Chiron in Pisces: Coming home

I’ve been a Chiron skeptic for most of my astrological career.  I know it’s kinda silly to be an astrologer and skeptical of other aspects of astrology, but things have to make sense to me. And most explanations of Chiron just didn’t. I couldn’t wrap my around the pat answers of it being the wounded healer or representing the part of your chart where you’re in need of healing. Pardon me for asking the obvious, but doesn’t and couldn’t the whole chart represent areas of your psyche where one needs healing?  It’s kind of how I feel descriptions of Pluto as the transformation planet are as useless. Aren’t all the planets agents or symbols of transformation?

Anyway, to add insult to never-ending injury,  people would feel compelled to take the joke too far by saying even crazier stuff like Chiron is the ruler of Virgo or whatever.  Then nearly three months ago, after many years of gnashing of teeth and really struggling to make sense of Chiron, I found my way to an understanding of the comet/planetoid. I published my thoughts as a chirpstory, based on my tweets on twitter.

In the last month, Chiron’s deeper meanings have hit even more at home since I started swim lessons at the Harlem YMCA.  I have basically known how to “survive” in water since going away in my pre-teen years at Cradle Beach Camp, a Fresh Air Mission summer camp. But I didn’t really learn how to swim. So when I went to the Y, I didn’t go for any grand reasons like to finish unfinished business. I just wanted to beat the heatwave that I thought would continue a lot longer than it actually did this summer.

In interim, I found myself in a giant pool wanting to do more and I couldn’t. I looked on the schedule and saw the Y had adult classes when I was free in the evenings.  My first class was great!  I had a Jamaican guy who basically nurtured my basic learning nature of full immersion or sink or swim.  He wasn’t so much about structured steps as much as learn this component, practice it and then learn by doing.  That day I nearly swam the length of the pool for the first time in life on my own.

The second class was with a different instructor who reminded me a lot of my father, oddly enough. He was big, with a wit that mocked you and disarmed you at the same time and a fairly methodical, prop-laden approach.  I struggled in that class and went from feeling confident to being able to swim the length of the pool to wanting to trade in my swimming cap for a dunce cap.  The remarkable thing about that class is that it prompted me to get to the pool more to practice.  And more than most things I’ve attempted to learn, it was a JOY to practice.  As someone who trains folks in learning new things, I knew that it was key to figure out things with my own body, not attempting to intellectually picture it in my head what I had been instructed. I also realized that the success of my first class was a mix of beginner’s luck and my teacher’s appreciation for effort more than demonstration of technique. Not knocking it as much as the second class (and subsequent ones) frequently reveals the hard part.

And it did. I had to do something that I often don’t like to do often or that I do well: trust.  And it wasn’t about trusting my instructor or his instruction. I had to trust the water.  I had to surrender.  Intellectually, I got early on that most of swimming was allowing the water and our natural reactions to the water to do its work…without panic. Swimming is definitely more about the practice of getting in your body than the panic of it.  If you panic, you are likely to drown or end up with a lot of water up your nose.

With a Chiron in Pisces in the part of my chart representing my body (my 1st house), I think it’s reasonable that I would have a problem with surrendering into my body.  I was born with spina bifida, so it hasn’t always been comfortable being in my body, especially since the first 20 years of my life were spent getting surgeries (25 of them).  However, my health has mostly been good when I’m eating right and exercising. I may have to get a hip replacement within 5-10 years my doctor tells me, but perhaps my active working out will keep it at bay for 10-15 years. We’ll see.

Regardless, my own lessons with futility, as I’ve come to understand Chiron, is learning to trust my body to a process or a state that’s beyond my control, while at the same time learning a set of motions that helps me cooperate with this process. And learning to swim has already shown me what the other side of futility can look like if I’m willing. It’s realizing that you can either fail or exceed your expectations, but only if you’re willing to let them go.  I didn’t have to beat the heat this summer in a pool. I had to beat myself.

