Chiron – The Wound or the Healer?

Vanessa Montgomery

In this episode, Tony is joined by Vanessa Montgomery to talk all things Chiron. We look at the general meaning of Chiron and talk about Chiron’s transit in Aries, Chiron returns, the 1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, gender pronouns and more…

Chiron – The Wound or the Healer? Transcript

Tony Howard: Well, hello, and welcome to this episode of The Astrology University podcast, I’m really excited to have Vanessa Montgomery with us from Australia today to talk about Chiron. I’m really excited to have this chat with you, Vanessa. So thanks for joining me.

Vanessa Montgomery: Thank you for having me, Tony, I’m really excited too.

TH: So my first question for you is, what made you wanna talk about Chiron with me today?

VM: Okay, so I did ask you what are people most interested in that you’re seeing because you’re dealing with so many students. And one of the top picks was Chiron and I thought that was really interesting because it’s a planet that I use a lot myself. I literally trained at the Chiron Center, it was called.

TH: Wow, wow, that’s very interesting. Is Chiron a big deal in your natal chart?

VM: It is, so that was interesting too. It’s exactly conjunct my moon in Aries.

TH: Oh, wow, there you go.

VM: I’m coming up for my Chiron return. And of course, Chiron has gone into Aries, so I thought, oh, it’s time that I had a really close look at what’s happening out in the world and correlate it to Chiron, rather than just look at it in the charts that I do. And I’ve already started to see the themes. I was like, yeah, let’s hone in on this one. And I know it’s a planet that not everyone uses. You don’t really use it, right?

TH: I look at it, I don’t use it unless I hear a Chiron story from a client. And they’ve brought that straight up and it’s really obviously a Chiron type of story. And for our listeners out there, Vanessa will tell us a little bit about how she’ll describe a Chiron story. But if I hear of an especially Chiron story, and I see that Chiron is for instance, conjunct the moon like in your chart, I definitely will talk about it, but in a one-off session with a client where we just have an hour and a half, if it’s not directly tied into the chart in a profound way like that, I won’t always talk about it.

VM: Yeah, I will say the same. It depends on the charts as well. And again, yeah, you hear from what people are saying, you hear in their language themes, don’t you, and archetypes so you go into that.

TH: Totally. The way I do work with people is I let them guide me into what we’re gonna talk about. So we start by talking about what brought them in. And we go from there, and there’s always something, right? Even if somebody says, “I’m just interested in astrology,” there’s always a reason that they wanted to talk to you.

VM: Yes, they have a question. And also with the transits even if Chiron itself isn’t in a major position in their chart, if they’re having Chiron square their sun or conjunct their sun or something like that, or on the angles as well, I’ll bring that up unless they’ve already brought it up. Just to have a look at that.

TH: And I think for me, it was just something that I put off studying for a while. It was something I put off to learn until later. And then after studying about Chiron with Melanie Reinhart, as it so often happens, when you learn about something, then if you’re already working with clients, the people will show up with those charts that are just perfect.

VM: Oh, it’s crazy.

TH: I know. And so as soon as I actually felt like I understood something about Chiron, I had this close friend who told me this story that was just like a dead ringer Chiron story and that’s what really got me… Really piqued my curiosity. Yeah, so set up, I guess, a little bit of the archetypal build for people who don’t know much about it.

VM: What is Chiron?  The archetype, you can sort of understand it through the myth about Chiron. So he was a centaur, very gifted in everything, and then he was wounded. There’s a couple of stories. One was that he dropped a poisoned arrow accidentally on his Achilles heel. And the other is that Hercules accidentally, who was one of his students, accidentally shot him with it. So from that, we understand that it’s about a part of us that is wounded. Accidentally though, not on purpose. Usually in childhood or something from youth.

And so then, Chiron goes on this healing journey and he can’t heal himself, even though he’s so gifted, so he ends up swapping places with Prometheus, who’s been chained to a rock. As you do back in Greek myth times, and he’s in perpetual pain, Chiron can’t die because he’s immortal, so he swaps places with Prometheus. So Prometheus can be relieved of the pain and Chiron can transcend through a certain death and he goes up to become a constellation and a guardian at Olympus.

VM: So from that we see that there’s some sort of life transcendence and there’s also something to do with helping other people or surrendering somehow. Yeah, transcending, I would say, and I always see it as it’s very AA. I’ve never been to AA because I don’t really drink, but when I was writing my book that came to me about Chiron, so I started Googling about it. And it turns out that there’s this mentor system and it’s actually the mentor that gets the most benefit, interestingly. The mentoree may fall back off the wagon, but the mentor doesn’t, and that to me is part of that Chiron journey.

