Asatru Folk Assembly - 9⧸28⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 12 - Gylfaginning

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:00.000 Hello, everybody. Welcome again to another edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:18.500 As you can see, it's just me for right now. We do have our special guest for the evening

00:03:24.560 joining us at some point. He is currently trying to work out some technical difficulties.

00:03:30.000 So we will we will make do in the time that we've got.

00:03:37.700 Got a lot of exciting things tonight.

00:03:40.660 This is the first show that we've done that's based around a topic.

00:03:45.440 So it'll be a mixed bag.

00:03:46.880 It'll be answering some questions as we as we typically do.

00:03:51.660 But it'll also be Witten's Fun talking to us a bit about the the Edict poem, the Gil Faggining.

00:04:00.000 And that should be interesting. And we have a lot to that whenever he's technologically solvent and on here.

00:04:10.080 In the meantime, I suppose I will plug first and foremost, I'd like to plug our Winter Nights celebration in Ohio.

00:04:19.280 That's coming up very soon in just a couple of weeks.

00:04:23.280 And if you guys are able to make it, you should absolutely do it.

00:04:28.560 it'll be worth your while. This is a new site. We've never done it at this location. I'm looking

00:04:33.080 forward to being there. Since the last time we've had winter nights, Ohio has just taken off. A lot

00:04:39.640 of new members there, a lot of great people. I'm looking forward to meeting those that I haven't

00:04:43.680 met and spending time with my Ohio friends and my, you know, Northeast friends that I haven't

00:04:50.020 seen in a while. So it'll be pretty nice. So what I probably should do, I'll take a look on here,

00:05:04.420 there's a couple other things we'll get to, but I want to get to the final, apparently I cut out

00:05:10.000 here without answering two questions last week. Promise that's not on purpose. I don't ever

00:05:16.360 intend to do that it's always my job to answer your questions and get to everybody as i assure

00:05:22.440 you guys i'll do my best doing i also don't mean to uh to duck any questions so um

00:05:31.400 every now and again somebody who's a member of afa leadership or something will have a

00:05:35.640 cheesy joke question that i may not get to depending um but before i left off last time

00:05:42.520 jbird209 asked is the afa only for whites yes a matter of fact we are we're an ethnic faith

00:05:50.360 also true is the ethnic religion of northern european peoples of aryan peoples generally

00:05:58.120 and of folks that are commonly identified and would identify themselves as white people

00:06:04.440 and uh we're proud of who we are we're proud of where we come from we're proud of our gods and

00:06:08.840 We're proud of our faith. And Brendan asks, what is your advice for connecting with the gods as a new believer?

00:06:16.720 keeping it simple and keeping it from the heart i think that the more stress that we put on

00:06:30.480 wondering if we're doing it right or wondering how similar what we're doing is to something

00:06:38.180 that our ancestors did i think all of those things cloud our mind and cloud our intent

00:06:42.680 especially when we're brand new i think just coming before your altar or being in whatever

00:06:49.680 your your private special space that you that you want to engage in worship at is and making some

00:06:59.080 sort of good faith offering be it you know some incense or a shot something very simple

00:07:05.120 and just opening up and saying, Hey, here I am. I'm listening. This is for you.

00:07:13.280 Yeah, I'm listening. That was a big thing for me when I first got involved with Ausitru is we took

00:07:19.300 a couple other people were involved with me at the time and we decided to take, I believe,

00:07:25.560 two weeks each for a selection of our gods and goddesses and just do that, have

00:07:32.160 have time where we came before our altar space and

00:07:38.200 just basically made an offering and said, Hey, we're here. We're listening. This is for you.

00:07:46.920 I hope you accept it and seeing what happened. And I thought that was extremely powerful.

00:07:52.140 It seems very simple, but it meant a lot to me. It taught me a lot when I first got involved and

00:07:57.940 really got the relationship with the gods off on a very good foundation. And so that's what I would

00:08:04.760 suggest to folks that are just starting out. And while I was answering that question, we are joined

00:08:09.960 by our special guest this evening, my friend, sometimes technically challenged, Witten Svon

00:08:16.040 Harrell, here to lay down some edic wisdom for us. Welcome Svon, how are you doing? I'm doing well,

00:08:22.200 can you hear me? I can hear you. Excellent. Yeah, we had a little bit of technical difficulty on

00:08:27.300 some of the other devices, so I shifted over to here. So we're trying to make it work.

00:08:35.000 Looks like we got it all figured out. Glad you're here with us.

00:08:41.140 Got a couple of questions on the side, and I figure we might as well clean slate that

00:08:45.320 before we get into our main topic of the evening. King of Cheese, Matt, I have a question.

00:08:53.180 I'm eventually going to make weapons for each Hoff, but what do you think would fit Frey's Hoff? 0.92

00:09:00.320 I know he gave up his sword. 0.75

00:09:02.100 An antler?

00:09:02.840 An antler sword?

00:09:05.660 You know, that's a good question.

00:09:07.100 I think whatever you feel moved to make, I'm sure would be more than appropriate.

00:09:12.880 I think a sword is fine.

00:09:14.700 I think if you did, I don't know, maybe a sword with a decorative antler handle would be kind of cool.

00:09:24.520 Or if you're really creative and you wanted to create some kind of, I don't know, weaponized antler with a grip on it and sharpened brow tines or whatever, I think you could kind of go wherever your heart desires on that.

00:09:41.160 i'm sure whatever you do would be would be respectful and something that brings honor to

00:09:45.960 our gods and by the way i realize that your name is tony but i'm probably always going to call you

00:09:51.160 king of cheese because i think this is the coolest handle we have on here so please do not be offended

00:09:55.880 by that um pam when will the national event for njordshoff be announced it will be announced just

00:10:05.640 as soon as we decide on it we've got some talk on the back end with the the gothar in your district

00:10:11.160 to figure that out. We got to balance it with what works good for you guys, what's not already 0.78

00:10:18.760 taken by one of our other Hoffs, what's seasonally reasonable to do in North Florida. So we're

00:10:26.460 thinking all those things, but I promise you will know very soon after I know. And we got

00:10:35.100 green leader uh i only recognize that name for twitter so i'm not sure if he's one of the folks

00:10:43.160 joining us on twitter tonight so so you guys know um tonight is the first time we are simulcasting

00:10:48.940 over twitter so that's exciting and that's new and hopefully that reaches some folks that don't

00:10:55.140 normally get reached by this that was kind of a cool feature that we figured out this last week

00:11:00.080 and that Nick perfected on how we can use that. Anyways, Green Leader, how was your experience

00:11:07.100 on T-Jump's YouTube channel? Do you think he treated you fairly? Yeah, so for those of you

00:11:13.580 who don't know, there's a gentleman named Tom Jump that is an atheist and a guy that's interested

00:11:23.680 in philosophy and belief. I was invited on his program. Both he and his producer were very nice.

00:11:33.640 I do think I got treated fairly by him. I knew his audience is not really our audience.

00:11:40.640 We quibble amongst faiths here sometimes in the conversation, but I've stressed this. I think that

00:11:46.980 our biggest dissimilarity isn't with people of different faiths. It's with people of no faith. 1.00

00:11:53.680 I think people who are the difference between atheism and theism is much greater than the difference in a particular religion, because it affects so much of your worldview. 0.63

00:12:06.380 But no, I think that me and Mr. Jump come from very different directions on where we place our value systems and on how we judge value in the world around us.

00:12:19.360 I think that he gave me ample opportunity to express my thoughts.

00:12:24.880 I felt like I was treated fairly and, you know, treated well by him.

00:12:30.600 Like I said, it's atypical compared to a lot of his other programs.

00:12:36.920 So we both came into it with a little bit different attitude than I think some of the other speakers that he has.

00:12:42.980 We weren't really getting in fights or playing gotcha with each other.

00:12:47.040 so it may have been a little bit less exciting than some of the other more knocked down drag

00:12:51.720 outs. But yeah, I appreciate the opportunity and I appreciated the politeness. He also worked with

00:12:57.020 my schedule. His schedule and mine are almost exactly opposite and they're very accommodating

00:13:02.840 to mine. So I really appreciate that. And I'm glad you listened. Got one more question from

00:13:09.260 Humanipulation Nation. Good to see you back on here tonight. Is there any update on the Academy 0.96

00:13:15.480 and how it's going for the young blood kind of sort of we're only a couple of weeks in so there's

00:13:21.400 not a lot of substance other than there's a continued interest so we continue to have

00:13:26.480 students wanting to sign up a little bit late but now that they've seen that it's launched and it's

00:13:30.780 a it's a trustworthy thing it's not just an idea it's not just what will happen it's what is

00:13:36.020 happening so that's been really nice and we've also done some research for um canadian students

00:13:43.460 because their system isn't as cooperative as ours is when it comes to homeschooling.

00:13:48.520 But we've learned positively that some provinces are very well geared towards homeschooling

00:13:55.240 and provinces that you wouldn't normally think that about.

00:13:57.840 So we're making progress exploring that.

00:14:01.800 Without any further ado, Witten Svahn, can you give us,

00:14:07.120 tell us uh about the gilfagening where it comes from what it is and uh feel free to go ahead and

00:14:17.540 start off with what you want our folks to know about it this evening so the the uh gilva getting

00:14:25.580 or gilfagening or i mean the the translation of it is is hard for a lot of um folks as far as um

00:14:32.900 exactly how it's kind of placed together i always say uh the uh gilfaginning the the

00:14:39.940 the tricking of king galfi the delusion of king galfi or the uh the kind of illusion of the mind

00:14:46.660 if you will um is uh is really snorri studleson's uh setting up of uh more or less a a handbook or

00:15:00.340 a manual for Scalds to utilize as a backdrop, a format, in order for them to continue on the

00:15:11.180 tradition of poetry. There are many different styles of poetry that were utilized, and

00:15:17.160 I think that this represents the corpus of lore as a story to be transformed into poetic

00:15:27.320 format. I think that was his first and foremost intention. I believe that Snorri Sturluson was

00:15:34.880 an Icelandic nationalist, especially given the time of politics with Denmark and with Norway.

00:15:42.880 And one of the key factors, I think, in his drive, almost in a sense of formulating

00:15:50.960 national pride was to keep the poetic formulations alive and to keep them going. And this, you know,

00:15:59.200 it's coming quite a long time after the conversion of Iceland in the year 1000.

00:16:07.360 You know, by the, by 1220, you know, Snorri Studlason and Saxo Grammaticus were starting to

00:16:17.360 really formulate their lore and build it together and it wasn't found till a lot later and actually

00:16:23.280 uh you know disseminated but it was more or less i think uh its intention was set early on

00:16:32.000 to uh and that's why like during the um uh gilvigining when you see a lot of things he

00:16:39.120 references other other scalds and he he talks he pulls from the poetic edas and shows that

00:16:46.880 the uh certain he mentioned certain skulls utilizing things in references to um the shields

00:16:53.760 of valhall or or um you know just in the turnings of of certain verses he'll say you know such did

00:17:01.920 braggie the wise or of uh you know of uh actually let me see i have one of their names right here

00:17:08.080 let me see

00:17:12.260 so while Svan's looking some of you might not know as far as Svan's street cred Svan is by

00:17:22.340 birth an Icelander so he's sharing some of the the nation of his births heritage and poetic

00:17:31.000 tradition with us tonight I always default to Svan on pronunciation and things of that nature

00:17:38.880 yeah um it says like thus says uh bragi the ancient scald that gavion drew uh from gelfi

00:17:47.760 gladly the waves drove freehold um so he's referencing how they would utilize it poetically

00:17:55.200 and when you get translations there are a lot of different translations but

00:17:59.200 you know the the idea of transferring meaning and also holding to a literative

00:18:04.400 alliterative format is the big uh i would say the biggest um hurdle that a lot of translators try to

00:18:14.000 do they they don't want to lose the meaning uh but they want to try to maintain the poetic format

00:18:19.600 uh predominantly being in foreign the old style of of alliterative rhyming in icelandic um yes

00:18:27.840 uh i was for a lot of people that might not know um i was born in iceland i was born in

00:18:33.680 in uh reykjavik um i grew up speaking icelandic until i was about six years old and then i moved

00:18:42.240 to the united states so that's why i don't have an accent i was the baby of the family and and uh

00:18:47.280 came here and my father is american but he um he worked for nato and spoke the language and for the

00:18:53.360 the longest time growing up i remember thinking that he was a police officer when he was in

00:18:57.920 uniform um he worked with nato up there and was a sub hunter so he was looking for uh russian

00:19:06.320 submarines and was working with them so uh as far as my linguistics go conversationally i i i would

00:19:13.280 not be so uh filled with hubris to proclaim i have conversational but pronunciation and uh reading it

00:19:22.800 and also uh being able to look through translations and kind of get an idea based off of other words

00:19:30.720 what they um may mean is a is the huge i think strength that me and you kind of often

00:19:37.680 uh you know pass around is the idea of what could these things mean um there's a a perfect example

00:19:45.520 is like with emir emir or a lot of americans call it you know yimmer uh the emir uh goes by another

00:19:54.720 name all our get our yelmer our yelmer the g is not a hard g uh and it and yelmer means to scream

00:20:03.360 or to roar or to uh primordial sound um an hour is often translated to being like clay but i think

00:20:11.120 it means shaping and so uh because it it denotes to what you can do with clay not necessarily clay

00:20:18.000 itself so the primordial shaping sound would be i think a more spiritual translation as opposed to

00:20:26.000 maybe a literal one or a poetic one so that's where i think for a lot of people to understand

00:20:33.280 my reasonings behind it is because it's coming from a spiritual point of view as opposed to

00:20:39.520 trying to keep the poetic or even the linguistic uh truth to it um and again these are my

00:20:48.320 interpretations but i you know interpretations are based uh you know every every uh publishing

00:20:53.440 company and and uh scholar and i am not uh by any means like a a schooled scholar i've just been a

00:21:01.440 believer since the early 90s and have long since just poured over a lot of the writings to try to

00:21:08.080 to make a better understanding from a spiritual perspective. Svahn may not be a lettered scholar

00:21:16.540 in these subjects, but he is a practicing priest of the Iser. He sits on the whiten of the Church

00:21:25.400 of the Iser in Midgard, certainly the largest and most successful real Al-Satru organization there 0.97

00:21:30.600 is. I think Svahn's expertise is self-evident when you hear him talk, but certainly

00:21:37.400 he is absolutely an expert in the field. The other thing I'd like to say

00:21:44.360 at this juncture, and Svahn brought it up,

00:21:49.260 word meaning is so very important. When you look at names,

00:21:55.920 if they're in a foreign language they may sound cool or different but names mean things and i

00:22:05.040 think that sometimes you know with the exception of a few of them in english we've lost that

00:22:09.940 connection between the name and its meaning that's extremely important in our lore

00:22:18.080 um the gods didn't come to us and introduce themselves by name the name was assigned to them

00:22:28.400 by worshipers based on perception of the deity uh it's very important to understand the names

00:22:37.760 for the high gods for their accoutrements and you know things associated with them but also for

00:22:45.900 you know the the lesser carry us characters in our myth cycle but etymology and understanding

00:22:54.440 names add such a depth to our lore I know a lot of you are already are already there and already

00:23:00.120 do it but for some of the new folks maybe take the time to you know go down those rabbit holes

00:23:06.900 of etymology as you read our lore and I think that your understanding will be much richer because of

00:23:11.540 yeah uh i'm looking at some of the comments on the side here um uh tracy adler brings up yeah

00:23:23.340 the gilva gilva gaining the f in the middle of the word is usually a v sound um so yeah gil

00:23:30.760 gilva is of course gilfee king gulfi um and his uh ginning is tricking of himself

00:23:38.640 And he goes by the name Gang Liri. Gang is the same as like in Wolfgang. It means to walk or to go, to travel the path, to take the stride. And his name Liri, kind of synonymous with like the word Liri, like a cautious, but in the Nordic sense, it means tired or kind of refusing to go further. 0.56

00:24:00.640 And so it's a tongue in cheek name that he he presents to the ice here. He says, you know, I'm just I'm travel weary. I'm over walking. Basically, it's kind of the joke behind it. My feet are tired. My dogs are barking. I'm done. So I'm here and I want to ask questions.

00:24:18.520 So Svahn, why is, why do we care? Why is the gilfagening of importance to us? 1.00

00:24:31.780 Well, there's, in overall, I mean, this is such a, I find a great point in which we, 1.00

00:24:38.320 we have to remember that the poetics, the stories that we normally talk about in story form come

00:24:45.120 from poem and in the um tricking of or in in the tricking of king uh galfi we see more of a story

00:24:55.280 format being supported by poetics and i think that's really important i um i have dabbled

00:25:01.280 around with poetry throughout my time and trying to you know in prayer and things like that but

00:25:07.440 i'm a storyteller at heart and um i think this is really important for us to remember that the

00:25:14.800 the the poetics are being formulated from stories that were spoken um and that that the elevation

00:25:22.800 of a poet was high somebody uh you know that was had a lot of land a lot of money they could afford

00:25:30.160 to have a poet in their hall memorizing these things and speaking to the to the folk and it

00:25:36.000 It was a treat, much like a musician.

00:25:39.820 And to hear these poems was beautiful, almost sing-songy, and had a lot of comedy and entertainment.

00:25:49.340 And so I think it's really important for us, firstly, to know that they come from stories.

00:25:56.500 But when we talk about religiously, there is a crossroads where this really happens to, one, us understanding the time and climate in which Snorri was in and kind of the material of the situation.

00:26:15.840 A lot of things that are confusing to people are the reasonings, which are unexplained and often speculated, about his euhemerism, the idea that he's writing the gods as humans.

00:26:29.240 And he does it in good faith. He does it in the premise that he is not trying to usurp the power of the church. He's trying to keep the poetic form alive for Icelanders.

00:26:53.000 And so it's generally accepted that Snorri was doing this in order to lessen the kind of the fervor that it would create in the people of Iceland.

00:27:04.100 So on the material level, we can kind of see that and it throws a lot of people off to the idea that, you know, they were humans.

00:27:12.900 But Saxo Grammaticus did this before Snorri and he did it not in good faith, being that he was a devout Christian.

00:27:19.400 So he kind of showed the gods as extremely mortal, extremely filled with avarice and oftentimes switching roles in which the gods of goodness were seen as kind of antagonistic or driven by mortal and earthly desires.

00:27:35.980 So even though Saxo does play some very interesting, like, I think, nuggets of lore and interesting things to ponder about, it's more so Snorty is better to look at to building or unraveling the spiritual nature of the writing.

00:27:56.680 And when we talk about it from the church aspect, I mean, obviously, a lot of people don't know certain things have already kind of been implemented.

00:28:06.300 The understanding of the 12 Aesir, or the 12 Aos, the male, the gods, or the masculine, and then the 12 Aosinir, the feminine, is brought up during this time in which Gangleri asks.

00:28:28.140 and it is said that the tripartite that he encounters explains to him that these are the

00:28:33.580 gods that we pray to. There are other divine beings that are encapsulating in heaven, and

00:28:41.020 there are not necessarily divine beings, but powerful primordial beings that we are all

00:28:48.040 interacting with, but these are the 12 that you should pray to. So a lot of times when people

00:28:54.980 see the sun and the sun and rod that's in a lot of the murals that i've been painting

00:28:58.900 the symbol of the 12 spoke wheel has become synonymous with um the 12 uh ouse and the 12

00:29:07.700 ousenier it's the the completion of the solar um aspect the idea of divinity in and of itself

00:29:15.540 the idea of being the the moving power around the axis mundi or around the ouse himself in the temple

00:29:24.980 So a lot of that, the aspects of the 12 became a huge part of the of the church.

00:29:32.920 I think one of the most notable things was the reconstruction of the holy tides.

00:29:38.900 For the longest time, everyone was kind of doing different things.

00:29:42.300 And as 12 became more of a prevalency in understanding and creating a foundation back towards everything that's being spoken of in the Gilfagining.

00:29:54.060 um we start to uh reiterate that through things so what ended up becoming of the the holy tides

00:30:03.900 making sure that we had 12. 12 was again another reiterated number of um you know structure order

00:30:13.340 amongst chaos and so taking from i guess the generally accepted eight and saying nope we are

00:30:21.260 going to do one a month and it's going to cover the the spans of the year and we'll have 12 and

00:30:28.460 so i think that that huge significance as as of recently i think if um anybody who's been around

00:30:36.700 long and has seen this maybe wondered why this transition happened uh we've had questions on

00:30:42.780 before about why sigur bloat and austera and all these things were moved around and um that was the

00:30:49.180 the reasoning, was to attain the order of 12, not necessarily to fill in the gaps, but to see that

00:30:56.980 the structure is solid in 12. How do we get there? What is the best way to achieve that order?

00:31:06.720 And that's, I think, one of the biggest things that's kind of come out of this

00:31:10.780 reading of, as far as substantiating it within the church.

00:31:16.540 so we're going to try something here figuring out the format of one of these topical shows

00:31:22.360 is a little bit different because we do have a lot of questions that pop up some of them relate

00:31:27.020 to the gill fagening and some of them don't relate to that at all so we're going to mix

00:31:31.760 it up a little bit please feel free to ask any questions you like but more questions about the

00:31:38.920 gill fagening the better but like i said any question you want to ask serious question will

00:31:44.300 give you a serious answer. I didn't mention this at the top of the program, but if you guys want

00:31:49.520 to participate in Super Chat or give us donations, you guys can do that on Entropy. Nick will throw

00:31:59.040 the Entropy link up. There we go. He's lightning. He's quick draw with this. I appreciate that.

