Haiku for Winogradsky Column
Curved, long,
Round, stout,
The neighbor cup
is passed about.
– Dr. JeM YinJoy
How to pronounce Winogradsky.
Winogradsky – (Wine-oh-grad-skee)
The Spiritual Significance
The success of a perfectly honed interdependent community, by these microbial teachers, is a spiritually significant lesson as the United States of America proceeds to vote for their next President.
It is the lesson of the microbes in this microcosm that we expect from our global leaders.
One community can contribute to another’s success, and all thrive beautifully.
The progression of natural barriers, from anaerobic to aerobic, and from dark to light, keep communities with similar goals, cohesive, as they cooperate to keep the flow of nutrients and other resources fluid and harmonious.
If one community decided on apathy, then all communities in the microcosm perish.
Thanks to a creative Russian microbiologist, we can consider the message of these microbial cooperative communities and learn to apply these lessons on the upcoming voting day. If you are a citizen of the United States of America, then go vote for leaders who will cultivate cooperation and harmony, between communities to keep us all in the joyful flow of living.
The success of a perfectly honed barter economy is taught, within the wonderful microbial community that pops up in a Winogradsky column.
Many human microcosms illustrate the same concept: What might be your neighbors’ excess, could nourish you and your family. What is not used can be passed further along the chain of people who can convert your disposed items into something useful for them.
The microcosms that exist this way can be long lasting, like the barter system economy that develops in a country going through severe financial struggles, or short term, like the money-less tradition at the Burning Man music festival.
The idea is the same: Without the exchange of money; a human community is supported, as goods and services of equal value are exchanged, and currency is off the table.
Stick us all in a container like a Winogradsky column (built to human dimensions) and see how quickly we either become cooperative and rely on each other for goods, or expire if we refuse to share in the venture.
We are here to share our abundance, and receive gifts from others who are of like mind and compassionate hearts.
The Microbiology
A Winogradsky column is a microbial “garden” or “city” that grants you a window through which to witness the birth and growth of a microcosm earth’s microbial community, contained in a clear glass jar (or other similar clear material like a plexi glass jar or a graduated cylinder). The column is named after a famous Russian microbiologist, Sergius Winogradsky (1856-1953) who studied studied the relationships between different types of microorganisms in mixed communities.
One way to prepare a Winogradsky column to collect some sediment from the bottom of a lake or river. This sediment contains within it, a community of millions of diverse microbes, that depend on one another for survival. The Winogradsky column creates an artificial replicate of what goes on in the sediment, so that these diverse communities are stratified. These layers of different bacterial communities are separated by their access to oxygen and by access to nutrients which are depleted or abundant, depending on where they are locate in the column’s strata. They also are separated by the type of pH that forms during the metabolic activities of the various communities that develop in the column
There are many variations on the basic concept of making a Winogradsky column.
Basically the components that are added to this column supply nutrition that the microbes in the community require to keep growing.