On your chart, every carries a five figure address, something like 34.2.4.5.3: the gate, the line, the colour, the tone, and one last figure almost nobody talks about. That fifth and final level is the Base: the finest unit in the whole system. Here is what it is, how to display it on your , and above all what can honestly be read from it.
The staircase that carries on below the gate
The mandala divides into 64 . Each gate splits into , each line into 6 colours, each colour into 6 tones, and each tone into 5 bases. Every step zooms in: a gate covers a comfortable arc of more than 5 degrees, a base keeps only 18.75 arc seconds. End to end, that makes 69,120 bases around the full mandala.
To give you a sense of the scale: the Sun takes almost six days to cross a gate, but it despatches a base in 8 minutes. The Moon, thirteen times faster, changes base every 34 seconds. Keep those two numbers in mind, they will come in handy further down.
Where to see it on your Body Graph
The Base is not shown by default: it sits under the chart filters, like a layer you switch on. Two boxes in the legend take care of it:
- “Bases” adds a red figure next to the Tone of each of your four arrows, the ;
- “Couleur · Ton · Base” (Colour, Tone, Base) unfolds the full five figure notation across the 26 of both columns.
Both layers are open to everyone, straight on your chart. If the words Colour and Tone are still hazy, take a detour first through the PHS, the eight figures that live just above the Bases: what follows will make much more sense.
Five positions inside the Tone, not five personalities
The best way to read your Base is as a position: whereabouts inside its Tone was your planet sitting? Right at the start, in the thick of it, or already on the doorstep?
Base 1 has just entered the Tone, Base 5 is about to leave it, and Base 3 sits right in the middle, as far as possible from both borders. The page on the 5 Bases takes each step one by one; the main thing to remember is that the Base does not rewrite the levels above it. The Colour gives the theme, the Tone turns it: the Base tells you where you are standing inside that Tone.
Why we do not publish readings of your Base
Look around a little and you will find very confident descriptions of each Base. We have chosen not to publish any, and not out of laziness: it is a question of measurement. By shifting the birth time artificially across thousands of charts, we found that a gap of a single second already changes a Base in 0.5% of cases. With one minute of difference, 13.5% of charts change Base. And your official birth time is noted to the minute. That is assuming the maternity ward clock was right.
In plain terms:
- your gate and your line are rock solid, even with a rough birth time;
- your Colours are reliable and your Tones credible with a time noted to the minute;
- your Base sits below the precision of official records: publishing verdicts about it would amount to reading the noise.
All of these measurements are set out on the Variables and PHS page. The day we write something about each Base, it will come with the same safeguards as the rest of the site, and not before.
So what is it good for?
Two things, and neither of them is trivial.
1. Placing you inside the Tone
Beginning, middle or end: the Base tells you whether your Tone is expressing itself at its first light, in full maturity, or already leaning towards the next one. It is a shade of meaning, not a verdict, and that is exactly as it should be.
2. Testing how solid your Variables are
This is the most concrete use. Your four depend on your Tones: a Tone that flips is an arrow that may turn the other way. The Base tells you precisely how close to the border you are standing:
- Base 3: you are in the heart of the Tone. Your rest on solid ground, so dig into them with confidence.
- Base 2 or 4: comfortable, as long as your birth time is noted to the minute.
- Base 1 or 5: you are a few arc seconds from a border. Before getting attached to the fine reading, check your birth time: a few seconds are sometimes enough to tip the Tone.
And if your birth time is a round number (“around 3 in the afternoon”), there is no point wrestling with your Base: take your as hypotheses to test against your own life, and lean on the solid levels of your chart.