By Amanda Painter

When everyone around you is wounded and hurting, if you initiate and pursue your own healing it will probably make you stand out. I suspect countless people have had this thought before, but it came to mind as I was thinking about tomorrow’s conjunction of the Sun and Chiron in Aries. I don’t know how many people think of that possibility consciously before starting (for example) a therapy process; even if present unconsciously, however, I imagine it holds some people back.

Sun conjunct Chiron occurs at 2:38 pm EDT Friday (18:37:51 UTC).

And although it’s not in the very first degree of Aries, it is in the second degree, which is still Aries Point territory (the nexus of personal and political).

Whatever tomorrow’s astrology describes for you personally, it will likely resonate with issues that are prominent in our collective social environment right now.

This is the first conjunction of the Sun and Chiron in Aries since Chiron left Pisces for good on Feb. 18. As far as I can tell, it is the only conjunction these two bodies will have in the first five degrees of Aries for this particular journey of Chiron in Aries (though next year will come close; that one happens in the sixth degree of Aries).

My guess is that this means this year’s Sun-Chiron conjunction may ring the personal/collective Aries Point bell the loudest — though I don’t know for certain if it works that way. And who knows: maybe we will be able to hear the signal better once we’ve all gotten more used to this energy next year? After all, we’re also adjusting to Uranus in Taurus and wading through Mercury’s retrograde in Pisces, both of which seem to be having a slightly destabilizing effect on many people. Then again, when is there not something in the astrology describing things being off-kilter, or provocative, or confrontational, or energizing in some way?

At any rate, the Sun coming into contact with Chiron like this symbolizes something to do with our wounding, our healing, and possibly the idea of teaching, coming into our consciousness. But it’s coming through the Mars-ruled sign Aries — an expressive sign that astrology relates to the concept of ‘masculine’ (with receptiveness associated with ‘feminine’); every person on the planet, regardless of sex, gender or sexual orientation, possesses symbols of these two concepts in their chart.

Several years ago, Eric wrote, “One thing that stands out about Sun-Chiron in Pisces is how as part of this process, men must make contact with their feminine side and their emotional nature, but without sacrificing their maleness.”

Referring to that column, I’d added in a piece a few years ago that, “You could say the challenge for women is to recognize the strength inherent in their feminine, emotional nature. Then you use that recognition to reclaim the sense of purpose and achievement associated with your inner masculine side.”

Now that we have this aspect happening in Aries instead of Pisces, what shifts about this dynamic? It occurred to me that while I do not consider the work of making (and staying in) contact with our respective feminine/emotional sides to be done — some people may be right in the sweet spot, some perhaps have swung a little too far with the pendulum, and some still don’t get it — there seems to be a need and a readiness to focus on healing our collective masculine/expressive nature.

The thing is, we can’t heal the collective all at once — no matter what sign Chiron is in, or what aspects it’s making. Healing is an individual job, first, foremost and always.

Yes, there seem to be events that help many people to move forward together at once in this regard; but even then, something has to be happening inside each of the individuals in that group. And it might look a little different for each person; they might use different words to describe it; the same event might feel more like a beginning of a healing process for one person while for someone else it feels like closure.

The more people we have consciously engaged in owning and processing their pain — the more people on this planet who are making their way toward healing and wholeness — the healthier our societies can be. I say that with the understanding that not everyone has access to the tools, support or other resources that facilitate the pursuit of psychological, emotional, energetic and even physical wellbeing and awareness in the way it’s often discussed on Planet Waves. Some people are very much in a place of needing to meet basic survival needs. I think healing can still happen, but it may look very different.

That said, when I consider the collective or political side of the Aries Point nexus, it’s clear that western (particularly U.S.) society has much work to do when it comes to how we deal with the themes of Aries, and thus of what often gets called ‘masculine’. We have big problems with violence, with sex, and with sex used as violence. Some of those problems have been given names like ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘rape culture’.

Those terms, though they have become problematic in some of the ways they’re being used, do point to one side of very real social problems. The tricky thing is, they don’t necessarily point to all men in equal measure (though we all have something to learn). They also don’t take into full account the convoluted ways ‘femininity’ has developed and contorted itself in response — often due to the need to survive.

In spite of movements over the decades oriented on getting women to claim their sexual desire, their agency and their ambition, we’re still faced with the false ‘Madonna/whore’ duality; our media glorifies ‘sexiness’ while our churches fight to undermine laws protecting women’s sexual health. Likewise, though women claim to want sensitive, caring men, we’re still gobbling up visions of hyper-masculine movie heroes — strong, violent, driven — like candy.

So where does that leave us? As far as I can tell, right back where we started — or, rather, where I started in this discussion: a willingness to stand out, even just a little, as someone who is doing your work to recognize and reckon with your inner masculine shadow material. As you may have read before, the discoverer of Chiron, Charles T. Kowal, offered the first keyword for this centaur planet when he looked at its orbit and called it “a maverick.” Mavericks don’t behave like everyone else.

It doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself to be a man, a woman, transgender, or non-binary; it doesn’t matter who you want to have sex with (if anybody). What matters is that you as an individual take an honest look at how you relate to your ambition, your motivation, your sexual desire, your violent impulses, your anger. How can you claim those, while still retaining whatever acceptance you’ve come to of your more sensitive, receptive, Piscean side?

Who are you now? Does the sense of purpose you feel inside match your current outward reality? In what ways does your sense of yourself not fit ‘normal’ patterns? How are you feeling called to express that?

I’m going to leave those questions there for consideration; for a little more about today’s other aspects, you can check the Written in the Planets post. Here’s to learning whatever it is Chiron has to teach us; and here’s to being mavericks — being willing to stand out — in the service of wholeness.

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