AFA Communities (2010)
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the importance of community within the Asatru community, and the role of the Folk Builders in building those communities. The AFA is a national organization, but it is also a local organization, and it is possible to build communities across the country and around the world.
Transcript
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This is School of Navajo in the Asatun Folk Assembly, bringing you the latest on the revival
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of the ancestral faith of Northern Europe and the awakening of the European descended
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They are with us always, and now they stir, and we reclaim our spiritual birthright.
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I have been impressed with Steve since I became awakened to my ancestral tradition.
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And of the organizations out there, I think the AFA is the one that is most on target.
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Thank you, Mark. We're always trying to improve what we do.
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the AFA is the work of many dedicated men and women and I am fortunate and proud to represent
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them. Bethany writes to say, I have been studying Alsatru for over three years. I am tired of being
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alone in my practices and beliefs and would like to become a part of something bigger than myself.
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Welcome, Bethany. That's a common reaction and ties in with our theme for today, which is
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Community. One can certainly be an individual practitioner of Asatru. Some people have no
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choice because they don't know of anyone near them who practices our faith, and some people
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just don't want to meet with others. The great majority of us, however, look forward to the
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fellowship of other people who follow our ancestral religion and are greatly enriched by it. Indeed,
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I believe it is possible to experience Asatru at its best only in association with a group of
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like-minded men and women. And that, my friends, is what community is all about.
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Now, folks who have been Asatru only for a few years may not recall that the AFA was
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energetically promoting community about a decade ago. We had, or more to the point,
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thought we had, a piece of land on which we could base such a community. By community, I don't mean
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a commune or some inwardly turned cultish group, but rather a situation where each family would
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have its own private home on its own land, but would meet several times a week on land owned
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by the community to worship the gods, weed the garden, operate small businesses, and so forth.
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We spoke of tribalization, a term, by the way, that I would not use today,
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and modeled our efforts on the traditional structure of the Germanic tribes many centuries ago.
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That endeavor fell apart over the issue of land ownership,
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and I was not successful in getting strong support for the tribalist idea from the AFA as a whole.
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As usual, we were just too far ahead of the times.
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Now, times have caught up with us, and the idea of Asatru communities is quite popular.
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The AFA is still interested in communities, and we are actively working along these lines.
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We don't call them tribes anymore, because that word has a negative connotation to many of the people we want to attract.
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Rightly or wrongly, they suggest isolation, cultism, and primitivism,
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and none of these things are what we have in mind.
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We just call what we are building communities, and they may take any of a number of different forms.
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Is it possible for the AFA, which is a national organization,
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to build communities across the country and around the world?
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Sometimes we hear the argument that communities can only be built from the ground up.
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There is no substitute for personal contact, and that implies geographical proximity.
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But a national organization can provide the theological and ideological basis,
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and in our case that basis is described in the Declaration of Purpose of the Asatru Folk Assembly
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and in the other relevant documents of the AFA.
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You see, we are not interested in just creating Asatru communities.
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We are interested in creating Asatru communities with a particular outlook and a specific program.
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Folk builders are the AFA representatives in a particular state or states.
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They welcome new members, stay in contact with old ones, organize get-togethers of AFA members, and, in effect, create community in one form or another, while at the same time recruiting other interested people to become AFA members.
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Folk builders are the ones who make the AFA real and relevant on a local level.
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But, you may say, that's fine on a local level, but how do you get those people to
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feel any connection with other AFA members on the other side of the country?
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How can an AFA member in New York feel close to an AFA member in California?
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We have at our fingertips social media that were never available to even our recent ancestors,
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much less our forefathers and foremothers in tribal times.
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Now, I am the first to admit the limitations of these media.
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Nevertheless, they are, number one, a great way for people to meet each other in cyberspace
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in order to arrange a meeting in the real world,
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and, number two, to stay in touch after they have met in person.
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and not merely contact, but significant experience.
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Ritual is, or should be, an intensely emotional thing
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out of all proportion to the time spent together
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powerful bonds can be created, a true community.
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For example, I spoke with one of our members on the phone a couple of days ago.
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We had met once before at Midsummer a little over a year ago, where I joined her and her
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It was as if we had parted only last week, and I felt a very real connection with her
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Sure, it's great to see your community members every week or so, but that is not essential
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for building bonds even around the world here's another example i am sure there is no former
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marine in this country who if called from his sick bed would not respond to another marine
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who needed him even if he had never met that individual every marine is eternally connected
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to every other marine true we in the afa cannot match the experience of combat or a boot camp
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but we can provide other intense experience that will bind us together.
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The AFA can create community among members who are spread over great geographical distances.
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Think then of the closeness that exists between members of an AFA community who are in close and
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frequent contact with each other at the local level, bound by blood, by religion, by culture,
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by a common folk-centered way of looking at the world and by close physical proximity they will
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be tight indeed what is the road forward for afa communities how do we proceed if you are an afa
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member take a look at the members forum you will find sections dealing with personal finances
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fitness and health, self-sufficiency, brewing, crafts, parenting, our newsletter for children,
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gardening, cooking, items wanted, items for sale, advertisements for products and services,
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and much more. We have the framework for community right there, online.
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At the local and regional levels, community starts with meeting other AFA members locally
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and doing things with them. The folk builder for the area can initiate that, or members can take
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the lead themselves. It usually starts simply, a meet-up in a pub or a coffee shop, get-togethers
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at someone's home for social and religious observances, various forms of mutual assistance,
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and they're on the way. They may create something they want to call a kindred,
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but whatever label they hang on it, it will be made up of AFA members
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and adhering to the Declaration of Purpose of the AFA.
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Ultimately, the result can be that tightly knit and sizable community,
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perhaps with land and places on it with which to honor the gods.
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It starts simple and small, and grows to be large and all-encompassing.
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Call it a tribe or call it a community, it is men and women of the AFA growing together
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This is the direction in which the AFA is moving.
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We'll never force anyone to join such an association, and we will always respect the
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But for those members who want to join with others, we will facilitate that.
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If you are ready to find your way home to the spiritual path of our forebears, the Asatru
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Folk Assembly invites you to consider membership.
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Please visit our website at www.runestone.org, read our Declaration of Purpose, and, if what
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you see there speaks to your soul, send us a membership application.
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Together, let us write the next chapter in the history of the sons and daughters of Europe.
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Only when we realize we are a river will we stop drowning in puddles.
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This is Steve McNallan of the Asatru Folk Assembly, www.runestone.org.