Human Design: Ra Lectures

The first line

Let's take a look at the hexagram structure. When we're looking at the first line, the first line is the foundation. It's very important to recognize that all first lines are basically insecure. So if you have a first line in your profile, or you have a first line in any of the hexagrams that you have activated, it's an aspect of your nature that can always be insecure unless it finds a solid foundation.

The theme of the line is introspection. That is, to study, to dig into things, to find out whether something is really solid or not. That is the nature of first line. So when you're dealing with a first line in a profile, for example, somebody who is a 1/3, somebody who has their personality Sun/Earth in the first line and their design Sun/Earth in the third line, when you're looking at the nature of their personality remember the personality is who we think we are then we know that they are concerned with, in their personality, finding the foundations of things, finding out what is secure in order to be able to feel comfortable and stable, and to be able to be productive. The most important thing about being a first line being is that only when you have a solid foundation can you move forward.

The second line

The second line is different. It is a binary; it is a polarity, if you will, to the first line. Where the first line studies and needs to find a foundation, the second line is a natural. It's a natural in the sense that there are gifts inherent in it that can be called out. It's one of the most important things to understand about a second line. Most people relate the second line to shyness, for example, the 59th hexagram, the second line. But one of the things to be clear about in all second lines is that second lines like to be left alone. And that the only thing that's really going to change them is the moment that they are called. The second line is a line of projection. And the projection is that the outside is looking in and they see something.

Remember yesterday I was describing how the hexagram structure can be seen as a house with two floors. That is, the main floor, the street level, and one floor above. When you're looking at the second line, the second lines are the windows, if you will, the main floor at the first level. And one of things about it is, is if you're a second line being it really is very much like walking around in that space with the lights on and the windows open and there is a parade going by outside at night. Everybody can look in and see you. Wherever you have a second line in your design or if you have a second line in your profile, then people are always seeing that in you, and seeing the potential of it and always trying to call it out. So whenever you see a second line, recognize second lines are waiting for the call, whether that's the call to love, the call to career, the call to spirituality.

The third line

The third line is the completion of the lower trigram process. The third line, because it's a completion, but more than that it's a stepping stone to the next trigram, that both the third and fourth lines are inherently unstable. That is, there is a great deal of mutative potential, particularly in the third line. The third line is a line of trial and error. The moment that you see a third line in your profile or in your design, you have to recognize that your role in this life, that is, your movement in this life, is about discovery through trial and error. And it means because you're here to discover what does not work, that you can end up feeling very uncomfortable unless you understand your capacity.

The theme of the third line is adaptation. That is, the ability within us to be able to deal with the circumstances that arise from any situation. The third line is deeply gifted with its resilience to be able to deal with things. Things always bump into the third line. If you have a third line in your profile, things can bump into you, accidents can happen. It's the kind of thing where you have to see that the greatest difficulty in the human spirit is the way in which the third line is treated in life. You know, we punish mistakes.

And yet, the third line being is here to find out what's wrong with things. It's here to discover what doesn't work. So often that looks like a mistake. They enter into a relationship and the relationship fails, and they discover a great deal in that relationship failing. At the same time there is both self-blame, and there are fingers pointed from the outside that that was a mistake, that you did the wrong thing, and so forth and so on. Everything about being a third line being is understanding that life is a trial and error process, you're here to find out what really works, and you're here to let everybody know what doesn't work, because that's your gift.

The fourth line

When we move to the upper trigram we change from a lower trigram that is self-absorbed, to an upper trigram that has much more transpersonal qualities. Now, the fourth line is a line of brotherhood and sisterhood. It's about the capacity to be able to externalize, but to be able to externalize in a closed circle. The fourth line is the line of opportunity. To be an opportunist is natural for the fourth line. And the opportunity lies within its circle of relationships. The more people you know, the more opportunities that are possible as a fourth line being.

Not only that, but when you do have something to say, you have the capacity to be able to influence those that you know. For the fourth line, never love a stranger. Never leave a lover until you have another lover. Never leave a job until you have another job. You always have to wait for that opportunity. But the real gift of the fourth line being is their capacity to influence those they know. The worst thing for a fourth line being is to try to influence or try to have a relationship with a stranger.

The fourth line is the foundation of the upper trigram. It's the floor, if you will; it's the harmony to the one. One of the most important jobs of the fourth line is that it sets the foundation of how we deal with the other. Where the first three lines are concerned about what happens to them and their discovery in their experience, the upper trigram is concerned about reaching across the channel and meeting somebody else. They are more aware of the other. So for the fourth line being, they don't want to study what the foundation is, that's a first line job. They want to be able to deliver the foundation and externalize it to others.

The fifth line

When we get to the fifth line, we get to the exalted line of projection in Design, and yet at the same time a line that suffers from that. Fifth lines carry within them a very powerful projection in the way in which they're perceived by others. There is the expectation that the fifth line can bring the fulfillment of a process. It is the quality in the line we call Universalization. Yet, the difficulty with the fifth line, it's the second floor window; you can't look in easily and see what's really there. You can only project. You can only guess. You can think it's this; you can think it's that. But you cannot really know.

The fifth line has the advantage in that they can impact others because there is openness to the possibility that they can deliver. But if they don't, then they're punished. That is, their reputation is punished. The key to being a fifth line being, the key to the fifth line in your profile or the fifth line in any of the hexagrams you have activated is the application of that practically. The moment that the five is dealing with the practical, is the moment that it can satisfy the projection. And in satisfying the projection, receive its rewards.

The sixth line

Finally we come to the sixth line. The sixth line is by far the most complex in our day and age because it is a theme that is under mutative pressure. We live in a world in which the new lifespan is divided up into three segments. And this new lifespan is being experienced very deeply by sixth line profile beings. Everything about being a sixth line being understands that their role in this life is to end up being the example for others. This is a line of transition. And this transition is from going through a process of observer observed to simply becoming correct.

