Last time, we explored Hexagram 52, which was about giving ourselves permission to be still while we find what it is we’re really called to engage in. Now, the sun is moving into Gate 39 in the Human Design Chart, and it’s a Gateway we call “Provocation.”

 Also known as the gateway of “Hardship,” the 39 essentially involves finding your way through obstacles. When an obstacle pops up in your life, what do you do about it? Do you fold? Do you run and hide? Or do you engage with it, find your way through, and as a result, enhance your sense of self, and self-confidence?

Finding a way through all obstacles of all sorts opens you to challenges that promote personal growth. But where do these challenges come from? What are these obstacles in the first place? Does the world really have it out for us, or can we find the source of many of our troubles a little closer to home?

Whatever we’re experiencing on the outside, it’s our experience. That is to say, the experience itself happens within. The outer and inner reflect each other perfectly. So, if you are perplexed by the way in which your world mirrors you, look within yourself to find the source of that reflection. More often than not, when we trace the things that are apparently happening to us back to their origins, we find that we are indeed the source.

Before we get into the lines, I want to be clear on what we mean by the word, “Provoking” here. Provoking, or being provoked, is not the same thing as fighting. Just because something’s happening, or appears to be happening, does that mean we have to get involved in it automatically? Does it mean we have to make a fight out of it? In its very simplest form, provocation is almost like flirting, it’s a form of trying to get somebody’s attention. You feel drawn to someone, and that in itself is a provocation, and you move towards them, you try to get their attention, which is another provocation. Is there any life here? Any juice? Provocation can be as simple as that.

So, as we go through the Hexagram, you’ll see that this is less about conflict, and more about reaching our way through these various provocations. Trying to work out whether or not the interaction is of any real value to us in our lives.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at Gate 39 in the Human Design Chart line by line:

First Line: Being Detached

The first line is called “Being Detached: Dropping any need for forced interactions.” If you are provoking, or somebody is provoking you, be detached. You don’t have to just jump into the fray and get involved simply because someone is vying for your attention. Sit back, see if there’s a real interaction, a real matching of frequencies and energies before you get involved.

Whether you engage with anyone directly or not, you often provoke people without trying. The 39 just has that energy. It’s wanting to reach out. It’s wanting to make a connection. It’s very romantic. It’s very much into music, the arts, and creativity in general. All things that provoke us to engage with life.

You have the energy to act in your own way and time and avoid imposed obstacles. Even if there’s a major provocation going on, you will find your way through. There are so many provocative things going on in the world at any given time. From upsetting court rulings, to wars, to the climate crisis, we have no shortage of things that provoke us. But whatever the chaos appears to be, there is always a way through for you as an individual. And the 39 asks: Can you detach from the chaos, the provocation, all the things that appear to be coming at you and find your way through?

Second Line: Encountering

Second lines always have a very natural quality about them, an easy way of engaging with things that happen to cross their path. Here, the second line is called, “Encountering: Engaging adversity as a means to self-discovery.”

When challenges and obstacles come your way, your natural response is to say: “It’s obviously here to be dealt with in some way or other, so let’s do it.” If you’re going to get involved with something, you really get involved in it, whether it feels comfortable to do so or not. You grab the bull by the horns. You naturally challenge life, so you are constantly called to meet situations face to face. But you do so in your natural way. So, sure enough, there’ll be a way through it, and there’ll be growth that happens through this engagement.

The other side of this is that you might bite off more than you can chew. There is always the possibility that when you grab the bull by the horns, you find that the bull has its own agenda. When you feel like you’re in over your head, when the stress or discomfort gets to be too much, you tend to seek alternative possibilities. Your response is to get out, move on to something else.

Third Line: Facing Challenge

Third lines always want to try out something new. They want to be the first ones to dive in. And here the line is called, “Facing Challenge: Honoring your own way of dealing with trials.” And your own way of dealing with trials, as a 39 with the third line, is to give it a go, see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, you learn from that and move on.

