Explaining the Why’s Behind Aspects–Conjunctions, Trines, Sextiles, Squares, Oppositions, Quincunxes and Yods

I was waiting for a driver’s license renewal and had no book. Time for astrological meanderings. I was thinking about how utterly logical the chart is. It is like nature, each part of the ecosystem fitting perfectly with the others. The astrological wheel has a perfection in it’s symmetry, it’s unfolding of information and the depth of what it offers up to the serious student. With that introduction, I would like to talk about aspects.

The conjunction is the strongest aspect simply because it is one planet on top of another. The closer the conjunction, the stronger. Think of a roaring fire. The closer one sits to it, the more intense is the heat. The conjunction makes logical sense, so I will not add more to it.

The trine is a 120 degree aspect between the same element. This is important to remember, as the trine gives the native a gift. There is an easy flow and an easy flow spells gifts. An easy flow spells talent. An easy flow spells poetry in motion. One’s trines are the places where one glides across the ice, seemingly without effort. One looks like a graceful dancer, as one owns the domain of the trine.

A Grand Trine is three planets making up a trine. encompassing all the planets in a single element. With a Grand Trine or any trine, one must look at the planets involved and the houses. It was surprising to me to learn that many criminals have grand trines. Perhaps, things came so easily that they did not have to struggle to develop maturity. With the Grand Trine, you will be gifted in the element thereof. If it is a Fire Grand Trine, you will manifest the choicest qualities of fire which are confidence, a sense of adventure, optimism and joie de vivre. If it is an Air Grand Trine, you will glide over the world of ideas, communication and words with the fluency of a master. If it is a water Grand Trine, you will be sensitive, empathetic and kind. Water people are kind, as they can feel the pain others have and hence do not like to inflict pain, as a rule. A Grand Trine in earth would be a person who moves on the earth with ease. He would be good with the material world. This may manifest in being an actual builder, gardener or a banker. Each of these deals with things that make the earth work. Hence, you will find these kinds of talents with a Grand Trine in earth. Most people are blessed with some trines, although the Grand Trine is more rare. Embrace your trines and let them help you deal with your struggles.

The sextile is kind of a mini trine. It functions like the trine but it is a buried trine. This means that it is not effortless. One must struggle to dig it up and put it into motion. Then, it becomes a gift in the nature of the trine. The sextiles are 60 degrees apart. They skip a sign. In other words, there is one sign between each sextile. Aries is sextile Gemini. Taurus is sextile Cancer. Gemini is sextile Leo etc.This make them the same gender. Some signs are masculine. Some are feminine. The pattern is masculine, feminine, masculine, feminine etc. So, if we start with Aries, that is masculine. Taurus is feminine etc etc until we go around the wheel. The sextiles share the same gender.I don’t know why sextiles work well.They share the same gender and are close in proximity. Maybe, I am missing something of the logic behind it but sextiles are gifts. So count up your sextiles and try to dig them up, so you have a full fledged gift.

We have the hard aspects left. These are the opposition and the square. They are called hard aspects because they are struggles. If you remember the charts of the criminals,some have no hard aspects. Seen in this light, hard aspects may be a gift. However, it would be a gift by way of struggle. . The square is the most locked in aspect and hence the hardest. The opposition is easier than the square I will explain each.

The opposition goes between opposite signs and opposite houses. Hence, the opposition is a yin/yang between very different things such as black/white, chocolate/vanilla/ hot pink/ wild yellow. the person with planets in opposition may struggle with a sense of wild yin/yangs between parts of himself. This is the nature of the opposition. Knowing what is inside oneself is half the battle. With the opposition, we have an opposition in sign and house. The yin/yang will be between sign and also house.

The opposition is between opposite signs, by definition. Hence, the person has one planet in one sign and another in the opposite sign.If you can think of very different sides of yourself like the bright sunny you and the dour, gloomy you, this is the nature of the opposition but the person is stuck. He may be the bright sunny one, one day and the dour one, the next. However, he may wish to be somewhere in the middle, but that eludes him. The opposition, by nature, is a yin/yang.

When we have an opposition, we have opposite houses, too. Hence, the struggle will between trying to balance out the affairs of the houses as well as the sphere of each planet. Let’s take an example. A person may have Pluto in Scorpio in the second house oppose Moon in Taurus in the 8th house. The Moon is in the comfortable sign of Taurus opposing Pluto which makes for a nuclear situation, no matter what sign or house. Moon oppose Pluto makes for a very passionate person. He may have had a tidal wave relationship with his mother, such that it felt overpowering. When he loves, he is intense, too intense for himself, perhaps. My guess would be that he feels that he is too intense for his own skin.

Let’s look at the houses. the 2nd house is the material world and all that it takes to live, therein. This native would have power in his 2nd house as Pluto would be there. Also, Pluto makes shake-ups in the house in which it resides. This person may have had tidal wave ups and downs in his finances or basic, financial needs such as housing and money for food and essentials. The Moon in the 8th makes for a very deep person. Even though Taurus is not an emotionally deep sign, it takes on the overtones of Scorpio, which is the deepest sign, when placed in the 8th house, Scorpio’s house. Hence, we have a deep person who is also a sweetheart, as that is the nature of the Taurus moon. This person struggles to balance out his material needs with his soul needs. He may want to be a writer of passionate fiction( 8th house) but he may feel he cannot do it because it would not provide enough security( 2nd house) This may be one of his life struggles in which he goes back and forth and back and forth. Hence, I hope you can see how the opposition works. Write on my Comment Form if you want more information or have an opposition you wish to discuss.

