A Cycle of Rooting and Uprooting
Date First Written: June 2013; Last Updated: September 2013
Feet set flat on the ground slightly apart feels best. Its solid and steady. The bones of the human body providing stability like the trunk of a tree. This always sits well with me. Anything to make me feel less foreign in this human body. I sit up straight in the chair, taking similar enjoyment from the strength of spine. At least no one could ever say my posture was bad.
As soon as my feet are settled, my phantom roots set to their work. My phantom roots feel impulsive and reactive. I have yet to find a means to control them. They merely do as is their nature, my nature. That is, to burrow deep into the ground. I could almost call the reaction instinctive, but it is not my own thoughts at work and trees do not have instincts. It is an involuntary reaction to what my phantom roots do and the only thing I can do is either accept the process of events and sensation, or not.
Like a rapidly growing root system, my phantom roots start off as small and thread-like strands coming off the sides of the foot, but rapidly they thicken and more and more form, burrowing deeper and wider out into the ground. They rapidly take over the whole feeling of the foot and legs below the knee once the whole process is over. All it takes is a matter of seconds from start to end consistently.
By its end, no more is there sensation of there being legs or feet. Only the phantom feeling of bark-covered trunk taking over the space of where my legs still are but I can no longer feel them like that. A network of roots of varying thickness spread for this point. Larger primary roots giving way to smaller secondary ones.
That is only the beginning.
Then other sensations start up. A phantom sensation brought on by my phantom roots being out. The phantom sensation of the human brain trying to recreate some idea of actually drawing in nutrients from the ground. And to be honest, boy, does it feel good.
It’s like a tingling sensation; warm and even intoxicating that slowly starts up and spreads. A tingling and warming sensation that slowly moves up my phantom roots and into the phantom trunk that has taken over my legs. A light excitement and soothing pull can spread through my body after this point, sometimes even causing the rest of me to feel like my body wants to go limp, and that makes me want to lay back and just take in the feeling for all its worth. Other times it leaves me wanting my phantom roots to spread more. Something deep inside me wanting and craving more: more of the feeling and more of being able to have just a taste of what feels more right to me.
After the sensations have been flowing for a bit, other effects might begin to appear before too long. The tingling can begin to spread if I let it. The sensation riding through the rest of the body beyond the phantom roots and trunk. Collecting onto other places of the body where it settles and causes more phantom feelings there. Patches of soft skin feeling like it’s covered in phantom bark now. Phantom branches may even start to grow or appear out my head, back and shoulders. They too reach out and make me crave more of what they give me a taste of, only in the case of my phantom branches reaching up into the sky for what the sky could offer a tree.
Sensations and feelings growing and moving along the skin. All just by being still.
…
Then I have to move. Whenever that time comes, either because the human body can’t remain too still for long, or some aspect of human life, calls me back out of that thrall. So involuntary was the start of the whole event and then pleasurable was the effect, yet the breaking away can be jarring and even vaguely painful.
Movement of the legs cracks the illusion. Feeling of wood splitting away to reveal again human legs in vague echo of pain. The sensation of roots being torn from the ground. Sometimes there is merely an awkward or jarring feeling. However, sometimes it can be worse to the point of an actual kind of pain.
This process will be repeated again and again and again. If I walk, the process won’t make it beyond the thread-like roots before the next step. A few seconds pause in step, maybe a slightly thicker root. If I remain in one place for several breaths or longer, the process will keep up. If I am not sitting straight in a chair, if I am sitting cross-legged, the roots will come from the spine and downward. If I am laying down, my phantom roots will come out everywhere along my body. With the closer I am to the ground, the easier and swifter the process takes.
This constant cycling is what comes with being a plant-identified person, or a phytanthrope as I care to call myself. Sometimes I love his fact of life but other times I detest it. Enjoying what the experience gives me, the pleasure it brings forth, and how much it keeps me grounded in my identity; yet disgust for the pain it leaves me with, how it sometimes makes needed movement hard, and how it makes the species dysphoria worse when it’s not there. It’s a cycle.
