After participating in Bill Ingle’s recent event, I recalled that the way to get results with the Seth material is to actually work with it. So, I told myself that I had easy access to other levels of Self and I proceeded to bring someone out for an interview. I didn’t know ‘who’ would show up. Since I was interviewing myself, the questions were all about me.

Question) So, Self, how are you today?

Reply) In answer to your question...

I take in the moment with joy. I sense the feeling tone of this fine June day and I recognize its source - an existence in which many such days were experienced, truly experienced, not ignored inside a dwelling. You look at the shape of the golden-tinged clouds on the horizon and you wonder at the feeling that you get, as if you noticed an alien scent in the breeze. You and I have lived in that place and it was good. As always, we are doing great.

Q) Do you have anything to say about this place I am in?

R) This time, the place is not the issue. This time, it is all about you. You are hoping to work some things out, and so you have chosen a situation in which there are few outside challenges. You have the time to do your work in the inner environment, and have few real distractions on the outside.

This time and place has been chosen by many for its possibilities. You have chosen it for the job of fine-tuning some abilities and you knew that you could live here and be left alone.

Q) I feel the touch of my younger self. Have I departed so much from the self that I was?

R) You are still that person, in a sense. You think that you could have stayed the same, but you really couldn't, not unless you chose to avoid growth! You found wonder in the land and were excited by the thought of unknown realms that should be found just around the bend of a river, hidden in the mist. You looked for new things in the physical world and that is fine but you made another discovery - you found intrigue in the eyes of others. You wonder... what strange lands lie behind those eyes? Then you thought – “and if such lands exist there, then what endless worlds exist within me?” You turned inward and so you still are ever the explorer that you were.

Q) Then what comes next?

R) You explode, and your many thoughts will seed worlds. Ha ha, that is not totally a joke. At any moment that you might name, you are already doing this. It has been said that your slightest thought creates worlds; this is not hyperbole!

You know what comes next. You have set up paths in the dream world. They will be followed, and actually are being traveled now. I would say this about your question: what does 'next' really mean? In terms, not of time but of self, 'next' means more growth and more awareness; the details of where and when matter not. And so it seems that I have nicely sidestepped your question but I have not. Would you have answers to all of your questions so that there are no pleasant surprises and no joy in discovery?

Q) Why have I chosen to write poetry and other writings?

R) The question is deeper than you think. On one level, you are bringing parts of yourself out into plain view to share with others, and you know this. It is a worthwhile endeavor. On another level, you are learning to put your thoughts together into a construction. This is not as simple a thing as it seems. You, with the personality type that you have chosen, jump from one unique thought to another, as you encounter them. You want excitement and variety. You tend not to stay with a thought and build upon it. Some others might have such a thought and then decide to bring it into reality. Indeed, some seize upon an original thought and make it their life's work, and they become successful in a worldly way. You, on the other hand, dwell almost entirely 'outside the box' and you drop one thought into the dirt and reach for others, one after another as they come into your awareness.

You have decided that you want to use your thoughts to build worlds, and what better way to start than to create in the safe realm of words?

Q) Why don't I like people?

R) As you know, you do like some people. As for the masses, you just don't need them.

About 99% of your time is spent thinking; during this time you see people as a distraction.

You don't like the fact that there are so many people. When you take a walk in the woods you do not want to encounter a stranger walking his dog.

But you do seek out the company of those you have grown to like, and of others that intrigue you. You laugh and feel joy in their company and act just like a regular human instead of acting like the alien that you usually think you are.

Your unspoken question is "Why don't people like me?" and the answer is that people do like you. Sometimes you screw things up by demanding that a person turn away from their worldview and see things in a larger way but you need to realize that people have their own reasons for being the way they are, just as you do. The experience of each of these beings is just as valid as your own, and though you may think they limit themselves, so do you.

Q) This brings to mind a feeling that I have had. Sometimes, in certain situations, I feel as if a breeze has blown a mist away to reveal the world as nothing but a stage for a play. I try to communicate this to others but when I do that I feel as if I am stepping outside the rules for this life and that people resent it.

R) Your feelings are valid and here we have a box of paradoxes. You are correct when you think that your reality is a play, but it is not a sham. You all play parts that you have decided to play. While you correctly believe that there is more to reality than meets the eye, you should not discount the play itself. After all, if you did convince others that it was just an act, then so what? Does everyone just stop and go home? Of course not.

On the other hand, it does no harm and perhaps does some good when you show others how to stop and look beyond the props of the set. In short, your revelations will not, and should not, change the way that people act, much. I suggest that you watch the play proceed and enjoy it. After all, you are playing your own part as well. You are really telling people that they create their own reality, though you did not see it in those terms. Funny, isn't it?

Q) Years ago, I noticed that certain periods of my life had a feel about them, almost like a scent or a color. Is this what Seth meant by feeling tone?

R) Since I am you, I know exactly what you mean though it is hard to put into words for others. Feeling tone, in relation to human experience, can be thought of as the flavor of any lifetime, or focus personality. Each person who ever exists, experiences life in hi/r own unique way and there is a unique sense, not flavor, not scent, but similar, that tints that experience. And there is not only one for an entire lifetime, but variations, differences, which are still related to each other. You do not remain the same for long. I would rather explain this all in terms of musical composition but you do not have the vocabulary for it. An example: In the springtime of the year 1979 you had certain experiences. When you think back on those events, there is a feeling... you 'remember' a planet that exists in a globular star cluster and envisioned how the sky would look at night. This was an element of your thoughts about a painting that you saw and liked. You remember spending many nights with good friends, talking and drinking beer around a bonfire. During this time, you discovered Tarot cards and added their energy to your experience. You had a brief relationship with a female that you liked. She worked in the bookstore where you bought your first Seth book. All of these elements added to the mix and you can call the overall sense a chapter in your book of 'feeling tone', though I like the music analogy better.

Q) Dreams, dreams, and more dreams. I am finding more and more structure and reality in the dream world. I actually like the dream world better than the physical world; why is this?

R) There are several reasons, and they are valid at different levels. Obviously, as you concentrate on your dreams, you remember more about them and recognize their reality. But there is a problem here and let's deal with that first. Part of the reason that you say you like the dream world better is that you want to escape from physical reality. You do not like the life that you lead. You are bored with it. When you recall your dream experiences, you feel that they are more interesting and exotic than what you call 'mundane' reality. In truth, you are spoiled by the secure life that you lead and I intend no harsh criticism here.

Having said this, we can move on. You know, of course, that the dream 'world' is truly infinite in its potential. All of the dreams that you have ever recalled are only a small part of the action that you participate in there.

You are progressing well enough in your realization that you do indeed engage in very real work in other layers of your Self. Because your journey is all about self discovery I will only encourage you to continue as you have been doing - just don't ignore your own exciting challenges in your physical reality.

Q) Who are you and what is your relationship to the self that I think of as Me?

R) I am that layer of Self that gives answers :) Ha, the smiley is sooo expressive, isn't it? I am you, at a level that is at peace. You are me, when you have left the cares of the world behind. I am not another self, just a layer of your own self, recognizable as you when you are at peace and have the Time to really think. You know the answers to the questions that you have posed for 'me', but normally you are too flustered to access your own wisdom. So, I am your wisdom. You were more in touch with this level when you were a younger man and thought it not remarkable at all. Now you are returning to an awareness of whom you really are and who you have been. You have always had the tools but did not recognize them as being tools at all. Your investigations and experimentations have made you aware of the fact that you do really have tools and have also shown you some uses for these tools. What will you do now?

Dream 1, March 23, 2003: I am trying to breast-feed a baby, more interested in the process of breast-feeding than in the baby itself. I’m not sure how to do it, and it doesn’t seem to work.

Dream 2, March 24, 2003: I am walking on a road and I pass a child and her family. I touch the child on her head. Then I hear the parents talking. They know me. Later in the discussion they ask me if their daughter scratched me on my face. I say no, then add awkwardly that it's ok. I say that I've worked in pre-schools and am used to the unpredictability of children at that age. In reality, I seem to be intimidated by their daughter. In a later dream that night: I'm awkwardly trying to breastfeed a baby, trying to figure out the best way to do it.

She was staring at me when I woke up, sitting on the dresser at the foot of my bed. Almost daring me to make a move. She couldn't have been more than four, five years old. I knew I could probably take her down, but that look in her eyes kept me frozen. I slowly lifted the sheet up to my chin.

She spoke first: "I could scratch you again, you know." It was a threat. She pretended to lunge at me and I screamed. The monster-child started laughing and my anger took over.

"Just try it, kid. I'll tell on you to your parents." I was bluffing. Way too complicated to track down dream parents.

"Tattle tale!" She was really getting mad now.

"You deserve it for being mean to people," I retorted, and then suddenly coughed to try to distract her from the stupidity of a 28 year-old engaging in this kind of discussion.

She smirked and I knew my clever diversion hadn't worked. "I know you're scared of me, Karen."

I glared at her suspiciously. "How do you know my name?" Another diversion, but a valid one.

"Duhhhh!" she said, rolling her eyes. Things were going downhill for me. Nobody had duhhed me for almost twenty years. "Obviously I know your name. You're the one who created me."

What a relief! I thought. "So you're just in my imagination? You're not real?"

"Yes I am! I am real!" She started wailing hysterically, and jumped off the dresser, as if to prove her reality.

"Okay, okay, calm down." Her apparent weakness emboldened me. "Listen, what were you doing in my dream?"

"I was scaring you." Said with a look that clearly meant 'duhhh'.

"But why?"

"Cuz you're scared of me." Double-duhhh.

"Why am I scared of you?" My shaking voice was a sign to me that I somehow knew the truth of her statement. I slowly grabbed for my alarm clock just in case I'd have to defend myself.

But she was introspective. "I guess you're scared of me because you can't control me or predict how I'll react. I could do all kinds of unexpected things. I could even hurt you. I guess you're scared of my spontaneity."

She looked sad now and I let go of the alarm clock, not without feeling slightly ashamed. "But let's get things clear," she continued, "I'm only a symbol. Like those poor babies you were pathetically trying to feed." She sighed. "We're just objects to you."

I slumped over in bed, staring emptily into the space between us, and then rolled over on my pillow in an ultimate gesture of self-pity. "I usually like kids so much," I mumbled, drooling pathetically onto my pillowcase.

"Don't worry. I'm not a kid. I'm your fear of kids."

I looked over at her, horrified. "I'm so sorry." I stared at her as if she had just told me that she had leprosy. "Will you always be like that?"

"As long as you need me to be," she sighed. "But don't worry. I chose to be this too, for my own reasons. And I'm other things in other times and places."

She started to fade away.

"Wait!"

