(Seen this post before? That’s because Chiron goes retrograde every year. This year, does it affect YOU? Read on to find out. . .)

“Wake up!” says Chiron.  “Are you feeling wounded?  Recently I brought you a difficult experience.  It was also a reminder, an echo of a difficult experience from your past.  I have a special message for you about how to heal it once and for all.”

Chiron Turns Retrograde June 8–A Pivotal Day
When a planet turns retrograde it makes a pivot in the sky and also creates a metaphorically “pivotal” experience for human beings.  This time, that planet is Chiron.  It’s as if Chiron is telling us, “You can’t go on avoiding this change forever.  Now I’m delivering a wake-up call.”  If Chiron is touching a planet in your chart this year, this message is for you and it will have very specific meaning, depending on what planet that is.  That planet, and the part of you it represents, is being sent on a healing journey.  It’s time for old, wounded places to surface so that real, deep healing can happen.  June 8 is the peak of Chiron’s wake-up call, but it could happen anytime within 5 days surrounding that day.

Initiation Leading To An Inner Journey
Sometime between February and now, Chiron showed us an area of life in which we are due for a change.  What he delivered was an initiation and it was our first chance to catch a clue about the healing journey to come.  That clue may have been obvious or it may have been subtle, but we’ve been shown a way to heal something deep.  And the road to that healing may be pretty rocky.

The clue was delivered, but did we notice?  It’s human to go into denial.  During the spring we may have said to ourselves, “Maybe I don’t have to do anything about this.  Maybe it was just a one-time thing.  Maybe I can just move on.  Maybe I can get away without paying attention to this.”

Or maybe not.  Now Chiron turns up the volume and gives us a reminder.  “That deep healing you’re going through?” he says, “You’d better get with the program.”  This week, Chiron’s retrograde journey begins and with it begins our healing journey.  Chiron will continue moving retrograde (i.e. backwards) until the day it turns direct, which is November 10, 2011.

Every Healing Journey Begins With Pain
Have you ever had a medical condition that had to get worse before it could get better?  Perhaps you had a broken bone that set wrongly and had to be re-broken and set properly before it could really heal.  Perhaps you had a dislocated shoulder that had to be pulled out and dropped back into place.  Perhaps you had an abscess that a doctor needed to dig into and clean out before it could finish healing and seal over.  All these experiences reflect the fact that real, enduring healing often requires the opening of an old wound.  Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is in charge of this process.

Chiron’s process is connected to the homeopathic “doctrine of similars,” which is a principle that a very small dose of exactly the same thing that harmed you will assist your body to heal itself.  This principle is also the theory behind vaccination.  Similarly, you can have a life experience that delivers a small amount of emotional pain in the present, but that also brings up a whole mass of previously unexamined feelings from the past.  This brings us to Chiron’s “healing crisis.”

A “healing crisis” is a moment in which we feel worse, but we’re actually getting better.    This is a powerful moment and the way we respond to it determines how things unfold:  do we get caught up in the symptoms and mistake them for the reality of the situation, allowing them to propel us into a more difficult future?  Or do we recognize the symptoms as an opportunity to heal more than the surface discomfort?  It is normal and human to get caught up in the pain of the moment and it usually doesn’t occur to us to question its deeper roots.  But amazing things can happen if instead we stop and ask ourselves, “What does this remind me of?  What does this connect to in my past?  And is there something ancient there which, if healed, would liberate me?”

Is This Story Your Story?
If this feels true for you, it may be that you are personally touched by this transit.  Chiron may be triggering a planet in your own chart, thus bringing these themes up for you.  This year Chiron is covering the space between 0 and 5 degrees of Pisces.  If there is anything in your chart in 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius, you will feel this.  And knowing it can help a lot if you’ve been feeling smacked down by the universe and you don’t know why.  If Chiron has sensitized you this year, this could be the year when you finally let go of all the old baggage and gain access to more of yourself than you’ve ever had before.

What Area Of Your Life Is Being Affected?
Good question.  It will have to do with the planet in your chart that’s being triggered by Chiron.  If Chiron is affecting your Venus, you may find yourself in a painful situation in a present relationship that brings a larger relationship pattern into focus.  Now is your chance to heal this so as to stop unawarely bringing the past into the present.  If Chiron is affecting your Mars, you may find yourself feeling wounded about how you express anger or hold boundaries—this is an opportunity to heal this deeply in a new way.  And if you are turning 50 this year, then you are having your Chiron return, which is an enormous life passage loaded with healing themes and opportunities to clear the past and create a more powerful future.

Chiron’s Gift
A wonderful thing happens when we choose to examine a present pain more deeply.  Chiron links the past with the present such that, if we heal the new wound in the present, the healing echoes into our past.  Similarly, if we delve into our past and heal the ancient root of the problem, then the present wound can disappear as if by magic.  And the very best part is that whatever part of us was caught up or locked into that old wound gets released and we find that Chiron’s healing journey has left us more whole.  The part that’s released may be some part of us we haven’t had access to for a long time—we may even have given up on it long ago.  It’s funny how it ends up feeling like finding buried treasure, right in your own backyard.

Want to know more about how this Chiron transit affects your life?
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading.

Once upon a time, in the long ago and far away, when gods and goddesses walked the earth among humans and when human beings aspired to godhood, there lived a centaur named Chiron.

A centaur, as you may know, looks like a man from the waist up and a horse from the neck down.  There was, at this time, a whole race of centaurs, but Chiron was not really one of them, for he came to be a centaur in a different way.  He was the product of a rape.  Before Chiron was born, his mother, the nymph Philyra, attracted the attentions of Chronos (or Saturn).  Chronos was accustomed to taking whatever—and whomever—he wanted, and so he pursued her relentlessly.  She cleverly turned herself into a horse and sped away, but he turned himself into a horse also and caught her.  Chiron was the product of their unwilling union.  Think about that for a moment.  His mother abandoned him at birth without a second thought.  His father he never knew at all.

