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.
Into the inner peony garden of Daming Palace in Chang'an.
Nihali 1,
300 years ago.
At the high of the Tang dynasty.
With early spring rain.
Still rest upon the flowers.
A Senior Imperial Gardener.
Arrives before first light.
To prepare the garden for the day's viewing.
The hour is the last before dawn.
The palace stills asleep.
Rainwater clings to.
Every peony leaf and.
.
.
Gathers in the layer folds of the largest blooms.
The stone path remains dark from the night's rain.
Catching only the faintest grey of the eastern sky.
No footsteps disturb the garden.
No voices drift through their covered walkways.
Beyond the palace walls,
Chang'an has not yet begun its days.
The senior imperial gardener.
Enters through the service gate.
His robe,
Tied close at the wrist.
His lamp lowered down there.
The sky has begun its slow change.
His aid follows with a bamboo tree.
A wrapped bundle of tools and the morning ledger.
They go first to the south bed.
The longest and most exposed.
The gardener walks the outer edge without touching.
Only looking.
His love?
Move slow along the row.
The light.
Finding each plant in sequence.
A deep crimson flower.
Stands fully open.
Among the rain-dark leaves.
A pale ivory cluster.
Nor yet unfolded.
Its center.
Still gathered.
Into a tight golden point.
EBloom Form already adds fullness.
Its petals,
Layered so densely,
They gather into waves.
Holding the night rain.
Deep within their forms.
He stops at that golden yellow peony.
The rarest in the batch.
Two blooms have opened since yesterday evening.
Te Akala.
In the lamplight.
It's a warm goal.
Almost luminous.
The petals wide and slightly translucent at their edges.
He holds the light closer for a moment.
Seeing nothing.
Than the deep purple peony.
Set Nya the path.
Where it will be seen at eye level.
Its petals,
Are so densely layered that.
.
.
Even fully open,
It still looks almost sealed.
A dark,
Full way.
Ink deep at its center.
Rose tin at its outer ring.
He notes each one in his mind and moves on.
In the pre-dawn quiet.
He warps the roll in.
Checks every thread.
The threads are fine hemp.
Wrap smooth and darken to disappear into the foliage.
Each one.
Is tied.
In each half loop.
Beneath the heavy bloom and drowns gently back towards its bamboo support.
Not pulling.
Only guiding.
He finds two that have loosened in the night rain.
He resets each one carefully.
Adjusting the support.
So the flower rests more comfortably above the damp earth.
The flower.
Still carries its own weight.
The threat.
Simply ensures that.
It does not bow too far.
Towards the damp earth.
Before the gardens filled with silk robes and quiet voices.
For the Imperial Peony Viewing.
The garden ape holds the lamb steady.
He unrolls a cloth square from the bamboo tree.
Please help.
Softly woven in.
Kept.
Only fought this war.
Beside it lies a shallow clay ball,
Four bruised leaves and fallen petals.
The gardener begins at the far end of the row.
Lifting each stem.
Just enough to see beneath it.
One leaf.
Than the next.
Last night rain has bent a few stems in.
Loosened a few outer petals.
He remove what has brown.
Brushes away what has fallen and clears a small beetle from the underside of a leaf.
With the corner of the cloth.
He does not polish the plant into brightness.
He only restores his natural order.
One by one.
Walking down the road in the quiet before the light comes.
At the edge of the second row,
One bloom has stalled.
It began to open two days ago.
A pure blush peony.
But one outer petal has not fully released.
Dried slightly against its neighbor.
In Last Night Call.
The gardener takes a slender bamboo pick from the red bundle.
Polish smooth.
Reserved for this kind of delegate walk.
He brings it close to the seal edge and rest it lightly against the folded petal.
Offering a path.
Without forcing one.
He waits quietly.
After a moment.
The petal begins to loosen on its own.
Folding slowly beside the smooth bamboo tip.
Then he lowers the peak again.
The bloom opens the rest of the way and assist it.
Is center now.
Fully visible.
A dense cluster of pale gold threads.
Surrounded by ring after ring of Translucent blush petal.
The innermost one still faintly creaks from being held.
He'd step back and look at the bloom.
For a moment.
He says nothing.
Beyond the walls of the inner court.
A bird calls from the palace grove.
The eastern sky has grown a shade lighter.
He tends back.
To the flower bed.
Near the South Pavilion.
Where the path curves before the main viewing space.
The age.
Such a small bronze incense burner.
On a low stone.
Beneath the covered eave.
Inside,
The ash has been warmed with coals.
The gardener placed one of the palace's fragrance keepers' prepared incense pills upon the surface.
Nor flame.
A thin thread of warmth rises.
Mixed with the faint garden breeze and.
.
.
Drifts along the pavilion.
The incense.
Does not cover the peony scent.
It belongs to the pavilion and corridor.
While the peonies own fragrance settle low between the stems.
Rising only,
One sleeve passes close.
Or a step,
Shiv the still air.
By mid-morning.
When the emperor and his imperial court move slowly through the flower beds.
The peony scent will rise with every step.
Thank God,
No.
Stands beside the incense burner for a moment and Breathe it in.
There is one last task before the light rises fully.
The garden aid brings a bronze vessel from behind the tool bench.
Rounders at the shoulder.
The metal,
Cool and heavy in the hands.
He fills it from the stone basin.
Carefully not to the brim.
That God did not take it and.
.
.
Moves along the outer edge of the south garden bed.
Watering at the base of each plant.
In is slow,
Even poor.
Navel onto the blooms.
Navel onto the leaf.
Only at the root line.
Where the soil surface is beginning to dry after the rain soaked through.
The water darkens the pale swirl in a narrow ring around each base and is absorbed almost at once.
He checks the depth after each pour with two fingers pressed into the swirl.
The moisture should reach deep.
Without sitting wet at the surface.
The last of the water disappears into the dark swirl.
The AIDS,
Take it back without being us.
The gardener stands at the covered corridor's edge and looks across the flower's bed.
The peonies hold their positions.
In the Aliyah.
The golden yellow bloom.
Where the light reaches first.
The pure blush flower along the wall.
Where the stone keeps warm.
Each bloom is where it was guided.
Weeks of choir work.
Leave behind every bloom.
Every angle.
Every gentle turn towards the path.
Nothing here has been left to chance.
The mist has lifted from the basin.
The stone parts are nearly dry.
The air carries the combined fragrance of incense and peony and cool,
Damp earth.
All three together.
As they always are.
On the morning of a peony garden viewing.
The eighth stands nearby.
The folded ledger.
In the bamboo tree the tools wrapped and clean.
The garden beds have been dressed.
The peony blooms are ready for the visitors.
The path is clear.
The Imperial Garden waits,
In its own full and quiet way.
For the day to begin.
And so the Daming Palace garden rests in the last quiet hour.
Before the imperial peony viewing.
The South Garden Badge.
Are ready.
Peonies at the height of their bloom.
The golden yellow flower.
Lit by the early light.
The deep purple bloom at the Perth Curve.
The pure blush weighed in still.
Against the Wormstone War.
Fragrance settle low across the flowerbeds.
The hem threads.
Hidden among the leaves.
The stone walkway.
Clear and swap.
Beyond the palace walls,
Chang'an is beginning its day.
Within this imperial garden.
Everything is ready.
When the morning bell sound.
Those who enter will only see the flowers.
The gardener's walk will remain unseen and quietly present in every peony bloom.
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.
