⚹ The Sextile · Opportunity

Sixty degrees apart, in elements that get along. The two can reach each other, but nothing makes them: the line stays open, and stays quiet, until someone uses it.

The sextile at a glance

• Angle60°
• Umbriel calls itOpportunity
• Typical orbabout 4°
• Keywordsan open line, cooperation, latent skill

What the sextile means

An aspect is the angle between two planets: how they talk to each other. At 60°, the sextile is the aspect of a connection that waits to be picked up, where nothing at all happens by default. In a chart it's associated with an open line, cooperation, latent skill, needs a decision.

We call this one Opportunity, after what the angle does rather than how it is supposed to feel. Elsewhere you will see the sextile called a “harmonious” or “easy” aspect. Same geometry. Both words are worth having, and we would rather hand you the mechanism first and let you decide how it feels.

Why sextiles work like that

Sixty degrees is two signs apart, and two signs apart means the same polarity with compatible elements: fire with air, or earth with water. Different modes, so the two are not competing for the same moment.

That combination is exactly why it feels available rather than urgent. The pair have plenty in common and nothing at all forcing them together.

How close does it have to be?

About 4 degrees, half what a conjunction is allowed. The softer the aspect, the tighter it has to be before it means anything.

A sextile at 5 degrees is a footnote. At half a degree it is worth reading.

Is it a good aspect or a bad one?

Called easy, which is the word we would not have chosen, because easy suggests it happens by itself. It does not, and that is the one thing worth knowing about a sextile.

A trine runs unattended. A sextile waits. The accurate word is available.

How common is it?

Two places on the circle, so geometrically twice as likely as a conjunction, and about as likely as a square or a trine.

Most charts have several. A chart with none at all between the personal planets is the unusual case, and worth noticing for that reason rather than for any meaning attached to it.

A question to sit with

Which of these two do you reach for, and which one has been waiting?

Working with it

Pick the smallest possible use of it this week and make it. A sextile does not announce itself, so using the line once and watching what comes back is the only way to find out what it does.