Pluto, Full On – Part 2 is not going to be the article I expected–yet. There is some tidying up to do–and a new name for all of us to wrap our minds around:

A dear friend of several years now, Philip Graves, and I had a very important discussion this morning and through the entire afternoon. Yes, it took that long, and I’m grateful to him. But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you don’t know who he is, the name probably won’t mean much to you. It will, and you’re about to learn why. Let me start from the beginning…

By now you may have noticed I made some changes in the Pluto, Full On – Part 1 article, and the new name is already making the transition. This article will be more technical in orientation but it’s exciting still. Philip is the source to many astrologers–and I am among them–for details like I’m about to share here. I’m grateful to him not only for this friendship but as well, obviously, for the knowledge he shares so freely.

Last night, I was doing further research to ensure that the discovery of the “Grand Quindecile” (which you’ll now see was misnamed) was actually a previously undiscovered aspect pattern as astrologer John Davenport and I had been sure it was, and I found a jaw-dropping discovery in a conversation in which Philip had been engrossed several years ago (at least a decade) on Deborah Houlding’s Skyscript site.

With profound accuracy and bibliographic references, Philip–a highly regarded astrological researcher–points to all of the reasons why the quindecile is 24° and not 165°. As of 12:01 PM today, the 165° angle formerly known as the misnamed “quindecile” has been renamed a mouthful that actually flows once you get used to it: undecaquartisextile (uhn-dehkha-kwor-tih-sex-tile).

Philip then broke down the developmental process so I could understand it a bit more easily:

“We have the quincunx representing five (the prefix “quin” implies five) of the basic 30º building blocks, but 165º is actually eleven 15º blocks. So what is the basic name for a 15º block?

“It’s half a semi-sextile. So should we call it a demi-semi-sextile like a demi-semi-quaver in music? Then we get a bit of a mouthful for 11 times that, unfortunately: an undecademisemisextile,” he said.

“One thing I thought about before was that if a square is a quarter of 360º, maybe we can make squ- into an abbreviation denoting anything divided by four – then we could have a squisextile for 15º. That was a tentative proposal of mine when I first explored harmonic aspects in 1996.

“But later I learned that the square is a modern term for what was originally more elegantly called a quartile. So could the 15º aspect be a quartisextile?

“That would give an undecaquartisextile for the 165º aspect. It’s a bit long but it follows the tradition perfectly.”

I thought about this and replied, “You know, Ricki Reeves sounded so logical in pointing to quindecile in the book (The Quindecile) for the translation…let me find it.

“p 19, The word ‘quindecile’ is Latin for the word ‘fifteen.’ Therefore the use of the word ‘quindecile,’ as it relates to an aspect, infers that it is a division or divisions of the circle by equal parts of 15° increments, bringing us back to the 24th harmonic (15° x 24 = 360°).”

And Philip answered, “Except unfortunately she’s completely wrong about how numbers are used to name aspects. If a quindecile were a division of the circle by equal parts of 15º increments, then a trine would be a division of the circle by equal parts of 3º (and not 120º) increments, and a sextile would be a division of the circle by equal parts of 6º (and not 60º) increments.

“The name of the basic aspect always refers to the factor by which 360º has been divided. Trine – you divide by 3 (and get 120º); sextile, you divide by six (and get 60º); novile – you divide by 9 (and get 40º); quindecile you divide by 15 (and get 24º). This was the tradition that she and Noel Tyl went against.” Philip added, “…Thomas Ring had described the 165º aspect and used it quite a bit before Tyl read it in his writings, but Tyl was the one who adopted the inappropriate name “quindecile” for it.

He then added the following especially thrilling comment for me to see, “Michelle, this is part of my very old article on MSN Groups which I based on the research I did into the harmonic aspects back in 1996. Here I used squisextile for 15º and undecasquisextile for 165º but I do think quartisextile and undecaquartisextile are much more traditional and elegant so I’m happy to change them.

My reply to all of this? “Gee,” I told Philip, “the more I think about the name, undecaquartisextile, it’s not so bad. I like it now that I’m able to say it. lol”

And so the name undecaquartisextile has been born with the abbreviation UQSXT.

In case you’re wondering why an “a” has replaced the “i” in the new aspect, Philip explained, “Since we have the ‘i’ in most of the division-denominating names (trine, quartile, sextile, etc.) I felt a different vowel was needed to denote multiplication where it could otherwise be confusing. So I went with an ‘a’. It’s arbitrary but just designed to be clear.”

I’m fine with that, and I hope you are too. Philip believes this naming is “long overdue,” and I agree.

And one of the greatest bits of news born from this conversation came from Philip’s words, “I’ve revised my table to change all the ‘squi‘ uses to ‘quarti‘ now. You can see again here.

Philip went one further step in telling me, “I also have a permanent extract of my comments in the Skyscript discussion (including the references to the authors who earlier used quindecile to mean 24º) here, Michelle – in case you need to refer people. As it’s a single article there is no need to switch between pages etc. then.

