February 19, 1975

[DELETED SESSION]

[FEBRUARY 19, 1975 9:27 PM WEDNESDAY]

Good evening.

(Good evening, Seth.)

Now first the house.

("Okay] ." [)

Because that house is on a hill it has certain advantages. Looking down at the town gives the kind of perspective that each of you enjoy---as here you look down from the second story. You get a second-story effect, then.

More than that, however, as far as you are both personally concerned, you have a built-in sense of distance that gives the house actually an extra dimension of privacy that is not within the grounds themselves, yet adds to that aura. The house is set itself atop its own knoll, which to Ruburt at least gives a fortress feeling, in that he can look down and see who is coming.

The aspects of nature there are important, however. And will be most refreshing. The air itself is clearer and cleaner.

Give us a moment.... You both seem informal, yet your informality exists within its own rather formal structure. The places so far have had a certain formality. Within that formality, then, in contrast, you are informal. Development homes also represent, to you both, now, undisciplined, unthinking, sloppy behavior. You disapprove of it.

The formality of the position of the house upon its hill provides a kind of structure of its own. The same house on low land would not suffice, you see. It is the entire picture that is important. There are good aintings to be found from the house, in terms of landscapes, and natural walks. You would end up, I imagine, tearing down a wall.

In formal rooms you use informal decor. In informal rooms you would use a more formal decor. You do not understand your mixtures of order and spontaneity, formality and informality. You do not want to move into an overly friendly neighborhood. Others do. Those houses have not sold because of the very characteristics you found attractive---their relative aloofness, and their aura of apartness.

The private-type yards, the house on its own knoll, say clearly "We are not neighborhood barbecue people." There is not an easy access from house to house. People who relate in a cozy, more or less openhearted way with their neighbors like adjoining patios. They may ut up a screen for privacy, but all in all they prefer more or less constant neighborly give-and-take.

Those people enjoy the reassurance that others give that reinforces the way of life that they have chosen. The houses themselves have a quality, a life, that is picked up by potential buyers. Certain houses repel you and Ruburt. They will however positively attract others, so the qualities in the houses that appeal to you are precisely those qualities that have turned others off, and prevented their sale. Quite simply, Ruburt finds carpeting sinful if it is expensive, unless it is in the living room, where he might accept it. It speaks of too much luxury.

On the other hand he regards that scene as true, joyous luxury. It is highly important however that you move. Ruburt's response is very healthy for him, since it involves the acceptable use of exuberant and aggressive energy, and the sense of power in the physical realm.

There are points to be considered also in the Levine affair, for our bemused Dr. Levine would cut out all of nature, you think, if he had the chance, and as Ruburt said, sterilize the neighborhood. His response there was excellent for him, as you said. You both do need privacy for your work and because of your natures, but if you try to find a home with no dogs or children within miles, then in another way you are doing what Sam Levine is trying to do, only in your own way. To you, far more acceptable, of course, than his way.

This does not mean you need children in the house next door. It does mean that you settle for a reasonable amount of privacy, but that you do not carry the idea to extremes. If the sound of children's voices, or dogs, even in the distance, annoys you, then you are doing a Dr. Levine in your own ways.

Give us a moment.... The people who have lived in the Foster Street house, and the hill house, have to some extent already conditioned the rest of the neighbors in a certain way. There are alliances and understandings in neighborhoods---signs for others to read. The little house on Cobbles East also has its own aura of privacy that no garage on the other side can disturb.

You think the green house by the river was too much a box---but it was its open air of hospitality that bothered you---the wide windows open to the street. It was a box, but it was open, not shielded from the front.

The Foster house had shrubs. The front entrance was not even used. The hill house is set up high. Anyone who walks up the steps from the street knows they are making a trip. Financially you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You can afford the cash.

Even you, however, will feel more secure with a place of your own than you would with the money drawing interest in the bank. It is a different kind of security. Your daily environment is very important to your work, and to Ruburt. The money in the bank is helpful, but if your daily environment is not conducive to your work and peace of mind, then the money security is meaningless. You will have plenty plus your house. An expensive house as such is not required. Your own ideas however of rivacy and so forth in your society requires a certain amount of cash.

