Chiron and the young Achilles | Fresco from Herculaneum
Chiron the Centaur: Wounded Healer Archetype
The doctor is effective only when he himself is affected. Only the wounded physician heals. But when the doctor wears his personality like a coat of armor, he has no effect. – Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul.
The invention of psychological archetypes was first put forth by Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the famous Swiss psychiatrist and originator of such other concepts as the collective unconscious and synchronicity. His archetype of ‘The Wounded Healer’ originated with the Greek myth of Chiron who in the process of overcoming the pain of his own wounds came to be known to us in modern times as the compassionate master teacher of the arts of healing and medicine, privy to the secrets of life and death. Chiron is not listed as a Dying God Archetype presumably because he was not a god himself but merely an immortal. We may soon be tempted to count him among the Dying Gods anyway.
Chiron was the oldest, wisest and best of the Centaurs. He was the son of Cronos (the Titan god of time & the ages, ruler of the cosmos) and Philyra (one of the Oceanides nymphs or nature spirits of the clouds). Because the Titans were immortal, Chiron was born immortal. A great healer, hunter, astrologer, and respected oracle, Chiron was revered as a teacher and tutor. Among his pupils were many culture heroes: Asclepius, Aristaeus, Ajax, Aeneas, Actaeon, Caeneus, Theseus, Achilles, Jason, Peleus, Telamon, Heracles, Oileus, Phoenix, and in some stories, Dionysus.
Chiron is considered a wounded healer because he healed himself by trading his immortality for the ability to die as an antidote to the eternal suffering of unbearable pain. But there is another wound he bore that I haven’t observed anyone talking about as a function of the ‘wounded healer’ archetype, and this wound of which I speak is what unquestionably qualified Chiron above all others to raise and tutor Asclepius after Apollo killed his mother and bade Hermes take his infant son to Chiron.
The story of Chiron’s deepest wounding probably begins with the moment of his conception when Cronus, in the act of coupling with the nymph Philyra, transformed himself into a horse to avoid being caught by his wife Rhea who had suddenly come upon the scene.
As a consequence of the form change, Chiron was born half man-half horse which so horrified Philyra that she rejected her newborn on the spot. How Chiron grew up to be intelligent, wise and compassionate instead of wild and savage like the other centaurs we are not told directly although as the story goes Apollo adopted and schooled Chiron thoroughly in the arts of hunting, healing, medicine, all branches of science, and the mysteries, giving him the tools to rise above his beast nature (and psychological issues too no doubt).
In fairness, the references do say the other centaurs were the product of the unions of one or more of the cloud spirit nymphs and Ixion the King of the Lapiths1 whom Zeus judged as evil and sentenced to be bound to a wheel set to turn and burn forever over a spit in Tartarus. However to conclude Chiron had greater spiritual potential on account of his parentage would be to make a dangerous assumption. Studies show as a practical matter there is no telling from whence issues the criminal mind. Bad people come out of good families every day, and vice versa. Evil wouldn’t be evil if it were predictable.
