This story contains sexually explicit material.
Please e-mail comments to twalden4 at juno dot com with ASSTR in the subject line.
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.

Technical note: A gasp is a rapid intake of breath. In this story, it also means a rapid expelling of breath, since it is close to the sound I mean. Sigh, grunt, groan, pant and scream don't work.

Owl in the Woods

Once when I was younger, I saw an owl in the dark interior of a hemlock being attacked by two blue jays. It was a large white and black barred owl, and I wouldn't have seen it except for the noise. It suffered for a few minutes, then flew off with the blue jays following to find a more peaceful roost. I looked for it after that but never saw it again.

We lived next to a state forest, and when it was not hunting season I would wander through the woods. I knew all the hills and swamps within walking distance, and as I got older that distance grew. There was never anyone else out there, and anyway, I could move without making any noise at all when I wanted to, so that even the deer didn't know I was there if I didn't try to get too close. There was a stream that ran through the woods. Much of the bank was covered with green briar or laurel that was too thick for even me to get through easily, but in some places there were rocks along the bank, and I could get in and wade downstream past the hemlocks and oaks to pools that were good for skinny dipping.

There was a nearly level spot between an ancient oak and the water that was big enough for me to lie down. I would stuff a small towel in my backpack along with a sandwich and a book and spend hours there. The dry leaves on top protected me from the damp ones beneath, and with the towel under my hips and my shirt under my shoulders and head they weren't too scratchy. When I looked up I could see circles of green sunlight shining through the pointy leaves. When I looked across I could see water striders, each with four legs dimpling the surface. Sometimes there were one or two brown newts hanging above the bottom. Maybe small orange dragonflies would be dipping into the water, or ones with blue at each end would be hovering near the edge, or damselflies with four black wings and electric green bodies would be fluttering over the water more like butterflies. If I stayed completely still the birds would forget I was there. Chickadees or a brown thrush would perch nearby. A heron might stalk past, pausing to peer into the water for small fish or frogs. One time I saw a pair of wood ducks swim by, with white stripes outlining the green on the male's head.

I liked being naked out there. It made me feel more connected, and no one ever found out. A mosquito might brave my deet to collect some blood and in turn be eaten by a dragonfly. I ate blueberries when they were ripe. I would see pairs of dragonflies perched on leaves or flying around connected together in a wheel, or black beetles swarming on the surface, or mayflies in the air, and put my finger in my slit so I could join them. I closed my eyes and could feel the breeze across my nipples and the leaves under my legs and the tingling inside me as my finger slid up and down over my sensitive spot. I heard the buzzing of cicadas and the chirping of crickets, birds calling and frogs thrumping, water moving over rocks. I was drifting through space as the heat built up inside me and sweat broke out all over my body. I felt my other hand at my breast and my lips in my teeth. I was shaken by the spasm and the air forced out of my lungs. I rolled into the cool water and dipped below the surface. It held me and supported me. If the trees were offended they didn't say anything. They just whispered among themselves.

If it looked like rain I took my yellow raincoat. I could walk with only my hands and bare legs getting wet so I didn't get too chilled. Huddled in it beneath the trees, I was out of the worst of the wind and the rain and could watch the raindrops make overlapping circles in the surface of the pool. Water dripped from the leaves and needles to those on the ground and trickled downhill to the stream.

One time when I was in the woods playing with myself and just about to come, I thought I saw a face peering at me through the leaves. I almost screamed. I looked at the place and there was nothing there, just leaves, and I saw no movement. Nothing larger than a dragonfly could get that near without my hearing it. It had been a small face, that of a child not much older than I had been when I started coming out here, and it had blended with the greenery. I wondered if I was starting to imagine things as I got dressed and headed home.

After that I kept more careful watch. Sometimes I thought I glimpsed faces, but when I looked there was never anything there. I started to see how a group of leaves could take on the form of a face, sometimes symmetrical, sometimes not, always of a child. If I went over to look more closely I would often find a green katydid munching on the leaf it resembled. Its wings formed a sharp flat wedge pointing upward from its grasshopper body and had raised ridges that looked like leaf veins. I had often heard them calling from the tops of trees on hot late summer evenings but had rarely seem them before. They were usually active only at night.

I began to anticipate seeing the faces when my breathing got deeper as I started to approach climax. They appeared in the foliage and held my eyes while I orgasmed, then dissolved back into nothingness. There seemed to be two different faces, one of a young boy and one of a slightly older girl. Their skin was mottled green and they sometimes seemed to have leaves or vines growing from different places, their mouths or eyes. It was the boy I had seen first, but after a while he seemed to lose interest and it was most often his sister watching.

