The Chiron Factor, Part One

Dear Friend and Reader:

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Just five months ago, the world experienced a total solar eclipse conjunct Chiron. Exact to the arc minute (1/60th of a degree), this astonishing eclipse cast a shadow that spanned from northern Mexico, diagonally across the United States and into southeastern Canada.

Next year, Chiron will again emerge as a rising star, thanks to a conjunction to Eris that spans from May 27, 2025 through March 19, 2026. The orb of influence, in time, is much wider, and we are experiencing this conjunction now. This is an event with a three-year margin on either side, so we’ve been in it for a while.

For those new to astrology, or my astrology, it’s my position that planetary events do not cause things. Rather, they serve as metaphors, and we witness their actual expressions in the human world within and around us.

So What is Chiron?

Said in as few words as possible, Chiron (a small object orbiting our Sun just beyond Saturn) represents self-actualization. It’s about the challenging, difficult and often painful process of healing the past and growing into who you are. It’s about living through the details of healing rather than merely talking about in broad generalizations.

More than anything, Chiron is about the process through which we grow into wholeness and true maturity.

In our time, the subject matter of Chiron spans from working through family trauma to addressing the psychic fragmentation resulting from overexposure to the image-driven, egotistical digital environment. It’s about standing out and apart in a way that is honest, in parallel with a commitment to service.

The internal growth process that Chiron represents is working to cut through our increasingly superficial culture and put us in contact with who we are on a much deeper and more sincere level of awareness. You could say that Chiron is about finding your soul, which is discovering a process of learning and not a thing. And now that process is being accelerated rapidly.

| Related: Planets in a Minor Key

A Discovery that Changed Astrology

The discovery of Chiron on Nov. 1, 1977 by Charles Kowal changed astrology, at least for a while. With the first widely-publicized sighting of a new solar system object since Pluto in 1930, some astrologers immediately went to work trying to discern what it was about.

This interest was helped greatly by the attention that astronomers were giving a new discovery in a region of the solar system where there were no other known objects. These were eventually called the centaur class of planets, and there are now about 100 known objects in this group.

Chiron has an egg-shaped orbit of just over 50 years, far outside of any known asteroid belt. At its closest to the Sun, it crosses the orbit of Saturn and at its most distant, grazes the orbit of Uranus.

Led by Al H. Morrison, Zane Stein and Erminie Lantero, a subset of what was then an actual astrological community, each set out to decipher the meaning of what The New York Times had described on its front page as potentially being “the tenth planet.”

Morrison’s role was to provoke the discussion and get people going, including Dale O’Brien and Morrison’s close friend Debbi Kempton-Smith. Stein and Lantero wrote the first books. Then the more well known titles by Melanie Reinhart and Barbara Hand Clow followed. The fact of a new discovery receiving immediate research attention was a significant step forward for astrology, which generally does not like to change its ways, or even think much about them.

For example, Pluto was not recognized as a noteworthy astrological factor until the 1960s, and even then it was a boutique item. Only its monthly position was listed in the back pages of Raphael’s Ephemeris even until the mid-1970s, more than 40 years after its discovery.

(The other known planets were listed in the daily longitude tables that made up the book). Chiron, incidentally, is finally included (in the back, with a few asteroids); like Pluto, it took about 40 years to get in. What’s the rush?

In our time, it’s easy for Chiron to get lost in the sauce. Chiron was given minor planet number (2060). Pluto is (134340). Eris is (136399). These numbers are always notated in parentheses. There are now known to be well over one million objects orbiting our Sun. (I have a call out with the Minor Planet Center at Harvard to get the current total. OK here is the answer: as of today, there are 1,386,752 objects known to be orbiting our Sun.) You might ask how one would work with these. The answer is selectively, one at a time. Start here.

The Voice that Came From You and Me

Like Bob Dylan, though, the voice of Chiron came from the people. Astrology of a certain kind (“what’s your sign?”) was already experiencing a peak of popularity at the time of its discovery and was ready for a change. The use of computers to cast charts made it more accessible to those who lacked such mathematical ability (which took hours if done manually).

Linda Goodman (Sun Signs, Love Signs and others) was still a bestselling author, and so was Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan and others). The New Age spiritual movement was growing in mainstream popularity, and astrology conveyed many of those themes. All New Age bookstores had an astrology shelf.

But most from that era would say there was something lacking in astrology, and Chiron answered that need.

Themes raised by the early writers about Chiron spoke to a diversity of topics that were already part of the cultural zeitgeist, at least in the Western world: hands-on healing including chiropractic care, advents in individual and group therapy, personal growth (often cast as self-help), spiritual consciousness, and what some call “shamanic” practice.

As David Roell of the Astrology Center of America bookstore said, “Chiron was a stand-in for the Christ, and everyone knew it.”

All new discoveries of planets manifest as signs of the times. They represent themes and events of their discovery era, as well as surfacing issues and subject matter that might have been missed.

If you’re curious about how a newly-discovered planet gets its meaning, I’ve covered that in a detailed article called Behind the Veil, originally from The Mountain Astrologer. In summary, it’s a combination of the mythology of the name, the discovery chart, the scientific elements of the orbit, and then a process of astrologers gaining experience with the new planet with client charts and those of world events. This is all covered in Behind The Veil.

