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.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

NATURAL HEALING AND WELLNESS

MAKE YOUR MIND — UP!



HEALING

“Truth is like a jewel, like a diamond.  It has many facets.  If you look at only one side, you will not see the whole picture. What you see depends on how you look at it.”

~Grand Master


WHAT IS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE?


The term Alternative Medicine means any form of medicine that is outside the mainstream of western medicine or conventional medicine as practiced by a majority of doctors today. This term is loosely used to cover all forms of medicine except allopathy. In 1973, the Medical Faculty of the University of Rome convened the first World Congress of Alternative Medicines and the provisional program contained no less than 135 therapies.

Alternative medicine exists in all cultures to some degree and terms such as traditional medicine, indigenous medicine or folk medicine etc. are used to describe such practices. These medicines date back hundreds or even thousands of years depending on the country and culture concerned.

There are more than 100 systems of alternative medicines still in practice all over the world.  Every country, region or area has its own traditional system of health and medical cares such as: for the Chinese it is acupuncture, for the French, magnetic healing; for the Germans, Heilpraxis; for the English, Herbalism; for India, Ayurveda with Siddha being widely practice in the southern part of the country; for Japan, Shiatsu etc.

The most popular forms of alternative medicine are Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Yoga, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Magneto therapy, Shiatsu, Herbalism, Meditation, Aromatherapy, Bach Flower Remedies, Chromo therapy, Diet therapy, Hydropathy and Reiki.

­There are Five basic areas to work in the quest for healing. Before considering any of these there are some questions you should ask yourself.

What is your idea of healing? Is it freedom from pain, or the ability to move freely, or eliminating medications that you feel are blocking your real healing?

Whom do you trust to help you with your healing? Do you believe healing is permanent or cyclical? Where do you think that healing comes from? How long do you feel that healing will take and how long will it last?



WHAT BLOCKS HEALING?

Five Basic Requirements for Healing

  1. Balance
  2. Growth or Change
  3. Relationships
  4. Healing Environment
  5. Systems

These requirements are present on three levels: Body  Mind  and Spirit



BALANCE

Balance is the absence of extremes in the five basic requirements. In achieving balance you must place yourself in a Center for retreat when stress emerges. Instead of fleeing from fear and anger you will find your Center where negative feelings and emotions can be neutralized.

Centering, based on your own basic beliefs, can be achieved through Chakra clearing, Energy work, Karma cleansing, Feng Shui, Body Posture and Movement, Sleep, Meditation and Silence.

Here is your chance to build a center for yourself using any of the tools above or another of your choice. Visualizing yourself in an atmosphere of peace and beauty is a good start. I always choose to be on a black sand beach, with palm trees, stroking the neck of my animal spirit guide, a white horse named Pax.

Hypnotherapy, by a practitioner you trust, is a good way to break through to your power to become balanced.  Balance is a state that no other person can give you. Only you have the power and the intent. The trick is to create Balance in Body, Mind and Spirit. Just for a little homework write down possible methods to achieve Balance on all three levels.

A personal Shrine or quiet place offers a Gateway to peace and cleansing of the debris of everyday life. Perhaps an empty closet or a grotto in the woods. Populate your shrine with items of meaning and endearment to you. Photos of loved ones, beautiful sculpture, icons, books, silk tapestry, pillows, candles, crystals, mirrors, music, aroma. I purchased an old dressing table at a sidewalk sale. It has an angel snowglobe, some candles, my favorite rock specimens, some jewelry, candles and a silk piano scarf in rose pink with draping lavender fringe. I can tilt the mirror to reflect the items back to me.

Your shrine can be in your heart. It is a place of peace, quiet and meditation. It is a place where you meet the Master. You need only be still riding on the bus, waiting at the airport, during the SAT test, while sitting in the principal’s office. After practice you will find your center has more power that the stressful situations around you, and you can carry this power with you. It is more important than your cell phone.

