I have seen dragons on the winds of morning

Pax is pushing me to actually write this instead of loudly thinking about how I want to, so this is a favour to him alone. Please stop sighing at me! I'm doing it!!!!!

Lately, my thoughts have turned again and again towards the prospect of linking some kind of plant. For a while that's all it was, idle musings. I found that I could not really imagine what plantness is, and that held me back from even considering the question seriously. But the desire keeps resurfacing again and again, so I've decided to properly try!

The first step was in determining what plant I wanted to focus on. It might have been nice to find a flowering plant or some kind of shrub, and I'd probably like being a reed of some kind... cat tails maybe. My heart was set on trees though, because I gravitate to size and silence most of all. Even then, there are so, so many kinds of tree and many kinds I really love. I thought about birches, balsam fir. We've always had a special connection to ginko, as there's been ginko trees in every place we've lived. I seriously considered linking Pando, the giant quaking aspen colony in Utah, which is really really cool to learn about.

But as I searched through my memory of trees, I recalled the existence of white oaks--quercus alba. The tree has been an on and off fascination for me; I first encountered it when I was still intending to be a candidate in the AODA (Ancient Order of Druids in America). They used to thrive in the ecoregion we are in, the Southern Great Lakes forest (as defined by WWF). Canadian classification labels this as the Mixedwood plains. As I really love my home, linking a tree that grows here felt like a no brainer, and googling photos confirmed the decision immediately. White oaks are beautiful, and looking at them gave me an immediate sense of euphoria.

So that's that, right? Well, no, of course not!

I've lately been discovering in myself a great and quiet joy in movement. This is a very animalistic impulse and a very natural one, seeing as I am an animal in both body and mind. My draconity gives me delight in moving my muscles properly, in leaps and spins, and even in dancing. Having been sedentary for so long, a necessity when living with severe chronic fatigue syndrome, it feels impossible to cease that movement and demand stillness of myself, as plants do. From an animal point of view, animals are active and plants are wholly passive. Except that isn't really true. An oak tree, of course, is stationary. It is anchored to the ground it first sprouted in unless moved by an outside force. But a mature white oak tree, who can live to about 600 years old, will probably die if it is dug up and replanted elsewhere.

My first attempts at finding the mindset of such an oak were failures, then, because I assumed that passivity meant being wholly shut in and self oriented. Dumb. Vegetal. Oh the arrogance of apes and lizards... (said lovingly, of course, for I greatly treasure being an ape and a lizard both, and a human and a dragon besides).

The passivity of white oak trees is characterized by an intense awareness. A constant, mindful attention. Being so long lived and so solid, they can observe the world around them at leisure, and notice things we never could. What looks like passivity to us, for whom stillness is a condition only diagnosed in sleep or in death, is one long, slow listening and observing. The actions and movements of trees are simply different to the actions and movements of animals, but they are there, if you know how to look in turn.

There is the process of growth itself, from seed to seedling to tree. The cycle of xylem and phloem, the intake of water and nutrients from the soil, the constant process of photosynthesis, the creation of acorns and their releasing. There is the movement of animals taking up residence in your branches and roots and under your bark. There is the wind setting your branches to swaying. There is hibernation. And the wonderful part of it is that you always know exactly where you are. You change, of course, and the world changes with you and for you, but it is always around you. Your place in it is secure, and so you can devote a great deal of time to observing it.

So far, I have not really experimented much with reaching this kind of state, and certainly not for long periods of time. It doesn't come naturally to me, and it isn't always wanted. But I don't want to be in motion all the time, either. Sometimes it is a welcome pleasure to root myself and just watch the world instead. I'm currently working on finding the sensation of photosynthesis. I have no idea if there's an equivalent sensation in a human body, but it's still nice to stand in the sunlight and feel the warmth of it.

My next steps are to find white oak trees close to me, so I can observe them in person, to research their life cycle and environment so I can shape my attempts at inducing shifts, and to start thinking about what roots feel like. I'd like to try and continue documenting my attempts at linking, but we'll see if my memory lets me hold to that desire.

Written by Julian of the Wonderbeasts, on March 9th 2025.