Read an Excerpt
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN DESIGN
By KAREN CURRY Hierophant Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Karen Curry
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938289-14-9
CHAPTER 1
Navigating Your Chart
Many of my students ask me, "Does knowing your Human Design help you make more money, get healthier, and have better relationships?"
The answer is yes. Sort of. The promise in Human Design is different from other promises you've heard before. What I can promise is that we are not all created the same. Human Design shows us that there are five energy types: the Manifestor, the Manifesting Generator, the Generator, the Projector, and the Reflector. Each energy type has a different way of creating and making decisions. But that doesn't mean that we don't all have the same potential for wealth, health, good relationships, and happiness. It's just that we are each uniquely designed, and therefore our definitions of wealth, health, good relationships, and happiness will be different for each of us.
Setting the Stage
Some of us are designed for and truly desire massive financial wealth; others feel fabulously wealthy when we have the freedom to spend time with our loved ones. Some of us dearly want to find fulfilling work; others don't want to work at all. Some of us will be athletes; others will be intellectuals. Some of us are real go-getters by design; others will simply be at the right place at the right time, and magic will happen. All of these things are okay. They are simply variations on what it can mean to be "successful."
While the traditional ways of creating success might work very well for some people, for some of us the rules simply don't work. But society and our conditioning have a powerful hold over us, and we can often feel that our personal definitions of success are lazy, weak, silly, or even ridiculous by society's standards. Continuing to follow this one path when it's not working will only bring frustration, bitterness, burnout, and exhaustion.
Think about it—if we're all different, a one-size-fits-all approach to creating a happy, successful life doesn't make sense. All people are equally valuable and important. But each of us has our own energetic blueprint and individual style of operating successfully in life. What might work for one person won't necessarily work for another.
The struggle to fit in and embrace society's definition of what is "right" and "successful" is really just about energy. The way we feel about ourselves, the rules and values of society, and the way we react to life are all dictated by our own energy field and the bigger collective energy field. The Human Design chart is your personal electrical schematic. It shows you what kinds of energies are consistent for you and which energies you take in from the world around you.
When you know who you are and how your personal energy field operates, you discover your inner authority that helps you navigate your way through the collective energy field. You may discover that you are in agreement with certain beliefs and energies that society holds dear, but in other areas you diverge from society's expectations.
The current trends in personal growth information claim that if you're not experiencing "wild success" by society's definition, then it may be a result of subconscious beliefs, trauma, or problems with your "success" mindset. I don't disagree; your beliefs, past experience, and attitude can influence your level of success. But often what is really blocking us from creating the life we love is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is truly right for us.
Instead of allowing the life that's right for us, we keep pounding away with different manifesting techniques and tools, trying to blast away those "limits" that might actually be keeping us from creating something that isn't desirable in the first place.
This idea of letting go and allowing our life to take us where it may can be scary at first. Most of us grow up without a strong realization of who we really are. Our energy fields are influenced by others around us, and we don't always know what is our personal truth versus what we've been told to believe is Truth. We often lose touch with our authentic self.
We worry that if we let our inner authority take control, maybe we are somehow doomed to be broke or lonely. We don't trust our inner guidance, and we wrestle with the prospect of being in control of ourselves. If we've led a life that is "less than successful," we may even be instilled with ideas that we are somehow not worthy of abundance or that we are screw-ups. Don't worry. No one is doomed by design or energetically destined to suffer or screw up.
One of the greatest sources of pain in life is the disconnect between the self you perceive yourself to be and the authentic self. The greater the distance between the two, the more discordance and pain there is. This pain is not dysfunction or "brokenness"; it is simply the authentic self telling you that there is more for you here than you realize, and it might not look the way your head thinks it should—it is actually much, much better.
The more you learn about yourself, the more freedom you'll have to create a life that is in alignment with what's right for you. So let's begin by taking a tour of your Human Design chart. If you haven't gotten your chart already, go to www.understandinghumandesign.com to get yours now.
Navigating Your Chart
Each Human Design chart has three parts: 1) the body graph, 2) the birth chart, and 3) the keynotes (figure 1). We'll cover each in detail, but first let's look at the chart as a whole. What do the shapes and layout remind you of?
If you look closely at the chart, you might see some visual evidence of the influencing wisdom behind Human Design. For example, the geometric shapes (called centers) look very similar to the seven chakras (figure 2).
