Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakable tender hand, placed beside another thread and held and carried by a hundred others.
― Rainer Maria Rilke
I lazily glaze across my desk and something catches my eye — a pen.
Hardly interesting or unique, I’d be lucky if it had ink and if not, it could easily be cast aside, banished to the realm of other inkless pens next to the scattered books and empty shelf, then I could find its replacement after doodles on paper I also refuse to toss. But upon further reflection, there’s an interesting phenomenon at play.
Why does one faulty part cause me to throw the pen away?
The pen can’t be fixed, because disposability is its design, and as soon as its reservoir is dry, the pen stops being a pen and has transformed into a broken pen, which no longer writes, cannot be sold, cannot be fixed and must be discarded like a greasy rag. If I unfasten the broken pen into pieces, then it stops being a pen all together and transforms into a collection of parts. Each part has its own function and design, none of which act remotely like a pen, and I could go on and on until I end up with plastics, polymers and general goo, which again do not function like a pen.
This strange phenomenon is composition.
Composition creates a new being out of the many.
Our physical bodies follow this principle; we’re composed of organs, these organs are composed of cells, these cells are composed of — well, you get the picture, but this picture is important to paint in your mind, because the integrated being exists as a separate and distinct form from its constituent parts. Consider the saying “can't see the forest for the trees,” which refers to a state of mind where focus on detail prevents comprehension of the whole, well, its opposite is also true, especially in terms of our bodies, where a lack of focus on particular detail, such as diet, impacts our understanding of symptoms and physical ailments.
In some strange way, composition is more real than the pen itself. Without this abstraction, no pen could be designed from parts and no parts could be designed from material. What exactly would exist? Composition is one of the many hidden forces behind our transient and material world; permeating through every aspect of life.
Amos Miller is an Amish farmer in the county of Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania.
For nearly three decades, Amos operated his organic farm traditionally, avoiding gasoline, fertilizer and electricity, because Amish farmers firmly practice their beliefs.
Miller’s Organic Farm became a well recognized local brand.
From a county population of around four hundred, Amos had thousands of loyal members in an exclusive buyer’s club, which attracted business from distant regions, because quality preservative-free produce is difficult to find and in high demand. His farm sold fresh produce, cheese, raw milk, organic eggs and grass-fed beef to customers, and he claims some customers purchased his produce as “medicine.”
However, that all changed for Amos in 2016.
The problem can be traced back to two distinct incidents in 2014 and 2016. Both involved people in the state coming down with listeriosis illnesses.
However, one of them succumbed to the illness. This drew the attention of the U.S Department of Agriculture who launched an investigation and discovered the listeriosis outbreak originated from the raw milk Miller sold at this farm.
This is a serious infection that is often caused by consuming contaminated food. This disease is especially dangerous to newborns, pregnant women, older adults, and those with compromised immune systems.
— Amish Farmer Faces Fines Against U.S Dept. of Agriculture (Nov. 8, 2022)
After immense pressure from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a case against Amos in 2021 preventing him from selling meat and poultry products, and now faces $300,000 in fines and possible incarceration.
The Amish, who are community-oriented traditionalists and refrain from political involvement, represent a control group of cultural change. Customers who sought out Amos and his produce likely had wide access to USDA and FDA approved products, and access to government approved information as described below.
Is it safe to consume raw milk?
No. FDA and other health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that raw milk is unsafe because it can contain disease-causing pathogens.
Is Amos to blame? The customer? The FDA?
The FDA assures us customers’ medicinal claims are false.
There are no beneficial bacteria in raw milk for gastrointestinal health.
Bacteria found in raw milk are not probiotic. Probiotic microorganisms must be non-pathogenic (Teitelbaum and Walker, 2000).
— Raw Milk Misconceptions and the Danger of Raw Milk Consumption (Nov 1, 2011)
All Amos’ customers had a choice, but government thinks they should not.
