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Understanding Relationship Dynamics through Synastry

 

 

a couple facing each other with brilliant lights about them

Understanding Relationships

through Astrological Synastry 

Astrology is based on the idea that the position of planets and stars at the exact time and place of your birth impacts your personality and life path.

Your birth chart (aka Natal Chart) is like an astrological fingerprint, mapping out how these celestial bodies aligned when you were born. It reveals your strengths, challenges, motivations and even compatibility with others.

Synastry, on the other hand, compares two people's birth charts to decode the unique dynamics in a relationship.

It illuminates how your energies interact, highlighting both harmonious connections and potential friction points.

a graphic of a synastry chart

Let's break down the key elements:

the Sun The Sun represents your core self, identity and vitality.

the Moon The Moon reflects your emotional needs and inner life.

Planet Mercury Mercury represents how you communicate and think.

Venus Venus rules love, beauty and values.

Mars Mars fuels your drive, sexuality and passion.

 

the conjunction glyphthe sextile glyph the Square glyph the Trine glyph the Opposition glyph

Understanding Astrological Aspects in Synastry:

In astrology, the connection between two individuals' planets and points are observed through aspects. These aspects, formed by the angular relationships between planets, offer profound insights into the dynamic interplay of energies in a relationship.

They highlight compatibility, challenges, strengths, and potential growth areas. Here's a breakdown of the main aspects:

 the conjunction glyphConjunction - 0 degrees:

  • Definition: When two planets align in the same degree, they are in conjunction.
  • Interpretation: This powerful alignment merges the energies of the two planets, amplifying and blending their attributes. Conjunctions can heighten both the strengths and challenges of the combined planets, often indicating a strong, undeniable bond or focus in the relationship.

the sextile glyph Sextile - 60 degrees:

  • Definition: A harmonious aspect formed when planets are approximately 60 degrees apart.
  • Interpretation: Sextiles suggest opportunities and potential. In synastry, they allow the energies to complement each other, promoting mutual growth, understanding, and cooperation. It's an aspect that often indicates shared interests and ease in communication.

the Square glyph Square - 90 degrees:

  • Definition: Formed when two planets are 90 degrees apart, creating a right angle.
  • Interpretation: Squares indicate tension, challenges, and dynamic friction. In relationships, they can highlight areas of conflict or differing approaches. However, while they can be sources of friction, they can also drive growth. Confronting and working through the issues highlighted by a square can lead to deeper understanding and intimacy.

the Trine glyph Trine - 120 degrees:

  • Definition: A favorable aspect where planets are about 120 degrees apart.
  • Interpretation: Trines denote natural harmony, ease, and flow. In synastry, they suggest areas of the relationship where understanding and rapport come effortlessly. This aspect often points to shared strengths and mutual admiration.

the Opposition glyph Opposition - 180 degrees:

  • Definition: Occurs when two planets are directly opposite each other in the zodiac, 180 degrees apart.
  • Interpretation: Oppositions can be polarizing, pulling energies in two different directions. They can signify attraction and repulsion simultaneously. While they can bring balance, they can also highlight areas where compromise and understanding are crucial. Oppositions can illuminate the push-pull dynamics in a relationship, offering lessons in balance and integration.

 

 The Sun

Your Sun - Your Core Self & Vitality

the Sun Your Sun to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Blends egos and identities in a deep merge, enhancing mutual confidence.
  • Sextile: Allows mutual vitality and self-expression to unfold harmoniously.
  • Square: Can result in clashing or competing egos, but might also stimulate ambition.
  • Trine: Produces natural harmony and mutual affirmation, reinforcing each other's selfhood.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to compromise between differing ego needs and approaches to self-expression.

the Sun Your Sun to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Seamlessly blends their emotions with your core identity, creating a strong bond of purpose.
  • Sextile: Encourages a warm rapport wherein you nurture their emotional needs, uplifting their spirit.
  • Square: Indicates potential conflicts between your self-expression and their emotional needs.
  • Trine: Promotes emotional resonance, allowing you to instinctively nurture and support each other.
  • Opposition: Necessitates compromise to reconcile differing emotional needs and core identities.

the Sun Your Sun to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Leads to electric conversations, allowing you both to be deeply engaged and understood.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual curiosity about each other's minds, simplifying communication.
  • Square: May result in tension between thought processes and self-expression.
  • Trine: Facilitates natural intellectual rapport, allowing feelings of deep understanding and connection.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to bridge the gap between differing thought patterns and core expressions.

