Astrology Secrets Revealed by ERIC FRANCIS

Chiron Time Frames

 

December 3, 2004 (with chart)

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/dec3.html

 

Hi Eric:


I feel compelled to complete the Chiron transits exercise you've described on Jon Cainer's site several times recently, but if I understand correctly, the time frames to examine are different for everyone. I haven't the foggiest idea how to determine mine. Are you able to point me in the direction of a resource? Your writing is a pleasure to read.

 

Thank you

Suz

 

 

Dear Suzanne,


Let's back up a little for the sake of those who may not be familiar with the Chiron Time Frames exercise I've developed for my clients and readers.

 

The process involves making a life chronology where the selected dates are determined by certain Chiron transits. As you say, this is different for everyone, though there are some similarities based on the year of birth; but for the most part, it's a highly individualized pattern.

 

A Chiron transit is what happens when Chiron makes an aspect to itself, to an angle in the chart such as the ascendant, or to another planet or point (Jupiter, Venus, etc.) in the natal chart. Because this is a highly individualized time pattern, it cannot be summed up in an easy table in a book or with summary chapters that give interpretations. But the results most people get make it worth the effort.

 

While you could program a computer to calculate every Chiron transit from birth till the present time, that would present an overwhelming number of events. Based on experience with many clients, I can get it down to the five or ten most interesting ones. This involves some experience and choice, and I can give an example of the process in a moment using a sample chart.

 

The purpose of the exercise is to see your life story as told through the lens of Chiron. This, in turn, will allow you to see how your natal horoscope works in a way that is both revealing and helpful. Chiron, a small planet orbiting near Saturn that was discovered in 1977, is meaningful because it specifically addresses processes of healing, transformation and the raising of awareness. You could say all three of these are the same thing.

 

Unlike most other planets, Chiron's orbit is unusually egg-shaped, so its movement through the heavens (and thus, the chart) creates a time pattern that is irregular and can reveal the connecting thread between events, which, previously, seemed to have nothing to do with one another.

 

Once the dates are selected, I ask people to journal out each of the time frames separately. Then, once this is process (which may take a couple of weeks) is done, the whole sequence is looked at as a story and the themes, patterns and trends are explored.

 

Typically, the time frame on transit event will be about nine months. I suggest that each journal entry for a transit begin with your address at the time of the date in question, and the story of what happened when you were living at that address. The idea is not to look for "something big" or unusual, or a trauma; rather, it is to describe the nature and conditions of your life at that time. So start with the address.

 

The beauty of this exercise is that it quickly gets you past the "what does my chart mean?" level of astrology and puts you firmly in the terrain of "how does my chart work?" There is BIG difference. On the second of these, you are not depending on a book to tell you something about yourself; you are looking at your own life for information, and the information will be there.

 

For a variety of reasons this approach is, I believe, very productive -- but mainly because it puts astrology to work as a self-study tool without the intervention of other people's ideas about you, and without resorting to a pre-fab interpretation of the chart. In the end, you bring your own interpretation. It is also a chance to see your life from another perspective and get a feeling for how you grow. It's also a chance to watch your chart, and astrology, in action.

 

In the next few paragraphs, I'm going to provide you with the instructions for how to do this. For people who don't feel experienced enough, I will create a special personal consultation which involves me looking up the dates for you, followed by you completing the journaling, and me responding to what you have written. That will be at the bottom.

 

To look these dates up yourself, you need two basic skills: 1. One is to be able to see where planets are in your chart, by sign and degree; and 2. You need to be able to follow the ephemeris (planetary position table) well enough to know when you are having a transit. Both the natal chart and the Chiron ephemeris are free online. You can get your chart at http://astro.com and you can create a customized ephemeris at http://ephemeral.info/eph.

 

However, I suggest you get yourself a book-styled ephemeris that lists Chiron. There are several. One is the American Ephemeris, available just about anywhere, and the other is the Aureas Ephemeris, available only in Europe and the UK. You can get the Aurreas ephemeris in the US by ordering directly from http://Aureas.com. Because this exercise involves widely separated time frames, being able to turn a bunch of pages and jump ahead or back using a book is very helpful. If you are vaguely interested in the study of astrology, you need this skill, and you need an ephemeris; so take the leap, buy an ephemeris, you'll be glad you did -- promise.

 

For now, let's use http://ephemeral.info and the natal chart of Babe Ruth. Click on this link and by the miracle of the Internet, a Chiron ephemeris for Babe Ruth will appear, beginning with his birthday and covering the first 40 or so years of his life. I have set the ephemeris to give me the position of Chiron four times a year, for simplicity. It seemed to work fine; I used it myself to get the dates below. However, I suggest the ephemeris to calculate the position of Chiron once every 30 days; and remember to ask it to cover as many months as you've lived, indicated by how many lines you want the ephemeris to be. Play around with the thing and you will get it to work. The first line is your natal position. You can type in any planets you like into that field.

