Revisiting Chiron at the Concordance
Joyce Mason
Joyce Mason is one of the world’s most eloquent spokespersons for Chiron. Here she expands upon her original essay for us.
The Harmonic Concordance is a significant moment in time with its profound Star of David configuration. I want to mention the work of Mary Shea , a real Star of David watcher. The Star of David in the Harmonic Concordance chart is a so significant because it happens no matter where you’re at on the planet, because the planets involved are all in compatible signs, and because it contains a total Lunar Eclipse. I like what Mary has to say about the Stars of David because her ideas echo my observation about Chiron in the Concordance chart.
Mary says the Stars of David reflect a spiritual “path,” one that flows from the heart. She speaks about them almost like “report cards” of how the Earth plane is progressing in consciousness. She goes on to say that the Star of David pattern symbolizes the integration of Heaven and Earth, or Divinity and Humanity “through the rainbow bridge of an open heart.”
Those are the same meanings that Barbara Hand Clow attaches to Chiron in her book, “Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets.” This Star of David pattern only appears when Chiron is included. That cinches Chiron’s important place in this chart. There’s similar symbolism between the Star of David and what Chiron is supposed to be for us, which is to act as that same Heaven-to-Earth link.
Chiron becomes the agent of our transmutation toward wholeness. I really love what an astrologer named Stan Riddle said about the difference between Pluto and Chiron. He says Pluto transforms, but Chiron transmutes. Transmute, he said, is having the same experience but to look at it differently. There’s your goal. Your goal is to change the way you perceive what’s going on. I find that concept very exciting.
We live and perceive on a plane of duality. Wholeness, on the other hand, has to do with completion. It’s an end of duality. That’s one of the reasons Chiron’s part in this chart is so important, because it completes the Star of David pattern; thus, it’s the completion factor at the heart of the chart. That completion role mimics Chiron’s function itself. Example: At the Chiron Return near the age of fifty, we tend to review our lives, to fill in any “holes” in what we need to become “whole.” I love that cosmic pun.
Chiron’s completion of the Harmonic Concordance chart reminds us to look at Chiron as a source of what we need to know and do to round out any issue we’re grappling with. Its part in the Concordance chart is whole-making. Transmutation is about how we look at what’s going on in a new way. We alchemize it into something brand new. Since both these symbols, the Star of David and Chiron, have something to do with this Heaven-to- Earth dialogue, I see a seed in the Concordance chart of a time when “heaven-to-earth dialogue” becomes more commonplace.
We discussed together the idea of the Concordance as an opening to a higher consciousness, often expressed as the Christ Consciousness. I’ve written about the similarities between the archetypes of Chiron and Christ. The archetype of Chiron pre-dates Jesus, but they are similar. Both were teachers and healers, both went through painful suffering, died, were resurrected, and went up to the sky. At some point, they show us, we have to get off the cross of matter and into our own resurrection.
I think that this Harmonic Concordance chart talks a lot about a moment in time when the desire for resurrection supersedes the willingness to continue to suffer, a shift in mass consciousness. It’s like the “100th Monkey.” We want wholeness more than misery. What an exciting turning point!
As to our conversations about how the predictions for the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 tie in: The predictions for the Concordance date are similar. The world, as we’ve known it will end. That’s why at the Millennium Turn, there were apocalyptic predictions about the end of the world by people who take symbols literally. The world, as we used to know it, is ending … in many ways, no big loss in my humble opinion.
Johnny has said it even better, that the world we used to “see” is ending. I do think this shift has so much to do with perception. Again, I refer you to Stan Riddle’s definition about transmutation meaning to have the same experience but to see it in a different way.
This is what you see in Chironic people who have really done their share of suffering, people who have overcome handicaps and no longer perceive themselves as wounded. I think of someone like Itzhak Perlman. I never realized till I read it somewhere that the great violinist is mobility challenged from polio. He has “assimilated.” That’s the way it is for so many Chironic people, and that’s the way it was for Chiron himself; rejected by his fatherand mother, an outcast who fit with neither men nor horses. He went to his cave, where he was nurtured by Apollo and Artemis in the guise of the Sun and the Moon. He had a rounded education that could only be imparted by the wholeness symbolized in the Lights and the synthesis of their opposite energies into complements. In turn, Chiron became the teacher to many of the heroes and key members of the Greek pantheon.
That kind of overcoming and re-perceiving is there for us too, through the agency of Chiron in the Concordance chart, and assuming we have reached the tipping point toward wholeness. That means the majority of humanity will have a more direct relationship with spirit—less religion, more spirituality.
