Mystic rectangle

Meaning

A mystic rectangle forms when two oppositions are linked at their ends by two trines and two sextiles. The four bodies make a rectangle across the chart: its long sides are the trines, its short sides the sextiles, its diagonals the oppositions.

It joins both families of aspects in one shape. The oppositions bring tension and awareness; the trines and sextiles connect each end of one opposition with both ends of the other, so that the tension has channels to move along. The usual reading is of someone who meets pressure with resourcefulness, and can turn conflicts into practical arrangements.

The name promises more mystery than most readings find. The figure is generally described as balanced and productive: two polarities that support each other instead of pulling the chart apart. As a rule, its four signs share one polarity and belong to two complementary elements, all fire and air, or all earth and water.

In practice

• Read the two oppositions first, then the trines and sextiles that hold them: they show how each tension is eased and put to use.
• Each of the four bodies is opposite one planet, trine another and sextile the third. Look at which of the four the chart singles out, by its sign, its house or its role as ruler of the Ascendant: that is often where the figure is lived.
• When another body is attached to it, by a square to both ends of one of its oppositions for instance, the rectangle becomes part of a larger structure: read the whole before the parts.

Origin and history

In the Tetrabiblos (2nd century), Ptolemy calls the trine and the sextile harmonious and the opposition discordant. The mystic rectangle sets two discordant oppositions inside a frame of four harmonious aspects, two trines and two sextiles.

How Ulune calculates it

• Ulune looks for two oppositions whose ends are linked by two sextiles and two trines, with the birth chart’s orbs: 8° for the oppositions and the trines, 6° for the sextiles, and 6° and 4° for a trine or a sextile to an angle.
• It searches among the ten planets, Chiron, the Ascendant and the Midheaven.
• The Table’s Patterns part lists it with its four bodies and the range of orbs that hold it; a mystic rectangle has no focal body.
• Without a birth time, a figure that may not hold all day is marked ~.

Correspondences