Mars semi-sextile South Node

What these two are about together

Action and what is already known. Associated with the reflex a person reaches for under pressure, and with whether that reflex still serves them.

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

The old approach works. Associated with competence under pressure.

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

Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things

South Node: What comes easily, and what you hide in

Mars and South Node at other angles

• Mars conjunction South NodeTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
• Mars semi-square South NodeForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
• Mars sextile South NodeSixty degrees apart: cooperation that has to be taken up
• Mars quintile South NodeSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
• Mars square South NodeNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
• Mars trine South NodeA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
• Mars sesquiquadrate South NodeA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
• Mars quincunx South NodeA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
• Mars opposition South NodeDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis