Star Struck Style

I’m going out with my friend Tracy today. Years ago, we were roommates. I was waiting on tables back then while attending university, and she was a hairstylist. Strangely, we both ended up becoming astrologers.

She knows a lot more about asteroids than me. As astrologers, we all have our specialties. Mine is the relationship between the birth chart and the conscious construction of a public image. Hers is something else — I’m not sure what.

I’m kidding! She does a lot of cool things. I know that she’s been into asteroids lately, especially Pallas. I’ve never spent a lot of time studying the asteroids. Only when I experienced my Chiron return did I pay any attention to these heavenly bodies.

Chiron is located between Saturn and Uranus. Astronomers currently classify it as both a minor planet and a comet. In astrology, Chiron is known as “the wounded healer” after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology. The myth of Chiron is also associated with Sagittarius. I discuss the topic briefly in my new book. If you haven’t bought it yet, that’s your problem.

But I digress! In the birth chart, Chiron represents the potential to develop healing powers to cope with spiritual wounds. As such, it is symbolized by a key. Only when we unlock the issues affecting our self-esteem do we learn to rise above them.

Cafe Astrology offers some interesting perspectives on the asteroid. This interpretation for Chiron in the fifth house resonates with me:

“You are easily deflated due, probably, to parents who told you that you could not do ‘that’ – though you would have known that you could. There will be a need to draw boundaries for ego survival.”

I do find it curious, however, that Cafe Astrology assigns prominence to Chiron in the signs. It was in Pisces when I was born, opposite both Uranus and Pluto in Virgo. That’s a generational aspect if I’ve ever seen one. Everyone born in 1965 and 1966 is going to share it. I don’t understand how that would take prominence over house position.

Yet I do understand how learning to deal with ‘that’ was the biggest challenge of my life. I always wanted to do creative things and I was always thwarted. It took me a long time to rise above the criticism.

The most interesting thing that I’ve learned about Chiron, however, is the power of its return to its natal position. As I mentioned above, my Chiron return made me reconsider the importance of the asteroids in general. When it happened to me, I started to become nicer to people who possessed ideologies different than my own. My own fear of rejection made me realize that it probably wasn’t a great idea to be arrogant and judgmental in the face of people I couldn’t understand. How could I expect others to behave graciously toward me if I couldn’t offer them the same consideration? I’d say it was a breakthrough. I didn’t exactly lose my fear of rejection, but I stopped rejecting others at face-value. That probably makes me sound pretentious, but the fifth house is a pretentious place. In the grand scheme of things, it’s the house of the zodiac related to fashion and the conscious construction of a public image. It’s also related to grace and graciousness in general.

Anyway, Chiron goes direct today. It spends about half the year retrograde, so these planetary stations are probably more important to note than the retrograde cycle itself. It is still in my fifth house, so of course I’m pondering just how far I’ve come on this journey as I try to figure out how I’m going to promote by book without being overcome by my fear of rejection. For the rest of you, a day like this may provide you with a little insight into your own psychological wounds. Pay attention to what irks you today. Take a moment to evaluate your own well-being. You probably have a sore spot — a wound that hasn’t healed because you don’t even realize that you’ve been hurt. You can’t slap a bandage on it if you don’t even know it’s there. It took me fifty years to figure that out.