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 back.
1,
300 years ago.
Into Chang'an.
At the height of the Tang Dynasty.
It is early summer afternoon and gentle rain falls over one of the Chang'an's residential wards.
Inside an aristocratic household?
The family's 19-year-old younger daughter set aside her embroidery and tends towards the ray garden.
Where a small open pavilion waits beside the lotus pond.
The corridor behind the inner court is narrow and quiet.
Pale plaster walls still hold the morning's warmth.
The rain has not reached this corridor yet.
But its scent has come first.
Warm stone cooling.
What lives,
And a faint sweetness.
She paused in the shade and breathed once.
A round silk fan.
Its plum blossom and white tree,
Half-finished,
Is left on the east wing table.
The needle.
Back in its case.
Household voices are far behind.
Here there is only quiet and the cool smell of rain drifting in.
Gardenia shrubs beside the south wall have began to open.
She stands still.
At the far end,
A wooden door is partly open.
Through the gap comes rain on roof tiles.
And beyond it.
Water through bamboo leaf.
She reached out.
Push the door wider and Step into the garden.
The E changes at once.
Warm.
Breathe.
She paused to breathe in the rain.
Before taking another step.
The Ray Garden.
Is enclosed and quiet.
High whitewash walls on three sides.
Bamboo stands close along the eastern wall.
Its stems darkened by rain.
A pale stone path curved through moss.
The last peonies bow.
Their outer petals beginning to loosen.
Pale gardenia blossoms rest among glossy leaves along the south wall.
At the center.
Lies the lotus pond.
The water is dark and still.
Broad,
Round lotus leaf.
Spread across its surface.
Each tremble lightly.
Each holds a shallow pool of rain.
A drop lands on the nearest leaf.
It ran slowly towards the edge.
Gedas.
The leaf tip.
A soft drip.
Into the pond below.
Beyond the pond,
The open pavilion stands on low stone pillars.
Rain darkens the roof tiles.
Gathers beneath the curved eave and falls in slender threads.
Beneath the roof.
The floor remains dry and warm.
Carve lattice railings.
Frame three sides.
She follows the most edge part in.
Step inside.
A bamboo daybed stands against the pavilion wall.
Et vous remette.
A flat seal cushion,
Nia 1M.
A folded gauze shawl at the corner.
Pale and almost weightless.
Beside it,
A lacquer tray waits on a small stand.
A salad and dish,
Holes,
Some light cheese.
All that remained from a precious basket sent to her father by a colleague at the imperial court.
A small bowl of dried lotus seeds.
Smooth and pale.
A celadon tea bowl holds tea made from a spring tea cake.
Roasted,
Grounded,
And boiled with a trace of salt.
A covered vessel beside it holds a second serving.
A faint thread of steam rises and disappears into the damp air.
A narrow paper scroll.
Rest near the cushion.
It's outer wrapping won't smooth with use.
She settles the shawl over her shoulders.
And sit at the deepest edge.
Smooths the mud beneath her.
End.
Draws her legs up.
Then she lies halfway.
One arm along the mat.
Facing the lattice and the rain.
The bamboo mat is cool against her arm.
That's your cushion.
Settles beneath her back.
Raindrops fall beyond the reeling from the eave edge in steady even lines.
She does not move right away.
From here.
Rain has Leah's.
On the roof tiles above.
It is fine and steady.
From the eave edges just beyond the lattice.
It falls in thicker lines.
And beneath both.
The pond keeps its softer rhythm.
A drop lands on a broad lotus leaf.
The leaf bends beneath the water and let it fall.
She listens for the next one.
It calms.
The afternoon is slow.
Through the lattice,
The garden is visible.
What bamboo?
Peonies.
Pure stone path bending away.
A faint gardenia fragrance drift in from the wall shrubs.
She breathing slowly.
Wet wood from the beans above.
Rain-darkened lotus leaves in the pond.
Hot dogs.
Loosen.
She does not follow them.
She simply watched.
After a while,
She reaches for the scroll.
The paper is cool and slightly rough beneath her fingertips.
She loosened the scroll.
Revealing several familiar lines by the famous Tang poet Wang Wei.
His verses speak of mountains,
Rain,
N.
Mists of Den Valley.
Her gaze drifts slowly across the characters on the scroll.
Done.
The lotus pond sounds again.
A leaf releasing its drop and Her attention drifts from the page.
Outside the lattice.
Lotus leaf,
Receive the rain.
Tremble in.
Let it go.
She watched this with more care than she gives the poem.
She goes back to reading.
One more line.
Done.
She let the loosened scroll rest across the mat.
Next,
She reaches for a lychee instead.
The skin parts beneath her thumbnail.
Revealing,
Cool,
Pure flesh.
Sweet and fragrant.
She savoured it slowly and with the skins.
At the tree edge.
The rain does not change nor build.
She rests inside the pavilion.
While the rain continues around her.
Rain on the tiles above.
Fine.
Study.
Close to beams.
Rain from the eave in thin even lines.
Almost like a soft curtain just beyond the curved wood.
Rain on lotus leaf beyond the lattice.
She takes up the celadon tea bowl with both hands.
The tea has cooled to the warmth which she prefers.
Neither hot nor cold.
Its scent is faintly roasted.
While the trees or salt scarcely touch the tongue.
She holds the bowl a moment,
Then drinks.
Outside bamboo stairs.
Not from wind.
Batch from rain moving through the upper leaf and releasing through the lower ones.
Then quiet.
She lowers the bow back onto the liquor tree.
The afternoon light has settled into a deeper green grey.
The garden,
Has grown darker and stiller.
I see.
Everything has accepted the rain.
The gardenia blossom beyond the lattice are pill-shaped now.
Almost too dim to see.
Dark bamboo.
Wet peony.
Heads still low.
Lotus leaf trembling in their steady way.
She draws the ghost shore closer.
Not from coal.
The air is warm and heavy with summer.
The weight of the shore feels good.
The scroll stays where she left it.
The lychee waits on the tree.
HA HEN,
Rest along the matte edge.
Rain on lotus leaf,
Keep its pattern.
Rain continues along the eve.
Soft and even.
Through the lattice.
A thread of Gardenia fragrance driven again.
Dance on now.
And deeper.
She breathed in.
Her breathing has slowed.
She watched the lattice.
Through the curved wood.
And the thin coating of water at the eave edge.
Lotus leaf move in their steady way.
Each one,
Receive the rain in.
Release it in their own time.
Only rain.
Only the porn.
Only the lotus leaf.
Going on as before.
She closed her eyes.
Rain on the roof above is a slow steady sound.
The scent of Gardenia.
Still lingers in the damp air.
After a while,
She takes up another lychee and opens it slowly.
The flesh is cool,
Sweet and pale.
The empty skin rests beside the bowl.
Her hand settled back onto the woven mat.
The shawl lies lightly across her shoulder.
The lucent scroll remains where she left it.
The afternoon light has settled into a deeper grey-green.
The garden.
Has grown darker and stiller.
As if everything has accepted the rain.
Heart breathing.
Settles into the same slow rhythm as the rain.
Beyond the garden walls,
Chang'an continues through its afternoon.
Somewhere where you pass over wet streets.
Somewhere,
Doors open and close beneath long eve.
Here within the pavilion.
The rain goes on falling.
The lotus pond keeps receiving it.
N for one gentle afternoon.
There is a now.
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.
