Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / Musings Of A Herald [RHR S6, EP35] feat. Don Via Jr. aka The Heathen Herald.

Transcript

Musings Of A Herald [RHR S6, EP35] feat. Don Via Jr. aka The Heathen Herald. · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:03
  podcast where we discuss all sorts of things Germanic
• 0:06
  Heathenry related. My name is Jesse and I am your
• 0:09
  host. Let's get into it.
• 0:34
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• 0:50
  your spiritual journey or looking to expand your
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• 0:56
  Visit ouronlinestore@thealltheyhear.com
• 1:00
  and discover the beauty of Mountain Spirit.
• 1:04
  Hey folks, Jesse here, host of Random Heathen Ramblings, a
• 1:09
  podcast where we dive deep into myths, traditions, and modern
• 1:14
  spirituality from the perspective of Germanic
• 1:17
  heathens. For over six seasons, this show
• 1:21
  has grown into something more than I could have ever expected.
• 1:25
  And now I'm taking the next leap.
• 1:29
  I am officially opening the door to sponsorships and
• 1:34
  collaborations. This means that I'm actively
• 1:38
  seeking to partner with brands, artisans, organizations,
• 1:43
  businesses that align with the vision of this podcast.
• 1:48
  Ancestral wisdom, holistic Wellness, rounded spirituality,
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  and storytelling. If you have a product, a
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  mission, or message that resonates with the folks who
• 2:01
  listen to random heathen ramblings, and I want to hear
• 2:04
  from you, Let's grow something real together.
• 2:09
  So check out the link down in the description of this video to
• 2:11
  connect with me. And as always, thank you so very
• 2:15
  much for joining me on this wild and worthy journey.
• 3:39
  That was crazy. Here I am talking.
• 3:41
  I'm going to have to clip that part because I won't be here
• 3:44
  talking. I am.
• 3:45
  I'm muted myself. I was muted the whole time.
• 3:48
  That's a that's a real rookie move, but I somehow tend to do
• 3:51
  it all the time. What's up, everybody?
• 3:54
  Welcome back to the Random Haven Ramblings podcast.
• 3:58
  You had a nice little minute and a half of of just audio
• 4:01
  streaming in the background there.
• 4:02
  But anyway, welcome back to the show.
• 4:04
  Thanks for joining me and my guest for today will be bringing
• 4:09
  him on here. Just a second.
• 4:12
  Yeah. If this is your first time
• 4:13
  listening to the podcast, thank you so much.
• 4:17
  If you're a return listener, again, thank you so much.
• 4:19
  That gift of your listenership, viewership, however you choose
• 4:22
  to absorb this show is greatly appreciated.
• 4:25
  And if you do want to consider becoming a patron on Patreon to
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  help with that gift a little bit, you know, it's just a
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  dollar pledge at the Carl tier, head over to patreon.com/midgard
• 4:34
  Musings pledge your dollar. You can come back as often as
• 4:38
  you want to watch those video versions of the show.
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  And it's not a something that you have to feel obligated to do
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  every month. But again, it is a small drop in
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  the bucket for you and a huge contribution to everything that
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  goes into the production of this show.
• 4:53
  So if nothing else, at least listen, share, you know, get get
• 4:57
  people talking about it. However it is that you can
• 5:01
  support is greatly appreciated. As an as a quick reminder before
• 5:05
  I get my guest on here today, I will be in person at the
• 5:09
  Nashville Pagan Pride Day event here in Nashville, TN on
• 5:13
  Saturday, October 4th. Details for that will be
• 5:17
  LinkedIn, the video description. If you're watching this on
• 5:19
  Patreon or if you're just listening, check out the show
• 5:21
  notes. But it is a full day one day
• 5:23
  event. I will be there providing rude
• 5:26
  reading services and would love to see you.
• 5:29
  So if you're in the Nashville, TN area or anywhere within
• 5:32
  traveling distance, I know this event once a year brings people
• 5:35
  from all over the mid South. Please come and check me out and
• 5:40
  I'd be happy to read the runes for you.
• 5:42
  If you're so interested, please come by and say hi.
• 5:45
  All right, so now that we've got all the normal housekeeping
• 5:48
  stuff out of the way, and now that I took up space for you to
• 5:52
  to see me, if you were watching that on Patreon and you saw me,
• 5:55
  you know, talking away without hearing me, that's a fun thing.
• 5:58
  You could you could do it with all kinds of things with with
• 6:01
  that if you're creative enough. But now that we get all the
• 6:04
  housekeeping stuff out of the way, we're going to be bringing
• 6:06
  in a guest today who is another content creator, another
• 6:10
  gentleman who has been in the heathen space for at least the
• 6:13
  last 10 years or so, or close to it, as I understand.
• 6:16
  But also, he is no stranger to just social media in general,
• 6:22
  podcasting and journalism and reporting and all kinds of
• 6:26
  stuff. So we're going to get into
• 6:27
  hearing a little bit more about him.
• 6:29
  So with that being said, and without further ado, welcome to
• 6:32
  the show. This is Don, also known as the
• 6:35
  Heathen Herald. And welcome, welcome.
• 6:38
  Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me on Jesse.
• 6:40
  It's it's wonderful to be here and you know, I appreciate the
• 6:44
  opportunity. This is my first time being on a
• 6:46
  Heathen podcast, so it's actually really exciting for me
• 6:49
  to be able to have a podcast that's not discussing politics
• 6:53
  and journalism as opposed to my day job.
• 6:56
  So I'm happy. I'm excited.
• 6:58
  Yeah, man, I'm excited to get to a little to know a bit more
• 7:00
  about, you know, we, we've connected over social media now
• 7:04
  for just relatively relatively short period of time.
• 7:08
  I think when I first came in contact with you was through
• 7:12
  your Facebook page, the Heathen Herald.
• 7:16
  And that was probably like what within like the last year or so
• 7:18
  maybe if that? Yeah, certainly.
• 7:21
  I, I noticed that you had started popping up around the
• 7:24
  time of cigar bloats because I had responded to someone's
• 7:27
  comment who was asking about whether or not, you know, it's
• 7:31
  supposed to follow the full moons.
• 7:32
  And I remember that you would also replied to his comment.
• 7:34
  And it was the first time I recognized I was like, wait,
• 7:36
  that's the guy that just made new art musings.
• 7:38
  He's following me. That's fucking awesome.
• 7:42
  That's great, man. I'm glad that we could connect
• 7:44
  this way. There is so much out here in
• 7:47
  the, in the, in the, in the interwebs, on social media that
• 7:50
  that relate to heathen content. A lot of great creators, very
• 7:54
  informative people. So I'm excited to get to know
• 7:56
  you a little bit more, kind of know your background.
• 7:59
  And I just got to say, man, like the whole top hat thing.
• 8:01
  I'm digging it. I'm I'm, I'm digging the look.
• 8:03
  It's very, very macabre, very, you know, I don't know.
• 8:06
  It's love it. That's very much within my
• 8:09
  style, yeah. Where did you get that from?
• 8:12
  I actually got it on Amazon. There's a specific hat creator.
• 8:17
  Gosh, I wish I could remember what they were called.
• 8:20
  But I'm sure if you look up El Dorado top hats on Amazon, you
• 8:25
  know, you'll find it relatively quickly and see the ones that
• 8:28
  have like the skulls and he's got some other designs and
• 8:30
  whatnot on it. I, I actually just recently got
• 8:33
  this hat. I had wanted one for a really
• 8:35
  long time when me and a couple of my best friends, we went to
• 8:38
  Pigeon Forge, TN, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
• 8:42
  And we were in this shop that, you know, had hats and boots
• 8:46
  and, you know, like skulls and macabre stuff, you know, just
• 8:49
  completely up my alley. Because then, you know, the
• 8:50
  whole gothic macabre, like alt punk rock style has, has just me
• 8:56
  my entire life, right. And so I saw it and I was like,
• 8:59
  damn, that's really cool. I want it.
• 9:01
  And all my friends are like, yeah, you know, that's totally
• 9:03
  your style. And, you know, now, almost 10
• 9:06
  years later, I could finally afford it.
• 9:08
  So I was like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm going to get it.
• 9:10
  And and so far I've been getting a lot of compliments on.
• 9:12
  Yeah, man, it's, it's, it's one of those looks that not
• 9:14
  everybody can pull off. Well, I feel I bought, AI
• 9:18
  bought, I bought a top hat years ago.
• 9:20
  I mean, I'm talking like probably 15 or more years ago at
• 9:25
  Spencer's. And it was like the felt one.
• 9:27
  Do you know what I mean? Like the and and and so, but
• 9:30
  I've like, I've had that and it's, it's, it's definitely a
• 9:34
  look that only only some people can pull off.
• 9:36
  You know, not everybody can do it.
• 9:37
  And you do it well. You do it well.
• 9:39
  Oh, well, thank you very much. Yeah.
• 9:41
  So you are obviously heathen. You have a Heathen platform.
• 9:47
  We talked about that. You're on Facebook as the
• 9:48
  Heathen Herald. Would you mind maybe giving us
• 9:51
  some of your background kind of, you know what brought you into
• 9:55
  Heathenry and then you know what, what kind of led you to
• 9:59
  create a platform dedicated to this and.
• 10:03
  Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
• 10:05
  So first I'll just give you know the folks just a little bit of
• 10:08
  background of like who I am, you know, beyond that.
• 10:12
  Oh yeah, for sure. You do other things.
• 10:14
  You're you wear many hats, not just a top hat.
• 10:17
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 10:19
  So first and foremost, my day job is I work in the independent
• 10:24
  news media for anybody that's sort of plugged into indie media
• 10:28
  that decides to sort of go against the grain, call out the
• 10:32
  status quo and reject, you know, partisan two party political
• 10:37
  nonsense. You know, if you've heard of the
• 10:40
  Free Thought Project or the Conscious Resistance Network,
• 10:43
  I'm the editor over at the Free Thought Project and a
• 10:45
  contributor and social media manager over at the Conscious
• 10:50
  Resistance Network. And pretty much what we do is we
• 10:54
  publish articles, some written by myself, some written by our
• 10:57
  editor in chief or other contributors or aggregated from
• 11:01
  other news sites where, you know, we essentially call out
• 11:04
  the government on their BS, expose the lies, the propaganda,
• 11:09
  regardless of the political dichotomy.
• 11:11
  We're very much a libertarian, even anarchist leaning platform.
• 11:16
  We don't believe in essentially just the very existence of
• 11:19
  government. It is a monopoly on violence.
• 11:21
  And that's how we always get these systems and institutions
• 11:24
  that inherently oppress marginalized and minority
• 11:27
  communities. And so, you know, speaking out
• 11:29
  against that and, and, you know, all those sorts of things and
• 11:33
  just sort of promoting A holistic way of evolving society
• 11:36
  outside of the fake political paradigm.
• 11:40
  And that's probably, you know, for people that have no concept
• 11:43
  of what that is, that's probably a whole lot to sort of digest.
• 11:45
  And for people that are sort of already on the cusp of that,
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  they're like, hell yeah. And if you have heard of us
• 11:50
  already, then hi. Hello.
• 11:52
  You've probably seen a lot of my work then as far as me being
• 11:58
  heathen is concerned. This year is is my 9th year as a
• 12:03
  heathen. Very special year for me,
• 12:04
  obviously, you know, 9 being a very prominent number in the war
• 12:08
  and 2025 in general has just been a really good year, like
• 12:14
  one of the best years I've had in a decade as far as just life
• 12:17
  and things are concerned. And so I, I don't think that
• 12:19
  that's a bit of a coincidence Really what brought me into
• 12:24
  Heathenry is a bit of a long story.
• 12:27
  It'll take take me about 10 to 15 minutes to get through, but I
• 12:30
  will share it with all of you. And it's actually the first time
• 12:33
  I've ever shared this publicly. I love a good origin story,
• 12:37
  yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  So a little bit multifaceted, but in a way, it's sort of all
• 12:43
  goes back to when I was first born, right?
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  So my mom worked in this doctor's office for this
• 12:51
  gentleman named Doctor Chang, who's a really good guy, really,
• 12:56
  you know, family friend, whatnot.
• 12:58
  Shortly after I was born, she brought me to meet him.
• 13:01
  My mom tells the story. When she first introduced me to
• 13:04
  Doctor Chang, he held me up and he was like, look at his eyes.
• 13:08
  Look, look at the way his eyes are darting around the room.
• 13:10
  He's very curious. He wants to know everything.
• 13:13
  He's he's going to grow up to be very smart.
• 13:16
  And, you know, his observation, at least in some degree, turned
• 13:20
  out to be very prescient because I have always had a very
• 13:24
  insatiable curiosity. I've wanted to know the hows and
• 13:28
  the whys of, of, of what the world is.
• 13:31
  And so, you know, part of that played into it.
• 13:34
  Fast forward a few years, excuse me, Fast forward a few years and
• 13:40
  you know, it's, it's around being 8 years old or so that I
• 13:46
  Start learning about ancient civilizations, Egypt, Greece,
• 13:51
  things of that nature in school. And I grew up in a religious
• 13:57
  household, but not an oppressively religious
• 13:59
  household, thankfully. Another part of it is that, you
• 14:02
  know, I did for pretty much most of my life, you know, have grow
• 14:06
  up in very toxic, dysfunctional environments.
• 14:08
  So it's sort of a blessing in a way that the one way that it was
• 14:12
  not was in the religious way. You know, I had lived with my
• 14:17
  grandmother and my grandmother, my grandfather, and eventually
• 14:22
  he was me, My mom and my sister all lived there as well.
• 14:25
  And so living with my grandparents, it, despite
• 14:30
  growing up in the early 2000s, 'cause I'm, I'm 30 years old, I
• 14:33
  just turned 30. Living with them, it was more
• 14:36
  like growing up in the early 90s in a way, 'cause we didn't have
• 14:39
  a computer, we didn't have Wi-Fi, you know, none of that.
• 14:42
  But what we did have was a lot of books.
• 14:44
  And my grandmother, very much like me, and I guess that's
• 14:47
  where I get it from, was a curious woman.
• 14:49
  She always loved to learn things.
• 14:51
  And so she had all these books about history and ancient
• 14:54
  civilizations and religion specifically, some of which I
• 14:58
  still have on my bookshelf, right, you know, behind my
• 15:00
  camera here. And so from a very young age,
• 15:04
  you know, I started reading these old books about biblical
• 15:07
  history and ancient history and ancient Egypt and Greece and
• 15:10
  Rome and stuff like, you know, about Atlantis and El Dorado and
• 15:15
  all these, you know, sort of mysterious, you know?
• 15:18
  Things that people, yeah. Mythological type, yeah.
