“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Then on October 23 Jane’s creative contentions led to her “attend” material—in which she picked up from Seth that her only responsibility in life is to herself: “Attend to what is directly before you.” Seth told her that she bore no onus to save the world. In relief, Jane wrote a short poem to accompany Seth’s message, then wrote further that she “realized that like many I’d become afraid of faith itself.” I’ve presented this cluster of material in the frontmatter for Volume 1 of Dreams. Her insight helped both of us. However, she hadn’t had a session, regular or private, in over 10 weeks [since August 13], so on October 27 she recorded in her journal the continuance of her daily creative struggles: “And once again I’m way behind in sessions and writing. This A.M. I ‘worked’ from midnight to 3—without getting anything done. I wonder about the advisability of the entire project [Magical Approach]. Where had the magic gone? Where was my inspiration? Those were my thoughts when it occurred to me that I should be writing them down, because they’re part of the whole picture. I felt better….”

(8:49.) Many people might wish that I would add many more methods to help you study dreams and their nature. In such a manner also dreams suggest nature’s spontaneous order throughout the centuries, and allow you to look at the species in a truer light. Your lives, for that matter, are dependent upon the curious relationships that are involved. Colon: You would not get by for one day if the conserving principles and the unexpected did not exist exactly as they do. There is so much you must learn and remember in life, and so much you must spontaneously forget—otherwise, action itself would be relatively meaningless.

You perform far more actions in a day than you recall. You do not know how many times you lift your arms, speak a sentence, think a thought. With the kind of consciousness you possess, an overreliance upon conserving principles could then end up in a reduction of life’s processes.

(9:01.) In private living and in so-called evolutionary terms, however, life necessitates the intrusion of surprising events, unforeseen actions, leaps of insight or behavior that could not come alone from any accumulation of knowledge or simple conservation of energy, but seem to suggest entirely different new developments.

(9:50.) Now: Ruburt is that kind of courier. There are many in all areas of life, and this involves not only an excitement on the part of your own species, but the same kind of curiosity and excitement on the part of other species as well. Again, most difficult to explain—but those connections that exist between all species and the environment are themselves affected. The horizontal communications stretch and expand to allow for later developments in terms of probabilities, for consciousness always knows itself in more than one context, and it is possible for nature to experience itself in ways that would seem to be most improbable when the properties of conservation and learning are at their (underlined) strongest spring.

10:01 P.M. Jane vaguely remembered Seth’s puzzling continuation of book work after he’d said dictation was over for the evening. I told her I thought he’d triggered his extra material himself through talking about our species’ couriers. I’m pleased that he said Jane is such a one. I don’t remember him describing her before in just that way; it’s another insight into her chosen mystical-psychic role in physical life “this time around.”)

Something in me / ebbs and tides, / as if I let myself /
for a while / be washed away / out to sea / while leaving /
some spidery shell / upon the shore / dry and shriveled, /
scarce alive. / [yet] with fierce / mouth and eyes /
half alive. / But ah, that half / is passionate /
and filled with / life’s yearning.

The other part, / dispassionate, / flows together /
with the waves / past world and rock / dispersed as mist, /
beyond impediments / uncaring / while my heart /
in the fragile shell / calls out, / “Come back /
dear counterpart. / I am exhausted, / near dying, /
a partially empty / shell, paper-thin / with all my /
life alive / and flaming / only in my head / but nearly /
unstirring. / How can you leave me / in such a state, /
vulnerable / and exposed?”

“I did briefly give him a message (on October 23, 1981): Attend to what is before you, for it is there for a reason. In each person’s life, and in your own, at each and every point of your existence, the solutions to your problems, or the means of achieving those solutions, are always as apparent—or rather as present—within your days as is any given problem itself. What I mean is quite simple: The solutions already exist in your lives. You may not have put them together yet, or organized them in the necessary ways. The solutions in Ruburt’s case lie in all of those areas with which you are normally concerned—the mail, the sessions, the psychic abilities. When you attend to what is there with the proper magical attitude of mind, then the altered organizations can take place.