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Chiron in Virgo

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

What the tradition reads

Chiron has no place in the older literature, having been found in 1977, and the delineation for Virgo given here is Cafe Astrology's, written by the astrologer Annie in the present century. Her general rule holds that the sign Chiron occupies is where a person knows better, teaches well, and applies the lesson to their own life last. Virgo is mutable earth, ruled by Mercury. The page reads real skill in helping others improve their ordinary lives, a pleasure taken in helping them get organised, and a persistent sense of being behind, disorganised and overwhelmed in one's own affairs, since the same attention is not turned inward. It also reads intense insecurity about being disorganised or not sufficiently together, and says plainly that the expectations held in these areas tend to be unreasonable. That last sentence is the point of the reading: it treats the insecurity as out of proportion to the facts. Nothing here is a statement about anybody's health; the delineation concerns self expectation and the guilt attached to it, and Cafe Astrology's resolution is the general Chironic one, to recognise the sensitivity and work with it rather than to demand its removal.

The story

Virgo is ruled by Mercury, and the centaur of the myth was a practitioner of remedies. Wikipedia's account credits Chiron with the discovery of botany and pharmacy, the science of herbs and medicine, learned from Apollo along with music, archery and prophecy, and names him a great healer and respected oracle whose pupils included Asclepius, reared and taught by him, who became the god of doctors. The irony the tradition has fastened on comes from the end of the story: in Ovid's Fasti the wounded centaur reaches for herbs to treat himself and they fail, and the master of the healing arts cannot heal his own foot. Cafe Astrology's ingress tables put Chiron in Virgo from September 1993 to September 1995, about two years, and before that from July 1943 to November 1944, with a retrograde return to Virgo in March 1945 until July of that year, one of the briefer passages in the tables.

Written from

Corpus key point:Chiron:sign:Virgo.