Chiron was always an uneasy union of opposites.  The way he came into existence was an example of that, along with the fact that he was, himself, half-god and half-beast.  A third example is in his attempts to negotiate treaties between the unruly centaurs (representing Freud’s unconscious or “id”) and their neighbors, the Lapiths (representing Freud’s repressive superego), even though neither fully accepted him as one of their own.  Chiron’s dualistic nature drove him to seek his own wholeness.  He was driven by a need to put the warring parts of himself together, so he could become one person.

Chiron in all his duality symbolizes an essential human problem:  a human being is a spirit in a body.  A human being is a bundle of instinctual needs and unconscious drives and yet “in aspect, how like a god” are we.  Has it ever occurred to you how funny it is that, when we are pointing out someone’s flaws, we say “He’s only human,” and yet, when we see an animal behaving in a way that seems beyond its capability, we say, “it’s almost human.”  It’s almost as if humanity itself is an odd blend of bestial and divine.  Chiron is this puzzle of being human.

Chiron formed a strong friendship with Hercules, the mightiest of heroes.  They fought in battle together, side by side, on many an occasion.  In one battle, amidst the confusion, a poisoned arrow shot by Hercules injured Chiron’s leg, causing what should have been a mortal wound.  But Chiron, being immortal, could not die.  So the animal part of him had to suffer while the divine part maintained his connection to life.  Perhaps it was for this reason that Chiron became a renowned healer.  He studied herb lore and healing ways and became a medicine man in search of a cure.  He never found one, but he found something better—a way to transcend his suffering and to become truly whole.

During this period, Prometheus was being punished.  He was one of the Titans, the gods before the gods we know best (Jupiter, Mars, Venus and the crew).  Prometheus thought Man was a pretty good invention, the best and brightest of the earth-dwelling mortal creatures.  He believed human beings should have fire, so he stole some from Mt. Olympus (home of the gods) and gave it to humanity.  For this, he received an extremely harsh punishment.  He was chained to a rock in the underworld and each day a huge eagle (or in some stories a griffin) came and ate his liver from his still-living body.  Each night it grew back.  Before leaving him there to endure this daily torment for all eternity, Jupiter (aka Zeus) declared that whoever of all the gods wished to, might relieve Prometheus of his torment if that god was willing to take his place for just one night.  After that night, the rescuer would die and become a ghost in the underworld, as if he were mortal.  No one agreed to—and why would they?  They were gods.  They had immortality and a luxurious existence.  Why would they give that up?

Chiron heard this and thought to himself, “I am already suffering on a daily basis and there is no value to my suffering.  If I took on the suffering of Prometheus, at least he would be freed.”  Chiron did so—he took Prometheus’ place on the rock and endured the torment of the giant bird.  Jupiter was so impressed with this behavior that he did more than make good his promise to free Prometheus.  He liberated Chiron from not only the rock, but also the torment of his own wounded body, and placed him among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius.

Now I want to point some very important things out here.  Chiron’s decision to heal Prometheus by taking on his pain was exactly the thing that liberated Chiron himself.  It was a truly selfless act.  It also illustrates a healing principle of homeopathy: “in the poison is the cure.”  Which means that a very small amount of the very thing that hurt you will cause your body to cough up and expel, in a healing reaction, the original damaging agent.  It is also the reason why people drink in the morning to cure a hangover, calling it “the hair of the dog that bit you.”  And this principle is related to inoculation, in the idea that a small amount of a disease, when introduced into the system of an otherwise healthy person, will cause that person to create antibodies which stand ready to fight the disease if it appears in force later in life.  Whether preventative or curative, all these principles suggest that small amounts of poison effect cure.

Chiron’s story is both beautiful and profound but for Chironic types (people with Chiron placed strongly in their chart) it is more than this:  it is a life-path with deep, rich meaning.  To be on the path of the healer is a gift which hurts at first, but leaves one with a wholeness, a sense of being knitted together and of having access to all of oneself that would not be possible if the wound had not been there in the first place.

The key to this is to spend as little time as possible in the victim role, and to, as quickly as possible, move on to the role of survivor and ultimately to become a thriver.  If you’re a Chironic type, you cannot afford to get self-indulgent anywhere on the path, because you will get stuck there.  Acknowledge that the pain is life’s gift, driving you onward toward healing and wholeness—for yourself and the many others lucky enough to cross your path.

Chiron is a part of all of us. All of us have a primal wound, a wound that feels like it will never heal.  Our human tendency is to think that we are special in our woundedness (“You don’t know how it feels to be me” was how Tom Petty put it) but that attitude is the very thing that forms the greatest obstacle to our healing.  In order to heal and truly move on to surviving and thriving, we must let go of the glamour of victimhood.

Chiron is split; he is both wounded and divine.  Chiron in your astrology chart shows a place where you came into this life ready to be wounded.  It also shows a place where you have a capacity to be divine, extraordinary, special.  Heal the wound and you are left with the divinity.  How do you heal the wound?  Three ways:  First, accept and bring yourself to love the broken or split off side of yourself.  Second, let go of attachment to being special in your brokenness, a victim of your fate.  And finally, heal others who are like you because this will bring out and exercise your divine ability.  You don’t have to do these in any particular order—life will send you random opportunities to do all three.

Chiron’s gift is great, but unattractive.  Can you accept it and make something of it?  If you can, you will release the pain of being human and take your rightful place among the stars as a constellation.

Neptune and Chiron have met on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Neptune is a lovely lady in sea-green, aqua and deep blue colors, with a long, flowing skirt.  Chiron is a centaur, rustic-looking and worn, but kind.

