Welcome to.
.
.
Soothe quietly.
I'm so glad.
You are here tonight.
Find a comfortable position.
N Let your body settle gently beneath you.
Relax your shoulders.
Release any tension in your jaw.
Soften the muscles around your eyes and brow.
Take a slow breath in through your nose.
And breathe out through your mouth.
With each steady breath.
The sounds of your day.
Begin to fade.
Quietly.
Into the background There is nowhere else you need to be denied.
Now let yourself drift softly into tonight's story.
Tonight.
We step softly.
To the broad water in the southeastern gardens of Chong'an.
3Ds.
Before their Dragon Boat Festival.
The 5th day of the 5th lunar calendar.
Nihili 1,
300 years ago.
At the height of the Tang Dynasty.
It is the hour before sunrise.
The wood around the lake.
In the southeastern garden is still and quiet.
The paths through the gardens are empty.
Chang'an City remains under curfew.
With the ward gates still closed.
Until the morning drums begin to echo.
From the center of Chang'an.
The eastern sky is only beginning to pale beyond the low rooftops.
And the dark shapes of the cypress trees.
Along the garden wall.
No far from the door.
A lone figure walks quietly along the leg side path.
He carries a small lantern and moves with the unhurried pace of someone.
Who has made this journey many times before.
Ahead of him,
A familiar shape rests beside the water.
Waiting in the darkness.
For a little while longer before the city wakes.
He has the whole lake and the boat to himself.
The lake lies calm and white.
It's half face.
It's a shallow grey mirror.
The distant pavilions.
Along the far shore.
Only faint shapes.
In the Alita.
The air is warm with the season.
Heavy and still.
Carrying the faint smell of damp earth.
And the lotus beds.
Somewhere in the dark.
At the center of the pool.
A narrow dog reach out from the bank.
Beside it.
That Dragon Boat waits.
Tied with two ropes to the dog pose.
Is painted whole.
Dark in the lamplight.
He is the boatman who cares for this official dragon boat vessel.
His hands have known its rope and its wooden grain for many years.
He loosened the knot slowly.
Through the quiet hours of the night.
Two robes have held the bow beside the dog.
One at each end.
His fingers walk through each knot with care.
The fiber.
And slightly damp from the night air.
He hangs his lantern on the dog pose.
Its amber light falls across the dog plants and across the side of the boat.
Picking out the curve of the painted skulls.
Along the whole.
The bow makes the smallest movement.
When the last rope is free.
A soft shift against the wood of the door.
The sound of water.
Sliding along a hole.
The pool,
Receive it gently.
He quails the rope end.
Place them on the dog.
The Dragon Ball floats free for the first time this season.
Swing just slightly in the still water.
He steps into the boat.
Finds his footing.
On the whole plank.
End.
Reach for the petal.
He plays both palms against the dog pose and push gently.
The whole slide away from the dog with a slow,
Smooth motion.
And the dark water opens around it.
The paddle slips into the water with almost no sound.
The mist holds close to the surface.
And the ripples behind the ball fade gently into it.
He rose with a patient rhythm.
A long reach forward.
A gentle pull.
A pause while the boat floats between strokes.
Each pull sends a narrow ripple across the still water.
And the mist closed behind it as if nothing has passed.
The petal moves through the water with an even familiar resistance.
The whole finds its balance with each stroke.
Settling into the surface of the pool.
He rose without hurrying.
The strokes coming one after another in the quiet dark.
The lantern on the dog.
Grows smaller behind him.
Its reflection stretches across the pool's surface.
A thin amber line that wavers once and then holds still.
Near the center of the pool.
He lets the petal rest.
Across the rim of the bowl.
The lotus leaves are close.
Their round shapes rest flat on the surface.
Dark ring disc.
Each one of them.
Still and heavy with the morning damp.
Arrange your loose cluster.
That they miss often.
Into something quiet and still.
The bowl drift gently among them.
The leaf part just enough to let the hole pass.
Then settle back.
He does not peddle.
The bow moves slowly off its own remaining momentum.
Turning a little as it goes.
The mist is very close here at the center of the pool.
It rests just above the water.
Softer than early light.
The Garden A.
The far bank has disappeared into it.
The dark lantern is only a faint warm blur behind him.
The lotus leaf.
Rest on the water all around the boat.
Not a single one move.
Who has been silenced.
But now?
Something shift.
At its edges.
A waterbed calls once.
From the far reed bed.
A single low note.
Lingering for a moment.
And then is quiet again.
Nia the Western Bang.
A long lag waterbed.
Stands in the shallow.
One leg raise.
Perfectly still.
It has been there since before he arrived.
As the grey morning light.
Slowly increases Eloris is food and.
.
.
Takes one step through the water.
Then become stills once more.
The fish beneath the surface begin to move.
He can see the faint disturbance.
Just below the lotus leaf.
Is slow turning.
Adapt,
Beginning to wait.
The pool is still.
The water is waking in its own slow way.
He lets the boat drift to a full stop.
The petal rests across the seeds.
The dragon ball sits at the center of the pool.
The mist wrapping around its hole.
The dark water perfectly flat on all sides.
There is no win.
The mist holds the boat.
As if the pool has taken it in.
From here,
The dark lantern is only a faint warm point in the grey.
The shore is a soft line of trees and rooftops on all sides.
All of it equally distant.
All of it equally still.
He sits with his hands on his knee.
The mist is very close.
It rests just above the water.
Moving only with the bow's slightest turning.
The pool holds the silence completely.
Only sounds.
Are the faint creak of the hall.
And the soft,
Slow sound of water.
Against the front of the boat.
As this whole is placed.
The Chang'an eastern sky.
Brighten slowly.
A thin wash of pale grey appears above the Chang'an city walls.
Than a faint line of blue behind it.
And then.
.
.
Very gradually.
A wonk.
At the horizon.
That has no name for its color yet.
Only the sense of light.
Arriving from somewhere.
Far beyond the rooftop.
First.
The tiles at the top of the pavilion roof.
Take on a faint shape.
Against the sky.
Than the eave of the nearer shore buildings.
Separate from the dark behind them.
The willow branches.
Along the bank.
Become.
Distinct outlines.
They are long lines dropping towards the water.
The mist thins as the light increases.
The surface of the pool catches the new brightness and hold it.
A pale diffuse glow spreading outward from the eastern bank.
Towards the centre of the lake.
With a bold rest.
From the city centre.
The low beat of the morning drums.