"Can’t. I'm not real enough here to stay any longer." She suddenly looked intrigued, and then added: "That's a good sign. Maybe you're not that scared after all." A malevolent snicker and she was gone.

Dream 3, March 25, 2003: I'm in my mother's home office. Someone tells me that an old friend is working on some alternate realities, saying that we all sense them. Interesting.

I don't ask more because a show is beginning on TV. A man is being interviewed and he is somehow linked to another reality. He seems to be a farmer with an accent I can't place. Then we see a story being played out, either in another reality or another time. In the story, there's a terrible fire in a farmhouse somewhere.

I hear the narration. A young child gets his head burned and dies almost right away. I see his head lower to the ground outside the dreary farm house and I watch as it almost melts into the ground. Then I hear that the mother survived for a week but had so many injuries that she died too.

They were isolated where they were. When people did come, there was a huge search. They hadn't found the body of the child and thought he might still be alive in the area. The farm house was closed for a long time for searching and investigating and, because of that, became almost a legend in the area.

Now I experience the same scene - a parallel version of it - from the inside. I am with the small child in the living room of my parents' house. He wants to show me something. As he changes the electrical cords, he gets electrocuted. His hand and then is face almost start to melt. I run to him to pull the cord out of his hand. I receive some of the shock. But now the shock has changed him. He can touch me to burn or melt me. And he wants to! I run!

Back in my mother's office, we are supposed to sit down for dessert and a guy says that he wants to see what I understood of this whole story, because he doesn't think I understood. I find him slightly threatening. I think about alternate realities as all these people seem connected to or at least believers in alternate realities. I see a symbol and think that it is there to help me perceive other realities. A symbol giving the feeling of motion from left to right. It's black and white. Almost like the yin/yang symbol physically in motion. I close my eyes and concentrate on it and I feel motion in my body. I am sure it's working, but don't see anything else that I can remember.

"So, what do you understand of this story?" I recognized the guy from the dessert scene right away. He was on a stool in the kitchen, twirling around with a spatula in his hand, when I came in to get a glass of water. My eyes were still red from crying, but dry and empty now. The boy's burned body at the farmhouse was still in my mind, and the electrocuted child-turned-monster was still chasing me to make me pay for what my negligence did to him.

The guy was impatient. "Come on, Karen. I thought that yin-yang thing at the end would take some of the sting out of that dream. You usually fall for that kind of stuff."

His lack of empathy for my dream drama irritated me. I ignored him and headed back to the bedroom. Getting in bed and staying there for a very, very long time seemed like the most appropriate thing to do.

He was already sitting on the windowsill when I walked into my bedroom. I glared at him as I got back into bed.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Look, you're the one who needed and created this dream to understand some things.

I'm just trying to help you speed up the process, seeing as we're old friends."

"I've never seen you before," I lied. "Get out."

"You just don't remember me because you're not dreaming right now. We know each other, trust me. We've known each other since before you were you and before I was me. We've always helped each other out."

I knew it was the truth, so I opened up. "It was my fault that kid got electrocuted. He wanted to kill me for it. I could have protected him but I didn't."

I was drowning in self-pity. The guy just rolled his eyes again. Somehow this wasn't how I imagined an eternal soul-friend would be.

"Why do you have to be so self-torturing, Karen? And I didn't want to say anything but frankly your over-dramatization is almost painful. Melted little-kid heads and long drawn-out maternal suffering?"

I winced at the thought of the mother wandering around for a week, slowly dying, knowing her child had melted. Could there be worse suffering than that?

She's me, isn't she? I asked mentally.

She's a part of you if you believe she is, he answered mentally. But you dreamt of her suffering so that you wouldn't have to believe in it anymore.

I thought to him: You told me at the end of the dream that you didn't think I understood it. I felt threatened at first, but am intrigued now. I can't stop thinking about that dream, trying to understand every detail.

That's what you were hoping when you dreamt it. He grinned.

Did it work? Do I understand what I was supposed to understand?

At some level, you understand all of what you needed to understand. He went on: At this level, where we're connecting, you understand one part that will help you recognize your fear of suffering, loss, and inadequacy and go beyond it. But the process is long, because your belief in your fear is deep. That's why you need to think so much about this dream, to understand the message that you've sent yourself.

I looked up at him, this old friend who's known me since before I was me. This is about faith in myself, isn't it? Faith in a world that will always lead me to what I'm looking for, if only I'd accept to follow it. His eyes brightened. There's only one way to find out, Karen. Follow it and you'll see.

Dream 4, April 17, 2003: Now, I run all around the city looking for help, for a nurse. I go into a hotel lobby, then a pharmacy. I explain that my sister is choking and that I need help. Some people listen, but no one can help. I head back to the hotel, the emotions becoming stronger and stronger.

What will my parent's say when I call them to say that my sister has died? They will certainly blame me. To die after so many years of school! What a waste! She can't die! I run up to the hotel room and find that the emergency people have arrived. But the person I was calling "my sister" is a baby! They have her stomach against a board. I don't know if she's dead or alive. Then they show me....she's alive and smiling! At some point, the object passed through her throat. I take her in my arms.

Shocked, I sat up in bed. For once, I'd actually had a nightmare with a happy ending! For once, I'd saved a baby! Well.... I guess I wasn't really the one who saved her....but I didn't hurt her or traumatize her in any way! Maybe I really could be a competent parent! Maybe.....

Dream 5, April 18, 2003: A striking dream. I am pregnant and give birth to a son, Ben. I care for him as he grows up. When he's a baby, we're at my parent's house. He seems to be a miniature 2-dimensional plastic piece in the beginning. I inflate him to start. Then I clean him and put him down to sleep and cover him up from head to toe for the cold. He grows little by little. He sleeps and I hold him on my shoulder. When he's a baby, he speaks in poetry. I wonder if he understands what he's saying or not. He has the head of a man, with rough skin and stubble, while he recites romantic poetry about the beauty of flowers. I don't like it much, but am more struck by the fact that, as a baby, he can already talk so well.

I have the constant concern for Ben. People from my past see that I have a baby. I meet my best friend from High School. She gives me her email address which seems so complicated, a series of lines and dots that light up when you touch them. Later this comes back as a map or a code for Ben’s future.

Ben is a bit older now. I am the only parent with him but there are a few men around who help us. First we see that there are three letters in envelopes that we find one by one. I know they will tell us something about Ben and his future. The envelopes appear and light up on the map. At each letter, Ben seems to have grown up.

Now, at envelope number 1, he is maybe ten years old. My memory is that he looks like Harold at that age. He walks past with an envelope in his hand. I call him. We don't want to worry him, but somehow these letters and envelopes are meant to help us with his future. He shows me the envelope when I ask. It's written in somewhat childish handwriting from Aeda in a town called Cedar. Ben has already spoken to me about her. The envelope is closed and glossy, covered well with plastic or tape.

The second envelope lights up on the map. Then I hear someone telling me that there's a waitress that Ben confides in. She works in a coffee house. Earlier a coffee house had lit up on the map telling us that it's a significant place for Ben.

Later, we have to run from two people. Two men help me by sneaking into a van with Ben. I'm suddenly on the outside of things and watching. They get away in the black van and hide in a clever way. We have a good relationship, Ben and I, but his future seems to have some risk.

I woke up in love. In love with Ben who had been my world for a few dream minutes. I knew he was real, I knew we had chosen each other in some possible future of ours. I knew I was still scared of being inadequate, scared of a future that I wouldn't be able to control.

He smiled at me in his 10 year-old body, standing next to my bed. "You can't be sure of how it'll all end up for me, Karen. There won't be any maps or any codes or any envelopes that hold the answers. Although I have to admit, that was a nice touch and added just the right amount of suspense."

I cried then, loudly and slobberingly, knowing finally that to have love you have to either accept pain and loss or simply stop believing so strongly in them. I saw Ben's life and I knew that it would be worth living it, that there would be more joy than pain, that he would get through the pain without being destroyed by it.

"You spoke to me in poetry when you were a baby," I sobbed, remembering.

I regretted saying it right away.

"And as the plastic flower petals unfold, so does each dawn spread its dew..."

"Stop!" I begged, pulling myself together. Then with a fake motherly-love kind of smile: "Have you thought about trying painting or dancing or collecting stamps?"

He grinned, and pretended to glare at me. "You know, I could still change my mind and choose a different mother."

"I could still change my mind and choose a daughter," I retorted. Cruel but true.

Silence, but only for a moment. "Okay, Karen, the poetry situation is negotiable. But only if you promise to take parenting classes because I don't know if you know this but most babies are not inflatable."

The image of me blowing up a two-dimensional plastic baby Ben came rushing back to me. I gasped, horrified.

"Uhhh...that was just a symbol." Ah yes, the old symbol back-up, so loved by dreamers who tell too much and then regret it.

"Right," Ben said mockingly, but oh-so-cutely. I was still desperately in love.

"Why can't you come now, Ben? Into the world. I'm ready for you, I really am. Why wait?"

He looked sorry for me. "You may think you're ready to be a parent, Karen, but I’m not so sure. And are you ready to be a co-parent? Until now, you haven't even thought about it...."

The truth of what he said made me shudder. "A co-parent," I said to myself, thinking about it for the first time ever. "Of course! I should have thought of that before. It's almost unavoidable."

"Plus, you know," he went on hesitantly, "a child will change so many things." It echoed in my mind. A child will change so many things...so many things....so many things. And I knew I wasn't quite ready yet.

And then: "Ben, how will I know if it's you? I mean, if I have a child one day."

He was already on the windowsill, partly balanced on a tree branch that seemed to have come to pick him up.

"You'll dream of me, of course." He winked and disappeared into the arms of the huge tree branches scooping him up to safety until, I hoped, the day that he would come back to me.

Part II: Me as a co-parent : My identity as a co-parent, and choosing someone to share this role with

Dream 6, April 23, 2003: A neighbor that I don't like considers me his wife. I don't remember accepting to marry him but maybe I did. Now I regret it. I realize that he expects me to give him children and I'm horrified by the thought that they'll come out like him. He says that he thinks I'm pregnant. I tell him he's wrong. Later, I talk to Harold who is next to me for the whole dream. "Did I really marry him? Did we actually have sex?" I have no memory of it and the thought disgusts and disturbs me. Maybe we can still get a divorce if it's true. I think about the neighbor’s other wife. I'm a co-wife? Harold comforts me. He advises me to think of a good reason to claim a divorce. A few neighborhood women speak with me. They say that since I'm pregnant, I should marry the neighbor in question. What a relief! That must mean that we're not already married!

I shook my head in utter disbelief while hovering, nauseous, over the toilet, my knees on the floor. Disgusted. Ben was right, I thought. I haven't even considered the father component yet.

