Archives for April 2009

Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard together as the Carpenters clearly demonstrate the emotions of an undefined Solar Plexus. Neither of the 2 have a defined Solar Plexus the center tied directly to emotions. This is why although many of their songs were about being in love or “saying “Goodbye to Love”, they could put that out their with the same tone, intensity and a smile on their face.
It is almost as if the emotion is intellectualized in their songs. Whether they sing “Top of the World” or “Rainy days and Mondays”, while the words have emotional impact, and the instruments convey the mood, the emotions underlying their vocal expressions are almost neutral and not nearly conveying the joy or despair of the lyrics. Now contrast that with the pained expression by the band Nazareth in their sing “Love Hurts”.
The undefined Solar Plexus can empathize and experience the swings in emotions from sadness to despair and every flavor in between. This is what helped Karen and Richard write so many songs about Love and hardship but they couldn’t live and express that on stage consistently at the true level of those emotions.
Below is Karens chart and if you hover over the red circled areas you will learn more about her design and how it manifeted in her lifetime.

Ode to the Open G by Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan is a beautiful singer and song writer. In this you tube she explains how she came to write the song Angel. The song expresses the empathy and extreme sensitivity of the open G/Identity center. She talks about life on the road and despite being surrounded by loved ones she needs something more, the arms of an angel to comfort the open G.
In addition, the song takes on the struggle of the gate 28, the struggle with meaning in life. For a musician the road can be endless. Despite a rewarding career it can beg the question, “What is this all about?”
Sarah explains how she came to write the song in 3 or 4 hours, demonstrating the power of the channel of abstraction, gates 64-47. While Sarah doesn’t have the gate 64 this is an example of her amplifying that energy around her, perhaps even from the writer of the Rolling Stones article she was reading when the inspiration hit her. Yes even writing is an energetic expression that you can amplify. From this inspiration she brought the pieces of the sensations and feelings of life on the road for all musicians and assembled them into this masterful expression of a song called Angel.
In much of her work, Sarah utilizes her open throat to bring a wide variety of sounds and expressions to life. Her songs often very on topic, pitch, rhythm and beat.
All of what I described is outlined in red in her chart below.
Follow the link below the chart to listen to her explanation of the song and then her beautiful rendition of the Ode to the open G.

Listen to her sing the Angel song.

Sample Chart

The Penta or Group Dynamics

When 3 or more people get together a group energetic is born. This energy in Human Design speak is called a Penta. Through mapping out the Penta you can discover how successful the group will be at accomplishing task, presenting a solid and polished image, delivering a message and manifesting money. A penta could be a group of friends, a family, a sports team or a business.

There is much I could talk about the Penta but today my focus is on the number in the group. The Penta is most stable when there are 5 or a multiple of 5 in the group. So 10, 15, 20. I guess Jim Naismith had it right over a hundred years ago when he invented basketball. There are 5 on the floor from each team at all times. Groups that have 3 or multiples of 5 + 1(6,11,16,etc.) are the least stable. We even talk about them, the third wheel, the odd man out…
The energetic dynamic is such that as a couple moves toward becoming a group the 3rd creates unbalanced energy so the 3rd is either left out or the group finds a 4th. The same is true when a group of 5 gets a 6th, either one leaves or they look for a 7th. You can see the dynamic in football as well. Even though they have 11 on a team, they make it more balanced with the quarterback being the general and leaving a balanced group of 10 as the rest of the team.

This holiday season have some fun with this. If you are in a group of 3 and one is feeling left out look for a 4th to balance things out. If you go out to dinner with 6 see if someone, and maybe not always the same person, is getting up, to go to the bathroom, take a phone call or talk to someone they know. This happens because the energy is trying to get to 5. Maybe even a 7th will join you. Just remember if your the odd woman out it’s not personal and directed at you, it is just the energy.

Private Human Design Reading

Nothing will give you a more personalized view of your Human Design than an individual reading. I offer three options for doing this.

A 30 minute reading to get your feet wet. We will cover the basics of your design and get into some of the details. Great for a self led explorer.

A 60 minute reading to really get to know yourself. This is a directional reading using events, situations or issues in your life which allow me to relate how your design is tied into that and suggest micro strategies.

A coaching package. This includes 2 – 60 minute readings 2-3 months apart. The first session gets you a good understanding of your design and I suggest 3 points of your design to focus on between sessions. The second session we go to a deeper level, capitalizing on what you have observed in your interactions, relating to your design.

All the readings and coaching sessions I do are recorded so you can play them back later on your pc or mp3 player. Listening to them again is a great way for the information to sink in.

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Are You Perfect?

My wife Elvia and I recently had the good fortune of taking a some very relaxing days in Cancun. We have been working very hard and when you work for yourself and out of your own house the lines of taking a break and working become blurred. So for our vacation we were ready to just be pampered and taken care of.

One of the bartender’s at the lounge where we would have an evening cocktail before dinner would always ask us, “Are you perfect? Is there anything that I can do to make you perfect?” And yes we were Perfect. Right there in that chair at the bar after lounging by the pool in the tropical sun to melt away the long winter, yes we were perfect!

Flash forward to this past weekend and after paying bills and dealing with some menial chores I was feeling very stressed out. I was far from perfect. In fact, quite unlike m self I was a real grouch. Part of what made me less perfect was the extreme pressure I was feeling.

The root center is a pressure center and when we get under pressure to do things, like pay bills or make the money to pay bills, the pressure of the root center triggers adrenaline to be dumped into the system to give us energy “to do”. But in my case it was a lot and like having 3 cups of coffee I was feeling so over powered by the amount of adrenaline dumped in my system that I almost felt paralyzed. It took me a couple hours of watching mindless TV to pull myself of the couch and go outside for a while and work in the garden to feel better. And using up the adrenaline is a great way to recover from the over pressured root.

The pressure wasn’t the only thing affecting my mood. The root center holds the gates of depression in the body. Ra actually speculates that people with an open root may have a higher rate of suicide as they have more opportunity to be under pressure which can lead to depression. But even with my defined root I did not have immunity, as I was feeling the pressure in my open gates, and feeling the depression.

There are many areas in the Human Design system where we can come under pressure or influence of energies that will throw us off our center and out of balance. Understanding these can help you define strategy to bring yourself back to center. Often connected to losing our center is tied to worrying about the future or struggling with our past. But to paraphrase Ra, if you live your design then there is only one thing you can do and that is to live in the Now. We are a different person than we were in the past as we have in some way changed, and the future is the future and what we imagine may not even happen so why focus on that instead of what is right in front of our faces and that is the Now, which is happening and unfolding as we speak.

Living in the Now as Eckart Tolle and so many others have spoken is a sure way to get to perfect. I am not perfect today but I am a heck of a lot closer than I was last Saturday. I hope you are on your way to perfect too!