“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Yesterday evening we were visited by Dr. John Beahrs and his bride, Claudette. The visit was quite enjoyable, and it marked the first time in days that I’d forgotten my aches and pains, as I realized when it was all over. I slept well—and the discomfort returned full force when I got up this morning. I was so bothered, in fact, that I had great difficulty concentrating on painting.

Now: The spider spins his web, and the spider’s web is a combination of art, craft, esthetics, and utility.

The web is a work of art, the spider’s home, and the source of his food as well. Although it may seem to your consciousness that one spider web is like any other, this is not true, of course, in the world of spiders. All creatures of whatever degree have their own appreciation of esthetics. They possess the capacity to enjoy esthetic behavior.

In a sense, painting is man’s natural attempt to create an original but coherent, mental yet physical interpretation of his own reality—and by extension to create a new version of reality for his species. It is as natural for man to paint as for the spider to spin his web. The spider has its own kind of confidence, however, and a different organization in which he operates. The spider does not wonder “Is my web as beautiful as my neighbor’s, as meaningful? Is it the best web I can construct?” He certainly does not sit brooding and webless as he contemplates the errors he might make.

Instead he focuses his abilities into the matter at hand—easy enough, you might certainly say, for the spider, yet not so easy for the man. The fact is, of course, that in the most basic manner, now, the man—the natural man—possesses that fine, keen spontaneity and inner confidence.

(9:23.)In a way, now, the artist’s hand can be wiser than his questioning mind, certainly, if that mind learns to use its intellect in too obtrusive a fashion. We will return to this shortly, and skip to a conversation of last evening.

Developments of that nature do not come to the young. Other kinds of artistic expression do, of course. Creative people do have more than most an inner sense of their life’s direction, even if they are taught to ignore it. (With amusement:) There is someone I know who tells Ruburt to trust his abilities. Very good advice—but that someone does not always trust his own abilities (louder).

Picasso, for example, had a supreme confidence in his ability. He was also quite content to remain a child at heart. I am not making value judgments, for each individual has his own purposes, and his unique abilities are so intimately connected with his own characteristics that it makes no sense to make that kind of comparison—but Picasso, for example, was an alien to profound thought.

You are still learning. Your work is still developing. How truly unfortunate you would be (louder) if that were not the case. There is always a kind of artistic dissatisfaction that any artist feels, any true artist, with work that is completed—for the true artist is always aware of the difference between the sensed ideal and its created actualization—but that is the dimension in which the artist has his being (intently). That is the atmosphere in which his mental and physical work is done, for he always feels the tug and pull, and the tension, between the sensed ideal and its manifestation.

Now the mathematician may possibly expect a better-paying job. If he is brilliant he may receive the acclaim of his fellows, but the artist, whether or not he finds acclaim, must still always be face to face with that creative challenge. And if he is acclaimed for work that he knows is beneath his abilities, he will find no pleasure in the acclaim.

The true artist is involved with the inner workings of himself with the universe—a choice, I remind you, that he or she has made, and so often the artist does indeed forsake the recognized roads of recognition, and more, seeing that, he often does not know how to assess his own progress, since his journey has no recognizable creative destination.

Try to remember—and Ruburt too—a sense of freedom in your creativity. Have Ruburt play with his ideas and with the ideas in my book, and not overstress this idea of responsibility, particularly as far as my books are concerned. The book sessions should indeed be fun, even as children have fun with their creativity.