Shrine-Maiden of the Two-Struck Ablution-Basin — a folding purification-court whose one great stone chōzuya basin holds, in the same still water in the same instant, two incompatible states: the fresh clear water she has just ladled IN across the mirror-surface for the dawn rite, still ringing cold and un-blessed off the bamboo spout, and that same water already spent through the whole night's blessing, gone warm and gold-lit and thick with the day's washed prayers about to be tipped away — so the un-rung water ahead is the finished, honored water behind, and the basin has no filling and no emptying, only the seam where the pure is the spent; and this Shrine-Maiden has learned the basin cannot be filled or drained, only INHABITED — she has set down the ladle and settled onto the basin's stone rim at the fold, one bare palm laid flat where the water runs cold and clear and un-blessed, the other palm pressed where the same surface stands warm and gold and heavy with the day's given prayers, holding both truths of the one water open, choosing to remain seated at the seam rather than commit the basin to either dawn or dusk before the two-struck water decides which rite the day will grant her