Asatru Folk Assembly - July 2021 Live Discussion

00:00:00.000 Hello. It's good to talk to you guys again. Had a big month this June. It's kind of a

00:00:17.460 shock to me that the year's already half over. But the AFA year has traditionally started

00:00:24.400 and run from midsummer to midsummer.

00:00:28.580 And so we had a really spectacular midsummer

00:00:34.960 at Odenshoff to get things started this year.

00:00:39.840 We were blown away last year

00:00:42.040 at the height of the pandemic situation we were in.

00:00:50.120 We had our biggest midsummer ever last year

00:00:53.220 at 143 people at Odenshoff for Midsummer, which was spectacular for us. But this year,

00:01:03.060 this year I was blown away. We set a new record at Midsummer this year. We had 152 people at

00:01:11.220 Odenshoff to celebrate the height of the year and the start of, I guess in a way, the start of the

00:01:19.120 AFA year. It was amazing. We had an amazing time. Thank you so much to all of the people that worked

00:01:28.040 so hard to put on Midsummer at Odenshoff. Give you Sheila McNallan, folk builder Sierra Chapman,

00:01:35.400 and folk builder Crystal Bailey. She did an amazing job in the kitchen. 0.99

00:01:41.980 Also, also special thanks goes to Victor for keeping things straight, but we had an amazing

00:01:48.200 event. It was spectacular. The most, it's easy to say this, I guess, because it was our biggest

00:01:54.240 event, but the most children we'd ever had in an AFA event. And I believe the biggest percentage

00:01:59.420 of children in an AFA event, so many kids running around. It was beautiful to see. It was beautiful

00:02:04.320 to watch them play together. We had folks from all over to come and celebrate and worship at

00:02:11.440 Odin's Hoff. And so it was fantastic. And hopefully you guys can join us next year.

00:02:16.460 um if you guys missed it if you guys see the pictures and you guys are wishing you were at a

00:02:22.080 at a national afa gathering next one up is going to be in september at baldershof fall fest um

00:02:29.240 always a spectacular time we would love to see you guys there you know clear your calendars now

00:02:35.760 make the travel arrangements ride with a friend do what you got to do but i would love to see

00:02:40.920 you guys there it's going to be a great event thank you so much for joining we got the

00:02:46.260 chat on the side blowing up here with people, people popping in, which is always great to see.

00:02:57.920 Excellent. So a couple of, a couple of really good things, I guess, since last we talked,

00:03:05.640 maybe not, but I don't know if I mentioned it last time, and it bears repeating.

00:03:10.780 We've started our food distributions at Baldershof, which is a great thing.

00:03:15.940 Goathe Jason Plurt has been heading that up, done an amazing thing.

00:03:20.780 It's been great to interact with our community in that way and help out.

00:03:24.860 It's been really nice to meet people in that community and have that interaction with the neighbors there.

00:03:31.820 Love doing that. And I'm really excited that that's up and that's running.

00:03:35.080 If you are listening to this and you're in Murdoch, Minnesota, and you're hungry, once a month we distribute what we can for food for folks.

00:03:44.640 So if you're in need, go check it out and get some food and meet our people.

00:03:54.740 I'm trying to think of other stuff to start us out here today.

00:03:58.820 I guess I'll go ahead with this.

00:04:01.740 Um, something that we started talking about last month, and I guess the first time I'm speaking to you about it on on these chats, is our next big push. So having a having a Hoff was a dream for us for such a very long time.

00:04:22.240 I go back and I've read, you know, ancient rune stones from the 1970s talking about how any day now we're going to have a Hoff any day now we're going to have, you know, sacred ground, we're going to have this Hoff and it's going to be amazing. 0.78

00:04:38.240 any day now, any day now, into the 80s, any day now, into the 90s, any day now, we're almost there,

00:04:44.360 any day now, it took until 2015 for us to get our first Hoff. We got Odin's Hoff and it was a

00:04:52.580 spectacular achievement. When I first got involved in House of True, the idea of us having a Hoff

00:04:58.660 was this distant goal that maybe someday if we worked hard enough we could get to and it's

00:05:03.840 amazing to live in a time now where we've accomplished that. We have a Hoth and we have

00:05:08.800 Odin's Hoth. And then last year in 2020, we added, we have Thor's Hoth and Baldur's Hoth. So now we

00:05:17.900 have three Hoths to honor three of our Aesir. And that's fantastic. So our next big, next big

00:05:26.420 adventure together as the AFA is to establish a beautiful and

00:05:31.860 amazing Hoff to honor New York. We're committed to that. We're

00:05:38.660 we've started fundraising for that we've started planning for

00:05:41.660 that. To break it down for you guys a little bit, it's going to

00:05:46.560 be a three phase project to make that happen. First phase is to

00:05:52.480 pay off the debts that we've incurred for Thor's Hoff and

00:05:55.740 for Baldershoff. We found an amazing lender that helped us out on that when we needed it.

00:06:02.140 And we've paid that down significantly. As of today, we owe just a little bit over $11,000 on

00:06:09.120 that. So we need to whittle that down and clear that debt. Our next goal is to raise our monthly

00:06:17.020 income that's not earmarked for other specific causes to a level that can sustain four halves

00:06:25.840 and sustain it comfortably while still maintaining a good operating budget to handle all the other

00:06:31.200 things that we need to do. We're well on our way towards that. We're working on a monthly average

00:06:38.280 there, but we've exceeded that the past two months. So we're looking very favorably on that.

00:06:45.040 And then the third step is to actually find a property and to secure, hopefully, a couple different sources of financing just so we're real square we can get it.

00:06:56.740 Now, in the meantime, with your generous donations, and we appreciate that so very much, we are building up a war chest for either a down payment or eventually to buy it outright if it takes that long on finding the spot in the process.

00:07:12.240 But this is something we want to move forward and accelerate quickly.

00:07:16.040 We put out the call last month to start donations for Njordshoff, and those have been rolling in.

00:07:22.640 You guys have been impressively generous, as always.

00:07:27.040 It is a credit to our AFA.

00:07:28.880 It is a credit to our church, and it's certainly an amazing thing to do for our gods, and I know that they appreciate it.

00:07:36.880 So thank you guys so much, and we're excited about it.

00:07:40.280 We're moving forward on it.

00:07:41.420 um if you guys are interested we have a donation link at www.runestone.org to help make that happen

00:07:49.180 if you go under support we've got a spot that says donation it's also available as an item in our

00:07:54.620 store if it's easier to get to that way but we appreciate all the help you guys can do

00:07:59.580 let's see what we got over in the chat for tonight

00:08:02.380 yes we still have a store it's uh at roomstone under the support section of the menu it's only

00:08:13.840 so many things we can put on that menu bar but under support we have donate we have join and

00:08:18.800 we have our store and that's where you can go and and help support us in any or all three of those

00:08:25.180 three ways. We have an event in Pennsylvania every single year. We have winter nights in

00:08:35.240 the Poconos in October, and that's always an amazing event. That's our kind of the second

00:08:41.720 big event that we started doing years back, and it's been amazing. It's always got a great

00:08:46.600 crowd. I'm looking forward to it this year. Oh, we got somebody on the side saying it's blurry

00:08:56.900 on their end. I hope it's not blurry on everybody else's. Folk builder James Alt has donated camera

00:09:05.460 equipment and a cool ring light to step my game up here. And I hope that helps. I'm really

00:09:11.960 pleased with the quality of it. So I hope it's good on your guys's end. If you guys have any

00:09:16.980 questions or anything you want to talk about on the side, please, you know, go ahead and mention

00:09:23.080 that or ask and I'll get to them. We have somebody who emailed me a question the other day, and I

00:09:29.000 want to get to that. And the question they've asked, I've heard this come up a couple of times

00:09:32.980 over the years. What is the, something to the effect of what is the appropriate Ausatrice

00:09:39.580 stance on the quote-unquote paranormal. They mention specifically near-death experiences,

00:09:48.140 ghosts, things like that. I'm always very careful with those topics.

