Sunna reaches her greatest height and might today. May her blessings shine bright on us all, bringing success, honor, and victory to our lives! May her might and main enable us to fight our battles, overcome the odds, win undying glory, and live lives of worth!
Hopefully you are celebrating with kin, giving blot or raising a horn to Sunna at this special time. Lacking that, remember that you can simply pour her a horn on your own.
Hail Sunna! Hail her might and main all holy!
Bart and Tammy Lewis, our
Bart gave careful consideration before agreeing to present himself and Asatru to the public, as media contact can definitely be a two-edged sword! For anyone who's thinking of contacting their local media for an interview - let us know so we can advise you in the planning process!
The Lewises have laid great deeds in the Well for Asatru. Hail the Lewis Clan!
Video: http://tinyurl.com/5fd53v
Text: http://tinyurl.com/5yhbuk
The Asatru Folk Assembly’s annual Winter Nights gathering is set for October 23rd through 26th, 2008. AFA members will come to
We’ll meet in the Veterans Hall and Community Center, in the heart of historic downtown
This will be the fourth year that AFA members have come together at Winter Nights to be with each other, to celebrate our holy rituals, and to learn from each other. Each event has been intense, rich, and memorable - and we’re sure this one will be, too.
The AFA depends on its Folkbuilders to promote our faith and to serve the members in different parts of the country. Recently, we’ve added Jule Cole Hulsey and Johnny Hulsey (
Members of the Clergy Program are putting the finishing touches on a Clergy FAQ and other essential documents that will be posted as soon as they are completed.
The Clergy have also created laminated cards especially for men and women in the Armed Forces. Single copies will be sent free of charge to service members on active duty. Contact the AFA if you would like one of these.
The forum for AFA members has proven to be a valuable complement to the AFA Members Yahoo Group. There are plenty of categories for spirited conversations on a wide variety of subjects and the system is getting a good workout from our members, who seem to have plenty to say. If you’re a member, drop in and say hello!
Terry Armstrong has resigned from the AFA Board of Directors and his other positions within the organization for personal reasons. The parting was amicable, and he remains a valuable resource and advisor on an unofficial level. We sincerely appreciate the huge investment of time and energy Terry gave to his duties, which often were difficult and frustrating ones, and wish him the best.
Since January, the AFA has gained 97 members. These new members live in 28 states and in five foreign countries, dispelling the notion that the AFA is “a
If you agree with our Declaration of Purpose, you might want to consider joining and helping us work toward our goals. You can see full membership information (to include the aforementioned DOP) at http://runestone.org/membership/index.html.
Our fourth purpose is the restoration of community, the banishment of alienation, and the establishment of natural and just relations among our people.
It is entirely possible to practice Asatru on your own - in fact, many of us who are isolated have no choice. Such solitary practice is, however, fundamentally limited. Asatru is about connections - to our ancestors and the Gods, of course, but also to our living kin. Verse after verse in the Havamal praises friendship. One stanza talks about winning a friend by sharing food and drink, another advises how to keep friendship alive with gifts and frequent visits. So it is, too, with kin, only more so: the bonds of family, clan and tribe extend beyond death itself. Asatru is not just about individuals, it is also about the organic group.
In the AFA, we value both the individual and the community. This starts with sound, stable, and committed families. Modern society hasn’t done a very good job of family-building since the infamous Sixties, and it’s time to start repairing the damage. Drunkenness, drug use, promiscuity, and the perpetual immaturity encouraged by some segments of modern society have been a bane to family solidity. All these things can be remedied by the right values - just the sort of values encouraged in Asatru.
But that is only the beginning: Asatru families must be encouraged to reach out to other families that share our faith and vision, forming an ever-expanding network of support. We need to be there for each other - sharing information and resources, lending a helping hand, meeting each other’s needs. Some feel that kindreds are the solution, but that’s certainly not the only option; kindreds can become so inwardly-focused that they actually inhibit networking, rather than encouraging it.
We have a lot to learn from Christian churches that fill these roles of fellowship and support for their members. Perhaps the Mormons are the ultimate model for this kind of community-building. They have great ideas on preparedness, financial success, and encouraging entrepreneurship, too.
