If You Find This Pattern In Your Birth Chart, It Could Present A Challenge
It’s pretty rare, though.
Astrology is a tool meant to not only describe your strengths, but your weaknesses too — and the aspects hold the key to understanding how to work with the challenges you may face. Aspects essentially describe how each of the planets in your birth chart communicate with one another. Are they compatible, or are they at odds? The significations of each planet are also factored in, and while interpreting all of this information can easily get confusing, aspect patterns like the Grand Cross describe exactly where the tension resides. Understanding what a Grand Cross is in astrology lies in understanding the planets and their significations, as well as the kinds of aspects present in a Grand Cross.
What Is A Grand Cross In Astrology?
While a Grand Cross sounds pretty daunting, it’s just a fancy term for four planets in your chart that are in a tense aspect to one another, forming a cross shape: All four planets are squaring each other by 90 degrees, with two of the planets are opposing each other by 180 degrees. The one thing each of the planets have in common is that they all share the same modality, meaning that they’re all in cardinal, fixed, or mutable signs. The trickiest part about the Grand Cross is that each of the planets are in a different element (fire, earth, air, and water).
How To Work With A Grand Cross In Your Birth Chart
The Grand Cross is made up of the two most challenging aspects in astrology: the square and the opposition. The square is the most tense and frustrating aspect of this configuration, because it involves two signs that clash in the way that they express themselves, like Aries and Cancer. Both are cardinal signs and have the active, initiating quality in common, bit Aries is a fire sign, and Cancer is a water sign. They naturally square each other, and their elements work at cross-purposes to the other. While working with planets in these signs involved in your Grand Cross, it’s important to find a way to fulfill both of the desires of these energies. Fire and water present in your chart makes you incredibly passionate, and you can express this quality in a much more productive way than through anger or emotional impulses.
The opposition is still a challenge, but it’s a bit easier to work with. Oppositions, like squares, involve signs of the same modality but different elements. With oppositions though, the opposite elements are actually complementary; fire and air opposes, earth and water opposes. While an opposition makes it difficult to find balance in whatever area it occurs in your chart, the harmony of sharing the same modality and complementary elements makes it a bit easier to deal with. When confronting an opposition, it’s important that you find a way to balance one side, as well as the other. Dealing with planets in Aries and Libra requires you to find balance between asserting your independence while also prioritizing partnership and connections with others. Dealing with challenging aspects can be challenging at first, but over time, you’ll learn how to use these energies in a much more productive way.
