“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

THE NATURAL PERSON AND THE NATURAL USE OF TIME.

(During her mid-morning exercise-and-rest break today, I asked Jane if she had any idea why Seth had come through with the material he’d given us in last Monday evening’s session. At first she said no, rather matter-of-factly. Then: “Well, I don’t tell you everything, but for some time now I’ve known Seth gives what I call ‘fill-in’ sessions, or ‘floating material’— stuff he could give any time. It isn’t private, really, or book work either. They’re like ‘maintenance sessions.’ It’s good material, all right, but. …”

(“October 1/80. There are certain sessions I’ve labelled ‘fill-in’ sessions in my mind for some time now, or thought of them as covering ‘floating material.’ They aren’t book sessions or specifically personal ones. They keep the sessions going over periods of time. Like maintenance sessions, but usually by discussing past material — connecting it with the present [‘connective sessions’ is more like it] — while not necessarily adding new thrust. And not specifically given to one subject.

(Jane has grown increasingly restless over the breaks in her activities that are caused by the rest periods she’s taking several times daily. At the same time her back, for example, has improved considerably. She was angry as we sat for the session. “I’m so mad I can’t talk about it,” she said — while talking about it for some 20 minutes. I told her I knew she didn’t want to take the rest periods, and that I had little to offer as an alternative, beyond her simply cutting down on them. I figured she’d be altering her schedule. “Boy, Seth, you’d better bail me out,” she said vehemently. “I can’t have a session on it because I’m too involved — you have to calm down before you can do that. …”

Our friend is now feeling somewhat more ambitious of late. A few weeks ago, he could hardly wait to lie down at the appointed times, like it otherwise or no, simply because he was so uncomfortable.

The fact that he is now thinking of walking after dinner is an obvious advance. His irritability is somewhat natural — but also based on the idea, still, that when he is laying down that is dead time (with amusement), or useless time, enforced inactivity. It would help, of course, if he reminded himself that his creative mind is at work whether or not he is aware of it, and regardless of what he is doing, and that such periods have the potential, at least, of accelerating creativity, if he allows his intellect to go into a kind of free drive at such times. You might have him become more aware of when he actually becomes tired, or uncomfortable, so that he does lay down then.

One important point, again, is to remember that in any given day his mood is often excellent for many periods of time. He should concentrate his attention upon those periods, rather than concentrating upon the periods when he is blue or upset, and berating himself for those reactions.

(9:44 in a fast delivery.) Give us a moment… .(Long pause.) To some extent Ruburt’s dissatisfaction with laying down after dinner also means that he is learning more about his own natural rhythms, for he does feel accelerated at that time, and by the evening, as you do. This is because many of the beliefs that you have individually and jointly are somewhat relieved in the evening, in that they so often apply to the day’s activities, when the rest of the world seems to be engaged in the nine-to-five assembly-line world experience.

That is also why it is easier, generally speaking, for Ruburt to receive such information in the evening, because you are jointly free of limitations that might hamper you at other times of the day — not simply that visitors might arrive more usually then, but because you yourselves are less visited by preconceptions of what you are supposed to do in any given hour of the day.

The natural, magical flows of your own rhythms are more often broken up in the daytime. This applies to other people as well, because of your ideas of what you should be doing at any given time, or what is socially respectable, proper, upright, even moral (wryly) in limited terms.

(10:00.) In any case, man was not by any means exclusively a daytime creature, and fires within caves extended activities far into the night. It was agriculture that turned him more into a daytime rhythm, and for some time many beliefs lingered that resulted from earlier nighttime agricultural practices.

(10:10.) In those times, however, man identified more with his intuitive self, and with his imagination, and these to some extent more than now, directed the uses to which he put his intellect.

You must remember, of course, that the use of clocks is a fairly recent phenomenon. (Pause.) Men thought in terms of rhythms of the time, or of flowing time, not of time in sections that were arbitrary. So as far as creaturehood is concerned, you have adapted to a time environment that you yourselves have formed. Creative people, again, are often aware of those connections, at least at certain levels, and Ruburt in particular has always felt that way to some extent. You have largely buried your own natural feelings in that direction.

(10:25 P.M. Jane had no idea “… what he was going to say, or anything.” And note that she did manage to have a session tonight about her own challenges, even though she was quite upset because of them at the same time. Her delivery had, in fact, often been fast and forceful.