Haumea

When astronomer Mike Brown discovered Haumea she was the brightest thing in the Kuiper Belt.   She was also the strangest.  Shaped like a cigar, composed of a rock core and thin ice surface, she is spinning fast enough to complete a rotation every four hours.

Pronounced How-May-Ah, she takes 283 years to orbit around the Sun, around 35 years longer than Pluto’s orbit of 248 years. But Haumea’s orbit is more elliptical so she travels much further from Earth than Pluto does.

Haumea is about how we sustain ourselves. We cannot continue to be oblivious to what supports us. Haumea is activating a new kind of global and galactic culture that embeds human consciousness within earthly existence in an entirely new way.

Haumea’s Discovery

There is a convention in Astrology that says a planet’s position at discovery can tell us something about it’s purpose and archetypal meaning.

Named after the Hawaiian Creator Goddess, Haumea was discovered on 28 December 2004, at 12 Libra,  in Human Design Gate 48 line 4.

Gate 48 is The Well, a symbol of replenishment when we are exhausted, when we feel we have no resources left. Dwarf Planet Makemake was discovered in Gate 47, the gate of exhaustion from trying to reach out rather than inwards. Gate 48, the Well, shows what we find when we turn inwards and look for our own inner inexhaustible nourishment.

The symbol for this gate is of the ancient Chinese land system, where eight families would build their homes around a well, situated on a central portion of land that was for the benefit of the overlord. Each day the families communed with each other by working on the central portion of land first, before returning to work on their own plot.

Notice the number eight inherent in the hexagram.  It also corresponds to Haumea’s eight moons and the eight islands of Hawaii.   We’ll come back to that.

The well nourished all the people, constantly being drawn from and constantly replenishing itself.  It was an inexhaustible resource.  It was said that the village may change over the years, but the well always remains.

However, a well requires maintenance and care in order to provide pure clean water. If we become neglectful, we end up with nothing but mud in our bucket, or our rope won’t reach far enough and we are left thirsty.

Remember that the planet Haumea has a thin coating of ice?  Also her Moons are icy, probably split off from her surface during a collision with another planet or comet. Ice is a form of water that meets with obstruction or entrapment. The only way to get free is to melt.  If we are frozen and hard we are like death. If we are soft and yielding we are like life. We sustain ourselves by allowing the natural energy of water to nourish us.  In astrology, water is generally associated with emotions.

When we allow ourselves time to connect deeply with what nourishes us, we lose our fear that we will ever have to do without, or that nourishment will not be there when we need it. This gate brings a connection between the mind and emotions and how they impact on our health at the physical level.

Gate 48 has a lot to do with managing resources, which is interesting, given that the opposite gate – 21 in the Heart Centre – is about how we manage our resources.  The gate that forms a channel with Gate 21 – Gate 45 – represents the overlord, who is also a character in the story of Gate 48.

The Astrology Of Haumea

Keep in mind what you’ve just read about Haumea in the Human Design chart and have a look at what Nick Anthony Fiorenza says about Haumea based on her orbital cross:

” ….. brings attention to the waters of life and to the purity of our body fluids, especially our “lymph,” which means Flowing Spirit of the Living Waters of Life …..   also to body fluids, especially water’s relationship to the purification of the physical vehicle and the body’s requirement for refined life force energies to express through the fluids molecular matrix …..  to our blood, sacred sexual fluids (semen and clitoral ejaculate), and saliva, as well as to the types of fluids that we bring into our bodies.

The purity and movement of the lymph and blood is not only essential for the elimination of toxins, but is also required for the transference of subtle light energies of cosmic intelligence (our soul’s essence) to express through our genetic coding. The more light we express the truer we express the vibrancy of our souls, and the more life giving spirit substance we embody. This is why peoples throughout history have sought Living Water–healing springs flowing endlessly from the ground of their own accord, water said to bring immortality–the word immortality here meaning “not being subject to premature degeneration and death.”

Nick Anthony Fiorenza

Philip Sedgwick suggests that Haumea gives a soulful confidence and unshakeable personal inner knowing, restoring a rock solid integrity.  Her negative expression may include being insecure, dramatic and attention seeking, and using the energy of others to her own benefit (non-paid volunteers, devotees, etc).

Kirsti Melto has suggested there may be a connection to tsunami’s.  Haumea was discovered 2 days after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 200,000 people.  In the discovery chart of Haumea she forms a tight conjunction with asteroid 8543 Tsunemi, and although the asteroid was named after a scientist, it is said that the sound of names can carry the meaning of a word they closely resemble.

The mythology of Haumea

Haumea was the ancient Hawaiian Goddess of Fertility. She cannot exist in a controlled environment, but must have access to the wild world of nature and it’s abundance.

A translation by the last Hawaiian Queen in 1897 says, “The ancient Hawaiians were astronomers, and the terms used appertained to the heavens, the stars, terrestrial science, and the gods.”

Their creation chant was long, they sang of the primordial soup being readied and then came `Time` which supported the Earth and held the Heavens. Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) energies produced all manner of things living which then have a Yin or Yang gender, including the god/dessess or spirit which pre-exist mankind and are brought into being in earthly guises. The Hawaiians believe that sacred spirit or deity exists in all things.

http://www.midlandsschoolofastrology.co.uk/haumea_dwarf_planet_and_sacred_nature

So Haumea represents the fertility of a wild earth that exists within a greater net of consciousness arising from the void. She makes me think of new technologies, like the fourth phase of water, and how much rapid change they can bring.

The organisation Bioneers is another great example of Haumea’s energy at work.

Our dynamic programs and initiatives focus on game-changing initiatives related to Restorative Food Systems, Biomimicry, Rights of Nature, Indigeneity, Women’s Leadership and Youth Leadership.

https://bioneers.org/about/purpose/

In your Human Design, Haumea represents the place where you need to pay attention to the maintenance of your wild self, your connection to nature and to life. It may show where you have some part to play in bringing fertility back to life through some kind of emergent technology, natural medicine, sacred ceremony, or similar.

Haumea will be in Gate 50 from 2020 till 2024.

You can find the position of Haumea and all the dwarf planets in your Human Design at taraka.io.

References:

I reference the wonderful work of Nick Anthony Fiorenza quite a few times in this article. Unfortunately he died in 2020 and his website is no longer available. I reached out in 2019 to work more closely with him, but he declined. I have only just found out (in 2023) that he has passed. Nick’s work on the dwarf planets was quite profound and I’m very sad to lose his contribution. Vale.