 

Okay, so you got this odd thing in front of you? Now look a the chart; you will be working back and forth between the chart and the ephemeris, cross-referencing. Notice, first of all, that The Babe has Chiron on the cusp of his 5th house. That is our starting point. It's the green planet near the bottom, in Libra. It has an address: 8 Libra and 52 minutes. That is the degree position. When using an ephemeris, you need to watch that degree, because it tells you when another planet is making an aspect. What I will offer as one sentence of interpretation is we know that Babe Ruth liked to have fun.

 

For this chart, I would list the following transits, which will proceed anti-clockwise:

 

Autumn 1896. Chiron conjunct Saturn in Scorpio. This is a childhood transit, so I would ask something about the known conditions of the home at the time, such as the parent's marriage, children in the household, the client's health, and so on. People often need to rely on stories or ask older relatives about childhood transits, which is an interesting aspect to the investigation (or healing) process. This transit is part of a time frame (extending through Autumn 1897) including Chiron conjunct Uranus (also in green), square the Sun in Aquarius, and opposite Mars in Taurus. Ruth, a powerful, talented man, was born with a mighty T-square (three planets making squares and an opposition) of Uranus, Sun and Mars. When Chiron aspects one point on this T-Square, it aspects the other. It will reach the T-square a little after it reaches Saturn. Watch the degree numbers.

 

Autumn 1901. Chiron square natal Chiron. Chiron's aspects to itself are the core of the process. You could do with these along, but the details give you a lot of interesting material to work with. Because Ruth is born with Chiron and the Moon in a close square, when Chiron aspects itself, it always aspects the Moon. Part of the power of aspects is that when one planet is transited, as we've seen above, the entire aspect structure is transited. In this case, notice that the ascendant and the descendent are also involved. So I would consider the Chiron square, Chiron opposite the Moon and Chiron into the 7th house to be one time frame. I would count this whole set of transits as lasting through autumn of 1902.

 

Spring 1908. Chiron conjunct the Sun in Aquarius. Notice that Chiron hasn't moved very far, but it's taken quite a while to get there. That's because Chiron, which began in Libra (where it moves through the signs the fastest) is now in Aquarius, where it is beginning to move at near its slowest speed (in miles, far from the Sun, but exactly aligned with it). When Chiron conjoins the Sun it will also square Uranus in Scorpio and Mars in Taurus. It is no accident that Ruth had all these squares in his chart. He was an extremely determined and driven man. I would count this transit as going through winter 1909.

 

Spring 1911. Chiron conjunct Venus and Mercury in Pisces. This is very close to the next one, and will be related to it. I would count this through early winter 1912.

 

Spring 1912. Chiron conjunct the midheaven, square Pluto and square Neptune. I would count this through winter 1913. So 1911 through 1913 are one long sequence of transits. If this happens in your chart, patiently sort out the time frame as best you can.

 

Spring 1920. Chiron opposite Chiron. His natal Chiron is in Libra; the transit is in Aries. I would count this through spring 1921.

 

Spring 1930. Chiron conjunct Mars, square the Sun and opposite Uranus. I would count this through spring 1931.

 

Autumn 1934. Chiron conjunct Pluto and Neptune, square the midheaven. I would count this through spring 1936. This is a long one.

 

Summer 1938. Chiron in the ascendant, conjunct the Moon and square itself. This is the second Chiron square, always an interesting transit. Some call it the "upper square." It is Chiron reaching the three-quarters point in the full circle.

 

Chiron return. This happens at about age 50-51. This is Chiron coming full circle. Most people experience the Chiron return as lasting, in actual effects, through the age of 53.

 

You may be wondering why I left some transits out. It's not necessary to do the entire chart. I was choosing events that seemed interesting, relevant and energized. One thing I might have included is Chiron's aspects to Jupiter, which is depicted in purple, rising, in Gemini, just above the ascendant. Jupiter is opposite the galactic core in Sagittarius, and it rules his 10th house because he has Pisces on the 10th cusp. Given that Babe Ruth was so famous we're still talking about him 110 years after he was born, the 10th ruler and Jupiter might be good things to check, but remember that you don't want to get overwhelmed with data here. In doing the first session with a client, sometimes checking three of these dates is adequate -- but for self-study and learning your chart, I would do about eight or 10.

 

Then, take those dates and do the journal exercise. And, if you don't get this far, at least I got some good writing exercise writing out these dates and putting this method on paper for the first time.

 

If someone is a good sports trivia researcher, I would love to hear how these dates square against the story of Babe Ruth's life (I just checked one chronology and saw some interesting correspondences). Also, we can do this again with an actual, live reader of this page and discuss the results of the inquiry in this space.

 

Okay, last aspect for this item. If you would like me to prepare a custom list of your Chiron time frames, contact my office at chiron@planetwaves.net and we will send you an email explaining how we can do that, and the fee involved. As part of this service, I will write a response to your time frames and spot the relevant themes. Details will come in the return email.