“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 40th envelope experiment was held during the session. See the tracing above. The envelope object was a dried holly leaf. This gray-brown leaf had been taped to the shade on my lamp at work for well over a year; originally I had used it as a model in doing some artwork for a Christmas card. I saved it because of its interesting color and shape, and the fact that its points were as sharp as ever. It was sealed in the usual double envelope, between two pieces of Bristol. Jane had never seen it, nor did she know I had brought it home.

(“A miscellany of shapes arranged in a row.” I call this a good reference to the location of the holly leaf at work. I have a Dazor lamp, a standard piece of equipment, fastened to my drawing table at work. It is a fluorescent lamp with a shade about 18 inches long. I have a habit of sticking various objects on the shade for easy reference—small pictures, drawings, pieces of tape, stickers of various kinds, and other objects. One of these was until recently the holly leaf; I had taped it there after finishing with it close to a year ago. Due to the long narrow shape of the lamp shade, the objects fastened thereon end up arranged in a row.

(See the tracing of the envelope object, the holly leaf, on page 13. Some of Seth’s points were good. I thought another group of them tried to get at the origin of the envelope object—namely my place of employment—hence the reason I chose the question I asked. I also thought the hole and grave data referred to an earlier envelope experiment dealing with my place of employment.

(“Gray and brown.” These are the colors of the envelope object; the holly leaf is very dry and brittle, and faded out to a gray-brown.

[...] A leaf feels its deeper reality as a part of the plant, and adds to its own sense of continuity, and even to its own sense of individuality. But you often pretend that you are some odd dangling leaf, with no roots, growing without a plant to support you.

[...] As one leaf falls another takes its place, until next year the whole plant, still living, will have a completely new set of leaves — future reincarnational selves of this batch.

[...] Yet in time terms each leaf is also aware of the past history of the plant, and biologically they spring up from that “past.”

Each leaf seeks to express its leafhood as fully as possible. [...]

[...] The object was a faded maple leaf that Jane and I had picked up, along with others, on a walk last year, probably in October 1965. I subsequently made a watercolor drawing of this leaf and another. [...]

(Try as we would neither of us could recall just when we picked up this particular leaf, other than that it was in the early fall. [...] The location of just where I picked up this particular leaf is important in the data, and this we are sure of. [...]

[...] When Jane and I went for our leaf-gathering walk in October of 1965, we picked up the maple leaves in our collection beside Aunt Mabel’s home; this is the section of the street where the maple trees grow, and one of these leaves made up tonight’s object.

(Seth gave a few impressions connected with the object, the maple leaf, itself, at the beginning of the data, and at the end when I asked him to name it.

[...] No matter which long edge was uppermost this places the large poinsettia leaf in the center of the card as far as the short edges are concerned. Even so the large leaf would be off center, either above or below, as far as the long edges are concerned. [...]

(Seth goes from round to oval, which is more specific as far as the leaf is concerned, and from square to rectangular, which is more specific as far as the rectangular shape of the piece of Bristol to which I had taped both objects is concerned. [...]

[...] We believe the starlike shape a good reference to the internal pattern of the leaf. [...]

[...] In poinsettia leaves at least, the central spine is a lighter green color than the rest of the leaf.

You will find All That Is also within a leaf and within a flower. But only when you try to understand what a leaf and a flower are. If you believe that a leaf is a piece of physical matter without consciousness, without glory, then you will learn nothing from it. But if you realize that a leaf is a portion of All That Is then you will realize what communion is. [...]

[...] It will move, faithfully mirroring the tiniest motion of the smallest leaf, but its freedom to move will be dictated by the motion of the oak. Not one oak leaf shadow will move unless its counterpart does.

(“Connection with a leaf or autumn.” [...] As then, we think the leaf data here refers to the garden mentioned in the poem used as object. [...]

[...] Connection with a leaf or autumn. [...]

(“I have just one question: what do you think of the painting of the leaf I just finished?” In tempera.)

[...] It is this very nearness that made you dissatisfied with what you had just finished, an inner comparison of this with work you will do in the very (underlined) near future; and no reflection on the leaf painting, except by future contrasts. [...]

lord let me remember how it was
when i nuzzled the air in the morning
and thought i could wiggle a distant leaf
just as i moved my own ears and toes.
i thought that i caused rain to fall
just as the tears from my own eyes
wet my cheeks,
and that my thoughts turned into clouds
that circled the top of my head.

[...] Most of the private sessions we have in those 40 loose-leaf notebooks, about her symptoms, are the result of my pushing her for answers, not the other way around.

[...] Looking at a leaf while in that state, I easily feel myself as part of the leaf, and I think this is a biological as well as a psychic perception. [...]

The leaf hears its growing,

The leaf hears its growing,

Now the universe speaks in many voices, and it can indeed speak through a leaf if you have the wits to listen. [...]

[...] They do not necessarily make themselves known with great clamor or fanfare, but suddenly the most innocuous, innocent birdsong or the sight of a leaf might reveal knowledge of the profoundest nature. [...]

[...] Jane also picked up leaf images in connection with a porch on the first floor.

[...] He correctly picked up the leaf images; however it was not the first floor. [...]

Now, although I admit I usually come to you with a voice like a musical thunder, with a voice that seems to weigh a thousand pounds, that seems to plop into the room, yet I can also come lightly as a leaf and be here when you do not know. [...]

[...] Again, in Framework 2 each event is known, from the falling of a leaf to the falling of a star, from the smallest insect’s experience on a summer day to the horrendous murder of an individual on a city street. [...]

[...] In your spontaneity then, never forget the sacred uniqueness of a shadow upon a road, the shape of a leaf, the stain upon a coffee cup—in these simple things find a hint of your own uniqueness and travel beyond them—and ignore conscious restraint that would bind you. [...]

[...] In a way, the world is like a multidimensional, exotic plant growing in space and time, each thought, dream, imaginative encounter, hope or fear, growing naturally into its own bloom — a plant of incredible variety, never for a moment the same, in which each smallest root, leaf, stem, or flower has a part to play and is connected with the whole.

[...] On her way out of the room she picked up a loose-leaf notebook that contained, she thought, her entries in her daily journal. [...]

[...] It will see to abundance, and not in a self-serving manner but as a leaf seeks sunlight. [...]