GROWTH OR CHANGE

Healing takes place in the process of Growth or Change. Your perception tells you that things that do not flow with the energy of the universe are resistant to change. Resistance to change causes friction, stress, decay. What you are looking for is Transformation.

You have been changing and growing since before you were born in this world. Change is the one law of the universe that you do not want to break. Growth and Change open your life to the influx of blessings that spirit has stored for you. Don’t fear the changes that you expect. They are all designed as part of the Universal Plan to bring you to the Center of All Centers.

Spirit is constantly creating and flowing blessings just for you. The Hopi Indians believe that those who connect to spirit teaching (and lead their tribes in planting, living, healing and mourning ) have an “open door in the top of their heads” that allows the Great Spirit in to guide them. Those without doors live without fulfillment and eventually wither and die.

During your cycle as a human you will gather much knowledge through study and reading. Social interaction will be a learning process throughout this lifetime. You will learn to add new interests to your life, to sacrifice to achieve goals, and to enjoy the pleasures the senses. Think music, chocolate, sunshine, waterfalls, roses, kisses, laughter, dancing.

Service to others takes you out of yourself. In The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell he recommends living life as though you didn’t exist. Think of how you will be changed. While you are thinking of non-existence also practice Silence. Dr. Sha in his book Tao II

 Lifestyle

Very few are willing to change or give up a current lifestyle that may be the underlying cause of dis-ease. Here, the application of common sense principles will tell the tale. Are you staying out late and partying, drinking, overeating? Are you addicted to gaming on-line or gambling at casinos, or playing electronic war games? Do you work over sixty hours a week at a job you don’t like? Are you an adrenalin junkie taking risks in dangerous pursuits? Do you sleep all day while your environment falls into chaos and disrepair? Do arguments with your kids or spouse fill your mind with anger and resentment? Addictions to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, sex and emotions all have a negative effect on health. These are just samples of destructive lifestyle choices that should be eliminated.

My Aunt once developed an enormous oozing protruding sore on her nose. It grew to an embarrassing size and finally someone in the family asked her what it was. Without hesitation she declared, “It’s Resentment!” She was a devout Christian Scientist and understood the villainy of negative emotions in her environment. Soon afterwards she and my Uncle moved to Florida and she was restored to her former elegant self in an environment she respected.

During your period of seeking ­— a process of elimination flushes out whatever is harmful or toxic to you. Everyone’s list of negatives is different. Remember the old saying, “To each his own poison.” I love to hear someone is  making a decision to try something new. It is like green is the new black, or adventure is the new healing.




RELATIONSHIPS

Abraham Hicks repeats the theme of the Law of Attraction over and over. After awhile you get it ...that you attract what you create in your mind. If this is true and you believe it ... Then you know the importance of positive thinking. Many women say, “I guess I just attract the wrong men!” What!!! Right thinking and intent will bring the perfect partner. Be careful what you wish for.

All aspects of LIFE are inter-connected and interactive. Your relationships to your family, friends, community and self are all connected. Self hatred is the most destructive aspect of all. If  you condemn yourself with guilt, rage and despair you become vulnerable to emotional toxins and poisons. If you attract likewise people to your circle then you become a pair or group of people drowning in negativity. The antidote is to Love yourself and open the door in your head to the spiritual blessings that are actually already in your mental and causal storehouse.

Partnerships foster, cooperation, support, sharing, protection, and strength. A carefully woven web of family and social contacts with positive and loving partners makes you as strong as a great general with an army of thousands.

Great relationships are based on empathy. Caring for and loving others regardless of their situation or circumstance is a path to sainthood. Serving others is the first best step to clearing your Karma of the debris of past mistakes. Learning to love unconditionally will make you a magnet to health, success and the underlying joy of  creation. People who love others more than themselves often are imbued with super-human abilities to see the future and heal.

Near death experiences always change the entity. Closing in on the pure essence of Spirit brings near death victims to Center and their eyes are opened in Spirit. They have a different point of view for living and dying. The shock of closeness to God shakes them up to the importance of lovingly living.


