The Projector's Subtle Habit of Initiating
A HumanDesign.Live Advice Post by Hagen Artley, 2/5 Splenic Projector, Mental Split, Cross of Explanation
The following article can be enjoyed in 2 ways: full-length and summary.
If it's too much of a read for you, only reading the bold black and blue text will still make sense and summarise the whole thing.
Dear Projector,
Your curiosity is something that probably many Projectors encounter about their own behaviour in relation to others along the way. And how incredible to get to this place of questioning something that seems to be a very ordinary thing to say:
“I would like to spend time with you sometimes. :)”
Is this actually an initiation? If so, how many other ordinary interactions or messages we text to others frequently could be initiations?
It’s quite a radical thing to ask ourselves. How could we tell? And does it mean that statements like this are incorrect every time?
Laveena often says in her classes that Strategy and Authority, particularly for Projectors, are for the big things in life that really change things up for us: the people we spend time with, the relationships we have, the places we stay in, where we live, the work we do, etc. However, for day-to-day navigation and regular interaction with friends and relatives, many Projectors experience the need for a more refined tool to help them navigate the subtleties – as not every single thing comes with an explicit, loud and clear invitation. And it's not like we can use S&A for the big things and then return to mental decision-making in between...
After his first few years of teaching the Human Design system, Ra approached Projectors with an apology.
He said he’d done them an injustice because so much of his attention had been focused on trying to get Generators to respond. He came to realize that Strategy and Authority was too limited for Projectors. Ra added Color Transference as another essential tool for our Type to recognize what contexts and interactions are correct for us, and which ones are not. He introduced it as a ‘power that we (Projectors) never had before’.
Color Transference is something that operates at a level below the Line, so it requires a more subtle level of perception and awareness to see it. Projectors more readily operate at that level, though it may take some years of deconditioning for the brain fog to clear enough so that we can see the phenomenon at work. It's part of the Four Radical Transformations of Human Design.
The two main Color Transference tools we were given are Color Motivation (Personality Sun/Earth) and Perspective (Personality Nodes).
You may already know your Color Motivation, Perspective and Transference, but before I talk about how it applies to this process of learning how not to initiate, I just want to clarify things a bit more for those who are new to the mechanism.
A great piece on this by Ra to start off with is this one:
Here Ra talks about these tools that we as Projectors can use in relation to others in order to develop our seeing as passenger consciousness. He explains in detail the dilemma we have with Strategy and Authority alone, and how we can turn it into a problem when it doesn’t have to be one.
One of the things he says here is this:
“You get an invitation from somebody, you enter into that correctly, but the reality is if you're watching your process during the course of the time you're with them, you'll notice that there'll be a shift to your distraction. You're suddenly being pulled away from what's correct for you and it is in those moments where you need to recognize you’re being conditioned and watch that conditioning.
Because this is what it's all about. And being able to SEE the conditioning, gives you a way out.
Very hard for projectors to go like this. It's very hard to say “I need your generating and manifesting but not now.” There's this fear that you don't get it back, there's this fear that you lose it. There is this deep deep drive inside to hold onto… that connection no matter how you end up rationalizing that in your design.
So it becomes very important for you to begin to see the way in which you are being influenced on an ongoing basis by those beings around you. And remember why we see this. Not to end the relationship. This is not about that. It's not about saying “this person is terrible for me and I never want to see them again”, it isn't about that at all. It's about your potential, to actually SEE them conditioning you.
Most people think that you need to have a solution “Let's stop the conditioning" and so on… We don't want to stop conditioning. The only time that you can stop conditioning, is when you die. Conditioning ends at death. Until then it's a part of our lives. It doesn't have to be something that's negative. It doesn't. It could be the most fascinating thing in your life.”
– Ra Uru Hu
In this article, we’ll just focus on Color Motivation. Laveena has already written some rich articles on the subject which you can find here:
In a nutshell, below the level of the Line we have further layers of differentiation: the Color, the Tone and the Base – this is called the ‘substructure’ out of which everything we see on the surface of the Bodygraph emerges. Layer after layer, our frequency works its way up from the depths of the Base to the surface of the Line as it differentiates into a precise and nuanced expression of consciousness in form. This substructure is the way in which the crystals of consciousness operate as they filter the neutrino information feed.
Now, Color Motivation is the state of mind that you are pulled into by your environment and the people you interact with.
It creates the cognitive filter for how you take information in and how you learn. This state of mind is informed by your sense perception, which takes place at the level of the Tone - but we don’t need to go into that much detail here. Similar to our 6 Lines, there are 6 different Color Motivations named Fear, Hope, Desire, Need, Guilt and Innocence. To know which one applies to you your time of birth must be quite accurate and you’ll need to access software that can produce charts with this information (all popular HD software I know of can show it).
