Almagest

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Mars sextile Neptune

Mars sextile Neptune, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart Mars sextile Neptune is read, together with the trine, as a powerful sense of mystery, nuance and drama, the tradition treating the sextile's version of this gift as available rather than constant, called upon when useful rather than simply lived inside. Between two charts, Mars-Neptune contacts are generally read as indicative of sexual attraction, sources say, an attraction the same sources note grows disruptive and variable mainly where the aspect between the two charts is a difficult one, a caveat the easier sextile is not named as falling under.

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 and Neptune are bound to the horse very differently. Roman tradition consecrated the Campus Martius to Mars as horse pasturage and an equestrian training ground, held the October Horse chariot race and Rome's only known horse sacrifice in his honor, and sent Roman cavalry parading from his temple every July; Neptune's own tie to the horse came later and secondhand, Wikipedia's page on his mythology says, through the Roman god Consus, whose festival featured horse races and who was reinterpreted as Neptunus equestris under the influence of the Greek Poseidon Hippios, Neptune himself having no such direct connection with horses of his own. Set at this easier angle, the war god's own horse cult and the sea god's borrowed one cooperate rather than compete, force given just enough of Neptune's current to find its rhythm without losing its footing.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Neptune:sextile.