Chiron is a newly discovered planet in astrological terms (in the 1970s), and so it has not been studied for very long. It has only newly emerged in humanity's consciousness and our knowledge of it is still being developed. Consequently, there are a lot of takes out there on what it means and how to work with Chiron’s energy, and they don't necessarily all converge on a single interpretation.

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What is generally agreed upon about Chiron is:

• Chiron in our natal chart represents an area of wounding or vulnerability that sets us apart from others in some way. It can feel like a place that is "broken" in us, where we are unable to do things the way others can.
• Through working with that wounding, we can develop an ability to help others (i.e. the "Wounded Healer"). By working with the unique wounding we have, it can bring forth its own medicine.
• Chiron's highly elliptical orbit crosses the orbit of both Saturn and Uranus, and thus it can be thought of as a bridge between the inner planets that speak to ordinary human life and time-space reality, and the outer transpersonal planets that speak to collective energies and the nature of ultimate reality that transcends the world of form.

Opinions differ on if Chiron's wound can be healed or not, if it's a personal wound or a collective wound, and what the purpose of the wounding is.

Some people speak of a wounding event that happened at the age corresponding to the degree of Chiron in your chart, and that nothing was the same after the event. It affects your sense of self. Chiron may also reflect where you wound others, and that could be the source of your guilt and feeling of being wounded.

My take on Chiron

This section contains my personal thoughts & experience on the nature of healing, my healing journey, and speculation on how that could relate to Chiron. My thesis is that Chiron's message might be about transcending the sense of "woundedness" by shifting from identifying as a human to identifying as a Soul having a human experience. This would correlate with its position as a bridge between the inner and outer planets. But I wanted to offer this disclaimer that I'm far more familiar with healing than with Chiron and am fairly new to the serious study of astrology, so YMMV.

I have struggled to relate to how Chiron is usually described

I have found this odd, because I've been on a self-healing journey for most of my life. Healing is my jam. I have worked on healing Fearful-Avoidant attachment, CPTSD, codependence, limerence, trauma bonding, betrayal blindness...all sorts of things that I relate to my Pluto-Venus-Moon T-square (and Pluto & Venus also aspect Chiron in my natal chart). So, healing is my wheelhouse.

I also have two Yods involving Chiron (Neptune-Pluto-Chiron, which many people have due to the persistent Neptune-Pluto sextile, as well as Venus-Chiron-Neptune). Chiron in my chart is aspecting Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, and is square to my Lunar Nodes (making it a "skipped step" in Evolutionary Astrology).

But despite my familiarity with the territory of healing, and how active it is in my chart, I have never had such a hard time identifying the energy of a planet as I've had with Chiron.

I think it has to do with how I approach healing

The introduction to A Course in Miracles states:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.

The truth of our being is that we are immortal Souls playing the game of being human. We are not our bodies or our minds and we are definitely not our wounds.

Our Soul can't actually be wounded, so any wounding we experience is fundamentally unreal. The process of healing is the process of realizing or remembering that we are already whole, and the belief in "being broken" was simply an untrue thought.

Healing means reconciling with the truth of your wholeness

The only way to truly heal is to stop identifying with suffering (or wounding), and identify with wholeness instead. You can't actually heal if you believe yourself to be wounded, so the concept of a "Wounded Healer" makes no sense to me. The only way to help others heal is to see the truth of who they are beyond their own illusions. If you are going around believing you are wounded, you are just perpetuating illusion yourself.

I want to be clear that of course the body can be wounded, and sometimes you cannot heal that wound. But people don't describe Chiron as merely "the place you are physically in pain, or disabled". They describe an inner subjective experience of vulnerability and shame. That is the part I think can be completely eliminated through shifting your identity to your Soul. (I'm not saying this is easy! Just that it is do-able.) The pain may remain, but you won't feel "wounded". It will just be an experience you are having, not evidence of anything about you.

Without this understanding, Chiron would simply appears as a wound, perhaps one that cannot be healed. But all that really means is that the person cannot conceive of a different way to hold the situation. Wounds and woundedness are real to them, so they feel permanent—an unhealable wound. If you have this belief, you will never heal because you will keep recreating the conditions of that belief.

Here’s how this works in my life

My Chiron in Taurus in the 5th could be interpreted to correspond to my ADHD & autism, among other things. Being bullied incessantly in childhood and comparing myself to other people was the source of lot of that feeling of there being something wrong with me. I couldn't do various aspects of life the way other people seemed to be able to.

I realized all of this in 2023, when Uranus transited my Chiron during my Uranus opposition. Once I could see what this pattern was and where it was coming from, I immediately went to work cleaning up my beliefs around any differences related to ADHD, autism, and disability in general. And poof, no more feeling of brokenness. (Ok, it does take a bit of time, but not that long. It's just mental training, i.e. rewriting brain pathways through conscious practice of new beliefs.)