00:09:57.980 A lot of people who talk about that are lunatics and say really crazy and embarrassing things. 0.73

00:10:04.780 um just because some of those people are crazy does not mean everybody is 0.96

00:10:11.880 and you know i challenge us to to stop and think on it a little bit if we believe in our gods

00:10:19.380 if we believe in our ancestors if we believe that we speak to them at ritual if we believe

00:10:27.580 that there's an interaction there when we go to our altars then certainly we believe that there's

00:10:33.240 degree of afterlife for uh parts of our soul and our spirit that live on after death i think that

00:10:41.000 it's very appropriate to believe that things such as ghosts exist and are are out there and interact

00:10:47.720 i think we have a lot of different forces that are unseen that we know exist like the land spirits um

00:10:55.240 so you know i think we the appropriate stance on that is to be cautious and not accept you know

00:11:03.240 any lunatic getting carried away. But I have met a few people in my life that have a genuine

00:11:09.480 second sight, if you want to call it that, that can see glimpses of those things in certain places

00:11:17.120 at certain times. And so I really believe that's a thing. I think an important house of true stance

00:11:24.420 and I've, I don't know, something that I've had a thought on the subject. I think that if you

00:11:29.760 interact with those things. There's a tendency to interact in fear and to act hostile. I've

00:11:38.520 always thought it much more appropriate to be respectful and to be hospitable when interacting

00:11:44.640 with any spirits, be they living, dead, in Midgard, or otherwise, because I think having that attitude

00:11:50.980 towards all that we approach is a good way to start. But that's my take on it. Trouble is,

00:11:58.740 you get people in the paranormal field, and they're the same people that believe in every

00:12:04.940 possible crazy paranormal thing indiscriminately. And that gives a lot of people a bad name,

00:12:10.660 and it takes away a lot of seriousness. So I would always advise caution when dealing with

00:12:14.580 those kind of things. We absolutely have stuff in Georgia. One of our folk builders lives in

00:12:21.680 Georgia. I'm sorry, I'm reading stuff on the side. We have a gentleman asking about if we

00:12:24.560 anything in georgia uh folk builder trent east lives in georgia he lives in uh north

00:12:31.920 northwest georgia we've got stuff going on there we've got quite a few members

00:12:36.560 uh reach out to trent east t east at runestone.org and he'd love to connect you with our georgia

00:12:41.920 membership. Okay. My recommendation for the top three books and what is the Ausitru Bible in my

00:13:05.500 opinion? There's not really an Ausitru Bible. I think that concept will always fall short and so

00:13:10.640 hesitate to call anything that i think the prose and poetic eddas are the most concise source of

00:13:19.200 our primary lore but i would never look at them like a bible in the sense that you know every

00:13:25.040 aspect is divinely inspired and you know as if the gods wrote a book i think that mythology and

00:13:30.960 lore is very different from that and i would never try to put it in that box it was never intended to

00:13:35.760 be. Top three books about Ausatru that I'd recommend. Ausatru and Native European Spirituality

00:13:43.360 by Stephen McNallan, our founder and the first Ausheri Goethe of the Ausatru Folk Assembly.

00:13:49.120 I would also recommend The Culture of the Teutons by Wilhelm Groenbeck and

00:13:56.640 And it's hard to have to pick a third one.

00:14:14.920 That's one of those questions I overthink quite a bit, but.

00:14:26.640 I would say to get some of our runic understanding, I'd recommend Futhark by Dr. Stephen Flowers.

00:14:40.720 If you want something that's more historical, I think that I'm Skringla would be a very good

00:14:48.280 thing to read or the Saga of the Icelanders, which is kind of cheating because it's a whole

00:14:52.440 bunch of different volumes in one book. That's what I'd recommend to start out with.

00:15:06.960 Ease up, Githya. Don't talk poorly about Zach Bagans. I'm a Zach fan from way back.

00:15:17.020 Tell Bjorn I said hi and hope his teeth are doing good.

00:15:22.440 OK. So we've got a question about Sigur Bloat. Why we're doing it? How do we celebrate it?

00:15:34.520 Kind of what's the deal? Sigur Bloat means victory bloat. It is just that. I think that it is a bloat to

00:15:42.640 ask for victory. It's a bloat to empower ourselves to be victorious. And it's a bloat to

00:15:52.960 celebrate victory. So I think it's a bloat to do all three of those things. I would recommend the

00:16:00.560 the God that most often comes to my mind to celebrate victory is is Odin. He's known as

00:16:07.860 the victory father, Sig father. And so I would, I would celebrate Odin. But that said, all of our

00:16:17.920 Aesir are abundant in victory and are perfectly fine to celebrate a Sigur blow to in honor of 0.99

00:16:26.040 or in celebration with. I think there's no real bad choice amongst our Aesir about that. 1.00

00:16:32.380 Um, one thing that I think is, is important in a Sigger bloat depends what you're doing. If you have a specific mission or goal you're trying to accomplish, talking about that, asking for favorable outcomes, asking for inspiration to empower you to achieve those victories. 1.00

00:16:52.460 But what else I think is really important is to to celebrate your victories in that holy context.

00:17:01.980 If you're doing your ritual with some kind of an altar, if you're not, I'd suggest you set something up, maybe a table.

00:17:09.380 But to lay out tokens of your victories on that, to celebrate those in front of your folk, in front of your gods and to.

00:17:17.980 to celebrate your accomplishments, what you guys have done together, what you've done

00:17:23.540 individually. The element of bragging has more to it than we would think of in a modern context.

00:17:32.700 It's not just that. It's justifying and displaying your worth amongst our folk and amongst our gods

00:17:38.440 to say, here I am. Here's what I bring to the table. And if you're bringing great things to

00:17:43.340 the table, we should all appreciate them and celebrate it with you. And if you notice that

00:17:46.800 you're not bringing that much, then at your next bloat, hopefully you can bring more tokens of

00:17:50.760 victory. But that's what Sigur bloat's about. It's appropriate to do at any time. Our Viking

00:17:56.140 ancestors would often do it before raiding season, before they would go out and need to score

00:18:01.800 victories. But in our modern age, we go out looking for victory at all times of the year.

00:18:07.380 So there's never really a bad time to celebrate a Sigur bloat. So that's what we're going to be 1.00

00:18:12.020 focusing on in the month of July, and I encourage you guys to get together with your AFA family

00:18:17.320 and celebrate victory.

00:18:35.240 Okay, we've got a question.

00:18:38.680 why do I think that the AFA is being attacked by the media and other organizations like the SPLC

00:18:45.240 when other Focus House of True organizations are not? Is it our growth and success? Yes.

