Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx (1/2)

The Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx is named for Gate 1 and Gate 2, both seated in the G, or Identity, centre. Human Design reads Gate 1, from Hexagram 1, The Creative, as the urge to give an individual creative direction some outward form, and Gate 2, from Hexagram 2, The Receptive, as the receptive sense of where that direction is meant to go. It falls in the Right Angle family, the most populous of the three kinds, which the system reads as personal: a direction steered chiefly by what the individual decides rather than by circumstance.

Its design half, carried unconsciously rather than in the cross's own name, is Gate 7 and Gate 13, and both also sit in the G centre. Gate 7 is read as the self cast in the role of leader, guiding others toward a shared future without necessarily holding formal power; elsewhere it pairs with Gate 31 in the channel of the Alpha. Gate 13 is read as the listener, the one to whom others confide and who holds the past; it pairs with Gate 33 in the channel of the Prodigal.

All four gates named here sit in the same identity centre, which the system reads as a chart whose creative direction, leadership and capacity to be confided in all answer to the same place. The hexagrams are ancient texts; assembling four of them into one personal cross is the modern system's own construction, dated to 1987.

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx is named for Gate 1 and Gate 2, and its first article traces both gates, together with their design counterparts, Gate 7 and Gate 13, to a creative direction meeting a receptive sense of where it is meant to go. What it does not trace is where the four gates sit on the wheel itself, the Human Design mandala's division of its sixty four gates into four Quarters, and by that measure this cross draws one gate from each of the four.

Gate 1, the personality gate, falls in the Quarter of Mutation, purpose fulfilled through transformation. Gate 2, its personality partner, falls in the Quarter of Civilization, purpose fulfilled through form. Behind them, Gate 7 falls in the Quarter of Duality, purpose fulfilled through bonding, and Gate 13 falls in the Quarter of Initiation, purpose fulfilled through mind.

So the creative expression and the receptive direction the first article reads on this cross's surface answer to the arcs of transformation and form, while the leadership and the witness beneath them answer to the arcs of bonding and mind. Four gates, four different Quarters, no pair sharing an arc: the sphinx this cross is named for draws its whole reading from every corner of the wheel's own purpose rather than concentrated in one.