Glossary
Glossary: What Every Term Means
42 terms from Human Design, Gene Keys, Cardology, numerology, astrology and feng shui, each one explained in two or three sentences, with a link to the page that goes deeper. We read all of these systems together, so you’ll bump into these words everywhere. Now you’ll know what they mean.
Get your free Human Design chart: Type, authority, profile, centres and every gate, from your birth time and place.
Aura (Human Design)
The energy field each Human Design type carries. Generators’ is open and enveloping, Manifestors’ closed and repelling, Projectors’ focused and absorbing, Reflectors’ resistant and sampling. It shapes how people respond to you before you say anything.
Ayanamsha
The distance between the tropical and the sidereal zodiacs, about 24° in the 2020s and growing by roughly one degree every 72 years. It is why your sidereal sign is often one earlier than your tropical one.
Birth card
In Cardology, the playing card that governs your day of birth, counted from the King of Spades on January 1. It describes the core of you: what you want and how you go after it.
Birthday number
In numerology, the day of the month you were born, read as a specific talent. Days 10 to 31 are read whole and as the single digit they reduce to.
Centre
One of the nine energy hubs of the Human Design bodygraph. Defined centres are consistent sources; open centres take in and amplify what is around them.
Channel
A line joining two gates in two centres. When both gates are active, the channel is defined, and so are the centres it joins.
Codon ring
One of 21 groups the 64 Gene Keys fall into, each linked to an amino acid of the genetic code. Keys in the same ring share a theme.
Definition
How the defined centres in a Human Design chart connect: single, split, triple split, quadruple split, or none for Reflectors. It describes how you process on your own and who you tend to need.
Design (unconscious)
The half of a Human Design chart calculated about 88 days of solar arc before birth. It is the part of you other people often see first and you recognise last.
Draconic chart
An astrology chart recalculated with the North Node at 0° Aries. It is read as the soul’s intention underneath the personality.
Fixed card
In Cardology, one of the three cards (Jack of Hearts, Eight of Clubs, King of Spades) that keep the same place in the Life and Spiritual Spreads, and so have no karma cards.
Gate
One of the 64 positions on the Human Design wheel, each a hexagram of the I Ching. A gate is active when a planet sat in it at your birth or in your design.
Gene Key
One of the 64 keys of Richard Rudd’s system, each read as a path from a Shadow through a Gift to a Siddhi. They share the wheel and numbering of the Human Design gates.
Gift
In Gene Keys, the pathway out of the Shadow toward the Siddhi: what you are here to do, written as a direction rather than a trait.
Incarnation cross
The four gates of your Personality and Design Sun and Earth, read together as a life purpose. There are 192, in three kinds: Right Angle, Juxtaposition and Left Angle.
Incarnation Manual
Soul Cartography’s account of one life: all of a person’s charts read together as one picture, written across nine realms. It describes what you were given, so it stays the same while your life moves.
Karma cards
In Cardology, the two cards your birth card swaps places with between the Spiritual and the Life Spread: the Challenging Angel you owe and the Blessed Angel that owes you.
Kua number
A personal feng shui number from 1 to 9 (never 5), from your birth year and the traditional male or female calculation. It gives you four favourable and four unfavourable directions.
Life Path number
The numerology number of your full birth date, reduced to one digit or a master number. It names the lesson your whole life is organised around.
Life spread
In Cardology, the cards that follow your birth card in the Grand Solar Spread: one for each planetary period of life, from Mercury in childhood to Neptune in old age.
Line
The sixth of a gate a planet falls in, from 1 to 6. The line is the how of the gate’s what, and your two Sun lines make your Human Design profile.
Long Range card
In a Cardology yearly spread, the card that sets the theme of the whole year, underneath the seven 52-day periods.
Master number
In numerology, 11, 22 or 33, which are not reduced. A master number carries the work of its single digit too, at higher pressure.
North Node (Rahu)
The point where the Moon’s path crosses the Sun’s going north. In astrology it marks where life pulls you to grow; the South Node (Ketu) marks what you already know by heart.
Not-self theme
The feeling that tells you a Human Design type is living off its strategy: anger for Manifestors, frustration for Generators, bitterness for Projectors, disappointment for Reflectors.
Personal year
In numerology, the theme of one year of your life, from 1 to 9, worked out from your birth month and day and the current year.
Personality (conscious)
The half of a Human Design chart calculated for the moment of birth: the part of you that you recognise as yourself.
Planetary ruling card
In Cardology, the card ruled by your birth card’s ruling planet. It shapes how the birth card expresses itself, especially in personality and taste.
Profile
The two lines of your Personality and Design Sun in Human Design, such as 1/3 or 5/1. There are twelve, describing how you learn and how others see you.
Programming partner
In Gene Keys, the key directly opposite yours on the wheel. When one is in your profile, the other is always there too.
Shadow
In Gene Keys, the pattern most people live in most of the time: the everyday default, described specifically enough to recognise yourself in it.
Sidereal zodiac
The zodiac fixed to the constellations, used in Vedic astrology. It sits about 24° behind the tropical zodiac.
Siddhi
In Gene Keys, the highest expression of a key, where the path from Shadow through Gift leads. It is described as an experience, not a reward.
Signature
The feeling that tells you a Human Design type is living by its strategy: peace for Manifestors, satisfaction for Generators, success for Projectors, surprise for Reflectors.
Soul Cartography
A way of reading a person through several traditions at once (astrology in four zodiacs, Human Design, Gene Keys, Cardology, numerology and more) and making sense of them as one picture, where they line up and where they pull apart.
Sphere
One of the thirteen positions in a Gene Keys profile, across the Activation, Venus and Pearl Sequences. Each holds the key of one planet.
Strategy
The Human Design rule for when to engage, one per type: to inform, to respond, to wait for the invitation, or to wait a lunar cycle.
Tropical zodiac
The zodiac tied to the seasons, beginning at the March equinox. It is the one most Western horoscopes use.
True Sky
Astrology read against the real constellations at their real widths, including Ophiuchus, rather than twelve equal signs.
Type
One of five Human Design types: Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector and Reflector, set by which centres are defined and how they connect.
Variables
Four arrows at the top of a Human Design chart (Environment, Determination, Motivation and Perspective), each with a colour describing how you are best supported.