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?Malcom XLife Purpose: Passionate Artist / The IndividualistLife Lesson: Power / Authority Soul Initiation: It is Safe to Feel and Express Malcolm X was one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. A black nationalist and charismatic speaker, he was assassinated by the Nation of Islam in 1965. A short visit to his fingerprints, palms and biography makes interesting reading. Malcolm's dad was also an outspoken figure whose position in the community got his house burned down and, eventually, got him murdered. We will never know exactly how this affected the young Malcolm, but take note his Right Jupiter Life Lesson. When Right Jupiter is the low ranking fingerprint, expect Issues of Power to predominate, usually in difficult and challenging ways. Territorial violations and outright injustice piled upon injustice must have left their mark. It would be quaint to draw a straight line from such incidents to Malcolm X's social consciousness, but that is not the way things tend to go at the Earth University. Malcolm became a criminal and was sent to jail for burglary. It was in prison that Malcolm Little became Malcolm X and joined the Nation of Islam; his superb oratory responsible for much of the organization's growth in the early 60's. But when Malcolm found out the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, was violating the very creed he preached, Malcolm could not be silenced. It was Malcolm's adherence to principle, his courage to stand up for what he believed that made him famous and eventually got him killed, just like his dad. Nonetheless, one can certainly say he faced his Right JupiterLife Lesson and, like the sheriff in the next story, he Reclaimed His Power. Master of Power and Influence as the Life Lesson When Jupiter becomes the Life Lesson, the challenge is to Reclaim Your Power. Goldilocks says the most common Reclaim Your Power errors are as follows: Getting stuck in someone else's life movie Fearing that you are insufficient for what life asks of you Selling out on what you really want, playing it safe Not standing your ground, running from confrontation Using more power than necessary, exercising power without appropriate restraint Picking a fight with your cat when you are actually angry at your dog The Sheriff It is the Old West. A sheriff is on patrol. Seeing a gun pointing at him from a dark alley, he pulls his own revolver and shoots the bad guy dead. Only it turns out there was no bad guy. It was a kid with a toy gun. The sheriff's mistaken identification had resulted in tragedy. Feeling terrible, the sheriff decides to hang up his guns. "No child shall ever die at my hand again," he declares. Hearing the Dodge City sheriff does not wear a gun, every bad guy in the Old West moves into town. They rob the bank three times a day but the sheriff will not resort to violence. They shoot hats off old ladies' heads just for sport and the sheriff stoically looks on. But when the bad guys start shooting at the feet of the blind man yelling "Dance. Dance…" well, that was too much. The sheriff goes upstairs, opens the chest where he had placed his pearl handled revolvers (the right heroic theme song plays in the background) and, once again armed, he strides into the saloon to the jeers and guffaws of the men in black hats. Bang, bang. When the smoke clears, the bad guys are all gone, Dodge City is safe again and the blind guy goes on to invent the internet. It is only a story but let's look at it more closely. The Dodge City sheriff was not a coward. He put his guns away in an attempt to be honorable but it was a mistaken attempt. Only repeated violations of his territory, actually repeated and escalating violations of his territory, convinced him to strap his guns back on. Whenever there is a Reclaim Your Power Life Lesson there is always some power giveaway perpetrated with honorable intent. Whether the guns represent a particular talent put on hold because of financial necessity or some lifestyle choice abandoned due to family arrangement or something else, all Reclaim Your Power persons are challenged to recognize the error of their ways and strap their figurative guns back on. |
