While our North Node offers us up direction in life with actionable steps to align us with our right trajectory, our Incarnation Cross is essentially our destiny, our true purpose. It is not something we need to force or try to make happen but the path we naturally find as we live authentically, when we live as our differentiated self. When we follow our Strategy + Authority to make the correct decisions, rather than living through the Not Self, we are cosmically + divinely guided toward our purpose. In Human Design our purpose is less about a doing, a particular career path we’re meant to be on and more about a being. I find it interesting that we have come to equate purpose so strongly with what we do for work. While this is sometimes true, it doesn’t have to be. We can feel a lot of pressure in this life to “find our purpose”, a buzzword we hear often in society almost to a toxic degree.While we each have a unique contribution to make in this life, that purpose is more about what we are here to explore, to offer through our presence, through how we are of service, how we empower others, how we spread love or enthusiasm, etc.. I was listening to the Quitted podcast the other day with Liz Gilbert and loved so much her ladder story. The gist (though I recommend listening to her speak about it) was that after spotting a man at the top of a ladder repainting his sign, she crossed the street to hold the ladder for him until he was finished. As he was coming down she left without him ever knowing she was there, watching out for his safety. Afterwards she had the thought, “what if that was my purpose?” What if despite all the wisdom she’s put out in the world, all the books she’s written, she was really here on this Earth to be there, on a sidewalk in Venice, for that moment, to save this strangers life so that he can go on to fulfill his purpose. A powerful notion. And a good reminder that we have NO IDEA the lives we touch, how a small kindness can change someone else's trajectory in small ways, or completely. Our purpose is less about what we do, it’s about who we are. This purpose is encapsulated in our Cross through the combination of our Sun + Earth Gates. Our conscious Sun representing our Life’s Work, Conscious Earth our Evolution, Unconscious Sun our Radiance and Unconscious Earth our Soul’s Purpose with an emphasis on our Conscious Sun Gate. Each cross belongs to one of the four quarters: Intiation (beginnings), Civilization (building), Duality (bonding) + Mutation (evolution). We typically pull up our charts as the standard bodygraph with columns but we can also view it as the classic mandala.
You can see that each Gate falls into one of the four quarters and you can find your Conscious Sun Gate in this image (above) to see which quarter yours falls into.
