Today, I embark on my retelling of the biblical story of Jacob, the section usually referred to Jacob’s ladder or Jacob’s pillow. The entire story-arc of Jacob is filled with mystery and a sense of shamanic-style questing. What is the goal of a shamanic quest? There are many but the foundation is to open gateways to travel amidst thresholds. It is through these passages that we can gain knowledge of ourselves, have ecstatic experiences, do healing work, divination . .
I believe this is a feminist issue because when we look at Jacob’s story more holistically, we can strip away the patriarchal assumptions inherent in the tale as it’s come down to us. For example, in my retelling, there is no male grand deity standing above, judging and dictating human actions and interactions.
This is the season of the solstice, the celebration of the times when the nights are the longest and the daylight the shortest. As a threshold season, it a wonderful interval for journeying.
This is also a good time to share a project I have been working on lately. As many of you know from my past blogposts, I love to look under the hood at biblical verses to see what I can discover about their original oral, pagan teachings. I have turned them into translations and poetry. This is my expansion into storytelling.
Below is Genesis 28:11 through 28:19. Here is my color coding for ease of reading. The black is the traditional verse from the King James Bible. The blue is brief commentary. The red is my own translation. Enjoy!
Genesis 28:11
And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
The hallmark of a quest is to travel from the known into the unknown. It can be either a physical journey or one of dreamtime, a vision. Jacob does both.
As the gentle veil of night settled upon the land, Jacob went to Mama Earth and laid his body upon Hers.
Genesis 28:12
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
As Jacob dreams, he sees a vision of a ladder, a common shamanic symbol for traveling to otherworldly landscapes.
As Jacob entered the dreamtime of liminal space, the night-veil was pierced by the heavens and a pillar was revealed. Jacob could see divine messengers and other beings travel through the veils.
Genesis 28:13
And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
When one enters such a liminal space, they can see and experience the mysterious which can appear as different aspects such as divinity, ancestors, possibly seeds representing fertility and growth.
Witness, Great Mystery. Here in this place, behold. The passageways, from heaven to earth, from your ancestors to your descendants, from your outsides to your insides and back again. You belong to the many-seeded Cauldron of Source.
Genesis 28:14
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
The 4 directions map out the landscape of our precious Earth and the elements that make Her our home.
Blessings to the four directions of time/space to exist so, and to set in place the cauldron which protects, nourishes and disperses the seeds of life here on Earth.
Genesis 28:15
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
It is common to communicate with spirit as divinity or a guide.
As long as life exists here on Earth, these passageways, these liminal spaces will exist for knowledge, interchange, energy, wisdom, as a reservoir of seeds.
Genesis 28:16
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.
After such an experience, it is time to integrate it into our lives. This can happen in an instant, or more commonly, over the course of many years.
And when Jacob awoke, he said, surely Great Mystery filters through everything and everyone and I knew it not. And yet it is in this place that I learned.
Genesis 28:17
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Fear, awe, trembling can all indicate an experience of great power. Trembling is often the way we feel the movement of spirit within our bodies. Think of how this concept of strong experience being both frightening and exciting shows up in our language; fearsome/ fearful; awesome/ awful; terrible/ terrific.
And he trembled and said, how powerful is this place, for I live in the dwelling place of All-Potential and it is here that I found a threshold of numinosity.
Genesis 28:18-19
And Jacob rose up early in the morning,
and took the stone that he had put for his pillows,
and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
And he called the name of that place Bethel:
but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.
It is considered good spirit etiquette to honor important experiences in our lives.
And Jacob arose at dawn from his dream-time
and took the earth and stone which had cradled him in his journey traveling behind the veil,
and created an altar. He poured libations of oil.
And spoke aloud the name, Bethel or House of All-Potential
which was once known as Luz, the light from the Tree of Life.
