Chiron-Pholus: The Sandpaper of Life

October 23, 2019February 28, 2024 / The Centaur Space / 1 Comment

Welcome to Scorpio Season! The Sun today enters a new sign and shines a positive light on Pholus, recently into Capricorn. For all our talk, the Sun’s entry into a new sign is only a ‘background radiation’ for the month. The distinct patterns of time come into focus through a look at planetary aspects.

[Please note an updated version of this article is now published through the Career Astrologer on AstroDienst]

Earlier this year, the cup-bearing Centaur of divine ambrosia, Pholus, dipped into Capricorn, only to travel again in Sagittary for many moons. This was a reprise of his time in 2016-7 on his centaury ‘home turf’. Through much of 2016- and 2017 Pholus skirted the edges of the Galactic Center, at Sagittarius 27: “Sanding and sanding a sculptor is carefully modulating and refining a curve.” (Pleiadian Degree Symbols) The symbol feels right for a centaur like Pholus: cosmic sandpaper grinds down all the karmic rough spots: it hurts, yet we become smoother for having lived through it. What curves has life been artfully, if gratingly, modulating for you?

Chiron and Pholus have squared, first from mutables (Pisces/Sagittarius), and now cardinal signs (Aries/Capricorn). Fortunately these two are friends, vs. being antagonistic. They have similar aims: of helping us reach spiritual healing. Visionary keywords for Chiron-Pholus together, which I derived from their mutual presence in the discovery chart of each, are Celebration of Life and Renewal. So however it feels in the process, the purpose of their lessons are joyful.

Centaurs are eccentric: they weave weird webs for our world. Their sense of time is not steady, like our even-keel around the solar zodiac in twelve segments. From our point of view (geocentric), the Centaurs make paths that are both elliptical and off-center around the Sun. This makes their travels through the signs of the zodiac hard to keep track of. It’s in the ephemeris, but it’s hard to discuss in a straight line. Especially when we are looking at the relationship of two centaurs, like Pholus with Chiron.

A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System (Wooden Books) includes a surprise end-plate illustration of what I’m talking about, here: you can see the beautiful symmetry between say, Saturn and the outer planets, compared to say Chiron as it blends with either planet. [image removed on Saturn Cazimi 2024!]

As it happens, the 20th and 21st Centuries are host to especially weird centaur cycles. If we are trying to figure out the current Chiron-Pholus cycle (of healing ancestral karma), this is important. Where does the cycle (that now reaches an opening square) begin? And its history? Pedigree of a cycle: Checking out Robert von Heeren’s deep research is an ideal start. He’s plotted the paths of each centaur to the other – www.kentauren.info for the win. What a funny plot the Chiron-Pholus is:

We can see that historically, there have been many Chiron-Pholus squares (see all the curves running through the 90° line.) Most of those are in the 17th and 18th centuries on this 450-year plot. Actually, check out the 180° line at top — so many years have hits there: these two centaurs spend a lot of time at odds, at opposite zodiacal poles.

So, in a broad stroke we can see that much of our ‘Medieval’ and early modern history is colored by the Chiron-Pholus opposition. More recently, they also opposed in the 19th and 20th centuries several times.

In a 500 year period they can reach opposition about a dozen times, while actually conjoining only half as many times. The conjunction then, marks a mini-epoch in human history. For all the weirdness, their total cycle is of a (near-) regular 100 years: they meet every century, give or take a couple years, then do the whirly-gig dance of healing from then out.

But, to return to the point: check out this 100 year chunk, from mid 20th to mid 21st c. There was the conjunction of 1956 (in Aquarius), and then in the 1990s there was a close-but-no-centaur conjunction, before stretching way up to an opposition in a short few decades:

1939 Opposition, mid-Cancer/Capricorn
1956 conjunction in Aquarius, in the lead up to which they span 180 degrees in a few years;
1956-2019 waxing into the slower opening square we find ourselves in today.

In the 2040s, Pholus will live out his stay in Capricorn that we are now entering. This exit won’t happen without lots of action, though, in the form of reaching two phases in their cycle:
Chiron and Pholus wax to their next opposition by 2041, in the last degrees of the Cancer/Capricorn axis (Aug 2041). Then, by late Aug 2048, Pholus and Chiron reach the waning square of this cycle.

