Left Angle Cross of Obscuration

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 Obscuration. The four numbers in brackets are the Gates of your Personality Sun and Earth, then your Design Sun and Earth, for example (62/61 | 3/50). 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 Obscuration cross on the BodyGraph

Look for four Centers. The Head at the top holds Gate 61, and the Throat below it holds Gate 62. The Sacral holds Gate 3 and the Spleen on the left holds Gate 50. Gates 61 and 62 are also a pair in the Right Angle Cross of Maya, and Gates 3 and 50 are a pair in the Right Angle Cross of Laws.

Left Angle Cross of Obscuration at a glance

Written three ways, as charts and searches write it: Obscuration 1: 62/61 | 3/50, 62/61 3/50 or 62 61 3 50; Obscuration 2: 61/62 | 50/3, 61/62 50/3 or 61 62 50 3.

The two rotations of the Obscuration 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 Obscuration 1 (62/61 | 3/50)

With Details as your conscious Sun, the purpose leads with small, exact things, and Mystery, the conscious Earth, keeps a large question open underneath. On the Design side Ordering leads and Values grounds it, so a quiet effort to bring order is shaped by what you instinctively hold dear. This rotation falls in the Civilization quarter, Purpose fulfilled through Form.

The Obscuration 2 (61/62 | 50/3)

Here Mystery is the conscious Sun: the question comes first, and Details, the conscious Earth, gives you something exact to hold while you wait for an answer. On the Design side Values leads and Ordering grounds it, so instinct about what matters arrives before the effort to organize it. This rotation falls in the Mutation quarter, Purpose fulfilled through Transformation.

The four Gates in plain language

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

Gate 62: Details

Gate 62, Details, is a Throat Gate, so it can speak, and its hexagram is Preponderance of the Small. Its lines run from Routine and Restraint through Discovery and Asceticism to Metamorphosis and Self-discipline. It completes Channel 17-62, Acceptance, with Gate 17 in the Ajna, a design of an organizational being. As a Sun it makes your purpose the care you put into small, exact things. As an Earth it gives another theme words for the particulars. In rotation 1 it is your conscious Sun, so the cross leads with the detail.

Gate 61: Mystery

Gate 61, Mystery, sits in the Head, the Center of pressure to think, and its hexagram is Inner Truth. Its lines begin with Occult knowledge and Natural brilliance, pass through Interdependence and Research, and end with Influence and Appeal. It completes Channel 24-61, Awareness, with Gate 24 in the Ajna, a design of a thinker. As a Sun it makes your purpose a question that never fully resolves. As an Earth it keeps a note of wonder beneath another theme. The Head poses questions and has no way to settle them.

Gate 3: Ordering

Gate 3, Ordering, sits in the Sacral, the largest motor, and its hexagram is Difficulty at the Beginning. Its lines run from Synthesis and Immaturity through Survival and Charisma to Victimization and Surrender. It completes Channel 3-60, Mutation, with Gate 60 in the Root, a design of energy which fluctuates and initiates, and that Channel is one of the three format energy Channels. It is the Design Sun in rotation 1 and the Design Earth in rotation 2, so the work of bringing order to something new goes on below awareness.

Gate 50: Values

Gate 50, Values, sits in the Spleen, and its hexagram is The Cauldron. Its lines begin with The Immigrant and Determination and run through Adaptability and Corruption to Consistency and Leadership. It completes Channel 27-50, Preservation, with Gate 27 in the Sacral, a design of custodianship, on the Tribal circuit. In rotation 1 it is the Design Earth, and in rotation 2 it moves to Design Sun. In the Spleen, which speaks once and in the present, it acts as an instinct about what is worth keeping, felt more than argued.

A question at the top and a voice for the small things

The conscious pair is made of the two Centers at the top of the chart. Gate 61 sits in the Head, which holds the pressure to think, to wonder and to question, with no way to resolve what it asks. Gate 62 sits in the Throat, where everything that leaves you passes through.

That puts an open question next to a precise voice. Mystery wonders about what cannot be seen; Details names what can be seen exactly. The two keep each other honest: the voice stops the wondering from floating away, and the wondering stops the details from becoming trivia. Neither has a motor behind it, so they ask for patience, and for other people to help carry them into the world.

Life force and values under the surface

The Design pair is built from the Sacral and the Spleen. Gate 3 brings the work of ordering something new, with the largest motor behind it. Gate 50 brings values, an instinct for what is worth preserving, spoken once and in the present.

Gate 3 sits in Channel 3-60, one of the three format energy Channels, which join the Root to the Sacral. The canon says each sets a format for the whole circuit it sits in, and this one belongs to the Individual circuit. The Channel is complete only when Gate 60 is present, so the format comes through a partner. Gate 50 pairs with Gate 27 in the Sacral, which links the two Design Gates to the same motor from different directions.

One motor, one awareness Center, one pressure Center and one voice

The four Gates spread over four Centers, and each Center plays a different role. The Sacral is the motor, the Spleen is the awareness Center, the Head is the pressure Center and the Throat is the voice. There is no doubling up, so each part of the cross has a distinct job.

The partner Channels reach three circuits. Gates 3 and 61 sit on Individual ones, Gate 50 on a Tribal one and Gate 62 on a Collective one. Nothing in the cross decides your Type or your Authority, and none of its Channels is complete on its own. The Left Angle matters here: each job in this cross has a partner Gate somewhere else, often in another person.

Why the Obscuration 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. Obscuration is a name for what is hidden or unclear, and other people are often what bring it into focus. A question you cannot answer alone may become clear in someone else's company, and your care for details only matters when it helps someone. 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. 62.5 means Gate 62, 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 Obscuration cross.

Living the Obscuration cross

At work

The name points to work that deals with the hidden or the exact: research, editing, analysis, craft, anything where the details decide whether it succeeds. You do best when you have time to ask the question properly and a way to deliver the answer in specific, usable terms. Notice when the Head's pressure to think keeps you researching long after the team has what it needs.

In relationships

Others may not know what you are thinking, because the Head poses questions it cannot answer and the Throat gives you words only when the moment comes. Say when you are still working something out, not just when you have the answer. The Left Angle means the person next to you often helps more than another book would.

In decisions

A question that stays open is not a decision waiting to be made. The Head can make every unknown feel urgent. Let your Strategy and Authority decide what to act on, and leave the rest as questions.

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

When the Obscuration 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 62: Which small detail did you skip lately that turned out to matter?
2. Gate 61: What question have you carried for years, and whom have you asked?
3. Gate 3: What is new in your life that you are trying to put in order, and what would a first small step look like?
4. Gate 50: What do you instinctively protect, and has anyone seen it?