• 15:21
  Yeah. And, you know, so that really
• 15:23
  started to peak my curiosity around 2007 is when I lost my
• 15:32
  grandfather. And that is when I sort of first
• 15:36
  was introduced to the concept of like the paranormal because very
• 15:40
  shortly after he passed, things started happening around the
• 15:43
  house where a faucet would turn on by itself or remote would fly
• 15:49
  across the room in front of my grandmother.
• 15:51
  And she's like, oh, that's just you paw, paw, come and say hi.
• 15:54
  And you know, and then, and then, you know, even 1 instance
• 15:57
  myself, I saw his silhouette standing in the garage where he
• 16:02
  would work and I would help him work on cars and stuff.
• 16:04
  And I of course I ran in there and nothing was there.
• 16:07
  But that's when I first started to be introduced to the concept
• 16:10
  that there's more to this existence than just what we can
• 16:17
  physically interact with. And, and so, you know, that
• 16:20
  started to open my mind at a really young age.
• 16:25
  And then as, as things go on and I just continue learning about
• 16:28
  history and, and mythology and different cultures and, and
• 16:32
  religions and whatnot. I think that one of the the
• 16:38
  best, best things that I was blessed with was that I was
• 16:42
  completely unfamiliar with the concept of religious dogma as a
• 16:47
  child. It was one of those things where
• 16:50
  it was, you know, that that idea of oh, that this is the only
• 16:54
  religion. And then if all the others are
• 16:56
  fake, like that was never something that I was even
• 16:58
  introduced to. So I even have a a very vivid
• 17:02
  memory of being a young kid and just playing outside and sort of
• 17:07
  thinking about all this sort of stuff.
• 17:10
  Because like, I remember, you know, being in the 5th grade,
• 17:13
  playing on the playground with some of my friends.
• 17:15
  And I'm trying to have at 10 years old, a serious
• 17:18
  conversation about like The Da Vinci Code and the bloodlines of
• 17:21
  Jesus and all this sort of stuff.
• 17:22
  But they're talking about Halo, right?
• 17:25
  That's when I realized my interests are quite different
• 17:29
  than that of my peers. But I have this very vivid
• 17:32
  memory of playing outside one day and I just look up at the
• 17:34
  sky. It's beautiful summer day, blue
• 17:36
  sky, fluffy clouds. And I just, you know, in my
• 17:41
  little child imagination, I just imagined Jesus and Buddha and
• 17:44
  Zeus and, you know, all of these different figures that I learned
• 17:47
  about just in the cloud just hanging out because that's what
• 17:50
  I thought everybody just believed in like a pluralistic
• 17:54
  sort of idea. You believe this, you believe
• 17:56
  that, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:57
  And of course, it's only as I get older that I realized that's
• 18:00
  not the case at all. You know, that's, that's a very
• 18:03
  rare, you know, belief that people have.
• 18:08
  And so, you know, again, getting older by the time I'm like in
• 18:13
  the middle of high school or so I start to get really interested
• 18:17
  in, you know, the more spiritual, witchy side of
• 18:19
  things, witchcraft, sorcery and all those sorts of things.
• 18:23
  And I've always been a very logical, pragmatic sort of
• 18:27
  critical thinking person. I'm, I'm the type of person I
• 18:30
  want proof to believe in something, right?
• 18:34
  Even though I know from my personal experiences that say,
• 18:38
  for example, if the paranormal exists, that's also why I
• 18:41
  started doing paranormal investigations and now I've done
• 18:43
  for both professional and amateur investigations.
• 18:46
  And we could do a whole show about that with some of the
• 18:49
  stuff that I've experienced in that, right?
• 18:51
  But I, I want proof of, of things.
• 18:55
  So I Start learning about witchcraft and all that sort of
• 18:57
  stuff. And I'm like, well, look, I'm,
• 19:00
  I'm going to start messing around with it.
• 19:01
  I want to see if it's, you know, if there's something to this or
• 19:04
  if these people are just sort of wing nuts, right?
• 19:07
  So I start dabbling in it and, you know, do some, you know,
• 19:10
  small spells here and there. And Long story short, I got
• 19:13
  enough. I got enough my I'm brain
• 19:19
  farting here. My goodness.
• 19:21
  I got enough results to that's the word I was looking for.
• 19:25
  I got enough results for, you know, myself to be like, OK, so
• 19:28
  there is something here, right? And so it's always been this
• 19:36
  insatiable curiosity of like, you know, the how the world
• 19:40
  works, why things are the way they are, so on and so forth.
• 19:44
  And you know, now sort of getting into what led me to
• 19:48
  Heathenry, right? Like I said earlier, most of not
• 19:54
  even necessarily my childhood, most of my life had been pretty
• 19:57
  traumatic and dysfunctional and and toxic and just a whole bunch
• 20:01
  of. You know, not good situations
• 20:04
  for a person to be in often times out of control.
• 20:08
  And so always, you know, sort of had a bad, not great mental
• 20:15
  health until recently. You know, thankfully I'm
• 20:18
  medicated now. I spent most of my life just
• 20:20
  sort of raw dog in it until earlier this year, I started to
• 20:24
  have these really uncontrollable panic attacks.
• 20:26
  And so I, I went to the doctor and there and even my doctor is
• 20:29
  like, so with everything that you've just told me because I
• 20:32
  gave her details of everything that that had happened
• 20:35
  throughout my life. She's like with all of that.
• 20:37
  And you mean to tell me you're just out here raw dog in life
• 20:39
  without any meds. And I'm like, uh huh.
• 20:41
  She's like, I'm putting you on medication.
• 20:44
  And, and I'm so grateful for that because now I'm actually
• 20:47
  happy. You know, I spent, I was
• 20:50
  terrible, terrible headspace for years with and that sort of
• 20:53
  plays into the whole thing. So around 2016 I meet this girl
• 21:00
  and it's in a typical story, everything's good until it's not
• 21:04
  right and the. Song remains not the same or the
• 21:09
  song remains the same, but yeah. Exactly right.
• 21:12
  And so I had a lot of things going on.
• 21:15
  And so then when things with me and her didn't really quite pan
• 21:19
  out, I just sort of started to spiral.
• 21:23
  You know, I was, I was an alcoholic at that time.
• 21:26
  You know, it was just not a good time.
• 21:28
  And it got to the point in, you know, in, in and around early
• 21:35
  2016. And mind you, by this time I'd
• 21:37
  sort of become an atheist, not entirely because of course I
• 21:41
  know the paranormal is real. So there's got to be something.
• 21:44
  But I, I guess you can say agnostic is more appropriate.
• 21:47
  I had a really difficult time with like believing, you know,
• 21:51
  if quote UN quote, God is real, you know, why is all this bad
• 21:55
  happening not only in my personal life, but just looking
• 21:57
  at the the world at large, right?
• 21:59
  All the things that happened that should not, or at the, you
• 22:02
  know, atrocities that that occur every day.
• 22:06
  So anyway, so I'm, I'm in my own, you know, personal downward
• 22:09
  spiral. And it gets to the point around
• 22:12
  the springtime of 2016, that trigger warning for anybody that
• 22:19
  has, you know, any sensitivities to like self harm or whatever,
• 22:22
  that I come very close to ending my own life, which would not
• 22:27
  have been the first attempt of the first two were when I was a
• 22:29
  teenager. But I come very close to, to,
• 22:33
  you know, like the closest I'd ever come.
• 22:35
  And so it's like 3:00 in the morning, I'm sitting on the edge
• 22:38
  of my bed and I'm just sobbing. And rather than doing the deed,
• 22:43
  I go ahead and I put the gun down.
• 22:45
  Then I just start just not even praying, just calling out to
• 22:49
  anything that might hear me. And and even then I'm like, I
• 22:51
  don't even know if any of this shit exists.
• 22:54
  But if Jesus, Zeus, Odin, RA, whom the fuck so ever some
• 23:00
  unknown force. If there's anything that can
• 23:02
  help me, please do because I had done everything in my power to
• 23:07
  like come out of this depression and nothing was working.
• 23:11
  I was like, you know, so if I wake up tomorrow and I still
• 23:14
  feel this way, then that's it. I'm done.
• 23:16
  I'm checking out because I cannot continue doing this.
• 23:19
  And I basically cried myself to sleep that night.
• 23:23
  I woke up a few hours later. It's about 10/30, 11:00 in the
• 23:28
  morning. And a very important side note
• 23:33
  here is that the way that my bedroom window is positioned on
• 23:37
  the side of the house, I don't get direct sunlight in my room
• 23:40
  until about 4:40, five, 5:00 in the afternoon.
• 23:44
  But it's about 11:00 in the morning, and this incredibly
• 23:49
  bright light is shining through my window.
• 23:52
  I mean, filling the room even more than it does when I get
• 23:55
  direct sunlight, you know, around that time in the
• 23:57
  afternoon. But it's not oppressively
• 23:59
  bright. It's just a really soft,
• 24:01
  peaceful, loving kind of feeling and everything that I was
• 24:08
  feeling the night before, it's literally just hours before is
• 24:11
  gone, you know, like it was never even there.
• 24:15
  And I genuinely believe that something, whatever it was,
• 24:21
  heard me and saved my life that night.
• 24:24
  And, you know, now as the decade has gone on, I have my own
• 24:28
  theories about what that may or may not have been.
• 24:31
  And I'm, I was completely clueless, but I was like, OK,
• 24:35
  something heard me. Something is the reason why
• 24:39
  this, all these negative feelings are now gone from my
• 24:43
  body. And then I'm still alive and I
• 24:44
  want to be alive. So then I went trying to figure
• 24:48
  out, OK, well, what the hell is it then?
• 24:49
  And of course, my recent C bias being raised Christian, I'm
• 24:53
  like, OK, well, you know, light, peaceful, tranquil feeling,
• 24:57
  maybe it's Jesus. So I tried to do the Christian
• 24:59
  thing again and really quickly I realized that it just that was
• 25:05
  not for me. Because again, like I said, the
• 25:09
  the logical rational part of my brain is like, well, if it was
• 25:12
  Jesus, if it was Yahshua as his proper name is, then following
• 25:18
  Christianity and his teachings should come as easy to me as
• 25:21
  breathing. I should feel it in my bones.
• 25:24
  And the fact that I don't tells me that it, it had to have been
• 25:28
  something else. And so I stopped doing that.
• 25:31
  And I sort of, you know, it began this journey of trying to
• 25:35
  figure out, well, if not that, then what was it?
• 25:39
  And simultaneously at the same time, you know, even back just
• 25:43
  prior to before me and this girl even met, I had started
• 25:49
  exploring Norse culture and history, not even hadn't even
• 25:54
  really gotten into the mythology yet.
• 25:55
  I had been introduced to the mythology, but more so the
• 25:58
  history and the culture and, and you know, of the people and
• 26:01
  whatnot. I don't know if you believe in
• 26:05
  reincarnation. I most certainly do.
• 26:08
  And at the time, and she still does, her and I are still very
• 26:12
  close friends now. We've smoothed out all the
• 26:15
  issues, but great. Gotcha.
• 26:17
  Yeah. So we essentially came to
• 26:20
  realize that we did share a past life together because there were
• 26:24
  things that I knew that I never told anybody, that she was very
• 26:28
  easily able to just outright tell me.
• 26:31
  And, you know, certain memories that came flooding back.
• 26:33
  And it's hence why we were so close and hence why I was so
• 26:36
  devastated when that did not work out.
• 26:38
  Right. Right.
• 26:40
  So, you know, during that time, learning about their history,
• 26:43
  their culture, finding out that I have some ancestral
• 26:46
  connections to it because my paternal line is French.
• 26:49
  That's, you know, my last name is Vai.
• 26:51
  A lot of people mispronounce it as Via because the French
• 26:54
  language is fucking weird. VA is silent.
• 26:58
  So it's Vai. And you know, so I had some
• 27:01
  ancestral connections to it through France and Ireland, you
• 27:06
  know, through some of my Irish ancestry and whatnot.
• 27:07
  So I was just starting to get really interested in it and
• 27:10
  started to realize that a lot of my personal ethical code honor,
• 27:16
  you know, being a friend to your friend, returning gift for gift
• 27:19
  and laughter with laughter and treachery with treachery.
• 27:22
  If someone were to betray you, you know, honoring your friend,
• 27:25
  honor, you know, your guest, be respectful, you know, handle
• 27:29
  your business. A lot of of, you know, the
• 27:31
  ethics that we are taught in, you know, have them all.
• 27:34
  And the sagas are things that I already believed in before
• 27:39
  having ever read any of that. So I was like, so maybe this is,
• 27:43
  you know, thing, you know, for me.
• 27:45
  So I really start to dive into it.
• 27:48
  And then the night that changed everything, like, essentially, I
• 27:52
  consider it my second birthday in a way.
• 27:55
  Yeah, was. June 20 turned homecoming home.
• 27:59
  Kind of like a homecoming, almost.
• 28:00
  Absolutely, yeah. June 21st of 2016.
• 28:06
  It was the night after the summer solstice.
• 28:08
  I had originally planned on going out on the summer solstice
• 28:11
  because it was a special astronomical event.
• 28:14
  It was like a super moon on the summer solstice, and it was also
• 28:18
  like a blue moon because it was a second full moon in calendar
• 28:21
  month. It was some sort of weird
• 28:22
  astronomical event, but the weather was not great.
• 28:25
  It was really cloudy and kind of rainy.
• 28:27
  So I just said screw it, I'll go out the next night.
• 28:28
  So I went out the next night on the 21st, and I had already been
• 28:33
  Privy to like, meditation. That's something that I had done
• 28:36
  and incorporated. So something in me told me, if
• 28:42
  you want answers, go out tonight under the moon and meditate.
• 28:46
  Now mind you, at the time nine years ago, I had no idea what
• 28:52
  Uthaseta was. I'm sure you know what that is.
• 28:55
  Uthaseta yeah, Ground sitting or mountain sitting rather the.
• 28:58
  Yeah, for for the people that don't know, uthaseta translates
• 29:01
  to sitting out. And it's basically this old
• 29:03
  Germanic shamanic practice where you would go outside, typically
• 29:06
  on a mound, as the sources say, sometimes under a tree or
• 29:09
  whatever, sitting out at night with the intention of trying to
• 29:13
  attain some kind of wisdom, maybe a vision or something like
• 29:17
  that. So nine years ago, I had no idea
• 29:19
  what that was. It was just something in me told
• 29:21
  me, if you want answers, you go out tonight.
• 29:24
  You sit out under the moon and you meditate and you'll figure
• 29:28
  it out. So that's what I did.
• 29:30
  I went outside. I took some of my crystals with
• 29:32
  them, charged underneath the tree and I sat down.
• 29:34
  I had some, you know, old, more stylized music playing, you know
• 29:39
  what it through in the high lung, you know, bands like that.
