Linda George, Contributing Writer
Waking Times
I talked in ‘Living in an Ensouled Universe’ about the energetic imprint we each receive from the stars (shorthand for Sun, Moon and planets) at our birth, by way of electromagnetic energy affecting our energy fields. As well as our unique natal pattern of cosmic energy, we are each participants in the moving feast of energies impacting our Earth’s field – and thus experiencing life here, now, as a collective. We are all, our planet and ourselves involved in an evolutionary journey – and it is an evolution of consciousness.
Chiron, discovered in 1977 between Saturn and Uranus and named after the centaur of Greek mythology – the half man, half horse, ‘wounded healer’ – is an interesting player on the astrological stage and one worth meditating on in these chaotic times in which we find ourselves. In the myth, Chiron was wounded by Hercules by accident and could not heal his wound. He went on to use his own wounding to help heal others. The congruence with which Chiron, the celestial body, was named and the subsequent empirical observation of its ‘effects’ – as an agent of both wounding and healing (individually and collectively) – is quite extraordinary. But then, there are no accidents.
The astronomical universe tells the story of human consciousness. Each ‘new discovery’ in the heavens, we have come to realize, signifies the opening of a new portal of awareness within our consciousness. ‘Events’ – the outward manifestation of inner openings in awareness, begin to occur in the material world. Life in this realm shifts, and personally and collectively we all dance to the same synchronistic beat.
When Chiron was discovered, in November 1977, the opening that occurred constellated, as mentioned, around the theme of wounding and healing. Holistic healing, alternative healing, Shamanism, and a massive re-invigoration of personal responsibility in the arena of health and healing, burst onto the scene. We became interested in the mind/body connection and the impact of our thoughts, beliefs and emotions, as well as our dietary and lifestyle choices, on our physical health. Obviously this knowledge, or awareness, was nothing new, with herbalism, naturopathy and Shamanism being ancient arts. But what Chiron did, was bring this awareness out of the shadows and into the everyday lives of ordinary people. (These things take a while). Chiron’s emergence signified a new beginning in the healing of the self and the Soul.
Chiron’s orbit allows it to criss-cross with the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, creating a bridge of
‘orbital harmonic resonances’ between Saturn’s frequency: fear, limitation, control, authority, rigidity – the world of matter, and Uranus’ frequency: revolution, change, freedom – awakening from the illusion – the world of spirit. Chiron’s mission appears then to be about a process of healing the rift in our consciousness that these two, very different vibrational energies have evoked – somehow integrating both – matter and spirit.
Chiron comes from the Kuiper Belt – the depths of space beyond Pluto – to sojourn in our system. Pluto symbolizes the shadow or the underworld; it speaks of those forces in the invisible that bring about life – and then take it away – through processes of transformation. Pluto is the blood and guts of life: heart-wrenching, soul destroying annihilation, destruction and upheaval, and unspeakable acts of breath-taking intensity – sex, birth, death, rebirth, as well as raw, naked honesty. Pluto unerringly brings up all our bullshit to be expunged, sooner or later. Chiron has come into our consciousness from beyond Pluto. He comes from the ‘underworld’ of outer space – as an emissary of the forces of transformation, to affect the healing of our inner space. All the centaurs (others have been discovered since Chiron) symbolize an energy that activates healing by bringing our attention to our ‘unknowns’ and our ‘unspeakables’ – the domain of the unconscious or the shadow. We are all wounded – physically, mentally, emotionally – because we have all had experiences of something being wrong or missing, painful, traumatic, unjust, or of violation and betrayal…….if not in this life, then in former existences. And these are the wounds we gave birth to heal. But not only do we have individual wounds, we have also inherited collective wounds…..
What, then, is Chiron’s purpose or message, in the collective consciousness? Chiron astrologer Martin Lass says there is a native American prophecy which states that when the ‘planet of healing’ is discovered in the sky, the ancient sacred warrior teachings will return to Earth. ……. With the discovery of Chiron, then, we are witnessing (are we not?) a return to a knowledge system held by many ancient indigenous and Shamanistic cultures. We are seeing the re-emergence of a worldview that has been banished from our Western culture at least – one wherein the Soul is central.
The Shaman represents a bridge, from one world or reality, to another. The Shaman is one who has made his own journey of wounding and return. He is in tune with nature and the pre-rational and pre-cognitive states needed to access the non-physical dimensions. With his healing, he has returned to help others make the mythic journey to the instinctual underworld of the Soul. The Shaman is involved in the work of Soul retrieval – bringing fragmented parts of the self back together – healing the rifts of duality. Chiron, named for the wounded healer, and known as the ‘Shaman of the skies’ is involved in healing the fragmentation of spirit and matter – healing the rifts of duality.
Chiron takes many years to move through a single zodiacal sign. As it transits a sign, it signifies a process that engages the collective as a whole. The process is themed on the particular sign Chiron is transiting. In Pisces now, we are witnessing an echo of the last time Chiron was in this sign – the 60’s. That decade brought chaos, crisis and upheaval, along with the love, unity and cohesion. This was the decade that brought the word consciousness into our consciousness. People were experimenting with altered states and other means of breaking down the boundaries to reconnect with the One (or Spirit). The chaos was about the resistance or ignore-ance within our culture – to this Oneness – to Spirit. Soul, the interface of spirit and the individual, too long sacrificed on the altar of ego and materialism (duality) was breaking through. Resistance created crisis, which is nature’s way of breaking it down, or blowing it apart. Creating healing crises is Chiron’s work.
The divisiveness that is so rampant in our culture is crying out to be healed – and here we have Chiron in Pisces – literally tailor-made for the job. Breaking down the divisions of race, class, economic status, age, gender, nationality – is Pisces forte. Boundaries dissolve under Pisces/Neptune’s influence, and we saw this happening when Chiron last transited the sign of the fish. Logically, because boundaries create pain and wounding – and in order to be healed – we must first become aware of the places we are wounded. Chiron instigated the push to healing by bringing our wounds up into our consciousness – from the shadowy realms of our collective memory.
Chiron, as illuminator of our wounds (essentially the wound of our incarnation), now in Pisces again, has the intent of opening our awareness to ‘Oneness’ – again. Will we get it right this time? Pisces is a ‘spiritual’ sign, and with its ruler Neptune, it urges us to transcend the boundaries and limitations which create the illusion of separation. To go there, we need to break the shell of the ego. Chiron in Pisces is asking us to merge, unify, connect, dissolve the boundaries that stand between us and the divine, and us and each other. When boundaries break down, consciousness is liberated and the limitations of normal perception are expanded.
The timeliness of Chiron, the Shaman of the Skies, now in Pisces until 2019, is telling us: the work of integration has begun. It’s time to heal our fragmentation, to become dis-illusioned (we have been thoroughly illusioned) with duality and the pain of severance from our Souls. The ancient, sacred warrior teachings have returned to Earth. Our task is to integrate the two aspects of our nature – spirit and matter……and in doing so, rediscover the ensoulment of our world.