If you turn the chart upside down, it looks very similar to the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah (figure 3).
Or you may notice that sixty-four numbers appear on the chart. These numbers, called gates, correlate to the sixty-four hexagrams from the I Ching. In the I Ching, a hexagram is composed of six stacked horizontal lines (figure 4), where each line is either yang (an unbroken or solid line) or yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center).
Though you can see pieces of these ancient wisdom teachings in the chart, Human Design is something new and unique, a brand-new tool to help people in a brand-new way.
It is important to realize that when you look at parts of the chart, they are simply pieces. To make learning about Human Design easier, we have to start first by taking the chart apart, piece by piece, and covering each one by one. But once you have a handle on how the chart is constructed, and how to read it, the "story," or personal energy map, is revealed when you put all of the pieces together.
Synthesis is the key to understanding Human Design and each individual chart. At its root, Human Design is a tool that teaches us about the power and possibility of evolution in mankind on a personal, relationship, and collective level. The real beauty of Human Design is truly in the unification of all of its unique esoteric components.
The actual chart is also a synthesis of several parts that work together to give an overview of each individual. Some of the individual pieces of the chart have energies that are similar but different on a subtle level. Please understand that as you learn about each part, we are, to a certain degree, taking pieces out of context. Each piece is important, but the full expression of each part will depend on what else is in your unique chart.
If you've ever tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle, you know that each individual piece is crucial to the full expression of the picture. Human Design shows us that the entirety of humanity is like one giant divine puzzle, and we are each a unique piece. When you are not expressing the full potential of who you are, you are, in essence, losing or mangling your personal piece of the puzzle. The greatest gift you can give the world is to be the fullest expression of yourself.
Let's now look at the three major parts of your Human Design chart—the body graph, the birth chart, and the keynotes—in a little more detail.
The Body Graph
When you receive your Human Design chart, you will see a series of numbers and planetary symbols next to a triangle comprised of all kinds of lines, geometric shapes, colors, and the profile of a person. This triangle, called the body graph, is the visual compilation of all the numbers and written information on your chart. The body graph is, in essence, a "map" of your unique energy configuration.
The Nine Centers
The first things you may notice when you look at your chart are the nine geometric shapes. These shapes represent the nine centers, and their role is similar to the seven chakras. Each center is responsible for carrying and managing a certain frequency of energy, and it relates to a specific theme in our lives (figure 5).
The nine centers and their themes are:
• Head: Inspiration
• Ajna: Certainty
• Throat: Communication and action
• Identity: Self, love, and life direction
• Will: Willpower and value
• Emotional Solar Plexus: Emotional clarity
• Root: Adrenaline energy
• Sacral: Workforce and life-force energy
• Spleen: Survival, intuition, immune system, and time
Next, you might notice that some of the centers in your chart are white, while others are colored in. The white centers are undefined, or open. The defined centers are colored in.
Defined Centers
If a center is colored in, it is "defined." Defined centers represent the energy that you radiate out into the world consistently, the aspects of your personality that are true all of the time, independent of any other factors in your environment. It can be raining, Mercury can be in retrograde, Mars can disappear out of the solar system, but your definition (the colored-in parts of your chart) always stay the same. Your definition comes from the position of the gates and the planets at the moment of your birth.
As you will learn, defined centers have their own issues, but overall they are much easier to manage than the sometimes traumatic experiences of open centers. Some good general advice is to know and live your Human Design strategy (covered in chapter 3). It will empower you to always know what to do.
Open Centers
If a center is white, then it is undefined, or open. Open centers take in and amplify energy and information from the world around you. The energy in open centers is inconsistent, because it changes depending on who you are with. It can also feel more intense than defined energy, because it comes in waves and is always changing.
It is easy to assume that the energy in your open centers is yours, and sometimes you will to try to "fix" an aspect of your personality, not realizing that you are behaving according to outside factors. Notice where your open centers are; these are the places where you have the potential to have the most pain until you understand how your energy works. But these open centers also hold the potential for your greatest wisdom as well.
Before I was aware of Human Design and my undefined energies, I worked as a nurse, and I was exhausted all the time. I burned out very quickly, because the emotional intensity was overwhelming, and I would soak it up like a sponge. Now, using the tools of Human Design, I understand that I have an open Emotional Solar Plexus. And I am now equipped to allow all that emotional information to pass through me. I don't hold on to it and claim it as my own, and I don't burn out.