• 29:43
  And I basically spoke aloud and directly addressed Odin and I
• 29:48
  said, you know, you're supposed to be, I don't even know if
• 29:51
  you're real, but you're supposed to be a God of wisdom.
• 29:55
  And I need wisdom. I'm, you know, so I'm, that's
• 29:58
  why I'm calling to you. And if you are real, I need you
• 30:03
  to show me. I need some kind of sign that is
• 30:07
  so, you know, I, that I can't interpret any other way.
• 30:11
  Like I kind of need you to slap me in the face.
• 30:13
  If, if you're real and, and you know, if, if any of this stuff
• 30:16
  exists, and if not, then I'm just going to go about assuming
• 30:19
  that the gods are all just made-up human, you know, you
• 30:23
  know, poppycock, basically, you know, just our own, you know,
• 30:25
  imagination. Can I just throw something in
• 30:28
  real quick about that? What a, what a, what a move to
• 30:34
  first of all, to, to, to invoke any of the Norse gods or the
• 30:38
  dramatic gods for it, for one, for it to be old and, and then
• 30:41
  secondly, for you to be like, I need a sign that is like
• 30:45
  absolutely no questions asked, because that's how he do man
• 30:48
  like that. He's not gentle.
• 30:50
  He's it's, it's a spirit of the side.
• 30:51
  Oh, wait till I tell you what. Happened I just had to be like
• 30:54
  man, you know you got some balls on you man for just coming into
• 30:57
  this and now you're going to do that but I'll I'll leave you to
• 30:59
  finish it now so. Yeah, so, and, and you know,
• 31:02
  the, the culmination of the story goes right in line with
• 31:05
  with what you just said. So I sat there for about an
• 31:08
  hour. I'm meditating and nothing
• 31:10
  happens. And I'm like, OK, well, then I
• 31:12
  guess that's it, right? I guess it's not real.
• 31:14
  So I get up. I go to grab my crystals, and as
• 31:17
  I'm walking across the yard to go back inside, something in my
• 31:20
  gut tells me, look up at the moon one more time.
• 31:24
  So I look up at the moon and as clear as the goosebumps that are
• 31:29
  on my arm right now that I still get nine years later telling
• 31:32
  this story, I see the clouds move in front of the moon and
• 31:36
  they take the shape of what looks like to me an 8 legged
• 31:39
  horse. I stop in my tracks and I'm
• 31:42
  like, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing right now?
• 31:46
  Of course, you know, The clouds continue to move and they take
• 31:50
  the shape of the stereotypical face of what we associate with
• 31:55
  Odin. It looked like an old bearded
• 31:57
  man, long hair, the full moon. Jesse, I swear to Odin, the full
• 32:03
  moon shining right where his one eye would be and my entire body
• 32:09
  feels like a combination of chills and like electric tingles
• 32:14
  almost. I, I, I can't move.
• 32:18
  The only thing I can say, well, I'm staring up at it is all
• 32:21
  father. And obviously the whole, the
• 32:25
  whole experience only lasted like 30 seconds, but it felt
• 32:28
  like time stood still. And the only way that I can
• 32:32
  really equate it to like, 'cause when you're telling people a
• 32:35
  story of an experience with an ancient ass primordial deity
• 32:39
  that that you've experienced, like, it's really difficult to
• 32:42
  put in the words. Obviously, Yeah.
• 32:44
  Hard to quantify that. The only thing that I can really
• 32:47
  equate it to is imagine, you know, that experience that we've
• 32:52
  all of us have probably had at one point when you're in this a
• 32:54
  big store and you, you're a little kid, you've lost your
• 32:58
  parent and you're afraid and you're lost and you're looking
• 33:01
  around, You don't know what to do.
• 33:03
  And then finally you see your parent.
• 33:05
  They find you and you run to them.
• 33:07
  You know everything's going to be OK.
• 33:09
  That's, that's what it felt like to me.
• 33:11
  Like I, I, I'm trying not to choke up talking about it.
• 33:15
  Fuck, it's powerful, man. It's genuinely felt like a a
• 33:18
  coming home. And from that night, I knew
• 33:23
  that, you know, this, this is my path, This is this is where I
• 33:27
  belong. And I've had some, you know,
• 33:29
  little, you know, some experiences here and there since
• 33:31
  then with, you know, Freya and Thor.
• 33:34
  Certainly nothing as that as powerful as that first one.
• 33:37
  But, you know, that's, that's what brought me here, you know,
• 33:41
  and that's wow, you know? That is quite the thank you for,
• 33:47
  by the way, for, you know, taking us back and, and really
• 33:50
  painting a picture for all of us that, you know, makes me feel
• 33:54
  like I was there along the way and telling us a bit about your,
• 33:58
  the struggles that you face. And, and I just want to say, you
• 34:01
  know, I'm, I'm glad you're here to talk, to tell that story.
• 34:04
  Thank you. So that's it.
• 34:06
  That's a blessing, not just for you, but for others, because,
• 34:09
  you know, we're not alone with that.
• 34:11
  You know what I mean? Like it's our generation, people
• 34:15
  in general. I mean, it's just a, it's a
• 34:16
  thing. So to hear other people's
• 34:19
  experiences, it, it, it's very, it hits home, you know what I
• 34:23
  mean? Really does.
• 34:26
  And I'm glad that you could tell that story and that it's such a
• 34:28
  story to tell. You know, I don't know if you've
• 34:31
  ever, and I'm sure you have. So maybe you want to talk a
• 34:34
  little bit about, you know, the, the presence of UPG, unverified
• 34:37
  personal gnosis within Heathenry and you know, how many different
• 34:44
  opinions come from that. You know, I, I've seen the
• 34:47
  stance from people that that don't want to give place to UPG
• 34:54
  in discussions. It has to always be, you know,
• 34:56
  historical. And then I, he and then I've
• 34:58
  also experienced the complete opposite of that where it's like
• 35:01
  it's all UPG. My experience was this,
• 35:03
  therefore it must be true. And I'm like, there's a medium
• 35:06
  ground here that applies. Have you ever, have you, have
• 35:09
  you had that you know, with, with your last nine years or so
• 35:14
  of, of growth and, and exposure to heathenry?
• 35:17
  Have you, have you experienced things like that yourself too?
• 35:20
  Yeah, I, I have to away because I, I always try to keep an open
• 35:24
  mind when it comes to a lot of stuff because like one thing
• 35:26
  that I tell people and, and obviously one thing that I
• 35:29
  learned along my way that I now, you know, reiterate to some
• 35:32
  people when they talk about like UPGS that like, you know, we
• 35:35
  have to remember 1000 years ago, a lot of what we consider, you
• 35:41
  know, historical now that was UPG to them.
• 35:44
  You know, you know, if we compare, you know, Heathenry to,
• 35:48
  you know, in the 9th century to Heathenry in the 1st century
• 35:52
  continental Germania, they're not going to be carbon copies of
• 35:56
  one another. Things evolve and change over
• 35:58
  time. And you know, certain concepts
• 36:01
  that we hold so closely to now that are ingrained in the ETA's
• 36:06
  and the sagas, you know, were incredibly foreign concepts to,
• 36:12
  you know, the continental tribes of the 1st and 2nd centuries.
• 36:15
  And you know, that's just something that people have to
• 36:17
  realize is the very nature of a spiritual belief that it changes
• 36:23
  and grows over time. I mean, even just talking about
• 36:26
  Germanic heathenry in general, for the people that study the
• 36:30
  history, which I know you do, we've talked about this before,
• 36:33
  you know, it derives itself from the Proto Indo European
• 36:37
  mythology, the same as Hinduism, the same as.
• 36:40
  The Vedic, the Rig Veda, I mean it, the parallel syncretisms,
• 36:44
  it's, it's also there, you know, I mean.
• 36:46
  Exactly. And, and in addition to the
• 36:48
  syncretisms, there are also, you know, the differences between
• 36:51
  those cultures, you know, the Hinduism and Greek and Celtic
• 36:55
  and so on and so forth. And so it all changes and
• 36:58
  adapts, you know, in a, in a way over time.
• 37:01
  So when people try to dismiss UPG as you know, oh, you had, it
• 37:06
  has to be completely rooted in historical like I, I think
• 37:10
  that's just so asinine, such a closed minded way to look at it
• 37:14
  when you really look at just the changing nature of of a living
• 37:18
  spirituality in the first place. Yes, yeah, man, I'm so glad to
• 37:23
  hear you say that. That's a sentiment that I have
• 37:26
  maintained for, for a, for a while now, You know what I mean?
• 37:30
  Like I've been, it's, it's wild, you know, like you've been
• 37:34
  heathen. Now you say this is your 9th
• 37:35
  year. You know, I'm, I'm breaching my
• 37:37
  decade, you know what I mean? So we're not too far behind each
• 37:40
  other in terms of our tenure, but the growth of things has,
• 37:44
  you know, my, I've gone down a certain path, you've gone down a
• 37:47
  certain path. And so like the timelines are
• 37:51
  are closed, but our paths have not particularly merged up until
• 37:55
  now. And one of the things that I had
• 37:57
  said for many years is, is, you know, almost the exact same
• 38:02
  thing that you just said was that at one point in time what
• 38:05
  is maintained, as you know, primary source material.
• 38:10
  Now, why we know the way things were done is because at one
• 38:14
  point in time somebody had an experience with somebody else
• 38:21
  and said, this is the way we're going to do things.
• 38:22
  And that became their tradition. And then it was carried on.
• 38:26
  It started off as UPG. There was no book to read from
• 38:29
  back then. So I'm, I'm so glad to hear you
• 38:32
  know, in, in relatively, in relative terms, you know, a
• 38:35
  newer content creator within the Heathen space because again,
• 38:38
  you've only had the Heathen Herald up for what, the last
• 38:40
  couple years maybe. Not even a year this November.
• 38:44
  20 not even a year. And that, that, that, that
• 38:46
  sentiment that I've been talking about for years and it, it's,
• 38:49
  it's being carried forth. And I'm so glad to, to see that
• 38:52
  there's somebody else that has a desire and a wish to present
• 38:56
  our, our culture, our heritage and the, and the, the beliefs of
• 38:59
  our ancient Germanic ancestors in such a way that allows for
• 39:04
  UPG to be celebrated. Not, not, not quenched, not
• 39:08
  extinguished, not dismissed. You know so.
• 39:11
  So thank you for that. Yeah, I, I think probably the
• 39:14
  the one UPG that I actually have some personal experience with is
• 39:19
  that. And so like I know some people
• 39:22
  in a way, especially with modern Heathenry, sort of look down on
• 39:25
  anybody that might have an interaction with Loki.
• 39:28
  You know, they're like, oh, you know, stay away from that one,
• 39:31
  you know, blah, blah, blah. And I certainly have my own, I
• 39:36
  guess you could say, interpretations of, of
• 39:39
  everything, obviously, and interactions with the gods and,
• 39:43
  and, you know, the the nature of them as like metaphysical
• 39:48
  entities. And so I don't put that, you
• 39:53
  know, stigma of, oh, don't interact with Loki because, you
• 39:57
  know, we have, you know, the the stories that, you know,
• 40:00
  seemingly paint him as. The bad guy, when my, my
• 40:05
  interpretation of what Loki is, is that he is the catalyst for
• 40:10
  change. Things don't happen without
• 40:14
  Loki, you know, he's, he's essentially the one that calls
• 40:19
  people out on their bullshit and keeps things moving because
• 40:22
  without him to move the story along, the narrative along.
• 40:26
  And again, that's something that people need to remember that our
• 40:29
  lore, our mythology, at least when it comes to the mythology
• 40:32
  instead of the historical sagas, they are narratives.
• 40:35
  They're not literal, you know, things and events that happened.
• 40:39
  You know, the, the sky is not literally Emir's skull.
• 40:43
  You know, it's, these are symbolic interpretations of
• 40:45
  things. And so, you know, in that lore
• 40:48
  narrative, Loki is the force that drives change.
• 40:52
  And whether we like it or not, that is ever present in all of
• 40:56
  our lives. The only thing you can guarantee
• 40:58
  is change. And so I've done, you know, a
• 41:00
  little bit of veneration of of Loki.
• 41:03
  And from what I have personally experienced and from what I've
• 41:08
  heard from others, both friends and just people online, for
• 41:11
  whatever reason, he really enjoys cinnamon as an offering.
• 41:15
  I have no clue why, but it seems to be a thing.
• 41:19
  I've not gotten any negative reactions from him by giving
• 41:24
  offerings of cinnamon and even, you know, cinnamon candy and
• 41:27
  whatnot. So I don't know what it is, but
• 41:29
  that's that's the UPG that I've personally experienced.
• 41:32
  Yeah, it's funny you mention that.
• 41:33
  Like I think of some of the 'cause you know, with Loki
• 41:37
  specifically, his, his presence didn't become documented or
• 41:43
  spoken about in mythology until the migration, like after the
• 41:48
  migration period, you know, like that, that equivalent.
• 41:50
  I don't think there is anything documented by Tacitus or
• 41:53
  anything like in the earlier dramatic sources.
• 41:56
  The Saxons didn't have anything like that.
• 41:58
  The, the, you know what I mean, like the different dramatic
• 42:00
  tribes of, of the continent, they didn't have this, this
• 42:04
  figure that became such a prominent aspect or, or
• 42:08
  archetype, if you will, in like Sonori's stories, you know what
• 42:12
  I mean? Like the, the Prose Edda and of
• 42:14
  course the Poetic Edda. Now, granted, yes, there are
• 42:18
  poems in the Poetic Edda that do have Loki mentioned.
• 42:20
  Of course, Lokasena is, is the obvious 1, you know what I mean.
• 42:26
  And he has other, he has other things.
• 42:28
  But like you said, you know, he's, when you go to like
• 42:32
  finding some of the source material about him, etymology,
• 42:36
  the words and stuff. Somehow I like fire ends up
• 42:39
  getting brought up a lot. And I don't know if that's a
• 42:42
  mistake in the translation of Loke versus Loki.
• 42:46
  I know Jackson Crawford's gone into that.
• 42:48
  I know he's not heathen. So some people don't like to
• 42:50
  take too much of what he says seriously because he doesn't
• 42:53
  have the religious interest in in mind.
• 42:56
  But I heard other people say like, similar things.
• 42:59
  So like the whole cinnamon thing and the fiery aspect of
• 43:02
  cinnamon. Maybe there's something in
• 43:04
  folklore that is specific to an area that you know hasn't been
• 43:09
  explored yet that could put that connection together.
• 43:12
  I do think that, you know, the association with Loki and fire
• 43:16
  are it's, it's probably just like a misconception from the
• 43:20
  story where Loki and Thor go and they interact with Logie, who is
• 43:26
  the personification of fire. You know, they have these
• 43:28
  challenges. Thor has to fight the old lady
• 43:30
  and turns out that she's actually age personified and
• 43:34
  Loki gets the eating contest and he's actually facing fire
• 43:37
  personified and that's why he eats the entire table and so on
• 43:40
  and so forth. And their names are so similar.