One time she didn't disappear. Her face was still there even after I had cooled off in the pool. As I approached, it receded. When I got to the edge of the darkness under the trees, she was a green shadow disappearing behind an oak, but she had a body. One that was starting to develop, with rounded breasts and flaring hips.

I began to notice them shadowing me in other parts of the wood, sometimes one or the other, sometimes both. When I turned and followed, they led deeper into the forest. I didn't follow them beyond my usual range or when they led into the swamp. They never spoke nor made any sound at all. I could see grass bending under their feet, but they left no footprints. There was less sign of their passage than that of the wind. I never thought to offer them food until they both showed up to watch me from the shadows while I was eating peanuts. I tried to offer them some, but they wouldn't let me near. I left some on the ground and walked away. Later I tried leaving other food, which would usually disappear eventually, but the peanuts were the only food that disappeared soon after I turned my back. Even other kinds of nuts seemed to have to wait for the squirrels or mice.

Of course they didn't wear clothes, but the leaves that were always around them sometimes had the same effect, sometimes not. The appropriate places might be covered, but just as often a breast, rear, or penis would be exposed while other body parts were obscured. Except for their leaves, coloring and lack of hair they looked like any other children. They moved with an animal grace children sometimes have. The only thing they showed a particular interest in, besides peanuts and sex, was a small metal chime I happened to bring one day, which I had salvaged from a broken set of wind chimes. When I held it suspended with one hand and struck it with the other, they were fascinated by its vibrations and came closer than they did at any other time. If I left it on the ground for them, they showed no interest. When I hung in from a branch and managed to hit it with a pebble I threw, they seemed frightened and confused. They only liked it when I played it.

There was another figure of whom I became aware only gradually. There were always shadows around the children, but I eventually became aware that there was sometimes one that had a more or less consistent shape. When I first began to notice it, I could only tell that there was something there. As I learned to see the children better, this figure also became more distinct. It was that of a man. I couldn't tell if he was surrounded by leaves or made of leaves. Branches sprouted from his mouth and other openings. Vines clung to his body. Leaves grew from all parts of him, much more so than from the children. He didn't seem to walk so much as wave in the wind. He strode through the forest without seeming to change place. He was rooted everywhere he stepped and a part of every plant he was near. His passage was like the wind moving on the face of the water or rippling through the trees. He was the Green Man, and I covered my face when he passed.

One time I dared to followed him. He took no notice. I could see where he had passed though he left no trace. I followed in my slicker and sandals over the hills and under the darkening sky, down toward the swollen stream. The wind had picked up and the rain would start soon. He disappeared into the tallest hemlock along the bank. When I got to tree there was no sign of him, just the water and wood. I cried in frustration, leaning against the trunk and pressing my body into the rough bark. Then something inside of me let go and I shifted.

My body penetrated the earth up to my navel. My legs spread out and multiplied to embrace the stones and dirt. The tendrils and hairs growing from them sucked up traces of moisture. My head lifted up and all my arms reached out for the horizon. My fingers leafed out into twin rows of flat needles to catch the daylight that came through the clouds. I was everywhere at once. I had a mind but no thoughts. Each part of me did what it did and they all worked together. I felt the wind moving through me. My branches acted as a giant sail. The wind increased and I started to move back and forth. The rain started and I drank. My roots pressed against the earth each time my trunk swayed and the earth pressed back. My branches moved faster. The ground around me was getting wetter. My branches began to whip back and forth. My truck swayed and my roots thrust harder. The heavens opened up. Water poured into the ground around me. All my branching roots churned against the slippery earth and I felt the intensity build. Then a bolt of fire exploded the sap inside me and I screamed as I felt myself split down the middle.

I found myself lying naked on the ground in the pouring rain. My heart was pounding. My chest was heaving. My eyes were staring up at the fresh white wound that ran down the side of the hemlock towering over me. There were leaves in my mouth and nose and ears and mud in my vagina. I was shivering. My clothes and backpack were beside me. I sat up in the mud and pulled my raincoat over myself. I huddled with my arms wrapped around my knees listening to the rain pour down and the water rush by in the stream. I didn't know what had happened.

After that, I could see the life and awareness all around me even without the anthropocentric forms. When I looked at an oak, I could see its leaves glowing. When I closed my eyes, I could see the leaves all around the outside and inside of its canopy. I could see both sides of each leaf, how it moved with the wind and its fellows, how it opened it pores and breathed in carbon and sunlight. I could see the black bark on all sides of its trunk and the hollows within it. I could see where its roots groped around rocks underground seeking moisture. I could see the hope and potential tree contained in each acorn.

