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Mercury sextile Jupiter

Mercury sextile Jupiter, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart Mercury sextile Jupiter is read as a mind with big ideas and noble intentions, excellent at seeing the big picture, drawing conclusions, solving problems and making accurate observations. Because the aspect is a sextile, the tradition treats Jupiter's own scale as available to Mercury's thought rather than simply fused with it, the native able to call on a wider view without losing track of the concrete detail that made the observation accurate in the first place. Between two charts, one person's Mercury sextile another's Jupiter is read as an easy flow of communication: the Jupiter partner is especially enthusiastic about the Mercury partner's thoughts and ideas, stimulating them to learn more and expand their own opinions, an open, lively and largely positive exchange in which Jupiter introduces new perspectives and Mercury keeps the conversation grounded in something concrete.

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. Mercury's own parentage settles the connection outright: he is, in the standard genealogy, the son of Jupiter and Maia, daughter of the Titan Atlas. Mercury is himself named a god of boundaries, commerce, communication, eloquence and travel; Jupiter, the father whose household he was born into, ruled the gods as their king. Set at this easier angle, the son draws on the father's own generosity without being overwhelmed by it, Mercury's own eye for the concrete detail meeting Jupiter's own gift for the larger view.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mercury:Jupiter:sextile.