aspects at the cusps of signs

The nature of aspects I thought was largely determined by the signs. For example, squares are seen as the hardest b/c the signs involved don't work together well, esp in terms of element ie. Air Libra versus Earth Capricorn. Trines and sextiles on the other hand, go well together due to element ie. Earth Cap/Virgo (both 'passive') or Fire Leo and Air Gemini (both 'active'). Opposition also groups by passive/active elements, but then again, the signs often don't agree w/each other ie. the ego of Aries vs. the partnership of Libra.

So my question is, what happens when you have an aspect that has a close enough orb but crosses signs? ie. I've got Mars in 2 degrees Aqu sextiling Uran in 28 degrees Scorpio. Should this be interpreted as a sextile, or a square?.... Similarily, I've Pluto in 24 degrees Libra squaring Mars by 8 degrees. But Libra/Aqu are both air signs, so does this square have a trining colour to it or something?

I haven't read a chart interpretation book that brings this up... I'm so confused!!!

Isthmus,

Relating this to signs is really the heart of the matter. The Ancient Astrologers could not measure aspects that accurately, For a square they would count three signs forward or back, so Scorpio and Aquarius are in square and any two planets in these signs would have been treated as being in Square - no matter what their Zodiac longitude. (Incidentally this is one of the reasons that they didn't use minor aspects or exotic aspects such as quintiles or septiles - they couldn't measure them)

Modern Astrologers can measure the angle of Zodiac Longitude accurately, so we come up with the problem you mentioned - an out of sign sextile. The traditional approach of treating this as a square seems to have gone, even by traditional astrologers - instead it is treated more as a weak sextile, one that doesn't function as well as it could - and that's the way I tend to treat it.

In a sense its a bit of a fudge but it does keep to the idea that signs do make a difference and its not just angels. The same is true for a conjunction of say 29 degrees Libra and 1 degree Scorpio - its out of sign - traditionally it would have been ignored, now its treated as a weaker conjunction than it would have been if it had been 0 degrees Scorpio and 2 degrees Scorpio.

I agree with you that this is not particularly well considered in texts on interpretation - I base my approach on one of the few books that does treat it - Kevin Burk's Astrology, A Comprehensive Guide To Classical Interpretation. He suggests that you should consider both the harmonic vibration (aspect by longitude) and the element relationship, when you interpret.

Thanks, Minderwiz! I actually tried reading interpretations for the 2 aspects (ie. Mars sextile Uran and Mars square Uran) and they both sounded applicable...

I like Burk's approach. Since I can't speak from experience, I'd guess that an out of sign aspect would act differently than a weak aspect at a wide orb in the correct sign(s). They're both made weaker, but in different ways. Hm, I'm going to have to try to wrap my head around this one before we get to Aries/Mars/1st... ^_^ Thanks again for your help!!