00:32:05.980 Yeah, if you come over to Entropy, your Super Chats will get you to the top. I'll even interrupt

00:32:10.640 Svon if he's trailing on something and we'll get your question answered. But no matter what,

00:32:17.780 we will go to the end, try to answer any of your questions and you guys joining us late.

00:32:22.460 I missed two questions last time because they were at the very end when I was trying to sign

00:32:26.400 off, they popped on. But I did answer those at the top of this program. And I hope the folks

00:32:31.100 who asked them were able to hear those answers. Steve Mundy asks, Svon, tell us about yourself.

00:32:38.520 what led you to become a Witten? Oh, okay. They are kind of all over the place.

00:32:45.540 That's what I'm saying. I'm trying to read them. Coming into

00:32:51.940 placement within the church was kind of, I think, fortuitous and an interesting series of events.

00:33:02.280 I originally started a kindred here in Virginia, and it ended up moving into right at the dawning of attaining the temples, and I think that that mixed with needing to replace a folk builder in Virginia that had kind of ended up dropping out.

00:33:27.340 And so I for a lot of people that might not know is that our goth are have to become folk builders before they can become goth are and or go these pause.

00:33:37.640 We just had a gentleman give us one hundred dollars. Thank you so much.

00:33:41.420 So I'm going to say his I'm going to say his piece and then we'll get back to what we were saying, because I really do appreciate your donation.

00:33:48.540 Marcus says, good evening, folk. Just wanted to drop by and share a bit of my experience so far with the AFA.

00:33:55.920 i was able to head out to a backpacking moot in pa hosted by apprentice spencer i got there late

00:34:02.000 due to work and had to hike through the darkness long story short i got off trail and my brothers

00:34:06.960 dropped their activities and retrieved me through the darkness thank the afa well we're very glad to

00:34:12.880 have you as a member i'm glad you showed up i hope you had a good trip after your you're getting lost

00:34:17.840 experience and thank you so much for your donation so swan you were saying the metaphysics of that

00:34:25.920 uh if we we live in in in meta we live in the myth uh the myth and reality are uh coexisting

00:34:33.520 together that has a lot of mythical power just in what he said about um the afa will lead you

00:34:39.920 out of the darkness oh they'll yeah i mean that's the it even happened for me joining the astrophobic

00:34:46.640 assembly, coming in at four o'clock in the morning in the middle of the woods of Pennsylvania,

00:34:52.040 myself, for a national event very, very early on with my family in the middle of the night,

00:34:57.380 having Witten Erickson come out and immediately try to help me unpack and make sure that the

00:35:07.120 kids were fed and I'm fed and that there's hot coffee ready and available. It was such a powerful

00:35:13.020 moment, uh, especially just the fact that, um, Whitney Erickson didn't know me from anyone at

00:35:19.980 the time. And it was four o'clock in the morning and he was still receiving people in and waiting

00:35:26.180 for folks to, to get settled. And he was not betting down for himself because he knew that

00:35:30.960 people were on their way. So that's, that's a, that's a common theme that goes on, I think.

00:35:37.760 um so you're talking about your ascent through leadership and things that people may not

00:35:43.820 understand and when I did rudely cut you off but you gave a hundred dollars and I told folks I'd

00:35:49.060 interrupt you so I figured it'd be entertaining to do so no no no that's that's amazing um

00:35:55.080 yeah the uh the the um moment of becoming a folk builder was kind of more or less a chance to fill

00:36:03.200 a position that kind of emptied out and uh it was uh coinciding with a placing in a bid to be

00:36:14.240 part of the gothar program and those two ended up running almost simultaneously and then uh along

00:36:21.760 with the temples and um there was a lot of work towards getting the second temple um in you know

00:36:30.240 in the midwest or you know trying to work our way over and then something happened it was a

00:36:36.000 magical moment in which basically things happened here um and everything fell into place and so

00:36:43.040 i think all of that coinciding with the effort to put forth to find a temple uh to lock it down

00:36:50.560 and to to go through all the logistics of it and uh also at the same time going through the go

00:36:54.880 Gothar class. Also, mentoring has been a part of the Gothar program, and I think that a lot of

00:37:04.500 Gothar students may end up finding themselves in counseling positions and really trying their best

00:37:13.420 to do, and it's where the rubber meets the road. You end up showing the church that you're

00:37:19.960 physically capable of actually talking to people in in some of their darkest times and trying to

00:37:26.400 pull them out so there was some of that and i think this culmination kind of led to a moment where

00:37:31.020 the uh the folk builder oath and the gothar oath came at the same time for me

00:37:37.320 um that was i think odd or at least not of the run of the mill and um and then as

00:37:46.460 you know, the ascent towards more temples became a drive, some of the lessons that were learned

00:37:57.000 here on the East Coast ended up helping immediately produce Baldershof. And so

00:38:03.220 there was a lot of kind of a sudden surge. It was almost like as if everything, as if weird,

00:38:09.200 or all the Orla was starting to converge in this moment.

00:38:13.660 So I ended up, you know, becoming a Godi

00:38:21.140 and then having some really key members of the folk

00:38:26.720 starting to amass like around me

00:38:31.620 and they are now Gothar as well.

00:38:33.600 So that was a very interesting thing.

00:38:35.300 Like, uh, being able to see these, having eyes on the ground around these, uh, fine gentlemen that were doing a great job now, but having the ability to have eyes on made the East coast really light up and, um, really kind of, you know, be able to have that conversation that me and you have had built.

00:38:53.400 so now the east coast was kind of having somebody in the meat or in the fibers of it um

00:39:00.000 that helped a lot and then i think uh you know eventually i i i had to i had to go to midsummer

00:39:07.240 it was a very poignant thing for me to to walk into odinthof before the dedication of thorsoff

00:39:13.620 even though i had been to thorsoff and had been working on it and painting and doing all of these

00:39:18.680 things and groundwork and all of this construction uh that it was important that i i step into

00:39:25.260 odenshof so going to midsummer and that was when you uh surprised me with this uh proposition of

00:39:34.040 you know we see what you're doing we see are you willing to bring what you have

00:39:39.440 in and i said yes and didn't realize fully what that meant until it was dropped right in my lap

00:39:48.660 Okay, well, then we're going to bring you in as a Witten. Again, I joke and say that amongst the Witten, there's so many intelligent people on the Witten with structural, tangible, physical traits that bring things to the table.

00:40:08.000 And oftentimes I end up being more the ethereal, more the poetic, more the aesthetic and kind of undefined, I think, parts of the Witten that I find alleviating.

00:40:22.620 Sometimes I don't have the stress, I think, as perhaps the technical issues or money or law.

00:40:28.580 But it has been a beautiful ride that's brought us to as we're moving forward.

00:40:35.800 and of course the murals as well uh all of this stuff was being found out we uh i'd never done a

00:40:41.640 mural and now i was doing murals for the church so that's kind of how it came to be to answer that

00:40:49.000 question from uh so folks that uh you know everyone who's listened on our previous broadcast

00:40:58.360 on this one certainly um and folks who know him in real life know that uh spawn

00:41:05.640 was a very good choice to have on the witten um i got no buyer's remorse on that we've got we've got

00:41:13.320 great people on our witten and they help me immensely they help us unfortunately they often

00:41:21.400 help us in ways that maybe you guys don't see i'm very fortunate as i get a lot of spotlight

00:41:27.160 and some of these other uh men and lady who helped me on the whitten don't get as much but they are

00:41:33.160 so very very essential um spawns the guy that i it's and he mentioned this a little bit there's

00:41:43.240 other folks on there that have different uh technical skill sets that we certainly certainly

00:41:48.520 need um or there's guys that i talk policy with or you know long-term growth planning or this that

00:41:57.720 and the others fawn is the guy that i nerd out with talking about art and uh religious

00:42:06.280 fundamentals and ideology and in religious theory on and uh he is such a such a valuable advisor

00:42:15.080 in that and we have a really good synergy when talking about those kind of things

00:42:19.960 so i'm we're we're all very fortunate that spawns on the witten i in specific

00:42:25.640 am extremely fortunate to have spawn on the witten um very very

00:42:33.320 knowledgeable guy good guy and a really good friend of mine uh finn asks are there scholars

00:42:40.040 and people with degrees in the AFA. So I think there's probably more to the question. We've got

00:42:46.840 enough people that, of course, there's people with degrees. Lots of people have degrees and

00:42:52.180 all kinds of stuff. So yes, we absolutely have degreed people. We've got people with

00:42:56.120 bachelor's, master's. We have people with doctorates in the AFA. We have literal doctors

00:43:02.360 in the afa we have lawyers in the astro folk assembly um i think the question came up when

00:43:10.920 we were talking about being lettered in like linguistics or religious studies and things

00:43:16.040 that way and i'm not certain um we don't really pull everyone who joins on on what degrees they

00:43:22.040 may or may not have i don't know of any religious um like university lettered theologians that we

00:43:30.360 have or any linguists by university training that we have. But yeah, we have people of all

00:43:39.700 different levels of professionalism and of higher education within the Ask True Folk Assembly. 0.80

00:43:47.860 Nick asks, getting us back to tonight's theme, so the order of our Hoffs is from the Gilfaggining. 0.76

00:43:57.040 Um, why? Yes, it is, Nick. Yes, it is. I'm glad that you said that because it's something that 0.98

00:44:02.160 I wanted to mention. It's one of the reasons I say it's one of it's the reason that we're doing

00:44:07.040 this show on this topic tonight. Um, so one of the early conversations I remember having

00:44:18.960 when I first got involved in Ausatru in 2001, 2002.

00:44:25.100 So with the gentleman up in Alaska,

00:44:27.000 and again, that's 2001 or 2002,

00:44:33.680 and Ausatru has been going since,

00:44:35.920 in its modern incarnation, since 68.

00:44:39.880 So 40 years in, 34 years in, or whatever, anyways,

00:44:45.600 he was asking, and we were kind of pondering,

00:44:48.960 like what is it what gods do we believe in which gods do we worship and these really fundamental

00:44:55.360 questions stayed very nebulous because our source material is spread throughout the continent

00:45:04.320 throughout the british isles throughout scandinavia and over the course of a thousand

00:45:10.160 1500 years it makes it a daunting task to exhaustively figure out which gods exist which

00:45:19.680 gods who who do we call on who's this who's that there's all these endless questions and it was

00:45:25.920 time to come up with some answers so around 2014 a mentor of mine at the time a gentleman named

00:45:34.800 brad taylor hicks uh who was the second in charge of the afa at the time he and i were together and

00:45:41.920 we were we were contemplating this question and like okay so let's break it down to where we

00:45:48.400 simplify and one of the beautiful things about the gil fagening as opposed to it being a way to teach

00:45:54.800 poetry like so much of the rest of of uh the edda is in that way the gil fagening specifically is

00:46:03.360 a way to give background is a way to set up the cosmology of alsatru in a coherent way that made

00:46:10.160 sense to somebody who was seemingly unfamiliar you know all the way from the creation story

00:46:18.800 through explaining our gods explaining our goddesses explaining the the worlds and really

00:46:25.920 drawing that out in in a clear way and so that clarity is really important so that we stay

00:46:32.160 focused on what we do and we decided at that point that that's the order we were gonna that

00:46:39.440 those 12 are the 12 gods that it's beneficial for us to worship so we're going to start there

00:46:46.560 and that's what we're going to do um and at this time this is before we had odin sauce we had no

00:46:52.880 office at that point but those are the 12 gods we're going to focus our worship on and at that

00:46:58.080 point, we were resolved together and I was resolved internally to start rebuilding that bridge

00:47:07.780 between us and our gods in terms of our worship, in terms of our temples, in terms of how this was

00:47:17.200 going to go. And, you know, I didn't know I was going to be the one making those calls at that

00:47:22.400 point. But that was going to be a focus of what I was doing. Early on at Odinshoff, before it was

00:47:30.360 Odinshoff, it was initially called the Newgrange Hall. And we ran into a copyright issue with the

00:47:38.020 Grangers who had owned the hall before us. And this was, you know, this was a decision made

00:47:44.780 before i was i was calling the shots but very shortly after i took over we had to rename

00:47:52.860 the the hoff and it was essential and crystal clear to me at that moment that we needed to

00:47:59.820 dedicate that hoff to odin and that we were going to from there on however long it was going to take

00:48:07.020 us you know at this point had taken since 68 to 2015 to get our first half so in the decades to

00:48:15.820 come when we finally get a second half we're going to order them in this gilfaggening or order but by

00:48:22.940 re-establishing that bridge i think that has led to many many blessings for us and an acceleration 0.64

00:48:29.740 on all these things um five years later within five years we uh we got our second two hofs and

00:48:40.220 we stayed faithful to that naming scheme we just two years after that initial five seven years from

00:48:46.860 our first half we now have our fourth half and we're continuing in that process but yeah that's

00:48:53.580 why i wanted us to talk about the significance of this poem tonight and i'm glad that you asked that

00:48:58.460 question we got another donation of ten dollars thank you so much we appreciate it this question

00:49:05.260 is for both of us what book or piece of literature have you spent the most time in and why svan you

00:49:13.180 go first uh say that again the question question is for both of you what book or piece of literature

00:49:22.380 have you spent the most time in and why? Ooh, that's a good one.

00:49:36.220 Aside from runic books, I would have to say Hollander's translation of the Poetic Edas,

00:49:46.540 for me, uh, have always been the kind of the default to go back to, um, especially because

00:49:53.900 of both the symmetry of English that it utilizes and still maintains a poetic song about it. So

00:50:01.740 I feel it's not, I think the favorite amongst a lot of people and it's, I wouldn't even necessarily

00:50:07.560 say it's my favorite but it by far is my comfort food um uh book that i i always go back to

00:50:17.520 um and it kind of uh helps me work through translations helps me still keep the the poetic

00:50:25.480 pace and uh there is still this sense of kind of mythical power in it i can almost instead of as i'm

00:50:33.860 as i'm reading i can almost hear someone saying it to me um so yeah mine would definitely be

00:50:40.260 hollander's translation the poetic it is all right so this isn't the cool answer but it is the honest

00:50:48.020 answer the book or piece of literature i have spent the most time in is the new world translation

00:50:56.180 of the Holy Scriptures. The reason is first, the Bible is huge. And secondly, because I didn't know

00:51:07.560 my options, I spent a number of years, I've read through the Bible, I believe four times all the

00:51:13.780 way through, trying so hard to beat a square peg into a round hole. The reason I've spent more time

00:51:22.200 reading it than our literature is that ours sticks and makes sense. And I don't have to

00:51:27.800 play mental gymnastics to try to try to reconcile irreconcilable things in my mind. So I think

00:51:35.540 because it was, it didn't fit and it wasn't right. So I thought maybe I was missing something.

00:51:40.540 I spent an awful long time reading, reading my Bible over and over and over again until four

00:51:46.600 times through, I figured, nope, it's not me, it's Jehovah, and I'm going to go a different way.

00:51:53.440 But that's why I spent as much time as I did there. Bonkwekwe, a gentleman that donated the

00:51:59.780 $100. You had a couple of questions on the side. First, I just wanted to say, yes, Entropy does

00:52:06.340 take a fee. I mean, they're in it for something. Any of these companies that are monetized this

00:52:12.320 way do take a fee. Entropy's fee is lower than anybody else's. And Entropy is committed to free

00:52:18.300 speech and to giving a platform to folks with ideas that maybe aren't safe some other places.

00:52:25.940 So I really appreciate that. And I'm very happy to share with them. And they provide us a platform

00:52:32.460 for folks to donate in a different way that they wouldn't otherwise. So no, we appreciate your

00:52:37.900 donation here. This is a great place to do it. We come out on top. And the good folks at Entropy

00:52:43.320 that are providing a good service, they get a little bit of something too. So we're really

00:52:47.900 glad that you decided to donate that way. Sinister Warrior, do you have any vetting...

00:52:55.960 So, okay, I'll read the question, but I want to say something too. Do you have any vetting

00:53:01.380 procedures for new members, folk builders, and gothies? That new guy you posted in the community 0.99

00:53:06.980 tab looked like Antifa. First, thank you for coming on here and asking me to my face instead

00:53:15.800 of just making assumptions. I appreciate that. Yes, first, for leadership, absolutely. But even

00:53:24.420 for membership, we do. The gentleman you spoke about, Christian Penner, he's a well-known

00:53:31.200 quantity he is a feature up there at baldershoff his aesthetic is obviously not my aesthetic um

00:53:40.800 he's an artist he carved a really beautiful um a dumbla horn themed horn for the auction up

00:53:49.840 there at this last fall fest and it was it was a really beautiful piece uh good guy doing good

00:53:57.360 things i would make different fashion facial piercing choices obviously but

00:54:07.360 we don't want to be superficial obviously we have things you know it's not my aesthetic of choice

00:54:15.040 but we're going to get people that come from a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different

00:54:18.720 walks of life our people are are broad and vast and coming from a lot of different places

00:54:24.880 we live in 2022 and things that were normal for folks my age aren't normal for kids these days

00:54:34.860 coming up so everybody starts at a different place but in the same picture he's wearing a

00:54:39.800 he's wearing a shirt he's wearing a tie and he was a guy that stepped up for our church and said

00:54:44.580 hey i want to build this i want to build something for the icer i want to build something for my folk

00:54:49.860 and I want to try to make something happen. So we appreciate him stepping up. If he decides to

00:54:55.340 lose the nose ring, I'd be happy to see that. But either way, he's a solid guy. Next time I see him,

00:55:00.680 I'm gonna give him a hug. I assure you, he is not Antifa. But I'm glad you had the courage to

00:55:06.680 ask the question rather than to make snide comments on the side. Thank you for doing that.

00:55:11.620 But we do we take it seriously. And we do that, folks. $10 from Matthew Gordon. Thank you so much,

00:55:18.580 Matthew. We appreciate that. I work in a type of law enforcement. Any tips or ways to try and

00:55:24.620 connect to Heimdall? Svon, go ahead and take this first.

00:55:32.960 Yes, absolutely. First and foremost, being the steward of heaven. I think that Heimdall's

00:55:40.240 position as being the beacon of light, being the flame born of the waves, and being the

00:55:47.480 the bearer of of bivros the the flaming bridge is uh on a on a we could say on a structural level

00:55:56.900 very important all things we know all things we consider um however on a on a mythical level the

00:56:03.800 ideas of walking the righteous path of light being that which it projects out into the world

00:56:12.520 as a person who seeks to emulate the opening of a path and the stewardship of it.

00:56:23.940 The idea of Heimdall in association with his eyes, with his ears,

00:56:30.800 also this kind of correlates somewhat to like a passage of time,

00:56:34.800 an understanding that if the gods are in a sense of time of their own,

00:56:41.220 it's heimdallur who is connected deeply to the physical realm the world and to mankind to the

00:56:49.980 folk through time so he has an understanding of both godly time and material time so the

00:56:57.060 i i would say the essence of trying to make oneself a beacon praying to heimdall to

00:57:06.660 be that which can formulate people around them to in the darkest of moments or the easiest of

00:57:15.740 moments when someone as a police officer, even around other police, maybe, you know, I know that

00:57:23.340 in law enforcement, a lot of times dealing with repetitive darkness and chaotic elements

00:57:31.120 that seem to constantly pervade over the job can even leave effects on fellow officers.

