Chiron Explained
In Astrology, the asteroid Chiron is one of the most complex and misunderstood symbols in the Birth Chart. Chiron circulates in a perpendicular, elliptical orbit that weaves between Saturn and Uranus. Its orbit, as well as its “non-planet” status, are only the beginning of the mystery of Chiron—a celestial enigma, forever eluding us as it orbits in and out of our galaxy (The Milky Way).
When interpreted correctly, Chiron’s placement by sign, house and aspect(s) in the Birth Chart, the potency of its symbolic meaning is felt in its ability to tell the untold, long-buried stories and traumas of literal events and circumstances in our lives.
Whether it’s about feelings of lovability, intelligence, attractiveness, ability to take care of oneself or be independent, Chiron symbolizes our inner soft spot that forms where we’ve been hurt in early life.
The lesson of Chiron involves the ways we recognize and deal with (or don’t) our deepest wounds—our earliest encounters with life, memories that we’re socialized to hide because they’re deemed “unpleasant” and therefore unacceptable.
Where Chiron falls in our Birth Charts—by sign, house and the aspects it forms to other planets in the Chart—is an area in which we feel vulnerable, weak or one that evokes feelings of low self-esteem.
Chiron’s placement shines a light on our past hurts and so-called “baggage,” revealing (should we choose to see it) how our repeated interactions with the world elicit our insecurities and apparent failures.
Chiron’s purpose is to make us realize that our weak spots are not feelings we can excise, if only because they cannot be denied.
Even if you had a full frontal lobotomy, the event would still exist. And even if we could forget the experience itself our bodies and minds would still contain the cutting feeling as a sensory or trace memory. This point is demonstrated in movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and other artistic works.
By re-encountering stressful situations and reflecting on them we let self-awareness in, which in turn leads us to denounce the role of Victim and become the exalted Teacher/Healer as embodied in the mythological figure of Chiron.
Chiron in Greek Mythology: Themes of Abandonment
In Greek mythology, Chiron is known as the “Wounded Healer,” abandoned at birth but foster Fathered by Apollo, God of Light (and Enlightenment). Under Apollo’s guidance, Chiron became an illustrious scholar, teacher, healer and even prophet, tutoring all the Greek Hero figures in their youth.
In the myth, Chiron is product of Kronos (Saturn) and the nymph Philyra. Kronos was known for devouring his offspring, as an oracle had prophesied that one day he would be overthrown by one of his male descendants.
Knowing the prophecy, Kronos’ wife Rhea went to great lengths to hide baby Zeus, who was so well-hidden by his Mother Rhea that Kronos never found him, and the latter was eventually overthrown by his son just as the oracle had predicted.
But in the midst of his heated and persistent search for his son Zeus, Kronos was taken off course (yet another reference to Chiron’s orbit outside our galaxy) by his desirous pursuit of the nymph Philyra.
Philyra wanted nothing to do with Kronos, and so attempted to hide from him by transforming herself into a mare. But her attempt was unsuccessful, as Kronos discovered her and in turn transmuted himself into a horse to mate with Philyra. The product of this union was Chiron, a Centaur-like demigod—half horse, half man.
Horrified that Chiron was the product of her unwanted union with Kronos, Philyra begged the Gods to transform her into anything other than her mortal self, not being able to bear the burden of producing a “monster.”
Chiron Becomes the “Wounded Healer”
The Gods granted Philyra’s wish and turned her into a Linden tree, leaving Chiron to fend for himself as Kronos continued his search for Zeus.
Fortunately for baby Chiron, he was found by a shepherd named Apollo. With Apollo’s guidance (Apollo=God of Light & Enlightenment)., Chiron eventually became a well-known scholar, teacher, healer and even prophet in his own right, tutoring Greek “Hero” figures in their youth.
Hercules, one of Chiron’s students, went to visit his Teacher in his cave among the Centaurs, and somehow, due to some misunderstanding, a battle ensued between Hercules and the Centaurs. During the short battle, one of Hercules’ poisoned arrows accidentally struck Chiron in the leg.
Though Chiron himself was not the cause nor did he have any role in the battle, he found himself enduring a second injury, this time physical, that he could not heal and occurred, like the abandonment by Mother, at no fault of his own.
Chiron retreated into his cave and spent many years trying to cure himself but all his effort were in vain—the gash left by Hercules’ arrow simply would not heal. Being a demigod and therefore immortal, he was condemned to an eternal life of agony. Finally Hercules felt such guilt that he asked Zeus to have mercy on Chiron by at the very least granting him death so that he’d no longer suffer.
As a compromise, Zeus granted Chiron freedom from his immortality by offering that he trade his fate for that of Prometheus, who was condemned to the fate of being tied to a rock while a griffon pecked away at his liver. When offered the choice, Chiron chose to take the place of Prometheus, relinquishing his immortality and with it his suffering and pride (1).
Chiron & the Paradox of Woundedness
In this story of how Chiron came to be, his first meeting with reality is inextricable from the abandonment he experienced by both Mother and Father.