We’ve also talked about how my articles on people with the outer planets prominent fit in. I call them PUNCS for Plutonian, Uranian, Neptunian Chironics. Chiron’s role in the Concordance can be thought of as coming into “shamanic wholeness.” The shaman’s role in society is to die and be reborn, to go through terrible trials, to be dismembered, and to come back from the underworld in one piece. Through his or her “resurrection,” the shaman earns being perceived as authentic by the community. This is the initiation for becoming a real helper or healer, what Chiron and Jesus both did in the extreme. I think this new era supports those who are destined to birth a new world. It will help these leaders get to the resurrection side of the PUNC planets, then to show the path to others.
It may not come without pain. After all, Chiron is not the “Tickle Healer.” He’s the Wounded Healer. He’s not necessarily about learning things through Joy. I mean, pain is most often our best teacher because it forces us to see there’s something we have to fix or stay miserable. Ultimately we’ll get to Joy, but first we need that “re-perception,” which has to do with letting go of the old emotions, especially fear, encrusted inside us. Tearing away those “scabs” is often painful, but the healed and renewed body that lies beneath the crust can only emerge when the scab has been removed. To do that, we have to be able to see there’s wholeness underneath, waiting to be discovered.
Johnny has talked about the “crust” as one way of referring to Saturn, Chiron’s “partner” in this chart. Saturn can represent the “crust” or “shell” of the material world that confines us. Chiron’s position in the 7th house in Capricorn, (in his discovery chart) ruled by Saturn, puts it opposite Saturn on the cusp of the 1st house. In its traditional “fall” in Cancer, Saturn may seem somewhat weakened and vulnerable. Saturn might be more open to Chiron’s urge to transmute the crust through relationship with others. The 1st has so much to do with how we see the world—or the lens through which we view it. (Maybe we’re taking off the lens cap!) Again, it’s another metaphor for our old vision of the world ending.
On the downside, one of my concerns about the chart is that Saturn is in Cancer. I can’t help but be concerned about the literal interpretation of the disease cancer. We have only now come to recognize the results of some of our so-called modern advances and the problems that have resulted in our food chain and water supply. It may be that it will take a crisis of this nature to bring us together; or that such a crisis will cause us to apply the nurturing we need to heal the environment. So much of our dis-ease and so many of our diseases are caused by too little nurturing or the wrong kind. Opposite Saturn, Chiron in the 7th might bring difficulties that stimulate people to come together in partnership to overcome them. For instance, two people can become so focused on overcoming an external problem; they join forces creating a synergistic dynamic that allows them to overcome other things together. This can happen to such an extent that they become oblivious to most incompatibilities between them. Think of that in the larger sense of diverse humanity coming together to solve global crises. That’s one possible meaning of Chiron in the 7th house.
With Chiron in Capricorn and Saturn on the Ascendant, I tend to think of it, not as difficulty in relationships, but rather more about a pressing need to get our relationships “stuck together” better—to stick together better, if you will— to be more organized toward planetary teamwork. That’s what Capricorn and Saturn do at their best—lend positive structure and the will to work hard to achieve an end. Saturn is not going to be on the Ascendant everywhere, as it is in the “discovery” chart but it will be opposite Chiron, no matter where we’re at.
Overall, this spotlight on relationship reminds me of my theory about the “inner marriage” and Chiron. (See:Wholeness and the Inner Marriage ~ The Chiron Sector and Relationship) I have proposed that Chiron is associated with the Virgo-to-Sagittarius sector of the zodiac in a “natural,” Aries-Rising chart; therefore it also associated with the 6th through 9th houses. In this Chiron Sector, we transition from concerns about self to relationships with others (one other, then community). Chiron could be said to “rule” transitions, derived from many parts of his myth and astronomical Chiron’s bridging function between Saturn and Uranus and its opposite pairs like young/old and tradition/progress. The process of evolving from self-focus to relating to others is sequential and developmental. In order to be really whole, we have to have the inner marriage of self-containment (Virgo and the 6th house) before we can really offer ourselves fully to another person (Libra and the 7th).
With Chiron’s position in the relationship house in the Concordance discovery chart, I think it’s tied to the inner marriage issue. In order to understand another, the person in the 7th House, we first have to be self-contained and self-aware. At the Concordance, Chiron is at 14° Capricorn on the Sabian symbol: “In a hospital, the children’s ward is filled with toys.” Marc Edmund Jones’ original keyword for that degree is “Abundance.” I think people are going to finally learn what “relationship” is all about. The 7th House and Libra at the Autumnal Equinox is the turning-point every year when we welcome the harvest and its abundance. Our most important bounty on earth lies in our human relationships.
