Asatru Folk Assembly - Óðinshof dedication, October 10, 2015.

00:00:00.000 we've got a lot of people here today obviously i notice our parking lot filled up rather quickly

00:00:12.880 because i think a few cars are locked in sorry about that that's okay you won't stay anyway

00:00:23.280 you're wondering gee how many people are going to come from all over to be here for this and i

00:00:27.520 I think the answer is very, very pleased.

00:00:37.120 In the last weeks, we have taken an aging grade hall built in 1938.

00:00:51.400 It has served all sorts of purposes over the years.

00:00:54.240 it's been a school, it's been a social place for the community to meet, it's been a church

00:01:01.280 group meeting place, it's been all sorts of things.

00:01:07.540 We've taken that and we've converted it into something else.

00:01:13.960 We're not advocating the past of this building.

00:01:18.720 We wanted to keep the same basic shape.

00:01:21.220 We wanted to keep the red color because we really liked it.

00:01:25.100 We wanted to keep the word Grange in the title.

00:01:30.380 And there wasn't much approach.

00:01:33.260 That's how I remember the present.

00:01:38.960 New Grange Hall.

00:01:41.340 Or New Grange Hall.

00:01:43.480 Because this is both.

00:01:44.680 a hall

00:01:47.300 in the old days was a place

00:01:49.600 where the folk

00:01:51.120 came together

00:01:52.640 and they feasted

00:01:54.500 and they told each other stories

00:01:57.940 and they entertained each other

00:01:59.640 they honored the courageous

00:02:02.120 they laughed

00:02:04.120 at the humorous

00:02:05.120 and they welded

00:02:07.800 themselves together

00:02:08.840 into tribes

00:02:11.660 clans

00:02:14.260 and this is also a hall old Norse for a temple or a holy place and although we

00:02:31.540 will be living a convivial lifestyle in our in this hall we will be talking we

00:02:40.240 We will be laughing, we will be feasting, we will be drinking, we will be raising our horns, honoring the gods, honoring our ancestors, honoring ourselves, and the accomplishments that we put down into the well of weary.

00:02:57.360 At the same time, we will honor the holy powers.

00:03:02.220 You may say, who are these holy powers?

00:03:05.180 They're the holy powers your ancestors knew for countless thousands.

00:03:10.240 of years they live within us they move breathe within us and without us and they

00:03:22.720 seem strange unless you've been watching the biden system series or something you know

00:03:29.040 but they're not strange they're there all alone they're whispering in your soul whispering in your

00:03:37.680 heart. They're that waking dream you have at a certain time. They're that hunch. They're

00:03:47.380 that intuition. They're that knowledge that comes to you unbilled. That insight. That

00:03:53.000 awareness. They're that oneness with nature in particular that at times strikes you out

00:04:01.340 of nowhere when you think you're totally urbanized. Atomized. Removed from the natural

00:04:07.040 world and then suddenly something so intensely beautiful strikes you that you know you are

00:04:15.000 connected to something higher. New Grange. There was the old Grange Hall. This is the

00:04:26.300 new Grange Hall. But there's more to that name than that. Many of you are familiar with

00:04:32.500 Irish free history know there is a very special place in the Boyne Valley called Newgrange.

00:04:39.120 It's thousands of years old.

00:04:42.300 You know what's special about Newgrange is this.

00:04:47.320 You enter behind a carved stone that has three interlocked spirals on it.

00:04:54.900 You go down the narrow passage and you go, I don't even know how far it is, 50, 60, 70,

00:05:01.540 80 feet.

00:05:02.500 i don't know in the darkness it includes that kind of perspective and you get back in there

00:05:08.580 and it opens up into a chamber it's not a huge chamber but there's little recesses in in the

00:05:14.420 chamber and in the old old old days way before the bodies way before any of that our earliest

00:05:23.940 ancestors in europe would take the bodies of the deceased and place them in these these wall

00:05:31.540 And then, and then a miracle happens.

00:05:40.480 And it happens once a year.

00:05:43.960 On the morning after the winter solstice, the sun shoots a beam straight down and passes.

