Asatru Folk Assembly - Matt Flavel on Radio 3Fourteen March 2017

00:00:00.000 Welcome

00:00:28.680 new and familiar listeners. This is Lani joining you for the next hour. My guest today is Matt

00:00:33.440 Flavell, who is on the board of directors of the Asatru Folk Assembly. We're going to hear all

00:00:38.340 about Asatru. Where does it come from? What are the tenants and why so many European folk today

00:00:43.460 are attracted to it? Asatru is about roots, connection and coming home. It's an expression

00:00:49.260 of the native pre-Christian spirituality of Europe. No, it's not role playing, playing dress

00:00:54.580 up or something witchy feminist liberals practice. And we'll talk about this as the AFA has been 0.98

00:00:59.380 under fire for being a discriminatory organization. Matt Flayville, up next. Matt Flayville, welcome

00:01:05.800 to the program. Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah, I had the pleasure of meeting you and your lovely

00:01:10.200 wife at an austere celebration, and you were leading a great blut, so I had a lot of fun at

00:01:15.200 that celebration. I'm glad you enjoyed it. We really liked having you guys there. That was

00:01:19.520 really neat. A lot of our people have been big fans for a long time. Yeah, I was surprised by

00:01:23.720 that. That was fun. I felt like welcomed right away and so many people knew the show and it was

00:01:28.700 very warm. I really enjoyed it. I thought that today we'd, you know, start with some of the

00:01:32.580 basics because people always ask me, what is Asatru? What is it? So maybe we can talk about

00:01:37.300 that and then talk about some of the other recent attacks that are going on towards AFA. So tell us

00:01:44.140 what does Asatru mean? I think that's a really good place to start. Well, Asatru is an Icelandic

00:01:51.240 word. It's kind of an old Norse word that means troth or loyalty to the Aesir. So it basically

00:01:57.380 means loyalty to the old gods of Europe. Okay. And then when did it really start? I know it's

00:02:03.500 hard to say that. Well, it's our belief that it started with the dawn of our people way back,

00:02:09.980 you know, as soon as our people became identified as a group. But more recently,

00:02:15.080 it kind of got a restart back in the early 70s. And it was interesting because it got a simultaneous

00:02:21.040 reboot unbeknownst to one another, both in Iceland and in England and then in the United

00:02:27.540 States, and all within about three years of each other back in the early 70s.

00:02:31.200 I guess an easy way to explain it would probably be it's an expression of the native, you know,

00:02:36.300 pre-Christian spirituality of Europe. I know people are attracted to the Abrahamic religions

00:02:40.740 because I think humans, we have a spiritual need to fill. People want community, they want

00:02:45.660 fellowship they want answers to the big questions you know why is the religion of our ancestors

00:02:51.240 best for us in your view well i mean i guess let me ask to answer that in two ways i'll tell you

00:02:58.640 a little bit about uh my coming to house for sure and what my thought process was because i think

00:03:03.600 it's i think it's relevant to this i was i was a very spiritual person growing up and i got into

00:03:09.700 you know my early adulthood and i was really spiritual but i wasn't raised with a lot of

00:03:14.160 religion. And my aunt and their family were Jehovah's Witnesses. And so I got into that for

00:03:20.240 a little bit because I figured, you know, what options do I have if you're going to be religious? 0.68

00:03:24.240 There's Christianity. I'm not Jewish. I'm not Muslim. So there's Christianity. That's kind of

00:03:29.780 all that I thought I had. So I tried to do that really hard and found out that it was progressively

00:03:36.100 more and more trying to beat a square peg into a round hole. And it just wasn't good.

00:03:39.680 And I examined the biblical God.

00:03:44.160 And I went through and I read my Bible several times.

00:03:46.440 And I finally decided that if this is what there is, then the God of the Bible is not someone I want to associate with and not someone I want to be a part of.

00:03:55.680 By human standards, they would be a bad person.

00:03:58.920 And I couldn't be part of that.

00:04:00.800 And so then I broke with Christianity and I found myself still very spiritual.

00:04:05.560 and saw it, it occurred to me, you know, what, what did our people have before Christianity?

00:04:10.800 Because, you know, I was a student of history and I was, you know, I appreciated those things.

00:04:14.620 So I tried to think, what did, what did we have before that?

00:04:17.180 And that got me, got me thinking, got me looking and soon enough I found the AFA and I found,

00:04:21.100 you know, I wasn't the only person who thought like that.

00:04:23.260 And that was a really good feeling.

00:04:24.480 It's amazing that our, our parents and our grandparents, a lot of them don't even know,

00:04:28.320 but it's up to people like us to kind of do the research and kind of bring it back to life.

00:04:33.120 Yeah, and when I think about, you know, Asatru and paganism, I think it was started by our own people, right? Not just some strangers in the Middle East that we don't really have much in common with, right?

00:04:43.580 Well, exactly. You asked, you know, why this is the best for our people, and it's because it's native to our people. It's not an add-on. It springs from the very folk soul, the root of our people.

00:04:56.360 um the gods of the gods of altitude are the gods of our blood of our of our heritage

00:05:03.260 they reflect our people and our unique way of dealing with the world the founder of the afa

00:05:09.280 steven allen talks about that when he talks about metagenetics and it's the idea that your

00:05:14.740 spiritual outlook and your your spirituality is passed on genetically much like your other traits

00:05:20.660 you pass on so what do you think about the the claim you know that our ancestors they were just

00:05:25.740 simple-minded savages you know they just ate meat and drank mead they were just uncivilized we always

00:05:31.580 hear that when people think of pagans or vikings what do you think when you hear this well one of 0.98

00:05:36.180 the things that i'd like to clear out um that's different from the afa and you know maybe some

00:05:40.980 other groups that that claim to be doing the same thing we're not viking reenactors um you know i

00:05:48.440 the vikings did a lot of cool stuff i'm not going to try to tell you they didn't the vikings are

00:05:52.700 me. I like them. Everybody likes Vikings. But in the same way that gangster rappers all want to

00:06:00.420 wear Jesus pieces and have their blinged out crosses, they're not an example of the Christian

00:06:06.280 faith. I don't think that Viking marauders are the prime example of thousands of years of European

00:06:11.920 spirituality. We have a spiritual tradition that is very rich, and it dates back into Neolithic

00:06:18.420 times, and to isolate it to one very, very small expression at a time where we happen

00:06:24.720 to have just gotten literacy, it's kind of misleading.

00:06:29.320 Yeah, I think, too, the Vikings and the various Germanic tribes, they were the source of some

00:06:33.840 of our, you know, finest civilized traditions, if you will, I mean, trial by jury, parliaments,

00:06:39.380 common law, right to bear arms, rights of women, right?

