Trying to Understand Squares

This thread has been very enjoyable and informative to read. Thank you everyone for contributing. I love Osamenor's questions.

Osamenor said:

But the questions I posted here to ask are about squares. Maybe it would be simpler to break it down this way:

1. How can planets be at cross purposes if their whats are quite compatible? How would a square between them make their whats incompatible?

and

2. If there's a square between a sign and its native house, how does that put them at cross purposes? Maybe my sun/north nodes square isn't a such a good example, so for simplicity's sake, I'll make it a theoretical question: if there's a square between a planet in Scorpio and a planet in the eighth house, which is the house of Scorpio, what does that really do? Eighth house and Scorpio should have a compatible message, shouldn't they? But if they're squared, what does that do? Does it make the parts of the psyche that they rule in conflict in some way?

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No sign and house are the same. Even if 8th house has loosely been associated with Scorpio, it's not "the house of Scorpio", so there isn't quite the compatibility angle there, in my opinion. Greybeard said it best to take each planet individually and look at its condition, then you can evaluate the relationship to one another easier.

This also highlights the differences between Moon and Venus, which I think Jenny very eloquently described. I've noticed it's very easy for people to get confused between the functions of Moon and Venus. The inherent compatibility between the "whats" that you supposed is not there, either.

12th house and 8th house square is interesting. Those two planets are governing additionally confused domains. I still have trouble separating them.

12th house is isolation, oblivion, prison, release, metaphysical, the subconscious. 8th is secrets, resources of others, death and rebirth, sex, taxes. Both are heavy houses. The differences can also be seen as 8th is succedent (analogous to fixed) and 12th is cadent (analogous to mutable).

I'm going to add in addition to every else's comments about this square, which of course may be modified by other parts of the chart which we haven't been privy to.

Moon is in the 12th, in a mutable sign of Sagittarius. Moon requires freedom of anonymity. Moon needs room to breathe, and it needs to be able to contemplate the meaning of life without the influences and trappings of material existence. Moon would rather disregard the physical on all levels and flow freely in and out of existence, and Moon is highly principled, but this isn't always obvious because of the carefree attitude.

This is extremely different from Virgo (mutable) Venus in the 8th, in Fall. Venus wants something concrete to latch onto. Venus wants to have physical resources. Venus wants every detail controlled and under a microscope. Venus wants to have a lot of sex. Venus likes predictability. Venus is concerned about money.

I really like your friction analogy. How it can start fires, slow movement, be abrasive. Can you see how these two planets conditions might do these things?

I could see this square playing out as a need to learn to moderate resources. Either having too much or too little. Perhaps you feel the urge to get rid of everything, all you have, and go traveling, only to become uneasy with your condition, or your ability to take care of others and yourself in a physical way. Of feeling free and wanting control over your comfort and well-being or the comfort and well being of women in your life especially, and that started from early childhood.

Salme said:

I studied popular science film making at cinema school, so I guess this was exactly my nodal direction - from Aquarius to Leo - make progressive ideas look good on screen, attract attention.

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To me, that sounds like a south node pattern still. You have your south nodes in the sixth house--house of service. That suggests that your deepest unconscious expectations--and south nodes create very deeply unconscious expectations--include the assumption that whatever you do must be in service to others. And they're conjunct the seventh house cusp, which shades that in service to others expectation with an expectation of partnership, of marriage. Furthermore, Aquarius isn't just about progressive ideas, it's also about transcending personality. Mix an expectation that you must constantly be in service to others with an expectation that you must transcend your personality, and you've got an expectation to always put others first and never develop yourself outside of that.

Put that together, and it sounds exactly like traditional expectations of women. A woman is always supposed to be in service to her family. A woman should never do anything she enjoys unless she can create something useful or helpful to others out of it. The modern world adds career expectations to that mix, but doesn't take away any of the expectation that you have to be constantly serving others. Nor does it take away the expectation that you're supposed to put others' needs first and your own needs last, if you even attend to your own needs at all.

The rest of your posts also indicate that kind of expectation. You've said a lot about yourself in relation to your work and your family, but very little about yourself in relation to you. You seem to believe, very deeply, that the only way you can grow in a north node direction is through your work.

But I don't think that's what your north nodes are saying. Feel free to take it or leave it, but this is what I see:

Your north nodes are in Leo, which is the sign of personality development to the fullest. And they're in the twelfth house, which is an inwardly directed house. Planets in that house very strongly influence your inner life, but not necessarily your outer life, at least not to the point that others will readily see their influence. And your north nodes conjunct your ascendent, so they also have a message about your sense of self.