Reconsidering, or not, your internal push to engage with or avoid external confrontations. The third line is always in a space of working out whether or not they are going to commit to something. This comes back to checking in with your Human Design Chart, getting clear on your Type and Authority, and working out for yourself if this is something to get involved with, something that’s really calling to you.

Your expansive stance does not absorb or give off a sense of fear when in confrontations. Again, your nature is to dive in and give it a go. There’s no fear there. It’s a somewhat romantic impulse, chasing after an ideal regardless of the consequences. And you might get your fingers burned a few times in the process, but you learn from that and expand as a result. What you want to look out for here is the tendency to get caught in a pattern of jumping into the same things over and over again without any real growth happening.

Fourth Line: Converging

The fourth line is called, “Converging: Finding unifying elements before taking any action.” Fourth lines always want to bring people together. They want to work together to get everybody on the same page. But there’s always that sense of rejection in the back of their minds. You can be very influential and bring people together to put out amazing things in the world. But, if there’s rejection, if there’s dissent, you might just back away from it all.

Awaiting right opportunities to handle confrontations is not always the easiest thing for you. But, by perceiving the essence of obstructions, you find the energy to deal with them. It’s a matter of tuning in and finding where the energy is coming from. Where is the provocation here? Do you have to push a little bit to move things along?

You tend to tackle confrontations regardless of circumstances or outcomes. It’s a tendency to just jump in headfirst. So, the sensible thing is to find the unifying elements that are available to you. Can you bring allies in to join you? Are there people that will bring the encouragement you need to tackle this confrontation?

Fifth Line: Finding Assistance

Fifth lines are the natural leaders, the guides. They have the overview of the potentials and possibilities in any given situation. They have the grand view of things, but they also need to make things practical. They need to find a way for these bold visions to work in the real world. And here, the fifth line is called “Finding assistance: By facing obstacles directly, resolutions become apparent.”

You either allow yourself to find assistance in difficult times, or you stay doggedly self-sufficient. Take the Constitution for the United States of America for instance. This extraordinary piece of writing was signed when the sun was in the 39 and the fifth line. And it was essentially saying “America is now officially independent, who’s with us, and who’s against us?” So, we can see in this document itself, the recognition of an obstacle for what it really is, and the impulse to find assistance.

Your insistence to take on confrontations as a permanent agenda is exasperating to others. If ever there’s an Achilles heel with the fifth line, it’s rescuing other people, often provocatively interfering with their lives. You live in a projection field. Because of your ability to see all the possibilities, others project their needs onto you. They look to you to work things out for them. And if you constantly take that on as your permanent agenda, you end up expending all your energy on other people, rather than being clear in your own life. (America, pay attention!)

Sixth Line: Troubleshooting

The sixth line is called “Troubleshooting: The innate gift for solving problems.” The sixth line has the overview of everything in the Hexagram. You can see how to remove any kind of obstacle. You can make the right connections. You can provoke in a way that removes all the difficulties. You have an innate gift for solving problems.

Here’s the rub: Some people enjoy having their problems. So, casually fixing their problems can really upset them. Some people see their problems as integral parts of their life story. It could be that they had a rough childhood, or an accident that left them scarred, or they’re unlucky in love. And these things become a part of the stories they tell themselves about their lives. They begin to identify with their problems. So, when you just fix it all with a snap of your fingers, it’s like you’ve come along and kicked their crutches out from under them.

The key is to be sensitive to the overall needs of situations before attempting to solve any problems. You’re absolutely brilliant at sorting out issues of all kinds. You can make the connections that give people the opportunity to get rid of all their obstacles. But, it’s important to look a bit deeper before diving in and fixing things. Does it really serve them for you to do so? Is it really a benefit to them if you suddenly take all their problems away? If you always take on problems, regardless of the facts, you can end up causing greater problems.

So, that’s Gateway 39. We’ll check in again soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how your Human Design Chart informs and shapes your life, get your Free Human Design Report today.