So we learn by experience about the specific thing that we’ve struggled with, and where we’re hurt or wounded, and that’s why it’s the healing journey. Maybe we can’t entirely heal ourselves until we start helping other people with it because we recognize it, like we totally recognize it ’cause we’ve been there. So that’s very shamanic, and shamanic being it’s a path that you don’t learn at school, you learn it by experience. And yeah, therefore, you help other people and, in doing so, you also help yourself. It’s quite reciprocal. That’s my idea of Chiron.

TH: Well said. I mean to me, I think it really spells out what some of the key points are for me because when I first heard about Chiron, I’d always hear people talk about the wounded healer, and talk about a place where they felt wounded in their chart. And it wasn’t until I took in the whole myth, as you just described it, that I got it’s not just about being wounded, it’s about helping others, it’s about a healing process, and it’s about being a mentor or a teacher for others as well. And that’s where I’ve really gotten some interesting lines of inquiry with clients.

VM: Yes, well, I just thought of something for you, actually, but we’ll get back to that. Yeah, so a bit more about Chiron. It has about a 50-year cycle. And it’s very elliptical, so in Aries, where it is now, it’s at its longest run for about eight years, so that’s becomes now a generational signature of which, you, Tony, and I belong to.

TH: Yeah, me at the early end. I’m two degrees, two degrees Chiron in Aries. And you must be at the far other end.

VM: Oh, thank you so much, Tony. I’m actually at nine degrees.

TH: Oh, okay.

VM: I’m not that far behind you. It’s in orb, and it’s all over your natal Chiron right now. It’s in orb of mine. So I’m definitely starting to see the archetype, which is, well, it’s like, I really need to drill down into this, which has really helped, actually.

So it’s got a 50-year cycle. We’re all gonna start seeing themes like Arian archetypal themes. So what are those Aries themes? It’s fire, it’s anger, it’s self. So there’s wounding to those things, and I have to say I’m in Australia, and it is literally on fire right now. I’m looking out the window and there’s smoke everywhere. And it’s been a month or more already. There’s so many fires.

So I think the last sign Chiron was in was Pisces and we had a lot of issues with water and ocean pollution, and it brought our awareness to a lot of those things. Also bullying, our mental health, all the sensitivity sort of stuff. Now, in Aries, I think we’re gonna get heat and fire issues, and of course, it’s the god of war. So, there’s gonna be battles. And I think the other thing, it’s very personal, like Aries is me, me me me. So there’s going to be issues around that, like what is me and anything that’s been repressed starts to come up for healing, well, not repressed, just wounded.

And I think that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a lot of… As well as, I mean, astrology’s holistic in its other influences. But I think this is one of them, and it’s just gonna start, well, it is starting to max now. Is women rising, and being angry and… Because that Aries part of women has been so repressed, so it needs healing. And with men, it’s like, “Well, what does that say about my masculinity then?”

Everyone has to kind of address these thems and with the changes to one affects that other. And Aries is… It’s not gendered and those sort of masculine traits that Aries represents, they’re not gendered. So if they’ve been divvied up, it’s gotta come up. And I think that’s part of what we’re seeing.

TH: Yeah, like if you’ve suppressed your own ability to assert your will, or if it’s been suppressed by someone else, and then you get to reclaim it, that process is just, it’s not like everybody’s just happy about it when you start doing that.

VM: No, it’s tough. Yeah, and especially for women. Well, I have got that Chiron in Aries and an Aries moon so I suppose it’s something I’ve been aware of my whole life and I’ve never really bought into it. And you do get a big slap back for being a certain way. Like I think really strong Aries women have had quite a road to travel, to be themselves in their own way.

So I always support the little Aries girls. Yeah, it’s a really interesting one to start to really see this coming up now, I find. And it’s also on the back of Uranus having been in Aries, like that’s really just gone into Taurus, finally, earlier this year. So we’ve already had, what, seven years of these Aries themes, which is strong women, all the super hero movies, super heroes I think are so Aries, and the feminist wave coming, but now it seems to be really, really driving home.

