Asatru Folk Assembly - April 2022 Live Discussion

00:00:00.000 Hello. Thank you for joining me this evening. It's been an exciting month since the last time

00:00:19.180 I talked to you guys. Appreciate all the activity in the chat room so far tonight. I look forward

00:00:26.420 you guys joining me um right off the bat uh i was able to start out the month of march with

00:00:35.540 ostara at thorshof and i want to thank all of the people involved in making that happen certainly

00:00:42.740 the leadership in the thorshof district and the local folks around thorshof that put in

00:00:48.580 love and devotion in making that place so special and in taking care of everyone um

00:00:53.460 Um, specifically, uh, Goethe Daniel Young and his wife, Heather, um, they did an amazing job

00:01:02.900 hosting the event this year. It was the most people ever at a Thorshoff event so far.

00:01:10.280 I think we're at 92 and that was fantastic to see. It's always a really special thing to be a part

00:01:17.260 it um anyone on this who hasn't been out to thorshoff yet it's very very impressive

00:01:24.780 it's it's a very very powerful place and i hope you all take the time and get the opportunity to

00:01:29.420 go there so that was great this year um some other announcements kind of to start out with

00:01:40.940 with, folk builder Jessica Lambert has done an amazing, amazing job for us. We now have

00:01:50.620 a website for each of our three Hoff districts. Hopefully somebody will post those over on

00:01:56.740 the side. We have them in the description of this chat once it's done. But for the Odens

00:02:02.300 Hoff, the Thors Hoff, and the Balders Hoff district, we now have beautiful, beautiful

00:02:06.940 websites that Jess put together for us. And one of the really special things is event calendars on

00:02:13.360 each of those sites. And it's really, it's really cool to see laid out there just how much activity

00:02:19.920 we have going on in the AFA. You know, any given weekend, there's, I don't know, I'd say at least

00:02:29.360 five to 10 different things on that calendar going on. But yeah, it's neat to be able to see those

00:02:36.580 and get an idea of what's going on near you if you want to attend if you're a member certainly

00:02:41.460 get a hold of your folk builder or they've got a contact info on that's on those sites

00:02:46.420 if you want to go to those events if you're not a member and you're interested those are

00:02:49.860 a good place to get to know our local folks and i would also encourage you to reach out

00:02:55.060 to your local folk builder and get that get that squared away but do check out those sites they're

00:02:59.940 beautiful i'm really proud of what jessica's been able to put together for us um they're they're

00:03:05.540 really something special look on the side i know we've had a lot of conversation going on in here

00:03:11.860 and i want to see if there's any questions um i see one so far about addiction and

00:03:23.540 that from an afa perspective and i'm not sure if i understand the the end piece of the question

00:03:29.460 there but as a as a general rule about addiction i think this probably goes with most any religion

00:03:39.860 addiction is really unfortunate um

00:03:46.820 probably throughout the world but certainly in in the western countries certainly here in the

00:03:51.220 united states it's a big problem that affects people and uh depending on where you're at what

00:03:57.380 you're going through in your life it's uh it's a problem that has affected a lot of a lot of afa

00:04:03.760 members now so sure over the years and we're we work to help with that the best we can um it

00:04:13.200 depends where you're at but we've had a number of different kind of outreach programs to to help

00:04:18.780 folk who are going through that um i know that our gothar spend a lot of time counseling people

00:04:24.900 with various kinds of addiction and working through it. Um, I'd suppose in a, in an ounce

00:04:32.000 true, in an AFA context, um, willpower and strength of will is really important. And addiction

00:04:42.860 in all of its forms is a compromising of that. It's an individual not having enough willpower

00:04:51.160 to stop a compulsion to do something and struggling against that and struggling to

00:04:56.660 reclaim that control in your life is vital to our ethos. It's vital to what we try to do. And so

00:05:05.940 insofar as we counsel and help people with that, regaining that self-control and that

00:05:13.260 strength of will to overcome those things is a really important part of it.

00:05:17.860 Certainly, we call upon the gods and our ancestors to help with that process, but ultimately, we want to encourage our individual to master their impulses instead of being mastered by them.

00:05:31.320 I think that an important point when it comes to addiction in terms of Ausatru is Odin and the root of Odin's name.

00:05:41.500 It means master of the woad or master of the ecstasy or the ecstatic inspiration.

00:05:49.360 And there's a point there.

00:05:53.040 He's not caught up in the ecstasy and caught up in that ecstatic inspiration. 0.64

00:05:58.920 He's not mastered by the woad.

00:06:01.080 He's able to master the woad.

00:06:02.980 And so being the force of will that can master the chaotic influences and impulses in your life is essential to the very foundation of our gods and the all-father of our gods.

00:06:19.020 So we certainly look to Odin as an inspiration on that.

00:06:21.860 um just looking over the side seeing if we've got any other questions going on uh 603

00:06:39.540 glad to glad to have you as a new member i think i think i know who you are and remember

00:06:44.980 your application coming through and that's great to see you here

00:06:51.860 Katla as far as we got a question if in addition to the websites, we can get

00:07:04.880 district newsletters. The observation that our runestone is overwhelmingly long and it's too

00:07:15.920 long it's plus or minus i suppose it is extremely extremely long but that's because we got so many

00:07:22.720 amazing things going on um i don't really want to cut that out because i love seeing all the

00:07:28.240 amazing things we have going on but i do see the desire to have something a little bit more local

00:07:35.200 so that people in an area can figure out what's going on near them and that's a big part of what

00:07:40.000 the websites are about i know that some of our districts uh odenshoff district is good about

00:07:48.000 putting out a newsletter to their people about stuff going on and i'll talk with other district

00:07:54.160 leaders see if that's something they might like to do on those websites it's got the events calendar

00:07:58.240 and it's also got a news section with local pictures of stuff that's gone on in the region

00:08:04.560 And it's trying to get a little bit of what you're asking for.

