Wounded Healer
New Moon Solar Eclipse in Aries
Welcome friends! We’ve made it to spring and we have been flying right on though Aries season and Mercury retrograde. Oh, and, the total solar eclipse and Aries new moon is nigh. Monday will take us through this journey, and we add on one additional facet of note: the small plant/comet, Chiron, which is also currently situated in Aries, is in conjunction to the sun as well. Chiron is an interesting one because it represents the wounded healer. The jist is this: Chiron was a mythological centaur who was wounded accidentally by Heracles. His wound was incurable, but because he was of divine ancestry, he remained immortal with a wound that would never heal. He spent his life navigating this wound as a great teacher and mentor and healer. Thus Chiron now remains representative astrologically of our deepest wounds as well their the greatest salve.
The Wounded Healer is a powerful archetype of the symbiosis and companionship that comes when the one doing the healing has also been wounded. The “us” and “them” martyrdom and air of superiority that exists with a savior complex is relinquished - we are collectively wounded, and collectively then, we are given an opportunity to support one another toward healing.
Perhaps a modern-day Chiron figure would be the likes of Pollyanna. If you haven’t read the book or seen the 1960 Disney rendering, I highly recommend. A brief overview is this: Pollyanna is a child, deeply wounded by the loss of her parents, orphaned to a wealthy but emotionally-distant and bitter relative, and situated in an unfamiliar and quite caustic community. Pollyanna makes it her mission to bring gladness, and the heart of joy, to the world around her. The more the community pushes back at her purity and kindness, the more she remains steadfast in her position, and ultimately it is her woundedness itself that softens the hearts of those around her. Quite Chiron-ic, if you will.
With Chiron in Aries making a conjunction to the sun in Aries, with Mercury and Venus in Aries, with the North Node in Aries and the moon moving into Aries for the solar eclipse…we have a lot going on with themes of will, action, independence, impulsivity, and confrontation. Aries is the number one. It’s the spark that brings life. It’s the first one out of the gate when the shotgun says go. And Chiron is highlighting this element of wounding which speaks both to our struggles with claiming and maintaining our individuality, as well as the rampant over-independence that runs through our collective society. So over the next couple of days, we may have highlighted to us these particular wounds - lack of clarity over our identity and our confidence in self, and/or our ability to connect to others in meaningful ways, to utilize support where and when it’s available, to build something collaboratively and sustainably. Because while Aries is the independent, it also carries with it the wisdom that autonomy is interdependent. A spark is going to do more with a pile of wood than a pile of nothingness. And so we have this connection to our collective need for support, for interdependence, that doesn’t compromise or push away our sense of agency and autonomy.
It may be valuable to assess how these themes connect to you now. Depending on your specific planetary placements, you may feel this more strongly and centrally than others. But the structure remains for all of us, collectively, of independence, of over-independence, that capitalism has conditioned us into. How do we find support? How do we know when and where to work together? How do we utilize our own unique ideas and innovations to collaboratively build a more sustainable future? On the flipside of this, what ways have you rolling over and giving in, or engaging in a passive approach? What might it look like to explore what shrinks your you-ness (hint: it’s often for the sake of safety and protection - if we don’t stand out, we won’t make ourselves known), and explore spaces that can bring your confidence and uniqueness to the surface?
To really complicate things, the clarity for some of those reflective questions will be completely eclipsed on our new moon day. As typical, our new moons bring in a collective inhale. So this full solar eclipse on the new moon may be akin to taking in a deep breath but absolutely choking a little on your breath as you breathe it in. Something that gets in the way of being able to take that breath in full. The difficulty of choking through it is one of the obvious downsides to our eclipse day, but the clarity that comes from being forced into awareness - wow, I have to pay attention to my breathing now, there’s no avoiding or distracting myself from the fact that I am struggling to take breath here - that is the wisdom we are being given with the new moon. We have to pay attention to it.
And to, you know, throw another wrench into the process, Mercury in Aries is also currently in retrograde. As you may recall, retrogrades bring a sort of delay, difficulty, confusion, or halting of the normal flow of the planetary energy. And Mercury being all about communication, meaning, reason, adaptability, and flow of data means that something with regard to our ways of communicating and connecting may be delayed or made difficult. All the more, this points to the need for our increased awareness. Because when things are going as they are meant to go, when the world is operating smoothly, when we’re just breathing as normal and there’s nothing that gets in the way of taking a full breath in and out, we have the tendency to shift into autopilot. We’re just moving with it, oftentimes unaware. And sometimes that can mean certain things go overlooked or even avoided. We can get into the flow so strongly that we become averse to anything that needs our attention until it really acts up. Retrogrades and eclipses are that instance where the things may act up because they are requiring our attention.
We also know that during a retrograde it’s important to do things that re- us. Reflect, revisit, review, rework, reconfigure…spend some time tending to you. Spend some time in awareness to check in with self. What is working well? What isn’t? What things are ripened and ready to be plucked off the branch? What things have rotted away and need composting? Which seeds are prime for planting? What aspects of life are coming to your attention now as you read through this reflection? It’s maybe not the best time for clarity or lucid confrontation. But it can be a time to offer yourself a respite, a check in, and a deepening of your awareness so that when the skies are clear again, you’ll be confident in the direction of your motions.
We have a lot to work with here on this Aries new moon, with Mercury and Venus and Chiron and the eclipse and the retrograde all in tow. We are bestowing many, many blessings to you and we hope you find a bit of peace amidst the chaos of the season. We are sending our best to you and yours! Be easy, be kind, rest, and may this new moon be a renewal in the ways you need.