• 43:43
  So that might be a thing then, just just the absence of a
• 43:48
  figure like Loki. Another thing that I tell people
• 43:51
  that we have to keep in mind is that sadly, during the forced
• 43:55
  Christianization of our people, we did lose quite a lot,
• 43:59
  particularly when it comes to continental, you know,
• 44:03
  continental heathenry. And so it very well could have
• 44:06
  been that there was, you know, a minor figure who didn't play a
• 44:09
  whole lot into the narrative that that we simply don't know.
• 44:13
  And then certainly we do know there are plenty of, you know,
• 44:17
  small regional figures that played into different pantheons
• 44:21
  and whatnot because, you know, people that are sort of just
• 44:24
  getting into it, they think, you know, similar to like, maybe
• 44:26
  Greek mythology was just one huge pan continental pantheon
• 44:30
  when that's not the case at all. You know, you had some places
• 44:33
  that, you know, would venerate their own gods and such and
• 44:37
  such. And you know, that's why there's
• 44:38
  that big debate about Iostre and Austara and, you know, because
• 44:43
  they're like, oh, that was an Anglo-Saxon thing or no, it was
• 44:46
  actually, you know, an invention by, you know, the Christianized
• 44:49
  English and so on and so forth. You know, so maybe there was a
• 44:54
  small minor figure similar to Loke that it, you know, found
• 44:57
  his way into Scandinavia, or maybe not.
• 45:00
  It was, you know, just developed during that time.
• 45:02
  Because there's also the strange anomaly that we look at the
• 45:07
  Anglo Saxons and we look at the Old Saxons and then we look at
• 45:11
  Scandinavia. And the anomaly in Scandinavia
• 45:15
  is that they're splitting Freya Frig into two different deities.
• 45:21
  They're splitting her into Frig and then they're splitting her
• 45:23
  into Freya. And by the time Christianization
• 45:27
  happened, they hadn't even really completed that transition
• 45:30
  to the point where but that's a thing that happened.
• 45:33
  And so it's, it's those mysteries of history that sort
• 45:36
  of intrigue you, but at the same time keep you up at night
• 45:39
  because for history nerds like us, they're like, why?
• 45:42
  I want to know, you know what I mean?
• 45:44
  And say, we'll get those answers.
• 45:47
  Well, I get to. I get to thinking.
• 45:49
  A lot of times with the way that way that my Heathenry has
• 45:52
  developed, right how I've grown into it and how I continue to
• 45:54
  grow with it is, you know, I, I've, I've find found a a very
• 46:01
  animistic view of the world where I recognize and
• 46:06
  acknowledge the existence of spirit in everything and in all
• 46:10
  things. You know, the land and, and how,
• 46:14
  how, how central that was to many cultures, no less the
• 46:18
  Germanic peoples and that, you know, understanding the cycles
• 46:24
  of their landscape, right. At certain times of the year,
• 46:28
  things died and went to sleep or at certain times of the year,
• 46:31
  things woke back up again. Days got longer, nights got
• 46:34
  shorter, right? All these things happened at
• 46:37
  very specific times of the year. And their celebrations, their
• 46:42
  holy tides were central around those cyclic changes.
• 46:47
  And so to understand that change is part of our world, it's part
• 46:53
  of nature, it's part of the way that they live.
• 46:56
  They saw it day in and day out and they built their world
• 46:59
  views, their, their, their religiosity and how they saw
• 47:02
  divinity around that entire concept.
• 47:06
  So whether there had to be an individual or a specific, like
• 47:10
  you say, deity or figurehead or or personification of it, again,
• 47:16
  could have been just a regional thing that later on, you know,
• 47:18
  became something that was woven into stories.
• 47:22
  The antagonist, you know, again, that that facilitator of change,
• 47:26
  the necessary chaos, if you will, but that that, that that
• 47:31
  exists in in nature. I mean, Odin himself has all of
• 47:34
  those things woven into his character.
• 47:38
  You know what I mean? He's kind of like the, the one.
• 47:41
  He's like the, the, the, the stop and shop, the one stop shop
• 47:44
  of, of all of those things. Archetype archetypical exactly.
• 47:49
  And then I think that's. You know, that's the really big
• 47:54
  interesting aspect of, you know, the development of, you know,
• 47:58
  religious culture and just, you know, the overall study of like,
• 48:01
  and, you know, religion as, you know, as, as, as a study of
• 48:05
  anthropology, right? Because we see the way that
• 48:08
  these things sort of change and develop and how different
• 48:11
  cultures have their own personifications and
• 48:15
  interpretations and perspectives on things.
• 48:17
  And, you know, it's, I've, I've done a lot of thinking about
• 48:22
  these sorts of things on my own. Because, you know, in addition
• 48:25
  to, you know, as I said earlier, the last spending the last 20 or
• 48:29
  so years studying history and religion and things, I've also
• 48:33
  been very interested in studying the occult and studying, you
• 48:36
  know, esotericism. I've read, you know, books from
• 48:39
  say, Manley P Hall, who is the 33rd degree Freemason.
• 48:42
  He wrote secret teachings of all ages and many, many, many other
• 48:46
  titles. And you know, Helena Blavatsky
• 48:49
  and Crowley and you know all of these because I just love to
• 48:52
  learn and, you know, try to figure things out.
• 48:55
  And so through my study of like esotericism and ancient
• 48:59
  symbolism, you know, I, I make it very clear to people that,
• 49:05
  you know, they need to understand that all religion is
• 49:08
  mythology, whether we're talking about the Abrahamic faiths of
• 49:12
  Judaism, Christianity and Islam, or we're talking about any
• 49:15
  other, you know, ancient faith. It is a way that our ancient
• 49:21
  ancestors put things into perspective for them to
• 49:25
  understand through their personifications and whatnot.
• 49:29
  And you know, I even say, and I've explained this before on
• 49:31
  some of my other shows when we just so happen to get into the
• 49:35
  subject that my view of quote UN quote, God or God's is pretty
• 49:43
  different in a way even compared to other heathens and other
• 49:47
  pagans in general from what I've seen.
• 49:49
  And so because So what I sort of view it as is that all of these
• 49:59
  deities that we interact with, whether they be the Norse
• 50:02
  pantheon, the Greek, the Roman, Celtic, Native American Shinto,
• 50:09
  or, you know, Buddhism or, or whatever it may be, or even, you
• 50:13
  know, the Abrahamic beliefs. My personal view is that all of
• 50:17
  these deities are entities. They are real spiritual entities
• 50:23
  that that do exist, while at the same time, in some cases perhaps
• 50:29
  with the Germanic or I'm sorry, the the European, the Indo
• 50:32
  European folklore, they could be fractalized extensions of some
• 50:36
  of the same. You know, some people can argue
• 50:38
  that, Oh, Zeus and Tor might be the same or, you know, Venus and
• 50:43
  Freya or whatever, and that's that's up to I don't necessarily
• 50:46
  believe that, but they could be potential, you know,
• 50:49
  fractalizations of the same progenitor old ass entity.
• 50:54
  And then, you know, when it comes to, because people always
• 50:58
  get into these arguments, especially when they literalize
• 51:01
  their religion, which is why I'm so very heavily against this
• 51:05
  establishment organized religion.
• 51:07
  And I typically don't like to bag on the Abrahamic mythologies
• 51:12
  a lot, but I I kind of end up doing so because they're so
• 51:15
  hardcore and they're literalist interpretations.
• 51:18
  And in doing so, they force their views on other people.
• 51:21
  But the point being is, you know, the question always then
• 51:26
  comes up, So what is the real creator?
• 51:29
  You know, people always get, you know that, you know that they
• 51:32
  get in those arguments because of that, they want to figure,
• 51:34
  oh, my religion is true. No, my religion is true when I
• 51:38
  look at it as what I refer to as the grand architect of the
• 51:43
  universe. And that is Masonic terminology.
• 51:45
  I deliberately use Masonic terminology because I think that
• 51:48
  verbiage fits quite well. Is simply just a matter of like
• 51:53
  physics, energy, vibration and frequency.
• 51:56
  And you know, those things permeate all things or energy
• 51:59
  cannot be created nor destroyed. When we're talking about, you
• 52:03
  know, the, the physics of of those things, it's something not
• 52:08
  even necessarily a spirit or an entity, simply a force that has
• 52:12
  always existed, will always exist.
• 52:15
  And all of these entities that we interact with, whether they
• 52:18
  be our pantheon or a Greek or a Celtic or Abrahamic or whatever,
• 52:24
  all come from that same source. And once you really dive deep
• 52:28
  into the esoteric symbolism of what all these different
• 52:32
  religions are trying to teach their people, you sort of come
• 52:35
  to the realization they all go back to the same source in a
• 52:39
  way. And you know, a lot of people,
• 52:43
  you know, they'll fight and argue over that.
• 52:44
  And I think, I think it's just, you know, so silly.
• 52:47
  It's a waste of breath. It is.
• 52:49
  I mean really it's AI think that.
• 52:52
  I'm sorry not to cut you. Off but but I think that the
• 52:54
  best way to describe it in a less long winded way of what I
• 52:59
  just said is that there exists in Hinduism the concept of
• 53:03
  Brahman, which is essentially exactly what I just described.
• 53:08
  And so for anyone that's not read Mahabharata or Baaghi
• 53:12
  Baaghita, just go look up Brahman on YouTube.
• 53:15
  And then you know, there's it'll, it'll be a good
• 53:17
  explanation for it. And I don't think that it's a
• 53:19
  coincidence that this concept that is so deeply.
• 53:25
  Like it it? Speaks to the intellectual when
• 53:28
  you really study and as I said, all these different things.
• 53:31
  I don't think it's a mistake that this is a concept that has
• 53:34
  survived in Hinduism of all different beliefs, because
• 53:38
  Hinduism is the oldest still practiced religion today that
• 53:43
  has existed on this earth. And so I, I, I do believe that
• 53:47
  it's not a coincidence that they have continued forth this very
• 53:51
  ancient truth, in my opinion, that it all sort of connects to
• 53:55
  this force that is in everything.
• 53:59
  And so when we talk about the gods being, yes, they are these
• 54:04
  entities that exist and they're also extensions of the natural
• 54:07
  world. You know, as I tell people, for
• 54:10
  is not just a God who is associated with Thunder and
• 54:14
  lightning. He is an extension of Thunder
• 54:16
  and lightning. He is in the very nature of
• 54:19
  nature itself. When we have an idea, when we
• 54:23
  have inspiration to do something, whether it's write
• 54:26
  poetry or do whatever. When we are inspired to do
• 54:30
  something, that is Odin himself manifesting in us.
• 54:34
  When we love our partners, our spouses, our family, our
• 54:37
  friends, that is an essence of Freya manifesting within us.
• 54:42
  And it's sort of this whole all-encompassing concept.
• 54:45
  That's that's where I've landed with it in my last nine years.
• 54:49
  Yeah, you can break it down. Very.
• 54:50
  Methodically that way, because of the stories like you have
• 54:53
  those things that you can go back to and be like, Oh, I find,
• 54:55
  you know, the, the relationship and, and the, the, the
• 54:58
  connectedness between it and, you know, names are names as
• 55:02
  that have been evolved over time.
• 55:03
  Because even Tacitus, when he was documenting his experiences
• 55:08
  and seeing how the Germanic tribes behaved, you know, he
• 55:10
  wasn't writing that to try and change the history of the world
• 55:16
  at the time. He was a Roman Pagan.
• 55:18
  So he had no bias to throw into like these damn pagans in
• 55:23
  Germany or wherever. No, it was they were, you know,
• 55:26
  he he called their gods by his name, what he would call them
• 55:30
  Mercury. Oh, it was, you know, Mercury
• 55:33
  instead of, you know, Odin or T or whatever, you know what I'm
• 55:36
  saying? So like there were the
• 55:37
  syncretism again, it, it, it's there and it was a name is
• 55:40
  whatever it was. But as you go back to those
• 55:43
  older sources and and the root of it all, it's I I just got
• 55:47
  done talking to by the time this.
• 55:51
  Episode airs the. Last week's episode of of the
• 55:54
  podcast was with Mira Sethi from Hilung.
• 55:57
  And you know, we were talking about some of the same type of
• 56:01
  thing that we're talking about now here where, you know, that
• 56:03
  that that primal layer, everything that goes back so
• 56:06
  far, it it, it, it all goes back to the same source.
• 56:08
  There's like this common route that that everything is it
• 56:12
  points back to so and I'm glad to see people getting into that
• 56:16
  realization and not trying to become so pigeonholed into a
• 56:21
  region's belief of things. You know, it's not that you're
• 56:26
  abandoning or not trying to, you know, preserve the culture of,
• 56:33
  of your heritage and, and where you come from.
• 56:36
  It's realizing that it's, it's duality.
• 56:39
  There's duality and maybe even deeper than that, you know,
• 56:41
  there's, there's a shared experience that transcends all
• 56:45
  peoples. You know, ancestry can mean more
• 56:49
  than just our blood ties to people.
• 56:51
  It can mean the connection we have to the land because to be
• 56:55
  of a culture, to to have indigenous roots to a place,
• 57:00
  that's what you are. You are of the land.
• 57:02
  The land is part of you. And you are connected to that
• 57:05
  land. Everything about the land, the
• 57:06
  rocks, the trees, the water, you know what I mean?
• 57:10
  Everything. Yeah.
• 57:11
  And and you know, it's it's. That and I, I agree with it so
• 57:15
  strongly and it's, it's one of the big reasons why when you
• 57:19
  know the things that we have to deal with in this modern day
• 57:21
  that that I have such a, a, a strong.
• 57:25
  Dislike. Of, of the folkish type that,
• 57:29
  you know, try to, oh, it's, it's blood in the soil and only
• 57:33
  people of a certain type can believe.
• 57:35
  And then, you know, first of all, you know, I, I, I look at
• 57:38
  it to where if someone, well, first of all, a lot of people on
• 57:44
  the other side will try to assert that.
• 57:45
  Oh, Heathenry is not an ethnic religion.
• 57:49
  And, and I, I, I say that's nonsense.
• 57:50
  All religions are ethnic religions.
• 57:52
  That doesn't mean they have to be ethnically exclusive.
• 57:54
  But every, every belief has some sort of root to it, right?