HEALING ENVIRONMENT

Ram Das named his book “Be here now.” The Zen of this statement applies on the body, mind and spirit levels. Where you are is not just a geographical location, or a level of achievement or a good mood.

We are all on a journey to find our true authentic selves. When we do realize who and where we are, it is a shocking revelation that takes us back to where we began.  The journey is populated with failure and success (subjectively). It is full of dreams, visions, acquisitions, losses, jackpots, broken bodies, trophies, flights in fear, lovemaking, learning and the varied experiences of living. If we believe that we deserve what we get, then it behooves us to behave in a way that attracts truth and beauty to our lives.
First, you may find that fine-tuning your thoughts and actions to abide by the laws of attraction will draw you nearer to your ‘ruling love’ (ref. Heaven and Hell—Emanuel Swedenborg), and bring enlightenment to you, fulfilling your desires.

T'was a time when everyone wanted enormous homes, European cars, unlimited bank accounts, a face without wrinkles, two or three perfect children, a PHD, the presidency of a company ... and so on. After several years of suffering to supply these, most of us have figured out that these goals are only temporary fixes. The stress that accompanies getting “more stuff” makes it too costly to your sanity and health.

Now, a trend is forming that stimulates us to simplify our lives, shed the extra baggage, and in many ways draw closer to earth, spirt, nature, the universe and love. Just writing this paragraph has lifted a weight from my heart.

Heaviness of struggling to acquire, with no thought of feeding the soul, can have devastating effects on the health of the body. The stress of clinging to false beliefs and building barriers with objects and possessions from the environment, pulls down on the body systems and strains the very cells of the brain and body. This process lowers immunity, leaving the body vulnerable to dis-ease. Ignorance of this process is no excuse. It cannot be denied or blocked out.

The magnificent brain becomes un-centered, looses focus and receives input from negative thoughts. Instead, consider the prospect of “Let go, and let God.” Allow the brain to center on positive affirmations, thoughts of love. Sink into a relaxed state — and listen to thoughts that originate from Spirit. Whether you call it prayer or meditation; in this environment you will find the source of creativity, love and beauty in your life.

Just by doing a one-eighty from satisfying the quest for the material, but instead, loving and caring for your precious soul and spirit, turns your life around. Now, instead of suffering, you feel fulfillment, inspiration, elevation, and connection with your real true self.

Having centered on the thoughts of this healing project has sensitized me to attract the tools and ideas I need. First, I was gifted with a new computer, where I spend most of my time. Then, as I walked down the aisle of my favorite Goodwill store a book caught me eye and I grabbed it as if it would fly away. The book is Tao II, The Way Of Healing, Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality by Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha. Master Sha says, “In the twentieth century and for centuries before, mind over matter played a vital role in healing, rejuvenation, and life transformation. In the Soul Light Era, soul over matter —Soul Power—will play the vital role to heal, rejuvenate, and transform all life".

Master Sha says the three vital purposes of all souls are to SERVE, HEAL, and TEACH. Every soul has its own spiritual standing and Three Empowerments to Heal, Rejuvenate and Transform life. He calls now the Soul Light Era and says it began August 8, 2003 and will last 23,000 years. During this time The Souls of man, animals, trees and plants, oceans, earth, and all universes have superseded the physical forms and are now in control. “The Soul is Boss.”

If you use your empowerments in “unpleasant” service your reward is: ...“sickness, accidents, injuries, financial challenges, broken relationships, emotional imbalances, mental confusion and any kind of disorder in one’s life”  Divine Service brings blessings of: “universal love, forgiveness, peace, healing, blessings, harmony and enlightenment.”

Dr. and Master Sha has studied Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Kung Fu, Feng Shui, and Soul Transformation. He has written a book “Soul Mind Body Medicine. His web site is www.drsha.com Dr. Sha (pronounced shah) has been recommended by Marianne Williamson, John Gray, Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, Dr. Masaru Emoto, and many others. His book Tao II is on the National Bestseller list, New York Times® Bestseller, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller.

