“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

What neither of you realized is the acuteness with which you choose the situations. You have not gone to establishments where dancing is the usual thing, where a dance floor is available. Granted there are other reasons for it, nevertheless you choose to begin with a situation in which dancing is not the norm, where it requires on anyone’s part particular effort, and a spotlighted situation.

Ruburt realizes the desperation behind his own sudden impetus to dance, and the effort behind it. He realizes you do not experience this, and does attempt to make adjustments on your behalf. He does this particularly since he realizes he cannot count upon his reactions. The next time out he might be willing to dance, and be relatively unable.

There is a significance in your dancing dilemma that neither of you have come to grips with—having to do with each of your natures and characteristics and ways of looking at a situation. Of course projection is involved, on both of your parts, and not therefore simply on Ruburt’s . He to some extent (underlined twice) recognizes his projections, is consciously aware of them, and tries to deal with them, but in that particular situation you do not recognize yours, though you understand to some degree your different individual reactions.

If you shy away from dramatic public exhibitions of emotionalism under the best circumstances, then here you are faced with a situation in which you see it thrust upon you by someone you love, and in your eyes under the poorest of circumstances. The physical conditions, the floor, the act of dancing when others are not, these circumstances are not to your liking. Beside that Ruburt, you feel, is not at his best physically speaking. The situation then is highly charged.

[...] This York Beach dancing establishment was actually a ground floor room in one of the older beach hotels there. [...] It was not a large room, and the dance floor was quite small; fifteen couples would be forced to stand elbow to elbow. The bandstand was at the end of the dance floor, and when the trumpet blared the noise was deafening. [...]

(The couple in question sat at a table for two directly in front of the bandstand; a most peculiar spot, I recall thinking, for an older pair who did not smile, did not dance, who caught our eyes occasionally, who did not seem to care about the drinks before them. [...] This was after we had been dancing for a while. Part of the time while dancing, we had been so close to their table we probably touched it. [...]

(Rob surprised me by asking me to dance, insisting even, though the dance number was a twist, and we didn’t know it. [...] We found ourselves on the other side of the floor, shoved next to the couple’s table, dancing very close. [...]

Your dancing represented the first move away from what those images meant, and violent action was the best thing under the circumstances. [...] The energy you used dancing came from psychic reserves, saved subconsciously for emergency.

He would purposely choose occasions in which dancing, to begin with, was at least not the thing—when no one else was dancing, when an ordinary person might have inhibitions against it. [...]

His sudden desire to dance and the freedom came fairly quickly after you started going out again. [...] Ruburt’s sudden desire to dance was also based upon desperation and defiance, which you recognized and reacted against.

[...] Some late instances I have mentioned, having to do with his beliefs and interpretations now, of your actions in dance establishments.

When you refused to dance, he interpreted this to mean that he was right: he could be spontaneous only as long as it was socially approved, did not hassle you, and when he did not stand out from the crowd.

[...] We thought this a reference to the dining and dancing establishment we visited last Saturday evening, February 19, where I picked up the envelope object. [...] Its location, in one corner of the place, is unique; it sits on a raised platform perhaps two feet higher than the other tables; the dance band is on the left, the fireplace on the right, with an excellent view of the dance floor in between. [...]

(The envelope object for tonight’s 35th experiment was a beer coaster that I picked up from our table last Saturday evening, at our favorite dining and dancing establishment here in Elmira. [...] Jane and I met two young couples there by prearrangement, and we had much fun dancing. [...]

[...] Jane and I see him more often when out dancing that I do on the job. [...] Early Saturday evening, we saw Hack Rice and his wife dancing, and said hello as we usually do. [...]

[...] Now he was obviously feeling good, and dancing with another woman. [...] To the amusement of most people, Hack and the woman, whom we did not know, put on quite an exhibition of exaggerated, sinuous, close-contact dancing.

[...] It has to do with the dance of consciousness that is within you and with the sense of spiritual adventure that is within your hearts. That is the meaning of spirituality and as I have told you before, if I could, I would do a merry dance about the room to show you that your vitality is not dependent upon a physical image. [...]

[...] It has to do with the dance of consciousness that is within you, and with the sense of spiritual adventure that is within your hearts.

