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Endnotes
(1) Date of photographic plate showing Chiron: 18.10 1977; 9.08am UT, Palomar 33N19/116W53
Discovery date: 1.11.1977: 10.00am PST, Pasadena, 34N8/118W8.
(2) See the website http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Centaurs.html (updated daily).
(3) This parallel was suggested by Robert von Heeren in his book, co-authored with Dieter Koch '.
"Pholus - Wandler zwischen Saturn und Neptun", (German language only), Chiron Verlag,
Tubingen, Germany, 1995.
(4) For further details see the following websites:
. www.robertvonheeren.de
. www.expreso.co.cr/centaurs
. www.zanestein.com/chiron
(5) One AU (astronomical unit) = 150 million kilometres/93 million miles = mean distance from the
Earth to the Sun.
(6) Personal communication at the Lucerne conference in 1993.
(7) President Franklin D. Roosevelt was born on 30 January 1882 8.45pm LMT, in Hyde Park, New
York, 41N47 73W56 according to the astrological program Kepler 7.0. A Democrat, he held office
for four terms, the only President to serve for more than two. His Aquarian planets go some way to
explaining his humanitarian bent but the Chiron in Taurus in the 8th conjunct Jupiter and Neptune
augments the liberal, charitable impulse of that conjunction, describing the strenuous perhaps
brilliant efforts he made during the Great Depression to make viable economic reforms and alleviate
the suffering of the unemployed.
(8) York Conference 1983
[i] See 'Saturn, Chiron and the Centaurs' by Melanie Reinhart, CPA Press 1996/2000 for full
exploration of their symbolism.
All website contents copyright © Melanie Reinhart 1989-2007. All rights reserved.
On December 30th, 1999, Chiron will be conjunct Pluto at 11°23' Sagittarius, making this aspect
the main astrological signature of the Millenium. Melanie Reinhart has been contemplating this, and
here are some of her thoughts. (See also the Chiron-Pluto-Cycle-diagrams with a list of exact
Chiron-Pluto-conjunctions since 1600 A.D.).
CHIRON RE-CLASSIFIED
Since the recent discovery of the Centaurs, the small orbit-crossing bodies that move between
Saturn and Pluto, Chiron has been again re-classified. Its current status as ‘chief Centaur’ clarifies
Chiron’s symbolism as messenger, emissary and escapee of the Underworld, to which he returned,
the myth, for his own healing. This is the terrain of the god Hades, our planet Pluto, who may thus
be seen as presiding over the Kuiper Disk, the dense belt of matter called the Kuiper Disk which
surrounds the Solar System.
PLUTO NEARLY RE-CLASSIFIED
Pluto itself was recently the subject of huge controversy in the world of scientific astronomy when
Dr. Brian Marsden of the I.A.U. suggested that Pluto should be re-classified as a ‘Minor Planet’, the
largest of such in the Kuiper Disk. Although this makes complete symbolic sense, a storm of
outrage followed which quashed the proposal. Suffice it to say that if Pluto had been discovered
more recently, it would not have been classed as a planet.
What a delicious piece of ‘live astrology’. Pluto, as Lord of Transformation, enters the sign of
Sagittarius, accompanied by a herd of newly discovered Centaurs, and asks us to reconsider his
meaning! Pluto himself is an orbit-crosser, the only one used by most astrologers until the Centaurs
were discovered. All these bodies move inward from the cold dark reaches of outer space, tending
towards the light of the Sun, the heart-centre of the Solar System, the point of integration and
individual consciousness. Pluto crossed to the inner side of Neptune’s orbital path in February
1979, reached perihelion in 1989 in the sign of Scorpio, and crossed out again in February 1999,
just as this controversy was peaking! It’s as if he was saying, "I’m not who you think I am".
Thus the Centaurs seem to symbolise the contents which emerge from the deeper background of
historical, political and ancestral issues, and which seek recognition, light and healing by impinging
on our own lives. In other words, they mark out areas of enormous suffering, themes which are
‘bigger than us’, which are not ‘out fault’ but which we nonetheless have to work with.