In our next newsletter we get down to business with the Systems of healing.

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

  A very interesting website that you can subscribe to has provocative articles about world mysteries and the strange and rare. Here are two examples below.

Posted: 01 Nov 2011 12:20 AM PDT
Today I found out about the Tunguska Event, which was a 1908 explosion estimated to have been nearly 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 and about 1/3 as powerful as the largest ever detonated atomic bomb, the Tsar Bomba.

The Tunguska event occurred around 7:00 a.m. local time on June 30, 1908 near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia.  Witnesses saw a “blue-ish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky.”  What followed was an estimated 15 megaton explosion which knocked over about 80 million trees in about a 1300 square mile area, forming a butterfly shape pattern.  This also sent a shock wave throughout parts of Europe and Asia, registering as far away as England (about 4000 miles away).  Further, the atmospheric pressure change was also significant enough to be measured all the way in Great Brittan. Another interesting side effect of this blast was that, for several days after the blast throughout most of Asia and Europe, the night sky glowed.  It was so bright that people as far away as China reportedly were able to read in the middle of the night by nothing but the glow of the sky.

For a firsthand account, here is the testimony of one S. Semenov, who was about 40 miles from ground zero:

“At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post (65 km from the epicenter), facing north… I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul’s Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment, I became so hot that I couldn’t bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few meters. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped.”

So what caused this massive blast?  For a long time, it wasn’t precisely known.  When the event first happened, it drew little interest largely because it happened in a very remote part of the world.  It wasn’t until some 19 years later that Leonid Kulik, a Russian mineralogist, decided to go investigate, figuring that a massive meteorite must have hit the Earth.

