Mommy Issued

On Chiron & the current sky

Chiron visits his mother; art by me, no DALL-E

“Allow yourself to grieve your fantasy of the ideal mother.”

-Ruth, the healing daughter

Not many of us have a mother who is now a tree. Though I would imagine, many of us wish she was different—that she at least understood where we were coming from. In Chiron’s case, he never knew his mother. At birth, her horror at what she had given birth to brought her to her knees to plead with the gods to release her from the pain and embarrassment. With the prayers heard, they were granted, and she was turned into a Linden Tree.

From the Buddha to Aesclepius to the countless mothers who died during childbirth, we can spot an origin point to a tale as old as time: what it means to come up in this world without a mother…

To grow up without a mother is one thing, but what if we have her, yet feel she isn’t fully there or falls short of our ideal? How do we connect? How do we tell this story to ourselves and to others? How do we heal it? Chiron’s story is often focused on the wound by the arrow, missing these critical origins and the ancient Linden which stands at the center of the entire story.

… Mercury is about to trine Chiron for the second time in this Rx period (Leo/Aries; Friday the 23rd of August), and there are two ideas I have been revisiting lately that I’d like to share with you: one artistic, the other botanical…

Starting in the botanical dimension: It wasn’t until the beginning of COVID that I became aware of the Linden Tree detail of Chiron’s story. It was in a podcast I was recording while trapped in that Airbnb when I came into this leafy detail—it’s important to mention as well, that my place was named the Treehouse and the deck was built around this massive Linden that was just growing its first leaves of the year when this detail came to me. In looking into the folkloric history of the tree, you quickly discover a cross-cultural association with it relating to love and harmony, and how it was often the center of the village where judicial meetings and ceremonies would take place, mainly, because no lie could be told underneath it. And so, even though Philyra (that’s Chiron’s sea nymph mother) couldn’t move forward with mothering the world’s first centaur, she at least could provide love and shade in those ‘baby yoda’ days of Chiron’s life, teaching him the importance of true speech vs. deception. He was never destined to be a politician, in other words.

An important detail about Chiron and his relationship with his parents is that even though they weren’t around, you don’t pick up on the fact that he held a grudge. With his father, it could have been easily done, but he did not perpetuate the wounds of Cronos as he did with his father. Forgiveness is a part of it, but I think it’s even deeper.

There is something we all learn if left alone in the wilderness. It’s why people have always done it. ‘Sitting on the hill’ or doing some variant of a vision quest brings us into contact with a truth that is not human. The Animi Mundi is not just the Soul of the World, it’s an animal as well. By flashing tooth and bloody claw we all come to this realization eventually it seems—we remember that the Goddess will also eat us alive. Chiron got this education on day 1. Nature is metal!

This is all to say: Chiron is more than just the wounded healer. He is a wild-haired example of what it means to find wisdom in all our circumstances. Without parents and only the shade of the Linden Tree, he found his way to Mt. Pelion by turning to the Sun and Moon, tuning into the forest, and not being held back by the stories that have been. Chiron helps us to heal our wounds—not just our mother-wounds—because he points at a non-academic truth we have forgotten: we are magical animals!

Again, there is a little trine happening between Mercury and Chiron tomorrow. If you track these cycles like I do, you have either been claimed by an Idea already or you are waiting for Mercury to drop it in there. For myself, this cycle seems to be related to art. As a kid, I was always drawing or doing something creative. It went away though, sadly, 20 years ago. And ever since the cazimi, I can’t stop sketching. The art at the top of the piece is an example of it. I just may continue—if not for this Mercury cycle—but indefinitely. It’s wyrd how these planets work. If we are truly paying attention, as if we were on day 3 of a fast in the wild, there’s nothing but awe and befuddlement that we experience. Life…is way stranger than we can even suppose.

ps. I saw the first leaf fall from a tree on my walk this morning. If you see a heart-shaped one fall along your path, stop and consider that you may be standing under a Linden Tree, receiving a drop of medicine from Chiron’s mom.

Facts:

Mercury Rx trine Chiron (23º12’ Leo/Aries)

• Also, if you’d like to learn more about my take on Chiron and how we work with him, I have a package of classes on the subject and also offer Chiron Journeys, which are a series of readings where we focus primarily on Chiron in your natal chart; learn more HERE.

-adam

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