Part One: Chiron’s Offering
Chiron in Synastry: An Introduction
From an Unpublished Notebook by Dawn Bodrogi
I’ve been meaning to write this book for a long time. The reason I haven’t jumped in earlier is that I have always been convinced one was about to be announced at any minute. My practice focuses on synastry, and from the time I began using Chiron in chart comparison, it has been very clear to me that Chiron often plays a major role in partnership dynamics. And yet, in the more than thirty years since we’ve known him, no one has yet attempted to explain the way he influences how and why we come together in relationship. It’s mysterious to me, since astrologers work so well with Chiron in individual charts. Why has he been so reluctant to be defined in partnership?
Part of the reason has to do with the fact that there is, inevitably, a certain amount of pain involved in relating (at least, where there is growth), and it is not always easy to sort out the Chironian pain from the pain of the outer planets, Saturn, or any of the other careless blokes who inflict suffering. But the pain caused by and through Chiron has a particular tone to it, and is particularly hurtful. When Chiron is awakened through relationship, we are hurt because of the very thing we are trying to hide, both from ourselves and from one another. Where Pluto tears away, Neptune dissolves and Uranus abandons, Chiron in synastry hurts us by exposing us in the places we are most vulnerable.
I am not going to repeat the Chiron mythology in great detail here. I refer everyone to the seminal work by Melanie Reinhardt, “Chiron: A Healing Journey” for details about the Chiron story and his place in the pantheon of the gods. Most who study astrology have a good grasp on what he brings to the chart. It’s almost an astrological cliché, now: Chiron is about our wound, the wound that never heals. Wherever he falls in our chart, it is assumed that he brings a vulnerability and an emptiness and a longing that will never be fulfilled in this lifetime. Well, yes and no.
The Chiron Story
Chiron began life as the product of lust of Cronos (Saturn, Time) for the nymph Philyra. Chiron was born a centaur as a result of Chronos turning himself into a horse in order to pursue Philyra. Philyra, revolted at having borne a beast, rejected Chiron and set him out in the woods. The story differs, but most say his immortality was recognized by Apollo and Artemis, who took him in and schooled him in all the arts. However, Chiron’s first experience of life was abandonment and rejection. He knew he was a god, but was not allowed to live as one. He was forced to accept his banishment from his rightful inheritance and make his home on the Earth, and live amongst men.
Chiron retreated to the isolation of his cave, where he honed his skills. He became a great healer, astrologer, and respected oracle, and was revered as a teacher and tutor. He taught Asclepius to heal, Actaeon to hunt, the great warriors Ajax, Aeneas, Theseus, Achilles, Jason, Perseus, Heracles, even the god Dionysus were said to be his pupils. Chiron was also instructor to the muses, through his influence with Apollo—there was no art that he did not master.
There are many versions of the story of Chiron’s wound, but these remain consistent: that he was wounded in the leg by a poisoned arrow crafted of his own hand, and that the pain of this wound was excruciating and never-ending, because of his immortality. One day Chiron learns of the suffering of the god Prometheus, who has been chained to a rock by Zeus and must endure having his liver eaten away each night by an eagle, only to grow it back and suffer again. Prometheus’ only crime was to bring fire to mankind—to give light and warmth to the realms of man.
Chiron negotiates an exchange: he will give up his immortality so Prometheus might go free. Chiron gives up his life for another immortal who helped mankind. We need to put ourselves in Chiron’s sandals for a moment, in order to understand the purpose of his story. In Prometheus he found a kindred spirit, both in his sympathy and generosity to man and in the extent of suffering. Chiron willingly gives up his immortality, with the full belief that he will die. The surprise is that, in releasing Prometheus, he releases himself. He is released from his pain, and allowed to join the pantheon of the gods. This sacrificial Chiron pattern gets us into trouble in relationships, as we will see.
Chiron: Healer and Teacher
We have a tendency to forget that Chiron’s primary function was as a healer, teacher, a maker of heroes—the world’s great warriors sat at his feet and were honoured to absorb his knowledge. By focusing on the wound, we take the most dramatic element of the story and blow it out of proportion. (Sure, we all like watching the Titanic go down, but without what came before and after we haven’t got much of a movie.) Where Chiron sits in our charts is where we’re meant to use our wisdom – not merely gathered knowledge, but the grounded knowledge of life experience.
