Conjunction

A conjunction is two planets, or a planet and a point, standing at the same place in the zodiac: 0° apart. It is the first harmonic — the circle not divided at all. Ptolemy did not list it among the aspects, which for him were relationships between signs; a conjunction is a meeting inside one. Most conjunctions fall in a single sign, so the two bodies share its element and its manner.

Its character is fusion. Two drives that might otherwise act separately work as one, and the person often finds it hard to tell them apart. A conjunction concentrates: whatever the two planets stand for, there is more of it, gathered in one part of the chart.

Orb

Traditions differ. William Lilly gave each planet its own orb and added half of each together; many modern astrologers allow 8–10° when the Sun or Moon is involved and 6–8° between other planets. In the charts here every body carries an allowance — 8° for the Sun and Moon, 7° for the Ascendant and Midheaven, 6° for the other planets and the nodes, 2.5° for asteroids and minor points — and a conjunction uses the tighter of the two. Its strength is how tight it is against that allowance: 1 when exact, falling to 0 at the edge. See orb.

Ease or tension

A conjunction has no fixed nature; it takes its colour from the planets in it. In the ease and tension chart of a transit reading it is read by the travelling planet: Venus and Jupiter count as ease, the Sun, Moon and Mercury as gentler ease; Mars, Saturn and Pluto as tension, Uranus, Neptune and Chiron a little lighter, the nodes and Lilith lighter still. A demanding conjunction is not a sentence; it asks more effort of the part of life it touches.

In a chart

Read the pair as a team, then ask which planet leads — usually the slower, or the one stronger in the sign. The sign says how the pair works, the house where. On an angle, such as the Ascendant or Midheaven, a conjunction steps into the foreground. Three or more bodies together make a stellium.

In transit

When a moving planet reaches a natal one, the visitor stirs that planet's themes in its own style. The Moon's conjunctions last hours, Saturn's weeks, and a slow planet can cross the same point three times through retrograde motion. Every new moon is a conjunction of the Sun and Moon.

Kinds and conditions

• Applying (still building) or separating (already past its peak).
• Out-of-sign: the end of one sign and the start of the next, two manners meeting across a line.
• With the Sun, a planet is combust within about 8½°, under the beams out to about 17°, and cazimi within 17 minutes of arc — "in the heart" of the Sun, where tradition says it is strengthened rather than burnt.

The beginner course's lesson on the different kinds of conjunction walks through each of these in turn.

Related

• Orb
• Exact aspect
• Stellium
• Opposition
• Parallel, the conjunction's counterpart in declination