In short, the AFA wants to restore a sense of organic community of the kind our Folk had under our native religion. We are bound by blood and culture, and we belong together. At the same time, everyone has a right to privacy and solitude. However, none of us need be lonely, which is a very different thing indeed!
While collecting links for this issue, I found an article bearing the impressive title “New Research Refutes Myth of Pure Scandinavian Race.” (http://tinyurl.com/3z9sg2 )
Well, I thought, that’s a real firecracker to toss into our readers’ laps!
Scientist Linea Melchoir delivers the message we’re supposed to get: "All of our ancestors, no matter when they arrived have contributed to our history and the development of our lifestyle. Indeed, Danish identity is more a definition of where one is physically located and lives today than a question of our past history - since we're all originally African in origin. That we ended up in
Okay, now we get it: A single Arab in a Danish cemetery, plus a relatively mobile population, now means that our “past history” doesn’t matter. And since Danish identity depends on “where one is physically located today,” all those new “Danes” from
The one that really gets me is the old canard about how “we’re all originally African in origin.” It’s possible that she didn’t really say that, or didn’t say it quite the way it was reported. Goodness knows, reporters have been known to stretch things to get the story their editors want, and maybe I should be kinder to Ms. Melchoir. But let’s take the quote at face value: That an anthropologist can toss out such a sophomoric cliché tells me one of two things: (1) She’s really ignorant and/or superficial, or (2) she wants to keep her job in a field where only certain attitudes and opinions are tolerated.
We are not Africans. In recent month, AFA Update has reported on studies showing that human evolution accelerated greatly when our (very) distant ancestors left
But there’s more. The news account gushes that “there was as much genetic variation in their remains as one would expect to find in individuals of the present day. The research team also found DNA from a man, whose genetic characteristics indicate a man of Arabian origin.”
Note the juxtaposition and its implications: Humans, who of course are very diverse today, were just as diverse in ancient times. Arabs in the Iron Age, Arabs in the twenty-first century, it’s all good.
So, just how diverse are modern Europeans?
In The Seven Daughters of Eve, Brian Sykes concluded that at least eighty percent of the European genetic makeup goes all the way back to the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the continent during Paleolithic times. Nicholas Wade, in Before the Dawn, tells us that 78 percent of the male ancestors and 87 percent of the female ancestors of the average modern European belonged to this earliest stock (These figures would probably be much higher if they focused on Northern Europe rather than the continent as a whole). A study by Loring Brace and others in 2005 revealed that modern-day European faces reflect their ancestors all the way back to the Stone Age. So, to say that Iron Age Danes showed as much genetic diversity as their modern-day counterparts is just to say…well, that they weren’t very diverse. Science Daily leaves you with just the opposite impression, however.
Actually, aside from Dr. Melchoir’s silly statement, there’s no indication that the study contains any of the things Science Daily claims it does. Reading the abstract (see the link at the end of my rant), I found no claim that there was a large influx of genes from outside
Some writers and scholars have an agenda - to deny that those of us who are of Germanic descent are a distinct people, one of the related peoples making up the Greater Family of Europe. We will not desist in countering their propaganda.
http://tinyurl.com/3f9z6p - link to the abstract
We are a people - Germanic people, part of the Greater Family of European peoples, following the ways of our ancestors.
Only when we realize we are a river will we stop drowning in puddles.
Vikings want your vote! - The National Lottery in the
Now, since money from the UK National Lottery is at stake, they may not want votes from Americans and others outside the
At the very least, our friends and members in the
http://tinyurl.com/45aqvw for a story on the project and its need for funds
http://tinyurl.com/4nbal7 for information on how to vote for the Viking Unst Project
Work starts on
Sequentia brings the story of Sigurd to life - Sequentia got the attention of Asatruar several years ago by releasing CDs containing stories from the Elder Edda in the original language, accompanied by early medieval musical instruments. (This was especially valuable for those who want to pronounce Old Norse correctly.) Now the group has done the same thing with the poems surrounding the Germanic hero Sigurd. The result is The Rheingold Curse - A Germanic Story of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda. Benjamin Bagby and his accomplices combine the Eddic material with the Icelandic bardic style called rimur to make the ancient tale shine in all its glory.