• 57:59
  But I view it if someone of a different ethnicity, whether
• 58:02
  they be African or you're like completely Greek, you know, they
• 58:06
  don't even have to be non white. They can be someone of a very
• 58:09
  Greek persuasion or an Italian or Russian or whatever or
• 58:12
  whomsoever. If they feel called to our
• 58:16
  traditions, that's fate, you know, that that's, that is
• 58:20
  something that has been woven into their path that we as
• 58:24
  mortals cannot dispute that there's the, the Norns have
• 58:28
  already made the decision that this is something that they
• 58:31
  need, you know, to experience. And then if they feel so
• 58:35
  strongly about it that that's what they want to follow, no one
• 58:40
  has a right to tell them, Oh, you're not Germanic enough
• 58:44
  because even that concept in and of itself is so stupid because,
• 58:49
  you know, like we were talking about the, the shared history,
• 58:53
  their, their own logic focus. I mean, specifically their own
• 58:57
  logic defeats itself because they'll say, oh, you have to be
• 59:00
  white. Well, there are some whites that
• 59:02
  are not Germanic. Oh, well, then you only can be
• 59:04
  Germanic. Well, there are some Germanics
• 59:07
  that, you know, didn't even you know that they had separate
• 59:11
  beliefs. And then you go far back enough
• 59:13
  and we all come from the proto window European peoples who are
• 59:16
  the ancestors of, you know, the Persians who are Middle Eastern,
• 59:21
  the the Vedics who are in Southwest Asia, you know, And so
• 59:27
  one could say that they still have that ethnic right if they
• 59:30
  choose to say, oh, I don't want to follow, you know, Persian
• 59:34
  polytheism. I like the Germanic version
• 59:36
  better. That's still their right because
• 59:38
  that's their ancestral root. So the whole folkish argument
• 59:41
  collapses in on itself. And you know, obviously all the
• 59:45
  focus are very bitter people anyway, right?
• 59:47
  And so when you bring that up and you sort of defeat their own
• 59:51
  stupid arguments with logic, they get all pissed off.
• 59:54
  And it just, it makes no sense to me because when you can
• 59:59
  preserve. And this is something I've
• 1:00:01
  mentioned on the Heathen Herald before in one of the book
• 1:00:04
  recommendations that I've done, because every once in a while
• 1:00:07
  I'll read through a Heathen book and I'll give a review about its
• 1:00:10
  contents. And one of them was called.
• 1:00:13
  Praxis, a foreign save their primer and overall I like the
• 1:00:18
  book. Not sure if you've read it.
• 1:00:21
  Overall I like the book. I have some criticisms of it, my
• 1:00:24
  biggest criticism being the recommended reading they put at
• 1:00:28
  the end of the book. They recommend some quite
• 1:00:30
  controversial figures, people like Tom Russell for example.
• 1:00:34
  Or what's that one? I can't even remember.
• 1:00:40
  But they recommend some controversial reading, but at
• 1:00:43
  the same time they also recommend broader ethnic
• 1:00:46
  reading. You know, they recommend The
• 1:00:47
  Iliad and the Odyssey, They recommend Bhagavad Gita of
• 1:00:50
  Hinduism and whatnot. So I don't that the author is,
• 1:00:53
  you know, deliberately a focus, but he just throws in some
• 1:00:56
  people that I have an issue with.
• 1:00:58
  But the overall I enjoyed the book because the whole point of
• 1:01:01
  it, obviously based on the title Praxis is about, you know,
• 1:01:06
  giving people some, some tips of, of how they can implement A
• 1:01:10
  heathen practice into their daily lives, altar setup,
• 1:01:14
  prayer, things of that nature. So anyway, when I'm wrote the
• 1:01:19
  review of the book, I had mentioned the those aspects of
• 1:01:24
  it that I did not like about, you know, the, you know,
• 1:01:27
  somewhat problematic people that they recommend and blah, blah,
• 1:01:31
  blah. But in the review I had
• 1:01:33
  mentioned when it comes to folkishness or the concept of
• 1:01:37
  it, what what they think they're promoting.
• 1:01:40
  We as people, we can be proud of our ancestry and we can preserve
• 1:01:45
  traditions and culture without being assholes and excluding
• 1:01:50
  other people. It's not a necessity to say, oh,
• 1:01:53
  you come from somewhere else and so you can't come in like that's
• 1:01:56
  what the fuck are you talking about?
• 1:01:58
  We can serve our history and culture, you know, without being
• 1:02:05
  awful. To other human.
• 1:02:06
  Beings and that's the biggest thing that pisses me off about
• 1:02:10
  the Falkish movement is they're like, oh, we have to preserve
• 1:02:14
  our history and traditions and we can without being D bags Yeah
• 1:02:21
  and and it's like these two. Things do not go hand in hand
• 1:02:25
  to, to, to cover topics of, you know, cultural and spiritual
• 1:02:30
  nature, right? You can do that and you can
• 1:02:34
  preserve those, those, those fires, you know, you can, you
• 1:02:38
  can keep those traditions alive without slipping into
• 1:02:44
  gatekeeping and, and all of this other nonsense.
• 1:02:47
  Because listen, there are very few things, a matter of fact, I
• 1:02:51
  can't think of anything in the Germanic beliefs, the pre
• 1:02:56
  Christian Germanic people's beliefs that I'm aware of.
• 1:03:00
  And I'm not an authority on everything, but I'm not aware of
• 1:03:03
  anything that would be the equivalent of, let's say.
• 1:03:08
  Sweat lodge, right, which is a very.
• 1:03:10
  Specific. Cultural thing.
• 1:03:13
  Right just to to sit in the building and sweat is not the
• 1:03:15
  same as sweat lodge. The Tesmacal Tesmacal, which is
• 1:03:18
  the southern Mexican S South American, Central American,
• 1:03:22
  equivalent to Northern American native sweat lodge, right?
• 1:03:26
  That is a practice that is unique to the culture.
• 1:03:29
  It is, it is something that they have preserved.
• 1:03:33
  So to put up a Hut or a teepee or anything like that in Denmark
• 1:03:38
  and call it sweat lodge is an is an affront to the, to the to the
• 1:03:41
  culture in the tradition. It is not right to do something
• 1:03:43
  like that. I don't think there's anything
• 1:03:45
  that exists in the Germanic culture.
• 1:03:47
  And if people listen or watch this and know of something where
• 1:03:50
  I'm like, no, there's, there's definitely closed off practices.
• 1:03:53
  I don't know of any. It's not the same thing.
• 1:03:55
  So where, why do we have this perpetuates, you know, or
• 1:03:59
  perpetuating gatekeeping happening?
• 1:04:02
  It's, it's due to the, the, the ones that you mentioned before,
• 1:04:05
  right? These, these, these fascist
• 1:04:07
  types, these, you know, the, the folkish types that, that are.
• 1:04:11
  So I don't know, they're they're, they're so absorbed
• 1:04:14
  with themselves that they think that they're better than
• 1:04:16
  everybody that that they cannot allow other people to share in
• 1:04:20
  their quote UN quote culture. Yeah, I think what it really is.
• 1:04:25
  Is that obviously when you get to like the deeper aspects of
• 1:04:29
  Heathenry, it's this very shared experience, animistic sort of
• 1:04:34
  thing, and that attracts a certain type of people.
• 1:04:36
  On the other hand, you have, you know, the type of people
• 1:04:40
  attracts is, you know, people like us who are, you know, open
• 1:04:42
  minded and, you know, kind and, you know, extend the olive
• 1:04:45
  branch to, you know, other, you know, whomever.
• 1:04:48
  And then on the other hand, you have, you know, people who are,
• 1:04:53
  they're just in and of themselves.
• 1:04:54
  They're not great people. They have inner trauma that they
• 1:04:57
  refuse to work on and heal. You know, it's a product of,
• 1:05:02
  sadly, in a way. Just sort of the the world that
• 1:05:04
  we. Live in and they're hurt, you
• 1:05:08
  know they're. Hurt.
• 1:05:10
  You know, all those sorts of things.
• 1:05:11
  And they latch on to a version of Heathenry that proliferated
• 1:05:17
  during, you know, the Romantic movement in the early 20th
• 1:05:20
  century that was woven into the the Nazi idealization of Germany
• 1:05:25
  during the, you know, the rise of the Reich and all that sort
• 1:05:29
  of stuff. And, and they are externalizing
• 1:05:32
  their own pain and anger into hatred and gateskeeping and, and
• 1:05:39
  I've even had some conversations with focus where they're like,
• 1:05:42
  well, we don't hate anybody, you know, or at least you know, that
• 1:05:45
  person specifically is like, you know, I don't hate people.
• 1:05:47
  I don't have a negative blah, blah, blah.
• 1:05:49
  I just think this that and the 3rd and you know, it's it's
• 1:05:52
  like, I get that, but you. Are.
• 1:05:58
  Still, even if you're not being actively hateful, you are still
• 1:06:02
  being passively oppressive to people.
• 1:06:05
  And then I oppressive is not even necessarily the right word.
• 1:06:08
  Yes, oppressive, but also it's the fact of the matter of, as we
• 1:06:13
  mentioned. Earlier you can.
• 1:06:14
  Preserve culture and tradition without treating others badly.
• 1:06:20
  Is, is simply, you know, the crux of it because, you know,
• 1:06:22
  you get into, you know, if you look at some of these focus
• 1:06:25
  groups who claim, oh, you know, we just want ours, you know, for
• 1:06:29
  whatever, But then, you know, they do treat others badly.
• 1:06:34
  And, and that's, that's simply the point.
• 1:06:35
  I think it, it, it, it really just comes down to like the
• 1:06:38
  psychological factor of, you know, what pushes people towards
• 1:06:43
  hate in general. In a lot of ways, it's sort of a
• 1:06:45
  microcosm, macrocosm thing. Because we see even outside of,
• 1:06:49
  you know, the heathen space, we see people move towards
• 1:06:52
  fascistic views or just hateful views in general and all to
• 1:06:57
  extremism. And it's it's, it's, it's on.
• 1:06:59
  Both sides, you know what I mean?
• 1:07:01
  We could probably dedicate a whole block of time just to talk
• 1:07:03
  about the, the polarity of, you know, views on things and it's,
• 1:07:08
  you know, just, you know, it's the left is not better than the
• 1:07:12
  right. It's all part of the same bird.
• 1:07:13
  You know, that's a term. That's a term that gets used a
• 1:07:16
  lot and it rings true. Yeah.
• 1:07:18
  Hence why I mentioned earlier. You know, the the work that I do
• 1:07:21
  with the free thought Project and, and the conscious
• 1:07:23
  Resistance network and also on my other podcast that I've been
• 1:07:27
  on for the last four years, the rundown live, We've been on
• 1:07:31
  hiatus, unfortunately, for most of this year for some, you know,
• 1:07:33
  behind the scenes stuff. So I can't really get into that.
• 1:07:36
  But the point is, you know, that's things that we call out,
• 1:07:40
  you know, through our publications and our shows is
• 1:07:42
  like, you know, there is a consorted effort by people in
• 1:07:46
  power, the ruling class, to keep people divided amongst one
• 1:07:51
  another. Not just here in America, but
• 1:07:53
  you know, around the world, in the UK, especially in the West
• 1:07:57
  to global thing, Yeah, to foment these.
• 1:08:00
  Culture wars to keep people. You know, stuck in, you know,
• 1:08:05
  these false paradigms and, you know, subservient to the status
• 1:08:09
  quo that they create. Because at the end of the day,
• 1:08:12
  you don't, you know, you see the left and the right, let's say
• 1:08:14
  here for in America, example, you see them fighting about
• 1:08:17
  superficial things, but you see them incredibly united when it
• 1:08:21
  comes to taxing the poor, siphoning wealth from us,
• 1:08:26
  bottlenecking wealth to the ruling class, you know,
• 1:08:29
  advocating for their wars, whether it's the genocide in
• 1:08:32
  Palestine right now or the proxy war in Ukraine.
• 1:08:35
  Anything that gives these big military industrial complex
• 1:08:39
  companies more money and siphons wealth from the lower classes up
• 1:08:43
  into the the upper class. And that's the things that we
• 1:08:47
  talk about and, and point out is the fact that there is no
• 1:08:51
  political solution when the entire two sides, you know, is
• 1:08:56
  no matter whether you look at. I'm not sure if you've read the
• 1:08:59
  most dangerous Superstition by Larkin Rose.
• 1:09:01
  If not, highly recommended. Larkin is an anarchist thinker
• 1:09:06
  and and whatnot. And, and his book essentially
• 1:09:08
  goes into talking about the most dangerous superstition being
• 1:09:14
  this, you know, the concept of authority, the idea that other
• 1:09:18
  people possess an inherent right to control others against their
• 1:09:22
  will. That's the whole basis of what
• 1:09:24
  the government exists upon, the concept of the state.
• 1:09:27
  And look at history, the last 6000 plus years of human
• 1:09:30
  history, no matter whether it's a democracy, a Republic, a
• 1:09:33
  dictatorship, A monarchy or whatever, these top down
• 1:09:37
  hierarchical centralized systems of control have in one way or
• 1:09:41
  another always exploited, abused and oppressed some portion of
• 1:09:45
  the population. The very nature of government
• 1:09:48
  itself is ugly on violence. And, you know, that's why, you
• 1:09:53
  know, we promote these ideas that, you know, of solutions and
• 1:09:57
  way to organize society outside of the political paradigm and
• 1:10:00
  the false political opium and the sort of shit because it's
• 1:10:03
  just keeps people trapped in these dichotomies and whatnot.
• 1:10:06
  And, you know, real solutions to a kinder, more prosperous
• 1:10:13
  society will not be found inside the systems that are
• 1:10:17
  proliferated by the ruling class to benefit the ruling class in
• 1:10:22
  the ruling class only. So sorry for going on that
• 1:10:25
  tangent. If that's.
• 1:10:26
  Yeah, it's fine, man. And I normally don't get into
• 1:10:28
  like the the deeper. Political sides of things,
• 1:10:30
  because I feel like a lot of times it's just a it's, it's,
• 1:10:33
  you know, we tread water with it.
• 1:10:35
  It's great to talk about it and it's, you know, there's the
• 1:10:37
  platforms that exist for these types of of debate or, or
• 1:10:43
  disclosure, you know what I mean?
• 1:10:44
  Or discourse, I should say. It's valuable and it means
• 1:10:47
  something and it makes me think, you know, like two things
• 1:10:50
  really. But like, as you're saying, you
• 1:10:53
  know, I find the the heathen equivalence to it.
• 1:10:56
  You know, look at the Saxons, man Like they were they were the
• 1:10:59
  ones that fought they they didn't believe in kings.
• 1:11:02
  The Anglo Saxons event they they they were one of the, you know,
• 1:11:05
  earlier tribes to migrate from Saxon from that area and and
• 1:11:09
  settle into Angleland right England and and establish their
• 1:11:14
  ruling government as. As a monarchy, you know what I
• 1:11:17
  mean. And or patriarchy.
• 1:11:20
  And then there was there. But the Saxons wanted no part of
• 1:11:23
  that. They didn't want that.