Chiron:  Who are we healing today, Neptune?
Neptune:  All of them.
Chiron:  What?
Neptune:  You heard me:  all of them.  All human beings.
Chiron:  How are we going to do that?
Neptune:  By getting one person to stand in as Everyman.  Or Everywoman.  Doesn’t matter.
Chiron:  So one human being gets healed and the whole human race benefits?  Sounds like a Jesus complex.
Neptune:  He was one of my own.  He was very good at standing for everyone.
Chiron:  How are we going to find someone that. . . cosmic?
Neptune:  All I have to do is this.
She waves her hand over the waters and drops rise up and become a mist.  The mist flows over the land, leaving dewy sparkles on the trees and rocks.  Soon a Human Being stumbles forth from the trees, climbing the cliff to the place where the gods wait.
Human:  You called?
Neptune:  You’re one of mine, aren’t you?
Human: (nodding)  Can’t really help it.  Everybody calls me a flake, but it’s because I’m lost in one of your dreams all the time.  I can’t seem to stay alert.  I have what’s called “an active imagination.”
Neptune:  That’s right.  Now try this!
She sprinkles fairy dust all over the Human, who begins to appear as a sort of shiny blur.
Neptune:  Your turn, Chiron.
Chiron:  Don’t mind if I do.
Producing a bow and arrow from somewhere, Chiron takes careful aim and shoots the Human in the heart.
Human:  Ow!
Neptune:   You should thank Chiron for that.
Human:  What on earth do you mean?
Neptune:  That’s a primal wound he just gave you.  It’s a gift.  It will make your soul evolve faster.
Human: (sarcastically) Gee thanks, just what I always wanted.
Chiron:  I just can’t get any respect.
Neptune does something funny with her hand in the air, and then the Human appears as even more of a blur.
Neptune:  (to Chiron) Oh, by the way, you’ll need these.
Neptune hands Chiron some special glasses.  They have a rose tint to them.  Chiron puts them on.  The Human Being now appears entirely different, and in fact is hidden behind a huge pink cloud that’s where her heart should be.  That cloud gets wispy around the edges, then tendrils start to form, which curl outward and reach in every direction.  The tendrils multiply until there are tens, hundreds, thousands, then millions of them.  The Human Being has become a nexus of love, a heart for everyone who is alive.  There is a look of deep peace on the Human Being’s face.
Neptune:  Ok, I’ve connected this one with all other humans.  Your turn again.
Chiron rummages around in a bag he’s wearing on his back.  It seems to be filled with medicines, remedies, herbs, medical equipment and other stuff.  He pulls out a small bottle.
Chiron:  Stick out your tongue.
The Human Being obediently does so.
Chiron:  This will sting a little.
Using a dropper, Chiron allows one drop of the stuff to land on the Human Being’s tongue.  The Human Being begins shaking from head to toe, and a change in color cascades down the giant pink aura surrounding her, filling it with a stormy grey, which is just as quickly followed by a restoration of pink, now a deeper, richer hue.  The grey cascades out the tendrils, finding its way into the heart of every person alive, and is followed by the warmer, deeper pink.  It is as if the whole planet shudders.
Neptune:  Wow—that was cool!
Chiron, proudly:  Thanks!  You’re pretty cool yourself!
Neptune:  What now?
Chiron:  I think we can leave this to cook for a while.  Our work here is done.
Neptune takes Chiron’s arm and together they walk off over the water.

Chiron and Neptune have been traveling together in our skies for 18 months, bringing spiritual healing and community in their wake.  Now it is November of 2010 and their conjunction is coming to a close.  Here are some posts I’ve written about it:
May’s Triple Conjunction of Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter
Neptune and Chiron Ask You To Bridge Heaven and Earth

If what follows looks familiar to you, it’s because this is my post from last year when Chiron went direct.  Chiron goes direct every year, so the post continues to be useful, but the dates will be slightly different every year.

Chiron the Wounded Healer has spent the last few months (since June 4) traveling backwards.  Today he turns his face forward and re-covers the same ground.  Why should it matter to you?  If he’s passing through a zone where you have a planet in your natal chart, he’s bringing you a powerful healing opportunity this year.  And it’s not over yet.

This Is A Pivotal Day
If you are one of the millions of people having a Chiron transit this year, today may be pivotal for you.  Around June 4, you came to realize (or perhaps you were forced to realize) you were facing a big life-change.  You’ve been confronted with a part of you that feels deeply broken, maybe even unfixable.  Something wounding has happened to you this year and you’ve been preoccupied with it.  It all really began earlier in the spring and by late May you realized you couldn’t really avoid the pain.  If you decided to accept the discomfort and seek healing, kudos to you—you’re doing the right thing.

Today (and I mean this loosely—it may happen as soon as 2 days before or as late as 2 days after today) is a pivotal day in this process.  Today may be the day you come to clarity.  If you really look at the situation you can see your chance to resolve some old, unfinished pain along with resolving the present situation.  And you’re gearing up to do that sometime between now and February of 2011.

“What is a Chiron transit like . . .”
During a Chiron transit, something painful usually happens.  It feels like you’ve been wounded to the core.  You may feel that you’ve been victimized, that what’s happened is beyond your control and never should have happened.  And you could well be right about that.  But there’s something deep going on here that’s not apparent on the surface.

The pain you feel is not really about the present at all.  It’s about the past.  Chiron has sent you a wakeup call, using an event in the present moment to remind you of a part of you that has gotten stuck in woundedness.  Chiron wants you to heal that part of yourself and he knows that it will only happen if he reminds you that it exists, because human nature causes us to bury pain unless it is acute.

Whatever you’re dealing with in the present is connected with something in your past.  If you heal it here and now, that healing has echoes into the past, healing it retroactively.  That may be good news but there’s also great news and that is, it works both ways:  focus on healing the past and the present will be healed too.  You can work it from either end, whichever is easier for you.

Here’s an example of just one way this could look.  Let’s say your boyfriend does something that hurts you and reminds you of your abusive father.  Cleaning things up with your boyfriend is an opportunity to heal the inner child in you that’s been stuck at the age of greatest wounding.  And if you take a break from fighting with your boyfriend and instead focus on healing your relationship with your father (which you can do inside yourself, whether he’s actually available or not), voila!  Your relationship with your boyfriend improves, almost magically.  That’s because they are connected.  And who drew the connection?  Chiron.  And because Chiron connected the past with the present via a wound that feels the same in the past and the present, you get a heal-2-for-the-price-of-one deal.  Not bad, actually.

“. . . and how do I know when I’m having one?”
First of all, you know by feel.  If what I’ve described resonates for you, it’s likely you are having a Chiron transit.  (If it resonates, but only a little, you may be having a transit, but by a planet other than Chiron.)  Transits are almost always accompanied by real-world events, which are woven into your experience of the change.  Transits feel distinct when they are happening, and the sensation distinctly fades as they end.  When a transit is over, your preoccupation with its themes quickly fades as your attention becomes grabbed by a different transit.  Occasionally a person will have no major transits at all for a time period (weeks, say, or months), but that’s pretty rare.

