Tag Archives: Chiron

Into the Water — but Not off the Deep End

Water has been the dominant element in the charts this month, as the Sun moves through Cancer and particularly as we recently experienced a solar eclipse in there that is still sending out its waves. Venus is also in the sensitive sign Cancer, making aspects to many planets. This reminds us of what I think of as the most significant personal theme of our times, which is emotional healing.

This is illustrated most vividly by Chiron in Pisces, a relatively new influence, which means we’re still getting accustomed to it. Pisces and the other water signs are the realm of feelings, emotions and the imagination. If we look honestly at how these things are contaminated, it starts to get disturbing. The truth is there are many influences competing for control of our feelings, and that control is not positive. It’s easier to make people feel bad, and when someone succeeds at doing that, they tend to get control.

I was reading one of those commercial health websites the other day and found a kind of slideshow about all the things you shouldn’t eat if you don’t want to ‘bust your diet’. The program included descriptions of numerous items containing a pile of both salt and sugar, such as big, fluffy cups of ‘coffee’.

I wrote to a friend about this, who explained something called sensory-specific satiety. By adding both sugar and salt, people’s taste buds are basically tricked into never reaching a satiation point — they want to keep eating and eating. That’s why you’ll find loads of sugar in many salty products and a loads of salt in many sweet products. It keeps people confused and munching — and this is hooked right into the emotions, directly and symbolically. Sugar and salt both influence the emotions, as does the experience of desire, attempting to fulfill that desire and then going back for more when you feel like you don’t have enough.

We could add all the influences of media that are designed by focus groups, script writers, editors and directors to get us to feel a certain way and thus respond by taking action. So all day long we are infiltrated by primarily emotional sensations designed to get us to act. Even before the Internet, people in the Western world were exposed to some 4,500 advertisements a day.

Then there are the drugs we’re prescribed or self-prescribe for everything from migraines to depression to pain to ‘social anxiety’ — which are far more abused than street drugs. All of these influence how we feel. Then there are the entertainment products we ingest willingly, which pack our emotional bodies and our senses full of images and sensations.

All of this is in the realm of Pisces, which directly connects to both our senses and our emotional responses to them. This is a challenging realm to begin with, before all of these extra inputs arrive. Pisces itself is now the home of Chiron, suggesting a special focus of attention is necessary.

Chiron in Pisces is telling us that it’s time to beware of all of these influences and how they affect us. We tend to avoid the conversation because once you start, there is no end in sight. There are so many sources of emotional infiltration (including family, social ties, relationships or the quest for relationships, and work-related necessities) that it might seem like you could never deal with them all. However, Chiron in Pisces presents us with both the occasion and the responsibility to be aware. That awareness would embrace everything that influences how you feel, and everything that you choose specifically to influence how you feel. Chiron is a holistic influence. One of the most effective ways to work with it is to see the connections between the seemingly different elements of your life.

You might consider the new basis for everything you eat, drink or allow into your mind as being: How does this make me feel? This kind of questioning counts as raising awareness, and it counts for a lot. You don’t need to plunge in and change everything under the influence of Chiron; you need only touch the edge, admit the subject matter and respond to what you find out. Or you can start by seeing the relationship between two seemingly different things: such as a meal you ate, and how you felt the next three hours.

Then you have the opportunity to make a correction. You might say that Chiron is about making adult decisions about what we know affects us. Yet one way Chiron works is that the longer we ignore it, the more the stakes go up.

One thing we face when confronting emotional situations is lack of confidence (which is itself often an emotional condition). In terms of confidence, an eclipse in Cancer (which as we’ve been reporting, happened on July 1 — but eclipses have an influence for at least the next six months) is a two-edged experience. On the one hand it’s pushing us into new territory. Eclipses are measured in cycles that go for many centuries, and this recent one was the first event in a brand-new cycle — one that’s never happened before. So that can be intimidating, and it can invite us to enter unknown territory willingly, perhaps with some curiosity. That might include: what do I think of as risky, and is that realistic? What do I do for the sake of safety, and does that help me or hurt me?

There are many influences affecting us now that are about stepping out of the feelings that have held us captive since childhood. You would be amazed who is still dealing with the same things that stripped them of their confidence, or is still trying to please their parents, well into their 50s and 60s. To begin to escape these traps we first need to notice we’re in them; then, at least, it’s possible to consider another possibility. You have options and you have the power of choice. We might question how it is that we heal from any of this, and the answer is we become aware, and then gradually make a series of decisions. Chiron and what it represents will help with the awareness piece; the decision part is all yours.