It was confusing and frightening. I felt like I was losing control. I could see everything at once and up close instead of having one point of view with things farther away getting smaller. A tree has a thousand eyes. There was no point of reference, no central intelligence, no clear point where one tree ended and the next began. Part of one tree could separate, two trees could merge into one, a branch could grow roots. I didn't know if I was a forest or a girl. I learned that an oak feels joy when it releases its pollen to the wind and is only dimly aware when that pollen falls on another tree. It feels joy when pollen finds its way into its flowers and it starts new seeds. Trees don't have sex. The sex I had experienced as a hemlock was my image of the energy being released. I hadn't chosen the physical form the orgasm had taken, but I was responsible.

At first the hemlock looked healthy in spite of being able to see daylight through the crack down its middle, but soon in began to grow orange jelly fungus that looked like macaroni and cheese. Then it developed yellow fan shaped shelf fungus at the base of its trunk. The exposed wood in the center and where the bark had burned off dried out and became hard and brittle. Beetles and worms attacked it. Woodpeckers made holes to get at the insects and grubs. Eventually a windstorm blew it down and left a broken stump not much taller than I was.

I could see the green children all around me, in every new leaf and flower, in the soft dark moss beneath me and the pale green lichens growing on the gray rocks. I could join with them, be the moss with my spore bodies moving in the breeze and the cool damp earth under me, or the fungus and algae growing together as lichen on the sharp bright crystals of granite. Being a mushroom is really strange. I am a large flat disk with gill membranes underneath on a tall stalk, sort of red near the center and white brown near the rim, growing up through the leaves of the forest floor in the dappled sunlight. But that is just my fruit. Most of my body is an underground network of white fibers. This is the part that eats. When these networks spread and join together I can extend for miles. The places where they are joined can reproduce by forming mushrooms. The parts that aren't joined can extend and join with other networks to form more mushrooms. It would be like a giant orgy except we stay joined together, mated for life into one giant organism. Part of my network is male, part female and the places where we join are both. Except the genders aren't really male and female. I don't know what the difference between them is, but there has to be one of each for the fibers to join.

I found that if I sat cross legged with one foot on my opposite thigh and my back straight, in half lotus position, with my hands face up in my lap and watching my breathing, I could calm my mind and gain a measure of clarity. Shifting was mostly a matter of letting go so my attention could move elsewhere. I don't really know what it was like. If I tried to watch what was happening, nothing did. If I focused on the field in which I was sitting, I became the tall straight ripening grass rippling in the wind, my bushy heads waving on thin shafts wrapped in long alternating leaves and my roots thick and matted. I looked down and became a dandelion with a long fat root, a circle of flat green leaves and a round white head. I broke off the seed head, carefully lifted it up and blew, and I exploded into two hundred and forty seven individual small brown seeds each hanging by a slender shaft from a tuft of extended threads floating in the thick dense air. I rose on the wind and dispersed, some of me landing in the grass and some of me continuing to rise, knowing only the air that carried me.

I could see in the dark. What I was doing wasn't actually seeing since it didn't depend on visible light and didn't have one central point of view, but it felt like it. Plants don't have eyes but do detect light with their leaves and other green parts. I could see myself as a plant, the parts below ground as well as the parts above, and could sense some of the surrounding space. In the woods and fields, where the vegetation was thick enough, I could broaden my focus to everything around me and see well enough to find my way at night or with my eyes closed. I could become anything that was big enough for me to physically see, and since I was able to focus my eyes on things that were only an inch or so away, that was pretty small. I could become any seed and see inside it, but an individual pollen grain was too small for me. However, if there were enough of them.

I was a tall clump of purple fuzzy joe pye weed standing in the sun by the edge of the swamp when a fat fuzzy bumblebee landed right in the middle of me. She rooted around and covered herself with enough pollen that I was able to go with her when she left. She flew straight back to the nest. There was so much pollen in there from different kinds of flowers that I was able to get a good look at the bees and the inside of the nest. The outsides of the bees were made of the same stuff as the outsides of mushroom fibers, and they stored energy the same way mushrooms did. I was paying attention to these similarities when suddenly I shifted.

I was a dozen bumblebees crawling around the nest adding nectar to cocoons and pollen to pots and feeding the young. As more bees returned and took off again I increased in number and spread out over the countryside. I left with enough fuel to reach my goal, foraged purple clover, queen ann lace, joe pye weed and blue bugle, and flew back weighted down with nectar and pollen.

