The soul resides not in a heart; nor in a muscle; nor a fibrous root, even; the soul is within the essence of a thing, and if it is acknowledged, it exists. To be known is to be legitimized. To be legitimized is to be respected. And to respect greenery, we must first acknowledge its essence.

The soul of a moving creature is, for most, far easier to recognize than the soul of a plant. While we consume both, we mourn only one.

Toward an animal, one considers, ‘It moves as I do, it blinks and scratches! Were us in similar stature, we could be sisters!”

Toward a plant, the above might be considered also; less commonly.

Either instinctively as the fish do, or decidedly as the upright species, we all align ourselves in the natural order. Carrying on one’s consciousness as far as possible requires consumption of flesh and fiber, and all beings equally take into ourselves the anima of another.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But none need take the lives of plants for a purpose anathema to the laws of nature. I hold that the use of plants as a soul-surrogate for one’s own anima is unnatural.

I dare make the comparison; far below the moral crime of soul-theft, nearly imperceptibly, the proportions of the sun to a candle; consumption itself, to feed from the meat and leaf of another, is a minor, permitted Paranimancy. Permitted by the gods; to consume the flesh of animals, the roots of greenery– we must consider this consumption lawful.

Feats of Animancy drawn from one’s own reservoir is a gift; feats of Animancy performed using another living beings’ soul is, at the heart, immoral Paranimancy beyond fulfilling hunger, and thus disallowed by any compassionate Animancer.

-Theo Straham