You can find out whether you’re having a Chiron transit by peeking at your chart.  This year Chiron is covering the space from 26 degrees of Aquarius to 0 degrees of Pisces.  This will affect you if you have any planet in the space from 26 to 29 degrees of any of the four Fixed signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio) or in 0 degrees of any of the Mutable signs (Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius).

If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details in English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see if you have anything at all in 26-29 degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio or 0 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius.  If you do, you are definitely having a Chiron transit this year.  And knowing that gives you the chance to see the healing for the opportunity it is, instead of being victimized by it.

“How long does it last?”
A Chiron transit will typically last for 9-18 months.  Today is just one part of it, a pivotal day in the flow of a months-long healing opportunity. The timing of your transit will be personal to you.  It takes an astrologer to look it up—it’s not something I can just tell you in a blogpost.  In an astrology reading you can find out the timing of it and how to move beyond hurting to surviving and ultimately to thriving.  You can also find out which part of you (i.e. planet in your chart) is being affected by this wounding-and-healing opportunity.  Is it Relationships (Venus)?  Career (Saturn)?  Home (Moon)?  Or it could be something more subtle.

“What do I do now?”
There are 2 responses that are crucial to know about.  If you can manage these, it will go so much smoother for you!

One is: don’t play the victim.  While you sit around bemoaning the fact that you’ve been hurt, you’re throwing away your own power in the situation.  If you can accept and own that you had a wounded place long before this moment came along and give thanks for this opportunity to heal yourself, you are way ahead of the game.

And the other is: don’t get distracted by healing others.  When a human being begins to gain competency in an area where they feel wounded, the first tendency is to offer assistance to others.  This is a beautiful thing, but it also comes with a possible pitfall, which is that you can get distracted from your own healing path by the sense of superiority you feel towards others that are not as far along as you are.  It can be very comfortable to congratulate yourself that you’re doing fine compared with all those folks that are not doing as fine as you are.  But that’s a way of avoiding your own healing work.

Chiron’s Gift
Chiron’s gift may be painful to receive but it is profound:  it is the gift of getting your own wholeness back.  Were you split?  Now you can mend.  Were you wounded?  Now you can heal.  Was your past unresolved?  Now you can resolve it.  This is your chance to become more whole, more of your own complete self than ever before.

When it’s over, it’s over
After this transit ends, your healing period will be over.  It’s quite possible you’ll have another healing period in a different area of your life in the next few years (it’s likely in fact), but this one will have passed.  Take courage, because this will soon be over.  But also, and more importantly, take advantage.  Use this opportunity for healing while it’s happening.  It doesn’t come around every day.

(My dear readers, this post was supposed to go out on June 4, but I just didn’t have what it took to get it out on time. Obviously I was feeling the transit as I was writing about it! So please mentally transport yourself back to June 4 as you read this. . .)

“Wake up!” says Chiron.  “Are you feeling wounded?  Recently I brought you a difficult experience.  It was also a reminder, an echo of a difficult experience from your past.  I have a special message for you about how to heal it once and for all.”

Today (June 4) Is A Pivotal Day
When a planet turns retrograde it makes a pivot in the sky and also creates a metaphorically “pivotal” experience for human beings.  Today, that planet is Chiron.  It’s as if Chiron is telling us, “You can’t go on avoiding this change forever.  Today I’m delivering a wake-up call.”  If Chiron is touching a planet in your chart this year, this message is for you and it will have very specific meaning, depending on what planet that is.  That planet, and the part of you it represents, is being sent on a healing journey.  It’s time for old, wounded places to surface so that real, deep healing can happen.  Today is the peak of Chiron’s wake-up call, but it could happen anytime within 5 days surrounding today.

Initiation Leading To An Inner Journey
Sometime between February and now, Chiron showed us an area of life in which we are due for a change.  What he delivered was an initiation and it was our first chance to catch a clue about the healing journey to come.  That clue may have been obvious or it may have been subtle, but we’ve been shown a way to heal something deep.  And the road to that healing may be pretty rocky.

The clue was delivered, but did we notice?  It’s human to go into denial.  During the spring we may have said to ourselves, “Maybe I don’t have to do anything about this.  Maybe it was just a one-time thing.  Maybe I can just move on.  Maybe I can get away without paying attention to this.”

Or maybe not.  Today Chiron turns up the volume and gives us a reminder.  “That deep healing you’re going through?” he says, “You’d better get with the program.”  Today, Chiron’s retrograde journey begins and with it begins our healing journey.  Chiron will continue moving retrograde (i.e. backwards) until the day it turns direct, which is November 5, 2010.

Every Healing Journey Begins With Pain
Have you ever had a medical condition that had to get worse before it could get better?  Perhaps you had a broken bone that set wrongly and had to be re-broken and set properly before it could really heal.  Perhaps you had a dislocated shoulder that had to be pulled out and dropped back into place.  Perhaps you had an abscess that a doctor needed to dig into and clean out before it could finish healing and seal over.  All these experiences reflect the fact that real, enduring healing often requires the opening of an old wound.  Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is in charge of this process.

Chiron’s process is connected to the homeopathic “doctrine of similars,” which is a principle that a very small dose of exactly the same thing that harmed you will assist your body to heal itself.  This principle is also the theory behind vaccination.  Similarly, you can have a life experience that delivers a small amount of emotional pain in the present, but that also brings up a whole mass of previously unexamined feelings from the past.  This brings us to Chiron’s “healing crisis.”

A “healing crisis” is a moment in which we feel worse, but we’re actually getting better.    This is a powerful moment and the way we respond to it determines how things unfold:  do we get caught up in the symptoms and mistake them for the reality of the situation, allowing them to propel us into a more difficult future?  Or do we recognize the symptoms as an opportunity to heal more than the surface discomfort?  It is normal and human to get caught up in the pain of the moment and it usually doesn’t occur to us to question its deeper roots.  But amazing things can happen if instead we stop and ask ourselves, “What does this remind me of?  What does this connect to in my past?  And is there something ancient there which, if healed, would liberate me?”