On the Solstice, Mars square Neptune, then Chiron

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

I’ve been describing the solstice and the eclipses that surround it for weeks on end. Click back through the prior issues linked on the top left and you can review some of what I’ve said — there’s plenty of new stuff that will emerge when you do. If astrology is a picture, it’s a Polaroid picture that develops gradually, no matter what form you take it in. Today is indeed the solstice — the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere. The Sun ingresses Cancer at 1:16 pm EDT, which will be followed by the Sun’s southbound movement along the horizon. Strange as it seems, here in the north, the days get shorter from here. Note, as described last week, we are in Aries Point country — which is likely to stir the pot on the news.

Schiaparelli basin within the layered hills in Arabia Terra on Mars, photographed in 2003 by the now defunct Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Photo by NASA/JPL and Marlin Space Science Systems, which seems to have outfitted MGS with its cameras. Link to the original with a full caption about the geology of scene.

I’m not quite ready with the July long monthly, and today’s scheduled distribution coincided with the Sun in late Gemini; we only distribute the monthly with the Sun in the new sign. Of note, I am just at the end of the Planet Waves Midyear Report, which will be available by Friday. This is like a mini-annual, presented as audio, with all 12 signs going for one modest price. More on that later in the week.

Today I want to offer you a few ideas that relate to Mars aspects, which may prove to be useful. As of yesterday evening, Mars ingressed Gemini. Because Neptune is occupying the first degree of Pisces, the two planets make an aspect: Mars square Neptune. Mars is in talkative Gemini and Neptune is in watery, emotional Pisces. The square (or opposition) between these two aspects can be poetic, dramatic or excessive in a rock star way, and is often a caution not to overreact, not to drink any more than you can handle and not to let your paranoia run away with you. Personally I urge caution with any mind-altering substances under Mars-Neptune aspects such as this one, and to be cautious of the dosages of any drug, remedy or medication. If you’re going to sign any kind of contract or make a commitment, give it a few days if you can. If you cannot, get a couple of opinions and listen to your subtle instincts.

This first meeting of Mars with Neptune in Pisces is also a good opportunity to remind you to keep this moment creative rather than self-destructive. Mars-Neptune can have a weird effect on one’s thought process, and thus on one’s judgment — and none of us have ever experienced this aspect from Gemini to Pisces. This is indeed something new under the Sun, for us, anyway. The practical advice here would be to keep your dealings honest, knowing that deceptive tactics are sure to backfire. You might notice a tendency to say too much; walk away before you do. Mars in Gemini loves a good argument, even over nothing — the square to Neptune suggests this is a losing proposition. It’s better to seem wimpy or rude than to betray yourself or anyone else.

Layered hills in Arabia Terra on Mars, photographed in 2003 by the now defunct Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Link to the original.

Air to water can be a dangerous mix because you might think it feels good to say a lot, when in reality that’s like a kind of high that is followed by a crash. Said another way, persist in truth, but gently, and as silently as you can — not aggressively. Mars square Neptune is perfectly poorly suited for aggression. So with both subterfuge and rampage out of the question, the solution is to gently lean into integrity — and there’s no rush. This aspect involves two mutable signs, which are the slowest-moving of the lot. As Jerry used to sing, watch each card you play and play it slow.

The next aspect Mars makes is a square to Chiron, which will be developing over the next week. This is an interesting one, in my experience — in people who have this as a natal aspect (and plenty of people do) there is often a struggle against their own resistance. Resistance feels like integrity except for the little problem about how it blocks experience and learning.

Well, it may not actually be integrity but the resistance is presented to the world as such; as a kind of purity. The thing to remember under Mars square Chiron is that we humans have a lot of desires in common. We’re a lot saucier people than we let on. We are more curious, hungrier and kinkier. One thing we may have in common is to speak the truth to the people we care about, but with Mars to Chiron (again air to water) you may have the urge to burst and say everything. There also may be a little more truth than you can handle, so you could go the opposite way and say nothing or make something up. You will have to feel the situation out for yourself, but I can tell you this from some experience.

Chiron is about process. Focus on the healing aspect of that process and you will make excellent use of this aspect. Focus on inner integrity rather than trying to enforce outer integrity and you will get to explore being an inner seeker. Mars square Chiron says, you cannot prove how spiritually advanced you are any way other than by being that. There’s also a reminder not to pit the body’s natural instincts (such as desire) into competition with the impulse to heal and grow (Chiron). The two need to work together, and they can, if we allow them to.

As the Sun enters Cancer, it will make a trine to Neptune in Pisces; that aspect offers a way to ease the pressure created by the Mars squares. It’s a reminder to emphasize experiencing what you feel inwardly rather than pushing it on anyone. If you’re seeking compassion, feel for it first, and you will find it all around you.

Lovingly,

PS, Watch your email this week for a separate announcement about the Planet Waves Midyear Report, a really cool audio product that covers all 12 signs, updating the astrology for our exciting moment of personal revelation.