THE CHIRON-PLUTO CYCLE
The last conjunction of Chiron and Pluto occurred on July 19th, 1941, at 3°41' Leo, and thus we are
at the end of a cycle that began during World War II. Many countries have a 50 year secrecy rule on
classified documents relating to sensitive historical and political events. The last decade has seen
the opening of many such documents, relating to the beginning of the cycle, with powerful
repercussions for many individuals, and a corresponding shift in collective opinion. There have
been many heart-rending stories in the media of individuals trying to fill in the biographical blanks
in their own lives, and their ancestry. Shocking discoveries have led to outrage, hostility, further
trauma and feelings of betrayal as the truth emerges. However, there are also extraordinary stories
of healing, reparation, forgiveness and peace-making with the past, on both an individual and
collective scale.
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
If we consider Pluto to be connected with taboos, then Chiron/Pluto is perhaps about the breaking
of taboos. A taboo may create a condition of frozen non-experience which itself is denied, and
which attracts more of the same, like a black hole, and which also (symbolically through the
Centaurs) needs recognition and release for healing to occur. Pluto’s purifying activity in the
Scorpio terrain is easily located ....... we all know what it feels like to be emotionally frozen, then to
have that melt and gush forth in a catharsis of expression or discharge which leaves one feeling
shaken, but relieved, empty and peaceful.
But what about Pluto in Sagittarius? To be frozen here is the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, the spiritual
wasteland, the horror of meaninglessness, the absurdity perceived by the mind breaking up under
the weight of its own preconceptions and bereft of the capacity for reverence. It is the world of
T.S.Eliot’s exquisite poem "East Coker", which was written in 1940, just before the last
Chiron/Pluto conjunction, which is where we are now ............ "Oh dark, dark, dark......"
THE WOUNDED GOD IMAGE
Taboo exists in our relationship with God, and our own true nature too ....... for this metaphysical
emptiness, void, lack of meaning, belief and aspiration is intolerable unless you have an
unshakeable faith which goes even deeper and can encompass these states. In other words, it is a
‘loss of spiritual innocence’ where we let go of our regressive wish to be taken care of by an
omnipotent and benign parent-figure who we think should make us comfortable and safe. To truly
embrace the Divine is an earth-shaking experience. In Esoteric Astrology, Sagittarius rules the
Earth, said to be a ‘non-sacred planet’ in the process of becoming sacred.
So our contemporary culture protects itself by compensation and denial, and the taboo is about
admitting the depth of despair and meaninglessness. Therefore meaning, spirituality, religion,
purpose and our highest aspirations also become taboo. Instead, we have ‘options’ proliferating in
everything from bank accounts to cornflakes, flaunting the illusions of ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’.
Speed, greed, excitement, consumerism and ‘more is better’ are all negative Jupiter manifestations,
like the Sagittarian Centaur run amok.
It is ‘not cool’ to have noble aspirations, spiritual ideals, high principles and to try and live them.
However, my ‘prediction’ is that it soon will be. It is well-known that near-death experiences very
often result in a powerful spiritual connection for the individual, and this is the condition of our
home planet today....... we do not know whether the human race will survive, or how, as potential
disaster looms simultaneously on several fronts - ecology, economy, world health, food and fuel
supplies. Meanwhile, our god-image is wounded, in need of repair, and religious convictions
become harshly fundamentalist to avoid destruction in the pit of meaninglessness, which may be the
necessary prelude for a true rebirth of individual meaning. Sagittarian and Plutonian themes abound
here - the vision of potential disaster in the future perhaps also holds the possibility for spiritual
awakening.
Today, the emerging spiritual needs and the vision from which it is emanating are appropriated by
the world of bill-boards and advertising, and become trivialised in catch-phases that encourage you
to buy this or that product. In only one issue of Time Magazine (October 11,1999) I found these
phrases in the advertisements "Remember when something new gave you wings" ....... "Two more
ways oneworld revolves around you" ........"and then there was light" .........."Because our corporate
message is beyond words" ......."Like guardian angels .... (the GPS gets you and your rental car back
to civilisation)" ........"From here the big picture is clear".
However, turning this inside-out, I would see the ‘global mind’ revealing an incoming vision
through the most obvious channels available - the mass media. I imagine God saying "Well, most
people are not reading the sacred texts any more, so I’ll have to spell things out for them in places
where they do look".
Watch that space.....! Someone once sent me a card on which was written
"HIS DISGUISE IS PERFECT".