Chiron and Relationships

Chiron, discovered in 1977, quickly entered astrologers’ charts and interpretations. As astrologers, we learn that the finding and naming of a body in the solar system means that the mythological concept has entered humankind’s consciousness in new way. We become conscious of the energy and evolve as a species.

Let’s examine Chiron to see where his mythology will take us now and in several hundred years. The myth describes a half-man/half-beast centaur abandoned by both his father and mother after being conceived in a violent act, raised as a foster child and self-educated. He fostered, mentored and educated young heroes, becoming a notable healer, teacher and wise guide. He witnesses the slaughter of Centaurs, his people, by the very student heroes he had taught. He offered himself up to release Prometheus, who brought fire (knowledge) to humankind, from his punishment of a liver eating eagle. Chiron was turned into the constellation of Sagittarius. And, he had a wound that just wouldn’t heal no matter what!

Are you responsible for your own freedom? Don’t hold your parents’ responsible? Have no parents? Educate yourself? Mentor others? Be wise? Heal yourself? Teach others what you’ve discovered? Avoid violence? Sacrifice yourself? Evaluate, understand and forgive the horrible actions of others? Keep trying to heal the pain of the chronic wound and share your discoveries with others? Work with your wounds?

You are experiencing Chiron.

Chiron’s orbit physically links both Saturn and Uranus so he represents a coming together or blending of Saturnian and Uranian energies. Chiron is an odd planetoid, traveling in an unusual elliptical orbit around the Sun. Chiron’s orbit moves back and forth, stepping into both Saturn and Uranus’ solitary orbits around the sun, energetically connecting and linking the two planets and what they symbolize.

Saturn was, for eons of human existence, the “end” of the known solar system. Saturn was time, structure, rigidity, authority and the end of things. After Uranus was discovered and named as the first of the “outer” or “transpersonal planets,” it called up the mythology of children castrating and overthrowing the father who was a tyrant and ate them. Uranus came to symbolize freedom and independence from tyranny. Its discovery heralded the death of the concept of kings, slavery and the beginning of “freedom” revolutions around the world. Now, only a few hundred years later, there are a few “kings” who rule countries. The idea of a divine right to rule is considered quaint. Dictators, our modern day equivalent of kings, rule until they encounter a coup or bullet. Thousands of people protested in the streets worldwide, waging peace, as George Bush invaded a sovereign nation. Might no longer makes Right.

Overlaying the evolution of humankind’s consciousness is the precession of the equinoxes where our solar system is slowly moving out of the constellation of Pisces, the ruler of slavery, sacrifice and oppression, and into Aquarius’ constellation, the ruler of independence, individuality, community and friends.

Combining the concept of personal Uranian freedom with Saturnine responsibility, in 1977 when Chiron was discovered Pluto was in Libra, Neptune in Sagittarius, Saturn in Leo and Uranus in Scorpio. The vibrational energy of these other planets at Chiron’s discovery included transformation through partnerships, dissolving the concept of tribal consciousness, restriction around being a “star” versus a “team player,” chaos and freedom in merging.

Astrologers evaluate new discoveries in the solar system for how and where they appear in charts. Chiron is often very active in relationship charts. Re-read the paragraph above and think what the words imply about Chiron’s impact on relationships and their needed and coming evolution.

We are talking about deeply personal relationships. The BIG ones. The kind of soul purifying, liver cleansing relationships you have with your soul mate, your shrink during a Pluto transit, your teenage child who pushes every button of your being, or your passionate, infuriating ex who caused you to hang out depressed and crying in your darkened apartment with the covers over your head for a few months.

Of course, Chiron is active in the good relationships too! There is a person who actually sees your soul for the very first time. Your soul has been seen. Where you dissolve into oneness and merge on an incredibly deep level where the boundaries between your tribe and their tribe dissolve to create a new tribe, called a family. This is where you actually physically create life from two separate souls, a sperm and egg. This is where you grow and bloom and bear fruit. This is where you love and are loved, teach and are taught, heal and are healed, are wise and hear wisdom.

Keeping that in mind, AND to do our best to help our clients understand their relationships AND to help human consciousness evolve over the next 200 years, let’s explore Chiron’s important role in relationships.

Back to the symbolic image ~ embedded in Chiron’s glyph is either a semi-sextile or an inconjunct, depending on how you tip the glyph. Semi-sextiles are 2nd and 12th house relationships from the point of view of a planet involved. How many of us truly see our talents and skills or how we undo ourselves from a particular planet’s perspective? Look at each PLANET in any chart’s 2nd and 12th house. The 2nd and 12th houses are in the peripheral vision, the blind spot so to speak. Hold your arms out parallel with your shoulders, looking straight ahead, move them backwards until you can just barely see your hands out of the corners of your eyes. That is how clearly any planet sees the 2nd and 12th houses. Everything behind your hands is invisible. You may know the rest of the room is there, but YOU can’t see it. The entire world, friends and enemies alike, sees the 2nd and 12th houses better than you do and, frankly, with more accuracy. Remember your friends rolling their eyes when you arrived at the party with yet another idiot just like the last one you dated? Or how they are shocked at your insecurities over a skill they know you possess in abundance?

