Chiron in Aries

February 18, 2019 4:10 AM

Chiron is not a planet. It’s a quirky little planetoid with a very erratic orbit and it captures our imagination because it is named for the most illustrious centaur of ancient Greece who, unfortunately, was wounded and could not die and so suffered a lot for a long time, which made him wise beyond measure. I think of Chiron as both wounded healer but also as mentor. These two things go hand in hand.  Some of the wisest people on the planet are the ones who have suffered the most.

There are many articles and interviews to be found heralding this transition so I will be brief!

The last time Chiron was in Aries was during the turbulent late 1960s and mid 70s. Two days after it entered Aries, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The issues of racial (as well as gender) discrimination and the violence it engenders are still with us, hiding in plain sight.

The last time Chiron was in Aries it had yet to be discovered. This did not happen until November 1977 and by that time Chiron had moved into Taurus. It is interesting that Chiron enters Aries less than a month before Uranus leaves this sign and enters Taurus. Some astrologers see this as the clean-up committee for a world gone bonkers with identity politics and the blatant attempt to control the many, by the few. Aries is a self-centered sign, as it should be. Survival is a necessary instinct and Uranus, in its chaotic way has exposed the issue of survival for us all. It has brought us to a painful awareness of how our way of life is causing the possibility of mass extinction to be real, which is quite anxiety producing.

Chiron arrives on the scene, so to say, and asks us what we have learned in the last seven years while Uranus was in Aries. Because the sign is Aries, it asks each individual to gather and glean what wisdom s/he can from the chaos and make decisions about how to go forward. We can only get to the best possible future by making wise choices in the present.

I think Chiron is also symbolic of trauma. Trauma is a most powerful teacher. What we learn, if we can learn, from things that break us apart are the most important things we learn in our lives. Over the last eight years as Chiron has been in Pisces the concept of trauma, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has made its way into the collective awareness. As Chiron leaves Pisces we are aware that many more people than we used to acknowledge, are suffering from deep and difficult trauma. It’s a kind of epidemic. Now that Chiron has our attention the question is what to do about all this suffering?

Rather than tell you I have the answer I would like to suggest that Chiron’s ingress into Aries is a time, a turning point, to consider these things. Chiron will be in Aries for about eight years, Uranus in Taurus for seven. There will be so much to learn!