Begins to travel.
Across the wards of Chang'an.
A distinct.
Rhythmic signal.
That The gates will soon open.
Chang'an city wakes as one body.
Slowly.
The pool remain still and gentle in its own time.
The rhythm of the return.
Is the same as before.
Long and even.
And calm.
The bow turns slowly.
The trail of ripples behind it crosses the faint path it made before.
And the thinning mist.
Closes over them again.
Little by little.
The shore grows closer.
The lamb and the dog.
Becoming more distinct.
As the boat draws near.
A small warm flame.
Still burning steadily in the brightening morning.
The morning light has reached the hall.
The painted skills along the side.
Catch it as a faint gloss at the front of the boat.
The dragon head faces the shore and its eye forwards.
He paddles without hurrying.
Each stroke.
Is the same as the loss.
The petal enters the water and glides through it.
The pull,
Receive it without resistance.
The dog is close.
The robes rest where he left them on the door.
He guides the bold.
Alongside the dog.
The dragon head,
Slide gently past the pose.
He reaches out and holds the hall steady against the wood.
One row is tied at the front of the boat.
Than the other at the back.
Soon,
The boat is secure beside the dog once more.
It rests beside the same dog.
And the same two poles where it spanned the night.
The morning light falls across the hall now.
The liquor catching the pure oily color of the sky.
The scales bright where the lantern had made them dim.
He lifted the lamp from its hook.
For a moment,
He stands at the end of the door.
The pool behind him,
Wide and still.
The mist has thinned too.
Almost nothing.
The far bank is visible.
The pavilion roof lines.
The line of willow trees.
The water,
Flat and pale.
Beneath the morning.
The bull rests gently at the dog once more.
Three days remain before the Dragon Boat Festival.
The pool is calm.
And the morning has fully arrived.
And so the boatman walks back along the dock post.
As the first light of morning spread quietly.
Across the room.
In the southeastern gardens of Chang'an.
The dragon ball is tied and still at the dog behind him.
Its hall,
Carrying the pale reflection of the early sky.
The ropes,
Firm at the poles.
The mist lifting from the surface of the pool as the ward of Chang'an slowly wakes.
The pool is wide and calm.
The willow branches still.
The lotus leaf beginning to open.
In the new warmth of the morning.
The Dragon Ball Festival is still three days away.
The water lies calm beneath the growing line.
Tonight.
We step softly.
Into the inner room of a silk merchant's household.
In a war?
Just north of the west market in Chang'an.
Four days before their Dragon Ball festival.
The 5th day of the 5th lunar month.
Nearly.
1300 years ago.
At the height of the Tang Dynasty.
It is a warm late spring afternoon.
The room faces north and south.
Holds the shade of the afternoon.
Through the high window.
Comes the sound of the household.
A car.
Crossing the courtyard stones.
A door drawn close.
Then silence.
The Silk Merchant's Wife.
Sits before the walk table.
Where five reels of silk thread have been laid out for her.
She has done this walk before.
Every Dragon Boat Festival.
Since she was a girl.
The chords she will make are called long life threads.
Twisted from five colors of silk and hide around the wrists and ankles of children.
On the morning of the Dragon Ball Festival.
As a protection.
Through the heat and illness of midsummer.
She has lived in this ward long enough to know every household by name.
N Every child binds high.
This year.
She will make cords for nine children.
She arranged the reels in their order on the table.
Green.
Yellow.
White.
And black.
These five colors corresponds to the five directions.
And the five phases of the ancient China cosmology.
Green for ease and wood.
Red for south and fire.
Yellow for center and earth.
White for West and Metal.
Black,
4,
North direction and water.
Accord,
Carrying all five,
Holds all direction.
In a single form.
Tied around a child's wrist at the beginning of the summer.
The cord is worn through the fifth month and into the seeds.
Until the first deep rain of the seventh month.
One.
The cord is released into the running water and carried away.
Taking it with.
The heat ends.
Illness of the summer.
She leaves a land of green threads from the real and holds it.
In the afternoon light from the window.
A single clean line of color.
Against the room's shadow.
She put it down and begins.
She measures by the length of her arm.
From the real.
She pulls the thread.
Two half fingertips.
40 bag.
At the elbow.
Pose another arm length and Fold again.
Three arm lengths of each color for a standard cord.
15 strands in total.
The motion is the same each time.
Hold to their fingertips.
Fold at the elbow.
N.
Place the fold aside.
She finishes the green and place the three folded lengths together.
After that,
She takes up the red room.
Hold to their fingertips.
Fold at the elbow.
She has Misha caught by arm length enough times that The motion lives entirely in the body.
The threads run between half fingers.
With the smooth resistance of good silk.
Neither stiff nor loose.
Holding its form as it moves.
For the court intended for the infant next door.
She pulls only two arm lengths of each color.
10 strands in place of 15.
The resulting chord.
Lighter and finer.
Size for a small wrist.
She walks through each reel in order.
The 5 measured bundles.
Grow on the table's left side.
One all five colors are measured.
She caught.
The small iron scissor.
Separate.
Each folded bundle with one clean snip at the top of the form.
15 strands per cord.
Each the same land.
She runs her finger along the ends of each group.
To check that the lengths are even silk freeze at a fresh cut.
A light fuzz at each end that she smooths down with a dampened fingertip.
She gathers all 15 strands.
Into a single bundle.
Green strands in a moss.
Black outermost.
The other three colour strings layered between.
N taps the N against the table.
To align the tips.
Done.
Holds the bandeau.
To the afternoon light.
The five colors together before twisting.
Still separate.
Still visibly distinct.
Each color.
Holding itself.
A moment.
Before.
They become.
Something combined.
She anchors one end under the edge of the liquor ink stone at the table's near corner.
From enough to whole.
Not so firm that the strands are compressed.
She takes the free end in both hands and begins.
A slow even rotation.
Both hands.
Turning in the same direction.
The strands spiraling around each other.
Too tight and the cord working one release.
If too loose,
Then The colours will not sit properly.
The strands drifting apart rather than Locking together.
The colors begin to spiral.
Green move behind red.
Red behind yellow.
Yellow behind white.
White behind black.
Black behind green again The slow rotation continues.
The five separate strands.
Become a.
.
.
Single twisted cord.
Each color.
Cycling across the outer face in turn.
Praise it.
Then gone.
Then,
Breathe in again.
She holds the cord and learns to check it.
Dance.
Even.
The colours bright and locked together.
