Chiron-Jupiter Conjunction: Illuminating Our Wild Wisdom
This Sunday 12th March, Chiron and Jupiter make their conjunction in the fire sign Aries. These conjunctions occur at irregular intervals of between 13-19 years, the last one having occurred in Aquarius in 2009. Here we have the coming together of two planetary bodies of such stark contrast: the giant gas planet Jupiter: powerful, majestic, and overarching in scope, and Chiron a tiny rocky planetoid who irreverently crosses the margins between the visible and the invisible, moving inside the path of Saturn and beyond the path of Uranus in its highly eccentric oribt.
In mythology they are half-brothers, both children of Saturn/Kronos, and both fostered in their youth, Jupiter raised by the goat-nymph Amalthea to protect him from his tyrannical father, while the orphaned Chiron is raised by Apollo and educated in the liberal arts. While Jupiter becomes the mighty ruler of Mount Olympus, Chiron's place is in a cave on the shaded slopes of Mount Pelion, where heroes come to be educated by him, and, following his tragic wounding at the hands of one of of his students, Chiron becomes a medicine man, gathering healing herbs from Pelion's rich pharmacy, in search of a cure for a seemingly incurable wound.
In astrology, both Jupiter and Chiron are essential educators, but the type of knowing that that they draw out of us has a very different quality. Jupiter brings growth, raises awareness and expands what is possible, helping us to see above and beyond the immediate issues we face, and gain a greater perspective on ourselves and the world. Through Jupiter we gain a metaphysical understanding, a sense of meaning, which inspires in us the faith that we might become more than we are. Chiron, by contrast, on account of his tragic flaw, puts us in touch with a place of instinctual and immobilising pain that keeps us rooted to the body and the earth. Chiron confronts us with the limitations of our mortality, and draws us back to our essential wild nature. Through Chiron we realise the wisdom that lies in the wound, and that it is only by reaching to the root of what ails us most, that we might discover the path of natural healing. Chiron's medicine is shamanic by nature and homeopathic in potency.
As these two archetypes align this week, the conceptual knowing of Jupiter fuses with the insinctual wisdom of Chiron. Jupiter helps to grow the meaning and morality that shapes a society, while the wild knowing of Chiron pays homage to the deepest wounds of the soul, and connects us with the primitive roots of our being. Perhaps through their union, we might hope to rehabilitate the indigenous wisdom that lies deep within each of us. Jupiter's far-reaching vision of a promised land can only mean anything when it directly addresses the core root of suffering, otherwise it is nothing more than an abstracted wish-fulfilment fantasy.
The conjunction occurs in Aries, shedding light on the primal trauma of birth, when we were wrenched out of that bond of unity with the mother, and thrust head-first into life. Chiron was abandoned by both his parents at birth and left to fend for himself before being found and fostered into the cultured world of Apollo. This conjunction exposes and sheds light upon the first rupture between our essential nature, present in the wildness of our beginnings, and its inevitable adaptation to culture and society.
This conjunction will illuminate all the ways in which we have betrayed our natural wisdom, and that can be painful to face, but we must face it, if we are to have any hope of redeeming the world that we continually betray through the pursuit of abstract fantasies of salvation. One only needs to look at the pandemic response for the most stark example of how, as a culture, we have elevated the blind positivity of Jupiter, while ruthlessly re-orphaning the Chironic archetype and abandoning wild wisdom. Such an imbalanced response can swing us disastrously the other way too, if we allow ourselves to become helpless victims, in a world assumed to be utterly broken. We must integrate and empower both of these archetypes, personally and collectively, if we are to renew the world, and restore ourselves as authentic players within it. That, I would say, is the hope that lies in this alignment.
To sum this up, I defer to the immortal words of Leonard Cohen, born with Chiron in Gemini and Jupiter conjunct Mercury, a wounded-healer of verse whose poetry resonates so deeply in the soul, as we navigate these fragile times.
The Chiron Experience: Sacred Wounds & Healing Keys
An Online Webinar: Sun 12th March (4pm - 8pm UK time)
Price: £49.00
The Chiron archetype runs deep in us, touching a profoundly wounded place. It catches us where we are most vulnerable. It is a wound that never seems to fully heal, yet it is only through the call of that sacred wound, that we are delivered upon our journey of healing. The sacred wound reveals to us the healing key.
On Sunday 12th March, I will be running an online webinar: The Chiron Experience: Sacred Wounds & Healing Keys, timed for the Jupiter-Chiron conjunction in Aries on that day. I will be sharing my latest research, with some poignant insights into the lives of Chironic characters, & examples of Chiron’s chart placement by sign, house & planetary aspect.
In the second half of the webinar, there will be a space for you to explore your own Chiron position, discover the nature of your own particular wound & healing medicine. You have the chance to have you own chart featured on request.
The webinar is suitable for anyone with a basic understanding of the birth chart.
The webinar is recorded, and the recording will be made available to all participants, and also available to purchase after the event.
