Heavens and National Flags

Heavens and National Flags

There is something curious about the national flags of the planet Earth. Almost half of our national flags exhibit astronomical symbols. The phenomenon is transcultural, non-sectarian, worldwide. It is also not restricted to our time: Sumerian cylinder seals from the third millennium B.C. and Taoist flags in pre-revolutionary Chine displayed constellations.

The flag of the United States has fifty stars; the Soviet Union had one and Israel has one as well. Burma has fourteen, Grenada and Venezuela, seven; Chine, five; Iraq, three; Sao Tome e Principe, two; aJapan, Uruguay, Malawi, Bangladesh and Taiwan, the Sun; Brazin, a celestiall sphere; Australia, Western Samoa, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, the Constellation of the Southern Cross; Bhutan, the dragon pearl, symbol of the Earth; Cambodia, the Angkor Wat astronomical observatory; India, South Korea and the Mongolian Peoples’ Republic, cosmological symbols. Many socialist countries displayed stars and many Islamic countries display crescent symbols.

We are connected to the Earth and to the Cosmos inn the deepest ways, involving destiny of the human species. Photo by Elena

Nation wish thus to embrace something of the power and credibility of the heavens. We seek a connection with the Cosmos. We want to count in the grand scale of things. And it turns out we are connected – not in the personal, small-scale unimaginative fashion that the astrologers pretend, but in the deepest ways, involving the origin of matter, the habitability of the Earth, the evolution and destiny of the human species, themes to which we currently return in our life.