“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt must work ever harder at his poetry. [...] You must work ever harder at your painting, and always allow yourself spontaneity and joyfulness as well as discipline in your work; and you must show, sell, or even give away your work.

Your work, Joseph, is a synthesis of pain as well as pleasure. A commitment in the world will not detract but will add to your own work, granted of course that you allow yourself specific working time. [...]

[...] You, Joseph, must paint, using all your powers, instilling into your work all you have learned now and in previous lives, of human understanding, ability, capacity and failure; and you must make an effort to have your work seen. [...]

I want to say something about beliefs that became obvious to him today concerning time and “work.” The ideas of work have been largely covered. His beliefs about time are important in relationship to his work ideas. [...]

In that system he saw you nearly ten years older than he, and in those terms unsatisfied; so he must work all the harder against time, and cut out everything else. In that system, as he developed it, there was no time for leisurely meals, showers, shopping trips or mundane enjoyments—only the work was important. [...] The day in which it was produced would vanish and be nothing—only the work would survive as a monument. [...]

So the day became nothing more than a framework in which he must work, and in which all relationships had little value except as they were interpreted through work. [...]

It is difficult to know where to begin, but we will start with your joint beliefs: (a) that you need solitude a good deal of the day in which to work; (b) your definite belief jointly that this solitude is almost impossible to achieve. [...] You never seem jointly to satisfy yourselves with any method or program or routine that works—in other words, that gives you peace of mind.

[...] The working men were a shock treatment of a kind. [...] Often when you work, they give you a perspective. [...]

[...] Let us examine your joint and individual feelings about the need for solitude in which to work, and your disinclination to “hurt people’s feelings” when they intrude.

For example, you can see this operate in terms of creativity: money comes to you now without new work involved, in terms, say, of paperback sales. [...] All of this applies in the terms in which you are now working—that is, in your present framework.

We will call your working framework, Framework 1 for purposes of discussion, and this higher framework, Framework 2. In Framework 1, time must be allowed for the body to respond, physical time. In Framework 2, and in the terms of Framework 1’s understanding, such body work is not really necessary, since the body itself has nothing wrong with it except the application of beliefs.

The suggestion that he have heating dreams will work now, for work can indeed be done in the dream state that would otherwise take physical time.

[...] His idea of work on one level is connected with the working day. His problem, the artificial dilemma that exists in the daylight hours as to how to spend the time, and the fear that ordinary distractions will take him from his work. [...]

He feels far freer and any work done before the ordinary day begins gives him a sense of physical freedom. [...] He is freer physically then to work at such times. [...]

[...] If a male writer or artist had to work to develop his abilities, then a woman had to work twice as hard. [...]

[...] Your ideas of rustic simplicity do not match your feelings about dedication to work. Ruburt’s ideas of owning a house do not match his ideas of dedication to work. [...] Both ideas are idealized, sentimentalized and distorted in your minds, and either could be incorporated in your ideas of work if you were aware of the conflicts.

[...] You were both loath to leave your work behind and to allow yourselves the “lax” freedom. You wanted to get on with your own work, and to wait for the proofs of my book. [...]

[...] You have lived here some years yet purposely avoided thinking of it, this apartment, as anything but transitory lest you put down roots and become involved in ways that might distract you from your work and purposes. [...] At the same time you stay where you are so you can work, while denying yourselves the sense of ease that you could otherwise enjoy.

The material on work ideas connected with Ruburt still does have application. Many years ago his experience with different editors, in his short-story publishing days, led him to see that a story that hit one editor might not hit another, that his work would be much more easily accepted by some editors than others, and that some, it seemed, regardless of long enthusiastic letters, would not buy a thing. [...]

(Pause.) This material should be read in conjunction with the sessions just mentioned, dealing with his ideas about work and creativity. [...] The matter of Yale led him in his own way to think of his work as if it were to be an institution, every word recorded, so that you only wrote down what you wanted other people to know—and therefore somewhat discouraged spontaneity of expression. [...]

The latest disclaimer issue simply falls into the same pattern, and therefore was added to it, but all of those issues involve his feelings and beliefs about work and creativity. Any issues with you also involved work and creativity, along with the expectations that you had of each other—not just in your married roles but as partners and colleagues in your artistic endeavors. [...]

[...] At his best he does lose himself in work, and finds himself; but the work must be to him exciting, highly creative and challenging. Work for work’s sake will not do for him.

This energy is, of course, related strongly with his work. [...] They must, therefore, be used in exciting creative ways having to do with his intuitions, intellect, and creative work.

[...] When he is enthusiastically and exuberantly working, the past becomes comparatively insignificant for him as far as harmful elements are concerned.

It has begun to work newly for you in the sale of your paintings as you dropped barriers against their sale; but feel it surround you and surround both of you. It is working for you both now, and powerfully in the areas of work and abundance, in terms of inspiration and material. [...]

[...] Other aspects of your work and our work will also be showing themselves. [...]

I am speaking beside that, of your own work. There are psychic insights that will become available, and are being available, in terms of your own work, that will open up new areas to you in it.

Now: Ruburt may sometimes object to the terms used to describe his work. On a surface level the seeming shift from writer to psychic annoyed and bothered him, but it was always the same work, and he knew it. [...]

Again however understand that both of your attitudes worked here, though he exaggerated some indeed. You both considered the world in many respects as distracting, stupid, its people beneath your notice, and your work the only thing of importance. [...]

As this began to take more and more of your time however, he became concerned, for he did not intend to have his work at the price of your difficulty with him. He felt guilty enough that you had to work outside. [...]