The theme of abandonment is central to understanding the meaning of Chiron, as it represents a legacy wherein the parental abandonment of the child sets the stage for a psychological complex based on fear of abandonment as the dominant theme in our relationship with others and with the world in general.
The paradox of suffering is defined in the myth of Chiron in that it reminds us that tragedy is in some respects an inextricable part of life for which there is no fix because we have no control over the ways it manifests in our lives.
When we look at the myth in its totality, the paradox of healing is that it implies embodiment of not one static role or identity but a cycle of development involving a triad of figures: the One Wounded (Victim), the One Who Wounds (Perpetrator), and the One Who Heals (Healer)—what Reinhart calls the “Three Faces” of Chiron (2).
The three faces of Chiron are symbolic of the identities we rotate between—the roles we play—as we go through the healing process. When the sores exemplified by Chiron’s placement in our Birth Charts are triggered by life events or circumstances, this process is set in motion.
We may begin in the role of Wounded or the One Who Wounds, yet find ourselves later in life embodying the opposite role, or vice versa. The Victim becomes the Bully, the Bully becomes the Victim, and so on and so on.
So how can we balance our relationship to our fears without becoming mired in the vicious cycling between the role of Wounded One and the One Who Wounds?
The idea is that the people and circumstances in which we re-encounter them over time facilitates a certain level of self-awareness—not of our powerlessness but of the power that comes in embracing the relinquishment of the fear that comes with giving up the need to control.
The catch? To become the Healer does not imply a linear progression from one state to another, but an ongoing process of honest confrontation with oneself through the way we take in, interpret and act on the feelings that come up in our dealings with “outside” people, situations or events.
It’s when we’re able to look at the situation but detach ourselves enough to avoid acting reactively or defensively that we’re able to tap into our empathy and compassion and we become the Healer.
The Healer & The Hero Complex
To put Chiron’s story in context, we must consider the concept of the “Hero” in the pre-Classical Greek era. Worship of the Gods is a pervasive theme throughout Greek mythology; however, many of the myths feature mortals or demigods performing superhuman feats (3).
The image of the Hero who stands up for the People (and, consequently, against the Gods) has in many ways become a caricatured figure by definition but remains a potent archetype in the Collective Unconscious (4).
And it’s true: when we look at modern plotlines, the Hero figure seems to turn up pathologically: the Prince who slays the dragon, the frog that turns into a Prince, Robin Hood, Clark Kent/Superman, Peter Parker/Spiderman, Bruce Wayne/Batman…The list is, well, long.
But the message overlooked in many contemporary versions of the famed Hero/Savior narrative is that when a mortal performs superhuman feats, he becomes the object of worship and inevitably falls prey to the tragic flaw of hubris.
Hubris, or excessive pride, is the conflict underlying the downfall of many Ancient Greek Heroes, reminding us that the sacrifice of pride is where our salvation lies.
Chiron as Anti-Hero
In this sense, Chiron embodies what Reinhart identifies as the quintessential Anti-Hero in that “Chiron’s process starts where the Heroic leaves off” (5). In other words, what we encounter in early life—events or circumstances that happened to us over which we had no control—simply cannot be erased from existence—especially not through any Heroic or superhuman feat, which sometimes only causes further harm, even if this is not the intention.
When Healer Chiron was hit suddenly by Hercules’ poisoned arrow, his first instinct was to retreat, hiding from everything outside while he tried futile after futile attempt to fix himself.
Such conditions require us to cope with symptom cycles through stress management, alternative methods and self-care practices—healing techniques we often don’t discover when we’re busy hiding ourselves from being seen.
It makes sense that our minds would find a way to compartmentalize, deny or “forget” our emotional and even physical burdens. But whether through events, circumstances or intimate relationships, it’s when personal memories of our own sorrowful moments are made salient, or are brought to our attention in some way, that we’re faced with our ability (or inability) to acknowledge and cope with them.
This is why Chiron is the preeminent Anti-Hero: because his struggle is about learning how to live with distress (distress not only from the injury itself but the defeat that comes with the sudden impotence of his healing powers) without being able to eliminate it.
While Chiron is the Anti-Hero, he was born with the one quality every Hero seemed to be after but rarely (if ever) attained—immortality. The parallel myths of Chiron and Prometheus demonstrate the same central choice to give up their immortality in order to save themselves from patterns of (self) destructive activity.
The irony of Chiron’s tale is that immortality for him is not a heroic state but a curse that binds him to eternal anguish. Yet to learn to cope with a problem that does not have a linear, prescribed solution is in many respects the most Heroic feat of all.
Chiron in the Birth Chart
Chiron’s cycle of repetition rewards us when we learn to integrate our painful experiences as part of our identities. But as long as we view these as imperfections that need to be removed, we’ll continue to see them as flaws in others as well as ourselves, impacting our capacity for relationship and mutual understanding.
The Chironian cycle of repeated confrontations with our weak spots gives us trouble when it becomes a futile cycle wherein we find ourselves continually attempting to rid ourselves of them via apparent cures or quick fixes.
