Astrology

Aspects explained

An aspect is the angle between two planets. It is the part of a birth chart that says how the pieces get along, and it is why two people with the same star sign can read completely differently.

The five angles

  • Conjunction · 0°Two bodies at the same degree, acting as one
  • Semi-sextile · 30°Thirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
  • Semi-square · 45°Forty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
  • Sextile · 60°Sixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
  • Quintile · 72°Seventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
  • Square · 90°Ninety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
  • Trine · 120°A hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
  • Sesquiquadrate · 135°A hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
  • Quincunx · 150°A hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
  • Opposition · 180°Directly across the chart: two ends of one axis

☌ Conjunction

A conjunction is the tightest relationship in a chart: two planets sitting at effectively the same point in the zodiac, rising, setting and moving together. The tradition does not read it as good or bad on its own. It reads it as fusion. Whatever the two planets each govern stops being two separate concerns and starts being one, and it is often the placement a person is least able to see in themselves, because there is no distance from which to look at it.

⚹ Sextile

A sextile is traditionally read as opportunity rather than event. The two planets are in compatible elements and can work together easily, but the tradition is specific that a sextile describes something available rather than something that arrives. It is the aspect most often described as a door that is unlocked and still shut.

□ Square

A square is the aspect of friction, and the tradition is unusually consistent that it is also the aspect of development. The two planets are in signs that share a quality but nothing else, so they want the same tempo and completely different things. That is uncomfortable, and it is also what forces the matter to be dealt with rather than left.

△ Trine

A trine puts two planets in the same element, and the tradition reads it as the easiest relationship in the chart. What the two govern agree with each other and need no negotiating. It is usually experienced as a natural facility, which is exactly why it is also the aspect most often taken for granted.

☍ Opposition

An opposition puts two planets exactly across from one another, in signs that are traditionally paired rather than unrelated. It is read as tension between two things that genuinely belong together, which is what separates it from a square. The tradition frames it as a problem of balance and, very often, as something a person meets through other people rather than alone.

When three planets are involved at once

Two squares and an opposition between the same three planets are not three separate findings, they are a T-square. Those named shapes are a subject of their own, and the site counts how often each actually turns up rather than estimating.

Chart patterns explained

Which of these are in your chart?

Every reading here describes what a pairing is associated with. Which ones you actually have depends on your birth date, time and place.

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