Human Design · Root center

Gate 41: Contraction

The start of the cycle: fantasy under pressure.

When it overshoots

Fantasy substituted for living.

At its best

Imagination that opens the real thing.

Carried and open

In a chart that carries it

Natally held, the pressure of imagination is strong; let it open a door rather than stand in for living.

In a chart where it is open

An open 41 catches daydreams the way a sail catches wind; enjoy them, then come back to what is real.

When it is in the sky

A new cycle is starting, and imagination runs ahead of what is real. Fantasies hint at what could come.

The six lines

1. Line 1, The InvestigatorImagination needs grounding, so begin by noticing which fantasies point at something real.
2. Line 2, The HermitDaydreams drift up unbidden here, and others are caught by the possibilities they show.
3. Line 3, The MartyrChasing a fantasy teaches its distance from life, and each disappointment clarifies the desire underneath.
4. Line 4, The OpportunistA dream described over a late dinner to the right friend can come back a month later as a plan with dates in it.
5. Line 5, The HereticA fantasy expected to come true on demand dies; offered as a possibility, it stays alive.
6. Line 6, The Role ModelThe fantasies that mattered, looking back, were seeds that real experience grew from.

Channels through this gate

• Recognition · 30-41Focused energy. Fantasy with feeling attached. Desire that starts the whole cycle. With Gate 30, Feelings.

The same figure in the Book of Changes

Gate 41 is hexagram 41, Decrease, read by an older tradition.