Paul Joseph

Aquarian Songman 

My story is about how I got involved with the Aquarius Festival in the first place. I think probably some of the things that happened could be seen as pretty wacko and I am sure you will probably be inclined to agree, but life can be stranger than fiction sometimes.

I had been living in the bush with a bunch of people in different places along the east coast.  For me the city life became intolerable during the time of the moratoriums. In 1968 I remember singing folk songs from the back of a truck to about 5000 people and it was quite a stirring occasion.

As the truck moved off from the main speaking area to prepare for the march through the streets I remember looking down on a sea of smiling faces extending peace signs and good will. It was an amazing feeling, so many people sincerely expressing their desire for peace. For the end of the Vietnam War and the threats of all wars.

We were really confronted, young people those days, with the ever present threat of nuclear war and global catastrophe. Conscription meant that we could be drawn out of a ballot, forced into a uniform and sent off to fight someone else’s war.

My parents had been born during the First World War, lived through a depression and then had to suffer another war in the flower of their youth. They all had really had their gutful of war and I think all of us born at that time were born with the promise of peace. We were given a duty to create peace. That was what all our parents wanted and the moratoriums were a real expression of youth vitality and determination that eventually did stop the Vietnam War.

It wasn’t just here in Australia. It was happening globally and that was the interesting thing. Here we were, a whole generation of earthlings demanding peace and being swept along on some kind of wave.

But that day in Sydney’s streets was a different kind of wave. A very unkind wave of police formed a wedge like a Roman army and charged directly into this sea of peace lovers. The view from the back of the truck was frightening. Batons flailing, people screaming in fear. Falling before the forces of those who were supposed to enforce the peace!

It was a life changing moment for me. The big lie played out before my eyes. I could no longer believe in a society that punished its young people for wanting a safer world. The powers that be were not being for the people. They enforced the big lie. I couldn’t be a part of that. I had to leave. I decided to go bush and let life find me.

  I left the city behind and with a pack and my guitar, hitch hiked north. I followed the hippy trail to North Queensland. I spent time camping in the bush at Kuranda and in not too long a time I was joined by a whole lot of other people. But we were squatting on someone’s land and when they found out we were there we had to move on.

We were finding it very hard to find places to live. We’d camp on the beach for a while, we’d camp in the bush somewhere but somebody would always move us on. We wanted to plant gardens and get ready for the imminent catastrophe. We needed to be ready for when the crunch comes. It was a question of survival. We had to find land where we could belong.

You know, life is really amazing the way things synchronise. 

I traveled back south and stayed for a while in a commune outside of Sydney at Cattai. We made screen printed clothing and sand cast candles and sold them at Paddy’s Markets in Sydney every Friday. When the lease ran out on the farm we rented it was moving time again. I hitched into Sydney with no idea where I was going and got picked up by a fellow I had known a couple of years earlier. His name was Scattergood.

He took me home to stay at his house, where there were already other assorted yogis and hippies he had befriended. We were a very creative and productive lot, and very friendly too. It wasn’t long before there were 13 of us living in this house and we realized we were a very happy commune indeed, just a bit crowded in our living conditions.

The timing was right. Colin Scattergood had just sold his business, a shop called the High Llama, and was ready for change. He said we should all move to the country and set up a commune and do it properly.

Colin and I travelled the country in his Landcruiser, searching for Shangrila. After a very frustrating two weeks, when we were about to give up and go home we found some beautiful land in Upper Main Arm, Mullumbimby. We were attracted to the land by this magnificent tree in full bloom, growing right by the roadside. It was a jackaranda with a bouganvillia vine growing through the centre of it. An amazing splash of purple with an incredible crimson core.

We stopped the car, sat under that tree and said, “This is it!” Turns out it was for sale. 440 acres for $14,000. Colin pulled out his check book and the deal was done. We went back to gather the tribe and all head for the hills. That was in 1970 and “Kohinur” became the first commune established on the NSW north coast.

It wasn’t long before quite a few people began moving into the area and buying up the land. There were lots of empty houses around because the dairy industry had died and most of the population had left. The standard rent those days was $2 a week so it wasn’t too hard to survive. It felt like we had discovered paradise.

