Kin to the Plants: Of People Who Identify As Plants
Date First Written: April 2013
Someone that identifies as a plant in a human body. A plant soul in a human body. Someone that was a plant in a past life and still identifies as such in some way. Someone who psychologically has a strong identification with a species of plant. Such ideas are almost never said around any kind of otherkin (nonhuman-identified people) circles at all and far rarer still is to find someone who actually uses it to describe themselves. Words such as greenkin, woodkin, plantkin, or phytanthrope (the latter being a word I coined for myself) have been used as a term to describe a person who identifies as/with living organisms that gain energy through photosynthesis, or as they are simply referred to in every day life - a plant.
The reason for there being several terms for the same thing mostly stems from there being some rare talk of the idea of people who could identify as some species of plant and how that might work, but literally no real amount of such plant-identified people coming together in some way to set down a preferred term. There just aren’t a lot of plant-identified people about to set down a very stable term over time. So there are simply too few of people around stabilize the phenomena into a single word and so a short list of words naturally have floated around over the years without being actually used almost at all by anyone. Currently, during the late 2000s and into early 2010s, the term plantkin is fairly well recognized. Though in note of animalkin being called therianthropes, another term for plantkin that has been brought up is phytanthrope. I came up with the term phythanthrope in 2013 as an alternative for me to use then just plantkin.
First to define what and who such plant-identified people a little more though for a moment. Such plant-identified people can be defined as someone who feels they are (non-physically) some kind of plant on an integral level. They are people who are, feel, and/or believe they are a plant or something plant-like on an integral and personal level. That they are individuals who identify as a plant of some kind nonphysical way. Being a plant-identified person is a condition or state of mind in which a person believes themselves to be in spirit/mind a certain type of plant. They are people that, regardless of their human body, identify as some species of plant. Like other kinds of otherkin, some possible experiences plant-identified people are things along the lines of phantom sensations of nonhuman characteristics, mindsets and viewpoints that are attributed to certain nonhuman species, species dysphoria to some extent or more for some, possibly have dreams about being or related closely to their focus from time to time, a general strong yet hard to pin down feeling of being a nonhuman species, among other experiences along those lines. The only real differences is the plant focus rather than an animal focus. Yet still, just as there are otherkin of the same group or even the same species or entity who experience some things differently, so to can plat-identified people. Different people of the same or different kintypes can easily have similar or different experiences.
Plant-identified people are certainly not common otherkin, at least from in the perspective of those who are active or were once active online in some part of the otherkin community. There are all sorts of therians (people who identify as some species of animal), but there simply aren’t that many people who identify as plants at all. So, why are plant-identified person so uncommon to the point of being almost unheard of? Well that goes into the eternal question of why any kintype is more common or less common than others. There are a lot of ideas running around on many levels depending on who, how, when, where, and why you ask. However, when thinking about why plant-identified person are so rare, it seems easy to see no matter how one views what causes being kin, that identifying as a plant in a human body is just an extremely alien idea to find an understanding of such a thing. That, at least for a number of nonhuman animals, they are not nearly as alien as any plant in comparison to a human. A large number of therians are mammals of some kind, which are not as alien as other animals such as insects or fish which are rarer as theriotypes. At least with most animals, they share many biological if not even some level of behavioral functions as a humans given that humans are animals as well. However, compare that to plants and they are even more alien.
Broader still to other kinds of otherkin, creatures such as dragons, angels, and elves are familiar to many people both in form and by nature through stories and art. Plants are familiar by form (obviously) but not too often or at all really do we have a chance to see things from a plant’s perceptive. In stories wolves and dragons, for example, are characterized and anthropomorphized giving some form of view into how they might think and feel. Whether one sees being otherkin as spiritual this gives a window into knowing how another creature might be. After all, its hard to begin to label what one might identify as without having an idea on what and how other creatures might act.
