Have you felt rather like your mind has not quite been as focused as usual this past week? Many of us have been thrown for a loop by Mercury encountering Neptune in Pisces straight after leaving its post-retrograde shadow phase. Now it’s headed for a conjunction that should act as a focusing agent — but with a twist.
Mercury will conjoin Chiron at the end of this week (1:08 am EDT March 29). Chiron is a centaur planet, named after the mythical half-human, half-horse creatures in mythology. Chiron in myth was a teacher and healer.
Chiron in astrology functions the same way — although the lessons we learn and the inner wounds we heal when spurred on by Chiron are not always the simple, convenient kind.
First Chiron raises our awareness of what needs our attention; once we’re aware and taking active steps, it “focuses energy and accelerates any movement already underway,” as Eric wrote his 2010 article, How to Cross an Ocean; How to Light a Fire.
Chiron will continue moving through Pisces for another four years or so (it first entered this sign in 2010-2011). While there, it is bringing our attention to both the health of the waters around us and the heath of the waters within us: our emotions, creative potential and the inner realm separate from ego, as well as illusion and delusion in its shadow manifestations. We’re all currently in a process of crossing the ocean of emotional, mystical energy and multidimensional realms within ourselves via the boat of Chiron, to use one of Eric’s images. Chiron-as-boat “includes such tools as perception, analysis, documentation and — most significantly — boundaries.”