00:57:41.320 So one of the biggest things I would say is that with Heimdallr, Heimdallr has always

00:57:47.040 been the beacon, has always been the path light that guides the gods back, that guides

00:57:53.840 the gods forward who guides the folk to to to evolve to be better to be stronger to be wiser

00:58:01.440 and to be more intelligent so the stewardship of of his power is in not only in right action i think

00:58:10.240 all the gods have that but to be a beacon of right action to be a beacon of moral uh and so i'll i'll

00:58:18.400 relate a simple little story is um there i have a police officer friend of mine who in the midst of

00:58:25.440 dealing with some you know felony gun charges and things like that he was he brought up the

00:58:30.480 point like hey are we are we substantiating our codes of ethics when it comes to gun ownership

00:58:37.840 involving these people are we making sure the criminality factor is being punished rightfully

00:58:42.880 and justfully but at the same time are we are we overstepping our bounds when it comes to

00:58:47.680 the ownership of of a firearm that those little things that he that he brought up while the other

00:58:54.320 uh officers were kind of focusing more on kind of the the defiance against the law and the

00:59:01.040 def and just even some of the blatant um you know uh criminality that they encounter the fact that

00:59:07.840 he said wait let's recheck ourselves let's make sure that we're staying noble let's reconstitute

00:59:16.000 our our minds and make sure that our deeds are in action with the mind that we don't pontificate it

00:59:21.200 later and after the fact but right now in this moment are we being noble and i think that is

00:59:27.440 the biggest point when you have devotion towards heimdall is about being in the present time and

00:59:33.200 moment understanding the progression of material time and recalibrating your noble mind and your

00:59:38.720 noble deed in those moments i think that's the the true power of heimdall so that's that would

00:59:45.360 be my take on that a note i'd like to make about uh heimdall one thing i think is particularly

00:59:53.840 noteworthy and relevant to your your career path is his vigilance and his ever you know he's on

01:00:02.080 guard he can hear the the hair growing on a sheep he can he can he's aware of these very very small

01:00:09.920 things staying vigilant keeping your head on a swivel i think that's a life skill when you're

01:00:18.080 in law enforcement that's really important but it's also important for the people that you protect

01:00:23.520 um i think in this day and age too often in law enforcement

01:00:30.880 things are just reactive but you know the the motto of so many of our law enforcement agencies

01:00:38.800 serve and protect the protective aspect of staying on guard staying vigilant keeping your ear to the

01:00:46.000 street knowing what's going on and being aware of your surrounding that situational awareness

01:00:51.920 i think by practicing that with excellence you honor heimdall i think you also keep yourself

01:00:59.600 and those who you look after safe and so i would think that vigilance would be something to focus

01:01:04.960 on in your in your pursuit that way um uh sage sylvania says the black sun seems it has different

01:01:15.920 meanings for different groups what does the black sun represent to the afa well i think it's

01:01:28.400 it's good that you point out that it has different meanings to different groups

01:01:32.320 because it's such an ancient powerful symbol i'm sure that it does and i think you know i

01:01:40.240 there's absolutely a right way and a wrong way to do things but sometimes there's a lot

01:01:44.560 of right ways sometimes a symbol is powerful and it means things on different levels

01:01:50.880 and that's what's beautiful about so much of our myth cycle um i think on one of its levels

01:01:57.840 it's a solar symbol like anything else but in one of its more advanced forms because 12 is always a

01:02:05.120 very solar number with the months in the year and the 12 spoke version of the black sun is really

01:02:13.600 important that way it's a symbol of power it's a symbol of destiny it's a symbol that marks out

01:02:19.680 those 12 spokes of something um i think it's also beneficial to know that it's a very ancient

01:02:29.680 symbol um it in various forms very similar to to the version that we use is found in uh in very

01:02:38.240 ancient uh bronze work i believe in uh alamonic finds so it has a really broad history and i think

01:02:47.840 it of course it's going to have different associations to different people at different

01:02:52.240 times um i think it also has a lot to do with that rotation that's fond of speaking about

01:03:00.960 earlier around a central point i think that in some of the more popular um conceptions of it

01:03:07.920 it has an Arthurian context to a pole or a seated sacred king with rotating circle like the round

01:03:23.500 table around it with knights and thanes that surround him. And I think that's the context

01:03:29.640 that it was used in the 30s in Germany in Wevelsberg Castle.

01:03:37.420 And we're not ignorant that that's a very common place where it was found,

01:03:41.080 but the reasoning for it wasn't something sinister.

01:03:44.320 The reason was something very empowering from our folk soul.

01:03:47.340 And it's something that the ancient Germanic tribes tapped into.

01:03:51.840 That that sunwheel evolution is something really interesting to watch in Bronze Age European cultures.

01:04:01.040 What do you have to add on that? It's fun.

01:04:04.380 Just kind of piggybacking off of what you said, I think that it's worth noting that the construction during the Third Reich and its meaning going into this.

01:04:18.100 A lot of people, I think, retrograde a lot of their meanings after. I think that the title, Svarsana, kind of came about from esoteric circles long past the 1930s and 1940s.

01:04:32.100 Um, you know, it's, there, there is a lot of deeply esoteric meanings when you talk about the idea of light and the, the true light of things, uh, or, or things that are hidden and that shall be revealed.

01:04:48.960 um but yes it's often all all too forgotten of how far it goes back i wish i could say that like

01:04:57.140 perhaps if four four legs meant something six legs meant something and then there's a progression of

01:05:03.160 numbers to 12 uh but there seems to be some randomness as far as that is correlated um

01:05:09.020 without any reference of meaning because most of it's archaeological um so we yeah we are left to

01:05:14.500 of find meaning and that's the beauty of symbols is is uh we can take those meanings and we can say

01:05:23.060 yes we see the truth in that but we also see the truth in this or we see the truth in that

01:05:28.340 symbols have multiple meanings and again for us now in this moment like as as uh the mythos of

01:05:37.620 our church is growing it is a symbol of the divinity it's a symbol of the organization

01:05:43.460 against chaos it's the symbol of of light against dark it's the symbol of the awareness of the

01:05:49.940 gods uh and so we take that symbology um to that level uh i so i that's i mean i would say in

01:05:58.580 predominance you know calling it uh the schwarzena or you know some people would i've often heard

01:06:04.980 people in the temple call it sun wheel or the son and rod uh so you know when we have these names

01:06:11.300 we all know and we're not trying to shift anything in reality i think it's just we're

01:06:17.780 understanding that there are multiple layers that uh give it meaning and first and foremost i think

01:06:25.460 right now is the meta of the moment is the most important and in a lot of ways it's the power of

01:06:32.740 the sacred it's that solar power writ large in a rotational capacity of projecting

01:06:40.420 um that power that might that solar grandiosity and we use that in our iconography to denote

01:06:50.740 gods gods have a golden uh sorts on a around their head in in all of our murals it represents

01:06:59.560 divinity for us because of that power and you probably haven't had a chance to see this yet

01:07:05.120 because we're still working on some of the art but for mortals it'll be a it'll be a red

01:07:09.780 version of that same symbol. But it's a very powerful and very sacred symbol to us and one

01:07:15.800 we're very proud to use. Sunshine sucks with another $10. Thank you so much. We really

01:07:22.300 appreciate it. We're glad you're here. We're glad you're here on so many of these. We appreciate

01:07:26.180 our audience here. We're at the top of the hour again, so I'm going to let everybody know if you

01:07:31.280 want to join us on Entropy, you can throw dollars at us or you can get your questions moved up to

01:07:37.260 front of the line we appreciate those who've already donated we appreciate those who are

01:07:41.820 going to donate we appreciate anybody who's not going to donate who just has questions for us

01:07:47.900 we will get to all your questions and answer them as very best as we can but thank you guys for

01:07:52.780 being here tonight i guess another top of the hour thing for folks who weren't here earlier

01:07:58.620 tonight and from here on out we are simul broadcasting on twitter which is really cool

01:08:03.660 i'm excited to do that i think we've got a couple of people who don't normally see us that get to

01:08:08.140 now because of that so that's a really good thing i appreciate nick for figuring that out

01:08:13.580 uh cody asks fawn would you say the gil fagening was a precursor to you picking up your storytelling

01:08:21.260 style uh yes and no uh i wish i could say yes or no but um there's so

01:08:33.420 much of the lore in the uh gilfagining that uh you can't i mean this is what this is the deep root

01:08:42.620 of what we had i think this is where odin um encapsulated the mysteries of a lot of things

01:08:48.540 wrapped in a lot of more of the material and an understanding uh that you know snorty was going

01:08:56.860 to portray the gods as mortals but in this portrayal as we go we see so much of these

01:09:03.260 secrets and and the divines and there are little things that i would i would uh in my stories

01:09:08.460 telling style kind of um look into try to unravel some of those secrets so i think that um the the

01:09:16.540 corpus of the lore is deep and numerous but there are little things that are worth noting that that

01:09:24.780 i in my stories i try to um preface um different things from uh the formulation of ad humla

01:09:34.860 uh being from the proto matter of the universe uh in niflheim um to uh uh everything from

01:09:45.100 the tripartite that's being presented before gang leary in which he does see the high one and

01:09:51.580 he sees even high which uh it even meaning leveled with the same height as the high one

01:09:59.740 and the third or three and um so the tripartite concept uh i think is being presented there

01:10:07.340 pretty clearly even though maybe even snorty wasn't necessarily um trying to present it as

01:10:16.620 as a kernel of knowledge that connects us to other Aryan branches of our faith.

01:10:23.220 So my storytelling, I think, takes a little bit more leeway into trying to reveal little hints

01:10:30.020 that help spurn thought as to why things might be presented in a certain way,

01:10:35.780 why there might be two horses as vehicles for the sun and two horses as vehicles for the earth,

01:10:41.660 but only one vehicle for the moon and out of those three celestial bodies um the moon is the

01:10:48.460 only one that doesn't have its own access it doesn't have its own rotational so that i think

01:10:53.580 is a kernel of deeper truth that isn't necessarily uh placed out there and sometimes in my storytelling

01:11:01.260 i'll try to leak those things in as just a proponent of thought that our ancestors and

01:11:06.860 their knowledge may very well have been or the fact that the gods gave this knowledge

01:11:12.460 to us even if king galfi is uh seen as a a real man or as seen as uh a king of men

01:11:24.540 uh the the idea that uh the nobility learning power from the gods um and then transferring

01:11:30.540 it to the people uh i think is important i think that that's so i will um oftentimes

01:11:38.380 try to pepper those little things into my storytelling

01:11:44.460 so lawrence thank you so much 10 canadian dollars you seem to be with us every week and we really

01:11:50.940 appreciate you uh good evening gents the esoteric direction of the conversation just took reminded

01:11:57.340 me of the book the lightning in the sun by sabitri devi have either of you read it and if so what are

01:12:04.860 your thoughts on it thanks and bless swan have you read it if so what's your thoughts i have not read

01:12:11.980 it in its entirety i've only read excerpts from it um i i have well in particular a lot of my um

01:12:23.100 And my tackling of the Aryan branches of the Hindu, I guess, branch has been, I guess, slow going would be the best way I would say because I feel like a lot of our lore does have a huge placement to start from.

01:12:47.180 so i'm not always gravitating towards comparative um especially the when we talk uh beyond say like

01:12:55.660 the um the rig veda and so i would admit i'm slow going in that film in that path so i have read

01:13:05.100 the book and i um i really like it like it first i like historical biography stuff and i think that

01:13:15.740 you know two-thirds of the book is is that at least um but the cons the basic concept there

01:13:24.780 of the uniting of dynamic action and timeless spirituality is so very essential to what we do

01:13:37.900 you. I think all too often there's a disparity between physical might and intellectual might,

01:13:48.300 or spiritual might rather, and it's a disservice. I think the ideal for our folk always has

01:13:55.880 been and always will be a man of action, but also a man of deep insight. And so often we

01:14:05.640 don't have that we have people with beautiful brilliant minds that never get out of their mom's

01:14:11.880 basement and never affect the world around them to where all of their their deep thinking and

01:14:18.360 their deep spirituality becomes masturbatory um or we have amazingly capable people that

01:14:26.360 spend that capability in criminality, in thuggery, or in corporate ways that don't advance our folk

01:14:37.880 and just advance capitalism. And there's merit to a lot of those different things in a lot of

01:14:42.560 different ways. But what propels our folk forward is the man that has both of those things, that

01:14:49.820 dynamism in both areas can truly advance our people and it's it's nice when we can see that

01:14:59.420 the best leaders in history are folks that have that depth of soul to them but that are that

01:15:06.460 aren't either priests or or warriors that are priest kings that are are good and powerful in

01:15:14.220 both of those realms and i think that's the ideal and you see that you see that in the idea of the

01:15:20.300 chakra vartan in in the vedic understanding of things he transcends the the cast of brahmin and

01:15:27.900 kshatriya and has the best of both as he projects it out i was reading a book on that recently

01:15:33.500 uh perfect leadership by um um frank morales uh acharya what were you saying spawn

01:15:44.220 was going to say in deferring to that subject itself like i would immediately go towards say

01:15:49.340 uh evola's metaphysics of war uh or the you know the concepts of the um the the righteous act

01:15:59.180 or the righteous man of deed and the righteous man of thought but yeah no absolutely and and i

01:16:06.300 and i think that evola touches on that theme a lot in his conception of tradition is that

01:16:12.220 being that pinnacle of where those things meet and what's best is you're not not an effete uh

01:16:20.700 priesthood or a uh a violent mob of thuggery but having the divine and action in one place

01:16:31.180 in one uh one center uh corey asks what is the difference between whitton's and gothe's slash

01:16:40.780 githias it's fine you want to break that down uh sure the the wheaton the wheaton is a council

01:16:49.260 uh from the anglo-saxon word a member of council generally a droton or a driton would seek counsel

01:16:58.220 from his elders or his his peers or uh people that had earned merit in order to best see a pathway

01:17:07.980 way that might help. It's by no means a form of democracy. I would say it's more of a less

01:17:15.840 upon the leader's wisdom to have people at his side that he can defer to, to ask about thoughts

01:17:27.720 that are coming or reacting to things. And this echelon of counselors is small. And I think that

01:17:39.200 the Gothar are more or less like a council to the folk in their area and presiding over building

01:17:46.720 divine relationships with the gods in their local areas, either through temples or through kindreds

01:17:52.180 or large groups of community, whether they're individuals or not.

01:17:57.320 And so that I think would be the biggest difference is that a godhi gives counsel to the folk

01:18:02.160 and the wittens can be godhis.

01:18:05.960 And then the wittens then give counsel if sought by the alzheria godhi,

01:18:10.900 the highest of the godhis, whether it's proactive or reactive. 0.85

01:18:17.320 I think that's the difference between a witten and a godhi.

01:18:22.180 So, and this is one of the reasons that Svon is so valuable to me.

01:18:29.260 He hits this from an entirely different angle than I would.

01:18:32.800 It's a rank structure. 0.99

01:18:34.880 In order to be on the Witten, you need to be a Gothi first. 0.99

01:18:40.260 And in order to be a Gothi, you need to be a Fulp Builder first.

01:18:44.040 So it's very much a hierarchy structure in that sense.

01:18:47.520 but it's not there's more to it uh when you're selected to be on the witten and witten is a

01:18:57.340 word in anglo-saxon that means wise man and it also means a council of wise men so like moose

01:19:05.780 plural or moose singular swan is a witten swan is also by merit of being a witten he sits on the

01:19:14.600 Witten. And that may be confusing, but I didn't make the Anglo-Saxon rules. It's people, it's our

01:19:26.260 priests within our church that are of a certain level of wisdom that they sit on my counsel to

01:19:38.860 advise me on things and to help me steer the AFA in the right direction or help me think of

01:19:44.340 things that maybe I didn't think of, or in a way that I didn't think of, or to come to me with

01:19:49.760 ideas and plans of things they want to do to get approval or for us to talk about and plan

01:19:57.700 together on. So the Witten, just this is outside the scope of the question, but so folks know,

01:20:04.240 twice a month, the Witten meets and we have, you know, discussion on all kind of AFA topics,

01:20:11.360 on future planning, on, you know, management things, on ideological things, on whatever

01:20:20.360 happens to come up. And we've got very important people on the Witten. We have

01:20:25.080 folks on the Witten have all been on this program, except our law speaker, Alan Turnage,

01:20:30.840 and he is scheduled to join me next week for the next edition of this. But on the Witten is

01:20:37.700 Svon Harrell, Clifford Erickson, Brandy Callahan, and our law speaker, Alan Turnage.

01:20:46.460 So we are very well served by those folks.

01:20:51.460 Bonkwi, what are some Hoff Customs and courtesies? 0.97

01:20:58.140 Take it away, Svon.

01:21:01.380 First and foremost, I think every temple has its structural differences.

01:21:06.340 Ovens Hof is a hub of communication you definitely find the hall to have a gathering space where

01:21:14.900 people are then the children are running around people are talking there's a lot of communication

01:21:19.140 and ideas being passed and a great amount of the devotional practice has been conducted outside

01:21:28.500 namely because of great weather the idea that it's you know very warm and and generally amicable

01:21:34.820 with you know a low amount of rain um so you'll find courtesies different at odin's hof as opposed

01:21:42.660 to thor's hof uh thor's hof has two buildings and we have one that's the hall and we have one that

01:21:48.580 we call the hof as a as a building and then the sanctuary we call the vey and in the vey um there

01:21:56.500 might be rules there uh but you know we do a lot of our devotionals indoors because our weather

01:22:03.700 can be sporadic um in the uh east coast so different different hoffs have different um

01:22:11.460 senses of etiquette i would say overall and overarching is that um what is uh kind of

01:22:18.180 formulated is the entrance or procession into sacred space the idea of moving from the mundane

01:22:24.340 into sacred um often is predecessed by a walk or a march of the folk so you'll find that to be a

01:22:33.220 very common uh thing between all the temples the idea of of of moving into the temples

01:22:41.140 via the north uh the doors usually face the north uh and that was not necessarily even planned that

01:22:46.980 just it's the way that gods work um as it's just been notably done uh it's we retrospectively

01:22:55.140 looked at it and seen that they face the north um the uh the other thing i would say is especially

01:23:01.700 an indoors and entering into a vei generally the vei is not seen as so sanctimoniously cut off

01:23:10.100 from the gods that you can't go in there to do work to talk to have fun as well even at thorsoff

01:23:16.420 in the in the uh sanctuary people are having fun doing classes talking about certain things

01:23:22.180 sometimes the the women folk they want to have a class on their own so the men folk will gravitate

01:23:26.740 to the vey or vice versa. And so it has double functions. But when we move into sacred space or 0.90

01:23:32.200 into the act of giving gifts, oftentimes the biggest tradition that I've noticed is

01:23:36.280 upon entering, we do move around the center of the room in a sun-wise fashion. And we often look

01:23:45.580 towards the godsteads, whether it's obviously in the temples, it's in a mural format, but this

01:23:52.300 this stead the steading of the of the gods is uh particularly dedicated to a god and it is open for

01:24:00.460 him to hear us to sit amongst us to to preside over us and and receive our blessings and oftentimes

01:24:08.140 the first thing that's done is when we enter in is you know we uh present ourselves in the algae's

01:24:14.620 runic uh position of divinity holding our hands up 45 degree angle and we usually say hail to

01:24:21.260 the godstead that uh where the god is presiding so uh you know hailing thor hailing north hailing

01:24:28.060 balder uh hailing odin and this um formulation has kind of become organic and it's that's

01:24:35.660 one of the interesting things about us being a living religion so just a couple of examples

01:24:42.620 yeah it's interesting i think that there's probably much more of those

01:24:46.540 hoff customs than then we realize and i think they do happen very organically one thing that svan

01:24:53.500 just mentioned that takes place at all of our hoffs is that procession and it may happen at

01:25:00.300 different times depending on the occasion but the folk processing in front of of the altar

01:25:07.500 and throwing their hands up in the algis position and hailing the god that's that's present in that

01:25:13.340 Hoff. Um, that happens. We bless meals at our Hoffs. Um, our ritual action is always done in

01:25:23.960 a sun wise way, unless there's, you know, a specific reason to, to counter that for some

01:25:29.780 reason. Um, our, I'm very fortunate. I get to travel all over and I've been to all of our Hoffs

01:25:41.200 and in very familiar with all of our Hoffs when we have our folk that travel and go to a different

01:25:49.080 Hoff for the first time they all are aware that the mood or the energy or what goes on at each

01:25:56.780 Hoff is very unique in its own ways and that's something you have to kind of feel to understand

01:26:03.300 I think Svon mentioned some of it has to do with seasonal things you know the Hoff in in Baldur's

01:26:09.580 Hoff in Minnesota is obviously going to be different than yours Hoff in Florida, as far

01:26:15.140 as, you know, stuff they do inside stuff, they do outside and things as far as, as that

01:26:20.100 goes.

01:26:21.400 Um, but yeah, I'm curious because I think that there's more than, uh, there's more customs

01:26:26.860 there than I think either spawn or myself really realize.

01:26:30.100 Well, even like dressing, dressing up, uh, that's a, that's a thing that a lot of people

01:26:34.920 try to wrap their heads around.

01:26:36.040 Some people have a visceral negative reaction to dressing up before the gods, and I find that kind of laughable and funny, but it is a custom, and the idea that a lot of times when we show up, we're doing work immediately, setting things up, so we're not dressed in ties.

01:26:53.400 and usually we're in shirts and and work clothes as we're moving about but there's a certain moment

01:26:58.520 where uh there is a time and some people do show up dressed immediately they don't have a they don't

01:27:05.240 have a chance to dress over so um they'll show up and other people show up in what they can

01:27:11.320 and i mean obviously we know that uh you know from the havamol and the the premise that when you show

01:27:18.440 up you show up with what you have and what what you're best to be seen in before the gods um

01:27:25.080 you know and i think a lot of people take that into uh you know do we dress up in the old way

01:27:31.240 do we dress up in the modern way and of course for our church it's always them that's another

01:27:36.280 custom is to present yourself in in the the clothing of your people uh you know if uh

01:27:43.720 when when a japanese businessman is dressing in tie he's dressing western he's dressing like a

01:27:50.920 western man that's known or in china or something of that nature so this is a cultural um attainment

01:27:57.540 and that so i think dressing up is part of the custom of a lot of our temples especially when

01:28:04.600 it comes to the time of gift giving um but that varies depending on if we're outdoors

01:28:09.400 the weather and things of that nature so guys dress nice you when you look good you feel good

01:28:17.140 and you tend to act like your best self and when you're looking good and you're feeling good you're

01:28:23.180 in a spot to present your best self before our gods uh sarah asks is also true the same as

01:28:31.020 Wotanism or Odinism? Fundamentally, yes. I think that if this question were asked

01:28:42.220 10 years ago, the variance between people who would call themselves different versions of those

01:28:49.400 three would be greater. I think that if the question were asked 20 years ago, the distance

01:28:56.180 would be even greater. I think in 2022, yes, they are the same thing. Folks who are really in the

01:29:05.360 know or have a lot of inside baseball on if someone calls themselves an Odinist or a Wotinist

01:29:12.260 would imply certain things that may be in common with folks that identify as also true and may be

01:29:18.660 different culturally but fundamentally those three are all the same thing in this day and age

01:29:27.940 those three all imply that the person practicing is heavily folkish and that our folk and our race

01:29:36.280 is very important to them um and i think if you ask people that are hardcore don't want to call

01:29:44.620 themselves as a true like, no, I'm a Wotenist, or no, I'm an Odinist. There's little baggage here

01:29:51.960 and there, but I think fundamentally on the core things, we're reunited in core worldview.