• 1:11:25
  They fought with their lives to preserve their tribal ways,
• 1:11:31
  their indigenous ways, where yes, every tribe had its own
• 1:11:36
  leader, you know, the caretaker, sort of the one who made sure
• 1:11:39
  that the people were OK, which is you think about how the
• 1:11:43
  Native American tribes in North America and North American
• 1:11:45
  continent that was that's almost identical, if not exactly
• 1:11:49
  identical. Is is every tribe was sovereign.
• 1:11:51
  It's another syncretism. They had a confederacy the the
• 1:11:55
  the Saxons could have, you know, they could have really found,
• 1:11:59
  you know, done something to to have a confederacy of the tribes
• 1:12:02
  to combat the oppressive push from the Franks and and and
• 1:12:08
  pushing Christianity and upon them.
• 1:12:10
  They could have it didn't really work out because of this mainly
• 1:12:14
  and title. You know, your position, your
• 1:12:16
  nobility, your money, your power.
• 1:12:17
  All that was was very enticing, made life easier for people, you
• 1:12:22
  know, So it's, it's again, it, you know, that's, that's a close
• 1:12:24
  thing for me because I've studied that and I've I've
• 1:12:26
  learned about that and it comes background to me.
• 1:12:28
  I'm sure it echoes across cultures globally, no matter
• 1:12:33
  where you go. But there was another part that
• 1:12:36
  that I was thinking of too, with regards to because you have been
• 1:12:40
  involved in these other talk, you know, spaces, you know, the,
• 1:12:45
  the rundown live, the the free thought thought project.
• 1:12:49
  I was going to ask you if you have noticed like an overlap
• 1:12:53
  between your work with those things, you know, the the the
• 1:12:58
  political maybe debate side of things, right And, and, and
• 1:13:01
  calling out those seeing, you know, saying things, calling a
• 1:13:05
  spade a spade. Or have you, have you noticed
• 1:13:07
  any overlap between that like the work and alternative media?
• 1:13:11
  All that in the way that you approach heathen right now?
• 1:13:15
  In a way, yeah, because it's. I look at my faith as as.
• 1:13:21
  An as an. Inspiration as to, you know why
• 1:13:24
  I do a lot of the things that I do, you know, obviously, you
• 1:13:27
  know, it's it's it's a huge part of all of our lives if you're
• 1:13:30
  really deep into it and so when I'm, you know trying.
• 1:13:36
  To spread awareness. About these sorts of things and,
• 1:13:38
  you know, exposing government lies and, you know, really
• 1:13:41
  fighting for truth. I looked at that as a service to
• 1:13:46
  Odin. I'm trying to help people attain
• 1:13:49
  wisdom, the wisdom to look beyond the, the binary of
• 1:13:53
  government and the, you know, the two, you know, duopoly
• 1:13:56
  system that they establish and, you know, look for the deeper
• 1:14:00
  hidden meanings in things. And you know, when I'm promoting
• 1:14:04
  anti war 'cause I'm a huge anti war activist.
• 1:14:06
  I've worked on the campaign to help free Julian Assange, the
• 1:14:10
  founder of WikiLeaks, from being held in arbitrary detention over
• 1:14:14
  exposing American war crimes. And thankfully Julian is is home
• 1:14:18
  now. You know when I promote anti war
• 1:14:20
  activism in peace, you know, in the pursuit of peace for me,
• 1:14:24
  that is a deed that I am doing in service to Ingvi or people
• 1:14:29
  will be more familiar with Freyr, his more, you know,
• 1:14:32
  Scandinavian name. I prefer to refer to him by his
• 1:14:34
  older Germanic name Ingvi. You know, same when I'm, you
• 1:14:39
  know, promoting, you know, aspects of love.
• 1:14:42
  You know, when I tell people, you know, that love is the way
• 1:14:45
  that that that is how we create a better society is by working
• 1:14:50
  to understand people, empathize with people, loving ourselves
• 1:14:54
  1st and then externalizing that and extending that to other
• 1:14:57
  people. To me, that is a service that is
• 1:15:01
  in service of Freya. When I'm, you know, pursuing
• 1:15:06
  justice, you know, trying to, you know, help get justice for
• 1:15:10
  some of these atrocities that occur, like with the whole
• 1:15:14
  Epstein thing, for example, the rundown live.
• 1:15:17
  We were the only media source that was present every day in
• 1:15:23
  New York. I was virtually here in
• 1:15:25
  Virginia, but my Co host Kristen T Harris was in New York in the
• 1:15:29
  courthouse. We were the only media outlet
• 1:15:32
  present during the trial of Ghilane Maxwell every single day
• 1:15:36
  publishing transcripts from the court stenographers, interviews
• 1:15:41
  from, you know, witnesses and and things of that nature.
• 1:15:45
  Because it is so important to hold people accountable for the
• 1:15:50
  atrocity that is the whole, you know, Epstein debacle of the
• 1:15:55
  fact that we have this international child, you know,
• 1:15:59
  abuse and trafficking ring that is tied to Presidents Donald
• 1:16:03
  Trump, to Bill Clinton, to members of Congress, to royalty,
• 1:16:08
  Prince Andrew to CIA Mossad MI 6.
• 1:16:14
  You know, this is a huge ring that is deeply connected to the
• 1:16:17
  most powerful facets of our society, hence why it's so
• 1:16:20
  difficult for them to be held accountable, right?
• 1:16:23
  And so when I'm doing work that is seeking to, you know, achieve
• 1:16:27
  some sort of justice, I do see that as me doing work in honor
• 1:16:31
  of Tier or Forsythe, whoever, you know, whichever 1 you know,
• 1:16:35
  you would look to for justice. I for me personally, it's, it's,
• 1:16:38
  you know, more to tier. But yeah, so my faith and my,
• 1:16:46
  the way that I view the gods and, and their manifestations in
• 1:16:51
  the natural world do very much play an integral role in, in the
• 1:16:56
  work that I do, not just in my personal life with honoring
• 1:17:00
  nature and believing that we should be more holistic as
• 1:17:03
  people. But in my journalistic work,
• 1:17:05
  yes, they they're very present in in every aspect of what I do.
• 1:17:10
  Yeah, sounds like it, man. Thank you for that.
• 1:17:13
  Really great. Breakdown of it I, I, I
• 1:17:14
  definitely say like one of my next things like any parallels
• 1:17:17
  between you know, or do you think that there are like
• 1:17:21
  parallels between the ancient traditions of like the skalds
• 1:17:26
  and and oral storytelling right. The the things that that they
• 1:17:30
  held an important role in the society at the time.
• 1:17:33
  Do you think that there are parallels between that and
• 1:17:36
  today's modern, you know, media platform, social media
• 1:17:41
  especially? Everybody has a voice now.
• 1:17:42
  Everybody with a, with a, they got a device in their hand.
• 1:17:46
  And it's like, it's crazy. Like, you know, I sometimes I
• 1:17:50
  feel like some of these people don't need that.
• 1:17:54
  Yeah. You know, and sadly, you know,
• 1:17:56
  we do. See that, that, that, you know,
• 1:17:58
  people have become so and and I will answer your question
• 1:18:01
  directly, but I do also kind of have like an offside tangent to
• 1:18:04
  go on that is directly connected to what you just said.
• 1:18:07
  People have become so used to being able to just say what they
• 1:18:11
  want and hide behind the screen. And often times they're nasty to
• 1:18:15
  people because there is no accountability.
• 1:18:17
  You know, it's, it's that old, that old adage of, you know,
• 1:18:20
  people are used to hiding behind the screen because they know
• 1:18:22
  they're not going to get punched in the mouth.
• 1:18:25
  And, you know, I view it as being like, you know, back in
• 1:18:29
  the olden times when honor and respect was so such an integral
• 1:18:35
  part of society. When you spout off at the mouth
• 1:18:38
  and you said something that was untrue or harassing or
• 1:18:42
  derogatory towards someone, that affected their reputation.
• 1:18:45
  It affected their honor and it affected their economic
• 1:18:48
  stability. Because if you didn't have a
• 1:18:49
  good reputation, if you were seen as dishonorable, people
• 1:18:52
  wouldn't do business with you. They wouldn't buy your fish,
• 1:18:54
  They wouldn't buy your hides that threatened the you know
• 1:18:58
  that that that threatened the livelihood of your family.
• 1:19:01
  And so, you know, you could take someone through the thing and be
• 1:19:04
  like, look, they're saying lies and you know to be in and if you
• 1:19:09
  can be proven that this person has lied, you slandered you.
• 1:19:13
  They're either paying a fine or do you have the home gang where,
• 1:19:16
  you know, people are going to be a lot would be in the modern day
• 1:19:21
  a lot less likely to behave the way that they do if they knew
• 1:19:27
  that they would have to defend their words physically, you
• 1:19:31
  know, if they were lying about someone.
• 1:19:33
  And so it's just things that I, I, I sort of, I sort of wish
• 1:19:37
  that things were still that way where if you can say, hey, look,
• 1:19:40
  you're slandering me and disrespecting me.
• 1:19:43
  It's completely uncalled for. And if you don't stop, you're
• 1:19:46
  either going to pay a fine or, you know, put them up.
• 1:19:49
  You know, we're, we're going to handle this in a dirt right on
• 1:19:52
  guard, Sir. You know that's indeed.
• 1:19:54
  Indeed, you know, but. Yeah, you know, but to your
• 1:19:59
  point, as you mentioned earlier, yeah.
• 1:20:03
  You know, I do see that there can be some parallels with the,
• 1:20:06
  you know, scolds and, you know, storytellers.
• 1:20:09
  And certainly we have a lot of that's here in the online
• 1:20:13
  Heathen community. And.
• 1:20:16
  Oh, wow, I just remembered that earlier you asked me the whole
• 1:20:19
  reason I started the Heathen Herald.
• 1:20:20
  I didn't answer that question. Remind me to answer that
• 1:20:22
  question when I'm done with this.
• 1:20:26
  Yeah, it has to. And but we see that in the
• 1:20:30
  heathen community with a lot of these creators.
• 1:20:32
  And, you know, most of them are really good, some of them not so
• 1:20:35
  good because, you know, they'll promote, you know, whatever
• 1:20:38
  stupid ideas. And, you know, because of course
• 1:20:41
  it's social media, you'll have people out there that are
• 1:20:43
  grifters that are just in it for the the, the clicks and the
• 1:20:45
  likes and the money. And, you know, they'll they'll
• 1:20:48
  latch onto a niche if they feel like that, they can, you know,
• 1:20:52
  exploit it for their own gain. So you always have to be careful
• 1:20:54
  of that. But, you know, these technology
• 1:20:58
  that we have, it does present people the opportunity to be
• 1:21:02
  these storytellers and, you know, to weave these narratives.
• 1:21:06
  And then I do think that overall it's a positive thing.
• 1:21:09
  And, you know, for me, that is something that's that's, you
• 1:21:11
  know, personally, you know, close to me because I've always
• 1:21:16
  had a love of poetry. I became a published poet when I
• 1:21:19
  was in the 4th grade specifically because, you know,
• 1:21:25
  of, well, not, I guess not to say specifically because, but I,
• 1:21:28
  I did become a published poet in the 4th grade because I had this
• 1:21:32
  really just deep fascination of poetry.
• 1:21:35
  And we had this assignment to like write a poem about a leaf
• 1:21:38
  for autumn. You know, it's the 4th grade.
• 1:21:40
  So we're like 8-9 years old. And so it's very simplistic, But
• 1:21:43
  so I wrote this poem and I, I'm literally looking at the book on
• 1:21:46
  my bookshelf that it, that it's in, I don't have the space to
• 1:21:49
  get up and grab it Now. I wish I would have thought
• 1:21:51
  before, you know, I did, you know, I sat down that I would
• 1:21:53
  have grabbed it. I would have read it on the
• 1:21:54
  show, but I wrote the poem about it and my teacher loved it so
• 1:21:59
  much that she submitted it to this national child poetry thing
• 1:22:03
  where, like, you know, entries from each school district would
• 1:22:06
  be put in. And if you won that, you got put
• 1:22:08
  in the book. And I won, then I got put in the
• 1:22:10
  book. And, you know, I so I've always
• 1:22:13
  really loved poetry in that sense.
• 1:22:16
  And for anyone who follows the Heathen Herald, you see that
• 1:22:18
  every once in a while I'll write a poem and publish it, you know,
• 1:22:21
  about one thing or another. And so, yeah, I, I do think
• 1:22:25
  that, you know, it this, this platforms that we have afford us
• 1:22:29
  the ability to be able to weave these sorts of stories and share
• 1:22:33
  them with broader audiences, you know, better than anything
• 1:22:36
  before. So in that sense, I see the
• 1:22:38
  positivity behind it. And it's a great thing.
• 1:22:41
  I just wish that when it comes comes to some of the other
• 1:22:46
  things that we had mentioned earlier, that people would just
• 1:22:48
  be a little more considerate and accountable with their words and
• 1:22:51
  their actions and recognize that, you know, the how the
• 1:22:56
  things that they say and promote with their platforms can affect
• 1:23:00
  other people. And, and obviously that has a
• 1:23:02
  much broader, you know, expanse when it comes to not just
• 1:23:06
  Heathenry, but politics and society.
• 1:23:08
  Oh yeah, man. I mean, words are magic.
• 1:23:10
  It's I. Know you've heard it.
• 1:23:12
  It's not a it's not an uncommon thing like words are magic.
• 1:23:15
  That's why it's called spelling, right?
• 1:23:18
  We, we, we cast spells with our words and, and they, they are
• 1:23:21
  often times binding, you know what I mean?
• 1:23:23
  And and that's like, it goes. It also goes into like maybe a
• 1:23:27
  good segue as to, you know, your namesake, right, The heathen
• 1:23:31
  Herald. When somebody thinks of the
• 1:23:33
  herald, right? It it, it invokes a a somebody
• 1:23:39
  loud, right? Somebody making a noise,
• 1:23:40
  somebody heralding in something right grabbing attention, you
• 1:23:43
  know, hear ye hear ye, that sort of thing.
• 1:23:46
  And what kind of power that has in?
• 1:23:49
  Even. The very name and how one would
• 1:23:51
  live to exemplify and embody that that figure with honor and
• 1:23:56
  and and with with wholesomeness. And as so much of what your
• 1:24:00
  vision seems to encapsulate. Yeah.
• 1:24:03
  And you know, so when it comes to the creation.
• 1:24:06
  Of the Heath and the Herald. The story behind that is
• 1:24:08
  actually pretty simplistic. So I obviously I've been in the
• 1:24:12
  content creation space for about 10 years or so.
• 1:24:15
  I first started my own personal page break, the Matrix in about
• 1:24:19
  2015, discussing and reporting and all the things that I had,
• 1:24:23
  you know, I've previously talked about in this podcast.