TH: Yeah, that’s such an excellent point about having Chiron going into Aries right after Uranus just spent so much time in Aries. I love putting transits into contexts like that. And I wrote a blog post back in around 2011 called Uranus in Aries and the Lone Shooter and that story of the kind the person just kind of losing it and going into a movie theater and shooting people, which is a horrific story. But that story, it just became the theme for the whole time Uranus was in Aries. And I like to think that as Chiron goes into Aries, we’ll get to have some healing around that in some way, in some form. And luckily we have a few years to work on that.

VM: We do. And isn’t it interesting that Aries is the one where we get the most time with? So Libra being a year or something, that’s it. But that’s interesting you say that with America’s gun control laws and all that sort of thing, like I imagine this is gonna be really heating up. It already kind of is, isn’t it?

TH: Well, I think that what we might see during this time is some actual action taken, like I said, towards healing, because one of the biggest groups that was inspired to take action were these young people after the Parkland shooting. And those kids are still out there working really hard.  The fire was lit inside them and they haven’t stopped, they’re still out there working for gun control laws and they’re not gonna stop, in my opinion. That was such a formative moment for them and so deeply inspiring and they’re just pushing and pushing and pushing.

And our politics in our country are complicated, but there’s a vast majority of people in support of gun control laws that we don’t have and it’s a really small number of people and politicians that are preventing those changes from taking place. So I really do think that we’re gonna see some shifts on that level.

VM: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. The gun thing is definitely part of the Chiron in Aries, eight years. For sure and also youth. Aries is a really youthful sign. And so I think it’s part of that youth rising up. Like my little thing that came to me for this is find your firepower.

Find you fire, find your fire, find your firepower. Ignite, yeah, and take action. So yeah, you’re right there. Actually a perfect motive for this kind of thing. And the fact that they’re young as well is really interesting.

So the other thing… What was it? I’ve got a few notes here just to look at. The other thing is Aries is like your individual… I mean, Chiron I think is your individual right to exist for no reason, no reason, except your right to life. That’s it. So I’ll be interested to see what happens with that sort of stuff.

I’ll go to last time Chiron was in Aries was through the ’70s, of course, ’68 to ’76, I think it was. And it’s always so much easier to see what happened last time, and then think, “Oh, yeah, okay. I can see how that next cycle is coming through now.” And it gives us all ideas and of what to try and predict. So I found the battle of the sexes, the tennis match.

TH: That’s great, I remember that, I remember that as a kid, yeah.

VM: Oh, I missed that one, maybe I was, I was a bit young.

TH: That was a big deal, yeah, yeah.

VM: Yeah, well, there was the movie out a couple of years ago, starring Emma Stone, so I watched that and I was like, “This is amazing.” And there were so many… Through the ’70s it was just coming off the back of the ’60s, and you had so many battles happening then, and that was still going obviously. The Civil Rights movement was still pushing on, the gender… Basically equality, because Chiron at that time, because it’s all a bigger picture.

Chiron was opposite Uranus in Libra pushing for change for years and years and then they swapped through signs, Taurus and Scorpio as well. And so this happened in ’73, of course Chiron was opposite Uranus and Pluto at that time. And the USA had their Chiron return that month as well, it was an American thing. So I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, I think that’s major, it’s major. It changed things. Reformed women’s sport, pay, all sorts of things. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s awesome, do. And it just illustrates what was happening at the time. Looking back, it’s so… A lot of those things… It’s so cringe-worthy to see how backward we all were and what we’ve had to come through. And I think that obviously those fights are still on in certain ways and we’ve come so far, which is awesome, but it’s still not balanced.

TH: Totally.

VM: And I guess now it’s not opposite Uranus in Libra, so it’s slightly different. It’s gonna be squaring up with all that Capricorn. I won’t go into that now. We’ll stick to the Chiron stuff but it just, it does change the flavor, I think.

So of course, countries… I do think our looking at countries, both charts are really interesting, and although I’m not American, America has such impact on so many countries and we get so much media and movies and everything our whole life. So it’s interesting to look at what’s happening…

TH: And are you using the Sibley chart for Uranus?

VM: It’s the Sag rising.

TH: Yeah.

VM: Yeah, with Chiron in the fourth. And America has… Chiron is significant, it squared the sun as well. I won’t go into it. It’s just interesting to note, though.

TH: Right, so, yeah, Chiron being a big deal in the US chart, so that when there was a Chiron return it would make sense that an event like that took place in the culture.

VM: Yeah, yeah, interesting. So the other thing that I looked at the time that sort of came to me and I thought, “Oh, I wonder what was happening then? What’s the correlation?” So I looked up the Rocky Horror Picture Show movie.

