Asatru Folk Assembly - Our Glorious Gythias (from VNS Episode 14)

00:00:00.000 Trent asks, good evening, Githias. Thank you for everything that y'all do. A question for each of

00:00:14.820 you. What is your favorite part of being a Githia? There's a lot of my favorite parts of being a

00:00:24.480 Githia. There's a lot of hard work, but there's also a lot of joy and a lot of beauty in being

00:00:32.420 a Githia. I think one of my favorite parts of being a Githia is doing a Wayfarer's Bloat.

00:00:45.720 That bloat brings me a lot of joy. When I do Wayfarer's Bloat, I tend to do my Wayfarer's

00:00:52.440 bloat to Frigga. And I focus on not only sending my folk off for a safe journey, but to a happy

00:01:04.320 and healthy home when they get there. And I think that's really important. So I always try to put

00:01:08.700 that as part of the bloat. One thing I always have people do as well is to look around the circle

00:01:16.440 and remember the frit that they shared at that event

00:01:21.140 or at that moot or whatever it is that we're leaving from

00:01:25.320 and to look across the circle

00:01:27.640 and to look to their left and to the right

00:01:30.040 and look at the faces of their folk

00:01:33.700 and remember that in good times and in bad times,

00:01:37.680 these people will be here for you.

00:01:39.200 You can lean on them.

00:01:41.900 They're your church, they're your family, they're your folk

00:01:44.860 And no matter what happens in life, you'll be able to rely on the people standing there with you.

00:01:51.260 So I think that's my favorite part of being a Githya.

00:01:55.040 Anna, what do you think?

00:01:59.080 There's a lot that I love about being a Githya.

00:02:01.720 Like you said, there's a lot of it that's very hard.

00:02:05.920 My favorite part is watching people actually come home and knowing that they're home.

00:02:13.880 I know a lot of people have come to this faith from a place of isolation where you may not have felt like you had anything that was yours.

00:02:23.380 You didn't have a place spiritually that was yours.

00:02:26.620 Like you were kind of renting somebody else's, somebody else's faith or somebody else's path.

00:02:33.440 to watch somebody come in and look around maybe at an event and hang out and start talking to the

00:02:42.120 other the other people there and realize I'm home this is mine I can't get kicked out of my home

00:02:51.140 that is so amazing and I love it Sheila well she kind of said it all I would have to say the same

00:03:04.960 thing to a great extent being there at the door to welcome people home um I've loved our slogans

00:03:12.460 that we've always had from going back into the 90s the way the ancestors calling us home it's

00:03:18.480 about roots. It's about connections. It's about coming home. I've always wanted it to be that

00:03:23.480 for our people. And I do everything I can to encourage them to come and then make them feel

00:03:30.700 like, oh my gosh, how did I ever live without this? You know, and a lot of people feel that

00:03:36.260 way. They truly have that bonding, that sense of purpose, the sense of connection that they

00:03:43.200 never had anywhere else especially in this time i think that we we really offer something very very

00:03:49.120 unique through our church and i want to make most of it and it's like i'm desperately reaching out

00:03:56.240 to people just saying whoa please come by you're going to be quite amazed by what you find on the

00:04:02.160 other hand the people who come are the people i always say who should be there sometimes the people

00:04:07.280 we expect to come don't come another thing that i think is very important about being a give you

00:04:12.400 is um that balance of male female and our gods and our goddesses and i love to explore the

00:04:22.320 the attributes of our goddesses to some extent for our women so that they um feel that they

00:04:28.000 definitely have deities to connect with and that is sometimes lost because we have always worked

00:04:34.080 very much on our male entities, our male entities, our male gods and the gods rather than goddesses

00:04:43.280 sometimes. So that's very important. And winter nights, my goodness, it is, you know, having

00:04:51.200 experienced some of Katie's rituals and enjoying my own so much. And I feel that is a time for us

00:04:57.840 truly to connect um with ancestors and i think we do and i love that ability for us i always

00:05:05.200 have told people around me you are never alone my husband steve says that you're never alone

00:05:09.600 you always have your ancestors with you and of course our gods as well but you know everybody

00:05:15.920 who's not even found else you have your ancestors you're never alone so those are the some of the

00:05:20.960 things that that i i um kind of promote those ideas and again it's about well-being trying

00:05:28.400 to make people feel healthy and happy and cared for this is katie your favorite part of that

00:05:41.440 it's hard to sum it up in in a short and concise statement because there are many things um and i

00:05:49.440 And I think this applies to everybody who is a Godar.

00:05:56.840 Performing baby namings and weddings are amazing.

00:06:00.780 Being able to perform a ritual for our folk

00:06:03.100 and help them connect to their gods, that's amazing.

00:06:07.920 But I think one of my most favorite parts

00:06:09.740 about Binigidia is helping our female membership

00:06:15.820 connect to the female divine,

00:06:17.840 uh, to our female gods, to our Desir, uh, even to each other, because, um,

00:06:25.100 Asatru has been, uh, not the most friendly place for women in the past. Um, just, I mean,

00:06:34.820 it is, like Sheila said earlier, you look at it as the, or many people look at it as being

00:06:41.360 the Viking religion, because that's how, for many, many years, it was portrayed, and when I first

00:06:47.600 found theodism which i mentioned earlier it was very male oriented and very much a like a drinking

00:06:55.900 club for dudes and the chicks just kind of happened to be there sometimes so to see so many women

00:07:02.440 finding asatru and connecting to our gods and goddesses and connecting to each other on a deeper

00:07:11.860 much more potent level is really it's very rewarding to me to be able to be uh help facilitate

00:07:19.720 that in any way um because it's it's hard to be a woman it's hard to be a woman with children

00:07:28.340 it's hard to be a woman who doesn't have children um i'm not saying it's not hard to be a man but

00:07:35.180 it's you know each each thing has its own negative side or its own problems or its own complications

00:07:44.340 and uh being able to help our women bond and find the community that helps them through their

00:07:53.820 troubles and through their loneliness and through all of the things that go on in their lives at the

00:08:00.020 different stages of their lives is really that's probably one of my favorite parts

00:08:04.100 I think another one of my favorite parts is working so closely with the other women in

00:08:14.600 leadership and the bonds that you build. I know the four of us have built a very long-lasting,

00:08:22.880 dedicated, and strong friendship just from working together, spending so much time together,

00:08:28.240 talking to each other on the phone, calling each other for advice, you know. So this is where I've

00:08:35.940 met my best friends. So I really do appreciate all of our leadership, especially our female

00:08:43.160 leadership. You know, we always say that there's so many more women in the AFA today. And the same

00:08:51.460 Same goes for our women leadership as well.

00:08:54.500 We have a lot of beautiful women, strong women in folk builder positions, also as Githias.

00:09:03.320 It's a real honor to work with those women.

00:09:21.460 You

Asatru Folk Assembly - November 03, 2023

Our Glorious Gythias (from VNS Episode 14)

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