There is a chorus of agreement all around us as everyone quietly cheers at her words. We continue talking. About the nature of power, the nature of love, the nature of prejudice and the nature of suffering. Everyone gets an equal chance to speak. Everyone does speak, and everyone gets their voice heard. It is beautiful. I am at home. 

Eventually it is time for us to channel our magic through the World Stone. We all hold hands. Those of us who are holding babies have their hands overlayed with the hands of others. We all hold hands and the people at each end of the line put one of their hands on the wall, against the cool rain that is pouring down outside. We hum, and it’s a beautiful humming. And we begin to chant. 

“May our planet be unbowed. May the galaxy be the same. May our people be unbowed. As we were when life first came.” We chant this over and over and over again, becoming increasingly frenzied, though we make sure to stay quiet, though we make sure to stay careful. We always have to make sure to stay careful. No matter what. No matter what or how many emotions overcome us. But it’s okay. We can do that very well. We have a lot of practice. 

Just as before, just as many, many, innumerable times before, I feel my energy build up within me. I feel it build up within all of us. Our magic reverberates through us. And it grows stronger and stronger. It’s strange, I think. The ritual of channeling magic to the Stone mirrors the way that our collective power behaves. The magic of the Stones, channeling through the Stones, builds up and builds up and builds up as we all come together and as we all help each other to get stronger. And eventually the magic becomes undeniable. Just as our own power will build up and build up and build up with time. Just as our own power will become undeniable. 

I am transported to a beautiful place. A lush, sparsely-wooded forest. In the forest there is a large river, blue and rushing and overflowing with a calming energy, overflowing with a strengthening energy, overflowing with a friendliness and a peace that presses deep into my heart. The sun shines on the river and the river shines back, flowing, glimmering. It is wide and broad and amazing. 

From the river there breaks off many little streams and brooks that all make their way through the forest. They are small and bright and fierce, full of a sparkling energy of their own. They radiate coolness, radiate calmness, radiate brightness. They are the teeth that bites the hand that beats and the sparks that turn into fires of all kinds. They remind me somewhat of children, and the power that is within them. 

Across the way, the river, the streams, they all connect to a lake. It is a grand lake, shining in the sun just as the river is. It is bright and wide and I cannot see the end of it. It radiates coolness, calmness, and yet it also radiates a pressing sort of urgency. It is lush and full of life and I can see the life, I can feel the life, that comes forth with it, that comes forth from it. Deer come to drink by the long grasses that surround the lake’s edges. And there are rocks nestled into the clay. 

The sky darkens, and everything around me seems more fierce, more feral, more fearless. Soon enough there is torrential rain coming down, bathing me in the storm. The lake starts to overflow, the rivers start to overflow, water pours over the ground. I am drenched wet and soaked in spiritual power. It seems as if the whole world is transformed. The rain is cleansing. The rain is life-bringing. The rain brings life to my weary, wounded soul. It cleanses away my bleeding, it pounds at my ghosts, loosening them. 

The rain eventually stops and the sun shines again. The whole world is so fresh. It smells like freshness. It smells like softness. It smells like unbowed power, like life. But actually, no. Smells is not the right word. It conveys all these things to me in something that is not smell, something that is far beyond smell, far more alive and far-reaching and glorious, beautiful. 

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Everything is so beautiful. Not the body of everything. But the spark of life that is within everything. The spark of soul that is within everything, the spark of glory that is within everything. Because, you see, all people have a soul. Except of course the Imperials that lost theirs. All trees have souls. All grasses have souls. All herbs and shrubs have souls. All mosses and lichen and algae. All the dirt has souls. All the rocks have souls. Every lake, every river, every pond, every brook, every stream, it all has souls. Every drop of rain and trickle of water has a soul. The clouds in the sky all have souls, and the sky itself, and the suns and the moons and all the stars. Each breeze or blowing gust of air has a soul. Each mushroom has a soul. Each animal has a soul. All the beings all around within the nature of the planets, all those beings have souls. 

And they teach us. They teach us that we, too have souls. And we are a part of everything, we are a part of the life that everything is. 

As I drift out of my trance, I notice that the World Stone is wet. 

———

I’m home. I’m home. I’m home on Jolria and I have been home for months. To the dark soil of the planet I have never known, the planet that started me, the planet that started my journey with the resistance, my journey of rebellion, my journey of taking a stand against the Empire however I could. I am home. And I am learning about what my home is like. I am learning about what people live here and what they do with their lives. 

Of course, I have a home on every other planet that has been colonized by the Empire. I have a home on every planet. I am welcome on every planet. I belong on every planet, but still. Still. This is the place my parents grew up in, parents who I have never known, parents who are almost definitely dead by now, parents who absolutely spent their lives missing me and missing me and mourning for me and worrying for me and praying for me. This is where my parents lived their lives and this is where my adopted mother Arji lives her life. 

I’ve been to see Arji when I first arrived on this planet. We hugged. We cried. We kissed each other’s cheeks and foreheads and hands. We cried some more. It was so glorious to finally be able to touch her. It was so heartbreaking to have to say goodbye again, as I continued my journey throughout the planet. But still, I kept in contact with her through the communication disk, that very first communication disk I’d been given years ago, and I came back to visit her more times. We lay with my head in her lap and she stroked my hair. 

And now I am in a room full of new people, full of my planet’s people, and we are talking about resistance. With me there is Jamali, there is Raileth, there is Karti and Clarav and Arilet. There is little Parali and her baby brother Marilet, and there’s little Farlet and his baby brother Brith. They don’t know my name. Not my real name. Not the name that my parents gave me. And that’s a tragedy, really. But I cannot tell them my birth name, because that is far too dangerous. 

