Whatever comes to mind. Sometimes a story I read, sometimes something that came to me while holding my mala beads.
Cold Dew is the first of China's 24 solar terms with the word "cold" in it. The old rule for this season is one word: gather in. Pack the summer clothes, sleep earlier, shift the table from "cooling" to "moistening" — and let the unfinished things become next year's fertilizer.
A bottle of melatonin gummies from a business trip, a wooden foot-soak basin from my mother — two civilizations answering the same sleepless night. Melatonin shouts "it's dark!" on behalf of the body. Foot soaking invites a mind that has been sprinting all day to finally stop. Insomnia is often not a sleep problem; it's the day's unpaid bill, collected at night. Settle the heart first, then the eyes.
Three years of insomnia. Melatonin, white noise, counting sheep — nothing worked. Then I met a Daoist monk on Mount Qingcheng who taught me three breathing techniques. A month later, I was asleep in fifteen minutes.
At eleven at night, my brain was full of work. My mom said: go make millet porridge. When your stomach is warm, you settle down. Those twenty minutes at the stove worked better than any meditation app.
Blisters in my mouth, can't sleep at night, irritable all day. My mom said it's "heart fire." An ordinary person tries living by the seasons for a few days and discovers the ancient wisdom isn't mysticism at all.