As if on cue, my neighbor materialized next to the sink. Looking at him, I realized that I couldn't have chosen a more repugnant co-parent for my dream....by my standards, of course. I vomited in the toilet again, hoping that the dream would somehow be jerked out of my memory.

"Morning sickness?" my typically oblivious neighbor asked hopefully.

I glared at him. "I'm not pregnant, and even if I was, there is no way that it would be your child." I just couldn't believe that I was having this discussion with him.

"Where's Harold anyway?" I asked, wanting to change the subject, and because I suddenly became nostalgic for Harold who was approaching god-like perfection next to this guy....

"Harold?" the neighbor asked mockingly. "Come on, he's not even interested in having a child with you, Karen, and, if I might add, he is strangely indifferent to your relationship with other men. Could he have cared less about our dream liaison?"

I was thinking ‘true’, but instead said, "shut up." Weak comeback, but the neighbor was on to something that he had no business getting into. The memory of Harold completely unaffected by the events of this nightmare came back to me. No jealousy, no emotion, nothing. Just there to comfort me. Just there to comfort his long-term, live-in girlfriend who had possibly, albeit inadvertently, married another man and gotten pregnant with his child. Just there to support me and give me legal advice. Either Harold was extremely open-minded or extremely not giving a shit. What does he really think about having a child? And about having a child with me? Until now, during the five years we'd been together, I hadn't much cared.

Looking at my neighbor, one thing was clear: I was definitely not indifferent to who the father of my possible-child would be. Like Ben had said, I still had a few issues to explore.

I stared at my neighbor. He had achieved his purpose and could de-materialize now. And by the time I thought it, it was already done.

Dream 7, July 6, 2003: I'm in a big house with Harold and I've been here before. We have to choose which part of the house we’ll live in. I go into each room, they are huge and beautiful. There is a kitchen and many bedrooms, but none feels quite right.

The bedroom that Harold chooses for us is small with a large bed and a cradle for a baby. It is directly connected to several other bedrooms. I move the baby cradle out of the way so I can go in and see the other room better.

The bedroom I chose is bigger, with more open space and without any connecting bedrooms. One part of the huge house isn’t available to us, but will be occupied by other people. I see some people together in another room, large and empty with an enormous mat for yoga or gymnastics or dancing. Their room is the limit between the rooms available to us on one side and the rooms for other people on the other side. I love exploring the different rooms but none is quite perfect to me. Most of the bedrooms I find too plain and typical.

I knew when I woke up that he would be there somewhere.

“Harold?” I called. He was waiting for me in our courtyard, lounging in his chair under the warm morning sun.

"Welcome, after much delay, to my dream exploration," I said, happy that Harold had finally gotten a lead role in one of my dreams. His absence was starting to worry me.

"It's about time," he answered. "I thought I was gonna be stuck forever as an extra. Everybody from the melting kid to our most annoying neighbor had a bigger part than I did." His eyes couldn't hide the fact that he was genuinely hurt.

"You can't compare," I tried to reassure him. "Except for Ben, they were all just symbols."

"Ben," Harold repeated thoughtfully.

I remembered the house dream: "I guess we're getting down to business now. Trying to choose our common future from all the possibilities. I've never done that before." I breathed deeply to prevent any unnecessary panicking. Remembering our different room choices, I added: "I guess we're gonna have to make some compromises. How about taking the big room that I wanted, with the baby cradle from the small room that you wanted? Plus I'll throw in one connecting bedroom."

Without blinking, Harold answered, "There's no need for compromise. Ever. Don’t you think the world offers enough possibilities so that we can both be completely fulfilled?"

He did have a point, and intuitively I knew he was right. "To be honest, none of those rooms felt right to me. Just too..."

"Typical?” he said. “And like little mouse-trap houses boxing you in to some pre-calculated, in this case maternal, destiny?"

"Right, exactly," I answered. "I want to see what's on the other side of the house first, after the yoga room. Why aren't we allowed to check out those possible choices?"

"Nobody's stopping you, Karen. It's your dream exploration, remember? Just keep in mind, it's not the room itself that will destine you to plainness or greatness, it's what you do with the room that counts."

It wasn’t like Harold to get all moralistic with me, and I didn’t much like it at all. “Thanks for your help, Buddha,” I said sarcastically.

Harold sensed my annoyance. “Look, it’s just obvious that you have unresolved freedom/liberty issues and a huge fear of being completely and utterly mundane.”

Silence...

“Not bad,” I admitted after some moments of deep reflection. I was genuinely impressed by his accuracy. “But I’m still gonna check out all the rooms available before investing in one...”

Part III: Decide, before it’s too late

Dream 8, July 10, 2003: "Waiting for perfection will make me lose out on everything," echoes in my mind upon awaking. A huge house, with many different rooms, all a bit different, but all in the same style - simple, plain, but some with more interesting features.

I am one of the first to run and search for the best room for Harold and I. I find some with only single beds and run on. I find some with a double bed but way too short for Harold. Other rooms I don't like, too dark. I find one, even with a porch and huge window, not a double bed but too singles. It takes me time to decide on it.

When I do put my bags down to claim the room, I notice that a colleague is already there and has already decided to take the room for himself. I run from room to room. I find all of them occupied. Some with people in bed, ready to sleep.

Two old friends, Stephanie and Heather are in another room, already listening to calm music in bed, settled in. There are other rooms with groups of young people playing guitar and singing. I'm ready to accept any room that I can find, but there's nothing left. The more I look, the more people are already settled in to their rooms. How do I tell Harold that we don't even have a room because I couldn't decide? I was always looking for a better one, the best one.

I woke up on the floor, my forehead bruised, and was only mildly surprised to see Stephanie and Heather comfortable on my bed, where I had fallen asleep 8 hours earlier. I suspected foul play but had no proof. There was classical music playing. Heather was knitting a quilt, presumably for my bed, and Stephanie was putting potpourri in a glass jar. They were so settled in, so content...

I felt defeated. "Why am I incapable of just making a decision in my life and then going with it? Why am I always looking for more, for better? If I keep this up, I'll never let myself decide to have a child or not to have one. And I'll regret it one way or the other."

Heather looked up from her knitting, with kindness in her eyes. "You and Harold both seemed sure about not wanting to make any compromises."

I surprised myself with the energy in my voice: "This is not about compromising anymore. This is about having a minimum of faith in a positive outcome, whatever the choice may be. This is about not being scared of taking action, instead of waiting for life to live itself around me."

I looked more closely at the two women, friends from two different periods in my life. They'd never met in waking life, and I wasn't in touch with either of them now, but they had a inner peace in common that made me associate them. "You guys look decided and satisfied. What's your secret?"

Stephanie placed the potpourri jar on the dresser next to the bed. Then she carefully threw one of her slippers across the room, hitting my light switch and illuminating the room with the several stained glass lamps that they had apparently rigged up to replace my neon light. The ambiance was delightful.

"We know what we really want and we believe we’re capable of making it happen. That's the key," she said. "Forget about what you think you want. Forget about what other people tell you that you want. Feel what you really want. You may be surprised."

Heather poured me a cup of herbal tea. Stephanie reached under the bed and pulled out a box of thin mints and, being completely satisfied in the moment, I climbed onto the bed and enjoyed.

Dream 9, July 18, 2003: Children come to hug me. I get annoyed and push them away. Then I am a woman, with a baby in my arms, another woman's baby.

I’m in a room, everything is black. I hear a voice indicating that I'm in, and I understand that I'm undercover, playing being someone else to do harm in some way.

I feel afraid of myself, because I'm not fully this woman either. I leave the room and float down the black hallways when I hear the mother of the baby in my arms coming back. I pass from one tiny black room to another, always passing through the next door, from under which I see light.

I finally end up in a room with a woman. She's harmful to me. Is she the mother of the baby in my arms? I can't escape. I'm locked and trapped. Fear. Total fear. She speaks with me, but I have forgotten what she said. Then I realize that she's the one who is trapped. She can't leave and she knows it.

I open the door and see that I can leave now. But the woman doesn't even try to escape. I float quickly through all the small black rooms, continuing through this strange world, passing guards who look at my passport and, to my relief, let me pass each time.

Some have strange watery eyes. The whole world is cloudy and floating. When I get out the world seems normal again. But I realize that I am so scared of that happening again that I won't be able to function in life.

The fear will paralyze me. I see a woman colleague with a small pill. A pill that would either have made me have that experience (in which case things would have at least been under control ) or a pill that could protect me, to never have the experience again. I look at the pill and then wake up.

When I woke up, I was sitting in the living room, curled up in a chair in the corner, under a blanket despite the heat. Terrified. Through the screen window, I saw that the sky was still pitch black. I knew she was in the room somewhere, with the baby. I was terrified of her, not as much because she was a threat but because she was a victim. A victim like that child I melted.

"Karen."

I tensed up.

"Don't worry. She's not here." It was my colleague's voice.

I sighed, relieved, and let my sadness take over. "She's trapped and she's given up hope, she's not even trying to get out. When I was in there with her, I felt what it was like to be trapped." I couldn't even go on, overcome by the intense fear I'd felt, worse than any fear I'd ever felt in waking life.

"It's because of the baby," I finally said, remembering how the woman had spoken to me while I was trapped with her. I couldn't remember what she had said, but I just knew that it was the baby who had taken her freedom away. I thought of the beginning of the dream, when I had pushed away the children who had come to hug me. So, the truth was I had even become bitter of what a child would take away from me.

My colleague must have sensed that I was pausing in my thought process. "The pill is here," she said. "You just have to decide what it's for."

"What? Medicine?" I asked, forgetting the end of the dream.

"It's whatever you want it to be," she said, handing me the pill.

Then I remembered. A pill to forget? A pill to make me see something that's not really there? A pill to make me see clearly? A pill to protect me? A pill to reassure me?

"Either way, I'm tricking myself, right?"

She looked at me with kindness and full of pity. "You can never trick your inner self, Karen. You always know the truth at some level. The pill is just to help you decide which truth to follow in this particular case. Remember, use your intuition."

Right. I tried to feel whatever intuition must feel like. I knew it wouldn't be in my brain (because how could intuition come from something so scattered?) I was pretty sure it wouldn't be in my heart (which is symbolically emotional, and so tied to beliefs about society.) I was scanning the lung area (you never know) when my stomach started knotting itself up, like a student tenses up when she knows the teacher is about to call on her and she didn't do her homework. I knew right away that it was my stomach that could give me the answer.

"Come on stomach… Prepared or not, you're gonna have to do something more useful than secreting enzymes." I tried some abdominal breathing as a warm-up exercise. The problem was, my poor stomach had taken all the brunt of my horrifying nightmare and it was still trembling from it. I could literally feel an ulcer eating its way through.

