What does Chiron mean to you? Have you experienced his symbolic energy as healing? Wounding? As the ‘inconvenient benefic’, kicking open doors to places you’d never have thought to go? Does he simply not register as any kind of recognisable influence in your life or those around you? Or have you simply not given him much thought as you work with your horoscope in relation to your life?
Lots of questions. In this meditative 12th house time just before the Pisces New Moon tomorrow, I am very much engaged with them, being all too aware of Chiron’s approaching the end of his long 2010-18 sojourn in Pisces.
A liminal time
Any time just before an important heavenly body shifts from one sign to another is a liminal time – a threshold time, a 12th house time of final dissolution of the old cycle without the energies of the new yet being clearly evident. Chiron moves into Aries on 17th April 2018, dipping back into Pisces for a few months in the autumn of that year, settling into his journey through Aries on February 18th 2019, remaining there until 2026/7 when he shifts into Taurus.
Chiron’s orbit is very irregular, and if you’d like to go into the detail of this, Cafe Astrology is the place to go for some very clear tables. However, his return cycle is a steady 50 years: we all have a Chiron Return at that age. This return is especially significant since it represents the end of a whole 50 year period from 1968/9 when Chiron was last in Aries. A cycle is completing at the present time, and the shift from Pisces the last sign of the zodiac to Aries the first is always more radical than any other – and fierier, more disruptive and far-reaching at a collective level.
Chiron in Aries – 20th Century
50 years back from 1968/9 takes us to 1918/19 and the turbulent aftermath of the First World War. Some of us still vividly remember 1968/9 with the student riots in Europe, the protests in the USA against the Vietnam war, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King against the turbulent backdrop of the Civil Rights movement. We also remember that wonderfully pioneering event of the Moon landing, a stunning example of humanity’s kicking open a door to a place no-one throughout our whole history until that moment thought we would go.
…and 21st…
Early on in Chiron’s transit through Aries, ruled by the red planet Mars, preparations for the first human mission there envisaged for the 2030s are well under way. The upcoming Mars 2020 rover will study the availability of Martian resources, including oxygen. This is a major step forward in the preparation process. Some of us baby-boomers, if we live a long life, may well see the first blast-off taking humans in Shakespeare’s famous words about death, to “…The undiscovered country from whose bourn. No traveler returns…” 1 The Mars explorers know they will not return to their home planet…
No doubt there will be much more speculation across our various media outlets regarding what this shift may mean both collectively and individually. It has already begun, as a quick google search will testify!
Back to first principles
However, I have found my reflections returning me to contemplation of first principles: the questions at the start of this post are in fact my own interrogations both of my experience of Chiron’s symbolic energies in my personal life and my professional practice.
In response to those questions, on looking back I can say that I have seen Chiron, in his popular ‘wounded healer’ mode, most notably in colleagues and acquaintances with Chiron prominent in their charts eg 2nd, 6th or 10th Houses and/or strongly linked with planets, Nodes and Angles. They have found their way into caring, alternative healing or medical/nursing contexts, usually propelled there by family and/or personal wounding they were consciously or unconsciously seeking to assuage.
I have also seen situations where the wounding dimension was well to the fore and people struggled to see any healing in what they were experiencing – quite often at the Chiron Return point, when the whole horoscope’s Chiron aspects are triggered. This is where as an astrologer it is so vital to tread carefully in seeking to offer a context to deep pain and suffering which may offer some comfort and hope without raising unrealistic expectations – and to know when we are coming up against our own limitations eg in lack of specific expertise in dealing with questions of health and healing.
Here, it is important to have a network of reputable and experienced practitioners in various healing modalities who might be able to offer some support which builds on what one has hopefully been able to clarify for the client.
