Left Angle Cross of Duality (34/20)

The Left Angle Cross of Duality is named for Gate 34 and Gate 20, which are in fact two of the four Integration gates, directly connected to one another in the channel of Charisma. Human Design reads Gate 34, from Hexagram 34, Great Power, sitting in the Sacral centre, as pure power, most potent simply being itself rather than aimed at anyone; and Gate 20, from Hexagram 20, Contemplation, sitting in the Throat, as awareness and expression that occur now rather than in reflection. It belongs to the Left Angle family, read as transpersonal, a direction practitioners describe as answering less to personal choice than to what circumstance hands the individual.

Its design half is Gate 40 and Gate 37, which are in fact the two ends of one channel, Community. Gate 40 sits in the Heart or Will centre and is read as willpower held against a real need for aloneness and rest. Gate 37 sits in the Solar Plexus and is read as the warmth of family and friendship, the bargain that holds a household together.

So this cross is unusual among its cohort in carrying not one but two whole channels, an immediate power on its surface and a domestic bargain beneath it, with no gate left standing alone on either half. The same four gates also underlie the Cross of the Now and the Cross of Power, and, reversed, the Left Angle Cross of Duality under the opposite ordering. Both hexagrams are old texts; pairing them this way as a life direction dates from the system's founding in 1987.

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

This Left Angle Cross of Duality completes its two role arrangements with this ordering, Gate 34 and Gate 20 exposed, raw power ahead of immediate awareness. Its first article reads Gate 34 as pure power, most potent simply being itself, now the more exposed gate, and Gate 20 as awareness and expression that occur now rather than in reflection. What it does not trace is where the four gates sit on the wheel itself, the Human Design mandala's division of its sixty four gates into four Quarters, and by that measure this ordering draws one gate from each of the four.

Gate 34, the personality gate here, falls in the Quarter of Mutation, purpose fulfilled through transformation. Gate 20, its personality partner, falls in the Quarter of Civilization, purpose fulfilled through form. Behind them, Gate 40 falls in the Quarter of Duality, purpose fulfilled through bonding, and Gate 37 falls in the Quarter of Initiation, purpose fulfilled through mind.

So the raw power and the immediate awareness the first article reads on this ordering's surface answer to the arcs of transformation and form, while the willed aloneness and the domestic bargain beneath them, the whole channel of Community, answer to the arcs of bonding and mind, the same four arcs the earlier ordering of Duality also draws on however its two pairs are assigned to personality and design. With both arrangements in place, and both carrying whole channels rather than four lone gates, Duality's two gate pairs still share the same wheel wide spread, one gate from each Quarter regardless of order.