Turning the Tide

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

When the Sun makes its way into the sign Cancer later in the month, it’s going to be in harmony with Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. That’s a water-to-water aspect — a trine. The way we would say this in astro-talk is, “Sun trine Neptune and Chiron.” Trines open up a flow, and where Neptune and the water signs are involved, that means the flow of emotions. Where Chiron is involved, that means emotional healing. And with Chiron, healing always begins with raising awareness.

Our society, and many of us as individuals, invest quite a lot of energy into figuring out how not to feel. It’s true that a lot comes at us every day, and if you open your eyes to the world, one of the first things you might notice is a world in pain. Is it really possible to feel, in that environment? Well, I would ask another question — is it really possible to suppress feeling, as you bear witness to the struggle of life in our benighted world?

Ideally, witnessing the struggle would inspire compassion, and that in turn would lead to taking care of oneself and of others. You could say this is the ultimate challenge we face as seemingly ‘separate’ humans.

The realm of Pisces, which can be visionary, is usually the place through which the shut-down energy is processed. That would be our obsession with entertainment, image, glamor and substances that are designed specifically to shut us down. I am speaking mainly of alcohol and antidepressants. Now, I’m not a teetotaler, and I recognize there are times when psychiatric meds can be vitally important. However, we do have a rather exaggerated situation on our hands and it is causing problems for many people, and I suspect for society as well.

Consider the Lake Superior-sized vat of liquor that is consumed on the planet every single day, around the clock, and just ask yourself why. Imagine the millions of people getting on the road drunk. There is something underneath all of that. It might be the need to loosen up; it might be the need to drown out the pain of life; in any event, many feelings are concealed.

Or, consider how antidepressants don’t actually work to resolve any of our problems, and most people taking them know they would do a lot better in therapy. Of course, in our time of history, therapy is considered confrontational. It takes time. It’s supposedly expensive. But mostly, I think it’s daunting to consider all that we have not considered. We have this idea that it’s just fine to ‘leave the past behind’, which works unless it keeps catching up.

Yet sooner or later, a healing process is inevitable. Emotional healing almost always proceeds in layers. At first, what we find as we proceed through them might not feel good, and that’s a pretty big deterrent to many people; the goal of life, we are told many places, is to feel good. That, for sure, is the longterm goal of emotional healing. Getting started, I think we might need to add other inspirations, such as more honest communication with people around us, access to our creativity, and getting in touch with the will and energy necessary to improve our lives. Yes, that’s about feeling better, but it’s not quite swinging on a hammock in the Bahamas.

I have said before that one of the deepest needs the world faces is for the acknowledgment of emotional healing. Most of the pain in the world, whether it’s in politics, business, relationships or our inner relationship, comes from unresolved emotional issues. The first and most useful step is admitting the need for healing. It’s easy to see it in a politician expressing his regrets over Twittering a girlfriend. It’s more difficult to see it when we are caught in our own suspicion, jealousy or desire for revenge.

Where Chiron (or any of the related centaur planets) is involved, there is a pointer to ancestral material. This means that many of the themes that would come up in a healing process are multigenerational. With the Sun in the sign Cancer, we will have a clue to look on the maternal side of our lineage: that is, on mother’s side of the family. It may seem inconceivable that we are carrying the emotional weight of our great-grandmother, but once you start exploring your personal material — as any practitioner can tell you — it starts to seem really obvious.

With the Sun about to trine Neptune and Chiron, the flow is open to healing, to honesty and to imagination. A trine represents a fragile situation, or a potential that we must consciously put to use with daily practice. But it’s there if we want it. And if enough of us do, gradually we will begin to turn the tide.

Lovingly,

PS: Later today we will be sending out an announcement about the first three astrology/tarot birthday reports — Aries, Taurus and Gemini. These are done; we are just tidying up a few technical details. Please watch your inbox for the announcement in a little while. Season Pass holders (Blue and Gold) will be emailed the login information shortly.

Neptune Joins Chiron in Pisces

Leave a reply

Chiron Files by Eric Francis

Neptune entered Pisces last month, joining Chiron in that sign. This is the full activation of Pisces, and combined, these transits are shifting the background of our lives. There may be other effects, which will be more or less subtle depending on your relationship to your intuition, your emotional body and your creativity.

This is the first time Neptune has entered Pisces since 1847, that is, long before the Civil War. So this development is news. Neptune, discovered in 1846, is considered to be the modern ruling planet of Pisces (the traditional ruling planet is Jupiter, which still counts). So for our time, this is significant. No living person has been through this transit. We are actually the first to experience something.