The square is a 90 degree angle. It will be between the same Quadriplicity. These are Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. Cardinal is the leader. Fixed is the stubborn, stick to it person and Mutable is changeable and flexible. Squares are 90 degrees between the same quadriplicity. For example, if we look at the Cardinal signs, they are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. All are leaders. All rule angular houses, the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses. All can stand up and be counted, albeit in different ways. The Fixed signs are strong in terms of being resolute. They can be counted on to keep their word. They are loyal and steadfast. These are Taurus, Leo,Scorpio and Aquarius. the Mutable signs are the easy going ones. They don’t get overly meticulous about too much. They go with the flow. These are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.

A square will be between two of the same quadriplicity. The square is a kind of bottleneck. It sits there as an undigested meatball in one’s stomach. One feels stressed and uncomfortable, but there is not much to do to make it go away. What can one do? I don’t think one can do much of anything. One has to work around it. Let me give an example of a square. Moon square Mars is a classic square for the person who does not like woman. Why? the Moon represents woman and one’s own feminine nature. Mars is the planet of war and aggression. Hence, we have the classic interpretation. Will this person feel a visceral dislike for woman. I suspect so. Will they admit it? Probably not. Do I think the chart never lies? Yes. Take it for what it is worth.

Lets look at house. Let’s say the native has his Moon in Scorpio in the 8th house. The Scorpio Moon is one of the hardest Moons as the person is very intense, more intense than he would like, in all cases I have seen. The 8th house makes him interested in all things taboo, both emotional and sexual. Lets say that his Mars is in Leo in the 5th House. Leo Mars likes to be seen. He likes to strut his stuff. If it is a girl, she will be dressed in jewels, real if possible. Can we say Bling? If it is a man, he will have the finest clothes, watches and cars he can afford. The 5th house is the house of romance, flings and creativity.

Lets put this together. This man is a deep soul. He feels intensely. He is passionate and very jealous. He can’t help himself. Don’t trifle with his emotions or you will pay He also is a go getter and vain( Mars in Leo) He may struggle with wanting a real, true and deep soul mate( Moon in the 8th) and wanting to play( Mars in the 5th) Moon square mars has been called the Madonna/Whore Complex aspect because the man finds it hard to reconcile with pristine mother with the sexy lover.

My dear friend Bea reminded me of Quincunx. I love the Quincunx aspect because it seems magical, to me, It feels like transmutation where iron could be made into gold. I always loved magic, as most people do. The Quincunx is a form of magic. A more mundane example would be a peach and a plum becoming a nectarine. The nectarine is an entirely new and amazing fruit with all of it’s own properties different from either a peach or plum. That is the nature of a quincunx. you will be called to struggle to make these differing parts of you into a whole new entity. However, the struggle is a kind of birth, just like the birth of a child. that is not easy but it produces something wonderful. The same applies to the quincunx.

if one wants to compare the quincunx to another aspect, one could pick the opposition. However, the opposition is locked into a back and forth see-saw mode. The quincunx can take that mode and transform it. Let me give an example. I will use the same example as the opposition but tailor it to the quincunx. The native has Pluto in Scorpio in the second house quincunx Moon in Gemini in the 9th house. The Quincunx is 150 degrees. The quincunx is an opposition plus a sign. So, Aries would be quincunx Scorpio and Virgo. Taurus would be quincunx Sagittarius and Libra.

In our example above, the native has Pluto in the second so would have shake-ups in finances but would be a powerhouse, too. This is the nature of Pluto, by house. His Moon is in gemini in the 9th house. Moon in gemini is restless. Think of ADD. The person finds it hard to sit still.The person gets bored very easily. The person may not be able to sit still through a movie. This may be an exaggeration for purposes of discussion but I have heard this from Moons in Gemini. I am a Sun,Mercury and Venus in Gemini and we don’t have this. I can see how the Moon could, though as any Gemini placements can be very high strung.

At any rate for purposes of our example, we will go on. The Moon in the 9th house is a person who wants to know why he is on earth. He is not content to do superficial things without asking deeper questions. One of his quests will be the search for God.

Now, I will take all this and explain the quincunx. This native will be a financial powerhouse. He will struggle with ups and downs in finances but he will develop a power and mastery of them, most likely. He will also have a restlessness and a deep and abiding desire to find God. This side of him will come together with the mastery of the material world and he may start a foundation. He may use his financial skills in a religious organization to which he belongs. He may help in missionary work, feeding people or building houses. He will combine his gifts in the material world with his desire to find God. In doing so, he will transform. He will not yin/yang as the opposition does. He will grow a whole new leg as a starfish does.

At any rate, on to the Yod.

A Yod is a formation of two quincunx as legs on a triangle. The base is a sextile. The Yod is called the Finger of God. It takes time and thought to interpret a Yod. However, the effort is well worth it, as it is the divine purpose of the native Yods are rare, so all the more significant. I will give an example from one of my clients. She will know who she is, as she is a wonderful writer and a distinguished professor. I am honored to have her as one of my long term clients. As an aside, I did many psychic readings with her before I did her chart. I never would have known her at the depth I do, without her chart. I would not have known that she is gifted, beyond measure, as a writer. I still do counseling with her and knowing this helps me to support her on her way. The native with a Yod will never be happy until they fulfill the purpose of the Yod. It will be an itch that will cause you discomfort until you scratch it.

The Astrologer looks at each quincunx which makes up the sides of the triangle which is the Yod. The base is the sextile. Each quincunx must be looked at on it’s own. The quincunx demands transformation, so the person will need to do quite a bit of transformation as he has two. The sextile is the gift which will help in the transformation. It will take me a long time to figure out what the Yod is trying to tell me, but when I do, I have a lot to offer the client. I will not give a detailed analysis of a Yod, now. I have articles on it. You can search for them in my search engine. I would just be repeating earlier info, so will let you look at those articles.

I hope I have given some clear examples and I hope I have helped to shed new light on one of the classic parts of Astrology—–The aspects.