The official name for Human Design Gate 48 is The Gate of Depth. But I call it The Wisdom Well because its primary action is to discover the hidden layers and realms of what it means to be human.
About Human Design Gate 48 – Gene Key 48
Archetype Name: The Wisdom Well
In Action: to explore the depth of life with curiosity
Keywords: being wise, having depth, embodiment, and understanding being human
Download All 64 Human Design Gates Cheatsheet (for free!)
Official Gate Name: Depth
Human Design Definition: The necessary and qualitative foundation that is a prerequisite to establish the common good.
Core Theme: Fear of inadequacy.
Bodygraph Center: Spleen center and connects to the Throat center via human design gate 16.
Tropical Sign: Libra
(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 48
All energy in the Human Design chart exists on a spectrum of potential.
On the “positive” end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 48 is the energy for discovering the hidden layers and realms of what it means to be human. Gate 48 understands that you don’t become wise through education. You become wise through embodiment. With this understanding, it is empowered to explore the depths of life with curiosity and humility.
On the “negative” end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 48 is the energy for pursuing knowledge and education as a way to buffer from emotions. It can lead to over-preparing, overplanning, and feeling inadequate in what you know. At its worst, it can abuse positions of power where others are looking to you for depth of wisdom.
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 48 with a number of boundaries, practices, and tools.
(I cover the practices for the gates of your incarnation cross in the Human Design Map.)
The most important thing to raise the frequency of gate 48 is to take really good care of your physical body with proper hydration, adequate nourishing food, rest, and sex. And give yourself full permission to go into the depths of learning. But be mindful that your drive to “go deep” can sometimes manifest as wanting to learn more before getting started with your dreams. This can oftentimes really be just the fear of inadequacy rather than a true lack of depth.
My personal contemplation of Human Design Gate 48 (Gene Key 48)
As I mentioned in my post about human design gate 18, Gate 48 is defined in my conscious Pluto, which is conjunct with my conscious sun (human design gate 57).
I actually have the full channel of the wavelength (48-16) because gate 16 is defined in my conscious moon.
(I deep dive on all 36 channels inside the Human Design Map portal.)
But before I get too deep on my experience with gate 48, let’s talk about general mechanics and how I interpret them…
Pluto, Conscious Sun, Conjunction
Pluto is the place where we go through repeated rebirth in our lives – a place where our ego will die, again and again. Pluto takes us into the deepest shadows of our psyche and brings us out the other side with a new sense of integrity and wholeness.
In astrology, a conjunction is when two placements are in the same sign. There is some debate about how many degrees create a true conjunction – the most rigid definition being 10°.
When Pluto is conjunct with the sun, it brings a whole new level of intensity to the (astrology) chart because it “blends” with the life’s work of the conscious sun.
Because of the size of the sun and the density of its neutrino, the conscious sun is 70% of our energy. Everything happening in the chart is in service to the full expression of the conscious sun.
And conjunct Pluto, one would expect the full expression of their sun to include lots of (ego) death and rebirth. Pluto people, as they are often called, are alchemists to the core.
Defined Channels
Defined channels are when both gates of a channel are defined.
When a channel is defined, we tend to have an easier time balancing the energies on each side of the channel and embody a fuller spectrum for them.
They correspond to the pathways in the Kabbalah Tree of Life.
Kabbalah and Human Design
Kabbalah, Qabalah, and Cabalah are all based on the Tree of Life and I use them interchangeably to honor the various paths.
Kabbalah is the original system from the Jewish tradition, Qabalah is the Western Esoteric (aka Hermetic) path often called Ceremonial Magick or High Magick, and the Cabbala is a christian mystic path. Both Qabalah and Cabbala are rooted in Kabbalah.
All of these are spiritual paths that lead to what is called Enlightenment, Moksha, Self-Realization, a United Will, Completing The Great Work, Oneness, I AM Consciousness, Crystalline Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, and likely many others that I am either forgetting or just not aware of.
Kabbalah is one of the main systems that Human Design pulls from. In particular, there is correspondence between the 36 channels of the HD chart and the 32 pathways in the Tree of Life.
Which, I interpret that to mean that when we surrender to the voice of our magnetic monopole, we too are on the same path to enlightenment.
Back to my gate 48…
My conscious sun (57), conjunct my conscious Pluto (48), and having the full 48-16 defined has been an interesting thing for me to contemplate. Particularly when I consider my experience of both learning and teaching
Other than the High Magick (which “works” the Kabbalah Tree of Life) and Alchemical Magick, Human Design is the only system that has held my interest enough to go really deep.
And, quite honestly, had it not been for my study of High Magick and Alchemy, I don’t think Human Design would have captured my heart the way it has.
In fact, I heard of Human Design about a decade before I looked more deeply into it. At that time in my life, I didn’t quite understand the value of “waiting” for anything.
But, after years of studing energy healing, magick, and Qabalah + a metric fuck ton of magickal synchronicities, I found my way back to Human Design.
The connection between the flow of the bodygraph and the Kabbalah (Qabalah) Tree of Life hit me like a lightning bolt. I saw the Human Design Chart in a whole new way.
Because of my understanding of the 32 paths of Qabalah, I thought, yep, that is how energy flows in the energy body.
As I started to study Human Design, I saw how truly practical it is when it is broken down into understandable parts. It was like it made Kabbalistic pathworking more “workable.” And perspective has flowed into how I approach the Human Design Map, too.
True to my pluto (48) conjunct sun (57), as I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into the Qabalah and Human Design, I’ve been able to step more into trusting my intuition and having many rebirths regarding my natural depth.
I long had a story that I was “too deep.” Making friends was a lifelong challenge because most people think I am “too intense.”
I often joke that if we aren’t talking about God within 5 minutes of meeting, we cannot be friends.
With Human Design in particular, I most recently realized that I had been holding back my depth of knowledge. I bought into the story that what I put out into the world needed to be easy to consume and that I needed to turn the dial down on my firehose.
But, of course, it is actually my depth that the people I am here to serve actually love. They don’t want me to hold back and stay on the surface. They want me to take it out as far into the ether as possible. And, of course, bring it back down for some practical know-how, when necessary.
Whether it is the conversations that happen inside the map portal or the deep dive series on my blog, it is the very thing that people love so much.
It is kind of funny now. I mean, seriously, Human Design is deep as fuck. I truly believe you could spend lifetimes studying it and experimenting with it and still only scratching the surface.
I’m not sure why I thought I needed to hold back. Human Design is the perfect place to “channel” that 48-16 energy.
Duh.
Now it’s your turn to contemplate Gate 48
When you stand in the truth that the gifts of gate 48 are always available to you (whether it’s defined in your chart or not)…
What areas of your life do you like to “go deep” on?
Are they serving your fears of inadequacy or true curiosity and interest?
Are you holding yourself back because you think you aren’t ready or not enough?
What would you do if you knew that your depth of knowledge, wherever it is, is already enough to start?
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 48.
And, if you have gate 48 in your Human Design Incarnation Cross, be sure to check out the Human Design Map where I go super deep (no pun intended!) into each gate of your cross.