Have you ever been somewhere where a little kid, finding a piano, just bangs the keyboard, as if the louder and the more keys he hits at once, the more accomplished a pianist he is? I remember doing that. My parents would make me stop. It sounded so bad. No tune, no rhythm, no harmony.

There’s an incredible harmony in Nature. Two things that show us that harmony are earthworms and mycorrhiza, a little-known plant fungus on which all our lives depend. In fact, I’d like to nominate the lowly earthworm for the honor of “Planet Earth’s Most Responsible Inhabitant.”

Most of us live our lives as if earthworms weren’t looking out for us. In fact, earthworms have the amazing ability to compost—that is, to digest organic wastes and turn them into natural fertilizers.  And as they do that, they aerate the soil, which in turn, makes the plants growing in it much more able to take up the nutrients they need from the soil. So without worms, there’s nowhere near as much nutrition there for plants to get. As a matter of fact, the earthworms in a single acre of land can produce up to 18 tons of composted soil—all just from chewing up and spitting out the minerals and decaying plant and animal matter they find there. The soil they make is highly nutritious, with everything properly balanced. Without worms, the soil is too compact for plants to get at the soil’s nutrition even if it is there.

If I could nominate one more organism for “Planet Earth’s Most Responsible Inhabitant” it would be mycorrhiza (pronounced my-ker-AY-za) a little-known fungus that all our lives depend on. Ever wondered why the bacteria and other microbes that help worms compost don’t eat the living roots of plants growing in the soil? They devour everything else they can come across. Why do they eat everything else, but stop chomping the minute they encounter a live plant root? The answer is mycorrhiza. These tiny fungi grow on the outside of plant roots where they secrete highly toxic anti-bacterial substances—antibiotics, in fact—to keep the microorganisms from harming them and from harming the plants which are their hosts. Fungi and bacteria are natural antagonists, so it’s a perfect fit. Without mycorrhiza virtually all the trees and the plants we raise for food would die. We would die too. But here we are, all thanks to the humble mycorrhiza. They do more than just keep plants from dying. They actually help them extract hard-to-find trace minerals in the soil—things they need to be healthy. It’s a win-win situation all around. The healthier the plant, the nicer the mycorrhiza’s “home.”

How have we humans treated the hardworking earthworm and brilliant mycorrhiza? In 1948 we awarded Paul Miller the Nobel Prize for inventing DDT, one of the most carcinogenic insecticides on earth. That was a mistaken honor if ever there was one. By the late sixties, DDT was showing up in the livers of Antarctic penguins’ and public outcry against DDT had forced most Western governments to ban its use. Does DDT distinguish between insects, on the one hand, and helpful mycorrhiza and earthworms, on the other? No, unfortunately it doesn’t. So wherever it was used, DDT put a stop to everything the earthworm and mycorrhiza did to make our grain and produce healthy. And unfortunately, inorganic chemicals like DDT don’t compost. So traces of the DDT we sprayed between 1948 and 1968 will still be in the soil 900 years from now. And what’s in our soil ends up in our food. But even worse, American and Canadian companies still sell DDT to farmers in the Developing world, so we consume DDT on Central American bananas and Mexican tomatoes and drink it in our coffee and tea. There really are advantages to buying food locally or organically. DDT does kill bugs, but you end up with unhealthy, dead soil—soil that can’t naturally replenish any of its nutrients—growing unhealthy plants and produce. And surprise, surprise, that leads to unhealthy people. I wish I could say DDT was the only nasty chemical we have to contend with. But enough bad news for one day.

I have good news too:  detoxification is one of the many normal functions of nature. Where our soil has gotten to be like the body of a drug addict—starved of essential nutrients and drugged with synthetic chemicals, the land can still be cleansed, but only if “we stop adding to its toxic burden.” However addicted we are, we’ve got to stop and realize that we can actually live in harmony with Nature—synergistically, the way we were meant to live. So maybe we ought to take a lesson from the lowly earthworm and from the even more overlooked mycorrhiza. However ingenious we humans think we are, we ought to listen to the harmonies they’ve learned.

Banging more piano keys harder, louder and longer, doesn’t guarantee us beautiful music at all. Without harmony, you end up with nothing but headaches. That’s what my parents said. And you know, I think they were right.