Category: Human Design

What we miss makes us stronger

During the holiday season, I miss my mother. I miss talking to her, sending a greeting card, or buying her a little gift. I miss her energy. As much as I complained about driving the 400 miles from the DC suburbs to Huntington, WV, it was our family ritual – the car loaded up with gifts, stopping near Cumberland, MD at the same McDonald’s. One year we saw Santa on a motorcycle drive past. My mother loved that.

Until she passed away in 2021, we gathered at my mother’s large Victorian home on the Ohio River, 21 of us staying up late every night, enjoying board games or singing around the piano. She was never the first one to bed because she didn’t want to miss a thing. Mum put so much effort into hosting us every December — a beautiful, live Christmas tree, delicious meals, carefully-set tables, opening presents one-at-a-time so we could ooh and aah with every reveal. She thrived on having the house full of children and grand-children well into her 90s.

Robin Winn, a sort-of relative (my sister’s sister-in-law), human-design guru and author of three books, talks about “the deep, velvety essence” of Joy surrounding the holidays, a kind of collective energy that begs to be shared with all of humanity. My mother had that joy during the holidays, and I think it’s rubbed off.

After a couple of years of painful transition, I’ve internalized the decades of Mere-Mere’s Christmas joy. A new type of holiday, a quieter one, where I can experience “luminous joy” simply by being with other people in celebration, has taken hold. I decorated my house, I cooked good food, and accepted every holiday invitation that came my way. I am eager to learn more about the “awakened possibilities” that lie ahead.

I still miss my mother, but know she’ll always be with me every Christmas.

Manifesting Generator

In the summer of 2020, when I realized I would start the new school year conducting lessons from a corner of my bedroom, I bought a map of the world to hang as my Zoom backdrop. My goal was to learn all the –stans and their capitals while covering my bare wall.

Little did I suspect that, three years later, I would spend a summer in Uzbekistan (capital: Tashkent) leading professional development workshops for secondary English teachers. 

What other latent desires am I harboring? What physical manifestation can I put on my wall or bulletin board?

A distant relative (my sister’s sister-in-law, Robin Winn) is an expert on Human Design. She has written several books and conducts workshops, interviews, podcasts. She recently read my Human Design chart and revealed that I am a Manifesting Generator. What this means is that I need to respond to clear signs before taking action or else my 43-23 Freak-Genius channel causes me to blurt things out, act too quickly, and mess everything up. 

My Human Design type needs to wait for a sign. I need to be invited into relationship before my superpower can manifest itself: speaking up for other people through my throat channel. She said I must be still, wait, and gain clear focus before acting. That is the hardest part. I’ve got three weeks before school starts and my head is spinning with To Do items.

My map of the world has fallen down, due to the humidity and masking tape losing its stickiness. An old bulletin board — where I pinned my writing group schedule, comics from the Washington Post, tea bag sayings, postcards, poems, images, rowing medals, my Human Design chart — is now a blank slate.

I’m not good at these in-between moments, but Robin told me, “You touch people’s lives like a whisper.” So I’m willing to honor that stillness and wait.

I guess I have to live with empty walls and a blank bulletin board for a while.

Waiting for inspiration