(Another note on patriarchal assumptions and in this case a personal picadillo of mine – seeds. Seeds are vital as the primary tool of spreading life on this earth. But in patriarchal hands and in relation to humans, they become a divisive symbol, too often used as a basis for racism, nationalism, separation of all sorts. Seeds in relation to human life are connected with our parentage [think of royalty], race, religion, or any of a number of other categories that divide us. It shows the poison of patriarchy that the sacredness of seeds – prominent in the King James Version – is turned to ugly, violent otherness.)
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Gosh Janet I am impressed that you could find such a different story in these most patriarchal words that so many still take literally. I guess that’s what I find frightening the fact that the the accepted cannon still reads HE HE HE – how can folks not be affected – unconsciously if not with awareness…? there in lies my bias, and the primary reason I reject the bible – the only words that make any sense to me are those from the rejected Gospel of Thomas or Mary …
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Thanks for your comment, Sara. I can see why you just reject the bible. That makes total sense to me. But I do take a different approach. I think there are hidden teachings behind the words, and I feel they are important to uncover for this reason. Whether we pay attention to the bible or not, its words and stories underly our entire culture. If we can begin to understand where they came from the wisdom teachings within them, I am hopeful we can begin to find new paradigms to undergird our civilization inspiring much needed changes to our consciousness and our actions esp. in regard to each other and to our precious Earth.
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Oh and the HE HE HE – I hear you, I twitch every time divinity is referred to as “he” as well. For the most part, that is not in the original text. That is how the translations came down to us. A lot was translated out of reach.
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I agree that it’s important to plumb the stories for different meanings to emerge but my bias comes out of the damaging patriarchal view that underlies the entire bible – which is why I think we need to find stories elsewhere – I am biased because of so many negative messages that I got without even realizing it.
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I love this, Janet. I, too, have loved re-imagining certain Biblical passages and stories. Yours is a beautiful rendering of this story of Jacob.
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Thank you Beth, I so appreciate your words of support. I feel delighted when others understand what it is that I am doing.
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I concur on both of your points, Beth. A kin of what Janet has richly birthed with her writing HERe, is my newest book which is a re-languaging of the 66 Books of the Bible in Matrilineal and Feminist language. https://www.centennialcollege.ca/centennial-college-blog/2023/june/21/centennial-prof-writes-for-the-eighth-fire-margot-van-sluytman-and-joy-abounds
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This is so beautiful. Your re-translations are not only a fascinating interpretation, but always so poetic and lyrical, so full of mystery and layers of meaning. And so full of the truth that the culture from which the bible arose had female divinity in its foundations. Thank you so much for your vital work!
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Thank you so much Carolyn. I love your turn of the phrase about being full of mystery and layers of meaning. I agree. And yes, female divinity is all over the bible as well as earth-based teachings.
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Do you have a rendition for the story of Adam and Eve, I would love to hear it!! The story I found really crazy is women being formed from Adams rib.
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Glad you are drawn to read more of my work Catherine. Thank you. I have quite a lot on Adam and Eve and am working up more. I do have blogposts here on FAR that deal with Eve. I also have my book When Eve Was a Goddess. As to the rib issue, I am in the process of working up new material on that so nothing out in the world on that yet.
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Hello Janet, Thanks for connecting with me. I feel that we are at a time now to undo this none sense and I am grateful to know you have, thank you so much. This is an exciting time for girls and women on earth, divine feminine rising. I hear women are hear to lead the new earth because we know the way of soft power, was what I heard, power vs force. What is your book about? Where could I purchase your book? Thank you for undoing these toxic narratives, love and light Cate
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Thank you for your interest. Yes exciting time but with so much pushback that I find it also to be scary. My books are on Amazon. If you need a link, probably best to go through my website: https://themysticpagan.com/
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The thing is that God is both, Divine Mother and Divine father. The cat is finally out of the bag!
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Agree completely. Divinity as it appears to us is both. For me and in its essence, it is The Great Mystery
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This is such a deep shamanic interpretation of the bible; and I hope you re-render more, indeed! I think the symbols are such part of our collective unconscious, and to re-imagine them in a kinder, more supportive, humane, encouraging way is true ‘gold’ – thank you for undertaking this epic story-telling!
