Psychospiritual Growth: Chiron, the Wounded Healer

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Psychospiritual growth will inevitably include an encounter with Chiron, the wounded healer archetype. Chiron the asteroid is retrograding through Aries for the next few months (July 2021 through December 2021). This brings the energy of the wounded healer archetype to our collective field. This is an opportunity to review, revisit, explore stories (narratives) around wounding, healing, and teaching. Where in your life does this constellation of experience emerge?

Take some time to read this blog, then write out a reflection about what resonated with you, what didn’t resonate, and where you are in your journey, especially your relationship with Chiron. An archetype is a pattern of thoughts and behaviors. Chiron’s placement in a chart reveals the thoughts, patterns, and potential for deep healing and learning in an individual’s life.

Chiron moving through Aries (11th house) is, on a collective level, the potential to initiate deep learning in our society. What are the collective wounds of being and belonging in a group?

Chiron sits in my natal chart in Taurus (12th house). This placement brings up wounding around self worth, fulfillment, and security. I often feel like I exist in two worlds. I am mentally healthy, although at times in my life I have not been. Periods of depression and extreme mood states made me insecure. I had trouble establishing routine because I didn’t trust myself to show up. Now, my life revolves around a self care practice—a culture—that helps me cultivate stability through dedication to lifestyle, diet, and behavior awareness coupled with a practice of reflection, creative expression, and a spiritual worldview. I feel good. My relationship to mental health, wounding, and purpose changed.

The myth of Chiron, the wounded healer, tells us that he was a centaur—half human, half horse. He existed as a creature in the world of humanity and the world of animals. He was immortal, but wounded by a poison arrow launched by Hercules. Death, to abate the pain of the wound, wasn’t available to him. He couldn’t cross the final threshold and be relieved of the pain. In order to transform his situation—an eternity of pain—he offered his immortality to Zeus.

Death is a threshold, an exit from pain.

In 2017, when a friend’s sister committed suicide, I found an activation of the medicine of my Chirotic experience. Her family was in mourning. The healing they needed would come from finding meaning in the illogical—that their seemingly happy family member would take her own life.

I arrived to the funeral. It was a bitter cold night in January. I entered the funeral parlor, turned corner around the row of chairs, and then my friend’s mom saw me, and she broke out in tears, so I broke out in tears, and my friend saw her mom crying and then saw me and then my friend broke out in tears.

Sounds suddenly got louder. Choking breaths of airs between sobs were bombs going off.

“She wasn’t as strong as you,” said the mother of the deceased between tears.

My friend and her family knew about my own mental health struggles. But hearing those words unleashed a shockwave in me. My mind went blank. My heart opened. I remembered the time in my life I felt utter desperation. I held that in me, and held that feeling as compassion for my friend and her family. That’s what I radiated that night. That was my healing transmission.

I remembered my own suicide attempt during my early twenties—anything to get out of the pain of being human. I walked into the sea one day with no intention of coming back. I remember blacking out and then seeing a bright white light and waking up on the beach, wet and covered by sand. I felt, for the first time, a deep seated knowing that there was something I had to do in this life and that the pain was part of it.

I made the conscious choice to explore the experience of insecurity in myself through mental health challenges, the likes of which make me feel like I am at times in two worlds—somewhere between sane and insane. I’ve learned that I can trust myself and manage the experience, and that it is important to share my experience. It is from that orientation that I write my story around mental health challenges. The story doesn’t write me. I hope to galvanize further conversation around a taboo subject (mental health) and reject the stigma around talking about it in the public sphere. These steps will, I hope, open space for collective healing in the conversation around mental health. I hope the perpsective that a teaching is in the wounding around mental health distress, that this idea reaches our global culture, and that we might hold each other with compassion when bearing witness to individuals who are at different points in their journey with mental health issues.  

The conversation broadens when we connect to our experience of being human in the cosmos. Archetypal language, that which we speak when we invoke evolutionary astrology and muse on “the Chiron in our charts” translates myth to the mundane. Chiron, and my engagement with the archetype and energy, taught me that if I surrendered to that which caused me pain, it caused me less pain. Chiron taught me to consider the idea that the wound could be a teaching. I stopped fighting that which was fighting me. I gave in. I give in. I’ve learned to find hope, even in the thick of anguish, because part of the anguish is feeling utterly alone in the inner world. Feeling as if you are the only one going through something is pain. So whatever gets me to the threshold, through the pain of the wound and the pain of being, and to the other side, is what I do. I don’t want out. I want in and through.

