Creation by Design
The Framework
Human Design weaves together a number of ancient wisdom systems to create a complex framework for understanding who you are at your core.
It gives you a blueprint of your internal architecture, showing how your aura communicates and interacts with the world, how you are designed to make decisions, your life theme or purpose, the environments and conditions that support you, your natural gifts and talents, and even your trajectory through life.
And that’s only scratching the surface. You can explore each of these elements in much more detail on the Blogs and Resources page.
No single system can explain every aspect of who you are, but by bringing a number of them together, Human Design gives us a much more detailed picture of your unique design.
So, let’s take a look at the different systems and wisdom traditions woven into Human Design.
Western Astrology
Western Astrology is one of the oldest systems we have for looking to the skies to understand ourselves and the world around us. The word astrology comes from astrologia, meaning “the study of the stars”.
Human Design uses astrology by taking your date, exact time and place of birth to calculate two sets of planetary positions: one at the moment you were born and another approximately 88 days beforehand.
These create the Personality and Design sides of your chart - the conscious and unconscious parts of you. The position of each planet activates a particular Gate within your BodyGraph and together, these activations help form the unique configuration of your design.
The I Ching
The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination system dating back thousands of years. Its 64 hexagrams represent different themes and situations within the human experience based on the idea that life is constantly changing and moving from one state into another.
Human Design uses these 64 hexagrams as the 64 Gates, or Gifts, you see around your BodyGraph. Each Gate also has six Lines which add another layer of detail to how the energy of that Gate can be expressed.
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life
In Kabbalah, the Tree of Life is a symbolic map of human consciousness, creation and spiritual development. It is made up of ten spheres called the Sefirot, connected by 22 pathways.
Human Design draws upon this idea of an interconnected structure within the BodyGraph. Its nine energy Centres are connected by Channels, creating pathways through which different aspects of your design interact.
Both systems share the idea that we are not a collection of separate parts but rather an interconnected whole with each part forming part of something much bigger.
The Chakra System
The Chakra System originates in ancient Indian spiritual traditions and describes subtle energy centres within the human body. The Sanskrit word chakra means “wheel” or “disc”, referring to centres through which life-force energy is understood to flow.
Human Design adapts the traditional seven-chakra model into a system of nine Centres, based on its teaching that humanity has evolved beyond the older seven-centred form.
Like the chakra system, each of the nine Centres within the BodyGraph represents a different aspect of our human experience — from thought and identity to emotions, communication, instinct and drive.
Quantum Physics
Quantum physics explores the behaviour of matter and energy at the smallest scales, including tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos. Often referred to as “ghost particles”, enormous numbers of them are constantly travelling through the universe - and straight through us.
Human Design uses these tiny particles to explain how we receive our energetic imprint. The theory is that, as neutrinos travel through the universe, they pick up information from the planets they pass and carry it with them. As they pass through us, they leave that information behind as an imprint.
Our Human Design chart uses the positions of the planets at the time of our birth and approximately 88 days beforehand to show this imprint within the BodyGraph.
Beyond the Framework
So as you see, alone no one system or theory tells us the full story of who you are but together we can begin to get a much more detailed picture.
Once I discovered Human Design and the other modalities that have helped me, I became curious about the world around us and what else nature might have to offer us.
This led me to essential oils and the power of scent.
The Power of Scent
Our bodies are constantly interacting with the world around us through what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
Scent is particularly powerful.
Essential oils contain naturally occurring aromatic compounds which, when inhaled, interact with our olfactory system, sending signals to areas of the brain involved in emotion, memory and behaviour.
It’s why a smell can suddenly transport you back to a particular place or moment, evoking a memory or feeling you may not have thought about for years and it’s why we can use scent intentionally to influence how we feel and create new associations.
My Framework
Creation by Design brings together the things I’ve discovered along the way - ancient wisdom, modern science, nature and our own lived experience, and explores how they can help us understand ourselves a little better and live in a way that feels more natural to who we are.
But, I also believe that understanding something is only part of the process. When we’re doing this kind of inner work, learning about ourselves, changing old patterns or even seeing things differently, we need time and space to actually integrate what we discover. Otherwise, we can spend our lives learning, reading and having one revelation after another without ever really allowing any of it to sink in.
This is why I’ve created The Apothecary. The collections are designed to give you moments to slow down, spend some time with yourself and allow what you’re learning to actually sink in - bringing it out of your head and into your everyday life.
You don’t need to believe in everything you find here, or even understand all of it. Just be curious. Explore it, experiment with it and see what you discover for yourself. Take away what helps you and leave what doesn’t.
After all, this is your design, your life and your experiment.
Amanda x