stuff and material things are really good gauge for his, whether something's valuable

01:27:28.060 or not. And it meant a lot to him going to the Hoff and seeing that we had a building that was

01:27:34.160 real and that all of these people, what really kind of struck him was he was at the auction

01:27:40.360 and people are, you know, bidding up items that are like 30 bucks for like $400.

01:27:45.240 dollars. And he's like, well, that's not worth that. How could they do that? And it dawned on

01:27:50.760 him. Oh, wait, this is a church auction. They're donating to their church. And that's why they're

01:27:59.420 paying absorbent price for, you know, very little. They're not trying to get a deal on a product.

01:28:05.640 They're donating to something they believe in. And at that point, and because, you know, we had

01:28:10.340 over 100 people there at that time, he was able to see the value in what I was doing. So that was

01:28:15.820 kind of interesting. Other than that, my grandparents both had passed before I became

01:28:21.640 Alistair True, or my grandparents on my mother's side that I was close to.

01:28:25.640 My grandfather on my father's side also passed around the time I became Alistair True. So he and

01:28:31.700 I were never close or never had that conversation. My grandmother on my father's side is still with

01:28:37.020 us. She's in her nineties and she's doing great, but she's never been a religious person.

01:28:44.480 I think now in her old age, because they come visit her at the house and talk to her,

01:28:49.240 she entertains Jehovah's witnesses that come over. And also because her daughter's a Jehovah's

01:28:53.820 witness, I think she'll entertain that. But I think it's more about having people to talk to

01:28:58.060 than it is about a necessarily sincere faith in that. My aunt and my cousins are Jehovah's

01:29:04.680 witnesses. And again, we've never had the conversation because you don't get to. The

01:29:09.860 Jehovah's Witnesses do something called disfellowshipping. And especially if you're 1.00

01:29:14.980 somebody who's an active part of being a Jehovah's Witness, you get disfellowshipped

01:29:23.360 and you're an apostate at that point, which means that I'm literally in league with the devil and 0.69

01:29:29.900 it's my mission to stumble them or to somehow mess up their relationship with God and their

01:29:36.400 being a Jehovah's Witness. So they're not supposed to talk to me or interact with me in any way. So 0.99

01:29:40.960 I don't really have that relationship anymore. So that's kind of, that's kind of my family

01:29:45.380 dynamic when it comes to Christianity and my Asatru. Nick asks his question, inspired from

01:29:53.880 the chat as americans should american also true distinguish itself as unique people over time jessica

01:30:11.080 i don't want to say that it should i mean that's a deep question um i don't want to say that i

01:30:17.640 don't know i don't i don't feel like that but we should distinguish american oz true over

01:30:26.520 like making it its own form i don't think that's what that is i just think i i personally would

01:30:34.120 see as a true as a true and it's you know yes it might be practiced practice in different ways

01:30:44.840 here versus say like sweden how they do things or in iceland i just think that's what makes it unique

01:30:53.000 is seeing they have a connection other countries have a connection maybe differently than we do

01:31:02.680 but i mean to be fair i don't think everybody within america has the same connection as each

01:31:08.200 other i think you know just even if you look from a historical context how tribes maybe did things

01:31:15.640 differently but it was all under the same branch of spirituality so i i feel like that would be

01:31:23.400 the same thing that would apply to this matt what do you think so i don't think that it works like

01:31:31.560 that whether it should or it shouldn't i don't think that you know any regional difference

01:31:38.440 has ever happened like hey guys we should make an effort to do something different to be

01:31:43.960 more regionally different i think things just happen over time and a certain group of people

01:31:49.880 in a certain proximity develop a certain culture over time um

01:31:54.280 um I don't think that we need to make any special efforts to do that I think that happens and I

01:32:04.540 think that American also true has defined also true in the modern era and

01:32:13.720 I think maybe other places try to differentiate from us but I think we've really been the driving

01:32:19.300 force in that. But here's the thing. There's no need for everything to be the same. Cultural

01:32:30.060 differences within Ausatru are good. Now, agreement on the fundamentals, there's definitely

01:32:35.600 a right way and a wrong way to do stuff, and I don't think that changes, but the food and

01:32:42.020 the costuming and the verbiage and things do definitely change when you go different

01:32:46.160 places. You know, at each of our Hoffs, there's a different feel. There are different parts of

01:32:50.780 the United States. They're further apart than, you know, many of the countries in Europe that

01:32:55.640 you may see as different cultures. I imagine that over time, there would be elements that

01:33:02.080 do look different in different places. And some of that's healthy, as long as

01:33:05.840 the unity of us being united in the correct worship of our gods is maintained.

01:33:12.840 I think that, you know, at any point in history, different groups of people have practiced our faith in different ways based on their differing circumstances.

