Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx (2/1)

The Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx, named here in its reverse order as Gate 2 and Gate 1, carries the same two gates as its better known counterpart with sun and earth exchanged. Human Design reads Gate 2, from Hexagram 2, The Receptive, as the receptive sense of where a life is meant to go, now the more exposed of the pair, and Gate 1, from Hexagram 1, The Creative, as the urge to give that direction some individual, creative form. It belongs to the Right Angle family, and the system reads that group as personal destiny, answering mainly to the individual's own choices rather than to any role imposed from outside.

Its design half is Gate 13 and Gate 7, both in the G, or Identity, centre. Gate 13 is read as the listener, holding what others confide and bearing witness to the past; elsewhere it pairs with Gate 33 in the channel of the Prodigal. Gate 7 is read as the self cast in the role of leader, guiding without necessarily holding formal power; it pairs with Gate 31 in the channel of the Alpha.

Exchanging which gate carries the Sun changes what the cross puts forward first, direction rather than expression, but the underlying material, all four gates seated in the Identity centre, is identical to the cross's better known form. The hexagrams are ancient; the pairing and its reversal both belong to the modern system, 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, in this ordering, is named for Gate 2 and Gate 1 rather than Gate 1 and Gate 2, the same four gates as its mirror cross with the Sun and Earth exchanged. Its first article reads that exchange as direction placed ahead of expression. 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 ordering draws on exactly the same four Quarters as its mirror, one gate from each.

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

So the receptive direction and the creative expression the first article reads on this ordering's surface still draw on the arcs of form and transformation, while the witness and the leadership beneath them still draw on the arcs of mind and bonding, the same four arcs its mirror cross draws on with personality and design simply reversed. Reversing which gate carries the Sun changes what the cross is read to serve, but it changes nothing about which Quarters supply its four gates.