And what would that something be? Many have noticed that we’ve been growing more clairvoyant over the past few decades. Does anyone remember back when it was taboo to mention clairvoyance, as if it were the equivalent of admitting to Devil worship? Now it’s considered normal, if only because so many people experience it directly, or know someone who does. At least once in their lives just about everyone has had a dream that gave a glimpse of the future.

Chiron made a brief ingress to Pisces last year, before entering to stay earlier this year. From the first moment, Chiron in Pisces emphasized the need for healing the oceans. BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill began within hours of its initial visit before stationing retrograde. Neptune’s current arrival for a longer stay has been synchronous with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which is having profound effects on water as well. Yet both of these seem to be metaphors for the prevailing emotional state of humanity.

Chiron is calling for awareness, and Neptune is calling for cleansing. We need both. Many people flee to ‘spiritual’ solutions without recognizing that what they’re processing is much closer to the human realm. With healing on the level of water, it’s necessary to do the flush gradually. There are no fast solutions, though adding awareness is a very good first step, and adding water is an excellent second step.

My take is that this involves drinking more water, and at the same time cutting back on toxic substances in our diets and medicine cabinets. Every time you take a pharmaceutical product, I suggest you read the label and run the product through Google, looking for un-advertised effects. You might be surprised what you find.

You may be noticing an increase or distinctive change in your dreaming patterns. For example, someone who never remembers his or her dreams might notice they’re remembering them vividly.

Pisces has subtler frequencies, and these are often connected to imagery. We are bombarded with toxic images through news, advertising and cinema. Often this is violent and manipulative — and it takes a toll both on wellbeing and creativity. I think we would all be a lot more emotionally stable without advertising, and we would have a lot better sense of who we are. Indeed, if advertising promotes instability, the root is likely to be in getting us to doubt and even hate ourselves.

With these Pisces factors being so strong, and lasting for so long (Chiron for eight years and Neptune for more than 12 years) we need to pay attention to these influences, and choose healthy inflows in this watery realm. This choice of what we take in is one of the most basic elements of emotional healing. Often the more basic issue is being able to choose to let go of a toxic influence. How many times have you heard, or experienced, that one? The person who is in the damaging relationship or job but who cannot leave, for some reason they don’t understand?

Then there is the Piscean theme of creativity. One sad fact of childhood is that the naturally spontaneous, precocious quality of children is gradually supplanted with adult versions of rationality. We may not think we miss our creativity; we may think it’s okay to let others do this for us; but I think that secretly or not, everyone craves being an expressive person.

All of this Pisces is an invitation to express yourself, and this isn’t just a recreational indulgence. As my old therapist Joe is fond of saying, expression is the opposite of depression.

Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span by Eric Francis is the story of irrevocable change told through the lens of astrology, history and self-awareness. This is a carefully selected set of articles and essays by Eric written since 1987, which take you through the transition of the millennium into 2012. The essays are a continuing meditation on the experience of confronting global changes from long before anyone was certain they would really happen. It begins in a spiritual community in 1987 and comes to the present day, including a look at the astrology of the 2012-2015 era. Included are Eric’s best essays on sweeping world changes, relationships and maintaining some sense of one’s inner life in the midst of it all. The book, available as a printable PDF, is 174 pages and is illustrated by Carol McCloud. It’s just $14.95. It’s the perfect companion to Light Bridge, the 2011 annual edition of Planet Waves. Purchase your copy here.

Mental, Emotional, Physical or Spiritual?

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

Once someone explained to me that the distinction between jazz and blues had more to do with sorting things out in the record store than it did with meaningful differences in the music. To hear the terms, one would get the mistaken idea that they are entirely unrelated things. In fact, they are entirely related, most notably by being music.

That’s how it often is with categories of any kind, and that’s how it is with some we use often — mental, emotional and physical. We could add ‘spiritual’ to that list, too.

The thing about categories is that they do as much excluding as they do including. If you say ‘mental’ then you’re implying that whatever you’re talking about has nothing to do with the body. If you say ‘physical’ you imply just physical.

If you say ‘spiritual’ you imply everything else is unspiritual. Often categories have no relationship to what they supposedly describe. White people are not really white and black people are not black. We refer to black, white and Latino but Latino is not a color.

When we say ‘mental’ we might mean emotional or spiritual. Usually both have plenty in common with one’s physical reality. The charts for spring 2011 are full of illustrations of the crossovers between these seemingly separate realities. One example is how Aquarius (the mental dimension) and Pisces (the emotional and sometimes the spiritual dimension) have been morphing into one sign.

Neptune (a planet associated with Pisces) has been in Aquarius for more than 12 years, and it’s about to cross back and forth over the line between the two signs three times between now and early 2012. This draws a connection between the mental, the spiritual and the emotional. The idea is that they are different expressions of the same thing. Take a few chords from blues, lighten up the riff, and you’ve got jazz.

