I met the Human Design System years before I met Ra.But I was always so curious about the guy who this system came through. I finally got to meet him when he came to Sedona and gave an evening introductory lecture. I loved his irreverence – it was like a breath of fresh air for me. He cursed, he smoked and he dressed in black and made no apologies for being himself. He came to Sedona bringing the mechanics of Type and Strategy. Up until that moment, there was no such thing as Type or Strategy.I had my reading with him – and that was the end of one chapter of life and the beginning of another.
I never wanted to learn Human Design. I only wanted to live it and see if it gave me what I longed for. I had been searching 20+ years when I met Human Design. I had sat with many spiritual teachers who pointed to something but couldn’t give me the map.What Ra gave me in my reading seemed like the map. But I had to live it to discover if it really was.
He was a tricky guy. He’d always ask me when I was leaving at the end of a course if he would see me in the next place he’d be. He called the “2” of my 6/2 profile and my sacral always responded. And so for years and years, I sat in every class he taught absorbing what he was saying into my body. Because I never wanted to learn it, I would just close my eyes and listen and let it all penetrate my cells. I never took notes. I respected Ra tremendously as a teacher but I never thought of him as my teacher – I always thought of him as my friend.
That very first time in Sedona, at the end of his visit, he asked me if I wanted to have a gathering at my home so he could play his guitar and sing his songs. He told me it was his way of sharing his feelings with people – something that could not happen in the classroom. I responded and about 30 people gathered at my home. Ra played his music. It was then that the respect of the teacher changed to love of a human being. I loved Ra’s music – it was jazzy and freaky and in the early days I would sing along but not know what I was singing about. Years later, as I fell deeper into the truth of me, I knew and it was a great joy to sing those words. Two weeks before he died, he sent me a clip of a video that Loki, his son, had created. It was a tribute to Albert Einstein. It was an amazing video of the man Ra singing and playing his guitar.Over the years, he would occassionally send me the mp3 of a new song he had created. One of our deepest bonds was of music.
So many sweet memories. I remember sitting on the couch with him at the home of an analyst in Las Vegas where I had traveled to do the Basic Training that I had responded to taking. We were watching Bill Cosby in an old taped stand up comedy routine. We were laughing so hard we were both crying. I remember another time sitting watching MTV while staying in the same home in Los Angeles for more Human Design classes and some old rock and roll bands were on. I always felt relaxed with him – because I knew my place as a Generator.I never initiated and just waited. He had asked me if I wanted to watch this with him and we both enjoyed so much the music from a generation we both shared.
I first met Ra and then a few years later, I met his whole family. I often felt like a sister to his wife and an aunt to his sons and sometimes like an adopted mother to his daughter.Fractal lines converge.They meet and move along a course together.
I am so grateful that I went on that very bizarre looking trip to Ibiza the month before Ra died. It came out of the blue and I had no idea why I was going. It looked ridiculous on the outside to fly across the ocean traveling for almost 23 hours door to door and to then only spend 5 days for no other reason than my sacral responded.The weird part was that it had an “unun” (no) when my husband asked me if I wanted to go and it had an “ahunh” (yes) when he asked me if I needed to go. So the only thing I knew was that I needed to go to Ibiza.
This trip gave me some very precious time with Ra. There was no Human Design event and we were just able to visit and hang out. We were talking about life ... and out of the blue I just blurted out “you know it just seems so crazy that my sacral goes unun (no) to doing my PHS because PHS is about the form.”He told me that it was more than the diet and that for me it was about silence. How important silence was in my life. How I needed silence.My whole body resonated to this – I could feel the truth of it. He went on for quite a while each word penetrating me and my own sacral response told me what he was saying was true for me.He then asked me what were my nodes were. I cracked up laughing and said “you know I don’t remember all those things on my chart. I just live my life as a Generator”.He started laughing too and then looked at me and said “It is really good to see you again”.
Over the 15 years of our friendship, we spent a lot of time just laughing – sometimes so hard that we both would start crying.
I never really thought of Ra as my teacher - from the moment I met him, he was always my friend. My love was for Ra the man and the musician. My bond with Ra was of laughter, music and honest communicating. I never wanted him to be anything other than who he was. He never wanted anything other than that for me.
I am grateful for all the time we had together. He was a very special friend.
a poem i wrote a short time after my reading with Ra
