The month of May and marriage
The month of May is special to me, it is the month of my birth and therefore always a time of new beginnings in my personal journey. In Human Design in this month we move into the second quarter, the Quarter of Civilization, that is all about manifestation and creating a nourishing environment for new life to thrive in.
May is the month where spring starts to take a hold of nature and we can really begin to enjoy the blooming and flowering all around.
May is also the month of getting married. Weddings are in high season. In the Human Design System the marriage contract is based in the channel of community, the channel 37-40, and it is all about the bargain. Marriage is based on a bargain and therefore love is all too often confused with possession. Marriage can end up being merely an institution that provides security, allows us to save taxes, and give us legal rights that we otherwise would not have. Marriage is a legal contract based on emotions, it is legally and energetically binding us to another, no matter if the union is healthy and supportive or re-traumatizing and destructive. All too often it is not based on emotional clarity and true connection but undertaken to satisfy the ego and our unmet childhood needs. And then there is also the arranged marriage and dowry and all the things that go along with the bargain we call marriage. This marriage contract has been a big influence in our background frequency for the past 400 years. The collective and global background frequency are changing, so the marriage contract that kept holding everything together in our communal and global structures is slowly fading away and all we see is change. The world of business, the exchange of goods and money, as well as our relationship structures are taking new forms. And along with all of it the concept of marriage, the building block of our civilized society, is undergoing major changes as well.
Times are changing and so are our relationships…
Marriage is not what it used to be, a bond between man and women that created a stable basis for them to have a family, maybe even a business together, and share resources and a life. 
Now we have heterosexuality, homosexuality, gender fluidity, open marriages and so many other innovations. New forms of identity, roles, and structures are emerging and this influences the landscape of our relationships. It alters our way to connect to the other and all this undermines our old-fashioned concept of marriage. Times are changing and so are our life experiences, our traditions, as well as our perspectives and consequently our individual and collective consciousness.
While we are heading into this next cycle we are losing the tribal and collective support we have been living with for the past 400 years. We are entering into a time where the individual spirit takes over. This will deeply affect the way we bond and how we keep busy in order to survive or thrive. Marriage itself can undergo a deep transformation when the foundation becomes self love instead of having someone to fulfill your unmet needs or ego desires and you having to do the same for them. Instead of focusing on the outside, on our partner, on what we think we want and need, it takes us back to ourselves. Marriage can be something else. It will become more obvious that it is not a way to bond for everyone. Couples that come together that have no definition in the tribal circuitry on their own or in their composite/relationship chart may still prefer to find a different way of being in relationship with each other rather than entering into a marriage and create a family together. Relationships can take endless forms. Tribal people on the other hand, especially the ones with emotional tribal definition, may enjoy the depth of a stable bond, a depth that can only arise over time and through a commitment to stay true to oneself, to be loyal to oneself and marriage can be a vehicle for that. Marriage can become something else when the binding factor becomes emotional clarity based on self love instead being driven by the desires of the ego-mind and the unmet needs of the Not-Self and the inner child. Marriages can be a longterm and healthy way of contributing to each other and to enrich your individual life journeys when you enter into them according to your strategy and you have honored your authority and have taken into consideration that marriage can only work when it is based on emotional clarity. It will always be a connection between the heart and the emotions when we look at it from the perspective of Human Design.
And it will be interesting to witness what kind of healthy relationships will emerge that have nothing to do with what we consider to be marriage…
What is the channel of community, the 37-40, about?
