In the Western world today, the dominant paradigm informing the way we relate to the rest of nature is one of domination and exploitation. In this paradigm, we are taught from childhood to buy into the myth of human exceptionalism; we are taught to see humanity as superior to and separate from the Earth and all other Earth beings. Of course, as many ancient faith traditions, fields of science, and Indigenous cultures illustrate, the concept of separation and superiority is no more than an illusion. Even still, we continue to inflict upon ourselves the same overwhelming destruction and devastation that we have inflicted on the rest of our Earth community. How, then, can we wake ourselves up to our role as a single thread in the interwoven web of life on Earth?

For me, this awakening arrived with the Worms. When I was a child, I learned that Worms come up from the Earth and wiggle out onto the sidewalk when it rains to avoid drowning in the flooded soil. Even still, they often end up dying a very hot death on the sidewalk, either being scorched by the sun or stepped on by an unsuspecting passerby. Since this awakening, I’ve spent most every walk of the last 25 years with my eyes scanning the sidewalk for stranded Worms, ferrying them from sidewalk back to dirt.

What transpires in these few moments between concrete and soil is a profound reunification. When I hold a Worm in my hands, I feel my own life between my fingertips. In carrying the Worms back home to the dirt, they carry me back home to myself, to my place at home in Earth’s expansive community.

This process of reunification is not, by any means, unique to me and the Worms. Many people are awoken to the horrors of animal agriculture because of the connection sparked by their love and bond with a dog, cat, tree, or other single Earth being. Many others are moved to reduce their consumption of single use plastic after seeing photos of a sea turtle choking on a plastic straw. Whatever the catalyst, the effect is the same: we are moved to act because we feel our connection to those we are acting to protect. As environmental activist John Seed writes, “I try to remember that it’s not me, John, trying to protect the rainforest. Rather, I am part of the rainforest protecting itself.” This is what the Worms taught me.

The key to revitalizing the planet and ourselves, and the piece I think we have been missing, is allowing ourselves to take the leap from accepting our interconnection with a certain animal or plant being, to honoring our interconnection with the Earth itself. This, I believe, is where the Worms will lead us. After all, once we’ve allowed ourselves to embrace our connection to some of the Earth’s smallest, most inconspicuous creatures, what’s stopping us from embracing our connection to the rest of Nature?

For the past several years, I have encouraged the people in my life and community to watch and stop for Worms they encounter on the street. Encouragingly, but not surprisingly folks have shared experiences with the Worms that very closely resemble my own. But this is not enough.

Two years ago, I saw a sign I’d seen countless times growing up in the Midwest – “Live bait sold here!”. Finally, any interior barrier dissolved and I was faced with the horrifying understanding of what lay beyond these signs on the side of the road: thousands – maybe millions – of Worms, ripped from the soil, packed into small Styrofoam containers, and stored in refrigerators to be sold as bait. Even Charles Darwin devoted an entire book to Worms and their incredible capacity for thought, feeling, and intelligence, concluding that no other species has “played such an important part in the history of the world.” Not to mention the indispensable role Worms play in maintaining the health, vitality, and viability of the soils that grow our food and sustain our world. Over one hundred years later and we still stand by while Worms are killed, pierced by a hook and unable to breathe as we use them in our ploy to wreak even further havoc on fish families, communities, and ecosystems.

I began purchasing Worms from stores and gas stations and freeing them in our local forest preserve, but one person cannot do this alone. We need a movement for Worms.

The mission of this project is to catalyze one to a multitude. First, this project will inspire collective action on behalf of Worms sold as bait, in order to safeguard their futures and our own. In so doing, this project will also provide a path and a community for folks to explore and deepen their own unique process of reconnection with the Earth, during a time of increasing violence and isolation around the world.

I will spend the upcoming summer traveling around the Midwest, buying and releasing Worms relegated as bait. At each place I stop to free the Worms, I will leave a flyer with the store owner and on the fridge, informing and imploring people to do the same.

Ultimately, even if no one scans the QR code, even if no one takes it upon themselves to free another carton of Worms, the seed will have been planted in a few additional minds and I will still have the funds to save hundreds of Worms that would otherwise have been sent to a violent death. These Worm lives, if nothing else, are worth every cent and every moment spent on their liberation. No matter what role they play in our awakening or reconnection, no matter how our food systems and ecosystems would collapse without them, they are deserving of life and freedom simply because they are beings of this Earth as much as any one of us.

As the venerable Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer says, in her essay on ferrying salamanders across a busy road in the middle of the night, “What is it that drew us to the hollow tonight? What crazy kind of species is it that leaves a warm home on a rainy night to ferry salamanders across a road? It’s tempting to call it altruism, but it’s not. There is nothing selfless about it. This night heaps rewards on the givers as well as the recipients. We get to be there, to witness this amazing rite, and, for an evening, to enter into relationship with other beings, as different from ourselves as we can imagine. It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a “species loneliness” – estrangement from the rest of Creation. We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night. For a moment as we walked this road, those barriers dissolved and we began to relieve the loneliness and know each other once again.”

This project is a movement to liberate the worms and ourselves – it will allow us to know each other once again, to enter back into a relationship as ancient and sacred as any in our lives. Once you’ve seen the Worms, you can’t unsee them, and you won’t want to. And that is the point, the point at which your eyes are open and you are no longer able or inclined to suppress your inherent connection to the Earth, where we, collectively, need to be.

I believe that the Worms will guide us there, one carton at a time.