Gate 58 — The Joyous — Stimulation is the key to joy

Full breakdown

We're moving to the left side of the Root center. The connections between the Root center and the Solar Plexus system are very complex, because the Root carries the power of adrenaline while the Solar Plexus runs on a wave. When the Root center is directed toward the spleen, we're dealing with the original pressure that fuels our primal awareness. The spleen system represents our most fundamental awareness. It's our primary awareness, spontaneous existential awareness, our system of health. Looking at the spleen center in terms of the immune or lymphatic system's ability to maintain our purity, health, and life, we can see there are three kinds of pressure there that matter enormously for a person's physical wellbeing and sense of wellness.

The deep theme underneath the visible movement of energy between the Root center and the Solar Plexus is sexuality, and between the Root and the spleen it's caring. Here we're dealing with a pressure of a completely different kind, showing up in a different dimension. It's the pressure to be aware, as opposed to the pressure to express feeling, to behave emotionally, to give off an emotional wave. It's the pressure to care, as opposed to the pressure to enter into a sexual connection — a completely different process. Let's start with gate 58. Here it's important to see that understanding, in the sense of Human Design — the circuit of understanding, the logical system — is universal to life as a whole. All life depends on order and pattern. These things have to exist, and we see that the logical circuit, with its process of understanding, belongs to every variety of life form. This is exactly where a great irony sits inside human nature. It's very easy for us to live out the experiential wave — gate 36, the motor gate, points directly into the throat — but it's nowhere near as easy to manifest logical awareness.

One of the hardest tasks for a human being is to display their understanding, to manifest it. This becomes obvious once you look at the nature of the circuit. The three logical gates coming out of the Throat center have no direct access to energy. If you move down the channel of Talent, you arrive at 18/58, and ultimately at gate 58, which fuels the entire logical process — not in terms of the format of energy, but as the direct pressure to experiment. Think carefully about what the energy of gate 58 actually is. It's an energy with a very particular purpose, one that allows logical experimentation to secure a safe future for humanity.

Gate 58 provides us with a unique energy. It lets us repeat the experiment again and again, and without it we could never test, examine, verify our formulas. Without this energy we'd never really know that a pattern is right, admissible, acceptable, and that it could hold value for humanity as a whole. That's why the first line of gate 58 is one of the most wonderful lines in the I Ching. It's the true beauty of life. Real love lies in recognizing the pattern that will keep the whole safe. This is collective love, and it's exactly this that forms the source of energy held in gate 58. This is the gate of Vitality — or not. Joy is a beautiful name for the hexagram. Vitality is the energy to experiment. It's unconscious energy. It's the life force, focused on supplying the experiment with the energy it needs.