Gate 17 · Opinions

Meaning

Gate 17 is one of the 64 gates of the bodygraph, and Ulune calls it Opinions. It sits in the Ajna, the centre where Human Design places the mind’s processing of ideas. Its theme is forming logical opinions: how things should be organised, and where a pattern is heading.

It often shows as a firm view on how a plan or a trip should be structured. The view is usually well reasoned, and looks ahead. The tradition adds one note on timing. These opinions tend to land far better when someone has asked for them than when offered unprompted.

The tradition places gate 17 in the Logic circuit, also called the Understanding circuit, part of the Collective circuitry. Human Design links that circuit with patterns that can be tested and shared for the good of many. Here the pattern is still a concept, waiting for facts and a voice.

In practice

• Personality (the planets at birth, drawn in ink): the gate is conscious. Its owner tends to know they hold firm views, and to enjoy defending them. See Personality and Design.
• Design (the planets about three months earlier, drawn in red): the gate works below awareness. Others may hear the opinions before its owner notices how strongly they hold them.
• Both: the theme is coloured twice, and tends to be a steady trait.
• Alone, as a hanging gate: the opinion is formed, and it reaches for gate 62, its partner across the channel. People who carry gate 62 can bring the details that back it up.
• Completed by gate 62 in the Throat, it forms the channel of Acceptance. Ulune reads it as a steady ability to turn an opinion into an organised, detailed explanation. It works best when others have asked for that view.

Across traditions

• The I Ching: hexagram 17, Sui, places the lake above thunder, joy resting on movement. Wilhelm called it Following. His judgment reads: “Following has supreme success.” His commentary adds that whoever wants a following must first learn to adapt.
• Astrology: the gate falls in the first third of Aries, the sign of initiative and of the first step.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune reads the gates on the tropical zodiac, from gate 41 at 302° (2° Aquarius), each 5°37′30″ wide. Gate 17 is the 12th gate of that wheel, between gate 25 and gate 21. It covers 3°52′30″ to 9°30′00″ Aries. Its six lines of 0°56′15″ begin at 3°52′30″, 4°48′45″, 5°45′00″, 6°41′15″, 7°37′30″ and 8°33′45″. The same degrees of Libra hold gate 18.

Ulune places thirteen bodies on the wheel: the Sun and the Earth opposite it, the Moon, the true Nodes, and Mercury to Pluto. It does so at birth and at the Design moment, when the Sun stood exactly 88° earlier. Any of these 26 positions in the span colours the gate. Without a birth time, the chart is cast at noon. Ulune then flags any body whose gate or line could change at another hour.

When the Personality Sun stands here, Ulune names the incarnation cross after gate 17. The profile sets its angle: Right Angle, Juxtaposition or Left Angle. The three names are in the table below.

Correspondences