semisextilequincunx

   Ever since I have been studying your site, I have been curious about how likely
combinations of signs quincunx (five signs apart) are, in a practical situation, to
produce a compatibility giving a reasonable chance of a successful relationship.

   Because in most cases these signs have almost nothing in common, at first
sight one would of course think they are unlikely to be effective, and in general
this is true. However, one must be aware that it is possible that either sign will
have Mercury and Venus (or other planets) in a neighbouring sign belonging to
the same element as the other sign.

   For instance, whereas on paper a relationship between an Aquarius and
a Cancer would be very unlikely because the two cannot understand, even
fathom, one another, it is possible that either the Aquarius would have
many planets in Pisces or the Cancer many in Gemini. Because Pisces has
much in common with Cancer, and Gemini much in common with Aquarius,
there could then be very easy bondage between the two. Moreover, unlike
cases of adjacent signs where the presence of planets in the other's
sign adds little that is new to the couple, there is rather more added
here by Mercury and Venus being placed in the adjacent sign of the same
element as the other sign.

   However, if both partners have Mercury and Venus in the adjacent sign
of the same element as the other sign, there will be conflicts caused by
squares between these planets, so we need to look for cases where only
one partner has Mercury and Venus in these signs.

   It is well-known that smaller outer planets (Pluto, Chiron) have very
distorted sign distributions due to their orbits being highly eccentric. What is less
well-known is that the orbit of Mercury is nearly as eccentric (eccentricity of 0.20
versus 0.25 for Pluto and 0.37 for Chiron). The reason this eccentricity is not
obvious, of course, is that Mercury is always with 28 degrees of the Sun, so that
it will always be in the same sign as the Sun or one of the adjacent signs.

   However, if we look momentarily from a heliocentric perspective, we
should be able to see that, as viewed from Earth, the eccentricity of Mercury's
orbit will cause variation in that planet’s maximum elongation from the Sun. If
Mercury can be up 28 degrees in one direction from the Sun, then with the Sun
in the same position as viewed from Earth its maximum elongation in the other
direction will be much less.

0.20 = (2/((perihelion maximum elongation/28)+1))-1
1.20 = 2/((perihelion maximum elongation/28)+1)
perihelion maximum elongation/28+1 = 2/1.20 =1.66666
perihelion maximum elongation = 2/3*28 or about 18 degrees.

   Thus, at perihelion, Mercury can never be more than 18 degrees from the
Sun as seen from the Earth. It turns out that Mercury is at perihelion
when its heliocentric longitude is in Sagittarius or Capricorn. Because
the Earth's heliocentric position is ALWAYS the OPPOSITE of the Sun's
geocentric longitude, this means Mercury's perihelion is equivalent in
astrological terms to:

- inferior conjunction (retrograde) in Gemini/Cancer
- maximum elongation behind the Sun in Virgo/Libra
- superior conjunction (direct) in Sagittarius/Capricorn
- maximum elongation ahead of the Sun in Pisces/Aries

The planet's aphelion corresponds to the opposite cases to those above.

   This consequently means that when the Sun is in the signs of Aquarius,
Pisces, Aries or Taurus, Mercury can be up to 28 degrees behind the Sun
but never more than 18 degrees ahead of it. When the Sun is in Leo,
Virgo, Libra or Scorpio, Mercury can be up to 28 degrees ahead of the
Sun but is never more than 18 degrees behind it.

   This means that a Sun Sign Pisces is three times more likely have
Mercury in Aquarius than Mercury in Aries, whereas a Sun Sign Virgo is
three times more likely to have Mercury in Libra than Mercury in Leo.

   Regarding relationships between people whose Sun Signs are five signs
apart, this gives a very clear point: that some pairs are much more
likely to be made workable by the Mercury of one of the pair being in
the adjacent sign of the same element as the other sign. The results in
the previous paragraph show that there is much more chance for a Sun
Sign Virgo to have a successful relationship with a Sun Sign Aquarius
(for whom Mercury and Venus in Libra would give improved prospects)
than with a Sun Sign Aries (for whom Mercury and Venus would need to be in
Leo to do the same).

