Sunday, 18 April 2010

Chiron in Pisces - Water Over Rocks

With Chiron moving into Pisces*, I have been preparing to write a post about Chiron for some days now, but felt blocked, despite preparing pages and pages of notes.

The key word most of us associate with Chiron is healing and it’s very easy to predict that in Pisces, Chiron’s healing themes comes to the foremost, presenting us with a great opportunity for healing on a collective and personal level.

But Chiron, Pisces and life just isn’t as simple as that, so this morning I decided to meditate on some of the themes of Chiron in Pisces and a very interesting image came to me, an image of crystal clear water running over rocky ground, on the face of it a calm, restful image.

However, I have also been thinking about the meaning of discomfort these past few days and I had an ‘aha’ moment which brought these two ideas together. You see, for all its themes of healing, Chiron is also an uncomfortable energy. In the myth, Chiron was wounded. Only able to heal himself partially, he was fated to walk his path in perpetual discomfort. Similarly, that beautiful clear water I dreamed up in my meditation will certainly cleanse our feet, but at the same time, the rocks the water runs over will always remain uncomfortable to walk across, despite the fact that the water will cleanse the rocks and over time, smooth away their sharper edges.

In this life, it is through our experience of discomfort and through the (physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual) wounding that causes the discomfort in the first place, that we are compelled to learn. Along the way, we discover that healing, total healing, in the sense of ‘becoming whole’, is perhaps not totally possible in just a single earthly incarnation, but it is this whole-making that we are ultimately seeking, on a soul level. So, as we walk across life’s rocky path, like Chiron, we carry our wounds with us, seeking comfort from the healing waters where we can. Then, like Chiron we can eventually learn how to use the knowledge we learn from carrying our own pain, to help others to carry their own.

However, Chiron also reminds us that real healing must be sought and asked for, if the healing process is to really be felt on a deeper, soul level. Simply giving healing to another, without them asking for it, diverts them from their healing journey, robbing them of their opportunity to learn from the discomfort of walking over the rocks. Similarly, if we simply take from someone else a metaphorical ‘magical pill’ that takes away all our pain, this denies us our own lesson. We must learn to feel the discomfort of the pain, but at the same time we must learn to understand that even in pain, we do not have to suffer unnecessarily - WE CAN ASK FOR HELP. Asking for help is a truly humbling experience and is the first step on the journey through the healing waters and across the rocky ground that lies beneath. This I feel, is the key to the healing energy of Chiron as it travels through the sign of Pisces.

*Data for Chiron in Pisces
[add one hour for daylight saving if applicable]
  • Chiron moves into Pisces on 20th April 2010 at 06.31 GMT / 20th April at 01.31 Eastern Time / 19th April at 22.31 Pacific Time.
  • Chiron Retrogrades back into Aquarius on 20th July 2010 at 09.42 / 20th July at 04.42 Eastern Time / 20th July at 01.42 Pacific Time.
  • Chiron re-enters Pisces on 8th February 2011 at 19.57 GMT / 8th February at 14.57 Eastern Time / 8th February at 11.57 Pacific Time………..after which Chiron remains in Pisces until February 2019.
Recommended Further Reading on Chiron
Zane Stein’s Chiron And Friends Website
Melanie Reinhart’s book Chiron and the Healing Journey – a new and updated edition has just been published.
Joyce Mason’s E- book: Chiron and Wholeness – A Primer Joyce is currently running a Chiron research project. For details click here.
By Eric Francis: An Overview of Chiron & Chiron in Pisces & Born in the Sixties (discusses the Chiron in Pisces opposition to the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the 1960’s)

Related Posts on Astroair Astrology
Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron and the New Moon
Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron – The Story So Far

Photo credit: http://www.mywainwrights.co.uk/2009walks/170309/170309.htm

With love, Mandi
http://www.mandilockley.com/

8 comments:

  1. Agrarian Age

    In Spring we speak of seeds
    bundled possibilities
    foreseeing market days hale and fair
    succulent fruit, trilling herbs,
    vitalizing veggies
    and all the spicey chatter of conviviality

    First there was the seed
    plowed under to taste Earth,
    swell with water,
    burst into fecund brew building
    cells of chlorophyll to catch the fire,
    symbiotically breathe, exchanging
    death for life

