← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 162/235
Yod
The shape
A Yod takes three planets. Two of them are in a sextile, about 60° apart, and both make a quincunx, about 150°, to a third planet on the far side of the chart. Drawn on the wheel it is a long, thin isosceles triangle pointing at that third planet, which is why it is also called the Finger of God or the double quincunx.
A worked example: Venus at 10° Taurus sextiles Mercury at 12° Cancer (62°), and both are quincunx Saturn at 11° Sagittarius — 149° from each. Every leg has to sit within its orb, and the figure is as tight as its loosest leg.
What it is made of
One sextile and two quincunxes. The sextile at the base is an opportunity; the quincunxes join signs that share neither element nor mode nor polarity, so they ask for adjustment rather than offering ease or open conflict. The Yod is itself a part of a larger figure: add a fourth planet opposite the apex and it becomes a Boomerang.
The apex
The planet at the point of the finger is the apex, and it carries the figure's meaning. The two base planets keep feeding it, and it keeps having to readjust to two quite different demands. Tracy Marks reads the apex as the channel through which the base's supportive energy is turned to a purpose; it is often experienced as a sense of task or vocation, and just as often as a nagging feeling of being slightly off balance until that task is taken up.
The point directly opposite the apex falls at the midpoint of the sextile (in the example, about 11° Gemini). Transits to the apex and to that point are often when the figure makes itself felt.
By element or mode
A Yod does not keep to one element or one mode — that is the nature of the quincunx. Its base planets usually sit in compatible elements (fire with air, earth with water), and the apex in a sign foreign to both. Reading the apex's sign and house tells you more than any element count.
In a chart
The Yod is less common than the T-square and quieter in its effect. It describes a theme that keeps coming back for adjustment, and that tends to grow into something purposeful over time rather than resolving at once. It inclines; it does not settle anything in advance.
In the sky
A transiting Yod is short-lived for the fast planets and slow for the outer ones. A transiting planet can also form the apex of a Yod with a natal sextile, pointing a few weeks of attention at the house where it stands.