She released that anchor end.
The cord stowed tension.
Resolve into One small final tightening of the spiral.
Then.
Still.
This is the long part of the walk.
Chord after chord.
The motion is the same.
MESHA.
Cut.
A lie.
Anchor.
Take the free end.
And turn.
This inner room holds its afternoon quiet.
Light from the high window move slowly as the sun track west.
The shadow of the window frame.
Crossing the table surface.
By a hand's width.
Between one chord and the next.
She does not think about the motion.
Her hands know it entirely.
What she wants is the colors.
Each chord is different in appearance.
Even though the strength and method are the same.
This one.
The red color is prominent.
Sitting near the outer face of the twist.
That one.
The yellow dominates.
Each cord carries the same five colors in different proportions of what the eye sees.
Depending on where the twist happens to catch the light.
She finished one end.
Put it in the role.
Forming along the table's right edge.
Takes up the next bundle.
10.
Turn.
And turn.
The rule grows.
Outside the window.
The ward's hounds drift in.
A child voice.
A gate.
Then.
.
.
Silence returning.
She knows which cord is for which children before she finished twisting it.
The infant next door.
Not yet walking.
Hardcored is the lightest.
10 strands instead of 15.
The spiral is fine.
She will tie it around the ankle.
Rather than a wrist.
Ha has been Yang nephew.
Visiting from the Eastern Ward for the Dragon Boat Festival.
His court is the longest.
He is tall for seven.
The daughter of the household senior kitchen attendant.
How cold,
Has the finishing knot worked into a small flat shape.
Rather than E.
Plain blue.
A detail.
She will notice and remember.
The three children of the neighboring household.
The widow's two sons.
The boy from the compound at the lane's end.
Whose mother asked her to make one last month.
She does not need to write these down.
Each cord has a child waiting for it as she twists it.
One by one.
The child carried in her mind.
While her hands turn the silk.
On the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Before the household begins its other preparations.
The cords will be brought out.
She will tie each one herself.
A single loop.
A flat node.
Snug but not tight.
And the child will wear it through the fifth month.
And 6.
Into the seventh.
As the Sama deepens.
The cord is not to be cut or removed.
In this household,
When the first great rainstorm comes in Chang'an,
The storms of deep summer that arrive with sudden darkness.
And the full weight of rain falling at once.
The cords are untied in.
Release into the running water in the lane.
The storm water carries them out through the Chang'an's drainage channels and away.
With them,
Go,
Whatever they have gathered in the weeks of wearing.
The Samahit.
The season illness.
The harmful A of the fit month.
She plays the finished chords along the shelf by the north wall.
Nine long life threats in a row.
Each twisted from green,
Red,
Yellow.
White and black.
Each column.
In its place.
In the spiral.
In the late afternoon light through the high window.
The five colors.
Catch the light differently on each chord.
The red.
Warm.
The green cool.
The yellow.
Steadiest of the five.
Together in the room.
The update vid.
Against the shawl.
Darkwood.
She looks at the rule for a moment.
In 4 days.
These will be on the wrists and ankles of nine children throughout the war.
Small silk spiral worn through the heat of summer.
The festival will bring its glutinous rice ball.
And it's mugwort above the gates.
These 9 chords.
Will already be doing their quiet walk.
Hide against the skin.
Carrying the five colors through the long days of summer.
And so,
The silk merchant's wife.
Completes the afternoon card making.
In the north-facing inner room.
Five colors silk reels set aside.
The 15 strands bundles.
Twist it and finish.
Nine long life threats.
Waiting in their rows on the shelf.
Where the light from the window falls and catches on the colors.
The green.
Red and yellow.
White and black.
Vivid and still.
The Dragon Boat Festival.
Four days away from now.
Tonight.
We step softly.
Into the noodle shop.
In the world.
Just north of the west market in Chang'an.
On the morning before the Dragon Boat Festival.
The 5th day of the 5th lunar calendar.
Nihalie 1300 years ago.
At the height of the Tang Dynasty.
It is the hour before the world comes to life.
The lane beyond the gate is silent.
The air has that particular softness of early summer morning.
Not the cold pressing weight of winter.
Something warm and still.
Carrying the scent of damp earth and distant water.
From the city's canals.
The woman.
Who is the shop owner.
Has been awake a little while already.
Most mornings.
Our walk begins with noodles.
By Dawn.
Broth would be heating on the stove.
Door waiting to be rolled and cut.
Dumplings,
Prepare for the day's customers.
The menu changes with the season.
And the ingredients.
Available.
In the markets of Chang'an.
But the rhythm of the kitchen rarely change.
Today is different.
This morning,
Her work is not noodles.
A large clay ball set out last night.
Glutinous rice.
The soft round grain used for Dragon Boat Festival food.
Soaking through the dark hours.
Sits on the prep table.
The grains are soft and pure.
Today,
She will make Zhongsi.
It is glutinous rice wrapped in fragrant rice leaf.
Tied to a parcel and slowly boiled for the Dragon Boat Festival.
Four neighboring households have placed their orders.
She will make enough for all of them.
The reed-leaf were soaked overnight.
In the large basin to soften.
And they need one more wash before use this morning.
She carries the basket or softened leaf out to the courtyard.
The stone basin is where it always is.
To the left of the bamboo.
Below the shell.
The palm tree.
Holds its summer leaf without moving.
The bamboo stand still beside it.
She draws cool water into the basin.
One by one.
She live,
Each live.
Long and flat.
And faintly shining from the soap.
N.
Pass it through the water.
Each leaf is checked with her fingers.
Any torn edges.
Any thin patches that might split and the hours of boiling.
Good leave.
Go to the stack on the left.
Any with damage.
Go into the discard pile.
The smell of wet reed leaf is clean and green.
Something new that belongs only to this season.
Entirely different from anything the kitchen smells like in winter.
For a moment,
She stands in the quiet courtyard.
She placed the lamp on the high shelf where she always placed it.
She crouched before the clay stove.
With the iron scraper,
The cold ash is drawn out and set aside.
Fresh charcoal is arranged inside.
She opens the ember tube.
Is more clear pipe.
Fitted into the stove wall for drawing air.
She breathed gently into it.
Somewhere deep within the charcoal.
A glow begins to wake.
A moment later.
The paper at the base.
Takes the flame.
She does not rush the fire.
It knows what to do.
Every morning.
The large clay pot goes on to begin heating.
Not that broad pot she used for noodle stock.
But the wide deep port.
