GHG Studio - Jacob’s Latter Pillow

Jacob’s Latter Pillow

Adaptation of 17th c. English embroidery, Jacob’s Dream

     This soft, squishy bed pillow was prompted by my own favorite pillow, the one that prevents a crick in the neck. I originally conceived the piece to be a paean to pillows, to a good night's rest, to sweet dreams, to the imprint of a loved one’s head. A celebration of the simple, the beautiful, and the good. It still does that, but then the patriarch Jacob entered the scene.
     The story of Jacob's dream with the ladder of angels describes his very human need for sleep and inserts the necessary detail of a pillow--a stone pillow, which doesn't sound very comfortable, but then, neither are angels. After all, Jacob's visions come during a lifetime of lying and cheating and all sorts of things that Biblical heroes aren’t supposed to do.  This porcelain pillow bears an adaptation of an old English embroidery with the ladder of angels and a sleepy Jacob wearing a big hat. From a piece of crochet from the 1930's I copied a lace design that resembles a ladder, and applied this clay edging to the pillowcase.
     While working with the porcelain, a poem was growing. Another insistent pillow image came into focus: Mark's version of the storm on the lake, where Jesus is asleep on a cushion. Both this and Jacob's dream story evoke fear, and the poem seemed to call on Jesus for comfort. The poem felt “floaty”, as dreams do, and it took on the rocking motion of a boat or a cradle. Here I imagine that Jacob wrestles with thoughts, reviews his stormy life, and then is blessed to nod off and dream.
     Remember the later part of the Jacob’s story when he goes to Egypt at the request of his incognito son, Joseph, the skillful dream interpreter? Jacob's stone pillow was back home, now an altar in Bethel, so perhaps he got a new one in Egypt. Could’ve been fine Egyptian cotton which wasn’t grown in Palestine. The last stanza of the poem picks up on this, and ends with the sweet reality of forgiveness, God’s stability, and intimacy.

see Genesis 28: 11-12 for Jacob's story; Mark 4:35-37 for the storm on the lake.

Jacob's Latter Pillow

Let us cross over to
the other side, the underside,
the cool underside of the pillow, the lake
where I meet you in morsels of dreams
ferried by angels continuous as sugar ants.

They pile the dream bits below, down below
in the stern, a sandman pile where
folded lacy ladders cradle your head
in diamond scented foam.
There you feel for tooth fairies, lie,
and grope for God.

Up to the elbows in smooth surrender
you enfold the buxom bounty of Rubens,
and float away with Chagall-
anguish quells, charcoal feathers the
sweet dark smudge of sleep.
Watch--Whistler waters his noctures,
Canova polishes marble cushions.
while you, Jacob, oil your pillow
and put it on a pedestal,
an altar to the fragrance of the night.

In your latter years your anointed hair exchanges electrons with Egyptian cotton, kneaded and soft as flawed white clay. You cease counting spotted sheep and count your sons instead. You replay the rumpled, milky scene, embroider the lakeshore, forgive yourself, wake. That stone is still God’s house.
	Welcome home, sleepy head. Everyone needs a good pillow, plumped. You may borrow mine.

Chlora's Diary and Pillow
Copyright 2005 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with gold

Adaptations of "Christ Asleep During the Storm on the Sea of Galilee",
Abbess Hitda's Gospel Book (10th-11th c)
and "The Deposition", from The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,
by the Limbourg Brothers, e. 15th c.

(an appropriation of Jacob's Latter Pillow)

Chlora patted out a small pool in her soft pillow
and propped up her diary. It was time to
reread some things. A few years ago, she was just
learning penmanship and she liked to practice her cursive in here.
She recorded an event every day, but it never said much.
One time she wrote that she and a friend put their boot
in the deep places. That meant they were thrilled to be playing
outside all alone, and under the threatening icycles had discovered
beautiful snow drifts up against the house. Another time she made
handprints in wet cement and wrote her name with a stick.
That meant she would endure for eternity. The day she got
her first glasses, the eye doctor joked that she really needed
a seeing eye dog. That meant Chlora felt guilty for cheating
on the Big E test, hoping it would get her a dog.