Kulik and his team had little trouble locating ground zero of the blast, despite it being 19 years later, due to the fact that the “trees acted as markers, pointing directly away from the blast’s epicenter”.  However, once they got to the epicenter, they found a curious thing.  There was no crater, as they had expected, and the trees were still standing in about a 3 mile radius circle at the center, but with their limbs, bark, leaves, etc. all completely stripped.  So essentially, all these trees were just giant poles in the ground with all the other trees for miles and miles around blasted to the ground.
For a long time, there was much debate over exactly what caused this, but today scientists are reasonably certain it was a comet, rather than an asteroid (see the difference between a comet and an asteroid) or other naturally occurring event.  The comet must have been around 30-40 meters across (around 120 feet) and must have been traveling around 30,000-40,000 mph (about 55,000-65,000 km/h).  As it traveled through the atmosphere, the air around it heated up to as much as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 28,000 degrees Celsius) causing the comet to look like a giant fireball streaking through the sky.  Eventually, this also caused the comet to annihilate itself around 5 miles (8 km) above the Earth’s surface in a fiery blast that consumed the comet, which was largely made of ice.  Thus, you get a massive explosion, but no impact crater or much of any apparent evidence of what caused the explosion, unless you witness it or start taking very careful soil samples and the like.
Bonus Factoids:
  • It’s estimated that a Tunguska sized comet or asteroid should hit the Earth’s atmosphere about once every 300 years.  The blast from it is more than sufficient to wipe out even the largest city on Earth, should it happen to blow up or strike around a major city.
  • A comet or asteroid about 1/3 of the size of the Tunguska comet hits the Earth’s atmosphere about one or more times per year and produces a blast of around 20 kilotons, which is about equivalent to the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki.  Luckily, these tend to annihilate themselves quite high in the atmosphere.
  • In order to get the Soviet government to pay for his expedition to go investigate this blast, Kulik convinced them that it must have been a meteorite and that meteorite would have been massive and made mostly of iron, so there was great potential for a huge supply of easily minable iron available that the Soviet’s could use.
  • Remarkably, it appears that no one actually died from this blast, thanks to the fact that it happened in such a remote part of the world.  However, many farmers and herders near the area lost their livelihood thanks to the explosion.
  • It wasn’t until nuclear testing that these same blast patterns would be observed again, including the stripping of trees around ground zero with the other trees being blasted down.  What’ happening here is the shock wave travels so fast that there is insufficient time for the branches to transfer the force to the main part of the tree before they are ripped off.  For those trees in the epicenter, the force is all downward, so the result is simply that the branches and bark all get stripped, but the trees remain standing.  Outside of the epicenter, the shock-wave hits the trees at more of a horizontal angle, so it flattens them.  Eventually, Soviet experimenters were able to even mimic the butterfly blast pattern with a model forest and small charges.  From this, they discovered that the blast must have occurred with the blasting body approaching at around a 30 degree angle from the ground and 115 degrees from North.
  • It’s possible that other such explosions have happened in recent history, but unfortunately it wasn’t until around the 1960s-1970s that we had the capability to accurately detect these if they happened somewhere where people wouldn’t directly observe them, such as over the oceans of the Earth or the like.
  • The U.S. built a nuclear bomb that was roughly equivalent to the Tunguska comet, in terms of blast power, being rated at around 15 megatons.  This nuclear bomb was named Castle Bravo and was detonated on March 1, 1954.
  • The Tsar Bomba (see video showing the detonation below), the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, had a yield of around 50 megatons.  Originally, it was designed to have a yield of 100 megatons, but was reduced due to concerns over nuclear fallout.  Not only was it the largest nuclear bomb detonated, but it was also one of the cleanest, relative to the TNT equivalent output.  It was detonated on October 30, 1961.
  • The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, on the other hand, were very small compared to the Tsar Bomba and were not that efficient.  The Hiroshima bomb was estimated at about only 13 kilotons of TNT (1/3800th the size of the Tsar Bomba) with the total blast destructive zone only being about one mile in radius.  Including resulting fires, it destroyed about 5 square miles of the city or about 69% of the buildings, killing 70,000 people upon detonation with an additional 70,000 seriously injured.   Around 90% of all medical staff and facilities were destroyed in the explosion itself; that, combined with the effects of radiation burns and sickness, contributed to about an additional 150,000 people dead at various points thanks to the blast, though many survived for years to come before succumbing to cancer and other such sicknesses brought on by heavy ionizing radiation exposure.
  • Nagasaki, on the other hand, had significantly less casualties, partially due to the fact that conventional bombs were dropped on it before hand, so many of the people, particularly school aged children, were evacuated from the city by the time the nuclear bomb was dropped.  This explosion was 21 kilotons, with casualties reaching a still staggering number of around 40,000 people instantly, with around triple that number estimated overall.
  • Before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped, the U.S. government warned the Japanese, though not directly mentioning the nuclear bombs, and asked them to surrender.  The Japanese of course refused, as, at that point, they were ignorant of the successful development of a nuclear bomb and, thus, had no reason to think the U.S. could follow through with their threat to utterly destroy Japan, if necessary.  The U.S. had originally planned a series of much larger nuclear strikes that would happen in quick succession after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, wiping out most of the major cities in Japan, had the Japanese at that point not agreed to surrender.
Tsar Bomba
Sources:
Posted: 31 Oct 2011 05:06 AM PDT


Today I found out the Bluetooth standard is named after a 10th century Scandinavian king.
The man was Harald I of Denmark.  “Bluetooth” is the English translation of “Blåtand”, which was an epithet of Harald I (Harald Blåtand Gormsson).  Legend has it, he received this name due to being extremely fond of blueberries and consuming them so regularly and in such volume that they stained his teeth blue.

The Bluetooth standard was originally developed by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson in 1994, working at Ericcson in Sweden.  Because Bluetooth was meant to offer a set unified standard, replacing a variety of competing protocols, particularly the somewhat antiquated RS-232, they decided to name it after the 10th century king, Harald Blåtand Gormsson, who completed his father’s work of unifying the various Danish tribes into one Danish kingdom around 970. Although, he was only able to maintain this unification for a few years.