By 1972 there were probably around 100 hippies living in the area. We were proud to call ourselves hippies. We truly were all about peace and love and living it. Hippiness is close to happiness and we knew that’s what we all were searching for, so we were very open and happy to share, and of course, attracted all types, wonderful and weird.

Maybe it was the Mullumbimby Madness, but as our notoriety grew, we became a stop along the pathway of many seekers, dreamers and schemers, and of course, the occasional Jesus. The first one that I remember arrived in June 1972 and he told us that, as a community, we had something very special to do. We could, if we chose to, save the world. He had been visited by extra terrestrials and they had guided him here to collect us.

He was a really nice man, Spaceman Bob. Spaceman Bob said that he had been told that the space beings were going to arrive in Australia on 6th August at a predetermined spot in the centre of a triangle of lay lines. The space ships would take away anyone who turns up to that place and teach them what they need to know to bring the world together. They would then be brought back to get on with the job of saving the world.

I thought, “What an amazing lot of bullshit!”  What was really incredible though, a whole lot of people, who I thought had a lot more sense, were believing him and getting ready to go. Maybe it was the free ride in a space ship, maybe they had great altruism, or possibly it had something to do with mushrooms. Of course it offered a great adventure, but I couldn’t work out how so many people took it seriously.

You see, there was this other part of it, if you really wanted to go, if you were really ready to take on this challenge then you had to fast to purify yourself. There were about 60 people fasting. Almost everyone I talked to was into it – vegetarians turning into breatharians, meditating rather than masticating, purifying and getting ready to follow Spaceman Bob. I thought people were getting led up the garden path by Spaceman Bob and out in the bush it can be a huge garden path.

I resisted the whole idea and kept my own council, just observing my friends’ very strange behaviours and thinking we will all laugh about it soon. One day I was hitch hiking along the road and I got picked up by Spaceman Bob in his Kombi. As he drove along he said, “I hope you are coming with us?” It was a week before the 6th August. He looked me in the eye and smiled and I thought he seemed like a decent sort of a bloke. I had thought he must be a complete nutter, but he appeared quite rational. Anyway, to humour him I said I would come to his next meeting and find out more.

What happened to me then was such a dramatic physical experience like nothing I’d ever had before. I got the shits fiercely. Out of nowhere, by the time I walked up the track to my shack I got diarrhea and had to race for the dunny. No sooner I sat down I started throwing up. I felt like I was exploding from every orifice and my body went into this amazing intense heat thing. I had to rip my clothes off and they were drenched with sweat.

With no warning I was overcome and could only succumb to sickness. All I could do was lie around and suffer for the next few days and had absolutely no desire for food. Water was all I could manage and even that was hard to hold down the first two days. As I got better I realized I had fasted and purified myself.

The next Sunday I was hitching to town and Spaceman Bob picked me up again. He said “You’re coming with us aren’t you?”  I thought, well, at least it will be an adventure - maybe I should just check it out. We went to the meeting place at the Sunflower Cafe and there were about 70 people had turned up to go and see the space ships. We set off in a classic convoy of hippie vehicles just before sunset. We drove 120 miles to a place called the Wallacia Plateau, which was apparently the central point of a triangle of Mullumbimby, Toowoomba and the Sunshine Coast.

I got to ride in the back of Spaceman Bob’s kombi wagon which took the lead in the colourful convoy as we trundled along the back roads. Spaceman Bob was sitting on the bed in the back in meditation pose, tuning in to his guides. The sceptic in me keenly observed that he was not looking where we were going and he had his eyes closed. We were driving along a sealed road and he said “I can feel it. I can feel we are getting close.” I saw he still had his eyes closed. Then he said, “Take the next road to the right.”  Sure enough, round the next bend we found a side road and turned into it.

The convoy crawled along this rutted dirt road in the middle of god knows where and Spaceman Bob became very animated and excited. Still without watching where we were, he said that we were getting very close now. Suddenly he called out, “Stop, stop, stop. This is the spot!”

