five
Our animals pick up speed, as if they want to make up for time lost. I slide my scarf down as we descend onto the greener slopes. The sun has awakened in full strength, seducing the sweet earth by caressing it with her warming rays. Banishing the looming prophecy from my mind, I turn my unruly thoughts to the beauty surrounding me.
Patches of brilliant white peep between the rocks, the snow lotus with its soft wooly hairs stand in full bloom. A few more days of good sunshine and Chozem will track down to these budding meadows to fill her baskets with fresh supplies for our monastery’s apothecary.
Every year around at the turn of spring and summer, our amchi stocks the storerooms with fresh herbs, berries, flowers, and green, hanging them down the beams to dry. Bundles of bright yel
