Chiron Mythology

Cronus took the shape of a stallion to escape Rhea and lay with the Oceanid Philyra. Cheiron was born of that union, which is why he is half horse and half man. The other centaurs descend from Ixion and are wild. Cheiron is wise and just, and he teaches medicine, hunting and music. In his cave on Mount Pelion he raises the heroes. Cronus in the Greek family tree →

Asclepius is the son of Apollo and learns medicine from Cheiron. When he begins to raise the dead, Zeus kills him with a thunderbolt, and he is later made a god. The serpent staff is his sign. The healing that Cheiron taught becomes a divine institution in Asclepius. Asclepius in the family tree →

Gula (Bau, Ninisina) is the goddess of healing called 'the great physician', and the dog is her sign. Ninazu is a god of the underworld and of healing, and his serpent-dragon staff passes to his son Ningishzida. By this route the serpent staff passes from Sumer to Asclepius. Gula in the Mesopotamian family tree →

Imhotep was Djoser's vizier and architect. After his death he became the god of medicine, and the Greeks identified him with Asclepius. His path runs opposite to Cheiron's, because Cheiron was immortal and chose death, while Imhotep was a mortal man who became a god. Imhotep in the Egyptian family tree →

Dhanvantari is the physician god who rose from the churning of the ocean of milk holding amrita, the elixir of immortality. He is counted the founder of Ayurveda and an avatar of Vishnu.

Eir's name means 'mercy'. Snorri lists her among the Asynjur and calls her 'the best physician'. She attends Frigg and appears as the healing goddess on Menglöd's mountain. Frigg in the Norse family tree →

Sukunabikona is the tiny kami who slipped through Kamimusubi's fingers. He builds the land together with Okuninushi and teaches medicine and the brewing of sake. His body is small, but in Japanese tradition he is the great healer. Sukunabikona in the Japanese family tree →

Heracles' arrow, dipped in the Hydra's venom, wounds Cheiron in the knee. Because he is immortal he cannot die, and although he is a physician he cannot heal himself. Jung gave this figure, who heals others through his own pain, the name 'wounded healer'. The shaman who becomes a healer by passing through his own illness follows the same pattern.

Achilles, Jason, Asclepius, Actaeon, Aeneas and Peleus all pass through Cheiron's hands on Pelion. The same is true of most Greek heroes. In myth the hero does not arrive ready-made but is raised. That is why Cheiron is the first name that comes up whenever the mentor archetype is discussed.

A centaur is human above the waist and horse below. Reason and instinct live in the same body. The wild centaurs stand for instinct, while Cheiron is the centaur of reason. The heavenly body is also caught between two classes, because it is not settled whether it is an asteroid or a comet. Astronomers created the 'centaur' class for it.

Chiron's orbit begins inside Saturn's and reaches beyond that of Uranus. Modern astrologers read this as 'a bridge between old and new'. That is an interpretation, and it has no counterpart in classical astrology. In astronomical terms the body travels on an unstable orbit between the pull of two gas giants.

When Cheiron can no longer bear the pain, he asks to give his immortality to Prometheus, who is chained to the rock. Zeus accepts the exchange. Cheiron dies and becomes the constellation Centaurus (or, in some tellings, Sagittarius). He is the only immortal in Greek myth to give up immortality, and in ending his own pain he also sets another free.

Heracles is the guest of the centaur Pholus. When the centaurs' common wine jar is opened, the other centaurs attack. Heracles drives them off with arrows poisoned by the Hydra, and one of the arrows lodges in Cheiron's knee. Cheiron tries the salves he prepared himself, but the venom does not yield. Pholus picks up an arrow to examine it and drops it, and it pierces his foot and kills him. So the healer ends up wounded by the arrow of his own pupil.

Peleus brings the infant Achilles, whom Thetis has left behind, to Cheiron. Cheiron feeds him on the marrow of lions and the flesh of wild boar. He teaches him to run, to play the lyre, to heal and to hunt. In one telling it is Cheiron who gives the boy the name Achilles. In the Iliad, Achilles' spear is made of ash that Cheiron cut on Pelion. Achilles in the family tree →

On 1 November 1977 Charles Kowal was examining plates taken at Palomar on 18 October when he found a slowly moving body. It lay between Saturn and Uranus, too far out for an asteroid, and in later years it was seen now and then to grow a tail like a comet. Kowal named it after the centaur, and it became the first member of that class. Astrologers such as Zane Stein and Melanie Reinhart developed the wounded healer interpretation in the 1980s.

Chiron's glyph ⚷ is shaped like a key. It was designed in the 1970s by combining Kowal's letter K with the planetary circle. The 'key' reading, the healing that opens the lock, was added later and is not traditional.

From the 1980s onward Chiron has been interpreted as the 'wounded healer'. Some astrologers tie it to Virgo and some to Sagittarius, and there is no consensus between them. In classical astrology Chiron has neither dignity nor rulership. This school does not treat it as a required indicator outside the dignity system either.