When an astrologer looks at your horoscope chart, he or she first sees if there are planets conjunct your "angles" (the ascendant or midheaven, or their opposite points, the descendant and nadir), as well as the chart’s overall pattern. The planetary patterns on the previous two pages (pages are ten forms astrological charts may take, if they take any form at all. Only the ten planets are considered in these patterns, not the angles, the Moon’s nodes, Chiron or the asteroids. This T-Square-Planetary-Pattern page and much of this 550-page website are from You and the Universe.

        Some charts fall into more than one planetary pattern, and some into no pattern at all. If the latter is true of your chart, it doesn’t mean that your life is disorganized or has no pattern to it. These patterns are not handed down by god, you are. And if your chart doesn’t fall into a category, so much the worse for the category, not for you or your chart. Indeed, you are just that more unique. Planetary patterns were only devised by interpreters (most notably Marc Edmund Jones, "Guide to Horoscope interpretation," 1941; and elaborated by R. C. Jansky, "Planetary Patterns," 1975) as a starting-off place, something to sink one’s teeth into.

        Although Mark Jones started with seven planetary patterns in 1941, which Jansky extended to nine, I use eleven planetary patterns, adding the grand trine, T-square, and grand cross to their lists. These last three are not comprised of all ten planets and are sometimes found embedded in the larger, encompassing patterns. The grand trine can be found in the locomotive, the tripod, fan, hourglass or splash; the T-square in the bowl, the bucket, or splash; and the grand cross in the bucket or splash. But they are often not found in these larger patterns (few buckets contain a grand cross and many bowls have no T-square); or they occur by themselves without the accompanying larger pattern (most grand trines occur without a locomotive or a tripod). In either case they are significant by themselves and deserve their own delineations. Perhaps they were omitted from the earlier author's lists because they do not include all ten planets, as do each of the earlier planetary pattern lists. My feeling is that this is irrelevant; they are descriptive of character and can be very compelling by themselves, and deserve delineations of their own. So without further ado, here are eleven planetary patterns found in horoscope charts that I recognize and interpret:

T-square

Grand Trine

Hourglass or Seesaw

Bowl

Locomotive

Wedge or Bundle

Bucket

Tripod or Splay

Fan

Grand cross

Splash