O Holy Night

For five days I sit in the throne room like a sentinel and receive nobody, not even my good sister. Her geta click against ice to entreat me to join her in discourse below cypresses and junipers in the Garden of Benevolent Peace. I persevere in silence, as the unknowable has made known that today pardon is proclaimed to all under heaven. True reverence requires an opening up. Eight months since the Grand Duke blazed forth from his habitual rest below the earth and rose before the sun only for lunar occultation by noon. Five days since the Grand Duke has resumed his course to move as a star in the east. Today a King is born and he carries the zui 辠 of all upon him.

The River of No Fixed Course is frozen as flat and dark as the horizon now at the winter’s extreme. Snow ornaments it like sunlight beginning to rise once more on its perpeutal course. Yin and Yang move within and flow outward. The delicate fragrance of plum blossom rises proudly from the frosty garden. With the ear turned inward, the highest and best motion of the dark Earth Star sound harmonies of bamboo flutes and bronze bells, finer than all music in this sphere. All mortals can hear this if they learn to listen. Tonight, my silence is music composed to celebrate this merit. An enthusiastic offering to the Highest on the night the Christ is born. 

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Pseudepigrapha inspires the piece. Circulating since 2006, the below quotation is falsely attributed to Han Emperor Guangwu, who reigned simultaneous to Christ’s incarnation on earth. This ‘pious fraud’ claims Guangwu recognized Jesus' divinity through omens at the time of his death, but the chronicle it claims to originate from does not exist. It is plausible that Guangwu felt the coming of the Christ, his death and resurrection, but did not write it down. And now, Truth is revealed, as it is done.

 “Yin and Yang have mistakenly switched, and the sun and moon were eclipsed. The sins of all the people are now on one man. Pardon is proclaimed to all under heaven.”

— History of Latter Han Dynasty, Volume 1, Chronicles of Emperor Guangwu, 7th year.