The Meaning of Chiron's Myth

Image from Sanacion del Alma

The Myth of Chiron

According to the Greek myth, the Titan Chronos was traveling the earth when, in the island of Thrace, he meets Philyra, daughter of Ocean and Thesis. When Chronos sees her, he desires her madly, so he begins to chase her through heaven, earth and sea in order to seduce her.

Philyra runs away from Chronos, and, tired of suffering his harassment, she asks Zeus to turn her into a mare so she can escape. When Chronos realizes the deception, he transforms himself into a horse and rapes it. After satisfying his desires, Chronos abandons her.

Tormented, Philyra flees to the heights of Mount Pelasgos, where she hid in a cave. When she goes into labor, the pains become very tortuous for her. She painfully gives birth to an immortal creature  half a man from the waist up, half horse from the waist down. The newborn is similar to a centaur.  Traditional Greek representations of Chiron show human front legs, rather than horse legs. Not only is he half human, but he's not a regular centaur either, since they have the entire lower body of a horse. When Philyra sees him, she is so horrified that she rejects him and abandons him. She asks Zeus to transform her into a tilia tree to avoid breastfeeding Chiron. Zeus consents to this and delivers Chiron's care to Apollo and Athens (who represent reason and logos).

So, Chiron grows on top of the tilia tree and is educated by Apollo and Athens. This way,  his personality also becomes distinct from the other centaurs because he grows to be wise and prudent, rather than violent and impulsive. Over the years, Chiron becomes an expert in mathematics, astrology, hunting, music, philosophy, in military strategies, in shamanism, and many other arts. For this reason, Zeus assigns him to be the teacher and mentor of great heroes such as Achilles, Hercules, Ulysses, Jason, and the very God of Medicine, Asclepius.

On one occasion Hercules, drunk by Dionysus's liquor, accidentally injures Chiron with an arrow poisoned  by the venom of Hydra, which, with just one drop could kill any living being. But Chiron, being immortal, does not die, and for that reason the arrow, once removed, left him a great wound in one of his legs that caused him a constant terrible pain. No matter how many healing methods he applied to it, he could never had this wound healed. Although this wound was painful, his deepest wound was having been rejected and abandoned by his parents.

Some time later on a trip, Chiron met a man tied to a stone, whose liver was devoured by an eagle  every day, and it would grow back at night. He was Prometheus, who had been punished by Zeus for stealing fire from the Gods and giving them to the humans. The torture could only end if someone came to accept to change places with Prometheus and die for him.

One version of the story tells that his agony is so extreme that Chiron, an immortal being, wishes to die. Heracles (Hercules) presents the solution to Chiron’s paradox, as Zeus allows Chiron to give his immortality to Heracles and die. Then, it is Heracles who frees Prometheus by killing Zeus’ eagle, thus releasing him from his bonds. Heracles is thus the pivot on which Prometheus’ return to the immortals and Chiron’s descent to mortality turns.

Another version -that, in fact, does not contradicts the previous one, says that Chiron saw Prometheus, he took pity on him, and decided to free him from such torture by giving up his immortality to save Prometheus. For this reason Chiron dies, and Zeus elevates him to the Heavens and creates with him the constellation of the Centaurs.

'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 symbolizes 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 our immortal life, 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'.

Embracing the 'Wound'

"And what is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; not to obtain what one wants is suffering; in short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are suffering." the Buddha, Mahahatthipadopama Sutta.

"Birth is suffering" 

Uranus represents the Heavens, our immortal home. Saturn glyph shows a cross with a curved 'hook' , representing the immortal soul taking the 'cross' of mortality and the bounds of the material plane.

When we arrive in our physical body, like Chiron, we are restricted by the rules of the physicality, we feel 'abandoned' and 'rejected', that we don't belong here, that our 'parents' disappeared, leaving us orphans on this Earth. We realize how imperfect we are. Human beings have always been looking up to the Heavens trying to understand "where do we come from?", "why are we here?". There is inside of us this inherent curiosity to seek something there; we instinctively feel connected without knowing exactly how. Our intuition tells us that there is something else to this absurd suffering.

It amazes me how important the step of incarnation is in Chiron’s archetype, that he travels the longest in the Sign of Pisces (7-8 years) and Aries (8 years), in contrast, for example, to 1.5 years in the Sign of Virgo. Pisces is the place of the ‘primordial soup’ from which everything springs out, the oceanic spiritual realm where all is One, the atomic black hole, and the place where everything dissolves in the end. Pisces is where we come from. Aries is the first impulse of life, the breath (prana) that initiates the incarnation.

Even though the essential part of us, the Infinite Creative Consciousness, is immortal, yet, we incarnate in order to learn, become conscious of who we are. Yet, we don't accept that. Chiron is the symbol of this human dilemma. Like him, we are half animal, half 'human' or spiritual being. Like him, we have to go through suffering this unfathomable painful condition, with a body that is always changing, ill, and malfunctioning, ever dying.  

It is not until we are ready to surrender, (give up immortality like he did), accept the lethal condition of being born, and death itself, that we can finally go back to the Heavens. Curiously, the way to do this is to help someone else become immortal! Voilà the paradox! A paradox too evident when we observe Chiron's work in our own life. We often project our wound onto another and we strive to help them heal.  When all the chironic work is done, like him, we can go back to the Cosmic Dust of the (figuratively) 'Centaurus Constellation' where all the other spiritual weird creatures live. That is the process of healing our suffering. 

The Buddha goes a step forward. He taught a way (the Eight Fold Path) to practice that would operate our liberation from repeated incarnations. He argues that it is our profound Desire to have this physical creative experience that brings us back. 

In Evolutionary Astrology, Pluto is the atomic energy of the Soul that generates this desire. It is the Black Hole whence everything comes to life and everything ends. Pluto placement in our birth chart shows what kind of desire was our motivation to come back. Are we able, like the Buddha, to control that impulse and stop incarnating? Are we free agents? Or is there an external force in control? Are we able to rip open the Veil of oblivion and see through that far? 

That is, in fact, matter of reflection, introspection, and ultimately belief. 

If you like to know about your Natal Chiron, ORDER YOUR READING. 

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