Asatru Folk Assembly - March 03, 2021


AFA Communities： A Deeper Look (2010)

Topics
building communities
Hosted by
Steve McNallen
Mentioned
Kelsey Seth
Stephen McNallen the Importance of the Kennewick Man (1) Asatru and Myth (2012)

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

128.66

Word count

1,307

Sentence count

80

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we continue our discussion on building communities with the Asatru Folk Assembly, and discuss the AFA's mission statement and vision for the future of the organization, as well as the concept of community and what it means to be a part of it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! 0.97
00:00:30.000 This is Steve McNallan of the Asatru Folk Assembly,
00:00:36.060 bringing you the latest on the revival of the ancestral faith of Northern Europe
00:00:40.620 and the awakening of the European descended peoples everywhere.
00:00:45.480 The gods and goddesses never went away.
00:00:48.140 They are with us always, and now they stir and we reclaim our spiritual birthright.
00:00:56.080 A glorious dawn awaits.
00:00:58.480 Hail our awakening. 0.60
00:01:00.500 Hail, Asatru, rising.
00:01:04.540 New member Kelsey told us why she joined the AFA.
00:01:08.800 I feel as though my ancestors have called on me to follow this path as they once did.
00:01:15.780 It's time for me to come home.
00:01:19.060 Welcome home, Kelsey.
00:01:20.480 The ancestors whisper to us all the time if only we have ears to listen.
00:01:26.640 Responding to their call brings healing to us as individuals and to our people as well.
00:01:33.420 In our last podcast, we addressed the subject of Asatru communities
00:01:38.300 and what the Asatru Folk Assembly is doing about them.
00:01:42.500 I would like to continue that discussion.
00:01:45.180 In particular, I want to restate what I said last time,
00:01:48.860 that the idea of Asatru communities is not a new thing.
00:01:52.880 I also want to make it clear that this is the way forward for the Asatru Folk Assembly.
00:01:59.460 The AFA's mission statement is, quote,
00:02:02.360 to practice, promote, and further evolve the religion of Asatru,
00:02:06.660 thus forging it into a powerful and effective tool for building a better world, unquote.
00:02:13.420 There are many ways of approaching this momentous task,
00:02:17.160 but communities could certainly be a part of that.
00:02:19.640 The AFA's vision statement is much more explicit, quote,
00:02:24.520 The AFA envisions a future in which a substantial percentage of European-descended people worldwide have returned to their ancestral Germanic religion, bound together in an extended community of the folk, serving their spiritual, social, and economic needs, the nation of Odin, unquote.
00:02:45.500 This is far beyond merely educating people about our faith.
00:02:50.500 It says outright that we are going to practice it not merely at the individual and the family level,
00:02:56.260 but in the context of a community structure that will address not only that which is obviously spiritual,
00:03:02.400 but which will deal with all facets of our lives in a holistic manner.
00:03:08.780 Finally, there is the AFA's defining document, the Declaration of Purpose.
00:03:13.520 Point four says that one of our aims is, quote, the restoration of community, the banishment of alienation, and the establishment of natural and just relations among our people.
00:03:28.360 Our ancestors had religious and social folkways that gave them a feeling of continuity and community, yet jealously preserved individual rights.
00:03:37.440 We can and will re-establish this natural order among our people.
00:03:43.180 Let us have an ingathering of the folk.
00:03:48.640 The religious values of Alcetru encourage sound families and provide an extended family or tribe to support the basic family unit.
00:03:57.020 We help each other materially, socially, and religiously.
00:04:01.000 At the same time, we respect the urge for privacy and allow individuals and families the space they need to run their own lives.
00:04:10.620 Okay, so building communities is clearly part of our job description.
00:04:15.960 Just what does that mean and how will we go about it?
00:04:20.300 First, we need to understand that communities are people, not land and buildings.
00:04:26.900 Some communities have these things, but most do not.
00:04:30.620 The fact that they do not have them at this moment does not mean that they are not communities.
00:04:36.760 Here's the way I see it from an AFA viewpoint, but the basics pertain to any group.
00:04:42.600 The AFA community in any locality starts the moment two AFA members meet each other for the first time.
