⚻ Quincunx
Venus quincunx Mars
Attraction and drive disagree. Traditionally read as wanting what fights back, as a pattern of pursuit and withdrawal, and as friction between affection and appetite.
- Angle
- 150°
- Orb used
- ±3°
- Type
- Hard
- Bodies
- ♀ ♂
What these two are about together
Attraction and drive. The classical pairing for desire, and for the difference between wanting something and going after it.
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
Attraction and drive disagree. Traditionally read as wanting what fights back, as a pattern of pursuit and withdrawal, and as friction between affection and appetite.
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
Venus: Values, attraction and what you find beautiful
Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things
Venus and Mars at other angles
- Venus conjunction MarsTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Venus semi-sextile MarsThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
- Venus semi-square MarsForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Venus sextile MarsSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Venus quintile MarsSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Venus square MarsNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Venus trine MarsA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Venus sesquiquadrate MarsA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Venus opposition MarsDirectly 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 Venus and Mars actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.