the Sun Your Sun to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Blends your identities with mutual delight and creative inspiration, fostering abundant affection.
  • Sextile: Fosters romance, harmony, and mutual admiration, making you feel appreciated and cherished.
  • Square: Indicates potential differences in expressing affection and requires effort to reconcile contrasting love styles.
  • Trine: Produces a beautiful synergy, letting love and creativity flow smoothly between you both.
  • Opposition: Calls for compromise between differing values and needs for affection.

the SunYour Sun to Their Mars Mars

  • Conjunction: Ignites intense chemistry, with their assertiveness exciting and complementing your core vitality.
  • Sextile: Invigorates mutual encouragement, energizing both to act and pursue shared passions.
  • Square: Can produce friction between egos and desires, leading to potential confrontations.
  • Trine: Promotes invigorating momentum, making both feel brave and motivated together.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to balance differing energies and approaches to actions and desires.

the Sun Your Sun to Their Ascendant The Ascendant glyph

  • Conjunction: Aligns your core identity with their external persona, resulting in a strong immediate connection.
  • Sextile: Enhances mutual recognition, allowing your vitality to shine through their outward behaviors.
  • Square: May cause initial misunderstandings due to a misalignment between core identity and external demeanor.
  • Trine: Ensures an effortless connection, with your identity resonating well with their outer persona.
  • Opposition: Might produce a feeling of being polar opposites, demanding compromise and understanding to find a middle ground.

 

The Moon

Your Moon - Your Emotional Core

the Moon Your Moon to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Intertwines their core identity with your emotions, making you feel recognized and purposeful together.
  • Sextile: Offers warm support and a channel for emotions to be expressed creatively and harmoniously.
  • Square: Might cause friction as their outer identity doesn't always align with your emotional needs or reactions.
  • Trine: Promotes emotional resonance with their identity, leading to mutual nurturing and support.
  • Opposition: Requires an effort to bridge the gap between your inner emotions and their external self-expression.

the Moon Your Moon to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Fosters an intuitive, empathic union where you naturally understand and nurture each other's emotional needs.
  • Sextile: Encourages a comforting flow and harmonious emotional bond.
  • Square: Can indicate clashing emotional reactions and sensitivities, requiring understanding and patience.
  • Trine: Offers natural empathy and emotional rhythm, allowing for a safe and vulnerable connection.
  • Opposition: Might create challenges in reading and satisfying each other's emotional needs, demanding compromise.

the Moon Your Moon to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Promotes open communication where you truly feel heard and understood, fostering emotionally rich conversations.
  • Sextile: Enables smooth, emotional conversations that resonate with mutual understanding.
  • Square: May cause friction as their logical approach might clash with your emotional reactions.
  • Trine: Provides an instinctive emotional rapport, ensuring you feel comfortable confiding in them.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to align differing emotional reactions and thought processes.

the Moon Your Moon to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Brings out deep care and tenderness, fostering a connection where you feel unconditionally valued and cherished.
  • Sextile: Nurtures a bond filled with warmth, affection, and emotional compatibility.
  • Square: Highlights differences in emotional expression and affection, necessitating effort to find middle ground.
  • Trine: Encourages beautiful emotional harmony and mutual appreciation.
  • Opposition: Calls for understanding and compromise between different ways of expressing love and emotional needs.

the Moon Your Moon to Their Mars  Mars

  • Conjunction: Ignites strong emotions that can swing between passionate attraction and potential confrontations.
  • Sextile: Combines assertive instincts, spurring joint actions and mutual emotional encouragement.
  • Square: Can create situations where emotional reactions provoke or irritate each other, possibly leading to heated exchanges.
  • Trine: Fosters emotional rapport that emboldens mutual actions and reactions.
  • Opposition: Might produce tension between emotional needs and assertive impulses, requiring understanding and patience.

the Moon Your Moon to Their Ascendant The Ascendant glyph

  • Conjunction: Merges your emotional core with their external behavior, leading to intuitive understanding and mutual recognition.
  • Sextile: Encourages warmth and comfort in interactions, reflecting your inner emotions in their external behavior.
  • Square: May result in misunderstandings, with your emotions clashing with their outward demeanor.
  • Trine: Promotes an instinctive emotional bond, resonating deeply with their external persona.
  • Opposition: Might highlight contrasting emotional reactions and external behaviors, demanding patience and understanding.

