The life of this politician is a most poignant one. Here was a man born and nursed in hatred and prejudice who, at the hand of intense suffering (an assassin’s bullet left him paralyzed), became a more humane, loving and noble person and eventually asked for forgiveness from the oppressed blacks he had so disliked and maligned.

If life is a school in which we slowly learn to become sons of God, then George Wallace is an excellent example to all of us of how to be a good student. Wallace was a member of the warrior caste, which made him ideally suited to political life, but the planet governing his dharma was weak giving him a distorted sense of what was fair and just in relation to societal problems and issues. His energy was boundless (a powerful Sun governed his mental health), at least before his crippling paralysis, and he used it to tirelessly pursue his segregationist goals as governor of Alabama and his candidacy for the President of the United States.

He also had a powerful Jupiterian career nature; however, due to the placement of its nakshatra (lunar mansion), this powerful nature failed to bring spiritual blessings to his people. If anything, his selfless service and giving to his constituency resulted in base, ill-tempered acts rooted in egoism.

Lunar mansions are very subtle spiritual principles that are difficult to understand and interpret. They determine whether or not our actions in any particular arena will effectively channel spiritual energy. In Wallace’s case, the lunar mansion associated with his career nature signified the principle of the human ego. It, in turn, was governed by a weak planet signifying actions based in self-aggrandizement rather than self-actualization. In other words, Wallace had wonderful professional skills, but they were pointed in the wrong direction – they could not bring a lasting benefit to society because the core spiritual energy that represented the goal of the action was weak. Put more simply, Wallace’s professional life was a classroom to teach him and others more about the human ego and its lower and higher instincts.

To his eternal credit, Wallace later recognized how he had misused his career gifts and tried to make amends to all those people he had adversely affected. He last years, although filled with physical and possibly psychological pain and discomfort, were also years of spiritual fulfillment. This was a man who learned, first, to love his enemies, and then later, not even to see them as enemies. In a very real sense, this man had a blessed life.