   With two signs semisextile to each other, a high probability of one
sign's Mercury being in the other's sign tends almost always to be
cancelled out by a low probability for the other sign's Mercury (eg. a
Pisces is much more likely to have Mercury in Aquarius than a Sun Sign
Aquarius to have Mercury in Pisces) - so that the probability of
favourable Mercury and Venus placings is nearly equal for all pairs -
in fact lower for signs near the Winter Solstice because it is these signs
for which Mercury is least often in a sign different from the Sun. With
two signs quincunx (five signs apart) the reverse is the case and the
probability of Mercury being in the adjacent sign of the same element
as the other sign is either low for both or high for both. Even though
there are problems if both signs have Mercury in an adjacent sign of
the same element (squared Mercurys) the probability of such unfavourable
aspects is never high enough to counter increased probabilities of
favourable Mercury placings.

   The fact that Mercury has greater maximum elongation behind the Sun
with the Sun in Aquarius, Pisces, Aries or Taurus and greater maximum
elongation ahead of the Sun with the Sun in Leo, Virgo, Libra or
Scorpio suggests that a relationship between signs quincunx to each other is -
on this basis - most likely to work with a relationship between pairs
of signs with a midpoint around the Winter Solstice (Libra and Pisces) and
least likely with pairs whose midpoint is on the Summer Solstice (Aries
and Virgo).

   Venus, in contrast, has an almost circular orbit and its maximum
elongation, at around 47 degrees is always the same. However, because
(unlike Mercury and Mars) Venus has very regular retrograde cycles
which repeat at almost the same point every eight years, this means that the
sign distribution is somewhat lopsided towards those signs in which
these retrogrades occur - which in the last hundred years have been
Aries, Virgo, Scorpio, Aquarius (also the Gemini/Cancer cusp) but which
change from century to century because the retrogrades move backwards 4
degrees each 8 year cycle. This contrasts with Mercury where sign
distributions for each Sun Sign are consistent over time. Also, because
Venus is more often found in one of the signs adjacent to the Sun than
in the same sign as the Sun, this means that for Sun Signs Taurus, Leo,
Libra or Pisces there are even further increases in the probability of
a relationship with a Sun Sign quincunx to it and a midpoint near the
Winter Solstice (ie Libra and Pisces, Leo and Capricorn, Taurus and
Sagittarius). Combined with Mercury, the net effect is that:

- less than three percent of Sun Sign Virgos have both Mercury and
Venus in Leo and barely three percent of Sun Sign Aquarians have both Mercury
and Venus in Pisces
- but over twelve percent of Sun Sign Pisceans have both Mercury and
Venus in Aquarius and a similar proportion of Sun Sign Leos have both
Mercury and Venus in Virgo

Combining the Mercury and Venus sign distributions, one sees that of
quincunx pairs, the least likely to work are:
- Aries and Virgo (only 6.36 percent change on basis of Mercury and
Venus placings)
- Leo and Pisces
- Cancer and Aquarius

whereas the most likely to work (if we exclude the shaded pairs which
have a shared ruling planet and for that reason are likely to be more
compatible) are:
- Libra and Pisces (over 21 percent possibility on basis of Mercury and
Venus placings)
- Leo and Capricorn (over 17 percent)
- Virgo and Aquarius

   Of semisextile pairs, it is more difficult because there are so many
more favourable cases. This is because the sign sextile to the other
sign (of a complementary element to the other sign) is also a
favourable location for the Mercury or Venus of one sign. For example, a Sun
Sign Gemini with Mercury and Venus in Taurus, Mercury in Taurus and Venus in
Cancer, or Mercury in Cancer and Venus in Taurus would also become more
likely to have potential for a relationship with a Sun Sign Cancer. To
obtain an accurate calculation, therefore, it is necessary to consider
both possibilities. It turns out there is very little difference between
the twelve semisextile sign pairs, and probabilities of a "compatible"
combination of Mercury and Venus are about twice as high as for even
Libra and Pisces.

   The most basic issue for relationships given by these patterns is the
question of whether we should or should not alter the ratings of signs
quincunx to each other in order to take into account the differing
likelihood for different pairs of signs quincunx one another of Mercury
and Venus being in an adjacent much more compatible sign? One could
argue that Mercury and Venus placings are not as critical as favourable
Moon or Ascendant aspects (whose likelihood does not differ at all
between different pairs of Sun Signs) or that altering ratings up or
down to take this probability into account distorts the real nature of
the relationship between highly incompatible pairs of signs. On the
other hand, there mere question of practicality of relationship ratings
means that if a factor that would make an unlikely Sun Sign combination
more likely varies greatly in its likelihood of occurring, that must at
the very least be mentioned somewhere in a study of relationships.