Inconjuncts are semi-sextiles in reverse. They feel energetically similar and act as deep, growth producing aspects. They push you, physically or psychologically, depending on whether they are the Virgo, 6th house, or Scorpio, 8th house, version of the inconjunct, to grow up, get busy and take responsibility for your life and your choices. You have to pick, neither choice is quite right, but a choice (and thus the elimination of yet another road not traveled) with all the attendant consequences must be made.

Inconjuncts have the unique beauty of being trines and oppositions to the other end of the inconjunct planet’s 2nd and 12th house. Think about it. If you have a planet in Virgo inconjunct to someone’s Aries planet, the Virgo planet trines the Aries planet’s second house of Taurus, helping and supporting the skills, talents and resources of the Aries planet. The inconjunct planet values what you bring to the table and sees your skills in an easy flowing aspect. The Virgo planet opposes the Pisces 12th house of undoing and secret enemies so they are in a unique position to watch your back, see what is going on and warn you. The Scorpio, or 8th house inconjunct to the Aries planet, trines the 12th house and understands how your adult psychology contributes to how you undermine yourself. It opposes the Taurus 2nd house, and sees all the Aries’ planet’s assets, talents and skills quite clearly.

Of course, inconjuncts do come into incredible power when a relationship ends. Inconjuncts know how much money you have and your secret vulnerabilities. They can hurt you because of their wide, comprehensive knowledge of your 2nd and 12th house vulnerabilities and blind spots. Inconjuncts create half of a mystic triangle with any planet’s 2nd and 12th house, perhaps why relationships are so important, transcendent and ultimately painful when they end.

If you review your important relationships, you will find the growth producing point of any relationship contains either inconjuncts or semi-sextiles. We don’t grow with conjunctions, trines or sextiles. That’s what gets and keeps us together. We break apart at the oppositions and squares, after the initial attraction and apparent challenge wears off. We grow at the points of stress and difficulty ~ the inconjuncts and semi-sextile aspects. If there is an inconjunct with the Sun, you worked on, resolved and possibly healed some father issues in the relationship, regardless of what happened on the surface. A semi-sextile with the moon made your emotional nurturing needs paramount, painful and perhaps seen for the first time.

Chiron’s placement by sign and house is where you were wounded in a way that never heals, a deep cut that hurts when touched. When you meet a person and one or more of their planets aspect your Chiron, you have a significant relationship. Remember, Chiron is a planetoid with a built in semi-sextile and inconjunct aspect to your soul! It links your Uranian impersonal evolutionary drive to expand, create and be free with your inherent, deep seated limitations, fears and anxieties from Saturn. When Chiron aspects a planet in any manner, it brings the semi-sextile and inconjunct energy along to COMBINE with the natal aspect and join in on the relationship’s ride. Ouch. Or WOW. Either way, you notice it!

When you are reading a relationship synastry with a conjunction of Chiron to a planet, include all the conjunction words as well as semi-sextile words (blind spot, talents and skills, undermining and secret enemies) and inconjunct words (habits, health and body issues, psychological, values and sexual issues). They all apply. The easy aspects like trines and sextiles receive more sinister and painful interpretations, as the semi-sextile and inconjunct aspects inherent in Chiron are active too. It is not all sweetness and light when Chiron limps into the picture.

The hard aspects are even harder! Not only do you have an opposition or a square, you have it to your blind spots and vulnerabilities. Ouch. Pour salt in the wound. The Chironic words said in passion or hate reflect the other person’s soul wound too! So often we get into relationships with people, either consciously or unconsciously, to resolve the unresolved traumas and “fix it”. Other people get into relationships with us for the same reason. You are hearing their soul wound talking. It’s not ONLY your wound. They have one too. f they speak from their wound, it will deeply vibrate in your soul.

Advise your clients to tell someone with a loving and kind perspective such as a therapist, best friend or other beloved soul, whatever the parting words were from the Chiron aspect as the relationship ended (or sometimes even while it was going on). Those Chironic words have a unique ability to put more of Medusa’s poison into the wound of the soul. And, because you ALREADY BELIEVE IT about the Chiron placement in your chart, the words hurt in a bottomless pit kind of way. Clean out the poison quickly. You ARE going to limp where you have Chiron but you don’t have to be in a wheelchair.

Don’t you think it is interesting that a reclusive fellow who lived in a cave, was half-man, half-horse, unwanted by his family and half crazed with pain from his chronic wound has contributed so much to our astrological understanding of relationships and ourselves in the 28 short years he’s been galloping in humankind’s consciousness? Imagine what a few hundred years worth of Chiron consciousness will bring!

Copyright © 2006 Anne C. Ortelee