“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Art is not a specifically human endeavor, though man likes to believe that this is so, and no scientist is going to grant a spider or a bee any sense of esthetic appreciation, certainly, so what you have is art in its human manifestations, and art is above all a natural characteristic.

The natural man, then, is a natural artist. Children draw, play with images, with language, with the sounds of their voices creatively and artistically. The natural man, the natural person, knows that art provides its own sense of creative power. In a fashion it makes no difference how many other children have drawn circles or triangles with great curious glee, quite astonished at their own power to do so. They may have seen circles or triangles countless times, but the first drawn circle is always original to the drawer, and always brings a sense of power.

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.

If you listened to your own conversations now and then with—if you will forgive me—an objective ear, you could both often cut some of your troubles short, or nip them in the bud. (To me:) You were speaking to your guest John with some evidence of dissatisfaction in your voice, some self-accusation, some irritation, wondering why as a young man you did not make greater breakthroughs in your art. You wondered why at your age you had not come further in your painting, and literally why you did not know what you know now some 20 or even 30 years ago.

(10:05.) The natural man has a body. When you assail yourself for how you think you have handled or not handled your natural artistic abilities, then you are assailing the natural man. When you assail yourself you are assailing the natural man. You are disapproving of your natural characteristics, as if an animal took a dislike or dissatisfaction to its own color. You become annoyed by the spontaneous, natural tension that is a part of your artistic being—and that tension becomes physically translated in the body.

A note: Beside your dream images, and so forth, which are indeed an excellent idea, you have advantages here that the young man of some 20 or 30 years ago would have envied: he would have been delighted with the screened-in porches. Perfect, he would have thought, at least one of them, for a summer studio. To have a house with screened-in porches amid trees—what an advantage! He would have found a way to use them in the summertime. There would have been an interplay then between dream activity and the physical images of a unique nature.

Simply a suggestion, since you have been so concerned at times with that young man’s abilities. End of session.