The Journey of Chiron

By Eileen McCabe

According to Joseph Campbell, myths are literature of the spirit and that certain mythological stories speak to universal themes in all of our lives. Like astrology, myths give meaning to our personal experiences. The story and myth of Chiron is a bittersweet story that is heartbreakingly beautiful. Where we have Chiron in the natal horoscope is where we can personally identify with this sensitive story and where we are living out many aspects of Chiron's life. What's important to me as an astrological practitioner is how we can apply some of the basic principles of the Chiron story to our work with individuals. It is through the study of Chiron that we can begin to make a hypothesis as to what needs to be worked through and healed in this life.

While there are many different interpretations of the story, the basic foundation is that Chiron was rejected and abandoned by both his father who was Saturn and by his mother, Philyra, who was a beautiful sea nymph. The father fled the conception scene and the mother rejected Chiron because he was half animal and he was left to live alone in the dark side of the cave at the top of a mountain. Rather than become bitter over his childhood situation, Chiron emerged as a famous teacher and mentor, his students being the great heroes of Greek mythology. He also lived in excruciating physical pain after having been wounded by Hercules who was one of his friends and students. While Chiron was known for being a healer, he could not heal his own pain. He requested that he trade places with Prometheus who was being subjected to daily torture because he gave fire to humanity. Chiron's sacrifice achieved both liberation from his own physical agony but it also gave light back to humanity. Chiron ended his life by returning to the underworld.

Astronomically, Chiron has been called an asteroid but is now thought of as a comet that has originated from outside the solar system. Therefore, Chiron continues to symbolize the outsider, the outcaste, someone who cannot be classified or totally defined. When Chiron is emphasized in the natal chart, we often grow up feeling like an outsider in our culture or in our overall childhood environment. We often feel that we are living among "animals" even though we look like the people around us. Just as Chiron was the abandoned child who lived in the dark side of the cave while his half brother, Apollo, lived in the light side and had everything he needed, where we have Chiron we have often been sacrificed by the family and treated as a second class citizen. Where we have Chiron we have often been made to feel we either don't exist or that we are not accepted because we don't reflect back to a narcissistic parent their own dreams and fantasies of what they wanted in a child. The profound irony is that where you have Chiron not only must you attempt to heal the issue for yourself but you must also dedicate your life to helping other people heal the very same wound that was inflicted upon you.

A client of mine with Chiron in the third house was unable to attend college because her parents had no money left for her education after sending her siblings to school. Part of her healing work was to give herself an education and encourage others to do the same by becoming a teacher herself. While the emotional wound of having been betrayed and abandoned by the family never really goes away, the path towards one's own redemption is not through rage and anger but through becoming a foster parent who nurtures the talents of others. It has been my understanding that Chiron continues to be a chronic pain that takes a lifetime to heal. But it is the wound itself that is the alchemical gold, the vehicle that compels you to embark upon a therapeutic journey. In essence, your personal wound continues to shape who you are and who you are destined to become throughout your life.

Who inflicted the original wound where you have Chiron depends on the planets that are in aspect to it. If Chiron is with the Sun or Saturn, most likely the relationship with the father was difficult and the search for your own identity has been a long and difficult path. If Chiron is with the Moon or Venus, it's a mother complex that has had far reaching effects on the formation of your emotional life. Like Saturn, Chiron often represents an intergenerational wound that continues to haunt the collective unconscious of the family system itself. An unresolved father wound can continue throughout many generations of fathers abusing and wounding their own children. If a mother has been incapable of being there emotionally for her children, it is safe to say that she herself has a deep mother wound from her own childhood. While Saturn ultimately demands that you do something concrete to correct the situation in this lifetime, Chiron seems to be more of a soul wound, a spiritual wound that existentially lingers in your own psyche until you can no longer live with such acute pain. Whether the pain is physical, mental or psychological, the attempt to cure that pain can bring with it liberation from its historical roots.

While Chiron looked like all the other centaurs and lived separate but among them, he was above them in consciousness. Chiron was kind, noble, sensitive, possessed great healing abilities and lived his life dedicated to the pursuit of helping his foster pupils to live out their own destinies. With a strong natal Chiron, an individual will most likely enter the teaching or helping professions encouraging people to live out their own potentialities. However, we all know that people who attempt to heal other people have been extremely wounded in their own childhoods. What is most outstanding about Chiron is that he became the supportive parent he never had and gave to the world everything that was not given to him. The house that contains Chiron then becomes the area of life where we have to transmute the problem into the solution.

