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Part One
The third week in July saw a powerful planetary alignment involving Saturn, Chiron, the Sun and Moon, and Mars. The key aspect is an opposition between Saturn and Chiron which happens to fall on the day of an exact full moon in Capricorn. The last time this happened was in December on the day of the Tsunami.
Chiron
In the most common version of the Chiron myth he is the son of Kronos (Saturn) and nymph, Philyra, daughter of Oceanus. Philyra changed herself into a mare to try and escape from the advances of Kronos. However, Kronos in turn deceived her, by changing himself into a horse; and thus he succeeded in mating with her. Chiron was born of this union with the body and legs of a horse and the torso and arms of a man. When Philyra saw him, she was so disgusted that she pleaded to be changed into anything other than what she was. The gods duly obliged by turning her into a Linden tree. [It is said that the blossom of this tree will cause heroes to fall into an enchanted sleep, i.e. to ‘lose their soul’. This foreshadows the theme of the reawakening of individuality which the planet Chiron represents.]
Thus Chiron was abandoned, later to be found by Apollo, who became his foster-father and taught him many skills. This story contains some important themes attached to the meaning of Chiron. He was rejected by his mother and never knew his father, Kronos. He was conceived while both his parents were in animal form, that is, from instinctual union. There was no reconciliation between Kronos and Chiron, while Philyra is, in effect, rejecting the product and expression of her own instinctual side to the point of preferring to be imprisoned in a tree.
Chiron represents the wound of our repressed instinctual nature and also the possibility of its healing.
During Lemuria, the sacral chakra was being strongly activated, awakening sexual energies. In Atlantis they needed to suppress the energy in the sacral chakra which, by this time, had developed out of control with great promiscuity. To do this they developed their solar plexus chakra to control the sacral. Although this succeeded in bringing these lower animal urges under control, it brought about many diseases of suppression, such as cancer. In this epoch we have gone further in this repression, especially during the middle ages, the puritan movement and most recently during Victorian times. However, since then with Freud, the Kinsey report and free love in the sixties, our instinctual lower desires are breaking free of this repression and, mostly, taking over the individual. With the discovery of Chiron in 1977, humanity is now ready to fully release the solar plexus from its role in controlling the sacral chakra and instead develop the throat centre, so that it can channel this sacral energy into creative expression. The appearance of Chiron has signalled that humanity is ready and is strong enough to deal with these powerful instinctual energies, to heal the wounds of suppression and rejection and, for man, to now separate from the horse, to ride it without the need for a bridle and to no longer fear his instinctual side.
It is interesting to look at the ending of Chiron’s journey. Suffering a wound to his animal half that he couldn’t cure but couldn’t die from as he was immortal, he voluntarily chose to swap places with Prometheus and forgo his immortality and surrender to death. There are many interpretations of this but one possible meaning is that, as man develops his human side more and more, he will feel that the animal part within him will cause greater problems and he will feel that it holds him back and retards further progress. He will then voluntarily seek to throw out his remaining animal nature so that he can receive and carry the full light of Adam Kadmon within him, as symbolised by the release of Prometheus the Lightbearer. However, before the remaining animal nature can be released it first needs to be properly understood and healed from all the lifetimes of rejection and suppression.
When Chiron was discovered in 1977 it was 3°8’ Taurus and the Sabian symbol for this degree is ‘The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’. This, Dane Rudhyar interprets as, riches that come from linking the celestial and the earthly nature. It was also in retrograde motion, implying that humanity must retrace its steps, discover its origins both celestial and earthly and restore the connection between the two. This also fits in with its position between Saturn (the rules and karma operating on earth) and Uranus (the urge to break free of these laws and return to the celestial) and the need to balance these two energies.
Chiron symbolises a unique combination of the potential creativity and vision of Uranus, with the Saturnian respect for the past, personal limits and the laws of society and the laws of the material world
The last Saturn/Chiron conjunction occurred in 1966 at 24° Pisces.
We are in the middle of a series of 7 oppositions between these two planets. The first occurred on 25 September 2003 at 12°24 Cancer/Capricorn, the second on 24 October 2003 at 13°14 Cancer/Capricorn, the third on 15 August 2004 at 21°34 Cancer/Capricorn, the fourth on 27 December 2004 at 25°13 Cancer/Capricorn, the fifth on 21 July 2005 at 0°38 Leo/Aquarius, the sixth on 20 February 2006 at 6°05 Leo/Aquarius, the seventh on 20 June 2006 at 9°02 Leo/Aquarius.
The first three oppositions occurred close to the time of the New Moon which is a time of stillness and letting go of the old. The fourth opposition (the one at the time of the tsunami) and the fifth (on 21 July) both take place on a full moon when the earth experiences a build up and release of considerable tension. The last two oppositions take place neither on the new or full moon but the final opposition is likely to be a powerful occasion as Mars will form an exact conjunction to Saturn (in Leo), and Jupiter (in Scorpio) will form an exact T-square to the Chiron/Saturn opposition.
Part two coming soon.