The number of people who have been noted as plant-identified people are very few and far between. In The Field Guide to Otherkin by Lupa there is only a single mention of one person who participated in the survey for the book having a past life as a Lily of the valley as well as being a kitsune. However, beyond this there is little mention of what plants in human bodies experience in there life. What is mentioned is how the responder noted that they felt plants were “very devoted parents and will put forth great effort to make sure that their offspring get the best start that they can.” [1] Another notable plant-identified people is a self identified greenkin who created a website called Green Is More Than A Color, which was once up from between August 2004 to 2009. While it was around it was the only known to my knowledge website over plant identified people. In the website, things discussed included a Greenkin FAQ which answered questions such as “What is Otherkin?” and “What is the difference between Otherkin and Greenkin?” [2] Also created by the same person was the Livejournal group, plant-otherkin, which was created on August 4 2004 however the last activity was on June 16 2006 with only 27 entries into the group. [3] There is also an inactive forum called, Plant Your Spirit. It was created on June 18 2006 but only ended up with 5 members and 6 threads between its creation to last activity on November 27, 2008. [4] Another Livejournal group created in June 15 2006 was woodkin however after 1 journal entry it also became inactive on August 6 2006. [5] Outside of a mention in a book, a website that is now down, the one Livejournal groups, and an inactive forum, there isn’t any real information on plant-identified people. Again, due to their being so few, at least active online in the community.
The kinds of plants that people could identify with are possibly as varied as the plant kingdom is in real life. At the very least the plant-identified people who have been about in the community at one point or another is already fairly diverse. A few plant-identified people that I have seen (besides myself and I am a southern live oak) include a Lily of the Valley, a man fern, a weeping willow, and a beech tree. Those are the ones I know of however as I am sure there are others that I am just not aware of that have been online. There is little to even begin to guess on what is out there on people are have never interacted anywhere in the otherkin community at all.
So, plant-identified people do exist thought they are uncommon. A few plant-identified people have poked around in the otherkin community over the years. Plant-identified people have called themselves - greenkin, plantkin, and other terms. (For myself I prefer either phytanthrope or plantkin personally.) Information on plant-identified people does exist though it is incredibly sparse and spread out across the internet and across time. We are indeed out there though. The people who identify as a plant in a human body.
________________________________________________________________
[1] on page 209 of Lupa. A Field Guide To Otherkin. Megalithica Books: Stanford, 2007.
[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20060207123401/http://greenkin.qilora.com/
[3] http://plant-otherkin.livejournal.com/profile
[4] http://plantkin.proboards.com/
[5] http://woodkin.livejournal.com/profile
- Darahagh
Someone that identifies as a plant in a human body. A plant soul in a human body. Someone that was a plant in a past life and still identifies as such in some way. Someone who psychologically has a strong identification with a species of plant. Such ideas are almost never said around any kind of otherkin (nonhuman-identified people) circles at all and far rarer still is to find someone who actually uses it to describe themselves. Words such as greenkin, woodkin, plantkin, or phytanthrope (the latter being a word I coined for myself) have been used as a term to describe a person who identifies as/with living organisms that gain energy through photosynthesis, or as they are simply referred to in every day life - a plant.
The reason for there being several terms for the same thing mostly stems from there being some rare talk of the idea of people who could identify as some species of plant and how that might work, but literally no real amount of such plant-identified people coming together in some way to set down a preferred term. There just aren’t a lot of plant-identified people about to set down a very stable term over time. So there are simply too few of people around stabilize the phenomena into a single word and so a short list of words naturally have floated around over the years without being actually used almost at all by anyone. Currently, during the late 2000s and into early 2010s, the term plantkin is fairly well recognized. Though in note of animalkin being called therianthropes, another term for plantkin that has been brought up is phytanthrope. I came up with the term phythanthrope in 2013 as an alternative for me to use then just plantkin.
First to define what and who such plant-identified people a little more though for a moment. Such plant-identified people can be defined as someone who feels they are (non-physically) some kind of plant on an integral level. They are people who are, feel, and/or believe they are a plant or something plant-like on an integral and personal level. That they are individuals who identify as a plant of some kind nonphysical way. Being a plant-identified person is a condition or state of mind in which a person believes themselves to be in spirit/mind a certain type of plant. They are people that, regardless of their human body, identify as some species of plant. Like other kinds of otherkin, some possible experiences plant-identified people are things along the lines of phantom sensations of nonhuman characteristics, mindsets and viewpoints that are attributed to certain nonhuman species, species dysphoria to some extent or more for some, possibly have dreams about being or related closely to their focus from time to time, a general strong yet hard to pin down feeling of being a nonhuman species, among other experiences along those lines. The only real differences is the plant focus rather than an animal focus. Yet still, just as there are otherkin of the same group or even the same species or entity who experience some things differently, so to can plat-identified people. Different people of the same or different kintypes can easily have similar or different experiences.