In this day and age with the advent of this knowledge and the ability to be able to provide sixth line beings with an understanding of their design, is the possibility of a whole new process for all of us. You see, when we changed from being a seven-centered being to a nine-centered being in the 1780's many things changed. But the most important thing that changed was that the sixth line process changed. The sixth line being would go through a period in life, the Saturn cycle of approximately 28-29 years, would go through a process of trial and error. In other words, they would get experience in the world.

By the time they reached the close of their Saturn cycle they would become more distant and more aloof. Move from being pessimistic to optimistic; move away from being engaged to being aloof. And in their aloofness, develop the capacity to be able to recognize what others need to know, and becoming a source, in that sense, for guidance for others. The sixth line embodies the qualities of leadership and trust. But the moment that the configuration changed is the moment that the sixth line changed, because no longer could it simply continue its aloof distance methodology, getting older and colder, and reaching a point of hypocrisy.

If you really want to understand the way the sixth line operated for most of our human history, all you need to do is look at the 10th hexagram in the sixth line and read the exalted and the detriment two fundamental phases of what the sixth line being is. But today the sixth line being, in their aloofness, reaches a point, the Kiron return between 50 and 51, when they must come off the roof. In other words, they have to come back into the world. Not simply as somebody who can lead and tell others what to do, but somebody who is the embodiment of correctness themselves.

So if you're carrying a sixth line in your profile, it's very important for you. This final phase, the post-Kiron phase is the true flowering of our specie in our time with our design. That it's only when we get to that point that we can really begin, through the synthesis of our life process, to begin to truly flower at mythology.

In all of my work, I always remind people that the moment they get beyond the characteristics of their design, the moment that they can wear the costume of their profile and fulfill their role, they will be taken by their mythology. And in that, everyone who has any contact with them will benefit. They themselves will get to appreciate the beauty of what it is to be here in form surrendered to our choicelessness.



Basic Design Concepts: Circuitry

Circuitry the body graph as a map

Let's begin with our weekend discussion, and our weekend discussion is going to be about circuitry. Last weekend we were looking at the structure of the hexagram. When you look at the structure of the hexagram it gives you the basic tools you need to understand lines, that is, activations in your design. But most importantly it gives you an insight into the value or the meaning of your profile. And that your profile, as the role that you're going to live out in this life, is something essential for you to understand about yourself and about the way in which you interact both consciously and unconsciously with the world around you.

When we're dealing with circuitry we're dealing with the way in which the mapping of the body comes together, and the way in which we can understand the body graph as a map. It's very important to see that. When you're looking at a body graph, truly, it is a map. It is a map that is made up of two kinds of ways in which information moves. That is, it's made up of roads and tunnels. Next weekend we'll take a look at roads and tunnels.

Roads/Tunnels

Roads are the black activations of the personality, and they're on the surface. In other words, you have conscious access to them, you experience them, you relate to them. It is the black in your chart that you consider yourself.

The red are the tunnels, and obviously the tunnels are hidden. We don't know if there is anything in the tunnel, we don't know which way things are moving in the tunnel, and we certainly don't know when anything is going to come out. This is the unconscious, these are the inherited traits that you only begin to grasp are truly yourself after years of it being reflected off of othersthe way you deal with others, the comments that you get, so forth and so on. You begin to see that you're perceived in a certain way, and that even though you don't have conscious access to it, you recognize yourself in it.

Yet, when we're looking at this map and we see that we have these roads and tunnels, we have all of these gates and their lines, but what is essential to understand is that it is not random. That is, the map itself is broken up into particular roadways, if you will. They are called circuits. And the circuits themselves are broken up into streams. And the streams are broken up into channels. And the channels are broken up into gates. So it's quite a complex mapping, if you will.

Three basic roadways

Everything about really being able to understand anything is to be able to grasp it at its most simple level. If there is truth, then truth is simple. It cannot be something that is complex or convoluted or difficult to access. So when you're looking at the body graph as a map, the first thing to recognize is that there are three different kinds of basic roadways. These three different kinds of roadways are called individual, collective and tribal. This is the foundation of being able to look at a chart, and to be able to understand the larger themes that are operating in various channels and gates. Because, you see, at the very basis of this body graph, at the basis of these three circuit groups, each group has a basic keynote. It is this basic keynote that allows you to be able to grasp meaning in terms of what you're seeing in the body graph.

Individual Circuitry Empowerment

So for example, when we're dealing with individual circuitry we're dealing with the theme of empowerment. Empowerment is the keynote. Now, empowerment is not social. Empowerment means that any time you have any individual gate the only way that it is of value to the other is that it has an empowering quality. So every time you look at your chart and you see a gate that is part of an individual channel, or an individual circuit, what you're looking at is the force of empowerment.

For example, let's say that you have the 43 rd gate, the gate Breakthrough, which is an individual gate, part of the individual circuit. It's a mental gate; it's in the Ajna center. And it is the gate of insight. Now insight can be empowering, it's as simple as that. In other words, anything that is individual, the keynote of empowerment can be added to it.

Collective Circuitry Sharing

But how different that is from the collective. There are two collective circuits in the collect group: there's the logical circuit and there's the abstract circuit. The theme of the collective is fundamentally social because at its simplest level its keynote is sharing. In other words, any activation that is part of collective circuitry its underlying thematic is to share.

So if you're somebody that has the 18 th gate, which is Work on What Has Been Spoiled, a gate of dissatisfaction, when you have that gate it's not your fault that you want to tell somebody else what they should be doing. After all, the gate is here to be shared. So, collective beings have a different social quality than individuals. Collective circuitry, no matter where you look in the collective circuitry, no matter whether it's logical or abstract, if you're a 36 th gate, and you have the gate of crisis, you don't want to go through the crisis alone, you want to share it.

Tribal Circuitry Support

Finally, we have tribal circuitry. Tribal circuitry is truly the bedrock of our lives. It is the foundation upon which family and community, and ultimately nation and culture, and all of these things are built. When you go to the simplest level of tribal circuitry you get to the keynote of support. Now, support is very intense. It is not the same as sharing. It is a much deeper involvement with the other. And that regardless of where your activation is within tribal circuitry the underlying theme is support and supportiveness.

