Chiron, the Wounded Healer and Metaphysician

by Robert Wilkinson

In mythology, Chiron was the first centaur, an immortal half-man, half-horse. Though most centaurs were over-indulgent, rowdy, and uncultured, Chiron was considered the greatest centaur due to his civilized intelligence, nobility, and kindness. He was a great healer, astrologer, musician, ethicist, and respected oracle, as well as archer. According to legend, Chiron was most revered as a mentor and teacher to some great heros, with Asclepius, Ajax, Theseus, Achilles, Jason and Heracles as students. One of his skills was that he knew how to get his pupils to find their highest potential and destiny. Chiron's position in our charts mentors us to our highest potential and destiny.

Astronomically, Chiron is a comet that was discovered in 1977. In astrology, Chiron is commonly known as "the wounded healer," though it possesses other attributes as well. Since it has no home sign in astrology, it is said to be a wanderer. It is a bridge between the known and the unknown, where our "Sacred Wound" wanders until it finds healing.

Being between Saturn and Uranus, it has an orbit of about 51 years, and represents that part of us which is beyond the worldly limits of Saturn and not quite in the realm of the outer invisible transpersonals. It is part animal, part human, and shows us what we must heal and how we must heal it, and what we must learn to exceed our limitations and become our excellence.

We are told that Chiron came to classical Greek mythology from a more ancient shamanistic culture from northern Greece. He is also said to have been the first and greatest astrologer, trained by Apollo and Artemis to be expert in physical, cultural, and metaphysical realms. I'm sure this relates somehow to the other ancient Mediterranean legend that Thoth-Hermes was the first and greatest astrologer, who also was said to be expert in medicine, mathmetics, ethics, philosophy, and posessed skills in many of the same realms as Chiron.

Chiron was said to possess expertise in herbalism, surgery, and other healing arts, along with the gift of synthesis so that many different approaches could be combined successfully. This is what we call "holistic healing," so another trait of Chiron could be that it mentors us to a holistic approach to anything in the physical, cultural, or metaphysical areas.

It has also been said to be a pathway or door to a consciousness shift leading to different perspectives, and a bridge between old ways and new ways. Thus as a mentor teaching us how to synthesize, Chiron is an agent of change, presenting alternatives once we have a more complete picture of whatever we are learning.

As noted earlier, Chiron is the symbol of what teaches us or mentors us to our highest possiblities, the wound that becomes our authentic experience of movement beyond old limitations and fears into our nobility and kindness. In Chiron, don't look for things to be nice, neat, or orderly. It will, however, show you where your "animal" side meets your "human" side, ultimately leading you to your immortality.

It is associated with the "conjunctio," or "sacred marriage." This is where our darkness meets our light, enabling us to dance with ourselves and each other, transcending polarities and bringing forth a new wholeness. Thus it could also have an influence on how we are and what we are learning in relationships so we may come to a higher, more holistic view of the issues of gender. Chiron may be useful in examining your indulgences from an angle of greater enjoyment and/or healing, and will probably lead you into metaphysical pathways that will reveal your "highest potential and destiny."

Enjoy exploring possible ways that you have been wounded or mentored as revealed by the sign and house position of your Chiron, and how it taught to to synthesize, putting things together in a more integrated, holistic view. You may find that it shows you how to mentor others through your woundedness in that area. It certainly works that way in my own chart.

Comments

[Shelley]

Having Chiron in my 8th house at 18 Aries, opposite my Pluto, I have to say it is one of my favorite "planets". Perhaps because I am on a healing/shamanistic path and can really identify with the wounded healer archetype, I am just drawn to it as an immensely powerful part of my chart. It just seems to be the key to unlock so much of my personal power and spiritual potential to be of service to others in this lifetime. Disposited by my Mars in Gemini at my Midheaven (in the 10th), my psychic & intuitive abilities have really been kicked up a notch, especially in my work and career, since I have been consciously working with the energies of Chiron. Thanks for the great article!

[Robert]

Hi Shelley - Sounds good to me! Any time we can heal the wound and be of service to others, it's a very good thing. Thanks for your compliments on the article. Glad it can help others as well.

[Svetlana]

To have the mission of Chiron as a Teacher who helps his pupils and other people find their own way and understand Destiny which takes us to place(of)Destination is God's Gift.
Let the author of this site be blessed. It is Solstice!!!

[Robert]

Hi Svetlana - Thanks very much for your kind blessings for this site. We're all in this together, so whether we are Chiron for another or they are Chiron for us, it's all very, very good. Aum and blessings on this Sacred Moment of the shift of the Sun.

[chickie]

Your Highness,

You mentioned that chiron does not have a home in astrology, however I've always read that his home is in sagitarius. Also, I have mine in Sag 8th house trining my leo 5th house sun,mercury and pluto. Would I be correct in saying the good healer is assisting me in healing my wounds through my atistic expressions creating options for transformations?