Leo is the most obviously selfish of the twelve signs. It insists on developing its personality for itself and only itself. Doesn't matter if Leo is useful to others or not--what Leo does is enjoy life, on Leo's own terms. But that doesn't mean nobody likes Leo, or that Leo is mean and unkind. Far from it. Leo is like a cat that demands to be stroked and then purrs from bliss, rubbing its face against its owner, making the owner very happy, too. Leo is like a small child that's such a joy to be around because she lights up the room just by being herself. Leo is like a comedian making everyone laugh because he just loves telling jokes.

But the cat doesn't purr just to make its owner happy, it purrs because it's happy. The comedian doesn't worry about how useful he's being to the world when he's telling those jokes. The child isn't looking around for how she can be of help. They're all just being themselves, doing what makes them happy.

North nodes indicate what your soul has not yet learned how to do. It sounds like you haven't learned how to develop your own self without a sense that the validity of your existence depends on being useful to others. The nodes' placement near your ascendant reinforces that this is about developing your own self, and their placement in the twelfth house suggests that your own self needs to develop in a hidden, private way--at the very least, away from the expectations of others.

Digression from the theme of squares. I just had to get that out there. I'll look more later at what you actually said about squares!

jennyyates said:

The moon & Venus, as you say, are both about emotions & connections. But the moon is much more instinctive. Lunar patterns are established very early in life, and have to do with survival on the most basic level. Venus patterns show up a little later, when you've clearly distinguished between yourself and others. Basically, the moon is about what you need, and Venus about what you want.

So it's easy to see how things can be at odds. You need healthy food to survive, but you want Cheetos. You need a mutually supportive relationship, but you want that super-attractive person who just walked by. You need security, but you want to max out your credit card on something extravagant.

So generally the moon is much more security-conscious, while Venus is more pleasure-oriented. But you refine their differences further by looking at their signs. What does the moon need? What does Venus want?

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Great explanation!

jennyyates said:

Your moon in Sagittarius doesn't seem all that security-conscious, but it shows an early pattern that connects security with the need for excitement, passion and adventure. It can indicate a feeling that, in order to maintain security, you have to run away from things on a regular basis. Or that you need to make passionate, sweeping commitments to things. Or sometimes one, sometimes the other.

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Very true. I see both kinds of patterns in my life, for sure. I wouldn't have thought that the need for freedom was about security, though. I've been seeing it as just what I thrive on. Is that perhaps security, in its own way?

jennyyates said:

Venus, by its nature, is more of a creature of choice. So while your moon is doing passionate things by instinct, your Venus in Virgo is making clear, dispassionate choices about what is well-designed, fitting, symmetrical, and practical. This is what she wants.

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Interesting. I have a bit more trouble seeing how this plays out in my life, but maybe this is a good example:

I don't do physical intimacy (and I mean that in both the euphemistic and the non-euphemistic senses of the term!) unless it's with someone I know quite well and have a fairly deep emotional and mental connection with. (Did I mention that my eighth house Virgo Venus is retrograde, and it's conjunct Mercury?) A reasonably committed relationship is typically required for me to be comfortable going beyond a kiss (that doesn't mean we have to be engaged or even longterm committed, but it does mean that it doesn't work for me if it's only expected to be a short term thing). And I only date people who are my age peers. No significant age differences for me. No one night stands or short term flings, either.

Except that I once did have a short term fling, and it was with someone 14 years older than me. He was 39, to my 25 at the time. I knew him somewhat, but not terribly, terribly well. And I felt no qualms at all about it. Not at the time, and not at anytime since.

But that's still not my pattern. I still have the same basic rules regarding relationships, I just accept that there might be an occasional exception to those rules, and that's okay, too. (And now that I'm 39 myself, 14 years older might be more like peer age, so the acceptable age difference is widening.)

Seems like that might have been a case of that square's friction. Most of the time, Venus's practicality wins out in my relationship choices, but that time, Moon won, and they reached a different agreement.

Flapjacks said:

No sign and house are the same. Even if 8th house has loosely been associated with Scorpio, it's not "the house of Scorpio", so there isn't quite the compatibility angle there, in my opinion. Greybeard said it best to take each planet individually and look at its condition, then you can evaluate the relationship to one another easier.

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Good point. The only square I have with those particular placements is my sun/north nodes, and I may go start another thread about that. After interpreting a couple of other people's north node questions (one in another thread, too), I'm wondering more and more about mine, since it seems like house placement is so key to that.

