Chiron: The following is a cookbook description of Chiron contacts with the personal planets in relationship. It is an edited excerpt from my upcoming book on Chiron in synastry,  Chiron: Beyond the Wound:  

Chiron always weaves a spell in the beginning.  Unlike the spell of Neptune, which is the promise of forever love and effortless spiritual partnership, the Chiron spell is more about the promise of healing.  “This is what you’ve always needed,” it whispers in our ear.  Need being the operative word.  “I don’t care if it hurts,” you say, “something is happening here.  I feel myself becoming myself.”  Well, maybe.  At first.  Before the real stuff kicks in.

I’ve seen relationships with a lot of Chiron last for decades.  It hurts, but we don’t let go because of the promise of wholeness and healing.  We dig in.  We become convinced that this is a one and only thing–no one else can make me feel this way.  So we hang on for dear life.  This is also true of those with Chiron on angles, either conjunct the Descendant in the natal chart or between charts.  There is a (potentially exhausting) pull about the whole thing.  Unlike Pluto, which pries our fingers of whatever we are trying to hold on to that doesn’t suit our progress, the Chiron clinging is often about denial–denial of who we really are, and the wise person we can be.  This can be a glue more sticky than Saturn. We are, all of us whether we consciously know it or not, hungry for knowledge and meaning.

There’s the rub with Chiron–the potential for wisdom.  I think Chiron is very cagey about this, he doesn’t show his cards.  We may never realize that we are obsessed with this particular ‘other’ because we want to learn some very deep lessons.  We want to learn from this relationship, to become the wise healer ourselves.

Eventually, we do walk away from Chiron.  We do learn.  Sometimes we say, “Never again.”  But most of the time we walk away with our heads held high, filled with a renewed sense of wisdom about the ways of the world.  We learn that we sacrificed the old self/life for the new, and like Chiron, have been elevated because of it.

Chiron/Sun:  The Chiron person can feel as if he or she is touching the king’s robe in order to be healed, and may feel at the mercy of the solar light, even though it is warm and inviting at first.  Chiron will usually bask in the solar presence, possibly becoming dependent upon it at the expense of its own individual development.  The Sun may feel this dependence and resent it.  It also may feel that Chiron is more powerful than it purports to be and may be there to usurp the Sun’s throne.  Trust can be an issue.  There can be a great deal of healing for both parties as long as they individuate on their own path.  Ego is often at stake, with the Sun feeling cramped and restricted by Chiron’s insistence on healing and probing the depths of the relationship.  The Sun wants to breathe and play and eventually, it will–usually without Chiron.  The only answer is to acknowledge one another’s power, to let the Sun shine and allow Chiron to use its hard won wisdom.

Chiron/Moon:  With Chiron/Moon there is almost always the deep bond of sexual healing.  Chiron, when motivated, is a highly sexual thing, the half-man, half-beast of the centaur personified.  Unlike Chiron/Mars, which is rather one-pointed (no pun intended) Chiron/Moon is a more all-encompassing contact, with body, mind and spirit all united in the sexuality of the couple.  This weaves an intense, difficult to shake spell of its own.  Chiron is broken and hungry–the Moon nurtures, the Moon fulfills, the Moon spreads salve on whatever and wherever Chiron aches.  The ‘other’ becomes ‘the answer.’  The Moon itself is hungry.  It becomes addicted to the psycho-spiritual give and take, the breathing out and breathing in on an emotional and spiritual level.  How painful, then, when the rose is discovered to have thorns.  The problem begins outside of the bedroom, especially when the intimacy of the couple is violated in some way.  There may be a series of betrayals, with each running roughshod over the other’s acute sensibility.  One, or both, feel violated as if the trust of the bond has been betrayed.  Intimate and cozy may become suffocating, most likely because vulnerability is a difficult state to maintain.  We feel open and exposed; Chiron feels its wound is on display, the Moon that it is robbed of its spiritual sustenance and sent off to slaughter.  As always with Chiron contacts, there is a secret fear and resentment of Chiron’s power, and a need to escape.  The best way to maintain this kind of relationship is to be brave and face the mutual intimacy and exposure.  The relationship will grow stronger because of it.

Chiron/Mercury:  This is one of the less problematic of the Chiron pairings, unless Mercury is extremely prominent in the natal chart or there is an educational gap or insecurity between the two.  Chiron works better with a partnership of equals.  Because Mercury and Jupiter are about learning and teaching, and Chiron is a natural teacher, the course can run smooth.  Both Chiron and Mercury can take turns being the student and the teacher. However, if this is one of those teacher/student bondings, where one partner is (or expects to be) the wise one and the other the eager student, it can go very wrong.  Oddly, I’ve often seen this contact in couples who have a large age gap.  The elder partner expects to play the wise one, and is then dismayed when the younger partner turns out to have more learning and life experience.  With this contact, there can be a lot of pain surrounding not only education, but life skills.  One partner can resent the other’s creativity, for example, or facility with concepts.  Chiron can cause the Mercury person to feel inadequate intellectually, or unable to communicate clearly and effectively.  Mercury may dance circles around Chiron, making Chiron feel tired in comparison.  It depends on the placement of Chiron in sign and house.

