The rhythmic sounds of the gates or hexagrams
Everything is duality and everything is vibration. This is a central truth underlying Human Design. When you look at the "œchop" or the graphic symbol for each hexagram there are six "œlines" which each might be male or female. Pushing or swallowing, as it were. Yang or Yin, in Chinese. But Chinese is a language about motion and movement and processes, so I do prefer to use the words Pushing and Swallowing, and make no apologies for the sexual undertones for that is the essence of the YiJing.
When I first was drawn to Human Design, it was not to be fixed, for I already knew there is nothing to fix in anybody. It was the beauty of the mathematics and the melodies of the underlying music. So I want to show you how the dancing rhythms are there, but first I need to tell you a little mathematics, because musical rhythms are the most basic and essential forms of mathematics that predate accountancy and trade. Originally the first rhythms of apemen drumming formed the first mathematics because every rhythm repeats in a cycle. Walz has three beats, Rock has four, and so on.
The hexagrams have six lines and are actually ordered around the wheel, the sequence of the planets going from Gemini to Cancer and so on, the same was as binary numbers are counted in computers. So if you imagine that the Yin or swallowing "œlines" are written with a 0, and the pushing or Yang lines are written 1, then the sequence that every planet follows normally is the same as counting the ways computers count, in binary. 000000, 000001, 000010, 000011, 000100 correspond fairly obviously to the hexagrams from mid Taurus to Mid Gemini "“ gates 2, 23, 8, 20, and 16 in Human Design. Human numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 in fact. Clearly whoever numbered the hexagrams (a political prisoner called Wen), got them all in the wrong order, when you look at the Human Design wheel.
Putting aside that connection to modern computers and mathematics, let's reconnect to the cavemen dancing around the fire.
Bu bu bu da da da. Bu bu bu da da da. Bu bu bu da da da. This is the start of a simple tribal dance beat and clearly is the same as 000111 000111 000111 or hexagram 12, the gate of grace.
What I have done here is replaced the yin or - - line with the softer sound boo. Like a low muffled rhythm of a very slack drum. These are the lines that swallow. For the penetrating punctuation of the Yang lines I used a different sound, like a sharp drum or clap, sounds such as Da or ever Ta or Ka would express this.
When you look at those hexagram symbols, somehow a few stick out "“ because they make visual patterns, but there is something irresistible, that you remember I think more easily and that is the drumming rhythm of each hexagram.
Da bu da bu da bu "“ that would be hexagram 63, doubt and logical questions about the future. In contrast the reverse upside version is "¦ making the boo sound soft remember bu DA bu DA bu DA!. Hexagram 64 in fact, the gate of visual confusions about the past.
Well I am not sure if I have the best syllables here, but they work for me. The only thing is, the four quarters of the wheel all have the same lower two lines. The quarter of Form, the summer position of the sun, is double yin, bu bu. "œPickenick baskets booboo", as Yogi bear used to say. The quarter of relationships, the autumn position of the sun, is bo DAH! Ironically this seems like Buddha, but no, the accent and penetrating energy is in the Da, so it is boo DAH!
The quarter of mutation, the winter position of the sun, is Da Da. The sound of clapping your hands twice, that penetrating Yang energy repeated in the lower two lines of the hexagram. And the spring position of the sun, the quarter of Mind, is DAH boo. Again this is not quite taboo, although another name for this quarter is Initiation. The penetrating energy of Yang comes first then the soft swallow of Yin, so the sound is DAH boo.
Obviously, combining just two elements you have just four rhythms. The YiJing and the hexagrams are based in triplets, bu bu da bu bu da "“ for example, which is hexagram 52, the mountain that never moves, stillness. There is something deep about this. If keeping still is that simplest of triplet rhythms, and stillness is the illusion we feel most strongly as gravity binds is in a swirling path through space, then it seems very interesting that stillness has such a lively but simple, constant rhythm.
Richard Rudd used to say that you make the best decisions in stillness and joy. They are opposites in the wheel "“ 52 at the start of Cancer and 58 at the start of Capricorn. Because the opposites on the wheel are truly an inverse of each other, the hexagram is the same pattern reversed, like turning over the fabric of creation. 001001 "“ stillness, the mountain "“ necessarily will be opposite 110110, the joyous. In my view, both rhythms have a simplicity that we can dance to easily and remember and use, and that is quite a deep thought. Stillness is bu bu DA bu bu DA, and joy is DA bu bu DA bu bu. They are in fact very similar in how they feel as you listen to them.
