Dominic Ward's Blog

Too much has already been written about the aspects in the natal chart.  Why say anymore?  Just to add words of my own experience, I suppose.  Firstly, there are the ‘major’ and ‘minor’ aspects; a good place to start this discussion.  I agree with Arroyo: I think the major aspects comprise all those that are built from the base 30 degree angle.  Thus: the conjunction; semi-sextile; sextile; square; trine; quincunx, or, inconjunt; and the opposition.  When working with orbs for these ‘majors’, I do not believe there are any hard and fast rules.  Certainly the primary aspects will be those involving powerful planets in the chart, or those that link planets into a powerful whole.  Aspects of the sun, moon and chart ruler are all vital, whether the aspect be tight or wide.  The aspects of any angular planets are also essential, particularly the conjunction; I have seen plenty of cases where these dominate the chart.  Powerful patterns also fall into this group where wide orbs can be allowed.  For example, I have a dominating kite aspect pattern in my chart.  The trine between Neptune and Saturn that forms one side of the Grand Trine in the pattern is just over 6 degrees; quite wide.  Allowing that Neptune is my chart ruler, and that Saturn is otherwise plugged into the Kite pattern quite neatly (strong trine to the sun and a fair sextile to Pluto), I would see no reason to disallow the influence of that wider orb.

Outside of these stated considerations, however, I would only then use aspects that are extremely tight.  And only aspects involving at least one personal planet.  In this way, I feel I can almost totally ignore my exact square between Saturn and Uranus.  The aspect may say a lot about the eventual position I will take in society, my time and the universe, as well as the nature of any lasting results of my works, but it doesn’t seem to answer for me on a strictly personal level.

As for the ‘minor’ aspects, they are great to utilise because of their supporting role in the chart.  I never analyse majors and minors together; I always do two separate chart wheels to represent each.  The minors I use are: the sesquisquare; semi-square; quintile; bi-quintile; septile; and the quindecile.  Unlike Tyl, I must admit I haven’t found a lot of evidence to warrant a stronger placement of the quindecile in the chart.  Again, it is, at best, a mere supporting feature.  I do not believe that the minor aspects can be felt, except when there is a startling lack of major aspects and the orb for the minor aspect is extremely tight.  In a chart with few major aspects, or mostly wide-orb aspects, I would then tend to place more importance on the sign positions of the planets rather than go chasing minor aspects.

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