That was totally unexpected. I had looked at animals before but had never been able to shift into something that complex. My experience as trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, grasses, ferns, moss and especially mushrooms had increased my ability. I looked down at a brown beetle, and I was scuttling across the dirt on six legs. I came back to myself and decided I had had enough for today.

Birds and fish were still beyond me, but I could be a swarm of gnats in a column of sunlight, a monarch butterfly on a milkweed plant, or fireflies at night under the trees in the yard.

I chose a former women's college in a small city in the hills near a river and studied biology, wanting work in forestry or ecology. I continued to get excellent grades and just had to remember not to tell my professors when they were wrong. More than once I was told I had an attitude problem. Scholarships covered most of my expenses.

I considered becoming a naturopath but didn't want to support the new age industry. I considered becoming a pharmacist but didn't want to support the drug industry. Drug companies and regulators have long known that, since it started being used in 1931, a mercury based preservative in vaccines is a cause of autism and other neurological disorders. Look it up, it's called thimerosal. I did take pre pharmacy courses since they overlapped with biology requirements in the hope of someday being able to do something with herbs.

I joined a women's pagan group. They did rituals and some of them achieved a trance state, but I didn't see any real magic or contact with the natural world. The ones interested in politics didn't take magic seriously, the ones interested in magic didn't take science seriously, the ones interested in science didn't join this group. The group's gender politics were not practical. Yes, there was long standing social, political and economic repression, but making a religion out of it didn't accomplish much. It was the culture we were part of that was the problem, not the men. Male and female plants aren't that different. In spiders, it is the males who are extraneous. Most of these women were driven by fear, and the ones who weren't wanted to be the alpha female. Still, they were better people than most and I enjoyed working with them as long as I kept my opinions to myself. Some had a special pagan name. I chose Owl.

We met every other tuesday night in the basement of the Unitarian Church, sometimes skipping an extra week to stay close to the new and full moon. Our ritual started with lighting candles around the darkened room and asking for the aid of the earth goddess and the natural powers as we sat in a circle on the floor. We then asked for help in our relationships or schoolwork or whatever problems we had in our lives and gave thanks for anything good that had happened to us. Often we did a guided meditation, usually a journey to some sacred place or wise being. Most people lay on the carpet with pillows for this, sometimes one or more of them with her hands on her abdomen and her only visible motion the muscles in the arm of hand underneath, but I sat in half lotus position. Sometimes we danced around, separately or together, some of the women preferring to do this naked or topless if it wasn't too cold. Then we thanked the goddess and powers and shared cakes and wine, which really consisted of whatever snacks people had brought and herb tea or fruit juice, and socialized. Sometimes we had a business meeting where we discussed our finances and political or social projects.

One slightly older woman who sometimes attended our gatherings was Linda. She was a little taller than me and more developed, with short red hair and brown freckles. She usually practiced as a solitary but had once been part of the group.

One woman who worked in a bakery cafe said she would ignore a man if there was a woman at the counter. As long as there was a steady stream of customers, she could keep him waiting indefinitely. She could tell which ones would start yelling and served them just before they did. The quiet ones she drove out of the shop. She was proudest of the ones she reduced to tears. Linda, who was the only one to question her, accepted her rebuke quietly. There was sadness in her clear blue eyes when she glanced at me.

Once we did a ritual I had written. There was a flat open space out in the woods where we wouldn't be disturbed that we sometimes used for outdoor rituals. We met there on a warm sunny afternoon and I got everyone to take off her clothes. Each of the nearly twenty had brought a towel to sit on and I provided the deet and sunblock. We had fun doing each other's backs. A few of them were overweight and one was obese, with huge breasts and a stomach hanging down so you couldn't see her pubic hair. One was short and thin with large breasts, and one was medium height with long brown hair and no breasts at all. The dark brown aureoles around one girl's nipples covered half her breasts. The blonds had black pubic hair, but ones girl's was bright red against her pale skin and matched her hair exactly. Some had more or less the standard hourglass shape. Some had gotten their tans in the nude and some looked like they were wearing white bathing suits. I was brown and a bit small all over. We sat in a circle and invoked the powers. I started my chant.

Mallow, mullein,
sycamore, cyclamen,
salt cedar, cypress,
prickly pear.

Olive tree, lemon tree,
geranium, rush,
chinaberry, poppy,
jerusalem sage.

Honeysuckle, hollyhock,
oleander, bougainvillea,
sea lavender and prickly poppy,
norfolk island pine.

Leaves in the sunlight,
people of air,
grasshopper, dragonfly,
tree swallow, bat.

Our lady of Paphos,
dark virgin of beasts,
goddess of green things,
be with us here.

