The evening temperature was dropping rapidly as an elder priestess brought their dinner tray. By her dress and jewelry, she appeared to be of higher status than any of the younger sisters. As she entered the guest house, her bright eyes took in everything and looked deeply into each person’s soul.
The group could also tell that something unusual was afoot by the quality of the food. Their tray was laden with meat and pot herbs, buttered bread, cheeses, and a small jug of wine.
To their surprise, the high priestess did not sit and begin meditating, but instead took a seat at the fire circle and warmed her hands. She quickly had several little creatures around her, more even than Rini tended to attract.
With a new person at their fire, some of the students fidgeted with discomfort. After gently moving a chipmunk, Kibi sat down beside the woman. Rini did the same on the other side.
Ilika began cutting the meat into twelve pieces. “This is a special meal.
I’m sorry we are ignorant of the holy days of the order, and wish there was some way we could learn the meaning of this day.”
The elder priestess nodded slowly, but offered no explanation. Ilika held the tray for her, and Neti handed her a bowl.
A slight smile touched the woman’s face, and she accepted the first portions of meat, vegetables, and bread.
The meal was eaten mostly in silence, although many glances were exchanged, and the high priestess confidently made eye contact with all her
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 33
guests. Bowls and cups were wiped clean with bread, and wine was poured.
A shaking voice suddenly spoke from an unexpected source. “I . . . at first I
. . . thought that if I closed my eyes . . . I might . . . I don’t know . . . I might die or something,” Toli struggled to say. “I know it sounds . . . silly . . . but I’ve never . . . closed my eyes before . . . except when sleep made me do it.”
“I can relate to that,” Boro jumped in. “Most of us were slaves once,” he said in explanation to the high priestess.
She
nodded.
“The only way . . . I could do it today was because . . . someone was holding my hand,” Toli admitted. “That hand was like . . . the only thing keeping me from . . . feeling like I would die.”
Buna smiled from beside him on the log.
One by one, the others began to share things they had recently learned or discovered. Rini and Buna spoke of their meditations. Sata explained universal instantiation, and Boro continued with the universal generalization, including how tricky it could be. Miko and Kibi talked about their experiences in the mountains before coming to the guest house, and Mati shared how two sets of things created four different logical possibilities. Neti shared her brush with dehydration and hypoxia, and Misa spoke of the fire that had destroyed her home and probably killed her parents.
The woman listened with sparkling eyes to each person. As stories were told, the sun set somewhere behind the mountain and the twilight faded from the sky.
When the full dark of night was nearly at hand and everyone had fallen silent in their telling, the high priestess rose and motioned for them to come with her. She gestured again, clearly wanting them to bring all their belongings.
They looked at Ilika.
“I think we’re being invited to the monastery.”
The woman nodded.
“I’m going,” Ilika announced. “Anyone who does not wish to go, may stay here. While at the monastery, we must be silent.”
She nodded again.
Although some faces showed a little fear, no one expressed a desire to stay.
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Within ten minutes, everything was packed and Tera was saddled.
They approached the top of the next rise on the trail, beyond which none of them had ever gone. The slight glow of unseen firelight flickered on the rocks above the trail, and a faint throbbing echoed off the mountainside. They could see their breath in the air, and the falling temperature promised a clear, cold night.
As they crested the top of the rise, torches came into view. Not far ahead, the trail passed under a large wooden portal with mysterious carved faces and painted symbols.
Mati could feel Tera’s fear, and kept the reins tight. Concentrating on controlling the donkey helped her to ignore the knot in her own stomach.
Ilika seemed perfectly comfortable, and Kibi and Rini hesitated only a little. Boro and Sata stood for a moment before continuing down the trail toward the portal. The rest took a few steps back toward the guest house before mastering themselves and following their companions.
One by one, they all passed under the wooden portal, gazing up at the eerie faces and symbols dancing in the torch light.
The trail, lined with more torches, wound down the rocky slope into a sheltered valley. A large wooden building of three or four floors sat beside a level clearing. As Boro descended the steep path toward the main building, torches sprang to life in the clearing beyond. His mouth opened in wonder as priestesses moved to and fro like ghosts, never speaking a word.
The group of travelers approached the main hall of the monastery, its upper floors towering over them and every window glowing with lamplight from within.
A sister stepped out of a shed, and with gestures she offered to take Tera.
Mati thought for a moment, then dismounted, whispered comforting words to her faithful donkey, and received her crutch from Miko.
The high priestess led them into the building. Simple tables and stools filled part of the main floor, while crude rugs and pillows surrounded stone fireplaces. The smell of baking bread came from unseen ovens. The high priestess gestured for them to set down their rucksacks, and then led them on through the building and out the door on the far side.
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The clearing just below the main hall, perhaps a hundred feet across, was ablaze with a complete circle of torches. A large iron fire-bowl, still unlit, waited in the exact center. The high priestess led them into the circle, then motioned for them to follow a younger priestess along one side.