01:33:23.960 But I'd like to think that anyone in any of those times, if they were picked up and dropped in an AFA event, would understand the basics of what's going on, would feel the connection to the gods and would feel the connection to the folk,

01:33:39.400 even if they didn't speak the language, or even if they're from a different time in a different

01:33:43.580 place. So yeah, of course, American Alcitru is going to have a different flavor. I think that

01:33:49.880 Appalachian Alcitru is going to have a different flavor than, you know, deeper South Southern

01:33:55.700 Alcitru than Northeastern Alcitru than, you know, Midwestern or, you know, desert Alcitru. I think

01:34:04.800 all of those things probably are going to feel a little bit different, but I don't think that

01:34:08.500 should focus on dissimilarity i think we should build on the things that we have in common

01:34:14.660 um john asks matthew we have a new indo-european ethnic group not a cult how does that sound

01:34:21.940 um i think it's a misuse of being a new indo-european ethnic group it sounds it sounds

01:34:28.740 better than than calling ourselves a cult certainly but no i think religion is a completely

01:34:34.020 appropriate word for what we do it has a meaning and it is what we do ethnicity is a part of our

01:34:39.860 religion but ethnic religion is already a term and it's a term that most religions in the world

01:34:46.100 subscribe to um the overwhelming presence in the media and in a lot of developed places of

01:34:55.620 islam and christianity overshadow that but traditionally in the history of mankind

01:35:00.020 most religion has been ethnic religion um so yeah that's what i got on that one uh rob says jess

01:35:09.540 your happiness at events is infectious how do you always keep a smile and happy even when doing

01:35:15.140 dishes for a hundred people to be fair i really don't mind doing dishes for a hundred people

01:35:22.980 because um any kind of social anxiety i feel that that's my uh my form of escape is rushing

01:35:29.220 into the kitchen um i don't know i just always kind of wake up like this i i think part of it

01:35:36.260 is i'm just really happy to be around my folk like it it makes me i i'm a lot happier being

01:35:44.420 around you guys than like when i wake up in the morning here by myself i'm pretty grumpy um

01:35:50.740 I'm a grumpy girl around most humans. But when I'm with my folk, I'm just happy. And I think

01:36:00.180 part of that is because I'm in a place of love. I'm in a place of warmth and understanding and

01:36:08.360 compassion. That's kind of how that goes. You know, if you guys haven't met Jessica in real

01:36:16.040 life she is the most bubbly like it really is infectious she is so giddy and bubbly and happy

01:36:25.080 and i really look forward to that it doesn't matter what kind of day you're having it will

01:36:29.160 absolutely pick you up and make you feel better thanks uh column asks and with he with a three

01:36:37.000 dollar donation thank you very much we appreciate it hey folks happy to catch the stream today

01:36:41.960 question from matt have you ever been involved in freemasonry and what are your thoughts on

01:36:46.440 that organization thanks matt and jessica uh no i've never i'm not a freemason and i've never been

01:36:52.760 a freemason um it's a nuanced question uh what do i think of freemasonry 200 years ago is very

01:37:04.280 different than what I think of what Masonry appears to be now. Now, I don't know. It's fun

01:37:13.300 to think that there's some secret cabal of Masons somewhere that have massive world-dominating 0.99

01:37:21.960 powers and whatnot. I don't think that's the case right now, though. My understanding right now is

01:37:28.500 that most Masonic activity is old guys doing charitable stuff and being involved with the

01:37:37.940 Shriners and whatnot. And that's nice that it's helping people. It's nice that it's helping kids

01:37:43.480 with medical expenses. It's nice that they're doing charity. And it's nice that these guys get

01:37:48.900 a club to be part of. If there's more than that going on right now, I don't know about it.

01:37:54.520 Historically, though, I tend to be very opposed to masonry. I think that it messed up the world in a lot of ways. I think that Enlightenment era masonry was behind the downfall of several European monarchies and in large part behind the French Revolution, a lot of things that I think were very detrimental to our folk in the long run.

01:38:24.520 I think that the ideas that were presented that chose to completely spit in the face of and go as hard against they could, the traditions and values of our folk at the time were very wrongheaded.

01:38:40.980 I think they reacted oftentimes to very real concerns and very legitimate concerns, but they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater and let's reject all religiosity, let's reject authority, let's reject all of the things that have held our society together.

01:38:58.800 was very detrimental to our folk. And I think we still deal with the legacy of some of the

01:39:03.820 damage they were, you know, a part of causing. So I think I'm, I'm, I know that I'm opposed to

01:39:09.800 historical Masonism or Masonry. I don't really think that that has much to do with the modern

01:39:17.160 practice. So I don't have very strong opinions on modern Masonry. Frayer asks, I'm from Florida.

01:39:24.900 how do I join? Excellent. I'm glad you asked that. You're in a really, really good place to join.

01:39:30.300 We just got our new Hoff there in White Springs. Florida has a huge surge in the past year or so

01:39:36.680 of members. Great things are happening down there. What you need to do is go to www.runestone.org

01:39:43.860 and click on the join link, and that's how you join. If you have any questions or need any help,

01:39:50.340 Now, when you're joining, once you've joined, what you want to do is talk to your local folk builders.

01:39:55.980 You've got several great folk builders there in in Florida.

01:39:59.640 You can reach out to Mike Joyner or you could reach out to Tracy Adler.

01:40:04.260 Both of them are are fantastic resources.

01:40:08.740 We've got Goethe Lane Ashby down there.

01:40:13.540 He's another great guy who would love to talk to you and help you out.

01:40:17.040 But, yeah, that's great.

01:40:18.120 And I'm glad that's something you're looking to do. Don, what is the modern altitude preferred funerary style, i.e. cremation or burial and thoughts on the views on suicide?

01:40:34.880 um okay Don so this isn't like a hard rule but um the AFA we tend to favor cremation

01:40:45.520 um our our people even in even in the uh the pre-Christian period have fluctuated over time

01:40:55.160 and over region back and forth on on burial versus cremation but one of the things that was

01:41:01.320 It's a specific hallmark of a seer worship, which we are also true, that's what we're engaged in, was that distinction of the cremation and the thought that you send the soul straight into the afterlife, you know, in a moment as opposed to over a long period of decay.