More on the Icelandic Thor movie - In our last issue, we noted plans for the Icelandic company Caoz to produce a movie about Thor, due to hit the theaters in 2010. Here are a few more details.
Top archeologists to discuss Tara roadway - Some of the world’s leading archeologists will meet in
Petition to save Tara Hill - This petition is sponsored by TaraWatch, the leading organization fighting to save Ireland’s (and Northern Europe’s) heritage from the materialistic “Celtic tiger syndrome.”
http://tinyurl.com/3uqbeo for the petition
http://www.tarawatch.org/ for the TaraWatch web site. There are many ways you can get involved.
Our Western traditions of freedom under law derive overwhelmingly from the culture of
Eighty percent of new laws in the
http://epic.org/ Home page
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html Privacy tools
http://epic.org/privacy/surveillance/ Updates on video surveillance
Amnesty for the wiretappers? Telecom companies who cooperated with illegal government wiretaps are inching toward amnesty.
Gun rights group overturns
http://www.saf.org/ Home page
http://www.saf.org/default.asp?p=gunrights_faq Gun rights FAQ
The Earth is our mother, called variously in our mythic lore Frigga, Nerthus, and Jord. As the most intelligent species on the planet, humans end up making many decisions for all the other forms of life that live here - so let us choose wisely.
New federal report predicts climate effects on the
http://tinyurl.com/4vzlxa - for downloads of the actual report
Oceans warming faster than realized - The world's oceans have warmed 50 percent faster over the last 40 years than previously thought due to climate change, Australian and
http://tinyurl.com/4ool9q - article
http://tinyurl.com/495cht - “Improved Estimates of Upper Ocean Warming and Multi-Decadal Sea Level Rise,” abstract and summary
The madness of bottled water - Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It is a new book by Elizabeth Royte. She documents how America got hooked on the idea of paying $11 billion a year for bottled water, when they could get it from their tap for about one ten-thousandth the cost…not to mention the cost to the environment. Plastic bottles have been linked to chemical endocrine-distorting effects, too. Personally, I almost never use bottled water and we don’t provide it at AFA gatherings (offering large water cans instead). Save money by carrying your water in a reusable container. Donate a fraction of that to the AFA, and we’d be able to do a lot more than we’re doing now!
Cell phone use during pregnancy can harm your baby - According to a new study, using a cell phone even two or three times a day while pregnant can increase the chance of having a child with emotional disorders - hyperactivity, conduct, relating to peers, and so forth. For Asatruar, who are particularly aware of the importance of having healthy children to continue the family line, it’s time to consider some of these little-understood environmental factors affecting prenatal health.
http://tinyurl.com/4353sy - cell phone use during pregnancy
http://tinyurl.com/6ca3ev - article on health hazards of cell phone use. It’s information like this that convinced me to carry a cell phone only for emergency use.
The Asatru Folk Assembly’s annual Winter Nights gathering is set for October 23rd through 26th, 2008. AFA members will come to
We’ll meet in the Veterans Hall and Community Center, in the heart of historic downtown
This will be the fourth year that AFA members have come together at Winter Nights to be with each other, to celebrate our holy rituals, and to learn from each other. Each event has been intense, rich, and memorable - and we’re sure this one will be, too.
This is the first issue of AFA Update that you’ve seen in several months. There’s a reason for that: My job (the one that pays money, not the one I do for the AFA) has demanded so much of my time that thing I’d rather be doing - like putting out this publication - have had to be cut back. That doesn’t mean AFA Update has gone away, obviously, but a lot of other things have gotten pushed to the top of the priority list. Paying the bills, for instance.
I have selected a team of volunteers who will be taking over this task in the near future. However, it’s going to take them a while to get up to speed and I did not want to wait any longer before communicating with all of you. I’ll let them introduce themselves when the time is right.
I have always enjoyed publishing AFA Update because it is so very tangible, but it’s a luxury I just don’t have at the moment. I’ll turn the pleasure over to the new team, and to you!
Our third purpose is the issuance of a call to all our brothers and sisters of the People of the North to return to this, their native religion and way of life.
