Many times in the course of reading Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm I wanted to stop and post my reaction to the book here on Amazon. I resisted the temptation setting myself the goal of responding only when I was finished. And now I have done that.In this book Stephen Buhner proposed to me, in a most personal way, that I undertake my re-education. His single piece of advice was this: Whenever you encounter something ask yourself: How does it feel?So I will say how this book feels. This book feels heavy, not the heaviness of its actual weight, though it is not a short book, but the heaviness the old hippies referred to when they said, “That’s heavy, man.” Importance has its own kind of weight, and the weight of this book settles onto my body, not in any oppressive way but as if it were a fluid of warmth that conformed to every lineament of my physical self. But it was not my physical self that was embraced, it was rather my natural mind; it was, in the end, my heart. For this is a book of love if ever there was one and kindles love in response.It is as if someone nudged me awake from my sleep, gently but insistently. I knew at any moment I could say, “Leave me alone,” and the book would depart. Or I could let it rouse me. The book feels full of arousal, awake for the one who would awaken. So the book feels bright, not dazzling and brilliant in its brightness, not a brightness that causes squinting, but a brightness like the moon, never caustic, but when it is full adequate for many discoveries.The book is as stocked with joy as a spring river with trout. It abounds with an energy of the sort the old prophets felt when stirred by the touch of vision. It is lithe like a big cat moving in the forest; it is a repetitious as the old bardic chants composed of formulae worked and reworked in changing skeins. It has the generosity of the potlatch. It has the humor of clowns backstage taking off their facepaint. It calls as sweetly as the morning doves in my garden, seductive, soft, and hinting of intimacy.Feeling? Mine now on reading it: gratitude. The sense of dedication that breathes through this book touched me, held me as spell-bound as one is held by a great recitation. I love the man who wrote this book though I am not likely ever to meet him. Why? Because this book affirms something in me that needs affirming, seeks to feel affirmed. I feel I am in the presence of a true friend.Listen, I am 73 year old. I have a PhD in literature from Harvard. I taught in the academic world Buhner describes. AND I have had those experiences in my life which opened the doors of perception. But I have never quite found a guide to the heart of the earth. If I could only hand down to my children one book from all the books I have read, it would be this book. It is like a map---though not the territory---a golden thread through the labyrinth.Feel? it’s the feeling of having listened to a great song sung by a someone who has come back from a long journey with the wish to inspire me to travel there on my own.