Sun sextile Mars

What these two are about together

Identity and drive. What you are becoming, and the force you are willing to use to get there. The tradition treats this as the pair that decides whether somebody acts on their own behalf.

What a sextile does

A sextile is traditionally read as opportunity rather than event. The two planets are in compatible elements and can work together easily, but the tradition is specific that a sextile describes something available rather than something that arrives. It is the aspect most often described as a door that is unlocked and still shut.

How it reads

Effort comes easily and in your own interest. Associated with physical confidence and with people who do not need to be talked into starting.

In practice

Reads as ease that is not automatic. Where a trine tends to be used without thinking, a sextile tends to be noticed and then either taken up or left alone.

What to watch for

Nothing happening. A sextile that goes unused is the most common way this aspect is experienced, and it is not a failure of the aspect.

The two planets

Sun: Identity, vitality and what you are becoming

Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things

Sun and Mars at other angles

• Sun conjunction MarsTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
• Sun semi-sextile MarsThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
• Sun semi-square MarsForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
• Sun quintile MarsSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
• Sun square MarsNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
• Sun trine MarsA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
• Sun sesquiquadrate MarsA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
• Sun quincunx MarsA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
• Sun opposition MarsDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis