← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 69/164
Channel 37-40 — the bargain of belonging
The bargain of belonging is our name for the channel between gate 37 in the Feeling centre (the tradition's "Solar Plexus") and gate 40 in the Will centre (the "Heart" or "Ego"). It is read as the wiring of community at its most basic: I will look after you, you will look after me, and we both know what that means. Warmth is given, effort is given, and each expects the other to hold up their end.
What it joins
- Gate 37, in the Feeling centre, carries our theme of warmth of family and bargain: affection, loyalty and the small courtesies that make a group feel like home — offered with an unspoken expectation of return.
- Gate 40, in the Will centre, carries work, rest and aloneness: the will to provide, and the equal need to withdraw and be left in peace once the work is done.
Joined, feeling and will meet in the agreement that keeps a household or team together. The tradition reads it as the channel of the deal itself.
Its current
The channel belongs to the tribal current — support, bargains and belonging — in its stream of ego: will, worth and the bargains that carry them. Tribal energy is personal and reciprocal; it is not about fairness in the abstract but about what these particular people owe one another.
How it is read
At its best this channel is described as dependable kindness: the person is generous, and expects to be appreciated, and both of those are healthy when spoken aloud. The shadow is the unspoken bargain — giving and giving, then feeling cheated when nobody noticed — or the opposite, guarding one's solitude so fiercely that others feel shut out. Because the Feeling centre moves in waves, the terms of a bargain can feel different from one week to the next. The invitation is to make the deal explicit, and to agree to it only when the emotional wave has settled.
What defining it does
Completing this channel defines the Feeling centre and the Will — two motors. With the Feeling centre defined, the inner compass is the emotional wave: clarity comes with time, not in the moment. If either centre also reaches the Throat — the Feeling centre through gate 36 to 35 or gate 22 to 12, the Will through gate 21 to 45 — a motor drives the voice, and the chart becomes a Manifestor (or a Manifesting Generator if the Vitality centre is defined). Without that link and without Vitality, it is a Projector.
In your chart
On your Embodied Energy Chart, find 37 and 40 at their ports and the line between the Feeling and Will centres. Each half takes the colour of the moment that lit it — the aware side or the built-in side. One end alone shows as a hanging gate, marked *.