SOMETIMES IN LIFE, WE GET A WAKEUP CALL or we have something happen to us that completely changes our sense of reality. When our reality changes in this way we have an opportunity to view our life afresh. One such wakeup call I remember is when I was eight years old and attending a boy's boarding school in England. Every morning at this school, we had an assembly at which all boys were present, and to which the headmaster would come and say some prayers and then give announcements for things that might be happening in the school that day. The assemblies were very formal affairs and everyone would be standing in neatly arranged lines, on the best behavior.

On the morning which stands so clearly in my mind, we were all standing in our rows and the headmaster did not come. This was unprecedented. Some 10 minutes late, he arrived, striding into the room as usual, and standing in front of us ready to start the prayers. There was a long silence, and I can remember all the boys peering around each other trying to see what the delay was all about. In the end what came to us was the sight and sound of our headmaster sobbing and weeping into his handkerchief. We were all completely dumbfounded. We had never witnessed such as spectacle and had no idea what to make of it. Eventually our headmaster dried his eyes and started to try and explain to us what was upsetting him so much. You have to understand that I'm talking about a boy's boarding school in England. As far as I remember, we were an institution unto ourselves, in that the school was located in the countryside and we had very little contact with what was going on in the world. We watched TV perhaps once a week, and very few people in the school read newspapers and other things relating to world affairs.

With a very emotional voice, our headmaster told us that President Kennedy had been shot dead, in Dallas, Texas. In those moments, it seemed like everything was frozen in space and time. To this day I can remember the compete flavor of that moment, when we were introduced through the _expression of a very kind man, our headmaster, to something unimaginable and completely shocking that affected our whole world. Assassination was not a word that was familiar to any of us, and its sudden presence in our lives through our headmaster's explanation became a shocking reality.

In this article, we are going to look at the Design of John F Kennedy to fathom what prompted his fate and how a single man could have affected a world's population and have been so beloved and respected by complete strangers across the world.

The Planner
John Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, into the Incarnation of Planning. Those who are born into this Incarnation are called to find balance in their lives between their vision to improve the world around them and their personal wishes to benefit their family and community. "Planners" can be very inspiring as JFK showed to all, often indicating how others could expend their efforts towards achievements of goals beyond personal agendas to bring benefit to all of mankind. (Another great leader born with this particular Incarnation was Sir Winston Churchill.) Many of the ideas that JFK put out during his lifetime came into being through a "trial and error" process, in that nobody really knew if what JFK was proposing could actually come to be. However, it was very easy for people to pick up on his enthusiasm and run with it to bring about some remarkable accomplishments in a very short space of time.

Anyone born into the Incarnation of the Planner, is defined emotionally in their Design chart. They are emotional beings who ride up and down on internally generated emotional waves. They need to be very clear for themselves that when they are engaging with other people their emotional energy can be very contagious, affecting others through an attunement with their particular emotional state. If they are up in their wave emotionally, positively excited, they will convey that positive excitement to others. If they are down in their wave emotionally, depressed or despondent, they will convey their despondency and sense of depression to others.

The Single Definition
In his design chart, JFK has a single definition, the 40-37, the channel of "Community" and "Family," that connects between the Heart/Ego Center and the Solar Plexus, Emotional Center. In his chart, this channel is colored in red, indicating that it is an unconscious definition within his design. In all design charts, there are two calculations that go to make up the whole picture: one calculation, in which all the activations are colored in black, gives an indication of the conscious personality that the person can see themselves living out; the other calculation, in which all the activations are colored in red, gives an indication of the unconscious and genetically inherited nature of the person, which may be concealed from them, but not necessarily from those who interact with them.

As a single definition design chart, there is particular significance that this "Community" channel within JFK's chart is unconscious. Since it is activated by his unconscious Sun and Earth, relating directly to his mother and father's genetic input, JFK would have enormous struggles sometimes to differentiate between his own agendas and those considered relevant by his "family" members. In using the word "family," this definitely pertains to those with a blood relationship, but also expands into many other areas of personal and impersonal relationships.

One of the features of the "Community" channel, is that it is rooted in a very profound consideration. This consideration revolves around the basis of fair exchange: that any favors in life are given and received equally. In other words, if I help you, it is naturally implied that you will help me, on equal terms. If for any reason whatsoever this consideration is not met, the community bond is broken and friends, family, business associates and political allies are cast aside instantly, sometimes without realizing what it is that has happened to them. Inevitably in JFK's design it can be seen that he would have some extraordinarily tight bonds with friends, allies and family that could become severed at a moment's notice often without anyone being in any way clear of what it is that had actually come to pass.