01:30:00.460 And then this brings us to the question of the night, and I have to assume they

01:30:04.500 skipped ahead and went to the website, because this is something that I planned on talking about. 1.00

01:30:10.800 we have some gilfaggening questions in the in the queue after this though that will get us back on 0.99

01:30:15.440 that topic because this is liables to send us send us spiraling in a very exciting and fun direction 0.95

01:30:22.240 uh vril vanier asks what's sigerheim well let me tell you about sigerheim all right so

01:30:32.800 i've been being a little bit coy with you guys for a number of months now as folks have asked

01:30:37.760 questions about the idea of intentional community and i told you hey pay attention for the next

01:30:43.920 couple of months and i got something exciting to tell you so i talked about announcing that tonight

01:30:48.720 i'm very excited to announce that to you guys tonight um we are well underway in our our next

01:30:58.800 big afa project and that is sigerheim sigerheim means victory home and the basic idea is to

01:31:08.560 establish an afa capital on some acreage of land to where we'll have uh afa members living on the

01:31:17.920 land in a community together we're also that will be the home of tiershoff it will be also the home

01:31:27.120 of a of a great hall that we will host events at it will be a spot where we can have guest

01:31:36.640 facilities for people who come out to to share with us there for our afa family that

01:31:42.960 are going to come out there also an idea of some of the guest quarters is to be able to take care

01:31:48.000 of any of our elderly or our infirmed or folks that find themselves on hard times

01:31:54.000 can come and spend time there. The idea is really to build that home of the Asa True Folk Assembly,

01:32:01.680 that sacred center from which the rest of these things can revolve around and where people have

01:32:06.800 a spot that's theirs that they can come and enjoy the hospitality of their AFA family and be well

01:32:13.280 taken care of. If you go to that, so Nick threw up the link there. To do big things takes big

01:32:22.660 dollars and we need help we need donations we need generosity in making serious things happen

01:32:28.900 in the world if we want to see those things manifest um but if you go there to that donate

01:32:34.900 link you can read a kind of the vision statement that i wrote on that and i'll put that out on our

01:32:41.140 other social media later but i think it's worth a reading it's telling you you know where i'm

01:32:46.660 coming from with the idea. I've been hesitant to even voice this dream aloud because so many

01:32:55.220 people have come before and said they were a gonna and never have. It's been something that's

01:33:04.500 been dangled in front of me in various different ways by Ausatruth since I became involved, and

01:33:09.460 we have yet to see it come to fruition in a meaningful way, and that's all fixing to change.

01:33:15.140 when i say we're serious we've had people look at property we're we're right there we're right

01:33:20.580 on the cusp of making stuff happen now so you guys know this is a generational project

01:33:25.460 i make no claims that it's all going to be immediately perfect on day one it's not

01:33:30.580 on day one it's going to be a piece of land and uh down the road when we have the funds when

01:33:36.660 we're able to and when we have the support the hoff will happen there the hall will happen there

01:33:42.100 The guest facilities will happen there. The dream will be realized over time and with the commitment of solid folk who want to see things happen.

01:33:49.940 But this is the dream. It's been the dream of many generations of Alcetruer, and it's a dream that will be shortly realized.

01:33:56.320 And it's a dream that I plan to move to and be a part of with my family.

01:34:00.860 So I'm putting it out there. It's a little bit scary because you speak it into existence.

01:34:04.960 It's Svon talked about, to go back to the Gil Faggining for a minute, that idea, the magical idea of speaking something into shaping, of shaping something by words.

01:34:16.540 And that's, I guess, what I'm doing right now is projecting that this is something I'm going to do out in reality.

01:34:23.040 And I'm going to be accountable for the success or failure of that.

01:34:26.840 And we are going to win. We're going to win big and we're going to win together.

01:34:30.800 So very excited about it. I hope you guys are excited about it, too.

01:34:34.960 Like I mentioned, we need all the help we can get on that.

01:34:38.160 So if you can go donate there, if you can send your friends who are on the same basic page as us, if they want to help us out, we really appreciate it.

01:34:48.200 You don't have to be a member of the AFA to donate.

01:34:50.520 You don't have to be Alistair to donate, but would really appreciate it.

01:34:54.460 It's a dream I'm very excited about and I have a hard time keeping contained about that I annoy my friends and my wife about.

01:35:01.740 So it's a thing.

01:35:03.100 We're happy to answer any questions.

01:35:04.600 you guys might have on that as we move forward.

01:35:11.060 So that's what Sigurheim is.

01:35:16.260 And I appreciate the people that I've talked to on the back end that have not spilled the beans

01:35:20.600 about Sigurheim to everybody because it's hard to be contained about something you love

01:35:24.940 and something you're excited about. Rowdy Dude asks, is the topic piece of literature

01:35:30.300 a stand-alone piece, or a part of a bigger collection? Svan, break it down for us.

01:35:37.300 No, so the Gilfaginning is part of, I would say, three pieces. The Skald Skarpismal, 0.73

01:35:46.100 or basically the rules of the Skalds and the way that it can be spoken about, or the rules of

01:35:55.560 poetry and uh last is the uh the list of kennings a kind of a corpus of lore for the skulls to use

01:36:03.320 and it's very very interesting because they're they kind of um allude to either common things

01:36:10.200 war things or divine things um the idea of um the multiple namings of emir are kind of listed there

01:36:17.960 as well um in which you know the idea that like uh brim near uh the brimming one or a blau near

01:36:27.400 the blue uh and all yelmer the shaping screamer uh are all part of that so there's a lot of cool

01:36:36.120 uh poetic things i think that are worth looking into and oftentimes it's glossed because um

01:36:43.400 there's only a few stories in the uh gilfagening that has uh um things but for instance like one

01:36:50.680 that most everybody knows is is thor's uh it's often referred to as thor's trip to jotunheim

01:36:55.560 or thor's travel to jotunheim that's in uh placed within the uh uh gilfagening so there's a lot of

01:37:04.840 stuff there but it it does have as it goes into the latter half or the the latter uh two-thirds

01:37:12.680 it's more driven towards poetics but there's a lot of mysteries to be gleaned in some of the

01:37:17.800 kennings there so yes it is not just only there's three pieces all right so fawn asks first

01:37:30.040 congratulations fawn we're happy to have you as as our newest apprentice folk builder in

01:37:35.560 the austro folk assembly i think highly of fawn known for a few years i think she's going to do

01:37:41.720 great things uh throughout the new york's off district but currently she's in oklahoma 0.94

01:37:48.360 uh fawn asks since the gilfaggening speaks on ragnarok how is that displayed in reality

01:37:55.160 microcosm macrocosm is it the future past present all three yes font anyway 0.97

01:38:05.560 yeah i was gonna say the same thing yes um no the beauty of and i think the power of odin in

01:38:15.000 his correlation to um folding and weaving this this seed that would surpass into this

01:38:25.160 through the dark ages and through the times where the expression of the folk to their gods was going

01:38:31.820 to be greatly tested. The beauty of it is that the application of meta or mythic language applies in

01:38:42.320 all levels of timing. You know, so some people can speculate in different schools of trying to

01:38:49.960 understand germanic mythology they have placed of course uh euhemerism and the idea that they're

01:38:55.160 they're humans or that there's a vegetative cycle to them and there's some sort of a premise around

01:39:01.320 nature uh or sometimes they go based on arian tribal structure and government that's like a

01:39:08.760 dumazil in his structuralism um but overall when you read them yes it applies that the timelessness

01:39:16.280 of it i've heard a perfect example would be and again i'll address ragnarok but uh the binding

01:39:23.080 of fenris or fenner wolf in in his binding some people have argued perhaps this is some sort of

01:39:31.240 mythological connection to the uh germanic people making certain agreeances with rome and obviously

01:39:39.160 the wolf in connection to the founding of rome uh that's the beauty of of the the the language

01:39:46.840 and the stories of the gods is that they are timeless and they interlap with everything in

01:39:52.920 the moment and in the past and thus into the future um so we yes we can project the understanding of

01:40:02.120 ragnarok um and seeing balder both as uh presiding as the heart of the of the folk soul uh the heart

01:40:10.280 of the gods seeing the death and the uh the value of of the the outsider guiding the hand of the

01:40:18.120 blind brother against the heart of the folk and the gods and him descending and then him rising

01:40:24.520 again as being all of those um and so i think it's a disservice for us to strictly think of

01:40:31.960 things in a logical or linear pathway but to see them as more of a a coiled spring that's compressed

01:40:38.920 all into one moment so and this has taken a long time to make sense to me as well so if

01:40:45.800 it's a strange concept i understand that um the mythic takes place in mythic time and mythic time

01:40:56.600 is very different than historical time than linear time it doesn't make it any less truthful

01:41:04.680 but so many things are simultaneous in a mythic sense the story and the value

01:41:12.120 of those cycles play out in millions of microcosms and millions of macrocosms

01:41:21.880 you find those cycles in your own life you find them in the life of your community

01:41:29.480 you find them in the the life of races and the life of nations um perhaps you find them in the

01:41:35.960 life of galaxies uh as it is one of the things that i think is most beautiful when i think about

01:41:42.200 this period in the astro folk assembly i think about this in terms of when when the waters

01:41:49.640 recede and the gods come back after ragnarok and they set the table up right and they replace the

01:41:55.480 pieces and they reset up what was once holy we're reforging that bridge we're reforging

01:42:04.840 that golden age and we're a part of it right here and right now sigurheim that i just talked about

01:42:11.240 is such a huge plank in that we are currently on you know it the vol restructuring that holy center

01:42:21.800 that place for our folk and it's really special to be a part of that uh nick reminded me on the

01:42:27.320 side as i was talking about some some sigurheim stuff folks that have construction abilities

01:42:34.200 we will need you folks that have any kind of cad or architectural skills we've got some really cool

01:42:41.400 projects that we need help on so if you've got that if you know that if you have people who do

01:42:47.160 that that are in our circles please send them our way we've got some really cool ideas on stuff we'd

01:42:52.920 like to do and see happen um but we're at a very exciting time and i'm happy to be here with you

01:42:58.760 guys uh mace asks any thoughts on theodism or more anglo-saxon influenced aussitrew

01:43:08.040 um yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go first and i'm gonna pass it over to spawn here because i

01:43:12.360 do have some thoughts on this that i'll throw out there conceptually i think a lot of theodism is

01:43:20.600 really cool theotism has been in support of structure and of hierarchy all along since its

01:43:31.880 inception at a time when also true was often caught in flights of fancy about rugged individualism

01:43:40.680 and democracy and various other things that i don't think are are the best way to go theotism

01:43:48.840 has always been very big on structure, on hierarchy, on some really beautiful ceremonial.

01:44:02.200 The trouble is, to my mind, that historically theodism has put so much more emphasis on form

01:44:11.560 than on function um this is the example i've used to a lot of people and it may be it may sound

01:44:19.800 disparaging and i suppose it is to a certain time in our history but it's five fat dudes

01:44:26.600 in a camp chair in their backyard fighting over who gets the big piece of chicken

01:44:32.840 if it's five fat dudes in shorts and a stained t-shirt arguing over who's the exalted king of

01:44:40.520 whatever it becomes laughable um hierarchy is necessitated by having people and having a

01:44:51.320 certain number of people to where you need a structure and to moving forward in doing things

01:44:57.480 and so much of what i've seen in the theodism i've been a part of is theatrics is self aggrandizement

01:45:05.640 But without any accompanying success or contribution, the roles that some of those people have taken on have been conducted in the most silly, banal, absurd ways, rather than caring for your people.

01:45:30.980 And so I've never been that guy that's opposed to, um, to, um, the word will come to me here in a second. It's not here when I want it, unfortunately, but to people who, uh, tip of my tongue for people who want to be successful.

01:45:53.320 people want to have the big hat to people who want to aspire to better things and who want to

01:45:59.040 have nice stuff. Cool. I don't think we should all be selfless, but I do think that if you want

01:46:05.240 a position of authority, you are not only assuming all the cool benefits of authority,

01:46:11.560 you should be assuming all of the weight of responsibility. If you're the exalted high

01:46:18.060 lord of theorism you should be doing stuff taking care of your people and being worthy of the title

01:46:24.540 and i've seen a lot of situations that just become very complex larp about who gets to eat

01:46:32.060 the which piece of chicken first instead of advancing their their kingdom um that's

01:46:39.820 unfortunate but i do think there's a lot there that is valuable if it was put in a different context

01:46:45.500 i don't think the concept is wrong but i think the execution has been very unfortunate in uh

01:46:53.020 theodist uh circles that i've that i'm aware of uh svan do you have any thoughts

01:46:58.940 uh i i have a a unique perspective coming from the eldoricha i'm from virginia did you wear a scarf

01:47:07.260 hat no no no no not not to be amongst those i i was not a member or taken into

01:47:15.180 the web of oaths that are built amongst the Theods. But I'm familiar with a lot of the

01:47:21.380 structuring. I have met people that were members of the Eldaricha. I've met people that were part

01:47:27.260 of Garmin Lord's groupings and the Normani that were prevalent for a while in the early 2000s

01:47:35.640 up in Maryland area. And just being able to talk to them, I think structurally they offer

01:47:42.900 uh some interesting things insights really good stuff as far as like formulating the concepts of

01:47:48.660 weird and how weird and uh what it what it means from an anglo-saxon standpoint as opposed to like

01:47:55.480 or law from a nordic standpoint um that's very you know very cool stuff and i think that you

01:48:02.660 know like swain wodening has been very influential especially in uh the concepts of ritual structure

01:48:08.060 or the possibility of how individual ethnic branches, including the often unsung Anglo-Saxons, would present or rekindle the faith.

01:48:22.620 But coupled with that is a problem, I think, of deep kind of, again, hard structuring, fragmentation, a lot of oaths being made and arguments being presided.

01:48:36.640 There's so much rigidity there that it ends up kind of stepping on the rake, if you will, while in garb, stepping on the modern gardening tool in the face.

01:48:52.060 And I mean that in the sense that it's in practice, I have found it to be very, very so rigid that it loses sight of the horizon.

01:49:03.980 And it creates this argument, I would say, between ultimately tribalism versus like a folk community, a nation or a people or an overarching connectivity of folk that they end up losing.

01:49:24.060 And it ends up fracturing to, you know, somebody breaks away and creates their own theod.

01:49:30.440 And so it ends up spinning its wheels.

01:49:33.500 And being an observer of that has just led me to believe that, you know, the counsel against it would be perhaps we should find or perhaps the gods are beckoning us to find a different way to take the knowledge and to apply it maybe in a different way.

01:49:49.780 or to take note of the wisdom of it and move forward into the modern world.

01:49:56.140 And so that's my take on the Theods.

01:49:59.200 I love the linguistics.

01:50:00.320 I'm a huge fan of a lot of the history and all of that.

01:50:03.440 But, you know, as far as some of the other things, as far as, you know,

01:50:11.720 the idea like wearing ritualistic garbs, obviously like Sven Bjorn Bietensson.

01:50:18.820 So Sven Björg Böthetsson of the Ausatürfäljev in Iceland, you know, a lot of their, they started out with wearing the white frocks with red tabards.

01:50:29.280 And, you know, we didn't, because that, again, separates and creates this kind of division between folk here in America or just in their correlation to a representative of a church.

01:50:43.280 And so we needed to engage that and understand that, okay, you know, the expression of establishing power and might in the world evolves, you know, you don't cross the ocean on the old boats of your ancestors simply because they did that.

01:51:04.620 You get the latest technology to cross the oceans.

01:51:08.460 You get the latest technology to win.

01:51:11.080 And I think that is a huge point that is lost in a lot of the reconstructionist worldview of the divinities of the gods.

01:51:23.900 So I appreciate you, Nick, getting that popped up really fast.

01:51:31.320 So we've got two questions left.

01:51:33.900 we've got other stuff we'll talk about so we're not we're not fixing the close-up shop or anything

01:51:38.300 but if you guys got questions go ahead and throw them out there on any topic you like we'd be glad

01:51:42.780 to answer them uh finn asked do you guys think seeing rune symbols in nature can mean something

01:51:50.540 yes svan what are your thoughts yes uh that's part of the power of the symbols of the runes

01:51:59.740 uh the rune is first and foremost i think a structural frequency and i would argue that

01:52:08.740 when we say structural frequency that would be a scientific term for a primordial sound

01:52:14.420 a form formulation of the fabric of creation reality um and and and then again we could

01:52:21.700 go into mythic language about what the room through symbology and i've been looking here

01:52:27.900 on the side chats about there's been talk a little bit about uh about algae's and and ewas and and

01:52:34.060 the symbology or even the names those have changed those have changed generationally those have been

01:52:39.900 honed like the uh taking of dross and iron and making it into a sword and it's also been spread

01:52:45.740 out in order for us to better understand things but when we talk about the runes and and omen

01:52:52.220 or seeking sight and symbol i think first and foremost yes it is but it has to be

01:52:59.660 i think uh not necessarily coached or trained but implanted subliminally as as we study things

01:53:07.740 and then we see the messaging show up uh it catches our eye suddenly it breaks through the

01:53:14.780 veil of the mundane and supersedes from the almost like piercing from the material world

01:53:21.020 straight through the functioning consciousness into the subconscious. Once that's made,

01:53:28.120 once that spear is driven, that's a meaningful thing. I think if we're kind of just looking

01:53:33.160 as we're driving and we see branches or things like that, that might not necessarily

01:53:37.080 or may reflect things coming bubbling up out of the well of you that you're connecting

01:53:43.340 subconscious to conscious. But when it pierces through, that's a different story. And yes,

01:53:48.960 i do believe that the the the assas do communicate oftentimes in that way uh much like as if they're

01:53:57.680 communicating through the well um through symbology so i think that uh runes

01:54:10.480 they're meaningful in a lot of different directions i think that they can facilitate

01:54:15.360 divine interaction speaking to you i think that they can

01:54:22.320 in a really powerful way i think that they can help you better understand yourself

01:54:29.840 as a lens to focus through so perhaps the gods are sending you some sign through some runic uh

01:54:37.040 symbol that you see in a natural environment cool i think that's that's that is possibly valid

01:54:45.940 but what i think is perhaps more important and certainly more often the case that runes serve

01:54:53.200 as a very potent lens for you to evaluate yourself and your life through i think that

01:55:00.900 if certain runes are popping out at you, that's a way of yourself communicating to you things to

01:55:08.720 focus on. I think that if you notice those runes, and you ponder whatever dilemma you're going

01:55:14.120 through in your life, what's in your head, what you're doing that day, through the lens of that

01:55:19.420 particular rune, that that's meaningful. I think it sorts all of the different impulses going on

01:55:25.980 in your soul matrix and helps you make sense of them in a way that's meaningful to you.

01:55:32.300 So, yes, I absolutely think that seeing runes in nature can very often mean something.

01:55:38.020 Perhaps it's a message from the divine.

01:55:39.880 Perhaps it's a message from your soul and a tool to bring order to the chaos in your mind.

01:55:49.280 And I think that's just as valid.

01:55:55.980 Vril Veneer. What part of the country are you looking to form Sigerheim? Would love to help

01:56:03.460 any way I can for our folk. Well, we would love the help. We need a lot of help.

01:56:10.860 Game plan again, it's scary to put a name on it, but we're looking in the state of Tennessee.

01:56:17.900 Looking in the state of Tennessee, that's where we're going to try to make things happen.

01:56:21.560 And I'm sure we're going to have folk from all over the country wanting to help us out in that in that endeavor.

01:56:28.460 And we would love to have you help us out.

01:56:35.300 Nick asks, since we were just talking runes and we have Svon here, can we hear about the folk Futhark again?

01:56:45.420 Svon, tell us about folk Futhark.

