Motherheart Dragon Priest

Chapter 6a

Motherheart Priest — Chapter 6

The Master journeyed among the gentiles

bringing the sacrament to all;

so that we who came after went forth,

so that we who would believe,

grew in the love of the One.

Gospel of Jaqub

__________________

“Where does your mind travel Mah xin?” Su nu asked me in that coy tone she employs when she wants my instant attention. “It travels to my homeland where, as my Order decrees, I am to wed in a few years time.”

“It is the same for me”, she smiled. “It is also our tradition that upon completion of training as a Jomon high priestess, I will select a yangren from the priests of my Order. The wedding will elevate his status to high priest and our Order will then send us to wherever we are required for the good of the Jomon and the Soong.”

I looked at her; she could have been from my own country with her green eyes and blushed cheeks. Perhaps in another time and place one such as Su nu would be selected as my wife, as my yinren, as she called it, within my Order. I prayed that one such as Su nu was selected for me, for with one such as her I could take the work of my Order to any part of this strange world.

As we ate at a small tea house across from her apartments, Su nu took my hand and attempted to explain something of this exotic and alien world in which I had found myself.

 “The key to understanding what has happened to you is that we here in the Middle Empire see the whole of existence as the interplay of three substances. The Jing or essence, that is the seed of all forms of life and which forms the structure of all things. The Qi or breath of life, that is the moving force within all things and the Shen or the spirit, which gives rise to the mind of all things. Each is equal to the other and they cycle continuously in and through each other.” Su nu held up the pendant at her neck. At the centre of the intricate design lay a threefold version of the yin and yang symbol that had adorned the priests’ coats at Qublai’s court. “This demonstrates the eternal movement and interrelationship of the San Bao, Three Treasures.” Slipping the pendant beneath her silks again, she continued.

“Everything about the body is held sacred and medicines are made from whatever we have to strengthen the Jing of the body as that is the foundation of health and wellbeing. Children are fed tonics made from placentas. Elite men are given medicines made from a nursing mother’s first milk. The poorest of people make soups of the gonads of animals. Every womyn who knows of these things drinks the semen of a healthy man whenever she can. All this is done to foster and create health and longevity.”

“You Mah xin, had been selected by the Queen of the White Tigress sect. She is, some say, as powerful as the Empress herself and she drinks every day of the Jing of a selected man. She chooses virgins, the elite, the healthiest, the strongest; and you have been the latest of her chosen ones. It is that simple!” Su nu passed me tea containing tiny flowers the size of rice grains and fragrant with the scent of orchids.

“The sources of jing are many. The most powerful are from healthy people and are of course the most preferred. Hence the semen of men is the strongest for a womyn. While the placenta, the first milk and the the blood of menarche are all used to strengthen men. If such are not available then jing from other animals is prepared; the antlers of deer, the marrow of tigers, the blood of bulls, the placenta and gonads of various strong animals.” Su nu shrugged “This is the way of the Middle Empire. To understand it you must know the interactions of the San bao”, and she looked at me as if my response was the answer to some great question.