Left Angle Cross of Individualism (38/39)

The Left Angle Cross of Individualism is named for Gate 38 and Gate 39. Human Design reads Gate 38, from Hexagram 38, Opposition, sitting in the Root, as the fighter, the drive to oppose and the need to discover something worth opposing so the fight has a point; and Gate 39, from Hexagram 39, Obstruction, sitting in the Root, as provocation, the pressure that stirs feeling in other people to discover whether there is any spirit in them. It belongs to the Left Angle family, read as transpersonal, a direction practitioners describe as answering less to personal choice than to what circumstance hands the individual.

Its design half is Gate 57 and Gate 51. Gate 57 sits in the Spleen and is read as intuition in the present moment, associated with hearing rather than sight; it pairs among the four Integration gates. Gate 51 sits in the Heart or Will centre and is read as shock, competitive courage that initiates and can startle others awake; it pairs with Gate 25 in the channel of Initiation.

So a chart carrying this cross fights and provokes on a shared Root surface, while beneath it an instant intuition answers to a startling courage. The same four gates also underlie the Cross of Opposition and the Cross of Provocation, and this cross's own reversal is the Left Angle Cross of Individualism. Both hexagrams are old texts; pairing them this way as a life direction dates from the system's founding in 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 Left Angle Cross of Individualism is named here for Gate 38 and Gate 39, the drive to oppose exposed ahead of a voice that provokes. Its first article reads Gate 38 as the fighter, the drive to oppose and the need to discover something worth opposing so the fight has a point, and Gate 39 as provocation, the pressure that stirs feeling in other people to discover whether there is any spirit in them. 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 38, the personality gate here, falls in the Quarter of Mutation, purpose fulfilled through transformation. Gate 39, its personality partner, falls in the Quarter of Civilization, purpose fulfilled through form. Behind them, Gate 57 falls in the Quarter of Duality, purpose fulfilled through bonding, and Gate 51 falls in the Quarter of Initiation, purpose fulfilled through mind.

So the drive to oppose and the voice that provokes the first article reads on this cross's surface answer to the arcs of transformation and form, while a present moment intuition and a startling courage beneath them answer to the arcs of bonding and mind, the same four arcs the cross's own reversal, Gate 39 over Gate 38, will draw on again however its two pairs are assigned to personality and design. Four gates, four different Quarters, no pair sharing an arc: this cross draws its whole reading from every corner of the wheel's own purpose rather than concentrated in one.