Mercury semi-sextile Venus

What these two are about together

Mind and value. How thinking and taste inform each other, which the tradition reads as the aspect of style in the broadest sense.

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

Charm in communication. Read as somebody who is easy to talk to and who negotiates without it feeling like negotiation.

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

Venus: Values, attraction and what you find beautiful

Mercury and Venus at other angles

• Mercury conjunction VenusTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
• Mercury semi-square VenusForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
• Mercury sextile VenusSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
• Mercury quintile VenusSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
• Mercury square VenusNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
• Mercury trine VenusA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
• Mercury sesquiquadrate VenusA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
• Mercury quincunx VenusA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
• Mercury opposition VenusDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis