⚻ Quincunx
Sun quincunx Pluto
Identity in a power struggle. Traditionally the aspect of confrontation with authority, of compulsion that overrides judgement, and of periods where the person feels they must be entirely remade.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ☉ ♇
What these two are about together
Identity and power. The most intense pairing the Sun makes, and the one the tradition reads as being about control, survival and what a person will not let go of.
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
Identity in a power struggle. Traditionally the aspect of confrontation with authority, of compulsion that overrides judgement, and of periods where the person feels they must be entirely remade.
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
Sun: Identity, vitality and what you are becoming
Pluto: Power, compulsion and what will not stay buried
Sun and Pluto at other angles
- Sun conjunction PlutoTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Sun semi-sextile PlutoThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Sun semi-square PlutoForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Sun sextile PlutoSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Sun quintile PlutoSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Sun square PlutoNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Sun trine PlutoA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Sun sesquiquadrate PlutoA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Sun opposition PlutoDirectly 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 Sun and Pluto actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.