The defining difference between Chiron and the rest of the centaurs in behavior and disposition, then, ceteris paribus (all other things being equal) is apparent, i.e., Chiron was raised and tutored by Apollo specifically to overcome his animal nature. Picking up where the mythographers leave off, then, we now change voices and wax poetic starting with the telltale clue …
… we are told in ancient Greek literature that Chiron lived alone in a cave…
Chiron the Centaur, Hand of the GodsThe closest Chiron could get to the feeling of ever having had a mother was to live in a womb shaped cave he’d found one day at the foot of Mount Pelion. He had been dropped on top of the mountain as a newborn by one of the fluffy white clouds who then suddenly turned dark and began to rain like mad, washing him away down the mountain in a disorienting torrent like so much flotsam and jetsam. It was no coincidence that Apollo, God of Healing and Light, was standing at the foot of Mount Pelion at the very moment Chiron came tumbling down it. He’d had an oracular vision in which it came to Apollo a great teacher was coming to Thessaly and it would be up to the God of Light to make sure the future wise one was provided for. Apollo chuckled at the sight of the future great teacher sprawled out at his feet. He could see his work was cut out for him. Apollo saw to all of Chiron’s immediate needs and, after ensuring the halfling was safely and securely settled in to his new environment, the God of Light slipped away at dusk saying he would return the following day at daybreak and every day with the rising Sun for a season he called the Spring of Life when all things learn and grow and seek the light. And this he did on every fair and sunny day but always on days marked by the gods for ritual and sacrifice, no matter what. The hours of the days when Apollo came to tutor or hunt with Chiron were alight with the sunshine of the spirit. But those times seemed fleeting to the immortal-born. Whenever Apollo departed, always with the last rays of the setting Sun, Chiron would repair to the darkness and solitude of his cave. With nothing to distract him and time without end on his hands, young Chiron was his own worst enemy. His mind was the battleground for a world of conflicting thoughts and feelings about everything (you have only to imagine). He was, after all, half animal, and the animal half of him that caused his mother to reject him at birth made up the lion’s share of his body by weight and was driven by herd instinct in a world where there was no herd, for he was the first of his kind. It confused him to think both halves of him were not equally good and valuable and that one needed to be brought under submission to the other. So Chiron would alternately wrestle with dark thoughts about his man-half, the half Apollo was trying to teach and enlighten, and his animal nature. One day Chiron had a lucid dream as he was staring at his reflection in the glassy obsidian wall of his womb cave. In a flash he understood why he had been placed by the gods in the life that they chose for him—the one with Apollo in it as his foster father and mentor. The gods had a Plan for the world and there was a particular role in it that only Chiron could fill. He saw that as part of this Plan Apollo would in the future be blessed with the coming of a son and that both father and son would suffer rejection, each in his own way, denying them the same comforts and pleasures of home and family relations that had eluded and psychologically wounded Chiron. The thought of someone dear to him—or indeed anyone—suffering what Chiron had suffered went straight to his Heart like a knife. And as Chiron recoiled from the painful memory of his own wounding as a foal-child he saw the Big Picture very clearly. Apollo would need a foster family to raise and tutor his son who was destined go on to become savior of the whole world (or the revolutionary new Archetype Master Physician, whichever came first). It was then Chiron accepted he was a special creation of the Gods sent to Earth in an uncommon form earmarking him to follow a narrow path. He would become the right hand of Apollo, God of Light and the Sun, and raise Apollo’s son Asclepius just as Apollo had raised Chiron. Hence the spiritual significance of the name ‘Chiron’ which means ‘hand’ [of the Gods]. Chiron emerged from the womb cave the next morning even before the Sun rose and he waited for it. He was beast no more except in appearance and really only that from a certain point of view (which all goes to illustrate the oft-quoted words of wisdom still good to this day, never judge a book by its cover). Off in the distance, just behind the Day Star, strode Apollo toward him carrying something. It was a rite of passage gift from foster father to foster son—a special bow and quiver of arrows. And with the gift Chiron’s beloved teacher announced it was time for Chiron to learn the first of the secrets of life and death, about poisons and antidotes and about openings in the flesh and how to make them go away. |
Chiron as Sagittarius
After that day, according to myth and legend, Chiron met and married a nymph he had admired named Chariklo who went on to become the foster mother of many of the great heroes of Greece, among them Asclepius, son of Apollo. Chiron also had three or four daughters by Chariklo, depending on which version of the myth you consult. The only daughter of Chariklo who came to misfortune was the one not sired by Chiron. But that is another story.
The essence of Chiron’s heroic death story which originally earned him Wounded Healer Archetype status begins with his flesh being pierced by Heracles’ arrow which had been treated with the poisonous blood of the Hydra.