• 1:24:26
  And then in about 2/20/20, I finally essentially got my big
• 1:24:31
  break, so to say, because one of my stories I I sent to a friend
• 1:24:38
  of mine who was. A colleague.
• 1:24:40
  Of some of the folks that I work with now and I asked him I was
• 1:24:42
  like, hey, do you think that you know Matt and Jason the the Co
• 1:24:46
  creators of the free thought project would like this story
• 1:24:48
  and would maybe run it on their website and he's like, well, you
• 1:24:51
  can message them give it a shot. And so I did and they really
• 1:24:55
  liked the story. It was a 5000 word article about
• 1:25:01
  Trump's just his disastrous foreign policy throughout his
• 1:25:05
  first administration is you know, because of course, you
• 1:25:07
  know, we had all these people say, oh, he didn't started in
• 1:25:10
  new wars and he did all this great stuff when, you know,
• 1:25:13
  realistically that's it's a load of crap, you know, and like I
• 1:25:17
  said, it's a 5000 word article. So I'm not going to elucidate
• 1:25:20
  upon everything that I reported in that piece, but the the point
• 1:25:24
  beings. But the they guys loved it and
• 1:25:26
  they're like, yeah, we'll run it.
• 1:25:28
  And that sort of began my relationship with the Free
• 1:25:33
  Thought Project. And then a little while later I
• 1:25:35
  met Kristen Harris through some mutual colleagues and you know,
• 1:25:40
  eventually came on as a guest on his podcast at 1st and then he
• 1:25:45
  was looking for a Co host and I messaged him again.
• 1:25:49
  I was like, I'm willing to do it.
• 1:25:50
  And so then, you know, off to the races with that and Derek
• 1:25:54
  Bros of the Conscious Resistance network.
• 1:25:56
  I had followed him for a long time because again, mutual
• 1:25:59
  colleagues and now for the past couple of years have been
• 1:26:01
  helping him with that as well. Point being, so I had already
• 1:26:07
  had a lot of experience in the content creation space and I
• 1:26:11
  just had a bunch of ideas for like heathen related memes and
• 1:26:15
  graphics and stuff that I wanted to post.
• 1:26:18
  And so, you know, I, I spun the idea in my head for a little bit
• 1:26:22
  and it wasn't this sort of grand idea of, oh, I want.
• 1:26:27
  To, you know, make. This, you know, thing and blow
• 1:26:30
  up and be this well known heathen content creator like
• 1:26:34
  that, that that was never the intention.
• 1:26:35
  It was essentially just something that I wanted to do
• 1:26:38
  for fun, you know, and maybe a couple of my friends would
• 1:26:42
  follow it. And so I made the page and, you
• 1:26:44
  know, started making some of the graphics that I've, you know,
• 1:26:47
  the memes that I've posted and reshare articles and videos from
• 1:26:51
  other creators such as yourself or Robert Sass or Ocean Keltoy
• 1:26:55
  or Thor Elp, the Dollar of Norse Magic and Beliefs YouTube
• 1:26:58
  channel or, or whomsoever. Dr. Crawford, you know, just
• 1:27:02
  for, you know, what I might find interesting and what other
• 1:27:05
  people may find interesting to, you know, help them learn more
• 1:27:10
  about Heathenry. And I had no intention or I had
• 1:27:15
  no expectation that it would blow up the way that it did.
• 1:27:17
  And like I said, November 28th is the one year anniversary of
• 1:27:21
  the Heathen Herald being a thing.
• 1:27:23
  And I'm already at 3000 followers.
• 1:27:26
  I'm completely blown away. And I guess I, it's resonating
• 1:27:30
  with a lot of people. And so, you know, I'm certainly
• 1:27:33
  going to be posting this on the Heathen Herald.
• 1:27:35
  So for all my followers watching this, thank you very much.
• 1:27:39
  You, you know, you mean very much to me and I and I love you
• 1:27:41
  all. Yeah, Congrats, dude.
• 1:27:45
  That's that's a big milestone, especially within.
• 1:27:47
  Less than a year's time, you know, Yeah, Congrats.
• 1:27:52
  Absolutely. And I I.
• 1:27:53
  Thank you for that as well. And yeah, so it, it's certainly
• 1:27:57
  been a, a journey because like I, I never had the intention of
• 1:28:01
  like being a, the reason why I chose the name the Heathen
• 1:28:05
  Herald, again, very sort of simplistic in a way, not to
• 1:28:08
  disappoint anybody, is that I, I have this love of poetry.
• 1:28:12
  And so I really like alliteration.
• 1:28:14
  You know, where you have the same letter or the sound that
• 1:28:17
  follows. Yeah, I'm a big fan of
• 1:28:20
  alliteration. And so I was trying to find a
• 1:28:22
  name that sort of felt with that.
• 1:28:23
  And I played with a couple of ideas and I landed on the
• 1:28:26
  Heathen Herald and I thought, that sounds really fucking cool.
• 1:28:29
  So that's the one that I picked. It's great, man.
• 1:28:31
  I mean, it doesn't need any more of a of a story than.
• 1:28:34
  That I you know, I'm a nerd for alliteration too.
• 1:28:36
  I'm sure you've seen examples of that in in in mice content too.
• 1:28:42
  Most recently, the the Elder Futhark rune poems that I've
• 1:28:47
  written out of inspiration of the Anglo-Saxon, the Norwegian
• 1:28:52
  and and the Icelandic rune poems in conjunction with my
• 1:28:56
  experiences with them and using alliterative meter to to do
• 1:29:02
  that, that alliterative skaldic meter.
• 1:29:04
  You know, the, the, the, the. Four line that this that, you
• 1:29:06
  know what I mean? Like, I don't know, like I, I, I
• 1:29:08
  love that style of poetry, being a a native New Yorker.
• 1:29:14
  But living in the South? And spending so much time in
• 1:29:16
  Appalachia, you're in Virginia. I heard you say earlier the way
• 1:29:21
  that the the mountain folk speak, their their cadence of
• 1:29:26
  speech, very poetic. If you know, you want to get
• 1:29:30
  past the some people be like, like, all I hear is banjos.
• 1:29:34
  I'm like, listen, man, like, you know, I get it.
• 1:29:36
  And because again, native New Yorkie here, I came down here
• 1:29:38
  and I was like, it's deliverance.
• 1:29:40
  But Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.
• 1:29:45
  I just got past all that, you know.
• 1:29:47
  I was like, man, it's a beautiful accent.
• 1:29:50
  It's and the way that people that that sort of sing song it,
• 1:29:55
  it rolls like the mountains. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:29:58
  The peats, the loaves, the this to the that.
• 1:30:00
  And that's what I love about the illiterative meter, you know,
• 1:30:03
  the, the hung that I don't know. It's I love it.
• 1:30:06
  And I'm glad to hear about another appreciator of, of such
• 1:30:13
  above, that word of that, you know, divine.
• 1:30:16
  Breath that. Divine inspiration, the the
• 1:30:18
  madness even 'cause you can get really into it.
• 1:30:21
  I don't know if you're in your poetic fits, perhaps, you know,
• 1:30:24
  you really you're like, Oh yeah, you know, absolutely.
• 1:30:28
  You know I. I have a sub stack page where I
• 1:30:32
  had originally intended on publishing horror stories that I
• 1:30:34
  wanted to write and I haven't published to it in like a year
• 1:30:38
  or so now. So I'm, I'm not going to, you
• 1:30:40
  know, give out the name because I want to revamp it and, you
• 1:30:43
  know, do a whole new thing to it.
• 1:30:44
  And but prior to sort of having to drop that for a period of
• 1:30:50
  time, I had published an article containing a whole bunch of old
• 1:30:55
  poems that I wrote, you know, throughout the years.
• 1:30:58
  And, you know, often times these are like really dark, macabre
• 1:31:01
  type, you know, Edgar Allan Poe type poems where I was going
• 1:31:05
  through some dark times. And that's a way that I was able
• 1:31:09
  to sort of express that and invent that was to put it into
• 1:31:14
  these like PO style, sort of, you know, macabish type of
• 1:31:19
  poems. And so, yeah, I I definitely
• 1:31:21
  understand how it can get, you know, intense like that because,
• 1:31:25
  you know, conveying those kind of, you know, deep feelings and
• 1:31:28
  emotions is, you know, it's it's cathartic in in a big way.
• 1:31:34
  Definitely, man, Definitely. Look, man, I've, I've been
• 1:31:39
  absolutely enjoying myself like crazy here.
• 1:31:42
  And I realized like I was looking at the time, I'm like,
• 1:31:44
  we're almost, you know, an hour and 45 minutes in.
• 1:31:47
  Wow, holy cow. And so I'm like, I know.
• 1:31:50
  We originally talked about, you know, between an.
• 1:31:52
  Hour, hour and a half, but this is how it goes, right?
• 1:31:54
  This is kind of how the show can go.
• 1:31:55
  But in respect of your time and believe me, I would love nothing
• 1:32:00
  more than if you ever want to come back, maybe do Part 2.
• 1:32:04
  We can we can, you know, touch on some other things that I
• 1:32:06
  maybe. Had.
• 1:32:08
  But I think we, we did, we covered so much.
• 1:32:10
  It was, it was a great discourse right between us.
• 1:32:13
  You, you said a lot, you offered a lot.
• 1:32:15
  You're a great, you're a great guest.
• 1:32:17
  It's no, it's no surprise to me that you've done so well in the
• 1:32:21
  media and journalism circuit over the years.
• 1:32:25
  You, you definitely carry yourself well in this sort of
• 1:32:29
  thing. So it's been great having you
• 1:32:30
  here, but I would like to maybe throw out a couple just really
• 1:32:35
  like fun sort of rapid fire question things just to kind of
• 1:32:40
  see what you say, if you don't mind.
• 1:32:43
  Sure. Yeah.
• 1:32:44
  All right. So the first one was, would you
• 1:32:46
  rather have Hugin or Moonin as a companion?
• 1:32:53
  Good question, very good question.
• 1:32:58
  Honestly, I would probably. Say Moonin because.
• 1:33:01
  And I think that probably just goes to my own.
• 1:33:04
  I have this. Don't really care to say it
• 1:33:07
  publicly, but I'll do it anyway. I.
• 1:33:09
  Have this really deep. Seated fear of like Alzheimer's
• 1:33:11
  and losing my memory right because it's I view that our
• 1:33:15
  memories are such a deep part of ourselves and so when it comes
• 1:33:20
  to that question, I would much prefer to keep my memory I I,
• 1:33:26
  you know, after you. I had this question formulated.
• 1:33:29
  Before we spoke, obviously, but after hearing your very moving
• 1:33:34
  and compelling origin story and, and how Odin was such a, a
• 1:33:38
  prominent presence for you, I'm like, when I get to this, I, I,
• 1:33:41
  if he doesn't say Moonen, I'm gonna be like, what are you
• 1:33:44
  really, you know, 'cause he fears for the loss of his memory
• 1:33:48
  more than anything too. So that tracks.
• 1:33:51
  OK, One modern misconception about Heathenry that you'd like
• 1:33:56
  to abolish or banish if you could.
• 1:34:03
  This may be a controversial. Answer.
• 1:34:06
  But I'm not a big. Fan of the way.
• 1:34:12
  That Heathenry has been so heavily affected by Wicca and
• 1:34:18
  you know, a lot of the new age stuff.
• 1:34:19
  And that's not to say anything bad about it.
• 1:34:21
  I have friends who are Wiccan and I started out my spiritual
• 1:34:24
  journey, you know, once I moved away from Christianity as a
• 1:34:27
  Wiccan. I even still in my, you know,
• 1:34:29
  jewelry box right up there. I have a pentacle with, you
• 1:34:32
  know, Elder Futhark runes around it.
• 1:34:33
  So that's not to say anything bad about Wicca, but you know,
• 1:34:37
  when we're talking about authentic traditional
• 1:34:41
  indigenous, you know, Germanic Heathenry and old ways
• 1:34:44
  Heathenry, there's been such an influx of influence from, you
• 1:34:50
  know, a lot of these other, you know, new age movements and
• 1:34:52
  things of that nature. I wouldn't necessarily banish it
• 1:34:56
  from existence, but to just create that separation between
• 1:35:00
  this is, you know, other stuff and this is what real old ways
• 1:35:04
  Heathenry is. If I could snap my fingers and,
• 1:35:07
  and make that more simple so people would understand, you
• 1:35:11
  know, this is an authentic old ways thing and this is more of a
• 1:35:15
  new ways thing. And you can pick whichever 1 you
• 1:35:17
  want, but this is what it is. It's just to foment that
• 1:35:20
  understanding because so many people don't grasp that
• 1:35:24
  concepts. You know, that's that's probably
• 1:35:26
  it. Yeah, I get that, man.
• 1:35:29
  Because you do you. You.
• 1:35:30
  You know any? Any newcomer to?
• 1:35:32
  Heathenry they, they, they search online, do a Google
• 1:35:34
  search for, you know, heathen holidays.
• 1:35:36
  They're going to probably see a graphic that constitutes like
• 1:35:39
  the Wiccan wheel of the year model with names of holidays on
• 1:35:43
  an 8 spoke wheel. And that you know, that's that's
• 1:35:46
  one of the reasons why I actually in.
• 1:35:48
  Addition to your work and the work of Robert Sass, because
• 1:35:50
  just earlier today I published his article on or I shared
• 1:35:55
  rather his article on Alt Sidhu about the 2026 Heathen calendar
• 1:35:58
  on the Heathen Herald and then on
• 1:36:02
  norseimports.idontknowifits.com or.org.
• 1:36:06
  Forgive me, but Thor, Thor's business there.
• 1:36:10
  Yeah, yes. OK.
• 1:36:11
  So you're. Familiar with it?
• 1:36:12
  Fantastic. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:36:15
  I, I really enjoy the articles that he has done as well about
• 1:36:18
  differentiating between the heathen calendar and the, the
• 1:36:22
  Wiccan calendar and whatnot. And it's not only just that, but
• 1:36:27
  it's also like there's, I, I one thing that I have observed is
• 1:36:30
  that there are some people in the heathen reef movement that
• 1:36:33
  are so gung ho and want to be so completely disconnected from
• 1:36:39
  anything they even perceive to be potentially Abrahamic that
• 1:36:42
  they will even reject authentic old ways traditions because in
• 1:36:46
  their perspective it's too connected to Abrahamic. 2
• 1:36:50
  perfect examples. Kneeling and prayer.
• 1:36:54
  There are so many who say don't kneel.
• 1:36:57
  Heathens don't pray. Yes we do.
• 1:36:59
  There are literally historical examples which you've written
• 1:37:03
  about I've, I've read on your blog, you know, that exemplify
• 1:37:06
  perfectly. This is a part of our practice.
• 1:37:09
  It doesn't mean you have to do it.
