how to read your Human Design chart
by Krystal Trammell of Holographic Human Design
I’ve been increasingly fascinated with the self-exploration system called Human Design since 2016, and have been teaching it, too.
This is my verybrief overview of Human Design and how it fits in with my high-frequency worldview.
One cool thing about Human Design is that it’s a transmission - meaning, everyone who encounters and spends time immersed within this system starts to evolve it in unique ways.
So this post explores how *I* see and share Human Design - specifically - because it is a highly dynamic system! Keep reading, so that you can learn how to read your Human Design chart.
What’s the deal with “no choice”?
You may have heard the concept of "no choice" in Human Design - meaning, our charts contain our fate, and it’s inescapable.
"Classic" or original Human Design teaches that everything is mechanics and we are like a passenger in the backseat of a car. We're being driven by our design and it's all down to circuitry and mechanics, so we have NO CHOICE.
That's where I diverge from classical Human Design.
I don't like using any kind of self-exploration system as an excuse for avoiding growth or being averse to change.
Human Design is a guidance system that exposes our default programming, our ‘starter deck’ - and while we're not all dealt the same hand, the way we CHOOSE to play the game of life makes a great deal of difference in our particular outcomes.
Conscious choice is everything!
I view the mechanics of our unique Human Design like a GPS system...not a railroad track we're beholden to.
What IS a Human Design Chart? Where does it come from?
The Human Design system is a synthesis of many systems, including astrology, the I Ching, a version of the chakra system, the Kabbalah and more. It was channeled by a man named Alan Krakower in 2001, over the course of several weeks, where he had an encounter with a being he called The Voice.
Alan, aka Ra Uru Hu, has passed on from this life, but many of his direct students continue to evolve and expand his original materials with systems like the Gene Keys, Quantum Human Design, etc.
Our chart, or bodygraph, is generated by our exact time, location, and date of birth, AND a date exactly 88 days prior - called our design date.
Various websites will create your Human Design chart using your birth date, location, and exact time of birth.
If you don’t know your exact time of birth, your chart may be slightly inaccurate, or it may be wildly inaccurate - depending on what kind of shifts and changes occurred over the course of that particular date and location! You can ask a savvy chart reader like me to look at the possibilities and generate a chart that “reconciles” your birth time.
Human Design Types
The five Types in Human Design are:
Manifestors - 8.5% of the population
Generators - 35% of the population
Manifesting Generators (ManiGens) - sometimes referred to as a subtype of Generator, and another 35% of the population
Projectors - 20% of the population
Reflectors - 1.5% of the population
Type determines the sort of signature frequency we’re meant to express, and the overall “not-self” habits we’re likely to fall into. No Type is better or worse than another - we each have our unique gifts and challenges.
Generators and ManiGens have a defined Sacral center, so they’re called energy Types - while the others are considered non-energy Types. The “non-energy” Types reflect and amplify the consistent energy of the others!
A Generator’s gift is in their ability to perfect their talents over time, and to live in surrender to the moment.
ManiGens are particularly adaptable. They can be both soft and strong, and they have the charisma and drive to accomplish much.
Manifestors have a gift for planning, strategy, and efficiency, and don't need to wait for help or input from others. They crave freedom to do what they want.
Projectors have a gift for mastering and improving systems, and their aura is deeply penetrative.
The gift of a Reflector is their resilience, which they have in greater capacity than any of the other Types, despite having the most openness in their charts.
The 5 Types in the Beginning
Imagine the human civilization in ancient Egypt...as a microcosm of the modern world:
The Pharaoh was a MANIFESTOR - someone who wielded power and had big visions, but needed to inspire and harness the masses to make their ideas happen.
The Priests were called upon to bestow guidance and wisdom to the masses, including the Pharaoh.. This was the role of a PROJECTOR.
The workers who accomplished so much by working together, under the direction of the Pharaoh, and with advice from the Priests, were the GENERATORS and MANI-GENS.
For bigger-picture things that pertained to the wellbeing and environment of society at large, all people turned to the Oracle. This is the REFLECTOR.
Strategy
MANIFESTORS are meant to inform, take initiative, and make an impact
GENERATORS are meant to wait and respond to what inspires you
MANI-GENS are meant to wait for inspiration, to respond and impact
PROJECTORS are meant to wait for their wisdom to be recognized and invited
REFLECTORS are meant to wait, sample the environment, and follow their delight
(Notice that “wait” is part of the Strategy for everyone, except Manifestors.)
When we follow our STRATEGY, each Type experiences its own unique SIGNATURE:
Manifestors will experience PEACE instead of anger.
ManiGens and Generators experience SATISFACTION instead of frustration.
Projectors experience SUCCESS instead of bitterness.
Reflectors will experience SURPRISE and JOY instead of disappointment.
To express our true frequency, or signature - we must overcome the tendency to get caught up in Not-Self behaviours, habits, and patterns…
The Not-Self
MOST of us are living in the not-self - due to conditioning from others, our childhoods, and the wider world.
NOT-SELF behaviours arise as a means of protection - yet they create resistance in our lives...
Our Not-Self is essentially made up of the behaviours that arise when we try to force ourSelves to function in ways that we're not designed, or when we try to live our lives and make decisions from logic, alone.
The NOT-SELF interferes with living our design, and embodying our STRATEGY & AUTHORITY.
Authority
Our Authority has to do with how we are uniquely wired to make wise and clear decisions. It's one of the best takeaways from Human Design!
There are 7 Authorities in total - 5 of them are INNER authorities, and 2 are OUTER authorities.
It’s important to note that nobody has the mind as an authority! The mind alone is not meant to make clear decisions for conscious humans, period.
The 5 INNER authorities are...