00:06:42.800 Actually, I think the word law even comes from the Norse language.

00:06:45.820 So, I mean, there's not just simpletons that didn't bring anything and just drank and ate. 0.97

00:06:51.520 It's ridiculous.

00:06:52.500 No, they had a complex society and that is a society that's got roots back, you know, in the Aryan migration period. 0.69

00:06:59.400 They've got a really proud spirituality with a lot of really important traditions.

00:07:02.720 The runic tradition was a really very well-developed tradition.

00:07:06.740 Absolutely a profound thing.

00:07:08.560 It certainly wasn't the simple picture that we did with it.

00:07:11.820 It's funny that you mentioned kind of the role-playing or Viking reenactments.

00:07:15.280 A lot of times when we mention paganism, a lot of people just seem to think, oh, that's just LARPing, right?

00:07:21.080 Live action role playing, like you're doing dress up or D&D and doing silly rituals.

00:07:26.920 So what do you say to that?

00:07:29.120 Well, you know what?

00:07:30.560 Unfortunately for a lot of folks, as I, you know, as became obvious to me this week, it is about that.

00:07:36.040 And I want to make a very clear separation between the AFA and the folks that that's what they do.

00:07:40.000 Pagan tends to be a category that's, you know, synonymous with other.

00:07:45.540 And if you don't fit in with any of the other religions, you all get lumped in this big melting pot coalition of paganism.

00:07:54.240 And we don't want any part of that.

00:07:57.040 A lot of people do that, but it's not what we do.

00:07:59.460 It's a modern religion.

00:08:00.840 It's the religion of our people.

00:08:02.340 It grows with our people.

00:08:03.440 It develops with our people.

00:08:04.620 And as always, it faces the challenges that our people face and is relevant to those challenges.

00:08:10.000 Exactly. We're not talking about Wiccan witches or these so-called, you know, people practicing white magic or this modern day kind of witchy stuff, which attracts a lot of liberal feminists. It really bothers me that people, when they think paganism, they think of these witchy liberal feminist types. And it seems like they've kind of hijacked some of these fun rituals.

00:08:32.180 Well, they really have. 1.00

00:08:33.500 And, you know, I don't want to speak to every single Wiccan out there.

00:08:36.860 I'm sure that there are some people that do some fairly authentic spiritual practices under that umbrella.

00:08:42.200 But by and large, you're right.

00:08:44.660 There's this big milieu of hyper-liberal paganism that starts out with some kind of form of magic and ritual,

00:08:52.820 but ends up just being an engine for social justice warriors and for very extreme examples. 0.82

00:08:58.320 yeah well recently i think the afa was under fire for being racist sexist homophobic discriminatory

00:09:07.480 blah blah so tell us what happened recently okay well the afa and myself in specific stand accused

00:09:15.360 of all manner of evils from racism and bigotry and intolerance and homophobia and this phobia

00:09:22.580 and that phobia i come find out the afa i guess is scared of a whole lot of things i didn't think

00:09:26.560 that I was afraid of, but because I had the audacity to make this post.

00:09:32.320 So I posted, today we are bombarded with confusion and messages contrary to the values of our

00:09:38.060 ancestors and our folk.

00:09:40.280 The AFA would like to make it clear that we believe gender is not a social construct.

00:09:44.700 It is a beautiful gift from the holy powers and from our ancestors.

00:09:48.800 The AFA celebrates our feminine ladies, our masculine gentlemen, and above all, our beautiful

00:09:54.760 white children.

00:09:56.300 The children of our folk are our shining future

00:09:58.820 and the legacy of all those men and women of our people back at the beginning.

00:10:04.020 Hail the AFA families, now and always.

00:10:07.960 Uh-oh, and then what happens?

00:10:10.380 Uh-oh. Uh-oh is right.

00:10:12.140 It exploded and it reached a shocking number of people.

00:10:20.860 As of right now, I've got 70,519 people reached.

00:10:28.120 So we have, you know, these are numbers that we've never seen before with the posts on our website.

00:10:32.980 And unfortunately, a lot of the early shares were to really extreme social justice warrior, crazy groups of people.

00:10:42.760 And so we got, you know, we got floods of people we'd never heard from, never wanted to hear from.

00:10:48.760 Freaking out.

00:10:49.620 And very few of them had anything productive to say or any honest disagreement.

00:10:54.220 We had a lot of threats, a lot of name-calling, and a whole lot of just hate and vitriol

00:10:59.300 because I had the audacity to say what I just told you guys.

00:11:03.080 I mentioned that I appreciate traditional genders and that the AFA likes beautiful white children.

00:11:10.680 That drove certain people absolutely crazy.

00:11:14.280 I mean, it's outrageous.

00:11:15.580 It would never be an issue with non-whites gathering for their native religion, only when it's these European people who are preserving and wanting to honor their heritage and have a sense of identity. 0.81

00:11:26.160 And it's a problem.

00:11:27.260 You know, no one tells these tribes deep in, you know, South America that they need to add diversity and include everyone.

00:11:33.900 I mean, really, I mean, when did it become a heathen sin to be focused?

00:11:38.260 When did this happen?

00:11:39.080 um relatively recently honestly uh you know i don't i certainly don't think that was the case

00:11:46.380 with our ancestors and at the the founding of australia in the united states that was never

00:11:51.360 a case we were it was always a folkish thing it wasn't until so much much later that we started

00:11:56.900 getting these uh what we call universalist uh australia people universalist heathen people

00:12:01.820 and then then that kind of just became like i said earlier that mixed in the pot of this generic

00:12:08.060 other paganism that really doesn't have a lot of form and is fairly amorphous and seems to have

00:12:14.440 coalesced around self-loathing and pushing a hyper-liberal agenda. I mean, it doesn't focus

00:12:22.040 mean it means a tribe, ethnic or a racial group, a nation. It's all about your ancestors, and that

00:12:28.360 means blood and race, right? I mean, that's the very definition of it. It is exclusive. It's not

00:12:34.840 for everyone it does and there's a certain number of people that became okay with that on some level

00:12:39.840 but you know i'm having to become familiar with this whole new whole new liberal lexicon now but

00:12:46.820 i guess that using using the word white to identify to self-identify or to identify our

00:12:52.540 people has it triggers some folks i mean this is ridiculous i mean we really we don't owe any kind

00:12:59.520 of explanation for this we just have to charge forward but what i notice isn't it mostly white 0.90

00:13:04.180 people that are attacking you over this? Oh, yeah. I'm unaware of any other races of people

00:13:13.180 that are speaking out against this. But yeah, self-loathing other white people are the ones

00:13:21.640 that are taking the biggest issue with our stance. So tell them, okay, well, why don't you go join 0.85

00:13:26.520 an African or Asian native religion and see if they welcome you with open arms, right?

