Chiron: Healing Through Bridging & Weaving

‘Sagittarius’ – Oleg Denisenko

The spiritual journey contrary to popular belief is not necessarily a simple one-way ticket forward, there and done. Chiron as a principal of healing reveals a process far more wholesome, involving a looping or a coming full-circle. Both representing our deepest wounds and our capability to rise above them, Chiron references a point where great healing exists in potential depending on how much we acknowledge and investigate our woundedness. The journey downwards into our discomfort and scars and backwards into our wounded past and cellular memories directly correlates to the journey forwards into an improved and resplendent future and upwards into higher realms of greater bliss. It is the conscious awareness of it all, the whole, including the grotesque, not shoving any of it away but accepting that bestowes the greatest healing opportunity; the awakening of compassion. This union and coming full-circle between painful wounding and joyful overcoming is the transcendental capability that exists in potential within the human heart. The act of transcending duality through understood & conscious spiritual sacrifice is what makes Chiron the master-healer and shaman; His greatest proficiency is in wielding the unconquerable force of unconditional Love.

For many of us the Chiron principal as a symbol may not have first presented itself through astrology or Greek legend, but through cultural born religion. The symbol of the crucifix and the act of sacrifice and healing exemplified through the life of Jesus is a perfect depiction of the Chiron principal of love and compassion in action. Christ’s story of being crucified as an act of compassionate sacrifice for the good of all people (even the low – like those who crucified him) is not unlike Greek legend where Chiron elects himself to replace Prometheus on the rock. Prometheus suffers a kind of mythical eternal torture, having his liver constantly re-eaten by ravens while tied to a rock as punishment for giving the power of divine fire (wisdom) to mankind. Chiron out of compassion and empathy for Prometheus makes a deal to release his imprisonment by replacing his position, thus putting himself down there. Zeus, touched by Chiron’s act of love immortalizes him in the stars (as Sagittarius) thus he is raised up there. Jesus similarly died out of compassion and went to hell down there, was ascended and raised to heaven up there. Full-circle. The Buddhist concept of bodhisattva accepts the similar exemplification of compassion through an enlightened master (one merged with heaven, inside) reincarnating endlessly (in the world, outside) in the service of uplifting the most downfallen before returning home. In all cases unconditional love & compassion is acted through full-spectrum diving in and out between widely varying dimensions, upper & lower worlds, true shamanism. It is again the weaving in-between and communing with both the angels and devas of the upper-worlds and the beasts and “haunted houses” of the lower worlds that makes Chiron’s healing work transcendental; The environment is not a symptom of his worthiness (oh look, he’s in hell, he must of done something bad!- No), rather, his Love and perception that All is divine is the vehicle through which he transcends every environment into perpetual bliss.

‘Prometheus’ – Jean Delville

To become totally honest with ourselves and our reality means to admit that we all have been wounded to some degree. But it is exactly that fact that awakens our hearts into acts of service and compassion. Most of our arrivals (birth) wasn’t a trauma-free experience, many of us possess memories and residue of some nature that reminds us that life hasn’t always been a constant situation we’ve joyfully laughed at and clicked our heels together about. Yet, while it is very easy to drive these parts away, or pretend these things don’t happen, turning away from the misery that can seem too awful to bare, there are rewards to being an observant and sensitive human being on this planet. It is said that only a human can be a shaman, can travel between all three worlds. The centaur itself is a symbol of human-nature being divided into different dimensions, possessing both godly intelligence and animal desires. Chiron again was revered amongst both gods (unusual for a centaur) and men for having overcoming this paradoxical struggle and becoming a master teacher of many various healing arts including astrology. So, there is good hope for us! Chiron, our brave wounded healer, wasn’t left to just rot! In fact, an amazing lesson is foretold: By plunging into darkness, light is brought there, healing happens, invention happens, fearlessness & mastery is born.

The opportunity of being a human being on a planet where such a wide-spectrum of experiences occurs is an awakening of the heart. When we look into the suffering of the world, or go deep into our own residue, our scars and shadows and really sense them out, really surrender to what’s there – not in a self-sacrificing self-mutilating, writhing and toiling in misery kind of way, but just letting go consciously (like meditation) into the innocence of experience, pleasant or not, just seeing what the inner-child says hurts – light is brought there, we become ultimately refreshed. We may feel like it’s too much and we need more time, or extra help – that is beyond totally acceptable – but we need to know that our gift of healing each other begins with ourselves and we cannot grant that gift until we take into consideration what it is we are healing. The spiritual journey is really inseparable from our own self-healing. Contrary to popular belief such a journey is not necessarily a simple one-way ticket forward, there and done. Similarly to how when we extend a warm hand of compassion to someone suffering down there thereby lifting them up here – to where we stand, we need to extend this same warm hand of compassion to ourselves, to whatever wounded child still remembers, to whatever lingering impressions needs attention – and hear them out! We can be the nurturing & guiding parents to our own inner-child. This bridging between the past and the future, bridging and fusing together of dimensions is the healing alchemy of Chiron. Just as the centaur-planet dives between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, transcending space, time and karma, unconditional Love is the unconquerable force which overcomes all forms of imprisonment and repeated patterns of suffering within ourselves and without in the world at large.