00:05:54.560 the light

00:06:01.040 lasts for 17 minutes

00:06:03.060 and then

00:06:04.840 again

00:06:06.060 the chamber is in mercy

00:06:08.740 and darkness

00:06:09.360 to me

00:06:13.540 to me

00:06:16.600 I think of the light

00:06:18.400 shooting into this chamber

00:06:20.400 sending light

00:06:22.900 sending light, sending

00:06:24.560 transformation

00:06:26.040 for the souls 0.97

00:06:28.800 of those dead, taking

00:06:30.900 them to where they need to be,

00:06:33.920 giving them

00:06:34.700 a portion of immortality.

00:06:39.660 I stood in that

00:06:41.040 chamber

00:06:41.420 and the tour guide

00:06:45.260 simulated

00:06:46.340 that session with a flashlight.

00:06:49.240 and I'm glad it was dark in there

00:06:53.360 because tears were

00:06:57.360 rolling down my cheeks

00:06:58.500 our primitive ancestors

00:07:02.220 right

00:07:02.700 I want

00:07:08.760 Newgrave Hall and Hoth

00:07:11.280 to be a source

00:07:13.480 of light I want this

00:07:15.440 to be a place

00:07:17.280 that brings spiritual

00:07:19.220 connections. A way that

00:07:21.140 shows us the way back to our

00:07:23.200 ancestors.

00:07:25.920 For we are one

00:07:27.020 with those ancestors.

00:07:29.740 In the 21st century

00:07:31.080 we think we're these little itemized

00:07:33.320 atomized

00:07:34.680 reduced little entities.

00:07:37.060 These little marbles rolling around in a dead

00:07:39.180 universe. And that's a lot.

00:07:43.620 Each and every one of us

00:07:45.460 in my opinion

00:07:46.980 each and every person in the world

00:07:49.360 is connected to

00:07:51.540 their ancestors.

00:07:54.880 They live in you.

00:07:56.440 They live through you.

00:07:57.540 They breathe through you.

00:07:59.360 You are their latest expression

00:08:01.260 in this slice of space and time.

00:08:06.320 And each and every one of us

00:08:08.300 each and every one of us

00:08:10.500 is an ancestor

00:08:11.900 in training.

00:08:14.280 Someday your descendants

00:08:16.000 will look back

00:08:16.820 maybe they'll find you

00:08:24.220 whatever takes the place

00:08:26.400 of Ancestry.com

00:08:27.800 a century

00:08:30.400 from now and they will wonder

00:08:32.520 who was Brad

00:08:34.520 what was he like

00:08:36.280 who was Chris

00:08:40.440 who was Charlotte

00:08:42.220 who was Jen

00:08:45.500 Each of us has a duty to pass on the very best that we can, to raise ourselves to the highest possible level, and to become the person that those descendants will need for inspiration.

00:09:09.000 New Grange Hall

00:09:14.160 New Grange Hall

00:09:15.560 has a role in it

00:09:17.620 one of the items we have not yet

00:09:24.740 added

00:09:25.560 to this

00:09:27.760 structure

00:09:29.880 will be a stone

00:09:34.340 with that same

00:09:36.420 threefold spiral

00:09:38.240 that's a big door of new courage.

00:09:43.720 And thanks to one of our members,

00:09:45.700 we have a piece of soil

00:09:49.340 and a stone from that very site.

00:09:55.720 I hope that's not illegal, but we know nothing.

00:10:00.540 Sometimes break the law of the law, right?

00:10:04.900 I know, you know,

00:10:05.820 it's like you're in that former corrections guy.

00:10:08.020 And that will be our connection with New Bridge.

00:10:14.760 That will be our connection with this part of the sacred.

00:10:19.820 A link, why do you ask, to this?

00:10:29.940 The times we live in are perilous spiritually.

00:10:35.740 As I mentioned before, we're taught that we're nothing but meaningless adverts. It's all about today. It's all about consuming. It's all about buying something. It's all about thinking like everybody really thinks because if you get outside the box, you might be politically incorrect.

00:10:55.200 sometimes you have to

00:11:01.120 I need to be offended from time to time

00:11:04.580 there's always plenty of people wanting to do this

00:11:06.320 because in a way that's a self check

00:11:09.460 it keeps you moving

00:11:10.700 it keeps you aware, it keeps you awake

00:11:12.760 pain sometimes keeps you awake

00:11:14.460 and that's not a bad thing

00:11:15.940 there has been nothing on this scale

00:11:23.400 honoring the gods and goddesses of our ancestors for at least 800 years.