Meanwhile, Uranus, a planet associated with Aquarius, has been crossing back and forth between Pisces and Aries for the past year, morphing those two signs and carrying over energy from Aquarius. Aries is hot blooded and passionate, but it’s also about physical strength and stamina. Uranus adds the dimension of mental innovation and invention.

When the Sun crosses over the Aries equinox point in a couple of weeks, it will make a conjunction to Uranus. Meanwhile Jupiter, the traditional ruling planet of Pisces, is in Aries, carrying some of that energy over to its neighbor as well.

In effect, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries are currently acting like one sign. There’s something going on here — personality integration. Except for the fact that personality is a category, and we really don’t know what it means. Is it part of the soul? Some say no. I say that it is an aspect of a person. What we think of as the mind (Aquarius, Uranus) is getting expressed through the body (Aries, Sun) and mixed with the soul (Pisces, Jupiter, Neptune) and also with what we sometimes think of as the feeling body or astral body.

Do these categories mean anything? They mean a lot less than the statement that as the astrology of the spring and indeed the next few years develops, we will have increasing access to all the dimensions of who we are — if we want to access those inner experiences.

This column is called the Chiron Files, and it’s worth taking a close look at the particular influence of that planet on its new home, Pisces. Chiron is the original astrological factor that blurs the boundaries. Buzzing around between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, Chiron is usually associated with the signs Virgo and Sagittarius. So that’s a lot of different qualities bundled up into one thing that’s a little like an asteroid and a little more like a comet.

Chiron is like an un-kaleidoscope which, instead of fracturing an image into things that make no sense, reassembles things that make no sense into something that is perfectly understandable.

To me Chiron in Pisces has a few basic messages. One is that everything exists on a continuum. There are not so many hard and fast boundaries and rules, but it’s good to know where you are on the spectrum at any given time so you can respond appropriately.

Another message of Chiron in Pisces is that existence is holographic. Everything we experience is a sample of everything else. Perception is based on seeing differences, and those are in turn based on the differences we already have within our minds. Chiron is not only saying that we can see the world as whole, but also that as we see ourselves as whole, we will begin to see the world that way.

Yours & truly,

Attention Light Bridge Subscribers: Light Bridge written readings are now available to those who pre-ordered. If you have not signed up yet, you may do so here. Everyone is invited to read the articles on the Light Bridge blog, which will update periodically. Customer reviews of Light Bridge are collecting here. Don’t miss the free audio introduction to the project that explains how I created these seven-year readings. To everyone: thank you for your patience while we completed the written phase of Light Bridge.

Is Our Obsession With Relationships Healthy?

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today is the annual cult of romance known as Valentine’s Day.

It’s time for all the coupled people to buy chocolate and flowers and diamonds, and pump the romance of their love affairs; time for all the uncoupled people to unabashedly ramp up their search for the special relationship; or to sit home woefully dreaming of what might someday be or what one day was. With each passing year, Valentine’s Day competes with Christmas and Halloween for the “most money spent” award. Many single people feel left out; for some it’s a sad day.

Have you ever questioned whether this approach to relationships — that is, to romance — is healthy? As an astrologer who has discussed relationships with nearly every client who has come to me, I propose it’s time to ask. Valentine’s Day mania is just an example of the many ways our society is oriented around ‘coupledom’, from benefits in the tax code to one of the biggest civil rights issues of our day, that being the right of lesbian and gay people to marry. What is interesting is the extent to which this meme of pair bonding is presented as the only legitimate relationship option. If you’re not in a relationship, some odd rule somewhere says you have to be in one; there’s a kind of mandatory search for the ‘special someone’.

Does anyone remember that line from Fear of Flying, in which Erica Jong says she wants to be a whole person instead of half a couple? The astrology of 2011 is all about being a whole person. Astrology or not, the moment we’re in is calling on us to be a whole person, in harmony with our own energy. We talk a lot about being in integrity; that means whole and integrated.

The astrology of our moment strongly favors whole personhood. In fact, if not for the devoted resistance to the concept that seems to be such a part of the dualistic human experience, I would say it’s all but inevitable. This is illustrated several different ways.

First, Saturn in Libra is peeling back the facade from our relationships. The standard narrative (the nuclear family, monogamy is the only way; if you’re single, you’re weird) is wearing thin under the compelling energy of Saturn; astrology that is urging us to get real. Part of real is about making sure we are emotionally self-sufficient; part of real is about conducting our relationships on adult terms. One thing our society does is romanticize relationships; as if once you have one, you’ll always be on a Caribbean vacation. Saturn in Libra is saying we need to be more practical from the outset. Yes we need passion, yes we need to dream and yes, we need to treat our relationships like real-world entities that require a strong sense of purpose and regular maintenance.