Inconvenient…but beneficial
It was the late astrologer A.L. Morrison who coined the term ‘inconvenient benefic’ as a facet of Chiron’s actions – I can see on considering the placement of Chiron in our solar system, his source for this interpretation. Chiron appeared in 1977 between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. He can be seen as the one who unlocked the door between the safe boundaries of the known system contained by Saturn, lord of form and structure, security and stability and the outer planetary realm of Uranus –lord of misrule, breaker of custom, known code and convention. It is very threatening to be kicked out of safe territory into the unpredictable and unknown. But often it is just what we need although we don’t appreciate it at the time.
I have certainly seen this Chironian dimension in action by transit or progression with clients who turn up for readings after a long process where life has given them a good kicking (sound familiar, anyone?!) but who emerge out the other end realising that the kicking was necessary to get them to move in a direction they would not have been brave (or foolish!) enough to see held considerable positive benefits for them.
An amusing (in retrospect…) and quite significant example of this ‘inconvenient benefic’ aspect of Chiron in action can be offered from my own life a long time ago. My husband developed mumps, and had such a sore throat for several days that he could neither speak nor eat anything that wasn’t liquidised, and certainly could not bear to smoke. Chiron was then transiting his Gemini Midheaven. He quit for good…
Chiron’s Return at Midlife
It makes sense that Chiron doesn’t feature very strongly in a person’s life if not prominent by horoscope placement or by aspect. However, even in such cases, if Chiron directly transits any of the personal planets or Angles, it is very unusual for there to be a ‘dumb note’ struck. It also seems to me that the Chiron Return at age 50 registers with everyone, but especially strongly when Chiron is a powerfully placed and aspected symbol.
A long time ago – I no longer have the chart or notes for reference but still remember the situation – a woman with Chiron conjunct her Moon consulted me not long after her 50th birthday. Chiron had recently returned to that natal conjunction. I recall that Saturn by transit was also probably involved. I asked her whether there was a difficult issue currently involving a key female in her life, and she said yes, that her mother-in-law to whom she had been very close had recently died and she was having difficulty getting over this loss; her deep grief seemed to her to be out of proportion.
I then asked if she had had a similar loss in the first year of her life. It turned out that her own mother had died when she was less than a year old, and that she had felt bereft of mothering until her mother-in -law came into her life, hence her great difficulty with the current situation. Both the client and I were deeply moved by how powerfully the Moon/Chiron symbolism had spoken on Chiron’s return to its natal position. But realising this also helped the client to make more sense of the depth of her grief, and hopefully to process it more consciously.
Chiron and our deep ancestral wound…
In approaching what Chiron’s symbolic action may bring in our own and clients’ horoscopes, it seems to me to make sense to hold those several facets I have described in this post in mind as we reflect.
However, there is a deep layer which has meant more to me than any other, which I first came across in an article by Liz Greene called ‘Wounding and the will to live’ in Issue 3 of Apollon, the Journal of Psychological Astrology (1999). This article is now available on Astrodienst, and I would strongly suggest that any readers interested in exploring Chiron’s meaning at profound depth should read it.
Here, Liz Greene points out re the centaur Chiron’s unhealable wound, that “….the wound exists in the collective and is ancestral..”
My understanding of what she is saying is that where Chiron appears in our birth charts represents our ‘chip’ of the accumulated woundedness of humanity over the ages. It is not our fault that we have this particular ‘chip’ allocated to us, any more than it was the centaur Chiron’s fault to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in the centaurs’ battle with the Lapiths during which he was grazed in the thigh by a poisoned arrow which would not heal because it was dipped in the blood of the Hydra.
We are not directly responsible for our personal share of humanity’s wounding. But if we can work with as much honesty and humility, and as little bitterness as possible with that share as indicated by Chiron’s placement in our natal chart, then we can begin to transform that woundedness into something which can be offered for the healing of others. This process can ultimately help us to grow enough for our personal wound to become an increasingly smaller part of who it is we are able to become.