TH: Oh, wow.

VM: Which was in 1975 that it came out and I thought, “I wonder, Richard O’Brien, I wonder what his chart is, I’ll just have a look.” Because it was quite significant and continues to be the longest running movie, basically, of all time, it’s still running. And so of course Richard O’Brien is an Aries.

When I did the Neptune sign of the times and looked at people that were, what would you say, zeitgeist, they were really part of the zeitgeist, they, Neptune was hitting their sun or their sun or moon was in the sign that Neptune was in at the time, so often, but it seems like a few planets can bring out that flavor.

So yeah, Richard O’Brien had that Aries vibe. And then Tim Curry with that curly hair. He’s quite Arien. Or like an Aries, I wonder if he’s an Aries, looked him up. And of course, not only is he an Aries sun, Chiron was exactly conjunct his sun, by transit when the movie first premiered, like exact.

TH: Woah, that’s a good one.

TH: Yes. That’s a good one, so it embodied that…

TH: I think you might be on to something.

VM: I am on to something! I got so excited, but I’m like, oh, this is how I research, I just kind of go, “Oh, oh, oh.”

TH: You have that awesome Sag insight that just flashes with insight. I love it.

VM: It makes it fast, which is good. So yeah, Tim Curry, I thought it was really interesting with… Also Neptune was in a gender bending sign of Sagittarius at the time, like now, it’s in Pisces and we’ve got the fluidity. So same thing, that mutability. So we’re looking at identity, again, and we’re looking, like the whole pronoun thing is massive, like who saw that coming? And you know, it needs to happen.

Rocky Horror addresses that right on the head. And these guys really represented… So Richard O’Brien is really gender fluid, like he’s like non-pronoun really. So he did something that was extremely personal with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And I’ve got a little quote that he said, at the time, he’s English, and at the time, glam rock really came out of England and so its got that glam rock vibe.

He said, “Glam rock allowed me to be myself more.” So he was really expressing himself and what he was all about in that movie. And this kind of again, we’re seeing this repeat, and it’s that Chiron in Aries of, who am I? Let yourself be who you wanna be. And one of the quotes is, “Don’t dream it, be it.”

And because they’ve allowed themselves or he just really put himself out there, and it was true, he wasn’t trying to conform. He did the absolute opposite, and just went for it and it hit the zeitgeist. And I think there’s a really good message in that for people, artists, everyone, just be yourself, it works, it works for you, it works for everyone, because Aries is also about leadership, so you lead by example, and it makes such a big difference to so many people.

VM: And also people that may not have been able to open their mind outside a certain box, of reality, but know it’s not quite right. They sort of see it modelled and it’s like, “Oh, that resonates yes, I didn’t even think of that.” And it allows people to expand and be themselves as well. Very interesting, so this one was particularly insightful.

TH: Yeah, and the film was, like you said for you, and I went to it every weekend as a teenager, very, had a healing potential and impact on many of the people who went to the film and also acted out and got dressed up and performed it, and really, because like you were saying earlier, with Chiron being in Aries, it’s not just the Chiron in Aries, so it’s really easy to express yourself, it’s like, it’s a healing process. Chiron is correlating with the healing process that allows you to express yourself, which should suggest that you have difficulty for some reason, whether it’s been suppressed, repressed or whether you’re wounded in some way, like maybe you tried expressing yourself as a child and you were punished for it, for instance.

And then you held that back, and then, and or you, some more true part of yourself was coming out that society didn’t approve of, for instance, if you dressed like Tim Curry at that time, and you were in Tim Curry’s body, that wasn’t just, it wasn’t like everybody just said, “Oh, that’s a really cool outfit.”

VM: Yeah, exactly. And society really crams these things down our throat with the gender divide, and it’s extreme. I don’t think we realized or have realized how extreme it is until you see it, or look back on things. And yeah, it was just so big.

A quote about the musical, here’s one I found. It said, “it was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality during a time of division between generations, and a lack of sexual difference acceptance.”

And yeah, I just can’t get over how that’s come back again now that it’s back in Aries. You know, it’s just that stamp and part of that cycle of when it’s in Aries. And it’s not something that you would probably have thought of if you were trying to work it out just conceptually without having a look back and then comparing that to what’s happening now, and of course, Neptune in Pisces I think is really helping with that fluidity and blur things out.

TH: Definitely. Yeah, it definitely adds a different tone to the experience than what we had in the ’70s.