Venus-Chiron aspects in a Birth Chart, for instance, indicate a profound inner struggle when it comes to self-esteem, love and relationships. Though this person may try to quell their hurt at any cost as they cope with issues of feeling lovable, at the same time they have tremendous difficulty accepting love from others due to the intense fear of rejection (abandonment) in early life.
Similarly, the person’s appearance and public image are both romanticized (Venus) and rejected (Chiron) by others, leading to an intense contradiction the person must learn to cope with.
So there’s fear (Chiron) not only of relationship (Venus) but of the power of their own attractiveness. As a result, the loneliness that accompanies a Venus-Chiron aspect can be profound, as the person turns to isolation as a coping mechanism. Think: “Insecure Sexpot.”
Celebrity Case Study: Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe has a Venus-Chiron conjunction in her Birth Chart, and it’s uncanny the extent to which Chironian themes infuse the dominant overtones of her life story.
Like Chiron, Monroe’s first trauma was literal abandonment by Father and eventually Mother. This initial trauma set the stage for subsequent experiences of abandonment in the context of relationships and had a major influence on her life’s trajectory.
Marilyn’s Venus-Chiron conjunction in her 10th house indicates an intense inner struggle between the need to feel loved by everyone and dealing with the intense discomfort that comes with such attention.
For instance, on the one hand there’s the addictive thrill that comes from being worshipped as a “sex symbol”; but on the other there’s the pressure of the need to live up to an over-sexualized image of oneself—not to mention the feeling of shame at being valued only for your appearance (Venus).
The fear of rejection that Venus-Chiron brings often brings with it an intense fear of trusting other people, especially men if it’s a woman with Venus-Chiron.
Marilyn’s fear (Chiron) of love (Venus) can be seen in her relationships, which were often with high-profile men who were married (JFK), much older (Arthur Miller) or overly possessive and controlling (Joe DiMaggio). These relationships were not real love because they could not be. In each scenario Monroe was living out the only way she knew how to be loved: by men who could or would not commit to her—or, if they did, failed to engage her on any level much less an intellectual one.
Nonetheless, these early relationships served a function for Marilyn, providing her the attention she both relied on to maintain her sense of self—to keep the fragile character of Blonde Marilyn alive—and resented.
When someone is objectified in a relationship, or valued only for their appearance, from the very outset there is resentment. Because the Objectified realizes they’re loved for only one aspect of who they are, they unconsciously feel compelled or even obligated to play the role of Object. This role is not the “real” self but a self divided—in this case, in the form of Norma Jean and Marilyn.
As we see in Marilyn’s story as well as many so-called “normal” lives, the idea that objectification breeds a loving disposition just doesn’t play out. We see this in men perpetually mired in the disappointment they feel at the notion that to choose a female partner is tantamount to choosing between a “Beauty” (Whore) or “Mother” (Madonna). Monroe fell prey in some respects to this inescapable Madonna-Whore dynamic.
By forging relationships with men for whom a “normal” relationship was circumstantially impossible (or at least difficult) is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby rejection is inevitable—a self-fulfilling prophecy that confirms and perpetuates the Venus-Chiron person’s belief that they are in fact unlovable.
Fears and Flaws and Other Far-Flung Ideas
The idea of living with our fears and flaws is difficult, as we’re trained by social conditioning in many ways to fix these things about ourselves, rather than to live with and accept them as part of who we are.
A perfect example of this is in traditional medicine: there’s a symptom or complaint from the body, tests are run and the problem is diagnosed. Then a pill or prescription or some type of intervention is prescribed and oftentimes that’s the end of it. But even in modern Medicine, the linear concept of a symptom with an immediate cure relies on static definitions of these terms.
Chiron’s symbolism, in contrast, pushes us to look at the damage done yet refrain from the compulsion to cure—to see the scar and love it, not cover it.
This becomes a pressing dilemma in a culture that interprets disease as something that can be easily (or at least feasibly) wiped away. Autoimmune diseases—a relatively modern phenomenon—are a direct challenge to the linear concept of the wound/cure dichotomy that underpins it, inciting us to confront our inner torment, bitterness, heartache and other “stuff” before it takes over our bodies and reflects it back to us.
Conditions that impair us physically yet have no “cure” bring out the divinity in us, conjuring the true Hero as embodied in the figure of the Healer.
That we cannot live in our wounds yet cannot cure them by definition urges us to turn our pain into healing—not through a fixing or fixation process, but through acceptance of the “flaws” we see within ourselves and one another.
Chiron Aspects: Wounds = Wisdom.
Acceptance of his mortal self was ultimately what freed Chiron, relinquishing his immortality by submitting to a mortal death. Chiron’s story teaches us that only through acceptance of our own fate can we become the Healer. And suddenly we forget our woundedness...
Wherever there’s a wound, the potential to wound always exists. What the tale of Chiron teaches us is this: how to find power in the face of powerlessness.
References:
(1-3, 5): Reinhart, Melanie. "Chiron and the healing journey." Nova York: Viking Penguin (1989), pp. 53-92.
(4): Jung, Carl Gustav. "The concept of the collective unconscious." Collected works 9, no. 1 (1936): 42.