Human Design and the I-Ching: Hexagram/Gate 48, The Well, Lines 1-6

Where do we go to get knowledge? How do we use it? And how do we determine what knowledge we choose to take in and share with the world? Human Design and the I-Ching can point us in the right direction.

As we move into gateway 48, it’s helpful to think of it as a continuation of gateway 18, which was all about improving the systems that we rely upon in our lives. Gate 48 is called “The Well,” because it is essentially a source that can provide things of interest to us. Like a water source, it offers freshness and depth, and we can expand this into knowledge. It tells us that replenishment comes through establishing and reestablishing access to the unending source of knowledge.

The well is where we would go to get the water that sustains us. And while you’re at the well, waiting for your turn to draw water, you’re having a chat, you’re talking with the other people there, finding out the news, the gossip, the latest info. So, it can be a great exchange of information, an exchange of knowledge. And while you’re at the well, waiting for your turn to draw water, you’re having a chat, you’re talking with the other people there, finding out the news, the gossip, the latest info. So, it can be a great exchange of information, an exchange of knowledge. And of course, depending on which well you go to, there’s going to be a different group of people and different news, different knowledge, different things of interest. So, this is what the 48 is all about: the source of knowledge. It’s all about where we go to get knowledge, and how we decide which knowledge can sustains us and bring about a sense of improvement in our lives.

Let’s see how this plays out in Human Design and the I-Ching line by line:

First Line: Finding Significance

The first line here is called “Finding Significance,” And it’s all about quick recognition of relevance or irrelevance. You see something, it catches your attention, so, you look into it a little bit further, but if it’s not engaging, you lose interest.

If you’re standing next to somebody at the well, and they’ve got a great story to tell, you’re going to listen. But if you keep hearing the same old stuff all the time, what’s the point?

That’s what the 48 is all about, to determine relevance or irrelevance in this moment. To determine whether something is really worth your attention.

You either adjust to each fresh moment, or find life distasteful and become distracted. As you know, when you’re really engaged in something and really focused on it, it’s easy. It’s engaging. It’s fresh. It’s interesting. It holds your attention. But if it starts turning a little bit dull, you start to wonder, “why am I doing this?”

Second Line: Refreshing Your Gifts

The Second line here has a quality of deterioration. There is a need to constantly refresh your gifts. The second line has a tendency to get stuck in a rut. It can reach a point where it feels like there’s no room left to grow, no need to extend its vision any further. And so it gives up trying to expand, and just sticks with the same ol’, same ol’.

That’s when things start getting dull. Your talents deteriorate when ignored, or if you are distracted by comparing yourself to others. So, if you don’t keep refreshing your gifts, sooner or later, they’ll start to deteriorate, and you won’t be able to use them anymore. 

So how do you move forward? Human Design and the I-Ching tell us that we refine our abilities by growing in and around the challenges that life brings. All of us face challenges, and the challenge, particularly with the 48 with second line, is to keep upgrading.

When something is so difficult that it causes you to want to lose interest and give up, the real challenge for the second line is to keep going, maintain your interest, do not get distracted, and certainly don’t start comparing your own gifts to those of other people.

Third Line: Trusting in Your Evolving Gifts

Third lines always have this commitment issue. It says “Am I going to get involved or not? Is this something I really want to go deep into or not?” And the third line here is called “Acknowledging: trusting in your evolving gifts.” The more you practice your gifts, the more you indulge, the more you get out of it, the more your gifts increase. And sooner or later, you will be appreciated for your talents and abilities—If you trust and persevere.

The tricky thing for the third line is to persevere. There is a tendency to say “oh, I’ve been there, done that. It didn’t really get me anywhere,” and you move on to something else. So, the key here is to keep on building on the gifts that you have. To keep on expanding your knowledge base, expanding your practice.

Fourth Line: Refreshing

The fourth line has a quality of wanting to engage. It wants to bring everybody in and get everybody involved. Here the line is called “Refreshing: all your gifts benefit from regular reevaluation and refinement.”

This is about recognizing the influential effect you have on people, and reevaluating whether or not you are channeling it in the right direction, with the right people and projects. Essentially, the key here is to find out if you are indeed still interested in what you are doing.

This is not to say that you should simply throw everything away, rip it up and start again. But simply recognize that life moves on. Patterns change. So, let’s be influential, but be influential with the latest and greatest input available. In rest, refreshment and reevaluation, your inner depth and clarity are explored and expanded. So, this is a time to take a moment and reevaluate what it is you are doing, and why.

Fifth Line: Utilizing

The fifth line always has a leadership/teacher quality about it. And here, the line is called, “Utilizing: recognizing that you have many gifts.” That’s a key quality of the fifth line here, many gifts, but also the need to apply them.

We all know of people who stop using their gifts. Great musicians who, for one reason or another, put down their instruments, or child prodigies who lose interest in their talents as they grow older.

The fifth line is telling you to pick out the gifts that really work for you and go into them. The nature of the 48 is realizing we have the gifts, but then also seeing that we need to have the resources to be able to enhance these gifts so we can spend our time practicing. Because the gifts wither away if they don’t get used.

Sixth Line: Finding Fulfillment

The sixth line is called “Replenishing.” This is all about fulfillment. What are we going for in life, if not fulfillment? And fulfillment comes through sharing from an overflowing source, having the openness to share your extensive gifts with others.

This is what I call the artesian well. The knowledge base is so substantial that the water just comes gushing out. You have so much to share, so many different things to say, so many talents to offer the world. And isn’t it amazing when people respond? When an audience, large or small, really resonates with what you’re putting out there, there is nothing more fulfilling.

So there we are. That’s the wrap up for the 48 and we’ll check in again soon as we go into gateway 57 is one of those doubles of trigrams in Human Design and the I-Ching.

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