The Conundrum of the Quincunx

The Quincunx is the least understood of any of the aspects. What you will read everywhere is that the parts of the Quincunx have nothing in common by Element or Mode. That the connection between them is tenuous and hostile at best – they don’t get along because they have nothing in common by Element or Mode. The conversation between them is apparently, no conversation at all!

The essential question must be – How can two energies that are connected by aspect be separate from each other. We are presented with the conundrum of connection and disconnection in the same package of information. Up until the Dot Com Boom this had made very little practical sense. Since 2004 we have had the ever increasing impact of Facebook in our lives. Facebook has created a space where people are connected yet disconnected at the same time. Connected by their devices but physically separated from the people they are connecting with. It matters not how well one to gets to know others on Social Media there is a level of detachment that comes with the platform for everybody. The physical separation has been true of the telephone since its invention but up until the advent of the telemarketer, phone calls came from people who we have relationships with. This is very unlike Social Media, where new friendships are made by the minute all over the world with people who we may never actually meet with in our lifetimes.

I have come to view The Quincunx in a personification - two people are standing apart in a room, they are tied together with a long rope but they have their backs turned to each other. They each know the other is there but they can only feel the other. They cannot see each other.  One cannot move without the other knowing, they can feel it but they cannot see it. There is no line of sight between them, so one or the other does not see it coming. This gives rise to connect, disconnect, connect, disconnect and so on.

In order to delineate the Quincunx one needs to examine the Planetary Pair first. What type of pair is it? An Outer Planet Quincunx to an Outer Planet is a generational challenge. Everyone born, when you were has it in their charts. An Outer Planet Quincunx to a Luminary (Sun Moon), Personal Planet (Mercury Venus, Mars; for this purpose mars is included as personal) or an Angle (The Cross of Matter – Ascendant Descendant MC IC) is unique to your chart and is therefore a personal issue. This is true for All Aspects in a Chart and by Transit.

I have always found that a simple building of the keywords and concepts for the planets, to be the best place to start when delineating. The major keywords and concepts for The Quincunx are Separation, Estrangement, Forced relationships with people or things that you don’t get along with, the forming of false relationships and tenuous connections without substance.

Once the Planetary situation is sorted then the next layer of information is added which is the House Positions of the Planets involved in the Quincunx. The Houses involved are not working together they are working against each other. The two areas of life have no connection to each other, yet you operate in both areas. Could this be as simple as two groups of friends/associations that don’t know each other and will never be invited to the same social gathering at your place?

As the Quincunx is 150 degrees it nearly always connects the upper and lower hemispheres of the chart. It is possible in the mathematics for a Quincunx to be entirely above or below the Horizon. It won't happen often but it is certainly possible. Above and Below the Horizon have two very different functions. Above the Horizon is where meet with and interact with others and Below the Horizon is where we are faced with ourselves. Like the opposition a conflict is going on between ourselves and others, the opposition offers us creative conflict that stirs us to take action due to a prompt from self, others or external circumstances. The Quincunx causes a similar conflict which is also creative in nature, it also involves a prompt from self, others or external circumstances but the creativity comes by way of separating the two areas and energies in order to take action. Does this give the person with The Quincunx that enviable talent of objectivity, the ability to separate agendas, parties, issues, people, tasks or anything else associated with the planets and Houses involved? Maybe the blindfold of this aspect is needed to make you take or suffer actions which lead you to a more independent and objective position. Maybe if we could actually see all of what’s going on we would not act or create at all. Could the idiom of the blind leading the blind somehow explain this conundrum of an Aspect?

As this post goes to publication I have transiting Uranus in my 6^th House Quincunx my 27 degree 11^th House Moon – I have been restricted from any involvement in groups for a week by Facebook. Separated from the groups I am a member of and the groups I administrate and moderate in. Access denied, separated without warning or explanation. Facebook has been my daily routine for a few years now. Transiting Uranus is also Quincunx my 27 degrees Ascendant, so I will not be seen in Facebook Groups this week! The restriction placed upon me by Facebook has given me the creative space and focus needed to write this post and be a blogger who is blogging. Onward and forward! I will not be deterred Mr Zuckerberg!

Thanks for being here.

 Kim Akinta Astrologer