Chiron in Aries - Part II - The pain of being

Chiron in Aries

18 of February 2019 - 19 June 2026

After the Odyssey of my Chiron in Pisces Return in 2010, and the 7 years of lingering pain, I thought, I'm done! Bouahaha ha ha... No, not done. Here comes your redemption -says Chiron. Is this another 7 years of pain? I will tell you in 2026... if I am still alive! Feel free to comment at the end of this article, how Chiron is hurting/healing you so far.

Aries is the first Sign of the Zodiac, ruling the birth, the rising of the Soul into the physical form. Aries rules the first impulse of life, your body, and in particular the head (no wonder!, the first thing appearing in the birth canal is the head, right?). It is the Self, the image we show to the world, the persona, the identity, first impressions, the attitude, appearance, self awareness, and your response (reflection) to the environment.

Chiron there, makes us feel inadequate in all those areas. It often manifests as feelings of being too much or too little of something, i.e. "my nose is too big", "my hips are too narrow", "my hair is too curly" kind of complaints. But also, affects the psychology of your identity: "I am not enough", or the other extreme "I will show you how ____ I am" kind of automatic and unconscious reactions.


Consequently,  one may feel not worthy, not able to fit in, may lack assertiveness or be too much assertive to compensate, may fear self expression, may have an unconscious tendency to hurt oneself (especially the head). One may feel deeply inside that has no right to exist, and try to be invisible, or on the other hand spend all the energy trying to prove that one exists, "please, look at me" attitude. It can also manifest as unconscious mirroring of the 'other'. From that mindset of insecurity, one can fear assertion, may act too soon or too late, do things on one's own instead of asking when help is needed.

There is a deep anguish from feeling that one's existence, actions and desires are not acceptable. Therefore, there is a feeling that there is no point in trying to obtain one's desires, one may give up trying, ending up getting what one doesn't want. Some people grow very shy, repressing their life drive. Others may go pleasing everybody left and right, except themselves, in an attempt to prove themselves of value. Likewise, others may have a big ego.

Feelings of disempowerment, impotence, frustration, suppressed anger, even passive aggression are common. Extreme cases (depending on the aspects Chiron makes in the natal chart to other cosmic bodies) can end up getting ill, self-inflicting pain, or in suicide, with the ideation of proving that they exist. The stronger the suppressed desires, the more radical the reaction, because the Martian energy of Aries needs to show up somehow.

After reading in my previous post, about the Myth of Chiron, the shame of existence becomes evident in Aries. Half man, half horse, this mythical Centaur, lived in shame of his own body. Rejected by the two most important people in the life of anyone, his father and mother, could never find comfort. Heracles or Hercules, his friend, accidentally wounded one of his left legs. The left side of the body is the feminine, yin side, or the place of reception from others and the environment. This means that there is an archetypical conflict in the way one is able to receive acceptance, affection, validation, appreciation, attention and even allowance to hold a space and time.

Therefore, wherever Chiron sits in one's Birth Chart, is the key influence to the way we function in relationships. When one has Chiron in Aries, the partner needs to be aware of one's need for validation, reassurance, and especially the need to be accepted just as one is, virtues and shortcomings as well. There is a tendency for the Chiron in Aries person to try to heal the partner's traits that he or she feels are inadequate in him or herself. One may unconsciously pair with someone who reflects the same wounds to us.

Chiron healing journey is crucially painful and omnipresent. In my astrological opinion, one is able to complete the maturation of this healing process during the Return, around 50 years old, once Chiron comes back to the natal placement. According to Barbara Hand Clow, it is a process with milestones at the first quarter square, opposition, third quarter square and culminates at the conjunction. However, Uranus and Saturn are heavily involved in the process and since Chiron orbit is awkward, the timing of those milestones is very unique for each person. Saturn presents the challenges and limitations of the physical reality, Uranus shocks us with its sudden enlightening understanding, inspiration for freedom, much like thunderbolts of consciousness. The more we know about one's personal Chiron placement, the more aware one can be to those revelations, the better one can use them to heal.

For Chiron, his wounds were obvious and visible. For us, in general, they are hidden, just an undercurrent of feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time, one's body has just regular imperfections, not as dramatic as Chiron's. It is the way we perceive them that hurts. Developing awareness of our escapist attitude and behaviors, can show us where we play it small or bigger to cope with the suffering.

 Chiron himself has shown us the higher call, to consciously work with our wounds.  He searched, studied, and applied different methods and alternative remedies to his wound, spending his whole life (can be translated to our 50 years) seeking relief. Apollo, the Sun God, his adoptive father, taught him medicine, poetry, logic. He also became a shaman, astrologer, learned dance and archery. In the end he even surrendered his immortality to save Prometheus from his horrible suffering and to be released from his own suffering. This sacrifice earns him the final recognition that cured his natal wound. Like him, instead of dwelling in the suffering, feeling a victim of one's wound, or projecting it onto others, we also can consciously search and learn the best way to attend and nurse our wound.