I have used this understanding of Chiron in many client readings now, and have found that it offers inspiration and consolation. Much of that healing flows from helping clients to accept that the wound is not our fault – but it is our responsibility to choose how we deal with it. No doubt the fact that I have found this deep message a consolation in my own work with ancestral wounding, also communicates itself to clients without my having to say a single word about my own process…
________
Endnote:
1 Hamlet: Act 3 Scene 1
1800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2018
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page of Writing from the Twelfth House
1800 words
Astrology: Questions and Answers 
Hi Anne! Thank you for bringing Chiron in here! It us just now that I consider this at the more closer aspect in the natal chart and life path ! My personal Chiron is located in 3rd or also possibly in 4th house. When I turned 50 in 2012, I received a lot if relief from what my mother did to me in the past, that I could make peace with her…still I do!!! It is mostly related to a square moon to Pluto that I have had so much trouble to be respected by her, or by myself at least! Love and light Sabine
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Many thanks, Sabine! This is really useful feedback on the Chiron Return and the wounding/healing issues which come up around that time. It was a time for you to have made some more peace with the past – that’s good to see. Best Wishes, Anne
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Thanks for your thoughts on Chiron. I will be having Chiron transiting over my 29 Pisces Sun soon. What I find most interesting is that I will also be having my Saturn return, transiting Uranus on my MH conjunct Venus 29 Aries. Chiron is suppose to be the bridge between Saturn and Uranus and I seem to be getting conjunctions from both planets at the same time. Later in the year, I also get my Jupiter return in Sag. hope that’s my reserection. So far, when Chiron hit 28 last year, I had multiple trips to the ER with my husband for Kidney stones. They are still an ongoing issue, he just had laser surgery for the other side. The surgery was exact on the first of my 3 Saturn conjunctions this year. During his trips to the ER last year, he was having Saturn conjunct his 21 Sag Sun.
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16.3.18:
Margo Cline:
The only wide conjunction I have in my splash chart is Moon/Chiron in Aquarius. I certainly felt the South Node transit over this placement in the last few months as feeling sentimental about my past. Transiting Chiron in Pisces has left me feeling quite weepy about the trashing of the Earth’s natural environment. It is currently in my 6th house and it certainly has had a deep effect on my work environment as I have been feeling wounded in that just about everything has crashed. Chiron in Pisces is just so sensitive to me and sometimes it feels overwhelming. Luckily my health has been fairly decent, though, and for that I am very grateful.
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Many thanks for this vivid and heartfelt feedback, Margo. I think we’ve all become much more sensitised to the trashing of our precious environment during this Chiron in Pisces transit – and more prepared to do something about it, e.g. re plastic pollution, which I suppose is encouraging…yes, heightened sensitivity and vulnerability has been very evident to me in observing Chiron through Pisces transits in my client work…
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16.3.18:
Donna Loychik:
I think this placement for me, this life time has forced me to really become more engaged with spirit and the divine. I have felt the real knowing that…we are all part of the divine plan and living it out everyday. That I am stronger than I think. …
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This is such inspiring feedback, Donna. Many thanks!
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Donna Loychik
My Chiron is in Pisces…yep..my 12th house. Hanging out with my rising sign!
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16.3.18:
Judith Burke
Chiron is in my 2nd House; now I understand why I studied psychology and therapy. And I made the decision to make a career of it when I was 50.
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Glad to provide a bit of clarification, Judith. It’s also good to hear about the timing of your career decision…
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16.3.18:
Emilie Llewellyn Simons:
Hi Anne, I usually skip over any articles on Chiron, but I usually really resonate with your writing so I decided to ignore my usual response to anything Chiron. Personally Chiron is not prominent at all in my chart, I always wanted to like him since he was ‘discovered’ three days before my birthday, but I just don’t see his relevance personally and I feel really indifferent to him. I had never looked at his transits or progressions to my natal chart, but I just did. Funny thing he has transited over all of my points and planets and every time he was completely insignificant, as there has always been something more prominent going on at the same time. I have a bit of a theory that perhaps not only like you said that Chiron probably doesn’t feature strongly in someone’s life if not prominent in the chart, but I also have a feeling that Chiron seems to be more significant for generations pre 1977 and/or for those who perhaps are of a more Saturnine type and struggle with the energies of Uranus. I don’t particularly like the idea of Chiron being a bridge for Saturn and Uranus, I don’t think these planets need a bridge…after all Aquarius links these two together by traditional and modern rulership. I get extremely passionate about Saturn and Uranus (Uranus is my all time favourite planet followed closely by Saturn) and I actually feel their energies are quite compatible, but they also feature strongly in my chart and my Ascendant is Aquarius so I could be biased… 🙂
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What an interesting angle on Chiron, Emilie, once again supporting my own observations that some people simply don’t connect with this energy. I am most interested in what you have said here: “…I also have a feeling that Chiron seems to be more significant for generations pre 1977 and/or for those who perhaps are of a more Saturnine type and struggle with the energies of Uranus…” I must reflect on this point, and talk to some colleagues to get their perspectives on what you say. Maybe this is food for a later post… Thank you!
