To start at the very beginning, we want to look for the red lines- most major softwares use red lines to indicate tension and challenges; whereas blue lines are talents and gifts that come naturally to us (But actually, don’t base the difficulty or ease of your life based on the colours- that is just a surface way of looking at things- it gets deeper the more you look at which different planetary combinations are involved in the aspects.)
Aspects are the position of the planets relative to each other at the moment of your birth, ie. how they’re “looking” at each other. They can give each other “mean” looks (90 and 180 degrees) or “friendly” looks (60 or 120 degrees.) Understanding your aspect pattern is integral to understanding your chart.
A red line will indicate:
– an opposition: two planets, or groups of planets that are about 180 degrees away from each other on the circle, or
– a square: two or more planets that are about 90 degrees away from each other.
A T-square looks like a capital “T”- it is made up of both: an opposition, and halfway between the the two points on the opposition, there is a middle planet (or group of planets) squaring the other two.
Here we have:
– Saturn at 11 degrees (top left of the circle)
– Mars at 20 degrees (top right of the circle)
– Neptune at 18 degrees (bottom left of the circle)
So the planets don’t have to be EXACTLY 90 or 180 degrees apart; that would be a very tight – and therefore very frustrating- T-square. Different astrologers give different “orbs” (degree allowances)- like some will say they have to be within 5 or 7 degrees of each other to be considered in aspect. I consider about 10 degrees for my orbs. Here is Tracy Marks in her book defining very strong to very weak T-squares:
What planets make up a T-square?
In Astrology, these celestial bodies all have the status of “planet”:
- Moon
- Sun
- Mercury
- Venus
- Mars
- Jupiter
- Saturn
- Uranus
- Neptune
- Pluto
Help, I can’t read planetary glyphs yet!
Here is a list of them all with their glyphs from CafeAstrology:
What if a point just has a node or an asteroid like Chiron?
If you have a planet squaring the nodes, I wouldn’t call that a T-square. Evolutionary Astrologers say that a planet being squared by the North and South nodes is an archetype that you have neglected to develop in past life times, but that you are here to focus on developping in this lifetime.
However, if you have a T-square with a node included in the conjunction, that will intensify the imbalance between the planets.
Chiron isn’t discussed as a possibility with T-square combinations in Tracy Marks’ book, and I’m not an expert on Chiron, so I wouldn’t be as much help to you as I otherwise could if your T-square involved just the planets, but if you think you can benefit from the study group with just Chiron making up a point, I’d be happy to figure it out with you.
Still not sure if you have a T-Square?
Send me your birth details ask me to look for you.