If you’re familiar with human design beyond the surface level, chances are that at some point, you came across it, and were utterly swept up.
Certainly that’s true for me. It was slow at first, and then a head first, running jump down a water slide.
Once I was in, I was aaaallll in.
That was around early 2019. I spent most of that year diving in and still barely scratching the surface.
Then, of course, 2020 and all of that.
It was a time for self-exploration and trying to understand myself and the world better.
I gave a lot of my attention to human design.
Mid-2021, I learned about “true sidereal human design.”
When I got my true sidereal HD chart, it felt like instant recognition. So much of it felt like me.
But, of course, human design is about experimentation, so I decided to experiment with this new type – try it on and see how it felt.
I wrote about the differences in my chart here.
But, here’s the thing…
The more I learned about my “new” chart, the more it all started to fall apart.
Or, perhaps, the less attached I was to human design.
One of the biggest hurdles for me with my true sidereal HD chart was my determination – consecutive appetite.
I definitely experimented with eating in alignment with the consecutive appetite determination, but it just felt wrong.
I thought, perhaps, maybe it’s something that will come later in life. I decided to let it go and not worry about it, but looking back, this constituted a major turning point.
If this part of my chart felt so wrong, what else might be off?
I can’t really explain the whole process, because honestly, I don’t even fully understand what happened, or how.
All I can really say is that it felt like burnout – but only related to human design.
I only felt burnout for HD-related things.
Human design felt like a box. A restrictive box.
I had become too attached to what the chart – either chart – meant for me.
I was trying to live my life according to the chart, rather than just living my life, and using the chart as a tool to understand things better (Vaness Henry wrote about something similar here – ironically, I’ve been working on this post for months now, and it seems so serendipitous that other people experienced something similar at the same time).
So, I basically quit HD.
I left it – not that it was a club I needed to terminate my membership in, but I unfollowed accounts and stopped consuming human design related content.
And I wasn’t alone.
It turns out that others were experiencing something similar. Like me, they had discovered true sidereal HD, felt like it fit better, and then…it didn’t.
So what the heck happened?
It was happening for enough people that I got pretty curious. Which is why I asked a few questions inside the Free Spirit Human Design Facebook group.
Elvira Visser, an admin of the Free Spirit Human Design Facebook group, initially found her tropical HD interesting, but said, “it didn’t really feel like me.” She also unfollowed HD accounts, but kept following Daisy Deb. Elvira found true sidereal human design through Daisy, whose approach felt less restrictive.
Elvira says, “I like to see it more as a coaching tool that people themselves need to investigate and see how it works in their life. And not being told “this is it” and you should live like your design.”
Melissa Montgomery, a member of the Free Spirit Human Design group, first learned about human design in 2013, and, she says, “after following my “Strategy” for 7 years, and nothing happening, life not changing, I became disenchanted.2) I was told a long time ago that Tropical astrology was “incomplete” so when TS came along I was very intrigued!”
Melissa’s type went from 2/4 Sacral Generator in tropical human design, to 5/1 Reflector in true sidereal human design. This change, she says, is what prompted a feeling of disenchantment.
“I feel [true sidereal human design] is fine, but now that I am a Reflector, with no strategy or inner authority, it’s like, why bother?” – Melissa Montgomery
Denise Rolland is another admin of the Free Spirit Human Design group, discovered human design as an astrology student, when another student introduced her to it. She dove into Chetan Parkyn’s books and eventually Ra’s material. Denise focused on validating her chart for herself because, “it’s a self validation system. I’ve validated it as I lived my chart before and my parents have also validated it for me.”
Denise discovered Zeno Dickson’s work around 2018/2019, and left the mainstream human design community in 2019 after diving deeper into the material.
Now, Denise practices human design intuitively and has both a Facebook group and a blog where she shares what comes through. Denise’s approach to human design is more flexible, and she uses many different human design charts with her clients, including the tropical human design charts, and adds a Post Solar Layer.
Trusting her intuition and crafting an approach to human design that truly works for her seems to have played a key role in Denise’s journey with human design. She says, “HD is within me and the way I perceive it intuitively resonates with me.”
And perhaps that’s what made it feel so off for me – I wasn’t working with it intuitively.
I was approaching human design and my charts – both tropical and true sidereal – as rigid systems and meanings for my life.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve come full circle, and I’m back “in” human design, though I certainly have the energy to write about it again (as evidenced by publishing this post), and to explore it again as a tool. (P.S. You can get your tropical human design chart here – this is an affiliate link for Genetic Matrix.)
Daisy Deb, who previously left mainstream human design in favour of true sidereal, wrote about her journey “back” to tropical human design in her email newsletter:
“Even though True Sidereal ASTROLOGY is a REAL thing and totally legit — I support TS astrology very much, and I see proof of its validity through my TS astro natal chart — there isn’t something like True Sidereal Human Design. It just doesn’t exist. Period.
Because Human Design has no relation to the zodiac, nor has the hexagram wheel. Combining astrology with Human Design is possible by adding in whatever zodiac you want to use with that, but it doesn’t change the hexagram wheel nor the planetary activations. Let’s be clear about that.
Therefore, there is only one chart.
It’s not a “Tropical” chart because that would indicate that the zodiac does have something to do with Human Design, and it doesn’t. It is just A Human Design chart. Full stop.
I can only say that re-discovering my “real” Human Design chart has truly been a delight because I can look at the chart through completely new and different eyes.”
– Daisy Deb, August 18, 2021 email newsletter
So, what do you think? What has been your experience with tropical and/or true sidereal or cosmic human design?
Psst, here’s an update on my own human design experiment (December 21, 2021).
