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.

Chiron & Wholeness: A Primer by Joyce Mason

Announcing a new, lushly illustrated, 40-page e-book that brings you the basics and key insights about Chiron in a tightly woven package.

Here’s the what’s inside:

Chiron for Better or for Worse - If you resonate to Chiron or your astrology chart is “Chiron prominent,” what can you expect?

Chiron in the Signs and Houses – A starting point for exploring your personal Chiron placement.

Chiron Cycles and Life Purpose – How transiting Chiron’s cycles to your natal Chiron tell you about your personal quest for fulfillment.

Modern Find, Cosmic Question Mark – A brief history of Chiron’s modern-day find in 1977, how its uniqueness—and many unanswered questions about it—still captivate astrologers.

Symbol, Cosmic Characteristics, and Cultural Connections – Chiron’s symbol or glyph is a skeleton key, the kind that opens all doors. Its astronomical characteristics suggest a whole-making function, and cultural changes around its discovery marked dramatic shifts in relations between men and women—and many other themes of balancing complementary energies.

Myth of Chiron – What does the ancient Greek story of this mentor of heroes and multi-talented healer—the one who can heal everyone but himself--tell us about ourselves?

Chironic Characters Show Us How to Become Real Heroes – Famous people who embody Chiron and what they tell us about holism and heroism.

Wholeness, Inner Marriage, and the Chiron Sector – Why Chiron is associated with the Virgo to Sagittarius sector of the zodiac.

Suggestions for Further Reading & Further Resources

A specialist on Chiron for 20 years, Joyce is the former editor of the international newsletter, Chironicles (1992-95), and the creator of the Chironic Convergence in 1996, a journey of discovery to the Mt. Pelion region in Greece, Chiron’s mythical homeland. Back to astrology after a long hiatus, Joyce blogs here on The Radical Virgo, a repository for her many articles, both old and new.

Will there be a longer book? It’s only a matter of when. Meanwhile, this is both a primer (as in an introductory, first-level reader) and a primer (with a long i, as in the first coat of paint or something to get you primed!).

Delivered in PDF format via e-mail. Pre-purchase discount applies through September 29 ($3.50) at midnight PST, then $4.95 US introductory rate through December 31, 2009. This lower, initial price is being offered to Radical Virgo readers before more massive marketing requires a price increase in 2010.

To purchase, see the sidebar on The Radical Virgo or order on joycemason.com.  Here is some sample reader feedback.


For more information, e-mail Joyce. joyce@joycemason.com.

~~~

Photo credit: CIRCULAR DANCER © Elenaray | Dreamstime.com

Chiron’s Key Word Corner: One-of-a-Kind

© 1993-2009 by Joyce Mason

My mother, the real Mrs. Malaprop, once said to me with love and pride, “When they made your father, they threw away the mole.”

It’s irrelevant whether it was a rodent, a birthmark, or a pan for forming Jell-O that got tossed. The point is; I am a one-of-a-kind person, raised by equally original parents. What other characteristic can you inherit that’s still uniquely your own?

In mythology, Chiron had a birth defect a lot more serious than some puny mole. He was born half-horse—his lower half. Abandoned by both parents, he was left on a hillside to die. (In ancient Greece, they apparently did not think much of uniqueness.)

Chironic people and things tend to be absolute originals. They struggle with where they belong, because they really don’t fit in anywhere, at least at the beginning. Like Chiron, they are neither man nor horse, though they share characteristics with both beings they resemble. They don’t just think out of the box. They are out of the box.

Ultimately, Chironic types go from fitting in nowhere to feeling at home anywhere. In order to survive, they have to learn how to get along with people very different from themselves. Feeling like an outcast at first seems like a heavy karmic debt. Like Chiron, we might tend to “go into a cave.” This early turning inward takes us to the source of the real answers about life and the only acceptance that ultimately makes us feel whole--self-acceptance. From this inner work springs wisdom. The once-isolated individual ultimately is sought after as someone wise who understands the mysteries of life.

Chiron’s connection in a natal chart to life purpose also comes from his mythical one-of-a-kindness. Each of us has unique talents to contribute to the world. Everyone has a variety of lessons to learn from different levels on the evolutionary spiral. Chiron is connected to healing and wholeness, and the world needs a full menu of therapeutic choices. While counselors, astrologers, medical practitioners, and those with similar occupations may be especially attuned to Chiron, a good cook, accountant, or mechanic contributes immeasurably to the needs of a well-rounded human being. (We all need each other’s talents to become whole.)

Life purpose is merely living your uniqueness for fun and/or profit. It’s the ultimate fulfillment. Here’s how you know you’ve got it: The more you express your true self, the less time you’ll want to spend doing things that don’t reflect your real essence.

Chiron taught young boys in a balanced way, as he was taught himself by Apollo and Artemis, who appeared to him as the Sun and Moon, the ultimate archetypes of Inner and Outer. His all-male heroes’ school on Mt. Pelion reminds us it is our masculine or extroverted energy that takes us out into the world, thus the career and worldly implications of astrological Chiron.

But from the integrated dualities that lead to wholeness, our most rewarding careers often come from championing a cause that originates from resolving pain. This is clearly derived from the feminine, introverted energy, the figurative cave where we have gone inside ourselves to work things out.


In other words, true vocation is the reward of both inner work and life experience. While it seems paradoxical, Chiron can tell us about both the inner and outer manifestations of this process—about our learning curve and our ultimate contribution to the collective.

As they learn to love themselves, horse-half and all, “Chironics” draw plenty of other one-of-a-kind people to learn and play with. In the Baskin-Robbins of Life, who would want to be just plain vanilla, anyway?

