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| Bleeding Hearts Catherine Al-Meten Meyers |
Chiron, the Wounded Healer's orbit passes between Saturn and Uranus in the Solar system. Its orbit around the Sun takes 50 years, and varies depending on the sign. Completing it's 9-year cycle in the last sign of the Zodiac, Pisces today, Chiron re-enters Aries, the first sign in the Zodiac tomorrow, February 18, 2019. (Chiron first entered Aries in April, 2018 before it went retrograde back into Pisces until now). Chiron's transit of Aries lasts longer than it does in any other sign--8 years. Consider the next 8 years one of the most significant healing periods of all times.
Who is Chiron, the Wounded Healer? In Greek mythology, Chiron is born half horse and half human. His parents Phylygria and Chronos rejected him. Phylygria was punished for abandoning Chiron, and was turned into a tree. Chiron is taken under the wing of Apollo who takes care of him and teaches him how to adapt to his wound and go on living in spite of that wound. Later in trying to defend Apollo in battle, Chiron's leg is wounded. He recovers and learns to adapt to the new limitations he is faced with. Like Chiron, we each have something which we have to learn to cope with in life, and we usually identify that as the area we feel most vulnerable in. It might be fear of intimacy, or fear of self expression. It may be shame or fear of being 'found out'. It might be fear of our own creative talents or fear of abandonment, like Chiron. Whatever it is that is the point of pain and vulnerability in us, is where we can connect to the wounds that need healing in our lives.
What the archetype of Chiron calls us to do is to recognize that the areas of our woundedness are the places in our experience that rise to the surface to help us recognize that pain, to adapt to it as we live life more fully, and to work around the wounds that are part of our experience. Denial of our woundedness, something most of us try to do at times, only leads to slowing down the healing process. We are capable of wholeness only when we recognize the boundaries, limitations, or limits beyond which we cease to be free and able to live.
Chiron, the Wounded Healer, transiting both the last sign in the Zodiac, Pisces, and the first one, Aries, represent the healing and integration that needs to take place between the unconscious and the conscious. Chiron in Pisces and Aries also represents the bridge of healing that is needed between connecting endings with new beginnings. During the last 8-9 years, our unconscious has been revealing those destructive patterns/habits, conditioning, traumas, and perspectives that have blocked or triggered unconscious wounds.
Chiron, the Wounded Healer's Transits through Pisces and Aries.
Chiron in Pisces was a deep, inner journey where we became more and more aware of how our unconscious wounds affect us. We've become aware and been confronted with whatever has deepened or triggered our wounds, and we've learned how to pay greater attention to the connection between the shadow aspects of our nature. Now as we complete this cycle, we move into a whole new journey where we will learn to cope with the new knowledge that emerges from our unconsciousness, into the light of our awareness.
As Chiron enters Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, our personal natures are going to go through a realignment. During this alignment, unconscious pain is drawn to the surface so that we can work through the pain, consciously. The ongoing path of deep healing helps us discover how to recognize our vulnerabilities to help heal and grow in compassion for others. By bringing into the light of consciousness that which arises from the hidden, undeveloped, unexplored regions of our unconsciousness. We realign ourselves with both our true nature and with the natural world in which we live.
Chiron helps us as we dismantle the patriarchal conditioning and institutions that have abandoned us. Through our ability to heal ourselves and to be healed in light of the true nature of our being, we grow as a force to help heal the trauma, structural upheaval, and ethical/moral debasement that the patriarchy has used to try to hold onto power. The feminine is rising, and through our growth as individuals and as a whole, we take over the reins of power to steer our planet towards healing.
How does Chiron Affect Us?
Chiron brings to the surface, that which needs healing. Through Chiron's transit of Pisces, we became more aware of our wounds through the development of our intuition, empathy, compassion, imagination, creativity, and unconsciousness. As Chiron begins the journey through Aries, our focus changes. Aries rules the personal, naive, inexperienced adventurer. Chiron in Aries is ready for action without regard to risk. Chiron in Aries takes action and does so with a great deal of passion. Chiron through Aries takes us on a journey of the novice, the path of the new initiate. We learn through our actions just how our unconscious manifests when we strike out on our own.
Chiron's path for the next 8 years is one of discovery. Of self discovery and of discovery of our reason for living. We are each here for a purpose, to love and serve with one another. Discovering how to live with our limitations, and to cope with wounds we may think we should 'be over'. And to learn how to love and serve in spite of whatever is hidden from our knowledge or awareness. The whole idea that one heals from a past wound or illness and has no after effects, is erroneous and misses the point. Whatever trauma, obstacle, difficulty, or limitation might challenge us or make us feel more vulnerable to pain or suffering, is in fact, the path to coming to healing.
We learn through Chiron, the Wounded Healer, how to identify our woundedness, to work towards healing, and to integrate our healing into the way we live and cope with our lives. It will be a journey where we learn a lot about self reliance, as well as where we learn how our woundedness need not stop us from living full, creative, inspirational, and productive lives. Wherever we feel vulnerable, wounded, abandoned, broken, inadequate, or blocked, Chiron helps us pay attention to (remember what we've learned through the Pisces journey into the unconsciousness) so that we can put that understanding to work through our actions, service, compassion, and love for self and one another.
Chiron shines a light on the wound of identity that is common in all human beings. Each of us is vulnerable in one way or another. As we all know, or should by now, what we recognize and are repulsed by in others, is often something we either truly dislike in ourselves, or is something we are culpable for, but cannot face. In the case of Chiron, however, the wounds of identity are not those areas of our lives where our actions reflect our past behavior (karmic), but rather are the areas of our being that make us vulnerable to attack, manipulation, or abuse by others. There are areas of our lives where we are not the creator or the instigator or the cause. Those areas of our identity are the gifts that we can use to create, produce, heal, and prosper ourselves and others, or where others can use and abuse us. Chiron, the Wounded Healer helps us cope with those areas of our identity that we need to learn to live with and work around in order to grow and blossom.
An example of how Chiron might work in a person's life comes in understanding the wound of identity that makes a person feel ashamed or embarrassed of showing their talents, is the artist who braves it through, creates art, and allows it to be displayed. Or the singer who has a beautiful voice but is painfully shy. Chiron helps a singer recognize the wound, but helps the singer stand on stage and sing in spite of the shyness. In recognizing the beauty and passion of the desire to create or to sing, we learn how to work around the wounds that might otherwise stop us before we begin. We recognize that vulnerabilities become the source of the fear or anger or pain that blocks us. As is the case in trauma, we work towards healing of our woundedness, when we take positive steps toward doing what is life affirming, life giving, and life altering.
The path of Chiron, the Wounded Healer's transit through Aries begins in the light of the Full Moon in Virgo (Feb. 19). It is during the Full Moon in Virgo, we can focus on that which most needs healing, that which most demands attention, and that which we can do concretely to begin this journey with intention. By using the light of the Full Moon in Virgo, and the Sun's entry into Pisces, we can affirm our path forward crossing the bridge toward healing the wounded spirit that is so sorely needing to be healed in us and in the world as a whole.
*This year I will be completing my book, Healing the Wounded Spirit: Coping with Trauma, by Dr. Catherine Al-Meten Meyers.
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