Chiron stationed direct at 21°13’ Aquarius late at night here on the west coast on October 30. There was a Full Moon eclipse on February 9 at 20°52’ Leo, so this degree area is especially responsive again.
There are other significant celestial events at the station: Saturn is newly in Libra, the Full Moon is today, Jupiter is just moving forward (as of October 12), and Neptune turns direct on November 4.
As always, there are many windows to peer through when noticing events as they parallel the sky. And there are many levels of manifestation and countless expressions of the movements in the heavens. I’m writing a few stories from my own life as the wisest of the centaurs has turned around and is slowing, slowing, slowing, and tenderly, carefully, moving forward again.
Chiron can signify a wound. Words fly out of some half conscious part of our selves and are magnetized right into someone’s most recent, or most finely tuned, point of sorrow. We’re not in our usual parameters of time with Chiron. We may slip into a new and heightened consciousness. It can happen very quickly and there is no going back — only slowly, gently, allowing space for the grace that we trust will descend again.
Enhanced by Neptune’s delicate presence, some are feeling a fragility and vulnerability that is hard to bear. On the day of the station (in close aspect to my natal Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto), I said too much to a close loved one. I’m waiting for the moment to make amends.
In another Chironic episode: On Saturday I got a phone call from a sometimes aloof (i.e., Uranus connections between us) but beloved family member. It was a longed for and cherished conversation, which was indeed a healing connection.
A dear friend’s natal Sun is at 20° Aquarius. Her Ascendant is 22° Taurus, the same degree and sign as her elderly father’s natal Sun. She flew across the country late last week to sit with her father at the hospital after he suffered a brain hemorrhage and had surgery. The family waited guardedly with him as he hovered between this world and another. He left this mortal coil early this morning, surrounded by his family and their prayers. Here Chiron’s appearance relates to the father’s illness and wound and as the shape-shifting, shamanic principle of traveling between worlds.
Chiron is also a guide on the journey to wholeness or completion. Some Jungian therapists speak of the individuation process as shamanic, in that we can retrieve parts of ourselves heretofore lost, discounted, or abandoned. This healing can be initiated at the cellular, physical, or spiritual levels — and all levels seem to interconnect with each other.
At the station, Chiron is barely moving. Chiron gives the gift of a new perspective, which in some traditions has to be practiced with diligence and inner gentleness. It can be accompanied by acute awareness of pain, emptiness, being different or left out.
This weekend, I spoke with someone who is in a healing journey with a shaman. At this moment in the therapeutic process, having re-visited a critical early wound, she is literally at the time where she has been instructed to “practice the new perspective.” Chiron signifies the recapitulation of a wound, the insight gained, and the necessity to practice the change in awareness that then stimulates new neural pathways in the nervous system. In this case, the Chiron station is conjunct Mercury, which is aspected by Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto.
I have friends in a challenging relationship. The composite chart has Saturn conjunct the South Node at 21° Aquarius. Late last week they came to the decision to break off all contact (for now, anyway), after a series of difficult and painful disagreements.
Another friend has struggled for years with digestive issues. She is an alternative health care professional and has tried everything. She is thrilled to have received a definitive diagnosis (i.e., celiac disease) on Friday. (She said, Mary, tell them it’s been 40 years!) She has a Moon-Mars conjunction at 21° Leo in the natal horoscope — the Chiron station in opposition brought a significant new perspective for her long-standing digestion (Moon-Mars) issues. The Moon and Mars are part of a fixed cross in the natal chart, suggesting the persistence of her symptoms and her huge relief now.
Someone else I am very close to has Venus, the Moon, and Pluto in Leo. The Venus/Pluto midpoint is precisely at 21° Leo. Transiting Chiron stopping directly opposite that very sensitive point has brought intense awareness of her deeply familiar feelings of abandonment and aloneness. She has been grappling with her emotional history for a while now, but the Chiron station has sharply and painfully articulated what she now feels is the primary wound at her emotional core.
At times like these I often consult the I Ching. Yesterday I threw hexagram #8: Holding Together. In The I Ching Workbook by R. L. Wing (1979), I read: “The individual human spirit is nourished by a sense of connectedness to the whole of human awareness….You will be able to glimpse yourself as a part of a whole, which will both amplify your individuality and annihilate it. Do not fear this, for it will not diminish your self-awareness but rather spotlight it against a more profound background.”
I think these words are a beautiful description for these days with Chiron, Neptune, and Jupiter continuing to travel together and moving forward again. May we all find the way home to our own true selves.