Our present Chiron-Pholus cycle concludes in 2060, at the end of Aquarius. So this centauric “Age of Aquarius” begins and ends in the sign of the Water Bearer, which is a worthy symbol of Pholus, holder of visionary ambrosia. The Centaur’s function in both myth and reality is to safeguard what is most potent and valuable for when the time comes to pop the cork on that emergency bottle and drink deep from life’s mysteries. Times of sudden initiation, breakthrough, and spiritual crisis.

Square aspects, especially in the waxing phase that we find ourselves in, are never easy. Often the best solace we can take is seeing how the part fits into the whole picture. It is notable how the cycle begins in the ’50s, when the “Aquarian Generation” of Boomers took birth. We have inherited their crises, as all generations do from the prior one. This waxing square is the deep work of ancestral healing – even healing those ‘ancestors’ who still live. We heal the part of them that is in us: in our genes, habits, thought patterns. It’s the “Harmony is Strife” phase of the cycle, as warned by Heraclitus.

Pholus may have ‘died’ in ~~Chiron’s~~ [a cave], at the sharp end of Herakles’ arrow, but I can assure you that the wisdom-being inspiring that tale lives today, in his aquarian realm. Likewise, Chiron the Master Teacher and Healer exists in a crystalline presence as close to you today as any other dream-mentor. If that sounds inspiring to you, please just reach out to learn more.

This year (2019-2020) is conditioned by two major Centaur aspects: the Chiron-Pholus square, and Chariklo’s conjunction with Saturn-Pluto. Saturn has recently been dredged by a long dalliance with the South Lunar Node. Karma karma karma.

For the year ahead: first in late 2019 we experience a final Chiron-Pholus square, then the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of Jan 12, 2020. This is actually an exquisite realignment stellium of Pluto-Saturn-Ceres-Sun-Chariklo-Mercury, all within a day. My next article will focus on this grand astrological occurrence, which may be kinder than the rumor-mills have led us to believe…

If you would like to see how these Centaurs are playing out in your journeys through life, please contact me for an astrology reading and/or centaur energy healing attunement.

Pholus in the USA

January 20, 2019March 17, 2021 / The Centaur Space / Leave a comment

The Centaurs visited in an unexpected way this week.
Waiting for an astrology lecture to begin, my eyes made contact with a client whose chart I had read last year, with prominent Pholus aspects and transits. We’d spoken of the ambrosia on his quest.
Minutes later my friend stopped by, unaware of the lecture. He has a strong personal affinity with Pholus and often chooses to anchor that energy in our group Centaur meditations.
During the excellent lecture on Mundane Astrology, I managed to keep my mouth shut about Centaurs though I did see that tomorrow’s Super Moon Eclipse will conjoin the discovery degree of Pholus, at 1° Leo. Transits to a discovery degree (the place on the Zodiac where we first noticed a new planet) kind of feel like transits of the planet itself. That degree symbol, for the place of discovery and of the Moon at eclipse, is “Not knowing what to say, a woman blushes,” which at first sounds like a funny way to start the dramatic sign of Leo the performer. Stage-fright, or drunken shyness? Drinking too much ambrosia in Pholus’ visionary cave, perhaps?

Pholus was also prominent on our recent “year chart”, the Capricorn Ingress 12/21/18, by virtue of its being at that first degree of Capricorn. Likewise, the Solar Eclipse in Capricorn earlier this month featured Mercury conjunct Pholus.
The heart of the talk was about the alignments between the USA’s natal chart (Sibley) and September 11, 2001. One thing I had never noticed about the astrology of this tragedy was due to the lecturer bringing up Solar Arc Directions in Mundane charts: the SA South Node approached the nation’s Neptune that year. This brings to mind karmic fruits of deception and illusions. That fact is coupled with a reciprocal transit: Neptune transiting the national South Node on that date. This pair of signifiers is quite extraordinary, as the one does not follow from the other.