The channel of community, a part seeking a whole, is build upon the bargain. It is the connection between the emotional center and the ego or will center. The emotions need to be clear before you can commit to a bargain or an emotional bond that can be the building brick for a marriage, especially when this channel is defined in someone’s bodygraph. The ego may want to commit to something or someone spontaneously and spontaneous action always brings a lack of clarity. The healthy ego center is here to uphold its commitments, to keep its promises, and fulfill its end of the bargain. If there is no emotional clarity the bargain is built upon shaky ground and either the commitment is broken or in order to keep the commitment you have to put an unhealthy strain on the will center. That can result in all kinds of issues, problems with the heart, the stomach, the mouth, digestion, and it may especially affect the emotional well-being. When the channel functions correctly it is aware of its binding force, of its power to work, create and deliver resources to its loves ones in order to receive their love and approval of this effort. It is based on mutual support. There is a give and take that is nourishing to everyone involved, both partners and any dependents that may belong to the tribal cohesion. Everyone is provided what they really need and can give what they have to offer. In this way each individual part is becoming part of a bigger whole, one person is becoming part of a family and the bond of two partners is setting the foundation for a stable and supportive environment for children to grow up in. People with the 37-40 want to support their family, their community, and will also include those that are not doing as well. This is where you find social services, adoption, and all these supportive institutions. Here we find the good samaritans of the world. We are all one big family for the 37-40. This channel can be deeply religious, building churches or places where we can come together, celebrate, and honor something that is bigger than us.
In this new age only the people that carry the 37-40 in their definition will provide the energy for marriage and communal support. I am hoping that more and more of them will ground into the beautiful power and cohesive spirit of their emotional clarity so they can commit to what is correct for them and they will be able to keep their promises and create strong and healthy tribal bonds and community structures. How do you feel about belonging to a strong tribe that honors and respects individuality and that celebrates each unique being for their speciality and contribution to the whole? At least that is my vision for the future, for the time after 2027, when the phoenix fully arises from the ashes…
Relationships based on truth and self-love
What I have noticed in the decade I have been engaged in my own Human Design experiment is that anything that is meant to be happening, will do so effortlessly, even separations (given you entered into the relationship correctly in the first place) may be sad, which is a natural part of letting go and yet they happen effortlessly and without all the pain and suffering we associate with separation and loss. All these relationships build on the Not-Self cause a lot of havoc, especially when they fall apart. The Not-Self takes its toll, not only on the individual that is living a false life, but all the people that are in any form of relationship with them. Even if you yourself are following your strategy and are honoring your inner authority, it still affects you when people do not follow their own path. It has an impact on everyone they are connected to. The Not-Self affects everyone. We are all in this together, we are all connected. Most of us are not aware of the deep and intricate connections we carry in this life. No one is an islands, we are social beings and life carries us along our path on the network of our fractal relations, beginning with the people that bring us into the world and the way they chose to do so. To create change we can come back to ourselves.
It all begins with us. I keep stressing this over and over again. How do you think you can love someone else if it is the hardest thing for you is to love yourself? How are we supposed to love ourselves when most of us have no idea who they really are and are trying to live something that we are not. Everyone has at least an inkling of who they are and they can feel the resistance and the frustration, anger, bitterness, and disappointment that arises when they are trying to follow the mental agenda of their ego-mind or so-called Not-Self.
Living who you are and your feeling of self-worth are deeply connected. The moment you are living out who you are, you experience that you are deeply grounded within your own beingness. It does not matter who you are and what you do and what you achieve, this feeling of self-worth naturally arises. There is no more need to try to be better yourself or try to prove you can do something you think you need to do, no more trying to improve your life, your body, and your relationships because you choose what is correct for you in the first place. What you experience after that is what is meant for you and you will be able to handle it. Following your strategy and honoring your inner authority naturally leads you back to yourself, it creates a feeling of self-love, and brings about a sense of self-worth. This makes us whole within ourselves, no matter what type we are, no matter what definition we have. We are whole and this enables us to enter into relationships correctly, enter into them as ourselves.
We have the chance to move away from mental securities we create in order to survive into trusting in life itself and therefore experiencing a deep surrender to all of our life experiences including our relationships and the most important relationship we all have, the one with our Self.
Love is love, no matter what form it may take! Life is love and love is direction! If life changes, so does the way we experience love and our direction… and for me personally, love always begins with loving ourselves!
Images of bodygraphs are taken from my favorite Human Design program, Neutrinos Through Windows © Erik Memmert. Check out www.NewSunWare.com.
Thanks to the contributors of Unsplash whose beautiful photography makes these post so much more accessible. Check out https://unsplash.com.