I was reminded at the funeral, as I am now, of the importance of inner work and sharing stories. Doing the inner work is writing your own story. I have a tattoo on my neck—the key glyph that represents Chiron—so that each time I look in the mirror, I remember who I am. I am a survivor. I reflect back into the world the light and integrity of my own inner journey. I am writing my own story. I have been in the position of holding the wound, and I’ve gone through a deep a healing process. Now I can articulate some of my lesson, and that lesson has value for others. The wounding, the healing, and the teaching are one in the same, even though we experience them at different points in our journey.

Go in, go through. Trust yourself and trust the process.

The ability to stand in the wound without reacting to it is the most exalted form of the Chirotic lesson. Chiron represents our wound, our medicine, and the teaching for all.

Om lokah samastah sukinoh bhavantu // may all beings be happy and free

***

Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

  • If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
  • If you are a GenXer who wants to learn about a transpersonal worldview and write your own story in a group setting online, go here
  • If you are interested in my work with language and changing the mental healthcare narrative through transpersonal psychology, I invite you to read the curated pieces from my portfolio that are on this website and reach out

BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

***

Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

  • Check out Public Parapsychology. Learn more about what psi is and why psi belongs to everyone. Join other seekers and citizen scientists who are exploring parapsychological phenomena for the benefit of understanding the spiritual nature of the material world.
  • Also consider joining The Parapsychological Association. Support an organization of professional scientists and independent researchers who are pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of the mind. Programming and publications include excellent resources for mental healthcare practitioners and healers who support individuals with transpersonal experiences. 

Psychospiritual Growth: The inner journey, language, and breakthroughs

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Psychospiritual growth is supported by creative expressive practices. Writing is one of them.

One day, I sat at a library and re-read a hardcopy essay that I had been working on for a while. What I was trying to say wasn’t coming through.I had to open the conversation up—ask what the words wanted from me.

Visionary artist Allison Grey’s work, including her work that conveys her the origin of her worldview: chaos, language, and secret writing

The essay was about the journey inside to inner space—extolling the virtues of personal evolution. It’s part of the process of understanding “higher purpose.” But my essay was falling flat. Phrases like “finding myself,” “knowing myself,” “higher purpose” felt deflated. They lacked force. A reader could get a sense of what I was referring to, but couldn’t feel the electricity in my experiences, which is what gave me the enthusiasm to write about them. I couldn’t activate the experiences for the reader—which was what I was trying to do. I wanted the essay to convey a feeling of motion, transformation, which translates to excitement–this is what my journey inside had given me. I wanted to convince the reader to embark on theirs.

I started play with the medium, the language, by going in and out–shifting my awareness of shape of the letters on the page, focusing and unfocusing my vision, moving from words to shapes words strung together made, and then back.

This became dharana—meditation—on the words. I was singularly focused on them. My field of vision started to blur. My peripheral vision blurred, too, and the library bookshelves turned into cases full of neon beams of light, and the books on them became crystals. The idea of the interconnectedness of all of the ideas, writers, and me to them became apparent. It registered in my mind as a felt sense registers in the body. And then I had a fleeting thought I was a medium, a part of this vast network who, through the act of writing, pulled ether into material and with that, create our world because information is our world. I felt a deep sense of satisfaction in the core of my being, then, and the vision vanished. The meditation was broken.

I left the library, touched by the experience, activated to another level, and fulfilled. Part of my higher purpose was being in dialogue, literally, creating words. I trusted that the words to share this experience would come to me. They did when I applied astrological insight.

I checked my natal chart for transits, which are contacts of placements (and noted through the shapes of the angles that the placements make). The universe is in constant motion. The celestial bodies are dynamic. The sun (creativity) was in Scorpio (transformation), making a contact to my Uranus in Scorpio. Uranus is the planet that represents higher consciousness and breakthroughs. The correlation doesn’t mean causation—the sun contacting Uranus didn’t “make” me have that momentary lapse in reality. But my awareness of the motion, the contact was power; the knowledge allowed me to engage with the cosmos in a meaningful way by starting a reflection (in my mind) on breakthrough and transformation, while noticing how the reality unfolded breakthrough and transformation around me.

Visionary artist Alex Grey’s work, a painting titled “Universal Mind Lattice”

The essay I had been working has since been broken up into many smaller pieces. Lines of it appear on my page about the energy work that I do. The essay became the creation, the practice through which I facilitate an individual’s exploration of their inner and outer lives, and ultimately, personal evolution. Conversations on these subjects open up worldviews and offer new ways to interpret reality.

I hope my excitement comes through here. I hope the power in my words reaches you.