01:41:21.000 and that was an important thing um at present for a practical concern it helps because it allows us

01:41:29.080 to do things with your ashes it takes up a lot of space and sometimes zoning and other things makes

01:41:35.480 it very difficult to uh to bury human remains but ashes get by most of that we're doing ashes uh

01:41:43.880 earn interments at odenshoff um i believe that's we'll see what the rules are going to end up

01:41:53.640 being at thor's hoff but our typical thing is to in turn to bury um bury urns and that's what we're

01:42:01.400 going to do have to do exclusively at baldershoff because of their space considerations we're going

01:42:05.800 to have a calabrium there and and that's how we're going to handle ashes at that location

01:42:11.720 but yeah the idea of cremation burials was very important to our ancestors it's important to us

01:42:17.640 some of those cultures were defined by the uh the earthenware that the earthenware urns that they

01:42:23.640 used to and to do that with the ashes we see a lot of the viking viking era mounds often those

01:42:31.880 were raised over funeral pyres and over the ashes of the people they're not burial chambers where

01:42:37.240 somebody's body's buried most often most often they're over top of ashes where a person was

01:42:42.360 cremated um jessica asks

01:42:52.280 yeah okay jessica asks what are some things you do to help your child get involved with

01:42:57.080 acetrue and beyond that what is one of your favorite memories of your child participating

01:43:03.000 spiritually go ahead and give us the answers on that jess um one thing to help you get your child

01:43:12.040 into as a true of course is events children children learn by seeing what is being done um

01:43:25.720 it helps them feel comfortable like i touched on uh earlier that was uh my son's connection

01:43:31.240 is not just copying what he saw but he actually would interpret and when he would leave an

01:43:40.200 offering or want to do a toast at home or talk about the gods that's something that he picked

01:43:46.680 up from going to an event and probably one of my favorite memories of him being involved is uh

01:43:54.760 we were at astara in the south at thor's half um last the last one and drake went up to spawn

01:44:07.160 in the bay and he asked him about the mural painting and him and spawn talked and then he

01:44:14.520 was asking him about everything on the altar what did this do how do you have this there

01:44:19.880 and afterwards fawn came to me and he said your son just had some of like the deepest questions

01:44:26.440 i think i've ever had with a child that young before besides my own and i um i asked rake

01:44:33.880 about it afterwards and he was going on and on telling me everything that he learned from spawn

01:44:39.080 and also seeing him during bloat galdering and being so focused probably during odin's blow

01:44:48.760 during matt's odin's bloat at um at ostara he was just completely encapsulated by the whole thing

01:45:00.200 and it wasn't just because of how loud matt was being or how hard he was being on the drum

01:45:05.000 it was you could tell he felt something pretty cool

01:45:08.840 all right john asked or says jessica if you have a son try getting him into viking stuff

01:45:19.300 like movies toys kids books as well as joining he my son already says that he wants to be a

01:45:25.760 folk builder um i think actually matt the last time you saw him he asked you if he could be a

01:45:30.120 folk builder he's like i want to be a folk builder like mommy um he obviously can't join yet

01:45:36.440 under his own name until he's 18 um as far as viking related things actually already on it

01:45:45.960 um we've gone to a few like viking festivals that we've had around uh we've done the medieval

01:45:51.500 festivals basically any kind of festival like um any of the german festivals anything i could tie

01:45:57.480 into that culture and i can see something at a festival and then i can tell my son about it

01:46:03.440 you know hey well this is the relation to like what we do here's the relation to the holiday

01:46:08.760 um there was even like a slovenian harvest festival that happened and i was able to tell

01:46:14.900 drake some of the relation of celebrating the harvest and how important that is to us and why

01:46:20.560 it's important little things like that we've we've done he does have like a viking sword

01:46:26.320 he's got a sword and uh an axe and he um i believe he brought it to uh winter nights last

01:46:33.100 year and attacked everyone with it or maybe i'll start the year before i can't remember

01:46:37.420 it i was assaulted by those weapons

01:46:43.260 no that's great um you know being a folk builder like mommy i think he i think you set a pretty

01:46:48.140 high bar but uh yeah we get things going he plays his card right we can he can folk build at 18 if

01:46:53.980 he wants um finn will any of you celebrate leaf erickson day the viking who reached america over

01:47:04.140 400 years before columbus on october 9th the week after next week jessica are you planning

01:47:11.500 on celebrating leaf erickson day oh absolutely uh we actually have a statue here in northeast

01:47:18.140 ohio it's in cleveland um on the flats that the um uh who did it it was the scandinavian

01:47:25.900 society or the scandinavian society in northeast ohio or something like that they're they're not

01:47:32.060 really very active anymore um but they got together donations and they had uh put a bust of leaf

01:47:39.260 erickson in a rather random place on the flats which is really just like this area with like a

01:47:44.540 bunch of bars and clubs along the river over there in cleveland um but i i do go over there

01:47:51.660 and i like to have a drink and just give him a hail

01:47:58.540 you know finn if we had uh if there was any parties or drinking to be had or whatever going

01:48:04.460 on around here for it i'm i'm all for that i think celebrating the accomplishment of

01:48:10.940 leaf ericsson and his journey and i think that celebrating him as a figure of american scandinavian

01:48:20.380 heritage is certainly right-headed and cool and something great to support in an also true context

01:48:27.740 and a religious context we don't celebrate him any longer and there was a time when folks when

01:48:33.020 we did but it was important to me to to correct that because he wasn't a follower of our faith

01:48:38.380 as a matter of fact he was one of the he was the first generation of people himself specifically

01:48:43.980 who chose to break with our faith and our relationship with our gods and so in a really