Is astrology an instrument of control or understanding?

For the last few months, I’ve been working with a friend to bring the Zodiac Lounge to Philadelphia. Yesterday I spoke with an important connection, based on referral from my friend, to make that happen. We had a good convo about the space where we might have the Zodiac Lounge, some common people we know (as Philly is a wonderful big little town) and some next steps. As we were getting off the phone, she surprised me by relaying a question that someone in the background was asking her, “Do I want our chart (astrological) information?” I laughed and said, “No. I didn’t need that quite yet.” She laughed and then we said our goodbyes.

As I hung up, I wondered for a second if they will think I’m not a serious astrologer if I would be remiss in getting such *vital* information? In fact, at astrology conferences, many astrologers will have their rising, moon and sun signs right on their name tags under their names.  People will have whole conversations talking only about their placements. Even after studying, teaching and practicing astrology for over 20 years, I find that strange and baffling.

I had to think why don’t I think about that kinda stuff first.  The only thing I could realize is that I only use astrology with people I meet in real life, who aren’t clients, when I want to understand something that I don’t understand.  When I’m meeting people for the first time, I want to experience them as I perceive them, not as astrology “snapshots” them.  However, before the first meeting, there’s rarely something that I don’t understand as I don’t have any real information or knowledge of the person anyway. Nor do I want it.  So why do people do use astrology that way? The only thing I could reason is that people are struck by the allure of control that astrology offers.

For many reasons, legitimate or otherwise, people seem to negotiate safety and trust in people through knowledge or things that they feel give the knowledge.  This knowledge can either lead to understanding or feed control issues.  There is a thin line between the two and we can fool ourselves as we dance along that line.

If we use knowledge as a tool of understanding, then we can see how a dynamic works without necessarily attempting to alter it. We may be just content to experience it…or not. When knowledge becomes a tool of control, we feel the need to do something about what can or should happen with this knowledge or to anticipate events based on what we perceive. For me, that’s stressful although I recognize that may be soothing for others.

For instance, let’s say I get the chart info of my new contact before I meet her. Then let’s say she turns out to have a Sun at 29 degrees Taurus, meaning she’s born May 20, 21 or 22 (depending on the year and hour), I might conjecture that I could have problems w/ her based on my recent challenging experiences with people having planets at that degree.  (My Sun is at 29 degrees Scorpio.) Can I truly avoid coming in with possibly erroneous thoughts and perceptions about her based on my experiences? Will I stay disciplined (and open) or will I look for information that confirms my bias?  Likewise, will I modify my behavior to counter perceptions of her behavior that may or may not be there?  If I modify my behavior based on perceptions that haven’t even clearly formed yet, then am I authentically meeting her…or her scarecrow that I’ve made? I tend to think I would be constructing a scarecrow as I won’t have enough information about her to really know.

That’s why I think establishing relationships based on synastry alone is a crapshoot at best. One can blind oneself to a host of possibilities using astrology by ONLY focusing on the astrology, not on how the person is living the chart or a host of other factors. For instance, an astrologer, with enough charts, can find your ideal astrologically derived partner, but what if they’re a different sex than you prefer? Or way older or younger than you prefer? This goes to show you that it’s not just about the astro compatibility.  It’s about how and if you can really meet that person where they are. The astrology is a map to navigate the sea of relationship, not to contain it. It can tell you how vast or close the sea may be, but not always the condition of the waters.

Shying away from sea metaphors for a sec, the compatibility of charts only testify to possibilities and probabilities. I think giving too much primacy to those things sets up too many temptations for control more than understanding.

So I’m glad I said, “Not yet.” If my contacts wonder among themselves about what kind of astrologer I am who doesn’t ask for the info of new people he encounters, then I hope they realize that I’m the adventurous kind. I’ll pick up a map once I get there, but charting out too much before I get to the destination could blind me from seeing what’s most important while giving me the illusion that I know more than I do.