With the gentlest voice I could summon up, I said: "Listen stomach, you're the closest one to the real thing. We're all counting on you." My stomach coughed, obviously trying to buy time. "What do you say? Can you tap into some intuition to tell me what my miracle pill should be for? For protection? For blissful ignorance? For enlightenment?”

My stomach rode a slow inhale and bumped along a rocky exhale. I held the pill up to my mouth, waiting. My stomach tensed up. I felt the ulcer burning. And my stomach said: "Take the damn thing for birth control. Nothing's worth this much stress."

I figured my intuition had spoken. And down she went.

Dream 10, July 26, 2003: In this dream, a friend offers me a "drug" to visit other realities. I’m conscious that I’m dreaming and I jump up and fly to China, then I decide to see my friend in New York…

Now I see a woman in a small bare cement room. I don't see what she's doing, her back is to me. She’s wearing a dark blue and white dress, long with a belt, like a woman from the fifties. She reminds me of Jane Roberts, the psychic and writer. Is it her?

I am outside and feel compelled for some reason to go into this walkway, and ask to hold this woman's baby. I don't know why, but I feel I must go. I go, without really seeing her, but looking at her arms, where the baby must be. He must be a couple of months old. She passes him to me, smiling.

When I look at the woman, she asks me what my baby's name is. I'm confused. Is this my baby? I look again. His features have softened, he opens his eyes. I say quietly that we haven’t decided yet. I don't really feel that this is my baby. Then she makes me understand somehow that my baby has died. I feel sadness. Relief too, maybe? Mostly confusion. I give the baby back to the woman, quite sure that I've understood correctly that it's hers. That my baby, whom I hadn't even named yet, had died.

I knew that I would find Jane Roberts on the roof of the house, looking out over the neighborhood, smoking a cigarette in the drizzling rain. Jane Roberts, who had chosen to never have children, who represents clearness and wisdom for me.

I sat down next to her, silent for a long moment. "So my baby died, without even being named," I finally said, amazed, unemotional.

"More precisely, your desire to have a bay died, unnamed," Jane answered.

I sighed, finally letting go of something I couldn’t name. I couldn't help feeling relief, freedom. So I had finally decided, and it was surely the simpler choice.

Still, the rain drizzling on my cheeks felt like the tears a part of me could have shed.

"Why didn't you ever have a child?" I asked her after a few minutes of silence.

She exhaled the smoke in her mouth. " I had so many projects, so many things to create, so many experiences to explore, but a child was not one of them. Many non-maternal women choose to have children, because of society's beliefs about the role of a good woman. I didn't want to be a good woman. I wanted to be myself.”

"No regrets?" I asked.

"No regrets," she said.

"So you were in my dream to help me accept my choice and let go of the idea of having a baby, weren't you?"

"You didn't need me to do that, but it made things clearer and simpler for you. As ridiculous as it seems to me, you do consider me an authority figure."

"So it's decided then. No child." I said with mixed emotions.

Jane added: "Actually, what you really needed was to feel again that you can still choose not to have children and that it would be a valid, worthy choice, made freely. You see, the freedom that you've been searching for is not freedom from the constraints of motherhood, but freedom from the obligation to have children in order to be a valid woman. What you wanted was the freedom to choose at a deeper level, intuitively, to have or not to have a child. All the exploration you've been doing until now has been to get to this point. You've been working on understanding your beliefs and your fears concerning your possible identity as a mother. Now you're ready to really start choosing, intuitively.”

The rain came harder and harder, as if to fill my eyes now with the tears of joy I could have had then. And as I climbed off the rooftop, leaving Jane with her cigarette and the coming sunrise, I knew I was also leaving the weight of a motherhood that would have trapped me, and continuing my exploration as a lighter, freer dreamer.

Part IV: Harold as a co-parent

Dream 11, August 7, 2003: A young man with beautiful blue eyes. We've known each other for a long time. We go into a room in my parent's house to be alone. Later in the back of the basement of my parent's house, I give birth to a little girl, very easily and alone. I carry her up to show my mother. She's alert and beautiful. I show Harold, but he's distracted by other things. I wonder if he'll hope to name her Aeda.

Then we're in a field, where Harold, the baby and I will be sleeping for the night. I'm working on making up a bed for the baby. She is so fragile, I have to be careful at every move.

Then two bulls come running towards me. I'm holding the baby, and I'm scared. They bulls each attach themselves to one of my legs from behind. I scream for Harold. Instead of helping me, he runs in the other direction. I know that the bulls are strong enough to make me fall. Finally I get out of the situation. The baby has a small cut on the back of her neck. When she sleeps too calmly, I press my ear close to her to hear her breathing.

Harold saw the expression on my face as I angrily got out of bed.

"What's wrong?" he asked naively.

"What's wrong?" I snapped, glaring over at him. “Do you have any memory of leaving me alone in a field with our newborn baby while wild bulls attacked us? Do you remember running in the other direction? I thought there was supposed to be some paternal instinct to protect offspring."

Harold shifted to defense mode. "First of all, there's no proof she's my child. Who was that guy with you at the beginning of the dream anyway? Where the hell was he while you were being attacked by savage bulls?"

"He's not the father, you are. I just needed a nameless person to approach the issue in a less emotional manner," I said with authority. "Who cares who the father is anyway? You left us for dead in a field." I was genuinely hurt and disappointed.

"Don't be melodramatic," Harold retorted. "What are the chances of us ever sleeping with a newborn baby in a field anyway? And if you're such a good mother, why didn't you at least think of bringing a tent." He was proud of his remark.

"This was a test for you, not me,” I snapped. “And you failed miserably. How could I have ever thought that you were responsible enough to be worthy of procreation?"

Harold was getting mad. "That's not what you thought after your dream liaison with our neighbor."

He was entering deep water by reminding me of that horrid nightmare. "I did NOT have a liaison with that idiot and you know it. It was a dream misunderstanding," I said pathetically.

He wasn't listening. "I seem to vaguely recall you thinking something like, 'Harold was rapidly taking on god-like proportions.' Does that ring a bell? Did you or did you not compare me to god?"

"I did," I admitted, "in the role of a companion and compared to a guy I really dislike. But as a co-parent? Pathetic. I'd rather opt for artificial insemination. At least an absent unknown father won't abandon me and my baby in a field during a bull attack."

Harold laughed, genuinely amused. "Ok, do it without me.”

Maybe I will, I thought.

Dream 12, September 28, 2003: The beginning of the dream: a man lying next to a woman in bed, sunlight shining through the bay window, early morning. He signs to her in sign language: "Do we have to have children to see the sun rise in the morning?" She answers: "No, but it would help.” It is an expression of their love, of their closeness. Now in a parallel scene of the same dream, I am the woman and an old friend Adam is the man. I am panicking and getting ready to leave him. He is angry at me, and sends children in the other room to give me messages when he needs to communicate with me. They are not our children, we didn’t have children. I love him but we can't get along.

We use the children to try to make the other one love us more and to communicate with each other. Adam tries to make me jealous and it works. He tries to show me that he has no feelings for me. There is truth in it, we are too far apart now. We have hurt each other too much.

Now at the end of the dream, the same dark-haired handsome man, the same beautiful woman from the beginning. He's on the balcony of a building, the 3rd or 4th story or higher. She's on a train, the tail end, with her coat on and a bag, moving away from him. There is dramatic end-of-tragic-love-story music playing. They've fought, they've separated from each other. This is the only time, since the beginning, that they smile and look into each other's eyes, and fully show their love to each other. From this distance, he sees her and signs the same sentence: “Did we have to have children to see the sun rise in the morning?” She pauses, smiles, gives the same answer. “No, but it would have helped.”

I reached over for another tissue and patted my eyes. What a tragic love story! I heard someone whimpering in the bedroom across the narrow hallway and looked over.

“Adam?” I called, genuinely surprised. He was like a mirror-image of myself, lying in bed with a box of tissues. I heard him whispering to someone. Then a 8 or 9 year old boy walked over to me. “Adam told me to tell you that his box of tissues is empty. He needs more.”

So we were still playing this indirect communication game.

“Tell Adam that it’s his own fault if he already finished his box of tissues and that I can’t spare a single tissue.” That’ll show him.

The child left, I heard mumbling, and then he was back. “Adam said that you have obviously understood nothing from your dream.”

Enough of people who think they know more about my dreams than I do!

“Tell Adam that he’s the one who started it by sending you over here instead of talking to me directly.”

The child left and whispered the message to Adam, who looked up at me, grinning. “Okay, true,” he said to me. “I guess I was a little caught up in my part.”

I could never resist his smile!

“It’s just so unfair!” I cried desperately. “We were in dream love, right? How did we end up so bitter and resentful? Not even able to talk to each other…”

“…Couldn’t even look at each other.” Adam added.

“Would having our own children really have kept us together? Would it really have kept us living each day fully?” I asked.

“…Appreciating the simple joys in life.” Adam was as caught up in the drama as I was.

“And so they…we…separated, resentful and defeated and still in love,” I whimpered.

“It’s just so unfair!” cried Adam, reaching desperately for his empty box of tissues.

“I loved you so much in that dream!” I slobbered.

The boy cleared his throat loudly, visibly uncomfortable with our emotional outburst. We straightened ourselves up, each in our own bed.

After a long silence, I said quietly, not wanting to give too much reality to the statement: “So that’s what’ll happen to Harold and me if we don’t have children.”

I looked desperately over at Adam, whose agonized face couldn’t hold it in anymore. He burst into tears again. “It’s just so tragic!”

And we cried and cried and cried…

Dream 13, January 4, 2004: The dream starts with some story about aliens and cancer. Later, I have a child. I explain to someone that two women and I decided to have this child, to raise her together. I think it's with two of my sisters. I explain that we found a man to be the father, but it was only an arrangement so that I'd be pregnant.. He's not in the dream, I only imagine him in the dream. With my sisters, we pass the baby around. She's a big baby and then grows bigger. Now she's maybe 8 years old, very tall, dressed with her hair done, wearing make up. She has black hair and looks Latina. She's hungry and I want to try to breast feed, but I don't know how and she won't accept it anyway. I wonder how it's possible to have a baby so big. Is this linked to the cancer and the aliens?

“You’re finally realizing that you can’t have a child without fully involving anyone else, Karen.,” my daughter said without looking at me as I walked out onto the porch where she was sitting. “This can’t be your personal project. You can’t clone yourself.”

I stared at her for a long moment, this estranged daughter of mine. She looks nothing like me, I thought to myself. Latina? Wearing make-up? There must be some mistake. I thought of the alien incident at the beginning of the dream. My alien child, alienated from me. She seemed sad, distant.

I felt all the years we’d spent together, I felt who she was. I’ve never wanted to accept her, I thought to myself. I’ve always wished that she was more like me, because I’ve always been scared of losing her if she was too different.