The name Bluetooth wasn’t originally necessarily meant to be the final name of the standard.  When they first named it thus, it was just a code name for the technology.  It ultimately ended up sticking though and became the official name of the standard.

The Bluetooth logo also derives from “Harald Blåtand”, with the long-branch Nordic runes for “H” and “B” comprising the design you see in the blue oval of the logo.
Bonus Factoids:
  • Although the wireless Bluetooth standard was developed to be ultra low power and short range, with proper directional antennas and focusing, researches have been able to achieve a range of a little over one mile with a standard Class 2 Bluetooth device which is supposed to only have a maximum range of around 30 feet.
  • Nearly 95% of all mobile phones have Bluetooth capabilities.
  • Because Bluetooth devices are now so prevalent and the standard itself has some security flaws, they have relatively recently become targets of attacks, such as the 2005 Lasco.A worm, which targeted mobile phones using the Symbian OS.  Any of those devices with their Bluetooth enabled could replicate themselves to other Bluetooth enabled devices of the same type within range.
  • Also in 2005, thieves looking for expensive devices in cars would use their own Bluetooth enabled device to locate other Bluetooth enabled devices left in the cars.  Once located, the thieves would then break into the cars and steal the devices.
  • Since 1998, the Bluetooth standard has been managed by Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group) which is currently comprised of over 14,000 telecommunication companies across the globe, such as Ericsson, IBM, Toshiba, Intel, Nokia, etc.
  •  
  • Harald I of Denmark was the offspring of King Gorm the Old and Thyra Dannebod.  The famed Jelling stones at Jelling church in Denmark were erected in honor of King Gorm and Thyra. The runes read:  “King Harold bade these memorials to be made after Gorm, his father, and Thyra, his mother. The Harold who won the whole of Denmark and Norway and turned the Danes to Christianity.”  These stones are particularly famous in Denmark due to being a symbol of when Denmark first became a nation state.
  • Harald I was able to maintain control of Norway for only a short time before losing to the Germans near Danevirke in 974, which subsequently saw him lose control of many of the tribes under his rule and saw the Germans re-take much of the land bordering Scandinavia and Germany.
  • Harald I and certain West Slavic tribes were able to drive out the Germans in 983.  However, shortly thereafter, Harald I’s son, Swein, is thought to have led a rebellion against is father, which ultimately lead to the death of Harald I around 985-986.
Sources:

BEAUTY AND HEALTH



FIRST LADY

Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887 — March 28, 1985), was a Belarusian Jewish artist associated with several key art movements and was one of the most successful artists of the twentieth century. He forged a unique career in virtually every artistic medium, including paintings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall’s haunting, exuberant, and poetic images have enjoyed universal appeal, and art critic Robert Hughes called him “the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century.”

As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known and most-loved paintings of our time. According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists.” For decades he “had also been respected as the world’s preeminent Jewish artist.” He also accepted many non-Jewish commissions, including a stained glass for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, a Dag Hammarskjold memorial at the United Nations, and the great ceiling mural in the Paris Opera.

His most vital work was made on the eve of World War I, when he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his visions of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent his wartime years in Russia, and the October Revolution of 1917 brought Chagall both opportunity and peril. He was by now one of the Soviet Union’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde. He founded the Vitebsk Arts College, which was considered the most distinguished school of art in the Soviet Union. However, “Chagall was considered a non-person by the Soviets because he was Jewish and a painter whose work did not celebrate the heroics of the Soviet people.” As a result, he soon moved to Paris with his wife, never to return.

He was known to have two basic reputations, writes Lewis — as a pioneer of modernism, and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism’s golden age in Paris, where “he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism.” Yet throughout these phases of his style “he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk.” “When Matisse dies,” Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.”

Read more: http://miami.ebayclassifieds.com/antiques/miami/marc-chagall-to-russia-limited-edition-lithograph/?ad=6189350#ixzz16Rmc2G