Cradle Pattern Calculator

A Cradle is a four-body aspect pattern: three sextiles (60°) link four planets into a chain, and the two planets at the ends of the chain oppose each other (180°). The chain holds the opposition the way a cradle holds its load, which is where the name comes from.

The full drawn figure also contains two trines, one from each end of the opposition to the middle planet on the far side, but those follow automatically from the geometry. This calculator requires the aspects that define the pattern: the three sextiles and the opposition, each within the natal chart service's accepted orbs, which are body-specific and capped at 6°. Eligible bodies are the Sun through Pluto, Chiron, and the Ascendant.

Start with the opposition. The result card marks the two bodies on the axis, and that axis is the theme the pattern keeps working on: Sun opposite Moon reads differently from Venus opposite Saturn. Then look at the two middle planets. They carry the sextile chain, and they describe the tools you reach for when the axis tightens.

The calculator also checks upcoming transits to the pattern and lists the contacts that activate it. For the full reading, including sign and house placement and how to work with the pattern deliberately, open the Cradle guide.

Four settings drive most disagreements. Orb width: a tool allowing 8° on the sextiles will find chains this one rejects at its 6° cap. Body set: this calculator uses the Sun through Pluto, Chiron, and the Ascendant; tools that add the lunar nodes, the Midheaven, or asteroids will flag Cradles built on points this one does not consider. Aspect style: whole-sign matching calls any Aries-to-Gemini pair a sextile regardless of degree, which manufactures patterns degree-based tools reject. And some tools require the two implied trines to be in orb as well, which drops borderline chains.

Birth time matters too. The Ascendant is an eligible body here, and the Moon moves about 13° per day, so an uncertain time can add or remove a qualifying aspect. The same engine and the same orb rules power this page and the Aspect Pattern Scanner, so results agree across this site.

A Mystic Rectangle carries two oppositions bound by two trines and two sextiles. Functionally the Cradle is half of one: a single axis of tension instead of two, held by three supports instead of four.

A Grand Trine is a closed circuit of three trines with no opposition anywhere. A Minor Grand Trine is one trine plus two sextiles meeting at an apex, and a Cradle contains two of them overlapping along its chain, which is why the scanner often reports both. A Kite starts from a Grand Trine and adds an opposing fourth body; it shares the opposition-plus-soft-aspects feel, but its frame is trines with two sextiles, while the Cradle's spine is sextiles.

The tool assigns each label from the aspect list alone, so a four-body cluster gets called a Cradle only when the full chain and the opposition are all within orb. And a Cradle is half of a Grand Sextile: if your chart closes the other half, the scanner reports the six-body figure.

A natal Cradle sits quietly until something touches it. The reliable triggers are slow: outer planets (Jupiter through Pluto) contacting either end of the opposition, and eclipses landing on any of the four bodies. Saturn deserves its own line: when it crosses a middle planet it temporarily loads the support beam, and the opposition lands harder while it does. When you run the calculator, the result includes the upcoming contacts to your specific pattern; the ones on the axis are the ones you feel, so read those first.

Fast transits from the Moon or Mercury pass through in hours and do not move the pattern in any lasting way. If you want to watch the slow contacts develop month by month, the transit chart calculator shows the full sky against your natal wheel.

Most charts do not carry one. The full chain asks for four bodies spaced at three consecutive sextiles with the ends in opposition, and at a 6° cap that alignment is genuinely uncommon. A no is information, and the result page does not stop at no: it shows the patterns your chart does hold, plus an aspect-family readout showing which family of contacts dominates your chart.

If you are one aspect short of the chain, you have something real anyway: often a Minor Grand Trine or a strong sextile pair, and those have their own calculators. Run the Aspect Pattern Scanner to see everything in one pass, or check the Mystic Rectangle calculator if your chart carries paired oppositions.