Circuits and circuit themes are very important. They really do open up a way in which you can begin to analyze and give qualities to each and every one of the channels and gates. And that you can see the way in which they work within a circuit, and the way in which they work to develop or complete their process.

There are some very good materials available on circuitry and if you go on this site to the link, to the Human Design Virtual Community, you will find a list of Human Design licensed publishers world-wide. You can take a look at their product catalogs and find material that will be supportive for you in going into the details of circuitry.

Basic Design Concepts: Circuits, Part Two

These weekend editions are about providing some guidance for newcomers to Human Design and those of you that are beginning to study Human Design. Yesterday I began the discussion about circuits. Circuits are very complex. That is, it is part of the studies that students enter into when they want to become a professional Human Design analyst. In order to really understand the body graph, and to be able to interpret the body graph, you need to have a grasp in the way in which the circuitry operates.

Remember that the body graph itself is a map. It is a map that has roads and tunnels: the personality and the unconscious. But more than that it is a map that is made up of different kinds of, let's call them highway systems. One of the things that is so interesting is that the moment that you begin to see a particular system, you begin to see that the gates all have a very specific relationship to each other within the continuity of that system.

Individual Group

We saw yesterday that in the larger grouping, that is, as groups as circuit groups, that what we're looking at is that each group has a basic theme. That basic theme is expressed as a simple keynote to give you a basis of interpretation. So for example, we know that the larger individual group keynote is empowerment. Now the individual group is very large. One of the things to see is that we have major circuits, and we also have minor circuits. We have two minor circuits. And we also have a configuration that is neither just channels nor circuits.

Knowing Circuit

When we're looking at the individual group, which is the largest group, we get to see these three variations. In that individual group we have the knowing circuit, which is the major circuit; it runs through the center of the body graph. Wherever you look, it's the middle highway system. In looking at that, the key to that is the 2/14 which is our direction in life. The empowerment of the knowing circuit is the empowerment of a mutative direction for all of humanity.

Centering Circuit

But also in the knowing circuit is a minor circuit, the circuit of centering, which is also individual, and also has the same keynote of empowerment. One of the main empowering capacities of minor circuits is that the moment that they appear in somebody's design, despite what other configurations they have, for example somebody who is very collective, but they happen to have the centering circuit, they're going to be moved towards a very, very individual kind of process even though there is a lot of collective in them.

In the same way as we'll see in tribal circuitry the minor tribal circuit, the defense circuit, will do the same thing. In other words, it will pull somebody from the collective or the individual into a much more tribal process. This is the power of the minor circuits. The centering circuit is about being initiated into following your own convictions.

Integration

One of the most special attributes of the knowing circuit is integration. Integration is a very unusual configurationthe 20 th gate, the 10 th gate, the 34 th gate, and the 57 th gate. These four gates all impact each other. Now, this is very unusual. If you look at the way in which the mechanics of the body graph operate, and you look at channels, what you're basically looking at is that there is always just a simple polaritythere's a gate at one end and there's a gate at the other end. But when you're looking at integration and you're looking at these four gates, they can combine in any number of ways.

Integration isn't actually a circuit. What it really represents is our primary survival mechanism. It is an archetypal response to find the right behavior in the now to be able to survive. Now, by the way, what I just did was combine all kinds of keynotes from those gates in order to give you a description of that process.

Now regardless, when you're looking at the individual group, whether you're looking at the knowing circuit, the major circuit; the centering circuit, the minor circuit; or you're looking at integration, the keynote for all of them is empowerment. Somebody who is integrative has the capacity to empower others to survive. Not that they will help them very much, because they won't, they're very self-absorbed in their survival. Somebody who has the centering circuit can empower others to that centering and to its capacities, and so forth and so on.

Collective Group

The second major group, made up of two major circuits, is the collective. On one side of the collective we have the logic process which operates through the spleen. On the other side we have the abstract process which operates through the emotional system. As we know, there's an enormous difference between the spleen and its existential attunement, and the emotional system and its wave process.

Logic Circuit

When we're looking at logic, everything about the logic circuit is about establishing, investigating, theorizing about patterns for the future everything. Every single gate in that logical process has in its continuity the underlying keynote of the circuit group which is to share. If you look at any logical gate the underlying theme is share. If it's the 4 th gate and it's the gate of Youthful Folly, the gate of formulas and answers, you want to share your answers. If it's the 17 th gate, then you want to share your opinions. If it's the 62 nd gate you want to share your details. If it's the 16 th gate you want to share your skill, so forth and so on.

It's very important to see that collective processes do not work without sharing. When you look at the social qualities of human beings, in the whole individual process there is only one social channel. In the tribal process there are two. But in the collective there are no specific channels which are social because every single gate of the collective has a social capacity to share.

Abstract Circuit

Now, when we look at the abstract side that operates through the emotional systemthe abstract circuitry, the sensing circuitthe sensing circuit is the human experiential way. It's not logical. One and one doesn't necessarily make two in the human experiential way. That road that you think is going to take you straight to whatever doesn't necessarily lead there. Everything about the experiential way is the complete surrender to a process in order to see it later. The driving force of the human experiential way is desire. It is a desire that's there, given the group keynote, a desire that's there to be shared. Everything about the collective is specifically about sharing, bringing us together in the collective sense, rather than in the tribal sense, which is our final circuit group.

Tribal Group Ego Circuit

In looking at the tribe, what we're looking at is that we have two different circuits. We have a major circuit, called the ego circuit; it's very unusual. And the defense circuit, which is the minor circuit. Now the ego circuit is unusual because all of the other circuits operate directly, or meet directly in the throat. Everything about the ego circuit is its focus on the heart center, where the ego resides. Now, remember that the underlying keynote for tribal circuitry is support. Every single gate of the ego circuit is about support for the others, or being supportive.