“So we’ll all work together this time, right?” Arilet asks. His youthful eyes are shining with a sharp gleam. A sharp gleam that I love so much. 

“Yes, of course,” I answer him, “we’ll all coordinate together. And we’ll all make sure everyone’s on the same page.”

“How will we do that?” Raileth asks. He’s tired. Far too tired for a thirty-year-old. It breaks my heart to see him so tired. But it mends my heart to see him fighting, to see that he is still holding on to a piece of himself. 

“We’ll, that shouldn’t be too hard,” Jamali answers, “we can and do already communicate to each other throughout the planet, and the void should help us travel beyond planets. We can just say someone fell in.” She’s smart. So smart. And honestly, that is the plan that people all over all the planets have been having. Though not all of them know that I’ve travelled through the void. They mostly don’t know where I’m from. That’s good. That’s safe. That will keep us all safe. 

“That will take a long, long time,” Parali tells us.

“It will,” I agree, “but it will be worth it. Coordinate it well, though, the Empire will find it suspicious if too many people go into the void at the same time.”

“We should use the communication disks to communicate first, just to decide together which planet should send someone into the void,” Karti suggests. And honestly, it’s such a good idea. I tell her that. 

“So what should we do about the slaves in the Empire’s ‘Home Planet’” Clarav asks, “shouldn’t we communicate with them too? Don’t they deserve to be part of it?”

I start crying. I know I shouldn’t cry. I know I shouldn’t. But I can’t help myself. It’s too dangerous to try to communicate with the slaves on the Home Planet. But I know what it feels like to be them. I know what it feels like to be them far too well. I know what it feels like to be ripped away from your family, from your friends, from your neighbours. I know what it feels like to be ripped away from your homeland and your heritage. I know what it feels like to live on a planet that actively hates you for who you are while simultaneously wanting you for everything that you can give them. 

“Why are you crying?” Marilet let asks. 

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m just, I feel sad about my little child who got taken away.” It’s a lie. But there is an element of truth to it. I’m speaking in the voice of my birth parents.

———

I love channeling all of our magic through Jolria’s World Stone. Of course, I love doing this with all the World Stones, but Jolria’s one makes me feel as if I am coming back home, as if I am coming back to a home that I have never known, that even none of my parents have ever known, that only my ancestors knew. The Empire tried to take me away from this place and tried to take this place away from me, away from everyone actually, but here I am, coming back. They couldn’t control me. No matter what they do to me, I came back home. 

I am home as I sit in a roomful of people, all chanting the chants that have been passed down through the generations of our planet for centuries, the chants that precede a magical meditation that has long been forgotten, that is just now being revived. I am home as I feel the magic flowing through me, as I feel it flowing through all the people here, all the people out there, all the people everywhere. I am home as I feel it flowing through me as I feel it flowing through all my people, and perfect clarity and complete insanity overtake me at the same time. 

And so here I’m standing. Under a thick, dense canopy of leaves. The trees tower above me, and their thick roots spread out in all directions all around me. The air is damp and heavy with moisture. It calms me down and fills me up just breathing it in. The rainforest smells like life, and there is a hint of sea air in the background. All around me, there are herbs with green stems and brown stems and thick leaves. There are so many different shades of green all around me. 

The ground under me is soft and dark and it is covered with roots and leaf litter. There are large logs decomposing here and there, covered in moss and fungi. There are big patches of darkness all over the ground offset by bright lines of sunlight that comes in through the cracks of the canopy. The earth smells warm, smells rich, smells like the progenitor of all life. Of all that is sacred to us all. The earth holds everything that grows. 

There are birds flying in the air or sitting on branches. I hear them twittering and singing. There are monkeys in the trees, climbing around and scampering about. They seem joyful, carefree, happy. They seem like the destruction, the death, the struggle brought about by the Empire is far too far away to affect them. If I am truly in the past, as I think I probably am, then the Empire is indeed far too far away from these animals. 

I think I see a tiger dappled in the lights of the forest. It is majestic. It is magnificent. It is beautiful. It is full of power and strength and ferocity. It can and will bring death to anyone who ever tries to hurt it. But more than that, more than the ferocity, this tiger is full of protectiveness. Like a mother with her children. This tiger will do whatever is necessary to keep her home safe. And that resonates with me. That resonates with me so much. 

There is a river out in the distance. And this river doesn’t shine. It glows, meandering through the lands with its strong currents. I feel a sense of peace being near the river. I feel as if, as if I can right everything that is wrong with the world, I can take care of all my people, I can be their parent, and I can create everything that I am meant to create. This sort of confidence will strengthen me for any fight that could possibly come up in my future. 

And we all know that so many fights will come up in my future. So many fights will come up in all of our futures. 

I cry as I am standing here. I am home. I am home. I am home. I cannot describe what it feels to be at home. I cannot describe what it feels to be in the lands where your blood arose from, the lands where your ancestors lived, the lands that love you and protect you and want to keep you whole. Though all the nature of all the planets love me, love us all, and protect us all and want to keep all of us whole. 

I cherish these memories. Because I know that my path is a hard one. I know that my path is full of pain and misery and death. I don’t know if I’ll be able to die in my home planet but by the universe, I sure did get a chance to live here. I sure did get a chance to live here. I sure did get a chance to live here. I sure did get a chance to experience all of its glory. I got a chance to experience all of its glory, I got a chance to experience all of its glory and nothing can take that away from me, 

I come out of the trance with tears in my eyes and see that the stone is covered in green moss. 

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.