The fatal blood of the Hydra mingling with his immortal blood and body, the wise master teacher of the healing arts who knew the secrets of life and death ironically could not heal himself nor being immortal could he die. Fortunately, Chiron was able to strike a bargain with Zeus to exchange his immortality for the life of Prometheus who had been chained to a rock and left to die for his transgressions.
This act would later result in the gift of fire being transmitted to humanity. The story about Chiron “healing himself” by trading his immortality in for the ability to die, I suppose, teaches us something about hard choices, but I’m not sure I get what Chiron did with that result after the fact that would qualify him as a wounded healer on that account.
Surely now we can see Chiron’s choosing to trade his immortality for the right to die speaks to a different albeit related dynamic. Yes, he cured himself of excruciating pain, but what sort of self-healing does the right-to-die represent? I submit this question also needs to be reexamined in the context of life-death-rebirth. Chiron should be given due consideration as a Dying God on the basis of his heroic gesture and contribution to humanity followed by death and reentry into modern day society as an ascended master possessed of a celestial body/form (Centaur Object 2060 Chiron).
Chiron in the Sky
Constellation Centaurus
To honor his heroic self-sacrifice, Chiron was placed in the sky after he died as constellation Sagittarius, Ophiuchus’s zodiac neighbor to the West but somewhere along the line Chiron’s constellation was changed to the Archer. Today Chiron’s constellation Centaurus can be seen walking along the Galactic Equator in the Southern Hemisphere.
Chiron the Wounded Healer Revisited
Now that we have finished looking at both halves of Chiron’s story, it’s time to reevaluate the evidence that unfolded when we reread the myth from head to tail and from a new angle. The unabridged version of Chiron’s life story presents my argument with authority. It’s the story of a rejected and abandoned half boy-half colt raised by Apollo to transcend his heart-and-soul wounding, overcome his limitations, and become the peerless wise master teacher, healer and sage enabling the self-healed Chiron to step in and perform the same service later for Apollo in the raising of his son Asclepius. I just want to point that out.
Return of the Centaurs
Orbit of 2060 Chiron
In 1977 astronomers observed a minor planet exhibiting both asteroid and comet characteristics and behavior between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. Chiron was the second object of its type to be discovered by astronomers so they created a new classification, “centaur”, and they named their latest discovered centaur “Chiron”.
2060 Chiron is a planetoid in the outer Solar System. Discovered on November 1, 1977 by Charles Kowal from images taken two weeks earlier at the Mount Palomar Observatory (precovery images have been found as far back as 1895), it was the first known member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs, with an orbit between those of Saturn and Uranus. Although it was initially classified as an asteroid, it was later found to exhibit behaviour typical of a comet. Today it is classified as both, and accordingly it is also known by the cometary designation 95P/Chiron. Chiron is named after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology. Original source of facts: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2060_Chiron. See also http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chiron.html
The generic definition of a centaur is a small body that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune and crosses the orbits of one or more of the giant planets. Subsequent to the discovery of Chiron in 1977, other “cross-listed asteroid-comet” (centaur) objects were sighted. The largest centaur so identified to date is 10199 Charliko. In December 2005 a cometary coma was detected on Centaur 60558 Echeclus originally discovered in 2000 and studied in 2001 (no tail was previously detected).
The astrologers, of course, took the baton passed to them by the astronomers and ran all the way with it. Following the Harmonic Convergence in 1987, Chiron the Centaur brightened in 1988, developed a cometary coma in 1989, and grew a tail in 1993.
Since 1987 Chiron has become one of the most important small planets to add to a birth chart, arguably more essential to include than any of the asteroids popularly plotted. But we will not cover that ground here except to note for the record that on November 1, 1977, the date of Chiron’s discovery, NASA’s JPL Online Ephemeris Generator recorded Chiron’s position as transiting constellation Aries (zodiac sign of birth) in retrograde motion, occultly suggesting REbirth for Chiron since at the top of the list of retrograde motion affects are reversal, renewing, and redoing.