00:08:08.320 But I will definitely talk to folks and see about those newsletters.

00:08:11.680 I don't think that's a bad idea.

00:08:13.040 It's just one more thing for the leaders in that area to have to put together.

00:08:17.180 So I think the websites are certainly a step closer to that.

00:08:30.800 Updates on Yord's Off.

00:08:32.200 All right.

00:08:34.560 so

00:08:37.860 one of these months very soon i promise i'm going to have something really cool to tell you about

00:08:44.200 in york's off um we're not quite there yet we've been looking what's been great is since we've had

00:08:52.520 the uh the challenges that we've had with the bank and with that title company we've had a

00:08:58.480 number of people step forward and offer us some very very first we've had a lot of very generous

00:09:04.320 donations and secondly we've had a lot of people step forward to loan us the necessary funds so

00:09:09.280 it's not a money issue at this point it's finding the right property and getting that dialed in

00:09:14.320 that said um we've been looking steadily we have our people just looked this last week and

00:09:24.080 put an offer in on something so we'll see where we're at again don't don't put stock in that

00:09:29.600 until i can tell you for sure because we've had a lot of close calls so far but we are getting

00:09:33.920 closer and we are getting there and what i've told everybody as a you know worst case scenario on it

00:09:40.640 we're continuing to stack a significant war chest so by the time we do put the money down on yards

00:09:46.400 off we'll have you know every month that goes by that's less we'll have to pay on on any kind of

00:09:51.840 loans uh loan situation so we're getting much closer i wish i had something a little bit flashier

00:09:57.760 to tell you hopefully hopefully in the next couple of these i'll have something a lot more exciting

00:10:03.360 to tell you about it. Reinhard, absolutely. We have our first Hoff, Odens Hoff in Brownsville,

00:10:13.880 California, and that's in Yuba County, California.

00:10:33.360 so uh folk builder james alt is uh reminding us of something over on the side sometimes we don't

00:10:42.060 think about it especially if we're you know regularly and actively involved in the afa but

00:10:47.400 any of this social media any of these visit uh i'm sorry these videos on our youtube

00:10:52.580 every time you click like or you share it or you do those things it helps the little algorithms

00:10:59.560 on the back end it helps get our message further out there put it higher on higher on searches and

00:11:05.560 make it a little bit more visible to other folks that are trying to make it home so you know if

00:11:11.280 you can you think about it click like give us little thumbs up on stuff interact and comment

00:11:16.040 all of that stuff helps and is much appreciated

00:11:18.780 okay um king of cheese he's got a question about wants to know what uh what the afa thinks what i

00:11:40.940 think what folks in the chat there think about europeans suggesting to us to to go back home to

00:11:49.900 europe and to like i guess come back and try to repopulate our uh our homelands there um

00:11:57.900 um so I don't think that's silly or or wrong I think that you know those are those are our

00:12:15.600 ancestral homelands and if we want to go back there and that's something you want to do by

00:12:20.160 all means um as far as folks in the United States trying to go back to Europe I think there's a lot

00:12:26.880 of a lot of disadvantages to that, especially right now. I think that Europe in your head is

00:12:33.140 not necessarily the Europe that you'd be going back to. But there's also a lot of beautiful and

00:12:37.900 amazing things there. I know a lot of people in the height of some of these restrictions and some

00:12:43.980 of the political goings on in the United States have looked at that as an option.

00:12:48.660 I don't think it's silly, but I think we are often best served looking at how to make our current situation the best we can, as opposed to taking our ball and going home.

00:13:04.540 I don't necessarily think it's advantageous. And in the United States, we've got a lot of ability to do things.

00:13:10.980 We have a lot of freedoms that we wouldn't have in most of Europe and a lot of wide open spaces, a lot of the ability to to do and to settle and to just carve out the lives for ourselves that we want here that I think we don't have in the same way back in Europe.

00:13:30.000 But again, I don't fault anybody. If you want to go back to Europe and bring your family back to those ancestral lands, I think there's probably a lot of beauty and a lot of cool things about that.

00:14:00.000 um

00:14:17.040 alistair i'm not sure if you send one during this i'm sorry we have a comment on the side

00:14:23.520 from a gentleman that says he's emailed me about some ordering some stuff in canada

00:14:27.200 But if that's falling through the cracks or maybe a response has ended up in a spam folder or whatever, please reach out to me, Matt Flavell at runestone.org tonight.

00:14:37.580 And I promise I'll respond immediately. He's asking about shipping stuff internationally from the website.

00:14:44.280 It's tricky. International shipping is crazy and it's expensive. And the e-commerce app that we

00:14:52.240 have doesn't function well to calculate international shipping. So that's usually

00:14:58.000 not an option on our website. If you reach out to me on the back end, there are ways to make that

00:15:03.600 happen. Sometimes I do apologize. Conversations get derailed or lost and we have a lot of stuff

00:15:11.200 going on. But if if I drop the ball and get back to you, I apologize. Like I said, if you email me

00:15:16.820 tonight, I promise I'll get right back to you and we'll try to get you sorted out.

00:15:26.380 Sarah asks, how the AFA chooses the men and women who we honor for our days of remembrance?

00:15:31.880 so i can't speak definitively to the original round of those days of remembrance have been

00:15:46.400 celebrated in aussitrew since the free assembly days i believe since the early 1980s those have

00:15:54.720 been celebrated. Most of those early ones were taken from the same few sagas in the Heimskringla.

