6a) She comes in colors

6a1) As Abby begins to hallucinate, Swamp Thing explains the fruit is not just a fruit but a gateway into the Green itself, giving Abby access to the grander consciousness of all living things. In eating the fruit, Abby gains access to Swamp Thing’s interior being which is, in a way, access to life itself. Together, the two experience the vastness of it all in a way that is both erotic and so much more.

        Every blade of grass, buzzing insect, and blooming flower, Abby begins to understand, is connected in deep and powerful ways that most humans could never fully grasp. But that connectedness extends beyond the flora and fauna of the swamp. Because she has now (temporarily) tapped into the Green, she’s also linked with Swamp Thing in the most elementary, primal way. Together, Swamp Thing and Abby explore and experience the summation of life in a way that’s unashamedly sexual in its visual manifestation on the page.

        As Abby’s perspective shifts, so too does the orientation of Rite of Spring‘s panels. Together, Bisette’s lines and Wood’s colours move into a distinctively psychedelic space that convey just how mind-blowing an experience Abby is having as she journeys thought the Green. The expansion of Abby’s mind is something that Moore is able to write brilliantly, but it’s in Bisette and Wood’s illustrations that you can viscerally feel the magnificence of it all.

        There is something profound and surprisingly progressive about Rite of Spring‘s conceptualisation of sex that you seldom see in most parts of pop culture, let alone a comic book about a swamp monster. The way that Swamp Thing and Abby are intimate together is simultaneously tender and wildly ferocious. Their rhythm of their intercourse is set by the all-encompassing, pulsing throb of life, and their shared climax comes as they both let go of their discrete selves and become part of the Earth itself.

Charles Pulliam-Moore – Swamp Thing #34 Might Be The Most Erotic, Sex-Positive Comic Book Of All Time

6a2a) My first husband was a plant. We were wed in my mother’s living room in Los Angeles, with a large Panasonic flat screen TV serving as the backdrop. I wore a bright red sari.

        Convinced that her 30 year old, still-single daughter was cursed, my mother had arranged the whole affair. She believed that I suffered from what Hindu astrologers call Mangal Dosha, a condition in which a person born under the influence of Mars signals marital misfortune. One remedy is Kumbh Vivah, a ceremony in which you marry a towering banyan or banana tree—but that day, we settled for a barely-sprouted basil plant.

        Next to my betrothed sat a candle to symbolize Agni, the fire deity present at every Hindu wedding. It was nothing like the ceremonial fire pits used in India but it got the job done. 

[...]

A decade went by before I started to comprehend the meaning of my matrimony. I reached a shallow understanding that through the ritual, all the troubles your malady carries are transferred to the tree and the curse is lifted, freeing you to find a partner. I discovered the practice is not uncommon. If I had been the cultivated academic I thought myself to be, I would have done my research ahead of time to contextualize the ceremony that meant so much to my mother. Instead, we never talked about my marriage again.

Rani Neutill – I Married A Plant And Found Myself at Elle

6a2b) With fertility rates falling, increasing consideration of alternate love and sexuality choices, and the environment in desperate need of protection, plant/human marriages might be something to consider...

6a3a) Or maybe sex is just better when the synthetic symbiosis of plant and human produces hallucinogenic phantasmorgasms.

6a3b) Phillipe Caza – Kris Kool at 50 Watts

6a4) The Rolling Stones - She's A Rainbow

Addendum 053021

6a5) Yes, naked gardening is a thing, and our readers should not be that surprised. A story about nudist cooking recently appeared in our Dining section, delving into the history and practices of naturism. If you cook in the nude, tending to your vegetables that way is the logical prelude.

        For the nudist gardener seeking friendly environs, a recent study by Lawnstarter.com may be revealing. The website, which connects users with lawn-care services, ranked the largest 100 U.S. cities, from best to worst, for naked gardening.

        The study used a number of metrics, including: the percentage of nudists and the friendliness of laws governing public nudity and toplessness in each city; local Google searches for “nudist” and “World Naked Gardening Day”; safety concerns, addressed by measuring the number of registered sex offenders amid the population; weather-related factors such as temperature, rain and wind speed; and a previous Lawnstarter study ranking the best cities for urban gardening. The resulting top and bottom 10 cities are uncovered in this week’s chart.

Michael Kolomatsky – Where to Appreciate the Joys of Naked Gardening