00:18:53.000 Absolutely. I think that doing things, just doing things brings attention. Doing great things and

00:19:05.080 and succeeding brings a lot of attention. It is always easier to complain about people who are

00:19:13.820 successful than it is to go out and seek your own successes. And so I think that's why so much

00:19:20.740 attention is on us from those organizations is because we're effective. It's because we're

00:19:25.800 winning. I wish, you know, I wish this weren't the case, but the more successful we are,

00:19:31.280 the more we bring our more greater numbers of our folk home, and the more we establish

00:19:37.540 Hoffs and do things in the world, the more we're going to have haters. And that's just going to

00:19:41.660 happen. But at the same time, and I think it goes unnoticed, the more we have an awful lot of

00:19:46.660 supporters, the more we have people join and come to us. Every time the media says something bad

00:19:51.820 about us, it boosts our membership. We have people that didn't know about us that check us out and

00:19:57.180 say, hey, you guys are up to some great stuff. You guys are doing things. So I think that's

00:20:01.600 fantastic. I wish the media would leave us alone. I wish other groups would stop calling us names

00:20:09.040 and being mean to us. But it's a testament to our success and to what we're able to accomplish

00:20:13.800 together that we're getting that attention. And for all the attention, just because their voice

00:20:18.180 is louder and allowed to spread more, I'm able to see the other side of it. And we're getting an

00:20:23.320 awful lot of positive attention as well. And what I think is really important to note,

00:20:29.220 certainly we're getting plenty of positive attention from our folk, from new members and

00:20:33.420 new folks who are interested, but we're also getting the attention of the gods. When we

00:20:38.440 succeed and we do things in their name and we establish Hoffs, we draw the attention of the

00:20:45.100 great gods of our folk, of the Isir, to us and to what we're doing. We're powerful because we do

00:20:51.180 that together as a group. It's much harder to get that attention when you're, when you're an

00:20:56.700 individual, we stand together in that circle. I mentioned at Midsommar having, you know, a record

00:21:01.480 number of people there when there's 150 people in the circle, all celebrating, giving bloat to our

00:21:08.620 gods. We have the attention of the most important personated personages in the universe. We have

00:21:19.700 the attention of our gods, the great gods of our folk. And that

00:21:24.620 is the type of attention that I want to get. And that's the best

00:21:29.180 attention that success gets us.

00:21:31.140 I appreciate you guys helping out over in the chat on the side.

00:21:58.640 Okay. Our folk builder, Zach Cato, wants me to explain to you guys the imagery and the

00:22:07.840 mottos that we have on each of our three flags. First flag that we have is behind me over here.

00:22:17.880 it's our odin's hof flag and odin's odin steed slepner is is there rampant um

00:22:28.520 looking looking glorious looking victorious um the horse of odin it was important to us

00:22:38.200 when we got our first hof to establish horse heads on the on the cross beams as they would do

00:22:44.840 in the hoffs of the anglo-saxons and i think that evolved into us celebrating the the stallion and

00:22:52.040 then further evolved into us celebrating at odin's hof his stallion slepner um so that's what what

00:22:58.840 that symbolizes the motto to do right and fear none uh fear no one is really important it's

00:23:07.480 something that's been said many times it's a it's a german proverb um to erect and show you nemen

00:23:15.480 i believe and it's something that our founder steve mcnallen has always said as a as kind of

00:23:22.680 watch words for us to to gauge things and to not be distracted if you spend your focus on doing the

00:23:29.640 right thing and not living in fear then really great things come to you and i think the afa has

00:23:35.080 certainly seen a lot of that um the next one is the uh the rampant black bear on the thorsof flag

00:23:48.200 and so when we choose these um kinfilia or these these spiritual animals to represent

00:23:57.400 our folk in these areas uh we leave that largely up or we have a discussion with our local

00:24:03.720 um gothar in the area on what they feel is appropriate what they feel represents their

00:24:07.920 region what they feel is is special or significant in their area and uh the bear has always been a

00:24:16.320 mighty animal it's always you know there's been associations with bears and thor for a long time

00:24:22.560 um the black bear in that region is a you know a respected animal and uh and something that our

00:24:30.340 folk in the area wanted to draw strength from and take pride in so that's why we have the black

00:24:35.040 bear on there and then the motto words are wind deeds are iron that's a motto that comes from one

00:24:41.700 of our foundational kindreds in the region um as the kindred that uh witten spawn harrell is part

00:24:49.680 of or was part of and founded is the iron guard kindred and that kindred kind of evolved into

00:24:55.580 that hoff and was absorbed into that hoff and to respect that legacy and where that came from

00:25:01.580 we have the uh we have their motto emblazoned on the flag the third one is uh waldershoff and the

00:25:10.460 the the white wolf of baldershoff with the north star shining above and uh the motto guided by true

00:25:22.540 north. And the idea behind that, we've had wolf symbolism up there with our folk for a long time.

00:25:32.180 The fact that wolves are a pack animal and they work together towards their goal. They're also

00:25:38.600 an important animal in the north lands, in the snowy plains. And the north star being having

00:25:48.580 a constant guide something that's steady something that's true and that doesn't waver

00:25:53.620 through the waves of fashion through the waves of political correctness through the waves of

00:25:59.220 you know good times and bad times focusing on what's true focusing on what's eternal

00:26:06.020 and not losing your way and that's the point of that model or that motto and that's what we do

00:26:11.220 in the austral folk assembly and it's what the folks in that region have seen them through

00:26:16.260 a lot of adversity to get where they've gotten. And because they kept their eye on true north,

00:26:21.940 they've been extremely successful. So that's the idea behind that.

00:26:37.540 There any diets or exercises I recommend for the folk?

00:26:41.620 Yes, I recommend diet and exercise for the full. I don't just say that to be flipped because almost anything that's serious works if you're consistent with it. I think it's extremely important for our folk to be healthy and to be whole. I think neglecting our physical self is missing out on a huge part of our soul complex and a huge part of who we are.

00:27:05.480 So I would encourage everyone out there, no matter what level of fitness you're currently at, you can be better than that a month from now.

00:27:13.800 Seek to do that. If you're elite, get elite-er.

00:27:18.000 If you're struggling with obesity or health concerns because of your physical shape, let's try to get a little bit better.

00:27:24.240 The AFA has done a great job in the last six years of coming together and supporting ourselves and supporting each other to achieve our goals physically and to keep our spirits high as we're doing it because it can be challenging to do diet and exercise.

00:27:38.240 I know working out and watching watching how I eat's been hugely important to me in my life and

00:27:44.600 has helped me be successful. It's helped me externally with how other people react to me

00:27:49.680 and how I get along with the world. But it's also helped me internally with confidence in myself,

00:27:53.960 with feeling good, with representing myself the best way I can or the best way I've been able to

00:28:00.040 so far. But I'm always trying to be better. And I think we should all try to be better with

00:28:03.720 good dieting and exercise. And one thing I'll say about dieting that works very well for me

00:28:09.460 is the concept of if it fits your macros, counting your macros and trying to hit your

00:28:16.460 macronutrient goals, I think is really important. And I, other people may disagree with this,

00:28:21.800 but I like to keep a running tally. So if I go over, I can, I can accommodate for it the next

00:28:26.940 day by going a little bit under and balancing those things out with a running tally over time

00:28:32.140 in case I don't hit them spot on. I think that's really important. I certainly am a big fan of

00:28:38.280 weight training as far as exercise goes, but honestly, I'm a fan of exercise. Whatever your

00:28:44.240 sport, whatever exercise you get excited about or appeals to you, go out and do it. The biggest

00:28:51.720 thing is to stop thinking about it, to stop having paralysis of analysis, to pick a diet plan,

00:28:58.080 pick an exercise plan and get out there and go. Get outside, go to the gym,

00:29:03.140 do what you got to do and stick with it and be consistent.

00:29:11.000 Haha, Bjorn, you can't get me.

