CHIRON was discovered in October 1977, and was at first considered by astronomers to be an asteroid, then upgraded to a ‘minor planet’ or a ‘comet nucleus’. Chiron orbits in the Solar System between Saturn and Uranus, and is regarded by astrologers to represent the spirit of the Wounded Healer, and act as the bridge between the serious, restricting, personal energy of Saturn and the revolutionary, liberating, collective spirit of Uranus. Barbara Hand Clow called Chiron ‘the rainbow bridge’, and in this article I am going to look at the timing of Chiron’s transits in relation to the emergence of the global LGBTQ community – taking the view that we queers are wounded healers of the human soul.
“Chiron, named after the first centaur in Roman mythology, represents pain and healing. In a natal chart, the placement of Chiron describes where you are most wounded, and also where you bring healing to others. This primal wound is a source of soul evolution for you. Chiron’s transits bring times of accelerated healing, which are often accompanied by the resurgence of old pain. Chiron is also the bridge-builder and integrator. Chiron has an orbital period of 50 years, so it returns at age 50, making that year a time of old wounds surfacing, with the possibility of healing them—for good.”
https://www.pandoraastrology.com/planet/
“Chiron bridges the conscious and the super-conscious mind allowing us to use what we know to expand into something beyond that which was previously possible. Chiron is known as the Wounded Healer. Everyone has some area of their life in which a pattern was initiated very early on, that left them feeling vulnerable and insecure. At age 50/51, Chiron circles back to its natal position in our birth chart, the Chiron Return, and those old wounds are revisited. At this point, we are able to see and understand the nature of our affliction/vulnerabilty/insecurity and realize its gifts that allowed us to function as a personal rainbow bridge of hope and understanding for others struggling with similar challenges.
“Aquarius, co-ruled by Saturn and Uranus which Chiron bridges, is the sign of revolution and technology. One example of something that occurred during the time Chiron moved through Aquarius (2006-2011) was the iPhone’s release to the mass market, which revolutionized the way Western culture functions and communicates. Since 2011, Chiron has been traveling through Pisces, opening us to greater spiritual knowing, unveiling long-held secrets that challenge our belief systems, shining a light on our addictive habits and dissolving the boundaries that keep us separate.” https://lightinmotion.net/2014/02/18/the-rainbow-bridge-chiron/
“Chiron is often referred to as the ‘wounded healer,’ but upon closer inspection of his story, he can actually be seen to be a master healer teacher. His love for humanity moved him to take on the human condition him Self, complete with mortality and suffering. In this way he was able to teach the Truth about well being and healing: that in order to be fully functional and whole, we must be completely willing to take on our physicality.
“Once we consciously inhabit our body, a state so many of us are hesitant to take on, we can attain personal mastery, and undertake the journey from the lower self to the higher Self. It is for this reason that Chiron has become known as the Rainbow Bridge, the connection between Saturn, representing the outer edge of the physical (3D) realm and Uranus, the archetype that awakens us to our higher (5D) Self.” https://www.thecosmicpath.com/cosmic-consciousness-corner/chiron-the-rainbow-bridge/
“Chiron in Aries awakens your inner warrior. It is the key that unlocks the power of Self. It teaches you to move forward; to stand alone; to be a pioneer; to do your own thing and not give a hoot what anyone else thinks. You have a right to be here, to be yourself, act on your impulses and go after what you want as much as anyone else on this planet! A repression of life force and sexuality can only bring about impotence and rage. Like a plant shoots up from the ground in spring, unashamedly and unapologetically seeking Life, you are filled with that very same life force. Time to honour it!
“Chiron in Aries is about personal empowerment. It is about coming to know that God-force lies with you. It’s about discovering your own potency, even if this initially comes through an experience of disempowerment that acts as a catalyst. Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac and Aries the first. Pisces the end of all things and Aries the beginning. Pisces is the infinite and Aries but a singular point. St. Augustine said: “God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Everywhere is also here, where you stand! God’s centre is you. Embrace the power that is you-here-now. It’s no longer about what God can do for you but about what you can do for yourself.” https://www.horoscopefriends.co.uk/Current-Astrology-Articles/chiron-in-aries
The last time Chiron settled into Aries, January 20th 1969, was a few months before the gays of New York took a stand against police harassment at the Stonewall Riot. While Chiron was in Aries the first big wave of feminism spread through the west and the cause of gay liberation developed – Gay Prides began to emerge in North American and European countries. During those years also there were gay individuals who were attuning to a spiritual, magical, healing quality to queer nature. Arthur Evan’s important book ‘Witchcraft and the Gay Counter-Culture’ came out, connecting gay spirit to that of the lost European pagan past.
Chiron was actually discovered by astronomers in 1977 while in Taurus. His journey through the first earth sign of the zodiac 1976-84 was the period in which this pagan/spiritual/healing strand of the queer community took physical root in the form of Short Mountain Sanctuary, the first permanent home for of the Radical Faerie community, still operating today, standing as the mother sanctuary to the other faerie homes that have opened since in Europe and Australia as well as North America.
Taurus Chiron also saw the appearance and identification of HIV and AIDS, then it was during Chiron’s visit to Gemini (1983-88) that knowledge, and fear, of this disease spread around the world.
Due to his elliptical orbit, Chiron spent only three years in Cancer (1988-91), two in Leo (1991-3), two in Virgo (1993-5) and two in Libra (1995-7 with a first entry into Scorpio Dec 29, 1996 – April 4, 1997, before settling there from Sep 2nd for two years). These were the years of care and compassion, when the LGBT community pulled together to look after the men that were dying, to demand rights, recognition and accelerated medical research. This was a period when the doctors and the aids patients learnt to work together, and some of us that were sick grasped that healing was something we had to engage within and for ourselves – that healing is a larger project than addressing physical sickness – it is about recognising that physical symptoms are connected to the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our nature, that healing involves addressing all parts of our being, and reaching for a deeper understanding, and experience, of life.
