O Kombucha! - 1994

Years ago I used to travel back and forth between Yellow Springs, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky as an animal communicator. When in Lexington I'd stay with a friend who lived on a horse farm, and often we'd have gatherings there for spiritual healing and growth. I had conducted one "Council of All Beings" out in the barn already - a gathering of humans, dogs, cats, horses, plants, and various inner-visible beings - angels, power animals, and so forth. We had the second Council scheduled, and human people started to arrive - but it was cold outside, and pouring down rain to boot. We were waiting for word from Spirit about how to conduct our gathering when suddenly I felt a strong pull to my friend's refrigerator. Feeling a pull to the fridge is nothing new for me, but this was a different kind of pull. When I opened the fridge, the energy surrounding this weird-looking thing in a plastic bag was beaming at me so strongly I picked it up. It was a kombucha fungus.
The Kombucha immediately began to communicate through me.* It said, "You don't have to eat me, you know." The Kombucha was referring to a remark I'd made earlier about its appearance - I had said it looked like an alien to me. I hadn't, of course, thought it might be listening to me.
I replied, "I know that." Then I asked it, a little suspiciously perhaps, "What are you doing here on earth, anyway?"
The Kombucha said, "I'm healing the hole that let war in." That melted away any doubts I had about letting a fungus lead the meeting. By then I had realized it was God talking to us anyway, in the form of a fungus. I do not remember what else went on that evening. Healings, new understandings, bonding - all the good things that go with spiritual growth in supportive community. I don't remember the details of the rest of the evening, but I'll never forget those words - "I'm healing the hole that let war in."
Since then I've been involved in various intentional communities. In my heart I carry the vision of the architecture of a community I'd like to live in some day. I see this community built around the ba'qua, the eight-sided form used in FengShui. In one section of that ba'qua I see energy-transforming beings such as Bees and Goats and Kombucha, working with the negative energies naturally generated by humans, to transform them into creative potential, energies to be used for healing and spiritual growth.

I have a sense that this community Kombucha is encouraged to grow quite large, and its tea is a regular drink for humans and other people...but I also see the extra fungus being used as soil amendment and soil healer, as the community recycles its waste to make more and more topsoil of the highest quality.
I, along with Kombucha, wish to do everything possible to "heal the hole that let war in." I'm certain that that includes receiving counsel from fungus on occasion, just as it means sitting in Council with All Beings, and just as it means merging with the energy of Trees in order to do what humans can't do by themselves: make and keep Peace on Earth.