Flapjacks said:

12th house and 8th house square is interesting. Those two planets are governing additionally confused domains. I still have trouble separating them.

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For that reason, maybe it would be better to use some other examples. I have a cardinal sign ascendant (Capricorn), so I also have other squares between signs and their native houses. I have a square between a planet in Libra and one in the seventh house, and between that seventh house Cancer planet and one in Aries in the fourth (or rather, on the fourth house cusp, technically in the third)--so it's a T-square.

Flapjacks said:

I could see this square playing out as a need to learn to moderate resources. Either having too much or too little. Perhaps you feel the urge to get rid of everything, all you have, and go traveling, only to become uneasy with your condition, or your ability to take care of others and yourself in a physical way. Of feeling free and wanting control over your comfort and well-being or the comfort and well being of women in your life especially, and that started from early childhood.

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Except for the comfort and wellbeing of women in my life part, I would say that's true. And, interestingly (relationship theme again), I had a ten year committed relationship with someone who showed those same kinds of patterns. We did lots of traveling and living out of cars, campers, tents, etc. I've seen his birthchart once and don't remember it exactly, but I do remember that he had Venus in Virgo, too, and very possibly a Venus/Moon square as well. His moon's in Taurus, which could put it within the orb of a square with Venus if it's in late Taurus and Venus is in early Virgo.

Flapjacks said:

12th house and 8th house square is interesting. Those two planets are governing additionally confused domains. I still have trouble separating them.

12th house is isolation, oblivion, prison, release, metaphysical, the subconscious. 8th is secrets, resources of others, death and rebirth, sex, taxes. Both are heavy houses. The differences can also be seen as 8th is succedent (analogous to fixed) and 12th is cadent (analogous to mutable).

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Poor, misunderstood 8th and 12th houses! As a native of both, here's how I see them working in my life:

The eighth house is about transpersonal development. That's what everything on its list has in common. Death. Shared resources. Secrets. The occult (that word literally means "hidden," so fits perfectly with that theme). Sex.

My sun is in Leo, whose purpose is to develop personality to the fullest. But its house placement gives it a paradox. I have to develop my personality by transpersonal means. I have to transcend personality in order to develop it.

My moon, meanwhile, is in the sign of the lifelong learner in the mystical house of transcendence--again, what all those twelfth house things have in common. Soul, moon, needs those things.

I am constantly seeking out profound transformational experiences. I'm always being changed by them. And with that deep Sagittarian desire for learning and change, with placement in the mystical and fluid realm, Moon needs exactly what Sun--personality--needs in order for it to develop.

And they're trine. No surprise.

I do wonder about that sun/north node square, though, because it seems like what I'm heading toward, in Scorpio, is exactly the way Sun wants to develop. Maybe it's the house placement that adds the friction.

I would like to post my chart, but I can't figure out how to do it. When I open the Attachments window, it shows a little red block for the chart I've uploaded, but it doesn't show me any list, so there's nothing to select. How am I supposed to attach it?

Click the manage attachments under 'additional options' when replying to a thread, and then click the button that says 'choose file' in the popup window (it's in a box above the list that has that header "Upload File From Your Computer").

Alternatively you can enter a URL in the box below that if you have the file hosted somewhere.

Click 'Upload' button and it should upload. When you close the popup menu you should see the filename listed under attachments.

Hope that made sense. It would really help to see your chart!

I already understood how to upload a chart. What threw me off was that the instructions in the FAQ say you can repost previously uploaded charts. That didn't work for me. And I just found out from an admin down in the Suggestions area that you can't actually repost previously uploaded charts with the current software.

But now I can't upload my chart either because when I tried to do that, it said the GB exceeds the forum quota. Even though it's the exact same file I uploaded before and I deleted the previous one.

Ah... finally, got my chart uploaded!

Here it is.

Osamenor said:

Ah... finally, got my chart uploaded!

Here it is.

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When you mentioned how "incompatible" a square could be among seemingly compatible planets, I see an even more complex one with the square between Mars and Mercury, since Mars is in Gemini and it is ruled by Mercury in domicile. The mutable square aspect between Virgo/Gemini is a good one to look at.

We have Venus conjunct Venus, by the way. No wonder I like you. Our Mars and ASC signs are also switched. My Neptune is conjunct your ASC. Your Saturn is conjunct my Sun. And your Jupiter/IC is conjunct my NN. Whee. I kept hearing familiar placements but it's nice to see the whole chart, haha.