The new millennium began with the Wounded Healer in the sign of the Centaur, Sagittarius – in Greek mythology Chiron was the leader of the Centaurs, and so is deeply associated with this sign, which is ruled by the expansive, generous energy of Jupiter. 2001-5 Chiron was in Capricorn, then 2005 – 11 in Aquarius.
Aquarius is the queer sign of the zodiac – mythologically it is the story of shepherd boy Ganymede, abducted by Zeus, in the form of an eagle, and taken to heaven to be cup-bearer to the gods. During the Chiron in Aquarius years we saw the spread of gay marriage rights in some parts of the world, and the anonymity of the internet facilitating easy access to homosexual imagery and looking for sex partners.
In former times the ruler of Aquarius was seen as Saturn and these days it is considered to be Uranus – Chiron navigates the solar system between these two planets: his emergence into our awareness since the 1970s can be seen as part of the enormous transition from the Age of Pisces to the new age of Aquarius that the planet is currently undergoing, and being that ‘rainbow bridge’ between the tough task master Saturn and the revolutionary spark of Uranus, restoring humanity’s link to the higher dimensions of spirit.
April 2010 Chiron entered Pisces, retrograded into Aquarius on July 20 and re-entered Pisces for a long stay from Feb 8, 2011 until April 17, 2018. He returned into Pisces September 25 2018 – February 18, 2019, to complete this circuit of the zodiac that began in the late 1960s, and now a new journey for humanity begins. His arrival in Aries in the 1960s, when he was still undiscovered, coincided with the birth of awareness of a new age, with its emphasis on alternative healing, love, spirit and rainbow consciousness. What will his entry into the first sign bring this time?
While Chiron was in Aquarius we saw the rapid growth of the internet and social media – and during his stay in Pisces the world has become a lot more inter-connected thanks to this technology. The challenges and limitations of this brave new world have also become very apparent, and as we become more aware of our Oneness with each other and all life, we have also learnt much more about how out of balance the human relationship with our planet now is.
I was born in 1965, when Chiron was last in Pisces. My studies have suggested that for my generation this Piscean wound manifested as a broken relationship with the spirit world, whether perceived as the religious God or in some other way. I remember at school we were at first encouraged to be good Christians, but by the time I was a teenager I had given up on God and believed the rising creed that ‘science’ would provide all the answers to life’s questions. I learnt, aged 30, that in fact this was an opt-out, a way of ignoring those questions – in fact trusting the new priests of the modern age, scientists in white coats, instead of the black clad priests of the churches, and still not thinking for myself. But at 30 I was facing death from AIDS and I took the opportunity to get mad at ‘god’ and start pursuing my own knowledge of life’s deeper realities. A mystical multiverse opened up for me – I hovered at death’s door, between the worlds, for a few years, then recovered when new medications came along. I came to embrace HIV as the wound in me that can never be cured – but which gives me access to healing powers, to being a wounded healer in the world.
During Chiron’s time in Pisces my generation has had a chance to come to terms with the wounds we gained early in life and find a place of inner peace. Now in our 50s, we are a generation with a lot of experience and a lot to offer. We are as old as gay liberation, and as the fiftieth anniversary of Stonewall approaches I am one older queer who can see the journey is far from over for us – not only in terms of political, legal and social recognition around the world, but also in the sense of the global LGBTQ+ community finding its roles as bridges between the community and the spirit worlds, as mediators between genders, as teachers and healers of the human soul, perhaps even as peacemakers for the conflicted human species.
For the whole world, these Chiron in Pisces years have been a chance to wake up to the true spiritual nature of existence. The missing element in the modern global emergence of gay and trans people is the spiritual aspect – the history of our service in the pagan religions of the world as priest/esses of the Goddess, also in buddhist temples and christian monasteries and churches, and our place in nature based religions the world over. Transsexuality and homosexuality have been historically associated with witchcraft, shamanism and monasticism across the planet – and as we re-emerge in a world recovering from patriarchal misogyny and homophobia this aspect of queer nature is what Chiron calls us to remember – to become healers for the planet and its people.
“The tribal attitude said, and continues to say, that Gay people are especially empowered because we are able to identify with both sexes and can see into more than one world at once, having the capacity to see from more than one point of view at a time.” Judith Grahn, Another Mother Tongue 1984
“We enter a new era in our history. We enter an era when love and not pain will be our teacher, when joy and not sorrow will colour our lives. Never before on this planet have people lived this way. But after thousands and thousands of years of struggle and growth, we have come to the point in time when all of us fill be fully incarnate in our bodies, fully present as spirits manifesting in physical form. Without our wisdom and our power, humanity cannot make it to the next cycle. With our power and wisdom, shared freely with the tribe of all tribes, everything is possible.” Andrew Ramer, Two Flutes Playing 1997
The last few years have revealed a lot about what is wrong in the world right now, on so many levels, but also have given many people greater insight or understanding of their own spiritual connection to the universe. Chiron moving into Aries will bring us an empowering energy and the way to address our own healing needs, connecting them to the ongoing spiritual awakening and evolution of the human race. One astrologer advises, –
“For the next nine years, we must use the Aries traits of righteous anger, self-confidence and putting ourselves first in service of a bigger goal.” https://astrostyle.com/chiron-signs/
rainbow messenger 