When you get your Human Design Chart, you’ll see that it has a set of planetary activations. There’s all the usual planets that we know from astrology – the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus …. and so on. We all know the planets in our solar system, we learned them at school. But, things have changed a lot in our solar system recently! And those changes affect what we can learn from our Human Design charts!
How Many Planets Are There In Our Solar System?
In 1781, Uranus was discovered out past the planet at the ‘end of the universe’ – Saturn. The astrological world changed forever. And in 2012, it’s happening again!
William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781 and human consciousness began a major expansion. It was quickly followed with the discovery of Neptune and Pluto. At school you and I learnt that there were nine planets in our solar system and that was that! But like the astrologers of 1781, you and I live in a world that is expanding rapidly, even exponentially.
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union changed the definition of “PLANET” and demoted Pluto. He is still technically a planet, but now he’s a Dwarf Planet aka a Pluton. We were sad for Pluto, but we weren’t so much losing a son as gaining a daughter. Or two.
As part of the reclassification, we got Eris, Ceres, Sedna, Haumea and Makemake. Suddenly the number of planets jumped to 13, with a whole lot more likely to follow.
What makes a planet ‘minor’?
Minor planets include dwarf planets, Asteroids, Trojans, Centaurs, Kuiper belt objects, and other trans-Neptunian objects. Dwarf planets, ironically, tend to be the largest of the minor planets.
The first minor planet discovered was Ceres in 1801. The orbits of more than 570,000 objects have been archived at the Minor Planet Center.
How the Dwarf Planets “activate” your Human Design chart
Astrology is one of the four essential elements that makes up the synthesis of the original Human Design revelation. While I respect the starting place of the original 13 ‘planets’ in the standard Human Design chart, it makes no sense to limit ourselves. Our world is expanding, and we need consciousness tools that keep pace with change.
When exploring the influence of dwarf planets I use the concept of ‘activation’, rather than definition. If Sedna gives your undefined Sacral Centre definition (and she just might, she was in the Sacral Centre from 1941 to 1982), it doesn’t mean that you suddenly have to start acting like a Generator. These energies are still so subtle that they are not yet changing our day to day experience of our centres. Instead it’s best to consider them for now as ‘activations’. What Centre are they in? What Gate do they activate? What other planets do they affect in your design?
When Sedna is in your Sacral Centre, it can trigger conflict between masculine and feminine in your creativity, your sexual relationships and the way you nourish yourself on the physical plane. Action and surrender need to flow together. At the Ajna Centre (1982 to 1994) Sedna activates a new level of mind/emotion connection. As we become more conscious of these powerful new energies, their effect becomes less subtle, more conscious, more accessible.
In my experience Ceres is particularly powerful in the Human Design chart, and I include it in every reading I do these days. I believe we are conscious enough of the influence of Ceres to include it in the definition of the chart. In other words – Ceres can define a centre in your chart. Purchase the video – Using Ceres in Human Design