Almagest

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Mars sextile Mars

the transiting Mars's periodic pass in sextile to its own natal place, or one person's Mars sextile another's in synastry

What the tradition reads

A natal chart cannot show Mars sextile to itself, since no body can stand at an angle from its own degree; the tradition reads this key through transit, at the point in Mars's own roughly two year orbit where its transiting place sextiles its natal one. Cafe Astrology's own transit page reads this pass, together with the trine, as a time of excellent rhythm and timing, confidence, directness and ambition. Between two charts, one person's Mars sextile another's is read, together with the trine, as an instinctive understanding of one another's impulses, methods and desire nature, sources describing partners as supportive of one another, their inner rhythms in rapport.

The story

A sextile is sixty degrees, a sixth of the circle, one of the four configurations Ptolemy names, read through the compatible signs it joins and asking for a degree of active engagement before its ease is felt; Wikipedia's own summary of the aspect calls it similar to the trine but less intense, indicating compatibility and harmony. Mars carried more than one face among the Romans: Mars Gradivus, the Strider, is the war god in his marching, campaigning aspect, while Mars Quirinus names the same god as protector of citizens and guarantor of peace, a title also merged with the deified Romulus. Meeting himself, Mars meets the gap between these two offices, the one who marches to war and the one who guards the city he marches out from. Set at this easier angle, the strider draws on the guardian's own steadiness without being slowed by it, energy that knows, at least some of the time, when to stand down.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Mars:sextile.