I have felt an affinity to the Chiron archetype even before I was an astrologer and knew the mythology or astronomy of Chiron. My first 18 years were defined by suffering, loss and abandonment. I lost my mother and sister to homicide when I was 2. I lost my dad to illness at age 9. After my dad died, I lived with a narcissistic woman and her legitimately psychopathic son. I have survived being orphaned, emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse. After my dad died there was no one to love me unconditionally and I grew up ostracized and bullied by my family (I was the parentified scapegoat).
I spent years of my young adult life free bleeding on others. I had Complex PTSD but didn’t know what that meant. I ran from environment to environment recreating dynamics where I would be abandoned. I lived off fear and an inability to relax. I felt for years like I would never know peace and that I was destined to die by suicide (the only ending I thought I deserved). I was retraumatized regularly living in a cis-sexist, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, ableist, capitalist patriarchy. But despite the misery and pain I eventually realized that I could be defined by suffering or defined by my ability to heal.
I was an active alcoholic and cocaine/meth addict. The first step was getting sober shortly after that I began to have my first spiritual experiences. I questioned my own nihilism that developed from watching my dad die. I found healing in Tibetan Buddhism, psychology and writing poetry. Many years later my bassline is peaceful. That peace I had to fight for. I live a spiritual life where I devote myself to loving myself and spreading healing teachings to others.
Suffering isn’t inherently wise, but wisdom can be extracted from suffering. There are many painful experiences we never cure, but instead integrate into our being, allowing alchemy to take place.
Rumi articulated “The wound is the place where the light enters you”. This perfectly conveys the Chiron archetype of how we can alchemize our wounds to generate healing for ourselves and others. It’s a very Western idea to cure a wound, hide it, be ashamed of it or try to eradicate it. Instead of that we can build acceptance and compassion around this vulnerability and look at how having the wound/vulnerability can be beneficial and useful to us. This is what Chiron has to teach us if we are willing to listen in, excavate deeply and confront bravely the roots of our suffering.
Chiron was discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal in Pasadena California and was originally classified as an asteriod. Mythologically Chiron is a centaur both human and horse. Astronomically centaur refers to a small and rocky celestial body that has the features of both a comet and asteroid. Like a comet Chiron is a mixture of dust, water ice and frozen gases. Like an asteroid Chiron will never grow to be as big as a planet. Chiron was the first centaur discovered. There are over 44,000 centaurs orbiting between Jupiter and Pluto. Chiron has a uniquely chaotic and very steep elliptical orbit that intersects with Saturn and Uranus’ orbits. Chiron has been referred to as the rainbow bridge. Chiron is presently considered a comet and minor planet.
Mythologically, Chiron was a child of sea nymph Philyra and Kronos, the leader of the Greek Titans. Kronos was sexually harassing Philyra, who in attempt to evade him turned herself into a horse. He turned himself into a horse and raped her. Chiron was conceived. He was rejected by his mother for being half human, half horse and for being a reminder of her rape. This was his first wound. He was adopted by Apollo and Artemis who taught him music, medicine, astrology, prophecy, archery and herbalism. He became a renowned prophet, healer, astrologer and teacher.
Hercules was one of his students and unfortunately, Hercules unintentionally hit Chiron with an arrow dipped in the blood of the 9 headed Hydra. This was Chiron’s second wound; he was an immortal with a mortal wound.
He was in awful pain and begged Zeus to relieve him, so he traded places with Prometheus who was being punished for stealing fire for the humans. Zeus turned him into the constellation Centarus and he died.
Notice how Chiron’s wounds weren’t ever completely resolved. Our Chiron wound is where we can show endless love and compassion to ourselves. It is also possible from this place we can facilitate the healing of other people. I don’t want to put a limit on our ability to heal ourselves. We are capable of great healing and it is possible to heal a Chiron wound. My own experience is that many Chiron wounds are not resolvable and as previously stated, the idea to resolve a wound is very Western. That doesn’t mean the wound will always cause us great suffering. The wound changes intensity and shape. We learn to live with it and find utility in the medicine it offers.
How do we make sense of Chiron in the natal chart? Adam Gainsburg, the author of Chiron The Wisdom of a Deeply Open Heart offers the following formula for delineating natal Chiron:
The Zodiac Sign represents what the sacred wound are and also sacred medicine, the wisdom that is hidden in the sacred wound.
House represents what areas of life the wound and medicine will appear.
Chiron’s Aspects to Planets will unearth the beliefs and fears that stem from the sacred wound.
Chiron’s polarity or Medicine Journey will illustrate what consciousness polarity must be realized to generate healing (Chiron in Aries polarity is Libra).
In future posts I will interpret Chiron placements through the signs, houses and aspects to planets.
References:
Brittanica
Chiron Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner & Outer Planets Barbara Hand Clow
Chiron The Wisdom of a Deeply Open Heart by Adam Gainsburg
Chiron and the Healing Journey by Melanie Reinhart
The Chiron Effect: Healing Our Core Wounds through Astrology, Empathy, and Self-Forgiveness by Lisa Tahir
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