01:56:46.860 uh sure the folk futhark again uh is a culmination of all the futharks done with respect to all of

01:56:56.700 them uh it's not an attempt to recreate or to have some sense of doing something completely

01:57:04.460 brand new but instead the the point and the purpose was to create a writing system

01:57:12.460 that could be utilized in the murals to pass on messages to pass on um

01:57:18.780 concepts thoughts uh or even just mundane things uh for instance on in balder's hof i have drop near

01:57:27.180 written on balder's uh armoring and a lot of people if you're into the lore you know would

01:57:33.980 say oh well you know uh balder gave her mode uh the the ring to show that he attained entrance into

01:57:43.100 the shaded realm of hella and uh but this is a the symbology behind it is to show the re-attainment

01:57:52.460 that he has returned so that the balder image is post ragnarok and uh and so he has

01:58:02.060 donned the armoring again and so i just writing on there i just wrote drop near the dripping one

01:58:08.380 um to to convey that so the uh the choice of each of the runes was thought out and was tried i tried

01:58:18.300 to again give respect to all the futharks whether it was the kelver stone futhark the vatstana

01:58:24.700 brekte futhark whether it was the anglo-saxon phrygian the younger futhark i didn't go so

01:58:30.620 much into like the swedish or medieval uh you know uh quick staves that they were using for a while

01:58:37.100 and i even pulled a little bit from the um armanin and the german medieval futhark which only

01:58:44.220 comprised of eight runes um some of them like for if if people were ever wondering like about the

01:58:49.260 wolf's angle as a heraldric mark it's listed as one of these in the futhark uh of that medieval

01:58:55.900 german futhark but also of the rune urda which is othala with the um spread foundations so um

01:59:06.380 there was a lot of thought i was trying to to do the most respect uh so it came with that and

01:59:11.980 with the again the rules of of writing in english uh and having some basic rules like having no

01:59:20.540 double letters because those were redundant and to be honest take up a lot of space especially

01:59:26.140 when we start getting into latinish words um and uh you know having some other simple rules like

01:59:33.260 the double e sound in ewaz and things like that so that way we could formulate a better way for

01:59:38.940 people to come to the hoffs see the pictures read them and go oh wow and actually get a little

01:59:46.060 gleaning of what is said on Thor's iron rod, or what is on the boat, or what is on Baldur's arm,

01:59:55.100 or on Anana's horn, or on the crown of Odin, so things like that. That was the reason for the

02:00:02.700 Folk Futhark. Mace asks, have either of you seen the ermine folk community in the northeast? They

02:00:11.020 seem like good folk from what i've seen of them they are not um i don't like to bad mouth people

02:00:19.180 on here and i don't really want to get into a lot of that uh they used to be members of the astro

02:00:26.540 folk assembly a number of years ago when i first became the alzharigothi um i have no doubt that

02:00:35.100 a couple of them are probably very good people. Several of them are not very good people.

02:00:44.880 There is a sinisterness and a just dishonorable

02:00:56.860 contentiousness that is there by some of the people who are in charge of that,

02:01:03.440 that I would advise you to stay as far away from as possible.

02:01:07.140 I think from the outside, they can very much seem like they're very solid people.

02:01:11.340 I think their messaging is very good.

02:01:13.540 There's a lot of things that they do well.

02:01:15.580 Interacting well with other people in a productive way is not one of those things.

02:01:21.880 There is a treacherousness there that I would avoid at all costs.

02:01:26.400 Do you have anything to add on that, Svon?

02:01:28.040 I try not to speak of much outside of my experience with things. If I don't fully know,

02:01:38.200 then I won't speak, but I do have some gleaning physically of this situation, I think, with those

02:01:44.880 folk. I shared Horton with them on numerous occasions early on when I was formulating my

02:01:55.780 kindred here in Virginia. And I think that there were some moves that were being made,

02:01:59.800 political machinations that were being attempted, in which I was being led to try to break off,

02:02:06.900 to fragment away from the Folk Assembly and to pursue some sort of other, I guess, confederation

02:02:16.820 would be the best word um and i i wholly rejected that obviously uh however the way that it was

02:02:26.440 presented to me uh did leave a very bad taste in my mouth when it came to the way that that was

02:02:32.900 handled the way that that was dealt and some of the venom that was kind of placed about in the

02:02:37.140 air around me when i was so young to the folk assembly and i think that's the reason why it was

02:02:42.320 being directed at me was because um they felt that perhaps my loyalties to the gods or at least to

02:02:49.920 the astrofoca assembly would somehow be compromised and i i i think i sorely upset them in the idea

02:02:58.160 that i i had pledged my loyalty and so my loyalty was not going to be um tested and uh moved in that

02:03:07.040 way and so i i would just say simply that be beware of those who gift over much that's that's uh the

02:03:15.760 only advice i could give there uh king of cheese matt svan speaking about the runes being lenses

02:03:25.600 and possibly messages do you think it is possible for our ancestors to use them to try to communicate

02:03:31.680 to us uh certainly i think both like intentionally and in a much more subtle way uh through our soul

02:03:40.960 matrix communicating to us but i think both of those are very real possibilities what say you

02:03:46.240 swan absolutely uh i think that us understanding knowledge on the material level is important

02:03:53.280 obtaining that knowledge i think the sacrifice that is taken to understand but it's worth noting

02:03:59.280 that our ancestors gained that knowledge uh they were given that knowledge by rig by by heimdoller

02:04:09.440 and uh so it that those not that knowledge those power the understanding and the structural

02:04:14.160 nature of the universe and the frequencies that create it are within our soul just as much as the

02:04:19.600 on and breath of odin is so i think that once we dissipate from the physical and move into the

02:04:28.240 the wholeness of our ancestral lines we are more connected to those frequencies and understanding

02:04:36.160 the symbology of the way to communicate with those on the physical realm yes i don't see it as much

02:04:44.080 in my works with ancestral um messaging i think i don't see it as much but sometimes it does happen

02:04:51.440 it formulates itself after asking questions to the ancestors and then seeing them partially too

02:04:58.080 though it could be based off of your knowledge of it again your awareness of things in the physical

02:05:03.080 realm helps facilitate communication deed so not only just as much as say runic knowledge could

02:05:10.060 help you receive messages so could prayer so could devotional acts you don't have to know the runes

02:05:15.960 to receive messaging when you do things through acts of devotion and that is the language that

02:05:22.320 they can speak to you because you are well versed in that language so the point i would say is is

02:05:27.520 Yes, if you're well versed, if you are not, there are other avenues of communication that can be attained. And it really, I think, depends on the individual. But our ancestors, I think, know this about us. They're connected to us and they cannot be separated from us.

02:05:43.660 So they understand the language that perhaps they could best communicate to you in order to give you a sign, an omen or things of that nature.

02:05:52.460 So that applies to even things like pictures falling or or finding items and objects or hearing voice like that, not hearing voices, but like hearing someone being mentioned, like someone mentioning an ancestor.

02:06:06.200 and suddenly you think back to a moment that you had a conversation with them and all of a sudden

02:06:10.760 the wisdom that was gleaned in that conversation many years later after their passing has a new

02:06:15.960 meaning so yes i do believe so but it's not the only form i think that they communicate through

02:06:22.760 uh shay asks is there symbolism to be found between the planets and our gods

02:06:28.280 spawn take it away oh um you know when we talk about astrological things um you know we have to

02:06:37.160 of course uh lay foundational uh i guess respect towards uh where these ideas come from whether

02:06:46.600 it's uh you know ancient uh zodiac signs from the babylonians or uh of the greeks and their

02:06:53.160 escalation of this and the reforming of it towards their cultural uh language um and so of course you

02:07:00.440 know science applied the uh the roman hellenic and etruscan names to the planets and um we could find

02:07:10.040 correlation i mean our ancestors did that with the days of the week you know and when when we

02:07:14.200 when we saw uh you know mars um you know mars's day we we saw tios day and when we saw mercury's

02:07:24.360 day we saw holden's day and when we saw um you know zeus's day or or thor's day we we made these

02:07:32.920 correlations in the past and again this is more cultural expressions um could we correlate them

02:07:38.760 together yes has have people done it yes actually um if you're interested in some form of runic

02:07:44.840 astrology or connections i would recommend looking into nigel pennock uh he is um kind of an undersung

02:07:52.840 um runic authority of the earlier uh times of like australia coming into being in this in the early

02:08:01.800 80s and 90s um and he has a ton of really interesting stuff to think about it but the

02:08:07.320 ordering of the runes in 24 to be the hours of the day to zodiac signs in and of themselves nigel

02:08:13.000 pennock is i i would say one authority i would greatly recommend people if they're interested

02:08:19.880 in those things to look into um but as far as correlation goes i would say it would be entirely

02:08:25.800 upon us if we were to correlate those things if we were to see uh frigga as you know venus or to

02:08:33.480 see freya as venus um that would be more or less an expression on us now and since you know as an

02:08:43.240 authority would we would we say it as an authority and would people accept it that's a different

02:08:48.760 question all in and of itself or is it an issue that needs to be addressed um but i think it's a

02:08:55.240 very interesting topic and i would definitely recommend nigel pennix uh runic astrology um

02:09:01.480 if anybody's interested in those those kind of fields of thought

02:09:08.120 uh bobby shotwell your opinions on the theory that trees produce o2 to grow humans

02:09:14.200 so they may consume us when we die hence farming us he says joking i only had a second to jump on

02:09:22.520 and i wanted to thank you for doing the stream um yes and it is funny and i chuckle at it but

02:09:28.840 what i do think is kind of a an interesting point is the connectivity that we see between us and the

02:09:34.920 world around us that cycle does in fact happen not due to the malevolence of trees but due to

02:09:41.480 the interconnectivity that we see around us that i do think is important to note um nick asks

02:09:48.280 spawn mentioning rig as a heimdallar but is that certain bellows gives a good argument

02:09:55.480 that the only connection of rig as heim dollar came from an annotation done 300 years after the

02:10:01.960 rigs thula was written and that rig and his connection to traveling and the runes much

02:10:08.760 better fit odin uh yes i would say that the first and biggest point is um in the beginning of the

02:10:18.440 the Volaspau. The kenning that is mentioned of the folk is the sons and daughters of Heimdall,

02:10:26.240 the sons of Heimdall. And I think that that is probably the best gleaning point of understanding

02:10:33.140 that there was a connection to Heimdall as a progenitor of the folk, the progenitor of

02:10:42.640 uh our our people um some could even correlate this idea that if we looked across the board

02:10:50.900 towards other Aryan branches um then Heimdall would then present himself very much like a

02:10:59.160 Promethean figure but instead of there's a there's an advancement of each generation uh the great

02:11:07.640 grandfather great grandmother and so on and so forth until king konig is made um i would say

02:11:15.400 that that point of mentioning that the folk are the children of heimdall

02:11:21.800 is one of the key points that uh would lend towards it being heimdall

02:11:26.760 all right well um so we're out of questions in the side chat if you guys have more questions

02:11:37.620 you want please feel free to throw them out there um in the meantime i'd like to cover a

02:11:45.060 little bit more about the gill fagening as a as a source um

02:11:51.680 As Nick mentioned earlier, it is the the source that we get our ordering of our temples, at least to start out and kind of a definitive measure of which which of our gods are the gods beneficial for mankind to worship.

02:12:10.980 and it's a really well presented and concise way of understanding our cosmology

02:12:19.900 in an informative way and not just in an artistic way. Svan, do you have any more you want to add

02:12:29.180 on the gilfagging, its importance, its place in our corpus of lore, or why it's particularly

02:12:37.320 significant for us to give credence to? I think it's worth noting, first and

02:12:43.380 foremost, that what is spoken of and then what is brought into verse is very

02:12:48.720 important and should be noted by the reader, that we're gaining extra access

02:12:55.500 when we talk about knowledge that's cross all the stories, when we're looking

02:13:01.420 at them from whether it's, you know, the Gilfagining, whether it's

02:13:05.800 Fathrudis mol, whether it's Grimnis mol, whether it's the Alvis mol, in which Thor even talked

02:13:13.180 to Alvis about correlations and kennings and things. These across the board can be used to

02:13:20.340 compare and to kind of glean deeper wisdom of the way our ancestors saw the divine, saw the divinities

02:13:30.820 um in a poetic format and uh thus glean some of the ideas of their power um another uh major

02:13:38.420 thing too is bringing it back to the 12 temples of the gods so uh it's worth noting of course in

02:13:44.600 the gilfagining that freya is mentioned in the list um and also hod hod or uh hod uh balder's

02:13:57.440 brother. And of course, lastly, the kinslayer Lopter is mentioned, you know, and so it's worth

02:14:06.280 noting first and foremost, when we come into that, Njordr, yeah, he's, or correction, let me back it

02:14:13.460 up. Odin, his sons are mentioned first, and that's of course Thor and Baldr. And then when we talk

02:14:20.580 about Njordr, Frey is mentioned and Freyja is mentioned. However, we've decided to go first

02:14:27.300 with the aus and to take the formulation of the aus first and so when you look at the list you see

02:14:33.620 this ordering and like oh well how it's kind of changed but it's it's not necessarily changed it's

02:14:39.520 that when we the the concept of the aus senior and how they will be placed in devotionals and

02:14:46.580 and in the premise of hoffs or buildings or harrows or groves or whatever it may formulate

02:14:51.680 into the point was to find the way now and so freyr is mentioned yes freya is mentioned but

02:15:00.960 she will be uh that that will be negotiated when we tackle the ausenir so i've always been of the

02:15:09.760 mind to state that we have the 12 aus that are mentioned in the gilfaginning and in which uh

02:15:18.680 The three say there are 12 aus or gods and 12 ausenir, but in the list they, of course, mention Freyja because of her correlation to Njörðr.

02:15:29.720 The other point is, is it's well worth noting and stating that hod is not worshipped by men and it is stated as such.

02:15:38.380 And again, in our faith, looking at balder and hod as both diametric polarities, they source from the same.

02:15:48.680 They are, but one is bright and one is dark. One is awareness and one is ignorance. One is governance and the other is even possibly the point of destruction and the idea of whether it's internals or external destruction.

02:16:06.300 So Hoth is seen as a polaric force to Balder. And so Balder is, of course, order and light. So the temple to Balder was focused upon. And because Hoth is mentioned, is not being prayed to by men, but merely understood as the point of his Orloth.

02:16:30.060 And lastly, of course, Lopter and our total rejection of the kinslayer, the total rejection of the outsider, the one who kills his blood brother's son. 0.73

02:16:43.680 That would be obvious. 0.79

02:16:45.420 And I think that we don't really need to go into that.

02:16:47.900 But it is worth noting that the Austro-Folk Assembly has that stance against that kind of desire or need to aggrandize aberrations that seem to be pervading in modern times. 0.98

02:17:03.380 They aggrandized the aberrant. When our ancestors saw the aberrance of loctur, they knew that, yes, these things are oftentimes that which is vile remains because it seems to give credence to its existence and even aids in the folk. 0.84

02:17:25.620 And there's a lot of lessons to be learned in that, and I think that's why the gods have the story for us to clearly see.

02:17:32.400 But eventually that aberration turns into malevolence and malignant form.

02:17:37.980 So obviously we take a strong stance against that.

02:17:41.760 That is chaos and the warning of allowing chaos to come in, both in Fenris Wolf and also into by Lopter Laufison.

02:17:55.620 Nick Sallow asks, where are we able to find more information on the Folk Futhark? 0.99

02:18:09.040 Come to the temples. 1.00

02:18:11.420 Try to discern what I've written.

02:18:15.340 I still, to this day, too, when I go into Thorsoth, I read again.

02:18:20.400 And then I try to see if I've made some sort of mistake or something that I need to edit.

02:18:25.620 Um, as far as the Folk Futhark would go, I think for membership, uh, perhaps could start, um, a, a group to tackle the rules of the linguistics of the Folk Futhark and to better utilize them for writing.

02:18:44.000 I do want to bear in mind, though, that we're not trying to make the runes mundane writing forms, but it is worth perhaps maybe in art or maybe in the expressions of our devotion to utilize the folk futhark and having people know the folk futhark so that they can express and thus connect different groups, whether they're in California or whether they're in Australia or whether they're in Sweden.

02:19:12.140 And the idea would be, OK, this person is an American. He's going to be writing in American English. So it's going to be structured this way. And I know these rules so that I can read it and I can translate it into American English.

02:19:25.300 And thus it would apply to German or Swedish or even Anglo-Saxon. It seems to be – that's one of the big things I try to take into consideration was to create the Futhark to facilitate all of those languages, whether they're Gutsikarasda and the dead languages of the Gutens or the English, whether we're talking elder English or modern English or modern English, we could utilize it all.

02:19:55.300 So, follow-up question to that, and for someone with a strong interest in rune work, what literature is a must? What do you recommend, Svon?

02:20:08.040 I'm a huge fan, because when I came into Ausatru in the early 90s, the internet wasn't really around, but what was around was the works of Edward Thorson, Stephen Flowers.

02:20:22.640 And I would argue his knowledge base and the ability for him to look across vast amount of knowledge from all across in the modern age has allowed him to really spearhead a lot of our directional thought in the runes.

02:20:46.000 So most certainly Futhark, the Nine Doors of Midgard, I think are great because they also have personal devotional things that can be done in order to incorporate the runes.

02:21:00.700 um and i you know i i i'm speaking on behalf for myself my kinship towards his lore i don't want

02:21:10.520 to speak as an entirety of the uh of the church but certainly his his knowledge is is impressive

02:21:17.300 and um so i would definitely say uh any works by him uh in relation to the runes are invaluable

02:21:24.800 at least into starting some of the uh bigger concepts and uh the wood harrow institute i think

02:21:33.320 is a is a um you know a powerful cornerstone in some of that but also to um i would say looking

02:21:42.620 at cross knowledge of the runes um especially in rune lore by edward thorson that book in and of

02:21:50.700 itself does present every evolution of the futharks throughout uh the elder period the medieval period

02:21:59.180 the reformed period and what i would consider now the reconstructed period or the um the

02:22:04.900 assumptive period the period we're we're assuming now uh he covers that in rune lore so well it's

02:22:11.760 not necessarily a rune book on runes but more a rune book on the history and the evolution of

02:22:18.020 runes. And I think he nails it in that book. So it gives you a great, you are here on the map

02:22:23.960 kind of view of things. So I think Dr. Flowers is probably the best go-to for runic understanding

02:22:33.740 in modern times. But I'd add one of them, for people who already have a good foundation,

02:22:39.240 one of the books that he's written that I think is really important on rune work is Alu. And I

02:22:45.900 think it talks a little bit more about what to do with runes once you understand them. And I think

02:22:52.360 Alu is a really, really good book. I loaned out my copy and I don't have it anymore. But yeah,

02:22:59.360 I've gone back to that several times. And I think that's a really good one of his one of my

02:23:03.940 favorites. Jason asks, Who are the gods of autumn? Who do you worship to give praise to for the

02:23:12.720 harvest season. What are your thoughts, Svon? This time of the equinox, I think, we covered

02:23:20.840 this a little bit at Thorshof. I would say a great lending of prevalence to Freyr first

02:23:30.760 and foremost with Freyfaxi in that time. Whether that holiday falls on the first harvest or

02:23:36.520 the second harvest or whatever it might be in your area is different. And of course,

02:23:41.740 lot of people do call it loaf mass or half mass but fray and his cycle the ending between charming

02:23:48.140 the plow to loaf mass or frayfaxi i think is hugely important these are the the laying down of um

02:24:00.140 of uh the harvest season and so summer uh reading or looking at the lyrics of john barleycorn

02:24:06.940 looking at the uh acre bloat or acre bot amongst the anglo-saxons have a connection to the

02:24:13.260 formulation of modern ausitrus um charming of the plow and a free faxie or loaf mass

02:24:19.100 but also to a transitional point now uh as we move into winter the first holidays of winter

02:24:25.580 the two uh the austin yet that i would lean towards giving honors to would most certainly be

02:24:35.740 the Ullr and Iduna or Idun. And obviously with the harvest of the apples this time of year,

02:24:45.560 there's symbology there with the renewing of the vitality and the immortality and the innocence of

02:24:51.120 the gods and their places. They kind of encapsulate the last bastion of growth and fruitfulness right

02:24:57.760 before the time of death is poetic and beautiful. And I think Iduna is worth honoring.

02:25:05.740 And I think also too cooler because also as we transition into this time of death, we begin to realize the natural cycles of things.

02:25:13.400 We begin to see vegetation leaving and we see the predatory prey cyclical nature of death and of everything from the human to the prey, whether it's an animal like a deer or a boar, or we see it when we see the eagle taking the sprouts or we see the owl taking the rabbit or the mouse.

02:25:37.060 and so we see him uh correlating the other thing too i would say is

02:25:44.980 prayers to odin in regards to safekeeping uh i think our ancestors really premise the idea of

02:25:51.940 the wild hunt starting at the equinox and carrying on into yule and the idea of giving homage to

02:26:00.580 odin as he takes on a very darker aspect of himself and it's he correlates to this and then

02:26:08.740 he becomes glad again he becomes good again as the yule father but before the yule father he is

02:26:15.700 you know the the the maestro of the wild hunt and um so don't go out at night in the

02:26:22.500 picks up you know that i think that's cultural and folklorish but it's it's worth having that

02:26:29.060 in your heart and so honoring odin honoring even a odd honoring ulur i think are and honoring fray

02:26:37.140 are really big ones around the harvest and the equinox in that turning time

02:26:44.740 i think svan covered all of our bases they're pretty good i think he hit nail on the head

02:26:50.260 um jason asks here's another how do you personally deviate orlog from weird svan

02:26:59.060 oh yeah so like we're bringing that up about the uh earlier before with the theodish uh one thing

02:27:05.640 it's worth noting is that weird and or law are in essence the same thing culturally different words

02:27:14.440 so it can be applied as they are the same thing and i could have a definition for weird and apply

02:27:21.580 it to or law but one thing that has been coming out of modern austro in our spiritual expression

02:27:27.560 is that they do have kind of a slight difference in perspective one a lot of people in modern

02:27:34.140 astro especially in the states here see weird as an over-pervading sense of time and fate

02:27:41.700 and that or law is more connected maybe to the individual and their deeds or to a group of people

02:27:49.600 and their deeds into say like the gods in the slaying of emir thus bringing the three

02:27:57.180 thirsts the the ones that we speak of in hushed tones around the well um this this uh idea of

02:28:05.560 orlog bringing debt is hard more focused and hard line towards the nordic concept of deed and debt

02:28:15.260 whereas weird because it's from the english uh side and there isn't a ton of depth in there

02:28:21.400 I think naturally, it's taken its name to mean more of a broad term, because there isn't so much detailing of it.