01:48:49.660 serious religious context no i don't think it's right to celebrate him but in a cultural context

01:48:56.380 of celebrating our heritage i think that you know his achievement is certainly worth celebrating um

01:49:02.140 i think that we get mixed up in our folk when we don't also celebrate columbus day i think

01:49:09.020 you know christopher columbus was absolutely one of our folk and his accomplishment was was

01:49:14.540 an amazing accomplishment so i don't think the one takes away from the other because i think

01:49:18.220 they're so disconnected that either of those journeys is an amazing feat for anyone in europe

01:49:24.060 at either of those times so i think those are both amazing feats to celebrate

01:49:28.700 um daniel asks i was there to see you take your folk builder oath alongside my wife and several

01:49:37.340 friends can you describe what that meant to you um we touched on it a little bit earlier uh the

01:49:45.340 the incredible honor um it was to do that because of how much work was how much of me i put into it

01:49:53.580 and to get that recognition and uh it's not really about the recognition i mean it's just it's an

01:49:59.020 honor it's an honor to be seen seen that my accomplishments were worthy of being up in those

01:50:07.180 ranks um and uh heather and i actually had to make it a point not to really look at each other because

01:50:13.340 we both were going to be blubbering baby crying while we were taking our oath so like we gave like

01:50:18.540 one look at each other and then like for the rest of it we hardly looked at each other because we

01:50:22.380 we knew if we looked too long, like we were both going to start bawling.

01:50:27.820 Michelle asked, Jessica, do you practice any forms of divination?

01:50:34.320 I don't really consider it a form. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no, I don't.

01:50:42.860 Um, reason being for that is because I feel that, I feel like, I feel like that can be

01:50:53.220 a heavy thing to do and you have to be in a right place to be able to do that.

01:51:00.080 Um, something I, I of course do, but I don't really think it's considered a form of divination,

01:51:08.420 um really just going out into the woods and listening listening to to the gods listening

01:51:15.760 to the earth listening to the trees listening to the wind not so much in a meditative sense but i

01:51:20.300 do it more when i'm feeling confused about something or conflicted and i feel like that's

01:51:26.080 going to there's going to be something in that wind that's going to help me make sense of

01:51:32.060 whatever I'm feeling or whatever I'm trying to work through.

01:51:37.280 But yeah, not really an actual form of divination, no.

01:51:41.860 All right. King of Cheese, what are the responsibilities of folk builders 0.99

01:51:46.400 and what does enrollment in the folk builder program entail?

01:51:54.180 So Jessica, go ahead and tell him from your perspective on that.

01:52:02.060 the responsibilities of folk builder are many uh i think some people come into it thinking

01:52:10.160 that it's going to be something that's going to be easy it absolutely is not uh not in a bad way

01:52:16.420 it's extremely fulfilling and it's extremely humbling um as far as actual things that you

01:52:25.080 need. Obviously, a computer, good internet connection. There is a lot that we do on social

01:52:32.960 media. There's emails to be answered. There's conference calls that you're involved in.

01:52:40.020 As far as an administrative standpoint, after that, you have to be able to, you need a vehicle

01:52:49.360 or, or reliable mode of transportation to be able to go to events, to create events,

01:52:56.520 to, um, this organized folk, you need a phone, uh, that's capable of, uh, everybody's got

01:53:07.060 wireless signal these days, but I mean, you need, you need to be available is one of the big things

01:53:11.580 you need to make sure you're available. You need to make sure that you are able to devote time

01:53:17.160 to this to really grow your area. Something that Cliff told me when I first started

01:53:26.000 folk building, and he said to me, if you can give 20 minutes a day, you can do this.

01:53:36.000 And sometimes that doesn't seem like a lot. And I mean, for some people, that is a lot of time.

01:53:41.420 Because those 20 minutes a day isn't necessarily always just sitting down at one point for 20

01:53:46.120 minutes and catching up on emails or anything like that. It is throughout the day, you know,

01:53:50.880 you have people saying, hey, I need to talk. I need someone to talk to. You always need to

01:53:56.480 make yourself available for your folk. And as far as enrollment, send, match an email or a call.

01:54:03.460 All right. So I threw Jessica out there so that I could look this up for you. I will tell you 0.99

01:54:08.060 exactly. So here's the thing. This got asked to me twice today to send this to various of our

01:54:14.600 folk builders to give people who were interested in becoming a folk builder. This is a letter that

01:54:19.120 I send out on email to any of our folks who inquire about becoming a folk builder. And I

01:54:26.400 send it out so they know kind of what they're getting into. Being a folk builder is not limited

01:54:31.380 to this. As our responsibilities evolve, so do the responsibilities of a folk builder.

01:54:37.680 um so a lot of things are keeping pace with the afa and what the current needs are and there's

01:54:44.780 not like an end to that but these are the things that's what i send out and i put this at the top

01:54:51.000 because sometimes we get folks that don't want to do this so in in bold letter or in capital letters

01:54:56.420 consistent and frequent social media engagement is a requirement because it's important in this

01:55:02.580 day and age we're spread out it's a thing that we need to do and then the rest of this is in just

01:55:06.340 regular font. You are applying to Folk Build. Okay, now I need to learn some editing that I

01:55:13.520 need to do on my letter. Anyways, you're applying to Folk Build for the AFA way and according to

01:55:19.880 AFA standards and AFA directions. Folk Building is the cornerstone of volunteerism and leadership

01:55:26.140 in the Astro Folk Assembly and can be extremely rewarding and have a huge impact on the future.