00:16:04.900 I think these are people that initially stood out to that founding generation of

00:16:11.180 Ausatruar as often as Ausatru martyrs during the Christianization of Norway.

00:16:19.560 In my time as Australia Goethe, I've seen that four different ones were added to that list.

00:16:34.920 And I wanted, and I can tell you why I've added those.

00:16:39.960 I wanted our Days of Remembrance, and right now we have 12.

00:16:43.720 We're not limited to that.

00:16:45.000 We will definitely add to those days of remembrance as heroes emerge and as we have more people that need honoring in that way.

00:16:55.860 I wanted to make sure that it wasn't confined to an ancient period of time or to a specific location.

00:17:04.960 And I also wanted to make sure. And again, I think that that those founding fathers would acknowledge this. There was a particular focus on the Vikings at that time. That's what inspired a lot of our people. But our faith isn't just about Vikings. It's about any of the sons and daughters of Europe that worship our gods and that contribute and give of themselves to to be heroes of Ausatru.

00:17:33.420 I added King Athaneric of the Goths because he was a prolific champion of our gods during

00:17:42.720 a time where a lot of our folks were being converted in Central Europe.

00:17:48.320 His story was particularly meaningful to me, so I wanted to make sure that he was honored

00:17:52.600 with the Day of Remembrance.

00:17:54.320 And I also think it's nice to celebrate the Goths.

00:17:58.820 i think that they they are all too often under underappreciated or under known about by our folk

00:18:07.060 and i also wanted to get some modern people that contributed directly to the resurgence

00:18:12.420 of aussitrew so uh maestro guido von list i wanted him on there his reawakening of

00:18:20.500 German pagan esotericism in the latter part of the 1800s and in the beginning of the 1900s was

00:18:31.160 was crucial to getting us to where we are today and I wanted to honor him for that

00:18:35.020 and his uh his discovery of of the army of ruins um I also put I also chose to honor uh Alexander

00:18:46.320 Rudd Mills for his pioneering work in, you know, I think he's the furthest back pioneer of

00:18:53.980 the Alcetree that we have today in its early forms. And his work with the Anglican Church

00:19:00.600 of Odin in Australia was really seminal to all of the things that we have today.

00:19:05.800 And folkmother Elsie Christensen, who later this month we're having an event to honor,

00:19:11.200 I wanted to make sure she was represented there as well, but that's why I chose those.

00:19:18.200 um sure folk builder tim dumas asks if i go over why what we do in the afa is so important as

00:19:39.400 opposed to the solitary practitioner or, uh, kitchen table house to true.

00:19:45.760 Um, I think, and it's a million different ways, but what I think it comes down to is, uh,

00:19:57.640 what we're doing as the Astro folk assembly is building something and we're building something

00:20:03.160 for ourselves, absolutely, but more importantly for our children and for our grandchildren for

00:20:09.720 the future. There's very little risk to being a solitary practitioner in the privacy of your own

00:20:19.120 kitchen table or your own backyard with a few of your good friends, and that's nice, and I don't

00:20:24.760 think that's bad in and of itself. I think that's where a lot of us started, but coming together as

00:20:29.980 a folk, as a community, and building a religion, a church, a faith for our children to raise our

00:20:39.000 families in. It's amazing. And I've watched a lot of people, but in my own life, I met my wife

00:20:46.980 through the Astro Folk Assembly. We now have a daughter we're raising in the AFA. And that's

00:20:51.520 been the case with so many of our folk in the last five, six years. It's been beautiful to watch that

00:20:58.000 happen, to watch families happen within the AFA. Together, we're able to establish Hoffs to honor

00:21:05.520 our gods in, and we can really move the mission forward if we're just getting together by ourself

00:21:12.220 and it's only focused on ourselves. It does very little to accomplish in the world, and it doesn't

00:21:20.080 build reputation for our gods, for our folk, or for us. It doesn't build that legacy, and building

00:21:26.920 that legacy is how we succeed. It's how we move forward. We owe that to our children. We owe that

00:21:33.400 to our families. We owe that to our ancestors. And ultimately, we owe that to our gods to have

00:21:39.940 them celebrated in the world, not just in the shadows or in private.

00:21:56.920 Sorry, guys, I'm reading over on the side to make sure I don't miss anybody's questions.

00:22:25.320 Jill, thank you for your perspective on that.

00:22:30.380 It really is, I promise you,

00:22:32.640 everything I do here on YouTube is absolutely the truth.

00:22:35.560 I'm giving you the honest opinion of things.

00:22:39.920 I hope it's good optics,

00:22:41.320 but it's not done for the sake of optics.

00:22:43.220 It's done for the sake of truth

00:22:44.880 and for clearly communicating to everyone

00:22:48.760 where the AFA is on things,

00:22:50.920 what we're up to and connecting with our folk.

00:22:54.300 And if that looks good, that's that's all the better.

00:23:08.300 I'm going to check something because I have a question here about membership and asking if we have any members in Quebec.

00:23:20.300 And we do, we just don't have a ton.

00:23:26.660 We do have five or six members in Quebec.

00:23:33.840 They're all very close to the New York border.

00:23:42.140 If I'm, uh-oh, uh-oh.

00:23:45.820 I apologize.

00:23:47.020 I'm misreading my Canadian map.

00:23:48.360 please forgive my ignorance those folks are in ontario we do not have anybody currently in quebec

00:23:54.760 we would love to have folks in quebec again i apologize for my poor canadian geography

00:24:00.840 they're very close to quebec if that makes it any better but it probably doesn't

00:24:05.320 um but we would love to see growth in quebec and we'd love to help that happen

00:24:18.360 Thank you, Alistair, for catching that. I appreciate it. Good deal. Love our Canadians. We'd love to see more Canadians. It's been very difficult to maintain a lot of activity with our Canadian members during the last couple of years with all the COVID stuff going on and whatever.

