this book left me speechless. i felt the aftershock of my emotions a day after i finished reading this. i suddenly remembered everything that happened with Selver and his wife and his people, with Lyubov's compassion and drive for justice, with all the Athsheans, with what's left of the Earth (Terran) and cried on a random morning. this book explores the NECESSITY and COST of resistance-- how the corrupting aspect of the (necessary) violence from the oppressed, how it hardens their hearts, how it makes monsters out of them too-- that is part of the damage done. in the end, it is always the oppressors, the colonizers, and the imperialists who are to blame for this. there are things that the oppressed will - and must - do. and it is always heartbreaking. but what won't you break for liberation? what would you not destroy for freedom?

-- some thoughts from my journal:

lately i keep remembering my dreams vividly as soon as i wake up, but they are strange and beyond my understanding. they scare me and i don’t know why. i keep willing myself to forget them so i won’t have to think about them.

but maybe i should try recording my dreams again. to learn from them. to look through the veil between worlds. to remember my lives outside of this.

i have just finished reading the world for world is forest, and the athsheans have the gift of mastering lucid dreaming— they can navigate world time and dream time. this has been likened to the Senoi people of the Orang Asli tribe in Malaysia, who “have solved the problem of violent crime and destructive economic conflict, and largely eliminated insanity, neurosis, and psychogenic illness” through the mastery of their dreams. there are debates about this, but i digress.

dreams have always been an interest of mine, and i think it’s time i go back to it slowly— to replace fear with curiosity and amazement. to find the meaning in my otherworldly experiences, in the magic of my mind.

Selver and the Athsheans would be proud, as would Lyubov. Maybe I'll see them there. Or maybe I'll see my ancestors (I've seen them before, in another lucid dream). I hope we're all dancing in the forest.