☍ Opposition
Mercury opposition Venus
Only a narrow separation is possible between these two, so genuine hard aspects are rare. Where they sit uneasily, the tradition reads a tendency to say the agreeable thing rather than the accurate one.
- Angle
- 180°
- Orb used
- ±6°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☿ ♀
What these two are about together
Mind and value. How thinking and taste inform each other, which the tradition reads as the aspect of style in the broadest sense.
What a opposition does
An opposition puts two planets exactly across from one another, in signs that are traditionally paired rather than unrelated. It is read as tension between two things that genuinely belong together, which is what separates it from a square. The tradition frames it as a problem of balance and, very often, as something a person meets through other people rather than alone.
How it reads
Only a narrow separation is possible between these two, so genuine hard aspects are rare. Where they sit uneasily, the tradition reads a tendency to say the agreeable thing rather than the accurate one.
In practice
Read as a see-saw. Whichever end is being favoured, the other end is being neglected, and the aspect tends to describe the swing between them rather than a settled position.
What to watch for
Projection. Oppositions are the aspect most associated with meeting your own unowned half in somebody else and disliking it there.
The two planets
Mercury: Mind, language and how you process
Venus: Values, attraction and what you find beautiful
Mercury and Venus at other angles
- Mercury conjunction VenusTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mercury semi-sextile VenusThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Mercury semi-square VenusForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Mercury sextile VenusSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mercury quintile VenusSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mercury square VenusNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mercury trine VenusA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mercury sesquiquadrate VenusA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mercury quincunx VenusA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
Find this in your own chart
A reading like this only tells you what the pairing is associated with. Whether Mercury and Venus actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.