01:55:32.140 a folk building can also be a lot of work sometimes in unexpected ways i'm writing this

01:55:37.500 to give you an idea of what will be expected of the of the position so that you can make

01:55:42.620 an informed decision on whether or not it is something you'd like to pursue also included

01:55:47.820 will be some points about the structure of the afa that is that are important to understand if

01:55:53.420 you are going to take this special position one the afa's leadership is structured as follows the

01:55:59.340 The first level of leadership is the apprentice folk builder.

01:56:03.460 This is the position you are interested in taking.

01:56:06.200 This position typically lasts for up to a year or more.

01:56:10.120 During this time, we can evaluate if it is a good fit and if you are...

01:56:15.320 Man, I really need to do some editing.

01:56:19.520 Anyways, if it's a good fit and if you consider it something that you are committed to, 0.78

01:56:26.580 We will work on a regional, you will work on a regional team and will be under the supervision of the oath folk builders in your region.

01:56:37.240 If you do well and are a good fit, you will be asked to take the folk builder oath and become a folk builder.

01:56:43.460 The AFA folk builders are under the supervision of a Gophie or Githia, either in their region or from outside, if one is not available locally.

01:56:52.940 After a time, a folk builder may be asked or may ask to enter the Gothar training program

01:56:58.880 in the hopes of becoming an ordained AFA Gothi or Githya.

01:57:02.800 The Gothar are the priests of our church.

01:57:04.880 This is a very serious position and comes with a significant spiritual authority. 0.58

01:57:09.200 The Gothar are under the supervision of the Witten. 0.52

01:57:12.180 The Witten is made up of time-proven Gothis marked by wise judgment, 0.98

01:57:17.900 tested loyalty, and proven accomplishment.

01:57:19.920 The Witten help administrate all aspects of the AFA and serve as an advisory council to the Altsherjergothi and are under his supervision. 0.52

01:57:30.000 As Altsherjergothi, the buck stops with me. 0.98

01:57:32.840 The AFA is not a democracy, never has and never will be.

01:57:37.080 We do not vote in the AFA.

01:57:39.120 Advice and concerns of leadership are always valued and listened to, but ultimately the final say in spiritual authority rests with me.

01:57:46.780 Two, the AFA is a church.

01:57:49.140 Not only are we a church, we are the church of the Aesir in Midgard.

01:57:54.240 We are not a club or an organization.

01:57:56.260 We are a church.

01:57:56.960 This means that we believe membership in the AFA is important and a valued connection to our gods.

01:58:02.600 We also believe we have a special relationship with the gods and derive a spiritual authority from them as part of that relationship.

01:58:11.220 We are not perfect, but we believe that the gods support what we are doing and where we are going, and we benefit greatly from that.

01:58:18.220 We sincerely hope that God's benefit as well. This is our deeply held intent. As a church,

01:58:24.520 we give folks a wide opportunity to succeed. We don't demand that every potential member be elite.

01:58:31.500 That does not work for an international church. We do want to help each of our folk

01:58:36.500 that are not a danger to us individually or as a whole

01:58:39.780 have the chance to become who they ought to be.

01:58:44.860 three as a folk builder you will literally be the face of the afa in your area your real name

01:58:53.320 and your picture will be used on our website and on our social media and this may bring you

01:58:58.380 attention you do not want four the leadership of the afa is a tight-knit group and we function

01:59:04.560 best when we build friendships and partnerships with our members of afa leadership this interaction

01:59:11.600 is a key component of your success as a folk builder five a folk builder's role is not confined

01:59:17.600 to folk building folk builders are expected to help out in any and all ways necessary for the

01:59:22.320 success and development of the afa this is within this is within reason of course but the point is

01:59:30.080 that there are many tasks that we need help with outside of the ones traditionally considered when

01:59:34.640 they hear the word folk builder six this is a small list of things that we need from our folk builders

01:59:40.880 but please remember point five uh using our our multi our microsoft business software and

01:59:47.600 answering emails promptly within 24 hours we have a great suite of microsoft business software

01:59:53.360 focusing around the outlook email system you will be assigned an official email

01:59:57.840 this is crucial that you check this regularly interacting and advertising on social media

02:00:03.040 hosting local events these can be very humble but are focused on real outs of true in real life

02:00:08.640 and use all the internet stuff to drive people into real life practice maintaining the afa database

02:00:15.360 something people myself included are uncomfortable with is asking for money money however is

02:00:20.640 extremely necessary and an important part of the job is ensuring that our members are up to date

02:00:26.000 on their contributions this is not fun but it is the reason we are able to accomplish great things

02:00:31.600 submitting pictures and articles to the runestone each month to show off what is going on in your

02:00:35.920 region if you've read this whether you just whatever you decide we sincerely thank you

02:00:41.520 for wanting to help in this and if this is not for you there are always other ways to volunteer

02:00:47.360 for the afa that may be more of a comprehensive answer than you thought you're going to get to

02:00:51.280 that question but since i had in front of me i think it's worth saying for anybody out there

02:00:55.200 who's thinking about it um jason okay cool this is in response to um my talk about the cemetery

02:01:08.880 so jason kirby asked how much for a plot we have we we have plans for and will have at all of our

02:01:19.280 hoff's space to inter the ashes of our members and uh we don't charge this was an interesting

02:01:29.040 thing to me so first we don't charge money for a plot we're not going to do that we are honored

02:01:35.760 to have your remains with us on our holy ground and it is shocking how much uh of a business

02:01:45.200 caring for the dead is in the world today. When we were first looking into this, it surprised me,

02:01:52.480 but state, at least in the state of California, but the regulation of cemeteries and things

02:02:00.880 is done through the Department of Consumer Protection because there's always

02:02:04.400 so much money involved with it. It struck me early on that that's not something we do,

02:02:11.040 that's not something we're going to burden anyone's family with uh your your family or

02:02:18.960 you know next to kin or whoever you've got handling your affairs is responsible for whatever

02:02:23.760 kind of a marker whether you want a stone whether you want you know some kind of sculpture whatever

02:02:30.160 you want to be your your tombstone is the responsibility of your people other than that um

02:02:36.960 And there's no fee for your plot. We would we would love to have our members remains with us for for eternity. And that's really important to us. And like I said, that's at all four of our current Hoffs and at all Hoffs we have coming in the future.

