Where this face sits on the wheel
Maat is the last face of the Quarter of Civilization. Four gates correspond to her:
All of them are gates of the Throat center. Gate 33 closes the quarter: it is a gate of the Cross of the Four Ways.
The image
Maat is the goddess of truth, justice, law and morality, the force that binds the whole Quarter of Civilization together. In the ancient myth the heart of the dead was weighed: a pure heart went to one place, an impure one to another. In this face a "pure" heart is one that is faithful to the law and to established facts.
Maat is a lock. As soon as the experience is had, she shuts the door: the process goes no further, everything becomes tradition, fact, carved in stone. Civilization as a structure isn't fond of mutation — it threatens its stability.
Punctuation
A beautiful image of this face is punctuation. Without it a text can't be read, and in the same way experience can't be "read" without it. 33 is the full stop, the end of the paragraph: the experience is complete and kept in memory. 56 is the exclamation mark: a story told so that it grabs you. And 62 and 31 are facts and leadership: what is named and confirmed becomes truth, and whoever relies on facts gains influence.
Together this is a world where "there is nothing new under the moon": facts, the retelling of the past and leadership close into a circle.
How it shows in a chart
If your conscious Sun or Earth is in one of these gates, the theme of truth, facts, stories and tradition is strong in you. You may be the one who sums things up, keeps the memory, retells, influences. It helps to notice where tradition holds things together and where it simply keeps the new out.
The same applies, more quietly, to any other Personality activations in these gates. But a single face never describes a whole person: it matters whether these gates are defined, which center they sit in, and what is in the Design. A gate in an open center, for example, gives an unstable theme that doesn't operate all the time.
And one more thing. Wherever we have Personality activations is where the mind most easily hands its power to outside forces — and the Faces of the Gods set the frame for exactly that false authority. Knowing about the faces doesn't free you by itself. What frees you is living by your own strategy and authority: then you can see this force without handing it the wheel.
The crosses of this face
- Sun in gate 62: Right Angle Cross of Maya, Juxtaposition Cross of Details, Left Angle Cross of Obscuration
- Sun in gate 56: Right Angle Cross of Laws, Juxtaposition Cross of Stimulation, Left Angle Cross of Distraction
- Sun in gate 31: Right Angle Cross of the Unexpected, Juxtaposition Cross of Influence, Left Angle Cross of the Alpha
- Sun in gate 33: Right Angle Cross of the Four Ways, Juxtaposition Cross of Retreat, Left Angle Cross of Refinement
Maat puts a full stop at the end of an experience. That makes it possible to read it and pass it on — but after the full stop a new sentence can still begin.