∠ Semi-square
Mercury semi-square North Node
The thinking argues with the direction. Read as talking yourself out of it, which the tradition frames as a habit rather than a verdict.
- Angle
- 45°
- Orb used
- ±2°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☿ ☊
What these two are about together
Thinking and the direction of development. Associated with learning as the route forward, and with the difference between what a person already knows and what they will have to.
What a semi-square does
A semi-square is exactly half a square, and the tradition reads it as the same kind of friction at a smaller scale. Where a square describes a conflict that has to be dealt with, a semi-square describes the sort of persistent low-grade annoyance that never quite forces the issue and never quite goes away either.
How it reads
The thinking argues with the direction. Read as talking yourself out of it, which the tradition frames as a habit rather than a verdict.
In practice
Read as irritation rather than demand. Kepler took the minor hard aspects seriously and much of the tradition since has treated them as real but secondary, which is the reading this site uses.
What to watch for
Accumulation. One semi-square is a footnote. Several of them to the same planet is the tradition's picture of somebody worn down by things too small to name.
The two planets
Mercury: Mind, language and how you process
North Node: The direction of growth, and the thing you have no practice at
Mercury and North Node at other angles
- Mercury conjunction North NodeTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mercury semi-sextile North NodeThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Mercury sextile North NodeSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mercury quintile North NodeSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mercury square North NodeNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mercury trine North NodeA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mercury sesquiquadrate North NodeA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mercury quincunx North NodeA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
- Mercury 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 Mercury and North Node actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.