02:02:52.160 So please know that and consider that when you're writing out your wills. Now, if you want to

02:03:00.380 donate, if anybody wants to donate towards the maintenance or upkeep of those things,

02:03:05.420 we absolutely need that. It's helpful. But no, we don't charge money for a plot.

02:03:12.460 King of Cheese. Matthew, where is the line crossed between brave challenge and straight

02:03:20.380 disrespect. I asked because last night while preparing for bed after my offerings, I had a

02:03:27.940 vision in my mind of Odin's mural, and I imagined myself standing before it, looking him in the eye

02:03:36.180 and said, before I die, I'll make damn sure that you know my name. It's only now that I worry

02:03:43.840 whether I overstepped or if I'm simply brave and foolish.

02:03:54.720 So, no, I don't find anything overstepping or inappropriate about that. And I also don't think

02:04:05.980 it's foolish. Um, I think that, I think that's one of the fundamentals of Alcetru in general

02:04:15.180 is doing things worthy of being remembered, doing things worthy of people remembering you

02:04:22.800 and doing things worthy of the gods to take notice.

02:04:26.240 And I saw there was some side talk about this question over in, in the chat. Um,

02:04:31.940 I suppose in one sense, the gods know you, but realistically, the gods are their gods and their

02:04:47.080 abilities far outstrip ours. But the smallest and least that we owe them is to view things from

02:04:57.640 our human understanding and go from there and build upon them and imagine them as being the

02:05:03.040 very best of people and then all of the extra that comes with Godhood. But they would have to know

02:05:12.960 the name of every single one of our folk that's ever lived on this earth. And that's a lot.

02:05:19.540 If they just had to know the name of every single person that practiced this faith,

02:05:24.100 it's a lot to keep track of. If you think of how many people you meet at a big event,

02:05:28.860 how many of their names do you remember? Doing something to stand out. And I've often thought

02:05:34.660 about this because it's an ancestral faith. If you find yourself as a great grandfather

02:05:41.500 to fecund children, and you have some kind of a family reunion at the end of your days,

02:05:50.380 and you've got 40 grand, 40 great grandchildren there from, you know, however many different

02:05:56.300 couples. Are you going to remember all of those kids names? Probably not. So wanting to do

02:06:01.260 something where you stand out above the crowd and make yourself worthy of our gods taking notice of

02:06:06.620 you. I think that that hits right at the heart of what the heroic ethic in Alcetru has always been

02:06:14.720 about. And I suggest that at your earliest availability, you come out to Odinsof, you

02:06:23.140 stand before the Allfather, and you make that declaration. And then on top of it, that you

02:06:29.160 fulfill that by making yourself worthy of that notice. But no, I don't think that's inappropriate

02:06:34.220 at all. Antonio Rodriguez, in Ausatru, is the sons of Ragnar are treated as heroes or some kind

02:06:44.360 of way they are praised? Institutionally, no. Individually, I believe that people raise

02:06:55.540 a horn to a variety of people from history, and certainly Ragnar's son and Ragnar, sons

02:07:02.800 and Ragnar himself get horns raised to them. Very often, it was kind of an anecdote. Steve

02:07:13.140 Steve McNallan, our founder, and in the the first I'll say you go through the AFA was telling me that back in the early, early days of Alcetru before things had gotten very solidified, people were very commonly raising horns to to Ragnar and to various historical Viking personalities.

02:07:33.700 Now people tend to raise horns more often to their own personal ancestors

02:07:38.340 or people that that they actually know and have stories of and have a deep

02:07:42.420 personal connection to, which is kind of an evolution of things.

02:07:48.900 But that's that's the most I've got on that.

02:07:52.380 Shay says, Jessica, along with AFA Folk Building, aren't you also in school?

02:07:58.700 How did you find your educational path?

02:08:01.100 uh yes i i am going to school um full time i uh just started so i'm like like way at the beginning

02:08:10.960 uh first semester um but my educational path

02:08:14.880 you always come to a crossroads of what am i going to do with my life what kind of

02:08:23.500 financial contribution am i going to make to society um now that my son is in school

02:08:30.780 um I got I don't want to say I have time because I don't ever have time but I find time um I decide

02:08:39.340 like what to do like what do I want to do when I grow up kind of thing and I decided to go into

02:08:44.620 music history because I have such a passion for music and especially the offshoots of the rock

02:08:54.520 genres, if you will. Um, I want to see that. I want to see a more of a history, uh, developed

02:09:03.560 around those genres. I actually intend on going all the way up to my PhD specializing in industrial

02:09:09.960 music because there is like no history. I mean, you can go on websites and stuff and find it,

02:09:16.320 but there's like literally like two books I found on Amazon that actually deal with industrial

02:09:20.580 history the history of industrial music um it's just always been a thing in my life and i've had

02:09:26.900 a lot of experience in um the music industry managing bands owning a record label at one point

02:09:35.780 that it's it's just always been kind of a drive for me and i want to do something that

02:09:40.020 i am very passionate about that i could teach other people the passion i find in that music

02:09:46.260 I want to be able to pass it along.

