Do You Want to Live Forever?

Chiron in Pisces:


Do You Want to Live Forever?


Melanie Reinhart mentions in her book “Chiron and the Healing Journey” that a year after Chiron’s discovery the world was shocked by the mass suicide in Guyana with over 900 followers of Reverend Jim Jones. Chiron is associated with matters of death and the idea of the conscious acceptance of our mortality. Death and dying was once an intimate part of our existence. Now it is divorced from our lives while rampant and dysfunctional through entertainment and real life media coverage. Chiron in Pisces may have the role of accelerating the conscious acceptance and awareness of death and our mortality back into our lives. Like shamanic soul retrieval, this may be an important part of our collective healing.





Chiron is a “planetoid”, also thought of as an asteroid but slightly bigger than most asteroids, or possibly it is a trapped comet originating from the Kuiper Belt. If that is so, Chiron may just be a visitor to our solar system, although for how long we have no idea. Chiron has an extremely elliptical orbit, spending much more time in some signs than in others with an orbit around the Sun of between 49 and 51 years. Around 50 years old we have our “Chiron Return”, an important rite of passage for most.


L'Éducation d'Achille par le centaure Chiron. Louvre. Oil on canvas, 1782. Jean-Baptiste Regnault




“Chiron is the planetary symbol for the mythic healer/ teacher. In his story we find a journey of great significance. For his role as shaman/wisdom keeper is not complete until he is confronted with a personal wound that he is unable to heal. Chiron is teacher to many of the mythic Greek heroes. Hercules as his student accidentally wounds Chiron's thigh with an arrow dipped in the poison blood of the Hydra. This blood would kill anything alive except that Chiron was immortal and couldn't die. Instead he receives an incurable wound that leaves him to endless suffering until he decides to relinquish his life and set free the chained titan Prometheus.





In myth, Chiron was the son of Saturn / Chronos / Father time. While in the act of love making with a goddess that was not his wife, Chronos turned into a horse and galloped away to avoid being caught by his approaching wife Rhea. Rhea was not only his wife but his mother. The Great Mother gave birth to Time and embodied as his partner. Later at Chiron's birth, his mother was so shocked to find her son to be part horse (centaur) that she turned herself into a tree because she was unable to deal with the reality of it. She couldn't accept him for who he was as an infant. And his father would have nothing to do with him. This abandonment of the new-born centaur suggests the theme of the wounded child who was subsequently taken on and raised by the sun god Apollo who taught him of his wisdom. So Chiron embodies the aspirations of the sun god, to be all that one can be, to creatively actualize. Yet he also had to face his incurable wound and surrender his attachments to physical embodiment by giving his life to set free Prometheus, the giver of fire (consciousness) to mankind. Thus Chiron had to journey to Hades, Pluto's realm and there come to terms with the Lord of the Underworld to fully realize the ultimate meaning of his life. Upon transcending physical attachment, Chiron was transformed into the star constellation of Sagittarius.” Rahelio





Chiron’s journey to Hades was an initiation that links the wounds (Chiron) to our soul (Pluto). At a deep level, our fear is of death and the questions of mortality and immortality. Chiron’s journey through the last sign of the zodiac gives us a chance to have compassion for our soul wounds, and as Martin Lass said, realizing that the gift is in the wound. The sign of Pisces is two fish, one swimming into the illusions of life, the other swimming back to source. In my favourite Chiron book “Chiron, the Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets”, Barbara Hand Clow says that “When Chiron is in Pisces, there is a crisis over connecting with the God Force, the universal oneness.” If we have somehow lost our direct connection with that which gives us a knowing that this is not all there is, the fears and insecurities of the unknown beyond death pervade.





Many are trying to conquer death. Immortality is the quest, the Holy Grail. Transhumanists want to incorporate technology with biology for extended lifespans. Scientists such as Aubrey de Grey a Cambridge computer scientist turned biologist (biomedical gerontologist) believe that within the next 25 – 30 years we will extend life indefinitely. Apparently Michael Jackson had arranged to be preserved through cryogenics but because of the missed deadline will be embalmed instead. The idea is to be resurrected in some manner, and cloning can be done through the preservation of DNA with the ancient technology used for mummies. State and senate bills are being introduced to ensure guidelines relative to human cloning, not just stem cell research. Although these technologies have been going on for decades, I think we will see much more in the public domain as the Piscean energy moves us to places that astounds the imagination, boggles the mind, and where laws as we understand them no longer make sense.





On a more soulful level, the issues of suicide and assisted suicide, as well as voluntary euthanasia may become more prevalent. And, we may have to deal with large numbers of our population dying from earth changes and warfare. Melanie Reinhart says that since the early nineteenth century, every transit of Chiron through Pisces has seen a major war. And so the deep Piscean wounds of grief and disillusionment are evoked.





Barbara Hand Clow points out that “the level of consciousness raising potential with Chiron work is not possible without a corresponding level of work with Pluto.” While she was referring to the work of both planetary archetypes within the individual chart, I can’t help but feel that the outer manifestation of death reflecting the inner death and rebirth process of our collective unconscious.





A Chiron cycle is about 50 years and will be in the sign of Pisces from 2010 - 2018. The last time Chiron moved into Pisces was in 1960 – 1968. At that time, Pluto was in the sign of Virgo and we experienced Chiron and Pluto in opposition through the 60’s. However, since Chiron was not discovered until 1977, the energy was not at all on a conscious level in the collective, even though the millions of people born during that time frame have that opposition in their chart, including President Barack Obama. Pluto opposite Chiron brings transformative awareness to the subconscious, and life is anything but superficial as this generation may be coming very aware of the individual and collective work that is being done. This is the group moving into power and many are reincarnated healers from times perhaps before the patriarchy.





Astrology with Melody.com