I have some thoughts to share about this Solar Eclipse in Pisces, I promise. But to get there, I have to begin with Chiron.
For those of you who are not familiar with it, Chiron is a planetoid that has become widely used in contemporary astrology. I don’t use it. In fact, I actively dislike it.
Here’s why.
Chiron is inevitably described as symbolizing the “wounded healer.” But too many of Chiron’s most zealous fans embrace only one half of that phrase: wounded. It seems to be a way for some (not all – please hold your email fury) to set themselves apart as special and tragic – “I’m so wounded,” with the back of the hand pressed to the forehead, sinking to a fainting couch.
And that’s when something cold and hard in me rises up and bares its teeth.
Here’s where I have to come clean. In my birth chart, Chiron is alone in Pisces, in a close opposition to Pluto in Virgo. In a chart heavy with Leo and Virgo planets and many hard aspects to Neptune, Pisces is veiled, mysterious valley to me. Yet my life is filled with scads of jolly, Tigger-like, Sun in Pisces friends who wouldn’t give a fainting couch a second look (except perhaps, a little longingly, as a spot for a good afternoon nap). They tend to symbolize the very best Pisces qualities of empathy, kindness, and flexibility.
But the shadow side to the Pisces archetype is the victim. The martyr. It’s said the things that bother us most in others are the things we deny in ourselves. And while it makes me furious to entertain the notion, I suppose there must be some disowned little part of me that longs to sink to the fainting couch with my smelling salts and hear someone say, “There, there.” It is the part of me that overextends myself and then feels victimized when my contributions are overlooked or criticized. It is the cowering little kid cringing from my inner looming, shouty adult.
Now. Here is what it has to do with you, and all of us, and eclipses in Pisces, which we’ll see more of over the next couple of years.
There is, in our culture, an escalating cruelty toward those who are authentically and tragically disadvantaged, who are living with injustice and poverty and violence. There are those who sneer at them and disparage their unwillingness to pull themselves up by their nonexistent bootstraps. A great cold, hard hand rises up again and again, determined to smack down those who are already down about as far as they can go.
I never feel that way toward the poor, or those who are treated badly because of their background or orientation. On the contrary, I try to put myself between them and that awful, punishing fist. It’s hard to understand the mindset of those who judge and hate others simply for being disadvantaged.
And yet, I must understand it. Because there is a cold, dark hand in me, too, and judgment that won’t let my heart soften in empathy. There is some cruel corner of my heart that judges me, too, and finds me wanting.
During the next couple of years, eclipses will fall in Pisces, but also in Virgo. It’s important to have standards for ourselves and hold ourselves accountable. Eclipses in Virgo will help us examine where we could stand some improvement.
For now, let’s stay with Pisces, and give the sorrowful wound its due. But while it takes courage to acknowledge that it’s there, acknowledgement is not enough. We have to let ourselves grieve for our suffering, let ourselves be vulnerable to it—and then alchemize it into something useful. Solar Eclipses herald a change point, and eclipses in Pisces will bring moments that can potentially transform the wounded into healers. But Pisces whispers that what has to change first are the clenched fist and the hardened heart.
© 2015 by April Elliott Kent