When you are able to watch your mind, when you can observe what’s going on in there without identifying with its ‘I’ as being who you are, then you can witness these layers of the mechanics live at work.
You can notice the scripts of the Lines as the voice in the head chatters away, you can notice the adaptive Not-Self strategies from the undefined centers show up as mental agendas and proposals for action (“if I do this, then I’ll get that”). And you can notice the Color Motivation – it is the overall state of mind you are in, the underlying quality that animates your thinking.
Each of us has a correct Color Motivation that is pure, that allows our Personality to assimilate information and express Outer Authority. However, it is also a binary.
Color is something that is moving and dynamic, it swings constantly from its correct frequency to its distracted counterpoint like a pendulum. When the Color frequency shifts, it undergoes a process called Transference.
Transference means the frequency shifts over to its harmonic opposite. Fear shifts to Need, Hope shifts to Guilt, Desire shifts to Innocence and the other way around in each case. When this occurs, we experience a distorted quality of that Color Motivation. It becomes disconnected from correct cognition.
This means we do not see clearly and the mind tends to freak out about this because it temporarily has no access to awareness, and it doesn’t know when awareness is going to be restored – it is blinded.
When you look at your own Transference Color Motivation you can add the word ‘blind’ in front of it to make its quality very clear: blind fear, blind hope, blind desire, blind need, blind guilt, blind innocence. Each one of them is an unintelligent expression of mind, and one of them will be particular to you.
This is not something that is bad or wrong. You don’t have to try to fix it. But it is also not a basis to make decisions from – it is something to observe. We need this contrast in order to distinguish what our pure Color Motivation is. It helps us recognize correctness from incorrectness. It is not something we can do anything about, we can only learn to abide more and more deeply by S&A as opposed to overreact from the Not-Self.
To learn more about the specifics of each of these Color Motivations, you can join Laveena's Radical Transformation Clinic for Non-Sacrals here:
So having explained the basics a bit, we can return to your inquiry, Roxana.
Is the text message “I would like to spend some time with you sometimes. :)” really an initiation?
What makes you think so? Did you feel bitter some time afterwards?
Giving this some thought myself, looking at examples in my own life, it seems to me that the Color Motivation can be a determining factor. It’s what turns a message like that into an initiation as opposed to a simple expression of appreciation and transparency. To me, the key seems to be the energy the message was written with, not the actual words themselves.
I think you could write the exact same sentence to two different people and one would be an initiation and the other would not be. What would make the difference?
One would carry the energetic charge of some kind of attachment to an outcome, some kind of anticipated fulfilment of the agenda your mind was crafting the message with, rooted in your undefined centers. The other would carry the charge of non-attachment, a simple voicing of appreciation for your friend, without the pressure for them to even reply or respond to it. Color Motivation Transference is a tool that you can use to recognize one from the other in the act of writing.
What state of mind are you in? What energy motivates your communication?
Roxana, in your case, were you in an emotionally clear place within yourself? Were you motivated by intelligent Need or blind fear?
From my personal experience, Color Motivation Transference can show up with varying degrees of intensity, from very subtle craving to full-blown desperation. In any case, when it shows up and we act on it, we’re tapping directly into the Not-Self strategies of our undefined centers.
So, through the undefined G’s endless search for love, identity and direction, was your mind worried about losing this person in your life?
Was your mind craving for the Life Energy of the Sacral to be turned on again?
Did the other person give your undefined Heart external validation of self-worth to boost your mental self-esteem?
Or were you feeling mentally anxious or bored looking for someone inspiring to focus on?
Maybe it’s someone special who just seems to draw out this incredible information from you that not everyone does.
For Split Definitions like you and me, our minds might be motivated to try and find a bridge that connects the islands of our Definition together. It’s likely that the person you were texting is someone who bridges your wide split, making you feel more whole when you are together with them.
In a state of blind fear I assume there can be a confusion about other people. The mind can start to obsess about survival risks, attaching to others in order to find security. You might experience mental worry about losing the bond you have, not wanting to make any mistakes. Or you might not know whether you can trust other people and get lost in alienation, too afraid of everything.
Correctly motivated, on the other hand, it could be good to let your partners know how important they are to you.
To share a bit from my experience: in some relationships, people have very explicitly invited me to feel free to engage with them as I please. In other relationships, I can feel the expectation from the other for me to initiate them, but without any recognition or invitation towards me to actually do so. I can notice disappointment in them that I’m always waiting for them to make the first move, and my mind thinks ‘I should’ initiate something with them in order to maintain the bond, but there’s no genuine energy in me moving in that direction. So, I think the relational context sets the stage for how much freedom a Projector can have in how they interact.