VM: Yeah, less glam rock.

TH: Yeah, definitely. It’s got a very different tone. And I was just hearing, I was watching this show on Netflix called Eastsiders that some friends of friends wrote and one of the characters is in his I think late 30s or mid 30s and he’s reflecting on the younger people and how they just don’t want any labels at all, and I think that that experience especially has that Neptune in Pisces flavor, where there’s, I want the ability to be able to morph into whatever I wanna be.

TH: I have a friend who recently adopted they/them pronouns and their experience is that they want to be able to change expression depending on how they feel in the moment or at the time and not be boxed in by any labels. And that to me has that Pisces chameleon kind of vibe.

VM: Yes, I was thinking the same thing, like it’s really turned the dial up on this so much more and it’s like, yeah, it’s like it’s transcended any label, which I think is the ultimate goal, personally, and I’ve wanted to see that happen for so long. And yeah, it is… It’s like, don’t even bother swapping them, just transcend. And when I wrote my book, I was just like, “Oh, I wish I had a word. I wish there was a word,” and hopefully someone can come up with good ones that are just completely new, and completely neutral, just neutral we can all use.

You know, I’d love to use them because I think it’s about, you know, you’ve got to kind of rebrand what gender is, like to get past it you need a different language really that helps to define and create our concepts of reality and ourselves. So even swapping them out, like it’s helpful to play with those things, but ultimately you want to get to that higher, you know, it’s very Pisces or Neptune.

You know, where, yeah, anything is possible, you can be anything and with I think you know on the path to enlightenment, you’ve got to get past all that stuff, it’s just sort of boxing you in and language is a real key to that.

TH: That’s really, you’ve just helped me think of something about they/them and how Neptune-in-Pisces it is on another level too because, you know, they them, is most often used in language as plural.

VM: Yes, which can be confusing because it’s like I’m looking for more people.

TH: Yeah, and that’s one thing that some people describe as having difficulty, like if somebody asks to be addressed using they them pronouns, if somebody expresses difficulty doing that it’s usually one of the first things they’ll say is, “Well, it’s hard for me because I think of that as plural, I don’t think of that as a singular person, but then I think, oh, well, that’s Neptune in Pisces, though, it’s trying to put everybody in the soup together, it’s the collective, right? So…

VM: And there’s an element of confusion ’cause you’re looking for a crew. I hope that we get to another word, you know, I’ll use it, I’ll use it in my writing, like I need one for my career to use, and I’ll help put it out there. So if anyone has anything, let me know.

TH: Right. But I think this younger generation might come up with something cool, I really do.

VM: I hope so, I hope so. The other thing, just getting back to Rocky Horror the final thing, indulging myself ’cause I love it so much, is you know Aries is ruled by Mars, and Mars is in the chart, it’s how you do sex, like it is sexuality to some degree. And so, I think it’s interesting that this is all part of that journey and explains why this happens when Uranus is in Aries, so there is that.

TH: Definitely, yeah, I mean, and Rocky Horror was definitely risque at the time, in a big way. It’s one of the things that contributed to its popularity as a midnight movie, for sure.

VM: Yes, absolutely, and also actually doing things differently, because initially, it didn’t do that great in America, it did great in California, as you would expect, but everywhere else it actually got canned, it got canceled, the premiere in New York was canceled, and some bright spark decided to do something different, like you know it’s blazing trails and doing something new and they started the midnight screenings and they rebranded it, so it went on all red and black with the lips, and you know that’s Aries colors, I guess, and, you know, and the rest is history, basically.

TH: Well, fabulous, really excellent work, thanks for sharing that with us, Vanessa.

VM: You’re welcome. So what else have I got here? Yeah, the identity politics is really, I think, one of the biggest things. I think it’s interesting, things like fight like a girl and stuff like that’s come up on the table for rebranding, like addressing it, because that used to be a way to discourage women, you know, from doing things that you’re not allowed to do. You can’t fight, you can’t protect yourself, you can’t be angry, you can’t be assertive, ’cause then that’s aggressive, and you just get such a slap down for it.

And I remember reading this experiment, like a social studies sort of experiment, they put a baby in the middle of a group, and it was the same baby both times. So one time they dressed it in blue so people thought it was a boy, and it would crawl around and they’re like, “Oh, look at him, he’s exploring, he’s doing such a good job, he’s getting out there, like he’s so brave.” And then they put it in pink, the same baby, and people are like, “Oh, look, she’s really trying, oh,” and it’s all quite like she can’t do it. “Oh, she can’t do it.”