We pulled off to the side of the road and everybody got out of their vehicles. It was 6th of August, midwinter in the mountains, bloody freezing cold. We had come from the coast where it is always warm, so we were mostly unprepared. Strangely, at the spot where we stopped the barbed wire fence was broken and we stumbled our way into the paddock. About 20 metres inside the fence there was a huge pile of tree stumps and logs, obviously pushed up by a bulldozer, or maybe a thoughtful spaceman!

It didn’t take long to set the pile ablaze and we had a wonderful warming fire and a beacon for our extra terrestrial visitors. It was really a wonderful night. Crisp, clean air and a clear sky made you feel part of this expansive universe. We sat in the warmth of the fire concentrating on the sky, watching and waiting. There were so many shooting stars and more activity in the sky than I had ever imagined. Was it possible they really were going to come? What the hell do we do if they do? We watched and we waited.

It was about 3am and I decided to take a walk and stretch. By this time tiredness was overtaking us all and it seemed obvious that the visitors weren’t going to make it that night. I bumped into Spaceman Bob and Dudley Leggett and Bob asked if we would go walking with him. After a while Bob stopped, turned to us and said, “I feel like I look a bit silly. I am worried I have been deluded and if nothing happens I am going to feel very embarrassed. I am so sorry to have misled all these people.”

“The poor bugger,” I thought. I suddenly felt real sympathy for him. My illusions of his delusions just melted away. I said to him, “Bob, you know, you have just inspired a mob of people to put themselves and their fears aside and do something about saving the world. You have bought us all together and we’ve gone 120 miles to light a fire and stand around looking at the sky, feeling good about each other. How much better can it be?”

“What do I say to everybody?” asked Spaceman Bob. I suggested we go back to the fire and call everyone together and assured Bob that they would understand. We formed a circle holding hands round the fire which by now was more like large glowing embers. It felt like an ancient tribe, the way people have gathered for all of humanity. I said that Bob wanted to talk to us all and that whatever happened, we had all come together for a great intention. I suggested we first chant Om to bring us into focus together and the air was soon filled with the sound of a heavenly choir.

Despite the tiredness we all felt, our harmonies lifted our spirits and then suddenly someone cried out, “Oh look!” and pointed to the sky. I looked up and there was this light, just like a huge headlight bearing down on us. That light flooded right through me. My whole life flashed before me, “It’s real,” I thought. “They are coming for us after all!” I wanted to run, to hide, to get away from there, but I was fixed to the spot. For the first time in my life I felt what it was like to truly surrender to something so much bigger than me.

I felt my resistance just let go. My head was spinning and my heart racing with adrenalin pumping all through my whole body. The light was all I could see and I felt part of the light. I remember feeling tears flowing down my cheeks but the more I let go my fears, the more I felt bathed in the light that was descending upon us. I could hear people around me - some crying, some praying aloud. It was a phenomenal experience we were all sharing. It might have been 5 minutes, it might have been 1 minute – time became meaningless until somebody said, “It’s just the morning star.” 

It was the morning star. But it appeared suddenly high in the sky and was bigger and brighter than any star I have ever seen, before or since. We had all been watching and waiting intently, but somehow this huge light had risen from the horizon to mid-heavens without any of us noticing. Nature had given us all a deeply spiritual experience that brought us all closer together in understanding our human spirit.

At a very personal level, this was a watershed experience for me. My tears flowed, not from fear but for my release from fear that this occasion gifted me. In early childhood it was discovered that I had a rare blood disease. I was never allowed to play sport or take physical risks and was treated as a guinea pig on my very regular trips to hospital. Religion had shielded me from my fear of death until I reached adolescence, when my search for truth led me to turn away from the faith.

I embraced yoga and meditation but, in the dark of the night I could never accept my fragility. Death lurked over my shoulder and my resistance caused anxiety and panic and the need to flee. The sight of the light descending upon us was so powerful and immediate that I knew even running away would be futile. For the first time in my life I truly surrendered. It was a break through that opened my eyes and my heart and whether it was a spaceship or a religious encounter, it was truly liberating for me.

