← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 98/235
Quincunx
A quincunx, also called an inconjunct, is two planets 150° apart — five signs, five-twelfths of the circle. It joins signs that share neither element, modality nor polarity: Aries and Virgo, Aries and Scorpio, Taurus and Sagittarius. Ptolemy did not count it as an aspect at all; the signs it links do not "see" each other, and older authors called such signs inconjunct or dissociate. Modern practice has restored it, and many astrologers, Donna Cunningham among them, find it far from minor.
Its character is misalignment. The two planets speak different languages and cannot easily compromise, so the person keeps adjusting — giving a little here, correcting there — and may feel that one side of life always seems to cost the other. Health, work routines and duty often come into the picture, echoing the sixth- and eighth-house relationship between the signs. At its best the quincunx teaches flexibility and a practical kind of wisdom.
Orb
Allowances vary widely: some astrologers keep the quincunx to 2–3°, others allow up to 5°. In the charts here it takes the same allowance as the major aspects, set by the two bodies — 8° for the Sun and Moon, 7° for the Ascendant and Midheaven, 6° for the other planets and the nodes, 2.5° for asteroids — so a wide quincunx here is worth reading lightly. Its strength is how tight it is against that allowance, 1 at exact and 0 at the edge. See orb.
Ease or tension
The quincunx counts as tension in the ease and tension chart, at about half the weight of a square. Its tension is less a clash than a mismatch, which asks for adaptation rather than force.
In a chart
Ask what each planet needs and why neither can simply give way: the Sun in Leo wanting to shine and the Moon in Capricorn wanting to stay useful and unseen, for example. Two planets in sextile, both quincunx a third, make a yod, whose apex is often read as a point of continual readjustment — a calling that is shaped over time. Add a planet opposite that apex and it becomes a boomerang.
In transit
A transiting quincunx tends to bring a niggle, a change of plan or a demand to rebalance — often small, easy to blame on circumstances, and best met by adjusting habits. In the list of transits here, quincunxes and semi-sextiles are counted as minor and are hidden by default; they can be switched on.
Kinds and conditions
- Applying or separating, like any aspect.
- An out-of-sign quincunx joins signs that do share something — 29° Aries to 1° Sagittarius are both fire — and so loses much of its awkwardness.