Bull *ahem* RAM in a china shop
Exploration of my Design Earth
I’ve had a strange realization dawn on me recently… There is a part of me that is kind of like a bull RAM in a china shop. And it flies in the face of the image I’ve had of myself for my entire life.
I have always seen myself as delicate, deliberate, slow moving, careful, detail oriented… and probably other adjectives along those lines. And, in those qualities, I have always seen myself as very much the opposite of any type of large, ungainly animal who is neither able nor cares to be careful with delicate things… you know, said bull RAM in said china shop.
And yet, if you were to ask my husband, he would probably laugh heartily and tell you, “Um YES, my wife absolutely, no-doubt-about-it has always been like an incredibly enormous bull1 wearing a blindfold who does not even see the china shop she is destroying!”
😒 (👈This is my internal unimpressed face to my internalized husband-voice saying that right now!) 😅
I kid… but it’s actually quite fascinating to me. I never saw myself like that. I was totally oblivious of it… until recently, that is, as I have let go, more and more, of my mind’s tight grip on myself and my life… and have, through Human Design, embraced my body’s nature… allowing it to shine through, be what it is… allowing it to become my guide through life—instead of my mind. (ps- I’ll be shortening Human Design to HD here and there throughout the post.)
The more I experiment with living my design, the more fascinating it gets.
But first, I am curious… and I hope that you will indulge me and respond to the poll below… I can’t seem to figure out if I’m talking gibberish to most of those who read my writing when I talk about HD or if you actually know what I’m talking about 🤭
I would be ever-so-grateful if you would take a quick moment to answer 👇
OH. One more thing I want to make a point to note before I continue… as I take in information and learn concepts, I internalize, process, and come to understand them through my lived experiences. What I express here is what I have come to understand as I experiment with my Human Design. It is my interpretation of what I have taken in. I often may not remember where I heard or read it. I generally cannot offer sources, other than to say that I know it was from this person or probably from that person. Please understand that I am not here to teach the concepts. I am here to express my own experiences with and through the knowledge I have gained. I do not claim to preach ultimate truths. Any information or knowledge that I do share is for the purpose of giving context to the stories I am telling of my own experiences. So please go look things up for yourself if you find you are called to what I share. I am here to inspire not teach.
Ok, preamble and disclaimer over. Let’s get back to the good stuff!
In HD, it is said that we are actually made up of two consciousnesses… the personality consciousness and the design (or body) consciousness.
The personality consciousness is what we are conscious of and what we tend to think of as “Who I Am.” (Or, more precisely, it is said to be “Who I think I think I am” lol, kinda ties the brain up in knots, doesn’t it?! But let’s not get all overcomplicated here.)
The design/body consciousness energy is something that the mind CAN become sort of aware of, but not directly. Like, over time, we can begin to observe that, “Oh yeah, this does seem to be a part of me, doesn’t it?!” Like my bull RAM-in-a-china-shop thing. Other people will observe us as being this certain way, but we will often have trouble seeing that aspect of ourselves. I saw it explained like water that runs in underground piping; you can’t observe the water running through the piping, because, well, it’s underground. But you CAN observe the water flowing out of the pipe when it reaches the outlet (spout? not sure what to call it?!)… when the water finally emerges, flowing outward into the open, and becomes visible. You can then say, “Ahh yes, there is water running under the ground here!” Even though you can’t actually see it running underground.
And so it is with our design side of things.
But I am suddenly feeling like my mind is trying run away with explanations here… so let me redirect myself back to what I wanted to talk about in the first place!!
That gosh-darned bull RAM
But before the china shop bull RAM, let’s talk about the sea goat and the earth…
I ended up getting into HD because I was into astrology… and the latter can sort of naturally lead you into the former sometimes…
One of the big things that stick out to me about my astrological chart is how much freakin’ earth I’ve got there. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO earth element heavy, it’s not even funny.
I’m a Capricorn (sea goat😁) sun, Taurus moon and rising. So, my “big 3” are all earth.
Then my Mercury and Venus are also in Capricorn… which, if you notice, that makes 4 out of the 5 “personal planets”2 PLUS my ascendant all in the element of earth. (My Mars in Aquarius is the only odd one out.)
My Black Moon Lilith is also in Capricorn, as are other asteroids.
As a random funny side-note—I would find out about different asteroids and get curious to see where they would be in my chart. Aaaand lo and behold, more often than not, I would find MORE Capricorn!! I started to almost expect them ALL to end up showing up in Capricorn because, apparently, I am THAT MUCH of a Cappy 🤣 Which makes sense as to why I would always relate to Capricorn horoscopes and stuff so much- even when I used to think astrology was silly. Buuut I digress…
So earth. Lots and lots of earth. Grounded. Heavy. Practical. Slow. Methodical. All of which are adjectives that fit into the view I have always had of myself.
But here is where things get interesting.
In astrology, what we are looking at is only the personality consciousness in Human Design. It’s not the whole story… it’s only the conscious half of the story. Oh yeah… I think I forgot to mention that the personality consciousness side is often referred to as the conscious side of our chart and the design consciousness side is often referred to as the unconscious side… fyi—unconscious side = the underground piping side lol.
When we go over to the design side, the story changes.
My body/Design “big 3” are Libra Sun, Pisces Moon, Cancer Rising. Like whoa, so very different!! You know, it’s funny… I had not actually looked at it in this detail before writing this out just now. I had looked at the astrological chart of my Design date,3 but I had not stopped to look at it as I would look at any other chart… I had not taken stock of such details!