Obviously, the bonds in that are much deeper. But more than that, the ego circuit is fascinating because in the context of support it is the ego circuit that runs our material processes. And whether those material processes are politically left or right, the fact is it's all there in the ego center, and it's all about the support of each other and community, and so forth and so on.

Defense Circuit

The minor circuit in the tribe is the defense circuit. The defense circuit runs like a straight line right across the middle of the sacral center from the emotional system, the 6 to the 59, to the spleen, the 27 to the 50. The defense circuit is a minor circuit. Remember, minor circuits influence ones design very deeply, pulling one towards its theme.

Think about what that's like, that you have mostly individual activation so that you're basically an empowerer, and not somebody who's particularly social. Then you have the defense circuit and it pulls you into being tribally responsible for others, supporting others and being intimate with others. Of course, you can see that can be both difficult, and as a by-product something unusual because the mutative quality of the individual can change the way in which some of the interaction of the tribe takes place. The defense circuit, by the way, is the center of our reproduction and the capacity within us to nurture and protect and educate our young.

Circuitry is a vast subject. One of the things I would like to suggest to you if you are a student of Human Design is that Gene Keys of the United Kingdom has just released a book on circuitry written by Richard Rudd. This is a superb book and something that every student in Human Design should really have. It's a tremendous guide to not only circuit groups but circuitry as a whole, as well as all of the channels. It really gives you a clear and concise insight into this subject.



Basic Design Concepts: Strategy

Before I get into the topic for today I'd just like to make a comment about transits. Today Venus transits into the 51 st gate, the gate of shock, the Arousing. It's part of the channel of Initiation. The harmonic gate is the 25 th gate in the G center. If you are somebody who has the 25 th gate and you don't have the 51 st gate, and particularly if you don't have the 51 st gate and your heart center is open, is undefined, then beware. That 51 st gate can always bring shock into your life. And that shock being a Venusian shock can have many things to do with your relationship with the way in which you're operating according to the rules of the road of those in the community around you. But if you have the 25 th gate and you don't have the 51 st gate, today is a day to be aware of the fundamentals of Human Design. The fundamentals of Human Design are all about strategy. And strategy is the subject of my comment today.

I've been teaching Human Design now for a very long time and have gone through many different stages in the educating of others to the way in which Human Design can be of value to them. With Human Design being a new science there's an enormous amount of information that needs to be put out, and the minutiae of the logic of the knowledge needs to be expressed and verified. At the same time the vastness of the information draws people deep into the knowledge and deep into the understanding of the mechanics of the Maia.

But that's truly not what Human Design is all about, nor why Human Design is coming to the world. It's to make a difference in everybody's life. It is the potential to truly make a difference in somebody's life. And making a difference in the sense that the way in which humanity has operated as a whole is towards a form of homogenization. That is, that the rules and the laws of society govern generalities and don't govern uniqueness.

Everything about the Human Design system is that it came into a world at a time when we are facing the most important step that we can make as specie in terms of our experiment of being consciousness in form. That once we have transcended the ordeal of figuring how to survive on the material plane, and we human beings have managed to do that, once we're able to figure that out the next step is transcendence beyond the mundane. Throughout human history there have been calls to this transcendence.

We all are unique

Each and every one of you, each and every one of us, is unique. It's the first thing to understand about what you see when you're looking at somebody's Human Design chart. When you look at the wheel, the mandala, and you see all of the 64 gates going around the wheel, what you're looking at is all the possibilities on the palette, the painter's palette where you have all the different paints there. You have 64 different archetypal variations and in fact, what they really represent is 64 specific chemical combinations that in genetics we call codons.

So, all of the possibilities are there. Right now we're living in an age where one of the most talked about aspects of technology today is what we're doing in terms of cloning. Think about the nature of the cells in your body. Each and every one of those cells in their nucleus has exactly the information to reproduce all of you. Now, that in itself is fascinating, but what is even more fascinating is that all of those cells don't do that. After all, we would be exploding all the time. What those cells do is that they have a focus on something specific, even though they carry the potential for everything.

So we have muscles cells and we have blood cells, we have cells that do different jobs because they are imprinted to do so. In other words, if you go down that chain of information that represents all the information of the potential of the whole, there is an imprinting that focuses them on a unique enterprise.

When you're looking at anybody's calculation in the wheel it is obvious, immediately, given the limitation of the number of activations that you can have that there is no way that you can activate even more than a third of all of the potential that's there in the wheel. In other words, if you look at the all of the chemical combinations it appears that there are an enormous number of them that we are not endowed with. Now, this is a misinterpretation of what you're seeing. What Human Design does in terms of an individual calculation is that it shows you your difference from the other, like the difference between the muscle cell and the blood cell. What your design shows you is what has imprinted you and imprinted you as unique from the other, so that you're not lost in the whole.

Now, of course the world of conditioning constantly is trying to pull us back into a world where we abandon our uniqueness and accept the other, and the other way. And everything about what it is to be you has always been subject to conditioning of the outside world trying to bring about homogenization. By the way, it's not that it's bad. We have two things: we have nature and nurture. Now, the nurture bonds us to the whole. After all, every single one of those gates that you don't have acts as a receptor for that gate to enter, and that's what we call conditioning. So if you don't have a gate you get it from somebody else, you're open to receiving that energy.

What's important about your design is your uniqueness. Now look, when somebody enters into this knowledge the first thing they find out about themselves is they find out their type. And the first thing that we find out about type is that every single type is associated with a strategy, a very specific mechanic strategy. This is what Human Design is all about. Human Design is about the simple. If the truth cannot be simple, it certainly cannot be universal. Everything about the nature of strategy is not only that it's simple, but is based on the evidence of thousands and thousands of people, it works.

Experiment with your strategy

The most important thing about entering into this knowledge is entering into the experiment of trying your strategy. It will change your life. And not change your life in the sense that it's going to do anything other than eliminate the power of conditioning to confuse who you really are so that you can live out the uniqueness that is your right. You see if there is such a thing as my own political stance is that I am here to support individual human rights. Now, I'm not talking about social human rights. I'm not talking about the rights of a minority or an ethnic group. I'm not talking in those terms. Again, that is a homogenization and that's at the mundane level of how consciousness operates.