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Hi Anne
Thank you for inviting readers to respond. I could say much about what Chiron means to me but I will set a few boundaries to contain an inherent tendency to ascend into a spiritually-sensitive discourse (an expression of my natal Saturn-Neptune conjunction).
I find great personal comfort in the mythology of Chiron – abandoned by his mother and fostered by the solar god, Apollo – the symbolism of taking my wounding to the Sun’s light – described by Liz Greene as the ‘light-bringer’, and ‘breaker of family curses’, one of many of the Sun’s functions.
My Chiron is the teacher as an archetype of healer. Natally, Chiron opposes Uranus in an 8th house which is governed by a Moon-Sun conjunction in Aquarius. In my chart the Moon reflects all the dark secrets of the matrilineal line along which my perception of abandonment has continued to open deeply sensitive wounds from childhood to adulthood to elderhood.
My husband died suddenly and unexpectedly at my Chiron Return in the staunch sign of Capricorn, the sure-footed mountain goat which never falls. Because of my personal circumstances at the time, I dared not put a foot wrong, I could not fall in my climb higher to find a safe place. This was an extremely challenging time in my life when I progressed slowly through harsh self-discipline and exhaustive hard work; dealing with this wounding had to be kept under strict control in the material world. The pain of childhood experiences – the incomprehensible – that raw sense of abandonment etched in vivid old memories quickly surfaced to stare me in the face, and which at times seemed life-denying. It was a time, as you describe Anne, when my whole horoscope’s Chiron aspects were triggered.
My daughter, an only child, left home to study at university on the other side of the world when my transiting Chiron was moving through Pisces. For a while I struggled along that old familiar path, yet the teachings of Chiron in compassionate Pisces gently opened me up to the truth that my ancestral and familial wounding was not my fault. My healing journey had finally begun through acceptance.
Teaching others how to heal is one of Chiron’s greatest gifts. Last year I was on a train from Edinburgh to Bristol when a young man who had boarded at Newcastle sat beside me and asked if he could charge his phone from my laptop to make an urgent phone call. He could have taken a seat next to any of several other passengers close by who also had laptops – but he sat next to me. This young man would have been aged in his mid twenties and first appeared uncomfortably flustered and emotionally distracted. After a few casual words together he suddenly apologised for his appearance and began to tell me of an unpleasant experience which had to do with a situation he found himself in the previous night, and for which he was extremely remorseful and took complete responsibility. He had been summoned to Birmingham to be confronted by his organisation’s management which he felt certain represented the termination of his employment. Throughout the journey he willingly spoke of the fear of losing his job at a critical time in his life when he felt vulnerable and isolated. At some point our conversation turned to me when I began to speak of a number of my own challenging experiences as a young woman many years ago; he listened intently. The train began slowing on its arrival into Birmingham station and he stood to leave. I wished him well and said that I hoped the outcome of the meeting would be positive. We shook hands and he began to move out when he stopped and turned to quickly say ‘thank you for teaching me today – you have eased my pain.’ And then he was gone.
To me this was another experience of taking my own wounding to the Sun’s light.
All the best Anne . . . . . .
