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 Tonight.
We visit Chang'an.
The largest city in the world.
During the Tang Dynasty.
Roughly.
1300 years ago.
Today is the fifth day of the month.
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.
Warm air.
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.
Muckwood.
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.
And 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.
End.
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 Walls.
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.
This low branch of a palm tree.
There must be talked.
The sound the bamboo makes.
In.
Even the slightest A.
The garden is cool at this hour.
The summer warm.
That fills the estate 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 leave.
Silver gray.
In the pre-dawn dark.
He can smell them.
Before he reaches them.
Sharp.
Dry.
And clean.
A longing.
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.
Stockland.
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.
But by feel.
Echostem is firm.
But not Woody.
The leaf should be full and undamaged.
The smell should be strong.
Nor faint and nor still.
He select five stems and check each one.
In the pre-dawn grey.
One leaf is damage and 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.
Tucked into his inner pocket.
He has thought of this ahead of time.
Their calamus grows at the far end of their 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.
Kalamaze 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.
Sha.
Green.
Entirely present.
The outer gate lies at the front of the estate.
To reach it.
He left the garden and.
.
.
Pass through.
A succession of quiet Koya.
Carver 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 Boat 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 lascia 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 later.
Nor discarded 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.
Calumet's 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.
Peel in the gray area 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 terms 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 lasia 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.
Of Dhanada.
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 5th day of the 5th 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.
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.
Goodbye for now.
Rest gently.
And sleep well.
Good night.