02:28:30.040 I think certainly in a modern conceptualization, and perhaps in a more ancient conceptualization, Orlog being that primal law or the primal layer has a lot to do with the hand that you are dealt when you enter a situation.

02:28:48.380 um like what your the hand you're dealt when you're born the orlog that you have the things

02:28:55.740 that that has set into motion or the path that that has the trajectory that that has set you on

02:29:02.780 i think same could be said for a group or anything else there's that primal

02:29:07.580 layer that you're starting the game with i think weird is the interplay of

02:29:13.820 what you weave from that point forward. I think it sends out, Orlog sends out those strands,

02:29:24.220 but weird is how those strands intersect and are woven together depending upon a variety of things,

02:29:30.520 not the least of which are choices and decisions that you make in your life.

02:29:35.420 So I think that's the fundamental modern usage of those terms as far as differentiation,

02:29:42.140 But again, like Svon says, we're taking two words from different areas and vastly different time periods and trying to make them, you know, marry perfectly.

02:29:54.340 And I think there's probably overlap on each.

02:29:58.180 King of Cheese. Oh, hell, I forgot my streamly question.

02:30:02.720 Matt, Svon, how are you two doing tonight? Svon, how are you doing?

02:30:07.040 Doing well. I'm doing very well.

02:30:09.520 Well, Tony, I appreciate you asking. I'm doing fantastic. Say it every week, but I look forward to these all week. Again, I'm talking to one of my best friends. We're talking about what I dearly love. I'm especially excited tonight because I get to get the Sigurheim off my chest and tell people about it because something I've been really excited about for most of, for quite a while, but very specifically.

02:30:33.900 um jason asks how do you guys observe the holy powers in your daily life it's fun

02:30:47.420 um i think first and foremost it starts with deed and it starts with again laying the foundations

02:30:53.740 of oral laying the foundations of weird and and making sure that conducting self and right action

02:30:59.820 and presentism, the idea of seeing yourself in the present moment and knowing that your deeds now

02:31:04.920 can be affected from things in the past and what you do now can also affect things in the future.

02:31:09.980 So that presentism, first and foremost, I think is a devotional act. And then my ancestors, I

02:31:19.160 deeply focus on every time that I talk about them, every time that I see them on my mantle

02:31:27.000 or if I give offerings or ask prayers or even laying at night and saying, I hope I'm doing

02:31:33.740 the right thing. I hope you see me. I hope you notice me. And these, of course, a lot of times

02:31:39.020 the interactions come from a necessity or need. And that idea, I don't necessarily ask for help

02:31:46.480 when I need help, but I need to know that I'm doing well, or I hope to know that I'm doing well.

02:31:53.740 And I try to balance that and think about that a lot because I battle myself all the time and I'm trying. Am I over asking? Am I doubting myself? Things of that nature. And so a lot of my self-reflection is kind of also like delving into the pool of my ancestry and asking for any sort of gleaning sense that I'm on the right path.

02:32:15.600 They understand. So a lot of devotional towards that and towards land spirits. I see things about me and signs, things, and I try not to overspin into a realm of everything has an overt meaning, but that once it pierces deeply through consciousness and into subconscious, that's when I start to pay attention.

02:32:41.000 As far as the gods go, I try to express to the gods in individual ways. I try to see the gods in their multiplicity. Much like when Bobby was joking about the trees, everything in nature, formulation of desire, power, it's what is victory, what is defeat.

02:33:05.960 all of these things, but gods too. And so I think that trying to attain the understanding of what

02:33:14.820 is good from the gods, what they want, what they seek, how to emulate that, how to act upon that

02:33:23.320 is important. And of course, too, praying in devotion towards the gods for the sake of

02:33:29.720 devotion the sake and the sacred act of saying thank you for i i can't even put my name or my

02:33:38.180 word on it it's just is i thank you um and then noticing the blessings that are around me uh and

02:33:46.660 understanding that the multiplicity that i just spoke of the ancestors the land spirits um the

02:33:52.180 gods and the alfar and the ditsir all formulate a i guess an ecosystem of

02:34:00.700 forces in my life that helped me um go forward and move so i think that punctuating with devotional

02:34:10.460 act sharing things that are made uh gifting is uh is probably the best way i've ever

02:34:17.680 correlated my devotion to the divine powers around us?

02:34:27.460 You know, my answer to that is,

02:34:30.120 I don't know, again, coming from a little bit different angle.

02:34:39.100 um it's a really good question and i'm trying to think of the best way to

02:34:47.880 to convey my meaning um

02:34:51.060 my interaction with the gods is very much devotional

02:35:00.340 um and the response comes in the way of

02:35:07.900 a feeling of emotion of uh perceived blessings or perceived

02:35:18.240 whether i feel the gods are proud of me or not whether i feel the gods

02:35:24.680 are pleased with something i'm doing or something i'm not doing whether they're uh perhaps

02:35:32.880 disappointed in a way that I might be letting down not doing enough. And I feel those things

02:35:41.060 and communicating how that transpires or the mechanism is very different. They don't materialize

02:35:50.800 before me and say these things in an audible language, but I feel them on a very primal level

02:35:58.200 in sometimes very profound ways.

02:36:05.960 I am fortunate enough that I get to interact with the gods

02:36:11.040 at their altars and their hafs in a way that some other people

02:36:15.860 don't get the chance to, or certainly don't get as many chances as I do

02:36:19.920 at so many of the different hafs.

02:36:21.500 um the feeling is so amplified in those places because the presence of the god

02:36:31.040 fills that space in such a a unique and a profound way that once you have that connection

02:36:40.800 with the gods you feel that in a in a very different way than you feel when you're not there

02:36:47.580 But, yeah, I perceive the presence of the divine in a fundamental emotional way that transcends the mental into direct feeling and response as opposed to contemplation and then a feeling.

02:37:09.380 a feeling will come over me and it passes through my conscious mind. And all of a sudden I just

02:37:17.280 feel. And, uh, I know that's a, I know that's an ambiguous, you know, neither here nor there way

02:37:25.780 to answer the question, but it's the closest I can come to articulating that in a way that

02:37:30.700 communicates my point to you guys. And I hope, I hope there's some sense you guys can make of that.

02:37:35.780 um would the afa be willing to work with latin roman or celtic pagan groups in america as long

02:37:47.400 as they are folkish it's an interesting it's an interesting question i'm not sure if any of those

02:37:59.480 groups are folkish. There's an idea that it's an idea that comes across that. Not sure the polite way of saying it. If there were a form of peerage, if these Latin groups or these

02:38:27.980 Celtic groups had as many members, were as active, had temples, and had the things that we had,

02:38:37.660 then yes, perhaps teaming up with them would be a very reasonable thing to do.

02:38:42.380 When you have a group like the AFA that's been very successful, what often comes our way is very

02:38:51.080 small groups of of 10 people here or perhaps 20 or 25 people wanting to team up with us on something

02:38:59.560 and that's not how team works a team works when you know some sort of equals are mutually engaged

02:39:08.200 in an activity i would be happy for small groups of of roman or celtic practitioners to support the

02:39:16.520 afa and what we're doing i think that would be great i think there may be some circumstances

02:39:21.960 where we would want to work together for something or where we'd have some sort of common cause

02:39:27.960 in most aspects i think the people that are drawn to that would be much better served just joining

02:39:34.680 the astro folk assembly since our aryan faith is built of the same wood but in a different

02:39:42.440 configuration i think that their spiritual needs would be met here in a way that they're not met

02:39:49.000 where they're currently at and that's what i think a much better um unity of working together would

02:39:57.160 be is for them to join us the king of cheese asks i know skadi was born an ice giantess but was

02:40:06.840 married into the iser do we still lavish her with the same love and respect and worship as the other

02:40:14.040 goddesses or is she considered an other svan what say you i think it's very important that's a that's

02:40:22.520 a great question first and foremost i think it's very important that we try to understand that

02:40:27.320 the uh jotens uh as as um as a force are not so alien to the gods we need to understand that

02:40:39.080 they're not like some sort of completely separate race but instead correlate from the same primordial

02:40:47.240 uh foundation and so the difference between them would be much akin to the difference between a

02:40:53.080 frank and an angle or the difference between a dane and uh an alamonic german and i i know i'm

02:41:02.600 utilizing that as a as a very modern sense of the tribes and things but when the divine always

02:41:12.520 seems to i i see this a lot in outstreet where they're referred to as ettin brides

02:41:17.000 um i think that it's worth noting that when a a jotain uh correlates their their loyalty to the

02:41:25.320 asa then they deserve to have a place within the spectrum of order even though they do often

02:41:32.360 represent kind of an edge in there where they're they're kind of bridging in between i would argue

02:41:37.960 so does thor uh as he does bridge in between those and so it would be a disservice for us

02:41:45.080 to consider them simply an other or to to consider the gods as uh that they're somehow completely

02:41:53.240 separate from the source of the jotuns themselves that there's some sort of other race or alien

02:41:59.480 people that are interacting but instead we can see the origins um as we go further back i mean

02:42:06.200 obviously with mimir and with uh yarda or you know and and we can go into that so one of the things

02:42:14.520 that i always try to to preface to people is for instance understanding that if the if a etin bride

02:42:23.880 is uh aligned to by marriage or gives birth to an asa that then would lend her that correlation

02:42:33.000 of space within now is she of the 12 asenia that we play that we pray to no but to give respect

02:42:41.800 is worth noting devotion perhaps aid might not receive it but to give respect is certainly a

02:42:51.100 good move um i i think this would apply to gerda or gerder i think this would also apply to to uh

02:42:58.860 grither and a lot of people um may not uh know that name but grither is uh the mother of vidar

02:43:07.060 or or of rinder as she is the mother of vali and so they are mothers of aus and they are honored

02:43:15.860 in the temples so i think that they shift their their allegiance their understanding they become

02:43:22.300 part of the organizational strata of the cosmos as opposed to the chaotic consumptive part and so

02:43:33.340 respect, yes. Worship, I think that's on the individual, but certainly giving respect would

02:43:42.160 be where it is due. And I think that once you step outside of those bounds, once there is not

02:43:46.560 a physical threshold that's been passed through, those are, you know, chthonic forces of chaos and

02:43:53.480 consumption, and they don't really apply. And I think that this is a great thing in seeing,

02:43:59.760 whereas like for instance ayer and raun um are seen as almost like they are yotans and they're

02:44:08.320 not necessarily aligned with the gods but hosting them in truce still leave them to be yotans i

02:44:17.200 think most everybody sees ayer and raun as yotans uh and and especially if you're out in the middle

02:44:24.240 of the ocean and you're left to the devices of that those chaotic forces you would see that

02:44:31.280 but it is not the same when we talk about uh gerder skadi um grida or render so i would say

02:44:41.680 yes to to lay respect and not to consider them an other i think this falls into a false dichotomy

02:44:47.200 that there's some sort of kind of foreign complete alien race of of the gods no they share the the

02:44:55.760 origin from the proto matter of nivelheim and we can see the connective tissues between them

02:45:01.280 it's about allegiances it's about order and accepting order or accepting chaos and wanting 0.63

02:45:07.520 to gain revenge against those that slayed all yellow so you know i think with um with scabby 0.72

02:45:23.520 but with other um other beings that are in the higher realms 0.97

02:45:33.280 it behooves us all to be reverent in how we conduct ourselves

02:45:42.380 um it occurs to me that you know for so long we've been so far removed from

02:45:51.360 our deities in in the west and uh specifically

02:45:59.080 I mean, we live in an in an age where irreverence is a value unto itself, which is certainly backwards from what any of our ancestors would have understood.

02:46:13.080 We treat. Celebrity with reverence.

02:46:20.080 We treat officials with reference.

02:46:25.080 We should certainly treat high supernatural beings and gods of our folk with reverence.

02:46:33.080 And having that as your default position when something of magnitudes greater than you is before you is really important and essential to yourself as an individual, but to just conceptualizing the world around you in our practice.

02:46:51.940 um and this doesn't really go to your question i'm not suggesting that your question was anyway

02:46:57.180 irreverent or disrespectful but the attitude that's fun spoke about about respect that's very

02:47:05.800 important and i think that when mortal addresses god mortal assumes a respectful tone and a

02:47:16.860 respectful posturing and a respectful countenance. I think that's the order of things. And if you

02:47:24.440 embrace that, things go well for you. If you reject that, you're stepping outside the fundamental

02:47:32.500 order of things and you're, in effect, being an agent of chaos in a small way. I think we

02:47:42.620 support the order of the universe when we respect that difference in positioning and that magnitude.

02:47:52.260 Jason asks, what should I expect for my first gathering? I'm excited for winter nights.

02:47:59.460 Well, Jason, if you are going to be at winter nights, you should expect to get to meet me

02:48:03.940 and shake my hand. I look forward to meeting you there. You should expect to meet a number of other

02:48:10.700 fantastic AFA leaders and should expect to meet probably north of 70 AFA members who would

02:48:22.880 love to make your acquaintance and strike up a friendship and talk to you about

02:48:27.160 any of the things that are on your mind that you want to talk about.

02:48:32.700 That part of the country in October might be a little bit chilly. I'm not sure where you're

02:48:38.240 coming in from. So you may should be prepared for it to be warm and be prepared for it to cool off

02:48:44.020 and get chilly at night. I don't know if you're a family man or you're bringing any children with

02:48:49.040 you, but there's going to be a lot of kids there. This is going to be our biggest, our largest

02:48:54.180 gathering of kids at a winter night up to this point, I believe. There's a lot of activities

02:48:59.260 set up for those children. So we've got a lot planned. We've got some really great rituals that

02:49:05.360 going to happen you're going to get to meet leaders from certainly around that region but

02:49:10.400 also coming from outside of that district and you should expect a really amazing weekend

02:49:16.320 with some great people and to really build some bonds that you can take with you and maintain and

02:49:21.360 keep tight over the years even if you're not able to make national events that often or even if you

02:49:28.480 guys go to separate parts of the country and you don't get to see each other the connection that

02:49:33.120 you make you'd be surprised how long that can last if you nurture it that's an experience a

02:49:38.480 lot of folks have had at our events so i think it's fantastic that you're coming out to it

02:49:42.640 and i look forward to meeting you make sure you make sure you come up and say hi

02:49:50.480 jason also asks i've been an afa member for a month now and i've been waiting on my membership

02:49:55.280 card and pen when should i be expecting them so jason we've had a number of problems lately with

02:50:02.400 supply chain things we've had problems with people having inaccurate addresses in the database

02:50:09.120 what you want to do is reach out to our folk builder crystal podbreger k podbreger at runestone.org

02:50:17.360 i'm sure nick can throw up that address for you here directly she is the lady that sends out our

02:50:23.120 pins and cards and you can check with her and see the status of your current situation with that

02:50:29.280 um there's not a lot i can do directly with it on my end so she is the lady that you want to speak to

02:50:36.880 uh and also from jason how far back can you both trace your ancestry i

02:50:45.680 say good question because to trace the totality of my ancestry

02:50:50.400 i suppose not very far but certain strings of it i can trace back for quite a ways

02:50:58.400 And my great grandfather on my father's side of the Flavels, Harold Flavel was adopted. There's family mythos that he might have been adopted into into his family to like an aunt or an uncle or a cousin or something. But I can't really confirm or deny that. So I kind of run into a dead end on that.

02:51:21.940 And there's various branches that peter out and I run into dead ends on.

02:51:26.440 But with one of my family lines, the bonds that came over from Devon and from Cornwall, I can trace back in rough ways to the 1300s.

02:51:41.940 And that's about as far back as any thread of my ancestry I know for sure goes to.

02:51:47.940 What about you, Svon?

02:51:49.020 uh on one side it's it's it's strange the uh on the icelandic side um we have a database in iceland

02:51:59.300 that follows the lineage almost all the way back to the 15 1500s i believe um because of the

02:52:07.140 language system in which we created a patrilineal um and aerial area naming uh system um so as far

02:52:17.980 the database goes i could probably date it all the way back to the 15th century uh but yeah that's a

02:52:27.100 lot of work and things of that nature so i i go back only about three generations um as far as

02:52:35.100 really looking into um my family on my mother's side my father's side on the other hand is is

02:52:41.260 actually really hard to to nail down because they came from the north and i presume from canada

02:52:47.980 uh, looking on ancestry.com and finding things that they came during the time when everyone

02:52:52.900 was moving westward in America and they were moving westward to settle. And, uh, there was

02:52:58.300 these huge job openings in, in the Northeast. And so a lot of Canadians, Anglo Canadians

02:53:03.100 came down and, uh, they were a part of the Millwards and the Lansings, uh, where it was,

02:53:09.280 where my lineage from them, but it's very sparse. And, um, there, there are a lot of pictures.

02:53:15.080 there's not a lot of written things from my family and uh most of it comes from right around

02:53:20.680 the turn of the century um i have a ton of pictures of my ancestors with their first model t ford um

02:53:27.240 and one of my great great uncles um his banjo is in my attic um he played in on coney island as a

02:53:35.320 musician um but as far as like details i don't i don't have a lot on my father's side um and that's

02:53:42.600 other than uh later on he did marry into the berlingame um family and there is some connectivity

02:53:49.880 there with uh your your wife obviously um there's uh as we go in in the astrophocus

02:53:56.520 assembly you find these connective tissues so i i'm in in essence kind of like a great cousin

02:54:02.760 to your wife that but yes uh that's that's about as far back as i can go with them

02:54:12.600 um all right ryan posits scotty and yourther uh didn't get along though couldn't live together

02:54:22.280 isn't there a message there swan what do you take from that element to their story

02:54:29.640 uh first and foremost i always take it in the uh school of thought when we talk about

02:54:35.480 um very similar to uh the vegetative process and i that's not a word of mine that's a that's a

02:54:43.640 word that was utilized for a school of thought during medieval uh times when they were trying to

02:54:48.760 uh gain some insight into german mythology uh from the germans predominantly but they talked

02:54:55.400 about a lot about vegetative cycles and what they're talking about is natural cycles and i

02:54:59.640 And I think first and foremost, it's worth noting, in my belief, the story of Skadi and the story of Njordr is about the creation of lakes, the creation of rivers to the ocean.

02:55:13.060 And in the formulation of glacier movements or glacier movements.

02:55:20.580 So in a physical level, I would, again, we're talking about the coiled spring and everything kind of compressed together.

02:55:26.900 I always view that story as a deeply connected about cycles of greater knowledge that our ancestors may not have, they were taught but not fully aware of in the idea that she is a glacier power, a power of the mountain moving to the water.

02:55:44.760 This could also extend in a way towards the water cycle of evaporation and to the mountain and coming back down.

02:55:54.360 On a divine level, I see this conflict. 0.88

02:56:00.380 We have to remember that Skadi comes into alignment with the gods in the same way that the Asas and the Vanir come together in conflict. 0.96

02:56:12.140 There's conflict first and then there's alignment.

02:56:14.760 and that always seems to happen in a lot of the grand cycles of arian mythos so she comes in

02:56:23.720 to avenge her father which is seen by the gods as a good thing because of that but what her father

02:56:29.960 did was try to kill the gods they tried he tried to steal the source of their of their life uh by

02:56:38.120 by kidnapping even up uh his name is the ozzy so you know that that part of the story shows i think

02:56:47.900 more or a kind of sense of um when when when a deed is done and when it comes to an end

02:56:54.460 there are repercussions that can be brought from those decisions but that doesn't necessarily mean

02:57:00.860 you have to equate them in the same way like a lot of people have this fatalistic idea that

02:57:05.480 once an oath is made, it can never be reconstructed. It can never be reformulated. And that story,

02:57:11.280 the part of that story really shows that when Fiasi is killed, that deed, the cycle of that

02:57:16.640 situation, he tried to kill the gods, they killed him, deed is done. Skadi shows up to gain revenge 0.74

02:57:23.320 and the gods negotiate her in a totally different way because the deed, the cycle, the completion of

02:57:30.460 is done and there's no reason to re-continue on in this finalistic sense but to then to formulate

02:57:37.420 a union uh so on a divine sense i think that there's a great message there as well um as far

02:57:44.140 as the literal uh not liking to be down at the beach in the story that is i think the the polarity

02:57:53.180 uh that we see a lot in arian mythos of the idea of the mountain versus the ocean

02:57:57.900 the the frozen water and the fluid water and our our ancestors seeing this in the story or the

02:58:08.220 seeing it in the world and then the story is formulated or perhaps the gods pass this on to us

02:58:14.780 with them simply noting that we will make that connection um and so that's uh that is another

02:58:22.140 reason why i take um a heavy point that i believe scotty is aligned with and part of the cyclical

02:58:33.980 um forces that were already formulated on the earth the vanir represent cosmic or natural law

02:58:40.140 and cyclical law and chthonic law that's not necessarily seen as detrimental or corrupted or

02:58:47.100 consumptive but continuous for things to to keep going and thus form the foundation of order

02:58:56.540 on a very fundamental level it's a question that i asked myself as well especially when

02:59:02.300 we were establishing uh njordshoff was how prevalent do we want to depict scabby in that

02:59:11.580 situation. And because of, you know, she's very minimally depicted because of the unpleasantness 0.92

02:59:24.140 of how that relationship turned out and worked. I think all, again, so many of our myths are

02:59:32.580 layered. And I think everything Svan said is true. I think on the other end of it, there is

02:59:38.960 a God and a being of divinity that expectations did not meet reality, and I think many of us in

02:59:57.680 our own lives have experienced relationships like that, and there's dissatisfaction and

03:00:04.120 incompatibility with those two beings lives. So I think, I don't think it's a fundamental tale of

03:00:15.380 one good, one bad, but I do think it speaks of the incompatibility between those two divine powers

03:00:22.720 in a, certainly in a, in a consistent harmony or in a domestic sense.

