Chiron & the North Node in Aries: lessons on the wound
If you’re feeling raw, tender, exhausted, inflamed, weakened and/or extremely emotional, say hello to the energy we need to embrace, and even love, over the course of this month
As February begins, Chiron and the North Node are edging towards a conjunction in Aries. They meet on Feb. 19th at 16° Aries, with the aspect in effect all month.
This is the first big astrological alignment of 2024, but unlike the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in April or the Jupiter/Saturn square dominating the end of the year, neither Chiron or the North Node are technically “outer planets”. The North Node is a mathematically calculated point that functions more like a portal than an actual planet. And Chiron is a centaur, a much smaller celestial body with an elliptical orbit. That means this aspect is more subtle than what’s to come, happening on energetic and karmic levels rather than in the material realm. Knowing what’s going on can help us work in harmony with the shift, instead of avoiding it or fighting against it.
That’s especially important because of the unique alchemy of the two archetypes. Chiron in particular tends to create situations in which it’s almost impossible not to react unconsciously or impulsively — because it hurts. The pain is sometimes physical, but just as often emotional, energetic or spiritual.
No matter what form it takes, though, Chiron’s presence follows some basic principles of physical pain. It’s sensitive to any kind of stimulation, has the potential to siphon our attention, and is often an area of life, mind or body which we would rather numb or dissociate from than hold in presence. This is not weakness; it’s the nature of the wound. Understanding Chiron’s archetype gives us important clues on how to practice care and acceptance around our wounds, even ones that don’t seem to ever heal.
The North Node, meanwhile, asks us to lean in, to evolve or grow in a certain direction. It asks us to fill shoes that are a little too big, to expand past an edge of comfort or familiarity. Both archetypes ask for patience and compassion — a lot easier to extend outward, usually, than to apply to ourselves. Together, Chiron and the North Node are a cosmic invitation to love the wound.
Chiron is an archetype I’ve developed a deep relationship with during my astrological study. He’s commonly known as mythology’s “wounded healer”. But the term is too simplistic — in particular, because we tend to conceive of it with a certain narrative linearity that is actually incorrect. We like the idea that the wound comes first, and then, through the process of healing the wound, the healer emerges. We like to imagine an “other side” with no more pain.
But Chiron’s mythology defies this optimistic narrative. He is a healer before he’s wounded, in fact a renowned teacher and the mentor to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, among other important figures. His wound comes from friendly fire: a poison arrow shot by the human Heracles, aiming at other centaurs, hits Chiron in the leg. None of his healing techniques can reverse the poison, and in the end he gives up his immortality, choosing death because the pain in his leg is so great.
In the natal chart, Chiron is almost always a point of struggle. It can be a place in life where we just can’t get it right, where we seem to make the same mistakes or have the same bad luck again and again. Or, it can be a built-in circumstance that feels like a deficit, such as a chronic illness or other disability, or a traumatic childhood. Ultimately, we do have great healing potential wherever Chiron is located, but it takes time to develop, typically until we are initiated during the Chiron return, around age 50. Wherever it’s transiting, Chiron invites old wounding up to the surface of our consciousness for integration.
Both natally and by transit, Chiron is a sensitive spot, a touchy subject. Like any wound, it’s tender, and even the lightest or most well-intentioned prodding can cause us to retract and/or lash out. We do better when we approach Chiron with patience, compassion, and low expectations. The advice I always give is: don’t try to run on a broken leg. Respect your wound. Don’t try to rush your soul’s healing.
Chiron has been in Aries since 2018. The North Node entered last July. Although their themes are overshadowed by Pluto’s current big moves, I believe these transits are asking us to get to the heart of who we really are.
One manifestation of Chiron in Aries is the rise in queer/trans voices since 2018, as well as the backlash against them (for more on Chiron as a queer/trans archetype, check out my ebook, or this semi-cringe video from my now-defunct YouTube channel). There’s also a connection to the crisis of masculinity and patriarchy, manifesting as grotesque gym bros like the Liver King and horrificly toxic influencers like Andrew Tate; yet also as the healing of the masculine happening in the queer and polyamorous communities, which have been rapidly expanding since 2018.
Even deeper, there’s the question for all of us of what we stand for, how we use our fire, how we claim our personal needs. Wherever Aries lies in your natal chart is an area of life where you are called to show up in a bold, courageous and singular way. You need autonomy here, and space to act on impulse. You are more attuned to your own needs in Aries than anywhere else in your chart, and you don’t do the world any favors by not claiming them.
On the other hand, Aries is a flamethrower. If you have a personal planet here, you know: use your fire without full consciousness, and you can accidentally burn shit down. There’s a balance to strike between immediacy/urgency/impulsivity, and the stillness of the skilled hunter, who waits in silence for hours, springing to action only at the exact right moment.
Chiron’s long journey through Aries has been drawing these themes of identity and power and dominance to the surface of our lives. Since the North Node showed up here six months ago, we’ve been asked to fully embrace this energy. The North Node is a nudge from the universe into an unfamiliar edge. In Aries, it’s saying that we’d better overcome our fears about rocking the boat. If you’ve felt more called than ever before to speak up anyway — even though it hurts — you are riding the cosmic wave.
