Combined midpoint

Meaning

A combined midpoint is the point halfway between one person's planet (or angle) and the other person's. His Sun / her Moon is the point halfway between his Sun and her Moon. It is found the same way as any midpoint, on the shorter arc, and it can be read on the 90° dial like any other.

Such a point belongs to neither chart alone. When a third factor falls on it (either person's planet or angle, by conjunction or hard aspect), the three form a planetary picture that joins the two people through that third factor. A picture of this kind is written like any other, with the owners marked: for example her Saturn = his Venus / her Sun.

Every pair of factors gives two combined midpoints, one each way round. His Sun / her Moon and her Sun / his Moon are different points, and they usually fall in different places.

The composite connection. When the two factors are the same planet, the combined midpoint is exactly a position in the composite chart. The composite Sun is the midpoint of his Sun and her Sun, that is, the combined midpoint Sun/Sun; the composite Moon is Moon/Moon, and so on [3]. A composite chart is thus made of the like-with-like combined midpoints, read as a chart. Taking every pairing instead (Sun with Moon, Venus with Mars and the rest) gives the full set of combined midpoints, which are read as pictures on the dial, not as a chart with signs and houses.

Origin and history

Midpoints and pictures come from the Hamburg School and from Reinhold Ebertin's cosmobiology; see planetary picture. When Ebertin compares partners in Applied Cosmobiology, he does not form midpoints across the two charts. He sets both charts on the 90° dial and reads two things: direct contacts between the two people's factors, and each person's factors on the other person's own midpoints (pp. 67–73) [1]; see contact cosmogram. For partnership he names the pairs to watch, among them Sun/Moon (friendship, marriage), Venus/Mars (sexual union), Sun/Venus, Moon/Venus and the Node pairs, with Saturn as the factor of separation (pp. 69–71) [1]. In his worked example such a pair is a midpoint within one person's chart, met by the other person's factor: the woman's Venus/Mars with the man's Sun on it (p. 71) [1].

Combined midpoints, with one end in each chart, therefore go a step beyond the method Ebertin shows. They follow from the same arithmetic, and the composite chart is built from the like-with-like ones, but who first used the full set, and under what name, is not established in the sources seen here; whether Ebertin's The Contact Cosmogram (1974) or Die kosmische Ehe uses them could not be checked, since neither text was available. The readings in the Combination of Stellar Influences [2] are written for midpoints within one chart; applying them to combined midpoints is an extension of Ebertin's practice, not something he is shown doing here.

How it is used

• Key pairs first. With two people there are many combined midpoints (169 when each person has ten planets, the Node and both angles), so it helps to start with the pairs that bear most directly on a relationship: the Suns and Moons, Venus and Mars, and the angles.
• What falls on them. Each combined midpoint is checked against every factor of both charts. A factor is not counted on a midpoint of which it is itself one end.
• Orb. Contacts are kept close, about 1°, the orb Ebertin requires for comparing charts (p. 69) [1]. See orb.
• Timing. Ebertin reads a transit or direction to a point the two charts share as touching both people (pp. 67, 83) [1]; the same reasoning can be applied to a combined midpoint.
• Birth times. A combined midpoint moves half as far as either of its ends. An unknown birth time leaves a Moon uncertain by up to about 6½° either way, and so every midpoint with that Moon by up to about 3¼°; the angles cannot be used at all.

On this site. In the Synastry tool's Contact cosmogram tab, the table of midpoints between the two charts shows the key combinations first: Sun/Moon both ways, Venus/Mars both ways, Sun/Sun, Moon/Moon, Venus/Venus, Sun/Venus and Moon/Venus both ways, and Ascendant/Ascendant and Midheaven/Midheaven when both birth times are known. For each it gives the position, its place on the dial, and any factor of either person within the orb. The full list of combined-midpoint pictures can then be opened, sorted by closeness, by midpoint or by the planet on it, and filtered by whose planet it is, by planet, or to the key combinations only. As an option, the Aries Point (0° of the cardinal signs) can be checked against the combined midpoints too. The factors are the ten planets and the True Node, with each person's Ascendant and Midheaven only when that birth time is known. The dial and orb are those of the tab (90° and 1° by default), and anything that depends on an approximate Moon is marked.

Examples

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879, 11:30 local mean time, Ulm) and Mileva Marić (19 December 1875, Titel; birth time not recorded, 12:00 local mean time assumed, so her Moon is approximate and she has no angles). 90° dial, orb 1°. Factors: the ten planets and the True Node for both, and Einstein's Ascendant and Midheaven (13 × 11 = 143 combined midpoints). Einstein is written first in each pair.

• One cluster, two midpoints. Marić's Jupiter (21°36′ Scorpio), Saturn (21°58′ Aquarius) and Pluto (22°04′ Taurus) stand within half a degree of one another on the dial. Both Sun–Venus combinations fall on that group: his Venus / her Sun is 0°07′ from her Saturn and 0°01′ from the square of her Pluto.
• The composite in the table. His Sun / her Sun, 10°20′ Aquarius, is the composite Sun; his Moon / her Moon and his Venus / her Venus are the composite Moon and Venus (see composite chart).
• The full list. With these factors, 67 combined-midpoint pictures are found within 1° (43 with one of Einstein's factors on the midpoint, 24 with one of Marić's; 4 of them depend on her approximate Moon); the Aries Point adds 5 more (72). The closest include his Pluto square his Jupiter / her Saturn (24°44′ Aquarius, 0°00′), her Sun on his Node / her Jupiter (27°10′ Sagittarius, 0°01′), and the Aries Point on his Neptune / her Saturn (29°55′ Pisces, 0°05′).
• A noon chart treated as exact. If Marić's 12:00 is entered as a known time, her noon Ascendant and Midheaven join the factors (169 combined midpoints) and about 83 pictures are found; 16 of the extra ones involve her angles, which rest on a time nobody recorded.