Mandalas of Mount Li
骊山曼陀罗花开
A Feminine Epic of
Memory, History, and Inner Awakening
Chinese Original Poetry by
Yuexi (Susanna Enso Huang)
Mount Li:
A Mountain of
Civilizational Memory
Mount Li is not a metaphor.
It is a real mountain, located east of ancient Chang’an, once the heart of Chinese civilization.
For over three thousand years, Mount Li has witnessed the rise and collapse of dynasties —
from the Western Zhou to the Qin and Han empires.
It is the site of royal rituals, political ideals, unfulfilled moral visions, and irreversible historical loss.
Figures such as Prince FuSu of Qin, remembered not for conquest but for moral restraint and humane governance, inhabit this landscape not as heroes of triumph,
but as presences of unresolved ethical memory.
In Chinese cultural consciousness, Mount Li is not a monument.
It is a listening ground — where history is not narrated, but endured.
From History to Inner Vision
Mandalas of Mount Li does not retell history.
History here is not reconstructed.
It is remembered inwardly.
The poems do not speak in the voice of rulers, chronicles, or victory.
They arise from what remains after history has passed —
from loss, silence, moral fracture, and quiet endurance.
This work moves from external civilization into inner witnessing.
Inner Image: The Feminine Gaze
witnessing history from within.
This is not autobiography.
Nor is it historical fiction.
The speaker in these poems is not an individual character,
but a feminine perceptual field —
one that absorbs history emotionally rather than commands it.
Where traditional epics advance through action and conquest,
this epic unfolds through attention, restraint, and remembrance.
Why This Is a Feminine Epic —
Not Historical Narrative
This work is called a feminine epic not because it centers women as subjects of history,
but because it adopts a feminine mode of knowing.
Here:
-
History is felt rather than explained
-
Power is observed rather than exercised
-
Meaning arises through stillness, loss, and ethical tension
The poems resist linear chronology.
They move instead through cycles, echoes, and emotional constellations —
like mandalas forming and dissolving across time.
This is an epic of inner continuity, not external domination.
A feminine figure holding the sword not as force,but as moral instrument.
In Mandalas of Mount Li, the sword becomes a way of seeing.
Poetic Architecture:
The Thirteen Swords
Mandalas of Mount Li is structured through an internal poetic architecture known as
The Thirteen Swords.
Each “sword” represents a gate of reflection —
a convergence point between:
-
historical presence
-
emotional residue
-
moral inquiry
-
inner awakening
Each poem is paired with a resonant historical or psychological image,
not as illustration, but as a parallel mode of perception.
咸阳宫扶苏赋
A historical resonance —
where moral ideals outlived political power.
This poem engages a historical presence not as biography,
but as an ethical echo.
The figure Prince FuSu of Qin stands at the threshold of history —
between power and refusal, command and conscience.
Here, history is neither celebrated nor condemned.
It is quietly held.
获得的失去
An inner constellation —
loss transformed into awareness.
This poem no longer addresses history outwardly.
It listens inward.
Loss becomes depth.
Silence becomes space.
The cosmos appears not above, but within.
漂亮谷的曼陀罗花
Choral Adaptation:
Mandala Flowers of the Beautiful Valley
A poem that returns to the river—grain by grain—now seeking a shared voice.
Some poems are written to be read.
Some are written to be witnessed.
And some—quietly—are written to be sung together.
Mandala Flowers of the Beautiful Valley follows the ritual cycle of the mandala:
creation, radiance, dissolution.
Grain by grain, the flower appears;
grain by grain, it returns to the river.
This poem is now being explored as a contemporary spiritual choral work—
not religious, but contemplative—
a collective meditation on impermanence, care, and time.
Language and Lineage
Mandalas of Mount Li is written entirely in Chinese and
conceived as an authoritative original, not as a translation project.
Its lineage draws from:
-
early Chinese poetic traditions (such as The Book of Songs)
-
classical historical consciousness
-
contemporary inner lyric practice
The work is complete (130+ poems) and internally closed.
Future English engagement is envisioned as companion works, not replacements.
A Work Seeking
Resonance, Not Scale
This project is not intended for mass-market circulation.
It seeks:
-
editorial resonance
-
long-term literary dialogue
-
scholarly and poetic engagement across cultures
Mandalas of Mount Li asks not to be explained —
but to be entered.
Poet
Yuexi (Susanna Qiang Huang)
Moon Creek Poetic Works