And we’re getting these things from being a baby, which is why it’s so hard to break out of our perceptions of ourselves when it’s mirrored by the perceptions of society and other people, and yeah, it’s a big deal, and for female and male, ’cause whatever, you know, it affects everyone, I think, like no one wins in that game, like no one. So yeah, it’s very exciting times. I think there’s a lot more to happen since we’ve only just started.

TH: Yeah, I mean, we’re just at the beginning of Chiron in Aries.

VM: We’re at the beginning, yeah. So it’s retrograded back to one degree in Aries. I think it goes direct possibly next week or the week after. So, yeah, I think it’s just begun, really.

TH: Oh, that’ll be a great time to release this podcast, then. Yeah, right when it goes direct.

VM: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. We’ll have to look it up. The other thing, so we’ll go into the birth chart with Chiron. So, initially with the Chiron myth, the thing is Chiron was rejected by his parents, and fostered by someone awesome. So that tells us there are themes of rejection, abandonment, literally fostering can be the case, and there’s a real sensitivity as well around whatever the wound is, and I do find that they are things that come up with clients.

And of course, I’ve been attracting quite a lot of Chiron stories since I decided to focus in on it more, as that happens, as you mentioned, which has been amazing, like nearly every person, and extreme, really extreme stories.

And what I’d like to say about that is, I think, with most themes, look at the polarity and turn it around. So recognize where and how you’re abandoning yourself. It’s a real key, to me, and Chiron delivers the key. So it’s all about a key to the chart.

Yeah, where and how are you abandoning yourself when you feel like you’re not fitting in or being rejected? It’s because you’re so super sensitive about it, those things, that you’re probably doing it yourself and how can you just kind of put that aside and go back in. The other thing, of course, is a real sensitivity to, and this is the wounded healer part, other people feeling rejected or abandoned.

And this is what I wanted to come to with you, Tony. You know, your Fresh Voices, and you’ve got a great podcast talking about why you decided to do it and where that came from, and to me that’s a bit of a, well, it’s a Virgo service, but it’s the Chiron, it’s like these people are not, they’re not gonna get a foot in. Like, how can I get them going? Like Chiron in Aries, as you have, is all about getting people going, like initiating and giving them a chance, bringing them into the. And yeah, that’s what came to me when you said about…

TH: Well, it’s interesting the way you said that, ’cause I don’t know if I said that, said this in the podcast, but the moment where the idea really crystallized in me was during a… There was a conference where, for this particular conference, they were allowing the members of the organization to vote on who would get to speak, so it ended up being a popularity contest, as you might imagine, and people who weren’t well known or new speakers, they really didn’t have a good chance of getting voted up because nobody knew their work, whether to know if they even liked it, right?

And there was a person from South America who wrote a really lovely kind of rant, about basically saying what I just said, but from a personal experience of, I really wanted to speak at this conference, and if I’m not, if it’s always a popularity contest, how am I ever gonna get a chance to be seen and have my work experience?

TH: And I was like, gosh, that’s just… Well, I have online businesses and it’s pretty easy for me to build websites, maybe I can create an online forum where we could just have a forum where people like this person can get to speak and that’s… So, it did come from that place of, we need to help somebody who was feeling wounded about it, really, and wounded about their experience. So that’s really interesting.

VM: I think that’s very Chironic, and of course Chiron, although he was gifted at everything, the whole thing was, he was a real teacher and mentor. So in the myths, you know, all the big heroes would be sent as children to Chiron and he would pick out their individual gifts, like the Chiron part of you can see where that gift is. And I think here, particularly according to what sign that is, for you. And mentor them and train them up and get them on their way, so there’s a real support side of it. Yeah, I think that’s so Chiron in Aries, what you did.

TH: Well, that’s interesting, again, you picked up on something else, that I hadn’t thought of, either, which is that, especially in the last Fresh Voices, I offered to mentor anybody who needed it, to boost their confidence and being able to get the courage and being able to speak…

VM: Oh, my God! Yes. And courage, courage and confidence are very the fire, in the Aries, isn’t it? Like to get them to go forth.

TH: Yeah, definitely.

VM: Go! Initiating, it’s new, like it’s fresh, it’s new, that’s Aries.

TH: And we are doing a new set of speakers with every summit, we’re just doing one a year right now, and then we’re also having webinars, ’cause you did a fabulous webinar for us just last month on Neptune.

