A Yod is a planetary configuration made of one sextile side (easy flowing energy) and two quincux sides (energy that feels/appears to be impossible to resolve). If you haven’t read our blog post on how to master the quincux, you’ll want to start there, because a Yod is made up of two quincuxes which will demand constant resolution. The remaining sextile (see points A to C below) is considered a soft aspect which still takes a certain amount of finesse in order to concretize the potential of the gift into its full physical expression.

Yod configurations have two quincuxes - points A to B and points B to C below - which both demand constant rebalancing. Internally, the native feels as though every life choice they make must come with a sacrifice of some kind (at least until the divine grace arrives to give a new understanding). Still, natal Yods can mean a lot of discomfort in the immediate moment because of the constant resolving of that tension.

Figure 1.

Having one true Yod in the chart isn’t very common, and two natal Yods is extremely rare. The most famous example of two natal Yods is within Prince’s birth chart.

Even one natal Yod is a challenging configuration which will lead the native through life circumstances that would break most people’s personal will. There can be strong reactions to these native’s energetic fields, and being born with a natal Yod is definitely is a big spiritual responsibility. It gives the native the ability to make a large impact, especially if they choose to share their gifts by taking on the role of a disruptor of old patterns that don’t serve humanity anymore.

This doesn't have to be on the macro level of the collective - it can be as simple as inspiring someone at a low point in their life to refuse to give up. When you hear the life story of someone with a Yod, it's difficult to not feel inspired at what they had to overcome to get where they are today. The internal battles they had to fight can be universally inspiring across all their relationships.

In working with the 'impossibility' of the quincuxes, once the native makes peace with this fleeting feeling, then it is easier to see that the spiritual reality underneath is actually one of infinite possibilities. This is what the Yod teaches, and often native can become quite prolific once they get a handle on its gifts. It's no longer daunting if something seems impossible - it just doesn't even phase them anymore.

If you’ve ever seen a tightrope walker or a handbalancer at work, you may have observed that to stay ‘still,’ they’re actually making thousands of tiny corrections to keep from falling. This takes incredible energy and concentration, just as quincuxes will take this level of focus to master and harness the energy of the two planets productively. This is why ‘hitting the balance’ can feel absolutely impossible with the quincux in the area of your life governed by those houses.

In readings, I found that many people expect that the goal with a quincux is to get rid of any feeling of impossibility, & therefore they get disappointed in themselves when they can’t make that feeling go away. Instead, a more enjoyable way to navigate it is to study what the quincux is trying to teach you, and it has to do with the fact that everything happens by divine grace.

What exactly does it mean to live by grace & what does this have to do with a perception of impossibility? Let's return to the circus analogy to get a better sense of how we would approach a task that's so difficult it seems borderline impossible.

A tightrope walker or handbalancer has to train for years upon years and endure excruciatingly difficult practice in order to make one ‘simple’ move look easy when it’s actually anything but simple. In order to make the impossible possible, a dedicated performer must be willing to put in the work. In the beginning, however, even when they work as hard as they possibly can, they cannot always control the outcome in the way that they intended. In these moments, they internally go through a feeling of futility - even if short lived - when their practice doesn't seem to be paying off just yet.

Think of the Yod as something that requires absolutely perfect balance; if you go too far in any direction, you'll have to start all over. This process can feel fruitless & asinine. We could begin to feel ridiculous that we even started.

However, once we let go of this internal feeling of futility and our desired outcome finally does happen - we achieve that perfect balance that was so elusive before - we realize that even the smallest details of the process were a gift from the divine, and not something we were directly responsible for. The space in which to practice, the teachers who trained us, the information we gleaned from books or the internet, the food we ate to give us energy, the air we breathed to allow our muscles to work - all are divine gifts which ultimately made the seemingly impossible possible.

The importance of having this understanding shouldn’t be underestimated, as the deep appreciation it brings is a strong antidote to arrogance. It allows the native to appreciate the value of everything they experience and the miraculousness by which it all entered their life. Because what we focus our attention on will grow, this awareness is no small gift! It will effectively deliver spiritual compound interest by bringing more and more miraculous resolutions into your life for all sorts of long standing issues.

The next logical question might be: couldn’t anyone focus their attention on the miraculousness of life in order for them to exist on these higher frequencies of existence? The answer is yes, anyone is capable of using their attention in this way - it’s just that the person with a Yod in their chart will be essentially forced to continuously learn this lesson by life’s outward demands that they make the seemingly impossible happen in the areas where the two planets fall.

If you have a natal Yod, remind yourself that the inner knowing-ness that nothing is impossible will always co-exist with your limited human experience in which things feel impossible, and this juxtaposition is perfectly ok. The human feeling of impossibility will not ultimately interfere with the outcome, unless you are secretly unwilling to surrender the feeling.

As with any kind of aspect, you can’t get rid of the energy itself because energy doesn’t disappear, but you can change the form it takes. You can transmute limited perception into a spiritual breakthrough in a very short time with sincerity & an open mind toward what the Yod configuration is asking you to learn.

To dive even deeper inside of the world of chart interpretation, you can check out Foundations of Planetary Myths to learn these astrological principles from the ground up. Students complete the course in 112 days with just 15-20 minutes of learning time per day.

Enjoy the process!

Love,

Phoenix