...And We Will Have Snow

Interregnum

Interregnum

This was a time of change.

Tengri often called upon Dema and Cern to add their wisdom to his. Together they would enter the shaman dream and contemplate patterns of change, both changes past and the path ahead.

With this extended awareness they understood that the powers working to produce change were those of Earth itself, a long-established cycle of physical factors pressing change upon the biological entities which dwelt thereon. They knew that whatever powers had produced the Cosmos, of which Earth was a merest fragment, those powers had decreed that change was good, change was elemental. Those same cosmic Powers also decreed that change was not merely a linear progression. Oh, no. Change was both cyclic and chaotic, broadly predictable but unpredictable in detail. Only in that way could the Cosmos fully display its infinite variety.

From this broad perspective they saw that Earth was merely acting in accord with the Cosmic decree, displaying cycle after cycle of variation, in some ways ever similar, but inevitably never the same. Taking this long view, drawing back well outside their own roles, they observed that amongst the creatures of Earth there was a peculiar species known to itself as People. Of course all creatures thought of themselves as people in their own way, individually or collectively, but this one species imagined itself to be unique, special, apart from, even above other creatures.

It was clear to the shamans that other older creatures, if they considered the matter at all, generally felt this view the People had of themselves to be naïve. The People had only recently begun to recognize their own naivety, having at last realized that they were, one to the next, more alike than different. But they had built up such strong traditions of imagined differences that they were reluctant to give them up.

Meanwhile, change in the natural world was going on apace. People, as was their wont, resisted change, attempting to adhere to their traditions in the face of it. When old ways would no longer serve to address new challenges, tensions arose, and turmoil. Wiser heads recognized the pattern, shook their heads and smiled ruefully. As always, the People found themselves divided, young from old, as the old knew what had worked for them and tried to teach it to the young, while the young saw the old ways failing and set out on their own. Wiser heads, with longer memories, knew that these People truly were unique in one thing only. They excelled in the metaphor of mind. From this very uniqueness sprang the ability of the young to differ from the old. Where other creatures were primarily biological entities, with no expectation of being different from their ancestors, People were adaptable, especially in their youth, able and willing to try new ideas. This was no great advantage during times of stability, but gave them an edge when change was rapid.

Thus the shamans saw what was unknown to most of the People. Chaos ruled. It was a rule of law, but the law was one of long periods of relative equilibrium, periodically punctuated by dramatic instability. There were episodes of rapid change, always leading in time to a new equilibrium, but in many ways devastating while the changes were occurring.

It was a deceptive pattern, because in times of stability people lived long, and the elders established traditions for the young to follow. Thus the young were well prepared, by the mental metaphor of their communal culture, for dealing with minor instabilities similar to those their elders had weathered. In times of change, however, old cultural metaphors often failed in the face of new challenges. The old views were sidelined in favor of new ideas more in keeping with new conditions.

Time after time, old ideas had been replaced by young ideas, which inevitably became old ideas, again passed along as tradition as if it had always been thus, for as long as the new stability endured, while previous traditions faded away as if they had never been. So the cycle would repeat.

The shamans could see that this was far more the pattern when the world was young, people were few, and change was slow. As the world filled up with people and the pace of change accelerated, the pattern took on nuances not available before. It became possible to know that there was not just one old tradition, but many ideas for dealing with difficulties of all kinds, many possible explanations of events, many ways to respond to new situations. Many choices, some better than others. It became possible to blend old successes to achieve new ones, to recognize that old ideas could find new applications, that not every explanation had to be new and unique, merely suitable to the circumstance.

But as in every age, there would be those who had found success and comfort in the old ways, and resisted change as a personal threat. When the rock upon which an empire had been founded turned to sand, the response was often a vain attempt to restore the sand to rock, rather than to adapt to the new reality. Desperate situations could lead to desperate measures, and desperate measures could produce unpredictable results.

The vanity of such people would lead them to hide their difficulties, pretend the sand was still rock even while it shifted under their feet, desperately dancing in an attempt to avoid the inevitable, heeding little upon whose heads those dancing steps would fall. The vaster the empire, the longer it would take for the rock to erode away, the longer such people would find a place to stand, at the expense finally of those most loyal, who least deserved to suffer.

But, as always, the only answer to such was to offer them the salvation of a new way, an open invitation, and then leave them to their own choices. With some guidance, they could perhaps be induced to avoid bad choices, allowing good choices room to succeed. In the end, they would be gone, and the memory of their incidental injustices would fade.

Meanwhile, existing circumstances worked to the advantage of those commanding empire. Corporate and political powers had both found it useful to give lip service to activist groups that pushed for what they considered responsible reactions to change. It had become a cost of doing business to subsidize and fund such, as academic enterprises. It gave the activists the illusion of being supported, kept them harmlessly occupied, while the real economics of the world went on as usual.

The shamans saw that WBI could hide under this umbrella, developing its solutions until the need for them became too real to ignore. If a time came when roles reversed and politics as usual, or business as usual, began to collapse, the path forward from there might then become more clear. At any rate there would be more incentive to discern it. If conflicts arose about what that path should be, that would be the time to deal with them. Until then, the shamans would prepare.