← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 154/164
Profile
A profile is a pair of numbers written like a fraction — 1/3, 2/4, 4/6, 6/2 — and it is one of the first things a reading of the Embodied Energy Chart gives. Each number is a line, from 1 to 6. The first is the line of the Sun on the aware side (the tradition's "Personality"); the second is the line of the Sun on the built-in side (the "Design"). Where a single line describes the manner of one gate, the profile is read as the manner of the whole life.
How we compute it
The calculation is short. We take the aware Sun, at the moment of birth, and read which line of its gate it falls in. We take the built-in Sun, at the design moment some three months earlier, and do the same. The two numbers, aware first, are the profile. A chart with the aware Sun on line 2 and the built-in Sun on line 4 has the profile 2/4.
Why there are only twelve
Six lines on each side would allow thirty-six pairs, yet only twelve profiles exist. The reason is arithmetic. The design moment is defined as the instant the Sun stood exactly 88° behind its birth position. A line is 0°56′15″ wide, so 88° is a little under 94 lines. Counting back almost 94 lines from the aware Sun, and allowing for where within its line it sits, brings the built-in Sun to a line two places on from the aware one most of the time, and three places on otherwise, wrapping round from 6 to 1. By our own count over the whole wheel, the step is two lines in about 87% of charts and three in the rest.
That gives the twelve:
| Two lines on | Three lines on |
|---|---|
| 1/3, 2/4, 3/5, 4/6 | 1/4, 2/5, 3/6 |
| 5/1, 6/2 | 4/1, 5/2, 6/3 |
Profiles in the first column are therefore far more common than those in the second. Since the line of either Sun can sit close to a boundary, a profile can occasionally depend on the birth time, which is worth knowing when the time is not certain.
Reading the two numbers
The tradition gives the two numbers different places in a life, and we follow it:
- the first number, from the aware side, is read as how a person experiences themselves — the manner they recognise from the inside;
- the second number, from the built-in side, is read as how others meet them, and how they tend to be shaped by life without quite noticing — a manner often seen more clearly from outside.
So a 2/4 is someone who feels themselves a natural, happiest left alone (line 2), and whom others meet through their circle of people (line 4). A 6/3 feels their life as lived in chapters toward an example (line 6), while others see a run of experiments (line 3). Each number is then read in the gate its Sun falls in, which says what the manner is applied to.
Profiles and the cross angle
The profile also decides the angle of the life theme (the tradition's incarnation cross). The seven profiles from 1/3 to 4/6 make a personal path (the tradition's right angle), 4/1 alone makes a fixed path (the juxtaposition), and the four from 5/1 to 6/3 make a shared path (the left angle). See cross angle.
How it is read
A profile is not a personality type and does not say what someone will do. It is a lens for a familiar pattern: why one person needs to research before acting while another needs to try, why some lives seem to run through other people. Many people find the second number the more surprising one, since it describes how they are met rather than how they feel.
In your chart
The profile is given with the type and the inner compass near the start of a reading. A reading describes both lines in the gates of the two Suns, and names the cross angle the profile places the life theme in.