Midpoints

What they are

A midpoint is the halfway point between two planets in the zodiac. For Mercury at 12° and Mars at 22° in the same sign, their midpoint is 17° of that sign.

In Reinhold Ebertin's Cosmobiology (the German school of astrology), midpoints are the principal sensitive points to watch. The natal chart has 45 midpoints from 10 planets/angles (or more if you include nodes, Asc, MC). Activations occur when transits, progressions, or solar arcs hit a midpoint within ~1° orb.

How to find it

Hamburger → WESTERN → Midpoints (Ebertin). KarmaWheel computes all pair-midpoints for Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu, plus Asc and MC.

How to read

Each midpoint is a third-party point that combines the two parent planets' meanings:

Sun/Moon midpoint — soul-purpose / inner harmony
Sun/Mars midpoint — life-energy / drive
Venus/Mars midpoint — sexuality / chemistry
Saturn/Pluto midpoint — structural transformation, deep consolidation
Asc/MC midpoint — the "I" / ego identity

When a transit hits a midpoint within ~1°, the matter the midpoint represents activates. E.g. a transiting Saturn over your natal Venus/Mars midpoint = a year when chemistry encounters structural challenge.

The Ebertin "dial"

In Cosmobiology practice, midpoints are projected onto a 90° dial (every degree mod 90) so that all hard-aspect activations cluster. This "dial reading" is the Ebertin signature. KarmaWheel returns raw 360° positions; the dial-projection is straightforward to compute mentally if needed.

Pairing with other techniques

Midpoints + solar arc + transits = the Ebertin triplet:

Midpoint sensitive points — what's vulnerable to activation
Solar arc — the slow, direct activator
Transits — the moment of activation

Most Cosmobiology practitioners watch midpoints constantly and treat the Sun/Moon midpoint as nearly as important as the natal Sun.

Caveats

KarmaWheel uses 0.5° default orb for midpoint identification (the table shows raw positions; you do the orb check yourself when reading transits). Ebertin himself often used 1° for hard aspects.
Midpoints stack: A midpoint of Sun and the Moon-midpoint with Mars is itself a midpoint. This goes very deep — KarmaWheel shows only first-level pairs.

Sources

Reinhold Ebertin, The Combination of Stellar Influences (1940) — the canonical midpoint dictionary
Don Bradley, The Combination of Stellar Influences (English translation by Ebertin's student)
Charles Harvey, Working with Astrology — modern application