Chiron as Dying & Resurrected God
Chiron’s heroic, transformative death in ancient Greek mythology followed by a metamorphic, modern day rebirthing into physical form as a space rock and resurrection by astronomers and astrologers ironically working as a team despite their being, like Chiron, two halves of one cosmic body, more than qualify Chiron to be considered one of the Dying and Resurrection Gods. Chiron is serving humanity today in a number of capacities but the disciplines that relate to our subject matter here is as a Master Astronomy-Astrologer and Divine Wisdom Teacher. If you want to know how to interface with him personally, one way would be consult a New Age Astronomy-Astrologer. Or you could just go within and ask in your Heart to speak to Chiron.
The Olympians: New Order
Zeus & Eagle, his symbolic form
The surviving victorious were summoned and gathered together at the new digs high atop Mount Olympus. Everyone wanted to be present at the drawing of the lots if only to be able to say aeons later to their great god children that they were there on that strange and wonderful day.
Yes, “strange”, because the brightest star in the new Greek sky, Zeus the Olympian — liberator and initiator of the cause — had not presumed the right, as his father and grandfather before him had done, to ascend the throne and claim rulership over the Cosmos outright.
No more tyrannical rulers, he declared. Instead he had insisted some sort of completely unbiased decision-making process be implemented.
Someone suggested a vote be taken. But as it seemed likely the advantage would go to the popular, bright and winsome Zeus who had heroically rescued his brothers and sisters to get the war effort going, Zeus wouldn’t hear of it. Any man or immortal so blessed would have done as much, he had said. The bond of Family is sacred. All of us here equally put our immortality on the line in this great and terrible war. Without every one of our powers and talents, victory would not have been possible; let us draw straws.
There are four kingdoms here: the celestial abodes, the terrestrial prospects, the water world, and the nether realm. What say we share in the fruits and fields of the earth where sky, water, and shadow lands meet, and each of us take up residence and exercise absolute dominion over one of the remaining three kingdoms? Let Earth be a place where we can all meet and reach accord; let it forever remain a neutral ground. And so it was.
Haides (Aides, Gk. “unseen”)The lots then went into my helm to render them invisible and thus preserve the integrity of the draw.2 But it didn’t matter to me who drew which lot. Had I not come up short and been given the last and lowest of the kingdoms to be awarded, I should have picked it outright. It suits me.  Hades I am thus the keeper of the Gates to the lower worlds. To this day, as evidenced in the holy books of our conquerors the Christians, the hidden, unseen realm of conscious departed spirits, whither man descends at death, is called by my name Hades, invoking me thus century after century and millennium after millennium, keeping my name very much alive in god and human consciousness. Hence I come before you now and speak with a voice long silent but in no wise mute as with my fallen Olympian brothers and sisters who were banished wholesale from the face of the Earth after their temples and sanctuaries were all torn down. My kingdom suffered no such fate as my abode, hidden and unseen, was nowhere on Earth to be found. Hence Haides could not be destroyed and was simply annexed and incorporated into the new Christian god’s underworld system. My kingdom is still as it ever was and then some. Relevant to the time when my Olympian brothers and sisters took form and walked the Earth alongside mankind, I made sure errant shades whom death had separated from embodiment did not slip out of Haides to interfere in the affairs of the living. I also protected the land of the dead from unauthorized entry by souls still fully clothed in form as their presence can be disturbing to the dead in a number of ways. In death a soul vacates the world of concrete form and takes up transitory residence in the shadow world. Those are the rules and it is my job to oversee compliance. Let me dispel any lingering misunderstandings: The underworld is not about punishment, it is about resting from the rigors of physical embodiment. Contrary to popular belief of the misinformed, Hades is a virtual paradise. In deed, it is the pit of Tartarus and the void of Chaos that are the places of seething torment and the irrevocable undoing of the finally condemned. Yes! Even Yeshua the Kristos sojourned here in Haides while he was awaiting