But no, that’s not all. The glyph too has been created with Philip’s help, as follows:

Continuing with the conversation, Philip developed these understandings a bit more to show the natural flow of the mathematical patterns:

“If you think of 15º as the base aspect of a series of all aspects that are based on the division of the circle by 24 (i.e. by four times six – hence quartisextile), then it makes perfect sense. So you have the quartisextile of 15º, the quinquartisextile of 75º, the septquartisextile of 105º and the undecaquartisextile of 165º. The prefix tells you the number by which you’ve multiplied the 15º base aspect to give you the actual aspect. Really there’s no good reason not to use the 75, 105 and 15º ones if you’re going to use the 165º one so far as I can see because the basic mathematical complexity and derivation is the same.”

Now for those who need source references, please do visit Philip Grave’s site links. You’ll find them thoroughly researched, a quality for which Philip is so well-known!

The Renamed Aspect:  Hello, Undecaquartisextile!

The day has been especially exciting, before and after the moment the name came into being, and we realized it stuck! Above-the-horizon dominance certainly points to the energies of Philip and me in one conversation, John Davenport and me in a second conversation, and my interactions with members of David Cochrane‘s Cosmic Patterns Software team to get a feel for the next steps we needed to take with this name change. One would think it was a process requiring the courts by now! Luckily, it’s not that complicated, but it did require some fantastic thought, and–from where I’m sitting–Philip, John, Fei Cochrane and Robert Wilkinson, all of whom I had been in touch with since last night, are among the best.

"You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto"

Jupiter, the chart ruler, sits at the apex of the chart, conjunct Mars. Mars, in turn, makes a 1°27′ orb in square to the Ascendant while Venus makes a very wide square not all will agree is one. Be aware, however, I fall short of calling this trio a stellium because of that very wide contact. With all due respects, it’s important for me to make you aware that I am a very strong proponent of wide orbs because they work, and they work as I see them in reference to the aspects I use in my work. So while I see Venus as a conjunction which could be likened to an out-of-sign conjuncting piece of a stellium, for the sake of this argument, I’ll hold back and resist.

On the other hand, Venus makes a 1°14′ orb to form a undecaquartisextile (UQSXT). Here’s where Philip and I disagree: I noticed in his aspects page his tendency to work with very tight orbs. I play. He sees the need for the UQSXT to have no greater than a 0.5° (30-minute) orb. I wrinkle my nose at the thought of going as high as a 5° orb with this one. (See? Told you I work with wide orbs! lol) But I try hard not to go past 3°30′ although there are occasions where I have. It really depends on the situation. The bottom line is I see a Venus-Neptune UQSXT, and Philip would not.

But then I suppose part of the difference is my recognition of the undecaquartisextile as a minor aspect that has more than “ordinary” weight. I’d make it closer to a major aspect because it’s a significant one to consider. I don’t like that much orb with this particular aspect however. I’d rather it was tighter–less than 3°–but it is still valid. How do I know? While John and I were in discussion about these points, John excused himself for a telephone call. Locally, on his side of the “pond” as those in the UK like to call the Atlantic Ocean, a young boy had been taken to the hospital with burns on his face and legs, the result of aerosol cans he’d thrown on a fire. Even five hours after the naming of the undecaquartisextile, the Mars-Chiron aspect was still clearly in orb.

Moving on, here’s where things become especially exciting for both John and me because this chart also reveals a beautiful Blooming Undecaquartisextile, thanks to a 35-minute partile semi-sextile between Chiron and Uranus. The Sun-Mercury Rx 7-minute partile inferior conjunction forms a UQSXT and Chiron (respective orbs of 3°47 and 3°40), and another UQSXT from this pair to Uranus with respective orbs of 3°12 and 3°05. The Blooming Undecaquartisextile is what had been known as the “Grand Quindecile” in Pluto – Full On, Part 1. But by the time you read this, you’ll find it’s been renamed to the Blooming UQSXT since I changed it just before I made this new article public.  The focus in this particular Blooming UQSXT lies in the need to take action, to create positive energy and awareness. In this case certainly, the actual naming would be the event: now that the renaming of the aspect is complete, the need to make astrologers and students alike aware was the next step.

But also involved in the Blooming UQSXT is a single 29- to 36-minute partile quincunx between the Sun-Mercury Rx conjunction and Neptune. Quincunxes can’t be ignored. The message here is the need to adjust, and certainly we will need to adjust to the change in the name since a quindecile, thanks to Philip Graves and Robert Wilkinson for straightening out the confusion, is a mere 24° and not 165°.

What’s not showing in the chart is the Undecaquartisextile Shadow Yod. This is simply the renamed former incorrectly named “quindecile shadow yod.” Undecaquartisextile Shadow Yod is a bit long, I know, but this is the least of the problems. Better to adjust to the new name of this aspect than to reinvent the wheel from James Wilson‘s efforts nearly 200 years ago. We owe him that much–even if we haven’t heard his name before now.  Learn to say it. Undecaquartisextile. And after you learn to say it, feel free to abbreviate that long name to UQSXT. That works too.

And now, I get to tell you stay tuned: There will be a Pluto – Full On, Part 3–obviously linked to these other two parts.

Namaste, i love you.

©2015 Michelle Young