“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The tree is of course dissociated in one manner. In some ways its living forces and consciousness are kept to a minimum. It is in a state of drowsiness on the one hand, and on the other hand it focuses the usable portion of its energy into being a tree. The state of consciousness involved here is dull as compared to the highly differentiated human ability in many ways.

However in some other manners the experiences of the tree are extremely deep, dealing with the inner senses which are, and properly, also properties of treedom. There is something here difficult for me to explain clearly. The inner senses of the tree have strong affinity with the properties of earth itself. They feel their growing. They listen to their growing as you listen to your own heartbeat. They experience this oneness with their own growth, and they also experience pain. The pain however while definite, unpleasant and sometimes agonizing, is not of an emotional nature in the same way that you might experience pain.

In some ways it is even a deeper thing. The analogy may not be a perfect one, far from it, but it is as if your breath were to be suddenly cut off. In a manner this somewhat approximates pain for a tree.

The tree is also innerly aware of its environment to an astonishing degree. It maintains contact awareness and the ability to manipulate itself in two completely different worlds, so to speak, one in which it meets little resistance growing upward, and one composed of much heavier elements into which it must grow downward. Man needs artificial methods for example to operate effectively on land or in water, but the so-called unconscious tree manages very nicely in two worlds as diverse certainly as land and water, and makes himself a part of each. I am speaking now of a tree as a “he” for reasons that I will go into in a further discussion.

(Break at 10:26. Jane said she had stage fright this evening; why she does not know. She still wonders where the material is coming from, especially when she does not consciously know what she will say from one word to the next. Her eyes have been very dark this evening.

When you are overly concerned with physical matters, and even vital physical matters, you pull yourself in. And more ridiculous, you pull up your roots. A tree would never pull up its roots. I am not speaking now of pulling up your roots in terms of moving from one location to another. I am speaking of something akin to cutting off your roots from any nourishment whatsoever.

(I must have been squirming again. The rocker Seth refers to is one I bought last year when I had back trouble—a Kennedy rocker that is very comfortable.

When you start out by trying to be practical in cold terms you rarely succeed, because you close yourself away from what does not seem to be practical in your terms. But your terms are not the only terms that apply. The inner self, and I will make these differentiations for you clearly either now or later, the inner self is nourished by many springs. To cut off one is a danger. To cut off many is disastrous, and prevents any sort of practicality, since half of your abilities will not be used.

The confident inner self will let the ego manipulate in the physical world, but will not allow it to become fiercely overprotective. Your work contains the strength of your inner self in many ways. Your particular ego’s function is to show this work to the world as you know it. I hesitate, and I mean this, to offer practical advice to one who tries to be so practical. But my dear Joseph, there is no true practicality in smothering your abilities by working in a position where you cannot use your abilities. You will not be paid for abilities you cannot use, since I know you must think in financial terms. Your ego’s job is to help you trade your true abilities for your daily bread.

You may take a break. If you do not mind, after the break I will continue for a short while. I am trying very hard, Joseph, because dissociation will answer more than one of your particular problems, and practical ones at that. Associations which you may consider impractical are often very practical. I always feel when I speak along these lines as if I must say over and over that I do not intend any shortening of your working hours, only that you have more energy than you realize and that associations, as certainly you must see with your landlord, are often practical. Take your break.

I hate to bring this up, however you are the one who brought it up.

She would have talked the landlord into taking one week’s rent instead of two months’ rent in advance. There is a supermarket three blocks away where she would have gotten a job that would have lasted seven months. At the end of this time you would have had a job in an advertising firm. You would have gotten by very well. You would not have stayed at the advertising firm over eighteen months. However Jane would have worked in an art gallery—this experience was ahead of her, not foreordained but ahead of her in any case. You would have ended up in the same gallery.

If you remember, at one time when you had just arrived from Florida she convinced her landlady to give you an apartment with no money down. This was another opportunity out that would have avoided the nearby association with your parents, but was not taken.

She would have taken a private plane to Minneapolis. The plane would have crashed, and she would not have survived. So if you think of opportunities missed think also of tragedies avoided, because but for you she would have taken the job to get out of Sayre. I wanted to bring all these points up this evening so that you will see that while you did not always take the best course, you had the sense between you to avoid the worst ones.