00:29:22.680 Sorry, guys, just reading over here in the chat to see if there's any questions going on or any

00:29:26.360 ideas of stuff folks want me to talk about this evening alan absolutely the parts in uh cultures

00:29:36.120 of the culture of the teutons about frith was just mind-blowing to me when i first read it

00:29:40.920 it solidified that concept in a way i'd never heard or never understood before

00:29:44.920 and it's stuck with me ever since i think that chapter alone is reason enough to get that book

00:29:56.360 If, Sierra, if you're asking if this is recorded, yes, all of these are recorded every single

00:30:23.560 month and should be up for viewing after we get done with the live stuff here. Sierra has stepped

00:30:30.440 up to be our Hoff historian at Odins Hoff. We're excited. She's been on the job for 24 hours and

00:30:38.200 she's already doing amazing things so we really appreciate that

00:30:55.080 does the afa have a stance on homesteading homeschooling preparedness or self-reliance in

00:31:02.120 general yes um as far as like a stance on each of those things individually or like a doctrine for

00:31:12.360 all of it certainly self-reliance is important um being prepared is important

00:31:21.240 homesteading is a good thing i want to talk about homeschooling separately but the idea of

00:31:27.160 preparedness and uh and self-reliance i think that all of us take that at a different level

00:31:35.400 there are people out there that spend all of their time and all of their resources

00:31:42.760 in a little bit of a fanciful or maybe a paranoid situation where they prepare for some great

00:31:50.920 calamity and the people that were doing that in the 60s and 70s some of who've already passed

00:31:56.520 have wasted a lot of their life and a lot of their things that they could have done better

00:32:00.920 things with or enjoyed a lot more with what i think is perhaps over preparing but i think that's

00:32:07.560 a spectrum and i think every family has a different idea where that is i think a lot of us saw last

00:32:14.120 year just on a small scale when a lot of things shut down sometimes you don't have the things that

00:32:19.960 you take for granted and the things that that you need are the things that you want and i think

00:32:25.320 certainly i would advise small steps and the afa always supports people taking steps to make sure

00:32:30.440 that they are prepared for disaster but also prepared for regular things in life to where

00:32:35.720 they can take care of stuff to where they can take care of themselves and their family but also

00:32:39.720 to where they can reach out and take care of our folk who are in need or who are in trouble

00:32:43.960 so i think a responsible level of preparedness is very important homeschooling is a little bit

00:32:48.920 different story um i think that we've all it's self-evident um schools are not what they used to

00:32:57.880 be and the things that they teach our children are not what they used to be um i say this with no

00:33:05.160 you know institutionalized malice towards you know towards the educational system my mother was a

00:33:10.360 teacher for 30 years um i think that there was a time i would have been very comfortable having

00:33:17.480 my daughter go to public schools but i think that time's long since passed all of us have to do the

00:33:23.880 best we can we all face different circumstances there's nothing here about judging harshly any

00:33:29.080 parents that can't but the afa stance is if you can homeschool your children you should homeschool

00:33:35.720 your children the best we can do to have more of our children learning the values we want instead

00:33:42.280 of the exact opposite which is often taught in public schools these days is great keeping them

00:33:49.240 out of what i believe is a very unhealthy environment is also really good thing so we 1.00

00:33:54.600 really encourage our parents to homeschool when they're able and uh to that effect the astrofolk 0.99

00:33:59.960 assembly is in the very very early stages of developing homeschool program homeschool curriculum

00:34:07.400 and certainly resources for parents who are homeschooling one of the biggest things that

00:34:11.720 holds people back from homeschooling is they don't know how it works and they're scared of it because

00:34:18.120 it's unknown how do you homeschool what what what are the rules what do you do what resources do

00:34:23.720 you have it can be overwhelming so we're trying really hard to narrow down resources rules per

00:34:30.360 state in the united states to make that process easier and make parents more confident in their

00:34:37.320 ability to homeschool so again afa doctrine on homeschooling is if you can do do the very best

00:34:45.400 you can for your children and not looking down on anybody if they can't things are what they are

00:34:51.640 but the more of our children can be homeschooled we think that's a very good thing

00:35:07.320 Okay, we've got a question about bands.

00:35:21.600 Somebody was wondering if the AFA had ever in the past or if we would consider having bands play either at an event or at a separate time during the year.

00:35:29.400 of course we would consider that um we have had that in the past uh afa events we used to very

00:35:36.840 often um before my time as alzheimer goethe very often we would i say very often every

00:35:43.560 national level event we would have bands at um sometimes just one sometimes two or three

00:35:50.840 the selection we had to choose from was very limited at the time or the selection that we

00:36:02.380 were choosing from and often it just we ran into an obligation to have them at events

00:36:09.860 and it really increased the events overhead and didn't necessarily add a lot of value or a lot

00:36:14.980 of enjoyment but it's something that we were just doing because we were in the motions of continuing

00:36:19.180 to do it. Um, I would very much consider that it would all depend on the logistics of how to make

00:36:25.340 it work. And if it's something that's good for our folk, we would certainly prioritize having,

00:36:30.420 you know, also true bands or also true musical artists, even if it's, you know, one person up

00:36:36.360 there doing an acoustic set with, with whatever, um, you know, we would certainly encourage it.

00:36:42.700 If we have AFA members that just want to come bring their stuff and play, we'd love to set

00:36:47.460 aside time for that if it's bringing in a special band or doing a special concert i'd certainly be

00:36:54.260 willing to consider that but absolutely we're certainly open to that we love our folk doing

00:37:00.340 things and we'd love to support our folk that are musically inclined

00:37:03.540 that would be amazing james if you can get a polka band up at the the next lc christianson event

00:37:20.980 I would be all for that.

00:37:28.840 Okay.

00:37:31.240 So because I talked about the flags, Zach's also asking if I could talk a little bit about the AFA flag itself and the trihorns, why that's our symbol.

00:37:41.300 So a lot of you have been around would assume that's been our symbol for forever in the

00:37:50.260 Astru Folk Assembly.

00:37:52.400 And as far as I know, that symbol didn't come to be our official, our official symbol and

00:37:57.060 our official flag until 2010.

00:38:03.480 The horns themselves are Son, Boden, and Ogreir, the three horns of Odinic inspiration.

00:38:14.400 And that symbol, that tri-horns, comes from the Snodalev stone in Denmark.

00:38:21.240 And Altsheria Goethe, Steve McNallan, and myself, along with some others, went to Denmark

00:38:26.200 a number of years ago and got to see that stone where this symbol comes from and got

00:38:32.860 to, don't tell nobody, but we got to reach out and actually touch the stone. And it was a really

00:38:39.140 powerful experience. I have that picture somewhere, and it's a really kind of a special picture to see

00:38:43.640 Steve McNallan leaning down and touching that stone. We also went to the place where that stone

00:38:48.800 was originally erected because the current stone is in the National Museum in Copenhagen. But we

00:38:56.800 went to where the stone was first from and saw a replica stone they have there. We actually buried

00:39:02.480 a a afa membership pin with the trihorns in that spot as a kind of a coming full circle of that

00:39:10.480 symbol but that that represents and you know as you can see with so many of our cultural designs

00:39:17.360 a spinning motion with it that cycle that's spinning that movement that movement forward

00:39:23.600 of odinic inspiration in those horns and that dark blue representing the the blue of the nights the

00:39:29.520 dark blue of the night sky and of odin's cloak so so much of the flag is very odinic and that gold

00:39:36.880 representing representing purity representing timelessness representing you know timeless value

00:39:44.880 and uh and the white representing nobility and those are the those are the symbols

00:39:51.680 that represent the afa flag that's why we fly it proudly and it's it served us well

00:39:59.520 Pipes and drums would be great, Lane.