    Sacred seed
    clothed in mystic ceremonies
    deeply deified in chthonic memory
    We carry the seed of our fathers,
    the tears of our mothers,
    the hopes and fears of our priests and lords,
    over rocky terrain, in hidden caves through
    ice and flood and slavering predation,
    never doubting nobility of destiny
    On appointed days, carefully watching solar/lunar
    alignments,
    our assigned labor commences. Busy as any
    bird or bee, we commit seed to chosen ground
    with all the love we can command
    Then, off to bacchanalia, reveling in a grand scheme
    promising sustenance, renewed strength, plans,
    romances, unnumbered chances for pride
    and glory

    Thus goes the story we retell in lullaby,
    in schoolyard intimacies and scholarly lies,
    puffing up our little share of knowledge, magical
    protection from overwhelming vastness
    of mystery, shades of colors without name

    Unclear on the protocol of shame, unwilling to admit
    to ignorance that might unsettle carefully laid
    hierarchies, unloose gates inviting chaos or worse,
    we gather of our fruit for sacrifice to gods of greed and vice,
    gleefully watch the rending of they who are not me

    "I, too wise for such ill use, repeatedly proven
    in my abuse of these ill-named foes I refuse to admit
    as kin -- sinners, Lord. Surely I'll not be taken in,
    not take them in. Not share the bounty of your seed,
    given to the chosen."

    Even in these days of polluted soil, of toil
    demoted to laughable commodity,
    idly watching waste stream into muddy rivers,
    enjoying occasional feasts of vicarious blood,
    throwing the unsanctified into the raging flood,
    desperately trying to stem an unquenchable tide,
    while hiding any glimpse of remorse lest shadow
    presage disaster
    Eating both fruit and seed, rather than part with
    familiar fantasy

    April 2010

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  2. What lovely imagery, Mandi! YOu've done a beautiful job of an extended metaphor that helps us to understand this transit. Few of us have ever experienced Chiron in Pisces due to the length of its cycle.

    You've also given me some insight into a problem I'm experiencing. Suddenly and for no particular reason, my feet have gotten inflamed and I am literally lame. Hopefully, it's temporary, as I'm really working on it, but maybe my feet just wanted me to pay attention to Chiron and its ingress into Pisces.
    Donna Cunningham, Skywriter

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mandi, what a beautiful image of Chiron in Pisces! You have distilled the essence of everything I have learned about Chiron in a poetic way in this post. I'll be referring others to it often. The Chiron in Pisces image is unforgettable. Bravo!

    Thanks, too, for the references to my "Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer" e-book. For those who are interested, I have a post on the Chiron ingress that reviews the key events the last time Chiron was in Pisces in the '60s,

    Chiron in Pisces: Integration and Integrity.

    Thanks, again, for this wonderful addition to current Chiron literature!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very nice post Mandi - beautiful writing. I like the section about owning your own pain - reminds me of a movie with Denzel Washington (can't for the life of me remember which one it is). In it he says 'I like my pain, I need it - it makes me, me' - always loved that line :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Libra Moon, thank you for the poem, did you write it yourself? If so you write very beautifully :D

    Hi Donna, thank you for the compliment, I wrote the post sitting in my garden which was very peaceful – with no airplanes flying over for a change, the only sound was birdsong.

    I really hope your feet get better soon, ouch that sounds really uncomfortable.

    Hi Joyce, thanks so much for your lovely comment, really appreciated. I was born with Chiron in Pisces (Chiron return in 5 years) so what you say in your article resonates very strongly with me – esp. the issue of boundaries!

    Folks, I really recommend Joyce’s article: http://radicalvirgo.blogspot.com/2010/04/chiron-in-pisces-integration-and.html

    Thanks so much Tony. Wonderful Denzel Washington quote – hits the nail on the head, for sure, I don’t think there’s anyone who can’t relate to that.

    And thanks to the person who commented in Mandarin – I’ve asked a friend to translate for me :D

    As a side note, we have an election coming up in the UK and it’s fascinating to note that both of the main party leaders challenging the incumbent prime minister were born in the mid-sixties – carrying the Chiron and Saturn in Pisces opposition with Uranus and Pluto in Virgo. As this generation finally comes into its power, I really hope they make the most of the opportunity to implement positive change with compassion.

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  6. Hi Mandi,

    I must have missed this post at the time but have just discovered it through the link on your latest 'blog birthday' post, and am I glad I did!

    I natally have Chiron at 0 degrees Pisces and am having my Chiron return - I have been reading lots of stuff over many months about chiron but some things in this post have really struck the 'aha' chord within me. ;-)

    Thank you for the (badly needed) insight that this post has given me.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Susannah and happy Chiron Return!

    I hope it's a positive, enriching experience for you, let me know how it goes!

    I have Chiron at 18 Pisces so will have the return in a few years time too

    ReplyDelete

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