This is one example of government gradually encroaching on tradition. While it may be true raw milk contains potential contaminants, does a consumer not have a right to choose what to purchase? Are modern artificial foods and flavourings that much safer?
Why does the FDA police traditional foods while promoting experimental injections?
If 2020 and beyond is an indicator, government thinks it does have a right to decide.
Who is right and what information can be trusted?
Is the truth revealed through tradition, after decades and centauries of experience, is it through experts and scientific dictate — or a combination of both?
The growing spread of rumors, misinformation and disinformation about science, medicine, and the FDA, is putting patients and consumers at risk.
We’re here to provide the facts.
Why do agencies want to control what is and is not acceptable to put in your body? Is it really for your safety? What was unfathomable in tradition is policy now. This conflict is a result of incrementalism — a progressive composition of change.
Tyranny is not a destination, but a capitulation of action.
Like a disease that lives dormant in the body, thriving when immunity wanes, tyranny is an ever-present ambition that becomes a festering cancer only when the majority permit its being. This disease is the cumulative act of capitulating one oppressive act each day. Policy-based increments are meant to nudge behaviour, and many tragically follow, because the many simply do not see the forest for the trees.
What abominations are born through each immoral act?
What horrors await when madness replaces motherly instinct?
But as a hidden force, composition is neither good nor evil.
A garden does not start from a plant nor a seed, but after cycles of life and death when a seed finds its opportunity through fertile ground. From seed to plant, from fruit and to seed, each stage is an incremental composition from life before. The garden cannot pop into being — and if it did — it would likely perish, because the garden is a composition from the many, and while chemically fed transplants may produce a beautiful yet fleeting illusion, it is soon tested by these compositions of life.
Tyranny does not pop into being and neither does freedom.
recently wrote about “the mysteries of inspiration, how it comes and goes, and the corresponding loss of ego and expectations that come if one decides to follow it. It is a process of letting go of results to focus on method.”The method composes each step we make towards a destination, because at night we can’t see the forest, only the trees. Never before has there been so much room to trust each step we take, solely because they’re the right ones to make. Now is a time to trust the method despite the madness — and renew our alliances with faith.
I feel for Amos, because I long for a more traditional life, and as an individual I have my own great work to remain sovereign and free. Next year we have plans for meat birds, layers — and maybe a goose — with a goal to become “off-grid” with potatoes and most of our meat, because I see further encroachment from the state.
In reality, growing scientific evidence shows that woodsmoke affects human health and contributes to air pollution.
Some cities and scientists are also tackling woodsmoke as an environmental justice issue by tracking its disproportionate impact on low-income residents and communities of color, who are already burdened with other forms of air pollution.
Their work reveals that residential wood burning isn’t just a rural habit, and that even a small number of urban stoves and fireplaces can have far-reaching consequences.
— Wood-burning Stoves Raise New Health Concerns (Mar 2, 2022)
Through increment and progress, tradition becomes terrorism.
Is this something to capitulate?
In the composition of madness participation is key.
Despite the popular thought “voting doesn’t matter,” I can still vote with my attention, thoughts and behaviour, because I have a taste for aesthetics and savagery is not part of my palate. I can choose the composition of being exclusively through action.
Materialism teaches us that life is short and bland, truth is power, and there’s nothing wrong with indulging in pleasures that get out of hand. But composition reveals a tapestry, that we are parts to a many and that many creates new being, which may be grown naturally like a garden or gestated from the sticky and cold orifice of the state.
Because our destination is hidden, what actions will you choose? Will you capitulate to the madness, and participate in a viscous birth to an unspeakable evil? For each action you know is wrong, what tapestry does that weave?
This is a call for moral courage.
If you believe in a better world, a world where children are free from the nefarious actors of the state, then nothing is more important than the actions that you take.
I've been wondering for years when they would come for the woodstoves. I assume they have not fully tried to outlaw them because most of the worlds poorest cook and heat with wood.
Magnificent work challenging us all to stand for freedom and the courage to speak out in defense of it.