"Come together, right now, over me...."

"Come together, right now, over me...."

When John Lennon wrote this, alluding to his call for people everywhere to join with him in pursuit of Peace on Earth in our time, he may have been referring to himself (having the ego that he did, and at the time The Beatles certainly were bigger than Jesus) but in reality, ‘me’ can be anything at all.

Humans have always come together, formed alliances and coalesced around a multitude of shared interests, charismatic leaders or ideologies. Millions of people are united under a dynastic monarch or tyrant or president. Smaller groups who share common interests and ideals unite politically in parties, corporately in profit-making organisations, and socially in churches, sporting clubs, volunteer groups, and charities. 'Me' could also be a family crest or a pattern representing a tribal group. Once people came together at ceremonial sites to worship the life-giving sun under the symbol of the crux disimulata (the swastika), appropriated in more recent times when it united people in the evil polarity of goodness and light.

So it doesn’t matters too much what unites people, only that we do ‘come together’, that we look after each other and work together peacefully and co-operatively in stable social arrangements, whatever form that may take. In fact 'co-operation' is a biological imperative over which we have little control, a force of nature, a powerful urge that drives most of Earth’s species (mammals in particular) ensuring their survival through adversity and the vagaries of nature, into future generations. And it has driven humanity since before we even became human around two million years ago. We may believe we are superior, but we cannot deny we are just another species of animal living in the body of the planet and completely dependent on its ecological foundations. We may have evolved in a different way to other creatures but we are all bound by the same Laws of Nature and if we transgress those laws (as in destroying our own habitat) we can expect no mercy from our indifferent Earth Mother who provides our only home in a vast, empty universe. But what makes our species unique is that we can, by our own hands, bring down other species with us.

And so the call-out in our time must be for all of us inhabitants of Planet Earth, to "come together" and strive to end wars, end the relentless destruction and pollution of our life-support systems, and transition our societies back into the ecologically-sound lifestyles that we, as indigenous peoples, have lived for tens of thousands of years. As Robert Graves warned; “We must retrace our steps or perish.”

After the last old ‘digger’ has passed, whose mates suffered and died under our current flag, and when today’s diggers and the general population no longer identify so much with our colonial past, consider this unifying symbol as a new flag for Australia, one that spans and unites the entire continent. What do you get if you take the states star (2 tier government our inevitable future, a reduced federal administration and a parliament of the heads of Regional Governments with boundaries based on the major water catchments) and the Union Jack, off the Australian flag? (Respectfully of course, acknowledging their roles in our history.) You get the constellation of Crux, a new flag, and just people living under it, helping each other through thick and thin, a mostly decent mob just trying to do the right thing and have a laugh while we’re doing it – all equal, all standing together under the stars of the Southern Cross. All we need for this to become a reality is the support of each other… and love.

……...............o0o......................

"When they analyse the semantics consistently through mythology and theology of words like ‘love’ and ‘god’ they find the common theme is UNION, that we just want to be connected to something higher – that can be another person, that could be God that could be a relationship with Nature, it could even be a relationship with West Ham United – I think the important thing is to have the central tenet of your being love, compassion and tolerance – everyone knows ."   Russell Brand