One of the most challenging things about relationships is that they rarely acknowledge the individuality of the people involved — that the people in the relationship are whole people and not half a couple. Uranus entering Aries next month is likely to stir up a tempest of the desire to be an individual. That may put a strain on some relationships that are not accustomed to this state of being; one thing we may learn is that our structures are too brittle and need to be more flexible.

Chiron has just entered Pisces for the next eight years, drawing us deep into our unconscious, helping us become aware of our motives, and what we need to resolve emotionally. We have a lot to learn about this; there is a deep need for emotional healing. I suggest that partners recognize that everyone has different emotional healing needs, and your primary relationship is not the only place you may need to get those needs met.

Many people recognize their need to be more independent, but are afraid to do anything about it. Despite all they do with others, and seek from others, their deeper nature is calling on them to stand on their own feet. You may be one of those people, and if you are, I suggest you follow your instincts and take action that will help you get strong in the ways you need to get strong. You can do it — and you will benefit greatly from doing so. It’s just that you may not find a lot of support around you — but this fits the description of being able to live your life without needing the constant approval of others, or being driven through life by the fear of abandonment.

I propose living in a way dedicated to approving of ourselves, affirming the lives of others no matter who they are to us and exploring love based on honesty and emotional freedom. It could be simple. It will be, if we let it be.

And this, I would evoke as the new spirit of Valentine’s Day.

Yours & truly,

Editor’s Note: Normally we distribute Chiron Files on Tuesday morning, but because this issue has a Valentine’s Day theme we are sending it Monday evening. This will take the place of our previously scheduled mailing tomorrow. In case you’re curious and would like more ideas to consider on the theme of our wacky relationship lives, here is a link into a new archive of past articles on sexuality and relationships by Eric. Friday we published an article called Be My Valentine, which explores alternate models of relationships. These articles are full of inspiration to explore whether your status is single, monogamous or ‘complicated’.

Advent: Chiron in Pisces

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today is the day that Chiron enters Pisces, where it will stay until 2018-2019. This is Chiron at the slow end of its orbit, in outer-planet mode. It seems like only yesterday (in the mid-1990s) when Chiron was clipping through a sign in just 18 months. I am here with an extended special edition audio presentation about this transit. The recording is about 35 minutes, and describes the three basic levels of Chiron in Pisces: water itself, the emotional realm and the spiritual realm. I describe all three in the audio, and end with a bit of history about Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius.

Basket star and anemones, Vancouver Island, BC. Photo by Bev Dulis waterworksdesign.net.

Chiron is one of those things in astrology that really does need an introduction. Though the discussion has gone on some places for more than 30 years, there are relatively few cohesive and balanced discussions of what this energy represents. Amanda Painter, one of the Planet Waves editors, researched my various articles about Chiron in Pisces and we’ve got her selections below. Each excerpt links to the article from which it originates.

First, I have an older piece on how Chiron may be applied in readings. It’s called When Astrology Listens. It describes a case-taking technique that enables the astrologer to deduce how Chiron is working in a person’s chart, without having to speculate. The technique is based on listening to what a client has to say about their experiences of Chiron transits. Chiron is an influence that grounds strongly in experience rather than in theory, so the client’s history can be quite meaningful and helpful to their own healing process and the astrologer’s role as facilitator.

In Small World Stories, the 2008 annual edition, we included a succinct introduction to Chiron. Described by someone named Al Morrison as ‘the inconvenient benefic’, “Chiron nearly always bestows a profound gift; it will save us over and over, waking us up just in the nick of time; but the events surrounding it almost always seem a bit shocking as they occur. Though over time, a degree of mastery of Chiron’s most fundamental energy may be attained: and that energy is awareness.” Further into the essay, I note why the events surrounding a Chiron transit can feel so jarring:

Perhaps if humanity were not so intent on denying its awareness, ignoring its knowledge, suppressing its potential and investing its energy in greed, Chiron would feel gentler or not be necessary at all. Perhaps if we considered understanding and embracing our shadow nature as important as seeking the light in our spiritual pursuits, we would not need Chiron. If it were more encouraged to allow curiosity its place, and to let it be a teacher, we would not depend so heavily on Chiron to instigate the experiences and crises we need to learn and grow.

The influence of Chiron in Pisces on the natal charts of a whole generation of people born during the 1960s — as well as the cultural matrix of that whole period — gets a close look in an article from a decade ago, simply titled Chiron in Pisces:

Chiron in Pisces is calling us to make peace with all the great mysteries of life: God, death, passion, Eros, altered states of consciousness, and the origin of the human experience. Individuals with Chiron in Pisces can express an innate knowledge of these mysteries, which can be developed into healing gifts or creative talents if the native chooses. It’s worth mentioning that Pisces is the sign associated with illusion, theater, film, art and music. Other signs speak of the creative aspects in different manifestations; Pisces speaks to the waving of illusion, and a gift for doing this both artfully and with integrity.