00:11:33.080 There have been modest hopes built around the country and around the world,

00:11:38.380 and I do not in any way impute or denigrate those attempts.

00:11:44.360 They are all noble attempts, each and every one of them.

00:11:49.080 But most of them are in the possession of individuals,

00:11:52.060 And individuals come and individuals go and individuals change their minds.

00:11:59.060 And most of them, though honorable and noble, are small.

00:12:05.060 Some of them are very small.

00:12:11.060 Does Kirby White still have his fault in the desert? Does anybody know?

00:12:15.060 I don't know if you guys are still in touch with him.

00:12:18.060 But there are other people around the country. There's wonderful people back in the eastern part of the country that are building halls. They're not large, but they're doing. But there's been nothing on this scale for 800 years.

00:12:35.220 In the 1200s, the temple at Uppsala in Sweden, which some of you may have become familiar with during the Viking series, was burned.

00:12:47.360 Possibly there were other similar structures that were in the Baltic area that were destroyed.

00:12:54.260 But for at least 800 years, there has been nothing like what you are sitting in.

00:13:00.480 This is a new thing, a wonderful thing that is a reflection of an old thing.

00:13:08.480 Imagine the desolation.

00:13:11.580 Imagine the desolation that followed when those temples were burned.

00:13:16.740 Imagine the desolation when your ancestors were tortured and murdered because they would not give up the old ways.

00:13:27.800 And yes, that did happen. 1.00

00:13:30.080 There was, I have no gripe of Christians. 1.00

00:13:33.240 Please don't understand me.

00:13:34.280 This is not a personal assault of anyone's beliefs.

00:13:36.960 But the historical fact is this.

00:13:40.440 There was a 1,000-year war to convert Europe to Christianity.

00:13:47.360 It started in the Italian peninsula with Constantine in the, what, the 300s?

00:13:53.480 and it ended in the 1200s or 1300s in northern Europe.

00:14:00.100 Our ancestors fought every inch of the way. 0.75

00:14:03.860 But the invading belief destroyed our culture. 0.88

00:14:08.040 It pulled us out of our context. 0.98

00:14:10.980 It destroyed the old ways. 0.89

00:14:12.940 It not only burned the temples, it burned some of the people.

00:14:16.280 And it destroyed their customs.

00:14:19.360 It destroyed their folk ways.

00:14:20.980 left the old halls

00:14:23.460 in ruins

00:14:25.460 left hearts

00:14:28.400 and entire peoples

00:14:30.720 in ruins

00:14:32.420 there's a poem called The Wanderer

00:14:39.100 written in Anglo-Saxon

00:14:41.160 and it doesn't exactly

00:14:43.320 relate to the conversion period per se

00:14:45.380 but it does relate

00:14:46.900 to the death of the hall

00:14:49.360 we could say of the

00:14:51.520 half as well, yes

00:14:53.440 the temples are gone

00:14:54.540 so also are the

00:14:57.440 places that we met to come together

00:14:59.560 the places

00:15:00.860 where the heroes

00:15:03.540 the warriors

00:15:04.820 and the ordinary people

00:15:07.160 the workers, the farmers

00:15:09.360 could join together

00:15:11.140 where they were a folk

00:15:12.840 a community

00:15:14.040 instead of atomized

00:15:16.300 BBs bouncing around

00:15:18.220 a mindless universe. 0.92

00:15:22.040 A portion of that poem

00:15:23.880 the wanderer reads,

00:15:25.920 Walls stand battered by the

00:15:28.240 wind, covered by frost

00:15:30.180 the roofs collapsed.

00:15:32.240 The wine halls crumble, the

00:15:33.960 warriors lie dead, cut

00:15:36.160 off from joy.

00:15:38.100 The great troop all crumpled,

00:15:40.640 proud by the wall.

00:15:42.680 One war took,

00:15:44.220 led to his death. One of

00:15:46.160 bird lifted over the high sea

00:15:48.160 one the hoary wolf

00:15:49.900 broke with death. 0.58

00:15:52.100 One bloody cheat

00:15:53.720 a warrior hid in a 0.90

00:15:56.120 hole on the ground.

00:15:58.680 In this kind of social

00:16:00.020 chaos, in many ways not

00:16:02.180 unlike the social chaos we face

00:16:04.140 today, people ask questions.

