Chiron

Chiron’s Keywords

By astrologyplace June 12, 2016

Question: What are Chiron’s keywords? And I mean ‘personality’ characteristics, I cannot find any reference to characteristics of Chiron anywhere (in reference to an astrological chart. I know about the myth behind it)! We all know what he does – he heals, teaches, etc. Oh, and that he is ‘wounded’ But I’m quite curious as to what the characteristics are for Chiron.

The Chiron Confession

Maybe this is due to Chiron’s outside nature or collective themes rather than personal wounding. The frustration and loss of hope would be the by-products in the personality. Thus, it could describe an individual who takes a bleaker view of life, more realistic. Most of what I have studied about Chiron was gathered from Liz Greene’s work in Barriers and Boundaries, Sue Tompkins in The Contemporary Astrologer’s Handbook, web research and an investigation of charts.

Chiron’s Psychological Wound

We astrologers are unable to get away from Chiron’s “my wound is incurable” and this overshadows everything. The wound casts darkness over all hope and light. No matter how kind, intelligent and helpful, useful we are to others – we cannot help ourselves. It’s the wound that cries out for a remedy, but there is no medicine in the world to alleviate the pain. On paper, it all sounds really hopeless, depressing, dear God… kill me now. It’s not uncommon for some people to commit suicide as a relief out of such unending misery and unhappiness.

The Concept of the Wounded Healer

Chiron-The-Wounded-Healer Some psychologists theorize that the most effective healer or teacher will usually mean being wounded oneself. At first, though, Chiron in the chart can make something seem “meaningless” or “pointless.” According to Zipporah Dobyns, Chiron indicates a love of knowledge and people with it prominent in their horoscopes are often driven by a life-long hunger for understanding. Many are thought to study and read and spend long hours in libraries.

The Dark Exiles

The ‘personality factors’ seem to open up more to understanding when we look at Chiron’s sign, house placement, and aspects. A powerful Chiron to the Sun (Elliot Rodger – Sun/Saturn/Chiron configuration) may come across as somebody who feels like an outsider and exile, with a sense of deep rejection. Melanie Reinhart’s book – Chiron and the Healing Journey – is an insightful work with a substantial amount of research poured into its pages. The work takes us from Chiron’s discovery, his origins, wounding – to sign, house and aspects. If one fails to get the meaning of Chiron to some degree with this work – it is probably never gonna happen.

Dimensions of Internal Conflict

Reinhart’s description of dealing with a chronic wound, especially through ‘internal quietude,’ deeply resonated. This is the approach we must take even when we are stuck in the midst of intensity and inner turmoil.

“If that is to sit with our own suffering, so be it. If that is to take risks or be adventurous, so be it. We aim to be true, not perfect.”

In Reinhart’s Healing Journey – Chiron is surrounded by keywords such as:

uniqueness, surrender, acceptance, woundedness, holistic thinking, ideology, complementarity, questing, initiation, ordeals, teaching, fostering wisdom, animal nature, scapegoat, alienation, carrying burdens and afflictions, feeling like the black sheep, suicidal fantasies, deep inner rage, bitterness, black vision of life, cynicism, handicapped in some way, sense of injury, victimisation, filled with psychic poison.

Below is the most interesting meaning of Chiron:

Often Chiron symbolizes things we can do for others, but which we may not be able to do for ourselves. The mythological parallel for this is clear, as Chiron could not heal his own wounds in spite of being able to heal others.

Chiron readings in themselves read awfully similar to Saturn, but with a different and unique perspective or quality added.

For Crying Out Loud

Liz Greene refers to Chiron as ‘spoiled goods’ and where life is bloody unfair:

But Chiron says, “Life has dealt me a powerful blow, and, by God, I’m going to hurt the rest of you.”

We all get the wild card dealt to us, and this is where Chiron turns up. It is the joker, the bad card in the spread, which overturns all our best-laid plans and forces us to accept a handicap of some kind.