Is This Story Your Story?
If this feels true for you, it may be that you are personally touched by this transit.  Chiron may be triggering a planet in your own chart, thus bringing these themes up for you.  This year Chiron is covering the space between 26 degrees of Aquarius and 0 degrees of Pisces.  If there is anything in your chart in 26, 27, 28 or 29 degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio, or additionally in 0 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius, you will feel this.  And knowing it can help a lot if you’ve been feeling smacked down by the universe and you don’t know why.  If Chiron has sensitized you this year, this could be the year when you finally let go of all the old baggage and gain access to more of yourself than you’ve ever had before.

What Area Of Your Life Is Being Affected?
Good question.  It will have to do with the planet in your chart that’s being triggered by Chiron.  If Chiron is affecting your Venus, you may find yourself in a painful situation in a present relationship that brings a larger relationship pattern into focus.  Now is your chance to heal this so as to stop unawarely bringing the past into the present.  If Chiron is affecting your Mars, you may find yourself feeling wounded about how you express anger or hold boundaries—this is an opportunity to heal this deeply in a new way.  And if you are turning 50 this year, then you are having your Chiron return, which is an enormous life passage loaded with healing themes and opportunities to clear the past and create a more powerful future.

Chiron’s Gift
A wonderful thing happens when we choose to examine a present pain more deeply.  Chiron links the past with the present such that, if we heal the new wound in the present, the healing echoes into our past.  Similarly, if we delve into our past and heal the ancient root of the problem, then the present wound can disappear as if by magic.  And the very best part is that whatever part of us was caught up or locked into that old wound gets released and we find that Chiron’s healing journey has left us more whole.  The part that’s released may be some part of us we haven’t had access to for a long time—we may even have given up on it long ago.  It’s funny how it ends up feeling like finding buried treasure, right in your own backyard.

Want to know more about how this Chiron transit affects your life?
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading.

Art by Darren Mahuron

Today Jupiter and Chiron are in conjunction for the third and final time in 2009.

Jupiter and Chiron have met on a giant cloud over Mount Olympus, home of the gods.  They are watching events on Earth.
Chiron: (pointing) Hey, Jupiter, you see that little human over there?
Jupiter: You mean the one with all the intolerance?
Chiron: Yeah, that one over there, surrounded by people different from himself.
Jupiter: Not too happy, is he?
Chiron: No.  Shall we?
Jupiter: Of course!
They link arms, then disappear in a puff of smoke, reappearing near the human in question.
Everyman: Wha–?  Who the hell are you?
Jupiter: Different from you, apparently.
Chiron: Yep, it seems that everyone is different from you.  Don’t you ever get lonely?
Everyman: I don’t know what you mean, but I do know you aren’t from around here.  So here’s the point-end of my gun.  Go back where you came from, before I shoot!
Jupiter sticks out one finger, plugs up the end of the gun.  Everyman shoots and the bullet is stopped by Jupiter’s finger.  Everyman looks at his gun, dumbfounded.
Jupiter: You see, there’s really no need for this.
Everyman: Now you’re making me mad!
He gets out a bigger gun, but before he can use it, Chiron suddenly grows very large and picks him up by the collar, shaking him until he drops all weapons.  Several fall from his clothing and clatter to the ground.
Chiron: Silly human!  When will you learn?
Jupiter: Intolerance will get you nowhere.
Everyman: (choking a little) You don’t understand!  They are going to kill us!  They won’t let us just be—so we have to get them first.  It’s the way of the world.  If we don’t protect our way of life we’ll lose it.
Jupiter: But if you keep fighting, you’ll lose your life anyway.  And who will be left around to continue the culture you’ve built?  Why are you fighting anyway?  Who is the real enemy here?
Everyman is still dangling from Chiron’s grip.  Chiron drops him suddenly.
Chiron: (shaking his head) I can’t make you tolerant.  But I can show you what’s possible.
He picks up a rock and breathes on it.  The rocks clarifies, becomes like a pool.  In the rock, pictures begin to appear.  Everyman becomes fascinated and steps closer.
Jupiter: What do you see?
Everyman: I see my people, fighting our neighbors, as we’ve always done.  So many dead, so much territory changing hands over so many years.
Chiron: Do you want your children to die for this?
Everyman: I, um, I don’t know.  I want our way of life to continue.  I’m not giving up our ways!
Jupiter: What if you didn’t have to?
Everyman: I don’t want my daughter to marry one of them!
Chiron: I understand, but what if your battle is over?  What if no one is right and no one is wrong?
Jupiter: What if you could spend your days in building up your culture instead of tearing down theirs?
Chiron: And what if their culture contains some hidden key, some mystery that can unlock something in yours—wouldn’t you want access to that?
Everyman: (grudgingly) Maybe.
Jupiter: You’re a hard case.
Everyman: Yeah.  I’m not budging.
Jupiter: (to Chiron) He doesn’t seem to have any clue that he’s not unique in his intolerance.  It’s as if he really believes his culture is superior.  This is useless.
Chiron: (to Jupiter) I think it’s time to visit the one we really came here to see.
They turn their back on Everyman and walk into a nearby house.  There, seated on the floor, is an 8-year-old of indeterminate race, who looks up in surprise.
Jupiter: Hi there!
Child: Whoa!  You have got to be deities!
Chiron: You guessed it.  Can’t fool you for a minute, can we?
Child: Nope.
Jupiter: Bit of a mess out there, isn’t it?  He points outside with his thumb.
Child: No kidding!  Everybody’s killing each other all the time.  They killed my dad because he’s not like them.  They shun my mom too.  Did you come to fix it?
Chiron: No, we came to do something better.  We came to help you fix it.
Child: No way!  That’s not better—that’s worse.
Jupiter: Yeah, it wasn’t my idea, it was Chiron’s.  Blame him.
Chiron: You were born to be a bridge between the two cultures you came from.
Child: Don’t be an idiot.  How am I supposed to do that?
Jupiter: Because you want to be whole.  Because you have two sides and yet you are one person.  Until you completely own and accept both sides of you, this war will continue.  Make friends with both sides and you make yourself whole.
Child: That sounds hard.  I don’t know where to start.
Chiron: Start wherever you are.  Find the places that are broken in you and make them whole.  Gather people who are different together and get them talking about what makes them the same.  Help them learn from each other.  This will make you whole and it will save the world you live in.
Jupiter and Chiron begin to go up in a puff of swirling smoke.
Child: Don’t go!  I can’t do this alone.
Chiron: You won’t really be alone.  We’ll be behind you the whole way.
Jupiter: You can do it.  It is your gift to the world.  And you have your whole life to do it in.

