Mercury trine Venus

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 trine does

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.

How it reads

Charm in communication. Read as somebody who is easy to talk to and who negotiates without it feeling like negotiation.

In practice

Read as ability rather than luck. Trines describe what somebody can do without effort, and consequently what they may never have bothered to develop.

What to watch for

Complacency. The traditional caution about trines is that nothing here demands anything, so nothing here necessarily grows.

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 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