his ascension; you can find it in New Testament: Acts if you don’t believe me. The kingdom of Haides contains wealth beyond imagining. Every precious and semi-precious gem, mineral and metal is born and makes its home here. The crystalline structures are virtually palatial, perfect in clarity and rich in color. These alone are (pardon the expression) to die for. And of course the unbroken natural cycles of organic life here transform physical substance into the best trans-physical mulch and nutrients. In other words, the prana given off by the subterranean food here is second to none. Souls scheduled to be reincarnated leave here healed and in perfect condition. I can’t say they seem particularly happy to leave. Let me put it this way: the wonders of my kingdom were sufficient to provide a rich and abundant life to my bride Persephone whom I had snatched from the land of the living rather than risk her refusal as I had seen so many times done to my brothers. Fear of the unknown is universal, I argued to my brother Zeus, Persephone’s father. Therefore I should be awarded the opportunity to show her I have what every woman wants which unfortunately in my case is hidden from her view since that is the nature of the lot I drew. And I don’t mind telling you, brother, (I said to him) I am quite happy with my lot. However, in return for my not adding to your troubles by battling you for more of the Earth’s surface as does our disgruntled brother Poseidon, you owe me this favor of letting me have your most lovely daughter Persephone on my own terms! (To which Zeus thoughtfully agreed.) And so, by the time Persephone’s mother Demeter had successfully impressed upon Zeus the dire importance of returning her daughter to her (Demeter was a single mother and the Goddess of the organic, agrarian Earth and all things that affect the abundance and prosperity of living, growing things), my beautiful Queen of the Underworld had been with me long enough to assess what her situation was, and she had to admit, which she did and not begrudgingly, that although she did miss her mother she was not unhappy here. Persephone & the Power of Choice Persephone and Hades Indulge me please while I attempt to set the record straight on an issue or two that I don’t know when I will ever get another chance to address. As to my Queen Persephone, her mother Demeter was adamant and pressured Zeus to order her daughter returned to her. Demeter was powerful and won her suit. Saying our farewells at the Gate, Persephone ate of the pomegranate I offered her, invoking the Rule which she as Queen of the Underworld well knew by then, that once one has eaten or drank in the Underworld, there is no going back to the world of form. Those who say my Queen was tricked are fooling themselves and misleading others. The truth is my Queen, when offered the opportunity to return to her former home, reached out instead for a compelling reason to have to stay in Haides where she had become the powerful Queen of a King who treated her well and tenderly and heaped wealth and position upon her to her heart’s content. She had in fact become more powerful than I in my own kingdom and I cannot say it bothered me a bit! This seed of the pomegranate fiasco caused quite a commotion upstairs, I don’t mind telling you, and that is the truth. As a conciliatory term in the ensuing mediation, I agreed to bend the Rules so that Persephone could divide her time between Haides and her mother, which essentially means if you think about it rationally, my Queen enjoys the best of both worlds and so do I. Persephone emerges from the Underworld in the Spring, heavy with seed ready to blossom forth and bear fruit in the land of the living. She returns to the land of the dead after all the harvests have cleared the fields and the warm wind has gone cold. Hence for two-thirds of every year while my Queen of the Underworld sojourns above ground I alone see to my Kingdom, a King without his Queen. I may be one of the few gods whose infidelities are in the least excusable. So tell me, which of the two of us do you think is the tricky one now? Surely not I! |
Rev. 06/30/2011
← Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter →
Copyright © 2005-2012 Donna Provancher – All Rights Reserved
- Ixion was, depending on the version of myth one reads, either a son Ares or of King Phlegyas (both father figures connote fire) and hence the brother of Koronis, Asklepios’s mother. ↩
- The Cyclopes made magical weapons for each of the 3 brothers to use in the Great War against the Titans; for Hades they made a special Helmet that made the wearer invisible, for Zeus they fashioned the Thunderbolt, and for Poseidon the Trident. ↩