And then I howled, and chirped, and thrumped. The others picked it up and made their own animal and insect sounds to the rhythm I had established. I got up and started walking around the circle, hopping to some of the beats and turning my body back and forth. One by one the others joined me, waving their arms and stepping in time to our raised voices. Some of them spun around and jumped. The chanting got faster. Everyone was bouncing up and down as we danced around the circle. Now there were more of us. Young women had come from nowhere and joined our celebration. No one else seemed to notice the newcomers. I looked around and saw two more emerge from oak trees at the edge of the glade. A swarm of black and gray dragonflies descended like a storm of black snow on the mosquitoes and gnats that were hovering around us. Some whoops went up from the dancing women but we kept beating out the rhythm with our voices and feet. Gradually the dance slowed and our numbers shrank, until only the original participants were walking around the circle. We resumed our seats, completed the ritual, and broke out the cakes and wine.

One of the social projects of the group was a prison ministry, monthly visits to prisons to hold services and give counseling on religious practices and personal problems. The Unitarian Church provided training and certification. One woman, Raven, ran the program and always needed more help, but most could not afford the time commitment. I volunteered. For personal counseling all we could do was listen to an inmate talk and encourage him to use what professional services were available, but still I had to attend training sessions given for several weeks by the minister of the church. A lot could be accomplished by listening to and validating another person's experience, by acceptance.

Since I was not the person running the program I only had to attend one orientation session at each prison. We could not take anything into the prison except our clothing, eyeglasses, wedding ring, medical ID and locker key unless it had been inspected and approved beforehand by the program director of the institution. We could not take in candles or a knife, even a toy one, so we had to use a plastic spoon as an athame. We could not wear denim, fleece, tights or open toe shoes, or tee or low cut shirts, or short or slit skirts. We had to wear traditional undergarments, meaning bras. We had to take off shoes, belts and glasses and turn out our pockets out to go through the metal detector, which was more sensitive than the ones at airports. Underwire bras were a bad idea. We could not give anything to inmates. Any handouts had to be given to the program director for distribution. Any approved items we carried had to be inspected on the way in and the way out. There were additional restrictions for volunteers. We could not visit, write to, send anything to nor call any inmate nor have any contact with an inmate's family or an inmate who had been released. We could not have anyone send anything to an inmate on our behalf. So I couldn't even send someone a book. If an inmate asked us for anything, we were supposed to report it. We could not appear at a parole or commutation hearing without special permission from the state superintendent. For any violation of the rules we could be suspended from the volunteer program. And it was a criminal offense for a volunteer to give the general public any information about an inmate. That part was just above the superintendent's signature in the orientation booklet.

After all that it was an anticlimax to get inside. They were just people. Program privileges were used to control behavior, so there was no one there who would cause trouble, and we did not have time to visit individuals. It was a room with plastic chairs and twelve or fifteen men in white tee shirts, blue or gray pants, and athletic shoes or work boots. We put the chairs in a circle and held our service as best we could with only our book and our spoon. The only physical contact we were allowed was to shake hands at the beginning and end of the program. There was no dancing, though we did sing a few songs. We let anyone who was willing do one of the readings. It was mostly the same men who attended every month, so Raven knew all of them. People sat where they were and closed their eyes for a short guided meditation. After the service we had a general discussion of their practice during the month and how their religion helped them cope with their situation. They encouraged each other and I offered what I could. A few of the men went aside one at a time for a talk with Raven. Then we left.

Linda came over to me at one of our meetings and thanked me for taking part in the prison ministry. She used to when she was a regular member and sometimes still did. She asked if I would like to go to lunch sometime. I looked her in the eye and said yes.

I had been with one of the other women in the group before, but after a while we had both decided we would rather be friends than lovers. I met Linda at a vegetarian restaurant run by a bunch of leftover hippies. It was next to an old unused brick factory and had posters of the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix on the walls. The tables were real wood and early Italian baroque music came from the speakers. I ordered the avocado and sprout sandwich, and Linda had aloo gobi and naan. Her nipples showed a little through her tee shirt even though they weren't erect and it wasn't very tight. I told her I was studying botany and learning about herbs. She told me about gathering and using comfrey, witch hazel, wormwood, dandelion, rosemary, mullein, honeysuckle and other plants. She said she liked my ritual and had been delighted when the dragonflies appeared. I decided to tell her about seeing the dryads. She smiled and I couldn't tell how she took it. I asked if she now thought I was one of the flakes. She looked a little surprised and said she wasn't sure, that she had thought I was sensible. I was glad she respected me enough to give an honest answer and thanked her. She said she had no right to judge but would like to know more about my experiences if I was willing to talk about them.

