In the first article of this series, I described a recent dream.
I was in an airplane spinning in a flat rotation. No up. No down. No sense of direction. Then the plane flipped, and below me I saw a giant map - longitude and latitude lines stretching across an island in the middle of a blue ocean.
The map was precise - but it was useless. That dream feels like a perfect metaphor for the moment we are living in.
For centuries, human beings have navigated life using maps. Not just geographic maps: Psychological maps, political & economic maps, identity maps.
But increasingly those maps are failing, and when the map fails, something remarkable begins to happen. We begin to feel the field.
For some, this is exciting and naturally intuitive and they feel somewhat at home in this liminal and creative space. For others - and I see this frequently in my clients who were never taught how to trust their intuition - it’s terrifying.
This existential terror, whether it’s conscious or not, drives folks to seek certainty. Certainty in the form of the map of what used to work. We can see this in the fervent return to ‘traditional values’ - which may have defined the past, but do not match how we humans and society are evolving, especially since many of those values carry a lot of hierarchical, inequality, and control-based energy.
We also see this need for certainty when people stop using their own inner compass and awareness and instead defer to, and believe wholeheartedly, authority figures who sound the most ‘certain’ and who believe their own B.S. even if it’s completely untrue and there’s actual evidence of their lies!
The Forgotten Way of Navigation
For most of human history, navigation did not rely on maps.
Polynesian navigators crossed thousands of miles of open ocean without instruments. They traveled between islands separated by vast stretches of water using only their relationship with the environment.
They navigated by:
- star paths
- wave patterns
- wind currents
- bird migrations
- subtle changes in ocean swells
They were not orienting themselves to coordinates, they were orienting themselves to patterns.
In other words, they were navigating by the field.
The stars were not just objects in the sky - they were moving reference patterns within a larger harmonic system. Navigation was not about plotting a location on a grid. It was/is about maintaining resonance with the patterns of the environment.
Astronomy vs. the Map
With the Cartesian revolution in the 17th century, space became something that could be divided into coordinates.
Longitude.
Latitude.
X, Y, Z axes.
This system gave us extraordinary precision. It allowed us to launch satellites, send probes across the solar system, and map the cosmos with astonishing accuracy.
But it also changed how we think.
The universe became a collection of objects instead of a system of relationships.
Planets became particles, points, things.
But astrology (and even astronomy itself) tell a different story.
Planets are both objects (particles) and they are patterns of motion (waves).
A planet exists as the relationship between its spin, its orbit, and the gravitational field it moves within. And it has a certain energy or vibe - based on its relationship with other planets that we can measure and see, and that seems to be consistent over time.
We might think of heavenly bodies as a dynamic pattern in space-time.
What if we are as well?
Human Design and the Mechanics of Direction
Human Design approaches identity in a similar way.
It appears at first to be another map: Charts, Centers, Gates, Planetary positions.
But beneath the surface, it is not describing who you are as a fixed identity (particle) - it is describing how energy moves through us, and how we move through energetic fields, in space and time (wave).
In Human Design mechanics, identity and direction are governed by a specific component of the bodygraph: the G Center.
At the core of this center lies a mechanism called the Magnetic Monopole.
The Magnetic Monopole
The Magnetic Monopole is one of the most mysterious elements in Human Design.
It is described as the force that holds the design crystal (i.e., body) and personality crystal (i.e., mind/soul/consciousness) together and creates the trajectory of a person’s life.
In simple terms: The Magnetic Monopole pulls your life along its path - not through effort, nor through control.
Rather through attraction.
It draws you toward:
- the places you are meant to be
- the people you are meant to encounter
- the experiences that belong in your trajectory
This idea can feel uncomfortable to the mind because modern culture teaches us that direction must be constructed. We are *supposed* to decide where to go and choose our identity. To build our path. Especially in the West, and in the U.S. it’s all about being “self-made”.
But the Magnetic Monopole suggests something very different - direction is not something we manufacture - it is something we align with.
The Physics of Attraction
Interestingly, modern physics contains a parallel concept.
In gravitational systems, objects do not move because they are pushed.
They move because they are curved through space-time by fields.
A planet does not decide where to orbit. It follows the curvature of the gravitational field surrounding a star. The path already exists, the planet simply moves along it.
Human Design suggests something similar about human life: Your trajectory is not random. Nor is it something your mind can fully control. It is shaped by the field in which you exist - and the Magnetic Monopole is the mechanism that keeps you on your path within that field - in your orbit.