As the sky lightened on August 7th, 1972, we drove back to Mullumbimby it felt that we had truly planted some sort of seed. There was a feeling of connection between us. We had shared something very real - we had bothered to go looking for something beyond our little selves. We put ourselves forward to do our best for the future and, in recognizing that we shared all that, felt like we belonged in a tribe.

From that point on a real change overtook my life. I started to realise the incredible synchronicity of life. I began to understand more about our human spirit, that indeed we are spirit having a very brief human experience. I could now understand that surrender meant opening doors to new horizons. The most profound effect upon me though was a surge of creativity. Ideas rushed like a waterfall. Songs flowed through me. I felt I had discovered my purpose in life.

I realized the importance of what we were doing, getting back to the land. While the term “drop-outs” was used to describe us early Mullumbimby hippies, I could see that we were really pioneers for survival. Our commitment to growing organic food, sharing resources, healthy living and natural health practices was what we thought the world needed. Instead of hiding away, we could be a beacon for humanity.

I came up with an idea to host a festival in Mullumbimby. I thought it would be worthwhile to invite the local farmers and town people to see what we new settlers were about. We were making all kinds of crafts and using our creativity to forge new lifestyles. We might have looked a bit different, with long hair and colourful clothing, but a friendly gathering would help to build positive relations with the locals, rather than have them perceive us as a threat.

About sixty people turned up to a meeting I called in a house in Upper Main Arm. This was the first time the Valley’s hippies met to discuss our commonality. I had naively thought we would all be in agreement and expected an enthusiastic planning session. Instead politics reared its confounding head. Before I even finished my proposals Colin Scattergood, co-founder of the commune, launched into a heated attack.

“We have chosen to live here and we want to keep it to ourselves. If we publicise it there will be thousands of people crawling all over the place. This is our space and we don’t want any more hippies coming here and ruining it for us,” was the general objection Colin raised. He was very determined and his views held sway with the meeting. My impression was that he was playing lord of the manor.

It was a shattering moment for me. I had believed we were all equal, but Colin’s attitude revealed that he had another agenda. I felt very disappointed and so disturbed that I decided I could not live on his commune any longer. The next day I found a deserted old banana shed, further down the valley, high up on a hill at Palmwoods and the farmer who owned it said I was welcome to stay there. It was surrounded by paw paw trees and bananas, and had a magnificent view over the valley.

I was there for about 2 weeks, wondering what I was going to do, feeling sad and isolated in a tropical paradise. I couldn’t understand such mean spiritedness. The general belief among we “drop-outs” was that society as we knew it was on a path to self destruction and we thought that was probably 5 years away. The fears were that desperate starving people would arrive in their hordes and steal the food from our gardens. Paranoia can be so influential!

I had two revelations on that hillside. If we humans were to survive, we needed to wake each other up to better survival and lifestyle options. It is about living simply, and learning from nature. Nature thrives on giving back and always creates abundance. We are born with the wealth of creativity and are capable of determining out future – especially if we work together.

I realized then that to build successful new communities that could survive we needed equal collective ownership of the land. Our loose agreements were not enough to ensure equality. There could be no real security for families if the owner just had a change of mind. If we were to truly become tribal, then we had to find a way to own the land together. Then we could protect the land and each other.

One night at about 10pm there was a knock on my door and Graeme Dunstan, Vye Tourle and Johnny Allen turned up and said that they worked for the Aquarius Foundation of the Australian Union of Students. Their job was to organize the combined universities’ bi-annual festival in May the next year, 1973. These festivals were usually held on a university campus but Graeme wanted to do something different and host the festival in the country – at Mullumbimby - and wanted me to help.

He felt that the Mullumbimby hippies would have a positive influence upon the students and we would bring together the stronger arms of the anti war movement, the students and the drop-outs. Graeme said the festival would be about ideas, not stars. Everybody is an artist and so we would have a festival that welcomed all participants and gave them a voice for their creativity. We would become a living community for 10 days and share all the burdens, from feeding ourselves to managing the program. A Survival Festival in every sense.