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Many thanks, Page, for this deeply personal and moving feedback, revealing how if we are willing to work with our woundedness even in the darkest of times, paths to the light can eventually open up. After that, we have undergone our initiation and can then offer out healing to others. That has certainly been my experience too. But it all takes time: perhaps our common human understanding that ‘Time is a great Healer’ also fits into the Chironian archetype…
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You said “check back to 47/8, 35/6. and 23/4 to get a handle on what the core themes are likely to be next time around!”
Are these archives? Not sure what you mean.
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Hi Mo
I’ve been trying to leave you a reply which is an edited and extended version of my original reply – but it has kept vanishing! Sorry to have caused you confusion, hope this version is clearer and that you enjoy the Jupiter Cycles article.
Thanks, Mo, for this ‘ouchy’ feedback! That Jupiter Return in Sagittarius should be a welcoming relief – check back to when you were 47/8 years old, then 35/6 and then 23/4, the last three times when Jupiter returned to its own place and a new Jupiter cycle began: if you can detect a theme arising at those ages, which is the point where a new 11-12 year Jupiter cycle begins, reflecting on this should help you to to get a handle on what the core Jupiterian themes are likely to be at the 59/60 Jupiter cycle, which co-incides in time with the second Saturn Return.
To further assist your reflections, here is an article I wrote not long ago on the Jupiter Cycles:
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Thanks for the link! The numbers you were referring to were the ages of the Jupiter cycle, thanks for clarifying. I must admit I was lost in a Piscean fog trying to locate the vanishing comment. Thanks again for all your wisdom! ❤️
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You said “check back to 47/8, 35/6. and 23/4 to get a handle on what the core themes are likely to be next time around!”
I’m not sure what those numbers stand for. Are they archives?
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Hi Mo, I’ve now updated my reply with a fuller explanation – and added a link to an article I wrote on the Jupiter Cycles. Hope this helps!
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16.3.18:
Sellieve Neptune:
While reading this, it dawned on me that someone I know will have transiting Chiron conjunct their moon after their Chiron return, and their mother might die when this transit happens, not sure if I should tell them or how to counsel them thru this? I’m welcome to hear anyone’s thoughts.
Also I have Chiron 07° Leo in the 7th house, so I’ll get a trine transit, wondering how to prepare for this?
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Sellieve, once again you’ve raised an ethical question which deserves a considered reply outwith comment boxes, and have set up my next post for me as a follow-up to this one! ( I’m assuming I can use your name in my post since it was left on a public discussion – but let me know if you’d prefer me to anonymise it )
In the meantime, a short answer: our ancient basic guideline is still: ‘Do no harm’. We can describe clearly to our clients the essence of a planetary combination eg Chiron/Moon by transit: but the branches which arise from that core essence are many and varied although all tie back to the core theme/s. So we are not in any position to select one branch and offer it to the client as a possibility if it is something which may raise fear/be undermining or damaging.
It is another matter when (as in the example I gave in this post) the client brings a branch which for them has manifested as a death. It is then our job to help them explore this event in such a way that they gain some understanding, and are able to go forward feeling empowered rather than undermined. I hope this gives you enough of a guideline for now. If in any doubt, better to say nothing than risk being injurious …
Hi again Sellieve, re your question about yourself: I do not think that comment threads are a constructive place in which to discuss sensitive personal matters in any depth so I don’t do that here. I think if you are really concerned, you should book a consultation ( save up if need be – it is worth it to consult with someone experienced, competent and with some experience of working with their own issues) – or as an astrologer yourself, live through the transit and learn from it.
Astrological knowledge is a double edged gift for those of us who practice it, since we project our own hopes and fears – some of them unconscious – onto our transits and progressions, and can never know how those projections may influence the actual outcomes….but observing our own reactions to upcoming challenges of a symbolic nature, and learning from that, is in my view an important part of our training to be effective, realistic and compassionate practitioners.
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17.3.18:
Moira Campbell:
Chiron is becoming a more significant point in the charts I read. I always analyze its aspects in the initial chart reading now.