As a I writer, I am a node on the network of words. Letters, words are power. My higher purpose—that which I seek so that I can offer to others—is to be a conduit for expansive conversations, ones in which words become a key to unlocking pathways toward transformation and breakthroughs that serve us on our individualized journey inside.

May all beings be happy and free // Om lokah samastah sukinoh bhavantu

***

Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
If you are a GenXer who wants to learn about a transpersonal worldview and write your own story in a group setting online, go here
If you are interested in my work with language and changing the mental healthcare narrative through transpersonal psychology, I invite you to read the curated pieces from my portfolio that are on this website and reach out

BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

***

Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

Check out Public Parapsychology. Learn more about what psi is and why psi belongs to everyone. Join other seekers and citizen scientists who are exploring parapsychological phenomena for the benefit of understanding the spiritual nature of the material world.
Also consider joining The Parapsychological Association. Support an organization of professional scientists and independent researchers who are pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of the mind. Programming and publications include excellent resources for mental healthcare practitioners and healers who support individuals with transpersonal experiences. 

Psychospiritual Growth: Homa for the commons

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Psychospiritual growth is not an isolated and individual process. It happens as we are embedded in the ecosystem of the Earth.

Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist advocating for an ecological civilization, advocates for organic farming and the food chain. She participated in the creation of the “Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth,” a manifesto to underscore the interconnectedness of all beings. She says that all beings have a right to life, and commons, the resources we share like food, air, and water, should not be poisoned or polluted. Disruption of the quality of the commons affect the sustainable exchanges among living systems. We are depleted by poisoned commons—and that includes human knowledge.

Vandana Shiva

I’m highlighting Shiva’s work because I find connection with it as part of the emergent planetary culture, the movement toward conscious lifestyles and consideration of all living systems on the planet. There are others, too—think tanks, activists, and visionaries—who are creating the spaces and action around an ecological civilization, one that moves toward a symbiosis that supports all beings and systems on Earth.

Human knowledge is part of the commons. We share the resource of thoughts. What our minds consume influences what our bodies and states consume. Traditional and social media deplete our psychic energetic reserves when overconsumed. Mental imagery and the ability to think beyond ourselves can be distorted. There’s no easy way to participate in an ecological civilization without doing inner work—this is the entry point for self care into the conversation. Planetary culture acknowledges our psychological health and behavior mitigates our consumption of natural resources.

Homa, the fire ceremony that I offer on a regular basis, clears subtle energies across dimensions. There have been studies done on the effect of homa on farming. Homa also works to clear the psychic plane, too, although those effects are harder to measure. Individuals have conveyed a mental clarity, a lightness in the mind perceived after sitting for homa. Homa is a link between self care, mental wellbeing, and our ability to make the perspective shifts and behavior changes that support action in line with planetary culture. This is why I offer homa through online and real-time ceremonies on a regular basis.

Homa fire in a kund

The Bhagavad Gita, Hindu scripture, says that all beings depend on food. We feed the fire our thoughts with offerings of cow dung, ghee, rice, and herbs. The dung and ghee are from cows, who eat grass, which grows in the soil, which is fed by rain and wind that moves clouds through the air—analogous to the regenerative cycle of life, and how each part has a place in it. The offerings are a yagya: an oblation, service, a purification, in which the offering of material on the mental plane becomes a selfless act to the fire. The fire, in a spiritual sense, the core of consciousness. Fire is the infinite divine energy.

Consider how you can gaze upon a tree and find beauty in that form of nature. Similarly, we can gaze upon the fire and allow an encounter with the divine—the light of the flame in the fire is the light of divinity within us. It is the impulse for a transpersonal connection, the feeling of a relationship to beings beyond ourselves. So, by working on the individual level, we are supporting the work to clear the mental plane, purify the commons of human knowledge, find rejuvenation in infinite divine energy, and through those connections, cultivate a relationship to society and planet that honors the interconnectedness of all beings.

Idam na mama * For the greater good of all

***

Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

  • If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
  • If you are a GenXer who wants to learn about a transpersonal worldview and write your own story in a group setting online, go here
  • If you are interested in my work with language and changing the mental healthcare narrative through transpersonal psychology, I invite you to read the curated pieces from my portfolio that are on this website and reach out

BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

***

Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

  • Check out Public Parapsychology. Learn more about what psi is and why psi belongs to everyone. Join other seekers and citizen scientists who are exploring parapsychological phenomena for the benefit of understanding the spiritual nature of the material world.
  • Also consider joining The Parapsychological Association. Support an organization of professional scientists and independent researchers who are pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of the mind. Programming and publications include excellent resources for mental healthcare practitioners and healers who support individuals with transpersonal experiences.