The Emotional Being
Anyone who has a defined Emotional, Solar Plexus Center, is a naturally emotional person, being subject to many emotional highs and lows of life. All emotional people are subject to mood swings. Within his defined emotional center, JFK also has two other activated Gates. The Gate 30, is an unconscious activation conveyed from his maternal grandmother's genetic input, to be practical and grounded in living out his wishes, and the 49, is a conscious and unconscious activation through the planet Uranus, indicating a very particular and shocking tendency towards embracing revolutionary concepts. It was an easy thing for JFK to pick up on any underlying themes of popular discontent and guide people's attention towards ways in which things could be rearranged for the benefit of "the community." As a political tool, this "revolutionary" tendency could be used very dramatically to include (or exclude) people or their concepts within the bounds of what might be considered expedient for the community at large.

Since the channel in JFK's chart defining his emotional center is unconscious, JFK might very easily have been unaware of his particular moods in any particular moment. Unbeknownst to him sometimes he could easily convey a sense of dissatisfaction to others because he was feeling down in his own emotional wave. It might be very easy for him to convey displeasure to someone without meaning to. Equally easily, he could convey a sense of enthusiasm and pleasure toward somebody without really intending to do so. Having said this, it must be implied that most people would not necessarily recognize JFK's personal intentions too clearly. Throughout the time of his lifespan, it was never really acknowledged that men had emotions, it was generally accepted that women had emotions, but not men. Even in these times, emotionally defined people must recognize for themselves that many times they will be misread for what it is they really intend. They have to recognize for themselves that any decisions they make are guided by the principle of recognizing personal mood swings and thus a tendency to see all things in life either from one emotional extreme or another. Patience is the underlying keyword for all emotionally defined people. Patience to see things from all sides before coming to any conclusions, and even then, appreciating that conclusions are a part of a wave motion. For emotional people, life is always lived on a wave of ups and downs.

The Open Spleen and Crown Centers
Sometimes in charts one sees that certain centers have no activations has in them at all. The centers are called open centers. In JFK's design chart, there are two open centers : the Crown Center at the top of the chart, and the Spleen Center on the lower left side of the chart. Open centers exhibit the characteristic that they can be perfect reflectors energetically to other people having that particular Center defined in their Design. For instance, an open Crown Center can be open to, and reflect back, every kind of inspiration imaginable. It can attune to almost any concept either practical or impractical, reasonable or unreasonable, sensible or nonsensical. With his open Crown Center, JFK would be naturally fascinated in all areas of arts, sciences and philosophies, and would potentially be able to reflect back to people a clear viewing of any concepts that they would bring. Open centers also exhibit the characteristic that they can absorb energies, even to the point of becoming overwhelmed by the conditioned energies that others bring. It would be very easy for JFK to become overly involved in other people's concepts without really knowing if these concepts related to him personally.

The Spleen Center relates physically to our sense of health and well-being. It attunes to its environment through what we describe as fear, alerting us through the senses of taste, intuition and instinct, on a moment by moment basis, to any changes it perceives. An open Spleen Center, in its natural state, reflects back to other people how it is that they perceive fear in their lives. Of itself, an open Spleen can be totally detached from any concept of fear, to the point of being fearless, even reckless. Sometimes an open Spleen Center can be blinded to situations that other people perceive as being very dangerous. What can also happen for people with open Spleen Centers is that they can get completely immobilized when they absorb the fears and hysteria from other people around them.

The Undefined Centers
Of the nine centers in JFK's chart, two of the centers are defined, two of the centers are open, and five centers are undefined. Like the open centers, undefined centers reflect back to other people the energetic nature of the centers. Within the reflection there is included the nuance of any activated Gates within that center. For instance, in JFK's undefined Ajna Center, he had the 47 Gate, the Gate of "making sense of all potential situations, through taking stock and weighing things up." Whoever brought problems and concepts for JFK to consider, found that JFK could very often make clear sense out of situations in a way that others couldn't. In their natural state, undefined centers can reflect an enormously flexible wisdom garnered from countless interactions with people who have the centers defined and therefore fixed.

As a general rule in Design, it can be stated that the more undefined or open centers a chart has, the greater potential exists for that person to grow in wisdom through consciously relating from their interactions with others.

In conclusion.
It is clear that JFK stirred the hearts of millions of people around the world through exhibiting a wisdom that embraced almost everyone, perhaps for the very first time, as a part of a global family with America as its leader. That he made powerful friends as well as enemies was inherent in his Design, and curiously, he would not easily have been able to distinguish between the two. JFK would probably never have appreciated the motives of the people behind his assassination nor any reason to fear their grievances against him.

Our world was brought closer to recognizing its reality as a global family both through his life and in his death.

Next month: Shirley Maclaine, actress, mystic, free spirit.

© 2002 Chetan Parkyn

© Chetan Parkyn, 2002