I had never told anyone about them before. I had never had the opportunity to tell someone who was neither overly critical nor overly credulous. And she seemed to really want to know. So I told her, about the green children, hemlock, oaks, mushrooms, bees and the rest. She asked how real I thought all this was. I said the experience was real, but beyond that I didn't know. She asked if I would like to find out. I said I would have to think about that.

We met for dinner before the next group meeting. I asked if she thought it mattered whether the experiences were real. She said that depended on what I wanted to do with them. If I wanted to use them for meditation, empathy building, and study, then probably not. But if they were objectively real, they could be a powerful and dangerous tool for gaining knowledge. The drawback was that I couldn't tell anyone what I learned unless I found a rational explanation for how I knew it. I hadn't thought about it in exactly those terms before. I had been treating what I learned as an intuition that needed verification. The danger of losing touch with normal reality was something I already had to deal with. I said I could see the value of verifying the experiences themselves, and not just the things I learned. Did she have anything in mind?

We met the next weekend and headed for the park. I sat down inside the canopy of a large beech with my back to the smooth gray trunk. I closed my eyes and became the majestic tree, my roots reaching deep into the earth and my boughs reaching up above the rooftops and spreading out along the ground with more roots growing from them. I watched the sun shining in the sky. I watched Linda walk to the other side of me, pick five of my leaves, tear off a piece of each, and scatter them on the ground among the rest that had fallen. She picked up some other fallen leaves and covered the five she had picked. She walked back to where she had started and said a word.

I was looking up at Linda standing over me, recognizing the word she had just said as my name. She asked me to show her what she had done. I walked to the far side of the tree and looked for the place from which the first leaf had come. I saw a mass of indistinguishable green. I closed my eyes, walked over, and touched the site of the first wound. With my eyes still closed, I went over and dug through unconnected pieces of myself to my missing part. I could see the fragment that had been torn from it, but had to open my eyes and turn to her to tell which of her pockets matched its location. She took it out and it fit exactly the piece I held. I repeated this procedure and found four other fragments in four other pockets.

This did not tell us if all my experiences were real, but it did tell us that the knowledge I had gained through this one was accurate. I hadn't expected finding this out to be a shock, but it was. I felt dizzy and sat down. I could no longer pretend it was my own private fantasy. Linda held me and didn't seem much surprised. She said the detail and consistency of my story had made her think it was true after she had had a little time to digest it. I felt the warmth of her body against mine and realized I had never met anyone so sane.

She took me home and made me lie down. She stayed and opened a can of soup for dinner. She didn't leave until she was sure I was okay, and before she did, she kissed me. It wasn't much of a kiss, a brief touching of the lips and just the tips of the tongues. I wanted more. She smiled and said so did she, but later.

At the next meeting the group could tell that Linda and I were a couple even though we weren't yet and didn't do anything different. She and I went back to my room afterward. She said she had other commitments and other people in her life and wouldn't have a lot of time for me. That was okay, I was busy too.

I kissed her, slowly and thoroughly. I kept my eyes open and focused on the intricacy of her deep blue ones as I sucked gently on her lower lip. Her tongue came out to trace my upper one, and mine met it. The tips slid over each other and circled. I gently sucked hers into my mouth where it explored the back of my upper lip. She pulled me on top of her as she lay back on the bed and started working on my belt. She gave up, pulled my shirt out and slid her hand under the waistband of my pants, over my bikini briefs and rubbed my pubes. I turned to give her a better angle and humped against her fingers. When my frustration grew to where it matched my pleasure, I sat up and slid off my pants and shirt, then undid her pants and slid them off along with her shirt. She arched up and took her bra off as I tossed her clothes on the floor. I stared at her large patch of thin red pubic hair and bent to nuzzle it. Her scent filled and excited me. I moved up and sucked on the pink nipple of her large breast as my fingers buried them selves in the sliminess of her folds. She was moving under me. I moved back down, spread her open with both hands and slurped her clitoris into my mouth. I felt with both my hands the muscles in her buttocks pumping as I pressed myself more firmly into her. She gasped as she started coming. Her wetness flowed and I sucked it up. The breath was forced from her lungs with each thrust of her hips. I didn't know if this was several orgasms or one long one. Finally she slowed and stopped.

I was the yeast growing inside her, budding and increasing in her dampness and warmth, trying to grow past the normal amount in these improved conditions.

