Channel 11–56 · Curiosity

Meaning

Channel 11–56 is one of the 36 channels of the bodygraph, and Ulune calls it the channel of Curiosity. It runs from gate 11, Ideas, in the Ajna to gate 56, Stimulation, in the Throat. It is one of three channels that let the mind speak.

Its theme is a steady flow of ideas turned into stories. Gate 11 holds images and possibilities, more than any one life could act on. Gate 56 tells them in a way that moves listeners. The point is not to prove anything. It is to stimulate, to open a door in someone else’s mind.

Someone with this channel defined is often a natural teacher, writer or storyteller at the dinner table. They look for new experiences partly to have something to tell. Human Design adds that the ideas are there to inspire, and not all of them to be acted on. Trying to live every one can be exhausting.

The tradition places the channel in the Sensing circuit, also called the Abstract circuit, one of the two Collective circuits. Sensing channels learn by living things and then reflecting on them. This one hands the reflection on as a story, so that others can learn from it too.

In practice

• Defined by the Personality (both gates from the planets at birth): its owner knows they are a storyteller. See Personality and Design.
• Defined by the Design (both gates from the planets about three months earlier): the stories come out on their own. Others notice the gift first.
• Defined by both, or by one gate from each layer: the channel is just as defined. Only its colours change.
• Gate 11 alone, as a hanging gate: a head full of ideas, waiting for a gate 56 in someone else to tell them.
• Gate 56 alone: a lively voice, ready to tell the ideas someone else brings.
• Day to day: travel tales, lessons built around an anecdote, a notebook of plans that will never all happen. The tradition suggests sharing the stories freely and letting the authority choose which ideas to follow.

Across traditions

• The I Ching: hexagram 11, Tai, places earth above heaven, and Wilhelm called it Peace. Hexagram 56, Lü, places fire above the mountain, and Wilhelm called it The Wanderer. Its image reads, in Baynes’s English, “Fire on the mountain” (Wilhelm, 1924). A mind at ease with ideas, and a traveller who moves on carrying what was seen.
• Astrology: gate 11 covers 22°37′30″ to 28°15′00″ Sagittarius, the sign of journeys and teaching. Gate 56 runs from 26°22′30″ Cancer to 2°00′00″ Leo.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune places thirteen bodies at birth, the Personality, and thirteen at the Design moment, when the Sun stood exactly 88° earlier. The channel is defined when gate 11 and gate 56 each hold at least one of these 26 activations, from either layer. The Ajna and the Throat then become defined.

If this were the chart’s only channel, the Throat would be joined to no motor, and the Sacral would be undefined. Ulune’s rules then give a Projector, with mental authority, since nothing below the Throat is defined. Its definition would be single.

On the bodygraph, each half of the line takes its gate’s colour. Ink means the Personality, red the Design, ink dashed with red both. A defined channel is drawn thicker, and its centres are filled gold. The Personality and Design views keep one layer each, so a channel made of one gate from each vanishes there. Without a birth time, a channel that another hour could change is drawn faint.

Correspondences