Almagest

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The Sun sextile Jupiter

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

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart a sextile between the Sun and Jupiter is read as a cooperative, comparatively effortless version of their conjunction's fusion: Ptolemy counts the sextile among the harmonious configurations and Jupiter itself among the benefics, so the two judgments reinforce each other here. The tradition describes people with this aspect as generous and friendly, often appearing lucky since a positive outlook and a charitable disposition tend to attract good will in return; they are well informed, well regarded, keep the promises they make, and find humor and optimism a genuine resource in difficult stretches rather than a denial of them. Because a sextile still asks for a little active engagement to bear fruit, the ease here is treated as available rather than automatic. Between two charts, the tradition reads one person's Sun in sextile to another's Jupiter as a current of shared optimism and enthusiasm: the Jupiter person consistently gives the Sun person the benefit of the doubt and trusts their good heart, producing fun, memorable exchanges that can smooth over other frictions in the relationship and leave a warm impression even where the pairing does not last.

The story

A sextile is sixty degrees, a sixth of the circle; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs names it, together with the trine, harmonious, since the two signs it joins are of the same kind, all masculine or all feminine, in contrast to the discordant square and opposition. The myth again gives Jupiter his throne. Jupiter succeeded his father Saturn as king of the gods; unlike the Greek story of Cronus and Zeus, the Romans did not regard this succession as violent or hostile, and Saturn kept his own temple and cult afterward. He ruled the sky as "Optimus Maximus," the best and greatest, an office cultivated through titles of victory and protection as much as through plainly agricultural ones, a guardian of bounty as often as of order. He shared the cosmos afterward with two brothers, Neptune given the waters and Pluto the underworld, keeping for himself the widest and brightest of the three domains. A Sun offered only an angled, cooperative view of a planet this generously disposed still gets to draw on its favor, without the conjunction's risk of being entirely carried along by it.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Sun:Jupiter:sextile.