VM: Yes, on Neptune in Pisces, go watch it.

TH: Well, it’s so good, like Neptune is gonna be in Pisces for quite a while longer, so you can get some juice out of this one for a couple more years at least.

VM: Yeah, learn to work your woo, and max out the magic that he has to offer. So Neptune is at the end of its cycle and Chiron’s just beginning a new one. So they’re always really interesting points as well, in the whole cycle thing. So it’s worth getting on board with those and making the most of them, I think.

TH: Yeah, and Chiron should still be in Aries when Neptune goes into Aries, I guess then?

VM: Just, yeah. They’ll just do a bit of a tag team, so yeah, and then exactly. So and then we’re gonna get this third round of Aries vibes, ’cause we had Uranus, and it really tag teamed with Chiron. And again, yeah, that’s interesting, actually. So it’s gonna go on and on and on, so you may as well keep in touch with it all.

Yeah, that’ll be interesting, the new cycle, when Neptune changes into Aries, and because we’ve done, we will have already done two cycles of Uranus in Aries and now Chiron in Aries, when Neptune goes in, we’re all gonna be kind of primed and a lot of issues will already be worked through, I think, to make, to take, I don’t know, to next level it, I suppose, to transcend with Neptune. It will be interesting, actually. I’m looking forward to that.

TH: Before we go, what do you make, if anything, about the fact that Chiron isn’t a natural part of the solar system, like Chiron came in from outside the solar system, and it’s kind of jumped into the middle, so it’s like right in between some major planets, and it’s weaving together these themes of the planets, that’s an interesting line of inquiry, but what do you think about Chiron coming from outer space into our solar system?

VM: Well, like you just said, the keywords, it came in, it’s like it doesn’t belong. That’s the Chiron theme, isn’t it, like who are you to join these big planets, who are you, you know, but, so I just personally use it as I use all the planets. When Pluto was demoted I just kept using Pluto the same way.

It’s interesting the orbit that they say between… The elliptical orbit between Saturn and Uranus, for sure, and in Aries, it’s like way out near Uranus for its longer part of the cycle. I guess it just makes it more… I don’t really think about that a lot, just a little. It makes it more, I suppose, trans-personal, more it’s gonna really affect society and that change, that change-maker of Uranus is gonna come through harder, I would think.

Which it is. Which it is, and that just that longer time as well. I put a little list down of all the different ages with the signs it’s in. It’s interesting that it moves so quickly through the planet signs around Libra. So there’s this little bunch of people that just, each year, is going to have a different theme, like when they’re at school each year it’s just different. Whereas now these kids getting born, it’s gonna be the rest of or most of next decade coming up, so they’re all gonna be in the same themes, but I just segued out of your question but…

TH: That’s okay. It’s a podcast, we can do that, yeah.

VM: Oh, also the shadow side of what needs to be wounded for men and again look at the polarity, I really wanted to bring this up, was something that’s come up fairly recently, which was the toxic masculinity thing, as well as PTSD, which like everyone seems to have. I was even saying I had it this year for a minute. Yeah, the toxic masculinity thing, which I think in itself is kind of wounding, and it is a thing, for sure.

TH: You mean the phrase itself, you mean the phrase itself?

VM: The phrase itself is really tough.

TH: It’s challenging, yeah, yeah.

VM: It’s very challenging and I could see that if you’re a guy, like that could be very confronting and it could be used to hurt and to wound, actually.

TH: Yeah. And that’s definitely a shadow expression if we’re using it intentionally to wound. But I’m also of the mindset that it’s okay that it’s uncomfortable for guys to work out, ’cause it’s something that we should work out and it’s okay for us to be uncomfortable about the place where we’re at our growth edge. So I’m okay with a certain amount of that, for sure.

VM: But it’s an interesting thing to think about it ’cause it is all about that healing, healing and wounding, and you’ve got to feel it to heal it, they say.

So it’s the stuff that resonates and it’s really uncomfortable, same for women. So looking at the opposite of that in the polarity, well, what are women doing about that with their own… Like, I think if something’s that imbalanced, it means women aren’t owning parts of themselves, or ourselves either, like the Mars stuff. Again, our anger, our rage, our being assertive, creating strong boundaries, things like that, going for what we want. Like it’s going to blow out on the other side, like who has to take that?

