The Om ritual
Heat, rest, heat again: the oldest bathing sequence there is, conducted end to end within the courtyard. Read it once, then abandon it.
Rinse
Wash first, in the shower, as bathers in Japan have done for centuries; the rockpool is kept soap free. What surrounds the bather is only ever what came out of the ground.
First heat · 20 minutes
Enter slowly; shoulders beneath the surface; twenty minutes. No clock hangs on the wall and no attendant appears to move anyone along.
Rest · 20 minutes
Out, wrapped, on the deck or within by the glass; do nothing whatever. The heat goes on working long after one leaves it. This is the movement everybody cuts short at home.
Second heat · 10 minutes
Back in, and briefer than the first; this is the round guests describe afterwards. The mineral tonic is taken beforehand.
Again, or stop
Two rounds suffice for a first evening; three are common by the second night. The water runs on regardless, so the decision keeps.
The bowl
Strike the bowl at the courtyard’s edge to finish. It sounds long after one has stopped listening for it, which is the whole of the reason.
No attendant guides it; no hour is set aside for it. The water sits at temperature at three in the afternoon and three in the morning alike.