On the Evolution of My Human Design Work

A New Way to Work With Human Design

Human Design is often taught as if your chart is a fixed and unchanging description of who you are. But you’re not designed that way, and Human Design was never meant to be understood like that.

There is tremendous value in the foundation knowledge of type and strategy, and for many people it is genuinely life-changing.

But in more than twenty years working with Human Design, if there is one thing I’m sure of, it’s this:

Human Design is not about learning one single static chart.

It is a doorway to an emergent dynamic way of being.

And when we treat it as a fixed structure, we miss much of its real potential.

An Unusual Path Into Human Design

I didn’t learn Human Design in the usual way.

At the time, the only formal training pathway required a three-year commitment in the United States. Living in a remote part of the Australian bush with two small children and limited financial resources, that simply wasn’t possible for me.

Instead, I was fortunate to find my teacher, Zeno Dickson, who mentored me for many years. Zeno had sponsored Ra Uru Hu to come for the first time to the USA to share this new thing called Human Design. She was part of the original unfolding of the work, and I benefited enormously from the depth and integrity of her transmission.

Zeno gave me a deep grounding in the foundational work of Human Design which became the basis for everything I’ve explored since. Because my path unfolded differently, I was never confined to a single way of seeing the system. I had the space to explore, to question, and to follow my curiosity — where I do my best work.

If something in a chart didn’t quite match my lived experience, I went looking.

I remember being convinced that Gate 45 was activated in my design. When I mentioned it to Zeno she replied simply, “You don’t have it.”

But when I looked more closely, I discovered that my astrological ascendant sits in that gate. Suddenly something that had felt intuitively true began to make sense.

Moments like that led me to explore further.

What else might be present in a chart beyond the same repetitive interpretations, when we begin to work with it as a living system?

The Limits of the Single Chart

Most people are taught that Human Design is primarily about three things:

type, authority, and the interpretation of a single chart.

Again, there is real value in that foundation.

But over time, many people begin to feel something else stirring in their understanding of the system.

The chart explains a great deal — but not everything.

In fact, many of the people who have come to me for readings over the years did so because they couldn’t quite fit themselves into the single-chart explanation. Something in their lived experience wasn’t fully reflected there, and they sensed there was more to discover.

And they were right.

There is more happening than the single chart reveals.

Ra Uru Hu simplified Human Design in order to bring it into the world. That simplification allowed the system to become accessible to many people.

But simplification can also flatten complexity.

And when we remain only with the simplified version, much of the depth of Human Design is lost.

Human Design as an Emergent System

Through my own exploration, I began to see that the core cosmic codes underlying Human Design gave rise to a dynamic system, but that most people were working with Human Design as if it was a fixed and static ‘thing’ to be learned.

You are not a static object.

You are a dynamic system moving through cosmic time and space, spinning stardust in human form.

The concept of emergence is simple but powerful. When familiar elements are allowed to relate to one another in new ways, entirely new patterns can appear.

Human Design itself is already an emergent synthesis. It brings together four esoteric wisdoms from the four corners of the world – the I Ching, astrology, the Kabbalah and the chakra system. It places them into a new relationship with each other.

That synthesis created something entirely new.

But if we remain only with the surface structure of the system, we miss the deeper potential for emergence that lies within it. This is not about learning more, it’s a shift in perception about what it means to be human. As you engage with the chart differently, it begins to show you how to see it.

Why This Matters

Many of the people who find their way to my work are already deeply committed to understanding Human Design – whether that’s for their own journey or because they use the system to support others. At some point, they’ve come up against the limitations of working with one single chart, and have found themselves reaching for more to reflect the potential they intuitively sense is present.

If you work with Human Design professionally, you know how much care goes into supporting people to recognise their individuality, find their purpose, and understand the role they are here to play in the collective shifts unfolding around us.

But to access that potential, we need to work with the system in its full dimensionality.

The Direction My Work Is Moving

I gave my first Human Design reading in 2004, and in 2016 I began training practitioners to use it as a coaching tool — something that, at the time, sat well outside the mainstream of Human Design.

Since then, my work has continued to evolve. What I’m focused on now is supporting people to work with Human Design as a living, multi-layered system — developing the confidence and discernment to engage with its deeper dimensionality.

What I’m focusing on now is helping practitioners develop the confidence and discernment needed to work with Human Design as an emergent living, multi-layered system.

This is the work at the heart of the Emergent Human Design Lab — a space for exploring these deeper layers in practice. And while it forms the foundation of professional work, the insights themselves are relevant to anyone drawn to understanding Human Design more deeply, as a way of navigating the larger cycles of change we’re all part of.

At the same time, the insights that emerge through this work are relevant to anyone interested in understanding Human Design more deeply. Human Design is not only a professional tool — it is a way of understanding how we move through the great cycles of change unfolding around us.

I’ll continue sharing those observations through Notes From the Field, here on the blog, and on social media as these explorations continue.

An Invitation

If you’ve ever felt that Human Design holds far more depth than the way it is commonly taught…

If you sense that the chart is not simply a description of who someone is, but part of an unfolding process…

If you’re excited by the possibility that we’re only just beginning to discover what Human Design is capable of becoming…

…I think you’ll enjoy what I’m exploring next.