Just a side bar. My Chiron return was in 2000 and that year I had my heart ripped out at the peak of menapause. The most painful time of my life I can honestly say was also my greatest lesson.

chickie

[Robert]

Hi chickie - Well, Chiron wouldn't be a "wanderer" if he had a home. Many people draw random conclusions in astrology to make things conform to pre-set assumptions and neat packaging. Sort of like asteroids having a rulership of a sign, which I also find a non-starter, despite cries they MUST rule Virgo. When my friend Carl Payne Tobey asserted Pluto's rulership of Aries in the 30s, he was viciously attacked publicly by a very well known astrologer. Carl told him that if the libel and slander didn't stop, he'd get an injunction. Of course it stopped.

I would suggest that you are healed through the loss/regeneration process, of bringing new strengths out of old "defeats." Through traveling, as well as seeing loss from a higher spiritual angle. The trine shows understanding of your intensely focused creative light with the healing process forcing you to get out beyond the known and familiar. So yes, you understand how to be your best self through a creative process that understands why some things must be taken away to create focus. Of course there are other interpretations.

My own Chiron return was Dec 2001-Jan 2002, as well as Aug-Oct 2002. Both of these were very difficult times for me. I was living in a bleak environment, regularly dealing with several extremely ugly people, driving 400 miles every other week, and lots of post-9/11 plane travel dealing with nasty and arrogant "security" who had no training or oversight making even routine plane trips a nightmare. Adding insult to injury, I couldn't get a book review anywhere in CA for "Love Dad," which IS the story of my Chiron in the 5th. And yet I survived....

[chickie]

Thank you your Highness and I'm sure glad you survived your Chiron return....we need to hang with you for a long while!

Love chickie

[Robert]

Hi chickie - Sure. Hang in there, since if we persevere and keep "showing up," eventually we'll get it right.

[Brenda]

Virgo with Chiron natally in Scorpio, in the 4th house also, Chiron is located in the same sign/house by transits. Dealing with loneliness/upbringing issues concerning Mother/Father. I'm 59 yrs young........when will this nightmare end? Healing, is this my destiny? 9/18/47-2:15am in philadelphia, pa.
Many heartfelt blessings to you.

[Robert]

Hi Brenda - You're finishing your Saturn return after a stretch of Pluto squaring your Sun and Venus also opposing your Uranus. This is pushing you toward radical compassion, and seeing how a lot of what you're dealing with are generic human difficulties that millions have suffered through all time. Without this getting complex, as it is a comment stream, it has been tough, but you've learned what you can and cannot live with.

Our parents pretty much did the best they could, even when they didn't. If they could have done better they probably would have. Our parents' generation were lucky to be alive and marginally sane, given the "gods that walked the Earth" when they were young. Think Hitler, Stalin, and the Great Depression. It may be helpful to regard your father, mother, sisters and brothers are all of the Spirit, since we have had many of these throughout many lives. In this life we are blood relatives of some beings in our Soul group, but not others. That's why some we meet along the way are more father to us than our blood father, and we're closer to some "sisters and brothers" than those we were raised with, who as often as not seem to be aliens.

I would suggest seeing how your experience has shown you your wisdom, and turn your self-discipline to altruistic and compassionate efforts, feelings, and thoughts. I suspect if you lose yourself in some form of beneficial service to self and others, you'll stop feeling so badly and may even find connectedness with others who love you and you could love. May you succeed beyond your wildest dream!

[larisa]

Hi Robert: why tomorrow is important? (besides my boss' B-day) haha!
June 21. The longest day? The shortest night?

[Robert]

Hi Larisa - Yes, it's the Summer Solstice, the longest day and shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night in the Southern Hemisphere.

[astryd]

question? You said "It is part animal, part human, and shows us what we must heal and how we must heal it, and what we must learn to exceed our limitations and become our excellence."

well I've been looking for chiron LEO in the 11th house AND THERE SEEMS TO BE NO ARTICLES ON HOW TO HEAL YOURSELF. there are no aspects to my chiron for there are no planets in my 11th house. What do I need to heal and how? I do not how to interepret astrology yet..

Also I don't get if it's the sign that tells you what you need to work on and the house the area of life? If so I have to work on creativity with my friends(11th house of friends, hopes,ideals and leo creativity)? Oh is it ironic I'm in an art school because recently I've been stuck creatively and I just wonder if chiron has anything to do with this.

Would apreciate much needed insight (please email me whenever you can).

thank you

[Robert]

Hi astryd - Get a copy of "You can heal your life" by Louise Hay. Your chart shows you can heal yourself by loving your friends, and opening up to loving friends, as well as creative group work. It also shows your Leonine friends will call you to become your best self.

