(Seen this post before? That’s because Chiron goes retrograde every year. This year, does it affect YOU? Read on to find out. . .)
“Wake up!” says Chiron. “Are you feeling wounded? Recently I brought you a difficult experience. It was also a reminder, an echo of a difficult experience from your past. I have a special message for you about how to heal it once and for all.”
Chiron Turns Retrograde June 8–A Pivotal Day
When a planet turns retrograde it makes a pivot in the sky and also creates a metaphorically “pivotal” experience for human beings. This time, that planet is Chiron. It’s as if Chiron is telling us, “You can’t go on avoiding this change forever. Now I’m delivering a wake-up call.” If Chiron is touching a planet in your chart this year, this message is for you and it will have very specific meaning, depending on what planet that is. That planet, and the part of you it represents, is being sent on a healing journey. It’s time for old, wounded places to surface so that real, deep healing can happen. June 8 is the peak of Chiron’s wake-up call, but it could happen anytime within 5 days surrounding that day.
Initiation Leading To An Inner Journey
Sometime between February and now, Chiron showed us an area of life in which we are due for a change. What he delivered was an initiation and it was our first chance to catch a clue about the healing journey to come. That clue may have been obvious or it may have been subtle, but we’ve been shown a way to heal something deep. And the road to that healing may be pretty rocky.
The clue was delivered, but did we notice? It’s human to go into denial. During the spring we may have said to ourselves, “Maybe I don’t have to do anything about this. Maybe it was just a one-time thing. Maybe I can just move on. Maybe I can get away without paying attention to this.”
Or maybe not. Now Chiron turns up the volume and gives us a reminder. “That deep healing you’re going through?” he says, “You’d better get with the program.” This week, Chiron’s retrograde journey begins and with it begins our healing journey. Chiron will continue moving retrograde (i.e. backwards) until the day it turns direct, which is November 10, 2011.
Every Healing Journey Begins With Pain
Have you ever had a medical condition that had to get worse before it could get better? Perhaps you had a broken bone that set wrongly and had to be re-broken and set properly before it could really heal. Perhaps you had a dislocated shoulder that had to be pulled out and dropped back into place. Perhaps you had an abscess that a doctor needed to dig into and clean out before it could finish healing and seal over. All these experiences reflect the fact that real, enduring healing often requires the opening of an old wound. Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is in charge of this process.
Chiron’s process is connected to the homeopathic “doctrine of similars,” which is a principle that a very small dose of exactly the same thing that harmed you will assist your body to heal itself. This principle is also the theory behind vaccination. Similarly, you can have a life experience that delivers a small amount of emotional pain in the present, but that also brings up a whole mass of previously unexamined feelings from the past. This brings us to Chiron’s “healing crisis.”
A “healing crisis” is a moment in which we feel worse, but we’re actually getting better. This is a powerful moment and the way we respond to it determines how things unfold: do we get caught up in the symptoms and mistake them for the reality of the situation, allowing them to propel us into a more difficult future? Or do we recognize the symptoms as an opportunity to heal more than the surface discomfort? It is normal and human to get caught up in the pain of the moment and it usually doesn’t occur to us to question its deeper roots. But amazing things can happen if instead we stop and ask ourselves, “What does this remind me of? What does this connect to in my past? And is there something ancient there which, if healed, would liberate me?”
Is This Story Your Story?
If this feels true for you, it may be that you are personally touched by this transit. Chiron may be triggering a planet in your own chart, thus bringing these themes up for you. This year Chiron is covering the space between 0 and 5 degrees of Pisces. If there is anything in your chart in 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius, you will feel this. And knowing it can help a lot if you’ve been feeling smacked down by the universe and you don’t know why. If Chiron has sensitized you this year, this could be the year when you finally let go of all the old baggage and gain access to more of yourself than you’ve ever had before.
What Area Of Your Life Is Being Affected?
Good question. It will have to do with the planet in your chart that’s being triggered by Chiron. If Chiron is affecting your Venus, you may find yourself in a painful situation in a present relationship that brings a larger relationship pattern into focus. Now is your chance to heal this so as to stop unawarely bringing the past into the present. If Chiron is affecting your Mars, you may find yourself feeling wounded about how you express anger or hold boundaries—this is an opportunity to heal this deeply in a new way. And if you are turning 50 this year, then you are having your Chiron return, which is an enormous life passage loaded with healing themes and opportunities to clear the past and create a more powerful future.
Chiron’s Gift
A wonderful thing happens when we choose to examine a present pain more deeply. Chiron links the past with the present such that, if we heal the new wound in the present, the healing echoes into our past. Similarly, if we delve into our past and heal the ancient root of the problem, then the present wound can disappear as if by magic. And the very best part is that whatever part of us was caught up or locked into that old wound gets released and we find that Chiron’s healing journey has left us more whole. The part that’s released may be some part of us we haven’t had access to for a long time—we may even have given up on it long ago. It’s funny how it ends up feeling like finding buried treasure, right in your own backyard.
Want to know more about how this Chiron transit affects your life?
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