00:40:04.040 These are all awesome ideas to have.

00:40:05.860 We had a piper at a couple of different AFA events, and that's always turned out very well.

00:40:29.520 So this comes up again, the idea of, you know, intentional community or multifamily plots in the homesteading and homeschooling idea.

00:40:45.380 Not opposed. I think it's a really good idea. It was an idea I was, you know, in on in the past.

00:40:50.780 and I even had a number of guys I was going to go in on some property with. But I have seen

00:40:57.260 almost everybody wants to do that in theory. But in my time in Ausitra, I've never seen that

00:41:04.060 actually work out. I've seen a whole lot of people plan that, but it never quite works out.

00:41:09.720 It's always much more difficult than people think. It's much harder to do in the world that we live

00:41:15.460 than you would think it is. A lot of people who talk about homesteading really aren't really

00:41:20.860 aren't about that life. And the other thing is, when you get successful people that are successful

00:41:26.780 in life, successful in their families, they typically have good things going on. And it's

00:41:31.240 much harder to get them to pick up the life that they've built and move to your homestead project.

00:41:37.540 Unfortunately, it's much easier to get folks that aren't successful. A lot of time, the reason

00:41:42.220 they're not successful is because of their own inherent qualities as people. So sometimes the

00:41:47.960 people you really want won't come out. And the people that probably shouldn't come out there

00:41:52.680 with you are the ones first in line. And so that hasn't worked out well in the past. If you've got

00:41:57.820 a good plan and you and some of your friends are going to do that, we think that's fantastic. I'd

00:42:01.960 love to hear how that goes. And yeah, it'd be wonderful if you can accomplish that.

00:42:12.220 Um, just as a, in response to a side comment I've seen, yes, tons of teachers are retiring.

00:42:32.660 Um, that profession is becoming very different than it once was, uh, with the new, um, radical, extreme, liberal, uh, nature of, of current education and its inherent prejudices towards, against all of the things that we believe in.

00:42:53.120 a lot of teachers are leaving losing the good teachers and getting folks that I really wouldn't

00:43:00.460 want teaching our kids in there unfortunately but it does mean people with a lot of experience

00:43:04.760 are going out in the homeschool market and helping to inform the evolution of homeschool programs

00:43:09.460 and that's a really good thing and it's certainly advantageous to us to look into those things

00:43:14.920 That's a good point.

00:43:42.380 Ryan brings up to make sure that your kids get socialized, because that's the one thing public schools, you know, that's the argument that I've heard, you know, since I was in elementary school, as far as homeschooling goes, is that homeschool kids don't get socialized as much. 0.90

00:43:57.440 And I think some of that can be true.

00:43:59.120 I think that's probably a big challenge to socialize children.

00:44:02.620 but the socialization that they will get in the public schools now seems to me to be far worse

00:44:12.280 than not having the socialization at the homeschools that balance is really really

00:44:16.840 shifted but it's absolutely something kids need we need community our folks have always been

00:44:22.640 defined by community and by being part of something bigger than themselves so whatever you do make

00:44:29.900 sure those kids are part of something, can interact with other kids, can interact with

00:44:33.640 other families and have community because it's so important for everyone's mental health

00:44:38.560 to have community. It's one of the things that was so devastating last year with so many

00:44:43.220 people is the feeling of isolation. We don't want kids to feel that way because we choose

00:44:47.540 to homeschool them. So do the very best you can to get those kids interacting and make

00:44:52.980 them friends.

00:44:59.900 Adam, a Galder choir would be fantastic. I've thought about that a lot. I'm not sure exactly

00:45:09.240 how all that plays out. I think there's some reamer chanting you could do that way. That

00:45:14.980 would be really cool. But I would love to hear a choir doing Galders, doing various

00:45:19.580 different Galders, doing reamer. That would be fantastic.

00:45:22.720 Okay. So James is asking how the AFA adds value to a local community.

00:45:36.280 um first and foremost having good people around that are

00:45:46.200 have traditional values that have families that uh have a strong moral code is always good for

00:45:56.360 whatever community you're in but in the afa we have a very strong spirit of volunteerism

00:46:01.460 and wanting to help our community whatever that community is wherever we find ourselves

00:46:05.920 It's been very important to me that at our Hoffs, we try to be involved in the community.

00:46:11.460 We try to interact and to help out in various ways.

00:46:15.480 It's been amazing, and it's really important to us to do food distributions.

00:46:21.240 We've been doing that for over two years now at Odens Hoff to great success.

00:46:25.940 We're doing it at Balders Hoff, and this coming weekend is the first food distribution at

00:46:31.860 Thors Hoff.

00:46:33.140 So we're very committed to doing that, to trying to do stuff for local kids during the Yule season.

00:46:42.340 If you let us, we will be the best thing that's ever happened to your community.

00:46:47.300 So you can ask the folks in Brownsville, in Murdoch, and in Linden as time goes on how we've helped their community.

00:46:55.880 Because every year that gets better and we make more friends in our local community with our neighbors.

00:47:02.440 Oh, Ryan, I absolutely agree with you that the story of Ask and Embla is very important.

00:47:24.680 And the thing about the goodly hue is really important.

00:47:32.100 As far as a good resource where that's talked about in a folkish context, I really don't

00:47:36.780 know off the top of my head, but that would be interesting if I don't know if somebody's

00:47:41.420 written an essay on that or a book about that somewhere, but it's a fascinating piece of

00:47:47.620 our lore. And I do think it has a lot of really important

00:47:50.620 implications.

00:48:02.860 Nicole depends on where you're at, I would reach out to your

00:48:05.680 local folk builder, and they can get you in touch with the folks

00:48:09.960 that do event coordination for our local events. It all

00:48:13.640 depends on what part of the country you're in and what

00:48:15.940 you're what you're looking to do um but i think as a default a really good person to reach out to

00:48:22.740 is witten clifford erickson c erickson at runestone.org and he'd be a he does a lot with

00:48:31.700 helping to organize uh our events and helping to make sure that that costs are reasonable and we

00:48:36.980 get that where we need it so i think he'd be a really good guy to talk to about any potential

00:48:41.020 you know, having a band at an event or a concert that you want to see about putting on or having

00:48:47.380 us help sponsor or whatnot. So that's the guy I recommend you reach out to. And I appreciate you

00:48:53.120 wanting to help. That's great. And I'm glad you got a good idea. And I don't think it's a bad

00:48:56.980 idea. I just think we need to work out the particulars.

00:49:11.020 um we have had afa uh convoys go to different concerts i know we had a number of different

00:49:31.020 afa groups go when highlung was touring and so getting a group of afa members to go together

00:49:38.700 to concerts is is already a thing you should look to your local afa and see see what's coming to

00:49:43.740 your town and i'm sure you can find afa members to go with you to house true specific concerts

00:49:49.020 to traditional cultural european concerts and probably to any other concert you can figure out

00:49:53.740 of good music um okay uh gothi plurt is asking how important i think it is to build a relationship

00:50:10.540 with local land spirits when you go someplace or before you move someplace

00:50:15.420 I think it depends. I think it depends on where you're going and how what spirits occupy that

00:50:25.320 place and how, I don't know, I guess how crowded with land spirits it may be.