Chiron also has a very dark side. Like a wounded animal, a person with Chiron can lash out at other people wounding them to the core in many different ways if they have not at least attempted to deal with their own problems. Like a pain that can act up when the weather is damp and cold, the original early wound can easily resurface where you have Chiron. Many astrologers have pointed out that many rapists and serial killers have a prominent Chiron. This does not prove that Chiron rules cruelty but it does prove that without treating an infection, the infection will spread and eventually affect other organs. Like a cancerous cell that can easily spread throughout the body, Chiron left untreated will result in an individual with a destructive instinctual nature causing harm to everyone around them.

As the myth reveals to us, Chiron had a lot to be angry about but he ultimately chooses the higher path. While he could not erase the agony of his physical wound, he still once again chose the higher road. His trading places with Prometheus seems to encompass the archetypal core meaning of Chiron because by helping and healing someone else, he achieved both a personal and a transpersonal liberation. Ultimately, Chiron's pain and anguish resulted in something beneficial to himself and to other people.

There also seems to be a direct correlation between the myth of Chiron and the formation of the teacher/student relationship. If you have a strong Chiron placement in the natal chart, it is usually a teacher figure that helps you to rediscover your true self and vocational calling. We need to be mentored where we have Chiron; we need to meet a foster parent who will be the parent we never had in order for us to embark on our journey of self-discovery. Eventually though, we must become a mid-wife and a foster parent ourselves by facilitating other peoples' self-actualization. This is why Chiron rules foster parenting and not biological parenting. You have to let people go and be who they really are and not hold onto them out of sentimentality. Wherever you have Chiron, it's about relinquishing ego and attachment because your role there is to help people give birth to themselves. No matter how much Chiron did for his pupils, he ultimately was left alone with his own wounds. There is a profound lesson here with Chiron about doing the work and being on the path for its own sake.

As we also know from the myth, Chiron was selected to teach only the children of Greek heroes. It is obvious then that the wisdom and knowledge of Chiron is for not everybody. Like disciples who must climb to the top of the Himalayan Mountains in order to reach their spiritual teacher, we must be willing to take the harder road at times in order to find what we need for our own self-development. If you approach astrology through Chiron, the esoteric knowledge of astrology will ultimately lead you towards your own self-discovery. If you have Chiron strongly aspected in the natal chart, you will eventually be lead to what is known as more holistic forms of healing. Since Chiron was half man/god and half animal, there is a need to integrate both the instinctual and spiritual natures within our own psyches. Whether it's through astrology, yoga, psychology, music, all forms of medical healing, the path of Chiron is always the path of healing the soul.

Where you have Chiron is also where you are dealing with this particular life issue alone. Individuals who have been made to feel there is something wrong with them or who have been abused in any way, usually retreat into themselves and sometimes need more time alone than most people. Chiron lived alone in a cave signifying that people with strong Chirons must create their own sanctuary either internally or externally in order to regroup from a difficult childhood and to create a safe space in order to take the long journey within. It doesn't mean that if you have a strong Chiron you can't be in an intimate relationship. But it does mean that you still require a certain amount of time alone and if you don't get it, the wounded animal will surface and wreck havoc with your personal life.

The pathos of Chiron was that his uniqueness was originally perceived as a deformity. Like the ugly duckling that was rejected by other ducks until he saw his own reflection in the water and realized that he was a beautiful swan, we need to uncover the beauty within ourselves where we have Chiron that lies hidden underneath the outer deformity. Chiron is definitely the ugly ducking in the zodiac that longs to be released from the agony of rejection, abandonment and isolation because it hasn't yet looked into the right mirror. It is interesting that the transit of Chiron can manifest in sudden and unexpected accidents and illnesses that force people to reevaluate their lives and direction. Through some kind of pain, Chiron works to put us back on the right track because we may have lost our way.

Where we have Chiron there is a profound struggle there between the instinctual and the spiritual, between the body and the soul, between losing and finding ourselves, and between rage and anger or transformation and healing. The path of Chiron is long and often arduous, not an easy journey or an easy path. It is often a lonely road to take but we can also meet people along the way who can point us in the right direction. As astrologers we can look to Chiron for deeper knowledge and understanding about ourselves and other people. Like a lighthouse that acts as a beacon of light in the midst of darkness, Chiron in the natal chart or by transit can help lead us back home to ourselves.

Eileen McCabe is an astrological teacher and counselor with a private practice in NYC. She has received NCGR's professional certification and is presently serving on NY's NCGR'S Board of Directors. She combines the art of astrology with psychology and metaphysics and may be contacted at EILEENMCCABE@msn.com

September 19, 2004