00:13:32.540 yeah apparently apparently that argument has has very little weight with them one of the other

00:13:37.620 things that made them very angry is uh we didn't allow we didn't allow you know horrible comments

00:13:43.240 on our page we decided our page wasn't a uh a platform for them to spew spew hatred and uh so

00:13:49.980 we didn't let their comments be viewed and that incensed them how dare we not give them you know

00:13:56.660 free space to post hatred and threats about us that's right it's one-way free speech when we

00:14:02.460 say the truth it's hate speech but then they just have the right to be hateful as much as they want

00:14:07.020 all over our platforms it's funny because i have literally had people advocating violence and death

00:14:14.280 to uh to me and to to our people in the same statement of because of our hate speech because

00:14:21.960 of our hate because of our hate and intolerance they were going to do this violence to us so

00:14:27.480 It's amazing how they just, they can't see, like what has gone on in their head? They just can't see. I think it's just so much of this Marxist anti-white programming. What do you think?

00:14:38.340 Well, absolutely.

00:14:39.080 I think we've been bombarded with that.

00:14:41.240 And that's one of the reasons that I posted what I posted is I wanted to be very clear.

00:14:47.600 Some people are so conditioned that they don't get it.

00:14:50.800 And I don't know why, but these things have this guttural reaction that they need to flee from or whatever.

00:14:58.260 I'm very proud of who I am.

00:15:00.320 I'm very proud of my people.

00:15:01.700 And the ostrac focusing is being proud of being a proud white organization for the advancement of our people.

00:15:09.380 I mean, worst case scenario, what do these people think is going to happen?

00:15:12.380 You almost want to ask them, what do you think is going to happen?

00:15:14.940 I mean, what do they honestly, in their demented view of us, think that we're going to do at these meetings?

00:15:22.040 Have the audacity to have a different opinion than me.

00:15:24.880 And I think that in and of itself is something that's a step too far for them to be able to stomach, unfortunately.

00:15:31.700 It's almost like, too, they think that we're going to be plotting some kind of genocide of other people or something there.

00:15:36.880 You know, oh, too many white people getting together is going to mean that they're plotting some kind of conquest, right?

00:15:42.400 Well, maybe, but I've heard in their very responses to my post suggestions that they were going to breed us out and that in a generation there wouldn't be any more white people. 0.85

00:15:51.820 And their advocacy of genocide seems to be to the forefront.

00:15:56.900 I've been to a lot of AFA events and never have we discussed genociding any other groups of people. 0.95

00:16:01.700 That is correct. That is correct. Wow. Well, the other thing is our ancestors, they didn't talk about trans rights or multiculturalism or racism, did they?

00:16:13.680 No, of course not. Of course not. Worrying about those, you know, those petty things is beneath them. They had other things to do.

00:16:22.900 So do you think now that you're going to get kind of maybe some of these lefty types infiltrating some of your gatherings to spy and keep an eye on you guys?

00:16:32.640 I doubt it.

00:16:33.560 One thing that we're kind of fortunate about is these other groups of people seem to be fairly dysfunctional

00:16:38.820 and unable to really come out of the various basements and things and show up and get things accomplished.

00:16:46.200 One of the suggestions by our supporters in response to this is, hey, if you guys don't like it,

00:16:50.600 how about you guys go do your own thing?

00:16:52.580 How about you guys get together with groups that support the things that you believe in

00:16:57.520 and the things you want to do instead of spending your time complaining?

00:16:59.900 But unfortunately, I guess that's more fun or takes a little bit more effort or is beyond their capabilities.

00:17:06.620 I mean, what would make them happen in their view to be acceptable in their eyes? 1.00

00:17:11.220 Would it mean that you would have to be multicultural and have trannies and gay families? 1.00

00:17:16.580 You know, what is it that they want? 1.00

00:17:18.540 Yeah, absolutely.

00:17:19.520 I think that, you know, some of these people and certainly not everybody who disagrees with us.

00:17:23.460 There's people who disagree with us.

00:17:24.700 They're probably very well-meaning people.

00:17:26.100 But the really, really vicious ones that made such a stink, I think so.

00:17:30.920 I think anything short of complete and total giving up and praising of their strange lifestyles and their strange choices, anything short of that's unacceptable.

00:17:41.860 I think not only do they want us to accept them, but I think they want us to praise them and champion their extreme stances and extreme behaviors.

00:17:51.320 And I think that some of them, literally from what they've said to me, will only be happy when our race is no longer a distinguishable group of people.

00:18:01.220 And that's that's unacceptable.

00:18:03.360 Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, what we're talking about this religion, it's in touch with nature and natural cycles, right?

00:18:10.080 Very earthy. So then how is someone who does shots to change their sexuality?

00:18:15.980 What would they relate to this religion for then? 0.78

00:18:19.100 It's the complete opposite of what they are. 1.00

00:18:21.840 Well, that's a fine question.

00:18:23.380 I often wonder that.

00:18:24.560 And one of the reasons I want to make a clear distinction between us and this greater pagan community is that's just the thing.

00:18:32.860 You get people that, for whatever reason, and I don't mean this for every other pagan out there doing different things.

00:18:37.860 This isn't a sweeping statement.

00:18:39.140 This is specifically to the people that I've heard attack us in the past week.

00:18:43.480 They don't fit in a lot of places.

00:18:45.680 I think quite often they suffer from some rather severe mental illness problems that I don't mean to make light of.

00:18:52.480 I think those are probably very big problems in us with lives.

00:18:55.820 They suffer from a lot of these things to where life just doesn't work out for them.

00:18:59.880 And so they get pushed to a fringe and they get marginalized.

00:19:02.460 And unfortunately, that fringe tends to coalesce in, you know, these alternative fringe things,

00:19:08.300 which that greater pagan community seems to be a net that scoops those people up. 0.51

00:19:12.940 Yeah, exactly. 0.94

00:19:14.260 And then you have on the extreme opposite, there's probably some gay people that are like, yeah, the family unit, that is the healthy way. 0.64

00:19:22.680 I respect what you guys are doing, right? 0.97

00:19:24.300 Maybe.

00:19:24.800 Do you see any of that kind of behavior?

00:19:27.360 Oh, absolutely, I do.

00:19:28.600 And I think that you guys see that in the alt-right, too.

00:19:32.160 You've got people that, you know, just because it's not their lifestyle or what they're doing, they can still see that healthy families and traditional families are the building block of society.

00:19:43.000 Obviously, our ancestors valued them, or we wouldn't be here today having this conversation.