02:09:52.340 All right. Rob says, Jess, your real faith in the gods is very visible and apparent to anyone who

02:09:58.900 knows you. Did you find that reading the lore, sagas, academic works, et cetera, or experiencing

02:10:06.980 the faith in life with folk was more instrumental in making that faith solid? Absolutely in real life.

02:10:16.260 um I feel like when you're reading more on an academia side of it yes there you might have

02:10:25.460 those aha moments but me personally I didn't solidify that absolute connection until it was

02:10:35.140 in real life with other people it gets deeper every time every time I go to an event every

02:10:42.020 time i have a bloat with folk that solidifies my connection even more a lot of how i feel and how

02:10:50.980 i practice is through my experiences in real life with other people and it it just i i follow my

02:10:59.620 heart with it and that's where my my heart takes the most is is from being around my folk so guys

02:11:06.740 you've been with us for two hours um appreciate you guys we're down to our last two questions

02:11:12.900 here so if you guys have more questions please go ahead and throw them up we'd be very happy to

02:11:17.380 answer them um if not we appreciate all of your participation this evening uh nick says jessica

02:11:23.540 you mentioned a folklore study group could you talk a little more about that i.e what it is and

02:11:29.940 how to join um okay so i wish i could be like more of an expert on this because i

02:11:36.660 have only partaken in a couple times but it is run by folk builder melissa mills

02:11:41.220 and if you are on me it can be found on there um you could also email melissa mills directly

02:11:51.620 and mills at runestone.org to get more information on it um there is a specific time every week i

02:11:59.220 I know it did actually recently change, but it's something, um, it's in the evening when

02:12:04.540 everybody gathers Tuesdays, maybe, uh, depending on your time zone, as far as the time they

02:12:12.020 are focusing.

02:12:13.600 Thank you, sir.

02:12:15.240 They're focusing, um, I believe, oh, or Sarah.

02:12:21.180 Yes, Sarah.

02:12:21.900 I'm sorry.

02:12:22.260 Thank you.

02:12:22.660 Cause I've seen you post things in there, um, about it a lot.

02:12:25.600 um it's it's been some time i know at one point they were they were going chapter by chapter on

02:12:33.660 a specific book and um i don't want to say it's a book club but it is something that helps people

02:12:39.480 so everybody's kind of on the same page and all studying together

02:12:42.580 all right so bobby asks outside of afa duties what hobbies do you both enjoy

02:12:55.520 doing just go first uh well we did touch base on my hula hooping obsession um as far as hobbies

02:13:05.040 um i i loved crochet that's probably my my biggest like at home when i have time hobby

02:13:13.520 unfortunately i don't have a whole lot of time outside of um everything else that i do to really

02:13:18.960 sit down and do it too much but i am working on a cool stained glass uh style afghan that i hope

02:13:25.280 to have done i don't know in a couple years at the rate that i'm going it's going to be up for

02:13:31.360 donation at a half auction at some point sometime in the next year or so when i finally get it done

02:13:39.760 matt what about you so um

02:13:47.360 i'm trying to think of what kind of hobbies i've got outside of afa stuff this is such a big uh

02:13:51.840 a big part of my life. It seems like most of the stuff I enjoy doing interacts with it somehow.

02:14:00.140 Yeah, I suppose it's a hobby. I like to work out. I go to the gym every single day. Not always

02:14:07.020 because I have to, because I like to. It's something I look forward to. It's always been

02:14:14.760 important to me. It's been a big tool in helping to literally forge myself into the man I want to

02:14:21.760 be. So it's not just a health thing. It's really important to me to to do to keep my personal

02:14:28.280 standards high and to try to in a very tangible way better myself. And I just like doing it like

02:14:34.840 I so many people when they go to the gym don't like crowds and everybody will complain. And I

02:14:39.540 only like to go to the gym at these crazy hours where nobody's there because I don't like I love

02:14:43.880 crowds at the gym, not so much crowds that I can't get to the machines and the equipment that I want.

02:14:49.020 that's frustrating but i like being surrounded by people who are trying to better themselves

02:14:55.020 my gym's really cool we've got uh ranked bodybuilders there ranked power lifters ranked

02:15:01.180 strongmen all kind of athletes they're training uh so many people doing so many different things

02:15:07.660 and all trying to make the best version of themselves and it's really inspirational to be

02:15:13.020 around people that are that are trying to better themselves so i just really like going to the gym

02:15:17.020 Um, also I take, uh, I study, um, dance and row jujitsu. I do that depends on the week and I'm

02:15:28.560 getting older. So I, you know, my joints hurt sometimes, but usually twice a week I go train

02:15:34.540 at the dojo. I got my, my Brown belt at that. I'm trying to work on getting my black belt.

