Chart Synthesis ✦ Dawn Bodrogi ✦ The Inner Wheel
Out of sign aspects. Okay, hands up — how many of you missed the Venus/Neptune square in Tony Perkins’ chart? I was waiting to see if anyone would comment on it, as it was relevant to the discussion. None of the astrology enthusiasts I spoke to privately about the chart picked it up. Neptune, the North Node ruler and dispositor of the Moon, square Venus in the last degree of sensual Taurus. Certainly something that had to be sorted in this life. Addictions, delusions, deceptions and self-deceptions. A striving for the unattainable, for impossible perfection. Venus at its most earthbound struggling towards the highest form of its expression. A challenge to accept things as they are — to love yourself as you are. A major theme both for Perkins and Norman.
So why didn’t anyone notice? Because the square was out of sign. Hiding. They’re tricky, these out of sign aspects. They can deceive us — in viewing a chart, and in the life of the person who has them.
With out of sign aspects, planets that should work together don’t do it so well — and planets that should be in conflict wear a false mask of agreement.
— Dawn Bodrogi
With the basic Ptolemaic aspects, there is usually some key to interpretation. Conjunctions are born companions; trines share elements; squares share modality; sextiles are linked by compatible elements. By assessing the pattern behind the aspect, we can make some sense of the way it’s going to perform in the chart. Our eyes are trained to spot the aspects this way, via sign orientation. Out of sign aspects often slip by undetected — and even if they are detected, they can throw us off course, because the typical pattern of that aspect is broken.
The Fragmented Conjunction
Synastry and the False Mask
Updated
The Venus/Neptune square in the Perkins chart remains one of the most instructive examples of what out of sign aspects do — not weaken the conflict, but veil it. Neptune as North Node ruler and dispositor of the Moon, squaring Venus in the final degree of Taurus: a karmic knot that doesn’t resolve with time. It demands a level of honesty about addiction and self-deception that few are willing to face. The Earth signs didn’t eliminate the conflict — they threw a veil over it. Out of sign aspects are often the most influential precisely because they operate just outside our conscious field of vision.
The one thing to keep in mind is that out of sign aspects are not wrong or weak. If anything, the conflicts they represent are more influential. The universe has intended them, and they’re part of a person’s make-up. It’s worth spending a little more time on these trickster aspects and studying how they manifest. Next time, they won’t fool us so easily.
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Out of sign aspects are not wrong or weak. If anything, the conflicts they represent are more influential.
::applauds:: Thank you!
this is helpful – we can sense and read the state of nodal evolution from the obvious – and subtle – aspects affecting the nodal rulers.
you have me reflecting on the Libra Venus / Leo Mars square in my chart that connects the Nodal rulers to the Ascendent and the Midhaven. along with the rest of my Libra 12 th house placements – there was a definite “trickster” quality to that aspect. however, with the angles involved , Scorpio rising, and the exact Moon Pluto square – as much as my Taurus Moon really wanted to – i could not keep my head in the sand very easily…….
We’re going to get much more involved in reading the nodal rulers in the series on the Nodes. I think there are a lot of mistaken ideas out there about nodal contacts, chief among them that aspects to the North Node ruler automatically ‘assist’, when in fact they both help and hinder. Again, in the Perkins chart (forgive me, Tony) the Venus/Neptune square and Mars/Neptune quincunx pushed towards artistic expression, but it also was a recipe for Neptunian disaster. Overcoming these tendencies was an evolutionary necessity. Unfortunately, they were facilitated by an out of sign sextile between Venus and Mars. Neptune was plugged in to all this opportunity–too much opportunity.
I do have an out of sign square in earth also
Born in 1985, I have Moon @ 28virgo squaring Neptune @ 2capricorn
Moon is ruling my 11th house, Neptune my 7th and if my birth time isn’t off, also my 8th
Moon lives in my 2nd house, Neptune in my 4th…
Hi Dawn,
I’m just trying to make sure I grasp how to understand this in synastry. My sun is 29°56’55” Aquarius, so I end up having A LOT of out-of-element aspects to other people. Are you saying that the signs’ agreement (or disagreement) gives the initial feeling of compatibility (or incompatibility), but that deeper down the aspect wins out? For example, two friends of mine, both have their suns at very early degrees of their signs: one’s a Sagittarius and one’s a Scorpio. At first glance I think, “Oh Sagittarius, we’ll get along great, and Scorpio, this is gonna be rough,” but looking at the charts, my sun is actually square to the Sag’s and trine to the Scorp’s, and I wasn’t really sure how to understand that, so I just figured, “well, maybe the element compatibility will overcome the square with Sag and the trine will overcome Water Versus Air with Scorp” (yeah, I don’t know how I thought that was logical. I was being hopeful!). So I set all that on the back burner of my brain and it’s been months now, and this article brought it back to mind. And thinking of it, I actually got a sense dealing with the Sag just earlier today that, for signs that are supposed to get along (and don’t get me wrong – we do), there’s always this weird tension underneathe. And then with Scorpio, it’s weird too, like there’s some invisible wall between us that keeps us from interacting much when we don’t have a reason to, but when we actually do, we get on so smoothly and things flow. And I wasn’t sure what to make of this until I read this post. Am I understanding it right? Sag and I ought to get on, and do very well superficially, but the square is knotting things up at a deeper level, while Scorpio and I seem to be worlds apart, but the trine smoothes things out when we connect? Aspects trump signs?
Wow, that’s so much longer than it should have been. Sorry. I shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard.
~Sabrina
Hi Sabrina,
As a rule of thumb, aspect wins out over element, particularly if the aspect is difficult but the signs are compatible. But it’s also true that what is difficult, what gives grist for the mill, is more obvious than things that run smoothly, hence the example with the sextile. Compatible things are silent. Difficult things are squeaky wheels.
Of course, then I reread and your example of the sextile not being so harmonious seems to say the opposite of what I just commented… My brain has turn into slightly electrified scrambled eggs.
dear Dawn,
Can you give some idea about solictice or anticia points in synastry?
Thank You
Sorry, I don’t use them. There is so much to look at in synastry that I don’t find them relevant.
dear Dawn,
Can you give some idea about solictice or anticia points in natal chart and synastry?
Thank You
Hello Dawn
Do you look at Quindecile aspects within a natal?
IS there anything known about it?
thanks!
I don’t use the quindecile series. I’ve researched it and found it inconsistent.
Hello I have seen you mention the late or early degree of the signs , does it matter ? Usually other astrologers ignore them, I am asking because I am interested on it since my moon is in 28,70 degrees of Libra, and some other planets .
Many thanks ! I love that you go deeper on everything and have a more creative *poetic? * and elaborated way of seeing things.
A planet in the early degrees of a sign is less evolved in that sign’s expression than one in the later degrees. By the time we get to the last degrees that Moon is very comfortable and is more likely to draw positive experiences, even if it is debilitated by aspects. Let’s say that the Moon is more ‘wise’ in the later degrees.