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.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
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.”
The AFA - Going Places and Doing Things
The work of building an organization that will change the world is often a disheartening task. Setbacks happen. Disappointments are an everyday occurrence. It's easy to lose track of our successes and fail to see our victories.
But those victories are all around us, nevertheless! The AFA is far from stagnant. We continue to grow at a very respectable pace. Many of our newcomers are people with no previous experience in Asatru, or paganism, or any of the other fields of endeavor that have so often supplied our movement: They're just ordinary men and women facing the challenges of life in the twenty-first century, people wanting to connect with the spiritual path of their European ancestors. Often, we are their first exposure to any religion that is not yet a part of the mainstream.
Perhaps uniquely among Germanic religious organizations, we have managed to craft a vision of our ancestral religion that is understandable and attractive to a broad audience of “normal people.” All we have to do is to let them know we are here. Our recent series of online videos is a step in that direction.
New AFA Video on Winter Nights and Disir!
Since the last regular issue of AFA Update, we sent out two special announcements con-cerning new AFA videos posted to You Tube. Now, we're happy to pass on the word about still another one: Asatru - Winter Nights and the Disir. You can find it at
Our other recent productions, announced over the last few days, include
Asatru Ritual - The Nature of Blot, Part 1, at
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ozhzr
Asatru Ritual - The Nature of Blot, Part 2, at
Asatru - A Native European Religion, at
The AFA's Declaration of Purpose - Point Eight
The eighth point in our Declaration of Purpose is: The exploration of the universe, in keeping with the adventurous imperatives of our kind:
We are a wide-faring Folk. Odin is a wanderer, and those who follow our Gods have typically been horizon-seekers. The longship has been replaced by the spaceship and the electron microscope, but the spirit of exploration remains the same.
There is a connection between our love of freedom and our craving for frontiers. Stagnation brings regimentation and tameness. Liberty needs a frontier; there is no place for the hero in a world grown regulation-riddled and over-organized.
Membership in the AFA
If you like what you read in the AFA Update, and if you agree with the AFA's Declaration of Purpose, then we invite you to submit a membership application.
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
Spindle with runic inscription found in Iceland - A sandstone spindle dating from the eleventh century has been dug up near the Icelandic parliament building in Reykjavik. The runes on it spell out the words “Thorunn owns me.” It may be the oldest runic item found in the country.
Pleistocene peopling of North America from Europe? - Here is a paper by Dr. Dennis Stanford and one of his co-researchers outlining the possibility that Europeans may have made it to North America before the Bering Strait migrations: "The North
Atlantic Ice Age Corridor: a Possible Palaeolithic Route to the New World.”
Norse poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - While Longfellow's poems were often used to celebrate the (temporary) victory of Christ over our native Gods, many of them nevertheless deal sympathetically with our ways and have considerable cultural value.
Suicide risk high for middle-aged Whites - The suicide rate for other groups in America fell or remained the same, while that for middle-aged people of European descent grew, according to a recent study. The article admits that rates for elderly White males is already a recognized problem, but does not mention the fact that White teens have had the highest rate of suicide in the nation for many years. Now middle-aged Whites of both genders have joined them, thus making us a population with a problem!
The author of the study urges that an effort be made to "explore societal changes that may be disproportionately affecting the middle-aged in this country." However, since European Americans are the ones killing themselves at a higher rate, shouldn't these efforts be directed at “exploring social changes that may be disproportionately affecting middle-aged Whites” in this country? If the person who wrote this report can't think of any such social changes, I'd be glad to give them my personal list!
That being said, we need to reach out to our fellow Eurofolk, regardless of their religious affiliation, and offer the hand of kinship. If we can successfully build a community of the Folk, we can give these at-risk people a sense of purpose and hope!
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!
Big Brother database threatens British freedom - Sir Ken Macdonald, the man in charge of prosecuting terrorists in Britain, says the government's plan to monitor every email and every telephone call in the UK will “break the back of freedom.”
Concerns about active-duty military deployment within US borders - Many of us disagree with some of the stances taken by the ACLU, but there's no denying that sometimes they're right on . The stationing of regular combat units within the US for the purposes of, among other things, crowd control and the quelling of “civil disorder” is a radical departure from the America we have known, and deserves to be closely watched by all of us.
Internet anonymizer - There are many different approaches to keeping your internet use private, and this is one of them. Regardless of which product you choose, anyone concerned with freedom needs to take measures to protect his or her online confidentiality.
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.
Everything you need to know about home power - Whether it's solar, wind, hydro, or transportation, this link has loads of information on producing your own power. Utility costs can only go up, and in these uncertain days we'd all be well advised to be as self-sufficient as we can.
Climate change happening faster than predicted - According to a report issued by the World Wildlife Fund, the climate is changing faster than the predictions made last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The text of the report, which can be accessed in PDF format from the link provided below, includes two pages of sources to substantiate this statement.
Birds in decline globally - Bird species around the world are in trouble because of a generally worsening environment, according to the organzation Bird Life International. Forty-five percent of Europe's birds are declining, and twenty species in North America have halved their numbers in the last four decades.
http://tinyurl.com/5rqpz8 - Bird Life International
For the full Bird Life International report as well as individual case studies, see the links off this news release: http://tinyurl.com/5vzaol
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