Last time, we explored the Life Themes with the Sun in Gateway 22, the Gateway of “Grace”. Now, we move on into Gateway 36, the Gateway known as “Crisis Resolution”. Crisis is a very interesting word. If you go far enough back into the original Greek, “crisis” actually means making a decision. Any time that you enter into a new situation or you’re faced with the unknown and you’ve got to make a decision, that is the moment of crisis. But the crisis only exists until the decision is made. After that everything is resolved.
What can happen for people with Gateway 36 in their design is they become addicted to crisis. Wherever they are, they create crises and everyone around them comes to them to help sort out crisis situations. So, in the end, it all comes down to awareness. Can we have emotional awareness around our engagement with crisis?
With that in mind, let’s have a look at the Human Design Life Themes associated with Gateway 36:
The Personal Life Theme: The Garden of Eden
With the Conscious Sun in Gate 36, we find ourselves in the Personal Life Theme of “The Garden of Eden”. The Garden of Eden is essentially perfection. Everybody gets along; animals, people, plant life, all living in perfect harmony. With this Life Theme, there’s always this question: “Am I in the Garden or have I been booted out for some reason? Am I honorable enough to be in the Garden? Can I love myself enough to be in the Garden?”
So in this Life Theme we have Gate 36, which is always coming into something new, something different. On the opposite side, we have the Earth in Gateway 6, which I call “Conflict Resolution”. It’s the Gateway of potential friction. So, there’s a lot of energy around this question of “Do I merit being in the Garden or am I out of the Garden?” The thought being that if you’re able to resolve your crisis, you’ll be back in the Garden again and everything will be fine. But if you get hung up and have difficulties resolving things, life will just get crazier and crazier.
Gate 36 – Crisis Resolution – The potential to feel a sense of crisis before moving into a new experience.
Gate 6 – Conflict Resolution – By monitoring changing emotions, you recognize the needs of any particular moment.
Gate 11 – Harmony – As harmony emanates out into the world, small ideas can yield big returns.
Gate 12 – Standstill – Being cautious and remaining inactive until the moment is right.
The Unconscious Sun is in Gate 11, the Gateway of “Harmony”. The Unconscious Earth is in Gate 12, which is the Gateway of “Standstill”. This Gateway is the voice that says, “Stop, let’s have another look at this. Let’s review the situation before we charge ahead.”
It’s often the case that people with this particular Life Theme come into this world from a very bright source, a high vibration, a place that’s equivalent to a Garden of Eden where everything’s perfect. And then they land on planet Earth, where things are a bit more complicated, to put it mildly. So, they come into this world with the expectation that everything’s fine. Then, when they’re about four or five years old, they find out that things might not be so great, people around them don’t have the same edge of intelligence that their used to. From there, they run into challenges as the world, and the people in it, fail to live up to their standards. So immediately there’s this quest to find the integrity, the intelligence, and the harmony. and they can end up in an ongoing search to reacquaint themselves with this connection into intelligence, and this return to a state of harmony.
Where is the harmony? It can be found in relationships, it can be found in sex, it can be found in money, in power, in prestige, and all these different things. But what happens is that these things tend to sour over time. They can offer a temporary fix that tells you you’re back in the Garden again, but then the relationship doesn’t work out, or the money doesn’t satisfy your soul, and you find it isn’t what you had been looking for in the first place.
So really people with this Life Theme can bring about extraordinary situations in life, but they have to be very clear on whether or not they are chasing after the Garden. And what I always say to people with this Life Theme is, “Stop looking for the garden. You are the garden.” What they see on the outside is a reflection of what’s going on inside, and the moment they find that the Garden is actually within, everything on the outside starts to chill out and becomes easier to live with.
Notable people with this Life Theme: Albert Einstein, Michael Caine, Kurt Russell, J.Z. Knight
The Fixed Life Theme: Crisis Resolution
The Sun moves on into the fourth line of Gates 36 and 6, and we enter the Fixed Life Theme of “Crisis Resolution”. On the other side, the Unconscious Sun has gone into Gate 10 and the Unconscious Earth into Gate 15. And these are both gates in the love sequence in the Self Center, in the diamond center, in the middle of the chart.
Gate 36 – Crisis Resolution – The potential to feel a sense of crisis before moving into a new experience.
Gate 6 – Conflict Resolution – By monitoring changing emotions, you recognize the needs of any particular moment.
Gate 10 – Behavior – Finding one’s pace and place throughout the twists and challenges of life.
Gate 15 – Humanity – In all of life’s possible extremes, there is a place and role for everyone.
Gate 10 is all about dealing with situations. In the original I-Ching, it’s called “treading on the tail of the tiger”, which basically means, every now and again there’s a situation that comes out of the blue. How are you going to deal with it? Are you going to run away, or find a way through it?
Gate 15 is this Gateway of making connections with all kinds of people. So, there can be a real balance here in dealing with human situations and dealing with nature situations. But in this case, it’s all seen through the lens of Gate 36 and the wisdom that can come through Gate 36 after a lifetime of all kinds of crises and difficult situations.
So, people with this Fixed Life Theme are brilliant at sorting out issues. They can just cut through all the difficulties and get right to the point. They don’t need to argue or fight, they just have this way about them that allows them to come through and put things at ease, put things right.
The Interpersonal Life Theme: The Earth Plane
The Sun then moves into the fifth and sixth lines of Gates 36 and 6, and we find ourselves in the Interpersonal Life Theme of “The Earth Plane”. Life on planet earth is not always the easiest thing, but people with this particular Life Theme have a knack for finding a way through, for resolving things, and for bringing everybody else up to speed in their lives.
Fifth lines are very good at giving guidance and leadership as long as they make it practical leadership. And sixth lines always have the ability to see the whole picture. In any given scenario, they know where the situation stands and where it’s heading. So, by the time we get to the fifth and sixth lines of Gate 36, what had earlier appeared to be a serious crisis situation now looks a whole lot easier, because the fifth and sixth lines have the perspective and the natural ability to resolve issues.
On top of that, we once again have the Unconscious Sun in the 10th Gateway “treading on the tail of the tiger”, which is so adept at dealing with difficult situations and making the best of them. Meanwhile, Gate 15 is always ready to embrace everybody and make friends. So, this Life Theme plays a very dramatic role in resolving people’s issues in life and paving the way for things to get sorted out.
Notable people with this Life Theme: Mia Hamm, Queen Latifah, Adam Levine, Jerry Cantrell
That’s the essence of the Life Themes associated with the 36th 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 36, 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.