Sun sextile Saturn

What these two are about together

Identity and limit. The pair the tradition associates most strongly with authority, with fathers, and with the difference between what you are and what you have proved.

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

Structure supports the self. Associated with steady competence, with people who are trusted with responsibility early, and with ambition that does not need to announce itself.

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

Saturn: Limit, structure and what has to be earned

Sun and Saturn at other angles

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