The Chiron Return: Homeward Bound

by Melanie Reinhart

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If you are an astrologer who regularly reads charts, you will almost certainly have found that people seek you out around their Saturn Return, when they are 27-30 years old. Similarly, many people will consult an astrologer near their Chiron Return, which occurs at age 49-52, closing the longest planetary cycle of our life thus far. Further, the Chiron Return can be a preparation for the 2nd Saturn Return at age 56-60. Our relationship with ‘form, structure and the physical realm’ (Saturn) undergoes a deep transformation as we cross this threshold.

So let’s explore the process of the Chiron Return. Firstly, here is ‘The Formula’ which this article will illustrate:

1. Prelude. Nine months to one year before the first exact conjunction of transiting Chiron to natal Chiron = pre-conception and pre-natal gestation.

2. Re-Birth. The period of time which contains all the exact conjunctions of T. Chiron to natal Chiron = birth/re-birth.

3. Post-natal. After the last exact Chiron-to-Chiron conjunction = post-natal experience, from birth onwards. First three years, post-natal = precognitive period.

4. Onwards. This ‘tally’ can be useful for the rest of your life!

You would be forgiven if the above should seem way too ‘formulaic’ to be credible, but trust me, I did not make this up! It first dawned on me during a session with a client, back in 2002 – an experience which totally astonished me and which is detailed below.

Mortality – an Overview

Around the Chiron Return, if we have not already done so, we become mindful of the end of our physical life on Earth. This inevitably brings a deeper connection with our personal felt sense of the spiritual realities which underpin our physical existence. The Chiron Return poses questions like:

“What is being asked of me for the latter part of my life?”

“What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

Experiences dating back to previous transits of Chiron may emerge again, needing to be understood anew, or metabolised more deeply. Many people feel a need for increased solitude around their Chiron Return, such is the intensity of what is being processed within the soul. It is beneficial to ensure that we have enough time to reflect upon and witness the ending of the 1st Chiron cycle – we process and digest the past sufficiently so that it may become like compost, nourishing the incoming future. Hopes and dreams which can no longer be fulfilled in their original form may need to be blessed and released, as the energy invested in them may soon be needed elsewhere.

We are also offered important clues as to where we may be negatively influenced by prevailing ‘collective’ attitudes, particularly about ageing. Choices made at this time contribute to forming the kind of elder we will become, and the nature of our calling and contribution to life. The Chiron Return may bring a very real sense of participation in the overall process of life as a whole, which includes both birth and death, and therefore does not require that we struggle to remain eternally young in order to feel good about ourselves.

When illness has a Chironian element predominating, it may heal very quickly once the emotional components are understood and released. On the other hand, let us not ignore the fact that many people suffer with organic malfunctions which will not go away, and that everyone’s body eventually wears out with ageing. Working with illness, disability or chronic affliction can be the journey itself, and our willingness to accommodate our suffering without denial or self-pity is itself a powerfully healing attitude. We can be fully healed even if we are not cured.

Many people undergo huge suffering trying to be ‘normal’, until discovering that the integrity of their own unique life process, including its limitations, is good enough. In our ‘Brave New World’ normal experiences, biological and psychological, may be pathologised and medicalised (for commercial gain), and the ‘heroic’ model of ‘super-health’ is peddled to the unwary as desirable and normal. This is not necessarily so. The Chiron process encourages us to follow our own path of wisdom and to attend to the whispers of the soul rather than taking our cue from ‘the collective’. We may find, inside the space of illness, a gift for healing prayer and contemplative work, which invisibly benefits not just ourselves, but many other people.

1. The Prelude

The Chiron Return is like a ‘rebirth’. Beforehand, the realm of our intra-uterine experience may open to our awareness. While we are in the womb, our body is being formed from the substance of the DNA of both parents, and our genetic legacy and ancestral karma accrues to us. Also during this period, the spiritual energies which are to focalise our individual destiny are very active, contributing to the formation of our subtle bodies as well as our physical form. Imprints from the ancestral soul-body, as well as from other dimensions, influence us deeply during our sojourn inside our mother’s body.

We may also touch into the mysterious ‘pre-conception’ world, where the impetus for our incarnation is revealed. Here we may meet our Guides, Helpers and Protectors. Many religions and spiritual paths offer descriptions of this, but in the Chiron process we may get to experience our own unique, familiar version of this, which may or may not resemble what we had previously read or been told about. And it can be life-changing. These experiences allow our consciousness to permeate ever more deeply into even the cellular level of our embodied experience. In this way, our spiritual connection becomes more deeply anchored. Our consciousness passes through the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, onwards into the very cellular structure of matter, connecting with the omnipresent vibration of the universal energy which pervades all these levels.