Kept for long boiling.
It will take time to come fully to here.
The kitchen is warm at the edges of the lamp ridge.
Dark in the corners.
The smell of waking charcoal rises.
The same smell as every other morning before the day begins.
She lifts the cloth from the large bowl.
Inside the glutinous rice.
Soft and pure from its night of soaking.
What comes out is translucent.
Is soft white.
That seems almost to glow in the lamplight.
She pours the soaked rice.
Into the shallow bamboo basket.
Woven tightly enough.
To drain the water.
The water runs through.
She spreads the grain evenly to help them drain.
Then.
.
.
She put the basket aside.
The stove fire builds behind her.
The water in the large pot is beginning to warm.
The kitchen holds the quiet of Hollywood.
The small sound of the fire.
Finding its rhythm.
And the silence between.
She lays the station.
On the long prep table.
The stack of wash,
Read,
Leave flat.
Their smooth sides up.
The basket off.
Drain glutinous rice.
The grains peel and translucent in the limelight.
At the table 3.
The small artware jar of Jujube.
Dried red dates.
Dense and dark.
Be sighted.
A shallow dish of chestnut.
The peel kernels split open.
Stop them from an overnight's hope.
And a basket set aside.
For the plain glutinous rice zongzi.
Ordered by two of the neighboring households.
Several lengths of cord lying along the table's edge.
Cut and ready for tying the finished puzzle.
She stands for a moment and look at what she has laid out.
Then.
.
.
She takes the first true leaf and begins.
To leave.
Their white ends.
Overlapping.
She folds them in her palms.
Then leave.
Calving and the hot palms.
And the cone forming.
She first put the rice into the base.
Than the feeling.
Two jujubes at the center.
Then add more rice over the top.
The leaf folded down.
One lap.
Than the other.
The shape.
Closing into a triangle.
Some of the orders ask for chestnut instead.
For them.
A chestnut.
Half press into the center.
Heal.
Dance.
Less sweet than jujube.
More earthen.
Its flavor absorbed into the rice.
Over the long boil.
And two of the household has asked simply for plain rice.
No filling.
Only the rise alone.
Which produce its own sweetness over hours of boiling.
She fills the role differently for each household.
Choo-choo.
Chestnuts.
Om.
Plane rise.
This is the long session of the morning.
Forward.
For you.
Close.
The motion is the same.
And.
.
.
Slightly different each time.
Different leaves bend differently.
And also the filling.
They sit.
Differently in each rice parcel.
The triangles are not all so identical.
Her hands move without deliberation.
She finds this place.
Is Chandla.
Compared to noodle making.
More subtle.
More patient.
Nothing asks to be rushed.
The roll of finished glutinous rice parcel grows at the far end of the prep table.
Outside.
The first morning birds are.
Beginning.
Somewhere beyond the world war.
Nor yet distinct.
Just a suggestion of birdsong.
Returning to the early summer morning one small row is finished She reached for the cords.
Waiting along the table's edge.
She winds the cord several times around the body of each parcel.
Around the white base and up towards the tip.
Keeping the folded leaf from opening under the long pressure of boiling.
At the end,
A nod.
Tie.
Flat.
Tested with a brief pool before she puts the parcel down.
It should hold through.
Many hours of whining.
Without loosening.
She tests each one.
Called esteem.
But strong.
She has used this material for many years for this purpose.
The motion of time is not something she has thought about in many years.
It lives entirely in our hands.
The finished puzzle rests in their room.
Neat.
Triangular.
Their leaf surfaces.
Deep green.
And shining.
The lamb on the show.
Has been burning.
Through the whole of this.
The fire beneath the large pod builds steadily.
The water warming through the thick clay walls.
One enough on me to feel the white part.
She transferred them carefully.
She placed each parcel upright in the pot.
Point up.
White bees,
Down.
Pack closely so they will not shift in the boil.
She added more water into the pot.
And Place the lid.
She returns to the table and.
.
.
Continues making the next batch.
The morning move forward without hurry.
The fire in the stove.
The role of tight puzzle growing steadily at the far end of the prep table.
When the pot comes to a boil she notes it and continues walking.
The water changes color slowly.
From clear to a faint amber green.
As the leaf.
Released into the water.
The smell that rises with the steam.
Is the smell of the Dragon Boat Festival and no other.
The kitchen is filled with the smell of cooked reed leaf.
Sweet glutinous rice.
Something warm and starchy.
She makes the second batch.
While the fest boils.
By midday.
The kitchen smells entirety of it.
She set down the last Thai parcel of the second batch and goes to the large pot.
She lift the lid.
Steam rises in a full cloud.
The full warm smell of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Failing the kitchen.
In a single wave.
The glutinous rice puzzle wrapped in reed leaf are deep green brown now.
Their cords still tie.
She lift one and unwrap a corner.
The rice inside.
Fully translucent.
Holding its shape.
Cook through.
She'll lift that first patch out one by one.
N.
Hangs them along the bamboo pole.
Beneath the ray beam.
The parcels hang in a row.
Free in the kitchen air.
Pulling on all sides.
The second batch.
Goes into the pot.
The lid goes back on.
Outside,
The world has settled into its daily rhythm.
Inside.
The rule of Finnish glutinous rice parcel.
Hands from the beam.
Green brown.
Dance.
Cooling slowly in the warm air.
That smells entirely of this morning.
And so the noodle shop owner of the ward just north of the West Market.
Spends the day before the Dragon Ball Festival.
In her kitchen.
The fire.
Burning steadily through the morning.
The large pot filling the room with steam and the smell of cooked reef leaf and sweet rice.
The smell that belongs only to this day and this fifth month.
The rice parcels cooling in their rolls.
The war?
Quiet outside.
The Dragon Boat Festival.
Only one night away.
By evening.
Neighbors will come through the gate.
Each will leave with their order tied neatly.
Some for the festival table.
Some carry to relative in other wards in Chang'an.
For now.
The Han cooling from the beam.
In the Quiet Kitchen.
In the particular day of the day before the Dragon Boat Festival.
Tonight,
We step quietly.
Into the Inner Give Preparation Workshop.
Of the southern inner palace of Chang'an.
The residents of Empire.
At the height of the Kaiyuan era.
One of the most prosperous periods of the Tang dynasty.
It is the afternoon.
The day before that Dragon Boat Festival.
Which falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.
The festival itself will begin tomorrow.
The palace is the empire's personal palace.
The smaller core.
