GQs are essentially a study in the number 5. Composed of five planets placed at approximately equal distances from each other in a linked circle, they are the next step up in complexity from grand crosses in major aspect patterns. The base aspects are the quintile (72 degrees), which forms the circumference of the shape, and the bi-quintile (144 degrees), which yields the interlacing mesh on the interior.
Result: a five-pointed star bounded by a pentagon. There has not been a GQ1 since 1941 and there will not be another until 2024. Since GQs are much rarer than grand crosses but not nearly as rare as grand sextiles it is probably fair to say that they are the most elaborate closed symmetrical energy patterns susceptible to historical comparison.
The upcoming GQs exist courtesy of a quintile between Uranus and Pluto that passes in and out of orb between June 2000 and March 2006. It lasts uninterrupted from February 2003 to May 2004 and again from early September 2004 to April 2005.2 From September 17th this year until late on Christmas Eve (UT), Saturn will form a bi-quintile with both Uranus and Pluto, creating a three-planet configuration known as a golden yod, with the "finger of fate" pointing to Saturn. Having three distant planets in this relationship for 14 weeks vastly increases the odds of any one other (plus the Moon) moving into place for a GQ.
In this instance, the Sun in conjunction with Mercury provides the missing piece on October 1st and Jupiter comes around to fill in the gap on the 28th. The charts have been timed in each case according to the arrival of the Moon (as the determining factor in the configuration) at the exact midpoint of the Saturn/Uranus bi-quintile. On October 1st this occurs at 13H 22M 55S UT and on October 28th at 23H 17M 26S UT. By a curious anomaly, the charts display a virtually identical tilt of the planets to the horizon for both GQs at the latitude of London. The shift in the ascendant from 28 SG 19'14" on the 1st to 5 LE 04' 43" on the 28th amounts to 143 degrees 15' 29", or a nearly perfect bi-quintile of 144 degrees!
In addition to the planets in the GQs it is worth noting the peripheral role of Mars between the two events. Although it is two degrees shy of direct participation on the 1st it does move into the spot just vacated by the Sun and Mercury on the 6th. Thus, absent the fifth point of the Moon, the initial flow of quintile energy is carried on considerably longer than would otherwise be the case. On the 8th Mars reaches the midpoint of Saturn and Pluto and on the 13th it joins briefly with the Moon before the pattern disintegrates. This leaves only the golden yod until Jupiter moves up in anticipation of the second GQ.
Undoubtedly the most striking movement in the dance is the occurrence of a total lunar eclipse at 5 degrees Taurus some 14 hours before the GQ of October 28th. In 2,500 years of these aspect patterns only one other, on June 6th, 141 CE, fell anywhere near as close to a total lunar or solar eclipse.3 This is rather distant in time for event comparison, an inherent astro-archaeological drawback. Fortunately we do have clusters of GQs in the mid-1500s and early 1600s which, minus an eclipse, still merit examination for historical perspective.
The question remains, what general type of event are we looking for?
Research into the fifth harmonic inevitably draws one into the tangled web of number symbolism, from Pythagoras to Fibonacci to the Kabbalah to the Mayan calendar and even to quantum physics. Without digressing into other disciplines one may safely state that the consensual view of esotericists down the ages is that the number four represents the cross of matter, the concrete world of daily life. Five is considered the next step up in consciousness, in awareness, and therefore in possibility.
"Fiveness" may be summed up in the words of David Hamblin:
...the principle of Fiveness is likely to take us into uncharted territory...Fiveness is essentially connected with the idea of making, arranging, building, constructing, structuring, forming. It is to do with the creation of order out of chaos: the bringing-together of things that are naturally separate into a formal relationship with one another. It is therefore the first number in which man asserts his power over the world.4
This potential for "creation of order out of chaos" has been in a better-than-average position to manifest recently5 and should peak this October. Will the nearly perfect symmetry of a GQ be more demonstrable in mundane terms than a cluster of random quintiles at any other time? Surely this would depend in large part on the tie-in of the quintiles to the Ptolemaic aspects of the day. We must also remember that we are dealing here with what Rudhyar called "Vibration5, Mind", in other words, the realm of thought. Thought is not the easiest phenomenon to pinpoint by transit! It is a very subtle process, as Rael and Rudhyar convey:
...when humanity as a whole shifts from the level Four to the level Five, it does so only gradually, by stressing successive 'overtones' rather than by jumping from one 'fundamental' to the next...At the level of the quintile, there is no real working relationship between creator and public, leader and led, the fashioning of a spirit-energized mind and the racial organism of body and psyche subjected to the creative release, usually under some kind of strain. The motto of a creator operating strictly at the level of the quintile may be, "Art for art's sake".6
Is art for art's sake as much as we will see here in concrete terms? The only hope of posing the question intelligently must come from comparison. With this in mind I set about accumulating as large a historical database as possible to set beside them.
1. Formed from the 10 major planets only.
2. At the admittedly generous orb allowance of three degrees applying and separating, to be explained below.
3. There was a total lunar eclipse the day after, but the orbs of the bi-quintiles were considerably wider than in our current examples. I have not yet done a systematic search for links between GQs and partial and annular eclipses, another potentially worthwhile endeavour.
4.David Hamblin, Harmonic Charts, Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press, 1983, p. 47.
5. January and February, 2004, for instance, witnessed a lot of quintiles and bi-quintiles but not GQs (unless the angles are used for the fifth point).
6. Leyla Rael and Dane Rudhyar, Astrological Aspects, Santa Fe, N.M.: Aurora Press, Inc., 1980, p. 107.
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