You are your own authority

What I'm talking about is the right of a human being to be their own authority. You see, the way in which we operate incorrectly is that we are ruled by our minds. Our minds are subject to the conditioning of the not-self, of the open centers that distort the way the mind makes its decisions. And that the mind, being dualistic and always operating at both ends of that dualistic spectrum, can never truly know what is right or what is wrong for the whole.

Each and every one of us is born with a place of authority. We are born with a strategy that will allow us the most important thing of all in life. It's very simple to be able to make decisions correctly as yourself. The moment that you begin to operate with your strategy you finally are operating with an authority that will make decisions as you, for you.

It doesn't matter what the transit is. It doesn't matter what the other is. If you're entering into your life correctly, all you have to do is experiment with the strategy. I've watched over the years many, many very fine human beings get lost in the study of truth while avoiding it. Be careful. The first step in Human Design is to experiment with your strategy. It's essential. And the moment you begin to experiment with your strategy you will begin to see that there truly is an authority in you that knows what is correct for you and that you can make the decisions that work for you in this life.

Basic Design Concepts: We are Binary

Eliminate resistance

All of that is about the experiment of honoring your strategy, trying it out, seeing the difference. The difference really is a matter of resistance. When you make decisions correctly as yourself, what you're doing is you're eliminating resistance. And in eliminating resistance, obviously not only do you move more cleanly along your fractal line, along your geometry in this life, but you also save yourself an enormous amount of physical and psychic energy. That physical and psychic energy that's drained away by resistance limits the potential that you can have in this life.

Today I want to look at another basic in Human Design. It's a basic that leads to a place of deep philosophical questioning. It's about the nature of the way in which we are structured as binary. When you're looking at your chart, what you really see is that there is a lot of information that's black, and there's a lot of information that's red. Our tendency is to look at the synthesis of that. That is, to look into the body graph and to see the way in which we're defined in order to understand our type and our strategy, to find our authority.

The black

However, there's something very important to grasp about us. First of all, we are a binary. On one side we have personality information, the personality data that's in black. One of the things to recognize about it is it's what you have access to. It's very important. In other words, when you're looking at the body graph, when you're looking at the information on the right, every single one of those activations each and every one of those gates, their lines, their themes, this is something that you can relate to, this is something that you can recognize as yourself because you have conscious access to it. Everything you see in black you're always experiencing. You have the ability to experience it immediately. So it's in the black that you identify your nature. I have done thousands and thousands of individual readings and whenever anyone would sit down beside me the first thing that was obvious was that the person that they think they are, are only those aspects in black.

The red

Now, when we look at the design information, the design information in red, this is the unconscious. We have many different kinds of terms for the unconscious. In the context of Human Design what we're referring to as unconscious are those aspects of our nature, the genetic imprinting, the differentiation that is us that we have no access to, no conscious access to. Now, that is really something. Think about it. Yes, you look at all the information on the right, it's in black and you say, ok I can identify with of all of this, this is who I think I am. And yet, there is exactly the same amount of information in terms of quantity of input data that's on the left-hand side that's in red that you have no conscious access to that you do not think of as you.

Most human beings wander around on this plane with about one third of the potential recognition of what it is to be them in this life. Because it's not simply a matter that half is missing. All of that is synthesized into the body graph, and the body graph is another level. You're only identifying with what's conscious. If you look at your design and you only identify with the conscious, for example, you're going to have situations where you have a channel defined, that one gate at one end is from the personality and the gate at the other end is from the design, it's not like you identify with that whole channel, you don't. Who you think you are is the gate that's in black. Whatever happens through that channel is being brought to you by an unseen force that you don't really understand. Why is it always happening to me?

One of the things that we tell people about the nature of their design is that as they mature in this life, as they age, basically what happens is that through their interaction with others, they begin to see that others see them in a specific way and they begin to accept it. In other words, if you have an emotional system in which the access to it is unconscious then you, as a person, don't really see yourself as emotional because you don't identify with it. And yet, over the years you experience being very emotional with others, and they have a perspective on you that says you are an emotional person. You eventually come to accept that as a trait, as something that's a part of you yet you don't really identify with it directly. It's just something that happens.

A choice-less process

One of the bases of Human Design is understanding that this is a choice-less process. It is exceeding difficult for most human beings to grasp that all of this is out of their hands. You know, there are so many people today in the world that are telling you that there are certain things about you that you can fix. Well, that's very nice, and I'm sure that they make a fine living. But it's something to really understand about your unconscious, there isn't anything that you can fix. The fact that you discover that other people see you as emotional doesn't mean you have conscious access to your emotional system, nor are you able to deal with it in that sense.

Strategy compensates for ignorance

Everything about the beauty of strategy is that strategy compensates for ignorance. Oh, and so it should. How difficult it would be to always try to be aware of how your unconscious is operating when you don't have access to it; when you cannot, in that sense, have the illusion that you're controlling it because you don't. The magic is that the vehicle is an integrated system; that is, our vehicle, our bodies, are an integrated system. That the conscious and the unconscious, the personality and design, are integrated through the power of the monopole to bring it all together in an illusion of separateness, and to create out of that the illusion of a whole being.

And yet, we know that that whole being, for the passenger of that whole being, it's not possible to understand all of it. It isn't. I have watched students of mine over many, many years go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the knowledge, and in going deeper into the knowledge having a profound understanding of their own mechanics. Yet, in the end that does not bring awaken-ness. Nor does it bring the intellectual capacity to control. Knowledge, as I've said many times, is not power. It is information. When you take the information of your strategy and you apply it, it does not matter whether or not you have conscious access to your design information. It doesn't matter that there is an illusion that you have of who you think you are. That despite the limitations of all of that, you can operate correctly if you follow the strategy, because the strategy speaks for the integrated synthetic whole.