I told Linda she didn't have a yeast infection. She had a blank look for half a second as she figured out how I knew. She asked if it was annoying to be so sensitive to plants. I said no, they didn't have nervous systems or feel pain the way animals did. The sensations and desires I attributed to them were attempts to describe things for which there were no words. I had to stop conceptual thought and be pure awareness in order to make contact. She was sharp. She figured out when I was most likely to be pure awareness and what I had left out of my story about the green children. I admitted I had been masturbating. She said that, technically, since masturbating was exciting one's own or another's genitals by means other than intercourse, that was what I had just been doing, and she wanted some of it.

She rolled me over and climbed between my legs. She said that intercourse was sexual union between humans by physical contact of the genitals, and she wanted some of that too. She parted her legs enough, and started rubbing her clitoris against mine. I wasn't sure if I had had intercourse by her definition before, but I had certainly been close. I felt her tuft of bright red hair grinding into my dark one. I put my arms around her and drew her lips down to mine as I met each thrust of her hips with my own. Before long I had to release her to gasp for air as my first orgasm flowed through me. I felt the wetness squirting out of me. She did too, and as soon as I was over the first hill, slid down to tasted it. She took my clitoris in her lips and sucked. She triple tongued me for all she was worth. I was fast approaching climax. Then she started to flutter tongue me and I completely lost it, bucking wildly. But she held on and didn't stop, and neither did I.

I dreamed I was four inches tall with a five and a quarter inch wingspan and weighed four tenths of an ounce. I had four clear dragonfly wings, large eyes and a very thin body. My bald head could turn nearly all the way around. My garment looked like a blue racer back swimsuit, and I put it on by pulling it up and fastening it in back so it went around my wings. When I hunted, I would perch on a stem of grass waiting for a mosquito, then take off after it. I could hover, dart about, and change direction instantly. My arms would strike out to capture it, and whatever I used for teeth worked efficiently. I preferred the ones that were full of blood.

I dreamed I was the pine tree growing outside my window in the moonlight. My roots spread out under the surface of the soil and intermingled with those of the tree next to me. I was two white pines in the night with dew collecting on my long needles. My awareness extended and I was three trees with katydids singing in my branches. I was four, six, ten, twenty pine trees in a wavering line through the dark forest, my roots intertwined, my branches moving in the breeze. Weevils ripped my flesh. Warblers and red squirrels nested within me. A reddish yellow martin with black legs and a black bushy tail prowled through my branches. A small gray flying squirrel launched itself from the top of me, spread its legs and sailed a twisting path through the air, and landed gracefully on one of my trunks.

I could become a field of grass or a clump of trees growing together. I could broaden my focus to everything near me. But I had never tried to extend my awareness for a distance.

I sat in the sunlight facing the pine tree by my window. I rose up as the misty green tree with my roots spreading out through the earth. I found the roots of the next tree I had seen in my dream and became twin towers. There were roots of other pines, but not the third one I had seen. I chose a different one and marched through the forest. I went under roads, over hills and along ridges. I could not maintain awareness of more than a few of the trees in the line, but I could extend the line as far as I wanted, as long as there was a connection. I reached the edge of the pine forest and jumped to an oak tree. I followed hemlocks along a moist river valley. I cut through a swath of corn standing in a field. I followed a row of linden trees down a city street and stopped at the park in its center.

I opened my eyes and looked at the pine in front of me. I didn't know how far I had gone, but I hadn't recognized the city. I knew I had gone a lot farther in my dream, though it hadn't seemed like it. Pine martins were usually found farther north, and pine katydids only a lot farther south.

I found I could connect through branches as well as roots. Once I had traveled through a connection, it didn't have to be maintained. I rode leaves in the wind, drifting seeds and an acorn in a blue jay's throat. I could travel underground through roots and the extensive networks of mushroom and fungus mycelium. Down there I could be worms or grubs, under leaves I could be snails or pill bugs, underwater I could be diving beetles or crayfish, and on the surface I could be water striders.

I traveled through the green to the forest where I had grown up. Part of it was town forest, and the logging rights had been sold to someone's brother in law. Only large mature trees were supposed to be cut. It had been argued that it would give the smaller trees more room to grow, but it completely changed the character of the forest. It was no longer old growth, and many species could no longer survive there. The ancient oak which I used to lie under was a stump cut flush to the ground. The pool was a muddy spot. A logging road ran straight through the place where I had first seen the green children. Beer cans littered the ground, and there were ashes and charred sticks from a fire. I moved to the oak stump and tired to see where the rest of me had gone, but could find nothing. I probably decorated someone's living room floor.

I had given up on forestry since I couldn't bear to participate in what was happening to our forests. After graduation, I got a job with a firm that worked on environmental impact statements.

Linda invited me to an opening at which her group was playing. It was at Tao Book Muffin, a strange used book store off in the woods, shaped like an off center helix, with odd sided rooms and openings between the many levels. One level was a small art gallery, and another was overlooked by balconies and could be used as a stage.

