Gate 39: The Gate of Provocation

This line is about stepping back from an obstacle and the question of when to get involved again. In its exalted expression, even a conscious, time-limited refusal to face the obstacle provokes a reaction from the people around you. In its weakened expression, after the retreat it remains unclear when things will move forward, and this hesitation provokes the people around you as well.

This is where it gets decided whether you take an obstacle head-on or steer around it. In its exalted expression, you follow your instinct straight toward the obstacle and in doing so get things moving where they had hardened. In its weakened expression, the necessary confrontation is emotionally hard for you. The wish to spare yourself leads you to go around the obstacle.

This line steps around an obstacle when a failure would put others at risk. In its exalted expression, it provokes by giving up its own interests, because the larger whole comes first. In its weakened expression, you tackle an obstacle on the grounds that others would otherwise be in danger; the provocation then lies in the absence of any sacrifice.

Here you weigh things carefully before you take any action, waiting to see what the situation has to offer. In its exalted expression, you make your move at the right moment, because feeling and instinct set the timing. In its weakened expression, you mistakenly rely on your own will alone and stir things up without paying attention to the circumstances.

This line doesn't go looking for a fight: where possible, obstacles are worked around rather than wrestled down. In its exalted expression, you simply make an obstacle unnecessary through imagination and new patterns. In its weakened expression, what remains is mostly stubbornness. Even then, it shows great resolve.

This line stands for an inborn gift for resolving difficulties. In its exalted expression, you take on other people's problems with a practical touch, guiding them and looking after them, and that is exactly what can irritate those around you. In its weakened expression, the gift tends to serve your own reputation and ambition, and the urge to be the one in charge comes to the fore.

All versions of this cross share the tension of natural leadership: part of the theme is staying alert and exercising control to hold your own position, and the tension this creates passes on to others through provocation. Human Design holds that this tension can also show up in the body, which is why caring for your body and staying active are considered important.

The Sun in Gate 39 brings tension through needling and goading. Others get nudged again and again, yet when you are the one being provoked, the reaction comes out fierce. What you are looking for in all this is the right spirit. In this view, the teasing is a test, and with the right counterpart the pressure can ease.

A person with this cross who is close to you, knows all your buttons and pushes every one of them can be a good teacher: that is how you learn where you stand.

As a Right Angle Cross, it stands for a purpose that concerns your own path. Other people enrich it, but they do not fundamentally change its direction. You grow into it by following your Strategy and Authority; it is not fate.

This Juxtaposition Cross is about provocation in its pure form and at a deep level, without control and without any intention of finding a solution. People with this cross provoke because they provoke, constantly and unpredictably when it comes to whom and when.

With the Sun in Gate 39, moodiness and melancholy come into play, linked with enormous creative potential. Melancholy calls for distance, even from the people closest to you. If you pin it on an outside cause, you quickly turn it into dejection where creativity could have been.

Your aura alone can come across as difficult to others, which stirs up a lot of pushback. Some people are unhappy because they don't understand their own melancholy.

The Juxtaposition Cross is rare, and it is a fixed path of its own, like a train on its tracks. Anyone who spends a long time with you can get pulled into this path along with you. You grow into it; it is neither fate nor a demand.

This Left Angle Cross is the most individualistic of them all. It doesn't wait until it pushes buttons to provoke: the very way it approaches things, completely differently from the usual, already comes across as a provocation.

With the Sun in Gate 39, this cross can hardly be influenced, and it fends off influence so effectively that the influence backs away. In keeping with this, fitting in is often hard, because there seems to be no room set aside for being different.

Because civilization would stand still without mutation, these people are seen as strong forces of mutation. Still, they can easily overlook what their actions bring about for the community, and they can pay a high price for being different.

As a Left Angle Cross, it is fulfilled in being together with others, even if their influence tends to bounce off you. You grow into it; it is not a prediction.