But now I see: the USA’s own South Node is conjunct Pholus in the Sibley chart! The chain of significance is complete, as 9/11 was a completely Pholus-level event. “The lid comes off” and never-ending war is unleashed from a single event. A nation being conceived when Pholus was at the South Node in Aquarius can mean that the country itself grows quickly from a small seed (Manifest Destiny) and also that there are deep social, ancestral wounds (South Node in Aquarius). The silver lining of these times may be that our collective wounds are coming to the surface.

I’m grateful that Pholus made his presence known, though in that example we see its worst-case-scenario signification. We can choose to work with Pholus and use his powers of catharsis and divinatory power for healing and clarity, too.
On the eve of the Leo Eclipse in the early hours of 1/21/19, I invite you to welcome Pholus into any Full Moon rituals you may be doing, in whatever way you’d like. He’ll be waiting, flask of ambrosia in hand!🔮🧿💙

Chiron Rides a Bike

October 27, 2018March 17, 2021 / The Centaur Space / Leave a comment

{This article originally published on my Hominy Creek Horoscopy Blog 4/19/17}

Bicycle Day… April 19, 1943: Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman takes the first intentional trip on LSD. 4:20 PM. Part of Fortune, 16° Pisces:
“A river of ideas and images entering our reality.”
– Pleiadian Degree Series Hofmann
On that date, Chiron was moving especially slowly in the sky. The not-yet-discovered astral harbinger of new consciousness and healing was days away from ‘stationing direct’. That means, from the point of view of Earth, Chiron was hovering, nearly still, as if it were taking a moment of rest from its path around the Sun. The Wounded Healer held a message in his hooves.
But there’s more: Chiron was at the point in the zodiac where the Moon’s orbit would make its upward slice across the path of the sun, as viewed from Earth. This point, the North Node of the Moon, holds the place of our collective destiny, a blinking neon arrow pointing out the most beneficial path forward. That week of LSD’s foray into public life, Chiron pivoted into forward motion from that zodiacal place, 23° Leo. This is within a couple degrees of Albert Hofmann’s own North Node. Synchronicity. The message found its recipient.

Albert rode his bicycle home from the lab, publicly experiencing the world’s first LSD hallucinations. Traveling down a familiar road, he navigated new inner worlds while somehow maintaining balance on his bicycle.
On this eventful day, the scientist was undergoing a few curious astral influences from the Centaurs.

As mentioned, Chiron, leader of the wise Centaurs, was conjunct his natal North Node.
Okyrhoe, Chiron’s oracular daughter, was within a couple degrees of his Chiron.
Pholus, Chiron’s friend who held the corked bottle of the gods’ ambrosia, transited just past his Sun.
Three days before, when Albert touched his face after handling the chemical, thereby setting off the first (accidental) acid trip, Mercury the messenger transited his Okyrhoe, giver of visions.
The unintentional psychedelic explorer reported: “At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed… I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.”
When Hofmann first synthesized the chemical, five years before, Chiron was transiting his own Neptune. The genesis of psychedelia is a perfect realm to witness how this pack of Centaurs activates our higher potentials!
Outer planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were definitely pulling their psychedelic weight, too. The carriers of intuitive sparks (Uranus) and altered-perceptions (Neptune) were supporting his Moon (mental states) with equal aspects of 60° on either side, while Pluto was wrapping up a yearlong process of taking that mind down to its very depths… Like Chiron, Pluto also stationed direct later that week, slowing down with all its psychic weight to a few degrees of his Moon. Here the work of the slow planets point to the deeper architecture of the soul that Earth’s Moon regulates. Pluto-Moon contacts are psychic disruptors; with Chiron also at the Node of the Moon (his, and ours), the higher dimensions of this breakthrough led to universal effects well beyond the personal.
Hofmann was a buttoned-up man of research. Yet following this Pluto/Chiron transit and the discoveries they brought, he went on to research entheogens with indigenous shamans, cooperating in the extraction of the psilocybin mushroom’s active compound.
The Godfather of psychedelia remained serious about the Plutonic dangers of his “problem child”, and did not agree with the indulgences of Tim Leary or the Merry Pranksters. Nonetheless, he was instrumental in generations of psychonauts tuning in & turning on.

Transits (Outer Wheel) to Hofmann’s natal (Inner Wheel: January 11, 1906, 3 PM Basel, Switzerland) Hofmann Albert Bicycle Day