For the next few minutes, many more women and girls took up their places around the circle. Finally, with everything ready, the clearing became filled with complete silence and stillness, save for the soft shuffling of nervous feet coming from the monastery’s guests.
The high priestess walked with measured steps to the center of the circle, stood for a moment in contemplation, then suddenly raised her arms. The drumming resumed as she began to walk around the inside of the circle, chanting words in another tongue that meant nothing to Ilika or the students.
While she walked, all the torches along the trail and all the lamps in the great hall were extinguished by unseen hands.
The chant was taken up by women who came dancing into the circle from several directions. As the chanting continued, seven different priestesses, at seven points around the circle, began dramatic rituals.
To the left of the students and their teacher, a white-haired crone waved a sword, her ritual clearly about conflict and death. To their right, a golden-haired maiden tossed leaves and flowers into the air, and her ceremony spoke of birth and life and abundance. As they peered around with wide eyes, most of the students felt the rituals speaking directly to their hearts, and the meanings were clear.
The chanting gradually became louder and faster, and the words changed as time passed, but always in a strange language. When all seven of the rituals around the circle were complete, another began in the center. Five women and one girl wore simple white robes and no jewelry. Part of the time they lay face-down on the hard ground, later still they kneeled before the high priestess, and finally they walked around the unlit iron bowl with arms outstretched.
Eventually, with the chanting at a fever-pitch, the seven youngest girls of the order, all less than ten years of age, lit hand-torches at the outside of the circle and slowly walked toward the center. All at the same moment, the
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 36
seven girls thrust their torches into the iron brazier, and purple flames leapt high into the air as all the chanters held the last word of their song in loud, clear voices.
All the sights and sounds of the ritual until now had stirred the emotions of the students more than any public performance they had ever seen or imagined. But what happened next was almost shocking by contrast.
The leaping purple flames quickly died out. At the same moment, the last chanted word faded away and every one of the torches was snuffed. No man-made light remained anywhere on the mountain.
Everyone’s eyes were immediately drawn to the sky, but not by the moon or stars. Ghostly green curtains of light slowly danced far in the north, and sounds of amazement escaped many of the students. A few of the young girls, and one of the older novices, also slipped.
The students stood captivated. All of the sisters of the monastery gazed upward, some from their knees, some standing with arms raised. The green curtains faded and a streaky red glow appeared on the northern horizon.
For the next hour, the mind-boggling show continued, sometimes joined by rapidly-moving blue curtains, occasionally punctuated by flashes of purple.
At other times the slow green lights returned, or the nearly-stationary red glow.
For Sata, this was the ultimate challenge. She somehow knew that if she was up there, in the dancing lights, she would not survive. She wasn’t sure if she would be burnt to a crisp or frozen solid, but it didn’t matter. She had learned from her teacher that many things in the world were far greater than her, and yet they were her friends, in a sense, if she was respectful and careful.
They could give her beauty and wonder and understanding, none of which she could get if she trembled in fear and buried her head in the sand.
Rini was almost moved to tears. If he had had wings to fly, he would have left the world behind to soar among the dancing lights. But at the same time, he had a deep curiosity about the forces that could cause such a grand display.
He knew an artist, like Pica, created a beautiful picture because she wanted to.
His mind opened up to the spectacle before him and craved to know what
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mysterious will could lead to such beauty and grandeur.
Boro was deeply impressed, and at the same time he wanted to know the details so he could help keep everyone safe. He wondered if there was some radiation danger even here, so far from the glowing, shifting curtains and dancing sprites in the sky. From recent lessons he knew it was all in the planet’s magnetic field, forty-five thousand miles away. He was tempted to break the silence and ask Ilika about it, but decided that his teacher would say something if there was any danger.
Mati thought of Tera. She was now very glad the sister had taken the donkey into a shed where Tera could not see what they were seeing. Mati knew that ions and free electrons interacting with the magnetosphere were nothing to be concerned about down here. She was pretty sure Tera would not have taken it so lightly.
Eventually the spectacle faded and was gone, leaving about two hundred sisters, and eleven visitors, feeling very small in the midst of the awesome power and beauty of the universe.
Deep Learning Notes
What judgment, in your opinion, did the high priestess make about her guests before inviting them to the ritual?
The sisters of the monastery, by undertaking a complex ritual, were experiencing the joys and challenges of cooperative group effort. What similar experiences have you had? Some possible examples: acting or working backstage in a play, singing in a choir, playing a team sport, being a load-carrying member of a group campout.
By planning and executing the ritual without any talking, the members of the monastery forced themselves to achieve a very high level of initiative, cooperation, and selfless service. How would you do in such a situation?