03:00:28.640 And I think that's worth us reflecting and considering in our worship practices of of either and specifically of your there, because he is one of the Aesir that that we are we're committed to worshiping.

03:00:47.640 Jason asks, are shamanic values and interest observed in the AFA?

03:00:53.760 That's a loaded question because I think that probably depends on what you feel shamanic

03:01:09.200 values are.

03:01:13.280 Certainly there are some things that are points of commonality between shamanism and some

03:01:22.980 religious practice certainly some of the ordeals that odin goes through um some of the ideas of

03:01:31.780 challenge to the point of near death and returning from the other side with messaging

03:01:37.700 is could be seen certainly in odin's hanging himself upon the world tree to win the runes

03:01:43.620 um you see that in some say their practice where there's ordeal and there's trance work to

03:01:54.580 summon spirits from the other side to speak messages or give prophecy i think there are

03:02:00.940 elements but i think i think it's different and i think that could be said of a lot of different

03:02:06.640 things svan what do you think how how would you describe the interplay of shamanism between

03:02:12.720 also true practice yeah uh when you talk about shamanic values that's a broad term i you know

03:02:22.160 uh whether we're talking about i've i've met some some people who uh make proclamation of their

03:02:28.160 shamanic uh credence and some of them promote the idea that there's some sort of primordial

03:02:33.440 universal religion that all humans are connected to and i don't necessarily agree with that

03:02:38.960 However, I do clearly see shamanic practices in correlations to Odin and his attainment of

03:02:48.000 knowledge. And I think that in the stories, a lot of physical things, even to the point where Thor

03:02:55.600 receives the hammer on his lap in order to then mete out justice for stealing the hammer,

03:03:02.880 this correlation of a wedding is in the story and that has a place. And I think that's the

03:03:07.920 same way with with odin but when we talk about shamanic value um we could talk about like do we

03:03:16.640 have animism in our faith absolutely we do do we have ancestralism in our faith yes we do and we

03:03:22.720 if we look at the inuits and their form of shamanism they have some deep connections to

03:03:27.120 ancestral worship in their forms of shamanism um especially with them transferring to the the the

03:03:33.840 souls under the under the ice uh and and traveling through the holes under the ice so i'm familiar

03:03:39.600 with a lot of shamanism as far as uh reading a lot of corpses of the war like the way of the

03:03:45.600 shaman and things of that and if we were to talk about like psychedelics and other things yes

03:03:51.040 there's correlations to the possibility that soma uh that was used by the arians that uh conquered

03:03:57.040 india uh used a psychedelic form as soma or perhaps you know the the things that were used

03:04:03.600 in the germanic traditions that may have been prevalent or fly agaric amongst the the siberian

03:04:10.320 shamans and the um the sami or laplander people um yeah there's correlations there and i don't i

03:04:17.920 don't see that there's any sort of contriving conflict between the two it's just is it the

03:04:26.000 entirety? No, I don't think Ausitru has the entirety of shamanism as its view, but I don't

03:04:33.300 see it as being conflicted. If somebody practiced shamanism, as they would call it, or, you know,

03:04:39.200 like, again, some people do call Sather the trance work that was done during Eric's saga

03:04:43.360 as a form of shamanism. Yes, that all has its place in our faith and in our lore, but

03:04:49.560 I don't see there being a huge conflict. You know, I think that we're best to take

03:04:59.040 our lore and our practices on its own terms instead of likening it to something else

03:05:06.720 that may have similarity, but that's not the same thing and that's in a different context.

03:05:11.680 I think when we're trying to relate an also true practice to shamanism, we invariably have a baggage as to what real shamanism is.

03:05:27.600 and we try to overlay that onto something that we find similar. And I think we're better served

03:05:36.000 to evaluate it in its own context and in its own terms, rather than likening it to something else,

03:05:42.000 especially when the something else is a non-Aryan practice. All right, we're going to go with you

03:05:48.800 on this first, Svon. What are your opinions on the Ausitru Etta by the Norena Society?

03:05:54.900 um i'm familiar with the work i i uh have read it and i have some lore discrepancies that i see

03:06:06.100 and i wonder how the letter b is represented in between the letter a and c as far as like getting

03:06:15.220 to these formulations of things like um there are things like the worship of ostera amongst

03:06:21.860 the Ausitra folk assemblies that we have a holiday dedicated to her. She is the Ausinia of the Dawn.

03:06:28.440 Obviously, there's other Aryan groups, but in the Ausitra Aida, it is referenced that she is

03:06:34.500 actually Naut or Nauta or Nocta, the goddess of the night, and that Ausitra is just another name

03:06:42.940 for her um that again seeing that uh and wondering how we get from that one point to another um the

03:06:54.620 uh one other thing that was uh obviously like the the concept of um heimdall being a hypostasis of

03:07:02.380 odin that's kind of another thing uh another thing i remember reading is um about emir and

03:07:09.100 And the idea that there's like two classes of the Jotuns, that the upper class comes from the upper part of the body and the arm.

03:07:16.180 And the arm is a symbolic meaning of that.

03:07:18.260 And then the leg produces more based Jotuns. 0.92

03:07:22.720 But it is worth noting in the stories that after the three come down and slay Ymir, there is a deluge of blood that destroys the entirety of the Jotunar. 0.88

03:07:34.200 And all that is left is Bergelmer and his wife. 0.89

03:07:37.020 And from them spawns the generations of the Jotunar. And so understanding the different classes of the Jotunar there in relation to how they survived the deluge, these are the little things that I see and I often wonder about how they were attained, how they were brought about.

03:07:59.500 As far as some of the translations go, I think they're interesting and really good. Again, I brought up earlier about Auregelmer, and I think in the Ausitreda it's mentioned that it means clay specifically, which Aure has connections to clay, but I think that it's lost in the idea that they're talking about shaping and formulation.

03:08:25.180 And so I have little little things like that. The other thing that really kind of hits out to me is the the essence of Seether being strictly like an evil malevolent witchcraft, which there is malevolent witchcraft.

03:08:42.640 But that when we talk about, like, say, in the sagas, the mentioning of Seder in reference, like in Eric's saga or in the Greenlander saga, their reference, they use this Seder to ascertain food sources or to make and heal the land.

03:09:00.280 And I see numerous cases of runic usage in which they're malevolent.

03:09:05.420 There's carving of runes.

03:09:06.560 And so the idea, again, I like the idea of Heimdall being the one that bestows great wisdom upon the folk and understanding of the runes and those things, but to make them diametrically opposite to specifically see that I don't follow, I don't prescribe that entirely.

03:09:26.240 And I think that it's worth noting and it's worth talking about.

03:09:31.380 So, yeah, the Ausatru Aida is a great format.

03:09:37.300 And I think that having like a study guide, that's really good.

03:09:41.200 But looking into some of the details of it, I see things that I don't quite correlate to.

03:09:48.600 um and i find um some of the connections between like erther of the norns and hella and jorth and

03:09:59.980 frigga uh all being kind of in correlation to one is a forced um premise that if there is going to

03:10:09.440 be a singular sky there needs to be a singular mother and i don't think that our ancestors

03:10:14.140 worked in that way i think that there was much like a deus patir or pitar and a praviti but we're

03:10:21.720 talking about bor and besla and then the tripartite emerges from them and there's a dynamicism of the

03:10:28.180 gods in cosmic order and um so i have a lot of like foundational um disagreements with a lot of

03:10:36.180 that stuff nothing to the point where i would say it's a venomous but just kind of like point

03:10:43.160 counterpoint or as i'm observing things and reading i find things not always kind of lining

03:10:49.480 up and that seem forced at certain times spawns very nice guy um so a couple a couple of things

03:11:05.800 that i think are fundamental to it and spawn mentioned a lot of the the points of deviance

03:11:13.160 One of my issues with the Norana Society as a whole, and, you know, as it's been said before, I'm not a fan. I do like Mark Perrier. I think that he is a very good man. I don't feel like he is in control of that group, however. So I wouldn't say he is their leader. He is the founder of that group, certainly.

03:11:32.560 But anyways, my point being, their approach to religion and our approach to religion is very different.

03:11:42.460 um they approach scholasticism first and they try to bend

03:11:53.920 they try to force the gods into the holes that they have created through their scholasticism

03:12:05.740 to fit their scholastic theories rather than force their scholastic theories to change shape

03:12:17.900 in uh in reference to the gods um

03:12:25.020 i think some of that has to do with the astro folk assemblies relationship with the gods evolving from

03:12:33.660 interaction and practice and regular being part of that gift cycle and the norena society's

03:12:41.960 relationship being a abundance of study of obscure tomes i don't think that that study

03:12:49.560 is bad in and of itself certainly not but we very much seek as our highest goal to honor

03:13:00.400 and worship our gods and to build the best relationship to them out of piety and devotion

03:13:09.120 whereas other people's top priority seems to be a perfection of archaeology and linguistics

03:13:20.800 and i don't think that's how it's supposed to work um the edit their edit itself is a

03:13:30.400 forcing of disconnected lore that's got different context and meant for different audiences at

03:13:38.480 different times and forcing it into their linear narration of events and I certainly understand

03:13:46.600 why that makes it much more accessible to the casual reader or somebody who doesn't have the

03:13:51.080 familiarity um but it's forcing the gods to conform to their terms and their way of doing

03:14:01.580 things as opposed to forcing themselves to conform to the gods as they present and as they are

03:14:08.860 um and Svan talked about this a little bit earlier when we're talking about

03:14:13.580 uh the etymology in relation to our lore there's very often two roads you can take

03:14:23.100 in an etymological thing it'll mean two different things

03:14:28.700 what informs our position on what of those things it means is the gods that we know and love and

03:14:37.500 engage in our gift cycle with not whether it fits a sociologist or an anthropologist

03:14:45.740 conception of an ancient artifact um

03:14:52.380 those things may seem like they should meet at some point of synthesis and i think in a in a

03:14:57.580 perfect world maybe they would but in the world that we live in i want to err on the side of

03:15:05.500 worshiping our gods instead of being a scholastic expert of old texts. And the two are very different

03:15:19.040 things. And it may not be easy to see that if someone's new or if someone's looking in for the

03:15:23.520 outside. But it's night and day for someone who is a priest to our gods over the years and the

03:15:32.320 decades. Jason asks, do either of you feel disconnected from that which is holy? How do

03:15:41.360 you reconnect? Swan? Yes, I've had moments in my life where I was extremely, I felt extremely

03:15:53.060 disconnected or extremely focused on the moment so much that I couldn't breach the threshold to

03:16:00.400 the divine. I've been in some moments in my life where I felt completely on my own. And in a lot

03:16:08.400 of ways, I akin it to being on an ocean without seeing land. And when I looked up, I saw clouds.

03:16:16.100 I did not see stars. I could not orientate myself. I could not, again, breach that threshold back.

03:16:24.960 and for me it was different because I had it and then it was gone and then and maybe it isn't

03:16:31.580 different in this situation but for me specifically here and then it was gone and then it was back

03:16:36.820 and I think that we go through these times in our lives and it's very important that

03:16:41.400 we hold course and these are the times in which it's often said that you know until uh you know

03:16:51.560 your father or your mother passes away, you're not truly on your own. The guidance is still there.

03:16:59.060 And so what you apply in those moments and how you maintain the course is part of the, I think,

03:17:06.140 the observation of the divine. I don't think that necessarily they're leaving us or disconnecting us

03:17:11.140 on purpose. I think that instead, it's better to look at that fate is leading us into pathways

03:17:18.320 where we will not be able to see the stars where we will not be able to see the horizons where we

03:17:24.320 will not be able to see land and it is incumbent upon us to turn inwards and rely on the strength

03:17:31.520 and structures of things that we either know or we know to be true and to hold that line so that

03:17:39.680 when we do see the land when we do see the stars when we do see the horizon

03:17:43.680 we can return uh and some people don't make it i don't i'm not pretentious enough to think that

03:17:51.200 people always make it to that horizon but um i think it's really important i did i i held my

03:17:58.800 course and i maintained and can then speak from a position where you know i what awaits us on that

03:18:07.440 side is better than what we left but it is part of that growing time and so i think the other thing

03:18:14.160 is is taking the gods and and the morals of the gods and your people into yourself and seeing

03:18:22.320 purpose in little tasks that you can complete is what got me through those dark times and

03:18:27.760 oftentimes too if i felt like i was going through the motions um i was content with that because

03:18:38.400 those motions that i went through were setting groundwork for revelations that i would receive

03:18:45.520 later in dealing so i think that's important too is to not look at things as being meaningless

03:18:53.040 you know um thinking on this question and i think it's a very good question

03:19:01.840 i really don't feel disconnected from the holy um and i

03:19:13.120 i have to one degree or another at different points in my life i have been very fortunate

03:19:18.880 in the fact that i have made this i have made this my life i've made choices in my life to where

03:19:27.040 the activities i engage in the i mean certainly not everything but in writ large the activities

03:19:35.600 i engage in my circle of friends my wife my family are all part of the astro folk assembly

03:19:45.920 and part of our faith so i feel like i am connected to our faith and to the holy in a very 0.67

03:19:54.720 organic way and in a way that's very all-encompassing and i'm very fortunate that that's my

03:20:00.640 circumstance because i know that's not the case for a lot of people but to answer honestly i

03:20:05.200 really don't feel disconnected from the holy at this point in my life and i'm very happy that

03:20:10.160 that I'm able to say that. May says, I've heard some people talking about birth rooms. Is there

03:20:18.380 any truth to this concept? Or is this just a new age pseudo horoscope? I don't know who you've

03:20:26.660 heard. And I don't know what they've been saying. So it's hard to definitively answer the question.

03:20:32.840 The only thing that I know that would correlate to that is actually something that I do. And

03:20:39.480 that's part of our AFA naming ceremony. When we're going to perform a baby naming with the parents,

03:20:48.700 typically the day before, if I can, if I get to meet the child, lay hands on the child,

03:20:57.260 get a sense of the child first, that's always better. And then that night before a baby naming,

03:21:04.080 typically in the timeframe works different depending on the circumstance, but

03:21:07.960 But the night before, I like to make offerings to the Norns and draw a rune to interpret their gifts to a child.

03:21:21.860 And I do one for Earth, one for Verdandi, and one for Skuld. 0.52

03:21:29.320 And I ask for insight on that and that I read them correctly.

03:21:35.800 And I read those to, in Earth's case, set the child on solid foundation and give them a knowledge of where they come from to be rooted in, of Verdandi, a rune to guide their interactions in the moment and in the now,

03:21:58.860 and from scold to give them something, a goal to aim at or a trajectory towards their future

03:22:06.280 that's meaningful for them. And I do my best to interpret those. And I believe that my hand is

03:22:14.000 guided in that by the norns. And that's something that I do at the baby namings I perform. And it's

03:22:21.160 become part of our standard AFA ritual that we do for baby namings. I am not sure if that's what

03:22:26.840 you were asking. I hope that it is. If it is, I hope it's useful. If not, ask again or ask with

03:22:32.600 some clarity following up and we'll be happy to give you more on it. Nick said, you spoke of

03:22:39.920 Sather in a comment about shamanism. So what's Sather and what's magic in a modern sense?

03:22:47.180 What is it for and within the AFA's doctrines and beliefs? It's fun. Take a swing at that.

03:22:53.600 uh specifically when we talk about any sort of uh willful interjection of the uh individual

03:23:03.920 into into the well into weird into orlock uh in a a format that is physical in nature in its

03:23:12.840 inception but becomes metaphysical in its intention i think first and foremost is what i

03:23:18.960 would call magic um and in the two forms that it seems to culturally have been for a very long time

03:23:26.020 for many many decades since the the re-emergence of the faith is in the form of either runic magic

03:23:33.460 or runic implication and uh also in uh what has been coined as seether seether is uh again

03:23:42.360 uh has been referred to as the seething in the bubbling of the cauldron which has kind of a

03:23:48.140 dangerous or negative connotations, but also to the elder path. And again, there's a lot of people

03:23:54.540 that would say, oh, you're reading this linguistically wrong. But what I can say is

03:24:00.300 that in these sagas, as we look at these practices, we see, again, what I'm talking about is the

03:24:06.060 physical implementation of an individual turning physical action into metaphysical in order to

03:24:12.960 garner results and it is often very based on the intention of what is being done and also to how

03:24:19.800 they were formulated and taught to implicate their physical action into metaphysical um i think that

03:24:27.000 magic in aussitrew is not they're they're not correlative in the sense that you can be aussitrew

03:24:35.000 and never really go down or into the realms of esoteric metaphysical willful magic but you also

03:24:44.040 can and not necessarily be run out of town and at the same time there is a priestly correlation to

03:24:53.400 the idea we just talked about the idea of pulling runes um and we know from tacitus's uh uh writings

03:25:01.160 of the pulling of lots he says lots not runes specifically but i'll go with that for linguistics

03:25:07.240 uh the father pulls lots uh during great times of auspice around the full moon obviously i think a

03:25:13.400 child being born would be pretty highly done and i think too if there was an established priesthood

03:25:18.760 our ancestors would definitely want a priest if they had the knowledge and they would see it as a

03:25:24.120 boom to have full the lots or the the ways of reading to see gleaning a little bit more into

03:25:33.000 the the nature of this child coming into our world um but when we talk about see there see

03:25:40.840 there in a general sense um is seen as a kind of a feminine form of magic in which the and it's

03:25:51.240 feminine in the sense that there is it's receptive as opposed to interjective or projected and that

03:25:57.880 there is a trance-like state in which there's perhaps songs that are sung and there's a maybe

03:26:03.240 even a platform that is built and again i'm bringing this from eric saga um in which these

03:26:08.360 songs are sung the platform or the platform is built the songs are sung the spirits are talked

03:26:13.000 to and then a resolution is attained um to heal or to cause a difference of the way things are going

03:26:22.360 so it that i would say is the closest thing to like a shamanic practice that i have seen and um

03:26:31.320 have been even witnessed to um and tried to debunk actually on my own secretively trying to go into

03:26:39.640 it and kind of like a fist under the cloak i had a i had an alternative um motive and i was

03:26:46.760 similar i was systematically uh ruined on that one because many many days later i came to find

03:26:57.240 out that some of the things that were said to me were absolutely true even though i left there

03:27:01.080 thinking it was complete uh garbage but so that that is in and of itself but you have like edward

03:27:09.000 thorset and you have books on the runes and you have whole organizations dedicated to the

03:27:13.720 continuance of the knowledge you don't really have that with say there and in areas that you do

03:27:19.400 it's oftentimes hoarded by i would say people with a maligned view of the world um perhaps they live

03:27:28.680 their lives i don't think as the as the gods or as their ancestors might agree with and sometimes

03:27:34.840 they have a it has a tendency to be kind of hoarded a lot in certain circles of i would say

03:27:40.680 the more um universalist side of asa true and so it does leave a lot of bad

03:27:47.240 uh flavor and taste in people's mouths but i think it's uh it's it's worth looking into

03:27:53.560 and i don't think it's it's wise to completely relegate it into the realm of evil because i

03:28:00.520 think that again it's the intention is to create metaphysical from physical and that source is from

03:28:06.360 the person i think um being able to use baleful runes like skirner says he's going to carve the

03:28:12.760 runes at gerda he's going to cast these runes that are going to do terrible things to her

03:28:20.120 even though i don't think that's necessarily his source as a person he's clearly showing

03:28:24.440 and he's planning on making it very very hard for her to live her life so again uh magic is a is a

03:28:33.320 really interesting subject i think it's really cool to talk about but it's not the priority of

03:28:38.600 the faith that i think it's like a kind of a a religion or a philosophy or a combination of the

03:28:44.200 two within a larger religion uh and it can affect people and it cannot some people just say no it's

03:28:49.880 not for me and that's perfectly fine and other people are deeply deeply invested into it

03:28:59.960 so i think spawn covered it really well um one thing that i want to mention when you

03:29:06.360 wonder how magic reveals itself in the world i think people have ideas of wizards casting

03:29:15.320 fireballs out of their fingertips and doing stuff and uh you know maybe if you're a really awesome

03:29:21.640 magician you can do that you need to show me some time um very realistically though we see it very

03:29:28.760 often in synchronicity we need to have our minds and our eyes open for that we see it in increased

03:29:37.160 synchronicity towards a goal depending on the will that you put into your magical practice

03:29:43.640 and it's not always like the heavens rip us under and something spectacular happens

03:29:50.200 sometimes it's just nudging things in the right direction a bit and i think that's much more

03:29:55.240 often what we see happen rowdy dude asks for a newcomer what advice would both of you give to

03:30:01.800 to someone trying to beat a vice?