The Chiron-Eris Conjunction: 1970s Flashback

Chiron is now in Aries, and is forming a conjunction to Eris in Aries. I will have more to say about this meeting next week. However, to get you started: Eris is currently the single most important factor describing the digital crisis. We saw that manifest with Donald Trump ruling the nation by Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign. This was not about Trump or Twitter: it was about what has happened to society under the influence of digital conditions.

Also, because Eris spends 130 years in Aries and Chiron takes just 50 years to orbit the Sun, we have experience with a Chiron-Eris conjunction in Aries. That happened in 1971 and 1972, and defines what we think of as the pre-disco 1970s — that is to say, the activist 1970s, which most people mistake for the 1960s. It was an exciting and chaotic time, no doubt.

Chiron in Aries generally, and Chiron conjunct Eris in particular, arrived with the birth of radical identity politics. The somewhat unified anti-Vietnam War movement fragmented into the student movement, the environmental movement and Earth Day, gay “liberation,” women’s “liberation,” the New Age, EST (a popular self-actualization training program, seen by some as a cult), the rise of other cults such as the Hare Krishnas, Black power, Latino rights, a radical Puerto Rican rights movement called the FALN, the American Indian Movement (AIM, its official name), the back-to-the-land movement (not really a movement, but called one), the intentional community movement, the Deadheads, and a diversity of radical organizations like The Weathermen.

It was a rather groovy and chaotic time for “doing your thing.” Lots of people were pinning on buttons, including the one that says “Wearing Buttons is Not Enough.” Many thought that saying “Question Authority” was doing so.

And mixed in with this glorious extravaganza was the discovery of the Watergate break-in in 1972 (Richard Nixon, doing his thing) followed by the U.S. pulling out of Vietnam less than a year later. Then came the resignation of Nixon in the summer of 1974. So this is one heck of an aspect: it’s a social accelerant.

And this was all happening before you could choose from among 300 billion combinations of Starbucks ingredients (mathematical true fact, which is a reflection of the digital environment, as is a million planets in the solar system).

We are now going into this conjunction in a ramped-up and concentrated form, with most of life being lived on the LSD trip of digital technology. At the same time, there will be another significant and rare conjunction in Aries: that of Saturn and Neptune — both conjunctions happen together. We are entering a very special moment.

The Relationship Between Chiron and Virgo

With the Sun now in Virgo, let’s cover one last theme for today. Astrologers using Chiron all questioned what sign it might rule. This was also a discussion for the modern planets Uranus, Pluto and Neptune, as well as the first four asteroids. There has been plenty of consternation and debate along along the way.

My discussion here will be theoretical, and thematic. Some technical references are necessary. If you identify as Virgo, I would refer you to my Virgo readings for personal information. It’s a little different from the collective and the archetypal elements of the discussion. Also, my whole astrological project infused with and informed by the best work on Chiron, including my own personal research.

Regarding new planets and what they may rule, Table of Essential Dignities (dating to the first century CE) has the planetary sign rulerships covered, and thereby provides a set of guidelines for reading horary, mundane and electional astrology*. These require careful assignments of classical rulerships to signs associated with houses in any given chart.

I prefer to not claim that new discoveries rule any sign, since it would not be true. I think of the associations between new discoveries and the astrological signs as affinities and resonances. If an astrologer is very consistent, the modern planets can be used for these forms of technical astrology.

In the classical system, dating to antiquity, Mercury rules Virgo, and no planet is exalted there.

Chiron was trained in medicine by his stepfather Apollo, and in turn trained Asclepius, the god of medicine, in the medical arts. He was a teacher of both warfare and battlefield medical arts, and raised a generation of Greek heroes of the classical age. As a physician, that means he taught battlefield medicine. More than anything, he was a mentor, which is a central theme of Chiron, whatever the topic.

With these elements we have a diversity of connections to Virgo and the 6th house, which all center around themes of service, the military, healing practice and teaching. This presents a strong association between Virgo and the related 6th house.

That said, many astrologers early on the case noted the themes of Chiron related to Sagittarius. This sign depicts a hunter or centaur, depending on one’s mythological source. There’s also a centaur seen in the constellation Centaurus, which is where the mythological figure Chiron went when he ascended.

As Barbara Hand Clow put it succinctly, Virgo is about the healing mission of Chiron; Sagittarius is the spiritual quest.

An Extended Era of Chiron

We are now in an extended era of enhanced Chiron activity. That means intensity, and in Aries, it means that this is a time of awakening. This will be happening in a time of unprecedented social upheaval.

If you think back to what was happening in the early- to mid-1970s, that’s merely a sample of what is likely to occur under the dual conjunctions of Chiron to Eris and Saturn to Neptune. And consider that the world that will experience these events is now split between the former “real world” of the physical and the mirage of the digital, which for many is the most meaningful point of contact with life outside themselves.

We are now in a crisis of disembodiment. That is another way to say that much of what society is doing is hallucinating itself into a control drama of epic proportions. Chiron has a way of focusing the issues, and bringing out everything unlike itself.

There is no predicting here. But we don’t need to merely come along for the ride. In the spirit of Chiron, we have two elements to consider: the healing mission and the spiritual quest.

Chiron also has a relationship to Taurus, the sign where it was discovered. That’s about staying in your body, if you want one. It’s about the wisdom of the body, and integrating your physical existence with your emotional and mental states of being.

With love,

PS — Horary astrology is pure divinatory astrology, often pertaining to a question. Electional astrology is creating a chart for a specific purpose, like starting a company or getting married. Mundane astrology is what you see me doing at Planet Waves, which is reading the charts of world events. They all follow similar classical rules.