⚺ Semi-sextile
Mercury semi-sextile North Node
Understanding comes easily in that direction. Associated with picking things up quickly where it matters most.
- Angle
- 30°
- Orb used
- ±2°
- Type
- Soft
- Bodies
- ☿ ☊
What these two are about together
Thinking and the direction of development. Associated with learning as the route forward, and with the difference between what a person already knows and what they will have to.
What a semi-sextile does
A semi-sextile puts two planets in adjacent signs, which share no element, no quality and no polarity. The tradition treats it as the mildest contact in the table and disagrees with itself about whether it is helpful at all: some read it as a small supportive link, others as a low-level irritation between two things that simply do not speak the same language. Both readings agree it is quiet.
How it reads
Understanding comes easily in that direction. Associated with picking things up quickly where it matters most.
In practice
Read as a minor note rather than a theme. A semi-sextile is worth mentioning when almost nothing else is in orb, and worth leaving out of a summary when anything major is.
What to watch for
Overreading it. Adjacent signs are genuinely awkward together, but at this strength the tradition does not expect the awkwardness to be conspicuous.
The two planets
Mercury: Mind, language and how you process
North Node: The direction of growth, and the thing you have no practice at
Mercury and North Node at other angles
- Mercury conjunction North NodeTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
- Mercury semi-square North NodeForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
- Mercury sextile North NodeSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
- Mercury quintile North NodeSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
- Mercury square North NodeNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
- Mercury trine North NodeA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
- Mercury sesquiquadrate North NodeA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
- Mercury quincunx North NodeA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
- Mercury opposition North NodeDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis
Find this in your own chart
A reading like this only tells you what the pairing is associated with. Whether Mercury and North Node actually make this angle in your chart depends on your birth date, time and place.