In an introductory astrology class last week, I found myself yet again attempting to explain Chiron’s role in our lives. “The place where we’re wounded, and can eventually heal others,” has never quite satisfied me, and didn’t quite satisfy the class participants, either. I decided to get Piscean about the whole thing, and started digging through the poetry shelves for an appropriately Chironic poem.
If you can’t exactly explain something, you can always obscure it even further, preferably with lengthy free verse. Eventually you’ll come out the other side into perfect understanding, right?
As I was searching for a suitably confusing poem, it suddenly occurred to me: all the great poems are Chironic things-- all the great artworks, too, and all the great music.
Bingo!
Chiron represents the speck of dirt in an oyster around which a pearl can grow. Most artists and poets have one or two main themes to which they always return; these themes reflect their Chironic weak points. This is the place they’ve been hurt, shattered, shocked, stunted, confused, rejected, or otherwise deeply affected; when we read a poem or look at a painting, we see the artist’s attempt to shed light onto his or her own mysterious soft spot.
It’s as if the artist in question has been struck by something terrible/beautiful/strange, and must analyze it— recreate it in a different form —in order to better understand it. If the artist or poet has a bit of talent and sticks with the craft, this can result in amazing works of art.
Of course, we all have Chiron placements, whether or not we make art. Confronting Chiron can be the toughest thing any of us ever do, second only to confronting the fact that Chiron never goes away. We aren’t ever really healed, not where Chiron is concerned; that one unanswered question never makes enough ultimate sense that we can just call it a day and go home.
It’s like Sisyphus rolling the great big rock uphill for eternity. Oh, look, you’re going to get a poem after all...
XI
from The Dance Floor on the Mountain by Pentti Saarikoski, trans. by Anselm Hollo
Sisyphus, his day’s work done, and the sun
rolls from zenith to the southeast;
the only table manners you need to know
are: eat with humility.
Before you start, set aside the book you were reading
about a small nation overshadowed
by one more powerful
when you’re done wash the dishes, calmly
then you can live
until sunset as if you were free of
the burden of all the stories
you haven’t heard
a few more crimes can always be found in the world
than you thought possible.
Sisyphus revealed
to mortals
the limits
of immortality.
* * *
The main reason we’re discussing Chiron is that Mars in Leo opposed Chiron in Aquarius today. For some, this resulted in a flare-up of the Chiron sore spots. Whatever your method of dealing with your Old Question, don’t hesitate to take the time to use it, now and for the rest of 2008.
Chiron will also reach exact conjunction with the Moon’s North Node (personal destiny) in the last days of June, and is still in close conjunction with Neptune (imagination.) These three are traveling together for months; wherever you have Aquarius in your chart, you’ll notice the effects.
Also be on the lookout for some fantastic artworks to be produced. If you keep up with this sort of thing, you’ll notice a definite trend toward very personal, very interior-driven art and writing. One of the first things they teach you in any kind of arts program: the Universal is best expressed through the lens of the personal.
Chiron is the gate that swings between them.
If you can’t exactly explain something, you can always obscure it even further, preferably with lengthy free verse. Eventually you’ll come out the other side into perfect understanding, right?
As I was searching for a suitably confusing poem, it suddenly occurred to me: all the great poems are Chironic things-- all the great artworks, too, and all the great music.
Bingo!
Chiron represents the speck of dirt in an oyster around which a pearl can grow. Most artists and poets have one or two main themes to which they always return; these themes reflect their Chironic weak points. This is the place they’ve been hurt, shattered, shocked, stunted, confused, rejected, or otherwise deeply affected; when we read a poem or look at a painting, we see the artist’s attempt to shed light onto his or her own mysterious soft spot.
It’s as if the artist in question has been struck by something terrible/beautiful/strange, and must analyze it— recreate it in a different form —in order to better understand it. If the artist or poet has a bit of talent and sticks with the craft, this can result in amazing works of art.
Of course, we all have Chiron placements, whether or not we make art. Confronting Chiron can be the toughest thing any of us ever do, second only to confronting the fact that Chiron never goes away. We aren’t ever really healed, not where Chiron is concerned; that one unanswered question never makes enough ultimate sense that we can just call it a day and go home.
