AFA Mission Statement

The mission of the Asatru Folk Assembly is to practice, promote, and further evolve the religion of Asatru, thus forging it into a powerful and effective tool for building a better world.

AFA Vision Statement

The AFA envisions a future in which a substantial percentage of European-descended people worldwide have returned to their ancestral Germanic religion, bound together in an extended community of the Folk serving their spiritual, social, and economic needs - the “Nation of Odin.”

Clergy News

Stefn Thorsman, Clergy Coordinator-

It is with great pride and honor that I formally announce to the membership that the AFA has ordained two new members to the clergy. Allen Turnage of Florida and John Grimsteiner of Indiana have both taken the sacred oath and have become ordained clergy in the AFA. We welcome both of these fine Heathen men to the ranks of the clergy and look forward to working and serving with them in the years to come.

The Clergy Program is now accepting applications for its next session. Because the program uses to one-to-one mentoring by members of our ordained clergy, the number of spaces is limited. Applicants must have been AFA members for at least one year. Clergy students assist with AFA projects like the development of our Ethics Statement.

Winter Nights in the Mother Lode, 2008

AFA members within driving distance will thoroughly enjoy this Winter Nights celebration, which will span three days. Sightseeing on Friday will be followed by an evening reception at the Trolley Junction Restaurant in Nevada City, in one of their historic railway cars. The next day, all are invited to the McNallens' mountain home, Runenberg, for lunch of traditional Cornish pasties and homemade soup. That afternoon, we'll have presentations by Steve and others, a Disir Blot, a discussion on “Empowering our Folk”, a follow-up on last year's “Awakening the Folk.” A raffle to help fund future AFA events will be followed by a banquet dinner, and live music. Sunday morning, we will be serving breakfast at Runenberg.

Space is limited, so notify us if you plan to come. Folkbuilders Allen Turnage of Florida, and Leif and Cathy of Australia will be flying in for this AFA event. This is the premier AFA member gathering for 2008!

Donated items for the raffle can be sent to AFA, P.O. Box 445, Nevada City, CA 95959

Asatru - A Hard-Time Religion

Some years ago, it dawned on me that Asatru is a “hard time religion.” Take a look at the values we hold dear - things like courage, honor, and strength. Our faith honors heroes, and seeks to reproduce at least some of that heroism inside each one of us.

These things have their uses even in the softest of times, to be sure, but they come gloriously into their own when times are tough. The warlike wanderings of the Migration Age left their mark on us, as did the Viking era. And always, even in times of peace, our people had to fight the less tangible enemies of storm and drought, hunger and pestilence. Hard times were the iron tool that shaped the template of our souls.

The industrialized West has had it pretty easy for a while. We have a bigger problem with obesity than with starvation. We’ve got our fridges stuffed with beer and simple carbs, and our minds stuffed with the programming on television. Life has been good.

However, it looks like all that’s coming to an end. “The end” could come in a matter of weeks or months, if the current financial crisis goes the wrong way. It might happen farther down the line. But sooner or later, daily priorities for most people are going to center more on keeping roofs over their heads and food in their bellies. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, recently had the arrogance to stand in front of an audience of Americans in the Midwest and told them that they’d just better get used to the fact that this country has sent all its manufacturing jobs overseas, because that’s what the global economy requires. Suck it up, gringos, and keep flipping those burgers! Tent cities of the unemployed are springing up around the country, and most of us know people who are losing, or have already lost, their homes. The national debt - well, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

Sure, it can totter on like this for a while, with luck. But sooner rather than later, the house of cards is going to collapse and America will find itself in something the scale of the Great Depression, only with an incalculable debt piled on top of it.

When that day comes, the values of Asatru are going to take on a whole new urgency.
It will be hard times - and we can handle that.

We need to be ready for this eventuality. Asatruar need to take steps to ensure they can survive, and preferably survive with some comfort, in a world gone mad. Copy the Mormons and set some food aside, for starters. Within the AFA, we will be ramping up our efforts to produce a genuine Community of the Folk. Beyond that, we need to be ready to absorb a lot of people who have never heard of Asatru, but whose current faith is going to be inadequate. Many of them, if we reach out to them, will come our way. Hard times may prove to be good times, for Asatru. Let’s not get caught napping!

