Michael Jackson - A Study in Conditioning - Part 3 - Root
More Birth Time Controversy
After submitting Basil Fearrington’s MJ birth time story to ISAR's (International Society for Astrological Research) email newsletter, very respected astrologer Edith Hathaway sent in a credible birth time of 19:33 (7:33pm), quoting Chakrapani Ullal, who said he was Michael Jackson's personal Vedic astrologer for 10 years. This changes the Rodden Rating to a DD for “conflicting quotes.” This birth time puts the Moon in the first house, poetic for the emergence of a personality as a moonwalker!
Compared to the 23:53 Human Design chart, the 19:33 chart's Moons change gates and Design Mercury changes the line. However, the definition, the coloring of centers, doesn’t change from 09:47 in the morning through midnight. If Michael had been born before 09:47, he would have had no centers defined.
Root
The first two installments discussed the undefined Sacral center (16.03) and Spleen center (16.04). Today’s topic is the undefined Root center, the last of the three centers most related to the body's vitality.
My initial Human Design education taught that the Root center was associated with adrenaline and kundalini energy, ambition and drive. It took me years to finally penetrate this center's energy and delete inaccurate, old ideas and memorized phrases. I went to the source of the first two synthesis elements, namely the chakra system and the tree of life to see how they inform the Human Design System centers. As a result of this exploration, the Root center came alive and meaningful in a multitude of ways. Connecting the centers to the chakras gives a powerful relationship to anatomy. The adrenals are not in the base of the spine.
To study any center, observe yourself to see how it operates and then test your theories by watching your family and friends with and without center definition. From my observation, those people with undefined Root centers have a much harder time dealing with anxiety and security in the future. People with defined Root centers tend to trust everything will work out.
I thought about the word “root” after reading one HD blog using the word “Base” for the Root center. This happens in our expanding Human Design world as people develop language to individualize their Human Design style. Base is okay as a keyword, but it's not the name. The Root center is a base, a foundation on which other things are built. The Root or first chakra element is Earth. This center begins our mortal journey, a foundation of manifestation: birth into life and a body. This is a primordial way we encounter the essence of life, death and the meaning of survival.
Going back to the imagination I had for the word “root,” I thought of a plant root that goes into the earth. This metaphor is often used in yoga or dance to drop your tail straight into the earth. In humans (I imagined ), our roots are coiled up at the base of our spines, so that rather than being planted like trees, we can walk around. This is very similar to the image of the Kundalini snake coiled at the base of the spine that can rise up through to the crown and potentially result in sudden enlightenment.
Key characteristics for this center that are easy to recognize for an undefined Root include restlessness, agitation and stressing out. Being grounded, ambitious, driven and centered in stressful situations is more likely when the Root center is defined. However, not everyone with a defined Root center will be ambitious. It is just one of the qualities. Arousal, fighting and fury are in the Root, as well as excitement and joy. Stagnation, hoarding and depression are Root disturbances that give the lesson in letting go, while contemplation, stillness, and the ability to hold and contain energy, can ground us.
The Root carries enormously powerful, primitive urges, the organs of elimination, sphincter muscle, survival, fear, arousal of desire, the pelvic nerve and tailbone. It's insightful to add the concept of moksha, one of the four petals of the Root chakra. "Moksha" means liberation and is related to spiritual illumination, especially upon death and the release of the body through the practice of non-attachment, no desire pulls one immediately back into form, to earth, to a body.
Michael’s Root center was undefined, so he did not stabilize this energy himself. The conditioning from his father could have included the father's enormous ambition to drive his children. I also imagine the father being furious, so it would be very interesting to get his birth information. I think he has a defined Root, based on how hard he drove the Jackson 5 and how incredibly ambitious he seems to be. I heard him say, "I made Michael into the superstar that he became." (not an exact quote) and looking at MJ's Root center, I can imagine that it was true. Michael Jackson became the person he was due to the father's conditioning.
To understand how deeply we are imprinted by other people defining centers that are white in our own charts leads to an awakening potential or at least recognition of a habitual way you encounter conditioning that is simply learned. It's not "the way it is." Returning to the innocence of a child is also to let go of and disidentify with the dysfunctional habits we are taught and don't easily drop.
Sacral, Spleen and Root in Combination
Putting together these three undefined centers in Michael Jackson’s chart shows someone who was not particularly physical, vital or strong. His was not a body for longevity. From various news sources, it was reported that he wasn't very drawn to sexual energy or arousal and was deeply projected upon over his sexual eccentricities. He didn’t have good conditioning informing him how to take care of himself. It’s a very vulnerable image in this chart, giving an impression of someone who was not understood and who had no idea what was going on with his body.
As we go on with the rest of the centers, this theme of his vulnerability will continue.
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