00:24:38.360 It's made it very hard for us to maintain that connection, and I look very forward to that getting better, for us to be able to freely cross that border and interact with our brothers and sisters in Canada in a more meaningful way.

00:25:08.360 You guys are having good talk over on the side. I appreciate such an active chat room. That's great.

00:25:23.360 Got a question. What can the AFA do to promote healthy lifestyles within our community such as diet, exercise and mentality?

00:25:31.360 Well, I think we try to do that a lot.

00:25:36.360 It may sound so the very least we can do that we that we are doing is in our me, we groups and our online information.

00:25:46.240 We're trying hard to promote physical excellence.

00:25:49.820 We had before we were so rudely booted from Facebook that a very active physical excellence, excuse me, physical excellence page.

00:25:59.720 We now have that again on me. We if you're not there, you should be. We'd love to see you there.

00:26:03.860 A number of our members post their exercise routines, diet tips, and just encouragement to help people who are trying to get in better shape.

00:26:14.400 That's something very important to me, very near and dear to my heart.

00:26:18.880 Lifting, being physically active, and getting myself in better shape has been so very fundamental to my own health, my self-esteem, and my quality of life.

00:26:28.880 it's really important to me that we get as many of our members to make themselves and their lives

00:26:35.020 better as possible i think we do that in a lot of ways with our communications with one another but

00:26:41.440 i think that specifically in our local kindreds and our local areas we have a lot of that going

00:26:47.960 on they're really doing a great job with that in washington state folk builder mason johnson and

00:26:54.080 his guys up there. They train regularly. They lift together regularly. They train martial arts

00:27:00.240 together regularly, and they really help each other excel physically. And I think that's a

00:27:05.940 really, really beautiful thing to see. And if you're interested in that, you're in the Washington

00:27:10.800 State area, definitely reach out. But we're doing our best on that. Like I said, that is

00:27:17.340 a priority and very important to me.

00:27:24.080 um is there any effort to self-publish eddas or sagas for fundraising purposes

00:27:39.120 uh and for educational purposes there's talk of that absolutely uh currently we don't have

00:27:44.880 anybody particularly active on that project but we'd really like to it's something that

00:27:49.040 we've talked about for a while it's just getting the right folks in place that want to work on

00:27:53.440 formatting and and really getting that going but i mean i'd love to see that i think that's

00:27:59.120 a great idea i've i've always been favorable to that okay this lutrian asks can the afa

00:28:13.200 honor heroes of our folk even if they didn't worship our gods for example george washington

00:28:19.120 and general robert lee you can honor whoever you'd like um in the afa i mean our members honor

00:28:29.600 certainly tons of members of their own families that are special to them but also heroes and

00:28:33.760 people of our folk that were important that are inspirational to them um

00:28:41.040 generals washington and lee i think are both excellent examples of of great european

00:28:47.840 descended peoples um as far as the afa recognizing them with days of remembrance no because we're a

00:28:55.280 church and we're honoring people who are of our faith that's really specific to what we're doing

00:29:00.800 but as far as honoring the men in general absolutely i think they're fantastic and i think

00:29:06.640 we have countless amazing heroes of our folk that deserve honor to be honored honoring them with a

00:29:14.080 special afa sanctioned day of remembrance is a little bit different story and that's only for

00:29:20.000 people of our faith but certainly i think it's appropriate to honor those heroes

00:29:44.960 uh oxstone you ask where did i yeah i'm not understanding your question if you could maybe

00:29:52.640 help ah i should have read two lines below where you clarified um they have official days of

00:30:00.400 remembrance they're on our calendar uh on the ninth of the months that they're celebrated in

00:30:05.680 and also if you go to our main website www.runestone.org we have those days of remembrance

00:30:15.680 on the calendar on that site and specifically and we'll do this at all of our Hoffs to at least

00:30:23.380 one of those heroes but Alexander Rudd Mills has a shrine and a page dedicated to him or a section

00:30:32.200 dedicated to them on the Thorshof site, and Elsie Christensen has one dedicated to her

00:30:38.840 at Baldershof in an accompanying section on our Baldershof website.

00:31:02.200 ah clean shaving also here you go yes that's my uh my winter beard and i start growing it

00:31:15.660 at the uh fall equinox and i shave it off every year at the the spring equinox um

00:31:23.560 it's not super significant i just it's it's cool to me it's something i like to do

00:31:30.000 I like to see the new gray hairs that grow in with each coming year,

00:31:35.840 and especially in the summer when it gets a little bit warmer out,

00:31:38.420 it's nice to feel the air, feel the wind on my cheeks.

00:31:48.540 Difference between weird and oar log.

00:31:51.300 Like, that's complex because depending on where you, depending on what you read and the context it's in, a lot of those concepts are very overlapped.

00:32:06.740 in a lot of ways I think weird is the very complex totality of the web of

00:32:26.620 interactions in life and destiny and I think Orlog is a part of that but it's certainly not

00:32:34.340 all of that um i think weird is also really you know also correctly used to identify

00:32:46.340 syncretic things that happen in life um or log on the other hand is is that primal law or that

00:32:55.060 original layer that's laid down in a lot of ways when you're talking about your personal weird

00:33:00.340 to your personal destiny the orlog is that that layer that you start with it's the hand that

00:33:06.260 you're dealt at birth through you know a combination of things uh but through your

00:33:11.780 ancestors through your genetics through things that are passed to you and you build from there

00:33:16.220 so it's kind of your starting point in a lot of ways a lot of ways orlog is also that primal

00:33:21.720 trajectory that projects destiny towards a course and it doesn't mean there can't be any

00:33:29.700 altering done towards it, but it's that starting course that you're on. And it's much more

00:33:36.020 complicated than that, but I think those are some ideas on the difference between the two.

