Grand trine

Meaning

A grand trine forms when three bodies stand about 120° from one another, each in trine with the other two: an equilateral triangle across the chart. As a rule all three are in signs of one element, and the figure takes its name: a grand trine in fire, in earth, in air or in water.

The trine is the aspect of ease, and three of them closed into a circle make a self-sufficient current. What the element stands for comes naturally and is fed from three sides at once: in fire, enthusiasm and confidence; in earth, practical sense and steadiness; in air, ideas and contact with others; in water, feeling and intuition.

Its gift is a talent that circulates freely. Its risk is the trine’s, tripled: a circuit closed on itself can turn into complacency, or into a world of its own that little from outside the element can reach. A grand trine gives most when something else in the chart, a square or an opposition to one of its corners, opens the circle and puts its ease to work.

In practice

• A grand trine in earth joining the Moon, Venus and Saturn: a deep need for stability, met with patience and a feel for material things.
• Look for whatever breaks the circle. A body opposite one corner and sextile the other two turns the grand trine into a kite, which gives it a direction.
• When one of the three trines is out of sign, the triangle still holds, but it joins two elements and its tone is less pure.

Across traditions

• Chinese astrology knows the same triangle as the three harmonies (sān hé): three earthly branches four apart, such as the Monkey, the Rat and the Dragon, combine into one of the five phases, here water.
• Traditional astrology groups the signs into four such triangles, the triplicities, one per element, each with planets of its own as rulers.

Origin and history

In the Tetrabiblos (2nd century), Ptolemy calls the trine harmonious because it joins signs of the same kind. A grand trine repeats that harmonious aspect three times over, filling one of the triangles of signs with planets.

How Ulune calculates it

• Three bodies each trine the other two, with the birth chart’s orbs: 8°, or 6° when a corner is the Ascendant or the Midheaven.
• Ulune looks for configurations among the ten planets, Chiron, the Ascendant and the Midheaven.
• The Table’s Patterns part shows the figure with its bodies and the range of its orbs. When bodies in conjunction can stand in for one another, the shape is shown once, with its alternatives (“Jupiter or Chiron”).
• A grand trine inside a kite is listed as well as the kite.
• Without a birth time, a figure that may not hold all day is marked ~.

Correspondences