Anyway. It seems like this square should not have tension because the two signs should be compatible as they share the same ruler. Sag/Virgo mutable square is a little easier to digest/interpret, but Virgo/Gemini?

Mercury is by nature a versatile planet, both masculine (Gemini) and feminine (Virgo). To me, it seems like a square in this context would be "too much of a good thing". Overt intellectualizing of action that actually causes blockages to action because of excessive worry or overthinking.

Squares share the same modality. And I think this is they key that is missing for understanding squares. Squares show where growth occurs, where battles can be won, not a place of constant strife (like a quincunx).

Mutable square: Energy is adaptable, regardless of sign. Instead of energy being dissipated, unfocused or indecisive, it's fluid, flexible and resourceful once square is understood and made to work for you. You can look at the strife as a product of the different elements involved and how they relate.

Earth/Air - Practical vs. Ideal. Air sees what could be and Earth sees what is. Earth wants results and air wants ideas. Earth likes to explore the physical realm while Air wants to explore the intangible. If Earth/Air can't see how both are valuable, how to proceed from one step to the other, then they work at cross-purposes. Earth gets stuck, air has no ground to stand on. But you can see how both could build on one another all the same, in keeping with their modality.

Just as a start.

Other thoughts?

Flapjacks said:

When you mentioned how "incompatible" a square could be among seemingly compatible planets, I see an even more complex one with the square between Mars and Mercury, since Mars is in Gemini and it is ruled by Mercury in domicile. The mutable square aspect between Virgo/Gemini is a good one to look at.

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And I hadn't even gotten there when I made this post because I was trying to interpret my chart piecemeal, starting with the luminaries, which meant first considering aspects involving the sun and/or moon. But you're right, really good one!

Flapjacks said:

We have Venus conjunct Venus, by the way. No wonder I like you. Our Mars and ASC signs are also switched. My Neptune is conjunct your ASC. Your Saturn is conjunct my Sun. And your Jupiter/IC is conjunct my NN. Whee. I kept hearing familiar placements but it's nice to see the whole chart, haha.

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I love it when that sort of thing happens!

Flapjacks said:

To me, it seems like a square in this context would be "too much of a good thing". Overt intellectualizing of action that actually causes blockages to action because of excessive worry or overthinking.

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Is that EVER me! I'm exactly like the shipwrecked sailor in the poem by AA Milne, who never did anything because he couldn't decide what to do first! I thought it was just my ADD (I seriously do have that diagnosis).

Flapjacks said:

Earth/Air - Practical vs. Ideal. Air sees what could be and Earth sees what is. Earth wants results and air wants ideas. Earth likes to explore the physical realm while Air wants to explore the intangible. If Earth/Air can't see how both are valuable, how to proceed from one step to the other, then they work at cross-purposes. Earth gets stuck, air has no ground to stand on.

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That's exactly where I get stuck again and again and again. I'm great at getting ideas and 110% TERRIBLE at making the rubber hit the road to put those ideas into practice. So there's not nearly as much meeting as there needs to be between what's in my head and what's there for me physically. In fact, it's reached a crisis point and stayed there for some time.

Flapjacks said:

But you can see how both could build on one another all the same, in keeping with their modality.

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For the purposes of understanding astrology, that's very helpful. But for the purposes of understanding myself... I'm still stuck. Must be that square!

Flapjacks said:

Mutable square: Energy is adaptable, regardless of sign. Instead of energy being dissipated, unfocused or indecisive, it's fluid, flexible and resourceful once square is understood and made to work for you. You can look at the strife as a product of the different elements involved and how they relate.

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That's very encouraging. If astrology spells out the problem, it also spells out a solution! But I don't quite see how I can apply it....

Okay, working with it a little more....

I don't know aspects very well, but I do know signs and houses and planets. The relationships of Gemini and Virgo to Mercury, the planet of communication: Gemini is raw communication, pure and simple, without form. Virgo is communication in a solid form--a specific kind of communication in a specific form with a specific purpose. A letter. A work of art. A song. A meal prepared for someone by someone else, or prepared by friends or family members together to share.

My Mercury is in Virgo. It's the great communicator, and it's in the sign where it needs to communicate in a specific form. But it squares Gemini, creating friction with Pure Communication. So to get from Pure Communication to communication in a certain form, I would have to grease the wheels, realign them, change the friction from a machine out of its groove to one where the parts work off of each other.