There is nothing wrong for example with the south side. You also possess an esthetic sense, however. You require certain things of your art, and therefore you want the same things in your environment. Once you had it here, for all of your criticism. Now it is gone, and you are different.

At this time of your lives it is important that you act. [I]

am telling you that of the houses in your mind it really makes little difference which one you choose. Neither house is perfect. You would find yourselves quite hampered in such an idealistically perfect environment. You need some give-and-take (period).

Regardless of the money and your attitudes toward it, the residence would serve you as well as the other one, and money is far more than a commodity. Each house could well be made to suit your specific needs, and each reflects strong elements of your personalities.

In the Foster house you would find yourselves having to open the place up, and you would find triumphant joy when the windows worked. Ruburt would eventually alter the kitchen so that more light came in. That would be symbolic and practical.

You would end up eventually making a studio in the attic, which would cost you more money, which you would have to spend. In the summer there would indeed be annoying children's voices that reminded you that others lived differently. Ruburt would end up ripping away part of the carpet---good expensive rug---and changing the rooms about. And you cannot put a money value on what you would get out of that house.

In the beginning it would not be perfect. It would not be everything you want. From the standpoint of the construction, our dear friend cautioned you against the house. He strongly feels his responsibility to you, to advise you well. He is trying so hard that he bends over backwards to be honest, and if you will forgive me, Frank.

That house has greater capacity in terms of adding on in the attic. It has its own formality. That formality, oddly enough, will encourage Ruburt's spontaneity, for he would find it a challenge to work with the house and yet in counterpoint.

(10:14.) Give us a moment.... There are also kinds of creative changes that you do not foresee, that you can make in both areas of the yard, at Foster. The one is dark, the other open, comparatively speaking.

Give us a moment.... I am trying to give you the best information I can.

The house possesses its own kind of inner light this is not possessed by the Sayre house, and I recommend against that house regardless of price.

It has a built-in darkness that no amount of applied light would disperse. Nor will you ever---particularly you, Joseph---be satisfied with sharing a driveway.

You must forget current market values. They are artificial. I am not telling you to forget your own finances, but the contractor's idea of the physical worth of the Foster house has only an adjacent connection with its values to you. You would be well-equipped financially to make whatever changes you want in the future.

Give us a moment.... The hill house, again, has good aspects because of the location, the view and the proximity of nature. The dining area is better, as it is now. It would require little work.

Give us a moment.... The property also will rise, as I said the Foster roperty would. It is sunnier, obviously. You would definitely however end up tearing down a wall, and I believe that you might add another room, or want to possibly in the future, to one side. You would also end up enlarging some windows for your work areas. Ruburt would, incidentally, as he said, plop down at the largest window.

The Cobbles East house would not content you, though it is a quite adequate house, and elegant in its way inside. You would feel cramped, however. The hill house, because of its location, adds a spaciousness that is inside the Foster house, but either way you have an open feeling in terms of expansion.

I want you to consider the two houses as apart from your financial considerations. Either of them would do well enough.

Take your break.

(10:28---10:32.)

Now: once I gave you a recommendation, and you did not really take it. I can foresee probabilities, but you make your own reality, and I will not take the responsibility. Taking that for granted, and knowing your characteristics, I have more to say. You may not like it.

The Foster house represents many things, and though it is not on a hill it represents your feelings of secrecy and privacy. The windows do not open. It is dark, yet it is large, and in its way elegant.

You can go along with the house as it is , and become more secretive. You can hide in it better than you can in the hill house.

The hill house is protected. It has some privacy. It does not have secrecy, and while you have a view you cannot hide in it. It is too contemporary.

Give us time.... The Foster Street house has a certain decadence. Do you follow me?

(Yes.)

The hill house does not. It represents a kind of challenge you have not thus far accepted. A kind of living in the present that has frightened you both. As given however it still possesses qualities that do go in with your natures. Foster Street represents an elegant secretive past, and you would both try to hide within it. Ruburt hates to give it up for that reason, but to a lesser degree so do you.

Give us time.... The hill house represents the future, and the contemporary qualities of it. I suggest, and only suggest, that that be your choice---because it is the most daring of the ventures for you---and because the hill will give you a view in many more ways than one. (And this when we haven't been inside of hill house. Didn't get inside until February 21, when we signed offer to purchase. See house file.)

