Image: Astrology and Human Design charts for Michel Gauquelin1
The following discussion is not intended to cover every feature of the astrology and Human Design chart. It is intended to give an overview and comparison of each system’s primary components.
The astrological birth chart and the Human Design chart are both created from the placement in these charts of the planets’ positions at the moment of your birth. The Human Design bodygraph would be completely empty without planets!
The astrology chart and the Human Design chart are systems that offer profound insight and information through their unique architecture and language. Note that each system gives interpretations for individual birth charts as well as events, mundane or personal.
Each system is based on astrology. Simply put, astrology is the study of the influence of the stars and planets on human lives. These celestial bodies influence individual psychology, and they also initiate life-changing events to the individual through planetary cycle shifts — Solar Returns, Saturn Returns, the Uranus Opposition, the Chiron Return, and others. Shifting life circumstances are also triggered by transits and progressions that are unique to the individual astrology chart. Planetary (or Life Cycle) charts, and transits and progressions, can be read through the lens of Human Design or astrology charts. The influence of the stars and planets also effect global shifts of many kinds, including weather, technology, science, law, conflicts which lead to war, culture, and civilization.
NOTE: While Human Design and astrology are different systems, the meanings and natures of the planets do not change.
In astrology, planets sit inside houses. There are 12 houses in the astrology chart or horoscope wheel. Each house has a unique meaning, and so the combination of the planet with the meaning of the house that it is inside of lends itself to a very specific interpretation. In addition, each planet is in a specific sign at the moment of your birth.
Traditional astrological interpretation combines the meaning of the planet with the meaning of the sign that it is in with the meaning of the house that it is in. It also includes the aspects that natal planets make to each other. Planets in signs and houses, plus the aspects they make, tell us how a natal planet expresses. Again, the essential nature of a horoscope planet is influenced by the sign it is in, the house it is in, and the aspects that it makes to other planets, asteroids, or to the angles of the horoscope (astrology chart).
In the Human Design chart, planets sit inside gates instead of houses. There are 64 gates in Human Design. The gates are based on the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams, so it is useful to have an understanding of these. However, each gate in Human Design has an assigned meaning — Traditional or Quantum Human Design™ (copyright Karen Curry Parker) — which are less complex and more succinct than the contemplations of the I Ching. In Human Design, we blend the meaning of the gate with the meaning of the planet.
As well, each gate also contains 6 lines, and each line has its own meaning. In Human Design we blend the meaning of the planet in a gate with the line that it sits inside of. Given that there are 12 planets, two nodes, and an assortment of asteroids that one can choose to include, the permutations for combinations of planets, nodes, and asteroids with 64 gates and 6 lines are practically myriad.
The Human Design planets do not make aspects to each other the way planets in the astrology birth chart do, but it is their arrangement in the bodygraph that gives you your energy Type — Projector, Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, or Reflector. Your Type comes with a specific Strategy as well as Authority. In addition, the complex of definition and openness in the chart will give you your unique Design.
There’s more: the placement of your planets in the Human Design chart will fall into circuits. There are three main circuits in Human Design – collective, tribal, and individual (and each of these contains sub-circuits which I won’t go into here). Circuits and their sub-circuits add further layers of meaning to the interpretation of an individual’s Human Design chart.
I can’t leave this final section without also mentioning that the Human Design chart contains the all-important Incarnation Cross which represents the energy frequency and the storyline of the Life Purpose in the Human Design Chart. This Cross, which is comprised of four gates — the Conscious and Unconscious Sun, and the Conscious and Unconscious Earth — constitutes 70% of the energy of your being. (See The Encyclopedia of Quantum Human Design, p. 200, by Karen Curry Parker. )
As you can see, each system has a unique structure and lens of perception. Each offers excellent information about your essential make-up and temperament. Use these complementary systems to take you on a deep and intriguing exploration to discover and validate your many gifts, traits, and the tools that were given to you at the moment of your birth.
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1 Michel Gauquelin (1928-1991) was a French psychologist and astrologer, who together with his wife Francoise, also a psychologist, conducted rigorous research over a period of thirty years that demonstrated that certain astrological phenomena held true to a high degree of statistical validity.