But this is a square, so they won't work off of each other in an easy harmonious way, like a trine. More like a passionate marriage, where the partners fight and wind up in bed when they're still not quite done fighting, having passionate f-you sex. Which turns into making up, but with plenty of fire still left! (I've had a relationship like that. It's the perfect analogy.)

And in Gemini, I have Mars. Passion. Aggression. But my Mars isn't just Mars in Gemini. It's right smack on the Gemini/Taurus cusp, so it's more like I have two Marses, a Gemini Mars and a Taurus Mars. But because they're really the same Mars, they both square Mercury.

I've been told before, by an astrologer, that Mars in Gemini made me a talker, and that when I'm aggressive, I would be verbally aggressive. True. But I'm also very physical, and I can remember some physically aggressive acts from my childhood--like punching a boy who was teasing me--that felt very, very good. But I was raised to believe physical aggression was a bad thing, especially for girls, and that was a side of myself I disowned pretty early.

And Mars is also passion, which is how it fuels ideas. The question is how to get those passionate ideas into the physical realm within the energy of the square.

And on a more specific level, the problem we're dealing with is my overthinking that stops me from doing anything. The only way I've ever gotten out of that overthinking rut before was by having someone or something come along and distract me from it, give me some new direction to go in. I've never gotten out of it by myself.

Seems like you're ignoring the influence of orbs if:

-using your Merc-Mars' 96 degree relationship to understand squares generally; or

-attributing any major behavior/experience theme (such as your mentioned over-thinking/inaction dynamic) to such a loose "aspect."

Krewster said:

Seems like you're ignoring the influence of orbs if:

-using your Merc-Mars' 96 degree relationship to understand squares generally; or

-attributing any major behavior/experience theme (such as your mentioned over-thinking/inaction dynamic) to such a loose "aspect."

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For a loose aspect, I feel its effect very strongly. So it must not be a weak aspect for me!

And there's apparently a difference of opinion regarding orbs. Another poster a page back offered the opinion that orbs ought to extend at least ten degrees, because s/he sees aspects having effects even at that distance. I'm too green to have formed my own opinion on that yet, so all I can do is consider both opinions and weigh in based on my own experiences--and my own experiences say six degrees' orb isn't too weak an aspect, at least not in this case!

And please remember, I'm new to learning aspects. At this point, I need to learn, plainly and simply, what squares do. In order to learn that little bit of astrology, I need to start by pretending that all squares are the same. Once I have a better understanding of squares in and of themselves, I can start integrating how their effects might be modified by orbs or by other aspects involving the planets in square. But to throw the modifications at me now is to interfere with that basic understanding. Please don't confuse the learner!

And I woke up this morning with a sudden aha moment, too good not to share!

My Mars is in Gemini. Mars is impulsivity personified, and Gemini is a highly impulsive sign. If I had a pure Gemini Mars with no Taurus influences and only harmonious aspects to earth signs, if it aspected them at all, then I would be a highly impulsive person.

Every time I got an idea, good or bad, I would act immediately. I would probably get into lots of foot-in-mouth situations, with impulsive Mars in talkative Gemini. As it is, I get into them occasionally... but more often than not, it's a case of making a well pointed comeback without intending to make a comeback at all. There have been many moments when I didn't say what I was thinking for no other reason than that I was too slow to say it, and only after I didn't say it did I realize how embarrassing it would have been if I had said it!

Between my birth chart and what I know about myself, it seems like I have lots of impulsivity circuits fired up but not expressed. Mars in Gemini. Sun, moon, and Jupiter in fire signs, forming a grand trine, albeit in water houses. And then there's my ADD diagnosis. I solidly identify with members of the "hunters in a farmers' world" tribe, but of the key traits of ADD, there are two that I just don't have: impulsivity and racing thoughts.

So I guess I'm lucky to have the brakes put on my impulsivity circuits. But that Mars/Mercury square tends to slow things down too much. I often don't act even when I need to because of that overthinking and slowness. Which is also a known ADD trait--some of us have much more inertia than hyperactivity, and it can look very different on the surface. One reason why I wasn't diagnosed til I was an adult.

But then Mercury in Virgo is a very good placement for making things take shape, for putting communication into a solid form. If it were more harmoniously aspected with Mars, again, I'd probably be highly impulsive in my actions.

But instead of too much impulsivity, I seem to suffer from too little. Or, more to the point, too much impulsivity inside but too much of a stopper against the outside world to let enough of that inner impulsivity express itself.