- Darahagh
Feet set flat on the ground slightly apart feels best. Its solid and steady. The bones of the human body providing stability like the trunk of a tree. This always sits well with me. Anything to make me feel less foreign in this human body. I sit up straight in the chair, taking similar enjoyment from the strength of spine. At least no one could ever say my posture was bad.
As soon as my feet are settled, my phantom roots set to their work. My phantom roots feel impulsive and reactive. I have yet to find a means to control them. They merely do as is their nature, my nature. That is, to burrow deep into the ground. I could almost call the reaction instinctive, but it is not my own thoughts at work and trees do not have instincts. It is an involuntary reaction to what my phantom roots do and the only thing I can do is either accept the process of events and sensation, or not.
Like a rapidly growing root system, my phantom roots start off as small and thread-like strands coming off the sides of the foot, but rapidly they thicken and more and more form, burrowing deeper and wider out into the ground. They rapidly take over the whole feeling of the foot and legs below the knee once the whole process is over. All it takes is a matter of seconds from start to end consistently.
By its end, no more is there sensation of there being legs or feet. Only the phantom feeling of bark-covered trunk taking over the space of where my legs still are but I can no longer feel them like that. A network of roots of varying thickness spread for this point. Larger primary roots giving way to smaller secondary ones.
That is only the beginning.
Then other sensations start up. A phantom sensation brought on by my phantom roots being out. The phantom sensation of the human brain trying to recreate some idea of actually drawing in nutrients from the ground. And to be honest, boy, does it feel good.
It’s like a tingling sensation; warm and even intoxicating that slowly starts up and spreads. A tingling and warming sensation that slowly moves up my phantom roots and into the phantom trunk that has taken over my legs. A light excitement and soothing pull can spread through my body after this point, sometimes even causing the rest of me to feel like my body wants to go limp, and that makes me want to lay back and just take in the feeling for all its worth. Other times it leaves me wanting my phantom roots to spread more. Something deep inside me wanting and craving more: more of the feeling and more of being able to have just a taste of what feels more right to me.
After the sensations have been flowing for a bit, other effects might begin to appear before too long. The tingling can begin to spread if I let it. The sensation riding through the rest of the body beyond the phantom roots and trunk. Collecting onto other places of the body where it settles and causes more phantom feelings there. Patches of soft skin feeling like it’s covered in phantom bark now. Phantom branches may even start to grow or appear out my head, back and shoulders. They too reach out and make me crave more of what they give me a taste of, only in the case of my phantom branches reaching up into the sky for what the sky could offer a tree.
Sensations and feelings growing and moving along the skin. All just by being still.
…
Then I have to move. Whenever that time comes, either because the human body can’t remain too still for long, or some aspect of human life, calls me back out of that thrall. So involuntary was the start of the whole event and then pleasurable was the effect, yet the breaking away can be jarring and even vaguely painful.
Movement of the legs cracks the illusion. Feeling of wood splitting away to reveal again human legs in vague echo of pain. The sensation of roots being torn from the ground. Sometimes there is merely an awkward or jarring feeling. However, sometimes it can be worse to the point of an actual kind of pain.
This process will be repeated again and again and again. If I walk, the process won’t make it beyond the thread-like roots before the next step. A few seconds pause in step, maybe a slightly thicker root. If I remain in one place for several breaths or longer, the process will keep up. If I am not sitting straight in a chair, if I am sitting cross-legged, the roots will come from the spine and downward. If I am laying down, my phantom roots will come out everywhere along my body. With the closer I am to the ground, the easier and swifter the process takes.
This constant cycling is what comes with being a plant-identified person, or a phytanthrope as I care to call myself. Sometimes I love his fact of life but other times I detest it. Enjoying what the experience gives me, the pleasure it brings forth, and how much it keeps me grounded in my identity; yet disgust for the pain it leaves me with, how it sometimes makes needed movement hard, and how it makes the species dysphoria worse when it’s not there. It’s a cycle.
- Darahagh