EMOTIONAL authority - wait out the emotional wave, sleep on it - “no truth in the now”
SACRAL authority - trust your gut, respond in the moment
SPLENIC authority - instant, physical knowing, body awareness - “the future/past do not exist”
SELF or G authority - talk it over to “hear” your voice/words
EGO authority - follow your will/passion
The 2 OUTER authorities are...
ENVIRONMENTAL / Mental - need a sounding board, in the correct environment, with the right people
LUNAR / None - wait a lunar cycle, observe and reflect, no pressure
Centers
The Centers in Human Design correspond to the Chakra system - but with 9 Centers instead of 7. We mutated from 7 to 9 centers in 1789 - when Uranus was discovered, and Projectors entered the scene. 2027 is said to be the next big change!
The Centers are connected by Channels, and together, Channels and Gates function like electromagnetic circuitry - paths thru which energy flows.
Our Centers may be defined, undefined, or open depending on the specific planetary activations that were present at the time of our unconscious (human body-elemental) design date, and our conscious (mind-soul) personality, or birth date.
Ancient Cognition
Ancestral shamans and medicine people from a wide variety of cultures have recognized the energy body as a collection of shapes and/or spheres, with streams of connected energy flowing thru them like water, or electricity.
In one of the many books by Carlos Casteneda, the Yaqui Sorcerer Don Juan talks about seeing a specific configuration of shapes in the aura when he first met Carlos, which is why he decided to teach him. His description matches how we draw the Centers in Human Design!
Only in modern times did we abandon this knowledge as ‘esoteric’ - despite the fact that science acknowledges the electro-magnetic nature of our very cells and biological systems. We are electric (Yang), and we are magnetic (Yin).
Line - the I Ching connection
The 64 gates in Human Design are connected to the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching - an ancient divination text, which uses six stacked lines, each either halved (Yin) or whole (Yang).
The 64 gates also correspond to the 64 Gene Keys, the 64 Obi used in Ifá divination practices, and even the 64 codons of the human genome.
The Six Lines carry archetypal energy:
Line 1 - the investigator | explorer
Line 2 - the hermit | natural
Line 3 - the experimenter | martyr
Line 4 - the opportunist | networker
Line 5 - the heretic | hero
Line 6 - the role model | teacher
Lines are present in ALL the gates and planets throughout your chart, as shown by the numbers 1 thru 6 to the right of the decimal point attached to each gate. Their archetypal energies make up what I call the hologram of our chart.
About the Profile Lines
Some Human Design readers view Profile as foundational, while others ignore it or minimize it. There are 12 profile expressions in all.
The first number of our profile is conscious, while the second is unconscious.
The lines of our Sun and Earth gates make up our primary line expression, our Profile.
Think of your profile like your character or 'avatar' in the video game of life!
I’ve made memes of each of the 12 profiles, using characters from the Harry Potter and Avatar the Last Airbender series - as well as a double-series that features the profiles of many famous folks. You can find them on my Instagram.
Learn the lexicon used in Holographic Self, my Human Design reader training course:
1 - I capitalize the word Self, because I recognize the innate spark of divine consciousness inside each of us. If you notice that quirk in my writing, please know that I intend it as an offering meant to uplift and inspire you.
2 - I am an animist - meaning - I acknowledge that we are made of stardust, and I view everything in our physical world as conscious and capable of communicating with us...just, sometimes it's on very subtle levels.
3 - It makes sense to me to view the human body as an elemental, like the elemental of fire or water, or the living essence of a tree or herb. Our physical body is part of the human collective, and the fascinating part about that is, we're also an individual consciousness, spirit, or soul, experiencing our particular, precious life. We are two-part beings, and I love that Human Design so neatly acknowledges this.
4 - I do not ascribe to the belief that our human form is just an electrical meat-suit - which is why embodiment is such an important practice.
Our bones carry the wisdom of the human collective, as well as epigenetic coding from 14+ generations of our ancestral line, and that’s just what science has proven thus far. To invalidate our precious body, instead of embracing her wisdom as a wise-and-loving co-creator on this wild Earth-journey with us, seems foolish to me.
5 -When I mention ascension and empowerment - I do not mean belief or religion. Instead, I am talking about each of us as conscious beings with free will, deciding to expand our awareness of what's possible, and expressing our true frequency as joy, light, and love.
6 - I have come to view our time incarnated on planet Earth as a grand experiment in playing with the illusion of separateness - and in co-creating experiences for the sake of experiencing them.
Throughout our life, we naturally express either our true frequency {our human design}
- or else, a frequency of our not-self -
...which is to say, our design, but compromised, held back, contorted by our various pain-bodies and unhelpful conditioning.
Human Design has been called "the science of differentiation" - meaning, it is a tool that helps our conscious awareness recognize and ‘innerstand’ the subtle energies at play between our human body-elemental (design) and our light-body / soul (personality).
We are NOT all the same, and that’s a beautiful thing!
7 - Human Design is a fantastic tool {not a belief system!} to help us learn to...
recognize our innate harmonics,
notice when and where we're 'out of alignment', and
to clear away our deep-rooted, unhelpful ‘programming’
This allows us the freedom to express our most true, sovereign, and beautiful Self.
Human Design is an amazing tool - especially within families, close friendships, and work connections.
For me, it really fits in so well with my focus on awakening consciousness, self-responsibility, and even the way I view pregnancy and birth; parenting and education.
We’re co-creating a new paradigm of living for conscious, sovereign souls - and Human Design is a dynamic, holographic toolkit that allows us to examine both micro and macro facets of our being, explore connections among ourSelves, and even notice the influence of the cosmos via the transits.
Hopefully, this gives you some insight into my perspective as we dive into our Holographic Self!
how to work with me