We’re Just Tubes

This week we’ve been hanging out with the worms. We went to pick up a trailer load of nicely rotted down horse manure from our neighbour, Cat, in exchange for her taking the hay from our bottom fields for her horses. After a fair amount of shovelling, we discovered that, squirming around in the still wet parts at the bottom of the pile, were hundreds of pink worms, all having a wonderful time in there.

So, the next day we set up a new wormery on the land, as our last one had seemed to stop functioning. We emptied the old one out, which was housed in an old bath, picking out and setting aside the remaining worms as we went, and then we used the incredible compost that we were left with to feed various plants in the garden. Then we picked through the new pile of compost we had just collected and, again, set aside any particularly squirmy-wormy clumps of poo to put in the new wormery. Such a glamorous life…

Anyhow, as the week progressed, I felt worm magic moving through me. I love worms, I love soil. This isn’t new. There’s not much that excites me more these days than putting some goodness back into the soil on our land, knowing we are encouraging the worms and other composters. But my level of appreciation for the humble worm went to new heights this week.

Worms are such teachers – they literally eat sh*t and it passes through them and comes out the other end as an elixir for the garden. Turning turd to treasure. What a service. Healthy soil is essential for our own survival and health, and worms are an essential part of creating healthy soil. Yet they are overlooked, often unseen and even vilified.

A broad Scottish friend of Trev’s from back in the day apparently used to say, ‘We’re just tubes!’ (say this in a thick Scottish accent for maximum punch). I’ve always loved this phrase and Trev and I say it to each other often (always with the accent), especially if one of us is getting a bit up ourselves, lost in some ego trip or delusion. It never fails to make us laugh and bring us, yes, back down to earth like the worms. Because, really, we’re not that different from the worms in some ways, being glorified tubes.

The worm has even entered my meditation practice this week. I’ve been imagining my shushmna nadi (central energy channel that runs more or less along the spine all the way up into the head) as a tube of light, a conduit, a channel. Through this oddly worm-like visualisation I feel like I can turn any sh*t that the world can throw at me into treasure, by allowing it to pass through me without sticking, transforming along the way into nourishment for me and fertile compost for the rest of the world. It’s work in progress of course, but I can feel its power and the worm analogy has helped lots. An unlikely motivator perhaps, but I’ve found myself saying to myself others this week, ‘Be like the worm!’.

Worms HUMbly get on with creating HUMous in the soil and we HUMans could learn a lot from this.

Thank you worms, I see you. You are amazing in your invisible power and service.