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Chiron in Cancer

Chiron (2060 Chiron) in tropical Cancer, read in the modern Western manner

What the tradition reads

Chiron has been in astrological use only since its discovery in 1977, and the reading below is a modern delineation, published by Cafe Astrology under the astrologer Annie, rather than inherited doctrine. Her general rule for the placement is that the sign Chiron occupies holds the lessons a person preaches well and absorbs badly. Cancer is cardinal water, ruled by the Moon. The delineation reads warmth and concern for others expressed readily and turned on the self with difficulty, together with a championing of the underdog and of the ordinary: others are encouraged to enjoy themselves rather than to perform or chase success in the outer world, while the same permission is withheld from the one giving it, and guilt is carried for underperforming. The page also reads trouble feeling genuinely comfortable and at home in places that are not home. Behind the particulars sits the same structure Cafe Astrology gives every Chiron placement: hypersensitivity in the matter, unusual self honesty about it, a tendency to overcompensate because nothing done feels sufficient, and unreasonable levels of guilt where the area is ignored instead. The resolution offered is recognition and company with the sensitivity, not a cure for it.

The story

The myth begins with a child put down. Wikipedia's account has Philyra abandon Chiron soon after his birth, out of shame and disgust at what Cronus had fathered on her in the form of a horse, and has Apollo find the orphan and raise him, teaching him music, the lyre, archery, medicine and prophecy, with Artemis adding archery and hunting; his peaceful character and kindness are attributed to the two of them. He made a household of his own afterwards, living mostly on Mount Pelion, married to the nymph Chariclo, with three daughters and a son, one daughter being the Ocyrhoe who prophesied the fate of his pupil Asclepius. What he was to his pupils was more than a tutor: in Statius and in Ovid, Achilles calls him father, and in Ovid's account of his death the boy weeps at his side for nine days. Cafe Astrology's ingress tables put Chiron in Cancer from June 1988 to July 1991, about three years, and again from July 2038, after a retrograde return to Gemini, settled from April 2039.

Written from

Corpus key point:Chiron:sign:Cancer.