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 quietly.
Into the Inner Gift 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 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.
Another sits at a common station.
Along the far wall.
The room holds the quiet.
Particular to focused work.
No voices.
Just the small sounds of silk.
Cold.
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 gifts.
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 red 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.
Pack 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.
Soul Decascade.
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.
Take care with it.
The heat and illness of summer.
A palace workshop.
Has produced these.
Every Dragon Boat Festival.
The greater land.
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 Sashay,
Carey,
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.
End.
From there.
Into the palace workshop and store rooms.
The sun.
That rises from the third table when the sachets are handled.
Is layered and difficult to name.
The Familial Dragon Boat 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,
Rest a like a box delivered that morning.
From the palace weaving and dyeing office.
Inside.
Are the summer cord robes.
The insult.
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 falls to 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 common table and returns to the third walk table.
With the fans.
Await their final inspection.
At the far end of the third table.
Rest there.
Final category of gift.
Defense.
Round fans.
E.
G.
Secular frame of mind.
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 10th court.
Empire TIE Zone.
A century before the present reign.
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 shea.
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 heirs 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,
Orderly 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 length of the roads 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 codes.
Tied around the children wrist.
Before the summer heat.
Fully arise.
She reaches that end of the road and.
.
.
Straighten slowly.
The eastern windows,
Hold the fading light.
The walkroom is.
Quiet on now.
The palace woman have been released for the evening.
The tables have been cleared.
The scrape of cord and leave 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.
Ikkyi opens and closes.
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.
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.