It’s like Sisyphus rolling the great big rock uphill for eternity. Oh, look, you’re going to get a poem after all...
XI
from The Dance Floor on the Mountain by Pentti Saarikoski, trans. by Anselm Hollo
Sisyphus, his day’s work done, and the sun
rolls from zenith to the southeast;
the only table manners you need to know
are: eat with humility.
Before you start, set aside the book you were reading
about a small nation overshadowed
by one more powerful
when you’re done wash the dishes, calmly
then you can live
until sunset as if you were free of
the burden of all the stories
you haven’t heard
a few more crimes can always be found in the world
than you thought possible.
Sisyphus revealed
to mortals
the limits
of immortality.
* * *
The main reason we’re discussing Chiron is that Mars in Leo opposed Chiron in Aquarius today. For some, this resulted in a flare-up of the Chiron sore spots. Whatever your method of dealing with your Old Question, don’t hesitate to take the time to use it, now and for the rest of 2008.
Chiron will also reach exact conjunction with the Moon’s North Node (personal destiny) in the last days of June, and is still in close conjunction with Neptune (imagination.) These three are traveling together for months; wherever you have Aquarius in your chart, you’ll notice the effects.
Also be on the lookout for some fantastic artworks to be produced. If you keep up with this sort of thing, you’ll notice a definite trend toward very personal, very interior-driven art and writing. One of the first things they teach you in any kind of arts program: the Universal is best expressed through the lens of the personal.
Chiron is the gate that swings between them.
6 comments:
That is an awesome explanation!
"This is the place they’ve been hurt, shattered, shocked, stunted, confused, rejected, or otherwise deeply affected"
Yeah, and then other people don't understand our hypersensitivity in this area. Not only is it the scab we keep picking on, its a mystery to other people why we do.
Not only is it the scab we keep picking on, its a mystery to other people why we do.
Absolutely! I think that's mostly due to the fact that, after all these years of poking around at that one spot, we're damn-near experts on it. "What happens when I do this? Does it hurt when I do that?" I suppose it can look a lot like obsession from the outside...and maybe it is, at certain points in our lives.
Nothing wrong with a little relatively constructively expressed obsession, though, is there?
true: all the great poems were chironic, but artworks?
there are modernism and all those other -ism's that are just about icy cold intellect. No human wounds involved.
But I still agree that all the works that are chironic are the best.
I have the chiron transits in my 11th house. Sad? Wounds about old hopes?
Ah, good point, Chuck, and one I've wrestled with forever, in both my vis art's and my poet's hats. Here's where I am now:
Abstraction was the triumph of Modernism. Modernism attempted to strip away everything superfluous-- superfluous decoration, reaction, emotion, etc.-- and arrive at a distilled essence, a single, pure meaning more powerful for its purity and its starkness.
Abstraction was (and is) a perfect approach for this objective; hence 80% of the monuments of Modernism are abstracts.
Now, where Chiron and human striving comes in: abstraction is ultimately the search for a higher, purer meaning. The textbooks will tell you that Modernism was a reaction to the rapidly expanding industrialization and globalization of the world; they'll also tell you that it was a reaction to the proliferation of multiple meanings that society began to face.
Hmm. A little dry, but they have a point: abstraction is usually a struggle to come to terms with a meaning or expression that is simply too big-- or even too simple, paradoxically-- to be presented via realism. And so, Modernism's starkness and stripped-down essence arose in the individual artist's struggle to find meaning, a simple, pure meaning that couldn't be shaken by the rapid societal changes.
And yeah, the search for an unshakeable, fundamental meaning-beyond-meanings can be really personal, and I think it can be representative of a Chironic wound.
Really, I've been wrestling with this forever, and would love to hear your ideas!
Sorry for the delayed response.
I still don't know what's accurate in terms of how chiron plays with art.
Modernism, maybe deals with chiron's lesson of "elimination" to find truth. Scraping away the surface, retreating, etc. Where abstraction deals with going FURTHER and "beyond" to find truth.
Does that come close?
Chuck N
Post a Comment