And if you don’t sort of put the boundary down and be assertive and say no, you’ve got to take some responsibility for that yourself. And I’m not saying… Like this is a bit controversial, but it’s interesting to look at all the facets of things. So it tells us that we need to step up with our own Aries-ness, which is what’s starting to happen and which is great. But I think it’s really important to not just point the finger, but look what’s the mirror of that for oneself. Really important.

TH: Definitely, yeah. Definitely. And one thing I always like to point out with Aries, and Aries people come to me or if people are having a planet in Aries transit, like an outer planet, that if you set a boundary with somebody… We have this idea, if we’re learning to set boundaries and we start setting boundaries with people we think, “Oh, if I say no or if I set a boundary, everything’s gonna be better for me.” Well, when you tell someone no, and they want it to be yes, it’s gonna create conflict, right?

VM: Absolutely.

TH: So we have to know that that’s part of the process too. Just setting a boundary and stepping into your power, stepping into your courage, stepping into your ability to say no or yes.

VM: Yes.

TH: Then that’s not gonna just lead to easy, happy outcomes with others. And you’re in that process where, like to be courageous in difficult circumstance, courage isn’t like a super easy emotion that you just feel comfortable about, right?

TH: If you’re being courageous in the moment, you’re probably scared shitless.

VM: Yeah, exactly. And if you’re trying to avoid conflict, it’s tough. Like an Aries is about conflict. It’s about like having a little dust up and going, “Hey.” And I think that’s… Yeah, that’s a real key, that’s absolute key.

And for me I’m like, you know, I have Mars in Pisces and I’m not very… Well, I can be assertive, but then I can also have no idea. What does that even look like? How do you be assertive? How do you put a verbal boundary up? Once things get awkward… I know when I did my counseling studies, it was actually very useful, ’cause they were just saying, “Don’t back away from if it’s awkward. Leave a space, don’t try to fill the space. Sit with that uncomfortable awkward vibe and allow things to come up.”

And I think that’s the big key, is yeah, don’t be afraid of the awkwardness, or the confrontation or conflict. And it’s true that a lot of women, I’ll speak for myself, we don’t even know how to do that.

And that’s where it’s really interesting to talk with guys that have been socialized to be able to do it. There was a talk in the Fresh Voices too that I was in by, I can’t remember his name. He was awesome. He was talking about that, and he was saying men have sports, they have places, they have socially sanctioned regular channels to get this stuff out, and get their warrior out. And they’re respected for it, and women often don’t have it. And his point is it can come out as like bitching or things like that. It’s true, it’s all Mars energy and it’s all that Aries energy, and it has to come out.

TH: Must be Nathan Mitchell, ’cause he was talking about Mars.

VM: He was awesome, yeah. And I do think… I had a conversation with someone else recently too, and I’m just, “Yeah.” Like that’s where the guys can get on board and do some modeling, do some role playing, embodying how to do things and actually practicing it, is how you learn to do it. There’s conceptual and then what does that look like and what does that feel like? Have you heard of I don’t know if I’m pronouncing it properly, Krav Maga?

TH: No.

VM: It’s the Israeli self-defense that they teach the army, and it is full-on. And I know the story of a lady that was assaulted quite badly, and she ended up doing a Krav Maga course. It’s developed so that women can do it too, because women have to be in the army in Israel. And it’s so full-on, like it pushed her through all her trauma and she got through it, and to me that’s really Chiron in Aries.

You don’t leave there without at least a black eye. It’s really, really full-on. And I think a lot of women like… We don’t know how to punch someone. We don’t know how to physically protect ourselves a lot of the time. And I think this is all the stuff that’s coming out. So yeah, interesting times. Check out Krav Maga.

TH: Definitely, definitely. Well thanks for sharing that, and thanks for joining me today to chat a bit about Chiron in Aries.

VM: You’re welcome.

TH: We’ll have to do this again. So with that, if you would like to visit Vanessa, or learn more about her online, check out her website, astroallstarz, and that’s stars with a zee or with a zed as they say in Australia. And with that, I’ll say goodbye for now, and I hope to talk to you again really soon, Vanessa.

VM: I hope so too, Tony. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you everyone for listening as well. Get your firepower on.

https://scribie.com/files/f865e6faf78a4c528be35ee5a516a9a45ebed4db

Listen to Vanessa talk about finding your bliss in her talk on Neptune in Pisces

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Cydney Taylor

This is the first time I have had any clue about my north node in Aries – it seems to be conjunct my north node right now). It makes me have more of an idea about the planets in Libra in the first house, also. Thanks for this.

Astrology University

You’re welcome Cydney!

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