00:19:48.380 Yeah, it's just what times are we in when just the thought of white couples making white babies is like a cardinal sin, you know?

00:19:55.160 It's like looking at a gas chamber or something when you see families like that.

00:20:02.240 Well, that seems to be the same thing in a lot of these people's heads, and that's unfortunate.

00:20:07.000 And looking back, and I've looked back and looked over my statement over and over, there's nothing negative said in there at all.

00:20:14.180 There's no slams at any other people, any other communities.

00:20:18.100 There's simply a statement of things that we like and things that we support as an organization.

00:20:23.040 And it's unfortunate that, you know, we can't specify things that we like without that immediately meaning some kind of hate, some vitriol towards anybody else.

00:20:33.940 Yeah, it's like they want to police everyone's thoughts where you can't even do things peacefully, organizing and having your group and minding your own business.

00:20:42.500 You can't even do that.

00:20:43.440 They now even want to go into those places and force you to do what they want.

00:20:49.240 Well, the champions of diversity and of tolerance are anything but, and they cannot tolerate you having a different opinion than they have.

00:20:58.640 That's unfortunate, and it's kind of shocking the level that they will go, like I say, there's been an abdication of violence and of preventing people's rights to have free speech and free exercise of our religious faith.

00:21:12.160 It's really shocking that they don't get the disconnect between tolerance and the way that they're behaving.

00:21:18.780 So what do you think the future of the AFA would look like if these people got their way?

00:21:24.440 There would be no future of the AFA if these people got their way.

00:21:27.340 If these people got their way, eventually there'll be no separation.

00:21:31.400 And you already see this in some of the other, like I said, universalist organizations.

00:21:37.000 They devolve.

00:21:38.180 They're not about something that they're positively for.

00:21:43.280 If you read their mission statements, they're increasingly about things that they're against.

00:21:47.500 whereas the afa is for the worship of our gods for the establishment of our of our religion for

00:21:54.160 a positive set of values for like i mentioned the things that we believe in you read theirs

00:22:00.140 and it's well we will not tolerate racism we will not tolerate homophobia we will not tolerate

00:22:06.100 transphobia we will not and they just have a list of will nots and do nots and that's that's not the

00:22:11.740 way to do anything you can't define yourself by all the things you're against you have to define

00:22:15.480 yourself by a positive vision you have for what you're doing going forward. And that's what the

00:22:19.840 AFA always has done and will continue. Yeah, but you know how it is too. If you keep telling people

00:22:24.300 what they can't do, they're going to want to do exactly those same things. That's why I think a

00:22:28.440 lot of young kids are going to start rebelling against that. But it tells you how controlling

00:22:32.880 they are when now they want to go in there and police even your spirituality, right?

00:22:38.400 Oh, absolutely. You are free to do all manner of very strange things that our grandparents

00:22:44.940 generation would be shocked and mortified by. You're not free to express your faith if there's

00:22:51.480 any exclusivity to it, assuming that you are heterosexual or white. Any other groups of

00:22:59.620 people, though, by all means, go ahead and be as exclusive as you want. I don't know why there's

00:23:04.780 a different set of rules that apply. I find that racist. Now, do you think that you're going to

00:23:09.600 get some kind of organizations trying to peg the afa is possibly a hate group oh i think people try

00:23:16.220 to do that all the time but you know as as i've said before they won't find anywhere where the

00:23:20.920 afa is talking about the things we hate because quite frankly it's a waste of our time we have

00:23:24.880 too many good things we're trying to do that's right so let's talk about some of those good

00:23:29.840 things that you do there i mean what do you guys celebrate what kind of events do you hold what do

00:23:34.220 you do when you get together um well a lot of different things honestly we've got you mentioned

00:23:40.840 earlier that you know there's a lot of natural cycles that we celebrate kind of the big things

00:23:45.280 we celebrate are the solstices and the equinoxes but just about every month there's something that

00:23:51.020 our folks are celebrating and we've got now four big celebrations five big celebrations as of this

00:24:00.200 year that we do on a national level. The next one's coming up in Minnesota this weekend.

00:24:05.420 We get together. We get groups of families and our folk together to give bloat, which is our

00:24:12.340 big worship service to the gods, to kind of share in an offering with the gods. And then we get

00:24:20.040 together. We share meals. We share activities. We talk about our values. We talk about things we'd

00:24:25.100 like to see see progress on moving forward and ways to ways to better ourselves physically

00:24:30.700 mentally and spiritually we also do an event called stumble at these things and that's kind

00:24:35.600 of a between people communion ritual of of sharing uh sharing me as we go around and

00:24:42.940 and honor our ancestors and honor the heroes of our folk um yeah we have we get together have

00:24:49.720 those weekends but there's a whole lot of smaller smaller events the afa does just about every

00:24:54.040 weekend, we have an AFA group in some part of the world or another getting together with their

00:24:58.340 community and celebrating our holy gods and our ancestors. Yeah, I think anything that we can do

00:25:03.880 to remember our line, our ancient culture, and inspire young children to be interested in their

00:25:09.360 culture is a positive thing. I mean, I saw kids at the gathering that we went to, and kids love

00:25:15.400 the seasonal celebration. It's really fun. It sticks with them. It's going to be a good association

00:25:20.700 growing up with it. But I think Balutu is also, it's a good way to take time to just slow down

00:25:26.260 and remember and honor the change in season and your ancestors, because we just get so busy. So

00:25:31.740 there's kind of that meditative aspect. But then also, it's a good way to come together, I think,

00:25:36.700 with like-minded people and encourage each other, kind of recharge your batteries and

00:25:41.380 be encouraged and have fellowship, because people do need that in these times we're in, right?

00:25:47.100 Well, our people have always needed that.

00:25:48.840 I run into people that are what we call solitary practitioners,

00:25:52.160 and they're off by themselves trying to do these things.

00:25:54.400 And if that's all they can do in their situation, that's great.

00:25:58.760 It's great that they're doing that.

00:25:59.940 But you really get the feel for it when you have a community

00:26:03.080 and when you get together as a community to do these things.

00:26:06.360 And there's no other feeling like it.

00:26:08.220 We don't have anybody that comes out to our events and then regress it afterwards.

00:26:11.340 I've never heard that.

00:26:12.420 But I have heard a lot of people come out to our events, and it's life-changing for them.

00:26:15.920 I know that was my case when I went to my first one.

00:26:18.940 Now, a lot of times people think, oh, you're just worshiping nature, worshiping your ancestors, but it's not really like that.

00:26:25.040 It's about honoring them, right?

00:26:27.600 Well, yeah, I think, I don't know, words have different meanings to different people.

00:26:31.380 We certainly worship our ancestors and we worship the gods of our people.