Plant-identified people are certainly not common otherkin, at least from in the perspective of those who are active or were once active online in some part of the otherkin community. There are all sorts of therians (people who identify as some species of animal), but there simply aren’t that many people who identify as plants at all. So, why are plant-identified person so uncommon to the point of being almost unheard of? Well that goes into the eternal question of why any kintype is more common or less common than others. There are a lot of ideas running around on many levels depending on who, how, when, where, and why you ask. However, when thinking about why plant-identified person are so rare, it seems easy to see no matter how one views what causes being kin, that identifying as a plant in a human body is just an extremely alien idea to find an understanding of such a thing. That, at least for a number of nonhuman animals, they are not nearly as alien as any plant in comparison to a human. A large number of therians are mammals of some kind, which are not as alien as other animals such as insects or fish which are rarer as theriotypes. At least with most animals, they share many biological if not even some level of behavioral functions as a humans given that humans are animals as well. However, compare that to plants and they are even more alien.
Broader still to other kinds of otherkin, creatures such as dragons, angels, and elves are familiar to many people both in form and by nature through stories and art. Plants are familiar by form (obviously) but not too often or at all really do we have a chance to see things from a plant’s perceptive. In stories wolves and dragons, for example, are characterized and anthropomorphized giving some form of view into how they might think and feel. Whether one sees being otherkin as spiritual this gives a window into knowing how another creature might be. After all, its hard to begin to label what one might identify as without having an idea on what and how other creatures might act.
The number of people who have been noted as plant-identified people are very few and far between. In The Field Guide to Otherkin by Lupa there is only a single mention of one person who participated in the survey for the book having a past life as a Lily of the valley as well as being a kitsune. However, beyond this there is little mention of what plants in human bodies experience in there life. What is mentioned is how the responder noted that they felt plants were “very devoted parents and will put forth great effort to make sure that their offspring get the best start that they can.” [1] Another notable plant-identified people is a self identified greenkin who created a website called Green Is More Than A Color, which was once up from between August 2004 to 2009. While it was around it was the only known to my knowledge website over plant identified people. In the website, things discussed included a Greenkin FAQ which answered questions such as “What is Otherkin?” and “What is the difference between Otherkin and Greenkin?” [2] Also created by the same person was the Livejournal group, plant-otherkin, which was created on August 4 2004 however the last activity was on June 16 2006 with only 27 entries into the group. [3] There is also an inactive forum called, Plant Your Spirit. It was created on June 18 2006 but only ended up with 5 members and 6 threads between its creation to last activity on November 27, 2008. [4] Another Livejournal group created in June 15 2006 was woodkin however after 1 journal entry it also became inactive on August 6 2006. [5] Outside of a mention in a book, a website that is now down, the one Livejournal groups, and an inactive forum, there isn’t any real information on plant-identified people. Again, due to their being so few, at least active online in the community.
The kinds of plants that people could identify with are possibly as varied as the plant kingdom is in real life. At the very least the plant-identified people who have been about in the community at one point or another is already fairly diverse. A few plant-identified people that I have seen (besides myself and I am a southern live oak) include a Lily of the Valley, a man fern, a weeping willow, and a beech tree. Those are the ones I know of however as I am sure there are others that I am just not aware of that have been online. There is little to even begin to guess on what is out there on people are have never interacted anywhere in the otherkin community at all.
So, plant-identified people do exist thought they are uncommon. A few plant-identified people have poked around in the otherkin community over the years. Plant-identified people have called themselves - greenkin, plantkin, and other terms. (For myself I prefer either phytanthrope or plantkin personally.) Information on plant-identified people does exist though it is incredibly sparse and spread out across the internet and across time. We are indeed out there though. The people who identify as a plant in a human body.
________________________________________________________________
[1] on page 209 of Lupa. A Field Guide To Otherkin. Megalithica Books: Stanford, 2007.
[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20060207123401/http://greenkin.qilora.com/
[3] http://plant-otherkin.livejournal.com/profile
[4] http://plantkin.proboards.com/
[5] http://woodkin.livejournal.com/profile
- Darahagh