∠ Semi-square
Mercury semi-square 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
- 45°
- Orb used
- ±2°
- 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 semi-square does
A semi-square is exactly half a square, and the tradition reads it as the same kind of friction at a smaller scale. Where a square describes a conflict that has to be dealt with, a semi-square describes the sort of persistent low-grade annoyance that never quite forces the issue and never quite goes away either.
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 irritation rather than demand. Kepler took the minor hard aspects seriously and much of the tradition since has treated them as real but secondary, which is the reading this site uses.
What to watch for
Accumulation. One semi-square is a footnote. Several of them to the same planet is the tradition's picture of somebody worn down by things too small to name.
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 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 quincunx VenusA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
- 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.