Introducing the Myth of Chiron

Discovered on the 1st November 1977 at Hales Observatory in California by Charles Kowal, an astronomer. Chiron behaves very much like a comet. A comet usually comes from beyond the Solar System, and enters into our system, hence its association with a messenger, a forerunner and omen/announcer of news.

Chiron symbolises the need to be aware of greater messages from beyond. Chiron is further referred to as a Maverick, the one that cannot be named nor branded. In mythology Chiron represents itself as half man and half horse and its discovery suggests that perhaps the two realms of Form (represented by the planet Saturn) and Spirit (represented by the planet Uranus) may be the Bridge through the awareness that Chiron is appointed to.

The date of Chiron’s discovery serves to remind us of its message. November 1st is  All Hallow’s Day, based on the Celtic Festival of Samhain, the feast of the dead. The realm between the Earth and the Heavens are the themes in the Chiron story. It highlights the polarities of what is incarnate, mortal and what is spirited, eternal.

Chiron’s wound is to the leg; the animal part of Chiron, the part that touches the earth is injured. It is this laming wound that metaphorically reminds us of a split, a separation between the mortal and the spirit world, the mundane and the divine as well as the collective unconscious, the ‘Weltschmerz’ (‘world-weariness’).

The wound belongs to the greater story of our fate. The Chiron Myth acts as a constant reminder of our vulnerability (Latin Vulnerare = to be wounded, vulnerus = wound).  We are the rainbow bridge, the golden connectors of the Heavens and the Earth, of Spirit and Matter. “As above so below, as within so without.” The wound must be made conscious before spirit can be released.

Often it is through a healing crisis that we awaken to the moment and our potency for self-healing. In myth it was Asclepius who was trained in the healing arts by his mentor Chiron, who created a sacred space, a ‘Temenos’, a temple of healing where patients bathed and fasted before they went to rest in the temple asking for visitation from the Gods of Healing, which came through their dreams. Illness or dis-ease was seen as divine.

The honouring of the body through fasting and nourishment as well as the dream rituals that were designed to stimulate the patient’s own psychic images, the inner healer and self repair were enlivened.

Honoring the dis-ease as a symbolic image of the fracture between soul (Spirit) and ego (Matter), is the process of Chironic awareness and healing.