She looked over at me. In her eyes, I saw the unique and wonderful person that she’d become, so fully herself that my eyes filled with tears.

“My daughter!” I cried. And I took her in my arms.

She looked embarrassed, and glanced over her shoulder at the neighbor’s house. Just like me at that age!

I was so filled with joy that I momentarily forgot that this daughter of mine was only dream-real. Surely another symbol. A multi-parent child. The product of an absent man and myself, raised by me and two of my sisters, with the help of alien activity and cancerous cells. I had really managed to complicate things to avoid accepting Harold as a legitimate parent. Yes, that’s it! Until now, it’s been my own exploration, my own decision to make. Until now, I hadn’t given Harold a real say in the matter…

Part V: Harold as a mother: Harold takes ownership of the exploration

Dream 14, March 2004: Harold's dream: "I'm in a hospital, I've given birth to a child. An androgynous baby. And the nurse told me that I could choose the sex. I felt that it had no importance if the baby was a girl or a boy, neither for me nor for the baby. With the baby in my arms, Karen came in to visit."

This time, I was waiting for him out in my chair in our courtyard. He walked out, smug, and stood in front of me. “So, finally a little recognition for my role as a capable, full-fledged father.”

“Mother,” I corrected him. “You’re the one who gave birth.”

“That’s right,” he answered, prancing around in front of me, visibly proud of this dream achievement. Harold always was one to scoff at biological limitations.

“What was that androgynous thing about?” I asked. “To show that you don’t have a preference between a girl and a boy?”

“Gender issues,” he said offhandedly. “It’s not as much to say that I don’t care what sex it is, as to say that I don’t feel the need to define my child by his or her sex. And I hope my child won’t either.”

“And what about me?” I asked. “I showed up pretty late in the dream. Where was I while you were giving birth?”

“Probably cornered by savage bulls in a field somewhere,” he said grinning. “The irresponsible, absent parent that you are.” He was doing everything possible to not burst into laughter now. “You’ll be lucky if I let you see your child again…if it’s actually your child, that is.” And he walked away, cracking up at my expense.

Okay, I thought, maybe I deserved that…

Dream 15, March 18, 2004: Harold is stretched out on his back and our son Sam, maybe 18 months old, is sleeping on Harold’s stomach.

Dream 16, March 22, 2004: Harold is pregnant. But I think that it's psychological and that he'll be disappointed when he realizes that it's impossible for a man to be pregnant.

I knew that I was looking at Harold differently while I watched him sleep early that morning. I couldn’t help feeling a certain respect. My dream exploration of my own role as a parent had seemed so long and complicated, so clouded by doubt, fear, and indecision, while my dream exploration of Harold’s role was so simple. He had become the perfect parent in just a few seconds of dream life. Harold the cow coward had suddenly become Harold the gentle father, Harold the life-giving mother.

Was his pregnancy psychological as I thought in the dream? I knew better than to think it was. Yes, Harold could be a mother as completely as any woman could.

So, I thought, this exploration belongs to you too, Harold. Let’s finish it together.

Dream 17, April 9, 2004: Harold is pregnant. He plays and jokes around with his slightly rounded stomach. He is jovial, joking with the baby in his stomach. I'm even afraid at one point that he'll hurt the baby with all his stretching and jokes. A man looks at him strangely at one point and I realize that it's not normal for a man to be pregnant. Then Harold gives birth.

My parents’ house is in that dark city, square buildings tower just across the street from their house, blocking out all sunlight. Harold holds the baby, we walk towards a train station where there has been a fire, which we see in the distance.

When we get to our building, our small apartment in that gray city, the baby boy tells me that he has trouble breathing. It's the first time I hold him. Harold has brusquely passed him to me, he seems to have lost interest in the baby. I see that the baby has black soot in his nose. I show him how to breathe out of his mouth until we can get upstairs to our small apartment.

It's dark and small and this city is dreary, but I accept it as normal. I make fish for him. I think of finding medicine for the baby. I tell Harold about the soot preventing the baby from breathing. Harold doesn't seem concerned. He's there, but not there. I wonder if I'm just exaggerating because I'm a new mother and I'm too worried about all health issues.

Harold stepped onto the windowsill and then onto a branch of the tree outside our bedroom window. I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there, alone, in that same tree that had taken Ben into its soft branches over a year ago. I had worried so much about Ben’s future, and here I was, a year later, still so scared of suffering.

“That was almost an apocalyptic sci-fi dream,” Harold pointed out. “You’ve got all the elements. Grayness. Towers blocking out the sunlight. Random fires. Air pollution.”

“Well, you didn’t seem too worried about all that,” I said, thinking of Harold’s indifference to our baby’s respiratory problems.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Karen, haven’t you figured it out, yet? You’re the one who worries for the both of us…” He hesitated, then added: “…and, arguably, for half the planet.”

I thought of the bulls.

“Granted, but whenever something does go wrong, you just pass me the baby instead of facing the problem.”

“Objection!” he protested. “Our perception of reality is different, our beliefs are different. So when you decide to make the world apocalyptic, yes, I do disappear pretty quickly because it’s your world and your rules. The soot, the fires, those are your ideas and you’re the only one who has to face them.” He continued: “In the meantime, I just lay low, waiting for some common ground. You know, a less cataclysmic world. In my beliefs about the world, playing and joking is not called irresponsibility. It’s called joy.” He swung backwards and was hanging upside down from our tree branch now.

Joy. Genuine, encompassing joy. It did have a nice ring to it. I let myself fall backwards, my hair flowing towards the earth, and we swung like that, from branch to branch, until we knew that tree like we know ourselves and until it set us softly on the windowsill, where the warm sun soothed our aching stomachs, sore from laughter.

Dream 18, June 21, 2004: Harold and I are in a mall looking at clothes. It's the same mall and same clothes as in a dream a few nights ago. I find that amazing and want to tell Harold. He doesn't listen. I call him and he ignores me and goes into a store. I am hurt and start to leave. I can't get out of the mall because the police are blocking the way. Harold is coming out and the police jump him and start tying him up. I tell them there must be some mistake. Harold tells the police that he never cheated on me before. I realized that something must have happened with a girl earlier in the dream and am so hurt. Harold goes into the mall. I wait on a bench in front of the store but he never comes out.

Then I'm at home, it's the next morning, and I wake up in my bedroom. To my surprise, Harold is in the 2nd bedroom, across the hall. Our 4 or 5 year old daughter sleeps in his bedroom. Harold goes into the bathroom and our daughter wakes up and comes into my room and I take her in my arms. I realize I haven't spent enough time with her. I ask her what she wants for breakfast and I'm thinking of pancakes and she says pancakes. I realize she's all I need. I suddenly don't care anymore about the problems between Harold and me. He passes by and says, bitterly: "She's the only one you'll never neglect."

“Infidelity, bitterness, neglect, jealousy,” Harold said, looking over at me from the bed in the room across the hall. I looked back at him from my bed, reminding me of when Adam and I had grieved together for lost love, not so long ago.

But Harold was neither sad nor tormented. “There’s definitely a chance we could end up that way, you know,” he said matter-of-factly.

I realized, despite myself, that I wasn’t really sad either. The memory of our daughter filled me with so much joy that accepting that Harold and I had grown apart just didn’t seem that difficult.

“I guess it really wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right?” I asked cautiously. “I mean, so what? So what if we decide not to stay together?” The rightness of what I was saying felt so strong to me that I continued: “The important thing is to know when to make that choice and then to accept it.”

“And that each of us be able to continue our relationship with our child,” Harold added.

“Our complicity would live on through our child, and has no obligation or need to continue between the two of us.”

“Au contraire! Better to jump out of a sinking ship than to drown!” Harold was getting as caught up as I was.

I kept thinking of the joy our daughter had brought me. “The child’s existence is valid regardless of the quality of the relationship between the parents. She’ll keep bringing us joy even if we don’t bring each other joy anymore.”

After a long hesitation, Harold asked, “Do you really think we could end up like that?”

“No,” I said shaking my head, and in a tone that showed that I was sure of myself on this one.

“Yeah, I doubt it, too.”

“I mean it’s almost impossible,” I insisted.

“Probably won’t happen,” he agreed.

“I mean, it theoretically could happen, but it’s really not likely.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s gotta be better than fifty-fifty that it won’t happen.”

“Oh, for sure. I mean, maybe it’ll happen, but it’s not a hundred percent sure that it’ll happen.”

“Yeah,” Harold said. “…But if we do break up, can I keep the leather bean bags?”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly, “but only if you invite me over to your place all the time. I love those bean bags!”

“No problem,” Harold answered. “Come on over whenever you want. Come over every day if you want to.” He grinned. “Why don’t you just move in? That’s be easier.”

“All right,” I said, shrugging.

And we rolled over, each in our own bed, laughing and sighing, already anticipating the fun that we’ll have together in the days when we’ll be apart.

Part VI: Experiencing physical birth and choosing a future child

Dream 19, May 30, 2004: I'm with other people in a house, almost like a hut so it must be in Burkina. A woman regularly brings me a baby. At one point, he's wrapped in a bloody cloth, as if he’s just been born, as if I’ve just given birth to him in this hut. The woman tells me how I should take care of the baby but treats me as if I was doing something wrong. At one point I decide to actively get dressed and care about my appearance, instead of staying dressed in a simple cloth all day long.

The three of us were huddled around the baby, staring at him.

“Is that really what they look like right after they’re born?” Harold whispered. “He looks ancient, like an old, old man.”

“I know that I haven’t physically given birth, but my body has a memory of it as if I truly did experience it,” I said with amazement, as I touched the baby’s cheeks with my fingers.

“You really should wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap before doing that,” screeched the Miss-Know-It-All from my dream.

I dismissed her as dream residue.

“He looks like an alien fish. I can almost imagine him with gills. Do you think he can breath under water?” Harold asked excitedly.

His question sparked ancient physical memories within me.

“My body remembers the sensations of him breathing in sync with me, swimming in amniotic fluid. My uterus remembers him feeling the warm fluid cushioning, soothing, and nourishing him, softening the world for him. The fluid was our touch on his skin. And that memory is somehow strong enough to feel another memory, when I too was a fish, swimming in that warm ocean of life.”

“So maybe you can breath under water too!” Harold screamed with joy. I looked over at him. Yes, this man who loves apnea so much was certainly once a fish too.

“It’s really not advised to go anywhere near pools of water with a newborn,” the woman scolded us, reaching over for the baby. I slapped her hand and she pulled it away, scowling at me. Enough was enough.

“Now, you listen to me, lady. We are capable, confident parents now and we do not, I repeat, do not need or want advice from any person who does not have confidence in our human intuition and in our ability to tap into the ancient collective wisdom of humanity concerning the fulfillment of its beings.”

