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 back.
More than 2200 years ago.
Into the Qing dynasty.
Ease of the imperial capital of Xianyan.
Beneath the quiet slopes of Maung Lee.
Thousands of artisans and laborers.
Walk on.
One of the ancient war greatest undertaking.
Known today.
As the Terra Cotta Army.
Tonight.
We follow.
And older men.
Who has spent many years.
Shaping the final features of each clay face.
Through an autumn evening.
At his carving table.
It is early evening in autumn.
The air has turned cool and dry.
The kind of settled weather.
The workshop welcomes.
Because.
It means.
.
.
Fewer figure loads to cracking.
A small oil lamp has just been lit at the carving table.
Nearest the workshop back wall.
It's flame.
Low and even in the still air.
He sits before the lamp.
A role of.
And finish clay heads.
Waiting on the shelf.
Beside him.
He has shaped faces in this workshop for many years.
Long enough that the younger walkers.
Now bring him the hats.
That require the most careful hand.
Tonight.
There is one more to finish.
Before the lamp bends low.
Beyond the workshop OpenShutter.
The last line is fading from the western sky.
Above the workshop rooftop.
The pure grey of day.
Slowly giving way.
To a deeper evening blue.
The head before him had already been pressed from one of the workshop moulds.
One of only a handful of basic mold shapes the workshop keeps in use.
Each one.
Giving a soldier face its rough beginning.
The settle of the brow.
The placement of nose.
Mouth and ears.
Nor two finished faces.
Ever look quite the same.
The more.
Provides only the beginning.
A second fine layer of clay.
Has already been smoothed over the shape.
Soft enough to take Whatever detail,
His hands give it nix.
He turns the head slowly in his palms.
Steadying in.
The way he studies every hat.
Before he touches his craving tool to it.
Outside.
A dry autumn wind.
Move through the trees beyond the workshop wall.
A soft papery rustle.
Drifting in through the open shutter.
He plays the hat.
On a low wooden stand at the table centre.
Tanning it slightly.
Until the lamp light falls evenly across.
Where the eyes will soon take shape.
The clay still cool and faintly damp beneath his fingers.
He lift a small bamboo tool.
It's cheap.
Won't smooth by years of use.
Begins with the eyebrows.
Drawing two shallow furrows into the soft clay.
Above where the eyes will sit.
The young apprentice.
Who brought the head.
Thought.
It might one day belong to a spearman.
Standing beside his fellow soldiers.
Whether that proves true or not.
The face itself.
Is in his hands tonight.
He deepens one furrow slightly more than the other.
A small,
Deliberate and evenness.
The kind.
That makes a face look lived in rather than simply made.
Along the workshop back wall.
Rows of finished hat from earlier weeks.
Rest on their shelf.
In the half tower.
Each one.
Already carrying its own difference from its neighbors.
The lamp flame settles into a steady and wavering point of light.
Casting his shadow long and still across the walk table.
For this phase,
He decides.
The man will be order.
A veteran.
Among the ranks.
Rather than a young recruit,
Fresh to his pose.
He has made both kinds many times.
N.
Something about tonight's quiet,
Subtle A.
Puts him in the mind of an older face.
He draws three fine lines across the forehead with the edge of his tool.
Then two shorter ones at the outer corner of each eye.
The marks of years.
Spent nearing his gaze against sun and wind.
Outside.
The autumn leaves start again.
A dry rustle.
Rising and falling.
With the evening's shifting breeze.
He puts the fine tool down and picks up a slightly broader one.
Ready for the nose.
And the set of the jaw.
He shapes the bridge of the nose with two slow strokes.
Then eases the nostril into place.
With the rounded tip of the tool.
Pausing often.
To hold the head at arm's length and Look again.
The jaw comes next.
A form where the lines that he softened slightly at the chin.
The oldest craftsmen rarely curve two mustaches exactly alike.
N.
This is one of the small pleasures he allows himself after so many years.
The chance to choose something new.
He presses thin strands of clay along the upper lip.