I arrived early to help with refreshments. Another of Linda's friends, Stephen, worked with me. The exhibit was of customers' artwork. Linda and others were arranging instruments and setting up lighting. Linda played hand drum and percussion, Judy played violin, and Jose played guitar. Every room except the end rooms at the top and the bottom had to be passed through to get to other rooms. People kept going through the kitchen, many dropping off cookies and soft drinks. The cookies included peanut butter, chocolate chip, ginger, oatmeal raisin, double fudge and hermits. We set out plates, cups and napkins, and each took a turn looking at the pictures. More artists and guests started arriving. We served ginger ale and fresh limeade. The group played Celtic and other types of music.

There wasn't much for Stephen and me to do, so we talked. He was from Greece and a pagan, which was a little surprising since most Greeks were orthodox. I told him a little about my experiences with plants, and he was interested and asked intelligent questions. I knew Linda trusted him, so I told him more. I don't know how much he believed, but he accepted what I said. We talked about carvings of the leaf faced green man which were found in churches all over Europe and Britain. Versions of him were found in myth and folklore as Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Tarzan, Johnny Appleseed and Thoreau. Stephen thought Dionysus, with his relation to the grape vine, was another version. No one really knew, since there was no knowledge of what the carvings had originally meant. There was no mention of them at all.

Stephen sometimes had dinner with Linda and her partners, so I invited myself over the next time he and one of his partners were going to be there. I told them about my experiences and Linda told how we had tested them. They seemed to take it as just something that some people could do, like rolling your tongue. Stephen asked if I had ever been an octopus. It was a mollusk, like a snail, but he thought it was nearer to our form of intelligence than the other things I had mentioned. I hadn't, and we decided meet at the aquarium and try it.

It was cold and damp when we met by the seal pool in front of the aquarium. We watched the seals gliding in circles and back and forth below the surface. We went inside and looked at penguins and crabs. The crabs were like oversized insects, so I held on to Stephen and slowed my breathing.

I was an armored creature with claws. I had legs at either end of my body and could move in any direction, but sideways was easiest. I looked around and waited.

We made our way to the big tank. Sharks and other fish swam around and through the rocks. An enormous manta ray flew through the water like a ghost. There was an octopus with some of his round white suckers against the glass, and we sat on a bench where we could see him. He was not nearly the size of a tree, but much larger than any creature I had been. He pulsed slowly. I let go.

My eyes were near my vagina, except it was a mouth with a thick beak. My legs were long narrow tongues that could attach to things, and I had eight of them and no arms. I was writhing around and jetting ink in uncoordinated panic. This wasn't right!

My arms had disappeared except for a short stump inside my mouth. I had rigid appendages at the ends of my body that couldn't bend in most places. I had somehow recently been food. I was constricted in some sort of membrane. I was in the open air and in the grip of a large creature that was shaking me and roaring. I had no colors and could not scream. This wasn't right!

I was looking at Stephen and saw some of my panic reflected in his eyes. I felt a sharp pain on the side face where he had just slapped me, hard. A couple people were looking at us, but most were staring at where the octopus had been in the tank and talking about the fit he had just recovered from. I threw my arms around Stephen and cried. He held me.

Stephen offered to drive me home and stay with me, until I could bring him back the next day. I thought this was a good idea, but he was shaking from having hit me. The rain didn't help, but we made it back to my apartment okay. I put on Yoshimatsu's Pleiades Dances and made some tea, and we ate the sandwiches we had picked up on the way.

I had always respected the plants and creatures I had become. I held my mind blank and watched. I knew they had some awareness of me, but we had been so different we hadn't affected each other much. The octopus had been less different. He had a mind.

It was dark by the time we moved to the sofa. I looked at Stephen. He gave me the same speech Linda had and I still didn't care. I took his hand and held it to my cheek. Soon we were in bed, his condom covered penis slowly pushing into my wetness and my hips rising to meet his thrust. I felt his penis slide back out over the lips of my vagina, pulling them with him. I felt him push his way back into me until he was wedged against my clitoris. I kissed him, I held the side of my head against his, I ran my fingers over his back, I pulled his buttocks into me. We slowed down many times. Finally I didn't, but pushed back faster and faster. I saw my whole body from all sides at once, my heels pushing into the bed with each thrust, the muscles in my thighs bulging, my sphincter contracting, my vertebrae forced up into an arch, my diaphragm pulling air into my lungs. I held my eyes shut and saw my skin flush with orgasm over and over until I saw his semen pulsing into me.

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