[Chiron2153]

Being Chiron is no as easy as it seems, being able to heal others and not oneself is painfully difficult for an Empath. Like Christ taking upon himself the wounds of the world is like being crucified for an enternity over and over again because we as a people have not learned yet how to stop hurting ourselves and each other. It day that we will but until that day keep learning eventually if time permits and it doesn't become too late we will eventually get there. Everything that has a begining has an end

[Robert]

Hi Chiron2153 - Well, Chiron is more than simply a wounded healer. He is a Master of many arts and sciences, much like Thoth-Hermes. And I do not believe that St. Issa is a suffering sop who "takes on" wounds not His. He feels the weltschmertz no more or less than ALL the Masters of the Wisdom. All of us feel some degree of pain whenever any hurts another needlessly. That's why our spiritual task is to break the link between pain and suffering through radical compassion, which is not a soft thing. We are truly all in this together, and not as separate on any level as it sometimes seems.

[Patty]

Robert, I am new in understanding astrology, and I need your advise. I have my Chiron retrograde at 2.17 of Aries in my first house. I also have Saturn retrograde in my first house but in Taurus. Robert, could you please enligthen me and explain to me what does it mean, and what do I need to improve on?

Thanks a lot.

Patty

[Robert]

Hi Patty - It could show that as you embrace your self-sufficient pioneering Self you will heal many wounds, heal the wounds of others, and be able to call them to their Higher Self. You need more self-confidence arising from a sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Also more of a sense of enjoyment of yourself based in what you value and your sense of endurance. Embrace the rigor of evolving self-awareness into ever greater maturity and responsibility to bring forth what is of value to you. You could attain high visibility and authority this life once you find the steady drumbeat.

[red]

hi robert,

i'm curious about my chiron. he sits at the top of my chart in aries, 12 degrees, 10th house. beneath him is pluto on one side of the IC (is that the line at the bottom) 4 degrees in 3rd house, and Uranus, on the other side of the IC in the 4th house, 22 degrees.

lately, lots of difficult early family issues arising in personal relationship. am 35. has been a challenged life. sometimes charmed, sometimes struggle beyond belief. sun, jup and north node in cap in 6th house. loads of planets in 5th: merc, mars, ven, nept in sag and moon in 5th but in scorp. canc. rising. sat. retr in 11th.

don't know if you need to know all that. if useful, great, if not, sorry! chiron on MC...natural healer/teacher..pluto below...writer...5th house...work well w/ kids. but am really curious about uranus/pluto and if there is relationship to chiron that might help me understand some inner battles currently going on at the moment.

[Robert]

Hi red- Natal aspects show inner conditions we're born with. "Currently going on at the moment" is indicated by transits. Right now what you're dealing with is Saturn waning square the ruler of your 4th house (Venus). This of course brings up difficult experiences from childhood so we can come out of slavery to old patterns. Saturn is also waxing square your Saturn, offering a reality check on whatever you left behind and whatever you embraced at your Saturn return. This activates 16 Mutable as your axis of building a new structure, and throws the void into Pisces. This challenges a greater forgiveness and compassion, and a view of how what was difficult is part of the generic human condition. Whatever you're dealing with connects you to all others across space and time who also had to deal with similar conditions. The point became hot a few years ago when Uranus in Pisces squared your Venus and Saturn. Now Uranus square your Mercury demands liberation of the mind through Pisces things leaking through challenging your Sag to become more the virtues of Gemini and Virgo.

Chiron in Aries on MC shows you are called to your Higher Self by taking pioneering initiatives, and being straightforward, honest, naturally yourself, and as genuine and direct as you can be. This exteriorizes through Libra where you have Pluto, IC, and Uranus. Welcome to your life as one who calls others to total renewal in rhythmic purifications revolutionizing their way of being equals with others. Of course, to learn to do this adroitly you must first master the principles yourself. When you get focused, decrease pessimism and rigid thinking, and find the equipoise you need in your platform of existence, I have no doubt you'll find your place of greatest service and have a blast of an adventure along the way. To do that wholeheartedly we must eliminate negative memories in subconsciousness and self consciousness so we can move forward into our Dharma without useless psychological baggage. Some things are best worked with and then forgiven. When wisdom around the experience presents itself, then you can help those who also struggle with that experience.

[moon2lightshadow]

Hi Robert, I would like to ask you if you use or recommend using Chiron on composed charts.
I read somewhere that in a natal chart a direct Chiron helps the person easier to heal him/herself, but a retrograde natal Chiron requires an external help, as the person is not aware about the wounds/healing ways.
Thank you.
moon2lightshadow

[Robert]

Hi moon2lightshadow - Sure, it's appropriate to use Chiron in composites. However, remember it symbolizes that which calls us to our Higher Self, and isn't confined to the usual "wounded healer" stuff. We all can heal ourselves or others regardless of whether Chiron is RX or direct. Perhaps direct shows the obvious, while RX shows subconscious things, collective things, or even a return to prior healing skills or needs, whether from this life or another. Mine is direct in the 5th, but it worked out through others that precipitated me into a process where both external and internal healing facilitators were needed.

[moon2lightshadow]

Hi Robert and thanks for reply. My Chiron is direct in Pisces, conjoining Venus on the 9th house, but i was thinking also about a Saturn rx conj to Chiron /pisces 11th house in a composite chart which is not quite easy to understand. I will think about new significances of this conj. according to your explanations.God Bless you!
moon2lightshadow