Learn · The six aspects
The sextile
A sextile is an opening that appears when you act on it: two planets a sixth of the circle apart, in signs that get along, an opportunity waiting for a first step.
There is a door in you that opens if you lean on it: the friend you could ring, the language you could pick up again, the craft you dropped at sixteen and still remember in your hands. Nothing forces you to use it. It waits until you do. That is a sextile.
Two bodies 60° apart lie in signs whose elements get on, fire with air, earth with water, and so cooperate readily once asked. Where a trine works whether or not you notice, a sextile needs a push. Lucky but mild, the old writers said, and that is right.
In your chart
At 60° a sextile is allowed 5°, or 7° with the Sun or Moon, and its orb is recorded. The wheel draws a thin blue line, and the grid a small six-pointed star. Sextiles between the luminaries and the personal planets are talents available on request: Mercury sextile Venus is a pleasant way with words, and Moon sextile Mars is feeling that turns into action.
From a real analysis
In her chart: Moon sextile Venus · almost exact at 0.4°
Your heart and your taste work as a pair (opportunity, almost exact at 0.4°): beauty soothes you directly. A soft blanket, a good meal eaten slowly, a playlist built for one mood, and you are yourself again. Play matters too. Making something, flirting, doodling, singing badly while you cook: you need fun to feel like you, and a week without it leaves you oddly flat.
Themes
A sextile is a door that opens when pushed. It describes the abilities you have and do not lead with, the friendships and openings that come when you make an effort, and the parts of you that get along without fuss. A chart with many sextiles belongs to someone easy to work with, who does well when they take the first step.
The catch is neglect. Because a sextile never insists, it is left alone for years, and the thing it offered goes to someone else. The two elements give the flavour: fire and air together are ideas made vivid, earth and water together are feeling made practical.
Where it meets the odd angles
Two bodies in sextile that both stand in quincunx to a third form a yod. It is the one place where this quiet aspect becomes part of something sharp.
How the analysis treats it
Sextiles come with their orbs in the grid, and the chapters for both bodies discuss each one. The analysis describes what the sextile offers and what would call it into use.
Your chart records how close to exact each aspect is, so the analysis can give a close one more weight than a loose one.
Sources: every position and date here comes from NASA JPL’s DE440 ephemeris and is checked against NASA’s JPL Horizons. How it is checked.
The sextiles in your chart
Your chart lists every sextile between your planets, and the two parts of you each one joins. Free, and it takes a minute.