With the flat of his thumb.
Then draws the fine tool through them.
One careful stroke at a time.
Until the strands separate into individual hairs.
Each one.
Slightly different in length.
From the one beside it.
The lamp flame dips briefly.
As a gentle breeze.
Drift through the open shutter.
10.
Studies again.
Is glow.
Settling back over the walk table.
And half finish phase.
He leans back slightly.
To study the effect.
Tilting the head this way and that.
In the low light.
Near the doorway.
A second lamp is lit for the craftsman walking beside him.
And for a moment,
Two warm circles of light.
Share the darkening workshop.
Near the base of the neck.
He pressed E.
Small mark into the clay with the stamp resting beside his tools.
It is a simple mark-off.
Responsibility.
Linking.
The finished clay figure.
To the workshop.
And the craftsman who shaped it.
A stamp face is a face a man is willing to stand behind.
He has pressed this same mark into the clay.
More times than he could count.
And still,
He takes the same care with it each time.
Settling the stem squarely against the surface.
Before lifting it away with quiet practice hands.
Leaving the impression clear and clean.
The mark.
Disappears from sight.
As the head moves onto the next table.
Where it will later be joined to its body and prepared for firing.
Yet,
He knows it remains there.
Hidden within the finished figure.
A quiet record of the hands that shaped it.
He wipes the small stem clean on the cloth beside him.
Checking that no trace of clay clings to its surface.
Then returns it to its familiar place.
Ready for the next hat.
That will pass beneath his careful hands in the days ahead.
He set the head aside for a moment to rest his hands.
Flexing his fingers slowly in the lamp light.
From somewhere across the yard.
Comes the low steady hem of the clean fires being banked for the night.
The autumn leaf outside.
Continue their dry and hurried wrestle.
Rising with each small wind gust and settling again into quiet.
Farther along his table.
Three more clay heads rest beneath a length of damp cloth.
Each quietly waiting for its face to emerge beneath a careful hand.
He lifts the lamp's small dish briefly.
N.
Adds a little more oil.
Tilting the flame.
Back to its full steady glow.
Before putting it down again.
He returns to the face and walks slowly now.
Adding the last more touches.
A faint crease.
At the bridge of the nose.
The careful curve of an ear.
A single loose strand of hair.
Escaping from beneath.
Where the cap will sit.
Each mark is small.
None of them alone would matter much.
Together.
At it one after another across a quiet evening.
They gather into a face that carries the quiet dignity of a man.
Who has bent.
Many years beneath open skies.
He wipes a live film of clay from the surface with a dry brush.
Revealing the fine lines beneath more clearly in the lamp light the autumn wind outside.
Has softened further.
As the evening deepens.
The autumn leaf staring only faintly now.
He puts his two down at last and Simply look at the finished hat.
Resting in the lamplight.
One day this face will stand among thousands of others in the pit below the tomb mound.
Each one carrying its own small and evenness.
The way this one now carries his.
The face will need to dry slowly over the coming days.
Before it can be fired.
Soon.
He rubs it gently.
In a length of damp cloth and place it on the shelf.
Beside the others.
Each one waiting for its turn to dry.
The lamp has burned low.
Its flame smaller now than when he sat down.
Casting a smaller,
Warmer circle of light across the table.
He wipes his two clean one at a time and lays them in their place along the table's edge.
Ready for tomorrow's walk.
Outside.
The autumn leaf has gone almost still.
The wind settling down for the night.
Along the whole workshop.
The second lamp near the doorway.
Has already been carried away.
Living only his own small circle of life.
At the back of the workshop.
The older craftsman rises slowly from his table.
The finished face.
Now rest beneath its damp cloth on the shelf.
Beside the others.
Waiting quietly for the days ahead.
Behind him.
The lamp burns low.
One table after another.
Fall silence.
Until the whole workshop.
Settles into the same stillness.
It has known for countless evenings.
Beneath the quiet slope of Maung Lee.
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.
Goodnight.
