Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Seven Roles// #6 The Warrior

When we leave the All that Is we are ‘fragments’. Picture a spark of pure white light. One of the first things we do is choose our ROLE. Picture the white spark passing through a prism and becoming one of the 7 colors within the white.
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A very solid Role at the opposite end of the vibration spectrum from Priests, Warriors currently make up 30% of the US population [or they did during the early 1990’s, at least]. This fact along with the recently low number of Servers here [down from 30% overall to 10% during the early 1990’s] explains a lot, I think.
I think we’re presently headed back toward more balance with the rest of the world which could soften the way the US both perceives and presents itself to the world as a whole.

The Warrior// 20% of the population
The Warrior is the Ordinal pole of the Active Roles [the Cardinal pole is the King and will be profiled next]. Warriors are the powerhouses. Often choosing rather large, solid, chunky bodies, Warriors generally enjoy the physical plane immensely, thus they are among the slowest to cycle off. Unlike the zippy, zingy Priests, they don’t see any need to hurry.

Straightforward, candid and less complicated than some of the other roles and with, usually, high moral viewpoints, Warriors generally make not-so-good liars or dissemblers. This fact, along with their strong personal principles, will usually keep them honest. They also will, generally, speak truth to power. Therefore, other roles are likely to go to them when they want a frank assessment of a project to be undertaken or a second opinion.

Warriors love organization and will arrange their lives for peak efficiency. When you’re driving down the street and see lots of lawns punctuated by one yard with a concrete patio covering the front yard—the Warrior lives in the house with the patio. Utilitarianism is the name of the game—aesthetics definitely take a back seat.
The recent penchant in this country for cookie-cutter housing developments that consist of 3 or 4 designs with 3 or 4 color schemes were designed by Warrior architects. They don’t see a problem with the idea of the homeowner needing to check the address on their own house before getting out of the car.

Warriors manufacture our goods, fill our construction crews, act as road workers, staff our fire departments, do all sorts of manual tasks necessary to create a functioning society.
Colleges are filled with a higher percentage of Warriors getting their MBA’s than their numbers in the general population would predict. Our accounting and billing departments are chock full of Warriors doing their organizational things.
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During their earliest lives, Warriors become pirates, gang leaders, robbers, muggers, raiders of other tribes, etc. The rest of us do these things too, of course, but Warriors are particularly drawn to them.
In their later lives, Warriors have to deal with their ingrained tendency toward violence and root it out. As they mature, their flair for organization can move them toward the top in any enterprise they undertake.

From the mid-Baby through the mid-Mature phases, you’ll find Warriors in the police forces, the military hierarchy, in the FBI, the CIA and, these days, Homeland Security.
College and professional football teams, wrestling tag-teams, the martial arts and so on are perfect venues for Warriors.
Chunky Mary Lou Retton certainly stood out in the lineup of gymnasts where the tiny, slender body build is the norm. But notice who it was who not only won a gold medal but did it with a broken foot. And, just to prove her point, after scoring a perfect 10 on her final vault, she did it AGAIN! That’s a Warrior for you.

They march off to wars on a regular basis, too. In fact, I’ve read that Kings and Priests commit a country to its wars—Warriors and Scholars fight them. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but you get the idea.

Warriors become CEOs in large corporations and go into higher politics with high principles, organizational skills and a strong sense of purpose in tow. Many of those large numbers of Warriors the US has recently boasted are women and, as a result, the women’s movement has gotten a huge boost. Warriors aren’t likely to sit quietly and look up at that glass ceiling for very long.
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During their earliest lifetimes, Warriors wage wars, start [and finish] blood feuds, live lives that can be dramatic and leave a fair amount of carnage in their wakes.
A little later, as they work through their organizational phase [mid-Baby through much of the Mature period] they probably spend a fair amount of time in the law-enforcement and political end of things as well as filling the ranks in company after company from mail room clerks to CEO’s.
Later still, as doctors and social workers, they clean up a lot of the karma they created early on. As doctors they tend toward surgical practices which they appreciate for their manual applications. As social workers they’ll tend to gravitate toward government work rather than building private practices.