02:15:40.060 Um, but that's something that I, that I enjoy doing and do a lot. Um, doing that. I really

02:15:46.060 like to read. I like to read historical things. I also like to listen to historical books on tape

02:15:51.060 while I'm working out or while I'm driving or doing any of the things I'm doing. So I think

02:15:55.220 those are probably the non-AFA hobbies that I have. Looking up here, I think we have a couple

02:16:03.560 of more questions came up during this. Rowdy Dude, as a new member, what is the best way to

02:16:10.400 introduce myself and meet other members jessica what do you what advice you got um i the best

02:16:17.440 way is obviously in real life um get in contact with your local folk builder um talk about you

02:16:25.840 can ask them actually um if you have any local folk near you and if they've consented to it to

02:16:34.720 give in-stage contact information uh let's say your folk builder is four hours away and you have

02:16:41.120 a dude that lives 10 minutes on the street there's no reason you two can't get together when there

02:16:45.440 isn't an event happening that's organized by a folk builder um definitely like get to know the

02:16:50.560 people that are closest to you and like build those relationships and that will in itself become

02:16:58.000 family um beyond that if you don't live super close to anybody or if you're like

02:17:04.160 five hours from the nearest person or folk builder um online we do have a social presence

02:17:11.280 everywhere and not to say that your only relationship should be online but it is a way to

02:17:19.680 introduce yourself to meet some people maybe there's a situation you're in and there might

02:17:25.680 be somebody across the country that totally gets the position you're in and that could help you

02:17:30.480 through whatever you're going through so the the online connection is important because it does

02:17:34.880 help us all from all different corners of the country um and more actually internationally

02:17:40.880 really get to know each other and create those relationships and be each other's rocks when we

02:17:47.120 we need it yeah absolutely what you want to do is get new stuff in real life it's as a way to

02:17:56.240 introduce yourself uh first your local me we group is a really good way to get to just put your name

02:18:04.240 out there say hi i'm so and so i'm new and to make some acquaintances that way social media has has

02:18:10.820 value for that but you want to look and see what you can attend and how you can meet people close

02:18:17.020 you a big tool in that like jessica said is talking to your local folk builder but also you

02:18:22.140 need to determine you know again not knowing where you live it's hard to tell you um but you need to

02:18:28.860 go to your local hoff uh website hoff district website because everybody's in a hoff district

02:18:34.620 and each district has their own website i know nick's got some links for that jessica is the

02:18:39.740 one who made these websites happen they're beautiful websites but they're very handy they

02:18:44.300 have an events tab on them and when you click on the events tab it brings up a really handy calendar

02:18:49.820 and it shows you all of the stuff in your district that's going on so you can can find something

02:18:54.860 that's close to you to go to and your folk builder will help you with that but if you just want to

02:18:59.180 look on there and contact whoever the point of contact is but getting out and meeting meeting

02:19:05.100 real afa members in real life is is the key to getting the most out of this so highly highly

02:19:11.980 recommend that um aristos jessica do you have any kind of family altar or days of remembrance for

02:19:22.620 family i've seen that work wonders for bringing the family and friends off the fence about

02:19:27.580 accepting aussitrew i do actually um i have a special place in the upstairs part of my house

02:19:35.900 that is my uh desire altar that i will place offerings and i very very very much actually a

02:19:44.060 lot of times i go there if i need support in something um throughout my house though i've

02:19:50.780 got pictures of my family my ancestors i teach them to my son um same thing as matt i've got

02:19:59.420 the stairs with all the ancestral pictures because i just love that it was like kind of

02:20:05.100 a historical thing with my house because i'm in historical house but it's i i love that i love

02:20:09.980 walking up the steps and seeing not only just my family but the branches that go off of that from

02:20:15.100 mine and my spouse's family and my son's always asking questions and i that that for me is very

02:20:21.660 special so yes throughout my house is really just an honor um not even just through pictures even

02:20:27.500 pieces of furniture i have pieces of furniture from my grandmother and my great-grandmother

02:20:32.060 pieces that were brought over from England when she came to the country. And that I hold very

02:20:37.320 special because it made a journey and it lasted through this time. And I can always think of that

02:20:44.440 person. All right. Well, guys, it has been great spending time with you this evening.

02:20:53.520 I appreciate those who donated. Thank you guys very much, everybody, for participating,

02:20:58.940 for your questions, for your enthusiasm. Thank you so much for being here. And our special guest,

02:21:05.640 Jessica, you were awesome. Thank you so much for being on tonight. And I look forward to

02:21:09.440 seeing you here in a couple of weeks at Winter Nights. Yes. Thank you. Good night, guys. Thank

02:21:14.400 you for coming and listening. And we hope to see you very soon. Okay, don't leave. So Nick just

02:21:19.520 threw a graphic up that I wanted him to make and he got it super quick. So I don't know if he had

02:21:24.340 that on reserve somewhere but kudos to you nick this map that's up there tells you where your

02:21:29.760 district is so the red on here is odenshoff district and for international folks we could

02:21:36.080 answer that as well um but for folks in the united states red is the odenshoff district

02:21:41.600 blue are actually i'll go and order the hoffs orange is our thorshoff district

02:21:47.740 michigan upper peninsula people i know that geographically it doesn't necessarily make

02:21:53.920 sense from you, but I didn't draw the lines of your state. That's not my fault. Baldershof is

02:22:00.320 the blue. If you're in any of those states, you're in the Baldershof district. And our newest district,

02:22:06.020 the green district down there in the deep south is Njordshof district. So there you go. Hopefully

02:22:14.100 that is helpful. And each of those, like I said, corresponds to one of the websites that Nick

02:22:19.680 threw up for folks. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much. And until next time,

02:22:26.440 hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and remember, victory never sleeps.

02:22:49.680 We'll be right back.

02:23:19.680 Thank you.

02:23:49.680 Thank you.

02:24:19.680 Thank you.

02:24:49.680 Thank you.

02:25:19.680 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - September 22, 2022

9⧸21⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 11

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