Have you ever seen a sunrise or watched the Sun set? For what follows, you’ll need to appreciate that the heavens are always on the move. All the planets and stars and Moon rise in the east and set in the west, just like the Sun, because the Earth is constantly spinning eastwards. What appears to be rotation of the sky is actually us going round and round. Do please take a moment to work out the implications, physically, in relation to where you are. Which way is east?
Now, imagine you are somewhere on the earth’s equator. When you get there, point and draw a line with your fingertip from the eastern horizon towards the zenith, then west, arc straight down toward the ground and back up towards east. If you actually did it, you have just traced, more or less, the celestial equator. It diverges by 23.4 degrees (Earth’s axial tilt) from the annual path of the Sun, in which we find the constellations of the zodiac (and is also the approximate plane in which all the planets move from our point of view). The difference between those two lines is what causes seasons and stuff.
So what? We know the earth is round! The Copernican revolution was ages ago.
In our globalised world we take it for granted that when the Sun sets in England it is rising in Australia. But do we know which way the planets move through the zodiac in their orbits in relation to that east-west motion of the sky?
Anyone from a non-industrial setting has the answer instantly: They go (mostly*) in the opposite direction, as does the moon, which rises a conspicuous 45 minutes later every night (or day) – a fact which is very hard to miss when you don’t have electricity. In the absence of other entertainment, one might also notice that the portion of the stars which is visible at night rotates on a yearly basis, as the Sun actually obscures with its light the zodiacal constellation which it is passing through, and several on either side too. If you watch and measure long enough, you can detect that every pair of planets has a cyclical relationship like the Sun and Moon, but each happens at a very different pace. And then you inevitably wonder about time and space…
One of the main ways that astrology analyses the interactions between objects of interest (eg. planets, stars, angles like the ascendant degree, the moon’s nodes) is by looking at the the angular relationship, or ‘aspect’, between them from the perspective of a specific time and location on the earth’s surface, referenced against the 360 degrees of longitude of the zodiac. For a natal chart this would be the place and time of birth. If, for example, the Moon happened to be exactly full at sunset exactly where and when a baby was born, the astrologer doing that birth chart would observe that the Moon was exactly conjunct the Ascendant (AC), the Sun was exactly conjunct the Descendant (DC), there was an exact opposition of Sun and Moon. They would not bother to remark that there is a Ascendant–Descendant opposition because they are always opposite, but the Moon and Sun are only exactly opposite once a month.
Major Aspects
So-called ‘hard’ aspects:
Conjunction (0º separation on the zodiac)
A joining together, as in marriage. New moon is a conjunction of Moon and Sun. A total eclipse of the Sun occurs when the new moon is exactly conjunct a lunar node.
Opposition (180º)
Not necessarily but possibly a conflict. Going head to head, in any case… as in marriage. The objects will be in different but complimentary elements and the same quality. Full moon is an opposition of Sun and Moon. An eclipse of the moon occurs when the full moon is conjunct a lunar node.
Square (90º)
Coming in from the side, like a karate chop aimed at the middle of a brick. Or a driver running a red light and crunching into the side of the car on the cross street that had the green. Like quarter moons…
In the Sun-Moon relationship, squares occur when the Moon is exactly half full (which is a quarter of it, if you know what I mean). While both are astrological squares, the two perfect squares in every cycle are energetically distinct from each other, one being half way, in the waxing stakes, from new to full moon and the other half way in the waning process from full to the next new one. When this aspect is exact, the two points of interest between which it occurs are always (a) in the same ‘quality’ type sign (Cardinal, Fixed or Mutable) and (b) in a different element (Fire, Earth, Air, Water).
‘Soft’ aspects:
Trine (120º)
Obvious, easy, stable confluence of forces like the join between three cells of a honeycomb. When exact, the objects are always in the same element but different quality.
Sextile (60º)
More delicate than a trine, like a snowflake. Potentially useful confluence of forces . The objects precisely related in this way will be in different but complementary elements which have the same polarity (+/-).
Minor Aspects
Quincunx (150º)
Only deemed valid when exact, it is supposed to be a flash of clear contact between points in incompatible states – in different elements and qualities and polarities. Named after an ancient coin that was worth 5/12 of a bronze coin, the planets in this aspect will be exactly five signs apart. Things which are not easy or possible to connect in the normal course of events have an opportunity to connect.
Semi-sextile (30º)
Like a quincunx, but in the sign right next door, so a little bit less foreign.
In theory, any angle can be given a name and called an aspect, some astrologers like to look at 45 or 72 degree relationships, for example, but it is not standard practice.
At most moments, most astrological objects are not in an exact, round number-type, angular relationship, so astrologers also consider the ‘orb’ of an aspect. This is the number of degrees of imprecision that someone will tolerate and still consider it an aspect (How long is the Moon ‘exactly’ full?). In general, relationships between slower moving objects are given wider range that those involving faster moving objects.
(* The planets all move in the same direction through the zodiac as the Sun and Moon but their apparent motion as viewed from earth goes ‘retrograde’ – backward – for predictable portions of time, because of earth’s orbit being a different speed. This is like a runner going round the stadium track seeing that the slower and faster runners on the opposite part of the track are running in the opposite direction in terms of east-west even though they are all going round in the same direction. This is a totally subjective kind of backwards, but because the zodiac is also subjective, in geocentric astrology, the planets seem to stand still and turn around to retrace a portion of the zodiac then they stop, and turn to go forwards over it again. Overall they go more forwards than backwards, but the geometrical relationships between them as viewed from earth take on a quality that is more like a dance than a race. Aspects sometimes come into focus, fade out and then become precise again before passing out of phase completely. We can only imagine how fascinating this must have been in the time before light pollution when rudimentary geometry was cutting-edge, and there was no google.)
astrospection 