“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The service station is significant on many levels, being used here as a particularly American symbol of the mechanical age, and also one that refers to a pursuit that is utilitarian and also provides service (as Jane said this morning): You deal directly with the public. There are two main areas and issues that wind in and out of this dream, as in the other two: the idea of work and service in relation to the idea of art and creativity.

In the first scene of this dream you see a probable self, who could reasonably be expected to be the kind of son your father might have, gifted with his hands mechanically, assertive enough to own his own business, however—after all, a part of the American dream, embarked upon employment that he enjoyed, and yet one that provided a service, hence physically seen between the ice (and roller-skating) rink, representing pleasure or fun, and the grocery store, representing service or nourishment. So you might have been that kind of person, with the belief system of your times, and with your background. A man if possible should own his own business, provide a service for the community—and, again, inventiveness or creativity were to be wedded to those pursuits. Your father’s inventiveness, again, dealt often with mechanics.

Some of this has to do with the complicated nature of creativity itself, and with the contradictions that seem to exist at certain levels. Your kind of creativity has always been together and jointly of a private nature—so much so that you do not even like to work in rooms too close to each other. You have often thought of living under more isolated surroundings. Ruburt has been fascinated at times by the idea of working nights, his ways of assuring such isolation. You began to accumulate some ideas of a different nature, wondering more about your responsibilities to the world as adults, wondering how “useful” art should be in the world.

(3:49.) Ruburt began to wonder about television and so forth for publicity. He wondered if he did not have the responsibility, again, to spread the psychic message outward. Many different pressures operated there. In later years, as books were finished, the matter of publicity would rise anew, but his relative success meant that the issues stayed in the air, so to speak. Your discussion reminded him of how he used to be (pause), and also brought up in his mind the seeming contradictions of creativity, in that it is private, but usually ends up as some kind of public expression.

(Long pause.) You kept your own studio apart, say, from the house’s living areas. The whole nature of your independent and joint creativity involved a retreat from the world that you both enjoyed, followed by, in the case of books, an expression in the world—in which, however, the books appeared in your stead: a way of life that involved usual publicity—lectures and so forth—seemed to threaten that kind of existence to Ruburt, in which he feared expression itself would be diverted, simplified, so that the message that finally did get through would not be the same message at all as the original one. Yet still, because of misunderstandings and old beliefs, he still felt a responsibility to act otherwise, a social pressure to do so. (All intently.)

The symptoms became the sign of reluctance. They helped take the place of the isolated mountain cabin, perhaps. To a large degree they were largely the result of a lack of understanding of himself, brought on by his old religious beliefs of responsibility, then applied to his own creativity. So your dream sparked the discussion that sparked these later emotional realizations on Ruburt’s part—realizations that should go a long way toward removing such feelings of responsibility, and hence relieving the situation considerably.

(Long pause.) End of session, except to remind you that the dream message also reflects material that I have been giving you concerning creativity and the stressing of pleasure above responsibility. You paint because it gives you pleasure initially. You have the sessions together and you do the notes primarily because these endeavors bring you pleasure. They exercise your curiosity, creativity, and sense of exploration.

I may indeed dictate a new letter to you (as Jane said recently), to make our position clear, but Ruburt’s main position is not one of service: it must be one of pleasure and creativity. Pleasure and creativity automatically and spontaneously alter the world for the better, without methods and even without effort.