Grand cross

A grand cross stands in today's sky. Mars in Leo opposes Pluto in Aquarius, Mercury in Scorpio opposes Chiron in Aries, and each pair squares the other, so the four bodies sit at the corners of a square drawn across the wheel.

The two aspects that build it are among the oldest in the tradition. Ptolemy counts the opposition and the square among the configurations that create a real connection between parts of the zodiac, and he gives a geometric reason. Draw the diameter across the circle, divide the half-circle into halves and into thirds, and the recognised distances fall out of that division. The opposition is the diameter itself, six signs apart. The square is half of the semicircle, three signs apart. Sir Christopher Heydon, quoted in the notes to Ashmand's translation of Ptolemy, adds that the opposition alone splits the circle into two equal parts, which no other inscribed figure does.

What is modern is the closing of the figure. One opposition with a body squaring both ends is a T-square. It has an open corner, the point opposite that body, and the tension can move out through it. In a grand cross that corner is filled.

We read the figure as holding itself in place. Any push in one direction meets another body with its own demand, so effort along one line disturbs the other three. The figure tells us these four bodies are bound together. It does not tell us what they mean, which comes from the bodies themselves. Nor is it a fate or an event. It is a condition.

In a clean cross, all four bodies share one of the three kinds of sign, and that kind says how the figure obstructs. Cardinal presses toward starting, fixed toward holding, and mutable toward changing tack. Today three corners are fixed: Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. Chiron, though, sits in the last degree of Aries, a cardinal sign, so this cross is not clean and we read the fixed quality with some caution. As far as it holds, the pressure is toward keeping position, and the obstruction is that nothing wants to give way first.

This is a passing condition. Mercury and Mars are the fast corners. Mercury's opposition to Chiron is already loosening, while its squares to Mars and Pluto are still closing. As Mercury moves on through Scorpio, the cross comes apart.

The practice follows from the structure. When several demands seem to pull at once and none will yield, stop trying to settle all four together. Choose one axis, one pair of opposing pulls, and work along that line alone. Expect the other pair to tug at you while you do. That tug is the figure itself, not a sign you chose the wrong place to begin.