00:16:06.860 They want answers.

00:16:08.240 They want to know what happens

00:16:10.040 to this way that we knew, the way

00:16:12.100 that we treasured.

00:16:14.460 And some of them ask this question

00:16:15.880 like this.

00:16:40.040 That's in the old tongue.

00:16:43.700 Roughly translated as

00:16:45.420 What happens to the horse?

00:16:48.000 What happens to the warrior?

00:16:50.520 What happens to the gift giver?

00:16:52.960 What happens to the wine hall?

00:16:55.540 Where are the sounds of joy?

00:16:58.560 And today, we have an answer for that.

00:17:02.320 The sound of joy is here.

00:17:04.900 The wine hall is here.

00:17:07.280 Those who follow the ways of our ancestors are here.

00:17:10.860 We are back.

00:17:12.020 And this time, we're not going away.

00:17:14.360 you are here witnessing a historical event 800 years in the making 800 years of generation

00:17:27.080 after generation suffering the loss of soul we as a people have lost our collective soul 0.96

00:17:36.500 Consider shamanic societies

00:17:38.860 where a person is ill

00:17:41.040 or showing disturbed symptoms.

00:17:44.220 You know, the shaman goes into the other world

00:17:46.760 to recover their soul.

00:17:48.380 That's sort of the context they're working in.

00:17:51.040 You can consider that our collective soul

00:17:53.920 has been ripped from us.

00:17:56.420 We have been forced to fit into an alien construct, 0.96

00:18:01.820 a box that is not us

00:18:03.580 and does not work for us.

00:18:05.120 But now, we are back.

00:18:07.880 And I don't say that with anger.

00:18:09.800 I don't say that with anything except joy.

00:18:13.420 I woke up this morning crying from joy.

00:18:16.500 I was so happy to be here.

00:18:19.280 So happy to know that we have attained this.

00:18:25.480 So in a couple of minutes, you're going to be here.

00:18:30.340 All we concentrate is all.

00:18:32.120 first

00:18:35.240 I want to talk about

00:18:39.840 the people that make it possible

00:18:42.460 any of y'all who have been driving up and down

00:18:47.560 for the past few weeks

00:18:49.400 you've seen cars parked out here

00:18:52.840 maybe you've seen the forge going

00:18:55.280 maybe you've heard a hammer

00:18:57.580 hammer, hammer

00:18:59.260 of people working iron

00:19:00.860 Maybe you've heard of the songs in the Panhanda, seeing the people come and go.

00:19:07.760 There are people who have driven I don't know how many hours from where they live, up and down the state, to be here, to work.

00:19:18.440 No pain.

00:19:20.000 No, no one of you have to pay.

00:19:23.060 This is the best.

00:19:24.440 we have

00:19:28.420 many people also

00:19:29.760 who gave

00:19:31.820 that form of energy our society 0.68

00:19:34.120 uses called money

00:19:35.320 to make this happen

00:19:36.940 I'm obliged by our

00:19:41.760 by honor

00:19:43.940 and by our

00:19:45.420 custom to read

00:19:47.980 the names of some of those individuals

00:19:54.440 And some of them are present, and I will ask them to stand if they will, if they're embarrassed.

00:20:03.500 Stay with it.

00:20:06.800 Why is it?

00:20:09.460 Andrew is Sabrina Latour, Lord and Lady of the Hall.

00:20:16.180 Janet.

00:20:21.460 Janet Deaver.

00:20:24.440 Diane Schachterly and Jim Erickson.

00:20:34.440 Doug and Ken Carlson.

00:20:40.440 Phillip M. Koch.

00:20:46.440 Joshua and Liberty Buckley.

00:20:48.440 Nancy Buckley.

00:20:53.440 Steven Sheila McNallan.

00:21:00.440 It's the only job I ever have where I have to pay instead of getting paid.

00:21:04.440 Justin Burleson.

00:21:09.440 Michelle Mattson.

00:21:14.440 Max Regenario, Sam Lakey, Clifford Erickson,

00:21:28.440 Ryan Harlan and Rachel Reinhardt, Michael Knapp, James Payton,

00:21:43.440 Suzanne Whitthouse.

00:21:48.380 Martin Bailosus.

