Musical Approach tooAspect Part 2: Square

Harmonic level 2: The Perfect 5th, Square

I know there will be a lot of astrologers who look at this and say that a square aspect is not a perfect anything unless you like a lot of suffering.

Let me ask you this: How many stories have you read where the protagonist goes along smoothly in life, meeting few obstacles, overcomes them all easily, and essentially lives an uneventful life? I have not read any, because I have just outlined the plot of the world’s most boring story.

We are human, and humans have always celebrated our ability to overcome obstacles. The great stories of our mythology are stories of meeting adversity head-on and overcoming in spite of the odds. Epic tales of mountain climbers are not filled with easy climbs and leisurely strolls, they are filled with hardship and adversity, and the ability to prevail in the face of impossible odds. There are plenty of news reports about climbers who didn’t make it, but the joy of such stories is that these people died doing what they love. 

Why did they do it if they knew it was dangerous?

Because to be truly alive, to be truly human, is to meet adversity head-on and, win or lose, give it your best shot.

The reason, then, that the square aspect gets the perfect 5th interval, (without which we would never have a musical pitch system) is that without the adversity present in the square aspect, we have no room to express the most important facet of being human!!

When we have a square aspect in our chart, we have the natural tension of adversity in our chart and it is ours to rise to that challenge and prevail against the odds. We should celebrate our squares as much, if not more than, our trines. It is our squares which make us truly human, and will make us more likely to achieve. It is our failures to cope which drive us forward to do better next time.

When we have an outer planet square transit, it is our first instinct to panic, however we should look at the challenges (which are BOUND to come our way) as opportunities  to excel at being our most human, our most frail, and our most triumphant. There are times when we will feel the need to duck our heads and ride out the storm, however, greater joy awaits when we meet the storm headlong. The choice is truly ours.