Note: During this prenatal ‘prelude time’ Chiron may conjunct its later natal position. When it is near Aphelion in Aries, Chiron may pass the same degree several times. It is certainly worth checking to see if there are any ‘prenatal Chiron Returns’ on any given chart. Rather than trying to ‘interpret’ that, instead just ‘hold’ that information to see how it relates to a person’s sense of their spiritual purpose, especially as regards the ancestors. Is someone at the end of the family line, with all that this entails? Are they here to shed light on and thus redeem ancient family patterns? Or do they represent a new beginning? Additionally, I have known a number of women who passed through the menopause without any of the ‘usual symptoms’. Understanding and trusting the re-birthing process of Chiron seemed to provide sufficient support for their rite of passage to unfold naturally. They reported a simple feeling of ‘coming home’

During the months before the Chiron Return, many people feel a deep connection with their ancestors, perhaps for the first time. Through dreams, synchronicities, reveries, or researching genealogical information, we may be blessed with a deeper understanding of our ‘ancestral karma’. We may feel called to discover these roots more deeply, or to engage in specific healing work such as journaling, shamanic journeying, pilgrimage or prayer. This deep and inward connection with our roots is an important counterpart to the Chiron Return. At this time, we may dis-invest energy from the external world in order to honour our innermost roots, which include our ancestors and their gift to us of the very vehicle of our incarnation.

2. Re-birth

When transiting Chiron is exactly conjunct our natal Chiron, the archetype of ‘rebirth’ is activated, and this can be more literal than one expects. It can be useful to find out about the circumstances surrounding your birth which is, after all, the nature of your arrival into your earthly life. The horoscope itself is in fact a ‘chart of our birth’, the seed moment of our beginnings! If you do not know about this, and it is relevant to your journey, you will likely be prompted to find out at this time. If your mother and older family members are still alive, talk to them now about your birth, before it is too late. Take into account the emotional context too, and engage in some contemplative enquiry about what you find.

For example, imagine how it might have felt to arrive into a situation where everyone is panic-stricken or arguing? Or where, against all the odds, your arrival was greeted with joy and love? Birth may be reflected by the entire horoscope, but our arrival is also symbolised by the Ascendant and its ruling planet. Notice how your Chiron configuration fits in with this and your sense of what you have come here to work with, to heal, and to understand. Your life experiences during the Chiron Return may offer a great deal of subtle information as to the nature of your own physical birth. In effect, we are midwives to our own rebirth at this time.

3. Post-natal

Similarly, after the Chiron Return, this delicate process of recapitulation continues, as Chiron will follow the same sequence of transits as it did at the beginning of our life. In other words, after the Chiron Return, we enter a period where any Chiron transit that occurs will have happened before, about 50 years previously! We may have inner access, perhaps for the very first time, to our own felt experience as rooted in the pre-cognitive years. During these early years, before we are walking and talking, our experience of ourselves and the world is direct and unmediated by concept and language, being rooted in feelings and senses. It is partly for this reason that we do not usually remember these years, as the veil is drawn over them by the time we reach the first Saturn square at approximately age seven. We could perhaps say that Chiron draws back the veil.

A ‘Kairos Moment’…

‘Kairos moments’ occur when ‘clock time’ is ruptured, revealing the workings of the usually-hidden world of mystery and magic. Even people who have been in therapy, or have long enquired deeply into their experience can be surprised by the immediacy and power of the experiences which may surface in the two or three years after the Chiron Return. An anecdote will make this clear.

In 2002, I received a call from a client with whom I had spoken before – I’ll call her ‘Mandy’. Her mother had died a few months previously, and although Mandy herself was a therapist, also with extensive experience within her own therapy, she was taken by surprise at the strength of her grief reaction. She had called to ask whether perhaps the astrology might shed some light on what was happening. We arranged to speak on 1.8.2002.

Mandy’s natal Chiron is retrograde in Capricorn at 02°39’, conjunct the Moon at 03°26’ Capricorn, both in the 10th house (mother) and opposite Uranus at 06°11’ of Cancer. On the day of our consultation, transiting Chiron was conjunct her natal Chiron- Moon conjunction, and she had asked to speak about her grief at losing her mother. The symbolism seemed poignantly fitting. Noticing this signature, and also that a trine to an exalted Moon in Taurus was its only aspect in the Kairos chart, this seemed like an obvious trail to follow. So I prepared a list of the Chiron transits since her Chiron Return earlier that year, featuring conjunctions with her natal Chiron-Moon, and oppositions to Uranus. The latter occurred about three weeks after her mother had died, and was the Chiron transit closest to the actual date of her death; it was also around the time when Mandy’s extreme grief reactions began. This further underlined the Chiron-Moon-Uranus theme, of vulnerability and painful separation. Suddenly a ‘Kairos moment ‘as the obvious dawned on me – I realised that this very same sequence must have occurred 50 years before, right at the beginning of Mandy’s life! Then I made a list of Chiron’s transits from about a year before her birth and onwards for a few years, and saw that back then, in 1952, when Mandy was about nine months old, transiting Chiron had indeed made this exact same sequence.