Someone told me the other day that the growth of Asatru is unimportant. Numbers aren’t relevant, he said. As far as he was concerned, it made no difference if there were fifty million followers of Germanic religion around the world, or five hundrerd.
I am always a little startled by this argument. After all this time, events should have made it obvious that size does matter, and that the more of us there are, the better.
The vision of the AFA is clear: We are here to perform a task for our Gods and for our Folk. That task is to manifest the might and wisdom of the Aesir and Vanir in this world, and in the process re-invigorate our people and call them back to their spiritual birthright. This is world-changing stuff - and while it can be started by a handful of people, it will not be completed by a handful.
I understand a reluctance to engage in the kind of proselytizing done by many Christian churches. Who hasn’t been harassed and hounded by religious fanatics eager to save us from the clutches of the devil? None of us want to be like that. Our efforts must be as respectful as they are persistent, and as thoughtful as they are intense.
It starts in the most non-intrusive form possible: the way we live our lives. Each one of us broadcasts a message about Asatru at work, or at the softball field, or while having dinner with our families. People will form either good or bad impressions of our faith based on our conduct. This is the easiest and the least threatening way we can bring people “back home.”
You’ll be seeing a lot more than that, however. We have only begun to tap the opportunities before us, some of which do not demand a six-figure marketing budget. I firmly intend to see “Asatru” in the vocabulary of this country before I kick the proverbial bucket.
When we let our kinfolk know about the Germanic Alternative, we are helping to correct a great wrong - the conversion by force, or by royal decree, or through economic pressure - of the Northern tribes. Our ancient kin were kidnapped, held hostage to an alien faith, and we now offer their descendants the opportunity of escape. We will not force them to come with us, but we can unlock their fetters and invite them to walk out into the sunlight. We will have given them a choice…which is more than the Church gave our forefathers and foremothers.
Bringing our brothers and sisters home is not just appropriate, it is our duty to our living kin, to our ancestors, and to our descendants yet unborn. Asgard is watching to see if we will rise to the challenge!
We are a people - Germanic people, part of the Greater Family of European peoples, following the ways of our ancestors.
Only when we realize we are a river will we stop drowning in puddles.
DNA recovered from Danish Vikings - Scientists from the
Swedish Viking coins found in Uppland - Most Viking treasure hoards in
Animated film on Viking hero to be produced in
About the Egil project - http://tinyurl.com/45qrh9
About the Thor project - http://tinyurl.com/4mmydq
Viking site in
Number of European-descended Americans to be shrinking by 2030 - The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2030 the number of “white, non-Hispanic” Americans will be declining in terms of absolute numbers (that is to say, not merely as a percentage of the total).
The Diverging Destinies of Europe and
Our Western traditions of freedom under law derive overwhelmingly from the culture of
Anti-chip organization releases important new FAQ - CASPIAN, an organization against chipping and for our right to privacy, has announced a report answering 85 questions on the chipping of humans and animals. Points covered include the cancer connection, tracking of humans, and much more. The following link leads to a page where the report may be downloaded free in several formats.
http://www.antichips.com/faq/index.html
Irish vote to determine fate of European nations - Tiny
The Earth is our mother, called variously in our mythic lore Frigga, Nerthus, and Jord. As the most intelligent species on the planet, humans end up making many decisions for all the other forms of life that live here - so let us choose wisely.
NASA Inspector General finds climate data was deliberately distorted - Political appointees in the space agency censored reports of scientific research that did not meet the ideological needs of the Bush administration, according to a recent investigation by the Inspector General. The report found the officials “managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.”
Overfishing is devastating the oceans - Our demand for seafood is exceeding the supply, and our methods of getting that which remains is causing even more damage to habitats on the ocean bottom. Ours may be among the last generations to sit down to fish from the Earth’s oceans.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/86789
The ethical guide to eating fish - Like eating fish? Want to eat fish in a way that honors our responsibility to the environment? Here’s a quick guide:
City veggie gardens flourish - As food costs rise and the economy becomes more uncertain, many people are planting their own gardens. Asatruar, like other prudent people, need to be planning for tough times.
http://tinyurl.com/6o6j3u and http://tinyurl.com/47ak8j