The palace of music and evening gatherings.
It feels far removed from the vast and formal Daming Palace.
Where the court officials debate matters of empire.
And foreign envoys arrive for grand audiences before the throne.
The gift preparation room faces east-end.
Receive the afternoon light through lattice windows.
Inside,
Five palace attendants walk at three low tables.
Wow.
Nada sits at a common station.
Along the far wall.
The room holds the quiet,
Particular to focused walk.
No voices.
Just the small sounds of silk.
And like a wolf.
And the occasional soft sound of.
.
.
Something being wrapped and tied.
Tomorrow morning.
The Empire will distribute the Dragon Boat Festival gift to senior court officials assembled in the morning at Daming Palace.
Everything on these tables.
Must be ready.
Before sunset.
The workshop is.
Overseen.
By a senior court lady.
A woman.
Who has served in the palace for 17 years.
She has organized these Dragon Ball Festival preparations and gift many times that the rhythm of the walk now feels as familiar as the changing of the seasons.
She moved between the three tables.
First table.
Rows of small glutinous rice dumplings.
Already wrapped in relief and tied with cord.
Palace woman gather them into hanging cluster of nine.
Arranging the bundles at varying lengths before fastening them together.
Three women walk here now.
Their hands moving steadily from one cluster to the next.
Second table.
The long life chords.
Also cold.
Longevity threats.
Lens of braider silk in five ritual colors.
Twisted together.
Into a single-striped cord.
One palace woman finishes the last of the braiding.
That table.
The sachet and the fence.
The most varied and carefully sorted out the gift.
She saw thee the rooms once.
Then goes to the first table.
And crouches to check their glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in reed leaf.
The Nine.
Small glutinous rice dumplings.
Are one of the Palace Dragon Ball Festival specialties.
Each one of the nine small dumplings is made from fragrant glutinous rice.
Packed tightly into wreath leaf wrapping and tied with cord.
Wild and fully cooked.
One unwrap,
The rice is dense.
Smooth and faintly luminous.
The court poet called them white jade balls.
The nine are bound together.
With a longer cord.
Into A.
Single hanging cluster.
Nine at different lengths.
So they cascade.
The number nine is auspicious.
The young number.
That amplifies the Dragon Ball Festival.
Double five.
The 5th day of the 5th lunar month.
9 small glutinous rice dumplings are not merely food.
They are a gesture of good fortune.
A palace woman turns one of the completed cluster in her hands.
Inspecting the time.
The nine small green bundles rotate slowly.
Their cords falling at different lengths in a neat cascade.
She put it down and.
.
.
Pick up the next one.
The second table.
The five colored long life cords or five color silk.
Is one of the oldest customs.
Of the Dragon Boat Festival.
The five colors correspond to the five directions and elements of ancient Chinese cosmology.
Green color for the east direction and the element of wood.
Red for the South and Fire.
Yellow for the center and earth.
White for the West and Metal.
Black for the north and water.
A chord carrying all five holds all directions in a single form.
Tied around a children wrist at the beginning of the summer.
The cord is worn through the fifth month and into the six.
Until the first deep rain of the seven months.
When it is released into the running water of Chang'an canals.
Taken with it the heat and illness of summer.
The Palace Workshop has produced these.
Every Dragon Boat Festival.
The braided length.
Lie in careful rows.
On the second table.
See you soon!
In the filtered afternoon light.
The festival own color scheme.
Makes the third table.
The sachets are the most varied of the gifts.
The most carefully adjusted.
To their recipients.
Each with a small and wider silk bag.
Sewn shut around its content inside.
Standard sachet,
Carry,
Dry mugwort and calamus.
The finest sachet reserved for the empire's personal distribution.
Carrying fragrant materials such as resin.
And dry flowers brought along the Silk Road trade routes.
Aromatic materials.
That have journeyed across desert,
Mountain,
And distant kingdoms.
Before reaching the markets of Chang'an.
N.
From day.
Into the palace workshop and storerooms.
The sun.
That rises from the third table when the sachets are handled.
Is layered and difficult to name.
The familiar Dragon Ball Festival herbs with something richer.
Lingering beneath them.
The senior court lady selects three of the finest sachets and set them to one side.
They will go into the empire's own hands tomorrow.
She then moves on.
Her steps,
Carry her past the walk table.
Towards the quiet corner of the room.
Along the far wall,
Separate from the busy walk tables.
A palace woman sits at a low table reserved for the garments.
Beside her,
Rested like a box,
Delivered that morning from the palace weaving and dyeing office.
Inside are the summer cold robes.
Dean's Silk.
Finely woven.
Cool against the skin.
In the heat of the 5th month.
Each row.
Has been measured for its recipient.
The most distinctive detail is hidden within.
The recipient name and rank are written on the inner facing.
Marking the moment of bestowal as clearly as any document of appointment.
The woman folds two garments now.
Each half twice before placing inside a cloth envelope tied with five color cord.
Beside each envelope,
She writes a clear notation.
Recording the recipient's name.
Rank.
N.
Order of distribution.
The senior court lady leaves the comment table and returns to the third walk table.
Where the fans await their final inspection.
At the far end of the third table.
Rest there.
Final category of gift.
Defense.
Realm fans.
E.
G.
Secular frame of fine like a bamboo.
Covered with white silk.
The silk face carries a painting.
Water and willow branches.
In landscape.
Rendered in a few brush strokes.
Or a single flower.
Set against plain white silk.
The Dragon Ball Festival fan has its own history.
At the 10 cord.
Empire TIE Zone.
A century.
Before the present rain.
Painted his calligraphy on two fans and presented them during the Dragon Ball Festival to his two chief advisors.
Advising them to fan in a clear breeze.
That brings forth virtuous practices.
The fan serves as a figure for benevolent and upright government.
The story became well-known.
Since then,
A fan bestowed at the Dragon Ball Festival has carried a meaning beyond its practical use.
It is a sign of imperial trust.
The senior court lady opens one of the fans.
The silk catches the afternoon light.
She closed it and.
.
.
Place it with the others.
Behind the lattice windows,
A long table awaits in the afternoon light.
One by one.
The palace woman brings their completed work to it.
Then the assembly begins.
Each gift package is assembled for each recipient.
The arrangement follows Rex.
For the most senior officials.
Who will stand in the front rows at tomorrow morning's court attendance?
The package contains a named garment.
One of the finest sachets.
A cluster of 9 small glutinous rice dumplings.
And a fan.
