Someone asked me to write about thequintile (72 degrees) aspect. It is an aspect that has been associated with creativity – but what does that mean in terms of interpretation?
Noel Tyl’s working thesis is that if a horoscope contains many quintiles(let’s say 3, 4, 5 or more), the person very much needs a creative outlet – either as a profession or a hobby. Following this thesis, I’ve made it a point to ask clients “what is your creative outlet?” whenever I see more than a few quintiles on their horoscopes*.
Sometimes the people say they have no such outlet – but they aren’t very happy about it. Maybe they had a passionate love of writing, art or music that was suppressed in the course of development (parental pressure, saying it’s “not practical” etc.) The question then becomes, what can they do to start exploring their creativity again?
Morning pages (from Julia Cameron’s Artists Way) might be a good start – to pay attention to the small inner voices that tells us what we want.
Other times, the creativity is channeled into their current work (creating one’s own business, for instance.) Educating a child also takes creativity – so it doesn’t really have to manifest as a career in art, music, etc. Usually you can tell if a person has a creative outlet or not, because it tends to manifest as the feeling of being alive.
A tricky question: What if you don’t have any Quintiles?
Creativity is something that is within every one of us, so this obviously does not mean you are not creative. I have looked at several dozen horoscopes of people in so called “creative” professions, and am here to report that the number of quintiles varies quite a bit – zero through many – and it doesn’t have to do with how good of a musician, artist, or a writer you are.
Creativity is something that is within every one of us, so this obviously does not mean you are not creative. I have looked at several dozen horoscopes of people in so called “creative” professions, and am here to report that the number of quintiles varies quite a bit – zero through many – and it doesn’t have to do with how good of a musician, artist, or a writer you are.
So do not despair if you don’t have many quintiles in your horoscopes – the number of quintiles can never be an indicator of whether you can succeed at a creative profession. Most artistic horoscopes have emphasis on Neptune or Venus, andquintiles may never be involved.
Question #2: Does having many quintiles suggest that you are an innovator?
If a number of quintiles aren’t necessarily indicative of a creative profession, can it suggest how innovative (a variation of creativity) a person is? Here I’m getting mixed data:
If a number of quintiles aren’t necessarily indicative of a creative profession, can it suggest how innovative (a variation of creativity) a person is? Here I’m getting mixed data:
- Fashion innovator Georgio Armani has 4 Quintiles
- Music innovator John Cage has 4 quintiles; Jazz innovator Miles Davis has 4quintiles, and innovative composer Igor Stravinsky has 2 quintiles
- In a scientific realm, Albert Einstein has 4 quintiles; mathematician John Nash (featured in the film Beautiful Mind) has 5 quintiles
- Auto business innovator Henry Ford (mass production concept) has 5 quintiles
- Software entrepreneur Bill Gates has 4 quintiles, whereas Steve Jobs has only 1.
- Writers commonly seem to have more quintiles: Jane Austin has 6 quintiles, Mark Twain has 4 to 6 quintiles (depending on birth time); George Bernard Shaw has 6; E.E. cummings has 4. William Butler Yates has 3 quintiles.
- Walt Disney has 2 quintiles, and so does Pablo Picasso.
2 quintiles seem pretty average to me, but other factors in their horoscopes (Neptune etc) are certainly more pronounced in the cases of the giants mentioned above. As far as interpretations are concerned, my approach is that multiple occurance ofquintiles can be used to confirm the creative emphasis suggested in the rest of the horoscope, but cannot stand alone as a sole indicator of creative potential.
Question #3: How do we interpret the individual quintile aspect?
Quintiles are interesting in that they aren’t treated like a hard (challenging) aspect, but neither are they static (dare I say boring?) like the soft aspects. They seem to call for a creative resolution much as in hard aspects, but possibly without the ordeals of square or opposition.
Quintiles are interesting in that they aren’t treated like a hard (challenging) aspect, but neither are they static (dare I say boring?) like the soft aspects. They seem to call for a creative resolution much as in hard aspects, but possibly without the ordeals of square or opposition.
Example: In the case of Sun quintile Neptune, the expression of core life energy takes on a very creative tone (both because it’s Neptune and it’s quintile) – but possibly without as much vulnerability associated with Sun square Neptune etc.
This is just a feeling that I’ve been getting by looking at the way quintiles are being discussed by other astrologers, as well as how they work in the vocational profiling. If you have any other thoughts or anecdotes I’d be glad to hear it.
UPDATE: Someone suggested that the other side of creativity could be things like problems with authority (i.e. not conforming to the traditional way of doing things), as well as not being able to think like others (which can lead to problems at work, etc). I also want to add susceptibility to chaos (see John Nash above) – one may see too many possibilities, and the mind may lose touch with the grounding provided by the traditional method of doing things (atonal Free Jazz, anyone? )
UPDATE#2:Yet another element of creativity is independent, original thinking: I had a client with 6 quintiles tell me “I do best when someone gives me an objective, and lets me make things happen on my own. If I had to follow a prescribed path, I do not enjoy it at all.” The innovators seem to have this in common, and we can see how this ability to “think outside of the box” would be very useful in the world of business, design, software engineering, music, etc.
Conclusion
As always, some people make the best use of their innate potentials more so than others. Pay attention to the entire horoscope to see what your best outlet for your creativity may be. If you happen to have a number of quintiles, great – enjoy using your creativity. If you don’t know what your creative outlet is, try a morning page – pay attention to the small voice inside of you that wants to try something new, or pick up something that’s old. The point of all this is for you to feel the joy of expressing your talent, so that you feel more alive.
*A (very) technical note for astrologers: When counting the number of quintiles, I do not use the asteroid aspects – as the number of quintiles will naturally increase the more number of asteroids you use. For the same reason I’d rather not use biquintiles – since by including them the number of the aspect quickly increases to make most horoscope appear “very creative” (hey, if that’s what you want to see, that’s okay too. For my part, I prefer simplicity.)
On the other hand, I count the quintiles to Descendant and IC, as well as South Node – since they are each part of an axis (ASC axis, MC axis, Nodal axis). In your software, include the 108 degree (tridecile) aspect if you want to count these aspects – but only count them in if they show up in the ASC, MC, or Nodal axis column in your aspect grid.