 

The Ascendant glyph

Your Ascendant (Rising Sign) -

Your Outer Self & First Impressions

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Aligns your outward behavior with their core identity, leading to a strong mutual recognition.
  • Sextile: Produces an ease in interaction, where you naturally encourage their self-expression.
  • Square: Might cause initial misunderstandings, as their core identity clashes with your outward persona.
  • Trine: Facilitates an effortless connection, ensuring first impressions and core identity align.
  • Opposition: Could result in feeling intrigued or challenged by each other, requiring effort for mutual understanding.

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Merges your external behavior with their emotional core, creating a deeply intuitive connection.
  • Sextile: Provides comfort and warmth in interactions, allowing emotions to be easily expressed.
  • Square: May create tension between your persona and their emotions, leading to misinterpretations.
  • Trine: Ensures you instinctively support and comfort their emotional needs.
  • Opposition: Might bring contrasting outer behaviors and emotional reactions, requiring patience and understanding.

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Promotes lively initial interactions, ensuring communication aligns with your external persona.
  • Sextile: Fosters engaging conversations that reflect mutual curiosity.
  • Square: Can cause misunderstandings in initial conversations, requiring clarity.
  • Trine: Provides effortless communication, making first impressions intellectually stimulating.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to reconcile different communication styles and outward behaviors.

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Creates instant attraction, ensuring that affection and external personas align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual admiration and charm in initial interactions.
  • Square: Might cause initial differences in values and social behaviors.
  • Trine: Ensures that charm and affection flow easily, making first encounters delightful.
  • Opposition: Requires understanding differing social behaviors and values.

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their Mars Mars

  • Conjunction: Sparks immediate energy and potential attraction or competition.
  • Sextile: Energizes interactions, making initial encounters action-oriented.
  • Square: Might cause initial confrontations or misunderstandings.
  • Trine: Promotes energetic and motivating initial encounters.
  • Opposition: Might indicate contrasting energies in first impressions, requiring mutual understanding.

The Ascendant glyph Your Ascendant to Their AscendantThe Ascendant glyph

  • Conjunction: Reflects mutual behaviors and first impressions, creating an immediate understanding.
  • Sextile: Enhances mutual understanding, making interactions harmonious and engaging.
  • Square: Might produce contrasting outward behaviors and impressions.
  • Trine: Ensures that your personas and behaviors align effortlessly.
  • Opposition: Indicates contrasting first impressions, which might be either fascinating or challenging.

 

Your Mercury - Your Communication & Thought

Planet Mercury Your Mercury to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Stimulates lively conversations, making your thoughts resonate with their identity.
  • Sextile: Provides stimulating ideas, and you encourage their expression and creative insights.
  • Square: Causes differences in perspective, making some conversations challenging.
  • Trine: Produces mental rapport, ensuring ideas and self-expression align effortlessly.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to understand and respect differing viewpoints and perspectives.

Planet Mercury Your Mercury to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Blends emotions and thoughts, making discussions deeply personal.
  • Sextile: Fosters emotionally insightful conversations, offering mutual understanding.
  • Square: Causes disconnect between emotions and logical discussions, leading to misunderstandings.
  • Trine: Ensures feelings and ideas flow smoothly, enhancing emotional comprehension.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to bridge the gap between intellectual and emotional discussions.

Planet Mercury Your Mercury to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Merges two minds, resulting in shared ideas and mutual understanding.
  • Sextile: Fosters stimulating discussions and shared curiosities.
  • Square: Indicates differing communication styles that need effort to synchronize.
  • Trine: Ensures conversations flow effortlessly, with natural understanding.
  • Opposition: Requires patience to accept and understand differing viewpoints and approaches.

Planet Mercury Your Mercury to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Promotes harmonious conversations, linking thoughts to love and appreciation.
  • Sextile: Fosters delightful dialogues, making discussions enjoyable and enriching.
  • Square: Leads to disagreements about values, causing conversational tensions.
  • Trine: Ensures that thoughts and affections are aligned, promoting pleasant exchanges.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to reconcile differences in values and communication.

Planet Mercury Your Mercury to Their Mars Mars

  • Conjunction: Drives vigorous debates, igniting passion in discussions.
  • Sextile: Spurs exciting exchanges, stimulating both to action through words.
  • Square: Causes heated arguments, leading to potential conflicts.
  • Trine: Promotes active and engaging dialogues, fostering mutual encouragement.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to understand differing drives and communication styles.

