Overview of Chiron Energy
The first discovered of the Centaurs, Chiron is a comet/minor planet. Because it’s not actually a planet, it doesn’t have any official essential dignities (domicile, detriment, exaltation, or fall.)
Discovered in 1977, Chiron is known as “the wounded healer.” Part of the point with the wounded healer is that even if you can’t fix it inside of yourself, you can help others that are having the same issues. Struggling with our own wound creates great compassion for those who are suffering from the same thing.
In our chart and our psyche, Chiron is tender. It’s a sore spot, a wound. By nature, it’s a poisoned wound that just won’t heal (read the mythology below for more on this.) It hurts every single time it gets bumped. And for most of us, depending on the aspects to Chiron in our birth chart, it’s getting bumped a lot.
As we experience pain and suffering, we learn how to be with it, and how to self-soothe our way through it. There are ways that we can learn to be with our pain and still have a good quality of life. We can learn to strengthen ourselves however we need to in order to proactively mitigate the pain of those bumps to our Chiron wound.
Some astrologers believe that the Chiron wound can be healed, but my personal belief is that to become “fully” healed (if that’s even a real thing in the physical) isn’t really the point. I believe that the invaluable lessons of the Chiron wound come in the suffering and the process of learning to understand and work with that suffering.
Suffering is one of the greatest spiritual teachers we can ever manifest. This is the root of shadow work and the essence of Chiron.
When we step into Chiron territory, we’re stepping into the metaphysical realm of alchemy, where we take our pain and suffering and we transmute it into medicine for ourselves, yes – but mostly for others. Chiron represents our gifts where we can help others with certain problems. In ourselves, those same issues tend to be blindspots or extra-challenging areas. These areas actually point to our superpowers that we can use to heal and help others.
A good example of this would be a single matchmaker, who is highly skilled at finding well-matched relationships for others yet struggles to do the same for themself.
Ultimately, the best thing we can do for Chiron and our core wound is to right our relationship with suffering. Why would we choose to become physical where suffering is basically guaranteed? Because suffering is one of the best teachers there is. There is a profound spiritual maturation that can occur through suffering if we accept it and let it teach us instead of fighting it or hiding from it.
The Mythology of Chiron
The story of Chiron is tragic from the get-go. His mother was a water-nymph named Philyra, and his father was Saturn, or Kronus. The story goes that Kronus approached Philyra wanting to mate with her, but his advances are unwanted, so she transforms herself into a horse in order to run away from him.
In response, Kronus then transforms himself into horse form, too, and chases after her. He rapes her and she then becomes pregnant with Chiron. Following the assault, Philyra transforms back into nymph form, carries out the pregnancy, and gives birth to Chiron. Chiron is born a half human-half horse hybrid, aka a Centaur – a product of the union that created him in the first place.
Philyra was surprised and mortified by her son’s form and tried her best to renounce him, even attempting to run away. She begged and prayed to no longer be Chiron’s mother. Not only did she not want him, she didn’t even want to be his mother.
This was Chiron’s entry into existence, and this is essentially the core of the Chiron wound. It’s in the first year or two of our lives that we begin to see patterns forming around how this wound is manifesting.
When Chiron was rejected at birth, he was adopted/fostered by the Sun god, Apollo. From Apollo and other mentors who helped foster him, Chiron learned many healing techniques. As a Centaur he was considered a beast – the existing community of them were known for being rowdy, rambunctious thieves. They were seen as an enemy. Eventually, there was a battle between the centaurs and the people, and Chiron tried to intervene, leaving him shot in the leg with a poisonous arrow. With a God for a father, he was immortal, so what should have killed him didn’t. The poison was fatal.
So he carried around a wound in his leg that wouldn’t heal. Since he couldn’t heal the wound, he just suffered. Endlessly. He eventually reached a point where he decided to trade his immortality so that he could finally die and put an end to his suffering – and that’s the end of Chiron’s story.
The Point
While Chiron’s story is a sad one, it exemplifies the depth of learning available in our deepest soul wounds. As humans, we are not immortal. Our lives here on Earth come with an expiration date, and then we return to the non-physical – so our suffering is not endless. There is a certain amount of suffering that just goes along with being physical, as part of the duality of life in the 3D world. It can’t be avoided, and to avoid it is not the point.
Having a relationship with suffering where we let it teach and inform us and make us wiser and more compassionate to ourselves and to others is beautiful. Divine. That’s letting the suffering do what it was intended to do. That is the point.
And yet, we can’t hold it against anyone who gets lost in the labyrinth of their own suffering. Who eventually reaches the same conclusion that Chiron did – of no longer having the capacity to endure the suffering. Of having enough. We aren’t meant to suffer for all of eternity, and that’s why (at least partially why) our lives on this planet are finite.
Chiron’s Lop-Sided Cycle
Chiron has an irregular orbit. It spends about eight years in both Aries and Pisces, while only spending one to two years in Libra and Virgo. This means that a greater percentage of people are born with natal Chiron in Pisces or Aries than any other Chiron placement.
In my opinion, these two signs are actually the most challenging Chiron placements. Chiron in Pisces signifies not feeling wanted in the physical world, while Chiron in Aries signifies feeling unsafe to establish a sense of self in the world. Both of these wounds exist at the most fundamental levels of existence.
Chiron in Gemini, for example, signifies a wound in the realm of intellect, and there are times when we’re not in that space. We exist outside of it, so we can take a break from it. This is not the case with Pisces and Aries – the wounds are at the basis of being, the heart of existence, and cannot be escaped.
This is why it’s interesting that there are the most souls incarnating with Chiron in those two signs. This existential pain is widespread in collective consciousness.
Why do you think this is? Leave your response in the comments below and we can chat about it!
Article written by Maddie Billings; Content curated and presented by Carly Whorton