Harold applauded, the woman disappeared and I leaned over to pick up the fish-baby.

“Wait a minute,” Harold suddenly said. “All this reminds me of the dream I had last night. I had almost forgotten it….”

Dream 20, May 30, 2004: Harold’s dream: I dreamt that I was making love to Karen in order to have a baby.

“So, we spiritually conceived a child last night,” Harold said, astonished. “We both dreamt, at the same time, of the physical creation of the child.”

“Wow,” I said, amazed.

“It’s a synchronization of our psyches,” he added.

“So I guess we’ve decided to have a child,” I said.

“I guess so. But have we chosen which child to have? And has the child chosen us?” Harold asked.

We looked down at the fish-baby still in my arms and, with a touch of nostalgia and a hint of loss, we watched him swim away, fins and all, into thin air.

Dream 21, August 8, 2004: I dreamt that I knew that I was pregnant. Then there was a whale, he accidentally comes through the sewer system up a toilet and I have to help get him back through. He's way too big and we can't communicate. Then I look at him and I think reassuring words and I tell him I want to help him get back to the ocean. He is calm and reassured. I put him back in the toilet with water and he miraculously gets back through the way too small toilet pipes on his own.

Have faith, I thought to him. And my thoughts became symbols in the form of energy waves that he could feel vibrating through him.

He made whale sounds that traveled into me and said, I felt so far from my home, that cool rich ocean that comforts me and in which I have always thrived.

I thought, Didn’t you know that you had to leave your old home to find your new one? You have forgotten that you chose this experience.

He answered: The lack of solid blackness, of soothing liquid, made me hurt all over. I could not feel the presence of the life and things around me like before. But then your energy waves found me and soothed me and now I’m home. My new home.

I smiled. Welcome home, my child.

Dream 22, August 31, 2004: We're in a large closed courtyard with green grass everywhere, the sun is shining. To me, it's the courtyard of the goddesses. Her name reminds me of Holly Hobby, but that's not quite it.. "Holly Hobby" walks around the outer perimeter of the courtyard and then progressively in smaller squares.

I pass her on purpose because I want to meet her. I know we know each other. She is wearing a black mask to cover her face. When she's done walking, I'm waiting near a bench next to an entrance or an exit. I am standing in front of her when she takes her mask off. Yes, we know each other. She's tall, has short dark hair, in her 50's and very elegant, but not beautiful in a traditional way. Very sophisticated.

We sit next to each other on the bench. There are many women around, all younger than Holly. She looks at my red sweater and dark jeans and says, “What a lovely outfit.” I say it's obvious that she would like it, she's the one who chose it. It’s my way of telling her that I’m aware that she's my ‘oversoul’, the source of myself. I think that she's the oversoul of some of the other women there too. She holds her head up straight, is tall, almost slightly aloof. She speaks to me and other women who listen, but I have forgotten what she said. Yes, this place is the garden of the goddesses.

Now the woman in front of me is a very natural, gray-haired woman with many wrinkles on her face. She is wearing a T- shirt and loose pants. She could be my mother-in-law, I feel this relationship to her. I feel that she will like me better than a former daughter-in-law because we are more alike. She is standing next to the bench I'm sitting on, now in another part of the courtyard of the goddesses or maybe through one of the doors leading out of the courtyard. She talks to me, she's firm, independent, natural and critical of people who try to limit her. She's beautifully old. I think she will like me. As I said, I think she's choosing a future daughter-in-law.

I saw those lovely babies first, all around me, those babies who had taught me to breastfeed in the last year and a half of dreams. Those babies who knew how to transform themselves from objects to living creatures in my eyes. Those babies who gave me confidence in myself as a mother, at the most basic of levels.

And oh! That poor electrocuted boy! My fear of suffering… Yes, I now had the strong faith in this world that he came to show me.

Ben. He was there next to the others. The first of my children that I dared to love. And in his arms, that baby of mine that had died unnamed. That child who had given back to me the freedom to make a genuine choice.

I smiled when I saw our baby girl, the one I had protected from threatening bulls. That first child of Harold’s and mine. I turned my head and saw Harold standing next to me. I knew he would be there.

And you, my once-estranged Latina daughter, more like me, I can see now, than any of the others, because of your desire to be different.

She looked with pride at the baby next to her, that androgynous child that Harold gave birth to, the child who would be everything and all things, without limits.

And Sam! Who, in a soft flash of dream life, lying on his father’s stomach, had made Harold that perfect parent in my eyes.

I reached over then, to our baby covered in soot. And when I touched him, all that remained of that polluted city was the memory of having created a faithful reflection of my own beliefs. I just didn’t need to believe in that city anymore. Our baby radiated with joy and health now.

Ah yes! Our 4 year-old daughter, the one whose love could set us free from each other, Harold and me. I looked over at Harold and he winked.

From nearby and far away, I felt the vibrations of the whale-baby, singing me his song, free and home.

And then in Harold’s arms, I saw the baby we had conceived and that I had given birth to in the hut. His eyes had changed. And in his eyes, I saw the smile of the gray-haired woman from the Courtyard of the Goddesses. The woman my oversoul had led me to. The woman who was not choosing her next daughter-in-law, but choosing her next parents. And she had chosen us. As we had chosen her. The choice had always been made, and it had just been made.

The baby’s eyes changed again and we saw Ben and all our other children looking back at us. Yes, they were all parts of our new child.

Dream 23, September 13, 2004: His name is Adan and he’s one of the Aben people, an indigenous group in Alaska. Adan is born and I hear his mind during the first experiences of life, the warmth of it. I show Harold a paper, a sort of birth certificate, and we think that it's no coincidence that the name is so close to Aeda, a name we had dreamt of before.

Dream 24, September 17, 2004: I am breastfeeding, and the milk is rich, creamy and abundant.

Dream 25, September 17, 2004: On the same night, Harold dreamt: I was in the apartment where we were living and Karen had gone out. I was taking care of our baby girl, 3 months old, Aeda. I was talking and playing with her and she spoke back. I put her to sleep in a drawer and Karen came back. I was surprised because Aeda was speaking like a 3 year old... I thought that she must have had many lives and that's why she could relearn to speak so easily. When Karen came back, I wanted to show her the baby, and we saw that she had already fallen asleep.

The baby’s sleeping, Harold thought to me.

Aeda, Adan, I though back to him.

She opened her eyes. I knew you before, she thought to us.

We’ve always known you, we thought back to her

. She closed her eyes, drifting softly back to sleep. And we lay down next to her, closed our eyes, and waited to see what joys and experiences our dreams would bring next.

“The world as you know it exists as it does because you are yourself a living portion of a vast ‘conscious grid’ of perception.

“Every cell, in those terms, is a sender and a receiver. All of the larger divisions of life – the mammals, fish, birds, and so forth – are an integral part of that living gridwork. The picture of the world is not only the result of those messages transmitted and received, however, but is also caused by the relationships between those messages. In your terms, then, all of life’s large classifications were present ‘at the beginning of the world.’ Otherwise there would have been vast holes in the grid of perception that makes possible the very sensations of physical life.

“In a manner of speaking, the physical universe is ‘transposed’ upon another reality that must be its source. The world was and is created in dimensions outside of time, and outside of space as you understand it.

“Other realities quite as legitimate as your own, quite as vital, quite as ‘real,’ coexist with your own, and in the terms of your understanding, ‘in the same space’ – but of course in terms of your experience those spaces and realities would appear to be quite separate. No systems are closed, however, so that basically the living grid of perception that causes one world or reality is also ‘wired into’ all other such systems. There is a give-and-take between them.

“The grids of perception that compose your world give you the world picture as you experience it because your physical senses put you in a certain position within the entire grid. Animals, for example, while part of your experience, are also ‘tuned into’ that grid at another level. The large classifications of mammals, fish, birds, men, reptiles, plants, and so forth, are [each] an integral part of that larger perceptive pattern – and that pattern in those terms had to be complete even in the beginning of your time.

“... Man does not in his physical development pass through the stages supposedly followed by the hypothetical creature who left the water for the land to come a mammal – but each species does indeed have written within it the knowledge of ‘its past.’ Part of this, again, is most difficult to express, and I must try to fill out old words with new meanings. The reincarnational aspects of physical life, however, serve a very important purpose, providing an inner subjective background. Such a background is needed by every species.

“Reincarnation exists, then, on the part of all species. Once a consciousness, however, has chosen the larger classification of its physical existences, it stays within that framework in its ‘reincarnational’ existences. Mammals return as mammals, for example, but the species can change within that classification. This provides great genetic strength, and consciousnesses in those classifications have chosen them because of their own propensities and purpose. The animals, for example, seem to have a limited range of physical activity in conscious terms, as you think of them. An animal cannot decide to read a newspaper. Newspapers are outside of its reality. Animals have a much wider range, practically speaking, in certain other areas. They are much more intimately aware of their environment, of themselves as separate from it, but also of themselves as a part of it. In that regard, their experience deals with relationships of another kind.

“These grids of perception ‘do not exist forever’ in your dimension of time, for your dimension of time cannot hold anything that is outside it. Once a world exists, however, it becomes imprinted or stamped upon eternity, so that it exists in time and out of it ‘at once.’

“When you ask: ‘When did the world begin?’ or ‘What really happened?’ or ‘Was there a Garden of Eden?’, you are referring to the world as you understand it, but in those terms there were earths in the same space before the earth you recognize existed, and they began in the manner that I have given you in the early chapters of this book. The patterns for worlds – the patterns – continue in your time dimension, though in that time dimension those worlds must disappear, again, to continue ‘their existence outside of time.’ The patterns are filled out again.

“In the case of earth the grid of perception is simply used differently, certain areas becoming prominent in some eras, and less prominent in others. Using your idea of time, I can only say that when the entire gestalt of consciousness that formed a particular earth have formed its reality to the best of their abilities, fulfilling their individual and mass capacities as far as possible, then they lovingly turn over that grid to others and continue to take part in existences that are not physical in your terms. And that has happened many times. Your tale about the Garden of Eden, then, is a legend about earth’s last beginning. Each world is so cunningly constructed, again, that each consciousness, regardless of its degree, plays a vital part. And each of your actions, however inconsequential, becomes connected in one way or another – in one way or another – to each other reality and each other world.”

Session 904, February 27, 1980.

“The Garden of Eden story in its most basic sense refers to man’s sudden realization that now he must act within time. His experiences must be neurologically structured. This immediately brought about the importance of choosing between one action and another, and made acts of decision highly important.

“... This is, again, difficult to explain, but free will operates in all units of consciousness, regardless of their degree – but it operates within the framework of that degree. Man possesses free will, but that free will operates only within man’s degrees – that is, his free will is somewhat contained by the frameworks of time and space.