Chiron/Venus:  One of the more poetic contacts in synastry.  When there is a Venus/Chiron contact in a natal chart, the person usually has a great love for life in all its glory and its sadness, for the beauty as well as the broken.  In fact, it may prefer the broken, feeling there is honesty and poetry in life’s limitations.  In Chiron/Venus synastry, both Chiron and Venus may be more attracted to the faults of the other than the strengths.  “I love you because you’re broken.”  Instantly, we can see how this can get complicated.  “If you love me for my brokenness, how am I supposed to heal?  If I heal, I lose you.”  Sometimes, both parties would rather stay broken than risk loss and independence. As always with Venus, issues of self-esteem run large.  Venus may feel criticized for the way it expresses its love.  Chiron may love Venus intensely, but Venus may not feel it, because Chiron is not speaking Venus’s ‘love language.’  Chiron may feel that Venus is glorious, but when it begins to feel healed via the relationship, fear may set in.  Chiron may hold itself back, much the way Chiron stabs himself with his own poisoned arrow (according to one version of the story).  No matter the planet it touches, Chiron will often hold itself back, rather than cross the threshold into self-healing and the responsibility that carries.

Chiron/Mars:  The key aspect of sexual healing.  Whether the contact is difficult or whether it runs smooth, much is expected of both parties. Chiron/Mars is where need meets desire.  Deep transformation via sexual exchange is possible, as well as the healing of any sexual wounding.  Chiron/Mars can add desperation to desire.  Chiron feels its sense of being broken can be ended via the Mars energy.  It finds that Mars builds its confidence, and as a reward Chiron, at first, encourages Mars.  If there is anything broken about the Mars (if it is in hard aspect in the natal chart with one of the outer planets or Saturn, for example) Chiron will sense that and instinctively try to heal it.  However, in the passage of time (and Time is the keyword here; much depends on the maturity of the participants) Mars may feel that Chiron is drawing it down.  Sometimes Mars feels that Chiron is draining Mars when Mars wants to move forward and explore.  Mars’ nature is to move outward, and the Chiron energy is decidedly inward.  Worse, Mars can feel inferior to Chiron and renege on the initial, implied promise of renewal.  Chiron can cause Mars to feel as if it must move away from Chiron’s influence.  If Chiron can take responsibility for its own healing, without depending on Mars, both parties can enjoy the independence and the intimacy as well.

Chiron/Jupiter:  When Chiron hits Jupiter in another’s chart, what begins as generosity and a learning experience can turn into dejection.  Jupiter never likes the balloon to burst, and Chiron runs around with a lot of pins (arrows) in his pocket.  Chiron often doesn’t mean it. Which is true of all these Chiron positions–we know not what we do where he is concerned.  In fact, we may feel as if we are the oppressed party. But where Jupiter/Chiron is concerned, often the balloon is pricked, the bubble bursts, and the flame goes out, often baffling both people involved.  “But it was so good,”  we say.  “What happened?”  This is usually quite simple; Jupiter can resent Chiron’s power and wisdom (without realizing what is going on, due to its sunny nature), and Chiron doesn’t understand how the tables have turned.  Jupiter turns away and Chiron wonders where it has wandered.  Chiron can be as oppressive as Saturn when it comes down to it, and Jupiter has a hard time being followed by such a downer.  Chiron demands meaning and intensity in relationship–even the most wise of Jupiters can feel oppressed and boxed in, and may need to let go.  Then Chiron is left to wonder where all the balloons went.

Chiron/Saturn:  This can be one of the more painful, or one of the more rewarding, contacts between charts.  Although they are at odds, Chiron and Saturn understand one another.  There is an element of ‘greater good’ in both of them, the need to focus on what’s best for all concerned (People often lose that interpretation of Saturn, which is based on its rulership of Aquarius).  This works better when a couple is older and more in tune with Saturn’s possibilities.  Chiron, over time, becomes less about the wound and more about legacy–what wisdom have we learned that we wish to pass on to others?  Both Chiron and Saturn know that where our greatest pain lies, our greatest wisdom lies.  Saturn turns our limitations into our successes.  Chiron knows how to translate achievement into meaning.  If less mature, Saturn can stop Chiron from discovering the meaning of its wounding, rendering its life purposeless.  Life loses magic and mystery, which Chiron craves.  Chiron can make Saturn think that it isn’t as competent as it once thought.

Chiron and the Outer Planets:

Contacts between Chiron and the Outer Planets in synastry are not usually felt in the same way as they are to personal planets.  When one’s Chiron hits another’s Uranus, Neptune or Pluto, it takes a back seat to the action between Chiron and whatever it hits of the personal planets.  Higher and lower octaves matter a great deal here.  If Chiron is hitting Mercury and making an aspect to Uranus at the same time, it may trigger great gifts of telepathy, mind and learning.  If it hits Venus as well as Neptune, there may be the gift of forgiveness in the relationship, and understanding may be paramount.  If Mars and Pluto are both contacted, there is a healing, integrative energy awakened in both parties.  No matter if it is a hard or soft aspect, the power of the outer planet usually adds to the configuration.  If the personal planet receives a hard aspect from Chiron, the struggles will be there, but also the redemption and ability to connect that comes when the Outer Planets are used wisely. Chiron’s role as the deliverer of the higher knowledge of the Outer Planets is enhanced.

To read another excerpt from Chiron Beyond the Wound, click HERE.