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Thank you Eline. Your words encourage me to keep going as this is indeed part of a larger project I am doing to “re-render,” as you write, biblical stories to seek out their essence from a time when the earth was honored, and shamanic processes were part of people’s daily lives.
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I think it’s great you are looking at biblical passages from a shamanic point of view Janet, because, at the time of writing, humanity, without today’s technology was more connected to land, sea, sky, and ancestors. We tend to forget that though there is a continuation of the spiritual thread, life in comparison to this modern world of ours, was very different in Biblical times I have a book called Prayers of the Cosmos which offers reflections on the Original meaning of Jesus’s words translated by and commented on by Neil Douglas Klotz. The original Aramaic which Jesus and his followers would have spoken has multi-layered meanings from which the listener may select. Reading this has thrown new light on the teachings of Jesus. Attending a Lars Muhl Aramaic chanting session in a Glastonbury church got me interested which is why I bought the book. Lars, a Danish mystic is a Christian who has studied gnosis and spent a few years learning Aramaic. I think the shamanic version might be closer to the real meaning and look forward to reading more of your interpretations. Language is important – times change and language changes with it. Today, we are often all mind and do not consider adding body and soul to make it holistic.
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Thank you Iona for your interest and your rich comment. I haven’t read Prayers of the Cosmos but I have loved any translations I have read from Neil Douglas Klotz. I think he does a great job. Very inspirational. I hadn’t heard about Lars Muhl but from what you write he sounds amazing. These languages (Aramaic, Hebrew) use power syllables so making chants from the words makes total sense.
Oh and I agree about shamanic versions. I think I might add pagan versions because these were people of the land who paid attention to the cycles of the seasons and the movements of the heavens.
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This is wonderful. I love so many of the new images that you bring up from the old text. I focusing some extra attention on “You belong to the many-seeded Cauldron of Source.” because I love the Cauldron of Source as a name for the Divine. And also because you are naming multi-seeds. I think to get beyond that appropriate of the seeds for limits and ownership, as seeds of racism and colonialism. There are many seeds. No one is superior. I am curious about your process for translating. Are you working with older texts/translations to see what ancient words imply? Or are you looking at the images presented and creatively looking under them to see what shamanic images could be there? If looking underneath—I have a suspecion that is at least part of it—it is an interesting to find the new perspectives that we need now buried so deeply in the past and preserving the more life-giving, feminist, earth-connected views we need now.
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Thank you Carolyn, I so appreciate your words and support. And thank you for highlighting the phrase “many-seeded Cauldron of Source.” It did feel particularly inspired when it came to me.
Process of my translating? That’s a big question which I’ll try to answer succinctly. I use a process which I have coined as “spiritual forensics.” There are 2 or 3 main elements. The first is cross-cultural. I look for symbols and how they are used in other societies. For example, in this passage, the ladder is pretty much a world-wide symbol of pathways between worlds. Other examples of this type of symbol are a tree (which travels between the skies to under the earth), a pillar of smoke, a staircase or even a mountain.
The second element is that I look at the Hebrew words in their ancient roots. My go to resource for this is Jeff Benner and his Ancient Hebrew Research Center. One early version of Hebrew writing called Semitic Ancient uses pictograms which are derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. They become like a rebus which often reveal hidden meanings. So, for example, “god” which is “el” uses the pictograph of a shepherd’s staff (L or lam) and a bull’s head (E or aleph). It is the raising up (shepherd’s staff) of the powers of a bull which Benner translates as “powers.” I was using the translation “all potential powers” because this concept opens up doorways of potentiality. I still sometimes use that translation but, in this verse, I used the shorthand of “All-Potential.”
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And then the third element I use is the look for shamanic patterns. I have spent over 25 years on my own shamanic journey and for me, I can just see some of these patterns so plainly. And then the trick for me is to “prove” them and then express them in a way that others can understand what I’m seeing. In some ways Jacob’s story is an obvious one because dreamwork is such a popularized concept.
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