The body graph is a map

Whenever you're looking at your design, remember that the body graph is a map. And you can always see that the conscious is the road and the unconscious is the tunnel. Look at your configuration; look at the way in which it works. The tendency, when you first come to Design, is that you see a defined center connected to another one through definition, and your concern is about what that means as a whole. Now, obviously that is important. But what is very important is for you to look carefully at the way in which that bridging is madeis the bridge a road, is the bridge a tunnel, or is it half and half. It's going to change the way in which you experience the phenomena. In the end, we are helpless, truly. Yet, we can be correct. And we can be correct because the solution is so very simple. Honor your strategy. This is the whole story. And in doing so, you can live wholeness, and out of that discover the beauty and the value of all of those inherited traits that you see in your own design.

Basic Design Concepts: The Emotional System

I have spent a great deal of time discussing over the years the mutation that is at work in terms of transforming the emotional system into the potential of our third awareness system. And yet, it's very important not to assume that that potential for awareness that is there within the solar plexus center is something that determines our actions now, it does not.

The solar plexus center is one of the body's four motors. It is an extraordinarily powerful motor. We know statistically that half of humanity is emotionally defined, which means that the other half of humanity is subject to the conditioning of the emotions of the other half. And it means that all of us are living in a dense emotional environment.

Two kinds of authorities

The first thing that we teach in Human Design in relationship to the solar plexus center is to understand something very basic. Everything about being yourself is about making decisions correctly as yourself, and in making those decisions correctly as yourself, following your inner authority. In Human Design we have two kinds of authorities. We have outer authority, and this is the venue for the mind. This is the ideal for mind. In other words, that my mind is a value to you potentially, but it is not a value to me when it comes to making decisions about my life. Mind has outer authority. One of the great difficulties for most of humanity is that based on not-self conditioning of open centers the mind is conditioned to become the authority, and in becoming the authority and becoming the false inner authority we are unable to live as ourselves.

So the first thing to recognize about the nature of the solar plexus center is that when the solar plexus center is defined in somebody's chart, again half of all charts, what you're looking at is THE authority, the inner authority in their lives. In other words, in order for emotional beings to make a decision that's correct, to make a decision that is of value to them as a being, that is going to allow them to live their life correctly as themselves, that that decision has to be based solely on their emotions.

No truth in the now

We teach anyone who has an emotional center defined to understand that there is for them no truth in the now. It's very important to grasp. There is no truth. And what I mean by no truth in the now is that there is no absolute truth in the now. It does not mean that there are not aspects of truth in the now. The whole thing about being an emotional person is recognizing that the way in which you actually grasp things is by seeing them from different perspectives.

In essence this is truly a gift. It's very different from somebody who is splenic and spontaneous who can only recognize something in the moment and has to accept, given the nature of their authority, whatever it is that they decide in that moment. That does not necessarily mean that they're very clear about those things. It simply means that they are responding spontaneously, which is correct for them.

To be an emotional being is to have the opportunity to really see things with a great deal of depth. In dealing with the solar plexus motor we don't talk about awareness, we talk about clarity, about being clear. Now, of course, being clear doesn't really mean that you get to a point of absolute. This is one of the most difficult things for emotional beings to deal with. That is, they never get to a point where their emotional system operating in a wave is ever going to give them 100 percent certainty about anything over time. The moment as an emotional person you've got 100 percent certainty you really know that there is no truth in the now in that. Because an emotional being can never be absolutely, absolutely clear. That's why time is such an essential ally for the emotional being.

The emotional motor operates in a wave

See, the emotional motor operates in a wave. It's a wave. And it's a wave that moves through what we call a mood swing. That is, it's a wave that moves from the low to the high, or the high to low and back again. And it never really stops. It's not like you can put an end to that, it's not like you can fix it, it's not like holistic medicine is going to give you an opportunity to have a healthier emotional system, or so forth and so on. It's one of the most important things for emotional beings to understand is that being emotional for them is the most natural thing in the world. But how they make their decisions is what is going to condition whether their emotional life is really going to bring them what is correct for them. And all of that has to do with patience.

Think about the way in which the clarity operates. Because the emotional system is moving in a wave, and because that wave is a way in which the emotional being perceives the world around them, their world is colored by where they are in their wave. If you're at the low end of your wave everything has a dark tinge to it. Everything that you look at has that quality. And of course, that's not necessarily the truth. It may allow you to glimpse aspects of the truth in anything so that you do see both the dark side and the light side of all that's there. But it's essential to grasp that as an emotional being as you move through your wave what you're really collecting is perspectives. And in collecting all of those perspectives slowly but surely you're building up a composite, and it's that composite upon which you find your clarity.

Time frames

As an emotional being you have to see that waves operate over different time frames. There are some emotional situations in which you don't need a lot of time to be clear. There are some situations or relationships in which it can take many, many years for you to be clear. Such as the bonds emotional beings have with their families, with their parents, with their siblings, with their children. These can be long processes before there really is clarity.

What a difference our world would be if emotional beings could simply accept that there is no truth for them in the now. And that patience is something that's going to bring them extraordinary rewards. After all, the emotional system can easily be seen as a villain. Yet, in fact it's an essential ingredient in life. It's our drive in life; it's our pleasure in life. It's what forces us to go out and find the resources and food, and so many other things that are important to us. And it's the emotional system that can make us feel so good about being in the body, being in love, being full after a good meal, whatever the case may be. When emotional beings start operating correctly, and when they start honoring their emotional authority, when they start being patient, not only does their process change because they get to make decisions correctly as themselves, but they change the lives of everyone around them.

Waiting is important

What's really important is to recognize that if you're an emotional being the most important thing for you to learn in this life is that you cannot allow others to dictate to you when you respond or act on anything. This is so important. Emotional people are always being brought to premature action.

