Centres, channels and gates

The bodygraph is three layers stacked on each other. Understanding the stack makes the whole chart legible.

Gates

There are 64 gates, one for each hexagram, arranged around the zodiac. Each planet in your chart sits in exactly one gate — and one of its six lines.

A gate is a specific theme. On its own it is a potential, not a certainty.

Channels

There are 36 channels, each running between two centres and made of two gates, one at each end. A channel forms only when both of its gates are activated in your chart. One gate alone leaves the channel open — you carry the theme but not the consistent circuitry.

Channels are where your chart stops being a list and becomes a shape.

Centres

There are nine centres. A centre becomes defined when at least one channel connecting to it is fully formed.

• Defined means consistent. That centre works the same way in you regardless of who you are with. It is a fixed part of how you operate.
• Open or undefined means variable. You take in and amplify what is around you there. It is where you are most conditionable, and also where you are potentially wisest, because you have sampled every version of it.

Neither is better. A chart with everything defined is not stronger than a chart with everything open.

How to read your own

Start with the coloured-in centres — that is your fixed structure. Then look at which channels made them defined, because a channel tells you how the centre is defined and not just that it is. Then, if you want the detail, go gate by gate.

The Chart page lets you click any centre, channel or gate in the bodygraph to open its reading. On a phone that reading opens as a sheet from the bottom of the screen.

Names and mechanics are free on every plan. The full written material behind each one is Plus — see what the reading panel shows.