If tightly hooked up, it can represent deep compassion, or despair, over the “human condition”. In some charts, it doesn’t factor at all. But I’ve been presented with many charts in the past year, with tight Chiron aspects.
Mine is within 2 degrees of a dynamic IC. Ergo, my passion for human psychology ?
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Yes, in all probability, Moira. and I do think that as our own chart patterns become activated by transits and progressions, we tend to draw clients to us who are dealing with similar stuff…this perhaps accounts at least partly for your increasing focus on Chiron in clients’ charts.
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I have 23 degrees of Aquarius Rising. Piled up in my twelfth house are Pholus, Mercury, Chiron and Pallas at, respectively, 6, 7, 8 and 9 degrees of Aquarius. I’m also a first-house Pisces Sun. My Chiron Return was in 2006. Ever since 2000, when Neptune started transiting over this lot, I’ve been talking to the Other Side. It has been alternatively wonderful and horrible. My understanding of the Universal Mind and Will have expanded greatly. But, this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it to anyone, for obvious reasons. Once you start down this road, there’s no going back.
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Thanks for your openness, Lesley….interestingly, when Neptune in Aquarius from the 6th House was opposing my five 12th House planets, apart from going into retreat and concentrating on reading and writing for several years, I wrote and published a memoir which shares experiences of levels of Reality outwith the everyday. You might be interested in acquiring it: https://anne-whitaker.com/wisps-from-the-dazzling-darkness/
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18.3.18:
Donna Loychik:
I think this placement for me, this life time has forced me to really become more engaged with spirit and the divine. I have felt the real knowing that…we are all part of the divine plan and living it out everyday. That I am stronger than I think. That my faith and my ability to surrender to the divine and ask for help when needed from God/Spirit/Universe etc…angelic realm…is there for me always. I have learned to have true faith. Through some very difficult trials…I have grown closer to the divine.
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Many thanks again, Donna!
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18.3.18:
Jo Munro:
I have the same placement Donna and completely agree
– Chiron has just transited my ascendant and I feel the outsider is there for all to see. However, I agree that Chiron brings great reserves of courage. He was Jason’s (and the Argonauts) teacher and I’m sure courage is part of the story.
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This post has attracted a great deal of interest; people have been very open and honest in sharing their varying experiences of Chiron: I am very appreciative and grateful for that openness – it’s the way we all learn. I have shared a selection of comments and answers from my Facebook Page, so that readers who are not on Facebook can have access to them. There are many more comments with my responses over on the Facebook Page companion to this blog: do drop over there if you’d like to read them – AND a selection of interesting posts from quality astrologers across the Web!
https://www.facebook.com/Astrology-Questions-and-Answers-381046495339417/
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I feel that many people don’t relate to Chiron in their birth charts simply because the true essence of Chiron is difficult to grasp. Keywords like “wounding and healing” are just entry level keywords really, and don’t even begin to describe the full essence of what Chiron is about. By personally observing Chiron in many people’s charts, one thing I have noticed about Chiron is that he represents inter-dimensional communication: that is, the communication that goes on between the many different and additional dimensions that exist as well as this earthly one that we find ourselves in.
An example of this would be Christ (note the letters Chi). Christ was an amazing healer, yet he was (greviously) wounded. But that was just a physical wound. Perhaps his biggest wound was spiritual in nature: he was forsaken by the people that he healed, loved and showed so much compassion for, and for a moment there he even thought he had been forsaken by “the father”. But Christ was about so much more than just wounding and healing. He meditated a lot, and would go up into the hills often to ‘communicate’ with “the father”, who occupied all the dimensions simultaneously. He spent a lot of time cruising around and preaching about these other dimensions, which personally I have no doubt exist. He was also an ‘alternative’ healer, and he certainly was a ‘maverick’. There is so much more to learn about Chiron.
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You are absolutely right bout that, Wizron, and thank you for this most interesting ‘take’ on the archetype. In relation to what you say, of course there is much more to learn about Chiron: he has only been observable by us since 1977 – a mere 40 years…
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