Left Angle Cross of Identification

Find your Incarnation Cross on your free chart

Enter your birth date, time and place to see your cross and its four Gate numbers.

Look for the line that reads Left Angle Cross of Identification. The four numbers in brackets are the Gates of your Personality Sun and Earth, then your Design Sun and Earth, for example (16/9 | 63/64). Match them to the rotations below to see which of the two you carry. The chart symbols guide shows where the Sun and Earth sit in the two planet columns.

The Identification cross on the BodyGraph

The four Gates sit in three Centers: Gate 16 in the Throat, Gate 9 in the Sacral, and Gates 63 and 64 together in the Head. None of them is in an awareness Center. The conscious pair, 16 and 9, is also a pair in the Cross of Planning, and the Design pair, 63 and 64, is also a pair in the Cross of Consciousness.

Left Angle Cross of Identification at a glance

Written three ways, as charts and searches write it: Identification 1: 16/9 | 63/64, 16/9 63/64 or 16 9 63 64; Identification 2: 9/16 | 64/63, 9/16 64/63 or 9 16 64 63.

The two rotations of the Identification cross

Find the rotation whose first number matches your Personality Sun. The quarter it sits in gives the rotation its number, 1 or 2.

The Identification 1 (16/9 | 63/64)

With Skills as your conscious Sun, talent leads: you know you are here to get good at something and be seen doing it, and Focus, the conscious Earth, gives the effort somewhere to settle. This Sun sits in the Civilization quarter, purpose through form. Doubt and Confusion work on the Design side, so the questions arrive before you ask them.

The Identification 2 (9/16 | 64/63)

Here Focus is the conscious theme: you feel the pull to narrow your attention and stay with one thing, and Skills, the conscious Earth, asks what the effort is building. This Sun sits in the Mutation quarter, purpose through transformation. On the Design side, Confusion and Doubt run underneath, so others may see your hesitation before you do.

The four Gates in plain language

Start with the Gate that holds your Personality Sun, then its Earth, then the Design pair.

Gate 16: Skills

Gate 16, Skills, is a Throat Gate, so it carries a voice, and its hexagram is Enthusiasm. It completes Channel 16-48 with Gate 48 in the Spleen, keynoted as a design of talent. Its lines run from Delusion and The Cynic through Independence and The Leader to The Grinch and Gullibility. As a Sun it makes your purpose the question of what you can become good at, and show. As an Earth it grounds another theme in practice: enthusiasm is welcome, but it has to be put to work.

Gate 9: Focus

Gate 9, Focus, sits in the Sacral, the Center of life force and work. Its hexagram is The Taming Power of the Small. It completes Channel 9-52 with Gate 52 in the Root, a design of determination. Its lines move from Sensibility and Misery loves company to The straw that breaks the camel's back, then Dedication, Faith and Gratitude. As a Sun it makes small, steady attention your purpose. As an Earth it keeps the cross from scattering: whatever you take on gets a limit.

Gate 63: Doubt

Gate 63, Doubt, sits in the Head, the Center of pressure to think, and its hexagram is After Completion. It completes Channel 4-63 with Gate 4 in the Ajna, keynoted as mental ease mixed with doubt. Its lines run from Composure and Structuring to Continuance, Memory, Affirmation and Nostalgia. Here it stays on the Design side whichever rotation you have. The doubt works below awareness, asking whether things hold up, long before you decide to question them.

Gate 64: Confusion

Gate 64, Confusion, sits in the Head, and its hexagram is Before Completion. It completes Channel 47-64 with Gate 47 in the Ajna, named Abstraction. Its lines run from Conditions and Qualification through Overextension and Conviction to Promise and Victory. It is on the Design side in both rotations, a restless sense that the picture is not finished. That feeling can seem like a flaw, but it is the pressure that keeps a mind asking for more pieces.

A pair of questions with no way to answer them

Gates 63 and 64 are both in the Head, the Center of pressure to think. They are named Doubt and Confusion, and their hexagrams are After Completion and Before Completion: one asks whether a finished thing holds up, the other feels that a thing is not yet finished. Together they make a steady push to question.

The Head has no way to resolve what it asks. Both Gates lead to the Ajna, through Channel 4-63 and Channel 47-64, and an answer needs a Gate there to take the question. The cross holds neither. Nor does it hold any awareness Center. So the pressure to think is strong and the means of settling it come from outside, from your chart or from someone who thinks differently from you.

Gate 9 and a Channel that sets a format

Gate 9 is one of the cross's most unusual pieces. Its Channel, 9-52, is one of three Channels between the Root and the Sacral, and the canon calls these format energy: each sets a format for the whole circuit it sits in. This one belongs to the Collective circuit, in its Understanding side, and it is keynoted as determination.

In a cross that is otherwise about talent and questions, that gives Identification a plain, working core. Focus is attention you can give to a small task again and again. Without Gate 52 the Channel does not close by itself, so it is another reason this cross is worked out with people: someone else's steadiness can supply what your focus needs.

Four Gates, one circuit

Every Channel these Gates complete belongs to the Collective circuit: 16-48, 9-52 and 4-63 in the Understanding side, and 47-64 in the Sensing side. No Individual or Tribal Channel appears, so the whole cross points the same way.

A cross made only of Collective Gates keeps pointing outward, toward what can be tried, tested and shared rather than kept private. For a Left Angle cross that is a natural fit: what you work out is meant for other people, and other people are how you work it out.

Why the Identification is a Left Angle cross

A Left Angle cross is transpersonal: the purpose is worked out through other people, and your life tends to be shaped by who you meet. The name Identification fits. You find out what you are by what you recognize in others, and by what they recognize in you. The Left Angle goes with four Profiles: 5/1, 5/2, 6/2, 6/3. With one of these, these four Gates make the Left Angle cross; with a 4/1 Profile the same Gates make a Juxtaposition cross instead.

Your Sun line: how the line colors this cross

Your Personality Sun has a line as well as a Gate: the number after the dot. 16.5 means Gate 16, Line 5. Open your rotation below and find your line. The line title comes from the Rave I Ching; the sentence after it is how that line tends to color the Identification cross.

Living the Identification cross

At work

Identification people tend to be the ones who get better at a craft by doing it in front of others: the apprentice who becomes the reference, the colleague whose habits a team copies. Work goes well when the task is small enough to focus on and the audience is real. Let doubt check the plan, and let the plan be finished before the doubt returns.

In relationships

In relationships you tend to learn who you are by who you are with. A friend who shares your interests can feel like a mirror, and so can a partner whose questions make you think. Notice the difference between recognizing yourself in someone and borrowing their identity. The cross asks you to take away what is true for you and leave the rest.

In decisions

Identification gives your life a theme, not a rule for each choice. A Head full of doubt can make every decision feel unfinished. Wait for your Authority to speak, and do not treat the pressure to think as a sign that you must not act.

Answer with your Type and your inner Authority, and let your talent and focus follow from choices that were truly yours. Your Strategy and Authority are how you get there; the cross is where it leads.

When the Identification cross is misread

Questions to sit with

One question for each Gate. Notice which one you answer quickly and which one you avoid.

1. Gate 16: What skill are you building right now, and who is watching you build it?
2. Gate 9: What is one small thing you could give your full attention to this week?
3. Gate 63: Which doubt keeps returning, and what would count as an answer for it?
4. Gate 64: What feels unfinished in your life right now, and does it need finishing or just attention?