That is the meaning of spirituality; and as I have told you before, if I could I would do a merry dance about the room to show you that your vitality is not dependent upon a physical image. [...]

[...] I’m dancing at a swank dance floor with a younger man with dark darting eyes that now remind me of Frank Longwell, Jr. I know I’ve seen him once before and that he’s a thief. [...]

[...] For Ruburt, dancing, his one inclination to flaunt himself, comes into direct conflict with your ideas of privacy and secrecy. When he is obviously not in the best of physical condition and then wants to dance, this to you is showing his weakness to the world. You, with your history of athletic behavior, and your love of “perfect motion,” immediately contrast his activities with the time when he danced with the greatest of ease.

[...] Each dance is a victory because he first had to get over the fear of walking to the dance floor, and he looks hopefully to you for your support that he does not look too badly. [...]

[...] Her dancing. [...]

[...] The dancing represents Ruburt’s end of the sportsman proposition—his gymnastics.

[...] That is why the dancing is important. There is a difference between saying “we danced,” to Ruburt, regardless of how well he danced, and the belief that he could not dance at all. [...]

The dancing then each time is a positive issue, and acts to weaken the other beliefs, and stands as a contrast. [...]

The dancing was left open to some extent because it was not a daytime activity that conflicted with his other beliefs so directly.

It is precisely the challenge of things like dancing when he is in poor shape, but coming through when others are watching, or a trailer trip, or riding a bicycle when it seems impossible, or climbing a tree, that has the imaginative literal qualities that inspires him to change beliefs, whether or not those issues in that way make sense to you.

(When I spend too much time going out, Seth told me, too many evenings in a row visiting or dancing, I get depressed because I feel it is a waste of time in spite of the psychic benefits to be derived from being with others. [...]

[...] I am now aware of this however, and Seth told me I saved the situation last Saturday evening at Mihalyk’s by asking Jane to dance.)

[...] We hadn’t danced together in the eight years of our marriage, and the band was playing a twist, with which we were entirely unfamiliar at the time. [...] I was afraid of making a fool of myself, but Rob dragged me out on the dance floor. We danced for the rest of the evening, and from that point on his physical condition improved remarkably. [...]

“The man and woman in the York Beach dancing establishment … were fragments of your selves, thrown-off materializations of your own negative and aggressive feelings … the images were formed by the culminating energy of your destructive energies at the time. [...]

[...] To my complete amazement Rob stood up, grabbed my arm, and insisted that we dance. [...]

“Your dancing represented the first move away from what those images meant, and violent action was the best thing under the circumstances … a subtle transformation could have taken place in which you and Jane transferred the bulk of your personalities into the fragments you had yourselves created … and from their eyes watched yourselves across the room. [...]

[...] When you go dancing, it would help if he wore clothes that he has worn in the past when he danced well, you see. [...]

[...] Dancing can be of great therapeutic benefit. [...]

[...] A nail may not choose to jump down from a window still and dance about the room, but a nail is indeed aware of the room, of the window sill, and aware of the temperature on both sides of the window. [...] Indeed, a dance is executed of great symmetry and rhythm. [...]

[...] I was dancing with middle-aged man who had some limp or such. [...]

[...] 18, while we were dancing at the Driftwood Lounge at York Beach, which is the hotel bar where we saw our projected fragments, described by Seth in the 9th session [in Volume 1], page 43.

[...] The 19th and 20th we spent dancing at another place.

The abandon of your dancing was good for both of you. [...]

[...] Even slow dancing, for example, until he can manage fast dancing, but the use of bodily rhythm.

Play your radio—another example—and the two of you dance to it at home if you want. [...]

with a secret life that dances

[...] If you can, playfully, playfully together, imagine you and Ruburt chasing each other up and down the stairs, or dancing beautifully, or whatever comes into your mind, as long as it is not serious, and you do not expect instant results.

and dance on a path

(We finally asked the table to do a dance for us, as it had in no uncertain terms the other evening when the Gallaghers were present. [...]

[...] The table began to hop and dance about the room. [...]

(The session climaxed with a very active dance by the table, as the three of us left our chairs and followed it about the rug. [...]