00:50:35.900 I think being good neighbors applies not just to human beings in the area. I think it implies

00:50:43.640 being good neighbors to the spirits of the land uh being respectful to the wildlife that's there

00:50:51.480 within reason um i think establishing a good relationship and making offerings to land

00:50:57.640 spirits is always a good thing to do i think it's always a noble and a hospitable thing to do when

00:51:02.600 you're in a new area and uh as far as levels of importance i suppose it's not the most important

00:51:10.760 thing in the world, but I think things will go better for you if you do and won't go as good

00:51:16.020 for you if you don't. So I would encourage folks to reach out to land spirits in the area and leave

00:51:21.420 little offerings and just make that gesture of goodwill. A little bit of a gesture that way goes

00:51:28.240 a long way. It goes a long way with people and I think it goes a long way with all spirits as well.

00:51:32.700 We all need more money than we actually have.

00:51:39.700 I'm not sure what that comments in reference to, but absolutely we do.

00:51:46.700 The more means we have to accomplish success, the more we can apply those and the more we can do successful things.

00:51:55.700 All right. I've got a question. Which God do I resonate most with and why?

00:52:14.160 I try really hard not to not to do that. I know a lot of people do. And it's it's important to a lot of folks to have like one God that's that's their main go to.

00:52:25.700 And I don't think doing so necessarily takes away.

00:52:29.720 And I don't look down on it.

00:52:31.540 When I first started out and I first got involved with Al-Satru, the god that I was, you know, felt most drawn towards was Thor for a number of reasons.

00:52:44.100 But I felt very called to that.

00:52:46.320 Thor being the protector, the champion, the god of strength and of might was very appealing to me as a young man.

00:52:52.780 Still appealing to me now.

00:52:54.100 I focused a lot on Thor. I think the more I've been involved in leadership in the Austro Folk

00:53:02.760 Assembly, I've had a lot of interaction, a lot of preference with the Allfather, with Odin.

00:53:11.960 I've shared in some very powerful bloats to Odin. I feel like there's a really important

00:53:17.560 connection there. My ordination bloat that I gave, I want to say maybe 2012 was a bloat to Thor.

00:53:28.400 But I try very hard to be open and to have to build relationship with all of our gods the best

00:53:36.620 I can. And I'm hesitant to try to pick one and say I have a better relationship with them than

00:53:42.980 with others. I'd rather not view it in that terms. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is

00:53:49.960 disrespect one of our gods by leaving them out or by not building a relationship that I could or

00:53:56.860 should with them. So, you know, it's a little bit taboo for me to want to claim one over the others.

00:54:12.980 I think that's a really good point. We have somebody talking over on the side about how maybe it's a better idea for families to move close together than to go in on communal property. I've always thought that's a great idea. And that's not just about homesteading. Certainly you can do it in a homesteading model, but you can do that in an urban model.

00:54:33.300 I know it's not our ideal. I know everybody here wants to talk about raising a barn and slopping hogs and homesteading.

00:54:41.620 Realistically, a lot of us want air conditioning and nice stuff and computers and live in town and whatever else. 0.96

00:54:49.300 And you can do the model of families moving closer together. You can do that rurally.

00:54:54.720 You can do it in an urban environment.

00:54:57.240 What I think a lot of people overlook is, shoot, how great would it be if we had a whole bunch of

00:55:02.000 AFA members that moved into the same apartment complex? It'd be a great step up than what most

00:55:07.420 of us have now as far as closeness. So you could do that model in a number of different ways. It

00:55:12.280 doesn't have to be on a farm, homesteading somewhere, but it certainly can be. And it's

00:55:17.580 a much easier buy-in model than the whole group ownership property. For multiple families to

00:55:24.160 happen to buy houses in the same neighborhood. Shoot, at this stage, houses in the same town,

00:55:29.860 maybe even houses in the same county would bring us a lot closer together. So I think that it's,

00:55:34.980 I would encourage you not to get caught up in the waiting until you buy communal land. And in the

00:55:41.140 meantime, just move closer to other AFA members and build that community where you have it. Don't

00:55:46.940 let perfect be the enemy of good. And there's a lot we can do no matter where we are to move

00:55:51.740 closer together in general that said just a plug for any of you guys out there mandy and i would

00:56:00.300 highly encourage you to move to reno nevada because it is a wonderful place and we are in love with it

00:56:05.660 we love it out here it's fantastic and we would love more community out here so keep that in mind

00:56:10.460 All right. I don't know if there's any magical room working that's going to get you a job,

00:56:23.220 but I think there's probably room working you can do to help you acquire a job.

00:56:31.680 I think that FAHU is your best bet for getting circulating income, getting circulating

00:56:39.640 prosperity and for getting generating luck in general um i would recommend galdering and doing

00:56:48.120 meditation on fehu and keep that as a as a lens that you see your life through and that you focus

00:56:53.880 on and help that guide you in your quest for a new job i think that would be the most helpful

00:57:09.640 Just catching up on chat over here, seeing if there's more questions coming up.

00:57:38.080 It looks like you guys are having a good discussion

00:57:39.840 about homesteading, I'm glad.

00:57:59.400 Jay, I mentioned earlier some books that I'd recommend

00:58:01.660 about getting closer to the house true faith.

00:58:03.800 I was truly native European spirituality

00:58:05.780 by Steve McNallan, Living Out So True by Steve McNallan

00:58:10.060 is another good one about, you know,

00:58:12.500 little stuff folks can do in their daily life.

00:58:14.520 It's a much older book,

00:58:16.240 but it's foundational in a lot of ways.

00:58:21.120 Culture of the Teutons,

00:58:22.440 but I think you need to take that with a bit of perspective.

00:58:26.720 He tends to be very, very absolute.

00:58:28.480 And I think the real world always was

00:58:30.560 and is a little bit less absolute than that.

00:58:33.720 So with a little bit of moderation,

00:58:35.540 Culture of the Teutons is amazing. Certainly to understand our lore, I would recommend anyone

00:58:42.420 read the Prose and Poetic Eddas. A little bit more challenging read, but something that I also

00:58:50.360 think is often overlooked, but a very good read is The Guesta De Norum by Saxo Grammaticus.

00:58:58.300 uh i think that's certainly important um like i said for rune things i think that futhark by

00:59:10.340 dr stephen flowers is a very good book to pick up and i think if you're just starting out with

00:59:15.440 runes or if you're a younger audience or somebody brand new i think the runes workbook by leon wild

00:59:22.560 is a very, very good book.

00:59:24.560 I think that's the best intro to runes book,

00:59:27.120 so I'd recommend that as well.

00:59:44.200 Charles, as far as what offerings are appropriate,

00:59:46.940 food is really traditional.

00:59:50.540 Libation is traditional also.

00:59:52.120 a drink offering, an offering of mead or of, you know, honestly, of any alcohol, I think mead gets

00:59:58.620 overused. I think an offering, you know, a shot of whiskey or a shot of rum or whatever else is

01:00:04.780 a great idea. A lot of people do baked goods. I see what you say about bears. Maybe you want to

01:00:10.440 leave your offering further out. I think that that interaction of the animals honestly is part

01:00:16.040 of that gifting cycle with the land spirits i've always felt that leaving and it may not be

01:00:23.480 responsible where you're at so i'm not saying everyone has to do this depending on the predator

01:00:27.080 situation or if you're farming or whatever else but i mean even leaving uh like bird food out in

01:00:33.240 a bird feeder or a bat feeder i think those are a nice way of reaching out to the spirits that

01:00:39.720 occupy your land i think there's a connection with the animals there in the you know the the more

01:00:45.560 mystic land spirits um i think you can certainly leave little little tokens that are that are also

01:00:56.280 nice i think burning incense again if it's not going to set something on fire is a nice way

01:01:01.560 to make a little offering but typically people do use food or drink

01:01:15.560 Okay, this is a good one. Wow, look at the time. It seems like time's flying, but we still got

01:01:26.340 people asking good questions, so I'll keep going for a little bit here. Somebody asked what I have

01:01:32.280 to say on the issue of forgiveness. I think that our approach to justice in general is very different

01:01:42.300 than the Abrahamic approach. It's kind of a big topic, and I may get about it in a roundabout way.