This is part of the experiment. I've watched over the years the difficulty that emotional beings have in their process of deconditioning. It is such a powerful motor. It is very difficult at times to wait. And yet, each time you experiment with that, each time you sleep on something before you make up your mind, each time you push somebody away and say, wait I have to process this, I have to think about it, whatever the case may be, each time you take that step it becomes easier and easier and easier for you to honor your emotional authority and find emotional clarity.

I came into the world with an open emotional system. I know what kind of chaos exists on the emotional plane. But I've also had the great pleasure, the great experience of being with emotional beings that are clear. And there is nothing, truly nothing, more beautiful than an emotional being that is clear.


Basic Design Concepts: Open Emotional Center


We have been looking at the emotional wave, and the impact of the emotional wave. What it means to be a solar plexus person, what it means to live in a world in which for you there is no truth in the now, but only the potential to be able to collect and synthesize experiences in the wave over time in order to reach a point of clarity. And how extraordinary the transformation can be in an emotional person's life when they get to that place where they can wait for their wave, or they can wait for the clarity.

As I mentioned yesterday, half of the planet is emotional, which means that the other half of the planet isn't. Whenever we're looking at Human Design, whenever we're looking at the body graph, we're always looking at dualities. The most basic duality of all in looking at the body graph is what is defined and what is fixed and therefore reliable, and what is open, what is vulnerable to conditioning.

We are conditioned through open centers

Each and every one of the open centers becomes a place of deep attraction in the life. It is through the open centers that we receive conditioning. And those very open centers, because they receive conditioning, it should also be understood that they're design to interact with that conditioning, that we have receptors in us to conditioning. And that genetically we are designed to be attracted to what we are not. So we are attracted to anything that is defined, anything that is fixed that we do not have defined and fixed.

Of course, one of the basic dilemmas of the human life is that rather than living one's life as oneself one is always pursuing those ghosts, those demons, those attractions, those things that one is not that's somewhere across the channel from you. And feeling dismay and pain and disillusionment because one cannot become what one is not. It's such an irony. When we're looking at the open centers, it is the open centers that are the primary ingredient in the way in which the mind, the not-self mind, takes control of our lives and gives us our direction, makes our decisions for us.

Undefined solar plexus avoids confrontation and truth

In looking at the solar plexus center, the undefined solar plexus center has a very, very specific strategy the avoidance of confrontation and truth. You come into the world, you have an undefined emotional system, and the very first thing you're going to learn in this life as a toddler is to learn to avoid confrontation. Think about what it's like when we're looking at centers that are open, recognize something about them, they're not empty, they're not broken, and they don't need to be fixed. They are receptors to conditioning elements on the outside. But they do more than just receive the conditioning. They inflate it; they amplify it.

When you have somebody with a defined heart center, their ego has a consistent quality to it. When you have somebody with an open heart center that suddenly has that center defined, there is ego inflation; there is ego amplification. And of course, it can be disastrous because when the definition disappears the deflation takes place.

If you come into the world with an undefined solar plexus center what you are inflating, what you are amplifying is somebody's defined emotional wave. The mother that is emotional that is giddy with joy and excitement when she grasps her unemotional baby. That baby is going to rise on that wave, it's going to inflate and amplify the mother's joy, and reflect that back at the mother.

But the moment that the mother goes down in her wave, the moment that the mother is exhausted, depressed, is having a bad day, the moment she comes and takes that child, that child is going to inflate and amplify the negative end of that energy system. It's going to take it into itself and it's not going to enjoy it at all. These children learn very quickly when to deal with mother and when not, or father, or the parent with the child, because after all, I don't want to stereotype this that it's the emotional mother and the unemotional child, it can be in many different configurations.

Not-self strategy begins early in life

What is simply essential to grasp is that the strategy starts to work immediately. As long as it's a household in which the way in which everyone is operating mechanically, is something that is lost in darkness and ignorance, that child is going to have the very typical not-self response to that kind of environment, they're going to avoid confrontation and truth.

Think about what happens to that child when they go out into the world, they go to school. When they're in school they have a terrible experience, whatever that experience happens to be it doesn't really matter. When that child comes home and they open up the door and their mother says hello, did you have a nice day, they're not going to tell their mother that they had a horrible time, that it was awful. The one thing they want to do is avoid how uncomfortable they were in that process. They do not want to relive that. They do not want their mother then to begin probing them. They don't want to deal with their mother going down in her wave as a response to what they hear and then having to take that energy all over again, to extend the whole process into the next day, which kid did this, which teacher said that, and on and on and on. Oh, no. They're going to avoid confrontation and truth; and truth, because the truth is the by-product that gets lost.

It's not that they're lying. These are not devious people. These children are innocent. This is a natural strategic response, they want to protect themselves. They want to protect themselves from the negative end of the wave. They want to protect themselves from feeling so uncomfortable when they take the emotional intensity into their body and they begin to tremble and they get nauseous and all of the things that can be associated with being open and vulnerable to emotional intensity. No, they avoid it.

If you do not understand that, if you do not understand that your child is vulnerable to your mood swings, then there is very little hope for the child to be able to grow up in a way that is healthy for them because they're going to live on the strength of their strategy, their not-self strategy. Remember the way the not-self mind works. If you have an open solar plexus system every time your mind is provided with an opportunity to make a decision, yes or no, the framework of that decision is going to be based on: if I say yes can I avoid confrontation; if I say no will I avoid confrontation. It is right at the source of the way in which the mind is going to decide, which means that the life becomes distorted. Adults with open emotional systems who have never understood the mechanics of their nature have been far, far removed from their life for a very long time.

Your strategy is your only protection

So when we're looking at the emotional system, it's not just a matter of looking at those human beings who have an emotional system that is defined. There are always two sides to these stories. For every not-self strategy that operates out of every open center there is somebody who carries this energy fixed in them. What's essential is that the only thing that saves us is our strategy. If you have an open emotional system, understanding how that works does not mean that your life is suddenly changed. Oh, it always helps to understand how things work. But understanding how it works doesn't stop anybody with an emotional wave being able to penetrate you; and being able to penetrate you, to condition you. The only thing that can protect you when it comes to you making a decision is that you make that decision based on what your authority is. Your strategy, your authority is the only thing that can protect you. Nothing else can.