• 1:37:10
  You don't have to if you don't want to.
• 1:37:11
  But it is a historical reality. It is something that our
• 1:37:14
  ancestors did. Yeah.
• 1:37:19
  Yeah, that's the. Yeah, that's the beautiful part
• 1:37:20
  of learning. You know what I mean?
• 1:37:22
  You, you. It goes back to what we were
• 1:37:24
  talking earlier about with syncretism and shared beliefs,
• 1:37:30
  shared cultures. And you know, I mean, the, the
• 1:37:34
  examples that we do have of, of what you're talking about
• 1:37:36
  specifically with humbling, lowering, bowing, kneeling,
• 1:37:40
  prostrating, you know, these, these examples come from sources
• 1:37:44
  that are, I mean, they're various, you know, so you have
• 1:37:47
  Acidus that talks about, I think Adam of Bremen, maybe definitely
• 1:37:51
  Ibn Fudlon, who is an Arab emissary, you know what I mean?
• 1:37:54
  So he's, he's and, and he's spending time with the Swedish
• 1:37:57
  ruse along the Volga, you know what I mean, at a time.
• 1:38:00
  So it was you. Know.
• 1:38:03
  Did it exist short? Were people doing it?
• 1:38:05
  Yes. Does it mean that you have to do
• 1:38:06
  it now? No, but it's it's an example.
• 1:38:09
  Like you say, it's just like it's not incorrect to
• 1:38:14
  objectively observe like say that this is fine.
• 1:38:17
  You don't have to be proud or you have to be, you know, weird
• 1:38:20
  about it. It is true.
• 1:38:22
  It's it's historically documented.
• 1:38:24
  Exactly. All right, cool.
• 1:38:26
  Last one I had for you then. Was if you had to.
• 1:38:28
  Sum up your heathen journey in one word.
• 1:38:32
  And I know that's a big ask. Oh yeah, if you could sum up
• 1:38:35
  your heathen journey in one word, what would that word be?
• 1:38:40
  Enlightening, I think. Right off.
• 1:38:43
  The top of my head it would have.
• 1:38:44
  To be enlightening because. I have learned so much, not just
• 1:38:49
  from finding myself in rediscovering my ancestral
• 1:38:56
  traditions and and, you know, carrying on that flame, but also
• 1:39:01
  the experience that I've had of with other heathens and even
• 1:39:06
  with non heathens in a heathen environment.
• 1:39:09
  You know, he being here in the South, you know, living in a
• 1:39:11
  small town conservative Bible belt area, you know, there's
• 1:39:16
  certainly experiences to be had. But you know, I'm one of those
• 1:39:19
  people that I think that wisdom can be garnered no matter where
• 1:39:25
  you go, no matter who you talk to, so long as you're able to
• 1:39:27
  have a civil discourse with someone.
• 1:39:30
  You show me respect, I show you respect and and anything else
• 1:39:33
  can put can be put to the wayside while we have a
• 1:39:36
  discussion and just it enlightening.
• 1:39:40
  I think is is the best word for it because it has truly been an
• 1:39:45
  incredible experience. I love that.
• 1:39:50
  I love that you're aware of that.
• 1:39:52
  It is enlightenment. It is, you know.
• 1:39:58
  In in a similar fashion and to. Kind of kind of echo what you're
• 1:40:01
  saying. I've shared very meaningful,
• 1:40:05
  life changing experiences with people who are not who don't
• 1:40:09
  subscribe to a heathen belief. They're not heathens.
• 1:40:12
  They wouldn't be what the label goes with, right?
• 1:40:17
  They are great. People.
• 1:40:18
  They are great men, they are great women, they are great
• 1:40:20
  individuals that I've been blessed with the opportunity to
• 1:40:25
  share space and time with. And when it gets down to the
• 1:40:28
  real nitty gritty of it, that's all it is, man.
• 1:40:33
  Like you peel back the. Layers.
• 1:40:34
  You forget labels. You, you put away titles and,
• 1:40:38
  and all that nonsense. You know, man created that to,
• 1:40:42
  to establish dominance or, or establish an order of something
• 1:40:44
  or another. You peel all that back and you
• 1:40:46
  get down to the primal layers where, where, where, where
• 1:40:49
  people together and how we coexist and how we share in our
• 1:40:53
  experiences. You know, people that, that hold
• 1:40:58
  on too tightly to labels and those titles, they're, they're
• 1:41:02
  missing out on great opportunities to become better
• 1:41:06
  people, to grow, You know what I mean?
• 1:41:09
  So I'm glad, man, that, that we got a chance to sit down and,
• 1:41:12
  and talk for the last almost two hours just to get to learn a
• 1:41:15
  little bit about each other. Could have gone different ways.
• 1:41:18
  I mean, like I said, we've talked online back and forth and
• 1:41:20
  messages or emails, but you never really know about somebody
• 1:41:23
  until you get some FaceTime, even if it's just a virtual
• 1:41:26
  FaceTime. And I'm, I'm, I'm really happy
• 1:41:29
  with how, with how this all. Turned out so I I.
• 1:41:31
  Appreciate your time and your your the discourse that we
• 1:41:36
  shared, you know, getting into things that I personally just
• 1:41:39
  was like, I don't think I'm gonna talk about this, but we
• 1:41:41
  did and that's great. It and and for those people that
• 1:41:45
  are listening. And watching, you know?
• 1:41:47
  This was probably one of the most vibrant and, and like, I
• 1:41:51
  don't know, diverse podcast that I've had, you know what I mean?
• 1:41:55
  Just in terms of what my audience usually captures.
• 1:42:00
  So maybe this will bring some new people to you.
• 1:42:03
  I'm gonna put all the, the stuff that you're associated with, you
• 1:42:06
  know, besides just the Heathen Herald, you know, the the Yeah,
• 1:42:11
  I can send you my website links for the Free Thought Project.
• 1:42:13
  Free Thought Project? Yeah.
• 1:42:14
  Yeah, I can. Yeah.
• 1:42:16
  All that stuff will be linked down.
• 1:42:17
  Below so that way people that did.
• 1:42:19
  Hear that? Segment and we're like, what's
• 1:42:20
  going on with this? I want to check it out All
• 1:42:22
  right. Hey, you know, you might you
• 1:42:23
  might get some new some new discourse over there too.
• 1:42:26
  Exactly. Yeah, always.
• 1:42:28
  You know, that's that's the best way.
• 1:42:30
  To, as I mentioned earlier, to foment a more prosperous civil
• 1:42:34
  society, you know, we need more understanding and empathy and
• 1:42:37
  communication with one another. And so we can facilitate that
• 1:42:39
  then. Amazing.
• 1:42:42
  Yeah. You know, man, I, I, I wish you.
• 1:42:44
  All the luck that you deserve in, in those efforts.
• 1:42:48
  It's a, it's a labor of love. I mean, you're, I'm talking to
• 1:42:51
  the choir, you're preaching to the choir, right?
• 1:42:53
  When it comes to stuff like this, a lot of times I think at
• 1:42:57
  least speaking for myself, it almost feels like we're just
• 1:43:01
  talking into an echo chamber. The, the interaction, the
• 1:43:04
  engagement can sometimes be less than what we would like,
• 1:43:07
  especially when it's about things that we're so passionate
• 1:43:09
  about. But what I've come to learn, and
• 1:43:12
  maybe you have too, right, is it's it's it's, it's reaching
• 1:43:17
  people, people. Hear it, they may not say it.
• 1:43:20
  They may not engage, but it's getting into the ears, man.
• 1:43:22
  It's, it's, it's, it's planting those seeds.
• 1:43:25
  So my Co host on the Rundown live, Kristin Harris actually.
• 1:43:29
  Has he says it's planting seeds in the garden of your mind.
• 1:43:34
  And I've I've latched on to that for for some years now since
• 1:43:38
  I've heard that phrase from him. I think it's very apropos.
• 1:43:43
  Absolutely. And and what a what an
• 1:43:45
  interesting and poetic. Observation to you know to use
• 1:43:49
  the seed planting comparison, right?
• 1:43:54
  We don't plant seeds now with the idea that we're going to
• 1:43:59
  enjoy the fruits or the shade of that tree or that thing that
• 1:44:02
  comes forth. It's for the future.
• 1:44:06
  It's not an immediate gratification.
• 1:44:07
  It's not an immediate. Response which is.
• 1:44:09
  So much of what is the problem now and today is, is people want
• 1:44:12
  that instant gratification. Well, this isn't for me.
• 1:44:14
  You're people that are catching all this is stuff now.
• 1:44:17
  This will be something that 203040 whatever years from now,
• 1:44:21
  you know, that's when it's going to hit.
• 1:44:24
  Yeah. It'll hit now a bit, but I mean.
• 1:44:26
  That's when it's going to bloom. That's when.
• 1:44:27
  It's going to grow into something.
• 1:44:28
  For people to really sink their teeth into so good job, man,
• 1:44:31
  with the work that you're doing. Keep it up and thank you so very
• 1:44:35
  much. It's, it's been a wonderful
• 1:44:36
  chance to to sit with you and talk and, and get to know you a
• 1:44:39
  bit more. Yeah, thank you, you know, for
• 1:44:41
  having me here. It's been a great experience and
• 1:44:43
  you. Know I'd love to come back
• 1:44:45
  whenever you'll have me yeah. We'll stay in touch because like
• 1:44:48
  I said, there's there's, there's.
• 1:44:49
  Plenty of things I'm sure we could fill up another hour or
• 1:44:51
  two with. Oh yeah, for sure.
• 1:44:54
  Are there any? Parting words that you'd like to
• 1:44:56
  say 'cause I'm going to do my sign off thing.
• 1:44:58
  And then I'll touch base with you a bit offline after done
• 1:45:00
  recording. But is there anything else that
• 1:45:01
  you'd like to maybe as parting words, places that you can be
• 1:45:06
  found, just anything that you'd like to tell the people before
• 1:45:08
  we sign off? Well, you know, if if they want
• 1:45:12
  to, obviously. If you want to follow the
• 1:45:13
  Heathen Herald, you can just look up the Heathen Herald on
• 1:45:17
  Facebook. The banner is the one that I
• 1:45:19
  have behind me here, so you should be able to find it very
• 1:45:22
  easily. If you want to follow
• 1:45:25
  thefreethoughtproject.com or theconsciousresistance.com.
• 1:45:30
  You know, those are my websites. You can also find the
• 1:45:34
  rundownlive.com, but as I mentioned, we're on hiatus.
• 1:45:37
  So, you know, do with that with what you will and.
• 1:45:42
  If you. I don't mind if people follow my
• 1:45:45
  personal page, Donvi Junior on Facebook, but that's, I sort of
• 1:45:49
  reserve that for just, you know, me personally and my friends and
• 1:45:52
  whatnot. But I want to 'cause I do like
• 1:45:55
  to. It's one of those.
• 1:45:57
  It's so. Interesting, like working as a
• 1:46:00
  public figure, but being a very naturally introverted private
• 1:46:03
  person, like I really have to work hard to maintain that that
• 1:46:07
  that line, you know what I mean? But if people want to see me
• 1:46:09
  bitch about politics, you can follow me on Twitter at Donvi
• 1:46:12
  Junior as well. And every every once in a while
• 1:46:15
  I'll share something on there that pertains to my work and
• 1:46:18
  whatnot. I will be happy to post links.
• 1:46:22
  To anything that you want me to share.
• 1:46:23
  So if you just send them over to me, you know, to your Facebook,
• 1:46:27
  to Instagram, Twitter, whatever, wherever you are, people that
• 1:46:32
  are listening, you know, check out the show notes because
• 1:46:35
  that's where all the links for for Don's stuff is going to be.
• 1:46:38
  Follow along, engage with him, check out his content on
• 1:46:41
  different platforms. If anything here spoke to you
• 1:46:43
  and you want to comment and you're able to feel free to do
• 1:46:47
  so. I know some of the audio
• 1:46:48
  platforms do allow for that. If you're watching this and
• 1:46:51
  you're on Patreon, first of all, thank you for sticking around
• 1:46:53
  and watching this whole episode and comment down below.
• 1:46:57
  At the very least, if you don't comment, share this around,
• 1:47:00
  share your own thoughts. You know, it doesn't have to
• 1:47:01
  come back to me or to us directly, but you know, keep the
• 1:47:04
  conversation going with your people.
• 1:47:05
  These these are conversations. These are things that, as Don
• 1:47:08
  mentioned, like they're, they're seeds that are planted in our
• 1:47:11
  minds. So nurture those seeds, continue
• 1:47:14
  the growth and nurture that. If you do want to contact me
• 1:47:18
  through the podcast, you can do so by emailing
• 1:47:20
  midgordonmusingstn@gmail.com or you can leave a voicemail on the
• 1:47:25
  hotline, which is 615-671-9832. Be happy to feature your voice
• 1:47:32
  on a future episode. You can remain anonymous, so
• 1:47:34
  that's always an option as well. But if there's nothing else from
• 1:47:38
  you, Don, thank you again for, for being here and for being my
• 1:47:42
  guest this week and sharing what you are going through and what
• 1:47:44
  your journey has been like. It's been wonderful, man.
• 1:47:47
  I appreciate it. Absolutely.
• 1:47:48
  Yeah. Thank you for having me here.
• 1:47:50
  And you know, thank you. For the shirts, I I knew I made
• 1:47:53
  sure to to wear it. I know we talked about that
• 1:47:56
  story. Man, that was stressing me out
• 1:47:59
  so bad. I.
• 1:48:00
  Saw the I saw the sunwheel. I'm like, that looks like the
• 1:48:02
  shirt that he bought from my store.
• 1:48:03
  It is. And I'm so glad that it finally
• 1:48:06
  made it to you because on my. Birthday.
• 1:48:08
  Yeah, on your birthday, of all things.
• 1:48:10
  Which again. Happy belated 30th man welcome.
• 1:48:12
  To your 30s, thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:48:15
  I, I just I just welcome to my. 40s this past year.
• 1:48:18
  So I mean, we're we're hitting those decades certainly.
• 1:48:21
  Well, thank you for having me. You know, it was a pleasure.
• 1:48:24
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. Stick around for just a couple
• 1:48:27
  minutes if you don't mind. And for?
• 1:48:28
  Everybody else again, listening, watching, capturing, absorbing.
• 1:48:31
  Whatever it is, however it is you choose to support this show
• 1:48:35
  and what we do here, thank you so very much.
• 1:48:38
  It means the world. Check all of Don's stuff out.
• 1:48:41
  Check all of my stuff out. Linktree.
• 1:48:42
  Link's going to be LinkedIn, the description and show notes as
• 1:48:45
  well. And until we talk to each other
• 1:48:47
  again, may the gods continue to notice you, and may your
• 1:48:51
  ancestors smile upon you. We'll see you in the next one.