To help us become aware of our Aries Chiron wound, I will later write about what area of life (house) his transit is falling for each Zodiac Sign. If you are Aries Rising Sign, this post is the one for you. Next, I will start with Taurus and Scorpio.  Look for Part III soon, to keep reading.

Please comment, and share this post. You can also contact me at pukavypora@gmail.com with Chart Reading requests.
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Chiron in Aries - Part I - Where we come from

Chiron in Aries

February, 18, 2019 Chiron re-enters Aries for a 7 year visit that promises deep healing... if we become aware, accept the process, and use his energy efficiently. If we don't, the  healing takes place through the pain generated by resistance.

The Education of Achilles by Chiron, fresco in Herculaneum, 1st C AD.

'Rainbow Bridge' Between Two Realms

Melanie Reinhart and Barbara Hand Clow define Chiron as the Rainbow Bridge between Uranus and Saturn, meaning the tangible and the spirit realms. This understanding comes from the symbolic meaning of Chiron's orbit between Saturn's and Uranus', at some points, he approaches closely Uranus' orbit, others he crosses Saturn's orbit. Because of these incursions, Chiron is the awareness that opens up our grasp of the Spirit world (Uranus) with a grounded understanding of the material world (Saturn). The particular wound of our existence (Saturn) is what wakes us up to the spiritual reality (Uranus). The wound we carry is directly tied to the fact that we are spiritual beings having this physical experience. Since most of our life we are unconscious or oblivious of that, Chiron is the one that rips the veil open, in a sense. As Rumi wrote "The wound is the place where the Light enters you". And so it is! In order to receive a clear understanding (Uranus) of our Real Being beyond the matter, and merge with the non-physical Realm (Neptune), integrate our shadow side and end duality (Pluto), one needs to break the attachment and dependence (Chiron) on the physical Realm by mastering the material aspect of our being (Saturn). This is the process that Chiron triggers in order to link 'heaven' with 'earth'.

I came to understand Chiron's Myth very well after its Return (to the place where it was when I was born) at 0º Pisces in the 6th house of health. Then, I understood so much about who I am, what I am doing here and how to heal myself with alternative methods. I have been learning and healing for the seven years Chiron spent in Pisces, so now that he's about to leave for a new learning/teaching challenge in Aries, I consider taking the final exam by sharing what I've learned; since "We teach best what we most need to learn" (Richard Bach in Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah).

If the reader is not familiar with the Mythological Chiron, I highly recommend reading about it here. It is crucial to understand my article, that the reader knows the symbolic archetype and how it works. It would be even better if the reader has access to Chiron placement in his or her own Natal Chart. Information about Chiron in the Signs and Houses can be read in the Reference materials listed at the bottom of this article.

In synthesis, Chiron was born of a sea-nymph raped by Chronos, both metamorphosed into horses, she, escaping from him; he, not willing to give up the chase. His body is half human (from the belly up), half horse (from the horse chest down). Abandoned by both ashamed parents, Chiron lives in shame of his physical reality. He's accidentally wounded by Hercules, his friend. Having a wound that never heals, he is in constant search of relief and healing. Thanks to Apollo who adopts him and teaches him all kinds of arts, Chiron becomes the Wounded Healer, a Shaman, an Alchemist, an Astrologer and adopts all methods of alternative medicine.

For us personally in our Birth Charts, the archetype is about inadequacy and shame feelings based on the fear of not being something, the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment. According to Tom D. Jacobs, Chiron is the energy receptor of our soul, the way we receive reality and process information from the environment and others through those inadequacy feelings. And he is also the 'antennae' that connects us with our Spirit body.

Where we come from: Chiron in Pisces - The Pain of Surrendering the Individuality

During the 7 years that Chiron transited Pisces people have had transcendental experiences that defy reason and have suffered the pain of not being able to define their own individuality. There was a feeling of floating in limbo without boundaries, which gave us a sense of painful dissolution into the spirit of the whole humanity. We've started to own the wounds of others as our own, we empathized with the victims of war, injustices, with displaced and persecuted minorities, with animals on the verge of extinction, with the pollution of the oceans, and the significant 'other'. We may have related to 'the other' in a victim/rescuer dynamic with disastrous consequences for them and for us. 

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there was fear of surrender to belonging, and difficulty accepting separations. With feelings of rejection and abandonment, one may have fallen ill in order to call attention, or one may have abandoned or rejected first to avoid being abandoned or rejected. Diseases and other imbalances arose emotional chaos bringing up to light the existential grief of separation from the Source of all. The natural consequence was deep compassion for the suffering of others until lately there was a surrender of the search of self, and the acceptance that "All comes from God, all goes back to God" (any way the Divinity or the Source of all might be perceived). Love in relationships became a universal archetype concerning more the collective than the individual, meaning that one may have been loving the 'other's essence instead of the real person.

