← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 96/235
Square
A square is two planets 90° apart — a quarter of the circle, the fourth harmonic. It normally joins signs three apart, which share a modality but differ in element: the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn square one another, as do the fixed signs and the mutable signs. Fire meets water or earth, air meets earth or water: two kinds of nature that want different things, at the same pace. Ptolemy counted the square among the "disharmonious" aspects for that reason.
Its character is friction. The two planets get in each other's way, and the person feels it as pressure, impatience or a recurring snag. Yet the square is also the aspect of effort and building: where a trine coasts, a square makes something happen. Many astrologers find that the squares in a chart describe where a person has grown most.
Orb
Most traditions treat the square as a major aspect with room close to the trine's: often 6–8°, more with the Sun or Moon, traditional authors working from each planet's own orb. In the charts here the allowance comes from 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 — taking the tighter of the pair. Its strength is how tight it is against that allowance, 1 at exact and 0 at the edge. See orb.
Ease or tension
The square counts as tension in the ease and tension chart, just under the opposition's full weight. Tension is not a verdict: it inclines toward challenge, and challenge met is where skill comes from.
In a chart
Ask what each planet wants and why the two cannot both have it at once — the Moon's need for comfort squaring Mars's urge to push on, say. The houses show the two areas of life rubbing against each other. When a planet squares both ends of an opposition, the three form a T-square; two oppositions linked by four squares form a grand cross.
In transit
A transiting square tends to bring a turning point or a demand: something has to be adjusted, decided or worked at. Outer-planet squares to the natal chart are often remembered as hard but formative periods. The Moon's monthly squares to the Sun — the first and last quarters — are the small version of the same rhythm.
Kinds and conditions
- Applying squares build pressure; separating squares are its working-through.
- An out-of-sign square joins signs that do not share a modality — 28° Gemini to 1° Libra, for instance — and often feels less like a clash of tempo.
- Waxing and waning squares (Moon-to-Sun, or a cycle between two planets) are read differently: the first is a crisis of action, the second of reflection.