 

Your Venus - Love, Beauty, & Values

Venus Your Venus to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Promotes a deep appreciation, making your love and their identity align.
  • Sextile: Fosters admiration and creativity, enhancing the relationship's beauty.
  • Square: Means differences in self-expression, which requires work to reconcile.
  • Trine: Ensures love and identity are in harmony, promoting mutual admiration.
  • Opposition: Might bring up different values and needs, requiring compromise.

Venus Your Venus to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Creates a deep emotional bond, ensuring feelings and values align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual care and affection, enhancing emotional rapport.
  • Square: Might lead to differences in emotional needs and love expression, requiring understanding.
  • Trine: Promotes a deep emotional and loving connection, ensuring feelings are cherished.
  • Opposition: May indicate different love languages, requiring effort for mutual understanding.

Venus Your Venus to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Blends love and communication, ensuring thoughts and feelings align.
  • Sextile: Promotes affectionate conversations and mutual appreciation.
  • Square: Might lead to miscommunications about values and feelings.
  • Trine: Ensures loving and understanding dialogues, promoting mutual admiration.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to align affection and thought processes.

Venus Your Venus to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Deepens mutual affections, ensuring love and values align.
  • Sextile: Fosters shared tastes and mutual admiration, enhancing the relationship's harmony.
  • Square: Can indicate differing love languages, requiring understanding and compromise.
  • Trine: Promotes a deep romantic connection, ensuring mutual love and appreciation.
  • Opposition: Might indicate contrasting values and affections, requiring effort for alignment.

Venus Your Venus to Their Mars Mars

  • Conjunction: Creates powerful romantic chemistry, ensuring passions align.
  • Sextile: Promotes mutual desire and attraction, enhancing relationship dynamics.
  • Square: Can lead to tensions in love and desire, possibly causing conflicts.
  • Trine: Ensures love and passion flow effortlessly, fostering mutual attraction.
  • Opposition: Might indicate contrasting desires, requiring effort for mutual satisfaction.

 

Your Mars - Drive, Sexuality, & Passion

Mars Your Mars to Their Sun the Sun

  • Conjunction: Ignites dynamic energy, ensuring passions and identity align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual encouragement and boldness, enhancing shared activities.
  • Square: Can lead to competing drives, possibly causing conflicts.
  • Trine: Promotes mutual encouragement and vigor, fostering shared pursuits.
  • Opposition: Might bring contrasting drives and motivations, requiring compromise.

Mars Your Mars to Their Moon the Moon

  • Conjunction: Drives emotional passions, ensuring feelings and desires align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual emotional encouragement, enhancing shared passions.
  • Square: Can lead to emotional frustrations, requiring understanding and patience.
  • Trine: Promotes emotional drive and understanding, ensuring mutual encouragement.
  • Opposition: Might create contrasting emotional drives, requiring compromise.

Mars Your Mars to Their Mercury Planet Mercury

  • Conjunction: Creates dynamic discussions, blending thoughts and passions.
  • Sextile: Fosters stimulating debates and shared pursuits.
  • Square: Can lead to conflicting ideas and actions, causing potential disagreements.
  • Trine: Ensures thoughts and actions align, promoting mutual encouragement.
  • Opposition: Requires effort to understand differing motivations and thought processes.

Mars Your Mars to Their Venus Venus

  • Conjunction: Fuels romantic passion, ensuring love and desire align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual attraction and admiration, enhancing romantic pursuits.
  • Square: Can lead to conflicting love languages and desires.
  • Trine: Promotes love and passion, ensuring mutual attraction and satisfaction.
  • Opposition: Might indicate contrasting love and desire, requiring mutual understanding.

Mars Your Mars to Their Mars Mars

  • Conjunction: Magnifies shared drives, ensuring passions and desires align.
  • Sextile: Fosters mutual encouragement and bold pursuits.
  • Square: Can lead to competing motivations, causing potential conflicts.
  • Trine: Ensures actions and desires are in harmony, fostering mutual endeavors.
  • Opposition: Might indicate contrasting drives, requiring effort for mutual satisfaction.

 

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Ben Baker, CEO

About the Author

Ben has practiced Astrology for over 35 years and is a certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist (CBT) Practitioner.  Ben holds 11 patents for the core functions that all dating sites now use today.  See Ben's Bio for more info.  

 

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