Last time, we explored the Life Themes with the Sun in Gateway 41, the Gateway of “Imagination”. Now, we move on into Gateway 19, the Gateway known as “Approach”.  Gate 19 signals the closing of this particular season we call Mutation, which begins with Gateway 1 and goes all the way to Gate 19. People born with their Conscious Sun in this part of the sky necessarily live mutative lifetimes, which basically means they’re going to experience substantial jumps in awareness and consciousness. They’re going to go through life disasters, life triumphs, and all kinds of unexpected things.

With that in mind, let’s have a look at the Human Design Life Themes associated with Gateway 19:

The Personal Life Theme: The Four Directions

With the Conscious Sun is in Gate 19, we find ourselves in the Personal Life Theme of “The Four Directions”. And you’ll see that each of the four Gateways involved in this Life Theme moves in a specific direction. Gate 19 is the Gateway of “Approach”, it reaches out, it moves toward something. On the other side, Gate 33 is the Gateway of “Retreat”, pulling back, drawing inwards. Then we go to the Unconscious Sun, which is in Gate 44, the Gateway of “Coming to Meet”—an outward movement of people and things coming together. And finally Unconscious Earth in Gate 24 is the up in the Mind Center, wherein the mind keeps returning over and over and over again to refine whatever it is that has caught its attention.

• Gate 19 – Approach – Reaching out to find what we need for life to connect us all.

• Gate 33 – Retreat – Recharging and assimilating life experiences by withdrawing.

• Gate 44 – Coming to Meet – Acceptance and mutual tolerance are essential in any meeting of likes or opposites.

• Gate 24 – Returning – Cycles of deep thought give way to innovation and transformation.

 So, people with this Life Theme are very extroverted at times, they go out and explore everything they can find in the world around them. And then they turn around and go inward. They retreat into internal viewing and a process of self-exploration where they review and reassess whatever it is that’s been going on in their lives.

One way to think about people with this Life Theme is that they follow the tides. As the tide withdraws, they go out and explore the seashore, observing and picking through everything that has washed up on the sand. And when the tide comes back in again, they go home and work out what it is they’ve found.

So, this Life Theme of the Four Directions gives us the possibility to assimilate. It gives us the possibility of going inwards. After these months in the Quarter of Mutation, what is it that we’ve found? What effect has it had on our lives? Where has it taken us?

Notable people with this Life Theme: Oprah Winfrey, Nicolas Sarkozy, Vanessa Redgrave, Adam Lambert

The Fixed Life Theme: Need

The Sun moves on into the fourth line of Gate 19, and we enter into the Fixed Life Theme of “Need”. The fourth line always wants to draw people in and connect with them. So, this Life Theme of “Need” is really invested in finding what it is that people need in their lives in order to feel connected. And the 19th Gateway is questing for unity. In this life, most of us are caught up in duality. Gate 19 wants to get people on the page.

On the opposite side, we have Gate 33, which is one of the Gateways where we retreat; we would draw back within ourselves to find the meaning of it all. And it’s a storytelling Gate. It’s part of the oral tradition. So, Gate 33’s job is to sit with something until it all settles in and the story reveals itself. If you have Gate 33 with the fourth line in your design, you might find that you can see into other dimensions of life, other timings, other lifetimes altogether. And part of your experience here is just to sit tight with things, to meditate on them until they ultimately make sense, or come to a natural conclusion of some kind.

• Gate 19 – Approach – Reaching out to find what we need for life to connect us all.

• Gate 33 – Retreat – Recharging and assimilating life experiences by withdrawing.

• Gate 1 – Creativity – Self-expression aligns with the natural expansion of the Universe.

• Gate 2 – Receptivity – A natural connection to unseen and sometimes inexplicable inner guidance.

Now, on the Unconscious side, the Sun has gone into Gate 1, the Gateway of “Creativity”, which is the Gateway that kicked off this Quarter of Mutation. The Unconscious Earth has gone into Gate 2, the Gateway of “Receptivity”. So, we have creativity and receptivity here in this fixed Life Theme of Need. What do we need? What are the foundational needs for us in our lives? Is life just about chasing after material things? Or does it also involve finding meaning in life and our spiritual presence?

This Life Theme is drawing our attention to what it is we’re really looking for in life. And if we look at Gates 19 and 1, and we go back to this image of the Four Quarters, we see that both are in Quarter of Mutation and the other two Gateways, 2 and 33, are both in civilization.

So, this Life Theme is very particular in that it doesn’t involve Initiation or Duality. It’s firmly concerned with how civilization can evolve, how it can make a jump in a mutative way and move into a whole different context of life. What do we really need? We need to find out who we are. We need to find out what this journey through life is all about.

The Interpersonal Life Theme: Refinement

The Sun then moves into the fifth and sixth lines of Gate 19, and we find ourselves in the Interpersonal Life Theme of “Refinement”.  Here again, we have just the two Quarters of Mutation and Civilization. So, we might say people with this Life Theme are here to do a massive cleanup.  

People with this Life Theme, wherever they go, they’re helping people refine their lives and to take things up a notch, to be more creative, be more in touch with each other, to recognize what it is that they really need in life. Not just what they want, but what they need. And what do they need? They need to be connected and grounded, to be accepting of a life here on planet Earth. And they need to have an extraordinary experience with it. People with this Life Theme have the ability to bring about this evolution in people and to get them way more attuned with life.

Notable people with this Life Theme: Justin Timberlake, Franz Schubert, Boris Yeltsin, Ronda Rousey

That’s the essence of the Life Themes associated with the 19th Gateway. If you want to learn more about Life Themes, you’ll find them all in the Book of Destinies, part of the Human Design Trilogy which is available in all good bookstores and audiobook platforms.

If you want to find out more about Gate 19, we encourage you to dive into our blog series on the Book of Lines.

And if you’d like to learn more about how your Human Design informs and shapes your life, get your Free Human Design Report today.