This month, as Chiron and the North Node come together, we get an interesting alchemy of energies: a wound with which we should be very delicate, and a call to embrace, lean in, and feel more of that same psychic territory. Given the already-wide-open wound in the part of the human soma that is Gaza, it’s ominous. But for those of us whose physical bodies are safe, there is a chance for new levels of coherence and honesty.
Look to your own wound: your own natal Chiron, your own mid-Aries, or just your own intuitive sense of your most tender soul spot. Don’t pretend the pain isn’t there. Don’t ignore whatever resentment, frustration, embarrassment or grief you hold along with it. Instead, let your wound come to the surface. Allow Chiron to suture it, integrating past with present, mind with body, love with fear. Trust the process, and don’t expect perfection from yourself. Don’t try to run on the broken leg.
In mythology, centaurs other than Chiron (and sometimes Pholus) are characterized as dirty, bestial bad actors. Chiron, whose father is human, was raised in the human world and trained to rise above his beastly nature. But his mortal wounding by a human’s arrow (in a chaotic scene arguably caused by human lack of control, not a cenatur’s) demonstrates that even Chiron could never be fully human. He was always an outcast of sorts, with the rest of the centaurs pushed even further to the fringes of society. In that sense, he actually does have an a priori wound.
I’ve never seen anyone questioning this characterization of the centaurs as out-of-control animals, deserving of their marginalization. But maybe — as we are reaching new awareness of who is writing our narratives, and how groups of “others” come to be defined — it’s time.
I believe the centaurs represent parts of ourselves that are outcast. As cross-species individuals, they require a consciousness that goes beyond binary thinking, an ability to hold both/and versions of truth. In the chart, they speak to our generational trauma, our hidden addictions and shameful secrets. They also represent portals for cycle-breaking and even soul-retrieval. Just as their elliptical orbits cut through the orbits of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the centaurs help us integrate — or suture — disparate parts of our psyches.
Yet the centaurs have largely been left behind during the past few decades of astrology’s rapid expansion. Many astrologers have a surface level understanding of Chiron, but know nothing of Pholus, Nessus or the other centaurs, or of centaurs as a class. In this way, Chiron is a token, the “civilized” centaur being used to pay lip service towards the shadow work represented by centaurs while the field of astrology collectively avoids the real work: a deep exploration of these archetypes, and their reminder of what is taboo, outcast and marginalized within us, both as individuals and as a society.
I propose that we stop taking at face value the description of centaurs as inherently bad actors. After all, those who exist on the fringes of our society — the houseless, the incarcerated, the addicted, the disabled, those whose gender expression doesn’t fit the binary — are not there because they are inherently lesser. They are there because society pushed them there. They are there because, for so long now, we have been unable to face our own wounds.
In American society in particular, where all these issues are reaching a boiling point, the centaurs have potent medicine for helping us integrate the reality of what we’re up against. The more quickly we can bring the outcast parts of our psyches into the light, the more quickly we can access their wisdom, and the more courageously we can face the wound in the world around us.
We can begin by discarding narratives that define groups of others, or othered parts of ourselves, as incapable of redemption. We can question the whole act of othering, of dehumanizing, of separating, of taking sides. We can remember that such narratives are written by oppressors (in the case of mythology, the humans), and necessarily omit the fuller reality described by the oppressed (the centaurs). We can dig more deeply into the context surrounding our wounds, our ancestral trauma, the out-of-control areas of our minds or lives. We can ask ourselves what shadows and shame we’ve been hiding, what parts of ourselves we can now invite out and hold with compassion.
In this moment of horrific, livestreamed genocide and a feverishly propagandized American public, it’s more urgent than ever for us to question and uproot dangerously dehumanizing narratives. In early February, the New York Times published an editorial by Thomas Friedman with a headline that makes my hair stand on end: “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom”. In it, he compares the United States to a lion, Arab countries and resistance groups to parasitic wasps, and Hamas to a trap-door spider. The mainstreaming and normalization of this fascist dehumanizing rhetoric is stunning, and terrifying.
In reality, the militant American state is a menacing animal of proportions the world has never known before. The militant American state is the hidden, outcast, suppressed energy of America’s original karmic debt, its bloody and genocidal origins, made manifest. This energy is truly out of control. If there’s any hope of reigning it in, it will come with first seeing through the lies of racism and white supremacy — in this case specifically against Arabs and Muslims — that permeates the American worldview.
If Chiron’s conjunction to the North Node becomes a peak in collective grief, and in wounding to the collective soma, may it also heal us with heavy but grounding integration. May our eyes be opened wider to what we’ve been hiding from, and what’s been hidden from us. May we fully accept what we’ve been resisting, pain and all. May we find the stamina to breathe with the wound, to acknowledge the way it’s lodged in every nervous system, every human heart, and to let our entire beings be alchemized by it. May Chiron guide us through the evolutionary passage the North Node invites, and may we rise to the occasion, fulfilling soul promises we made lifetimes before.
While mainstream astrology has not embraced centaurs, there are people doing good work. Two foundational books on Chiron, for anyone interested, are Chiron and the Healing Journey by Melanie Reinhart, and Chiron: Rainbow Bridge by Barbara Hand Clow. I came to a lot of my foundational understanding of the centaurs from Eric Francis Coppolino, my political astrology mentor from 2016–2018. Today, I’m part of a centaur attunement community with David Leskowitz and Jenny Kellogg, which I highly recommend.
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