A long life cord is wrapped around outside.
For officials of the second tier.
A garment.
A sashay.
A cluster of 9 small glutinous rice dumplings.
And a long life call.
No fair.
For the wider distribution to outer court officials.
Sashay and lounge-like courts.
Without the comments.
The senior court lady moved down the list of names on paper slip.
Matching each recipient to the appropriate combination.
She does not hurry.
A gift assigned to the wrong recipient.
Would be an era of ceremony.
And eras of ceremony.
In an imperial distribution.
Are not something she allows.
By mid-afternoon.
The first completed packages.
Have begun to feel the North War.
By the time the afternoon light has reached the far wall.
All the packages are complete.
Along the North Wall.
Stan Audley Rose the most formal packages.
At the left.
The largest prepage for thee.
Highest ranking officials.
The simpler.
Long life cord bundles to the right.
A longer row and far more numerous.
Each is tied with five colored cords.
Each carries its paper notation.
The senior court lady walks the land of the rose once.
Reading each notation and checking each package against its name.
Tomorrow morning,
These packages will be carried into the audience hall.
The Empire will distribute them in person.
Giving the gifts of their Dragon Ball Festival.
In the first hours of the day.
The officials will bow and receive them.
Then,
Carry them home to their household.
Where the nine small glutinous rice dumpling clusters will be hung.
And the long life calls.
Hide around their children wrist.
Before the summer heat.
Fully arise.
She reaches the end of the road and.
.
.
Straighten slowly.
The eastern windows,
Hold the fading light.
The walkroom is.
A quieter now.
The palace woman have been released for the evening.
The tables have been cleared.
The scrape of cord and leaf swept away.
The room is settled in the way.
A room settles after careful walk.
Holding the evidence of what has made here.
In the smells of the herb.
The faint fragrance of the sachet.
From outside.
The sounds of the inner bellies.
Moving towards evening.
Somewhere across the courtyard.
The plucked note of a pipa.
Starting and stopping.
Footsteps on paving stones.
A gate opens in.
Close.
And so,
The senior court lady stands at the window for a moment.
She has done this preparation enough times.
That the festival now arrived for her in the order of its talks.
Caught.
Sashay.
Comments.
Fans.
Glutinous rice dumplings.
Assembly.
The rose along the north wall.
The summer evening settles over the inner palace.
Behind her,
The packages await in their ordered rows.
Tomorrow.
They will be carried into the audience hall of Daming Palace.
Tonight.
For a little while longer They remain here.
In the fading line.
Ready for the fifth day of the fifth month.
The Dragon Boat Festival.
Tonight.
We visit Chang'an.
The largest city in the world.
During the Tang Dynasty.
Roughly.
1300 years ago.
Today is the 5th day.
Of the Fit Lunar Month.
The Dragon Ball Festival.
Dawn.
Has not yet arrived.
Mosquitoes gather above the ponds in the gardens.
The first cicadas.
Have begun to sing.
From the trees.
Along the world walls.
Even before sunrise.
The stones,
Steel hall,
Yesterday once.
Summer has arrived in Chang'an.
Wom-ay.
Lingers.
Beneath the roof tiles.
Long after sunset.
For generations.
People across the tang wall.
Have regarded the fifth month.
As the season.
When the natural world begins to shift out of balance.
The old tags call it the time.
When the creatures that sting and bite emerge.
It is the season when he lingers in rooms and tea house.
One illness travel more easily between households.
The Dragon Boat Festival.
Is a moment and time for annual preparation.
Two plants have been chosen for this purpose across many generations.
Fez.
Mark words.
It is a silver gray leaf and clean.
Has aromatic scents.
It had long been valued across the household.
It was burned in medicine.
Gathered for domestic use.
N.
Hung above gates during the fifth month.
As a traditional way of helping protect the household.
From insects and the illness.
People associated with the summer season.
Second.
Calamus.
Whose long sword-shaped leaf we thought to stand.
Quietly.
At the household doorway.
A gentle symbol of peace.
Protection.
For the household within.
Together.
They were tied in a bundle.
And hung above the gate of household.
At the start of the fifth month.
Some gates belong to merchants.
Some to scholars.
Some to artisans and craftsmen.
Psalm 2.
Court officials.
Before sunrise.
Countless households.
Are quietly preparing the same green bundle.
Tonight,
We follow one such game.
And the household behind it.
As the fifth day of the fifth lunar month arrives in Chang'an.
Within one of the Eastern worlds.
Inside a walled compound.
Belonging to A.
Senior official of the Ministry of Rights.
The household.
Is still asleep.
It is the hour before first light.
Beyond the compound walls Chang'e holds its silence.
No cars move along the lane.
No voices carry from the war game.
The world is quiet.
Only the small sounds of Alissama remain.
A breath of warm air beneath the eave.
The faint settling of roof tiles above sleeping rooms.
The compound gate is still closed.
The outer wall holds the darkness within.
But inside.
One figure is already awake.
He has not been called.
The household.
Will not wait for another hour.
He rises every Dragon Ball Festival morning before the rest.
Put on his outer robe without a ward and walks out into the compound garden.
He walks without a lap.
He knows the compound in darkness,
The way a man knows his own house.
After many years.
The exact point.
Where the paving stones shift.
The slow branch of a palm tree.
There must be talked.
The sound the bamboo makes in even the slightest air.
The garden is cool at this hour.
The summer warmth.
Their fields,
Their estates.
During the day.
Has retreated.
Held back by the dew that settles on stone and leaf.
In the last hour.
Before dawn.
The mugwort grows along the southern wall.
In a long,
Well-tended bed.
The stalks are tall.
They are leaved.
Silver gray.
In the pre-dawn dark.
He can smell them.
Before he reaches them.
Sharp.
Dry.
And clean.
Belonging entirely to this plan.
And to this season.
And to this day.
He crouches beside the plants and begins to select.
He knows their formal requirements.
Stock land.
Leave condition.
Proper bundling method.
He has overseen ritual observances at the Imperial Court on many occasions throughout the year.
What he is doing now is not that.
He runs his stem through his fingers and judges is the way his father taught him.
Nor bind tags.
Nor by ritual ceremony that he has overseen at the court.
That I feel.
Echostem is firm.
But not woody.
The leaf should be full and damaged.
The smell.
Should be strong.
Not faint,
And.
.
.
Nor steel.
He select five stems and check each one.
In the pre-dawn gray.
One leaf is damage N.
He set the stem aside.