But to be honest, my biggest whoa has been in a placement that I have not discussed yet here… because it does not exist in astrology… the Earth placements.
The Earth placements in Human Design
In HD, we also look at where the Earth “is” in our charts; this is found in the opposition to the Sun. So, if I’m looking at my astrological chart, my Sun is in Capricorn and that means that my Earth is in Cancer.
Ok, ok. What does that actually mean though??
The Earths are how and where we ground our Suns.
In a lecture I listened to recently, Ra4 talked about how in astrology, the moon and Venus play some of the roles that the Earth in HD plays.
The Earth is how we ground. It is the “Mother" and how we nurture ourselves. It is like our Yin to our Sun’s Yang.
To be honest, I have not thought very much about the relationship between my Personality Sun and Earth in the context of them being Capricorn and Cancer- though, now that it has found my conscious attention, I think it is calling me to contemplate it in that way.
I have, however, previously looked at them in the context of the Human Design gates. I wrote a piece a couple-ish months ago where I went into that some, even though the piece itself was mostly about my Design Earth. (You should check it out. Just sayin’.)
👇
But anyway, back to the conversation at hand…
What I came to see recently, and which really hit me like a ton of bricks being shot out of cannon (ouch lol) is where my Design Earth placement falls astrologically…
In Aries! … of all places!!
One of the most-unlike-me signs I could think of (as far as my previous self-image was concerned!!)
After seeing this, though, was when the dawning of that realization began.
OMG. I DO see it, though. 🙀
It was me finding the outlet for the underground piping, with the water flowing out of it.
The evidence of the Aries energy.
When my mind lets go of its iron grip over my body, that Aries energy is absolutely there.
And it comes out in a really weird and clumsy way… like a lot.
The bull RAM in the china shop.
Although… I’m thinking I need to re-write that analogy for myself here. I’ve been saying “bull in a china shop,” but it’s not a bull… it’s a fucking RAM! An angry, clumsy-ass ram running around head-butting things and breaking all the china. It’s less about being big and ungainly, and more about just being ready to go and too fucking impatient. Ready to tear down the shit in my way. 😅
(And seriously… I’m going back through this writing and crossing out “bull” and putting RAM in its place now. So if you’ve been seeing that and wondering wtf is up with it… well, this is why ha…)
And…
OH god.
That is the energy that is supposed to ground me??!?! Hahahahahahahahahaha
Seems like an insane cosmic joke.
But let’s bring it back from unhealthy extremes… which will take over when an energy has been repressed… much as this energy has been for me… like… forever…
Because, seriously… it was never an acceptable energy for me. I always tried to hold it back… the ram-i-ness. And heeeeheeeeheeee looking at it now, it’s incredible how I did not see it before. I do have this ram-y rage. I want to butt my head against things to make them freakin’ mooooooove.
The truth is…
I actually can be quite patient.
I can wait like no other.
Oh. I am the master of stillness, quietude, silence, and patience.
That is the nature of my personality consciousness and its Sun and Earth.
But when I am ready for movement, jesus fuck, get the fuck out of the way please. Let’s just DO it. Get it done. Like now. Yesterday please.
And all my life I’ve tried to hold this ram aspect back.
No wonder it’s come out in unhealthy ways.
So what is there to be done?
The first step is to see it, which has obviously happened.
It is now a matter of accepting that this is the truth of how I am and slowly learning how to operate within it… understanding that there IS a natural correctness to it.
That it is NOT a handicap to be overcome or changed.
That there is a HEALTHY expression of this energy.
I just need to get my mind and its stories of what is acceptable out of the way, so that I can observe and experiment… and learn.
This is a part of who I am designed to be.
I cannot be whole if I do not learn to allow and embrace these truths about myself. And yet, I denied and held them back for all my life… so it’s not easy like flipping a switch and suddenly all flows as it should.
It’s a little uncomfortable and messy right now.
I feel like a little kid just learning to walk and completely unsteady on my feet.
Anyway…
I keep trying to figure out how to close this writing out but there is not a neat and tidy conclusion to this story at this point… so I’d better just end it before I start to ramble too much haha.
Hopefully, this doesn’t feel too abrupt to you, dear reader… but I am feeling called to get this published, so I am just going to let be what has already been written and not worry about what may not have been said.
🐏🤭💙
In other news…
I have found myself pulled toward my other artistic endeavors lately. For the past week or so, I got to playing around in Adobe Illustrator and created an illustrated version of a picture of myself… just for the fun of it… but also for my new publication, Saturnish.
It felt really good to immerse myself back into creating in a visual medium. It had been a long time.
It’s not as detailed as I would have liked to make it, but I had been wanting to get some things moving in that publication, so I decided to leave it at good enough lol.
I also just shared my first tarot reading there… if you like that sort of thing, you should totally check it out at the link below!
(And hey, maybe subscribe if it resonates with you 😬)
Anyhoo… I suppose that it’s for now.
Talk again later!
Yeah, Husband would probably say bull not ram lol … maybe though… I dunno, maybe I’ll ask him 😅
Generally speaking, the personal planets are the ones that will have the most personal influence on us and that we will most experience as our “I am” in life.
The personal planets: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars. (And yes, the sun and moon are not exactly “planets,” but let’s consider this as “using the term loosely” here.)
Our Human Design charts have two dates: Our birthdate, which is obvious that moment of birth (duhhhh right lol), and a second date that is calculated based on where the sun was 88 degrees before the location of the sun when we were born. If you are curious to learn more about this, you should dive into learning about HD.
Ra Uru Hu, the founder of Human Design.