Reflections on the Human Design Variables
Photo by Alessio Soggetti on Unsplash
As I wrote in my last essay on Human Design, I am a few years deep into my own human design experiment. I am a few years deep into my own experiment. You can find out more about what Human Design is, and access your own free chart, from many sources around the web including mybodygraph.com, myhumandesign.com, and geneticmatrix.com to name just a few. Please note that I am not an expert on the topic by any means, and the musings I offer here are based only on my own personal insight and experience.
One of the more interesting and lesser discussed aspects of the Human Design system, beyond type, strategy, authority, incarnation cross, and profile are the variables. These four descriptors correspond to the four arrows that can be found on some charts (myhumandesign.com provides them). The arrows point either left (active) or right (passive). The Top left arrow indicates digestion, bottom left indicates environment, top right indicates awareness, and bottom right indicates perspective. This site gives a fairly detailed overview of each combination of left and right arrows in a person’s chart.
Most human design practitioners will advise, and it is true in my experience, that when you are first learning about your individual design it is best to focus on strategy and authority only. The best way to embody more complex aspects of your design, such as variables, is by coming to understand them through the lens of your own authority, rather than learning about them and trying to embody them with your logical mind or based on other societal conditioning about what these variables “should” be.
Personally, I think that human design is a very personal experiment that is played out through observing how we feel and act as we move through life. Rather than being prescriptive, it is a collection of ideas about how we exist that can only really be understood through embodiment of our true selves.
In my case, for example, I have written about being a manifesting generator with all right (quad right) variables. My understanding of these aspects have come to me through my own living experiment. In the past year, I have also been paying attention to the color and tone associated with each of my variables. Color and tone indicate the determination (digestion), environment, motivation (awareness), and perspective that correspond to your variable arrows. Barney + Flow gives a pretty detailed breakdown of determination, and myhumandesign.com provides your sense, determination, and environment in your free chart.
For example, my determination is indirect light, my environment is passive mountains, my motivation is guilt and my perspective is inner vision.
Again, these are advanced concepts in the Human Design system and I encourage you to explore and research them on your own to gain a greater understanding. My only purpose here is to share my personal perspective on how they function in my own life and experience.
Of these four variables, the hardest one for me to understand has been my determination of indirect light. This is the variable that relates to how we “digest” matter, in terms of both food and information. Perhaps this is the area where I am the most conditioned by society, because I have a hard time conceptualizing the indirect light aspect of consumption.
The variable that I have found easiest to understand is my perspective of inner vision, as I consider myself to be a clairvoyant psychic and I can “see” images in my head that correspond to aspects of the Ancestors and Guides intuitive readings that I provide for clients. I also tend to visualize things down to the greatest detail, and I have a somewhat photographic memory when it comes to places I’ve been. When I’m reading, I have no problem visualizing the characters, places, or concepts the author describes. Inner vision is how I best understand and interact with the world.
Guilt motivation and passive mountains environment is something that took me some time to understand, but after some research I was able to see how they manifest in my own life experience. Both relate to my right facing arrows and the nature of being a completely receptive being.
Photo by Kyle Arcilla on Unsplash
Guilt motivation basically means that I am able to perform best when I respond in the moment to what I see that needs to be done. Take household chores, for example. I have struggled in the past to create a weekly cleaning plan, to schedule chores according to a pre-set schedule, or to determine the best time to do things in advance. But, as a quad-right being, these are all strategies that don’t align with my personal design. I am most successful when I respond to what I see that needs to be done, when my authority signals that I have energy to do it. If my laundry basket is full, I should do some laundry. If there are dirty dishes in the sink, it’s time to wash them. If I see the floor needs sweeping, it’s best to just do it as soon as I notice it needs to be done. The key is not to hesitate too much, to think that there is a “best” time to do each thing, or to tell myself I will do it later.
This kind of scheduling can definitely be an effective strategy for some folks, but it does not work for me. Waiting to do what I know needs to be done only leads to frustration and, as my motivation implies, guilt that I have not accomplished what my intuition tells me to tend to. From the outside, this may seem to be a recipe for complete chaos in which nothing ever gets done because there is no plan. But in practice, for me, things get done when they need to because I notice that they must be addressed. That’s the only system that I need. I do not do well when my time is overly structured or I have too many commitments in my schedule, because it interferes with my ability to apply my guilt motivation when it spurs me to action.
Photo by Max Böttinger on Unsplash
The concept of environment relates to being in the correct space to enhance your own strategy and authority. This does not necessarily mean that you have to live in an environment that matches your design. It does mean, however, that you may have more clarity of vision and understanding of what is right for you, and may generally feel more aligned, when you are in your correct environment. As soon as I discovered that I am a mountains person I immediately resonated with this description. I had to laugh remembering that, as a child, I spent a great deal of my free time up in the branches of the cape lilac in our front yard, reading a book and hanging out with my cats, with a bird’s eye view of the goings on below. I longed for an upstairs bedroom with a window seat.
As an adult, when I am stressed or need to think clearly about something that is bothering me, I take to the hills for a solo walk or hike to be along with my thoughts. People watching, ideally perched in an out-of-the way place, is one of my favorite pastimes. I do my best thinking when I am alone, away from others, ideally in the solitude of nature. I may not need to dwell in the mountains all the time, but being able to escape to a place where I can gain perspective on an issue, free from outside influence both physically and metaphorically, is necessary for me to regulate my emotional well-being.
One thing to consider is that each variable relates to the others in your design, and are tied to the active or passive nature of the arrow in your chart. These also relate to all the other aspects of your personal design, and together make up the conscious and subconscious aspects of your personality. While each one can be conceptually understood on its own, how it will function in your own experience is completely unique to you.
That is one of the wonders of being human, and it is what makes human design a unique experiment that plays out over a lifetime as you gain a deeper understanding of yourself in this complex and ever changing world.
