“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Five nights later—at 8:35 P.M., Tuesday, November 17, 1981—she held the first, 936th session for Chapter 11 of Dreams. Here are the notes for the session itself:

6. My ever-present concern for Jane would certainly have turned into outright fear had I seen at once the long, untitled poem she wrote on August 26, concurrently with her work on the second chapter for Magical Approach. She didn’t put the poem into its final form, and she didn’t show it to me. Not that she tried to hide it. Neither of us may tell or show the other everything—I just hadn’t been present when she wrote the poem, and she let it lie in her 1981 journal, where I “accidentally” came across it some time later. Even when I did find the poem I became sad, then frightened, then more hopeful as I read it, and I knew at once that I’d have to insert it here in Dreams. For Jane had been depressed when she wrote her poem. Perhaps it was her poetic art of expression that helped me identify so strongly with her emotions, but I suddenly felt that even I had never really understood the myriad depths of her challenges and her reactions to them. In the poem I saw expressed anew her ancient fear of abandonment, along with her dilemmas over her lack of mobility—and my fright was engendered by what I thought were signs that she might choose to leave this physical reality for good. To die. (I’d had similar feelings seven months before she held this 936th session: In Note 13 for Session 931, in Chapter 9, see my comments following the excerpts from the private session for April 15, 1981.)

Jane might have shortened her poem had she written a final draft; rather, I decided that the reader should see just how she had spontaneously and poetically contended with her challenges on a particular day. In order to save space here, however, in each stanza I’m “running together” her characteristically short lines, separating them with the diagonals, or virgules, that are standard in this kind of presentation:

Sometimes there is / no reply at all, as if /
my voice itself / turns into mist / or is lost in /
the waves pounding / until it seems / I am indeed /
abandoned, / separated from / some forgotten self /
who has gone elsewhere / without me, / so that the gulf /
between us / is so distant / that messages sent back /
and forth / now take so long / to reach me /
that only future / generations / of myself /
would be here to / catch their meaning.

My counterpart says, / “Those treasures / are marked with /
your name / and will be arriving / each day for a while, /
marvelous surprises / from the most mysterious / of places. /
But I’ve grown wiser too— / how good to find you /
waiting for me here. / No journey is worth /
disturbing our harmony, / the self’s unity, /
and to the undivided / self / all journeys / are possible.”

10. Seth dealt with our personal challenges for almost all of this session on Monday evening, November 9. After supper Jane had announced that she wanted to try for a session—she didn’t know whether it would be private, for Dreams, or on other material. She’d just finished rereading a number of book sessions. She was both nervous and impatient at the prospect of her first session since last August. Here are excerpts: