⚻ Quincunx
Moon quincunx North Node
Comfort pulls one way and growth the other. Read as the specific difficulty of having to be unsettled to get anywhere, rather than as anything going wrong.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☽ ☊
What these two are about together
Comfort and the direction of development, which the tradition treats as one of the more demanding pairs, because the Moon is what already feels safe and the North Node is by definition unfamiliar.
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
Comfort pulls one way and growth the other. Read as the specific difficulty of having to be unsettled to get anywhere, rather than as anything going wrong.
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
North Node: The direction of growth, and the thing you have no practice at
Moon and North Node at other angles
- Moon conjunction North NodeTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Moon semi-sextile North NodeThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Moon semi-square North NodeForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Moon sextile North NodeSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Moon quintile North NodeSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Moon square North NodeNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Moon trine North NodeA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Moon sesquiquadrate North NodeA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Moon opposition North NodeDirectly 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 North Node actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.