Note, here is the Small World Stories entry on Chariklo.
Have you ever been in a situation where, say, someone with a great deal of influence in your life was undermining your confidence? And did it occur to you that ultimately you were the one responsible for letting them act out your insecurity — and letting it affect you? It’s one possible illustration of how relational energy can play out, in this case suggested by a particular opposition in astrology. With any opposition, we perceive tension or conflict as being outside of ourselves, between us and another person. But really, if we ask the right questions, we can follow the thread into ourselves – and the answers we find may change the game.
The Pisces Sun is making an opposition to the asteroid Psyche in mid-Virgo. (This is also where retrograde Mars will also be in a few days; stop and think if you feel provoked.) Sun-Psyche speaks of a loss of faith in oneself – and perhaps the perception (ultimately false) that this faith cannot be reclaimed.
For example, it can be a dicey situation to allow yourself to be surrounded by insecure people even if you tend to be confident, because that choice of companions can begin to undermine your perception of yourself. Another permutation could be that a confident person who surrounds himself with insecure people is showing himself not to be confident at all, based on who he hangs out with. That is, the company he keeps tells a different story from the one he tells himself as being ‘a confident person’.
Extrapolate this into intimate, one-on-one relationships. If there is a deep, old wound to one’s sense of self, confidence or self-esteem, it can be easy for that to get played out in relationship after relationship. It becomes a pattern. And here’s where the Sun-Psyche opposition gets even more interesting: another minor planet called Chariklo is making a square from mid-Sagittarius to both Sun and Psyche. Chariklo in myth was the nymph-wife of the centaur Chiron. Though not a centaur herself, the astronomical body bearing her name is a centaur planet in deference to her relationship to Chiron. Chariklo was strikingly devoted, all through Chiron’s long phase of being wounded and subsequent choice to make a deal with the gods to transcend his suffering and die. One of the key themes of Chariklo in astrology is devotion.