Quintile Mercury – Mars

(Transit. Mercury → Natal Mars)

Avesalom Podvodnyi. Aspects

Mercury quintile: Mental flourishing hinders the blossoming of thought. This aspect grants in the spheres of the Planet liveliness of mind and speech, which, if Mercury is afflicted, can cost the person very dearly, as their words may provoke sharply negative reactions from backward forms. At a higher level, this is the aspect of the satirist; with major harmonious aspects to Mercury — of the humorist, who may in their expressions be not particularly humane (“for a sharp word, won’t spare even one’s father”) — this quintile thus differing from the decile. Affliction of Mercury brings difficulties in adequately verbalizing the natural quickness of thought, which will manifest in the person in the spheres of the Planet; expressed ideas will initially appear inappropriate or outright foolish, though sometimes unconventional and amusing, which the person will find hard to bear, even if they do not necessarily show it. If the Planet is also afflicted, creating difficulties in its assimilation, the quintile will either place great strain on the individual, who adapts their lively mind to heavy Planetary issues and learns to resolve them, or their intellect loses inventiveness, freshness, and natural talent fades. In the harmonious variant, this quintile bestows great mental abilities in the Planet’s spheres — when the person chooses to apply them, ingenuity and constructive thinking, but also a general passivity that may gradually drown them out. Mars quintile: Apparent life force stands in inverse relation to its evolutionary level. At a low level, and with Mars afflicted, this aspect (especially with Mars in the 8th house) may produce sadistic pleasure from the suffering of a living being parting from life; but these are extreme cases, and usually the quintile of Mars still somewhat softens its aggression, and the person in the Planet’s spheres becomes actively interested in specific manifestations of vital activity and is themselves inclined toward energetic overcoming of backward external and internal states in these areas. A prominent quintile of Mars to the Moon or Sun may generate a constant interest in biology; if Mars or the Planet is in the 6th or 12th house, activity in animal protection is possible, etc. Affliction of the quintile brings awkward personal expressions of vitality and external blows against it, and lack of processing leads to pathological complexes. For example, the Mars-Saturn quintile gives the person at a moderate level of development a sense of inability to harm any living being, and their own vulnerability to external aggression, yet still considerably less than it appears to the person, and certainly less than, for instance, with a square from Mars to Saturn. Still, the quintile is a harmonious aspect, and if not strongly afflicted, it provides a certain protection to the person, at least when they feel and act as a defender of life. At a low level, this aspect inclines toward a primitive understanding of life manifestations, primarily as food-seeking and sexual instincts; at a high level, the ability emerges for subtle support of life expressions and their deep penetration into difficult, backward forms.