A bodygraph looks busy the first time you see one. It isn't random. We'll build one together, one layer at a time, using an example chart. By the end you'll know what every part means, and how to find the same things in yours.
Example chart: Maya, a fictional person. Manifesting Generator, Emotional Authority, Profile 1/3.
Your chart comes from where the Sun, Moon and planets stood, and it is calculated twice. Black is Personality: the moment you were born.
Red is Design: the moment the Sun stood 88 degrees of arc before its birth position, roughly three months earlier. Black is the side you tend to recognize in yourself. Red is the side you are usually less aware of, and it is often easier for others to see.
Every Human Design chart is drawn on the same map. The nine shapes are Centers. The small numbers on their edges are the 64 Gates. The 36 lines between Centers are Channels.
What makes a chart yours is which parts are switched on. Let's switch them on, one layer at a time.
Each planet lands in one of the 64 Gates, and that Gate lights up in the color of its calculation. Black, red, or striped when both sides hit the same Gate.
Maya has 18 active Gates. A Gate on its own is a single theme. The next step shows what happens when two of them meet.
A Channel forms when the Gates at BOTH of its ends are active. Then energy runs all the way between two Centers.
If only one end is active, the line stays half drawn, a hanging Gate. Maya has three complete Channels: 11-56, 12-22 and 42-53.
Every Center at the end of a complete Channel is defined and gets its color. That is the part of you that works consistently, whoever you are with.
White means not defined, and there are two kinds of white. A white Center with active Gates in it but no Channel is undefined. A white Center with no active Gate at all is open.
In Maya's chart the G Center is undefined: Gate 1 is active, but it forms no Channel. Head, Heart and Spleen are open.
White is not a weakness. It is where you take in other people and the world, and where you can learn the most.
Type is read from the defined Centers and how Channels connect them. There are 2 energy types, the Generator (including the Manifesting Generator) and the Manifestor, and 2 non-energy types, the Projector and the Reflector.
The Throat is where things get said and done. A motor is a Center that supplies energy: the Sacral, the Root, the Heart and the Solar Plexus. Maya's Sacral is defined through 42-53, and Channel 12-22 connects her Solar Plexus straight to the Throat. Sacral defined plus a motor connected to the Throat by Channels: Manifesting Generator.
Each Type has a Strategy, a practical way to start things that fits how its energy works. You don't have to believe it. Try it for a few weeks and see what changes.
Strategy is how you meet a decision. Inner Authority is where in your body the decision actually gets made.
The Authorities have a fixed ranking. Your Authority is the highest one in this list that your chart has:
Maya's Solar Plexus is defined, so her Authority is Emotional, even though her Sacral is defined too.
Your Profile is two numbers. The first is the line of your Personality Sun, the second is the line of your Design Sun.
Maya's Personality Sun sits in Gate 12, line 1. Her Design Sun sits in Gate 36, line 3. Her Profile is 1/3.
Every Type has a Signature, the feeling that shows up when you live by your Strategy and Authority, and a Not-Self theme, the feeling that shows up when you do not.
For a Generator the Signature is Satisfaction and the Not-Self is Frustration. When frustration builds, it does not mean you did something wrong. It tells you that you started something you were not responding to, and that you can change course.
Maya is one chart. Yours will have different Gates, Channels and colored Centers, so your Type, Authority and Profile may be completely different. Use your exact birth time: a few minutes can move a Gate or change your Profile.
Enter your birth date, time and place and see your Type, Strategy, Authority and Profile on the same map you just learned. Free, no email needed.