00:26:35.340 But more than that, we try to honor them and respect them.

00:26:39.660 And we view our ancestors and even gods themselves to a degree as, you know, as our ancestors, as our most ancient ancestors.

00:26:47.340 We try to try to live the values that they inspire in us and have always inspired in our ancestors.

00:26:53.100 It really roots us in who we are, where we come from.

00:26:57.600 And I think you'll find across the board that any people, when they are proud of themselves, proud of the people that they come from, proud of their identity, they function better in society as a whole all across the board.

00:27:10.440 Oh, yeah. Identity is key. Without identity, you're completely lost.

00:27:13.960 You can never function without having some sense of identity.

00:27:18.320 Well, and at the risk of going back to the W word, I think that's why people are so offended by the birthright, because it is a way for us to specifically identify our people.

00:27:31.420 And that angers a lot of people, but we can't even mention what race of people we are.

00:27:38.980 That's holding us back from our identity, and that's wrong.

00:27:41.800 That's wrong to do to any people.

00:27:43.540 Yeah, it's really evil.

00:27:44.740 And also, you can't stop the truth.

00:27:47.300 This is what we're talking about is rooted in biology.

00:27:50.120 It's rooted in what's right in front of our face.

00:27:52.040 It's rooted in nature. 0.52

00:27:53.400 I mean, you're not ever going to stop this or change the fact that we're white.

00:27:58.540 No, and why would you want to?

00:28:01.340 That's the thing.

00:28:02.480 Why would you want to?

00:28:04.160 So let's talk about some of these basic tenets of Asatru, if you can summarize that.

00:28:09.620 All right. Well, some of the basic tenets of Asatru, and this is something that most people

00:28:14.640 generally are very accepting of, is the nine noble virtues. And these are values that come to us

00:28:21.660 through an understanding of our ancestors and the things that were important to them. And

00:28:27.480 There's ways to apply these and live these in their daily lives.

00:28:31.140 The first one is courage.

00:28:33.400 The second is truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance,

00:28:44.420 industriousness, and perseverance.

00:28:48.500 And, you know, we think by living those values and trying to practice those in

00:28:51.380 our daily lives, we can be good people.

00:28:54.420 We can be noble people.

00:28:56.420 And those are good things to live your life by,

00:28:59.840 things that certainly were very important to our ancestors

00:29:01.740 and to our people from time in the morning.

00:29:05.420 Yeah, it's interesting how people think,

00:29:06.740 where would we be without the Ten Commandments

00:29:08.940 as though our ancestors were just wild people 0.98

00:29:12.560 who treated everyone like crap and treated each other awfully. 0.98

00:29:15.840 No, they had these values instilled into them 0.99

00:29:18.360 and talked about it all the time, right?

00:29:21.420 Absolutely.

00:29:21.900 A person's reputation and how they behaved was key to our ancestors on how they valued

00:29:27.240 people.

00:29:27.960 There was no blanket system of equality.

00:29:30.500 You were judged by your deeds and by your reputation.

00:29:33.920 And I think they're very, very noble people.

00:29:36.900 It's one of the things when we talk about the Aryan tribes of people, that's a Sanskrit

00:29:41.220 word that means noble and implies shining nobility.

00:29:45.360 There's a time where our people were identified by how noble they were.

00:29:49.160 And then you can flip all the opposites, too, that they probably despised, and we should learn from that today.

00:29:56.500 Weakness, cowardice, adherence to dogma, all that kind of reminds me of liberalism, actually.

00:30:02.680 Yeah, absolutely. There was definitely things that they didn't tolerate.

00:30:06.320 And the kind of shenanigans I've seen from our detractors this last week, I think our ancestors have been pretty clear in there that are disavowing of that kind of behavior.

00:30:15.880 It's different because back then they could just take it out on the battlefield, right?

00:30:19.320 And just settle the score right there.

00:30:22.400 Absolutely.

00:30:23.080 And I have no doubt that they would have.

00:30:26.860 It's very strange to me.

00:30:28.180 Oftentimes the biggest detractors and these Viking reenactors that we run into,

00:30:35.540 they're the least likely to want to live an authentic lifestyle that our ancestors would have lived,

00:30:40.920 that required industriousness and required courage on the battlefield in doing all these things.

00:30:47.580 We've replaced that, I guess, with courage on the keyboard.

00:30:51.020 God, so sad. 0.80

00:30:52.480 Well, I see a resurgence of things changing, especially in the pro-white scene and Asatru. 0.84

00:30:58.440 You know, more manly men are coming back and people who are more vocal and unapologetic 0.61

00:31:03.380 and who have courage, and that's important.

00:31:05.200 And I think that's another reason why our enemies are kind of worried about us getting into our native religions and native history and learning the truth about that, because it awakens something powerful and awakens something where we're not we're not ashamed.

00:31:19.600 We just charge head, charge ahead and don't care what they say.

00:31:23.480 Well, I think absolutely.

00:31:24.900 I think that's one thing that's kind of irritated them in this last week is the response has been overwhelmingly positive and successful as far as people that we would actually want to associate with.

00:31:36.020 We've had support pouring in from all over the place because they felt the need to spread their outcry so far and wide that it kind of advertised the positive things that we were about to a lot of different people.

00:31:47.600 So that's been a really beautiful thing that's come of it.

00:31:49.960 I think our enemies are very incensed that we've been so successful.

00:31:53.920 The Austria Folk Assembly is by far the most successful Austria organization, certainly in the United States.

00:32:00.460 And I believe in the world.

00:32:02.320 It's been consistent.

00:32:03.980 It's been a positive change for good.

00:32:05.680 We've got things going.

00:32:06.960 We've got a hop.

00:32:07.820 We have events around the country.

00:32:09.640 Like I said, just about every weekend, we've got AFA members getting out, doing something, meeting other people and honoring their gods.

00:32:15.900 I think there's a lot of anger because we have been so successful.

00:32:18.460 Now, you guys are seeing a lot of growth, I hear.

00:32:20.960 Now, are you guys expanding into Europe at all?

00:32:22.880 Is there any networks over there, and Australia, and New Zealand?

00:32:26.340 Oh, absolutely, and specifically in Europe, we've got some really, really good people

00:32:31.220 over in Europe.

00:32:32.220 We've got a very, very good group of folks over in Scandinavia.

00:32:35.640 We got to visit our Denmark folks a number of years ago, and that was a really positive

00:32:40.860 experience.

00:32:41.860 Yeah, we just got a new apprentice folk builder over in Sweden.

00:32:47.200 And his name's Anders, and he's doing really good things over there.

00:32:50.200 We've got folks in Poland.

00:32:52.240 We've got folks in Germany.

