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The Moon sextile Venus

the Moon sextile Venus, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart the Moon sextile Venus is read as an amiability that is a distinct characteristic of the placement, feeling and affection cooperating easily rather than needing to be reconciled. Ptolemy counts Venus a benefic, and the tradition reads the sextile as making that generosity available to the Moon's own instinct without fusing the two together the way the conjunction does, a natural gift for making a space feel warm and welcoming that the person can draw on rather than one that simply floods the personality. Between two charts, one person's Moon sextile another's Venus is read as a genuine liking between the two, a very natural affection and sweetness that sources count as one aspect able to support the relationship during times of conflict elsewhere in the chart, a mutual softening that tends to wear well over time rather than burning brightly and fading.

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. Aphrodite, whom Rome called Venus, is not born as an infant in the oldest telling but rises fully grown from sea foam, produced when Cronus cast his father Uranus's own severed genitals into the water; Roman theology went on to describe her as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life, a birth and a nature both tied to water before they are tied to anything else. Set at this easier angle, Venus's warmth is offered rather than imposed, the Moon's own instinct free to draw on it exactly as much as suits it, without either being lost in the other.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Moon:Venus:sextile.