“He has free will to make any decision that he is able to make. This means that his free will is contained, given meaning, focused, and framed by his neurological structure. He can only move, and he can only choose therefore to move, physically speaking, in certain directions in space and time. That time reference, however, gives his free will meaning and a context in which to operate. We are speaking now of conscious decisions as you think of them.

“You can only make so many conscious decisions, or you would be swamped and caught in a constant dilemma of decision making. Time organizes the available choices that are to be made. The awakening mentioned earlier, then, found man rousing from his initial ‘dreaming condition,’ faced suddenly with the need for action in a world of space and time, a world in which choices became inevitable, a world in which he must choose among probable actions – and from an infinite variety of those choose which events he would physically actualize. This would be an almost impossible situation were the species – meaning each species – not given its own avenues of expression and activity, so that it is easier for certain species to behave in certain manners. And each species has its own overall characteristics and propensities that further help it define the sphere of influence in which it will exert its ability to make choices.

“Each species is endowed also, by virtue of the units of consciousness that compose it, with an overall inner picture of the condition of each other species, and further characterized by basic impulses so that it is guided toward choices that best fulfill its own potentials for development while adding to the overall good of the entire world consciousness. This does not curtail free will any more than man’s free will is curtailed because he must grow from a fetus into an adult instead of the other way around.

“The differences among all species are caused by this kind of organization, so that areas of choice are clearly drawn, and areas of free activity clearly specified. The entire gestalt of probable action, therefore, is already focused to some degree in the species’ differentiations. In the vast structure of probable activity, however, far more differentiation was still necessary, and this is provided for through the inner passageways of reincarnational existence.

“Each person, for example, is born with his of her uniquely individual set of characteristics and abilities, likes and dislikes. Those serve to organize individual action in a world where an infinite number of probable roads are open – and here again, private impulses are basically meant to guide each individual toward avenues of expression and probable activities suited best to his or her development. They are meant, therefore, as aids to help organize action, and to set free will more effectively into motion. Otherwise, free will would be almost inoperable in practical terms: Individuals would be faced by so many choices that any decisions would be nearly impossible. Essentially, the individual would have no particular leaning toward any one action over any other.

“‘By the time’ that the Garden of Eden tale reached your biblical stories, the entire picture had already been seen in the light of concepts about good and evil that actually appeared, in those terms, a long time later in man’s development. The inner reincarnational structure of the human psyche is very important in man’s physical survival. Children – change that to ‘infants’ – dream of their past lives, remembering, for example, how to walk and talk. They are born with the knowledge of how to think with the propensity for language. They are guided by memories that they later forget.

“In time’s reference, the private purposes of each individual appear also in the larger historical context, so that each person forms his corner of his civilization – and all individuals within a given time period have private and overall purposes, challenges that are set, probable actions that they will try to place within history’s context.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– Seth introduces the “grid of perception” metaphor to further explore the relationships between the physical, subtle, and causal fields within All-That-Is. Again, this creation myth is really about how All-That-Is functions as the Causal Consciousness within our physical universe. Seth uses this metaphor to show, once again, that our world and all of its species exist eternally as simultaneous, latent potentials for experience within All-That-Is. Therefore, modern theories of evolution and natural selection are incomplete, containing partial truths biased through the limits of biology and current neurological perception. They still don’t adequately explain the primary operating principles that govern the emergence and development of our universe or any species from no-time into time, no-space into space, no-belief into belief. Seth’s postmodern myth does just that.

– The “grid of perception” (All-That-Is) exists simultaneously in nonphysical and physical terms, that is, physical, subtle, and causal fields. Every aspect of the grid, in terms of causal consciousness units, is a sender and a receiver of information. Even though CUs can attune themselves to a “particle focus” when choosing individuation, all of the seeming divisions of life – mammals, fish, birds, etc. – are still an integral part of the living “grid of perception.” Since CUs can simultaneously attune themselves to a nonlocal “wave focus,” they are also in direct contact with all other aspects of the grid. In other words, CUs use their “wave focus” to consciously interpenetrate the physical, subtle, and causal fields (“there are no closed systems”), and their “particle focus” to consciously create physical individuality and seeming separation from Causal Consciousness.

– Physical reality is not solely the result of the actions of CU messages “transmitted and received, however, but is also caused by the relationships between those messages.” Put another way, the wave/particle duality of CUs simultaneously connects the physical, subtle, and causal fields.

– In physical terms, “all of life’s large classifications were present ‘at the beginning of the world.’ Otherwise there would have been vast holes in the grid of perception that makes possible the very sensations of physical life.” That is, the subtle and causal fields are the Primal Cause of all physical constructions, and even though it takes billions of years in the physical field for the physios, bios, and noos aspects to unfold and develop, all of the classifications – the entire ecosystem – were designed and enfolded as potentialities “in the beginning” of the physiosphere (Big Bang).

– The physical field (quantum fields) exists simultaneously interpenetrated with the subtle (EEs) and causal (CUs) fields. The subtle and causal fields appear hidden from our physical senses, since they consist of no-time, no-space, and no-belief. The “grid of perception” consists of these interpenetrated fields, thus there is some form of give-and-take or communication between them. Again, there are no closed systems.

All classifications of “mammals, fish, birds, men, reptiles, plants, and so forth, are [each] an integral part of that larger perceptive pattern – and that pattern in those terms had to be complete even in the beginning of your time.” Again, even though it takes billions of years in the physical field for the physios, bios, and noos to emerge and develop, the larger perceptive pattern was designed and enfolded as potentialities “in the beginning” of the physiosphere during the Big Bang. However, these potentialities aren’t fixed or predetermined, but adapt and change as countless probable realities are explored in the physical field. Thus, the physical, subtle, and causal fields consciously create in a multidimensional give-and-take.

– Seth states that “... Man does not in his physical development pass through the stages supposedly followed by the hypothetical creature who left the water for the land to come a mammal....” This may be a reference to German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s 19th century notion that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” The idea was that ontogeny, beginning with fetal development recaps phylogenetic stages through which life has evolved. For example, a single cell develops into a fetus with rudiments of gills and a tail at one point.

Seth goes on to say that “... each species does indeed have written within it the knowledge of ‘its past.’ ... The reincarnational aspects of physical life, however, serve a very important purpose, providing an inner subjective background. Such a background is needed by every species. Reincarnation exists, then, on the part of all species.” So Seth points to something deeper in the subtle field that he calls reincarnation, but does not give any clearer examples.

– Seth is clear elsewhere (Seth Speaks, The “Unknown” Reality/counterpart thesis) that reincarnation does not exist in terms of linear progression and certainly not in terms of moral cause-and-effect. However, there is an innate action within the subtle field where energy personality essence is simultaneously aware of all the lifetimes in the physical field. This is another key paradox to grok. In physical terms, we live one life at a time, we are born, grow, and die in a “particle focus.” But simultaneously, our subtle field inner ego experiences and consciously creates within a vast, spaciously present “wave focus.”

Thus, reincarnation provides the inner subjective background that supports every species. Seth hints that animals, birds, bacteria – all species – have their own relative type of inner ego and experience multiple, simultaneous focuses within the physical, subtle, and causal fields. In this light, reincarnation is nonlinear. Therefore, it is not really REincarnation, but another paradox inadequately expressed in English, one often distorted in premodern and postmodern worldviews by linear interpretations. As we saw in the Prologue, modern worldviews simply deny it altogether.

– Seth discusses the relationships between free will, choices, probabilities, and reincarnation; all innate qualities within All-That-Is/CUs. In physical terms, we are imbued with free will based upon our neurological, linear perception. When Seth says that “Man possesses free will, but that free will operates only within man’s degrees – that is, his free will is somewhat contained by the frameworks of time and space,” he hints that each field – physical, subtle, and causal – has nested species of free will.

The tricky part is understanding how they are nested together in terms of CUs “wave focus” and simultaneous “particle focus.” Obviously, we are still collectively working to understand that! But it goes a long way to better understand Seth’s dictum that “you create your own reality.” This “you” simultaneously exists in physical, subtle, and causal fields, and is thus much more than our outer ego.

Philosophers, theologians, and scientists have discoursed with divergent views about the nature of free will for millennia. In the Sethian context, free will is an inherent, innate quality within CUs also expressed in the laws of the inner universe. In the physical field, free will is an incredible achievement after billions of years of involution/evolution. We each deserve a pat on the back!

Reincarnational relationships further hint at the multidimensional relationships between the physical, subtle, and causal fields. Our impulses are multidimensional in nature too, guided by the inner law of value fulfillment, and intended to help us reach our fullest potentials in terms of physical development. Areas of collective exploration are specified in the vast pools of probabilities and reincarnational relationships defined for each cycle within the grid of perception (physical, subtle, causal fields).

Free will thus works in complementary fashion with our impulses, which are another language “spoken” by the inner ego. These impulses are translated through the subconscious and into waking awareness and are meant to help mediate between the vast array of probable actions possible. So free will works in complementary fashion with our inner impulses, both guided by the inner law of value fulfillment.

All of this adds up to the private purposes and intents of each individual within “the larger historical context, so that each person forms his corner of his civilization – and all individuals within a given time period have private and overall purposes, challenges that are set, probable actions that they will try to place within history’s context.”

And the rest, as they say, is history!

Comments:

– Seth said that “there were earths in the same space before the earth you recognize existed, and they began in the manner that I have given you in the early chapters of this book. The patterns for worlds – the patterns – continue in your time dimension, though in that time dimension those worlds must disappear, again, to continue ‘their existence outside of time.’ The patterns are filled out again.”

This is very similar to the Hindu myth of Yugas, or billion year cycles in which the physical field ends and begins anew. This suggests that we are presently in the midst of yet another cycle. In physical terms, there was a beginning that we call the Big Bang and there will be an end. However, in subtle and causal terms, there are no beginnings or endings, just endless conscious creative play, the dance of Maya, the sport of Lila, the wheel of samsara involving and evolving as a Kosmic Symphony.

When “the entire gestalt of consciousness [physical, subtle, and causal aspects] that formed a particular earth have formed its reality to the best of their abilities, fulfilling their individual and mass capacities as far as possible, then they lovingly turn over that grid to others and continue to take part in existences that are not physical in your terms.” In other words, the physical field is not the end game of involutionary/evolutionary cycles, but one stage of overall development that simultaneously includes the subtle and causal fields.

“And that has happened many times. Your tale about the Garden of Eden, then, is a legend about earth’s last beginning.” Again, our current involutionary/evolutionary cycle is just one of many, possibly infinite cycles of conscious creation. Thus, the earth is much older than we can imagine, since it exists in the subtle and causal fields for all eternity within a spacious present. This is what is meant when all the world’s mystical traditions say there is no beginning, and no end to Consciousness, even though we in the physical field must contend with death.

