64 perspectives on Composting informed by Human Design & Gene Keys
I got this cool idea, to use the 64 Human Design Gates to describe my work from a multitude of perspectives. And being inherently impatient, decided to be guided by the Moon — often seen as the driving force of a person’s chart.
But it moves so fast, that it’s going to take a few cycles to get through all 64 gates. Here’s the order the moon travels in starting today, 10th October 2023: 4 ✅ 29 . 59 ✅ 40 . 64 . 47 ✅ 6 . 46 . 18 . 48 . 57 ✅ 32 . 50 . 28 . 44 . 1 . 43 . 14 . 34 . 9 . 5 . 26 . 11 . 10 . 58 . 38 . 54 . 61 . 60 . 41 . 19 . 13 . 49 . 30 . 55 . 37 . 63 . 22 . 36 . 25 . 17 . 1 . 51 . 42 . 3 . 27 . 24 . 2 . 23 . 8 . 20 . 16 . 35 . 45 . 12 . 15 . 52 . 39 . 53 . 62 . 56 . 31 . 33 . 7 . 4 and then back to the beginning of this list. I really ought to start with Gate 41, but don’t want to wait that long to synchronise with the Moon in that position. We’ll get there soon enough.
Gate 4
Gate 4 is in the Ajna pointing up to the Head, in the Collective (logic) circuit. It’s mental activity focused on the future.
It’s not a gate that is defined in my chart, so it’s one where I get to learn from the planets as they pass through, or from people around me who do have it defined.
Where my mind went wandering as I read up on this channel:
Human Design
- People who don’t want to compost can use logical reasoning to defend their position — there’s actually no forcing or convincing anyone to look after the Earth. I went to a couple of law lectures with Jessica yesterday and learned lots about how legal questions can divide a supreme court — that you can argue for either side in a lot of disagreements.
- People who want to keep spraying toxic weedkillers on our plants can also continue to justify their actions with logic (well supported by the companies that make those products and fund the science that tries to show that there is minimal harm)
- “Ultimately, the answers you formulate are designed to be applied to questions that come from people around you. Rarely if ever can you formulate answers that provide solutions to your own questions about your life.” [The Definitive Book of Human Design page 213] In other words, this is part of a projector channel that needs to be recognised and invited.
Gene Keys
- The shadow aspect of this key is ‘Intolerance’, and I realised reading through this passage just how intolerant I am of people who don’t want to make soil. Made me laugh, actually. It describes how much our thinking is determined by our emotions — when feeling pessimistic, our logical minds will build a strong case to continue feeling more and more pessimistic, and vice versa.
- The Gift is Understanding — and when we attain understanding through thinking, we can reach a place where the heart also understands. Goodness, the breath of relief, that the mental activity could just be light entertainment, ‘to play with the patterns of existence and arrange them in new and original ways’ [Gene Keys page 26]
- Siddhi is Forgiveness — as with many of the Gene Keys, reading this final section is getting a spiritual awakening of sorts. Today was reading about how when humanity understands the power of forgiveness, then all karmic debts will be cleared, and the purpose of our human lives will have been realised. To truly forgive would allow existence as we know it to come to an end, and we would all attain ‘Christ Consciousness’.
Today’s photo is the delightful onion skins I’m turning into soil as an experiment within the Franklin Food Strategy work I am peripherally connected with. So many of New Zealand’s onions are grown very close to where I live, and so much of the crop residue or crop waste is not valued. There are discussions around turning a lot of it into onion powder (New Zealand imports huge amounts of onion powder — why import if we can make it, right?)
Onion powder is great, but there will always be residue unsuitable for food products. And so my logical brain ponders how best to turn onions into healthy soil — what companion plants will aid the process, and where the finished soil is best used. Can we use any invasive weeds in the process, and elevate their status to ‘useful’ plants?
I’m sure there’s a lot more to say about Gate 4, but I’ll pause there for today, and check in with the Moon again tomorrow.
October 10th 2023: Gates 4, 29
October 11th 2023: Gates 59, 40
Journal entry for 11th October, 2023
Gate 59
I have often looked at Gate 59 as being the gate of sexuality and felt somewhat unsafe. I have Gate 6 at the other end (third line unconscious Mercury), and when my gate 6 ‘hooks up’ with gate 59, there’s a sense of fizzing anticipation that can get a little too spontaneous.
For this project, I’m curious about other applications of this gate — for example, in my relationship with the Earth, with the soil, with the wider landscapes around the gardens where I make compost and grow food and flowers.
And then there are the collaborations that can be birthed a little like a relationship — excitement at the beginning, and then the hard work of collaborative creativity.
Gate 59 is in a tribal channel, and tribal energy is associated with the senses of touch, taste and smell. (I think of the handshake as a tribal interaction: the hand-to-hand skin contact creates a sense of trust)
Within composting, we rely on the sense of touch and smell — and then the sense of taste when we eat the food we grow.
The image I’ve picked for today is the baby Madeira Vine shoots reaching upwards — striving to survive, and connecting with others to form a new entity which is perhaps stronger than the sum of the parts. Two becomes three becomes four, and eventually these vines grow up to the canopy of tall trees, breaking branches and bringing them down. Those branches that are brought down to the Earth return to the soil — the natural regeneration of soil feels like a Gate 59 sort of impulse.