So I could experience my AuDHD as a wound or a "broken" place—but I certainly don't have to. It's completely possible to feel neutral toward any condition in your life, and to be permanently happy. (I cover the "how" of this kind of healing over on Joy Is My Path.)

Shifting identities and neutralizing untrue beliefs is core to my conception of healing, so the idea of walking around identifying oneself as "wounded" is basically anti-healing to me. It is guaranteeing that you will experience pointless suffering. There is no benefit to holding such a belief, and a lot of reasons to give it up.

Sidebar: Spiritual bypassing disclaimer

I know some peoples’ alarm bells will be going off, and I don't want to be misunderstood. The reality is any spiritual teaching or "shifting" technique can be used to compartmentalize wounds and bypass psychological work. And that's not at all the point of what I'm saying. I've been working on myself, including shadow work & attachment work, for many years & go into more details on that below.

When I talk about shifting your identity or changing beliefs, I'm not saying that's a substitute for grieving what was missing from your childhood, or for the long slow painful work of changing patterns of codependency, addiction, or self-sacrifice. I'm talking about the overall ground of your identity—what you believe you are doing here on Earth, who you believe you are.

Recognizing yourself as a spiritual being that has an existence beyond this one Earth life in no way means you stop experiencing pain. It just means you stop identifying with it, and that makes it more of a transitory experience, rather than a heavy weight you are carrying around with you. You stop taking it so seriously—you stop taking life itself so seriously. But you still have to do whatever work is yours to do in this life. That is why we come here.

I also want to point out that healing is not the same as growing up. Many of us who experienced traumatic childhoods have developmental wounds, meaning we are emotionally immature. Addressing that is not just a matter of healing—you have to actually grow yourself up, which involves learning a lot of skills like self-care, self-validation, communication skills, the ability to identity and meet your needs, and fundamentally taking responsibility for yourself and not looking to be rescued. That takes exactly as much work as it sounds like, and there are no shortcuts.

I'm not trying to teach people to circumvent their pain. I'm talking about how to see yourself as bigger than it, so you can transmute it into Light. That is not a shortcut to anything, it’s just a deeper level of work.

OK, disclaimer over, let's keep going. 😁

What if Chiron wants us to identify with our Soul, not our humanity?

What if Chiron is here to awaken us to our ability to heal, which is the same as awakening to our true nature?

Chiron orbits between Saturn and Uranus. It therefore functions as a bridge between the human world and the world beyond this existence. What if it is an awakener, like Uranus, and it demands we take responsibility for our own experience, like Saturn?

Saturn helps us mature by making us feel inferior until we develop self-mastery. Maybe Chiron makes us feel wounded until we release our ego-identification with our human experience and give up the concept of woundedness altogether. Maybe, like Uranus, it is encouraging us to release our conditioning, but specifically conditioning related to differences, wounds, and healing.

Once we do that, we no longer feel wounded; we know our own wholeness. We may still experience various forms of pain just like we experience hunger, but we no longer identify with the pain, so it doesn't have the same feeling of being "broken". Pain is just a signal about an unmet need. Pain only becomes a "wound" if you identify with it.

I think Chiron is here to teach us wholeness, not make us feel broken

It's possible that this is just my personal "medicine" based on my Chiron journey. I'll tell you my story and you can decide.

Let's look at my Chiron again. Taurus represents embodiment, resources, fundamental needs, and self-reliance. The 5th house corresponds with Leo/Sun and represents self-expression, play, children, creativity, passion/romance, and the joy of being fully yourself. It is the house of the inner child. This combination would create a wound centered around basic needs not being met (neglect), a sense of material insecurity, and a sense of awkwardness around being myself, being creative, or being joyful or experiencing passion. In addition to this, the sextile to Venus in Cancer in the 7th or 8th (depending on house system) suggests wounding involving relationships, intimacy, and emotional vulnerability.

My childhood did indeed involve physical and emotional neglect, especially around my emotions. I always had big emotions (Moon in Aries), and my single Dad with his moon in Aquarius had no idea what to do with them. I constantly felt shame and confusion around my feelings. They were out of my control but I felt I really ought to be able to control them. I also had attachment wounding (Moon-Pluto opposition) which increased my emotional dysregulation, my confusion as to my emotional responses, and my sense that nobody loved me and nobody would ever be there for me. (These were of course exacerbated by my neurodivergence, but I wouldn't realize that until much later.)

As soon as I reached adulthood and came across personal growth and healing work, I started working on these wounds. It took about twenty years, but I eventually found the combination of modalities, teachings, practices, and community that helped me heal my dysregulation, resolve my attachment trauma and CPTSD, and eventually realize I was neurodivergent. There are still a few things I'm working on, but most of the puzzle feels complete now, and I don't feel broken at all.