Rereading, Chlora was impressed that she had enough sense
to record some historic comings and goings.
She had made a note about that astronaut who circled orbit three times
and came back safely, and when the President did not come
back safely from Dallas, when some prissy-puss movie star died,
and when the Beatles arrived in America.
She got possessive about Paul and had an awful fight
over him in the girls bathroom at school.

Oh well. There had been dumber reasons for fights
throughout history. Some of the worst ones were in the Bible,
which made her wonder how come people said it was so lovely.
Maybe they should reread the whole thing.
She shut the diary and put it away under her pillow.
She used to tell the Tooth Fairy not to peek at it.
But the Tooth Fairy was flaky. She had been
confused for years after Chlora's front tooth
was knocked out at age two.
She went snaggle-toothed her entire childhood, and
never got the money she was owed by that fairy.
For a long time, she swooped her hand under the pillow just in case
some coins had appeared, and if so, she hoped the Tooth Fairy
had added in the accrued interest. Older and wiser now,
Chlora knew better than to trust any winged relative of Tinker Bell,
that flitty little imp. Thus angels fell into the suspicious category.

Chlora's pillow was named after Jacob. He had had an all night fight
with an angel who pinched his leg so bad he limped the rest of
his life. Chlora tried this with her sister, whose big blue bruise
was proof that Chlora was no angel.

But Jacob also had some dreamy angels. If he could give them
a second chance, she could too. His angels were busy, going up
and down a ladder ferrying messages between heaven and earth.
They were embroidered on her pillowcase, so she could count them
instead of sheep at night. It was a pleasant way to drift off,
being connected to heaven and ignoring whatever was going on
on earth. She noted that Jacob's angels were on top of the ladder,
never underneath it where bad luck lives.

Chlora had a ladder to the top bunk.
It was hot up there, but she could write in her diary in privacy.
It was a good place to feel the corners of her life.
When it was good and dark, she was entertained by the shadow parade
on the bedroom wall. She knew what caused it--just the headlights
of a passing car shining through the window. The shadow parade
arrived abruptly, stretching around corners, bumping over the shelves
and closets, and leaping across the shut door, until it was swallowed
up again by the window. It was like a circus train of mute elephants
and giraffes and lions, shaping the darkness in to something new.

Imagination in the dark could also be scary.
Chlora imagined herself climbing into her hiding place, like Anne Frank,
pouring out her hopes and fears of all the years
to her diary named Kitty. Chlora sort of looked like Anne,
skinny with frizzy dark hair. They were soul sisters across time.
Chlora cried when Anne's diary ended.
She hoped that Anne had had a good angel,
the kind that starts out with "Fear Not!",
so you don't get the daylights scared out of you. "Fear Not" is what
Gabriel said to Mary when she got annunicated.
She got pregnant through her ear.

Chlora was small, like Anne and Jacob.
Anne had to stay put. But Jacob really got around.
He named his pillow Bethel because God was in that place.
Bethel was made of stone, so God must be everywhere.
Jacob's pillow stayed put too. Chlora's didn't. She liked to
take it when she spent the night with a friend.
If she ever got to go anywhere interesting, she would
have to turn her diary into a travel log.

For now, it could become a personal Book of Hours,
like medieval ladies had. But hers would be a Book of Years,
since it had five years of entries. Some pages were blank,
so she looked for pictures to fill in the spaces between words.
She would stick to a theme and collect pictures
that had pillows and ladders in them.
Or she might find ones where bad things happen to good people
like Anne and Jesus, or good things happen to bad people
like Jacob the cheater, or those nasty lovers in Japanese
pillow books. It would be a challenge to find pictures of nothing
happening to average people.

Chlora had a few pictures to glue in her book tonight.
She climbed up the ladder, thankful to have a place
to lay her head and say pillow prayers.
She flipped the pillow over for cool comfort,
held onto her diary, and watched the parade go by.

SEE CHLORA'S DIARY