01:01:52.040 The idea of justice to our ancestors was to fix what you broke. So if you're repaying a debt,

01:02:02.420 if there's an honor feud or whatever else, the idea is that someone took from you.

01:02:07.500 They took a kinsman. They took your livestock. They took some of your reputation. They took some of your good name. They took some of your dignity. And the way of fixing that was paying that back. So I think our idea of forgiveness is forgiveness through repayment.

01:02:27.260 our criminal justice system, we talk about paying a debt to society, but that really doesn't get

01:02:33.860 done in most cases. In most cases, it's just, you know, putting people in very, very extended time

01:02:39.360 outs. What's really important is that the person who's been wronged be made right and made whole

01:02:46.860 again. Now, there's some things you can't replace, there's some things you can't give back. And in

01:02:51.780 those circumstances, trying to give something of equal value. But the idea is you've taken value

01:02:59.180 away from someone and to repair the value you've taken is the first core thing about getting

01:03:06.420 forgiveness. And maybe you can't, maybe that's too overwhelming, but the more you try and the

01:03:12.140 more you make an honest effort to make right what you broke, that's key to our people. In a Christian

01:03:18.340 context often forgiveness is some pious act of the forgiver and you rush out to forgive people

01:03:27.140 as fast as you can without them having to make it right we don't have any such obligation in house

01:03:31.620 of truth now what we do have though and what i think is really important as aryan people as

01:03:38.580 noble people is the ability to forgive and the ability to extend grace to people um

01:03:48.340 And sometimes in the right context, if somebody can't fix it and is genuinely sorry, you have the ability to let some slide, you have the ability to spot them this time, you have the ability to to let some of that happen.

01:04:04.020 And in the context today, you can let it happen without it costing you face or costing you honor.

01:04:12.900 I don't suggest that you sacrifice your dignity in that way, but you add to your dignity a lot of the time when you can be the bigger person.

01:04:21.440 Now, the key is that's your right. That's up to you to choose when you want to forgive or when you don't.

01:04:28.960 And in our faith, there's no obligation for you to forgive someone who's wronged you.

01:04:33.480 There's plenty of things that are unforgivable and you shouldn't forgive and you look bad if you do forgive.

01:04:40.480 So to make those decisions as an informed and as a noble and dignified person and to choose when you want to extend your good graces and forgiveness to someone and to choose when you want to hold a grudge.

01:04:52.480 I think that's very definitive of our people in our faith in that matter.

01:05:03.480 Jason, I don't understand your question. Hopefully, this will get to it. He's asking how important I think it is to build frith in something deep and meaningful as opposed to something like politics or common strife.

01:05:25.700 Um, I think he's meaning the the thing that bonds that frith together, meaning bonding over something that extends beyond mundane politics.

01:05:37.700 politics. I think it's really easy to say that we should all be bigger than that and bond over

01:05:48.580 bigger things. But I think mundane politics or a common foe are a good start to building frith.

01:05:57.580 But if you build a negative frith about, you know, banding together against something you

01:06:02.800 don't like, it burns up really quick and then you've got nothing. When the foe disappears or

01:06:10.220 when you win, then you lose that frith you had. What I do think is really important is if you

01:06:15.660 build your frith over the things that you love, the things that you cherish, the things that are

01:06:21.080 important and speak to your soul, those things don't go away. So you maintain that frith and

01:06:26.480 you maintain that connection, whether you're losing, whether you're winning, you know, when

01:06:31.700 when your stocks are up or when they're down, you still have those core values that the mundane

01:06:38.100 political situation can change and take away at a moment's notice. Or a common foe can be defeated

01:06:44.540 and then you don't have that frith anymore. So bonding over positive things as opposed to

01:06:51.180 bonding over negative things is really important. Negative things are fine. They exist. Bonding over

01:06:57.740 them is fine but the bond over a positive things and the outlook and the focus on the positive is

01:07:03.820 what's going to be enduring that's what's going to move you to accomplishing things as opposed to

01:07:08.700 tearing down things and accomplishing and building is superior to tearing down even though tearing

01:07:16.060 down may be necessary sometimes we want to focus on what we can build and what we can build together

01:07:20.620 That's a really important part of Frith.

01:07:38.560 We're getting some good ideas over here on the side as far as things you can do to honor land spirits that aren't edible.

01:07:47.220 um people talk about shiny things and it may sound funny but all of us like shiny things

01:07:53.260 i think shiny things are are nice and i think they draw attention and i think it's a nice gesture

01:07:58.420 the point isn't that the land spirit needs some new bling the point is the gesture that you're

01:08:06.120 making and that they recognize you're giving them something from the heart i think the idea of making

01:08:11.660 And fairy houses, for lack of a better term, making little symbolic structures to represent that the land spirits have a have a home on your land is also a very nice thing to do.

01:08:24.120 And that's something that that our ancestors have done and that many people do.

01:08:27.660 That also probably is not going to attract bears. So those are some good ideas.

01:08:32.400 And I appreciate guys on the side for throwing those out.

01:08:41.660 Um, I've got a question.

01:09:04.700 if I have any advice or tips to present Ausatru to extended Christian family with the intent to 0.97

01:09:11.400 bring them back home. Yeah, I get asked this a lot. And the most important thing that I can say

01:09:18.220 is be the example, be a good person. If your family sees what you do, and they see your life

01:09:26.120 make a positive change because Ausatru, they see you have a successful family, they see you have

01:09:31.380 career success. They see you be happy. They see you make yourself a better person. Your family

01:09:37.780 has some context. They've seen you. They know where you've come from. And if all of a sudden

01:09:42.300 you're succeeding and you're doing well and you attribute it to your faith and house is true,

01:09:47.420 that means a lot. It's a powerful testimony to those people. And that goes a long way.

01:09:52.940 You trying to preach to Christian family about the gods doesn't necessarily work the best.

01:09:59.260 But when they see you've been successful and they come to you and ask, like, hey, what is your secret? Why are you doing so good? How are you, you know, your family's doing amazing. What's happened? Hey, I reconnected with our gods and I joined the Astro Folk Assembly and my life turned around.

01:10:16.380 That means a lot. And it's very powerful in bringing families in when they see, you know, they don't hear. It's not so much that they hear your words, but they see the results in your person and in your life and in your family.

01:10:26.660 that's what I'd recommend the most as far as actually having discussions with them about it

01:10:32.580 I think talking about venerating our ancestors is the best way whatever they believe or don't

01:10:40.100 in supernatural things your ancestors existed if they didn't exist you wouldn't be here

01:10:45.520 honoring where you came from and these people that absolutely did exist is very tangible to

01:10:51.620 grab hold of and most people instinctively know that there's something beyond this life that those

01:10:57.700 ancestors interact from beyond the veil in some way and i think that um a christian or an atheist

01:11:06.060 or other people that aren't also true connect with that ancestral connection and you know not

01:11:12.160 your ancient ancestors but grandma grandpa great grandpa that is the way to start that and if they

01:11:19.980 believe that there's life beyond that veil and that they can interact, then it

01:11:25.300 makes them much more ready to believe in our gods and in our bigger cosmology.

