Welcome to my Astro Advice Column! If you subscribe to my Astro-Kats or Star Kids Club groups you are able to ask me questions about astrology for this advice column.


hi ace! I had a question about aspects, do grand trines include the nodal placements? Through placidus, I am a libra rising with an 8H gemini stellium, pluto in sag in the 2H, pisces SN in the 5H, and virgo NN in the 11H. when i look at my birth chart with aspects to the nodes i see this giant square being drawn in my chart. since these are all in the succedent houses i've also read some stuff that's said energy here can essentially be "hard to reach," if that's the case do you have any advice on how to best utilize this energy? thank you in advance! :~)

—a curious gemini


Hi curious Gemini! I’m going to do a technical exploration of some of what you have told me. By the way, I love this complicated question you’ve thrown my way. I’m interpreting your question as—how do I interpret aspects to my lunar nodes?

Let’s start with taking a look at what aspects are. Trines happen between signs that share the same element. Air signs trine other air signs. Fire signs trine other fire signs. Sextiles happen between elements that promote each other—air sextiles fire and earth sextiles water. Squares happen between signs that share modality but elements that don’t support each other. Mutable earth (Virgo) would square with mutable air (Gemini).

A lot of the time, astrologers skip the element and modality part of reading aspects and go right to degrees! While this makes sense for those who excel in mathematics or geometry, I think that this makes things more confusing than they need to be for the average layperson. Remembering that Gemini trines Libra is easy because both signs are air. Remembering that trines are approximately 120º apart can make things much more confusing.

Your ascendant is in Libra. This means that your Gemini placements actually have a relationship to your rising sign! This is true whether you read your chart in whole sign houses or Placidus. Gemini has a relationship to Libra because both are air signs regardless of house system. This means that your Gemini placements work to support your personality. You are a curious Gemini!

Your question, however, is not about houses but about aspects to your lunar nodes. Let’s take a look at the signs that your nodes are in. Your south node is in Pisces and your north node is in Virgo.

Neither Virgo or Pisces can see Libra—Virgo is mutable earth and Pisces is mutable water. Libra is cardinal air. Earth and water don’t stick with air signs. Your nodes are in mutable signs while your ascendant is in a cardinal sign. Your lunar nodes don’t aspect your ascendant—that doesn’t mean that you can’t reach them. You can through your Gemini placements. Gemini is mutable which means that it can aspect both Pisces and Virgo. It is air and it can reach Libra.

The big square you see when you look at your chart is sometimes called a grand cross—not a grand trine. If you think about aspects in terms of degrees, it’s easy to get mixed up. Think about aspects in terms of modalities and elements. Things start to make a lot more sense.

What’s really interesting about all of this is that your Gemini placements should be south nodal benders in your chart. A south nodal bender is a planet that we learn to release throughout the course of our lives. You can touch your nodal axis through your planets at your south nodal bendings. What this means has to be interpreted according to your life. Maybe you grow through release? Maybe you had to let go of a plan to find purpose? I don’t know too much about your life so I’ll stop making speculations here hehe.

Pluto, which is in Sagittarius in your chart, is at your north nodal bendings. Pluto opposes your Gemini placements and squares your nodes. You can think about Pluto as a task that you keep returning to because it’s at your north nodal bendings but we would need to keep in mind that this relationship to Pluto, being a generational marker, is a task that you share with everyone in your age group. What does it mean that you’re releasing a part of your personality in order to rise to a social movement? Again, we would need context from your life to realize our interpretation.

And that’s how I would map out and think about those specific placements in your chart! Aspects to lunar nodes do count as aspects. Nodal squares are also called nodal benders. You actually don’t have a grand trine involving either of your nodes from the information you have given me, unless you have earth or water placements that I don’t know about. Pisces south node would form trines with other water signs and Virgo north node would form trines with other earth signs. A grand trine occurs when you have placements in all three signs of one element in proximate relation to each other.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer instead of muddier. Aspects can be confusing. My tip: think about why certain signs trine, square, sextile, or oppose each other instead of memorizing too many rules about degrees. This will simplify your technique and make your analysis cleaner.