Mars sextile Chiron

What these two are about together

Assertion and the sore place. Associated with what happens to somebody who was punished for wanting things, and with the particular difficulty of acting on your 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

Acting on it works. Associated with people who use the difficult thing as a reason to do something rather than as a reason to stop.

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

Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things

Chiron: The injury that does not close, and what it made you able to do

Mars and Chiron at other angles

• Mars conjunction ChironTwo bodies at the same degree, acting as one
• Mars semi-sextile ChironThirty degrees apart: neighbouring signs, with little in common
• Mars semi-square ChironForty-five degrees apart: half a square, and read as half its weight
• Mars quintile ChironSeventy-two degrees apart: a fifth of the circle, and the odd one out
• Mars square ChironNinety degrees apart: two things that will not sit still together
• Mars trine ChironA hundred and twenty degrees apart: the same element, working together
• Mars sesquiquadrate ChironA hundred and thirty-five degrees: a square and a half
• Mars quincunx ChironA hundred and fifty degrees apart: two things that cannot be compared
• Mars opposition ChironDirectly across the chart: two ends of one axis