(Jane hadn’t shown me any of these poems as she wrote them over a period of some four and a half years. She didn’t keep them from me deliberately. In one way they’re like casual jottings that she left half finished and unseen in her journals, until I found them when I began searching for fresh material for the frontmatter of this Volume 2 of Dreams. In another way they contain deep and private insights, ranging from her free, marveling childhood yearning and intuitive knowing up to her present physically impaired condition—her arthritic-like “symptoms,” as we call them—and beyond to the final state of her work after her death. I found each poem to be a revelation, stirring sad and questioning wells of emotion. I can’t help but mourn as I write this piece; I tell myself that had I seen the poems as Jane produced them I might have learned a little more about her each time; I might have been able to help her more than I had over the years. At the same time, it’s as though she’s just finished the poems, so fresh and consistent do they seem to me. And as I reread them I understand once again that my wife is still teaching me about her courage, and about the ineffable, unending mystery of the universe that each one of us is creating moment by moment, separately and all together.

In this deceptively simple but moving poem about her magical childhood responses to the world she lived in, Jane foreshadows from that viewpoint the innate knowledge she was to express a quarter of a century later in the Seth material. When she actually wrote the poem, she’d had her physical symptoms for some nine years; for her own creative and challenging reasons she had allowed them to gain a deep hold upon her, and I think that she drew her inspiration for this poem from that context.)

(“With all of her mental and physical challenges, my wife could still write a poem of humble thanks to the earth. Amazing!” Such was my first thought when I found this poem. Jane loved physical life with a deep, intuitive and psychic innocence then—and she still does. I don’t see how she can express that earthly love more clearly, simply, and beautifully than she does here. Yet, to me this poem also contains many other layers of meaning:)

I offer each one of these poems with a brief commentary. The spelling and punctuation are always Jane’s own. The third poem is the only one she formally titled.

(The 68th envelope object was a poem Jane wrote to me on the evening of July 3,1966. [...] I knew nothing of the circumstances under which Jane wrote the poem, and hoped the data would fill me in. [...]

(The object is a poem written to me by Jane on a sheet of yellow paper, in a dark pen, and dated July 3,1966. [...] Here is a brief summary of the circumstances under which Jane produced the poem; it will be expanded as the data unfolds.

(I had been moody myself that day, and finally lay down for a nap—hence the subject matter for Jane’s poem. [...] Note that much of the data concerns the three people involved in the poem’s psychic surroundings at the time of creation; and that indeed this feeling on Jane’s part overrides the data pertaining directly to the object itself in most cases tonight. [...]

[...] Later note by Rob: Poem is a valentine of sorts; love poem.

[...] Our interpretation here was that the swirling and leaves data referred to the mention of a garden in the poem used as object. [...] The poem used as object was written for this occasion.

[...] Jane thinks this refers to her writing some poems for Peg’s birthday also. [...] Jane thinks the idea of this data is correct, in that she wrote the poems for Peg before she wrote the one for Bill’s birthday six months later.

(The object for the 71st envelope experiment was the first draft of a poem Jane and I wrote for Bill Gallagher’s birthday, which fell on Friday, July 1st. [...]

[...] Bill Gallagher’s facetious term for the local newspaper office, where he also works, is the Garden of Gethsemane—hence such religious connections in the poem used as object. [...]

The poems show my attitude toward life in general just before my psychic experiences began. [...] Incidentally, I considered these poems as aesthetic creations. I made no effort at the time to examine my own subjective states — I simply expressed them as best I could and then criticized the poems on their aesthetic merits. [...]

I’m including in this chapter a few poems as notes of a subjective autobiography, to show what events triggered this first release of unconscious material on my part, opening the doors to the interior universe; for now I believe that certain personal conditions are characteristic prerequisites for such developments, that the channels of intuitive knowledge are opened according to the intensity of individual need. [...]

These poems were all written in spring and summer of 1963 and concern life in general:

I remember writing this poem on one of a series of dreary afternoons in which it seemed that life in general had little meaning.

I see that expanse of time (that four years and five months), as being really an emotional bridge between Jane’s poem in Note 6 for the 936th session and the two she wrote in March 1977. [...] For I feel now, in connection with the two “new” poems, the same profound sensations I had concerning Jane’s challenges when I wrote in Note 6: “Perhaps it was her poetic art of expression that helped me identify so strongly with her emotions, but I suddenly felt that even I had never really understood the myriad depths of her challenges and her reactions to them.” All three poems, then, are of a piece, in which she explores across time and emotion different facets of a common set of beliefs about friendly psychic colleagues and feelings of safety.

Her consistency of attitude was strongly reinforced for me when, as I put together the notes for this session, I came across two rough, untitled poems that she’d produced on March 19, 1977—four years and eight months ago. [...] She hadn’t typed the poems for her journal, or shown them to me, but had quite forgotten about them. [...]

The freshness of those poems was so vivid to me, their contents so pertinent to Jane’s situation today, that they seemed devoid of all that time that had passed since she’d written them. At once I thought of trying to explore that timelessness in the only way I could as a physical creature—by, contrariwise, taking the time to list a flow of events since she had conceived the poems, putting their creativity into perspective while still feeling it as if it were new. [...]

Jane, then, wrote those two poems 16 days before she dictated the last session for Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche on April 4, 1977; one month before she began dictating Mass Events on April 18, 1977; two years and two months before she began God of Jane on May 6, 1979; two years and six months before she began dictating the Preface for Dreams on September 25, 1979; two years and eight months before she came up with the idea for If We Live Again on November 15, 1979; three years and five months before she began dictating Seth’s material on the magical approach to reality in Dreams on August 6, 1980; four years before she began dictating Seth’s sinful-self material in that book on March 11, 1981; four years and three months before she began coming through with her own sinful-self information on June 17, 1981; and four years and five months before, on August 26, 1981, she wrote the poem in Note 6 for Session 936 of Dreams: “Something in me / ebbs and tides, / as if I let myself / for a while / be washed away / out to sea / while leaving / some spidery shell / upon the shore /….”

(A note by R.F.B.: This is the first verse of a long poem Jane wrote late in July 1979, as Seth was finishing his work on Mass Events. Among other things, the poem is a passionate declaration of psychic independence, written in response to Seth’s ideas in this book.)

(A note by R. F. B.: Jane was 32 years old when she wrote this poem in April 1961. [...] With Winged also makes interesting reading along with the verse from her much earlier poem, Summer Is Winter; see page 1 of Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality).

[...] Then a man begins to recite a poem as he walks up and down the shore. The poem isn’t very good but I feel indulgent because his intentions are good....

“After writing the above poem I felt a sense of faith—and realized that like many I’d become afraid of faith itself. [...]

A POEM AND COMMENTARY
BY JANE ROBERTS

Tell him to remember a poem, Rapunzel, that he wrote years ago. [...] This evening’s poem did indeed contain, and was in itself, an intuitional inspiration. [...]

The act of writing the poem at this time, regardless of the poem’s message, you see, represents a willingness to allow the spontaneous self expression. [...]

(This was in reference to a poem Jane wrote after supper tonight, when she was low in spirits.)

[...] As natives do a dance to induce rain, with often excellent results, so Ruburt’s poem represents the same sort of incantation.

[...] Because of the individual freedom of creation implied in the city’s very existence, and in Jane’s early poem in Note 2, I’ll close this appendix with another of her verses. This one is from an even earlier poem, Lorrylo, written when she was but 15 years old:)

[...] When Ruburt (as Seth calls Jane) was a young girl he wrote a poem in which he declares:

2. Seth didn’t quote Jane’s little poem exactly from 26 years ago, but paraphrased it. [...]

[...] Still no Frank Longwell, but that afternoon I suddenly wrote one poem and began another that fascinated me. [...] In the bedroom for a nap I did another verse of the poem and suddenly understood that physically I’d gotten in the habit of identifying myself with pain instead of pleasure. [...]

Enjoyment instead of responsibility: I determined to try that out Saturday, and I did enjoy myself writing a new poem; the theme—pleasure! [...]

In the meantime another excellent verse for my poem came to mind plus the phrase, the body of pleasure and the magical impetus.... [...]

(On Friday, January 21, she wrote 10 poems for Peggy’s birthday in the space of 2 1/2-3 hours. The poems were of a humorous, social commentary nature, and highly polished. [...]

[...] The poems are of high qualityindeed, and Jane felt certain from the start that they would be published. [...]

(On Monday, January 24, Jane wrote 20 poems in the space of 6 or 7 hours.

(On Tuesday, January 25, she wrote 15 poems in 5 or 6 hours.

(Jane had had two interruptions by this point, from staff, and for whatever reasons couldn’t finish the poem. [...]

(Note: March 2 — Jane read her two poems again without glasses — just as good as she had from my notes yesterday. [...]

[...] He did go into your thing about matter, didn’t he?” She added that the poem Seth had referred to is the one I used to conclude the introductory essays for Dreams. [...] And I’ve pinned a copy of that poem to the wall of 330, opposite the foot of Jane’s bed. It’s an excellent poem. [...]

(After reading the poem with Jane, I said good night and left her at 7:12.)

Playground intuition and poem.

(Jane knows which poem. [...]

(Copy of the poem by Jane, referred to by Seth on page 27.

Ruburt is still dealing with spin-off material following or resulting from his Sinful-Self data, and this material generally follows the lines of development that are fairly obvious in the poems and notes that have followed since that time. [...]

[...] There are several lines of a poem and a few of the notes, untyped, that should be also typed at the same time—but he is pulling such issues together. [...]

[...] When Ruburt has typed those small later poems, the path will seem much clearer to him. [...]

The poem invokes all of Ruburt’s abilities to unite and work together. In its own fashion the poem states Ruburt’s purpose—the purpose that was his, and always will be—but here the physical and spiritual are reunited, and each is strengthened and aroused. [...]

The poem represents the unity of inspiration and of healing, the wedding of art and reality. [...]

Off and on been doing Stonehenge poem—type up 6 new pages of it today.... [...]

[...] The chapter actually consists of her long poem, “A Psychic Manifesto,” which she wrote in July 1979. I’m quoting the first verse of the poem in the front matter for Mass Events. “Among other things,” I note there, “the poem is a passionate declaration of psychic independence, written in response to Seth’s ideas in this book.” [...]

3. I’ve been saving the following untitled poem of Jane’s for a spot like this. She wrote it on November 7, 1979, almost a month before delivering Session 886 for Chapter 2 of Dreams (in Volume 1) on December 3. I suggest that in connection with the poem the reader review the opening paragraphs of that session.