It was you who always said you wanted to put all of your energy into your work. [...] He would waste his body for you and his work, but you would not take that step. [...]

The psychic work took up more of your time. [...] At the same time he felt you would begin to resent the time spent from your work, but you would cling to the job like a lifeline until it was too late.

The morning symptoms are clearly related to the fact that you work mornings. [...] This also has to do with disruptions not connected with your work, for which he has no patience.

Through personal interests and background this is done through his work. [...] He broods because he knows he is not working correctly, and then because he broods he cannot work correctly.

[...] When he is working well his rest is in his work. [...]

[...] When he is home working the same energy utilized in his teaching must be used for his own work. [...]

[...] Because you have both utilized your abilities and tried to bring some release to that postcard world, your works have automatically resulted in a comfortable living. Your endeavors cannot be labeled, nor can your (to me) contribution to our joint work be assessed. There is no one who can tell you how many dollars per hour you receive for your work, or what value it has. [...]

It is as ridiculous to prove your worth by working in a conventional sense as it is to prove your worth by not working in a conventional sense. [...]

[...] They did not work in the field (except for the poor monks), and the Protestants determined, for example, that their ministers would have families, work with the people, and be too busy for licentious leisure activities. [...]

In your society, work has many connotations. [...] Most work involves consecutive thinking, in terms of time. If you do not have a job you are lazy—so that work becomes of course a virtue, as well as, usually, a necessity.

[...] As given in some old sessions, certain difficulties began when Ruburt tried to make his creativity fit the conventional work patterns. The creative person often is not wanted at a job, because their creativity by contrast with others’ behavior shows the vast difference between what I will now call joyful work and the usual variety.

Ruburt got so he wanted such encounters only if they fell into his ideas of work. [...] The main point for now that I want to make is that Ruburt does indeed perceive the world differently, and he cannot try to force that vaster kind of perception into the narrow confines of ordinary work ideas.

You related in terms of your work, or our work, or as a couple with others. [...] Many would be far more than satisfied with your relationship, but you set yourselves high goals, both in your work and in your personal lifelong relationship with each other, and you suffer when you are not true to this.

Your habits both became extremely sloppy in that regard, and it was easy for both of you to justify the lack of increasingly rewarding emotional interaction by saying it went into your separate work, and into our work.

[...] Your work and your relationship are interwoven. [...] The whole problem however involves your work also, and solving one problem solves the other. [...]

(For the past few days I’ve done little “creative” work, beyond working on my watercolor portrait of Mrs. Johnson, the subject of my dream of last November, for an hour or two in the mornings; then in the afternoons I’ve typed these sessions and written the required notes for the record. I’ve done a lot of yard work—it seems to be a very therapeutic activity at this time—and worked on filing. [...]

[...] They served to show why you worked at home, or did not sell your work at galleries: you had to take care of Ruburt. [...]

Again, to some extent now (underlined), both of you wanted a framework that would allow you what you thought of as freedom to work. [...] It is a method that he tried, but it did not work because it defeated its own purposes.

[...] While artists all use the same “material” — the human experience — it is still the brilliant uniqueness or individuality pointing out and riding upon that shared human performance that makes a work “great.” Afterward the critics may point out patterns, assign the work to a certain school, connect the images or symbols to those in other paintings — and then make the mistake of believing the symbols to be general, always apt, meaning the same thing wherever they are found. But all of this may have little to do with the artist’s interpretation of his own symbols, or with his personal experience, so he may wonder how the critics could read this into his work.

(10:49.) The same applies to mental conditions, which have a way, sometimes, of working themselves out better without your professional therapies than with them — often cures happen in spite of your best-intentioned treatment. [...] If medication of that sort improves the immediate situation, the inner problem of beliefs must still be worked out. [...]

[...] When you form the living sculpture of your body, which is far more important to you than any work of art, you should certainly follow the same course. [...]

[...] I told Jane she had many good works ahead of her through the years, and that it was time we determined upon a system that would allow her to produce them with as little delay as possible. She seemed to agree with all of this, adding that already we had Rembrandt and the new Seven in the works. [...]

[...] She ate a piece of candy as I worked with mail. [...]

(I had no calls or other interruptions this morning as I worked on Dreams. [...]

On one level Ruburt grossly misinterpreted your reaction here; since he was susceptible and knew it in his work area, he erroneously supposed you would be. The fact is that Ruburt, working, attracts you sexually, and you working attract Ruburt sexually. You however, being the male breadwinner as well as artist, feel most threatened by sex when you are working, because pregnancy could threaten the artist. [...]

[...] Both of you decided that you would give your lives to creative work. Both of you decided that you would have no children, not only because this fit in with the first goal, but because the energy connected with family life would go into your creative productions, would be saved and available when you began to embark upon the psychic work for which you had also planned.

(“He can always work back here in the studio on mornings and all day Fridays. [...] I work all day Friday at Artistic.)

You can, in other words, intuitively progress within an hour a year’s work, if you allow it. [...] I am saying be cautious, for while certain periods of time seem necessary within your system for the development of your work, that the ideas of limited time on a daily or weekly basis can slow down the intuitional qualities of your work and growth.

The book became a sore point, and the focus in his work of the inner problem, a symbol. Finally he had to force himself to work on it, and at times he could not work on it. [...]

[...] Again, in many areas, you work together very well, and this inner closeness which does aid your work and make the psychic work possible, is the same closeness you see that opened you to these other interactions.