Introducing: The Mandala 64 Walk
Gate by gate. Season by season. Led by the body's wisdom.
Hello friends,
Happy spring, happy Aries-season-energy-explosion, and happy Neptune cazimi <3
I’m writing fresh out the gate of all that brand-new astro with some exciting news:
Last year, I walked all 64 gates of the Human Design mandala alongside the Zodiac on my podcast, Living the Spiral. I put out one episode a week for 52 weeks, with audio reflections about what was alive for me in each gate and sign as the sun moved through them.
It was one of the most grounding things I’ve ever done.
Now, after taking a little much-needed break from my weekly podcasts, the Neptune Cazimi in Aries lit up a dream within me to dive into that walk again- but this time a little more specific and a little more actionable.
What re-inspired me to walk the wheel in this way again this year was the Decan Walk I just started doing, a project by Christa of Practical Astros. With her walk, she’s invited people to move through each of the 36 decans of the Zodiac every 10 days- a living practice that syncs life up with the Tarot and the planetary rulers of each Zodiac segment.
I wrote a guest piece for one of the decans - Gemini III- which will be coming out on her Substack in June. Writing that essay lit me up inside, and also reminded me how beautifully astrology and Human Design speak to each other, how they’re really two languages for the same wheel of the year. And it sparked a deep desire in me to return to the gates, to feel them in my body and share them with you in real time.
This time around, instead of podcasting it, the walk be short posts that include writing, art and an embodied practice. I’ll send out a post here on Substack right when the sun enters each gate, so you can read about it and then reflect on how it’s showing up in your life over the following 5-6 days.
I’ll keep doing my new and full moon Astro-HD podcasts, and I’m excited to record some bonus audio content for the gates from time to time too - but this project will mostly be word & image.
I would also love to include guest posts about different gates from people who are familiar with them! If you’d like to write a short piece about a gate that is defined in your chart or otherwise meaningful to you, send me a DM!
I’m really excited to live through each gate of the spiral with you all, once again…
Welcome to the Mandala 64 Walk.
Why now?
Lately I’ve been thinking about how the main job of our brains is to find a path toward certainty when things feel uncertain. That’s not a flaw, it’s simply what minds are meant to do.
Right now, we are living in a time of profound uncertainty, where the nature of basic reality feels wobbly- and already, our minds are deeply exhausted. We’re all living through a time period when when our brains keep reaching for solid ground, some sense of stability based on systems we used to trust, and finding none. There are simply too many variables in motion, and everything is changing too fast.
So, instead of putting so much pressure on our minds to figure it all out, the Mandala 64 walk is an invitation to try something different.
Instead of searching for certainty in societal norms or through mental logic, this walk is an opportunity to attune inward at regular intervals - to your body, to the environment you’re in, and to the specific quality of energy the Sun is moving through right now. It’s time to give your mind a little rest and listen to the wisdom of the seasons. And the wisdom of the heart, the solar plexus, the spleen, and the gut.
My hope is that this walk will help you attune with a fresh way to feel oriented at a time when orientation feels extra challenging.
The 64 gates of the Mandala map onto the solar year. As the Sun moves through each gate - spending roughly five and a half days there - we get an invitation to feel into a particular part of the body, a particular quality of life force, and a particular question. This walk isn’t about analyzing the information of the gate… it’s more about the art of noticing.
I know from experience that , over the course of a full year, that practice of noticing becomes something incredibly valuable. From a deeper attunement to your own body’s knowledge, to a felt sense of relationality with the earth’s seasons, this walk can give you a quiet, profound kind of direction.
How to walk with me
I know that I can sometimes err on the side of long-winded :), but I’m aiming for each gate’s post to be short and concise. (There are a lot of planets in Aries these days, and Aries means bite-sized and punchy :) Each post will be a short written reflection, an image, and a simple embodiment practice. One gate at a time, moving in solar order through the year. It’s free to all subscribers.
A few ways to engage with the walk:
Watch for omens. Once you know the gate’s theme, you’ll start seeing hints of it everywhere. In conversations, dreams, and what keeps catching your eye. Write those things down.
Keep a journal or sketchbook. Even a few lines or scribbles. What’s alive this week? What’s asking to be seen? You don’t need to know anything about Human Design. Just notice.
Attune to your body. Every gate that the sun travels through along the wheel also lives somewhere in the body. I’ll name it in each post and invite you to bring your awareness there, to breathe into it. That’s the whole practice.
Join the chat. I’m opening the chat up to all subscribers so we can share our noticings about how each gate is showing up in our personal worlds and the greater collective.
Rest assured- you don’t have to read or participate with every gate or every post. Some gates will land and some won’t, and you can take a break whenever you like. Follow what pulls you- the wheel always comes back around.
Rituals for the 8 Gates of the Heart Center
Eight times a year - at the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days - the Sun crosses into one of the gates of the G center- the heart of the bodygraph. In Human Design, the G center is the seat of identity, love, and direction, and along the wheel, these 8 gates are the hinges of the year, the moments when we’re invited most deeply to reorient. The position of the 8 G/Heart -gates around the wheel looks like a compass, and I’m using it as my compass this year- a reminder to come back to the heart for my sense of direction as we pass seasonal thresholds.
At each of these gates, I’ll host a live ritual - a chance to drop in together, in real time on Zoom, at the seasonal marker. I just hosted the first one on Saturday for the Spring Equinox- thank you so much to everyone who joined in! It was such a blast to chat about the holiday, do some meditation and candle magic, and dance into spring with you all.
Paid subscribers to this substack get access to all 8 live rituals, as well as seasonal guidebooks for all the gates, a google calendar of Astro-HD Transits for the year ahead, and extra offerings like somatic practices and guided meditations woven through the year.
A Physical Anchor: the Mandala 64 Deck
Mandala 64 is a learning and oracle deck I created last year, with one card for each gate, plus 14 cards for each of the planets and luminaries that transit through the gates.
If you want something tangible to hold during this walk, order a deck! My favorite practice is to pull the card for the current gate and place it on your altar for the week. Let it sit in your field. It’s one of the most embodied ways I know to learn the gates - not through study but through slow, repeated encounter.
Decks are 20% off now through April using this link:
The walk begins tomorrow with Gate 25: Innocence.
This is the gate that rings in the Spring Equinox, the moment that Pisces season melts into Aries season, and the astrological new year. Gate 25 is alternately known as the Gate of Innocence, Universal Love, and The Spirit of the Self. As we begin Aries season, spring and the new year, this gate reveals the energy of a pure heart- like a baby lamb just born, it’s filled with love that’s unconditional, undirected, and unarmored.
The Sun is here now, and so are we.
These boots were made for walkin’, and there’s no time like the present to start, I suppose!
Stay tuned tomorrow for the full post on Gate 25.
xo
Alison
PS » Please share this post with anyone you think might be interested in the Mandala 64 Walk! It’s a wonderful way for astrology folks to learn about Human Design & the I’ching, as the solar gates correspond with the Zodiac season and decans too. Thanks loves. xo!
What a fun way to learn more about Human Design!