Announcing the Winner of the Chiron New Tagline Contest!

Dear Radical Readers,

Chiron has a new tagline for us to try out—and a winner of the Spring Equinox New Tagline Contest! Help me congratulate Bill Pratt of Bayport, NY for his entry:

The Only True Alchemist

Bill further explained his tagline means turning pain (lead) into joy (gold). His tagline illustrates what I consider to be one of the single most important facets of Chiron. I often describe it with the expression:

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Mythical Chiron did this by soldiering on and continuing to teach and mentor despite his lingering pain. This is what we all must do, because Earth is not a pain-free zone. Our spirits live and learn in a body; it’s vulnerable. I have quoted many times astrologer Stan Riddle who said Chiron transmutes—helps us to see things differently, and in that change of perspective, the alchemy of turning pain/lead into joy/gold takes place.

Thanks, Bill, for grasping and sharing Chiron’s magical alchemy!

Bill has won his choice of my Chiron e-books.

How Chiron Transmutes 

"Experience is transmuted into knowledge through intention ... returned as a blessing to the wounded one."
~ Stan Riddle, Chironicles, April 1995

And thanks to everyone who participated in the contest. Interestingly, all the entries were in the serious category—none in the humorous one. Kudos, also, to these:

Honorable Mentions

Wisdom Healer – Kat Randall from Webster Groves, MO

The Challenged Challenger – Sarah Beaber from "all over the Midwest"

The contest may be over, but I’m always interested in new catchphrases for Chiron. Come on over for some lemonade anytime and let’s chat!

Gold to All,

Joyce

~~~

Bill Pratt is versatile—a Teaching Reiki Master, Magnified Healer, AnRa Master Healer, a hypnotist and medium. Add to these eclectic, Chironic skills a psychic, intuitive, empath who works with EFT and other modalities. “Life has been defined by Virgo North Node conjunct Chiron and Pluto in the 7^th House squaring a Scorpio stellium, including Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Pluto’s opposite Aquarian Moon—a nice ‘T.’ Throw in Neptune Midheaven.” Bill was shocked he won, but are you even surprised?

Photo Credit:  Food (Lemonade) - Mario Beauregard © Fotolia.com

Spring Equinox Contest! Give Chiron a New Tagline

 

© 2011 
by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

Spring is about resurrection, renewal, and planting new seeds. It’s the natural new year, and this one is particularly powerful. I’ll be out doing my usual Equinox ritual with my Solsisters, but this year, I’d like to do an additional ritual of renewal here on The Radical Virgo. I’d like to see if we can come up with a better tagline than the Wounded Healer for Chiron. He needs better branding. Maybe a marketing consultant!

After 23 years of working with Chiron, “wounded healer” is really getting old for me. I can’t say wounded healer without also saying wholemaker, because wounded healer implies staying stuck in our misery forever.

Wounded Healer is so limiting. It implies that Chiron is just a pain!

The Chiron myth, the source of an estimated 75 percent of how we interpret Chiron, does show us a resolution to pain and suffering. First, mythical Chiron shows us to serve with joy in spite of it. Think of Michael J. Fox refusing to allow his Parkinson’s disease to rule his life, his great sense of humor, and how he’s helping inspire others while also supporting research for a cure. He’s a very Chironic character with Chiron in the 1^st trine Neptune and Mercury, opposed Pluto.

Second, Chiron’s story revolves around self-sacrifice and caring about others. Chiron trades places with Prometheus, who is already being punished and suffering for eternity for stealing fire from the gods. In releasing Prometheus, who represents the collective or community as a metaphor, Chiron, too, is released. The gods are so impressed with his giving spirit, they liberate Chiron from his bonds of immortality, which were literally a real pain. The gods allow Chiron to die, and he is raised to the heavens in a constellation.

This doesn’t mean we have to die literally to get to “heaven”—or at least only once at our appointed time. What it does say is that we have to let a part of ourselves die. We need to surrender our suffering—and when we do that combined with a desire to offer it up to help others, we are lifted up. We don’t notice our chronic bum knee. We are too busy helping other people learn how to transcend their pain and stumbling blocks. We find completion or resolution to our life’s story. We become our own hero, like those extraordinary Greek adventurers that Chiron mentored. Maybe it doesn’t all happen in a day or even in the confines of a 50-year Chiron cycle. But bits of this story keep replaying —and with them bits of healing and finding our place in the world—till our final leap back to the stars. With our increased longevity, we might even get a Second Time Around and another Chiron Return if we live to 100!

So, with that in mind, here are the rules of the contest.

Chiron Rebranding Contest Rules

1. There are two categories, Serious and Humorous. Label your e-mail entry according to which category you want to enter. Examples, Serious - My wounded healer and wholemaker. (You can do better than that. If I liked it so much, I wouldn’t be having this contest.) Example, Humorous: The dog tags illustrating this post with another nickname for Chiron, centaur mentor.

2. There will be one winner in each category. I will be the judge, and my decision is final. The prize will be your choice of either of my e-books on Chiron—Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer or Poems to Heal the Healer: The 12 Chiron Signs. If you already own these books, thank you for purchasing them! In that case, you may opt for a mini-reading by e-mail. I’ll answer in depth on one question about Chiron in your chart.
   
   
3. In entering the contest, you agree that your taglines, including the winners, will be published on The Radical Virgo and give permission for optional publication in my forthcoming book on Chiron. You will be credited. Who knows? Maybe your tagline will be the new one to catch on!
   
   
4. Entries are due by midnight PDT on March 26, 2011. E-mail them to joyce@joycemason.com. You may also submit any entry by way of the Comments, but be sure you also send me your e-mail address for communicating in case you win and so I can transmit your prize.

Good luck, and I hope I get a lot of entries!