00:04:49.240 They immediately begin building bonds, a process that starts with one buying the other a cup of coffee or a glass of beer,
00:04:57.160 and which can, under ideal conditions, culminate years later in lifelong friendship or marriage
00:05:04.000 or other permanent and mutually beneficial options.
00:05:08.260 One or two people can establish a meetup, maybe or maybe not through something like meetup.com.
00:05:15.320 Arranging to meet other AFA members at a pub moot or a coffee moot can be the beginning of something much larger.
00:05:22.220 In time, a kindred or a small local organization may evolve out of this arrangement.
00:05:28.100 Notice that we're still not talking about purchasing land yet.
00:05:32.360 The kindred will probably meet in someone's home or in a park or in a rented facility.
00:05:38.160 Eventually, the group may become both much larger and more tightly bound by time and mutual experiences.
00:05:46.020 As this happens, purchasing land becomes more possible.
00:05:49.160 The community may, just as an example, buy a small parcel, maybe land that is not suitable for home sites, but just fine for a roped-off outdoor ritual area that later gets a roof over it and, still later, a hoth complete with walls.
00:06:06.040 The next step, what most people are talking about when they mention a community, or an intentional community, or what is now being called a resilient community, is a fairly large plot of land with places of worship, homes, businesses, gardens, a school, a place to bury our dead, and so forth.
00:06:26.560 This is a huge undertaking, and barring a donation from a wealthy individual, it is the desired culmination, not the starting point for most of us.
00:06:37.800 The people come first. Without them, land and buildings are nothing. With them, the land and buildings will come.
00:06:47.960 But even at this point, we do not necessarily have something we would call a tribe.
00:06:54.000 As Seth, one of our AFA members, noted the other day, and I'm paraphrasing this,
00:06:59.500 a kindred can be formed in a year, but a true tribe takes generations.
00:07:04.360 I completely agree with this long-term designation.
00:07:08.340 As you can see, there is a whole spectrum of community.
00:07:11.720 It takes many different forms.
00:07:14.060 Some are easy to accomplish, others very difficult.
00:07:17.880 So, what is the role of an organization like the AFA in this process?
00:07:23.120 We will create local communities throughout the AFA.
00:07:28.120 These will start simply and become larger and more complex,
00:07:32.120 following the progression I've just described.
00:07:35.120 It begins when one AFA member meets another one
00:07:38.120 and grows from there to include more and more people.
00:07:42.120 Some of these small communities will result in what people call kindreds,
00:07:46.120 but there is a danger in getting caught up at that level
00:07:49.120 level and we must be open to becoming larger so that we can bring sizable
00:07:53.800 communities into existence. The AFA folk builders and the clergy will take the
00:07:59.620 lead in this process. The local communities will be made up of AFA
00:08:03.900 members and will reflect the values and the program of the AFA. The AFA as an
00:08:10.880 international organization is to some extent already a community in its own
00:08:14.740 right. Inside the AFA we offer an ever broader spectrum of community services
00:08:20.440 and this will become more comprehensive as time goes on. We meet each other in
00:08:25.960 person when we can and build relationships that are not limited by
00:08:29.620 the miles that may separate us. We have the skeleton of a community right there
00:08:37.060 under our noses. All we have to do is expand it. One of the most important
00:08:43.540 roles of that unique community we call the AFA is to generate other communities. By doing
00:08:50.600 so, we can accomplish the AFA's mission and attain our ultimate vision.
00:08:57.640 If you are interested in participating in this historic adventure, the Asatru Folk Assembly
00:09:02.920 invites you to consider membership. Please visit our website at www.runestone.org, read
00:09:11.180 our declaration of purpose, and if what you see there sounds right, send us a membership
00:09:16.380 application. Together, we can build a wonderful future for ourselves, our children, and the
00:09:23.580 generations beyond them. Only when we realize we are a river will we stop drowning in puddles.
00:09:32.200 This is Steve McNallan of the Asatru Folk Assembly
00:09:36.600 www.arunestone.org
00:09:39.740 See you next time
00:10:02.200 Hey, hey, hey, hey