Give us time.... When you live in a house that belongs conspicuously to another age, you are to some extent avoiding the contemporary nature of life. Ruburt may find himself furnishing the place more formally than another, yet the open quality of the air is the kind of air that you do not hide in.

(You're talking about the hill house.)

I am indeed. If some rooms are small you can enlarge them. Take a break.

(10:45. "I feel sad," Jane said. She was near tears. "I feel funny---like some part of me wants to crawl into that Foster Street house and hide there. Creep around that yard.")

("I think it's good advice," I said.)

("I'm shocked," Jane countered. "I loved the idea of that Foster Street house. But he's so fucking smart---Seth---")

("You got what you wanted: answers.")

("I know it. I said before the session that I really wanted good answers, that I'd stay out of it as much as possible...."]

(All in all, I thought Jane "recovered" quite easily from Seth's data, which I thought was excellent.)

[("Oh shit, I'm getting more." Jane laughed after coming back into the room. She sat down. "I'll have to say; when I ask for straight stuff, I get it." But she still looked teary-eyed to me, though. Resume at 11:02.)

Now: the hill environment has open nature. The trees will tempt him to walk about, and he knows it well. The environment demands exploration.

Nature there is sunny.

It will automatically tempt him to walk about. The two levels of the house are good. The stairs will be a part of living. There is privacy, but it is tempered by the open air of the hill, yet still the distance is maintained that is necessary for each of you. It is not claustrophobic privacy.

Give us a moment.... The aura about is as important to your painting as the ready-made workroom in the Foster house. The very air is inspiring, so that you will paint more there even if your work area is not immediately as good.

The ready-made fireplace is amusing. It presents an instant automatic invitation to cook outdoors, and a certain informality that the decadent garden does not present.

The sunny nature and the open quality---regardless of what Ruburt thinks now, will help him creatively and physically---but the house represents a decision to face the world, while maintaining certain necessary and quite reasonable conditions. It provides privacy yet openness.

The Ambrose affair represents your ideas about money and the upper classes. The conflict between Easton and Ambrose is primarily of a social nature. Donna and Easton both feel in an inferior position in that regard. They have their backs up. The mores are entirely different.

To some extent the conflicting ideas represent some of your own---hence your being in the middle.

The parking is all right, though in winter only one side particularly is ermitted. But it is a dead-end street, so as long as driveways are honored you are all right.

Now Ruburt feels to some extent that a nice place is ermissible if it is decadent. That had to do with Foster. There is no need to be ashamed of your money, or to fear there will not be more of it. You need an intimate give-and-take with the land. The hillside is not yours, yet it is your view. And it has strong evocative connections with your creative lives.

For your purposes the house is worth the price. In the market, in Frank's terms, the house is worth perhaps \$38,500, or \$39,000.

That price will also go up. Though the rooms are smaller there is in a strange way greater manipulability, psychically speaking.

A definite change in living patterns will result, and of attitude, that would not happen in the Foster house. This also means that greater adaptability is required, but it will be to the good. The whole difference here is the quality of nature as it surrounds both houses.

The one invites you to roam, the other to hide. Both houses have Sumari characteristics, but in different combinations. You both need the sun.

(11:21. Now Seth diverged to give perhaps a page of data on the family of consciousness that Sue Watkins came up with in 1971 or '72. That material, with Sue's notes, will go into] The "Unknown" Reality [, possibly in the notes for the 738th session in Section Six.]

(Then Seth returned to deleted material:)

On the house: now Ruburt could quite cleverly see Dr. Sam as he tried to shut nature out, and be at the same time relatively opaque in understanding his feelings toward the Foster Street house---his own feelings.

It is no coincidence that Venice's (McCullough's) land borders on Sam's---for she does not trust nature either. Their lands are adjacent. So the families of consciousness operate at adjacent angles, and each family teaches the other family something.

Venice comes to class, and Sam bought that house next to this one. The families do not exist in isolation.

That is the end of the session, unless you have questions that you want answered.

(No. I think you've already answered them all.)

I think I have.

("And very well, too.")

(With a smile:) I think I did a pretty good job.

(End at 11:45 PM.)