BABY BOOMERS AND THE CHIRON RETURN: Confronting the Wounds of Our Pasts

 "Chiron" the "wounded healer" centaur as depicted in classical art.

When we reach the age of approximately 51, the slow-moving, erratically-elliptical asteroid, Chiron, makes its return to the sign that it occupied when we were born and, not coincidentally, it is during this same time that we begin to grapple in earnest with the issues and challenges that lie ahead as we witness the approach of our own mortality.

Chiron -- the centaur of Roman mythology after which Chiron, the asteroid, was named -- was the son of a mortal woman by the Roman god Saturn and the mentor of Achilles. Because of the immortality bestowed upon him by his divine lineage, after being wounded, Chiron was forced to contemplate spending eternity in mortal pain and it was most likely for this reason that the Romans believed he took up the study and practice of the "healing arts"-- earning him the title of "the wounded healer".

As the son of Saturn (or "Chronus"), Chiron was also the grandson of Uranus and a half-brother to Jupiter, which is most appropriate when one considers that the asteroid Chiron spends more than three-quarters of its orbit around the Sun between the planets of Saturn and Uranus and the remainder between Saturn and Jupiter.

 

NASA photo of the asteroid "Gaspra" as viewed by Galileo.

The irregularities and inconsistencies of Chiron's orbit resulted in only two square aspects (1943 and 1997) with Uranus during the entire 20th Century and no conjunctions at all during that same period of time. In stark contrast, there were over 40 Uranus/Chiron oppositions in just the 35 years between 1952 and 1987 which makes it an extremely common aspect in many natal charts of the "Baby Boomer" generation. 

As the son of Saturn, Chiron serves as a symbol of the physical and emotional restrictions and burdens imposed upon the individual by authority, ancestry and the passage of time. Chiron's opposition to Uranus in many Baby Boomer natal charts emphasizes the near-legendary struggle of this generation to separate itself from "The Establishment" (Saturn) and express its individuality in unconventional ways (Uranus).

During the last 20 years, Chiron's orbit has moved it steadily further away from Uranus and created more close astrological aspects (oppositions) with Saturn. We can perceive the manifestation of its increasing oppositions to Saturn in the marked rise of political conservatism and accompanying curtailment of personal freedoms on a virtually global level over that same time period.

As each of us "Boomers" rounds the bend of our Chiron returns at the half-century mark in our lives, many of us will find ourselves directly confronting the source(s) of our deepest, lifelong, emotional, physical and mental "wounds" (Chiron) especially as they relate to authority, heritage, "hidden factors", financial security (Saturn) and our need for self-expression (Uranus).

Because Chiron is conjunct the moon and trined to Jupiter in my own natal chart, it is possible that I am more susceptible than most to Chiron's influence but, I feel that the events that transpired a few years back when I reached the age of (exactly) 51, present an almost "textbook" archetype of the influence of Chiron's return:
 
At the age of two, I lost my father -- a combat veteran of Theaters of WWII, the Korean War and a former "Merrill's Marauder" -- to cancer so, aside from a couple of fleeting memories, I had no real recollection of him. My father's family and my mother had a difficult history, so, as a result, my mother and I had very little contact with that side of the family as I was growing up. 

One day, totally by accident, a paternal cousin of mine (whom I never even knew existed up until that time) just happened upon a message that I had posted on an Internet genealogy message board under my paternal grandmother's maiden name and she contacted me via email.

During the course of our correspondence over the following couple of days, my cousin informed me that her mother (my paternal aunt) was in possession of quite a few letters that my father had written to my grandmother from overseas. When my grandmother died in 1964, the letters came into my aunt's possession. She had been saving them for almost 40 years with the idea that she would pass them on to me but had no idea where I was or how to get in touch with me until my cousin "found" me.

When the letters arrived, I could hardly believe my good fortune! All together, there were over one-hundred and twenty-seven cards, postcards, letters and little Photostatic copies called "V-Mail", written by my father, dating from December 1940 until just before my father's death in 1955.

I poured through the letters for three whole days -- devouring every word -- and through these wonderful gifts from my aunt I came to know the man that was my father.

After almost half a century, I was able to read my father's thoughts during his training as a soldier, as he fought in the jungles of New Guinea and Burma during WW II and as he suffered through the freezing cold battles of the Korean War, all written in his own hand. . .

There was a letter that he wrote to his mother about his first meeting with my mother and letters he'd written after learning that he had cancer and knew that he would not live to see me grown.

As my eyes traveled down those pages for the first time, I was gripped by sudden, powerful waves of emotion. I just couldn't seem to stop crying. . . 

In one particular letter, written in December 1954 -- just three months before his death in February 1955 -- my father wrote:

Oh, Mom, I love her so much that I could never let anything stand in my way of being with her for as long as I live. What a gracious Lord is He to give me such a wonderful thing in my life!

I sat and read that paragraph over and over again with tears flowing down my face as though they sprang from some kind of bottomless well deep inside of me. It was as though my father had reached out beyond the portal of death and across the span of almost a half-century to comfort me and reassure me of his love.

Afterwards, I felt as though a huge weight I'd never known existed but, nonetheless, had been carrying around for my entire life was lifted from my shoulders. Releasing it gladdened my heart and steadied my soul so much so that, for a solid week afterwards, I felt so light that it seemed to me as though I was floating. . .

The message that I offer to all my Boomer brothers and sisters is the sincerest hope that all of you gain as much comfort and healing from your Chiron returns as I did from mine.

Namasté,
Jean F.