He takes another.
He gathers the selected stems and straighten them up He holds the mugwort in one hand and.
.
.
Pause.
Beside the garden path.
From his throat.
He takes a length of dark cord.
Cut the night before.
Tart.
Into his inner pocket.
He has thought of this ahead of time.
The calamus grows at the far end of the hoof bed.
Long,
Short shade leaf.
Smooth as like a wood.
He selects some leaves and.
.
.
Add them to the bundle.
The arrangement is simple.
Calamus Upright.
Mugwort gathered around it.
He ties the bundle at the base.
The note is plain.
He ties it the way his father tied it.
And the way his grandfather tied it before that.
He picks up the bundle.
The smell rises.
Shaa.
.
.
Green.
Entirely present.
The outer gate lies at the front of the estate.
To reach it.
He left the garden and.
.
.
Passed through.
A succession of quiet Koya.
Walkways.
All still dark.
In the hour before dawn.
Through one courtyard.
Than another.
The outer gate stands ahead at last.
Double wooden doors.
Ion Bandit.
With a wooden bracket above them reserved each year for the Dragon Ball Festival bundle.
He stops at the gate and looks up at the bracket.
Above it.
Last year,
Magwood and Calamus still hangs.
Dried down to pale brown.
The stems brittle.
The scent.
Now faded.
The calamus leaves have curled inward at the edges.
A full year has passed.
Since he stood.
In the very same place.
At the same time.
He brings over the small wooden step.
Capped.
Beside the gatehouse wall.
Standing upon it.
He reaches the bracket.
Above the lintel and Gently.
Lift down the last year bundle.
Stepping back down on the stone pavement.
He holds the dry bundle for a moment.
12 months ago.
He stood here.
In the early morning quiet.
Since then,
The seasons have moved through the compound.
The Samahit.
The autumn rains.
The cold stillness of winter and snow.
The slow return of warmth.
Another year has settled.
Into memory.
He set the old bundle.
Against the base of the gate frame.
He will burn it here and later.
Nor discard it carelessly.
But return to fire.
As is the custom.
The bracket above the gate is empty now.
The gate looks bare in a way it will not look again and to all.
Next year,
Dragon Ball Festival morning has come once more.
He picks up the fresh bundle from the wooden step beside him.
He tucks it.
Into the bracket.
Calamansi Upright Muckwort,
Gather around it.
The caught,
Seeded,
Family in the groove.
He adjusted once.
Then.
.
.
Step back.
The gate.
Is now dressed with the bandeau.
The green of the fresh plants against the old onion-banded wood catches what little light the pre-dawn sky offers.
The calamus leaf stands straight.
Its long flat surface.
Pill in the grey air.
The mugwort leaf clustered around it.
Silver green and full.
As if the gate itself has been given a new season.
From where he stands,
A step back from the gate.
The bundle looks the way it has looked every Dragon Ball Festival morning.
Because.
The form is the same.
The smell is the same.
The gate remains what it has always been.
The point between the quiet of the household.
And the world beyond.
He stands there for a moment without moving.
From somewhere beyond the compound wall comes the sound of another gate opening.
Followed by a brief exchange of voices.
Then the quiet settles once more.
The world is beginning to wake.
Across the Eastern wards.
Than the Western wards.
Than the grey central avenues.
Other households are doing what he has just done.
Taking down last year's dried remnants.
Replacing them with Something green.
Across the city.
The scent of fresh muckwood begins to drift into the morning air.
One household after another.
One lane after another.
Until the fragrance becomes part of the Chang'an city itself.
By sunrise,
Countless gates throughout Chang'an.
Will be.
Fresh mugwort and calamansi.
The fifth day of the fifth month.
The Dragon Ball Festival.
Has arrived.
This is what is done when the fifth month arrives.
He stands for a moment beneath the gate.
The bundle is in place.
The household still sleep behind him.
Chang'an City waits beyond the walls.
He turns and walk back into the compound.
In the kitchen.
A light appears.
A kitchen attendant has risen and lit their morning lamp.
The household is waking.
The day of the Dragon Ball Festival.
Has arrived.
He passes once more through the courtyard.
End.
Beside the garden where the remaining mugwort plants stand along the southern wall.
Next year on another Dragon Boat Festival morning before dawn.
He will return to this same wall.
Behind him.
Above the outer gate The fresh bundle hangs in its place.
Calamus Upright.
Mugwort gathers around it.
The mark of the fifth day of the fifth month has returned to the household.
Across the Chang'an city,
Gates are being dressed one by one.
In the last darkness before dawn.
Just as.
They were the year before.
And the year before that.
And for as many years as the fifth month has called for this.
Tonight.
We visit Chang'an.
On the morning of the Dragon Ball Festival.
The fifth D.
Of the fifth lunar month.
Nearly 1300 years ago.
At the high of the Tang dynasty.
The city has begun to stir.
Across the eastern and western wards.
Countless gates.
Already have fresh bundles of Magwod and Calamas.
Steam rises from kitchens glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaf have cooked through the night.
Children in the lanes already wear fragrant sachet at their waist somewhere along the great avenues.
Drums echo across the rooftop.
Across the city.
Countless households are making the Dragon Ball Festival.
Ready in their own way.
Tonight.
We follow one such household.
And the quiet in a room.
Where the festival arrives not through drums or gates.
But true fragrance.
The household has been awake for some time.
Behind its outer courts and covered walkways.
In one of the inner rooms A walk table has been set up for the dogs.
That has nothing to do with the gay.
Or the Dragon Ball Festival food.
The daughter of the household sits before it.
She is 19 and has been making fragrance shea for the household.
Since the beginning of the fourth lunar month.
Today is the morning they will be given.
The final few,
Knee finishing.
The table holds everything the walk requires.
Small ceramic jars with their lids set beside them.
For the lands of Sylkos.
In several colors.
A role of fine cord.
Needles already threaded.
A small stone mortar placed near the left corner.
The fabric for a sashay,
A light silk gauze.
Air passes gently through the weave.
Carrying the fragrance award.
A little at a time.
The scent is never trapped.
Only drifting outward with each movement.
She leaves a length of soft green gauze and holds it towards the window.
Morning light.
Passes through it.
In a gentle wash of color.
Casting a faint pattern across her hand.
The fabric is almost weightless.
She has cut lengths of several colors over the past month.
Crimson for her parents and grandmother.
Saffron yellow.
For the household seniors' attendance.
Soft grain for herself.