03:30:04.600 What do you got, Svon?

03:30:06.540 Ooh, I don't drink recreationally.

03:30:11.880 I had that as a vice,

03:30:13.960 especially after I returned from my military service,

03:30:17.000 I found that I was utilizing it as a crutch

03:30:20.340 to bury other problematic issues that I was dealing with.

03:30:24.300 And I realized that.

03:30:26.980 So I think first and foremost,

03:30:28.340 taking the great step in recognizing a vice whatever that vice may be that's the first step

03:30:35.220 and then correlating a way to fix it i went pretty drastic i um i swore an oath and i

03:30:44.980 brought my religion immediately into controlling it and the idea that if i break this oath calamity

03:30:50.500 befalls me i believe this so that really does relate a lot of my handling of that vice um

03:30:59.220 and so a quitting cold turkey and all of that stuff i understand in a in a non-religious

03:31:05.060 context that's very hard to do and i'm not trying to uh push it off into oh we'll just make an oath

03:31:11.940 about it and and uh don't upset the gods and i for some folks that's a possibility for others

03:31:19.700 seek counseling talk to your gothar if you're coming into the into the faith you have the

03:31:24.660 clergy that you can talk to you have clergy who are life experience they're not cloistered

03:31:29.940 ecclesiastical you know um ink smudgy monks living in far off little nooks and cottages

03:31:39.140 uh we are living people we're married we have children we've experienced life so you have a

03:31:44.420 great value of being able to talk to your your gothar about your vices and problems uh also

03:31:50.820 you know if you have other forms of professional guidance um that you wish to seek and attack this

03:31:57.540 from multiple angles uh absolutely and that's and that could be detrimental vices addictions

03:32:05.300 but it could also we could be talking about like maybe food or uh lethargy and not not uh committing

03:32:11.620 to exercise those things i would say are lesser vices that need to be addressed as a person and

03:32:17.700 you could definitely get motivation from your gothar to help you with those things but big

03:32:24.020 uh you know kind of more calamitous vices i would say attack it from multiple angles and

03:32:29.620 allow your gothar to be one of those tools to help you negotiate your vices and get them under

03:32:36.020 control so you can live a fulfilling life and and to honor your ancestors and make them proud of you

03:32:44.660 i would say persistence is key um not conceiving of it as a all or nothing um

03:32:54.740 something may have to do with the nature of the vice but first why is it a vice

03:33:01.540 what is bad about it be very clear with yourself not just about the activity being bad but the

03:33:08.020 consequences of it that you want to um to correct and then be consistent it's a struggle every day

03:33:16.260 to make progress towards and being unable to be perfect doesn't mean you give up the struggle it

03:33:24.180 means you you know reevaluate what went wrong and you buttress your your fortifications and you go

03:33:31.860 go ahead and you keep doing that as many times as it takes to get to where you want to be

03:33:39.620 um a lot of people think that you need to just cold turkey something and it's all going to work

03:33:45.060 out and if it's not it's because you're weak and you suck and whatever that's not the reality for

03:33:52.020 most people most people if it's a vice that you're actually asking this question because

03:33:57.700 it's such a big deal to you then chances are it's going to be a struggle and that's okay it is what

03:34:05.380 it is but there's not a dishonor in being unable to be perfect on it the dishonor comes in quitting

03:34:16.900 and giving up and not continuing the struggle um the struggle is steady and you've got to keep that

03:34:23.060 up it's got to become part of your daily routine to amend your lifestyle in such a way that you

03:34:29.860 you get over this vice and if it's you know situational or just a one and done or if you

03:34:35.700 if you fail you'll start again next year then you lose all the progress that you make

03:34:40.980 so be consistent and push forward and persevere um you have to be relentless in any of the goals

03:34:48.420 you want to achieve so that's my advice on that um jason asks what are your day-to-day activities

03:34:57.540 for the afa is it your full-time career it's fun what do you do on a daily basis for the afa

03:35:03.940 and what do you do for work uh well first and foremost for me it is it is um it is mentally

03:35:13.060 i think a a point of consistent thinking um but you know i do have a family and i i do have a job i

03:35:20.980 i work and i work at my own work and i try very hard to uh make it grow and be bountiful and it

03:35:29.220 is a craft and i enjoy doing it very much so and i think i i bring some really good things to our

03:35:36.020 folk i i bring a place for for men folk uh to come and and uh express themselves in a world where i

03:35:44.020 think there's hostility towards men and you know i i'm i'm a barber so by trade and by uh business

03:35:52.260 And so I work at helping men find the discipline in their image and help men discuss things.

03:36:01.840 Tonsorial work is also therapeutical work, if you will.

03:36:06.860 But a lot of times, too, it consists with calling insurance companies to make sure that our insurance is up to date.

03:36:16.860 But dealing with the logistics of a temple or dealing with the aesthetics of certain things, making sure that I have time off, that I can fly to a temple and sleep on the floor in front of this wall and try to get it done in a very small window of time because I've got to be back at work.

03:36:41.340 and i gotta you know if i you know especially with people in barbering when they have schedules and

03:36:45.820 if i try a certain amount of time they will go elsewhere and so i'll lose clientele so there's

03:36:51.580 a struggles there and uh but i find that the gods reward me i've always been blessed even though i

03:36:56.780 would seem like a negative i come back and they're there they're there waiting for me or there's more

03:37:02.860 folk coming in and doing good things um but there's always a kind of a duality uh family and

03:37:11.260 work and devotion to the austral folk assembly to the church and they coincide together so i view

03:37:18.240 them as like two wheels on the same chariot i can't i would yeah if one of them left so but i

03:37:25.520 understand that duality because i'm in the middle and i have to kind of relegate time um for those

03:37:31.540 And so that's my kind of coming to all of this, living a real life and having devotional time with the AFA and then getting a chance to really see it come to fruition and things like this, like being able to talk to people or talk on a podcast.

03:37:48.380 and i'm deeply honored or in the murals or to travel and see people at national events and see

03:37:54.380 people i haven't seen in months and just get a chance to like share stories with them and see

03:38:00.540 their kids grow up and talk about little things and joke it's very very good but i have to keep

03:38:07.340 those two wheels tight and lined so that i can move forward so i am i am very fortunate

03:38:18.140 in that this is in fact my full-time career this is what i do full-time now um and

03:38:26.940 surprisingly or not surprisingly this keeps me busy pretty much from morning till night um

03:38:34.700 since since we've been doing this you may notice i look down and check my phone

03:38:39.580 i've had eight different people contact me with various needs within the afa that they need

03:38:46.220 need help with or or answers on um my day-to-day activity it's it's hard to sum up because I'm

03:38:56.780 fielding calls for a large portion of the day sometimes those are counseling calls to do a

03:39:03.080 lot of counseling as a go-thee with uh folks who are who are going through things in their

03:39:09.260 and they need counseling on. I'm very honored that they come to me to do that. Various

03:39:16.760 administrative calls with different AFA leaders around the country to get stuff squared away at

03:39:23.060 our Hoffs or with programs that we have going on or with the mentoring of new folk builders

03:39:31.040 or our Gothar who are in training, taking organizational meeting calls for different

03:39:39.800 Hoff districts, different leadership units, managing a lot of our social media output as

03:39:49.340 far as posting things up and sharing things around. At my level, I'm able to see all of

03:39:56.920 the different things that are going on. So it's easy for me to see what's needed where, whereas

03:40:03.560 some other folks that are a little bit closer to the ground on what they're doing, their views

03:40:08.660 different. They don't have the same vantage point. So I'm connecting a lot of people that way most of

03:40:13.100 the time. Making calls and planning our growth and development. Trying to spend the time necessary

03:40:26.800 in study and meditation and prayer and in contemplation to plot what I feel is going

03:40:33.780 to be beneficial in serving the gods and good for our folk. But yeah, I'm a pretty busy guy with

03:40:42.120 this and I'm very blessed because of it. There's nothing else I'd rather do. This is a dream come

03:40:49.620 true. But yeah, this is what I do from my day to day and just about all day every day. You can ask

03:40:56.360 my wife, because sometimes it takes priority and interferes with some more mundane stuff.

03:41:01.960 But like I said, I'm so blessed to be able to do this. Nick asks, what's the right way to pray?

03:41:11.960 I would say the right way to pray is respectfully and from the heart. I think that

03:41:21.440 But prayer is a part of the gift cycle and giving freely of yourself, even if that just means being emotionally giving and giving authentic and honest worship and prayer matters a lot.

03:41:39.980 If you're reciting something formulaic or you're going through motions, I think that makes the gift less genuine and I think that makes the connection less good.

03:41:49.780 I also think that knowing place and going before higher powers is very important for your mindset. You don't want to approach these gods like they're your homies. That's not what it is. These are the gods of our folk.

03:42:08.080 You don't need to grovel, but you do need to be very respectful in how you approach them.

03:42:12.540 But that's what I would say is genuineness from the heart and respectfulness is the right way to pray.

03:42:18.400 Beyond that, I also think it's customary to leave some sort of an offering, be it a shot, some incense, something as a gift to pay it forward.

03:42:29.220 Like, hey, I'm giving you this and I'm opening up and then do whatever prayer you feel so compelled to speak from your heart on.

03:42:37.200 that's my advice. Svan, what say you? It's kind of like what you were talking about with vices

03:42:46.280 and the idea of consistency. I think that establishing consistency is important. I think

03:42:51.640 that if you create some sort of physical threshold that indicates that you are now focusing your

03:43:01.240 whole mind and body into the moment of prayer is a good habit to start doing that's not necessarily

03:43:08.440 saying that you have to do that i lay down in bed sometimes and pray to my ancestors or you know

03:43:15.000 just kind of out into around me into the world um without any sense of it but i will say for like

03:43:23.720 for me uh like the lighting of a light was very very important i'll give you a funny even to the

03:43:30.840 point where i'm i'm lighting i lit a flashlight under a poncho liner because of light discipline

03:43:38.440 the idea of popping that light was so ingrained in me to the idea that now was the time in which

03:43:47.960 i could just relent over there's all this stuff going on around and now i'm praying and i'm i

03:43:54.920 know i'm praying and sometimes the conversation that that followed that lighting wasn't always

03:44:03.080 entirely reverent but also sometimes it was personal sometimes it was filled with doubt

03:44:09.560 fear self-reflection uh am i doing this right i remember even praying like don't let anybody

03:44:16.840 get the drop on me i don't i'm not afraid of death i just don't want to get i don't want to

03:44:21.480 be like caught with my pants down like so for a long time i was praying like please if i could just

03:44:28.760 have the the wherewithal to know that's all i'm asking that's all i want please but and again

03:44:36.360 it's kind of it's infantile to think about it now but that's kind of the form of prayer was just to

03:44:42.200 be able to do some simple thing one little thing that passes you through a threshold

03:44:47.240 to express yourself in prayer uh i don't again i don't think it's always right to ask of things

03:44:55.360 that's not necessarily the case i'm just utilizing that for a time in my life where i was and um

03:45:01.200 and so i would say yeah uh formulate some sort of something that starts or perhaps if it is the

03:45:09.720 gifting if uh like with the alzir ago if he says you know you leave a gift well the idea of maybe

03:45:15.680 just even holding that gift and saying something and then pray and then give that's a consistent

03:45:24.320 thing and i've always been of the mindset that tradition is started by repetition and repetition

03:45:29.920 builds might the idea of being able to build might through uh orthopraxy that is consistent and

03:45:36.800 constant so i would recommend that and then whatever you do to pray is you know that's

03:45:41.440 between you and your ancestors and the gods i yeah absolutely on some of the you know

03:45:49.120 little touchstones of your ritual to get you in that space and to build that that mighty orthopraxy

03:45:55.200 i usually do that by lighting a candle or a selection of candles but again with that that

03:46:01.600 ignition of flame that light is is a part of what i do as well uh all right so last question of the

03:46:08.000 night and this is a record i think it beats me and swan's previous record this is uh three hours

03:46:15.440 and 40 some odd minutes now so i'm doing all right i appreciate you guys listening to us

03:46:22.640 um ryan asks i made a horde in the backyard and it was destroyed twice in a row after surviving

03:46:29.920 months should i persist and remake it or just wait till i'm on my own he's living with multiple people

03:46:36.240 um absolutely you should persist and you should try to get to the bottom of who's messing up your

03:46:42.120 stuff and have a very serious conversation with them I don't know these people so it's hard to

03:46:48.800 just throw out random advice but I would be very sure that the people that you lived with

03:46:53.940 have respect for you and understand that you're doing something serious and not something silly

03:47:00.480 I think that's fundamentally important but I think you should absolutely persist

03:47:05.960 and continue doing it. Just like we talked about battling vice, building virtue is the same.

03:47:12.760 It's a consistent, persistent drive forward that is relentless, that does not relent no matter what

03:47:21.580 bars its way. That's how you overcome. And that's what I'd suggest you do. Do you have any thoughts

03:47:27.520 on that, Svon? I guess one thought that entered my head was if we're talking about a horg, 0.85

03:47:33.660 and some folks might not know what a horg is or uh again that term is utilized sometimes

03:47:40.020 differently amongst folks in area i'm i'm assuming the horg is an outdoor uh place of worship and

03:47:47.740 and if that's the case you might be dealing with um i don't immediately go to the idea

03:47:54.020 that the people you're living with might be nefarious it could also be something else

03:47:58.620 something is people passing through the area or you might have another issue but finding out that

03:48:04.520 issue is is important um definitely pursue in continuing to build it remember we have heroes

03:48:12.160 that died to keep the faith of our gods alive for us to stack stones in honor of even the land 0.57

03:48:21.820 whites is an act that we must maintain um so i definitely agree with the else here go the on 0.53

03:48:27.680 there is that the persistence of it is true. Another thing though, to bear in mind, and I'm

03:48:31.980 not saying that you can do one in order to deflect the other, but having a hero in your room or in

03:48:41.600 your home, expanding some of your devotional expression can be made. I have a mantle place,

03:48:51.560 But I also have a cabinet that I open up much like almost like a devotional reliquary box or prayer box where I have Godsteads in it and I stand before it and give thanks there too.

03:49:05.160 You can open up your devotional expression to other things.

03:49:11.800 But, again, as I agree with you, it's a point now you have – like I would want to know, and I would definitely continue because that's not respectful.

03:49:24.360 I would not go and burn down a church.

03:49:27.960 I would not go and defile a place that was sacred to another person as I see that is not noble.

03:49:36.860 And I think that if you're having someone being absolutely vilely ignoble to you, it's incumbent upon you to find out why and how to rectify that situation.

03:49:47.280 I'm not saying that you have to do anything physical, but you need to come to the bottom of it, find out about it and make sure that you can work to the point where it's it's rectified.

03:49:59.220 So we've got two more questions that snuck in under the wire.

03:50:02.900 Katie asks, fine, do you have a morning ritual and how does it include your kids?

03:50:08.560 uh um well so right now uh i homeschool my children so a lot of the morning is uh dealing

03:50:18.500 with the youngest while the eldest gets on because he's very good at doing his schooling he wants to

03:50:23.740 get it done right away and um i can walk by and help him while i'm dealing with the youngest

03:50:28.940 and um and then my the middle child that she's a little bit more where i need to be hands-on with

03:50:35.280 her. In the morning, I mean, I think beyond breakfast and things like that, it's been very

03:50:43.460 chaotic as of late. And I wish I could have more of a devotional time of doing things. I've been

03:50:50.260 very hectic. Perhaps this is a reminder. Your question is giving me a reminder to like, hey,

03:50:54.900 don't forget the stuff you were doing and um a lot of that now is uh i i of course um

03:51:03.840 i did uh partake in some stavar uh runic um uh movements but my uh form of stavar is not based

03:51:14.460 on static movements they're based on dynamic movements for lymphatic drainage so i would do

03:51:19.180 some of that stuff in the morning. Sometimes I would just do the first Ector and then be done

03:51:24.680 with it. As far as with the kids, whenever we eat, we always do a food blessing because I try to

03:51:31.960 really, really drive home to the kids that need to be thankful. We have chickens, the eggs,

03:51:38.200 the food that we have. We need to be thankful of the animals that brought it there. I make them

03:51:43.040 very aware of everything that we're eating, the lives that were lost in order for us to survive

03:51:49.840 and to grow and be strong, and to be thankful of that, to be thankful of our ancestors and all the

03:51:54.220 struggles that they had. So we do have a food prayer that was written by Witten Turnage, and

03:52:02.820 we utilize that every time we eat. And I've now gotten to the point where I've even observed my

03:52:09.600 children doing it on their own. And that was absolutely a golden moment. So yeah, that's all

03:52:18.140 I have on that. All right. Are simple devotions to the gods viewed as silly or insignificant? No,

03:52:25.420 not at all. Not if they're genuine. I think sometimes the most simple thing, if it's genuine

03:52:33.140 and it's from the heart, is often the most moving. I think we see that in our own relationships and

03:52:39.360 in our own lives and i think certainly the gods appreciate the beauty in that as well no i don't

03:52:45.240 think that's silly at all i i would want i'd warn against pompousness or edginess the idea of like

03:52:53.520 going out and painting your face and screaming at the gods uh for the sake of doing that for the

03:53:01.500 sake of maybe your neighbor's gonna see you and think oh wow this is the most edged viking lord 0.86

03:53:08.020 guy I've ever seen. He's so cool. Oh, that's the wrong way to go into the gods. Don't do that with

03:53:17.440 that sense of pompousness. Yeah. But even like that, I'm not going to beat a dead horse that

03:53:22.720 else here ago, they covered it. But yeah, I would warn against doing it for the sake of the way you

03:53:27.120 would be perceived by others is automatically, I think, a false start and you shouldn't do that.

03:53:33.580 It should be genuine, it should be devotional, and it should be respectful.

03:53:38.020 Ashley says, Svahn, you're the man. How'd you gain so much knowledge and what was the

03:53:46.520 key to you retaining it all and the best way that you learned?

03:53:55.220 Thank you for the compliment. You're missed. Good times. Great conversations, great music.

03:54:06.900 I guess, I don't know, doing this for a long time, coming to the gods in a time, I think

03:54:15.220 I was very blessed to start in the faith before the internet, not because it was a great time.

03:54:22.360 It was very, it was terrible.

03:54:24.260 There was not a lot to go on and now is so much better, but it did formulate, I think,

03:54:30.720 a need to really, I was by myself. I was alone as a, I didn't see Alistair as a religion that

03:54:38.980 was practiced by multiple people or a community. I was just by myself. And so my relationship with

03:54:43.980 the gods, I think was really built on that time. And I, now it's helped me to kind of help other

03:54:53.420 people maybe correlate their relationship with the divine. As far as retention, for some strange

03:54:59.940 reason i was um i i was baptized lutheran in iceland lutheran is the state church and i grew

03:55:07.220 up um in multiple uh in catholic and private nations kind of going to all these churches

03:55:15.060 because my mother uh saw the churches in america as just being so kind of widely varied and

03:55:21.220 and odd and she just let me find things and in doing so i was so driven to find the history and

03:55:30.740 the sources of of christianity and uh of the bible and things like that and when at a certain point

03:55:36.740 right around 11 or 12 years old it soured on me deeply and i found the gods through books and so

03:55:45.380 So I've always been a reader, and when it really, really inspires me, it seems to somehow stick.

03:55:53.020 Other things can pass through, like air, but certain things that I'm passionate about seem...

03:56:00.100 So I think the one thing is, if you really want to retain things, come at it with genuineness.

03:56:07.120 And if you don't feel genuine at the time, try to find retainment somewhere else, whether it's a story or through art.

03:56:15.380 Um, uh, I remember drawing Odin in my sociology class in, uh, high school and, and getting,

03:56:26.700 you know, getting yelled at by the teacher for it, just because instead of, I wasn't

03:56:30.460 interested in what we were learning, I wanted to draw a picture of Odin.

03:56:33.880 So I drew a picture of Odin and I gifted it, burned it.

03:56:37.120 It's long past since gone, but I still remember that time.

03:56:39.740 So find things that can help you express your devotion and help you retain, even if it's drawing a picture of from the stories or a perception of things.

03:56:50.500 And then sometimes you're just letting it go, gifting it to the gods and it'll stay.

03:56:56.360 I don't know. It's a hard question.

03:57:00.380 All right. Well, we are right at the cusp of four hours here.

03:57:05.200 um thank you so much for your time and your wisdom that you shared with us this evening's

03:57:11.880 fun it's always great to have you on and next time we have you on we will talk about the all

03:57:18.640 father yes this is going to be good yes it is i look forward to that that's in

03:57:24.880 three weeks from now i believe um thank you guys so much for joining us tonight thanks for all the

03:57:32.540 questions thank you to those who donated it's much appreciated um yeah thank you for great comments

03:57:40.140 and stuff that a lot of participation tonight it was really really nice to see

03:57:46.940 until next time hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps

03:58:02.540 Thank you.

03:58:32.540 Thank you.

03:59:02.540 Thank you.

03:59:32.540 Thank you.

04:00:02.540 Thank you.

04:00:32.540 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - September 29, 2022

9⧸28⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 12 - Gylfaginning

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