Chiron is about the wisdom we’ve garnered from the trials of our soul-testing, from our pain and our isolation. Where Chiron falls in the chart, we’ve learned from being rejected and excluded, ostracized. We feel different, banished from the norm, often because of the very wisdom that is inherent to Chiron—we are ostracized because our vision sees beyond the norm. Where Chiron sits, we have an ability to journey beyond ordinary reality/perception. This is our Outsider Wisdom, the reward for our rejection and isolation.
Chiron and Surrender
Alone amongst all the Centaurs, who were dominated by their animal nature, Chiron was wise, moderate, kind. But Chiron’s story reminds us that no wisdom can protect us from change. Wounded, in essence, by his own hand (Chiron conjured the poison for the arrow that cut him), he endured a suffering that could only be transcended—not healed.
He transcended his suffering by making a sacrifice for the greater good. No matter which version of Chiron’s story is used, the element of making an offering is always there. Where Chiron is, we cannot remain alone with our wisdom. We must make sacrifices, we must say to our wisdom, “Take me where you will.”
Where Chiron is concerned we understand that there is a higher power at work, and we learn that we must use our lives as a vehicle to deliver that higher power wherever it is needed. We must give up our ordinary lives in order to become extraordinary.
Chiron and the Outer Planets
So where and how do we learn about higher power? Mostly, from the transpersonal planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. I’ve never liked the term ‘transpersonal’ because it implies that there is a lack of intimacy and immediacy about the outer planets, which can’t be further from the truth. But they do carry that which we cannot recognize within ourselves, the seeds of our greatest growth. And often, because we don’t see these seeds within ourselves, the stimulus to growth comes to us in the guise of something or someone ‘out there.’ And often, they come through partnerships, in the form of ‘other.’
As individuals, the deepest wounds are usually represented by our experiences of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Often one of these planets (or more than one) is dominant in a synastry. This is no surprise. The outer planets represent what is beyond the known, out of the realm of our ordinary experience, and are symbols of transformation in our charts because they carry the seeds of what we must become, but what we do not yet recognize in ourselves. This is, in fact, what relationships bring to us – our partners are the messengers of our inner being, the harbingers (welcome or unwelcome) of change. And often they are flying the flag of Uranus, Neptune or Pluto.
Whatever house an outer planet falls in will be turned inside out by the end of our lives – our perceptions of the functions of that house will undergo dramatic shifts. When we are young, we are naive and innocent of the necessity of change, unaware that ‘happily ever after’ often means ‘shift as if your life depended on it.’
[The happiest couples are most often the ones who can move along with change and accept that there are times when they will not be developing at the same pace, and may not see eye to eye.] And often, our relationships become the vehicles for the outer planets’ agenda.
Aspects between inner planets show how we rub along on a day to day basis, but aspects from outer planets to inner planets show where we must experience a little death. (When I teach the Advanced Synastry lesson on the Outer Planets, I tell my students that we have a choice between being shot (Uranus), drowning (Neptune) or being eaten by bears (guess who?).
The outer planets always take something away from us – and they don’t replace it readily until we learn to look at things from a greater perspective.
Chiron is the lynch pin between the transcendent function of the outer planets and the blockages that are represented by the reality of Saturn. Saturn is all about the limits of what we are in the here and now, and the outer planets are all about our potential growth, that which only exists in nascent form within the soul.
Saturn is all about the known, and his reputation for defensiveness, paralysis and fear is well deserved. (Sure, we’re scared where Saturn is concerned, and there’s probably a darn good reason for it, if only we could remember back enough lifetimes.)
The outer planets want to tear all that town, because it doesn’t serve the nascent new Self, and in a fight between Saturn and the three bullies I put my bets on the bullies. Saturn puts up a good fight, and oftentimes this fight is necessary, giving us a reality check and teaching us about healthy boundaries, allowing us to use our resources and common sense to build something authentic of our lives.
The three bullies don’t want to know from boundaries – every single one of them thinks boundaries are for kids.
Chiron is where we are meant to turn the message of the outer planets around and learn to put our lessons to use in the world, feeding them back through Saturn again. But Chiron’s job isn’t an easy one.
What usually happens is that Chiron gets caught in the middle, and gets beaten up from both ends. This happens especially when we’re young, when Saturn just seems like a drag (stuff we have to do, or stuff that stops us from doing what we want to do) and the outer planets torment us because we don’t understand yet what they’re asking of us.
We no sooner pick ourselves up from the planetary pavement when we get smacked down again. We can’t win. Embrace Saturn, and the powerful entities knock down our houses. Embrace the bullies, and we may find ourselves swept up in a hurricane of perpetual drama, punctuated by abandonment, with nothing to show for it.
