When plan­ets come to a sig­nif­i­cant align­ment to one anoth­er, Astrologers seek to inter­pret what that align­ment or aspect indi­cates. Aspects are the angu­lar sep­a­ra­tions of the bod­ies or plan­ets formed by tak­ing the 360° of the cir­cle and divid­ing that by a number.

For exam­ple, 360/2 = 180° (360 divid­ed by 2 equals 180), is where bod­ies are said to be oppo­site or opposed to one anoth­er. Or, 360/4 = 90° which is called a square or “right angle”. If we instead divide 360/3 we get 120°,  the trine aspect, or 360/6 we get 60° or the sextile.

Each of these angu­lar sep­a­ra­tions or aspects cre­ates a cer­tain har­mon­ic vibra­tion or ener­gy sig­na­ture between the bod­ies or plan­ets. It is said that the 90 or 180 is more chal­leng­ing or dif­fi­cult, where­as 60 or 120 is eas­i­er. But all are tru­ly part of a com­plete cycle that moves from the zero degree align­ment of bod­ies, the con­junc­tion, to the oppo­si­tion and back again. The arche­typ­al exam­ple of this occurs every month as we watch the Moon go from a New Moon, to a Wax­ing First Quar­ter, to a Full Moon, to a Wan­ing Third Quar­ter, and back to a New Moon.

Each cycle sta­tion or aspect rep­re­sents a tran­si­tion­al moment in the unfold­ment of what­ev­er was released at the begin­ning, that is at the con­junc­tion or “New Moon” moment. The oppo­site point, what would be in our exam­ple a “Full Moon”, is the point of rev­e­la­tion, the time in which we can observe most objec­tive­ly the cre­ative ten­sion that always exists between “poten­tials” and “real­i­ties”.  

By fol­low­ing each pair­ing of bod­ies, whether it is the most arche­typ­al and obvi­ous cycle of the Sun and Moon, or any oth­er pair­ing such as Mer­cury and Jupiter, or Venus and Mars, we can see the work­ing out of the var­i­ous ener­gies and lessons to be learned in our physical/psychological/spiritual spaces. By hav­ing knowl­edge and under­stand­ing of what each rela­tion­ship pair moment is ask­ing of us, we can align our­selves to that. And, by being so aligned, we will find it that much eas­i­er to real­ize and ful­fill ourselves.

The com­bi­na­tion of all these influ­ences, of all the plan­e­tary aspects one to anoth­er, cre­ates a pat­tern that we could call our Astro­log­i­cal Har­mon­ic, or our Astro­log­i­cal Weath­er pat­tern for that time. Cer­tain­ly, we have all expe­ri­enced, col­lec­tive­ly, days in which the mood seems soft and easy, when life seems to go smooth­ly. And, we have all expe­ri­enced days where con­di­tions seemed very far from that.

The advan­tage offered by Astrol­o­gy is that it allows us to under­stand what the uni­verse is ask­ing of us at any one time, to under­stand how we should approach and act in this moment, and to be at peace with that.

Astrol­o­gy reminds us that the series of events that we call “Life” is part of a greater plan, that it is con­di­tioned and shaped by the ener­gies around us. The unfold­ment of the poten­tial for each of us, indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, is sup­port­ed and quick­ened by the stars themselves.

Each of us is devel­op­ing from our “New Moon” (at birth). We are bring­ing out from with­in our pure poten­tial, and from that begin­ning, we are cre­at­ing a life that stands as a tes­ta­ment of our poten­tial. We can all take com­fort in the knowl­edge that, along the way, we are always guid­ed and sup­port­ed by the ener­gies of the uni­verse around us.