They’ll also organize everything from Social Service organizations at the national and international levels through local food pantries in their efforts to clean up after their war experiences and other karma-producing activities from their earliest lifetimes.
But, you’ll rarely find them taking advantage of all those safety nets they’ve put in place—even when they’re eligible for the services. Warriors would rather make their own ways in the world. They don’t go in for buying Lotto tickets for the same reason. They prefer to earn their wages—not have windfalls land in their laps.
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My sister is a Mature Warrior who never sits still for long. She has been known to breed dogs, keep a large house going, take that house through several major renovation projects, own a thriving real estate firm [no mean feat in southern California’s cut-throat business climate] and has taken the extra steps necessary to become a broker as well as a realtor.

And she has not sat idly by during these difficult times, bemoaning her fate. Instead, she has branched out into the eco-friendly endeavor of selling solar panels as well as real estate. This is a decidedly Mature Warrior way of meeting the housing crisis.

She has always been far-and-away the most physically active member of our family, exercising daily though she didn’t, so far as I know, attend any classes or follow a specific program.

She lives near the Pacific Ocean and loves to water ski and water-board. She’ll hop on a plane at a moment’s notice to jet off to Hawaii or wherever her fancy takes her or take long, week-end getaways up to Big Sur where she hikes nature trails, goes back-packing and camping. She doesn’t go up there to lounge under a tree with a book.

When our mother was ill, my sister took her into her home and cared for her for several years [some of those home renovations were taken on in order to make our mother more comfortable.]
I get tired just THINKING about her whirlwind life. I could certainly never keep up with her. :)

She has made that oh, so difficult move into the Mature consciousness Soul Age. I can vouch that she is decidedly uncomfortable there. She is to be highly commended—she made the leap and has plowed halfway through that set of lifetimes. She’s at that even-more-difficult point —4th level Mature— the most challenging set of lives for anyone and it must be hell for a Warrior.
Touchy, taking offense easily when others show their feelings too blatantly, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with her own emotions—she tends toward panic attacks when faced with the angst that can accompany the Mature awareness level.

Our mother is a Warrior, too—just entering the Mature phase. My theory is that Jen took on the mission of helping our mom navigate her way through her earliest Mature awarenesses. That, all by itself, would be enough to occupy a person throughout a complete lifetime. Leave it to a Warrior to take on that challenge as well as everything else she has done.
xxx
In the positive pole Warriors are productive, filled with energy, protecting, reliable and practical. They make great parents. They’re also highly principled and honest.
In the negative pole they can be ruthless, coercive, narrow-minded and unforgiving. Not the greatest when compromise is called for, the frustrated Warrior needs to be careful not to become bullying, intimidating and intolerant.
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Warriors often take on the task of managing the planet’s nations—whether as elected leaders or not. The most recent Warrior President of the US was Eisenhower, and that was in a simpler time. Today’s world requires more diplomacy and adroitness than most Warriors can muster.
Nevertheless, Geraldine Ferraro gave it her best shot with her vice-presidential bid and came pretty close to taking our country into new territory.
Golda Meier has managed to pull off that difficult feat though she admitted to preferring to wash dishes rather than govern “because then, at least, you can see something being accomplished.” That is very much the Warrior’s point of view.

George Patton, L. Ron Hubbard, Clint Eastwood, Alexander Haig [“I’m in charge, I’m in charge!” after Reagan was shot], Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Barry Goldwater, Ralph Nader, Fidel Castro and Oliver North have all shown themselves to be unafraid of a good fight.
Jean Harlow, Lauren Bacall and Mae West were Warrior actresses better known for their blatant sexuality than their acting skills though Jane Fonda and Bette Davis have been acknowledged for both.
Warriors produce spiritual leaders, too. Yogi Bhajan of the disciplined Sikhs is an Old Warrior. Ken Keyes, good Warrior that he is, organized Buddhism into a step-by-step program for the busy American taste. Sun Bear is both learning and teaching that, “In gentleness there is great strength.”

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