The seven small rituals enacted around the circle, two of which were described
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in the story, spoke directly to the characters’ hearts because they used universal symbols that transcend language. A brandished sword means conflict and danger to any person, anywhere on Earth, at any point in history.
Flower petals, essential to the reproduction of many plants, are about as soft, delicate, and beautiful as anything can be. What are some possibilities for the other five rituals, and what universal symbols might they use?
What do you think was happening with the five women and one girl who wore simple white robes and no jewelry, started by lying face-down on the ground, then kneeled, and finally walked around the circle?
What might be symbolized by having the youngest members of the monastery light the main fire-bowl?
Have you ever experienced a powerful natural event, such as an aurora, a severe storm, a crashing waterfall, a tornado, an earthquake, or anything similar? What did it make you feel? Are you better or worse for having the experience?
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Chapter 6: Particle Physics and Existential Rules After a minute of silence, all the sisters and their guests streamed into the main hall of the monastery, shivering from the cold but elated by the experience. Fires were built up in the fireplaces, mugs of hot tea poured, and soon everyone found warmth and good company. A few small creatures appeared, and bread scraps allowed them to share in the celebration.
Both Miko and Toli had trouble remaining silent, but never got out more than a syllable before feeling a jab from one of their friends. They noticed that some giggling was tolerated in the youngest sisters, but no speech.
Mati felt the need to check on Tera. She glanced at Rini with a worried look. He nodded, gently extracted a squirrel from his lap, and walked out to the shed.
After about an hour, the crowded hall began to thin out as the sisters went upstairs or out to other buildings. One of them showed the group an open floor area covered with thick rugs near one of the fireplaces where they could sleep.
It was not long before the eleven guests, quite exhausted from their long day of studies and the intense evening of unexpected wonders, were fast asleep, dreaming of logic rules and dancing lights in the sky.
The students were again amazed at the level of cooperation possible without speech as they joined the two hundred sisters for a simple breakfast of biscuits and goat cheese, tea and crab apples.
After breakfast, one of the priestesses tapped Kibi on the shoulder, and led
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her to a corner of the building where a map on the wall depicted all the mountain paths. Kibi got Sata, and together they silently worked to transfer the information to Sata’s map. Judging by distances they had already walked, the town of Nug appeared to be a day’s walk, perhaps a day and a half, assuming no unexpected snow storms.
Another sister brought them a tray stacked with hard crackers, fully-cured cheese, dried fruit, and other travel foods, enough for about two days. Boro silently coordinated the distribution and packing after handing the woman a great silver piece.
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As the group was making preparations to depart, the high priestess appeared. She spent a minute looking into the eyes of each of the travelers.
In most she saw the insecurities of youth but great strength and determination. In a few she saw deep fears that might need more than a lifetime to heal. In all the ex-slaves, she saw the hurt and shame they had suffered, and it almost made her cry. In Ilika she saw something completely foreign to her, and knew he was from a very different place, one she couldn’t even imagine.
To each she gave a silent blessing, tracing a sacred symbol on their foreheads with her finger, before bowing and leaving them with a young sister of eight or nine years.
A clear and bright morning was quickly driving away the night chill, promising a day without cloaks for anyone walking or working. The young sister accompanied them through the carved wooden portal and up to the top of the ridge. There she remained, birds on her shoulders, waving silently as the eleven visitors began their journey past the little meadow with its guest house, and around the next bend in the trail.
The questions about the aurora started coming at Ilika as soon as the students were out of sight of the young sister. He waited until they made brief stops for a drink, a light snack, or just to admire the view. At each stop, he took the time to tackle at least one question.
Previous lessons about the atmosphere, magnetosphere, and solar wind had been far removed from their everyday lives. Suddenly, it was knowledge
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they craved. They needed to know all about the behavior of free electrons in a magnetic field. They demanded a drawing, to scale, of the strangely-shaped magnetosphere. They begged for an explanation of both the incandescent and florescent processes that created the lights.
By mid-day they were in red-berry territory again, and that gave Ilika more opportunities to answer their questions as everyone picked and ate.
“It seems like,” Mati began as she sat on a boulder slicing cheese for everyone, “finding the monastery, the meditating, the ritual, and seeing the aurora . . . it seems like it all fit into your lessons perfectly, like you planned it.
But I don’t see how you could have.”
“I could not have planned it,” Ilika admitted. “None of those events were known to me in advance. But I do have help, you know. I hope you don’t think I’m all alone in figuring out what to teach you, when, and how.”
None of them made any response, but his words echoed in their minds with more power than anything he might say about charged particles or magnetic fields.
Kibi remembered the green lights and the voice that had led her out of the smoke and fire.
By mid-afternoon, the questions were beginning to taper off. They took a break at a little stream to drink the icy cold water and eat mouthfuls of berries.
Sata looked at the map, filled in some elevation readings Ilika made, and asked Buna to take a compass bearing. Buna was always happy for a reason to use Ilika’s knowledge processor.
