Much like the electrical wiring in your house or on a circuit board in your computer, the body graph has lines of related energy that operate together called “circuits.” These circuits reveal the mechanics of the evolution of humanity in the past and play an important role in continuing the evolution of humanity in the future. Through learning about circuits, you will also learn another layer of information about yourself, your purpose, and your place in the puzzle of humanity.
There are three major circuits: the Individual, the Tribal, and the Collective. Each of these circuits plays a unique role in sharing information, values, and survival strategies, and they all work in conjunction to further humanity.
The Individual Circuit is all about initiating change on the individual level. When one person gets a new idea or discovers a new way to do something, this energy is represented in the Individual Circuit. The energy here varies from the norm; it mutates, and consequently it inspires change in others.
When the individual discovers a new perspective or a different way of doing things, they bring this change to the tribe, represented by the Tribal Circuit. Members of the tribe then spread the change to the greater whole of humanity, or the Collective Circuit.
Imagine a small tribe of people living on the Great Plains. It's springtime, and the tribe is preparing to set up their summer camp. Bob, one of the members of the tribe, is a little odd. He's not really much into living together. He cares about his people, but he often strikes out and does his own thing.
This year, Bob, who has a lot of Individual circuitry defined in his chart, decides to set up his summer home on the bluffs of a small creek away from his tribe. He enjoys his alone time, and while building his shelter for the summer, he discovers a new way to bind a large stone to a stick, and he makes a hammer that is a great help in getting his new home constructed.
Roger, Bob's brother, comes down to the creek to visit with Bob. Roger has a lot of Tribal circuitry in his chart. He just wants to make sure his brother is okay. While he visits Bob, Roger sees the cool new hammer. He is astonished at how useful it is and quickly sees the potential for this new tool to make constructing the new summer camp much easier. He knows that the faster camp is built, the more time there is to gather food and other resources for the winter. Roger asks Bob if he can build a hammer for him to take home. Bob obliges and Roger brings the new hammer home with him.
After using the hammer very successfully, Roger has a lot of extra time on his hands, so he doubles his hunting time. He now has a lot of extra pelts and furs to trade with other tribes. As Roger packs up to leave on his trading journey, he decides to throw his new hammer in his saddle-bag. He shows his hammer to several other tribes who ask him to make them hammers in exchange for pots and other valuable commodities.
Roger returns home with many extra resources for his tribe.
After a couple of years, every tribe has their own variation of Bob's hammer. Roger's granddaughter (who has a lot of Collective circuitry), sets up a government agency to regulate the use and safety of hammers.
When a mutation is adaptive and successfully spread from the individual to the tribe and from the tribe to the collective, a critical mass of energy evolves, and the mutation becomes an integral part of the human experience and part of the human story.
On a personal level, your defined circuits and gates will help you understand why you are the way you are, what drives you, and why you may keep repeating certain themes in your life. Your defined circuits also help you understand your life purpose and what you are here to share with the world.
Defined channels will carry consistent themes in your life. Hanging gates (half a channel) will be themes that you live out in your relationships. You will always be attracted to the other half of the channel, and the theme of the channel will be lived out in your relationship.
Mutation and empowerment originate in the Individual circuitry. If you have a lot of Individual circuitry, you are here to be different, and in order to be happy, you must fully express your uniqueness. You feel different from most people and may even act or dress outside the norm.
The uniqueness of individuality brings change. Because this is energetic, Individual energy doesn't have to “do” anything to bring change. It just has to “be,” and it affects others.
When someone has a lot of individual definition in their chart, they may struggle with depression. It can feel hard when you think no one is like you and no one “gets” you. The important thing to remember is that this is all energy. The Individual can be surrounded by adoring fans but may still feel alone and misunderstood, and it is simply an artifact of Individual energy. It truly is not personal!
The Individual Circuit is comprised of three subcircuits: the Integration Circuit, the Centering Circuit, and the Knowing Circuit. We will talk about these subcircuits in more depth in chapter 7.
Individual circuitry brings empowerment to others when it is fully expressing itself. When you have a lot of Individual circuitry, part of your purpose is to fully express your unique traits and qualities without holding back or feeling shame. This gives others around you permission to also freely express themselves.
The Individual cannot live out their destiny if they are trying to be like everyone else. It isn't correct and stops the flow of evolution and empowerment.
Parents of children with a lot of Individual definition must support the children in the full expression of their uniqueness. If Individuals are pushed down and forced to be like others, they can become lost, bitter, frustrated, or angry. And the Collective misses out on the beauty of the change the Individual is here to bring.
Timing is crucial for someone with a lot of Individual circuitry. When something new is offered into the world, the timing has to be correct. Individuality needs to wait until things “feel” right before it is shared. Mutation is spontaneous, but adaption takes place over time. It takes time to know if a change is going to benefit the tribe and the collective.
And Individual must simply be themselves. The tribe and the collective will determine if the changes brought by the Individual will work on a greater scale and will hold up over time.