The embroidered panels are finished and folded the previous evening.
The last of them completed by me.
Lam Lai.
When the household had grown quiet.
Only the swing of the final few.
The feelings.
And the tying remain.
Three ceramic jars stand at the table's left edge.
Their lids placed beside them.
The first jar holds Chinese angelica root.
The dry slices.
Pure and light.
Carrying a faint sweetness.
The second holds Calamus.
The same plant that hangs above the compound gate this morning.
Ground into a coarse powder with flecks of green still visible among it.
The third jar contains a small amount of igarwood.
And comfort.
The camphor rests in delicate white flakes.
That catches the morning light.
Like a touch of frost.
She opens the mortars and.
.
.
Walks the tree together.
Life Strokes Fest.
Just enough to combine them.
Done.
Steady appreciation.
The Angelica and Calamus.
Release their fragrance.
Right away.
Fresh and green.
The ego would and kampha take longer.
The Ascent.
Emerges slowly beneath the herb.
Deep and warm.
Followed by the comfort,
Gentle coolness.
A quiet fragrance.
Begins together in the room.
Sharp at the first breath.
Warm at the second.
Done.
After a quiet moment,
A gentle coolness follows.
She covers the mortar with this cloth and set it aside.
She picks up this half green sachet face.
The peace for herself.
The last one.
Finish the previous evening.
The design shows two birds in flight.
Each holding a length of silk ribbon in its beak.
The ribbons.
Crossing at the center.
She had added the white ribbon lines last night by Lem Lai.
The final stitches said when the rest of the household was already asleep.
By Lamplight.
She could judge the stitching.
But not the color.
She holds the panel up to the morning window.
The birds?
Image clearly.
In daylight.
Shabbat than she had expected.
The white ribbon lines catching the morning light with a tiny repetitive flash from the metallic thread.
Each stitch seems to pause the room for a breath.
The faint sound of silk on silk.
Falling away.
As the live move across it.
The tension at each stitch holds without pulling the weave.
She checks the corners with her thumb.
Pressing gently against the cause to feel whether anything has shifted overnight.
She finds.
Everything holds.
She put it down with the others.
Most of the sachets have been sewn.
10 of the 13 bodies had already been stitched and turned before she placed her needlework down at night.
The border swing easier by lamp light than the embroidery.
The stitches larger and less delicate.
Three remain.
Set aside because the feeling was to be ground fresh this morning.
She picks up the fast and complete its border.
Then the second.
Enter.
The three new sachets join the ten already waiting on the table.
Crimson.
Saffron.
And soft green.
Each left open for filling.
Each holding its shape.
The room is quiet.
The sounds of the Dragon Ball Festival morning drift in from the world outside at a pleasant distance.
Presence.
But not entering.
She removes the cloth from the mortar.
The herb blend inside is a pure dry powder.
Uniform from the grinding.
She lifts the mortar and takes a small bone spoon from the table.
One spoon of powder.
Into the first Shea body.
Through the gap.
She walks the feeling to the center with two fingers.
Pressing lightly.
So it sits evenly.
This is She's Shape.
Holds the powder well.
The cause resists collapse.
Keeping the realm full.
The smell close like this is.
Immediate.
That comforts coldness first.
Than the ego would.
Dab below it.
Then the Angelica.
Sharp above bold.
Three distant smells.
Done.
Blending into something that belongs to none of them individually.
She fills each sachet in turn.
The fragrance deepened as she walked through.
Accumulating in the still air of the inner room.
The row of sachet now rests full and fragrant on the table.
She reaches for the five-color silk cord.
Known as the longevity threads.
Traditionally tied during the fifth month.
She draws the cord through the opening of the sachet and easy close.
Hands fall evenly beneath her hands.
Before she ties a simple knot.
Below it,
The brightest silk tassel.
Hangs with a gentle wave.
Ready to sway in each step.
She braided these hanging strands in the days before the Dragon Boat Festival.
Each one is weighted at the end.
The silk worn back on itself and Nicely bound.
So it swings with a gentle wave.
Whenever the sushi moves.
She holds the finished crimson sachet at arm's length.
Round and plump.
With the embroidered side facing outward.
A small falcon stitched in gold thread.
Its wings swept back in flight against the deep crimson gauze.
For a moment,
She studies it in the morning light.
Soon.
The remaining sachets are finished as well.
Before her,
A roll of finished sashay.
Stretch across the table.
Samalach!
Some.
No bigger than that palm of her hand.
That taints the shade in total.
Made over the past month.
And finish on Dragon Ball Festival morning.
The largest.
Are for her parents and grandmother.
The mid sides.
Are for her sisters and senior attendants.
The smallest are for the youngest helping woman.
Each filled with the same plan.
The two soft green ones sit at the end of the row are for her.
She picks one up and hangs it from the cord at her waist.
The sachet sway gently as she moves.
The smell.
Reaches her.
Immediately.
The ego would and come far.
Already drifting through the cause.
Slow and continuous.
The room holds the mind walk in one small row.
For a moment.
She looks at them.
In the morning light.
She clears the walk table.
The ceramic jars are closed.
The mortar,
Wiped and covered.
The needles return to their case.
The table returns to a clear surface.
The whole month's work now rests in the 13th sachet,
Laid neatly across the work table.
From the outer hole comes the sound of the household.
Resembling footsteps.
A door drawn open.
Her mother's voice carrying the morning's arrangement.
The world outside carries the Dragon Ball Festival morning fully.
Drums somewhere distant.
Voices.
The smell of cooked food and fresh mugwort and calamus moving through the lanes.
She gathers Sashay carefully into her arms and carried them out towards the hall.
And Soo,
The younger daughter of the household.
Carries the festival sachet.
Into the morning.
That ting fragrance the shade in various colors.
Crimson.
Saffron.
Soft green.
Each tied with five colored cords.
The fragrance already drifting gently through the gauze as she walks.
Beyond the compound gate,
The sounds of the Dragon Ball Festival morning.
Continue through the wards of Chang'an.
The world we visited tonight grows quiet now.
N.
You can simply rest here.
Comfortable and at ease.
Your mind can relax.
Your body can soften.
If you are already drifting into sleep.
Allow yourself to sink a little deeper.
If you are still awake.
Listen to the quiet.
There is nothing more to do.
Nowhere else to be.
I'll be here whenever you need another peaceful moment like this.
Bye for now.
Rest gently.
And.
.
.
Sleep well.
Good night.
