Mercury sextile Mars

What these two are about together

Mind and drive. How fast thinking becomes speech, and how sharp that speech is.

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

Mental energy that goes somewhere. Associated with people who think clearly under pressure and who finish what they start explaining.

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

Mercury: Mind, language and how you process

Mars: Drive, anger and how you go after things

Mercury and Mars at other angles

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