Chrysalis Angel

Chrysalis Angel
Becoming an Angel is the work of humans.

CHRYSALIS WELCOMES EVERYONE

Chrysalis' year begins the first Sunday after Labor Day in September. Services are held each Sunday at 10AM to 12 Noon. There will be no services held during August 2014. First meeting in the fall will be September 7, 2014.

Sunday Services from 10 am to 11:30 am each week
805 Mercer's Fernery Road
DeLand, FL (the white 2 story farm house)
Pastor - Skuli Thorhallsson

For more information or counseling phone (386) 478-9201

Email questions or requests to chrysalisgarden@gmail.com

Chrysalis Spiritual Center is a Swedenborg based congregation that studies non-deno
minational topics based on the value of certain writings and speech to society as a whole. Services are frequently presented by guest speakers. No denomination is excluded from meeting with us. We welcome all religions, ages, genders and beliefs.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

THE NEW EARTH - JUNE 2010

GOD THINKS
GOD MOVES
GOD WALKS
GOD SPEAKS
GOD LOVES


BOOK NOOK 

The New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose - author Eckhart Tolle, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Now ISBN 978-0-452-28996-3

An excellent book loaded with information to help anyone cut his way through the jungle of life. Written somewhat in the shadow-style of Swedenborg, it employs repetition of basic concepts of the ego of man and declares that we are in a dysfunctional reality defined by insanity and attachment to objects and ideas.

Taking a personal and invasive theme Tolle examines the causes of life-pain, and delves into the causes of unhappiness. Simply stating - he maintains that your position in life is the result of your perception and application of ideas both inherited and created since birth. Ideas or thoughts can be individualized, part of a tribal or national memory, gender focused, racial, from the drama of life or a phase or temporary role that you may be playing. Thoughts, positive or negative, are absorbed by the unconscious and acted upon to create your personal world.

The unconscious believes everything it is told and does not question the truth or veracity of the thought. If you think you are beautiful or skillful the unconscious believes it and creates the atmosphere to experience your beauty. The same process follows thoughts that you are evil, or wretched.

Over all The New Earth is a guide to the joy of Being and a definition of who you really are and why you are experiencing Being. Some exercises in thought are offered to increase mental and spiritual fitness and lead the reader to revealing her  Inner Purpose and Awakening to consciousness of The New Earth.
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In the Land of Dreams
 A CD of native American Flute Music, Gentle Dreams and Sounds of Nature. Artist John Huling leads us from the world of attachments to the world of adoration. He moves through the sounds of nature and turns the wings of an eagle to notes and tones of beauty, the babbling streams become rhythms of the beating heart of nature.

Ten pieces on the CD draw inspiration from the American Desert Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Central Plains and Eastern Woodlands. John Huling's music takes the listener on a meditative inner journey for the spirit. Native American flute and gentle drumming with a beautiful array of nature sounds, including: thunderstorms, brooks and birds make up this excellent collection of music - from North America ... "In the Land of Dreams"

Distributed by Four Winds Trading Company at 800-456-5444. or visit the web site at www. fourwinds-trading.com. Other recordings by John Huling are: Lost Oceans, Desert Plateaus, Canyon Spirit, Jelly Music. Produced by Red Feather.
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MEDITATION

Music: the breathing of statues. Perhaps:
the silence of paintings. Language where language ends. Time
that goes downward in the direction of hearts that wear out.
Feeling---for whom? Place where feeling is
transformed...into what? A countryside we can hear.
Music: you stranger, You feeling space, growing
away from us. The deepest thing in us, that, rising above us, forces its way out...
a holy goodbye:
when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as amazing space, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
immense,
not for us to live in now.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly

IN THE GARDEN                                                         
Blessed by sunshine, afternoon rain, delicate planning and loving tending ... the garden at Chrysalis is producing truth and beauty. Barry will take you on a tour revealing the variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers that have found a home there. He will also share the harvest and give free advice and encouragement to those who want to go "organic"

Nasturtiums, marigolds, Alamanda, squash, beans, peppers ... the list goes on. What a beautiful addition to the Chrysalis Spiritual Center this is! We are grateful for the love and attention the garden receives from Barry, Bill and whomever is there to turn the soil.