The Self, The Driver and the Magnetic Monopole

Human Design is an emerging science. It's actually quite extraordinary that it can be talked about in that language considering that it was revealed. All along the way various principles in Human Design, during its time of being introduced into the world and its development as a coherent educational program, has been substantiated scientifically, whether that has been the neutrino with mass, or the substantiation genetically that what we're looking at in a body graph is our actual differentiation from the other.

Magnetic monopole

But for me, the most extraordinary thing within the infrastructure of what it is to be us is the magnetic monopole. This magnetic that only attracts. This extraordinary particle, if you will, is an instrument. In understanding the nature of the magnetic monopole, physicists ultimately will be able to understand the most important of all principles the nature of mass, and the nature of gravity relative to masses.

Nobody can really understand the actual mass of an object without ultimately coming to grips with the nature of the magnetic monopole. In Design we call the monopole the driver. That is, the monopole that sits in the sternum that can be found in the G center in the body graph. The monopole has two functions. One function is that it holds us together in the illusion of our separateness. In other words, it is in essence the center of our auric gravity. It holds us together. And yet, holding us together is not something that stops at some kind of imagined border. That in the illusion of holding us together it still keeps on pulling. And in that essence it's trying to bring everything together.

Every monopole that exists, every monopole that's in every object whether that object is an inanimate form or an animate form, all of those monopoles are trying to pull each other back together into wholeness. It is why in the G center given the two great crosses of the G center that one of those crosses, the Vessel, is about love. And it's one of the primary functions, or by-products actually, of the way in which the monopole holds us together.

The second aspect of the monopole is that it keeps us to our line of geometry. Everything about the incarnative process, everything about coming into form, is recognizing that we come into form with a specific geometry; something that I discussed in some detail yesterday. And so when we're looking at the magnetic monopole, we're looking at something really extraordinary. We're looking at something that gives us the illusion of our difference. And at the same time, maintains that true illusion by giving us a unique geometry which reaffirms, in that sense, our uniqueness.

So in dealing with the driver, we're dealing with something special. Now, of the 64 gates, only one of them is attributed to the magnetic monopole, and that is the 2 nd gate, the gate of the Receptive, the yinest of gates, six yin lines, the form, principle itself, matter. And it is the driver that moves us along in our trajectory.

The vehicle

In the early years when I was introducing design, I used an analogy of a vehicle to talk about the various elements that we have. There is the design crystal, and the design crystal is a vehicle itself. It is the vehicle; it is the form of the vehicle. And that the personality crystal, who we think of as ourselves, is a passenger sitting in the backseat of that vehicle. The driver, the chauffeur in this life, is the magnetic monopole. It does not take instructions from the passenger, it simply drives the vehicle. It knows where it's going. It holds the vehicle to its line of geometry and thus its uniqueness in this life.

Everything about Human Design is that the moment that you escape conditioning you escape sameness. And it is the sameness that clouds our mythological potential. It is the uniqueness of operating correctly as ourselves that define our very mythology and fulfill our lives in a state that in Design we call awaken-ness. Simply to be correct as yourself is to be unique and to be one who is fulfilling the potential of their incarnation.

2nd Gate The driver

In thinking about the 2nd gate and thinking about the driver, this morning, as was the case through most of January, it started on the 18th of January; we've had the north node in the 2nd gate. Today it's in the fourth line. If you're really interested in understanding something about the nature of the driver in your design then take a look at the lines of the 2nd gate. When you take a look at the lines of the 2nd gate what you're really looking at is the quality that the driver employs as itself to reach its ultimate goal, which is to fill its geometry uniquely. Receptivity is the primal base through which any response is determined. Here lies the root of all action. This is the essence of the 2nd gate. The driver is responding to life, it's responding to its trajectory.

There are six kinds of drivers. The first line driver is intuitive. This is the basis of the movement; the uniqueness is rooted in an intuitive driver. The second line is genius doesn't really know how to drive, but it gets there anyway. There is some magical quality inherent in it. The third line driver has to be patient. Well, we know about third lines, there's all this trial and error, it takes time.

The fourth line driver, like the driver of today, that driver can only function correctly with harmony. And harmony is its theme that's lived out in an individual as a kind of secretiveness, you know, harmony through discretion. The fifth line driver, well, this is all about application, that the only way that they really get to fulfill their geometry is if their road leads to that kind of application, intelligent application. The sixth line driver is fixed. It only has one goal to drive, nothing more nothing less.

There are all kinds of drivers. There are all kinds of ways in which we can move through the geometry of this life. And yet, the way that truly belongs to us is only something that can be revealed when we're correct. It's not like you can change the direction. But the experience of the road is something else entirely. And the moment that you can operate correctly as yourself, what you really are doing is releasing the driver to the perfection of its task, to take you along the geometry, to take you to that place where you are fulfilled as yourself. It's the root, after all, of all action. The way in which we are going to drive is also going to be the way in which the vehicle achieves its success.

Remember that it's the vehicle's process. So often who we think we are, which merely our personality is, so convinced that it's all about it, and yet it isn't. The passenger in the back seat of the vehicle is not necessarily on a tourist journey through a celebrity neighborhood. It really has no control over what kind of view it's going to get out of those windows. It's the vehicle's process. It is only for the passenger to experience. And at the moment that the passenger cannot handle that experience, the moment that the passenger is screaming that it wants to drive, that it wants to take control, that's the moment that sameness wins.

Your specialness lies in differentiation

Everything about a rave body graph, every thing about your Human Design understands that your specialness lies in differentiation. To be different is to be correct as yourself. There is, after all, nobody like you, never will be, and cannot be. You are the only example of you. And that as long as you're trying to be like something else, that example is lost. And the totality suffers for its loss.

Ra Uru Hu

Psychic Power Network, Shannon Rae 63153, Call me for your next Tarot Reading!