00:33:40.660 Firebug, you are very welcome. I love doing these. It's a really special time to get to interact

00:34:04.920 with folks and to take questions. And I love talking with my FA family. So I'm really glad

00:34:09.920 you enjoy these. I look forward to them every month. Is the situation in South Africa getting

00:34:25.700 better or worse? And if it's getting worse, should we encourage our folk to leave South 0.97

00:34:30.880 africa it's really hard to tell and i don't want to i don't want to claim that i have knowledge i

00:34:40.960 don't have we hear about some of the chaos there less but i think some of the reason we hear about

00:34:47.600 some things less is because so much of south africa has been locked down in uh a response to

00:34:57.040 the the idea of of covid uh and and having a global pandemic um i know that you know the

00:35:06.720 restrictions that we have gone through in the united states are very frustrating but

00:35:12.640 nowhere even compared to the amount of uh infringements upon people's freedom of

00:35:20.560 of activity and movement organizing organizing in south africa and i think that set everything back

00:35:27.040 I think that's been very difficult. And I think it's also been difficult to get, you know, news and find out new things. The contacts I have in South Africa, still think it's, you know, just as big a problem as ever, if not more.

00:35:44.020 all of the persecution and the murders and rapes and all of the things that have gone on there to

00:35:56.740 our people are still there but now all of the extra hardship that's been inflicted by the

00:36:03.460 destruction of business and things that way with these these lockdown measures really put everyone

00:36:10.240 in a in a hard spot and certainly disproportionately our folk in south africa um on and should we

00:36:17.440 encourage them to leave i don't know i don't know all of their individual situations i think

00:36:22.800 there's certainly a very good case if they can for them to get someplace where they have better

00:36:27.280 opportunity and where they have the opportunity to build a better life for their children but i

00:36:32.160 also think that you know many of them have been there for hundreds of years um as a family and

00:36:39.040 they've they've built legacies there and uh you know who am i to tell those people that they have

00:36:43.920 to leave so i think that's a that's a question for each of them i would love to see more countries

00:36:49.840 take in our folk there who are victims of persecution and want a better life

00:36:57.120 on a on that note today we did our our quarterly distribution to the south africa family relief

00:37:04.960 project many of you have donated to our south africa fund on our website and you know we

00:37:12.160 pooled our resources there and each quarter we donate that to a south african charity to try to

00:37:21.280 food baby formula and supplies to a lot of folks who are living in the squatter camps and other

00:37:27.440 situations there we just did that today those folks are very appreciative thank you so much

00:37:34.320 to everybody who's donated and contributed to that those people over there often feel like

00:37:40.800 the world's forgotten about them or like other people don't care all of the material contribution

00:37:47.040 we've given is very much appreciated but also the fact that we care the fact that there's people on

00:37:53.440 the other side of the world that love them and care about them and want to do what we can to help

00:37:58.400 them have a little bit better life means a lot to those folks so thank you very much

00:38:15.680 all right so

00:38:28.400 on a question on side and something that i wanted to talk to you guys and announce and uh i'm very

00:38:35.040 very excited and proud to announce that we are set and ready in the fall to launch the uh the afa

00:38:46.800 alsatru academy um our homeschooling program certainly with a curriculum that's going to be

00:38:53.840 compliant to all 50 of the states in the united states um we've been working on this for some

00:39:01.760 time we're going to have the kindergarten portion of that up and ready for enrollment in this fall

00:39:08.800 we're going to have a presentation ready for that and have that available for parents to

00:39:13.440 to take a look at and to enroll and to consider uh june 1 so that folks have the summer to think

00:39:20.480 about if that's something they want to get their children involved in and then starting this fall

00:39:25.040 and every fall after that the astro folk assembly is going to fill up the curriculum with this going

00:39:33.040 from this kindergarten class all the way through till their graduation and at that time if not

00:39:38.560 before have a full uh k through 12 curriculum um gofie rob stam who's in the chat room tonight

00:39:48.080 is our dean of that program he has taken a lead there and doing an amazing job this is something

00:39:53.280 that our folk have wanted for a very long time now it's never been needed more than it is currently

00:40:00.080 and i'm very very proud we'll be able to do this and i'm proud that in a couple of years when my

00:40:04.320 daughter is ready to enroll that she will have this program to be a part of we strongly encourage

00:40:10.480 our parents to homeschool when they can and we want to be there every step of the way to provide

00:40:15.360 help support curriculum and to enroll AFA children in the Ausatru Academy and

00:40:23.360 take care of making sure they learn the right things with values and spirituality that's

00:40:29.600 essential to our folk and how we want to raise the future of our people. I'm very excited,

00:40:36.080 makes me feel old, but the first Ausatru Academy class will be graduating in, it'll be the class

00:40:43.520 of 35. So again, if you have children ready to enroll in kindergarten, please keep an eye on this.

00:40:52.640 Gauthier Stamm will have that information for you come June 1,

00:40:56.320 and we'll be ready to go and start rolling in September.

00:40:59.440 could I comment a little bit about the Oralinda book not very much I wish I had more to tell you

00:41:14.800 about it I what I do know of it seems incongruent with the rest of our the rest of our lore and the

00:41:28.700 rest of our history. I don't at this time place a lot of faith in the Orlinda book, but I don't

00:41:36.560 want to speak out of turn and I'm certainly not an expert on it. Again, I don't place a lot of

00:41:44.440 value in it from what I know currently, but that's about the most I could say on it.