 ~~~

Photo Credit: Dog Tag Sketch © Pecak | Dreamstime.com “engraved” by Joyce; Blossom Flower © An Yunak | Dreamstime.com

Chiron’s Key Word Corner: Teacher and Wounded Healer—and the Reason for Winter

©1994-2010 by Joyce Mason

The Chiron of myth was both a teacher and a wounded healer because our wound is our best teacher.

Few of us come to the quest for wholeness when everything is hunky dory. In the knot of our pain is everything we need to work through in order to feel at one with ourselves—and everyone else. Many of us—maybe most of us—would never have bothered to do any deep, inner work if it weren’t for emotional or physical agony.

Maybe coming to Earth where pain gets stuck in your body, and hurts like hell if you don’t do something with it, is only way to get us to deal with our stuff. I’ve heard it two ways. One of my teachers says they cry on the Other Side when someone has to come to Earth and rejoice when they die and “come home.” From another, I’ve heard that no matter how hard it is, souls are lined up to incarnate here. It has something to do with our planet’s unique attributes as a boot camp for emerging souls.

The holidays and winter often bring depression because it is a time of dying.

Like the trees and flowers, we have shed our leaves and feel barren inside. We must hibernate. This is as close as we come to feeling the separation again that we first experienced when we came to Earth—being literally wrenched from our mother and the disorientation of feeling alone in the world.

Winter is a Chironic time when we feel painfully misfit and unrelated. Yet, Chiron’s time in the cave—alone—is where he turned to his teacher within and gained enough wisdom to tutor future greats.

This winter, relish your cave time.

If you are in pain, wallow in it until you hear what it’s trying to teach you. The illusion of separation must be felt acutely so that, like Chiron, we will reach out to others and foster their greatness, just as we discover our own when we finally slow down enough to face ourselves.

That’s what winter is for.

~~~

This Key Word Corner was first published in Chironicles in December 1994.

Photo Credit: WINTER SCENE © 4dings Dreamstime.com

Celebrate Epiphany, Jan. 6th! The Coming of the Three Astrologers. Visit my post, Epiphanies, on Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights, full of information about the Magi, their role as astrologers, and the deep symbolism of this holiday. Three astrologers were among the privileged few to witness the newborn Christ child.