In contrast, look at hexagram 30, the clinging fire, which is about feelings. This has a pounding driving feel, da bu da da bu da, da bu da da bu da. The tribe is getting passionate, when dancing to this, I would say. Opposite you have the gate of saying YES, where 101101 turns into the opposite 010010. This feels very different, and sounds disorientating. Bu DA bu bu DA bu "“ it is almost chaotic in contrast to the easier dances until now. In Chinese tradition, the trigrams are fire and water, one consumes and clings, the other drowns and spreads. So Hexagram 29 is the abysmal, thought to be dangerous. Hence the strange gift if you have this in your own chart, this is in a channel about succeeding where others fail and failing where others succeed. Named, like on television, the Discovery Channel.
Da da bu da bu da, da da bu da bu da, some of these drumming rhythms are so infectious. 110101 is the hexagram for 38, the fighter, and it sounds to me like the tribal drumming for the warriors to get ready to go to war.
Opposite is gate 39, obstruction and provocation, bu bu Da bu Da bu, bu bu DA bu DA bu, very odd and in a strange way, percussive and provocative.
All the hexagrams from 2 round to 44, the lower half of the wheel and to the right, are syncopated, They commence or have first lines that are Yin, swallowing. This is why the wheel is so powerful, all the rhythms are divided into two clear halves, but the first line being Yin or Yang, Swallowing or Pushing. Naturally the feel of the different halves is very different.
The feel of the fourth line gives or removes a lilting musical feel technically known as 6 / 8 time, for there are basically two ways to feel 6 beats. As a waltz, one two three, one two three, or as a gallop, one and a two and a, one and a two and a. What shifts the feel from one to the other is basically whether line four is Yang (6 / 8 time) or Yin (3 / 4 time). Gate 19, da da bu bu bu bu, da da bu bu bu bu, is clearly in waltz time. This is the gate of approach or wanting. And the opposition is also in three time, da da bu bu bu bu, da da bu bu bu bu. Gate 33, the gate of influence and leading. In contrast, the opposite pair gates 11 and 12 are in six time. Da da da bu bu bu, da da da bu bu bu, is hexagram 11, the gate of peace and ideas. Bu bu bu da da da, bu bu bu da da da is hexagram 12, the gate of caution. Check these out for feel Gate 17, Gate 61.
Well there is so much more to say on all this as there are 64 lines. How does this reveal the way lines group as channels and circuits? What about the way gates cluster together in centres?
Another really amazing way to experience these hexagrams as rhythms is to assume you are drumming in standard 4 beat time, and simply leave the final beat silent. For example, the "œstop" codon is hexagram 41, the gate of Contraction and Decrease. Da da bu bu bu da. Stop. Da da bu bu bu da. It is like a morse code of life and rhythm. Whereas treating this in three time and just repeating gives a very different feel da da bu bu bu da, da da bu bu bu da"¦
When Human Design is embraced by the wider society, it is likely that some elements will be stripped away, especially those that serve now purpose. There is no apparent purpose to the existing numbering of the hexagrams, in the contrary the same hexagrams have a definitive order out there in space, around the equator of our planet. The numbers used today are superfluous, but how can we find a simpler and more natural way of recognising and distinguishing 64 different hexagrams.
The ancient Chinese remembered the YiJing using lower and upper trigrams, with just 8 possibilities for each, making 8x8 or the 64 combinations in total. Each o9f the 8 trigrams has a distinct name and feel "“ Earth, Mountain, Water, Wind, Dragon, Marsh, Fire, and Thunder.
What is clear now is that these different essences are in fact, vibrations, or rhythms, that could actually be there in some frequency actually within the molecules and vibrations of our DNA. Our intentions and actions and even the forms and behaviours of material things would all be explained by there mathematical combinations of just to elements, pushing and swallowing. By keeping these as simple as a drum beat you can easily perform with your left and right hand on your thigh and a table, to get the different sounds, I am sure that there is a faster and deeper and better way to recognise and learn the 64 heaxagrams as groups of 8 distinct triplet beats.
In any case, life is dance, and dance releases us all from concepts.
DWD
Saturday 29 October 2005