Susana de Sousa
- Jun 10, 2021
- 6 min read

Melancholy and the Muse - from Human Design's perspective

This blog is a space where I allow myself to share my creative works, but behind it there is a whole unseen and unspoken emotional field: the field of melancholy.

The state of melancholy is like the reverse of creativity. I feel it is important to talk about it, for as we approach 2027, the Sleeping Phoenix Cross will bathe us with its individual energy and we will all have to deal with melancholy.

Before explaining how to deal with melancholy, let me tell you where it comes from.

Melancholy is latent in all the activations of the Individual Circuit in a bodygraph. The Individual Circuit is the creative circuit: that place within us where the new, the unique, the different springs from. It empowers us to fight for the inspirational mutation that initiates us on the path of awakening, to dance on the mutating pulse of creative moods and intuitions, to follow the pulsating beat of the transforming consciousness that explores its own individual truth.

Melancholy is felt most intensely when we have an individual channel (two activations that create an energetic flow between Centers), but one activation is enough to drag us into a feeling of sadness and hopelessness.

It is as if the creative energy suddenly withdraws and leaves us in a void that we have no idea when it will end.

All individual beings oscillate between an exuberant energy of creation and a deep melancholy.

I was born on the Incarnation Cross of Individualism, which means that all my main activations are prone to melancholy. In addition, I have one of the most melancholic individual channels: The Channel of Struggle.

I've been melancholic for as long as I can remember. And when the melancholy goes away, something in me blooms. Projects are born, a new capacity to fight for something with purpose emerges, a new provocation awakes to empower others to discover their unique spirit.

For that to happen, so that after the melancholy something new can really emerge, I learned that we have to leave it alone. Do not try to change it, do not try to find reasons for its emergence, do not try to destroy it with false chemical substitutes.

This is not easy for an individual being! We navigate through uncertainty, as we are driven by an unpredictable beat, and what we want most is to know. Knowing the reasons for the melancholy, knowing when it will pass, knowing what will be born of it.

If we provoke it to be unveiled, we end up destroying it. It is as fragile as a little seed. Removing it from its protection leaves it exposed and can kill it.

If we shower it with good doses of joy, because on that day we don't feel like being in such a lethargic and sad state, we can also destroy it.

It has happened to me that I have had to cancel appointments because I was in a state of melancholy, but I also had moments where I had to show up. I just didn't force myself to appear happy and joyful.

Melancholy and the emotional wave

Melancholy can arise in people with a defined or an undefined Solar Plexus.

The Solar Plexus is the energetic center of emotions. Whoever has a defined Solar Plexus can oscillate between emotional waves of rapture and apathy, of passion and pain, of need and rejection, of desire and melancholy.

These people, who make up about half of the population, must learn to honor their emotional states, being aware that they influence others around them. As the Solar Plexus has incredible strength, the world is moved by these waves, which are then amplified by those who have an undefined Solar Plexus.

If the Solar Plexus is activated by an individual channel, the person will oscillate between moods, emotion, melancholy and passion.

When defined in a chart, the Solar Plexus is always the inner decision-making authority. This means that in impatience to make a decision, the person tends to do something in order to escape melancholy and sadness. The tendency is to want to understand the reason for this state and how to get out of it.

This is not the healthy way and it can divert people from living according to their Purpose (this is my Channel of Struggle speaking!).

But “why”???

"There is a secret to all creativity and the secret to all creativity is: don't ask why and don't have any expectation.” Ra Uru Hu

In a world where around 70% of the population has an undefined Head Center, asking “why” is the most common thing to do. Add to this the Individuality (which pulsates in uncertainty and in the will to change) and we have our thoughts in a whirlwind of "why" and "what to do to change this?"

One of the keys to dealing with melancholy is to do something that puts us in a state of mental serenity, to avoid this type of thinking.

We have to accept sadness as a creative field, embrace its potential, even if it hurts us.

On the other hand, it is necessary to silence expectations. If creativity is individual, it works on a pulse. It is either there or it is not there. If we create expectations about a creative project (something like: I will write a book in 9 weeks) we destroy the true potential of creation.

I am well aware of the difference between projects in which I forced myself to produce something creative and projects in which I simply allowed myself to sail with the waves of melancholy and creativity.

Surrendering to melancholy allowed me to open the creative flow within me.

To be with the Muse

Melancholy is something discreet, simple, like the contour of a nostalgic poem, the indecisive note of a shady melody or the timid brushstroke on a blank canvas.

The state of melancholy allows us to float in an ocean where we can feel the Muses breathing. It's like if we are being impregnated by a divine, creative Breath. We waver in the realm of our favorite Muse and receive her creative potencial.

According to the Greco-Roman tradition, there are 9 Muses. From poetry to music, through the stars and eroticism, they activate the different areas of actuation of the Feminine Power.

Being 9 the number of the Goddess, of the Feminine Principle, the Muses symbolically represent the creative totality, allowing the descent of spiritual eternity into form.

Joseph Campbell speaks about the song of the Muses:

“When you have died to your ego and rational consciousness, there opens the intuition, that is to say, you ear the song of the Muse and this is the female power again”.

Since Human Design is a system that focuses on form, on Yin energy, speaking of the Sacred Feminine as a potential for transcendence seems to me to be simply natural.

Ra Uru Hu asks us to “see the body as a solution, not a problem”. It is through the body, from surrendering to its wisdom, that we can go beyond the mind.

This is a journey of surrender, which instead of bringing us to a state of passivity, expands our consciousness. It is about giving permission for a broader consciousness, which I call the consciousness of our Higher Self, to impregnate and guide us.

“We are not incarnating to simply be form principle; otherwise, we would all be dolphins, or we'd be plants.” says Ra, in his usual sense of “freak” (individual) humor. "We are here to fulfill a consciousness program".

Being awake in form is the best way to bring the Beauty of Being to its fullest. This only happens when the ego and mind surrender to the magnetic power of existence.

When you realize that it is Life that guides you, and not the other way around, you are surrendering to something tremendous: the force of Creation.

After this surrender, it becomes easy to deal with melancholy, as we come to accept it as something natural and beautiful.

I have melancholy, what now?

If you are feeling melancholy, embrace it with gratitude. Find out if melancholy is part of your design (if you have strong activations of the individual circuit) or if you are going through some transit. Many depressions are simply states of melancholy badly resolved.

Melancholy is different from person to person, and in an Individual Analysis we can see how it expresses itself in you and what is the best strategy to deal with it.

If you need help to know your energy map, enter the journey proposed by a visionary system that synthesizes great ancestral knowledge systems (I-Ching, Kabbalah, Chakras, Astrology) and modern sciences (Genetics, Quantum Mechanics, Astronomy and Biochemistry) :