⚻ Quincunx
Mercury quincunx Chiron
Saying it is the hard part. Read as a persistent sense of being misunderstood or of not having the words, rather than as any deficiency in having them.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☿ ⚷
What these two are about together
Voice and the sore place. Associated with the difference between what a person can say and what they can be heard saying, and with speech as the thing that either healed or hurt.
What a quincunx does
A quincunx, also called an inconjunct, puts two planets in signs that share nothing at all: not element, not quality, not polarity, and not even the awkward adjacency of the semi-sextile. The tradition is specific that this is not a weak square. A square describes two things in conflict, which at least implies they are on the same terms. A quincunx describes two things that do not have terms in common, so neither can be traded off against the other.
How it reads
Saying it is the hard part. Read as a persistent sense of being misunderstood or of not having the words, rather than as any deficiency in having them.
In practice
Read as adjustment rather than conflict. The classical picture is of continually correcting for something that never resolves and never quite becomes a crisis, in the way a person compensates for a limp without noticing they are doing it. Modern practice associates it with health and with habits maintained past the point of usefulness.
What to watch for
The absence of a decision. Squares get resolved. A quincunx tends to get accommodated instead, and the tradition treats the accommodation itself as the thing worth looking at.
The two planets
Mercury: Mind, language and how you process
Chiron: The injury that does not close, and what it made you able to do
Mercury and Chiron at other angles
- Mercury conjunction ChironTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mercury semi-sextile ChironThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Mercury semi-square ChironForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Mercury sextile ChironSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mercury quintile ChironSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mercury square ChironNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mercury trine ChironA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mercury sesquiquadrate ChironA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mercury opposition ChironDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis
Find this in your own chart
A reading like this only tells you what the pairing is associated with. Whether Mercury and Chiron actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.