Mentioning this 50-year resonance, I said,

This is a long shot, but I don’t suppose you know what happened in your life on January 9th, 1952 ….

Mandy’s reply came straight back without hesitation, and left me speechless. Here are her exact words:

“Well, yes, actually, certainly around then. This date is my mother’s birthday, and I know my sister must have been conceived around this time. The existence of another child meant for me the loss of my mother, as she didn’t have, or I perceived her as not having, enough love for more than one. She became preoccupied, and I began to squash my feelings and needs so as to spare her more trouble. Although none of this would have been conscious – she probably didn’t tell me at that time that she was expecting another child – I believe that I would have registered this on an unconscious level, and that the process began with the conception, the process of being frozen out from my mother, of losing her. Who knows what a breast-feeding baby drinks in, in terms of her mother’s desperation? At around this time, I experienced that as a total loss of the emotional bond with her, as all her attention shifted away from me.

Fifty years later, the death of Mandy’s mother had triggered these feeling memories which although familiar (from her time in psychoanalysis), surfaced with extraordinary force. The normal mourning process for her mother’s death had become intensified, reminding Mandy of how it felt to be only nine months old and feeling abandoned. This insight provided the context for Mandy’s current experience, and also left both of us feeling rather stunned! This was a Kairos moment, indeed. Our soul knows the truth of our feeling experiences, and when we re-cognise them correctly, a feeling of peace results.

There are a number of close astrological connections between this Kairos moment and Mandy’s natal positions. Note that her natal Mercury is in Chiron’s discovery degree, neatly symbolising the ‘message from Chiron’ that this session brought! The exact conjunction of Pluto and the South Node also echoes the exact Pluto-Node conjunction in the chart of Chiron’s discovery chart. Here it was also exactly rising at the ‘Aha’ moment, in Sagittarius, very near Mandy’s MC degree, while the transiting MC is conjunct Mandy’s natal Neptune. The Kairos moment in our conversation also has multiple midpoint configurations, which highlight the ‘Aha!’ quality of the experience that revolutionised my understanding of the Chiron Return process.

CH = UR/NE=MO/UR=SO/UR= MA/UR

PL = UR/CH

Since that time, I have been repeatedly astonished by how literal this process can be. Whether your Chiron Return will occur in future, or has already passed, you might want to log your own Chiron transits for the period from about a year before your birth and onwards for a few years, and compare the dates with the equivalent transits relating to the current Chiron Return period of your life. Some of the correlations will likely amaze you and, more importantly, may assist your healing process as the past yields to the present, generating more space and clarity.

4. Onwards

By the time we reach the 2nd Saturn Return, although this process continues, the recapitulation is not usually as dramatic, unless there are specific traumatic experiences which still need attention. After the age of fifty, when Chiron aspects any planet in our chart it is the ‘second time around’! Recognising the connections between ‘then’ and ‘now’ may bring many a Kairos moment!

In summary – after the Chiron Return, on another turn of the spiral of the healing journey, we have the remainder of our days in a physical body, and perhaps beyond, to clarify our consciousness and to participate in “the healing that we took birth for”.

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Endnotes

1. Adapted from an article published in TMA magazine (2021) based on material originally published in the revised edition of Chiron and the Healing Journey (2011) Starwalker Press, London. pp 292-301.
2. Kairos moment data from replay of the recording: 1 August 2002; 17.25 BST; Shefford UK. Note: it was exactly on this date in 2024 that I had the idea of using this material again! Mandy’s chart is used with her kind permission, data withheld by request.
3. Healing Into Life and Death (1989), by Stephen Levine (1937-2017). Gateway Books, Bath, UK. Introduction.

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Images:

1. Dead Poet carried by Centaur: Gustave Moreau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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First published in: FAA Journal, September 2024.

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Author: Melanie Reinhart

Astrology has been central to Melanie's life since 1959. Currently a patron of the Faculty of Astrological Studies, Melanie has enjoyed working with astrology in many ways: teaching for astrological schools in the UK and abroad, offering experiential workshops, writing and publishing. Personal consultations have been the heart of her work and Melanie is interested in contemplative processes, for learning and healing.

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