No wonder Chiron is often hurt, dazed and punch drunk.
Chiron’s wound is comprised of the inability to make anything constructive out of this argument. The outer planets inspire us, and Chiron hears soft, distant, enticing whisperings of life the way it could be, if only we could get it together. Yet whenever we get beyond our fears and make brave attempts to make our visions a reality, Saturn’s leaden foot comes around to stomp our delicate visions down. Where Chiron sits, we have a perpetual hunger: we can smell wonderful things going on in the kitchen, but no one offers us anything to eat.
When Chiron is Prominent in Relationships
When Chiron is prominent in a synastry, particularly if it makes conjunctions to relationship planets or hits an angle, both people are drawn into the relationship because we sense our separateness from the divine world and we have a strong instinct to heal the rift.
We sense that something is missing in our lives, and we want it back, now. This is true to some extent with outer planet contacts, but only Chiron contacts have that promise of some kind of spiritual completion. We may not recognize Chiron’s pull at first as a healing vibe, but we sense that this relationship is the only thing that can make us feel whole again, just in the place where we feel most empty, rejected and forlorn.
This is very seductive. The other person promises to become the vehicle for all the transforming powers, our own personal conduit between the earth and the stars and back again. This person will deliver the goods that I didn’t think I would/could ever get.
It’s not the illusion of spiritual melding that Neptune implies, or Uranus’s promise of perpetual excitement. The initial vibe with Chiron contacts is deliverance: this person appeared in my life specifically to take me where I need to go. The implied thought being: ‘and I don’t have to be hungry, inadequate or rejected anymore. This relationship is the answer. The Struggle Bus stops here.’
Chiron contacts are powerful and passionate at first, with the combined promise of innate hungers fulfilled and innate flaws mended. There is also a physical, earthy element to Chiron that taps into his animal nature, and Chiron contacts can be highly sexual.
Like any planet or asteroid in the chart, Chiron has his good and his bad side, and Chiron contacts indicate that a great deal of healing can be achieved. Unfortunately, the process involves hitting all the most sensitive, painful buttons whilst trying not to lose love for one another.
Chiron can be a real test of the depth of feeling between two people, because the hurt, usually, is inadvertent. They say, “I’m not so much targeting you in a Plutonian way as I am constantly, accidentally, shredding your heart, because I can’t help it.”
The cruelties that are expressed in Chiron’s name can be shocking. Chiron contacts can be remarkably long-lived as well, depending on how much we have been taught to associate pain with love. For some of us, it will seem endless.
What begins as a promise of wholeness often ends with a ruthless tearing – real healing can occur only when whatever is festering inside can be cleansed. Only then can a wound be closed.
Chiron contacts can feel and serve just like those procedures where an already painful and distorted wound is re-opened and probed, so that the poison can be burned out. Chiron-dominant relationships provide this soul-searing. Without this cleansing, we cannot have the kind of inner balance that translates to spiritual strength. Whether or not a relationship can be salvaged, with Chiron, we are given a choice: we can move through the world as the limping, distorted Chiron, or we can take our new found knowledge and negotiate our world with grace and strength, like the immortals we are.
Wound-er or Wound-ee? Some typical Chiron Relationship Patterns
- Inequality: It is often the case with Chiron-dominant relationships that one partner is more conscious and aware than the other, and it is this more aware partner who suffers the most from the partnership.
- Teacher/Student: The relationship begins one way and at some point the student becomes the teacher, and there is betrayal.
- Wound-er or Wound-ee?: Who does the hurting, the person with the Chiron or the person with the planet/angle? The answer is ‘both.’ No one gets away clean.
Chiron on the Angles
- Chiron on the Ascendant: Begins as a fascination with individuality and self-development; transmutes into an inability to break free and individuate. Ends with the wisdom that the One is the All.
- Chiron on the IC: I am the outsider or scapegoat in my family. I may carry the family shadow, becoming the one who never achieves according to tribal standards. Ends with the wisdom that our ‘tribe’ is anywhere we are loved and supported.
- Chiron on the Desc: The psyche can be obsessed with relationship. Intimate relationships reveal layers of pain that may take us by surprise. Ends with the wisdom that the knowledge gained in relationships is the key to universal understanding and compassion
The post Beyond the Wound: Chiron in Synastry By Dawn Bodrogi appeared first on The Inner Wheel.