01:11:49.980 um okay we got a question somebody who says they are of both germanic and celtic ancestry and want

01:11:58.140 to know if that's welcome um yeah you notice the similarity between celtic um spirituality and and

01:12:11.340 norse spirituality and religion i think that's because there is the or i know that's because

01:12:16.380 there's the commonality of faith between all aryan peoples their faith comes from a root faith

01:12:22.700 and also true is is how we tie into that faith and how that faith has best evolved for our people

01:12:29.020 um in the astro folk assembly we are proudly pan-aryan we welcome all of the the ethnically

01:12:35.500 european peoples to come home to also true uh you're being part celtic and part germanic is

01:12:41.980 absolutely welcome it's you know probably what most american practitioners in the afa

01:12:49.020 have in common is is both celtic and germanic ancestry we certainly have slavic ancestry in

01:12:55.260 there so you know any of the sons and daughters of europe we welcome into the

01:12:59.820 of the Astro Folk Assembly as part of our greater Aryan family.

01:13:15.420 Okay, we have a question about what the AFA's view on related European pantheons is.

01:13:21.420 I think some of that I touched on in my last answer, but all Aryan faiths are from a common

01:13:28.120 base and have a common beginning and a common common themes and i think that the way that

01:13:35.560 evolves to fit particular people in particular region regions is different over time

01:13:42.360 i think that our our biggest and most ancient gods go back into ancient times and are known

01:13:49.320 in different places by different names and represent the same divinity in that same divine consciousness

01:13:58.120 I think there's a lot more overlap than most people are comfortable with. And I think it makes your brain hurt to try to figure it out cleanly because I don't think it ever works out exactly cleanly. I think very seldom is, you know, the form in the name of God is known by in, you know, Greece, the same that it is in, in Scandinavian regions.

01:14:23.300 I just it never is quite that clean and it's more complicated than than we can describe.

01:14:29.660 One of the things to know about our gods is they're they're beyond us and they're beyond our comprehension.

01:14:34.680 A lot of things in our fragmentary lore doesn't fit, but we do the best that we can with them.

01:14:40.480 We build that relationship and over time and consistently the consistency with the gifting cycle with our gods,

01:14:47.300 with making offerings and with opening ourselves up to their inspiration and their blessings.

01:14:51.940 we come to see that a little bit clearer and appreciate it a little bit more.

01:14:55.800 But I do believe that the Native European pantheons are all related

01:14:59.280 and all different reflections of that Aryan divinity that we all worship

01:15:04.060 and those gods that look over all of us as their children.

01:15:21.940 Um, Melinda, that's a good point. Not forgiving something doesn't equate to holding a grudge necessarily, but it can. And it's good for you to point that out. You can just not forgive it and go on with your life and not make it something that weighs you down or something that you focus on. But if you've been wrong, you're very entitled to hold a grudge. If you're owed something, you are entitled to want to collect on that debt and to feel that pain.

01:15:49.860 Now, you're poorly served if you let that eat you up and there's no way for you to recoup that debt.

01:15:55.140 If you focus only on what you lost, and I think this is true in general, if you only focus on a negative outcome or on a failure or on a loss, you become myopic and you look at one little thing and you're blind to all of your opportunities for success and all of the things that you have.

01:16:13.220 And it's very easy not to appreciate all of the things that you have. If you're focused angrily at one thing someone took from you way back in the past over here, you don't appreciate all these great things you have here. And I think that short changes yourself. So you can hold grudges. You don't have to hold grudges. Either is fine, but they need to be in their place and you need to not be weighed down because that's someone who's victimized you continuing to take from you.

01:16:41.580 The best thing you can do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

01:16:45.360 And so I think that's meaningful that way.

01:16:57.780 Trying to catch up.

01:16:58.680 You guys are having a very good, very good chat over here on the side.

01:17:03.560 OK, so welcome, Joel Eastman, our newest apprentice folk builder for the Astro Folk Assembly.

01:17:09.040 Joel is a friend of mine.

01:17:10.000 he's a guy i think really highly of and i'm very excited that he's stepped up to be a folk builder

01:17:15.360 for us in wisconsin if you're in wisconsin if you're anywhere near wisconsin or even not

01:17:20.960 reach out to joel he's a great guy he's a good guy to know i'm glad to know him

01:17:25.680 And I'm glad that he's focused on for the AstroFocus Simply.

01:17:51.540 All right, guys.

01:17:52.660 Well, it's been a little bit over an hour now.

01:17:58.780 I've enjoyed talking to you guys.

01:18:00.660 If anybody has any last minute questions or things they wanted me to touch on, please go ahead and ask now so I make sure to get to them.

01:18:11.900 Thank you guys for joining me tonight.

01:18:13.740 I look forward to these every month.

01:18:16.040 If something doesn't get answered, please feel free to email me.

01:18:18.980 always mattflavell at runestone.org. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have that way,

01:18:25.960 or if you want me to hold it and answer it on the next one of these live ones, I'll try very

01:18:30.100 hard to remember to do that. But please feel free to reach out to your folk builders. Please feel

01:18:35.760 free to reach out to myself. Yeah, if you're watching this and you like what we do,

01:18:43.700 please consider joining the Asatru Folk Assembly

01:18:46.880 www.runestone.org

01:18:51.320 and you join under the support link

01:18:53.820 we would love to have

01:18:56.300 have our folk come home to our gods

01:18:58.680 and we'd love you to be part of the Asatru Folk Assembly family

01:19:02.380 so if you like what you hear

01:19:05.560 if you agree and if you want to move forward with us

01:19:08.100 please feel free to join and be part of what we're doing

01:19:11.360 because we're doing amazing things

01:19:12.640 ah so jason i can't guarantee you but i heard some sounds of fussiness a while ago from

01:19:22.520 downstairs so i would imagine that mandy has put aubrey to bed um but i am glad there is demand

01:19:29.380 and hopefully she can join us on the next one

01:19:31.400 james over in the chat we have a gentleman i assume i'm sorry it's just two initials i don't

01:19:40.920 know if it's a gentleman or a lady that wants to know where to read copies of the Odinist by

01:19:46.240 Elsie Christensen. You may have a good resource that I don't on that. So if he answers you,

01:19:51.920 great. If not, James Ault, J-A-U-L-T at runestone.org. He is the man I would talk to about copies of the

01:19:59.160 Odinist. All right. And I'll leave you with this. Mary, you ask if there's any thoughts on where 0.99

01:20:10.280 the next Hoff will be? Yes, there are lots of thoughts on where the next Hoff will be.

01:20:14.600 It's a number of places that really stand out as good spots.

01:20:20.380 The coastal Pacific Northwest in Washington or Oregon is a very good idea. That would be very

01:20:27.860 incumbent on finding a property that's within our price range that's on the western side of

01:20:33.480 the Cascades, and that's sometimes hard to come by. Florida is probably the most appealing place

01:20:43.140 for the next half, but that's not a guarantee. We're still looking a lot of places,

01:20:47.840 but that's what I'd say is that's kind of the area we're leaning.

01:20:55.640 All right, guys. Thank you all so much for joining me tonight. I hope you guys have an

01:20:59.720 amazing, amazing evening. Hope you guys have an amazing month and amazing July. I hope you guys

01:21:05.220 celebrate a triumphant cigar bloat. And I hope that you all find victory in your life. And I know

01:21:12.120 we'll find victory together. So onward to New York's off, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the FA.

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 02, 2021

July 2021 Live Discussion

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