sextileAspectsWestern Astrology

A sextile is sixty degrees, half of a trine. In elemental terms it joins two ends that are compatible without being alike — fire with air, earth with water. Compatible-but-different is exactly its nature: the two get on, and something has to connect them.

So the difference from a trine isn't strength, it's who acts. A trine is like-with-like and happens by itself; a sextile is unlike and needs a move to exist at all. Which explains sextiles that never cash out in a lifetime — it was there the whole time, waiting for an opening that never got made.

In practice it's the easiest aspect on the chart to realise, because what it asks is small: one initiative. Where a square asks for ten years of grinding, a sextile asks you to say something once.