⚻ Quincunx
Mars quincunx North Node
The push and the direction fight. Read as energy going into the familiar thing instead, and as frustration that is informative rather than obstructive.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ♂ ☊
What these two are about together
Action and the direction of development. Associated with whether a person actually moves toward what they are supposed to be growing into, which the tradition treats as the whole practical question of the nodes.
What a quincunx does
A quincunx, also called an inconjunct, puts two planets in signs that share nothing at all: not element, not quality, not polarity, and not even the awkward adjacency of the semi-sextile. The tradition is specific that this is not a weak square. A square describes two things in conflict, which at least implies they are on the same terms. A quincunx describes two things that do not have terms in common, so neither can be traded off against the other.
How it reads
The push and the direction fight. Read as energy going into the familiar thing instead, and as frustration that is informative rather than obstructive.
In practice
Read as adjustment rather than conflict. The classical picture is of continually correcting for something that never resolves and never quite becomes a crisis, in the way a person compensates for a limp without noticing they are doing it. Modern practice associates it with health and with habits maintained past the point of usefulness.
What to watch for
The absence of a decision. Squares get resolved. A quincunx tends to get accommodated instead, and the tradition treats the accommodation itself as the thing worth looking at.
The two planets
Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things
North Node: The direction of growth, and the thing you have no practice at
Mars and North Node at other angles
- Mars conjunction North NodeTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mars semi-sextile North NodeThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Mars semi-square North NodeForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Mars sextile North NodeSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mars quintile North NodeSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mars square North NodeNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mars trine North NodeA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mars sesquiquadrate North NodeA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mars opposition North NodeDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis
Find this in your own chart
A reading like this only tells you what the pairing is associated with. Whether Mars and North Node actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.