Motor Centers
There are four centers on the body graph which we consider to be the motors: the Sacral Center, the Will Center, the Root Center, and the Emotional Solar Plexus. Motors help define the kind of energy you have.
• Sacral Center: This is the energy for working, nurturing, and sexuality. It is sustainable energy. It can keep going without breaks or rest.
• Will Center: This is where your willpower is located in your chart. Willpower in Human Design is the energy for managing and creating physical resources and endurance for short periods of time. It is an energy that requires cycles of rest.
• Root Center: Adrenaline is located in the Root Center. This is energy that gives you an adrenaline push. It operates in on/off cycles.
• Emotional Solar Plexus: This is where your emotional energy is located. Emotional energy cycles through inward integration and outer expression, and your mood is often influenced. When the mood is right, this is the energy for creating.
Pressure Centers
There are two pressure centers: the Head Center and the Root Center. The configuration of the pressure centers in a chart helps you understand what kind of pressure you might be experiencing in your life and gives you new ways to work with the pressure so you can reduce stress and make more relaxed choices.
• Head Center: This can be a source of mental pressure. When the Head Center is open or undefined, you may experience pressure to figure things out or always feel like you need to find the answers to your questions.
• Root Center: This is the center for adrenaline energy. When the Root Center is open or undefined, you may experience pressure to get things done in order to feel "free." Sometimes this leads to making rash decisions in an attempt to avoid pressure or stress.
Energies in a Group
The beauty in the defined and undefined centers lies in the fact that, individually, we are all simply parts of a greater whole. We all become completely defined when we are all together. We each bring pieces that energetically unify us all and offer us the opportunity to express all of the human experience.
You sense this when you go to a restaurant or a coffee shop. The designs of the customers and the staff blend together to make one big aura. This is great to know if you don't have certain consistent energies in your chart, such as the energy for focus. When you are hooked into other people's auras, you may find that your energy for focus is amplified through being around others, and you can create new strategies to help you stay on task when you need a focus boost.
Channels
Notice how the nine centers are connected to one another through many lines (figure 6). These lines are called channels, and there are thirty-two of them. The channel's color tells you about an aspect of your personality:
• Black channels carry personality traits that you are consciously aware of.
• Red channels carry personality traits that you are not consciously aware of.
• Checkered channels represent those particular personality aspects that are in your conscious and unconscious definition.
• White channels represent open gates. You will always take in the energy of both gates from the world around you, and its expression through you will depend on your environment.
Gates
At the end of each channel is a numbered gate, and the channel is named using these two gate numbers. For example, we might talk about the 34/20 channel, the Channel of Charisma, which connects Gate 34, the gate of power, to Gate 20, the gate of metamorphosis. The sixty-four gates correlate to the sixty-four hexagrams in the I Ching. Each defined gate in your chart adds a different "flavor" to your personality. We will briefly discuss the nature of the gates here, but for an in-depth explanation of each gate and how it relates to your chart and personality, please see chapter 6.
Hanging Gates
If you have a line that is colored in, then the centers on either end of the channel will be defined (colored in). An open (white) center has no fully colored channels attached to it. When only one of the two gates in a channel is defined, it is called a "hanging gate" (figure 7).
A person with a hanging gate is always attracted to people who have the other half of the channel. This is called electromagnetic attraction.
Definition
Definition of the chart refers to the colored-in channels between centers. Single definition means all of the centers that are colored in or defined in the chart are connected (figure 8).
Split definition means there are two distinct groups of energy centers that are connected within the group but are not connected to each other (figure 9).
Triple split definition means there are three distinct groupings of energy centers that are not connected to one another (figure 10).
Quadruple split definition means there are four distinct groupings of energy centers that are not connected to one another (figure 11).
An energy split can make you feel as if you have certain very distinct aspects to your perception of yourself. For example, in this chart (figure 9), you may feel you have a very powerful mind and can get "lost in your head" but that you also have an "earthy" and primal part of your personality as well.
We are often attracted to partners who have the gates that "bridge" our defined splits. When we are with that person, we feel "whole" or that all the parts of ourselves are unified, which is indeed what happens, at least energetically.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from UNDERSTANDING HUMAN DESIGN by KAREN CURRY. Copyright © 2013 Karen Curry. Excerpted by permission of Hierophant Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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