The Aspects
Where In The Cycle?
If you only want to know when two planets are within orb
of an aspect, you are missing a lot. Of course, it is most
important to know when an aspect is exact, or nearly so,
but it is also important to know, even if only roughly,
about the relationship between any two planets at any
time. Where are they in the cycle of their relationship?
This is what you should be asking.
The point here is that the activity of any two planets or
bodies does not just manifest at the exact aspect points,
rather this activity is a process that is ongoing, and we
can take a snapshot of that process at any time, not
only when an exact aspect is reached. While orbs are
very helpful in spotting the high points, we also need a
general idea of where we are throughout the entire
cycle. For example, an aspect may be short of being
called a square (90-degree aspect), but it is more a
square than it is anything else, and you or your clients
need to know this.
For most of my work, which is with large-scale patterns,
I do not look at orbs, but only at the patterns. A
misshapen (out-of-orb) grand trine is still a grand trine,
and is nowhere near being any other pattern. If it walks
like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The
same is true with aspects. Don't get hung up on
exactness; grasp the whole picture.