04/30/2026
The feature event of This Year's Compost Fest (May 9th) is the colorful giant puppet play, Microbes Always and Everywhere. Its creator is my longtime activity friend, Marty Kraft. Here's his explanation of what he's up to.
Quorum Sensing - What it is and why you should know about it.
Quorum sensing is when microbes sense a need in their environment. Then they begin to send messages out into the space. When they sense enough of these messages to cooperate and work together, that’s a quorum.
This “listening” to each other, then cooperating to bring about a good change has been going on for about 3.5 billion years. That means that they used some sort of intelligence to build all the ecosystems that we enjoy today, including you and me. And it’s the first example of direct knowing.
That’s amazing. Why is that important?
It is important because it replaces the myth that it was the survival of the fittest that built everything in life. Instead it was more the survival of the cooperative that is responsible for our survival. Survival of the fittest was a misquoting of Darwin’s work to serve those who didn’t want us to cooperate together. According to a biology professor in a class in 1961, Darwin favored the survival of the fit. This interpretation severely challenges those who benefitted from people competing against each other.
Our culture’s development is like the creation of sedimentary rock, layer by layer. Culture is the laying down of ideas and beliefs by people. Some of those ideas and beliefs were beliefs of separation but we were taught by people who were taught by people. If we wish not to pass errors along we must dig through the layers and remove the beliefs and ideas that hamper our survival and joy in life.
I’m always looking for ways to show how we can view nature with sensitivity.
Synchronicity - Guidance from the Universe
Synchronicity is when you are thinking something or working on something and something happens in the environment that had meaningful relevance tho what you were thinking or working on. Example, a story in my family. Before I was born my father’s family was having a holiday dinner. A dish in the other room somehow rattled. My grandmother started crying that uncle Charley had died. Everyone told my grandmother to calm down. They had no phone to find out if he had died. Several hours later they received a telegram that Charlie had died.
One of many examples I have experienced - I was in my workshop. I was walking around my bench and wondered why Claire had not returned the tool she had borrowed several days before. It was unlike her not to have returned it. I took one more step and the phone rang. It was Claire apologizing about not having returned the tool.
Some people say that’s just coincidence. But it is more than that. There is a conscious connection between us and existence or the universe. The famous Psychotherapist Carl Jung, who coined the word synchronicity, did a statistical study on it and proved it to be true. Most of my friends just notice it was true in their lives. What I mean is that synchronicity is common knowledge. If you stay aware it is easier to notice it happening.
Presence or mindfulness or relaxing into the present moment is the key to further direct knowing.
Direct Knowing - Artists, writers, scientists, anyone passionately focused on understanding something probably will find and cultivate direct knowing. The muse is a form of direct knowing. An idea or image or tune suddenly comes to you, seemingly out of nowhere. A deeper form of direct knowing is the imaginal realm. That’s when you begin to have a kind of dialog with the muse or even a person seems to take form and guide you.
Being in nature or being in the present moment wherever you are is a way to encourage these states. To see environment as a whole that we can directly know is a big step toward healing our planet. Indigenous people know this. We Western people still have the indigenous-ness within us. We need a combination or logical rational understanding combined with all forms of direct knowing to heal our Earth.
Marty Kraft - Heartland All Species Project - martyk@allspecies.org - tracygarden.org - 816-400-2277