00:41:58.700 dude bro no the afa has not reached out to the school of the west i have heard it mentioned

00:42:06.860 before um gothe stam is on this and this is something he can reach out to on the side and

00:42:11.820 take a look at i'm completely unfamiliar but um we're we're all for working together on figuring

00:42:18.140 out how best to serve our families and in the future of of alsa true by educating these children

00:42:24.380 and taking that into our hands instead of in public schools that have really not served us well lately.

00:42:54.380 Um, Alistair, as far as a runic calendar, I think that

00:43:02.360 I don't see a point in that. I think we have a calendar that's very functional,

00:43:10.320 that works well, that we're all on the same page. We know what it means.

00:43:14.700 I don't see any compelling reason to reinvent that particular wheel. I don't think it,

00:43:20.660 it does us any good. And I think it further adds a weirdo factor in a lot of ways that I don't

00:43:29.060 think we need any addition of, at least certainly not when there's not a purpose to doing it. I

00:43:35.100 think our calendar serves us very well for the world that we live in and the existence that our

00:43:40.300 people have in 2022. And I don't see a reason, like I said, to add confusion to that.

00:43:50.660 uh republic of vin vinland asked what are the six main religious events that we do

00:44:11.460 um we do something every month i couldn't really say there's six main ones um but they're all on

00:44:19.740 calendar they're on a website um we celebrate uh thora bloat in january uh charming of the plow in

00:44:29.500 february ostara in march uh hexen knocked in april mayday in may midsummer in june sigur bloat in

00:44:40.540 july fray faculty in august winter finding in september winter nights in october feast of the

00:44:48.060 einherjar in november and then we celebrate yule in december um those are the the 12 things that

00:44:54.540 we celebrate um and there's any number of private observances in between those but

00:45:01.020 those are the 12 main ones that we celebrate everybody's got a different pros at a train

00:45:12.780 sorry guys I assume everybody can see this on the side and I don't know if you can or you can't when

00:45:18.320 you watch the replay we have a question on what translation of the prose etta that that I recommend

00:45:27.980 and I really don't I think all of them are good for different reasons what I think is really first

00:45:35.220 just pick one and read it that's first once you've done that and you're familiar with it

00:45:42.900 what i think is really cool to do and there's i wish i had the website for you right now but

00:45:47.740 there's a really good website out there that um runs i think four or five different versions

00:45:53.820 side by side so you can compare each verse to one another and you can pick up on the similarities

00:46:00.240 and you can pick up on the differences because it's always tricky when you translate something

00:46:05.680 because you know a slight difference here or there can have a big difference in the meaning

00:46:09.920 in a literal way but it can also have a really profound difference in meaning in what it makes

00:46:15.700 click in your head or the personal associations that you make with it so I would encourage

00:46:21.740 everybody to just pick one and go with it and then once you do that and once you're familiar

00:46:27.580 with it to compare and contrast and see the ones you like and the ones you don't the ones that

00:46:32.300 make sense and and go from there and i think there's a lot of value to that hey come here

00:46:46.380 oh we're joined by our special guest this is my beautiful daughter aubrey

00:46:53.580 i love her and i love having her on here and showing her off to you guys

00:46:57.260 and this this is why what we're doing with the home school is so important

00:47:04.140 and i'm very excited to have that for her and other little boys and girls like her so that

00:47:10.380 so that they can grow up and learn in a way that celebrates them and that teaches them to be all

00:47:17.420 that they can be and that teaches them that they're beautiful and amazing and uh so we can

00:47:23.900 and help encourage them to be the amazing men and women that they should be.

00:47:28.980 And she's kind of squirrely, so I think it's going to be a little quick visit tonight.

00:47:32.880 But here's my daughter.

00:47:34.500 I'm the luckiest dad in the world.

00:47:37.620 There we go.

00:47:39.980 Anyways.

00:47:50.720 Just looking over inside, seeing if I can.

00:47:53.900 Hmm. Get any questions that anybody's throwing out?

00:48:11.180 Okay. I got a question about what I think about the war going on in the Ukraine.

00:48:23.900 When our folk die, that's terrible.

00:48:31.760 Like I've said before, I'm not an expert on that conflict.

00:48:35.700 I think that, you know, if I had family and really close connections to Ukraine, I may feel one way.

00:48:45.300 If I had a lot of family or close connections to Russia, maybe I'd feel a different way.

00:48:50.420 I think it's very tempting in any of these situations to look for and to find a bad guy, and I think that there's probably bad guys on both sides, and I think that there's probably amazing heroes on both sides.

00:49:07.820 There's also mothers without sons now on both sides, and wives without husbands on both sides, and that's tragic.

00:49:20.420 I don't like to see brother wars amongst our people. 0.79

00:49:24.580 I hope that that can be resolved with the least dead Ukrainians and least dead Russians as possible.

00:49:34.760 But it's certainly sad to see that happen.

00:49:37.440 And my heart goes out to the families that are dealing with that on a more personal level.

00:49:41.400 right

00:49:41.800 ghost nasty uh rob stam will give you any contact information you need we would love to have your

00:49:56.760 son be part of the outs of true academy when we get started in september and uh

00:50:02.920 gothi stan will get you all set up if you reach out to him over there on the side

00:50:11.400 King of Cheese.