That evening, by a small lake at seven thousand two hundred feet, the students finally felt satisfied in their desire to understand the aurora. Rini admitted that even if he had wings, the mysterious lights were so high up that there was not enough air for wings to work, nor enough to breathe. Sata joined Rini in remembering the color shifts and strange shapes, appreciating the beauty of it all with no thoughts of labeling it evil.
When they saw Ilika getting out a piece of paper, one of the last few with unused space on either side, they quickly put extra wood on the fire and gathered to listen.
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“The existential generalization is the other rule that’s pretty simple.”
“We know of an individual thing, y, that has quality A. Therefore, some things, x, have quality A. The word ‘some’ in logic means one or more. But where there’s one, there are usually many others.”
“So if I could find a purple donkey,” Buna began, “then I could say some donkeys are purple.”
“Right.”
Boro thought for a moment. “That’s about as simple as it comes.”
The night was cold, but not as bitter as it had been at the monastery. In the morning, Miko and Toli worked together to rekindle the fire for hot tea to go with crackers, cheese, and dried plums.
They were all rolling up bedrolls and closing rucksacks when Sata stood up and faced Ilika with a smile of pride on her face. “I figured out the last quantification rule!”
Ilika quickly got out paper and pencil for her.
“Um . . . it’s the . . . existential . . . instantiation,” Sata explained, saying the words slowly and carefully. “Some x have . . . um . . . quality A. Therefore . . .
a thing y does too!”
“Okay,” Ilika began as everyone gathered around to see if Sata had really gotten it right or not. “Good so far. But this is one of the tricky ones. The critical step is how y is selected. How do we know a certain y has quality A?”
“Oh . . . crap . . .” Sata began, frowning, “. . . um . . . we look at it?”
Toli
snickered.
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“Actually, she’s right. When we say that some x have quality A, we might be saying that as little as one of them, out of all the millions there might be, has that quality. The individual item y must be a specific, tested individual item. In other words, like Sata said, we have to look at it.”
“Sorry,” Toli said in a tiny voice, looking at the ground.
“So if Sata is making a stew,” Kibi began, ignoring Toli, “and I show up with a basket of mushrooms and say that some of them are edible . . .”
Sata grinned. “I’m not putting any of them in my stew until you tell me which ones!”
Ilika smiled. “Excellent example. This is the only one of the four rules that requires an examination of the individual item. And Kibi’s example shows how logic is just good thinking habits.”
“The
price
of
not thinking, when putting mushrooms in a stew,” Mati said with big, round eyes, “is a very high price to pay.”
Everyone nodded, most of them from personal experience, or the experience of a former friend.
Deep Learning Notes
Rini was able to understand and respond to Mati’s unspoken desire to check on Tera. Which of the other students would have been able to do the same?
The travel foods the monastery provided show the most important types of food preservation without high technology. Bread goes stale quickly, but crackers keep much longer. Milk cannot be preserved directly, but fully-cured cheese is fairly stable, and can be dried. Dried fruit (as well as vegetables and meats) will last a long time. In addition to being “medieval travel foods,”
these same items can be used for camping. Many modern food preservation methods (canning, freeze-drying, etc.) require complex technology that is most often done in a factory.
Many of our emotions, experiences, and attitudes show on our faces, in our eyes, and in our posture. The high priestess was not using any mystical power
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when she looked into the travelers’ hearts and souls, but just the powers of observation we can all develop with attention and life experience.
Shown is the map that Sata copied from the one at the monastery. What part of it is also on the map she made earlier?
Incandescence is the process of something glowing because of being heated.
The color varies from red, to yellow, to white, and finally to blue, depending on how hot it is, measured as “color temperature.” A candle gives a “yellow”
light of about 1850°K (1577°C, 2870°F), and our sun is much whiter at about 6000°K (5726°C, 10340°F). Florescence is the process of exciting atoms to glow, usually with an electrical field, without necessarily heating them.
By hinting that he is not alone in figuring out what to teach his students, when, and how, what emotions or mental changes might Ilika be causing in his students? Why would Kibi think of the green light that led her out of the fire at Lumber Town?
Do you think Sata had really grown out of her tendency to label things “evil,”
or were the pretty lights in the sky just much easier to accept than the stinky hot springs?
The Existential Generalization, like Boro said, is about as simple as it comes, as long as we remember that “some” can mean as few as one. The symbols used in these illustrations are those in common use today by logicians.
The Existential Instantiation that Sata figured out is the trickiest one of all, as Ilika explained. Kibi’s example, concerning mushrooms, shows how logic relates to making important, sometimes life-or-death, decisions. Logic comes naturally for people who think clearly. It is much harder for people who put a high value on emotional or cultural concerns.
Why would knowledge of eating the wrong mushrooms come from former friends?
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