The official name for Human Design Gate 3 is The Gate of Ordering. But I call it The Sacred Fool because its primary action is to Have Fun While Transforming The Chaos Of A New Beginning Into Order.
About Human Design Gate 3 – Gene Key 3
Archetypal Name: The Sacred Fool
In Action: playfully create order out of chaos
Keywords: taking leaps of faith, play, and transformation
Download All 64 Human Design Gates Cheatsheet (for free!)
Official Gate Name: Ordering
Human Design Definition: The fundamental challenge of initiation is to transcend confusion and establish order.
Core Theme: Bringing order to the constantly changing circumstances.
Bodygraph Center: Sacral center and connects to the Root center via human design gate 60.
Tropical Sign: Aries/Taurus
(Want all of the correspondences and keynotes for the gates of your incarnation cross? The Human Design Map is for you.)
The Energy Spectrum of Human Design Gate 3
All energy in the Human Design chart exists on a spectrum of potential.
On the “positive” end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 3 is the energy for bringing order to the chaos. Gate 3 knows that the beginning of change is the hardest part and loves to create innovative ways to overcome obstacles and face them with a light-hearted touch.
On the other end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 3 is the energy for feeling disempowered, disordered, or out of control, and can experience a lot of frustration with God about living in a chaotic world.
If you don’t like the results that the “negative” side of the spectrum is creating in your life, you can raise the frequency of Gate 3 with a number of boundaries, practices, and tools.
(I cover the practices for the gates of your incarnation cross in the Human Design Map.)
But, the most important thing to raise the frequency of gate 3 is to collect evidence for your ability to overcome obstacles and to face chaos with Grace. And, if you really are into it, study magick, alchemy, and how transformation works on an energetic level.
My personal contemplation of Human Design Gate 3 (Gene Key 3)
Technically, Gate 3 is undefined in my chart.
But it is where my conscious and unconscious Chiron are located.
Chiron doesn’t activate the gate in the Human Design bodygraph. But even Ra Uru Hu, the founder of the Human Design system, agreed that it is a significant placement as we age.
(And for the 6th line, Chiron Return marks the transition from being “on the roof” into the role model. If you are a 6th line, I do a deep dive on the three 6th line phases in the Human Design Map.)
Chiron is often called “the wounded healer.” It is often said that we have natural healing gifts in our Chiron but will struggle to heal those aspects in ourselves.
As we approach our Chiron return (around age 50), the patterns of that wounding begin to reveal themselves. If we are willing to “go there” in our hearts and minds, we can actually heal the wound.
Similar to the 6th line energy in Human Design, this internal healing overflows out into the world as wisdom, and it deepens the level of healing we can facilitate for others.
In the I Ching, gate 3 is known as “difficulty at the beginning,” and it comes with a lot of chaos that can be hard to navigate.
At the time of writing this Gate 3 update (2023), I am a few years away from my Chiron return. I can absolutely see the unwinding of this wound for myself.
I recently learned that my astrological rising sign (Aries) is in gate 3, too.
That has lent a whole new perspective on the significance of Gate 3 for me.
And what I know for sure is that helping others heal their wounds around “chaos” has been an essential part of my own healing.
When I first started my business in 2009, long before I knew anything about Human Design or astrology, I was a health coach. I helped women heal their relationship with food and body image.
One of the things I noticed right away was how my clients would beat themselves up because their intention alone didn’t seem to be enough to break “bad” habits.
To them, it seemed like making the decision to change things actually made things “worse.” They would blame themselves, call themselves weak, and spin in shame. They hated that they couldn’t ever seem to get past the “difficulty at the beginning.”
I hear similar stories today inside the Human Design Map portal.
And, when looking at other people’s situations, it was very clear to me that nothing was going wrong. Our intentions are potent magic that set the wheels of alchemy into motion.
And the first stage of alchemy is FIRE. The alchemist throws (symbolic) lead into the (symbolic) fire to purify it of anything that doesn’t make (symbolic) gold in the end.
The fires of alchemy illuminate the “real” blocks that prevent our intentions from manifesting.
What we see in the chaos of those first couple of stages becomes a map to our healing.
So, when the shit hits the fan at the beginning, when everything seems chaotic, when we are sure we’ve made a wrong turn somewhere, it’s actually a GOOD sign.
But if we are spinning in shame, we actually can’t see what the fire is showing us and we miss out on the opportunity to turn our lead into gold.
When I shared the alchemical process with people and explained that the first part is “supposed to be” difficult, it changed everything for my clients.
So much so that I went on to develop my signature energy healing method (which is based on spiritual alchemy) and teach it to thousands of people all over the world. It is what you will learn inside your Human Design Map portal.
And, I’m a wounded healer, indeed.
Sometimes I can still get so freaking frustrated with myself when things aren’t smooth sailing right out of the gate.
I have to constantly remind myself that chaos is the map. And, paradoxically, chaos is a natural part of order.
We can’t skip that step. Just as the chart shows us with the 3-60 being a format channel, it is an essential part of what it means to be human on earth.
Who knows what will happen as I get closer and closer to my Chiron return.
But, for now, what I know for sure is that I’m not willing to give up on my intentions just because it’s messy at first.
Making art is messy.
Giving birth is messy.
Change is messy.
And it can be very difficult at the beginning.
But when we approach the mess with our eyes and hearts wide open, it all turns to Gold in the end.
Now it’s your turn to contemplate Gate 3
When you stand in the truth that the gifts of gate 3 are always available to you (whether it’s defined in your chart or not)…
What is your relationship with chaos?
Do you see chaos as a “bad” thing?
What if you saw chaos as a sign that magic was afoot?
I encourage you to take some time with these questions. Take them out into your world and let their answers reveal themselves to you. Intend for deeper levels of clarity about gate 3.
And, if you have gate 3 in your Human Design Incarnation Cross, be sure to check out the Human Design Map where I go super deep into each gate of your cross.