I have tons of oppositions in my chart. I can't believe that someone would write that a lack of oppositions is a disadvantage! Especially in a way that expresses negativity towards someone without viewing the entire chart.

I agree, and I am someone who would gladly give up my own oppositions.

My chart holds all aspect types (conj, sextile, square, trine and opposition), but I'm sure most of us lack something, just as we lack certain signs, elements, etc. Some people also have excessive aspects types. My father has 5 planets conjunct in Gemini (in the 3rd/4th) and a Virgo Moon. He does lack the opposition aspects in particular. I had a roommate with a similar makeup in Libra (I think she has 5 as well). While both are very good talkers (humane signs), are social and intellectual, they are also extremely self-absorbed, emotionally stunted, etc. My roommate was also very perky, to the point where that seemed to be the extent of her emotional dynamics. My father (before an accident that has left his brain damaged) may have been a good talker, but he also did not gauge personal space well and most people thought he was mentally ill based on his strange social behavior (I think he may have had bipolar disorder). He was fired from various jobs because of this and was unemployed since my birth, other than a few odd jobs. His point of view was very "me" centered and I remember as a child how he would record his own strange thoughts on a tape recorder, and would play them back ad nauseum (loved the sound of his own voice!). He also couldn't read a person's emotional expression, perhaps like a form on autism. Not being able to put himself in other people's shoes seems more like being deficient in other elements, houses, etc., although aspects might be part of that.

I think that if someone exhibits odd or anti-social behaviours, there is probably something else going on in the chart besides a lack of oppositions. As always, one has to look at the whole chart. Having oppositions is no guarantee that someone will be "normal" or "well-adjusted."

Ignore Marc Edmund Jones if you like but know that he is a major contributor to 20th Century astrology and offers a less superstitious way of looking at the horoscope. He is one of the first to teach that squares and oppositions are not necessarily curses in your chart. They connect two planetary principles initially with some difficulty until you learn how to better handle the difficulty. Then what was at first difficulty becomes a strength you have built into your character.

If you consider oppositions ?bad? then it would be an advantage to have none in your chart. But be careful what you wish for. The analogy would be to wish for no Saturn, no difficulty in your life so that you could go about freely and unhampered. I would prefer Bernard Madoff, Slobodan Milosevic, or Mussolini had more opposition. And I would prefer any beastly qualities in myself had opposition from within myself.

Okay you don?t understand or accept Jones. My explanation was inadequate. Let me try Robert Hand. He tells us (Horoscope Symbols) oppositions bring ?polarity, strife and conflict? but that is only when the unrecognized half of the opposition is disowned and thus projected as Waybread described. Carl Jung teaches us when it is projected, you meet the disowned piece of yourself outside as fate, as other people with whom you conflict. You disagree with them, fight with them and have strife with them in a defensive protection of the ignorance that the trait you hate is your own unrecognized trait.

But oppositions also represent growth in consciousness. A keyword for the opposition aspect is AWARENESS. When you are able to recognize the trait you have disowned is actually your own, you grow in consciousness and become more aware.

I don't think the opposition is ?bad? but the way we fail to handle it is disfunctional. Disowning it just doesn't work. When you disown a unseemly piece of yourself and project it onto another and then come into conflict with that other, the disowned self is in your face. You can't really get away from it by thinking I am not this trait. You are continually confronted with it. I think that's ultimately "good" although it may be unpleasant or painful at first. That is the universe's way of getting your attention. It's not by the ease in our charts that we grow but by coming to terms with the difficulties.

waybread wrote:I have tons of oppositions in my chart. I can't believe that someone would write that a lack of oppositions is a disadvantage! Especially in a way that expresses negativity towards someone without viewing the entire chart.

I don't believe I expressed negativity toward someone here if that is your implication. I think I gave a balanced view of a lack of oppositions and pointed out how this lack can be used by someone to their advantage. But something must be done by the individual to compensate for the lack; for ANY lack (triplicity, quadrature, aspect type). To know that YOU need to supply direction from within because you have not been given direction from without is helpful. And to realize that should you provide that direction from within that you actually have more freedom and more options is encouraging. I am dissappointed you saw my post as "expressing negativity toward someone."

hi kent
i read your input and i must say i found it to be very insightful. it was enlightining to read how you Explained that lack of oppositions may really be a trigger to realize a great potential IF AND IF the native finds the drive within himself. i see manifestations of this perspectivr all the time.
thank you so much for your effort to explain the concept so well

Kent, I was responding to Martine's excerpt by Pierre Lassalle:

"The native thinks he knows everything about relating to other people, but he is mistaken. He has difficulty in facing reality. He is very subjective and has illusions about himself and others."

and to this one by you:

?A natal chart without at least one opposition reveals a definite handicap in the life.? Marc Edmund Jones."

