When you examine the six Rave circuits, you will notice that four channels are “missing”. They don’t appear in any of the circuits. These are the integration channels.

Most of the channels are created by 2 gates that are directly opposite each other in different centers, but in the integration process, we have four centers connected by four gates, providing the possibility of six channels.

Four of those channels (57/34 channel of Power, 57/10 Perfected Form, 10/20 channel of Awakening, and 20/34 channel of Charisma are known as the integration channels and do not belong to any circuitry. The remaining two (the 20/57 channel of the Brainwave and the 34/10 channel of Exploration) belong to the Knowing and Centering circuits respectively.

The three circuit groups in Human Design reflect the three basic ways in which humans organize – Tribal, Collective, and Individual.

These are the broad strategies we use to connect to each other.

But the four integration channels have nothing to do with how we connect to each other – they are strongly, fiercely individual, and separate.

Of the 3 awareness centers, the Spleen center was our first human awareness and traces its lineage back to “Purgatorious’”, a primate that survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago and is our oldest ancestor.

The splenic alertness to danger guarantees our well-being. Based on fear and pattern recognition it functions primarily as a warning system that alerts us to danger in our environment.

About 3 million years ago, when our earliest primate ancestors started to walk upright, the process of what Ra calls “Individuation” began. The design of these early ‘hominids’ is seen in the integration channels.

This is the most ancient system within us. It is beyond being an individual which is all about empowerment. Even though the integration channels are purely individual they have no capacity within themselves to empower. This system is not connected to any kind of circuitry. It stands alone as its own unit.

This is the most complex system of all the channels – generating, manifesting, and projecting are all possible aspects here. This truly is the backbone of our species because all of the potential ways and all of the potential types are within. The four types come out of a single basic theme; perfected form for survival in the now. They are rooted in the integration channels.

Keynotes of the Integration Channels

Integration channels can be selfish.  Cares about themselves.  Designed to be self-contained.  Can be loving, but can look like they don’t care.  Integration is about survival.  The root in integration is to be able to take care of ourselves.  Self-concern is providing something essential for our species. Represents the backbone of what it is to be human.

Keynotes of the Gates

Gate 57 – The Gentle – Quiet and soft wind that can penetrate you to the bone.  Gate of clarity.  This is the primary gate of consciousness in humanity.  The Spleen is the primary awareness center.  Operates in the now.  The immune system, washing machine.  Gate of intuition.  Rooted in acoustics.  Right ear.  Telephone to the right ear.  Hear in the now.  Centered in the acoustic realm.  Sounds that are around you.  Through sounds, we develop intuition.

Gate 34 – Power of the Great – Power fires up.  A-sexual.  Derives power from the sacral.  The power to empower others.  Can empower intuition.  Functions at the response level.  The initiator of the individuated life.  The gate of true empowerment of life.  Purely individual energy. The grunting and growling voice.

Gate 10 – Treading – Part of the Vessel of Love.  Potential of self-love.  Gate of behavior.  The quality and nature of your behavior are determined by self-love.  Determines the behavior in the world.  Defines what the nature of behavior is.  All of the possible behaviors can be accessed here and this gate knows which one is appropriate to the situation.

Gate 20 – Contemplation – I am myself doing now. I am that I am. The only purely existential gate. Very intent. Being so much in the now yourself, you have a way of bringing others into the now without even doing anything.

Keynotes of Each Channel

57-34 – Channel of Power. A design of an archetype.  The archetype is a human, separate, individual, and vulnerable. The beginning of the individuation process.

57-10 – Channel of Perfected form.  A design for survival.  Intuition guiding the behavior.  Behavior conditioning the intuition results in a capacity to survive.  This is the creative source of the individual process.

20-34 – Channel of Charisma – A design where awareness must become deed. Simplest and purest Manifestor (technically a Manifesting Generator). They are busy people who require guidance to know what they are busy about.  It can be cold and uncaring.

20-10 – Channel of Awakening – A design of commitment to higher principles. The capacity to be yourself in the moment without thinking about it, trusting that you will behave in the best way you can.

The Behavior of the Integration Channels is About Survival

At its root, the purpose of your behavior is just to survive. Everyone with the 10th gate has a behavior that suits us – allows us to survive in given situations.

It’s not easy to survive, it’s a struggle in so many different ways. All of us have had some experience with this where we have said I survived – good for me. How did I do that? Wow, I made it. These channels are about the survival of the individual. “I” MADE IT. Not you or we!

Every “I” still alive somewhere around age 40-50 realizes “I know how to survive.” It’s a big deal to survive long enough to be able to make that claim and it results in a deep level of comfort.

The Key to Survival is Awareness

The key to knowing how to survive is awareness. Whatever the possibilities are of your form, it’s got to stay alive to realize it. How is your behavior going to be able to respond with awareness if it‘s not hooked up?

The intuition of the 57th gate at the acoustic level in this immune system that is listening, that‘s on the alert, that‘s paying attention to what‘s going on is deeply concerned with its environment. That awareness is there basically to bring just one thing about – the exact behavior necessary to deal with any circumstance.

So if you’ve got to run, run. And if you have to hide, hide. If you have to fight, fight. It doesn’t matter what the role happens to be or what it looks like. It is simply about the awareness to know how to behave in any given circumstance. This is survival in the world. The longer we survive, the greater the possibility of what is possible for us.

If you’re walking through a jungle full of dangerous animals, you don’t wear bright clothes and carry a boom box sound system on your shoulder blaring away. If you don’t have the correct behavior, you’re going to stand out and most likely you will simply become a meal for something.

We are here to have the correct behavior in response to any circumstance in the NOW.

We are empowered with awareness to adjust our behavior to any circumstance in the NOW.

This is the purpose of the consciousness that mankind has.

This is OUR gift.

Gate 20 – The NOW. In its correctness, when this power of intuition guides the behavior in the now through response, then you get to see the “I AM”. It’s not a statement of “WHAT I AM – a father, a banker, a doctor, etc.” Rather it’s a statement of the fact that “I AM”. I exist because I have survived.

It‘s an “I AM” waiting to express itself in the moment. And it’s not the same “I AM” a moment later. It’s an “I AM” waiting for any circumstance. For me this image is perfectly captured by the image of a cat just sitting still, simply assessing the quality of the moment, hyperalert, but in a soft way. Poised there so comfortably in the moment, alert. Able to respond in less than the blinking of an eye. Here is the foundation of the quickness of the 10-20. The “I AM” of the moment that is the essence of the being. Just pure right action waiting to respond.

Not everybody has this definition in the Integration Channels. I mean, this is an infrastructure and not everyone needs to be in the NOW. It’s from our ancient genetic mammalian past. This goes back millions of years in our evolution.

Photo by Mike Tinnion