00:32:53.440 We've got some in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

00:32:57.620 We've got a number of people doing things in Europe.

00:33:00.480 We have members in Italy.

00:33:01.640 We've got people internationally now, and that's really nice.

00:33:05.620 Wouldn't it be great to plan a big meetup in Europe for all these different groups to come fly over there

00:33:11.500 and meet in one central place

00:33:13.540 and have a big celebration together.

00:33:15.860 I would love that.

00:33:16.880 I think that'd be fantastic.

00:33:18.860 We should look into that.

00:33:19.740 Maybe plan something like that.

00:33:20.900 That would be fun.

00:33:22.380 Kind of like a mecha trip,

00:33:23.940 you know, a yearly mecha trip.

00:33:25.120 I think we need that.

00:33:26.360 You know, all these other groups have that

00:33:27.680 and we've abandoned that.

00:33:29.760 Well, yeah, I'll tell you what,

00:33:30.600 going over to Denmark a few years ago

00:33:32.480 was very much like that for me.

00:33:35.340 Got to see a lot of ancient burial mounds.

00:33:38.960 Got to go visit dolmens and things.

00:33:41.000 We got to do rituals in stone circles that our ancestors have done ritual in since Bronze Age, at least, in most of these places we were at.

00:33:50.840 It was really kind of special because it wasn't like, you know, we weren't looking at history and observing something.

00:33:56.440 We were participating in rituals that our ancestors would have understood and done something very, very similar back for thousands of years.

00:34:03.660 And that was a really special experience.

00:34:05.140 Oh, very special.

00:34:06.180 I wanted to ask you, what is the Osatru stance on good and evil?

00:34:12.000 Well, there's a lot of detractors out there that want to say our people don't have those.

00:34:17.260 That's an Abrahamic thing, right?

00:34:19.980 What we have that's more similar to that is order versus chaos.

00:34:24.420 Our gods are gods of order, and the chaotic forces, be it the Jotuns or any of these other forces of chaos, are things that try to destroy that order.

00:34:37.780 Our gods, they're gods of order and consciousness, and their struggle is always to beat back chaos and stay one step ahead of it, you know, one step ahead of the maw of the wolves.

00:34:49.980 So that's kind of our things, and things that support order and support the structured order of society, things much like I mentioned in that post, are good things, you know, is the truth.

00:35:00.960 and any things that are that are chaotic and want to tear that down tear down society tear down

00:35:06.320 you know our people those are those are forces of chaos and destruction and that's that's the

00:35:11.280 stuff we have fighting this it's funny because that's the one thing that lefties really worry

00:35:15.720 about even with trump they were freaking out about law and order right that really freaks

00:35:20.820 them out right away they start fearing fascism and nazis and they just want just total chaos

00:35:26.660 all the time it seems like well I think I think they thrive on that I think

00:35:31.220 especially if you're if you're dysfunctional in your own life and

00:35:35.240 you're dysfunctional and you can't function in the society there I think

00:35:39.260 you think you're drawn towards chaotic things the other thing is too good and

00:35:43.380 evil they're not really constants right what's good in one case may not be good

00:35:47.060 in another people are gonna see that differently I mean people view us what

00:35:50.640 we're talking about right now is evil yeah those people are mistaken but yeah

00:35:55.100 I see exactly what you're saying.

00:35:57.300 You know, our ancestors thought the great good was what was good for your people, what was good for your group, what was good for your tribe.

00:36:04.700 And they saw it, you know, evil for lack of a better term.

00:36:08.860 And what was bad for your people, bad for your family, and bad for your tribe by extension.

00:36:13.400 That's how the AFA likes to do those kind of concepts as well.

00:36:17.060 Now, what about thoughts on the afterlife?

00:36:19.640 That's an interesting subject.

00:36:20.980 There's kind of a lot of different thoughts on our afterlife.

00:36:23.500 life. And a lot of that varied from region to region in Europe. But the focus of the

00:36:28.760 AFA has never been really that focused on the afterlife. Because Alistair is a life

00:36:34.100 embracing religion. We're not trying to wait for the glorious hereafter. We're trying to

00:36:40.480 make things glorious in the world that we live in now. We're trying to celebrate life

00:36:44.320 and live a good and noble life and be remembered by our families, by our friends, for noble

00:36:51.240 words and noble deeds and that life will take care of itself yeah i think it's it's about owning

00:36:56.860 your own destiny making your life happen for yourself not praying for someone else to do it

00:37:02.120 for you or to open up the opportunities but forging the path on your own it's about becoming

00:37:07.800 the hero that's something we've talked about within the afa for a while now is living that

00:37:13.120 noble life and becoming the hero doing those things for yourself making those bold stands

00:37:17.660 You know, for what is known of our afterlife, heroic action was the surest way to that afterlife, be that in Valhalla or be that just in the songs and the stories of the folk.

00:37:30.380 yeah thinking in terms of politics today it seems like the hero is being ripped down you know they

00:37:36.200 might as well just raise up the court jester right the victim is the the highest most noble thing you

00:37:42.340 can be strong and mighty is looked at something like it like it's wrong like you should be ashamed

00:37:47.600 for being strong and mighty and wanting to own your destiny and be the best that you can be

00:37:52.480 absolutely those things have all been pilloried in the world we live in and that's something the

00:37:58.780 AFA wants to really fight against. That is the antithesis of what we're about. We're all about

00:38:03.440 the hero. And we're all about each of us becoming as close to that as we can be. It's easy to feel

00:38:09.960 victimized or feel downtrodden by detractors and by different states of the world. But one thing

00:38:16.760 we can always do is better ourselves. That's what the AFA is all about, about making each one of

00:38:21.680 our members, helping them to be better mentally, physically, spiritually, helping them to live a

00:38:27.240 more noble life, have more pride in themselves, hold their head up high, and do great things.

00:38:32.400 There's no downside to that. That's the one thing that we all have control over,

00:38:36.800 is ways to make our individual lives better. We can do that.

00:38:41.220 Absolutely. I agree 100%. And then when you guys come together as a whole, you're even stronger

00:38:45.340 because everyone's managed to conquer things in their own life, right? Become the best that they

00:38:50.780 can be. And that's exactly what we need in this interim instead of sitting around and playing

00:38:54.660 victim and seeing what's happening out there, at least we can work on our own lives and get our

00:38:59.100 own houses in order and start planning and being prepared for what's going to come ahead.

00:39:04.660 Absolutely. That coming together as a group and helping each other because we've been able to be

00:39:10.060 strong ourselves, that's tremendous. There's nothing I'd like better. We're all human and

00:39:15.260 we have times where we need help. There's nothing I would like more than to be surrounded by a group

00:39:19.020 of strong people that have been able to fix the things in their lives to help me through it when

00:39:22.940 There's something that I can't fix.