00:21:53.060 Sunrise Solutions.

00:21:57.940 John Johnson.

00:22:03.000 Another fine folks, some of whom are sitting here among us.

00:22:08.380 Catherine Stewart.

00:22:13.440 And I'm sorry if I've missed anybody, but you know, if so, at least correct me, but many

00:22:40.620 people but let's go back to that that sweat equity a little bit I would ask

00:22:56.520 I would ask everyone here who put in physical labor time all this place please

00:23:05.100 Please stand there.

00:23:07.100 Go see you all.

00:23:21.100 I want you to open one more.

00:23:35.100 Oh, okay.

00:23:37.560 I think I've heard you.

00:23:39.500 I know that.

00:23:57.640 Do I say something about this?

00:23:59.620 Yes.

00:24:00.920 I will tell you.

00:24:03.240 One of my favorite pictures as we purchased this wonderful property, and we started posting the pictures,

00:24:09.980 if you noticed, on the very front there was a rose bush, which is now going to cut down.

00:24:15.160 But when we saw it late June, there were still blooms on it.

00:24:19.400 It was gorgeous.

00:24:20.280 It was one of those few living things that kind of seemed to be domesticated.

00:24:26.020 We have wonderful trees right here, but it wasn't one plant.

00:24:29.580 But there was only one.

00:24:30.620 And so it seems like, as everything else in this hop has been balanced.

00:24:36.460 You know, we have the two horse heads, and we have the wonderful front doors.

00:24:40.360 And what we need, another rose bush.

00:24:43.760 And so this rose bush, isn't it, is in honor of our very lovely, wonderful, giving, talented,

00:24:54.480 Jessica Rose.

00:24:55.200 Jessica Rose.

00:25:00.620 Thank you.

00:25:30.620 it's so loving and this is a red rose in honor of our jessica rose rosner and it is also called

00:25:39.260 rock and roll which i thought was kind of a cool name but anyway it seemed appropriate we will

00:25:46.540 always know the jessica rose bush out front will always be contained and remembered for you so

00:25:52.860 So, thank you, Jessica.

00:25:54.520 Yeah.

00:26:02.360 And this is all the boys, cleaned everything,

00:26:04.400 looks out for everybody here.

00:26:10.100 And another person, we'll know if she's here,

00:26:12.620 but we really did want to remember our young Miss Maddie.

00:26:17.320 It's Maddie in the room.

00:26:18.880 There she is.

00:26:19.880 Where's Maddie?

00:26:20.880 Here, we have one rose, we have a small rose, who's just as precious to us.

00:26:30.400 Maddie has been working like an adult's grandparent for such a young girl.

00:26:34.420 She knew exactly what this was about, and she has put in so much time cleaning and preparing

00:26:40.320 and reorganizing and doing all those things that every adult to possibly need help with.

00:26:45.380 She was constantly, for the last two months, been coming up and saying, what can I do to help?

00:26:49.840 And so there's no doubt that we said, this girl is going to be, she's got to be remembered for who she is, and she is our future.

00:26:59.800 This is exactly the kind of a child we need to have and know that it's going to be a good possibility.

00:27:05.640 This hall is going to be in your hands someday.

00:27:09.260 You're going to be one of our leaders to make sure that it's used as our goal is today.

00:27:14.260 That's what we wish, and we might be able to do that.

00:27:16.180 Okay, a girl with a big heart and the passion and man's love to go with it.

00:27:23.440 So, wonderful job, Maddie.

00:27:24.940 Please.

00:27:35.180 Good job, bro.

00:27:37.360 Wow.

00:27:40.580 You know, we've built a building.

00:27:43.500 but that's not the biggest thing

00:27:46.760 we built a community

00:27:49.280 we built a tribe

00:27:50.920 we built connections

00:27:53.020 we built all those intangible things

00:27:56.260 that you can't put a dollar

00:27:58.640 about anymore

00:27:59.220 that's

00:28:01.700 that's why

00:28:02.880 I'm so happy

00:28:05.060 this day

00:28:06.340 so now

00:28:09.060 it's time to

00:28:10.820 formally

00:28:12.460 and virtually consecrate this home.

00:28:21.700 I would like to begin this by...

Asatru Folk Assembly - January 23, 2019

Óðinshof dedication, October 10, 2015.

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