The Trouble with Trines. Why Too Much “Good Energy” Can Go Very, Very Wrong

If you’ve been in astrology long enough, you’ll know this already: the most dangerous people rarely have Pluto on the Ascendant or Mars in the 8th. No, they have trines. Big, beautiful trines. Grand trines. Multiple trines. A birth chart as smooth as silk.

And that, dear reader, is the problem.

We’re told from day one that trines are “positive.” That they bring ease, flow, talent, and grace. And sometimes they do. But more often, they bring something worse: unchecked self-indulgence, moral flexibility, and the firm belief that everything you do is justified, because it feels natural.

Let’s dig into this — gently, without judgment (but not without sarcasm).

The Seduction of the Trine

Trines are seductive because they don't ask for effort. The energies involved just agree with each other. There’s no tension. No internal conflict. Things "just happen." But here’s the problem: if no part of you ever resists, who’s keeping your behavior in check?

This is where we meet our first suspects: Jupiter and Neptune. When these two shake hands in a trine, things get slippery fast. Morality turns into suggestion. Ethics become optional. Boundaries dissolve into the warm bath of “good intentions.”

You’ll often hear things like:

“I only lied because I care.”
“I took the money because I believed I deserved it.”
“I did it for us.”

From a psychological point of view, this is classic ego inflation. The person genuinely believes they’re doing good — or worse, that they are good, by nature — and so any questionable behavior simply doesn’t register. Melanie Klein would recognize this immediately as a refusal to integrate ambivalence — the inability to accept that we are capable of both care and harm, often at the same time.

When the Trine Makes You Psychic, and Also… a Bit of a Menace

Let me tell you about a friend of mine. She’s a brilliant Tarot reader. You’ve probably seen her on YouTube — hundreds of thousands of views, videos like “What Is He Hiding from You?”, “His True Feelings Today”, and “Who’s Jealous of You (And Why).”

She’s got Venus trine Neptune. Which, in astrology textbooks, is described as idealistic, romantic, artistic, dreamy.

And yes — she is all of those things. She’s intuitive. She has an eerie ability to pick up on people’s feelings. She can give you a 45-minute reading on a man you met once at a bar and ghosted the next day.

But here’s the twist.

She’s also completely obsessed with every boy she sleeps with. They’re always far away — emotionally or geographically (ideally both). She spends weeks meditating on their feelings, channeling their moods, making Tarot spreads about them… and monetizing the results. “What Is He Feeling for You” is as much for her as it is for her audience. She reads for herself — through you.

And the boys?
She cheats on them. Always has. Usually with someone even more emotionally unavailable. Then she does another spread about that guy.

To be clear — she’s not evil. She’s not malicious. She’s just… Neptune-trined into her own fantasy loop. There's no friction inside her to tell her, “This might be a little unethical.” Everything feels divinely guided. Sensual. Poetic. And profitable.

Trines are like that. They give you the gift — and remove the warning label.

The Problem with Flow

Here’s the psychological root of the issue. Trines support the ego. They reinforce the personality structure. They make us feel natural. But what feels natural isn’t always good. It’s just what we’re used to.

Squares, oppositions, quincunxes — these aspects create discomfort. They force reflection. They challenge behavior. They keep you from sleeping too well at night. Which, unpleasant as it may sound, is how people grow.

A Moon–Neptune trine may make you sensitive. But it can also make you emotionally manipulative — all under the illusion that you're just “feeling deeply.” A Mercury–Pluto trine? Genius for research — and also for gaslighting people so elegantly that they thank you for the insight. Trines don’t create evil. They create talented enablers of their own blind spots.

The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung warned that whatever remains unconscious will rule your life — and you will call it fate. A trine says, “Don’t worry about it.” And so you don’t.

In Synastry: We Just Clicked

Let’s not forget the role of trines in synastry — romantic compatibility. Trines between two people feel amazing at first. Familiar. Comfortable. “We just click.”

But sometimes what you click into is a shared pattern — not necessarily a healthy one. Venus trine Neptune between two charts? Instant romance, instant confusion. You read each other’s minds… until someone realizes they’re reading a script that never existed.

Moon trine Mars? Passionate, yes. But also possibly a loop where one person explodes, and the other says, “It’s okay, I understand.” Over and over again.

Trines make codependency feel like chemistry. That’s the danger.

So Are Trines Bad?

No. Trines are talents. Natural abilities. Supportive structures.

But in psychological astrology, what matters isn’t whether something is good or bad. It’s whether it’s conscious. If your trines are reinforcing helpful traits, wonderful. But if they’re keeping you blind to your own patterns, then they’re functioning like a well-lit hallway — leading straight into a trap.

The solution? Ask better questions. About your own behavior. Your own assumptions. Your own ease.

Ask:
Where do things feel too easy?
Where do I never feel challenged?
Where do I repeat behaviors without resistance — or reflection?

In short: where are your trines hiding your work?

Final Thoughts

Astrology has a way of charming us with simplicity. Trines good, squares bad. But the chart, like the psyche, isn’t here to flatter us. It’s here to show us what we might not want to see — but need to.

So next time you see someone with a grand trine, don’t envy them too quickly. Ask what flows through that channel — and whether it’s carrying gold, or just a very convincing illusion.

Because sometimes, the most dangerous thing in a chart is not the storm. It’s the still water that no one thinks to question.