For more insight into this year’s Jupiter/Chiron conjunction, see these pages:
May’s Triple Conjunction of Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter
Jupiter & Chiron Ask “Am I Too Big Or Not Big Enough?”

Chiron the Wounded Healer has spent the last few months (since May 30) traveling backwards.  Today he turns his face forward and re-covers the same ground.  Why should it matter to you?  If he’s passing through a zone where you have a planet in your natal chart, he’s bringing you a powerful healing opportunity this year.  And it’s not over yet.

This Is A Pivotal Day
If you are one of the millions of people having a Chiron transit this year, today may be pivotal for you.  Around May 30, you came to realize (or perhaps you were forced to realize) you were facing a big life-change.  You’ve been confronted with a part of you that feels deeply broken, maybe even unfixable.  Something wounding has happened to you this year and you’ve been preoccupied with it.  It all really began earlier in the spring and by late May you realized you couldn’t really avoid the pain.  If you decided to accept the discomfort and seek healing, kudos to you—you’re doing the right thing.

Today (and I mean this loosely—it may happen as soon as 2 days before or as late as 2 days after today) is a pivotal day in this process.  Today may be the day you come to clarity.  If you really look at the situation you can see your chance to resolve some old, unfinished pain along with resolving the present situation.  And you’re gearing up to do that sometime between now and March of 2010.

“What is a Chiron transit like . . .”
During a Chiron transit, something painful usually happens.  It feels like you’ve been wounded to the core.  You may feel that you’ve been victimized, that what’s happened is beyond your control and never should have happened.  And you could well be right about that.  But there’s something deep going on here that’s not apparent on the surface.

The pain you feel is not really about the present at all.  It’s about the past.  Chiron has sent you a wakeup call, using an event in the present moment to remind you of a part of you that has gotten stuck in woundedness.  Chiron wants you to heal that part of yourself and he knows that it will only happen if he reminds you that it exists, because human nature causes us to bury pain unless it is acute.

Whatever you’re dealing with in the present is connected with something in your past.  If you heal it here and now, that healing has echoes into the past, healing it retroactively.  That may be good news but there’s also great news and that is, it works both ways:  focus on healing the past and the present will be healed too.  You can work it from either end, whichever is easier for you.

Here’s an example of just one way this could look.  Let’s say your boyfriend does something that hurts you and reminds you of your abusive father.  Cleaning things up with your boyfriend is an opportunity to heal the inner child in you that’s been stuck at the age of greatest wounding.  And if you take a break from fighting with your boyfriend and instead focus on healing your relationship with your father (which you can do inside yourself, whether he’s actually available or not), voila!  Your relationship with your boyfriend improves, almost magically.  That’s because they are connected.  And who drew the connection?  Chiron.  And because Chiron connected the past with the present via a wound that feels the same in the past and the present, you get a heal-2-for-the-price-of-one deal.  Not bad, actually.

“. . . and how do I know when I’m having one?”
First of all, you know by feel.  If what I’ve described resonates for you, it’s likely you are having a Chiron transit.  (If it resonates, but only a little, you may be having a transit, but by a planet other than Chiron.)  Transits are almost always accompanied by real-world events, which are woven into your experience of the change.  Transits feel distinct when they are happening, and the sensation distinctly fades as they end.  When a transit is over, your preoccupation with its themes quickly fades as your attention becomes grabbed by a different transit.  Occasionally a person will have no major transits at all for a time period (weeks, say, or months), but that’s pretty rare.

You can find out whether you’re having a Chiron transit by peeking at your chart.  This year Chiron is covering the space from 21 to 26 degrees of Aquarius.  This will affect you if you have any planet in the space from 21 to 26 degrees of any of the four Fixed signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio).

If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details in English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see if you have anything at all in 21-26 degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio.  If you do, you are definitely having a Chiron transit this year.  And knowing that gives you the chance to see the healing for the opportunity it is, instead of being victimized by it.

“How long does it last?”
A Chiron transit will typically last for 9-18 months.  Today is just one part of it, a pivotal day in the flow of a months-long healing opportunity. The timing of your transit will be personal to you.  It takes an astrologer to look it up—it’s not something I can just tell you in a blogpost.  In an astrology reading you can find out the timing of it and how to move beyond hurting to surviving and ultimately to thriving.  You can also find out which part of you (i.e. planet in your chart) is being affected by this wounding-and-healing opportunity.  Is it Relationships (Venus)?  Career (Saturn)?  Home (Moon)?  Or it could be something more subtle.

“What do I do now?”
There are 2 responses that are crucial to know about.  If you can manage these, it will go so much smoother for you!

One is: don’t play the victim.  While you sit around bemoaning the fact that you’ve been hurt, you’re throwing away your own power in the situation.  If you can accept and own that you had a wounded place long before this moment came along and give thanks for this opportunity to heal yourself, you are way ahead of the game.

And the other is: don’t get distracted by healing others.  When a human being begins to gain competency in an area where they feel wounded, the first tendency is to offer assistance to others.  This is a beautiful thing, but it also comes with a possible pitfall, which is that you can get distracted from your own healing path by the sense of superiority you feel towards others that are not as far along as you are.  It can be very comfortable to congratulate yourself that you’re doing fine compared with all those folks that are not doing as fine as you are.  But that’s a way of avoiding your own healing work.

Chiron’s Gift
Chiron’s gift may be painful to receive but it is profound:  it is the gift of getting your own wholeness back.  Were you split?  Now you can mend.  Were you wounded?  Now you can heal.  Was your past unresolved?  Now you can resolve it.  This is your chance to become more whole, more of your own complete self than ever before.

