Chiron's symbol is the key. As Chiron begins its yearly retrograde journey on July 4th, the image of a key turning in a door lock springs to mind.
When we want to lock a door, we turn the key clockwise, but when we want to unlock a door, we turn the key anti-clockwise. In the same way, when a planet appears to move backward (goes retrograde) in the sky – a secret is being revealed. A door is opened. We get access to something otherwise unseen or unknown.
Do you remember the old music boxes with a winding key? I used to LOVE them when I was little. I always wondered how they worked.
Music boxes produce musical notes by using a set of pins which pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. Music boxes are powered by a clockwork – when we wind the key up, the energy is stored in the clockwork mechanism, and when it is released, the music starts playing, until the stored energy is used up.
I dreamt of making music myself, but as you probably know, if you are not a musician, making music is the most difficult thing on Earth. You just don't know where to start. It is not like you put some notes together and get a song. There is a higher order to music, a secret order that only musicians seem to understand and have access to.
Music is an experience of wholeness, divine alignment, and eternity. For lack of anything better, the little music box was the only way I could 'make' music. I would wind the key and then let it go: the music would start.
To make music, you need to let yourself go. But to let yourself go, you first need to wind the key. To put in some effort. To break through the resistance.
When you wind the key you initially feel pressure. You go backward in the story of your song – a song that has already been written, but you have forgotten.
And just when you get to the point of no return, the music starts – enchanting you with its beauty, releasing all the forgotten energy trapped inside, bringing higher order into chaos.
When a planet goes retrograde, it goes against its natural movement. There is a feeling of implosion, of going inwards, of pressure.
But this looping movement is necessary. Without moving backward, there will be no energy, no music, no life.
Chiron - The Key To Wholeness
Chiron – the wounded healer, the shaman, the alchemist – is the KEY to yourself. Chiron is associated with your deepest pain, but also with your greatest gift. Chiron is about the experience of healing and the experience of wholeness.
Wholeness is nothing else but bringing higher order within chaos, putting puzzles together to unravel the mystery of the Entity - YOU - an entity that is much more than the sum of its parts.
Christian Schloe - "Unlock"
Chiron retrograde gives you the opportunity to dive into the healing waters of Chiron and clean any wounds that stop you from integrating all of the parts of yourself, to become a whole, and healthy human being.
Chiron retrograde is like a cosmic reshuffling at the core of your being.
There is no wonder Chiron’s symbol is a key. Chiron unlocks the secret doors of our psyche, allowing the divine energy of the outer planets to flow into what we call the reality of our body, symbolized by Saturn.
Chiron orbits between Saturn and Uranus. Saturn is the last planet we can see with the naked eye in the sky, and his beautiful rings are a metaphor for the limitations of our human existence.
The outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) represent what is beyond the known, out of what we can grasp with our limited cognitive functions.
Chiron is, therefore, the link between the two worlds. Chiron’s role is to channel the ethereal, intangible energy of the outer planets, into the structures and realities of Saturn.
Unfortunately, we have forgotten how to delve into Chiron’s powers. Our ancestors, especially the hunter-gatherer type societies, were in a way much more connected to nature. In the past, every village had a spiritual doctor or a Shaman.
The initiation into shamanism started after a so-called shamanic illness. That’s why Chiron is called “the wounded healer”. It is only by delving into our wounds, that we can become whole again.
Your Broken Parts
But what is stopping us from accessing all of this divine energy that surrounds us?
The reason we can’t easily access it is that we humans are a sum of conflicting, broken parts.
Think of the engine of a car. If any part of the engine is broken, the car will not operate in the way it’s supposed to. In the same way, we cannot be whole and move forward until we learn how to get all the parts of ourselves fixed and working together.
Just like Chiron was half human, half horse, half mortal, half immortal, we too are a hybrid of matter and spirit. There are parts of us we accept and identify with, parts of us we despise and reject, and parts of us we don’t even acknowledge.
Wounding, shame, guilt, inadequacy – feelings often associated with the Chironic wound – are nothing else but the experience of resisting yourself, of resisting your perfection.
Can you contemplate, just for a moment, that you are not broken?
Can you contemplate that you are not here by mistake?
Chiron Retrograde From Aries to Pisces
Chiron is retrograde from July 4th 2018 until December 9th 2018. Chiron starts its retrograde motion at 2° Aries and moves back into Pisces on September 26, 2018. Chiron goes direct again at 27° Pisces and re-enters Aries on February 18th 2019.
Chiron will travel through the last degrees of Pisces, the last degrees of the zodiac. It’s something you left behind there, something you still need to figure out.
Everytime a planet goes retrograde in the previous sign, it’s giving us a second chance.
If Chiron in Aries is about affirming yourself, about learning to be proud of your existence despite your flaws, Chiron in Pisces is pretty much the opposite. Pisces is the sign of surrender. It’s about being comfortable with being a drop of water in the ocean.
Chiron moving back and forth from the last degrees of the zodiac to the first degrees of the zodiac can help you reveal the mystery of your existence.
Chiron will ask you one more time to face your pain of separation (Pisces) and surrender to the unknown. Only by surrendering to that forgotten part of yourself, you can start again (Aries) with integrity and confidence.
Chiron journey from Aries to Chiron and back to Pisces is a journey from the beginning to the end… and then back to the beginning.
Chiron retrograde in Aries and back to Pisces will show you what you need to let go of vs. what you should take action on.
If you want to start anew, there is still a part of you that you need to embrace. A part of you that you find unacceptable. A part of you that you are ashamed of.
But which wound is truly yours and which wound is existential?
Chiron retrograde back in Pisces will help you to take a closer look at the universal myths you have believed in - maybe for too long. And Chiron in Aries will ask "What if?". “What if the stories I've been told are not real?”. “What if there is nothing inherently wrong with me?”. “What if I am not broken?”. “What if I am fine, just the way I am?”.
What is blocking you? What needs to crack to get the light in? Turn the key and go back into remembering. Remember those places that you may have forgotten, but that your soul is still hooked on. Where love and wholeness are the only things that can possibly be.
Turn the key. And then tet the ancient and nearly forgotten song squeeze your heart.
Your Chiron Retrograde Journey
Chiron retrograde will show you whatever you need to acknowledge so it can be healed.
When you fully accept and integrate all the parts of yourself, then nothing can affect you anymore, there’s nothing left to be ashamed of. You are you, the sum of all your parts.
And when you accept yourself, the magic happens. The divine energy starts flowing effortlessly through you. You are healed, and you become healing.
Chiron retrograde is a great time to tune inside yourself and acknowledge that you are a sum of parts. Without bringing all of your parts together, including those you are ashamed of, you cannot find that kind of inner balance that leads to healing and spiritual growth.
Chiron retrograde will help you unlock any blockage, fix anything that is broken, and heal yourself - with one condition - to take responsibility for your healing. To ask yourself, "Where do I need to unwind the key to make music?".