Chiron also conjuncts the Part of Fortune in the Concordance discovery chart. And the phrase for that degree in Jones’ original Sabian text is: “An ancient bas-relief carved in granite remains a witness to a long-forgotten culture,” and the Keyword is FOUNDATION. When it’s positive, it’s a gift for bringing all things into a pattern of convenience, precipitating the desired results. FOUNDATION relates back to what I was saying about relationships with better structure and more solid form and function. The bas-relief is carved of granite, sturdy stuff.
These two Sabians together, at both the Part of Fortune and Chiron, seem to say we have an opportunity, finally, to create relationships with firm foundations, to experience the abundance and real potential of relationships, on the deepest level. Jan, it’s what you and Johnny call “The Ascended Relationship.”
Looking at the chart from the perspective of Chiron, I’d say it means that you are about to meet your partner on the path to the Second Coming. The thing that I can’t get out of my mind is that the biblical Magi, who were astrologers, were witnesses to the birth of Christ. When we see the birth of Jesus depicted in iconography, the Star of Bethlehem is often drawn or painted as a Star of David.
Johnny has mentioned the heliocentric chart discovered by John Charles Webb that he claims for the birth chart of Jesus. Webb’s chart is for March 4, 5 B.C. Its Star of David pattern matches the Concordance chart in earth and water signs, and is just a very few degrees off of being an exact duplicate. Webb says that it will not recur in some millions of years.
Most of the Stars of David since 1990 have also been in earth and water. Now, remembering that the catchphrase most associated with Chiron is “The Wounded Healer,” we also remember that our original and universal Chironic wound, the one we all share, is our primary birth trauma—the shock of going from the pre-incarnational waters, and a more Neptunian state, to the rude awakening of being plunged into physical form. Thrust “Down Here,” we experience the illusion of separation. The Concordance Star of David in the water and earth elements may be the Star of our own rebirths and ability to heal this birth trauma, especially with Chiron itself involved, as another Christ-like archetype.
If you really think about that from a spiritual perspective, God or Spirit is being reborn in you and is your partner here. This is the Second Coming of the Inner Christ. It’s Christ becoming your partner within. It’s each of us “getting,” even though our spirit is in physical form, that our spirits or Godness came to Earth along with us. To me, that’s the great realization of the Harmonic Concordance chart. As to “getting it,” remember the day we celebrate the arrival of those Magi astrologers is called The Epiphany!
Johnny, you’ve talked about how “seeing” that Christ Consciousness is what allows us to see the phase shift for Mother Earth. From that point forward, we SEE the world differently. The Yuga’s and the Pacachuttis talk about it, as the idea that the Earth gets born again. I have to quote you: “The way I see it is that this consciousness is birthed into Man, and we wake up and understand who we really are. “
In our new self-reflection, we are infused with more light in our very genetic structure. The switch is turned on. It was always there in potential, but now we have switched on the light and can see it!
There are also the chart’s trines from the Moon and Jupiter, the sextiles from Mars and the Sun. It’s a big positive energy circuit. Although there may be societal challenges we have to overcome together, everything is pulling for us in this energy. Everything is moving the way it should. I love that in this chart, we’ve got the Sun and Moon opposition at a Full Moon eclipse. The Sun and the Moon were Chiron’s teachers, but they should not be thought of as warring within in us. When we have an eclipse and we look up, what do we see, but the integration of the Sun and the Moon. Even during the total eclipse, there is a penumbra.
It’s just a grand pattern with this healer and whole-maker completing it. We have an opportunity to see and do things differently.
I want to conclude with another reminder about the parallels between Chiron and Christ. At the birth of Christ, the Star of Bethlehem is also sometimes depicted as a as a comet. A comet is part of Chiron’s make-up as a centaur body, both asteroid and comet. Chiron is so involved in this Harmonic Concordance event in the most down-to-earth sign of Capricorn. He’s so involved in this magic moment; you can’t have the party (Star) without him.
I’m sure that there is some connection between your having chosen the name “Harmonic Concordance” and the “Harmonic Convergence,” but I’m also convinced that it was a very accurately channeled phrase because a “harmonic concordance” is exactly what you have when your Chiron is working in his most Christ-like mode. You have put many things behind you, you have battled duality and darkness, you live in Light and you have experienced the joy of giving your gifts. In doing so, you bring the light and partnership of Spirit into your daily life, and that’s what will really make us whole. The Harmonic Concordance is about a planet that’s a lot more peaceful and loving, even if we have to surmount some obstacles before we get there.
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Joyce Mason—astrologer, writer, and poet—is a fountain of energy. Her writings and expertise on Chiron and the outer planets are known and appreciated around the world. Her writing style is deep and laced liberally with comic relief. Visit her astrology blog:www.radicalvirgo.com. Look for her newest venture in mainstreaming astrology, a humorous mystery novel called The Crystal Ball, starring an astrologer, available in November 2013. She can be reached at: joyce@joycemason.com.