When it’s over, it’s over
After this transit ends, your healing period will be over.  It’s quite possible you’ll have another healing period in a different area of your life in the next few years (it’s likely in fact), but this one will have passed.  Take courage, because this will soon be over.  But also, and more importantly, take advantage.  Use this opportunity for healing while it’s happening.  It doesn’t come around every day.

Art by Betelgeux

From May of 2009 to November of 2010, Neptune and Chiron are dancing in & out of conjunction with each other.  They came within kissing distance of a conjunction on May 30, 2009 and will again on November 6, 2010.  Their only true (exact) conjunction will be on February 17, 2010, but since they’re close enough for us to feel it here on earth, I thought I’d better let you know what this is about.

While you are in a dream, you find yourself in a beautiful, ancient forest, filled with tangled trees and brush.  You sit quietly, feeling at peace with the world and your place in it.  Among the trees you spy two beings who must be gods because they are larger-than-life and they glow.  You sit very quietly and watch them from behind a tree.
Neptune is a slim woman, dressed in a flowing garment that is always moving.  Sometimes it looks like water, sometimes mist and sometimes clouds.  As you look at her, you can’t quite get a fix on her position, even though your peripheral vision sees that she is there.  It’s like the way some stars are so faint you can’t see them dead-on; you have to look a little to the side.  She is like that.
Chiron is a little more solid.  He is a centaur, standing strong on his four horsy legs while his naked human torso rises proudly from his animal body.  He seems comfortable with his odd self, which makes you feel comfortable too.
The two are having a conversation, which you are able to overhear.
Neptune:  I have always loved this beautiful green place.  I love how it could be on any continent, anywhere on Earth.
Chiron:  Me too.  What do they call this?
Neptune:  It is the Wood Between The Worlds.
(And if you ever read the Narnia books as a child, particularly The Magician’s Nephew, you now know exactly where you are.)
Neptune picks up her skirts, which go green to match the surrounding leaves and she spins, casting off green sparks of living energy.  Then she laughs and sits on the grass, her skirts gathering around her but still ever-moving.  She reaches out her hand into a nearby pool of water and gently touches its surface, smiling meditatively.
Chiron:  What world is in that pool?
Neptune:  It’s the ideal world of that silly little human over there, hiding behind the tree.
You freeze, wondering how she knew.
Chiron:  She’s a goddess, silly!  That’s how she knew.  You can come out now.  We’ve turned down the volume on our divine presence, so you won’t get blasted.  It’s safe.
You slowly come out from behind the tree.  Neptune is beckoning softly.
Neptune:  Why not have a look?
You:  What am I supposed to do?
Neptune:  Sit here beside me.  Meditate and make your mind very still.  Take the armor off your heart and reach way down into your belly for the last moment of real bliss you felt.  Then, when you’ve done all that, put your hand in the water.
You are nervous, but you obey.  Making your mind still turns out to be harder than expected, and removing the heart-armor is hard too.  After you’ve done those things, feeling the bliss is fairly easy and soon you reach out to the pond.
As your hand slips into the water, you become aware of descending into a beautiful landscape.  As you look around you, you notice it’s just like the everyday world you know, except everything is just a bit brighter and warmer.  There are people in this place, and they are happy—really happy, deep down, not just in a phony way.  You see that they are doing what they love to do and somehow it all fits together.  There is no sign here of all the things you hate and fear:  war, poverty, disease, and the rest.  This is a well-functioning world.  Everything is as it should be; everything is perfect.
You are struck by the disparity between the world you long for and the world you live in and you begin to weep.  You realize that you need to bridge this gap in order to make yourself whole.  With that realization, that there IS a way to this beautiful place, your heart breaks open and you can feel sunlight streaming out from it.  Peace descends upon you.
As you come back to yourself, you realize Chiron’s hand is on your shoulder, touching you reassuringly and giving you strength.
Chiron:  Do you know what you must do now?
You:  I have to create that world, on Earth, in my own life.
Chiron:  Yes, exactly.  You are the bridge.
Neptune:  You are the one, the only one who can do it.  Don’t wait for someone else.  Your world is special; everyone must create their own heaven on earth.
Chiron:  And it’s not a burden, not something you must do, but something you get to do.
You:  Woah.
Chiron:  Yeah, “Woah.”  That’s right.
Neptune and Chiron link arms and stroll away through the wood, leaving you to ponder this.  As they walk away, you can still hear their voices, fading but ringing clear through the trees.
Chiron:  Do you think that one knows what it’s going to take?
Neptune:  Nope, there’s absolutely no clue.
Chiron:  It’s probably better that way.

Neptune and Chiron will be doing their dance in the sky from May of 2009 to November of 2010.  They will make 3 passes.  The first and last pass will be inexact but extremely close.  The middle pass will be exact on February 17, 2010.  If you have any planet in your chart between 25 and 27 degrees of fixed signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio), you are bound to feel this.

If you want to read other articles about 2009’s triple conjunction of Neptune, Chiron & Jupiter, look here on the Trends For The Year 2009 page.

Jupiter & Chiron have been moving in and out of conjunction (i.e. so close they could be holding hands) in 2009, bringing up some interesting possibilities for healing & growth.
They connected the first time this year on May 23rd, the second time on July 22nd and will contact again for the third & final time on December 7th.  What does this mean?

Jupiter Wants You To Expand
Jolly Jupiter represents archetypal greatness.  He’s the part of human nature that inspires us to grow, expand ourselves and travel beyond our limitations.  He’s the call of the wild, the thrill of adventure that stirs in our souls when we think about traveling to far places.  Jupiter stirs our confidence and our faith in our own potential.  Jupiter also brings opportunities and the luck that naturally comes from the good energy we easily radiate when he is active in our chart.  But Jupiter’s opportunities must be seen and seized, or they will disappear as fast as they appeared.  Jupiter’s message is “Grab that brass ring as it goes by!”