~~~

This article first appeared in the April 1993 edition of Chironicles.



Photo Credit: WOMAN WEARING UNIQUE GLASSES© Iofoto Dreamstime.com

Chiron’s Keyword Corner: Ecology

By Joyce Mason
© 1993-2009,
All Rights Reserved



This is an update of an article that appeared in Chironicles in 1993. I am running it between Earth Day and Mother’s Day in honor of Mother Earth.

Astrology owes a great debt to mythology for our interpretation of the planets and planetary objects. Planets are named after the characters in these universal, archetypal stories.

There is magic—at minimum, synchronicity—in the way astronomers name planets. Most astronomers are “hard scientists.” Yet, the myths behind the names they choose offer whole galaxies of metaphorical information. When various aspects of the myth are applied to interpreting a planet in an astrology chart, insights abound, as luminous as a starry night. The Chiron myth is no exception.

As the tale goes, passed on through the millennia, Chiron lived in a cave on Mt. Pelion. Yet he was far from the stereotypical hermit-like mountain man (more accurately, half-man.) He was different from the wild centaurs. The latter were untamed beasts at best, known for raping and pillaging both women and the forest. They galloped through the woods, tromping trees and had no regard for the beauty around them. The wild centaurs were so hellish; they even appear in Dante’s Inferno in the section First Ring, the Violent.

By contrast, Chiron was kind, nurturing, and trustworthy. He lived in the “upper half” of his dual nature of composite man and horse. The mentor and teacher of so many Greek heroes preserved the forest and nurtured the local ecosystem. In Midpoint Keys to Chiron, astrologer Chris Brooks cites Chiron’s affinity with the environment and environmentally related diseases, suggesting that Chiron is associated with the human immune system. Immunity is the ability of a system to protect itself and fend off invaders that leave it weak and subject to attack. Similarly, the ozone layer protects the Earth from the ultraviolet rays sent down by the sun. If the ozone layer is depleted by human activities, the effects on the planet could be catastrophic.

Our environment is the crisis currently bringing out both the best (heroism) and worst (the wild centaur consciousness) in humanity. Going green has gone mainstream since I first wrote this article, a sight to behold after having worked in the reuse and recycling field for nearly 30 years and wondering if I’d ever see the day. On the other hand, the idea that there are people who still think global warming is a hoax makes me want to throw up my hands (or maybe just throw up!).

Chiron teaches us that nurturing is of the utmost
importance, and that the forest is sacred.

I have lived for 36 years in or near Sacramento, California— the City of Trees. Now I live in a stand of oaks in one of its suburbs. Living in an “urban forest” increases my sensitivity to the wholeness and whole-li-ness of living close to nature.

Unfortunately, there are those who haven’t come far from ancient Thessaly and destroying the forest and each other. There is a time for righteous indignation—an issue of boundaries—where to draw the line. A stray arrow in a fracas with the wild centaurs at a wedding reception caused Chiron’s incurable wound. Innocent bystanders can get hurt when the wild centaur energy runs amok. It destroys even the most beautiful of occasions—or planets.

The year 2008 was rife with weather disasters. There were 220,000 fatalities due to extreme incidents. In “2008 – A Year of Weather Disasters,” author Cat Lincoln calls last year’s weather weirder and worse than 2007, which was bad enough. Among the evidence that it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature: earthquakes, cyclones, cold snaps, low-pressure systems, typhoons, and hurricanes. “Most show a frightening connection to the changing world climate.”

Even though God told Noah He’d never again destroy the world by water after the Ark Incident, I can’t help but notice how many of these weather disasters involve the element water. In astrology, the water element is connected with emotions. It feels like Mother Earth is crying, heartbroken.

Before Chiron was discovered, Dane Rudhyar predicted that a planet “like a second Moon” would be discovered between Saturn and Uranus. This is exactly where Chiron was discovered in 1977. The great astrologer Rudhyar was onto something. It is our feelings that need release and healing. Chiron’s wound may have been physical, but his deepest wound was about fitting in, turning the isolation of extreme uniqueness (not a wild centaur and not really human) into finding his treasured role in society. That role was mentor and catalyst, training heroes who went out to save the day in a divine domino effect of sharing talents, skills and knowledge.

Ecology is everything—balance inside and out. Within an ecosystem, everyone’s thoughts, words, and deeds affect everyone else. High time we got it: We are each other. In these turning-point times, our upper (human) and lower (instinctual) parts of ourselves can be balanced at the heart center through love. Chiron’s myth helps us reconnect with nature and nurturing.

Celebrate Earth Day and Mother’s Day every day of the year. Love your Mother. We owe her our lives.

~~~

Photo Credit: SUNRISE AT MOUNTAIN PELION © Nkoravos Dreamstime.com

Soapbox Saturday: This post is also a response to Pop Art Diva’s Saturday Soapbox, “Do You Believe in Global Warming?” Click on the Global Warming link to learn more. Additional responses to Soapbox Saturday can be found on The Radical Virgo’s other blog, Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights.

Up Next: In honor of the upcoming Mercury Retrograde, May 6-30, The Radical Virgo will start doing some of the things that Mercury Rx is good for—recycling and reposting. (Anything with re- in front of it—revise, redo, reconsider—are great activities during this time.) Joyce Mason’s key articles will be reproduced here, starting with “The Radical Virgo,” the article this blog is named after. This baker’s dozen collection will run over the next several months.