To top it off, they said they had a budget of $100,000 which seemed an enormous amount of money at the time. “We could buy land and use the festival to start a community,” I proposed.

I left Mullumbimby the next day with Graeme, Vye and Johnny and went to Brisbane for the first student meeting about the Aquarius Festival. It was a packed house and a very excitable lot indeed. It was wonderful to see how passionate and inspired Graeme was in working towards our shared cause. He is a great speaker with ability to clarify and synthesize ideas that reveal the direction we could go.

He was trying to inspire this mob of big city students to take time out in the bush to learn how to save the world. "Come to a festival with no program where everyone is equal and no stars, but let creativity shine." Well, sometimes people don’t always understand him as well as they should. They were a particularly radical lot up there and there were a few challengers to Graeme’s idealism. In fact it got very boisterous and quite heated.

The arguments raged round the room and chaos threatened. I had recently learned this little song that really appealed to me. It was just a small verse in a 15 minute song from the Incredible String Band that resonated for me and I had developed it into a chant. “May the longtime sunshine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way home.” A simple tune to support a heart felt greeting. I started to play the tune quietly on my guitar, hoping to add a peaceful element to the proceedings.

Whether it was the magic of the words or the seduction of the sentiment, the mood of the meeting changed. By the second chorus people started to hum along and by the third time everyone was singing together and an amazing feeling of joy arose in the room. The transformation was really delightful.

When the song concluded and the applause calmed, someone said, “I fly kites, I would run a workshop on kite making and flying,” Another said, “I’ve got a truck, my uncle’s got a chainsaw I can borrow.”  The enthusiasm became infectious and we were all warmed by the fires of creativity expressed there. As it turned out, that Brisbane group played a major role in the festival, including setting up and managing the festival’s food co-op.

The song became the anthem of the Aquarius Festival and is now carved in the streets of Nimbin and etched in the hearts of many. These days I often get invited to sing the song at funerals, but then it opened a pathway to the Aquarius Festival. That is how I became the Aquarius songman. We formed the White Company to promote the festival and invite participants. We finished every show with that song and it worked its magic on many occasions.

History now records that the Aquarius Festival was a change-point for this region. We thought we were revolutionaries, now it is clear we were part of an evolutionary process that could offer life changing solutions to many, possibly even the Earth itself. I have a sense of belonging in this place and feel part of this community. I believe that we represent not a different, or alternative society, but a better way for people to deal with each other and the planet.

Our real successes have been in our relations with the Traditional Owners, the Bundjalung people, and with the land in creating new communities and protecting the natural environment. When we learned that this area was taboo for women, we sought out the Bundjalung Elders for their advice. We were possibly the first white people to ask permission to use the land and that established relationships that grow stronger all the time.

We didn’t buy land for the festival but directly afterwards created the first multiple occupancy development at Tuntable Falls, near Nimbin. That was the first collective ownership of land in our history and led the government to declare new land use laws for community land development. Thousands of people now enjoy the security and well being of living in land sharing communities.

Our most notable success has been the rescue of rainforest. In 1979, after learning that the last of the Big Scrub was to be logged we stood up for the trees. Following an intense campaign played out in the forest, in the media and the courts, we became the first community on earth to successfully rescue rainforest. As a direct result of our action the government brought in the world’s first rainforest protection laws and declared the Nightcap National Park, which is now a world heritage wilderness.

We are lucky as Australians to have our freedom of expression. Our communities have attracted people of good will from all over the world and we have a wonderful opportunity, with so many cultures merging together, to prove humanity’s ability to co-operate and care for each other and the planet. In hindsight we can see that we have had an impact on Australian culture and changed our world in many ways.

I have learned recently that the morning star is a sacred symbol for the Bundjalung people. With all that has occurred I am tempted to think that Spaceman Bob may well have been led here by the spirit of the ancestors of this country, rather than some mere space beings. I am inclined to believe that the light that illuminated my heart was a gift from the ancient Elders. Perhaps they want to light a pathway to the future where we find true reconciliation between people and the planet. Maybe their wisdom will guide our spirits to the best use of our brief human experience.