Chiron Wants You To Heal And Evolve
Chiron is the archetypal Wounded Healer.  He brings us opportunities for healing ourselves or others.  Chiron is the mechanism by which the wounded places that lie hidden within us reach out into our lives, creating circumstances where we can feel a pain we’ve experienced in the past, bringing in it up to the surface so healing can occur.  Our job is to convert painful experiences into healing opportunities when Chiron presents them to us.  This is only possible if we let go of our victim attitude and instead view ourselves as in charge of our own healing.

Here’s a little Chiron-and-Jupiter dialogue:

Jupiter and Chiron have met on a mountaintop, where they can see for miles in every direction.  Jupiter is full of enthusiasm.
Jupiter:  I can see such enormous possibilities for humanity, and especially for the individuals I’m sending luck and opportunities to right now.
Chiron:  Yes, but they have so many wounded places holding them back from their own greatness.  I’m going to have to bring those up to the surface, so they can be seen & healed.
Jupiter:  That’s very like you, Chiron.  Always trying to help people be more in touch with themselves.  (Jupiter makes a wry face.)
Chiron:  It’s because I’ve figured out that the hidden wounds people carry make them sabotage themselves and can prevent exactly what they’re trying to create.
Jupiter:  I have something nice to add to the mix:  self-confidence.
Chiron:  How does that work?
Jupiter:  It’s a little something for those who choose to take on their inner demons and look them straight in the eye.  It’s the feeling that you get when you shine a light into the scary corners and know that you can slay this demon.  You have what it takes.
Chiron:  That self-knowledge is healing in itself.
Jupiter:  But what about the folks who have trouble being big?
Chiron:  I know the ones you mean.  They feel uncomfortable taking up space in the world.  They think it’s not ok to be big, or expressive.  They cringe around people who are just a little too loud.
Jupiter:  Yep, that’s what I mean.  How can I expand those folks?
Chiron:  I’ll help you by getting them into situations that will bring those issues to the surface.  They’ll find themselves uncomfortably close to people who remind them of the greatness they desire, and the recognition they deserve and are not getting.  If they’re willing to look at their past and release trauma (even mild trauma) from past experiences where they decided that they needed to keep themselves small, then they can reclaim their own greatness and stop being small themselves.  Release can take many forms:  crying, shaking, raging, or letter-writing (which is powerful, even if the letter is not delivered).  Then the real healing can begin.
Jupiter:  Sounds uncomfortable.
Chiron:  No doubt.  But the rewards are huge.
Jupiter:  And huge is my middle name!

Will This Affect You?
If you were born on any of the following dates, this could be a big deal for you:
February 9-15
May 11-17
August 13-19
November 12-18

And if you happen to know your chart, look for any planet you have in 21, 24 or 26 degrees of fixed signs (Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, Scorpio).  Those are the degrees of exact conjunctions between Chiron & Jupiter this year.

A reading can give you an in-depth understanding
of how this conjunction affects you.
When you’re ready, contact Jamie
at info@pandoraastrology.com
or 510-816-2504 to schedule yours.

If you want to see other articles about 2009’s triple conjunction of Neptune, Chiron & Jupiter, look here on the Trends For The Year 2009 page.

As you may know, Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter have met in the sky this month.  This triple conjunction is a powerhouse of meaning.  In my previous post I talked about what it means that Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter are in Aquarius.  That was a follow-up to my first post in this series, which talked about the meanings of these planets in themselves.  What follows is the third of the 3 posts and should serve to bring it all together.

What Do These Planets Want From You?
They want you to dream a big dream of community and togetherness.  They call for you to heal your community and yourself by taking up your full space in your public social arena and being visible.  They say there’s some part of you that you’ve been hiding, some place in you that feels split and has kept you participating only halfway in some communities.  They say that if you connect those communities you will not only make yourself whole but also make room for others who may have felt marginalized to express themselves.  They say that community can be a spiritual experience.

They say you should trust your intuition and they add that this time is a special opening in human consciousness—people are looking for answers.  People are disillusioned but ready to dream again.  People know that it all needs to be redreamed.  These 3 planets are telling you it’s time to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Here’s some conversation overheard among Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter:
Neptune:  The human family seems to have become splintered.  I think they forgot how to love and accept each other.
Jupiter:  I’ve noticed that some human beings keep themselves pretty small in their lives.
Chiron:  Yeah.  I think it’s because they forgot their own power, maybe got caught up in their own broken places.
Neptune:  Everyone has broken places.  That’s what makes life so interesting.  That no one is perfect makes it all so . . . perfect.
Chiron:  Neptune, you’re full of paradox, aren’t you?
Neptune:  That I am.
Chiron:  I suspect that if people dove right into the most painful places, they would find the ways we are all connected.  Then they could stop isolating themselves and rejoin the human family.
Jupiter:  No one is an island, eh?  I subscribe to that belief.
Neptune:  Me too.  But it sounds uncomfortable.  A person would probably have to feel deeper alienation before the healing happened.
Chiron:  True.
Jupiter:  Do you think humanity is ready for that?
Chiron:  I’m not sure.  But I’ve noticed some pretty big dreamers among them.  Those few could open up the way to a wonderful new world.
Jupiter:  And there are a few crazies who are ready to hope again.
Neptune:  Let’s blast the planet with some cosmic energy & see what happens!
Chiron:  What will that do?
Neptune:  I’ll send each human being a beautiful vision of their ideal community. . .
Jupiter:  I’ll give each person the confidence to do something about that vision. . .
Chiron:  And I’ll break each person’s heart just a little, so there is a crack in the armor for the love to seep in by.
Jupiter:  Ok, let’s do it!
They huddle up and form a giant blast of energy, which they release at Earth.  Poof!  Green and gold sparkles everywhere.
Neptune:  Nice!
Jupiter:  Now let’s go get coffee.
Off they trot, arm in arm in arm.

What will the results of this triple conjunction be?  Only time will tell over the years to come.

To begin the thread you are in at the beginning, read this:
May’s Triple Conjunction of Neptune, Chiron & Jupiter

If you want to read other articles about 2009’s triple conjunction of Neptune, Chiron & Jupiter, look here:
Jupiter Conjuncts Neptune: Let Your Dreams Run Wild
Jupiter & Chiron Ask “Am I Too Big Or Not Big Enough?”
Neptune & Chiron Ask You To Bridge Heaven And Earth