AFA Member Helps Create Danish Asatru Burial Site

The first official Asatru cemetery in Denmark in a millennium is expected to be ready before the end of the year. AFA member Soren Fisker is vice-president of Forn Sidr, the organization that is making it happen.

Soren writes:

It is actually not quite right that we have acquired land for this purpose. Denmark is a small country tightly populated with almost all land being either farmed country or part of cities. Therefore we cannot make graveyards at will. A completely new graveyard would therefore be an undertaking which is still to big for us at the moment .- because we would have to invest millions in a piece of farmland without being sure that the project would ever be accepted by the local administration/politicians or in the end - by the state.

Therefore we have used another option. Danish law actually says that people who is not a member of the official Christian Danish State Church is also allowed to be buried on the cemeteries in Denmark. This is quite logical since there is no alternative. But the law also states that the authorities should grant the non-Christians a possibility to make express their own belief in the way that the grave is decorated. - and even better - that graves should be grouped together if possible..

The graveyard in question now is owned by the city council/the municipality of the city of Odense. (Actually the name of the city means: A holy place of Odin - so in many ways it is right that the first modern heathen/Asatru burial plot should be established here).

We also prefer this solution because no local Christian council (menighedsraad) which runs/administrates most churches and graveyards in Denmark, will have anything to say about it. To be fair we have not so far had any trouble burying our dead on ordinary cemeteries. Most Christians in Denmark are rather tolerant or really not that much Christian after all. Denmark is a rather secular country.

The chance for us came when the city of Odense wanted to give the very large burial ground - "Assistens Kirkegaard" that they own - a more park-like structure. Inspired no doubt by Copenhagen where several old churchyards serve as parks/green breathing space for the city. Sunbathing and eating your lunch or even enjoying a family picnic on the large park-like lawns is quite normal, in spite of the occasional old gravestones.

For years burials have taken up less and less space here in Denmark since so many people are nowadays cremated and buried in Urns. So now the chance was there (here in Odense) to offer other communities of faith a chance to have their very own plot in the "park".

Our burial plot will be a simple lawn (30 x 60 meters or something likke that ) divided into fields for coffins and urns.

All urns will be placed indside a so called "Skibssaetning" - meaning a line of big stones placed to outline the form of a ship. The coffins will lay outside the ship. Skibssaetninger are well knows burial forms of the Viking age in Denmark when Asatru was replaced by Christianity.

A low wall will be made in concrete at the perimeter of the plot with ivy groving on it. In this wall shied-shaped plates can be placed telling people who is buried in the field.

Apart from the factual information names, date of birth - date of death etc. we also expect people to have their life summed up in one or two sentences. It could be a "motto" or a verse from The Edda - maybe even from Hávamál - wise word on how to life a sensible life.

The AFA's Declaration of Purpose - Point Six

The sixth point in our Declaration of Purpose is: The fostering in our people of a deep love of freedom and a hatred of all forms of tyranny:

Asatru implies strong, vigorous, free people who do not grovel before other humans, the state, or the Gods themselves. Our Gods are not slave masters, but our kin, tied to us by blood and spirit. They want us to grow in freedom and responsibility that we may become more like them. The Gods do not want us to be submissive, meek, and mild. Rather, they want us to evolve towards ever-greater freedom, exercised in wisdom and awareness.

Similarly, we will never bow before human tyrants. Totalitarianism, the ant hill, the mass-mind, the society of the hidden cameras and biometric identification are the antitheses of the original European ideal. Perhaps the worst slavery of all is the “soft slavery” of conformity, submission, and social engineering which conditions us to accept the worst abominations as somehow normal.

Our tradition is one of a constant, dynamic tension between the individual and the organic groups of which the individual is a part. We value strong personalities and the ability to stand - alone if need be - for what is right as we see it. On the other hand, we also value the team player, the strong individual who can be a strong follower when the common good requires it.