00:39:24.260 And I'd love to be able to do that for my fellow people, for members of my tribe.

00:39:29.280 That's something the AFA does try to do.

00:39:31.060 We have a program called the Folk Services Program to where we have members of the AFA

00:39:35.680 that go through hardships, go through, you know, natural disasters, things like that.

00:39:39.720 We also have four as a community to try to help those people out and get them through.

00:39:43.320 And I'm really proud of that.

00:39:45.080 We've been able to be successful with that.

00:39:46.600 So we're all about lifting ourselves up and then by virtue of being able to do that,

00:39:50.800 lifting each other up, coming each other out.

00:39:52.940 Yeah, I think white people have been so, especially in America, we've so been independent and on our own for so long that a lot of people are craving that brotherhood or sisterhood or community or having neighbors that they can just call up and say, hey, can you help me cut down this tree or whatever?

00:40:06.920 A lot of us don't have that, do we?

00:40:09.880 No, and we've lost that within, you know, within a generation or two.

00:40:13.600 You know, in my grandparents' time, my grandparents knew their neighbors.

00:40:16.720 Their neighbors knew them.

00:40:17.620 We had communities.

00:40:18.560 unfortunately where we live in today that's that's far more scarce and that's that's unfortunate

00:40:23.640 we've always been a people that was about the community and about our folk about our tribe

00:40:27.760 so the afa in a small way is trying to trying to make that happen we're seeing communities like

00:40:33.240 that pop up throughout the world it's really good to see now what are some ways that we can

00:40:38.780 incorporate some of these also true tenants or ideas into our daily life well one thing you know

00:40:47.200 There's a lot of debate whether it's a religion or a way of life, and it's both.

00:40:52.400 Spirituality to our ancestors wasn't something you did every once in a while.

00:40:56.520 You didn't go to church on Sunday.

00:40:58.600 It was the way you lived your life.

00:41:00.140 You should be also true with how you do your job at work.

00:41:03.040 You should be also true with the kind of father you are, the kind of mother you are, the kind of husband you are, the kind of son or daughter you are.

00:41:10.060 You should be also true in everything that you do and every way that you do things.

00:41:13.500 If you have that noble ideal in front of you, would my ancestors be honored by what I'm doing now, or would they be ashamed of me for what I'm doing now?

00:41:22.200 That's a powerful way to think, and it should affect every aspect of your life.

00:41:26.960 Yeah.

00:41:27.680 So how did our native ways or native spirituality die out in Europe?

00:41:32.460 I know a lot of people say Christianity, but what are your thoughts?

00:41:36.540 Well, certainly that was a big part of it.

00:41:38.820 And I think inherently a lot of those values got passed on in different forms.

00:41:45.540 You find that the Christian church, when it came to Europe, it drastically had to alter its way of doing things to conform to the mindset of our ancestors.

00:41:53.880 You know, most of what we recognize as medieval Christianity came about by blending in a lot of our native folkways in a way that our people would accept.

00:42:03.400 So a lot of the traditions stayed on and kind of laid dormant for a while, and that's important.

00:42:10.240 But yeah, Christianity stomped it out, but a lot of it was people giving up a faith that was theirs, that was their cultural identity they held on to, and trading it for a universal faith that didn't come from their people, that didn't represent the things that they needed in their soul.

00:42:29.160 And over time, that just kind of eroded our people, and that's given us a lot of problems that we have today.

00:42:35.180 Well, thinking in terms of that, with some of those principles still kind of in Christianity,

00:42:39.160 I know the Slavs, they had a dual faith for a couple hundred years, right, side by side, two different faiths,

00:42:44.200 and they kind of orthodoxy merged a lot of these pagan concepts.

00:42:47.700 But do you think that the Abrahamic religions have done more harm than good? 0.96

00:42:53.580 Yeah, absolutely, in the long term. 0.99

00:42:55.360 I think that you see European culture really affecting European Christianity and making it better than it otherwise would be for a while and maintaining a lot of our virtues through various ways that the church did things.

00:43:10.800 But, yeah, over time, we would have been much better off if we would have been able to keep our ancestral faiths intact and develop them. 0.99

00:43:18.180 Who knows how much better off we would be if we didn't have that stunted growth from this foreign creed. 1.00

00:43:23.560 Yeah, it's interesting. I see a lot of these hard Islamic people. 1.00

00:43:27.300 They seem to be more concerned about paganism than Christianity. 1.00

00:43:31.160 I don't know if you've noticed that, but they really just go nuts about European pagans more than Christians.

00:43:36.040 Have you seen that?

00:43:37.800 You know, I haven't seen a whole lot of that, honestly.

00:43:41.200 That's interesting. I think maybe it's because paganism seems to be on the rise,

00:43:45.840 whereas Christianity in this age that we live in has become weaker and weaker and weaker.

00:43:51.840 it's really trailed off with the number of people that are active participants and the values have

00:43:57.500 just kind of eroded you have a pope right now that doesn't stand for much anything that the

00:44:02.400 traditional church stood for so it's kind of become unrecognizable so what do you think about

00:44:07.880 the word heathen a lot of people kind of fight on that that's what the christian said and you know

00:44:13.040 it's kind of had bad associations what about the word heathen to describe people that's a really

00:44:19.140 good question um that comes up a lot believe it or not in our conversations i tend to not like it

00:44:27.540 and the reason i tend to not like it is right now most of the people that uh you know it ended up

00:44:33.580 with their their hateful attacks on us last week they they i they like to identify with the word

00:44:38.040 yeah i've noticed that too so a lot of the things that they do i try to keep my distance from as

00:44:45.360 much as possible for obvious reasons.

00:44:49.540 So that's my only issue with it.

00:44:50.980 I know a lot of people,

00:44:52.320 certainly people within the AFA and people that are good friends of mine,

00:44:55.800 like to use it just fine.

00:44:57.400 The only problem I have with it is it associates us with a group of people

00:45:01.280 that I would kind of not like to be associated with.

00:45:03.760 Yeah, I think it's good to come up with new terms too.

00:45:06.540 Why not?

00:45:08.060 Well, yeah,

00:45:08.420 I noticed that their response to a lot of what we do is they don't want to

00:45:10.980 use the term house insure anymore now.

00:45:13.500 Good.

00:45:14.560 Reject the term, which is fine.

00:45:16.580 Cool.

00:45:17.080 It's ours.

00:45:17.820 I'd like to own it.

00:45:19.160 You guys can go figure out what you'd like to call it.

00:45:21.880 I wonder what their meetups are like. 0.54

00:45:23.600 Do they sit around and talk about, you know, feminism and sexism and our evil white ancestors?