Building on the theme of the 1960s as a defining era, Chiron in Pisces: The Missing Piece summarizes the relationship between two astrological phenomena which defined the Sixties and are again shaping our current 2012 era: the Uranus-Pluto cycle and Chiron in Pisces. It turns out that Chiron was a key piece to how the Sixties felt:

Across the sky in Pisces — unknown to astronomers or astrologers at the time — was a small planet called Chiron. Though it would not be discovered until 1977, planets are active long before we’re aware of them, and Chiron’s influence in this era was a protective spiritual backdrop that provided a kind of refuge, a source of inspiration and focal point within all the madness that could make a song like “All You Need is Love” meaningful. If you were born in the Sixties, Chiron in Pisces is likely to be a prominent factor in your astrology, and you’ve been working with it all your life.

In that same article, I describe how this current rendition of Chiron in Pisces comes with its own version of a wake-up call:

To put it bluntly, we might discover that we’re not as spiritual as we thought, in the sense that we need to apply our beliefs and ideals to the world in a real way. Chiron calls for a practical approach to whatever it touches. If you believe you’re spiritual, what is the working end of that equation? Where does that quality make contact with society — not just your altar or your yoga mat? You could look at Chiron in Pisces as the focusing of dharma: acting as if to hold the world together. Chiron takes us out of the theoretical realm and directly into what comes with evidence and documentation.

Most recently, the subscriber issue How to Cross an Ocean; How to Light a Fire touched on today’s ingress into Pisces, which shifts the flavor of our cultural focus:

Wherever it may be, Chiron focuses attention, and the oceans (signified by Pisces) need attention. So too does the vast interior of human consciousness represented by Pisces. This last sign of the zodiac works for all of us as a source of creativity, emotional contact and escape from the hard-edged world of the ego. If not for Pisces, there would not be music or art, and sex would not be the same. We would not recognize the subtle shades of our emotions. Yet we tend to pollute this realm with everything from mind-bending psychotropic drugs to contact with 5,000 advertisements a day.

It may sound a bit overwhelming in a rather diffuse sort of way. But as mysterious as the themes of Pisces and Neptune may feel to some, Chiron does not leave us drifting out to sea, as I explain later in that article:

The extended, simultaneous presence of Chiron and Neptune in Pisces is about developing the awareness and discipline to handle deep emotional, and what you might call mystical, energy. You don’t swim across the ocean — you travel in a boat. The same is true for the oceanic multidimensional realms represented by Pisces. You can think of Chiron as the boat, the vessel which includes such tools as perception, analysis, documentation and — most significantly — boundaries.

And as for calling attention to the water on the planet that Chiron in Pisces may represent, we saw a startling example in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which accompanied Chiron’s temporary ingress into Pisces last year. Pisces, Chiron and Whole-System Thinking gives a broad view of some of what Chiron is trying to show us:

Chiron in Pisces is revealing a new dimension of awareness, or rather, pointing out what we need to be aware of. My take is that Chiron in Pisces is homing in on two things: one is natural systems, that is, what preexisted industrialism, and where these intersect with our technological systems. The other is what we think of as spirituality, and by that I mean we’re being pointed to a void of awareness of how our beliefs influence our reality; how interconnected we all are; and how dependent we are on the environment in which we live.

Yours & truly,

PS, Thank you to my Chiron teachers, who helped me figure out this little planet: Melanie Reinhart, Robert von Heeren, Zane Stein, Dale O’Brien, Barbara Hand Clow and many, many astrology clients who shared their biographies with me in the process of my working on their astrological charts.

———

Eric Francis, the founder and editor of Planet Waves, is an astrologer and investigative journalist. He was working in his first job as a municipal newspaper reporter when he discovered that his editor also owned an astrology bookstore. This began a long relationship between astrology and journalism, which has taken Eric through the pages of many newspapers as a horoscope writer, including the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror plus numerous other venues. Today, Eric covers global turning point events through the lens of astrology. He is a specialist in newly-discovered planets.

The Need for Emotional Healing

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

The strange sequence of events I described in Friday’s edition was actually pointing to something bigger, which we learned about Saturday morning in Tucson. Thousands of birds falling out of the sky, fish floating to the surface of the water and many other odd developments, all surrounding an eclipse of the Sun — pointing to a political assassination — was reminiscent of something you might read in a Medieval astrology textbook. But it was happening right in our time.

Our moment of history is characterized by fear and inflammation. That has many people in an edgy state of being, and makes many others vulnerable to manipulation. There is inadequate care for those who are mentally ill. Most other people deal with psychological or emotional issues they identify by taking medication rather than by going to therapy.

