“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt need not spend 24 hours a day thinking about his work. Remember he is to trust the inner self. Now let him keep his regular hours. He must remember to focus within the present. When he is going about household chores for example, let him give his mind a rest. Concentrate upon the chores joyfully.

The season will itself offer advantages here. Let him work so many hours and then concentrate elsewhere. He is trying too hard. He sees he has changed his ways, and now wants to do so with a vengeance, you see. (Humorous emphatic delivery.) He has dropped the relaxation exercise, and this should be resumed. For him it is most beneficial.

The inner gains have been made. He is on the right track, but now he wants to gallop down it at once, you see (more humor, eyes wide) to show us all that he has changed. Now this too-much-too-soon attitude was reflected last evening in his class. Working with the table was sufficient, you see. His own interpretation of the communication attempt is correct, so I shall not waste time discussing it.

It was a tool of your art. It was also a part of your talent. It added to the dimension of your work, but to some degree it was also adopted as a protective mechanism, to give you some feeling of separation. Your mother’s emotionalism frightened you so that you distrusted strong feeling, even while you must use it, and be vividly aware of it in order to paint.

The emotionalism within the household seemed to be threatening, and in a free form. You never knew when it would erupt, and as a child you felt helpless before it. Through precise renderings you felt that you imprisoned it, and therefore controlled it. In the beginning this had quite magical connotations for you. Basically you have felt this magical commitment to realistic work, for to leave it would be to break the lines of this imprisonment, letting loose the emotions that you feared.

You are recognizing certain limitations that these developments put upon you. The inner attitudes must be completely changed, though your methods and styles need not necessarily change one iota. It would help you however to attempt larger work. You are afraid of tackling too much feeling at once, and the mere fact of working larger would free you from this to some considerable extent.

At times you have been afraid of putting too much of yourself in your work, as if the painting then could imprison you. In the back of your mind you thought of your mother and father, imprisoned in their house. The house an emotional framework, but quite physical.

Now freedom, a sense of freedom, has been emerging, which has led you toward a desire for larger work. Let the vision in your mind emerge naturally, and it will expand and grow.

Working with subjects that initiate joy within you will also help free you, though you are to some extent frightened even of joy, distrusting it. Still you will experience freedom when you deal with subjects that are evocative to you, of the joy of life or abundance of nature. (Pause.)

Now in portrait work, looking at a subject easily for example, try to see him as he was in past lives. This will add depth and dimension and vastly increase your own interest. Now form is extremely important, but forms change constantly, and no form is permanent. Therefore let your fine draftsman’s ability carry in itself that message: beautiful form but already in transition, with the vision beneath ever ready to adopt new shape. (Long pause. I consider this to be excellent and perceptive material.)

These lines—I mean directions—overall, will give you your uniquely original style. You will not be forcing yourself along certain lines, nor trying to mold a pattern upon yourself from without. The original style and so forth, the original slant and direction that you seek, will be the result of your own inner vision freely followed according to the suggestions I have tried to give you. It already exists and is apparent in some of your work.