00:50:37.400 that's okay thorough bloat comes around uh comes around every year we'll get you next time uh in

00:50:44.200 the meantime find the closest i'm not sure exactly where you're located but find the closest hexanoch

00:50:49.640 to you and we'll get you set up and we'll get you at an event we'd love to see all of our members

00:50:53.720 come out and participate in whatever way they can again if you look on those websites at the

00:50:59.480 calendars and again the um the websites are going to be in the information on the side if i could

00:51:05.080 have some of our folk builders or maybe my wife post them in the chat so you guys can see them

00:51:10.840 but they're really amazing jessica did a great job making them and their event calendar is going

00:51:15.240 to give all of you guys a good a good view of what's happening close to you

00:51:20.760 and who to contact to get involved with things that are happening close to you

00:51:24.360 uh james recognizes something else is beautiful is all of the babies being born in the afa

00:51:39.800 and i say this every year but every year trumps the year before as far as 0.98

00:51:44.840 how many beautiful beautiful little boys and girls are born into the astro folk assembly

00:51:49.880 One thing that we do for those that our ladies have taken upon themselves to do is they make a baby blanket for each of our AFA babies and send those out as soon as we find out that an AFA baby's been born. 1.00

00:52:04.740 James is asking what we can do on that.

00:52:10.120 We can post a link in the side on who to contact, but if you contact my wife, Mandy, she can tell you a little bit more about whether we need more boy blankets or more girl blankets.

00:52:19.880 we've had a lot of you guys step up lately and make blankets. It's been hard to keep up with the

00:52:26.120 the demand because we've had so many beautiful little AFA babies born, but we're doing good

00:52:31.600 right now. If you're interested in making baby blankets for our AFA babies, please reach out to

00:52:37.700 my wife, Mandy Flavell over on the side. She can get you any kind of contact information.

00:52:43.000 i believe it's mandy at runestone.org um i was going to say m flavell but that would take you

00:52:50.800 to both of us if you email me matt flavell i'll forward you over to my wife um and yeah we can

00:52:56.620 make sure all our all our babies get blankets

00:52:59.500 Oh, wow. Just looked at the time and it's almost been an hour with you guys.

00:53:13.640 um alistair i wish i had a really good answer on kids also true books for you hopefully somebody

00:53:30.980 in the side chat can recommend some really good ones to you she's a little young yet and i don't

00:53:37.400 have any great children's book recommendations for Ausatru, unfortunately, but hopefully somebody

00:53:43.620 on the side can give you a better answer than that. And I will, I will work to get a better

00:53:47.640 answer. What's the date for the next gathering at Odenshof? Let me see. Just like I was saying,

00:54:00.520 I'm pulling up our website here while I'm talking to you folks. It's going to be Saturday the 16th.

00:54:07.400 is going to be Hexanocht and our food pantry at Odenshof. So yeah, anybody who wants to come

00:54:14.540 out for that, we'd love to see you guys there. If you haven't been, it's a really special place.

00:54:21.400 People comment on that when they go there for the first time of just the feeling they get. It's a

00:54:28.100 powerful place because we've done ritual there for almost seven years now, imbuing that with

00:54:35.800 with power. And you could, folks often comment that they can really feel that there.

00:54:57.220 King of cheese brings up a good point. Gas money is getting, or gas prices are getting ridiculous.

00:55:02.720 we realize that if you reach out to your local folk builder they can help you get hooked up

00:55:09.640 with members in your area to maybe carpool if you guys need help get into events it's something a

00:55:14.540 lot of our people have have done it's something that you know i try to do when i drive over to

00:55:18.540 odenshoff we're having a lot of folks carpooling it's a great chance to get to know other members

00:55:23.600 and spend a little bit of time with them in the car on the way to events and to save a little bit

00:55:27.860 money on gas. So do think about that. Just because something's a little bit far away

00:55:32.840 doesn't make it impossible. It just means that, you know, maybe we work together to make it happen.

00:55:36.980 it always surprises me and in a good way when people reach out and they're surrounded by people

00:56:03.760 Any fellow folk in or around the Sacramento area? Absolutely. We have tons of people around Sacramento. Tons of great people that we'd love to get you connected with. Sierra Chapman, if somebody could post a link over on the side, is who I'd recommend you contact.

00:56:23.920 She's the folk builder that's closest to Sacramento and she would be loved.

00:56:27.920 She would love to get you set up, but we have got tons of people in the Sacramento area.

00:56:31.920 Sacramento is just about just about an hour from Odenshoff, which is really nice.

00:56:36.920 It's a good opportunity to be able to get up and be part of that.

00:56:39.920 But yes, please reach out. We got amazing people in Sacramento.

00:56:53.920 Sorry, guys, I'm just catching up on the side. I want to make sure I answer everybody. I don't

00:57:03.600 want anybody's question to slip through the cracks. If I do forget, or if I miss one of

00:57:09.460 your questions or something, please always feel free. It doesn't have to be on this.

00:57:14.300 Email me mattflavell at runestone.org, and I'd be really happy to answer any question you ask me

00:57:20.800 to the best of my ability. If I do miss a question on the side, I apologize, but do please reach out

00:57:27.020 and I'd be happy to answer them. Gauthier Daniel Young mentions carpool karaoke as a good reason

00:57:39.540 to carpool. I suppose that can cut both ways. We'll see. I don't know. I drove with him and

00:57:45.440 family we had a good time singing car uh carpool karaoke on the way up to uh to ostara at thor's

00:57:52.080 hof this last month so that's something to think about too

00:58:00.800 thank you mandy for putting up that link to folk builder sierra chapman um

00:58:06.320 Um, what's my opinion on the works of Norse myth beyond Snorri?

00:58:22.960 I like them, the ones that I'm aware of.

00:58:25.620 I noticed that the name of the guy who asked me that is Saxo.

00:58:29.260 Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Dinorum is really interesting.