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BAMBOO ARTS                                                                 
“For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.”~ Seneca from Letters from a Stoic
For a complete viewing of the activities at Bamboo Arts Yoga Center go to http://www.bambooartscenter.com

SHINTO RELIGION  WAY OF THE GODS 
                      
Shinto  or kami-no-michi is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is best conceived of as a set of practices, carried out diligently to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 7th and 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified "Shinto religion", but rather to disorganized folklore, history, and mythology. Shinto today is a term that applies to public shrines suited to various purposes such as war memorials, harvest festivals, romance, and historical monuments, as well as various sectarian organizations. Practitioners express their diverse beliefs through a standard language and practice, adopting a similar style in dress and ritual, dating from around the time of the Nara and Heian Periods.

The word Shinto ("Way of the Gods") was adopted from the written Chinese, combining two kanji: "shinto", meaning kami; and "to" , or "do" meaning a philosophical path or study (originally from the Chinese word tao). Kami are defined in English as "spirits", "essences" or "deities", that are associated with many understood formats; in some cases being human-like, in others being animistic, and others being associated with more abstract "natural" forces in the world (mountains, rivers, lightning, wind, waves, trees, rocks). Kami and people are not separate; they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.

There are currently 119 million official practitioners of Shinto in Japan, although a person who practices any manner of Shinto rituals may be so counted. The vast majority of Japanese people who take part in Shinto rituals also practice Buddhist ancestor worship. However, unlike many monotheistic religious practices, Shinto and Buddhism typically do not require professing faith to be a believer or a practitioner, and as such it is difficult to query for exact figures based on self-identification of belief within Japan. Due to the syncretic nature of Shinto and Buddhism, most "life" events are handled by Shinto and "death" or "afterlife" events are handled by Buddhism—for example, it is typical in Japan to register or celebrate a birth at a Shinto shrine, while funeral arrangements are generally dictated by Buddhist tradition—although the division is not exclusive.


Kami is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity," some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term (Ono, 1962). Kami's wide variety of usage can be compared to the Sanskrit Deva and the Hebrew Elohim, which also refer to God, gods, angels and spirits. In some instances, such as Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, kami are personified deities, similar to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome. In other cases, such as those concerning the phenomenon of natural emanation, the spirits dwelling in trees, or forces of nature, translating "kami" exclusively as "god" or "deity" would be a gross mischaracterization. In this respect it is more similar to the Roman concept of the numen or spirit.
Kami are the central objects of worship for the Shinto faith. Shinto began as the various ancient animistic traditional spirituality of Japan, and only became an institutionalized spirituality much later as a result of efforts to separate out influences of other religions brought into Japan from abroad. As a result, the nature of what can be called kami is very broad and encompasses many different concepts and phenomena.

Some of the objects or phenomena designated as kami are qualities of growth, fertility, and production; natural phenomena like wind and thunder; natural objects like the sun, mountains, rivers, trees, and rocks; some animals; and ancestral spirits. Included within the designation of ancestral spirits are spirits of the ancestors of the Imperial House of Japan, but also ancestors of noble families as well as the spirits of the ancestors of all people.

There are other spirits designated as kami as well. For example, the guardian spirits of the land, occupations, and skills; spirits of Japanese heroes, men of outstanding deeds or virtues, and those who have contributed to civilization, culture and human welfare; those who have died for the state or the community (See: Yasukuni Shrine); and the pitiable dead. Not only spirits superior to man can be considered kami, but also spirits that are considered pitiable or weak have been considered kami in Shinto.