This material also hints that the earth is much older than we presently understand. In one of Jane Roberts’s worldview books, The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher (1978), William James shares his experiences in an afterdeath “school for philosophers” where other philosophers telepathically share their knowledge and experience that the earth is much older than he supposes. At first James responds incredulously:

“‘Even from my understanding of earth’s science since my death, the evidence for the planet’s past wouldn’t include the amount of time you seem to be implying. Earth isn’t that old.’

“But even as I communicate this thought to him, I know that despite all evidence to the contrary, earth is that old. ‘But it’s impossible,’ I say, and the philosophers laugh together and agree with me! As I stare from face to face, they say almost in unison, ‘but quite true.’ A slap in the face to logic, I think, a logic which presently has my own face stamped upon it. I grow stubborn and for a moment I feel an odd role reversal, remembering rebellious students who stood up protesting in audiences now and then while I tried to explain a given issue. Now I feel like one of those students, and uncomfortable in the process.

“Before my eyes flash again images of more civilizations than I can count, each flourishing, using what seems to be the same planet in different fashions, each with different relationships between men and the other species, each reflecting these characteristics through their own language and – oddest of all – interpreting man’s state of being in completely different terms.” (1)

“There were far more civilizations on the earth than scientists suppose, and the earth is far older than your records show, or the evidence will support.”(2)

The essential paradox of All-That-Is expresses that we have always existed, yet not in this human form, but as an infinitely powerful Consciousness with the potential for endless creativity, exploration, and experience. At this point in our story, Seth’s conscious creation myth can be summarized as follows:

All-That-Is eternally “forgets” (involution) and “remembers” (evolution) ItSelf in infinite variations through a “grid of perception” (physical, subtle, and causal fields).

Seth put it this way from the perspective of The One:

“All portions of All-That-Is do not recognize themselves consciously as All-That-Is. But know themselves mainly as individuals, not as the prime gestalt individual. When realization is reached at the highest level, then All-That-Is instantly creates new realities, and to some extent, you see, loses the conscious knowledge of its own identity.

“The loss is always temporary and self-generated.” (3)

German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) expressed this paradox from the perspective of The Many.

“Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

“It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.” (4)

English humorist Douglas Adams (1952-2001) also intuited this paradox in two succinct sentences, which I sometimes refer to as “the Adams’ Axiom.”

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” (5)

A Zen koan asks, “show me your Original Face before your mother and father were born.” Do you remember your Original Face “before the beginning?”

Footnotes

1. Jane Roberts, The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978, p. 188.

2. Ibid, p. 186.

3. Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions: Book Seven of the Seth Material, New Awareness Network, Manhasset, NY, 1999, p. 240-41.

4. Immanuel Kant (translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn), Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft), 1781/1787, http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/cprrn10.txt, Preface to the First Edition.

5.Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth, Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts (1985).

ANNOUNCEMENTS

"When that point of awareness strikes you fully...a new kind of consciousness is born in you...You feel the birth of intellect and intuition together, in a high intellect, in which you recognize your own superior functioning." --Seth

."Such realizations have their own biological effects,. propelling the mind toward "higher" organizations, in which all of life's seeming inadequacies are understood to be redeemed. --Seth

" Now you may call this a spiritual or psychological or psychic exploration as you prefer. ...There are far more wonders to be achieved through this inward exploration than you can possibly believe. -- Seth

This 2 day workshop will focus on Seth's teachings on the importance and methods of achieving "higher" states of consciousness, "spiritual" exploration, and communication with our own greater being. It will also address the connection between these higher states of consciousness and the art of creating your own reality, including the elimination of any limiting beliefs that interfere with our energy, growth or fulfillment.

Throughout the body of the Seth Material, Seth discusses a major step in our growth which involves moving out of the "official line of consciousness," the conventional framework of viewing reality. Again and again, Seth encourages us to take the steps that will lead to a new birth of consciousness, a new far more effective and far more expansive mode of operation, that he has alternately described as the "higher intellect," the "spacious mind," an expansion of identity," the "magical approach," and "spiritualized creaturehood."

Using a variety of "consciousness expansion" and "inner sense" exercises, discussion, belief work, and interaction with people of like mind, this workshop will provide a concentrated and experiential presentation of key areas of the Seth material. Select Audiotape excerpts of Seth speaking on these topics during Jane Robert's classes, including some never before published, will be integrated into the workshop. Topics covered will include:

• a.. How to trigger the "higher intellect" and "accelerated states of consciousness."
• b.. Using direct links to the wisdom of the inner self.
• c.. Letting Go - Joining with the spontaneous self.
• d.. The "inner senses" and our capacity for "Direct Comprehension."
• e.. Conscious creation - The art of using your unlimited energy and power to create your ideal life. . .
• f.. Reconnecting with your non-physical "entity."
• g.. Expanding your concept of identity and becoming a "new, larger" you.
• h.. The "magical" approach and the pitfalls of the conventional "rational" approach.
• i.. Moving out of the "official line of consciousness" - How to break free from stubborn cultural limiting belief systems.

INSTRUCTOR: Rick Stack, M.S. Ed., is the President of New Awareness Network Inc. and publisher/editor of The Seth Audio Collection, The Early Sessions (Books 1-9 of the Seth Material), The Personal Sessions (Book 1-7 of The Deleted Seth Material), and other books by Jane Roberts. He was a friend and student of Jane Roberts and personally attended over 100 Seth sessions given in Jane Roberts' classes in Elmira, NY. Author of "Out Of Body Adventures" (Contemporary Books 1988), he has been teaching workshops on the Seth Material, Dreams, Out of Body Experiences and metaphysics throughout the United States and abroad for over 25 years. He is currently continuing work with Robert Butts on the publication of the remaining unpublished Seth material.

Two Workshops currently scheduled- New York City (Oct 21 & 22, 2006) & Los Angeles (Nov 18 & 19, 2006)

Location: New York City-Manhattan- SLC Conference Center, 352 7th Ave (16th Floor) (between 29th and 30th St.)

Dates and Times: (2 Day workshop) Sat October 21 and Sunday October 22th - 10:AM- 5:00 PM (1/2 hour lunch break)

Location: Los Angeles- LA Radisson Hotel, 6161 West Centinela Avenue, CA- 10:AM- 5:00 PM (1/2 hour lunch break)

Dates and Times: (2 Day workshop)Sat November 18 and Sunday November 19 - 10:AM- 5:00 PM (1/2 hour lunch break)

Workshop Fee: $225

(Early Registration Fee - $200 for registration at least one month prior to workshop)

To Register:

1) - On line at sethcenter.com

2)- By Phone - 516-869-9108

For Questions call 516-869-9108 Mon-Fri 10-5 PM EST. If you get a machine please leave name, number and best time to be reached and we will get back to you.

Yale Manuscripts: A Guide to the Jane Roberts Papers

A complete listing of all Jane Roberts' writings that have been stored in the Yale archives are now online. The listing includes Seth sessions as well as Jane's journals and book manuscripts.

Sethworld - A board game based on the Seth Material

Explore your beliefs! Stretch your imagination! Delve into your dreams! Challenge your creativity!

Seven years in the making, I am so pleased to be able to offer you SethWorld - The Game of All That Is! SethWorld is a totally unique game, the first metaphysical board game based on the Seth material - maybe the first metaphysical board game, ever! It is designed to explore and uncover beliefs while having fun. There are no winners, no losers, and NO RULES! A 24-page pamphlet included with the game gives a probable framework for play, 6 sample "moves," and a glossary of 61 concepts.

SethWorld -- You've never played anything like it!

Marion the Magnet’s First Mission
By Sharon Hackleman
Illustrated by John Blair Moore

Marion the Magnet is chosen to travel to the planet Earth with his wise grandfather to teach the children about their own magnetic powers…the magnetic power of thought!

In the book Marion helps a young girl, Katie, understand the importance of thinking and daydreaming about what she wants to attract with her magnetic powers of thought. When the other children are using their magnetic powers to attract fun things such as skateboards and new video games Katie is trying to use her magnetic powers to help her family through a challenging situation. Her father has been out of work for sometime and they are close to the point of becoming homeless.

WHAT A COINCIDENCE Understanding Synchronicity In Everyday Life
by Susan M Watkins

Overview:

What if all those seemingly insignificant little What a coincidence! moments you've experienced were actually connected, were part of a larger, more complex coincidence story?

What if they were hinting at something very personal and important about yourself—and about the workings of human consciousness?

Would you listen?

Susan Watkins does. For more than 35 years she's been documenting and studying the coincidences that have happened in her life. What she's discovered is that seemingly simple coincidences—thinking of an old friend and their calling seconds later, for example—are often pieces of larger, more complex and meaningful "coincidence clusters."

A former newspaper reporter and the author of five books, Watkins has always been intrigued by coincidences—what they mean in our everyday lives, and in the grander scheme of things. What, she asks, do these coincidence clusters say about human consciousness and human connection? In What a Coincidence! she presents coincidence clusters that are utterly astounding. What they reveal is life- altering.

What a Coincidence! is an exciting, groundbreaking journey. Along the way Watkins offers profound insights as well as practical pointers on how to become aware of the coincidence clusters in our own lives. She also shows us how to document coincidences so that we, too, can reap their valuable rewards. We'll never brush off those What a Coincidence! moments again.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Sethnet Speaks, January 2006 – compiled by Paul Helfrich.

Seth Sessions Overview – compiled by Shawn Regan & Rick.

See what we look like. Add your own picture! – John M. set up a webpage where we can add our photos. It also features a global map that shows where folks are located.

The Personal Sessions, Vol. 5/6 – The series deleted sessions dealing with personal material are now available. Vol. 7, now in process, will complete publication of ALL the Seth Material! By Rick Stack and New Awareness Network.

The Classic Seth Portrait by Rob Butts This is a low resolution scan for those interested.

Check out the Mindscapes Music CD - Listen online to 22 tracks of music from Paul Helfrich. Also available for purchase.

Conscious Creation Links – Conscious Creation Publishers, Book Stores, Websites, Journals, Newsletters, Mailing Lists, Message Boards, and more.

The Elias forum - website by Paul & Joanne Helfrich contains an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Mary Ennis.

What if the Seth material was a foundation to be expanded later by other channeled sources? Can any perennial source ever be considered complete AND infallible?

Seth readers will want to check out:
Introduction & Overview
A Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!)
Digest: Seth, Jane Roberts

The Kris Chronicles - an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Serge Grandbois.

A Kris, Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!) - a preliminary comparison of core concepts in the Seth material, information offered by Elias, and Kris Chronicles