⚻ Quincunx
Mercury quincunx Venus
Only a narrow separation is possible between these two, so genuine hard aspects are rare. Where they sit uneasily, the tradition reads a tendency to say the agreeable thing rather than the accurate one.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☿ ♀
What these two are about together
Mind and value. How thinking and taste inform each other, which the tradition reads as the aspect of style in the broadest sense.
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
Only a narrow separation is possible between these two, so genuine hard aspects are rare. Where they sit uneasily, the tradition reads a tendency to say the agreeable thing rather than the accurate one.
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
Venus: Values, attraction and what you find beautiful
Mercury and Venus at other angles
- Mercury conjunction VenusTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mercury semi-sextile VenusThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Mercury semi-square VenusForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Mercury sextile VenusSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mercury quintile VenusSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mercury square VenusNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mercury trine VenusA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mercury sesquiquadrate VenusA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mercury opposition VenusDirectly 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 Venus actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.