The concept of kami has been changed and refined since ancient times, although anything that was considered to be kami by ancient people will still be considered kami in "modern" Shinto (modern in that Shinto has been formalized as a unified religion under the influence of foreign religions like Buddhism). Even within modern Shinto, there are no clearly defined criteria for what should or should not be worshipped as kami. The difference between modern Shinto and the ancient animistic religions is mainly a refinement of the kami-concept, rather than a difference in definitions.

In the ancient animistic religions, kami were understood as simply the divine forces of nature. Worshippers in ancient Japan revered creations of nature which exhibited a particular beauty and power such as waterfalls, mountains, boulders, animals, trees, grasses and even rice paddies. They strongly believed the spirits or resident kami deserved respect.

Although the ancient designations are still adhered to, in modern Shinto many priests also consider kami to be anthropomorphic spirits, with nobility and authority. These include such mythological figures as Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess of the Shinto pantheon. Although these kami can be considered deities, they are not necessarily considered omnipotent or omniscient, and like the Greek Gods, they had flawed personalities and were quite capable of ignoble acts. In the myths of Amaterasu, for example, she could see the events of the human world. She also had to use divination rituals to see the future.

Traditionally, kami possess two souls, one gentle (nigi-mitama) and the other assertive (ara-mitama). This powerful form of kami was also divided into amatsu-kami ("the heavenly deities") and kunitsu-kami ("the gods of the earthly realm"). A deity would behave differently according to which soul was in control at a given time. In many ways, this was representative of nature's sudden changes and would explain why there were kami for every meteorological event: snowfall, rain, typhoons, floods, lightning and volcanoes.

The ancestors of a particular family can also be worshipped as kami. In this sense, these kami were worshipped not because of their godly powers, but because of a distinct quality or value. These kami were regional and many shrines (hokora) have been built in their honour. In many cases, people who once lived can thus be deified as gods; an example of this is Tenjin, who was Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) in life.

Ceremonies are long and complex. In some temples, it takes ten years for the priests to learn them. The priesthood was traditionally hereditary. One temple has drawn its priests from the same four families for over a hundred generations. Not uncommonly, the clergy may be priestesses. The priests may be assisted by miko, young unmarried women dressed in white kimono. Neither priests nor priestesses live as ascetics; it is common for them to be married, and they are not traditionally expected to meditate. Rather, they are considered specialists in the arts of maintaining the connection between the kami and the people.

Notable kami

Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess
Hachiman, the god of war
Sarutahiko Okami, kami of earth
Tsukuyomi, the moon god
Susanoo-no-mikoto, the sea and storms god
Inari Okami, god of foxes
Kotoamatsukami, the primary kami trinity
Izanagi-no-Mikoto, the first man
Izanami-no-Mikoto, the first woman
Omoikane, the deity of wisdom

 Information on Shinto religion was found on Wikipedia. www.wikipedia.com a free resource for information on almost any subject. Readers are invited to edit and add to information on Wikipedia, making it a truly universal source of information. Since sources of data cannot be confirmed at accurate you should investigate any ideas or information you find on a wiki.

Next newsletter we visit the Greek Gods on Mount Olympus

The Monthly Newsletter of Chrysalis Spiritual Center
825 Mercer’s Fernery Road
DeLand, Florida 32720
Sunday Services from 10 am to 11:30 am each week
Pastor - Skuli Thorhallsson
sthorallsson@gmail.com

For more information or counseling phone (386) 734-9257
Email questions or requests to chrysalisgarden@gmail.com
Copy this link to come back to our newsletter http://chrysalispiritualcenter.blogspot.com
(note -- the spelling consists of just one S in the name, not 2. A product of human error)

Chrysalis Spiritual Center is a Swedenborg based congregation that studies non-denominational topics based on the value of certain writings and speech to society as a whole. No denomination is excluded from meeting with us. We welcome all religions and beliefs.

Please address prayer requests and requests for counseling to 386-734-9257