00:45:29.720 I mean, how does that work with what they do?

00:45:31.960 It's supposed to be a religion of your ancestors and here they are, like, bashing their own people.

00:45:37.880 Yeah, I truly have no idea.

00:45:39.360 I think that a lot of what they do is confined to the internet and various things that they can say from the safety and comfort of their or their parents' basements.

00:45:50.280 I think that when you get those groups and they do get together, I think that they probably have a pretty fun Viking-themed barbecue.

00:45:57.420 But I don't think that they have the same, in my experience and from what I hear, I don't think they have the same level of spirituality at their events.

00:46:04.100 And I think they're really missing that connection.

00:46:06.180 And I think that's probably what you face.

00:46:08.600 Maybe they're just heathen because it's anti-Christian, right? They hate Europe, and Europe they think is Christianity, so it's a way for them just to rebel against that.

00:46:18.080 I think that's interesting. There's an awful lot of rebellious strain, especially when somebody first is new to Alcetru. 0.78

00:46:25.420 They want to throw out anything that has any Christianity associated to it, and that could be the opposition between heathen and Christian. That could be a big thing.

00:46:35.160 A lot of people ask, well, how can the Norse myths help us? What can they teach us? What can you say?

00:46:41.940 Well, I think that they give us a unique window into a time of our people's development. And it gives you a window into the things that they value. And the trick is being able to apply those things in a modern context. Very, very few of us get the opportunity to go get on our longboat and go raiding things.

00:47:04.320 So figuring out ways to exhibit the courage of a warrior in your own life, that's a challenge.

00:47:11.260 But I think that if you find ways to internalize those things, it does a lot.

00:47:16.480 A lot of those myths, once you have a historical context for them, really helps you to internalize the values,

00:47:23.360 the way that our ancestors saw the divine, the way that our ancestors saw our interactions with the divine,

00:47:29.480 and the way that our ancestors saw their interactions with other people and with nature.

00:47:35.300 So what else do you want people to know about Ossetru as we come to the end here?

00:47:40.200 Well, I want you to know that Ossetru, specifically practiced by the Ossetru Folk Assembly,

00:47:45.880 is a modern faith for modern people.

00:47:49.460 We're not about dressing up like Vikings.

00:47:51.660 We're not about pretending and finding how historically accurate we can larp.

00:47:57.660 What we're about doing is practicing the ancestral faith of our people back to the beginning of time and establishing that and practicing that in our modern world with our modern needs.

00:48:09.520 It's absolutely a faith that has serious things that we talk about, serious things that we do that are relevant to modern families, modern people living in the world that we live in.

00:48:20.520 It has relevant answers for people's lives and helping the betterment of ourselves individually and the betterment of our people.

00:48:27.660 And tell us what the AFA has coming up next.

00:48:31.100 Well, coming up next, as I said earlier, we've got Fall Fest up in Minnesota this weekend.

00:48:37.480 And that should be really cool.

00:48:38.680 That's the first time we've done that event.

00:48:40.040 It's a part of the country we haven't had a national event in before.

00:48:43.100 So I'm really excited to see what we've got going up there.

00:48:45.560 We've also got Winter Nights in Poconos coming up in October.

00:48:50.980 And that's always one of our big events.

00:48:53.500 That is perhaps our biggest event of the year.

00:48:55.740 and it's always spectacular.

00:48:58.480 That's coming up mid-October

00:48:59.820 and that's going to be really good.

00:49:00.860 We're looking forward to that.

00:49:02.720 Great.

00:49:02.980 Well, thank you so much, Matt.

00:49:04.080 It's been a pleasure.

00:49:04.980 I've really enjoyed this

00:49:06.000 and hopefully people are going to check it out.

00:49:08.340 Also, truefocusassembly.org.

00:49:09.820 You guys also have a good reading list there, correct?

00:49:11.640 We do.

00:49:12.020 We do.

00:49:12.300 You'll find a lot of information on there

00:49:13.700 and if you read it,

00:49:14.940 if it's something that you like,

00:49:16.080 please feel free to join us

00:49:18.020 because we'd love to have you with us.

00:49:20.480 Thanks, Matt.

00:49:21.000 I appreciate it.

00:49:22.040 Thanks for having me.

00:49:23.320 There's nothing more grounded

00:49:24.480 than being in tune with the Earth's natural cycles and honoring your ancestors.

00:49:29.120 Pre-Christian seasonal celebrations are a way to rejuvenate yourself,

00:49:33.160 step back from your busy modern life, and act back with nature and your folk.

00:49:37.480 I find when I get too busy and I'm on the computer too much,

00:49:40.760 I crave being outside in nature, away from the noise, away from the artificial aspects of life.

00:49:46.280 Much of it is unhealthy, and well, it kind of makes us crazy.

00:49:49.740 As unpredictable as our lives and future might be,

00:49:52.260 the one constant we can count on is seasonal cycles. Nature always does its thing. Without it,

00:49:58.080 we'd all be dead. It's easy to get beaten down and fed up with the ongoing war on our folk.

00:50:03.820 That's why it's important to meet up with like-minded people as a way to find encouragement,

00:50:07.940 inspiration, and new energy. The planet is constantly in a state of death and renewal,

00:50:13.380 and so are we. I think it's important to take the time to be conscious of that process and

00:50:17.840 where we are in that cycle balance is missing from so many of our lives for some it's too much work

00:50:24.720 for others it's too much play when one thing is out of whack it can cause havoc and suffering in

00:50:29.680 our lives so come to an also true meetup or honor the seasons and folk with your friends or privately

00:50:35.120 but take the time to do it you'll notice a big difference in your life when you do whether we

00:50:39.560 admit it or not humans crave spirituality and need meditative contemplative time and they need to

00:50:45.040 connect with those of their tribe. This is a basic human need. And like I said in the interview,

00:50:49.980 children love celebrating pre-Christian traditions. It's the best way to anchor them

00:50:54.380 into the ways of their folk and their ancient culture. Tune in this Saturday for another 0.97

00:50:59.080 Weekend Warrior where Henrik and I talk about the latest news and events from an alt-right

00:51:03.020 perspective. Redice.tv is the website, and if you'd like to help support us with our Red Ice

00:51:08.540 membership and access all our material, including over a thousand plus radio shows in our archives,

00:51:13.720 go to redicemembers.com.

00:51:15.940 We're also updating the design for that too, by the way.

00:51:18.820 Much love. Have a productive week.

00:51:43.720 Thank you.

00:52:13.720 I love you

Asatru Folk Assembly - January 31, 2021

Matt Flavel on Radio 3Fourteen March 2017

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