Individual circuitry is deeply auditory. People with a lot of Individual definition, especially in the Head and the Ajna, will be auditory learners. They may also have their own internal auditory process.
Children with Individual definition may talk to themselves a lot and may hum or make a lot of repetitive noises.
The Individual Circuit is intuitively claircognizant, meaning that when you have a lot of Individuality in your chart, you often just “know” things. You may not know how you know, you just know that you do. This spontaneous knowing can drive logical people crazy. Individuality is not logical at all.
Tribal circuitry is all about family, values, reproduction, and caring. Your tribe is comprised of your friends, family, and neighbors.
People with a lot of Tribal definition long to be a part of a group or a whole. These are the people who take care of the family or the neighborhood: the Girl Scout leader, the PTA president, the Neighborhood Watch coordinator.
Tribal energies are responsible for the transmission of values; allocation and management of resources, contracts, and agreements; and birthing and raising children to adulthood. Included in these energies are cooking, educating, sexuality, and business.
People with a lot of Tribal circuitry care about others. They feel deeply responsible for the people in their lives and may sometimes feel or be perceived as codependent. A Tribal person will do whatever it takes to take care of his people. The theme of Tribal circuitry is support.
There are two subcircuits in Tribal circuitry: the Defense Circuit and the Ego Circuit. We will talk about these subcircuits in more depth in chapter 8.
Tribal energy is about allocating and managing resources over time. The tribe survives because of its resources. If you store your grain and manage the allocation of the grain over the winter months, then your friends, family, and children will make it through the winter. If you make good business decisions, then you will have access to more resources and multiple sources in case situations change. Strong tribes have back-up plans for survival.
Contracts such as marriage, divorce, treaties, and business deals are all part of Tribal energies. Agreements about rules and values are also Tribal. Religions and religious beliefs are Tribal.
Sex and sexuality are also rooted in Tribal circuitry. A tribe survives over time because new offspring grow into adulthood. Sexual bonds and family ties are part of sustaining Tribal values. Agreements about raising children and educating children, as well as taking care of children, are all a part of Tribal energy.
War and peace are also in Tribal energies. The Defense Circuit will cause tribes to go to war if resources or values are threatened. Treaties, peace, and harmony are also rooted in the connection between the Emotional Solar Plexus and the Will Center in the Ego subcircuit of Tribal energy.
The Collective Circuit is all about the survival of humanity. It has two themes: projection and reflection. It projects what is coming next based on lessons from the past, and it reflects the potential and possibilities for the future and shares these with inspiration stores and ideas.
The Collective Circuit contains two subcircuits: the Logic Circuit and the Sensing Circuit. We will talk about these subcircuits in more depth in chapter 9.
The Logic Circuit is, by definition, logical. The left hemisphere of the brain is part of the Logic Circuit. Logic in the Human Design system is all about understanding patterns that repeat over time. For example, we know that spring comes each year after winter and that spring is a good time to plant crops. This understanding comes from repeated experiences over time. This information is predictable and consistent and allows us to make decisions that keep us alive. Logic is about patterns that, in the purest sense, allow us to move toward the ever-evolving perfected expression of humanity and the joy of life.
The Sensing Circuit is all about the human experience and is the seat of the right hemisphere of the brain. The Sensing Circuit is expressed through the Emotional Solar Plexus and has little awareness in the moment. The Sensing Circuit is all about achieving clarity over time. It is abstract and holistic energy.
Collective circuitry is all about sharing. But this is not personal sharing like we see in the Tribal Circuit. This is pure, human sharing, the kind of sharing that comes in situations that involve survival of the species. We see this sharing in times of chaos and crisis. The Collective Circuit is what compels us to guide others to safety or to high ground when there is trouble. People with a lot of Collective energy, particularly in the Logic Circuit, will intuitively know how to fix or improve things. This understanding may be interpreted by others as criticism, but the goal of the Collective is to express the perfected form of the human experience and to create the infrastructure to support the ongoing evolution and abundance of humanity. As difficult as this may be to understand, this criticism is not personal, and to a certain extent it isn't even about caring so much as it is about sharing the most perfect form of expression. The Collective shares because we are one, and your experience is really the same as mine, even though we are differentiated as two different people. We are still having a human experience that has some common threads.
As you can see, all of the parts of the chart are beautifully interconnected and vital for the evolution of humanity. The circuitry gives you a peak into what you are here to do; bring change, nurture, and establish larger frameworks for the overall well-being of mankind.
If you're like most people, you discovered that your life purpose involves energies that include all the circuits. Some of you may have found that you are significantly defined in one particular circuit, and the theme of that circuit has had a deep impact on your life.
You may have also realized that in the sum total of the parts of circuitry, each person on the planet plays an important role in the evolution of mankind. We all need people who bring change, nurture, and care for others, and create larger frameworks to support us in organizing ourselves in a meaningful way. Ultimately, the full puzzle of humanity can only come together when we have all three parts expressing themselves fully, with each individual fulfilling the highest potential of their chart.