Membership in the AFA

The Asatru Folk Assembly is a membership organization. If you like the general tone of what you see here, and if you agree with the AFA’s Declaration of Purpose, we encourage you to apply.

Membership in the AFA has several major benefits - our network of Folkbuilders, our Clergy program and a clear vision of what we are trying to accomplish, as well as tangibles like our members-only newsletter, access to our Yahoo group and forum, and more. We seek to build community, while giving members a unique opportunity to help us carry out the high aims of the Declaration of Purpose.

To find out more about AFA membership, go to our web site - http://runestone.org .

Our People and Our Culture - Links

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.”- Unknown

“The existence of my people is not negotiable.” - Steve McNallen

“Docu-drama” based on Asatru lore premiers in Iceland - “Ragnarok - Myths and Sagas of the North” is premiering this Friday in Iceland. Drawing from Voluspa, the Icelandic sagas, and the story of Sigurd the Volsung, the production is available on DVD from Wokafilm Productions.

For an audio slideshow and more information, go to http://tinyurl.com/6f68r4 .

To purchase the DVD, go to http://wokafilm.beepworld.de/ .

New study pinpoints Stonehenge date - The construction of Stonehenge has now been dated to 2300 BCE, and the evidence is that the site was, among other things, a place for healing - a sort of “Neolithic Lourdes.”

http://tinyurl.com/4q7nps

Viking shield found in Denmark - A wooden shield dating from the late ninth century has been unearthed from a site sixty miles west of Copenhagen. This is the first Viking-era shield found in Denmark.

http://tinyurl.com/3hnayr

New Viking graves found in central Sweden - Six grave sites dating from about the 11^th century have been excavated in Sweden. Various iron and bronze objects, as well as a specialized style of glass bead, were found in the graves.

http://tinyurl.com/68kvwx

Biology may shape many of our political choices - Modern science continues to confirm that the world of values, spirituality, and even politics is intimately connected to biology. The tangible inheritance from our ancestors continues to make itself felt in every portion of our lives.

http://tinyurl.com/44gete

Freedom and Asatru - Links

Our Western traditions of freedom under law derive overwhelmingly from the culture of Northern Europe. (Both words, "freedom" and "law," have Teutonic roots.) It is our task to maintain this gift from our ancestors. In Asatru, freedom is a religious issue!

China’s (and America’s?) all-seeing eye - American high-tech companies built China’s surveillance web to keep tabs on Chinese subjects. Now it’s coming home to keep an eye on us. Beware the ultimate dictatorship!

http://tinyurl.com/66r9z6

Widespread cell phone location snooping by NSA? - So what can the government find out about you just by snooping your location? One heck of a lot, thanks to some innovative software and the cooperation of telecom companies.

http://tinyurl.com/5a7fxs

Internet service providers can “obliterate privacy,” says professor - Your ISP can wipe out any privacy you think you have, according to Paul Ohm. “Deep packet inspection technologies” and market forces make it more and more likely that abuses will occur.

http://tinyurl.com/54cran

Here’s his 77-page report: http://tinyurl.com/56p3xn

Internet privacy tools - Arm yourself with these resources.

http://tinyurl.com/4k2zv6

The Environment and Asatru - Links

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.

Free solar power site evaluation - Here’s a company that will give you a free evaluation to see if solar power is economically practical for you. They’re California based, but have offices scattered across the country. I urge all AFAers to consider solar power or other energy options that will give them energy independence - for their own sake, and for that of the environment!

http://tinyurl.com/4dyaf6

Sunpower “Smart Solar” - Here’s another solar site that offers similar calculcations.

http://tinyurl.com/3p4we3

Wildfires and climate change - According to a new report, climate change will likely lead to more respiratory problems, disease transmission, and property damage in the years to come, not to mention habitat loss that will affect many species.

http://tinyurl.com/4xczhu

Drinking water of 47 million Americans contaminated by pharmaceuticals - Researchers are finding evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild and impair the workings of human cells in the laboratory. How pure is your drinking water?

http://tinyurl.com/4phhvj