We also live in a time when it’s easy to become detached from reality, and get lost in a kind alternate universe, be it the iPhone, World of Warcraft, or one’s social and family dramas. There’s always something to think about besides what really matters. And what matters now, I believe, is noticing that the fear and swelling are indications of emotional wounding; of an injury that must be tended or else get much worse. The wounding of millions of individuals adds up to a collective injury that is being expressed in the obvious pain of our society.

That pain is reflected everywhere from our struggles in relationships and with our children, to a population that is sleepwalking through our collective wealth being used to commit murder in other countries. It’s represented by what we eat, how we feel in our bodies, how we struggle with time, and how we feel about ourselves. And it surfaced Saturday when an angry young man took it upon himself to use a “Second Amendment solution” against a government official — hurting many other people with her and spreading fear through the Western world. And, reprehensible as the actions of this assassin were, he also lanced a boil, calling attention to those who profit from what amounts to mass emotional abuse projected onto the population.

These days I’m wondering less about when we’re going to wake up to the political and economic situations that surround us and more about when we’re going to acknowledge our need for emotional healing. Talk among news commentators today involves toning down the vitriolic political rhetoric. I’m wondering about the feeling of wounding underneath those harsh words and the emotions that drive them. I’m wondering about that occasional thought that so many have, when they access a quiet moment, that they must change something deep and significant in their approach to life.

I’m wondering about all the people who, as Bob Dylan put it, have been wounded by love, and wounded by hatred. I’m wondering about the millions of people, may of them young adults, who have been turned against their sexual feelings by abstinence indoctrination programs in schools, which have equated pleasure with immorality and disease. I wonder about many people I’ve met who feel so betrayed by their erotic feelings that they’re disgusted by them, and by themselves as a result.

I wonder about people who cannot eat without feeling guilty. I wonder about all the people who cannot stop smoking, even though they know what awaits them if they keep doing it. I wonder about the people who simply cannot make peace with death, or with life, and are trapped in between.

I wonder about the many people whose desires for creative expression were shut down when they were kids, and who never developed a way of expressing their ideas and feelings in some form of art, writing or movement — and lack the courage, resolve or encouragement to start today.

I wonder about the many people who feel misunderstood; who feel like they will never be understood. I wonder about the people whose parents were absent, alcoholics or abusive, and who don’t have the example of anyone functional, competent or able to love them.

I wonder about the people who are too scared to seek out help; embarrassed to go for therapy, or who want and need it but cannot afford it. I wonder about those for whom help is not available because mental health budgets have been cut for decades, and those who belong in places where they cannot hurt others have no place to go.

All of this is about emotional healing. I speak not only for the victims of public policy but also for those in public service who lack the maturity and sense of commitment to allocate resources to the people who need them. I truly wonder about this obsession with pouring our national wealth into mass death while our own citizens struggle. I wonder about every single person who thinks this is a good idea. I consider, sometimes agonizingly, the karma of a nation that does this to the world, and has for as long as I’ve been on the planet. There are a lot of vicious wars you probably have not heard about.

If we look to astrology for clues, we are in the middle of a shift in the value on all things of an emotional nature. Two planets are about to leave Pisces — Jupiter and Uranus — and a new one is about to enter — Chiron. As I’ve written before, Jupiter is a short-term visitor to Pisces and is providing both a healing balm and a way to finally express all the energy of Uranus. For its part, Uranus has been stirring up the emotional waters of Pisces for seven years, making escape seem more desirable than directly encountering our real feelings or creative impulses.

Chiron is about to arrive. Where Chiron goes, we tend to focus awareness and invoke a healing process. We get the option of mustering some maturity and directed intention, or courting serious problems. Chiron moves slowly enough to be a collective influence; it’s one of those concepts at the meeting place of individual experience and shared experience. But mostly, Chiron calls on us to focus on our healing needs and to respond to the reminders that we hear and feel.

Chiron in Pisces will call us to focus on our emotional injuries and to seek ways to bring them to healing. I’ve noticed both in myself and in others a tendency not to seek healing until the pain is too great to bear. Working with Chiron, I’ve noticed that it helps a lot to respond to our needs sooner rather than later — no matter how long you may have waited.

One thing that keeps many people from embarking on a healing process is awareness of how much they must face, and how much will need to change. It can all seem so daunting that there is no point in starting. However, much like doing the dishes, it’s easier once you get the process in motion.

And it’s definitely time: time to take (if necessary) the first step, which is being honest about what you want and need, and about what may be hurting you. It’s time to create our lives consciously so we’re supported in our healing process (rather than the opposite, as so often happens). Very simply, it’s time to be mindful about what is going on within us, and around us on the planet.

Yours & truly,

———