To me, particularly as a Wide Split Definition, what does matter is to express the real difference someone’s presence makes in my life. To have a secure bond it is important that we are aware of what it’s built upon – without that being a burden or an expectation.
Having said this, I also find that this open freedom to engage does not always provide my Projected Channels the energy to actually show up. Perhaps these beings love to have me around and interact with me, but don’t actually recognize me for any of my specialties. Perhaps I don’t need to be saving the day with everyone all the time 24/7 either. These are things I also wonder and am learning about. We’re all walking paradoxes trying to find our balance between this and that.
My sense is that it's the invitation that energizes the Projected Channel to function correctly. When there is a correct invitation, there is something specific - there is a context with your name on it ready to receive your input.
There is an aliveness waiting for your guidance. It isn’t random, it’s a body specifically calling for yours, it’s the wider ecosystem asking you to fulfil the role you were designed for so that life and consciousness can continue to evolve.
As I’m writing, the Definitive Book is lying open on page 354. It shows Gate 11: Peace – Ideas. Many people have ‘ideas’ in their minds about what they would like to do and who they would like to do it with...
But the secret of this Gate is that these ideas are not for manifesting into action, they are simply there to share and stimulate us - and this will have an effect, but not necessarily the actual realization of that particular idea into physical form or experience.
I’ve noticed many people in my social circles feeling so powerless because their ideas are never fulfilled. They think they have this great idea and they just need to find the right person who will value it and provide the energy to make it happen – and it never does. They may take a few steps in that direction until the creativity falls flat and they feel slightly frustrated, bitter, disappointed or even angry that it just didn’t work out again.
My reasoning here is that those ideas are top-down impositions from the mind that are not rooted in any local physical context or situation at hand – they won’t evoke a generative response to make them happen. They are inspired by the past and give rise to beliefs and stories.
The 3rd Line of this Gate, the material Line, is called ‘The realist: The acknowledgment that peace is transitory’. Its exaltation says: ‘The realization that ideas come and go’. Its detriment says: ‘A pleasure in ideas that have no real application’.
Our 3rd Line process here is not about materializing the idea through trial and error, it’s about finding peace in the realization that these stimulating ideas are beautiful as such and don’t need to be carried out – even when we feel bored or conflicted about life.
So why am I talking about Gate 11? Because it highlights to me an important concept: relevance and irrelevance. Only when something is relevant to the movement of Life Force will it be enlivened by the call.
We have many ideas about where we think we’re going, what we might do together, and so on. Our imagination may be filled with beauty, but ultimately it is the unfolding process of the form that actually materializes. We don’t make it happen, we are it happening as we witness it.
Yet I think that many of our common interactions with people - the subtle text messages, the emoticons and gifs we use, the ways in which we stimulate each other with memes and ideas - can be these small nudges of trying to push life into the direction of an idea we hope to see fulfilled. An idea that in the end is irrelevant to the life process – especially when it arises out of a mind in Transference.
Whatever it all might be, in the end, may not matter very much. If you know the Design of the person you were texting you could make a few connections and perhaps learn an interesting thing or two about yourself. But the importance here would be to find clarity about your own inner state of mind, as the conditioning reverberates through your openness. The same would apply to any other kind of ordinary interaction that we could easily take for granted.
Roxana, to be able to recognize subtle forms of initiation and misinforming hidden behind ordinary gestures and communication, all you really need is to watch your mind and recognize its condition. Then notice if it’s pushing you to act spontaneously while disregarding your emotional wave and how you genuinely feel, ignoring what you have actually been recognized and invited for in that relationship.
According to what I’ve learned in Laveena’s classes, this may take more deconditioning time for you as a Quad Right Variable. This is because your Right brain needs to be fed correct nutrition for a longer period of time in order to function optimally again.
(The same would be true for any other Variable with a Right brain. So for anyone else reading, grab a chart that shows you the arrows of your Variable next to the head. If your upper left red arrow points to the Right, then you've got a Right brain too.)
Remember that Transference is not something bad or wrong, it’s a natural process of learning through observation. It is not something that you are doing, it is not something that you need to get right. It’s something that happens as a consequence of how your environment, and the beings in it, impact you.
As you said in your message, you’re experiencing more and more how these things work for you and that’s all this is really about, no?
To be able to live life this way with enough self-love to embrace the whole experience, watching ourselves grow in awareness on this journey through space – isn’t that the greatest gift?
Enjoy your movie,
Hagen