“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(After getting her drops at 4:15, Jane began a series of movements with her head and shoulders, her left leg, then ended up moving her torso from side to side. Noises, grunts and groans. Left leg pulling up at the hip so it was free of the pillow beneath it.

(4:20. More flexing of that leg—I could see the muscles in it moving clear up to the hips. By now Jane was starting to utter cries and to breathe quite heavily as she moved. I think the cries were a mixture of frustration, tears, discomfort and anticipation. The left leg moved, particularly at the hip, again. “My body wants to do it so bad.” Now her right leg began moving more sideways to the right. Jane cried again. “That’s the first time I’ve done that. I don’t know what to do with it, it feels funny.” No doubt about it, good things were taking place, new things that had her upset and anticipatory at the same time. Her face was often screwed up into a knot.

(4:26. Now her left leg started moving sideways at a rapid pace. All of the time she was half-crying and breathing hard. She groaned and cried and lifted up her left leg again. Crying, she moved her head and shoulders against the pillow, back and forth. “Oh, my God, that’s the most I’ve done with them yet,” she said, meaning her legs. “Now the right one has pulled away from leaning against the left one. I don’t want to do any more.”

(4:32. But deliberately, she moved her right leg out to the right, away from the left one, crying all the while. I could see the muscles in the right leg flexing to some degree—a sight that’s been pretty infrequent so far.

(4:35. Jane asked for water, but her left arm began rotating so fast she couldn’t drink. Then the left arm went around and around. “That’s the most I’ve moved everything all in one day.” she said, and it was true.

(4:40. More crying. Left leg moving outward. Right arm circles, then both arms together. Laughing at the freedom of motion.

(4:43. “The right leg doesn’t want to go back the way it was,” she said, as it moved outward again. “Part of me is exhausted and part wants to keep going forever.”

(4:45. The supper tray came. “It feels so funny beneath my shoulder blades,” Jane said as she freely moved both shoulders. She rested a bit, refused water, then took it before I turned her on her left side. She had had an extensive workout, one that had touched responses deep within her, and that gave me great hope also. I felt that she’d passed another milestone on her way to recovery, and was delighted with that.

(Georgia also told us, with Patty, that they’d just heard that the administration of the hospital had decided to close down the section room 330 is in, because “they’d just realized that Surgical 3 is short of staff.” A lot of patients will be going home over the holidays, Georgia said, and those remaining, like Jane, would be moved elsewhere. I thought the talk was only talk. I knew we wouldn’t consent to going back to rehab. Georgia said she was going to protest the decision to nursing service, downstairs.

(3:30. Jane suggested she could have a session, then would try for some exercises. Earlier in the afternoon I’d described my very vivid dream of last night, and asked that Seth comment on it if he came through: I’d found myself in a large studio, painting like mad on large canvases. Like Rembrandt had, I was painting portraits and full-figure compositions on very large canvases—even over ten feet square, say. My brush moved over the surface, modeling heads and likenesses, and ideas, with amazing facility. I reveled in my power and ability. I knew I’d attained this great freedom after years of being too cautious and inhibited. I’d broken free and was now enjoying marvelous and penetrating creativity. At last I knew what it was like to be a great painter, and I loved it. At least some of the portraits reminded me of Rembrandt’s work, in the dream.

There is no doubt that Ruburt’s right leg manifested important new motions yesterday. It began to stretch and move itself in ways that it had not been able to do before. Those motions allowed other motions to occur in other parts of the body. Those improvements were in the process of taking place in the period immediately before they showed themselves, when the legs seemed comparatively quiet.

There was some disorientation on Ruburt’s part because of the unaccustomed motion, but he handled that well. (The crying.) His arms also showed additional freedom—and in many instances portions of his body moved with the same kind of ease that you experienced in your dream of last evening, as you painted the large portraits—

(4:10. After getting her eye drops from Lorrie, Jane’s left leg started moving, her foot rotating up in the air a couple of inches. “The impetus comes all the way up into the thigh now,” Jane said, and I could see the thigh muscles moving, tensing and relaxing. Her motions were subdued compared to those of yesterday, though.

(4:13. “My right leg is doing it now,” she exclaimed, and I saw it move outward a little. Gentle groans.

(4:15. “I’m getting that free motion thing in this right shoulder blade.” Head and shoulders moved side to side, left foot going also. Good movements. Rest.

(4:22. Jane lay so quietly that I thought she’d fallen asleep—but no, she said, she was just moving inside very quietly.