The four quarters of the wheel
The wheel of 64 gates is divided into four quarters of 16 gates, and each has its own general direction of purpose: in the Quarter of Initiation purpose is fulfilled through mind, in the Quarter of Civilization through form, in the Quarter of Duality through bonding with others, and in the Quarter of Mutation through transformation. You can picture humanity as a large organization with four departments, each responsible for its own area. And inside each department there are four divisions — the Faces of the Gods, four gates each. Sixteen in all.
Every quarter begins with a gate of the Cross of the Sphinx and ends with a gate of the Cross of the Four Ways — one of the beautiful symmetries of the wheel. Civilization opens with gate 2 and closes with gate 33.
Purpose through form
The keynote of this quarter is purpose fulfilled through form. If Initiation is a yang force that begins, Civilization starts with gate 2, the most yin of all the hexagrams. A mental force is worth little without the ability to make it concrete. So here purpose through mind turns into purpose through form, and the evidence that mind is growing is the growth of civilization: as soon as real intellect appears in humanity, monuments, buildings and cities appear.
Every gate of the Throat center lies in this quarter. The Throat is about manifesting: everything that ultimately has to come out and become a word, a deed, a form. How do you preserve an explanation? You carve it in stone. The development of skills, the gathering of resources, the building of territory — it's all here.
The mystical image of the quarter is from the womb to the room. Civilization begins in the mother's womb, and then we need a room to protect us. In essence, everything people build is ever bigger and better "wombs": places where it's safe, where there is food, where we can grow.
The gates of the quarter
- Gate 2 — Direction of the Self
- Gate 23 — Assimilation
- Gate 8 — Contribution
- Gate 20 — The Now
- Gate 16 — Skills
- Gate 35 — Change
- Gate 45 — The Gatherer
- Gate 12 — Caution
- Gate 15 — Extremes
- Gate 52 — Stillness
- Gate 39 — Provocation
- Gate 53 — Beginnings
- Gate 62 — Details
- Gate 56 — Stimulation
- Gate 31 — Leading
- Gate 33 — Privacy
If your Sun is in this quarter
The Personality Sun leads the whole Incarnation Cross, and the quarter it sits in sets the general direction for roughly 70% of the personality's programming. So the quarter of your conscious Sun is the backdrop against which your whole purpose unfolds.
If your conscious Sun is here, form is what fulfils you. Even in a cave you'd want to hang a painting. That's where artists, sculptors, architects and gardeners come from — people who can't just watch a plant grow and end up creating a garden. People of this quarter are often blamed for being "materialistic", but for them it is the natural way.
That doesn't mean you have to build everything yourself. Some build, and some arrive when it's built and live in that form. Sometimes a person spends a long time looking for "their" form — and it doesn't exist yet, or exists somewhere else; then they set off wandering. Generators born here feel a strong pressure to manifest, but that's no reason to rush: when you live by your nature, the form finds you.
The four Faces of Civilization
- The Face of Maya — gates 2, 23, 8, 20: the great illusion and civilization as education.
- The Face of Lakshmi — gates 16, 35, 45, 12: the material world, money and resources.
- The Face of Parvati — gates 15, 52, 39, 53: marriage, fidelity and the home.
- The Face of Maat — gates 62, 56, 31, 33: truth, law and tradition.
Example crosses
Every quarter holds one variation of each of the 16 Right Angle Crosses — which is why, for example, the Cross of the Sphinx appears in all four quarters. Each Left Angle Cross has two variations in different quarters, and the Juxtaposition Crosses are unique. Here are the crosses of the gates that open and close the quarter:
- Sun in gate 2: Right Angle Cross of the Sphinx, Juxtaposition Cross of the Driver, Left Angle Cross of Defiance
- Sun in gate 33: Right Angle Cross of the Four Ways, Juxtaposition Cross of Retreat, Left Angle Cross of Refinement
The full lists are in the articles on each face.
The Quarter of Civilization is about meaning that becomes tangible. You don't have to build everything yourself, but it is form that fulfils your purpose.