Sextile

The sextile is the aspect formed when two planets sit sixty degrees apart, linking signs of compatible elements, fire with air or earth with water. The two planets get along easily, but their cooperation is an offer rather than a given: the potential sits ready and opens up once a person makes a little effort to use it. A sextile is friendly without being effortless. Mercury sextile Venus gives a pleasant, persuasive way with words that grows stronger the more it is practiced. Mars sextile Jupiter offers confident, enterprising action to anyone willing to take the opening. Left alone, these gifts stay quietly idle, which is why a sextile rewards initiative more than a trine does. What it feels like is a door standing ajar. A sextile is easy to miss precisely because it makes no demand, its promise sitting quiet until someone acts on it. Its work is to notice the opening and walk through it, turning quiet aptitude into something real.