The sextile describes a possible collaboration between two functions, a door ajar that still has to be pushed open.
Two functions in the chart reach out a hand: the accord exists, but it only works if you call on it.
An ease in connecting two areas of life, as soon as you take the initiative to do so.
Letting a talent sleep for lack of effort, because nothing forces you to use it.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
A neighbor who offers to lend a trailer on moving day, a friend who happens to know the person you needed to meet: the sextile resembles those opportunities that arrive quietly and that you seize, or not.
The two planets are 60° apart, which generally places them in elements that get along, a fire sign with an air sign, or earth with water, and always in signs of the same polarity. The two functions speak the same language without being identical.
Tradition calls it harmonic, but with a harmony less automatic than that of the trine. The sextile opens a possibility; it does not realize it on its own. Mercury sextile Mars would give speech able to turn into action, provided you dare to speak up. Moon sextile Saturn would offer a sensitivity able to take structure, if you agree to bring a little order to your emotions. On Versana, the tolerance is 5°, or 6° if one of the two bodies is a luminary.
Its downside is the ease left fallow. Because nothing jams, nothing grows either. Many charts contain several sextiles that go barely used, for lack of being called on. They become valuable once you use them consciously: a talent for organizing that awakens when you take on a role in a local association, a relational ease that grows when you change careers.
Between two personal planets, the sextile describes an easy complicity: you understand each other, joke around, work things out without drama.
When it links one person’s planet to another’s, it signals an understanding that is cultivated through shared projects more than it imposes itself at once: going away for a weekend, repainting a room, inviting friends. It is a friendly base on which a relationship can be built, as long as each makes the first move from time to time.
In a career, the sextile signals skills that combine well: rigor with creativity, speech with technique, people skills with a head for numbers.
It favors collaboration, exchanges of services, networks. Its trap would be waiting for opportunities to arrive on their own. Proposing an idea in a meeting, following up with a contact, volunteering for a cross-team project: this is how this latent ease becomes a concrete achievement.
You can sense it in those small ease-of-life things no one notices anymore: quickly finding a practical solution when the washing machine leaks, getting help without pressing, chaining errands and an important call without losing the thread.
These quiet assets go unnoticed as long as all is well. Becoming aware of them lets you call on them the day a situation gets complicated, rather than looking elsewhere for resources you already have.
Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos bases the aspects on relations between signs: the sextile links two signs separated by just one other sign on each side of the count, of the same gender, both masculine or both feminine.
Ptolemy holds it to be harmonious, but less powerful than the trine, because the accord of the elements is less complete. Medieval authors and Lilly granted it a moderately favorable influence, comparable to a budding friendship.
Modern astrologers read in it a phase of the cycle where an idea begins to find its means. For Rudhyar, the sextile corresponds to an opening, a chance for implementation, which calls for the person’s initiative.
Tradition calls it harmonious: the two functions are said to agree effortlessly.
The orb is the margin allowed around the exact angle (see the orb concept); the site uses ± 5°, ± 6° with a luminary.
60° = 2 × 30°: the two planets are usually 2 signs apart.
Between 55° and 65° apart, the aspect counts (± 6° if the Sun or the Moon is involved).
Tradition calls it harmonious: the two functions are said to agree effortlessly.
It is a 60° gap between two planets, two signs apart, within the orb. It most often brings together a fire sign and an air sign, or an earth sign and a water sign. Classed as harmonic, it readily makes the two functions cooperate.
Both are harmonic, but the trine, at 120°, joins two signs that share their element: the accord would be spontaneous, almost automatic. The sextile, at 60°, joins elements that are merely compatible: the accord exists, but you have to call on it. The trine is often compared to a gift received, the sextile to an opportunity to seize.
The pairs
Each cell leads to the pair’s page. The luminaries have a slightly wider orb.
| Moon | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | ☌︎Sun and Mercury: impossible aspect | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | |||||||
| Venus | ☌︎Sun and Venus: impossible aspect | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎ | ||||||
| Mars | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | |||||
| Jupiter | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ||||
| Saturn | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | |||
| Uranus | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ||
| Neptune | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | |
| Pluto | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ | ☌︎⚹︎□︎△︎☍︎ |
| Sun | Moon | Mercury | Venus | Mars | Jupiter | Saturn | Uranus | Neptune |
Crossed-out cell: an aspect the sky never forms (Mercury stays within 28° of the Sun, Venus within 47°).