Sefer HaZohar on the Stones Jacob Arranged

"And arranged them מראשותיו at his 'heads' [the literal translation]. At whose heads? At the heads of that place. What does this mean? If you say, 'Like a person putting something under his head' - no! Rather, at its heads, at the four heads, directions of the world: three stones to the north, three to the west, three to the south, three to the east, with that place above them arrayed upon them. Then, 'he lay down in that place'. Once the bed was prepared, he lay upon it. Who lay upon it? The sun."

-- Sefer HaZohar, 1:148a


This Zohar passage contains an esoterically encrypted meditation exercise. The specific step-by-step directions and geometrical placements will be obvious to those who already know them; the upshot here is to link this practice to the recitation of the verse from the Torah.

 

Talmud Bavli Yoma on the Foundation Stone in Zion

"Rabbi Eliezer says: The world was created from its center, as it says: 'When dirt was poured to a single bedrock and clumps stuck around it' (Job 38:38). Rabbi Yehoshua says: The world was created from its four sides, as it says: 'For he says to the snow: Become the earth! From showers and rain, from showers and his mighty rains' (Job 37:6). Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Holy One, Blessed be He, threw a stone into the sea and from that stone the earth was founded, as it says: 'Do you know into what its bases are sunken, or who cast down its cornerstone?' (Job 38:6). But the sages say: The world was created from Zion, as it says: 'A song by Asaph, O Almighty God, YHVH spoke and called forth the earth' (Psalms 50:1). And it says in the next verse, 'Out of Zion, consummation of beauty'. From Zion, the beauty of the world was consummated."

-- Talmud Bavli, Yoma 54b