00:58:33.220 it can be really confusing and i don't think it works well by itself but when paired with

00:58:42.100 the eddas and compared i think it adds a richer and a deeper understanding to the eddas and i

00:58:47.780 like that a lot um it's harder to find really well documented well codified stories of our lore

00:58:56.580 outside of snorrizzettas um any of the sagas are are valuable and interesting a lot of the um

00:59:12.580 jordan's work on the goths is beneficial and i like that a lot it's just it's hard to get

00:59:20.260 really full telling so many chunks of our lore outside of those eddas but like i say those are

00:59:27.700 some other i guess um original lore sources that i think are are valuable or that i enjoy

00:59:50.260 yeah i wouldn't say turn down any um sources of our lore you're talking about um older writings

01:00:04.060 about germanics so that being the case i really like the culture of the teutons by groenbeck

01:00:10.320 um you know that's what 150 years old or something but i think that's really valuable

01:00:19.120 um as far as other people writing about our folk i think uh tacitus as you mentioned is

01:00:25.840 a really good source i like germania but i also like his agricola work about the britons

01:00:32.960 to a degree i think there's really neat things to be learned about the gauls

01:00:36.960 from julius caesar's commentaries on the gaelic wars i like that as well

01:00:48.560 all right guys does anybody have does anybody have any more questions or any last things they

01:01:00.120 wanted to ask me um i'm going to wrap this up here but i don't want anybody to get left out

01:01:05.600 if anybody has any things they wanted to wanted to ask or wanted to talk about

01:01:09.140 I'm going to give it just a second here. Thank you guys so much for being here and asking questions. This conversation is really driven by getting good questions, and I appreciate you guys participating. I appreciate this chance to talk to you guys, and I'm really excited about all the things we've got going on. We've got some really amazing, it's a very special time to be in the AFA.

01:01:39.140 All right, last thing. Saxo is asking me about ancestral reincarnation.

01:01:53.780 The AFA Gothar and I have discussed this a lot lately, and I think that it's

01:01:59.300 a much more complex issue than people think. I don't think that reincarnation in

01:02:08.880 our folk works one for one like that um i don't think you know like

01:02:17.760 your grandson is the reincarnation of your great-grandfather i don't think that it works

01:02:23.680 like that one for one um but i think that certainly pieces of your soul do reincarnate

01:02:32.880 and we've got a multi-part folk soul i think that there are pieces of the soul that have the

01:02:38.880 potential to ascend to the to the realm of the gods into the halls of the gods i think that's

01:02:44.880 what's spoken about with the idea of folk fanger or valhalla i think that certainly there are

01:02:51.440 pieces of our soul that go to our ancestors and go live on that way i think there's some pieces

01:02:58.240 of that soul concept um like the like the lich or the body that you know get cremated or or uh

01:03:10.480 um decompose and are done away with i think there's other pieces of your luck of your hymenia

01:03:18.320 of your ancestral memory that absolutely get reincarnated and passed on and i think

01:03:26.560 the process of naming helps get a bigger chunk of that person's essence of that

01:03:32.880 person's personality to re-manifest in that person but i don't think it's a one for one

01:03:38.000 because otherwise when we went to our altar to honor our deceased loved ones

01:03:46.000 it just creates a logical dilemma that they exist one place but then also in reincarnated

01:03:51.520 children. I don't think it's that simple. Like I said, I do think there are pieces that reincarnate

01:03:56.480 and there are pieces that transcend death.

01:04:09.080 Okay, I've got a few more questions here that I'll go ahead and try to get to.

01:04:13.620 Advice for someone struggling with ancestors when they're adopted. I think there's no harm and no

01:04:20.400 foul in honoring the folks that adopted you i think that's certainly those people are i don't

01:04:26.400 know your experience but likely those people are worthy of worthy of honor um

01:04:34.000 i think there's something to be said for reaching out generically to your ancestors

01:04:38.320 at your altar and seeing what happens i think that all that often if you do that and you make that

01:04:45.360 good faith attempt you'll find some point of connection or you may discover some relation

01:04:52.160 that you didn't know you had and i think that whether you do or you don't making the effort

01:04:57.600 to show honor to your ancestors even maybe even especially when you don't know who they are

01:05:03.280 is meaningful and i think when you make a meaningful offering on your end

01:05:07.360 And that certainly encourages ancestors of good faith to reach back towards you.

01:05:30.400 Okay, I got a question about esoteric Hitlerism.

01:05:33.700 i'm not trying to duck any questions um i know that there are people out there who practice

01:05:41.940 house the truth that also practice esoteric hitlerism i think using that term is

01:05:48.480 causes more confusion and more harm than good i think there's so many particulars over what

01:05:57.940 you mean when you say it, that the, you know, the founders of that aren't clear on. You know,

01:06:05.000 I think that Miguel Serrano and Savitri Divi, they both have a very different definition of

01:06:11.760 what that means. And, you know, you asking the question may have a different idea in your mind

01:06:15.900 what that means. But fundamentally, that's not also true in what we're doing. It doesn't have

01:06:20.960 to conflict. It doesn't have to contribute. But in the AFA, that's not one of our tenets. One of

01:06:28.180 the things that we're, you know, that we're focusing on. We're focusing on the veneration

01:06:32.340 of our gods and on Ausatru. Again, the rest of that, it's really hard to say without knowing

01:06:41.740 the particulars of what that means to you, but that's not what our focus is in the Ausatru Folk

01:06:47.420 assembly. All right, guys, it's been great talking to you tonight. I look forward to talking to you

01:06:59.440 guys next month. I encourage you all to go to those district websites and see what's going on

01:07:04.600 near you. Get out, be involved, celebrate with your folk. If you're not in the AFA, I encourage

01:07:11.560 you to reach out to your folk builder and join us um but until next time i hope you guys have

01:07:18.120 a great month and we'll talk to you later hail the gods hail the folk hail the afa

Asatru Folk Assembly - April 02, 2022

April 2022 Live Discussion

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