(September 2018) on the road to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, located in the Navajo Nation. One of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken ☀️

Welcome to August! Here in Arizona, August marks the midpoint of the summer monsoon season, with two more months of SOARING temps on the horizon (it’s 108 degrees as I type this). This summer has been strange, tho (#climatechangeisreal). In just the first half of our monsoon season, we’ve received more rain than we would normally see IN AN ENTIRE SUMMER…contrast that with summer 2020, which was super SUPER dry, with wildfires all over (seriously, the mountain range closest to my apartment was on fire for over a month)! And we’ve been seeing these steep pendulum swings in our weather patterns more and more frequently…

All of this extreme weather has got me thinking a lot about the way the pendulum swings of our own beliefs and actions impact our relationship to our gates in our charts (I bet you were starting to wonder when I was bringing this back to Human Design 😂🤣THIS HASN’T BECOME A WEATHER BLOG DON’T WORRY!)…which also made me realize I had never blogged about an important influence on our practice of Human Design: THE SOLAR TRANSITS!

So…what is a Solar Transit?

Over the course of the year, the Sun shines a giant spotlight on each one of our gates over the course of a 5-6 day period. During that time, our relationship to that gate is brought out into the light of the sun so we can take a good, hard look at it because we can’t heal what we can’t see! The path the sun takes around the wheel of the Rave Mandala version of our chart, and the subsequent blocks of time the sun spends illuminating each gate, are referred to as Solar Transits.

How do the Solar Transits impact you? Well, that depends on which gates you have activated (and which gates the folks you’re most energetically enmeshed with have activated). The transits you will personally feel the most are the ones associated with the gates you have activated in your chart.

On the road to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument (September 2018)

Now, I know we haven’t talked a ton about gates here on the blog (a gap I aim to close from this day forward!) so let me quickly summarize: in our Human Design charts, there are 64 gates (the teachings of which stand on the shoulders of the 64 hexagrams of the I’Ching). I collectively call the gates our TEACHERS because of the different ways each gate’s energy can manifest in our lives, totally depending on our conditioning. In our charts, gates can be:

a GIFT we’ve been given, and we learn a ton through being really successful and gifted at the thing OR
a LESSON we’re here to learn, and we learn a ton through sucking at the thing, adjusting our relationship to it, and hopefully ultimately getting much better at the thing

For some people, a gate can present as a gift and a lesson simultaneously in different areas of our life (that’s me and my gate 21 all 👏the 👏damn 👏 way👏!!!).

In his book The Gene Keys, Richard Rudd does a FANTASTIC job of explaining the extremes of the shadow/lesson sides of each of our gates (he terms them our “repressive” and “reactive” natures), and how each relates to the gift of each gate that we (hopefully) grow into via self-reflection and a willingness to engage in honest self-scrutiny. And the Solar Transits each year provide an AWESOME opportunity to give a bit of structure to that reflection☀️🌍☀️

The first Solar Transit of August starts on the 5th and lasts through the 10th, and focuses on Gate 7, officially titled (*ahem*) “The Gate of the Role of the Self in Interaction.” Mouthful, that. The foundational teaching of Gate 7 comes from hexagram 7 of the I’Ching, which in one of the translations I use is referred to as “Armies.”

Canyon de Chelly National Monument, September 2018.

Gate 7

Gate 7 teaches those who have it activated about the intersection between power and people, and about our own relationship with taking on a leadership role. Gate 7 pushes us to ask: What is needed by the collective? Are those needs being addressed with an eye toward equity? And are those in power truly putting the good of the community over the accumulation of more power and influence?

LESSON: Dictatorship/Authoritarianism

Folks that struggle with this gate often times have a “my way or the highway” mentality. For them, it’s less about what is being accomplished than HOW, and their ideal HOW usually features them prominently at the helm. If you find yourself consistently needing to be right, accused of micromanaging others to the detriment of the team, and/or pushing yourself or others to win at any cost, you might need to work on your relationship to this gate. No shade intended, tho! The old paradigm we’re stepping out of has glorified a single specific notion of POWER and LEADERSHIP…but with the coming of this new Global Cycle in 2027, humanity collectively is in the process of letting go of some of the systems and structures designed specifically to serve the few (and leave behind the many) and building something more intentional, inclusive, community-centered in their place…and this means intentionally and deliberately reconfiguring our relationship to power, prestige, and influence.

GIFT: Collaboration and the Collective Good

When this gate is in balance, the focus is on the community and on the larger collective. If this gate presents as a gift for you, you’re focused on the goal of the team/community/collective and are happy to be a part of the mission to make it manifest. Sometimes the role you take on might be that of a leader, and at other times you might embody more the role of advisor, sounding board, cheerleader, or debate partner. Progress is more important than the personal accumulation of power because you know IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU! When this gate is in balance, you find yourself asking “what can I do to help?” far more than declaring “this is how it needs to happen!” At its core, gate 7 is here to help us move from old paradigm mindsets around how power is structured to a new paradigm mindset, one which is heart-centered, service-minded, intersectional, and inclusive.

One recent example of EMBODYING the gift of gate 7 comes courtesy of GREATEST OF ALL TIME (and my Pisces/same incarnation cross having sister) Simone Biles (Man Gen, Emotional Authority, 2/4 Right Angle Cross of the Garden of Eden 36).

Sidebar: Biles doesn’t have gate 7 activated, BUT BUT BUT she may have parents/coaches/teammates/ friends/training partners who do. Fun fact: when we are energetically enmeshed with someone (like a close friend, family member, lover, etc) their gate placements become our karmic extra credit, so she might have learned to embody the wisdom of this gate via her interactions with others.

As I write this, the Olympics are happening in Tokyo, and Biles recently made headlines for making not only her mental health and physical safety a priority but for putting her team first by opting to withdraw from several events.

An unhealthy gate 7 might have felt the need to “push through,” to 🏅GO FOR THE GOLD🏅 at any cost. Biles, however, took a healthier and more balanced approach: she weighed what was best for her with what was best for the team (VERY new paradigm) and made a decision that met the needs of both the individual (herself) and the collective (her team), proving once again that she is a FORCE OF NATURE in the gym and out 💗

🤯🤯ANOTHER FUN FACT: On July 27th, the day Biles struggled with her vault and withdrew from the competition, the sun was transiting Gate 31, The Gate of Influence, the gate that, when activated alongside gate 7, makes the Channel of the Alpha. Gate 31 is also about when we step into positions of leadership and influence and, subsequently, how we then behave when leading. 🤯🤯