“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Winter birds sing

Where will the birds go

Who will feed the winter birds

for the winter birds greet

[...] I’m asking his help in obtaining source material for the visual “evidence” for evolution — showing the forms involved, say, as little by little the descendants of the reptile changed into the bird. [...] As far as I’ve been able to learn, no such transitional fossils have been found, like the discrete forms of reptiles and birds that have been discovered, so I decided to search out the next best thing: the visual representations as to what they must have looked like. But what good were the developing stages of a wing, I wondered, and how many uncounted generations of reptiles-turning-into-birds had to carry those appendages, before a fully-formed bird was finally hatched that could fly? [...]

(“I’m a professional artist,” I wrote to the scientist, “and at times have been puzzled enough by questions about evolution to consider making my own series of drawings that would show the transformation from reptile to bird, for instance, just to see if I could do it convincingly…. But each time I start visualizing the results, I end up with two notions: First, that as I work with those intermediate forms I’ll become involved with myth and fantasy, rather than ‘fact.’ Just how did reptiles change into birds? [...]

[...] Birds did not come from reptiles. They were always birds. [...]

[...] If science wants to talk about the tree of life, of reptiles turning into birds, then we’ve certainly got the right to see all — or at least most — of the leaves on the tree, not just those at the tips of the branches.” [...]

At one time there were also species of birds, however, with high intelligence — this before the period mentioned earlier.² They were not humanoid; not, for example, people with wings. They were large birds, with the capacity for dealing with concepts. [...] (Her eyes wide and dark, Jane held up her hands, fingers bent as though ready to grasp — or claw.) When he was a cave dweller,³ man saw these birds often, particularly in cliffs by water. Many times the birds saved children from falling. [...]

[...] How long before that period had the intelligent birds lived? [...]

[...] Presumably these “mutated forms” had implied the beginnings of man, in ordinary terms, yet now Seth spoke of cave-dwelling humans as coexistent with large birds at an earlier time. [...]

Many birds in their fantastic migrations demonstrate an amazing optimism, traveling thousands of miles to distant shores, almost literally flying by faith, as it were, ignoring all dangers, unbeseiged by doubts. [...] Birds do not question whether or not the weather will be favorable, the winds fair or foul. [...] Even if some birds do fall or die, this in no way impedes or undermines the faith of the others.

(Then I told her about the article I’d just taken from Science News last night, concerning the abilities of animals, birds and bees to carry maps of their terrain in their heads. [...]

In the meantime, the spirit of that volcanic island is visiting the first island, and finds itself enchanted by the still waters that lap against the shore, the gentle birds, and the few palm trees. However, it seems that the palm trees, and the birds and the sand, have dreamed for centuries.¹

Imagine that you are a small sandy island with softly graded shores (pause), some palm trees (pause), and a haven for traveling birds. [...]

The spirits of the two islands join for a journey to a third one, and there they discover a top-heavy land filled to the brim with strange birds and insects and animals that neither knew at home. [...]

The second island-spirit says, also to the third: “You are myself, only my excitement, my joy and beauty, are concentrated in the magic of my volcano, and you instead stand for the twittering excitement of diverse species — birds and animals and insects — that flow in far less grandiose fashion across the slopes of your uneasy land.”

[...] The chief said she was the only complainant the police had had; other callers had given the police their addresses and asked them to destroy the birds on their own properties.

[...] The people at the newspaper were quite surprised to learn the police were shooting birds. [...]

[...] If you agree with the killing of birds for example, you wind up with the killing of men. [...]

Bird Sculpts

[...] Behind me in the fireplace we heard once again the mysterious scratching or chucking or chirruping sounds we’ve become aware of lately, as though a family of animals or birds has young hatching our or growing in a nest on the other side of the closed damper. [...] My present concern is that if there are young birds in the fireplace they may be trapped, not having room enough to learn to fly. But why would birds build a nest in such a place, assuming they could get to it to begin with? [...]

(The animal/bird noises continued in the fireplace chimney behind me. [...]

(With emphasis:) In a matter of speaking (underlined), the birds and the insects are indeed living portions of the earth flying, even as, again in a matter of speaking (in parentheses) (with a smile and again with an emphasis upon the word “matter”), bears and wolves and cows and cats represent the earth turning itself into creatures that live upon its own surface. [...]

Man thinks as naturally as the birds fly. [...]

[...] … It goes without saying that a bird’s death is inevitable, but a cat killing a bird does not have to juggle the same sort of values with which a man must be concerned. [...]

[...] Go, go, go.
Why not have a band play and give balloons away?
There’s nothing like killing birds
To clean up the business section.
We could feature a Starling Day, for our centennial celebration,
Such elation as the city fathers
And other pot-bellied elders
Did their best to keep the city clean.
We could give ice cream away to the kids who killed the most,
The hosts of observers could yell the cheer:
“Oh, it takes such courage and it takes such brawn
To drop the blackbirds on the County House lawn.”

The idiot swears
That the birds are holy.
He shouts as the starlings drop
And the police chuckle good-naturedly
“Stop. [...]

One man bent to wash his hands in it
And saw
The skin peel off like dirt,
But the lawn was full
With the falling corpses of the birds,
And when he cried out, no one heard.

Maraba Iraqua was your name, and you put about your body the dead wings of birds and danced about the image. “Macraugh, macraugh”—the sound of the birds then. The birds you killed... [...]

Birds of curved dimensions
Have their neighborhood
Limited by ceiling’s
Weight of bone and blood.

[...] This morning we found the bird had died during the night. [...] Last night at perhaps 10 PM, as we sat in the living room, Jane suddenly announced: “The bird is dead.” [...]

[...] You would not think what it was like to be a bird, you would momentarily be a bird. [...]

[...] We shall have more to say about this bird episode. [...]

(“Jane wants to know why her bird died.”)

Producing
from it’s magical bag
of tricks,
one marvelous form
of life after another,
fish,
bird,
monkey,
man
(not just one dove
or rabbit)
with a skill and swiftness
so astute
that our wise men think
one turns into the other!

Juggling a
million million
atoms
all at once,
spinning them into
twirling cells of men
and whales,
tricky,
spinning solid mountains
from thin air,
with fish transformed
into flying birds —

It does help however if you understand that birds must fly if you are a bird. [...]

[...] There is no need to compare one type of personality with another than there is to compare a toad to a bird, or an ant to an elephant.

[...] Birds were birds, and fish fish.

[...] “Yes—I can hear the birds now. Last year I started wondering where all the birds had gone.” [...]

Physically speaking, and generally, your body is composed of grasses and ants and rocks and beasts and birds, for in one way or another all biological matter is related.⁹ In certain terms, through your experience, birds and rocks speak alphabets — and certain portions of your own being fly or creep as birds or insects,¹⁰ forming the great gestalt of physical experience. [...]

[...] The “dead” matter — the residue of a bird, the sloughed-off cells — these things are not then used by other birds (though they may be occasionally), but by men and women. [...]

[...] A tree is something far different to a microbe, a bird, an insect, and a man who stands beneath it. [...] This does not mean that its reality exists in that form in any more basic way than it exists in the form perceived by the microbe, insect, or bird. [...]

[...] And always, one bird led each V, with the two sides of the bird ‘lettering’ trailing back quite unevenly — wobbling, flexing, shifting. [...]

[...] All of the qualities of the birds’ flight were heightened for me by its very invisibility, for while I actually saw no geese at all, that sound was everywhere. [...]

[...] I told you before that some physical gamelike period should be adopted, and suggest your rackets and birds —but activity that is considered fun.