combatting conditioning | jupiter in gate 24 | february 3rd - march 11, 2024
Welcome to Combatting Conditioning, a brand new series from me, Jaclyn Michelle of interior creature.
Periodically, I'll be popping onto the blog to zoom in on a major gate transit and sharing some journal prompts for effective shadow work & deep de-conditioning.
Yesterday, February 3rd, Jupiter moved into Gate 24, The Gate of Rationalization, which is ruled by Taurus and lives in the Mind Center. This gate asks us to get honest about our conditioned habits, patterns, beliefs, and behaviors around how we learn and create knowledge, as well as how we share what we know and understand with the world.
As some of you may know, before I started interior creature, I earned my Masters in the Science of Teaching and worked for about 15 years in K-12 education, so I've spent a large portion of my professional life studying how we, as humans, learn, and how the way we learn impacts how we interact with the world around us. Now, what I'm going to say next will most likely surprise NO ONE (as you've subscribed to receive emails about Human Design, a.k.a. Science of Differentiation) but EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS WIRED TO LEARN DIFFERENTLY and EVERY SINGLE PERSON VIEWS THEIR OWN INTELLIGENCE AND ABILITY TO LEARN BASED ON SUPER INDIVIDUAL CONDITIONING.
Gate 24 & the Mind Center: In Human Design, the Mind Center governs how we take in information, how we process it, analyze it, connect it to what we already know and how we use new knowledge to extrapolate and to predict and to solve problems. Gate 24 is one of a few gates that influences how this process plays out, in that its energy asks us to examine our relationship to our own intellect and to our own unique learning process: How do I construct knowledge? Do I consider myself to be intelligent or not? Why? What is my zone of genius? What are the subjects that tend to cause intellectual struggle? What areas feel like intellectual dead zones? When constructing knowledge, what sources do I trust? Which do I reject? And why? How comfortable am I reading or learning outside of my zone of genius/realm of understanding? What holds me back from engaging with perspectives different than my own?
The Taurus of it all: Recently, I took a position at my local library (which I am LOVING, btw!) and as part of my training, I had to watch a presentation on the importance of intellectual freedom to our democracy and I had to study the American Library Association's guidelines for collection development (honestly, probably one of the most relevant and interesting new hire trainings I've ever experienced). In an era of “alternative facts," propagandistic misinformation campaigns, and a renewed interest in book banning, collectively we seem to be wrestling with the shadowier side of Taurus' governance of this gate. Taurus energy can be steady and grounded, but can also be stubborn and bullish, or even comfort-seeking, which makes it such a fitting steward of this energy.
The Jupiter of it all: When we're in the shadow of Taurus/Gate 24, we dig our heels in and just flat out refuse to engage with information that doesn't align with our own experiences. We find an intellectual “safe space,” set up house, and stay there. This tendency can also be born of overwhelm, stemming from a belief that there are too many perspectives to possibly ever truly understand or a feeling that we're not intelligent enough to comprehend the information we'll find, so why even try? Jupiter wants us to remember that choosing to sit in the shadow of Gate 24 is SO LIMITING. As a collective, we're not going to move forward into that energy of integration, invention, and innovation if we're stuck spiraling the same familiar intellectual drain. During this transit, Jupiter is here to help us EXPAND into the compassionate energy of Taurus, which reminds us that true knowledge is born of the integration of a wide variety of perspectives, experiences and information, and cultivating the deep understanding that begets invention and innovation takes time, dedication, patience, openness and commitment, which is a gift we deserve to give to ourselves and each other.
Shadow Work/De-conditioning Questions to consider: Which end of the fear frequency spectrum to you more frequently tend toward: biased or overwhelmed? Does this vary depending on the situation or subject (in academic settings versus when teaching yourself something new versus in professional settings)?
Think about your conditioned habits when learning a new skill, studying a new topic, answering a new question, or solving a new problem: what resources do you tend toward to source the answer to your question? How do you know you can trust the source to get you factual, unbiased information (or is the source at least transparent on what is opinion and what is fact in the way the material is presented)? Are you open to reading or researching outside of your comfort zone? Do you tend to seek out resources that confirm your worldview? Are you open to reading perspectives other than your own? How open are you to changing your mind when confronted with new information?
Are you finding this Combatting Conditioning series supportive? If so, watch this space! The first volume of my book The Rebuilding Year is dropping so soon and I cannot wait to tell you all about it!
Also, you can grab your 2024 Human Design Planetary Transit Guide here.
Do you have Gate 24 activated in your chart? Let me know in the comments!