A Story of Chiron in the 7th House

Why do some wounds never heal? They may appear to do so, but something happens and once again they bleed, cause pain, urge us to suffer once more. There must be a purpose for this. Perhaps the wound itself is such an important aspect of who we are that if it healed completely we would lose that part of us. Perhaps the wound itself is a source of healing for other wounds, an inspiration which we would miss if it was gone.

We often try to escape pain by hiding from it, ignoring it, masking it, yet it is nature’s way of signalling to us that something is wrong and needs our attention and administration.

My natal Chiron, the wounded healer, is in the 7th house. The house of relationships, partnerships, close contacts, other people. My wound which never heals is other people.

So many self help gurus, therapists, and spiritual teachers tell us that we should own our wounds and not blame anyone else for them. It makes sense, to a degree. To heal a wound you have to own it, thus owning the power over it, blame gives power to others, and thus leaves your healing in their hands. Yet blame is part of the healing process as well as being an element of the wounding process. If you blame yourself for everything and do not assign any blame to anyone else, you end up victimising yourself, and this leaves you just as powerless as when you assign all of the blame to the other person. But. What if this particular dynamic is the wound itself.

In all my encounters with therapists, healers, and such, I have always ended up sitting quietly listening to them tell me about their problems. I learn all about them while they learn nothing about me, except maybe that I’m a good listener as I now know they are wounded, I know what their wound is, I can see that it is the inspiration for why they have become a healer, and I can see that I am playing a part in their healing. My healing is their path to healing, but not necessarily my path to healing too, in fact it is often a detour. This becomes a problem for me, because my healing will become something I do to please them rather than to help myself. My role as patient is a disguise for my role as healer.

Role reversal is one of the patterns of my life and of this wound, giving to others who in theory should be giving to me, but in practice are taking from me in the guise of giving. If I complain, stand up for myself, point out the facts of the situation, then I am branded as difficult, ungrateful, or too fucked up. No matter what I do or how I handle the scenario I inevitably end up being the baddie so that the other person can play the part of the goodie.

This is clearly reflected in my chart and the aspects to Chiron therein. My Chiron is in Pisces and it opposes my natal Pluto in Virgo, Uranus in Libra, and Jupiter in Libra. The wound of me versus others is there in full view, the 7th house of others opposing the 1st house of self. They are both loaded. Chiron is conjunct my North Node. Therefore the wound is doubled, and the need to solve it is a matter of life and death in many ways. At least that’s how Pluto sees it. Every time its energy has to be stifled in the first to please another, it is experienced as a small death of self giving life to the other. Uranus is obsessed with freedom, and feels trapped by any restriction to the self whatsoever. Jupiter encourages Uranus to break free… only do it fairly (Libra influence).

As much trouble as these three amigos cause in my relationships, by rearing up and challenging others in an attempt to break free from the feeling of self being crushed by the needs of the other, they are also the key to solving the problem. Pluto in Virgo is a fiend of self analysis, it’s retrograde in my chart so I like to take myself apart piece by piece to see what makes me tick. Uranus in Libra is a brilliant de-clutter bug, it sweeps away the mess Pluto has made in dismantling me, I don’t need it anyway, it’s been weighing me down, and what’s left is what matters. Jupiter breathes new life into what remains of me after the other two have finished. And voila! I’ve changed and am ready to face the next round of brutal and radical self healing.

I can offer a similar therapy to others due to having done this so often that I’m an expert, however it’s a bit too much, too brutal and radical, I realise that. However Chiron, especially as it is conjunct my North Node, and both of them are in Pisces, the archetype of the collective unconscious, insists that I must help others. Helping others is the healing within the wound, because in helping others I also help myself. The flip side of that is by hurting others, I hurt myself and make the wound worse.

The North Node represents the karmic lesson we have come to learn in this life. It is opposite the South Node which represents the karmic lesson we have already learned and bring with us to teach others. We are very comfortable with the South Node, and extremely uncomfortable with the North Node because it is the unknown that must become known and that is terrifying because we must venture out of our comfort zone into hostile territory. Hostile because all our fears of the unknown are lying in wait for us there.

The opposing dynamic of Virgo/Pisces is the problem and the solution. Virgo is the analyst and Pisces is the patient. Pisces is the guru and Virgo is the spiritual seeker. Balancing the energies of this dynamic leads towards finding the healing held within the wound.

For me, at least in my early years of living this pattern and experiencing my wound. Virgo was the silent sufferer, the martyr, who stoically had to listen to the endless whining of the Pisces damsel in constant emotionally dramatic distress. But also Pisces was the sensitive sensory soul who was constantly crushed by the knit-picking unrelenting criticism of the Virgo pedant.

As a child my mother switched roles with me, she became the child and I was given the role of parent. She needed, and it was my job to fulfill her needs. She was hungry, I fed her. She cried, I comforted. She bitched, moaned, whinged, complained, and I listened offering solace, advice, and a shoulder to cry on until the tears had worn my skin and bones away. I used to quietly sit there wondering if there would ever be a day when it would be my turn to voice my needs and have them met by another, or if I would always be the urn spilling supply into another’s cup, never having my cup filled. This experience taught me how to seek my own supply from within and not rely on others for my sustenance.

When my mother wasn’t playing the victim, she slid to the opposite end of the dynamic. She became the highly critical, expert on everything, poking, prodding, pinching, pointing out every flaw while maintaining an elevated position of Virgo perfection. Everything I was, did, said, was wrong. I was the scattered, confused, living in illusion and overly sensitive dreamer who needed to have all the bubbles I blew popped sharply, so that I would be brought into reality and made to see how ugly it was and how awful I was.

One of the dreams I kept secret, one of my bubbles I managed to protect from being popped, was the belief that once I was old enough to escape the reality my parents had created for me to live in I would find a true and lovely reality out in the real world. That bubble popped when I entered the real world and found that it was made up of millions upon millions of alternate realities none of which suited me or welcomed me with open arms. I eventually created my own and retreated into it. But it felt like a prison, so I emerged again.

I am going to end this here as I am spreading this wound out over several posts. On a final note in this one. Someone commented on one of my posts in which I was expressing how I experienced childhood that they were sorry that I had had such a crap childhood. I appreciate the sentiment… sort of. I am not looking for sympathy or pity. I’m fine as I am, and what I share in posts is my story, parts of my life which have shaped who I am. Some are ugly, some are beautiful, most are a blend of both. And that attitude I just expressed is one of the ways in which I piss others off. I yell help help then when someone offers help I push the hand away saying, no, it’s okay, I was just getting the yell out of my system, I’ll save myself thank you very much. Then I get annoyed because when I actually need someone’s help they don’t give it to me because they expect me to sort myself out. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. Really annoying when I can’t do it on my own. Argh! This bloody wound!

Sharing is an important element of the wound of Chiron in the 7th house. I have benefitted from what others have shared with me, and I hope others will benefit from what I share with them. Within the wound lie healing energies, they may not heal the wound itself, but they may heal other wounds which also need healing and perhaps can be healed.

Care to share your Chiron wound?