It was common and easier for people to tune into parallel realities that astonished the lower mind with their bold impressions. More and more people awoke to the spiritual reality. There has been a tendency to grieve incomprehensible losses difficult to define in the tangible dimension. Deep mourning events (from partner breakups to war deaths) opened one's inner world into the grief of losing the spiritual purity and union. Empathic ideological movements were started to protect animals and plants, and even the inanimate Nature of the planet. In the end, humanity has started to realize the reality of our interconnectedness. In the same way all the organs and functions of the human body work harmoniously to sustain its life, we came to realize that every piece in the puzzle of our planet Earth and the Universe is equally crucial in order to sustain Life. 

At the same time, during those 7 years, Saturn journeyed through Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and now is in Capricorn. All the while, Uranus had also a 7 years journey in Aries. What did they do then for us?

Saturn's journey

Since 2011, Saturn in Libra taught us relationship discipline. We should have learned about taking partnerships seriously, building them step by step in a mature grown up manner, fair treatment, fair share, establishing balance structures of exchange, making responsible compromises, adopting fair conventions leading to equanimity and resolving conflicts without blaming 'the other'. If one was giving too much and receiving too little, the relationship was intolerable and unbearable. We may have adopted a new definition of personal boundaries, a redefinition of self to include the 'other'. Saturn made sure we go the idea!

When Saturn moved into Scorpio in October 2012, its lessons on restructuring relationships became more intense and deeper. We were taken for a visit into our psychological underworld to face our demons and discover the decayed structures of our innermost secrets. It was probably the previously unbalanced relationships that brought us to that point, but now we were able to recover the aspects sacrificed in the previous unfair compromises. Our sexual life may have been restricted, hindered or the cause of great distress. It was no coincidence that the news reflected so much sexual corruption. We were probably forced to take the power of sex more seriously, and establish new dynamics in the intimate partnership. We had the chance to see what was not working with our shared finances, and to reorganize them. Maybe we refinanced a loan, maybe we revealed broken financial agreements and we had to restructure them. There might have been a winner and a loser. With the mutual reception of Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, in Scorpio; and Pluto, ruler or Scorpio, in Capricorn, we probably experienced issues of loss of power, or dramatic upheavals in the social reputation.

When Saturn journeyed through Sagittarius, the 'old man's lesson was about spiritual maturity and self respect. One may have felt that no matter how much one floored the pedal, there was never enough gas to accelerate the vehicle. We learned to moderate optimism, and enthusiasm was thwarted. The expansion/contraction dynamic got us frustrated if not depressed. We had the task to take an honest, mature and realistic inventory of our belief system, to get rid of superfluous ideas. It was time not only to talk about but to live our personal truth. We looked into the future with responsible perspective. We had to face the consequences of our adventures, learn the limits when going 'places' or seeking truth. If we had excessive irresponsible behavior, we soon were disciplined, so we learned how to join freedom with responsibility. We understood that the future is just an idea, but the reality is the present, and it is now that we create our future. We gained knowledge and adjusted our beliefs through our real life experiences. 

Saturn entered Capricorn in December 2017 with our needs unmet and our dreams unrealized, feeling frustrated and misunderstood. Now, in its home Sign, Saturn is the Master of Reality and Matter. If Spirit is energy, Saturn is the tangible manifestation of it. Our journey here is to recreate the structures of our present existence. In sextile with Neptune, Saturn gives the frame where we can now create from a more spiritual perspective, and give shape to our dreams.

Uranus' journey in Aries  

An unconventional, free loving, and urgent force suddenly fractured our sense of self at least in one area of life (where Uranus was transiting for each person). For seven years, we were hurrying up and changing things in that area. While Saturn was teaching us discipline, we've had out of the norm experiences that we wanted to try now. Uranus shook up the stalemate. We found ourselves doing things we'd never thought we'd do. Our taste may have changed. We may have traveled far away to exotic places, may have done jaw-dropping actions. Others may have made comments about those actions, making us aware of their surprise. But in general, we were willing and ready to try new things never explored before. There was a lot of Internet activity in our life, and the birth of the selfie. There were technological discoveries and inventions applied to the body (the chip installed inside the body, the smart watch). We learned about unconventional subjects. In general, we were brave to drop our inhibitions, at least in the area of life visited by Uranus energy. 

Chiron traveling between Saturn and Uranus, had to worked together with all those lessons and absorb them for his healing purpose. Chiron made sense of the physical experiences in the spiritual stage of life. With much hurt and pain in some cases, we've come out of Chiron 'school' with a new spiritual perspective and willing to share it.  We definitely had to accept that we are part of the whole, we can't consider ourselves isolated entities floating around in reality like we have nothing to do with other people or things. We came to the conclusion that everything we do has a ripple effect we can't even measure! 

Chiron entering Aries February 18, will take us to the journey of finding out who we really are with a  healing lesson about our identity. Read next about it in Part II.

Recommended:

Tom Campbell and Bruce Lipton video "Two Scientists See 'The Same World'"

A well representative of Chiron in Pisces song, surrender to floating in space: Ariana Grande - No tears left to cry.

Melanie Reinhart - Chiron and the Healing Journey; and Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini: The transformative Power of Saturn, Chiron and Uranus

Martin Lass - Chiron, Healing Body and Soul

Barbara Hand Clow - Chiron, the Rainbow Bridge