Along the way, motivated by the pain I was in, I found a path to an understanding of who I was on a spiritual level. I found my bridge to the transpersonal, and understanding myself as a Soul having a human experience. And that is why, even though I'm sure I haven't healed 100% of my issues, I no longer have any subjective sense of being "wounded". I feel like I am an eternal and immortal Soul, who just happens to be playing the video game of "life on Earth" right now. But nothing that happens here changes who I am.

The bridge goes in both directions

My hypothesis is that the integration of Chiron is about crossing the transpersonal bridge to understand who you truly are—and then bringing through your own perspective on healing to share with others.

For me, the wholeness of Taurus in the 5th is simply being yourself. It is a very uncomplicated placement. And if there is anything I've devoted my life to perfecting (Sun in Virgo), it's the art of just being happy existing. My writing has always been just sharing what has worked for me in that direction, and I aim to do the same with astrology.

Chiron is a teacher, and maybe the lesson is to move through and beyond the wound, to discover your unique path back to an awareness of your Soul. And as you embody your Soul, you become an example of wholeness. And that is how we help others heal. We can't actually heal anyone else, but we can provide an example that it is possible, to inspire them to look for the path themselves.

The path is different for everyone

The commonalities to the Chiron path as I see it are:

• a feeling of being different, and having to find your own path because you can't find anyone who has your unique challenge, impairment, or wound
• a sense of vulnerability that you can't cover up or avoid—it's just always there, asking you to face it
• the need to develop self-compassion and self-love, to be with the feelings of pain and to embrace the parts that are wounded, to bring love to the broken places
• a dropping of judgment toward the wound, or the self for carrying the wound
• the challenge of not identifying with the pain and woundedness, but developing a strong sense of Self outside the wound, that can offer healing to it
• to truly become intimate with the pain, to drop the defenses to it, to no longer see it as a problem, but rather a part of you to be loved and treated with tenderness
• through encountering your basic human frailty, the development of compassion for every human who also suffers, which begins to form a bridge beyond your personal self and story
• the growing awareness that you are more than your human existence, and a shifting of the seat of your identity to your deeper Self

Chiron is the teacher or guide that can help you find your own road, and it's placement and aspects can give you clues as to what direction to walk in. At a minimum, you can look to your Chiron placement (by sign and house), its ruler, and any inner planets it aspects to start understanding your own Chiron path.

(If you read this and have any thoughts, feel free to let me know!)

Chiron transits

When Chiron transits your chart, its purpose is to bring up unhealed material related to where the transit occurs in your chart. Chiron retrograde periods are also commonly periods of healing and renewal, so pay attention to where any retrograde is going to be moving through your chart.

Here is what Chiron might surface to heal when transiting a planet in your natal chart:

• Sun wounds to self-esteem, creative expression, identity, purpose
• Moon emotional wounds especially related to childhood, mother figures, security needs, comfort
• Mercury communication issues, learning difficulties, mental blocks
• Venus relationships, self-worth, intimacy, affection, beauty, sensuality
• Mars assertiveness, anger, motivation, masculinity
• Jupiter faith, optimism, abundance, belief systems, hope/hopelessness
• Saturn taking responsibility, self-discipline, fear of failure, authority issues, boundaries, the structure of your life, time
• Uranus trauma arising from shocking events, individuality, freedom, embracing change, alienation
• Neptune spiritual wounds, escapism, delusion, not wanting to be on Earth
• Pluto power struggles, control, manipulation, sexuality, shadow work
• North Node anything blocking your life path or evolution forward
• South Node past life karma, releasing old patterns

And here's what kind of material to expect will arise when it moves through a house (which can take anywhere from 2 to 8 years depending on retrogrades). Be sure to check both your Placidus and Whole Sign House as they may be different.

• First House self-image, identity, body, courage, assertiveness
• Second House self-worth, money issues, embodiment, survival
• Third House having a voice, being understood, learning difficulties, siblings or neighbors
• Fourth House emotional issues, feeling unsafe or unloved, inner security, parents
• Fifth House creative blocks, romance, inner child wounds, fear of spotlight
• Sixth House burnout, meaningful work, daily habits, diet, physical health, stress, pets
• Seventh House commitment, codependency, imbalanced relationships, projection, conflict, compromise
• Eighth House karmic contracts, power, betrayal, intimacy, inheritance, debt, death, shadow work
• Ninth House belief systems, nihilism, hopelessness, dogmatism, cultural outsider experiences, spiritual crises, higher education, travel, relationships with teachers or mentors, spiritual abuse
• Tenth House fear of failure, authority issues, taking responsibility, reputation, leadership, status, ambition, needing external validation
• Eleventh House friendship networks, planning for the future, group dynamics, social rejection, alienation
• Twelfth House subconscious material, isolation, addiction, existential fear, dreams/nightmares, psychic abilities, compassion & empathy, surrender, escapism, delusion, disillusionment