A passage from the Gene Keys on the Shadow of Dishonesty:
“This is the Shadow that makes the world a lonely place because despite the number of people there are around us most of the time, we rarely communicate with each other in real depth. [p.473]
I wonder — does the Earth feel a sense of loneliness when we don’t actively connect?
Does the practice of biodynamics help humans to slow down enough to connect? Can we make this even more authentic, perhaps by acknowledging the fears we have for the consequences of damage caused by man-made toxins in the soil?
If we enter into partnership with the Earth (or with the soil body of the earth in the areas where we actively work), then what would that look like?
- Listening & responding
- Nourishing, protecting, loving
- Being fully present
- Allowing depth of communication, the full spectrum of emotions
From about 2am through to about 12pm, that’s the window of this energy this month.
October 11th 2023: Gates 59, 40
October 12th 2023: Gates 64, 47
Journal entry for 12th October, 2023
Gate 47
Human Design:
OPPRESSION
GATE OF REALIZATION
Gene Keys:
OPPRESSION
TRANSMUTATION
TRANSFIGURATION
Gate 47 is energy that I carry in my design, in my unconscious Sun — it’s really quite strong, although I don’t have the other side of the channel (gate 64), and my Ajna centre is open.
It has always felt like the spot where I get so tied up exploring options that I get stuck and take very little action.
Analysis paralysis.
Lynda Bunnell describes it like looking through a kaleidoscope of images, where one of the pictures holds the key to an eventual mental realisation. I’m learning that when I need to ruminate on a problem, then it is best to go and potter — detach from podcasts, books, social media and even friends, and just engage with some composting until the ‘aha’ moment lands.
There is nothing quite like that moment when the dots all connect and a new sequence appears — perspective that makes sense of the past.
From the Gene Keys book, this is what Richard Rudd calls ‘the vast reservoir of darkness in the form of inheritable ancestral anguish.’ No wonder I need a little space to let these mental images play out.
For the gift of this energy (transmutation), Richard Rudd suggests leaning into the suffering is the best way to transcend it. ‘It is the way of surrender.’
I wonder if this is why I’m drawn to pockets of land that are heavily sprayed with Glyphosate — that if my work is soil remediation, then I’m best used in those spaces that need it the most.
Then, the highest expression of this Gene Key (transfiguration), Richard Rudd talks about an endless series of often indecipherable mutations, leading to a finite number of transmutations. This phrase struck me as particularly relevant to composting:
“Transfiguration on a social level must include the entire planetary organism because despite our current perspective, we are really the mind and eyes of the earth rather than being separate from it.”
Questions to ponder with this energy:
- I wonder, is the mental processing a little like the digestion that happens inside a compost pile?
- Is our compost influenced by our thoughts as we’re building a pile?
- How much do we need to study/learn/read and how much do we all just need to get out and make soil, even if it’s not done perfectly?
- What are some little mutations I could try this week in my composting processes? Maybe I could learn the names of each of the cows that graze in the paddocks?
October 12th 2023: Gates 64, 47
October 13th 2023: Gates 6, 46
October 14th 2023: Gates 18, 48
October 15th 2023: Gates 57, 32, 50
Journal entry for 14th October, 2023
Gate 57
Human Design:
THE GENTLE
GATE OF INTUITIVE CLARITY
The extraordinary power of clarity
Gene Keys:
UNEASE
INTUITION
CLARITY
This gate has always felt a little elusive to me. It’s in the Spleen, and I have lots of active energy in my spleen, that I feel I’m sort of ‘good’ for splenic awareness.
It’s a gate with a strong connection to acoustics — the sounds and vibrations in our physical, emotional and psychic environments.
Richard Rudd talks about how as human beings we are directly affected by our environment, and how if we are surrounded by the fear based shadow expressions of the gene keys, then we are under enormous pressure to resonate within those same frequencies.
Wow.
It really is important to surround yourself with high vibration people!
The shadow of this Gene Key is unease, which is expressed as fear of the future or fear for survival.
Accessing the gift of this Gene Key (Intuition) can result in clairaudience.
“Intuition is how nature talks to and through human beings…
Your awarenss operating system changes gear and your body hums with life…
The body becomes lighter and operates at a higher frequency.” [Gene Keys p463]
The highest expression of this Gene Key (Clarity) can bend time and intuit the future, experiencing a state of eternal now.
What this feels like?
The art of softness.
This phrase is going to sit with me as something to ponder:
“Gentleness knows no weakness.”
What does all this mean for composting?
- It’s such a gentle process, that perhaps shouldn’t be rushed.
- Are there divine forces at work?
- As composters, perhaps we are Earth stewards, listening, responding intuitively, co-creating in harmony with nature.
- What if each compost pile was like a tuning fork, or a singing bowl, with a signature pitch.
- If this is the case, then NOT composting material with sensitivity is denying nature of a special part of the song, or a unique piece of some sort of cosmic jigsaw puzzle. And that feels a bit like the ever growing ‘nothing’ from the book ‘The Never-Ending Story.’
- Is the gentle art of composting actually tapping into the strength of flowers, with their essential oils, harnessing the water in our food scraps, and retaining them in our food system to carry on feeding us — raising the vibration so that the end soil is more nourishing than any of the ingredients on their own?
October 15th 2023: Gates 57, 32, 50
This now feels like a process to take into a different format somehow — if you’d like to read my Human Design & Gene Key musings on the soil, please send me an email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz and I’ll let you know how to access the rest of the content.
