{breaking things down}

Recently, I wrote about the dead animal that had been left on my street in a plastic bag. To me,  this act of  leaving it in a plastic bag, as if it were trash and not a life, spoke volumes about how humans relate to the rest of the creatures on the planet. It was sad in a way that we don’t quite have language for and continued to bother me for days because no one moved the corpse. To discard something in such a manner nullifies dignity. If I were of a stronger constitution, I would have buried it, or at least moved it into the woods to decay in private. I thought of it for several days, unsure of how to deal with our gift, but unwilling to vomit at the end of my street, I did nothing but watch the process of organic deterioration. Each day as I turned to go home, I would roll the window of my jeep up to avoid the smell.

Then, after a few days, I spied the most gruesome creature, a huge turkey vulture, waiting patiently atop a telephone pole near the body. As is always the case, I cried out when I saw the thing, but quickly followed with a little prayer of thanks. Vultures are, after all, among our most unappreciated allies.

Decomposers are so important and we really fail to give them the recognition they deserve. I remember learning that vultures are quite remarkable, first, they have those awful-looking bald heads so that they can dig into decaying animal flesh and not get harmful bacteria stuck in head feathers.  Additionally, their digestive tracts are uniquely equipped with special acids that dissolve deadly bacteria such as anthrax, botulism, cholera, and rabies, to name a few.

Vultures prevent the spread of disease and without them, can you imagine how bad things would smell?

Organisms that that do the fundamental work of breaking down organic matter are called decomposers. Some of these marvelous, unglamorous creatures include fungi, bacteria, worms, and small scavengers like flies and cockroaches. Larger decomposers are vultures and other carrion. They do the work that no other organisms want to do, but more importantly, they do the work no other organisms are equipped to do.

Best of all, they have a passion for it!

Without all-star organic recyclers  fungi, mycologists are quick to remind us, life as we know it would not exist and we’d be buried in dead plants and animals in a matter of months. We take these organisms utterly for granted, but they are literally indispensable.

I recently read an article about how to be a better leader (or something of that nature) and one of the first suggestions was to do the jobs that need to be done that no one else wants to do. Taken them on voluntarily and do them well. Perhaps the secret of the decomposers is the key to making yourself indispensable.