What about “free will”?! I can hear you say. What about defining my life and what I want and creating the kind of life I desire?? You can still do that, and your free will is the choice to do that. That said, perhaps not in the way you may have been taught by your favorite ‘manifesting’ coach! You have free will to trust in the orbit of your life and purpose* - or fight it.
I often say our Design does us, not the other way around. We don’t look at the Moon or the planets and judge their orbital trajectory as ‘wrong’ or somehow less than another planet’s orbit and if it just moved this way a few degrees, it would be more ‘successful’ or ‘abundant’. It just is.
Our Design is similar - it is what it is. It’s how we interface with the environment, the Earth, other people, even the moon and planets. And when those planets line up in certain ways at certain times we sync up with those energies - those waves - and ride the synchrony, or we fight those waves and shake our fists and feel helpless and out of control about not getting the particles to go our way….
*Our purpose, as I understand it, is simply to be ourselves, to trust and follow our own awareness and inner wisdom while traveling on a trajectory through this life. For some, that will be flashy and in the spotlight, for others, it will be a quiet, perhaps long, perhaps short existence. It may take years to learn how to trust our path, but that’s part of the process! More about purpose another time.
Strategy and Authority: Letting the Field Lead
If the Magnetic Monopole provides the direction, why do we so often feel lost?
Because the mind tries to take control. Human Design addresses this through two practical tools:
Strategy - Strategy determines how your Type (energetic aura) interacts with life.
and
Authority - Authority determines how decisions are made correctly (i.e., aligned) within your body.
Together they function as a kind of internal navigation system. When you follow your Strategy and Authority, you reduce the interference of the mind, and when that interference drops away, something surprising happens - life begins to unfold in a way that feels almost effortless.
People appear at the right moment.
Opportunities emerge unexpectedly.
Paths open that you never could have planned.
This is the Magnetic Monopole at work. The mind, however, wants certainty - to map it out, to have longitude and latitude to follow - the field be damned!
By following Strategy and Authority, we gradually learn to move with the field rather than against it.
And ironically, here’s where I see a lot of folks getting stuck - especially now as Human Design is gaining in popularity: Strategy and Authority are becoming like ‘rules’ and people are teaching others from a dogmatic way vs. remembering the person in front of them is multi-faceted and unique and interacts with the field in a way that doesn’t fit a cookie-cutter Strategy of “wait to respond” or “wait to be invited” or Authority like “trust your gut” or “wait for emotional clarity.”
There are nuances to how each person navigates the field based on their unique Design, upbringing, relational trauma, conditioning patterns, self-awareness, intention, etc.
(This is why I’ve really avoided posting a lot about Human Design on social media since 2012 - there are way too many variables to take into consideration when talking about even the simplest aspects of Design like Strategy & Authority).
When a person is taught to understand their unique Design, not as a set of rules, but as a subtle energy detection and interpretation system, then their life begins to organize itself differently.
Encounters feel synchronous. Decisions become clearer. Direction emerges. Not from the map - but from interacting with the field itself through the map.
Navigating by the Stars
Returning to the Polynesian navigator helps illuminate this idea.
A navigator crossing the Pacific cannot control the ocean. They cannot control the wind. They cannot control the stars. What they can do is maintain alignment with them.
They learn the rising and setting points of stars, feel the direction of ocean swells beneath the canoe, sense subtle shifts in the field around them.
And through this relationship, they find their way.
Life may operate in much the same way: The field is always present, the patterns are always moving, and something within us - something deeper than the mind - is capable of sensing those patterns, without making them into hard and fast rules.
The End of the Map
The disorientation many people feel today may not be a crisis - though it sure feels like it on some days! It may actually be a transition.
The map that guided humanity for centuries is beginning to fail. Not because the map was wrong, but because it was incomplete.
And some maps, like Human Design or Astrology, which are meant to support navigation, are being taught and reduced to cartographical do’s and don’ts which has folks spinning in place even more than before they learned about their chart! 😕
The Cartesian grid was powerful - but it could only describe particles. It does not describe waves.
And life, like our identity, it turns out, behaves much more like a wave than a particle.
What Comes Next
Exploring the Magnetic Monopole raises a profound question:
If direction is governed by an attractor within the field, if identity is not fixed but constantly emerging through relationships…then what exactly are we navigating?
In the next article we will explore this question further.
Because the Magnetic Monopole may not only guide individual lives - it may also reveal how human beings participate in the larger architecture of the cosmos itself.
Kris
P.S., If you’re having trouble navigating the waves these days and would like some support, schedule a consultation here.