⚻ Quincunx
Moon quincunx Mercury
What is felt and what is said pull apart. Read as anxiety, as talking oneself out of a valid instinct, and as the specific frustration of not being able to explain something that is perfectly clear internally.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☽ ☿
What these two are about together
Feeling and thinking. Whether what you feel can be put into words, and whether what you say matches what is going on underneath.
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
What is felt and what is said pull apart. Read as anxiety, as talking oneself out of a valid instinct, and as the specific frustration of not being able to explain something that is perfectly clear internally.
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
Moon: Need, instinct and what settles you
Mercury: Mind, language and how you process
Moon and Mercury at other angles
- Moon conjunction MercuryTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Moon semi-sextile MercuryThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Moon semi-square MercuryForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Moon sextile MercurySixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Moon quintile MercurySeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Moon square MercuryNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Moon trine MercuryA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Moon sesquiquadrate MercuryA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Moon opposition MercuryDirectly 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 Moon and Mercury actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.