With all due respect to the great astrologers who wrote them, I don't think such statements can stand in isolation, without looking at the rest of the chart.

I never suggested (and do not believe) that a "good chart" should have no challenging aspects and no Saturn. I've seen only a couple of "vanilla" charts without harsh aspects since I started studying astrology. One of them was posted by a woman who was thrown for an absolute loop by the first mega-harsh transit to hit her. I believe that she just had no built-in resiliency or "immunity" to tough transits, because she didn't seem to have to cope with any, ongoingly. Squares especially seem to be associated with an extra effort to develop the energies symbolized by the squared planets.

But a chart can have a lot of stressors besides the oppositions: squares, semi- and sesqui-squares, quincunxes, and certain kinds of conjunctions and quintiles. I think a Thor's Hammer is one of the most stressful of configurations, with no oppositions involved.

Of course, one can use oppositions constructively. I try to do that with the ones I have. Saturn opposite Mars has proved especially interesting!

If we unpack Jones's statement at face value, most people have some kind of "handicap" as expressed by their charts....and lives.

If we unpack the French astrologer's quote excerpted by Martine, it is an example of the kind of negativity that some old-fashioned astrologers expressed towards their clients that I don't find particularly helpful.

I didn't think your post about Madoff et al. was directed towards me personally.

Thank you kivikusu. I don?t have any oppositions in my chart either and so, over the years, I?ve really tried to understand what that means. I?m glad if anything I said can also help you understand.

And thank you to waybread too. Because it is by discussing this astrological question from both sides that one gets a better view.
Waybread, you are probably old enough to remember Joni Mitchell?s song ?Both Sides Now? with its bittersweet lyric and melody. Those with opposition would probably give them away, as Tanit said because then life could be just sweet instead of bittersweet. Bittersweet corresponds to my understanding and in fact it is the contrast with bitter that makes the sweet so delicious.
____________________
Both Sides Now
Joni Mitchell

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, i've looked at cloud that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things i would have done but clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.

Moons and junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; i've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions i recall.
I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "i love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, i've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say
I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.
______________________
How expressive her lyrics are to me of that opposition and the T-Square.

Fascinating chart, Kent. The sort of chart Joni Mitchell should have!

A "hippy goddess" who was also very ambitious, who gave her baby up for adoption [back when most unwed mothers did that] and whose music was often very ethereal.

Joni's "both sides" are very evident in her t-square: Venus-Neptune "ice cream castles in the air" vs. clouds only serving to "block the sun" (Mars-Saturn).

Tara (both sides now)

I remember from my modern astrology days of the past and specifically from the writings of Marc Edmund Jones (and possibly Dane Rudhyar) that many natal charts have no oppositions and this is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it shows a fairly simple disposition that tends to focus on one thing and excludes the rest.

Having become familiar with the methods of traditional astrology I can't accept the more recent ideas of the opposition aspect as being somehow desirable or at all necessary. Being the aspect of 'perfect enmity' it shows things or qualities that can't or won't join on a common ground. At the root of the modern talk of oppositions is the concept of polarity. Polarity is found throughout astrology in such concepts as nocturnal/diurnal, masculine/feminine, positive/negative, oriental/occidental. There are two sets of qualities, two sets of polarities: hot and cold, dry and wet. We all have plenty of polarity to work with in our natal chart. We all have an ascendant and a descendant, a 1st house and a 7th house. There's no getting away from polarity.

A person with opposition aspects in the natal chart will have conflicting qualities or areas of life that are often in an uneasy state. That person has plenty of juggling to do in order to allow each its day in the sun. It's an ever-shifting exchange. The person without opposition aspects doesn't have to deal with such tensely prominent trade-offs but still has plenty of issues to work through by way of Sun/Moon, 1st house/ 7th house, an imbalance of masculine or feminine signs, etc.

The opposition aspect shows extremes and the tension and instability caused by those extremes. Extremes aren't necessary for a complete life, therefore opposition aspects in a natal chart aren't necessary. Working with the polarity found elsewhere throughout astrology is necessary.

Kirk wrote:

Having become familiar with the methods of traditional astrology I can't accept the more recent ideas of the opposition aspect as being somehow desirable or at all necessary.

I couldn't agree more. I was trying to think of a diplomatic way to make the same kind of point but you have done it for me. From a traditional perspective the notion that a lack of an opposition is a 'problem' is a bizarre concept. Its not as if we are short of negative indications in traditional delineation! The creation of what are presented as problems like this seems a good example of how disconnected modern astrology can become from fundamental astrological principles.

Mark