I meditated this morning on the next two Holding Pillows I’d be making. I have three people on my list that I’ll be making more than one pillow for.
What came to me as I sat with my eyes closed, emptying my mind then letting it drift, was a soft brown pillow and a green pillow. Oak leaves on one and a turtle on the other.
I always equate oak trees with strength, but there is something in their leaves when they turn the many shades of soft brown in the fall, that make them seem vulnerable to me. It’s the same with the turtle whose hard shell protects the soft being inside of it.
So in my studio, I looked for that soft brown and found it stuck in the back of my shelf stacked with solid colors. When I had all the strips of fabric sewn together I did a quick drawing of two oak leaves. But when I began stitching them on my sewing machine, I found myself making four instead of just two and thinking of the four directions.
I had finished the pillow, when I realized that I’d heard of the four directions but knew little about their meaning except for the points on a compass.
When I looked into it, as often happens, I found the four directions have significance in many different cultures and religions around the world.
The one that spoke to what I was feeling as I made this pillow was its Buddhism meaning being a symbol of “a quest for refuge and state of safety.”
When I finished Four Oak Leaves I began working on the Turtle Holding Pillow….
