The nearly global aspect: Chiron opposition Uranus

I do not usually make posts on specific aspects, but this month I am making an exception and sharing with you some important information about Chiron in opposition with Uranus. The time has come for me to share with you all something that I have been researching and pondering since around 2010.

The sharing of these thoughts (which took some time for me to piece together, like bits of a broken vase) at this point seems particularly appropriate, as we are seeing it play out more obviously on a global scale in this period. There is a fraying and polarisation of societies, a division of individuals into camps, both literal and figurative, at a time when we need to be really coming together. Every country in the world is experiencing a rapid fragmentation and polarisation which threatens to rend the fabric of society and the battles are spilling over into social media and other places on the world wide web as well as in the streets. These are all modern manifestations of this extremely challenging aspect. This article will examine these challenges and what I think they mean for our collectuive future. For more about Chiron (a relatively recent discovery) and Uranus you can check out the various articles in this journal by searching for these objects or by clicking the hyperlinks in this sentence which will take you to the main articles on these objects. 

Before we get to look into the meaning of this opposition, let’s look at the past pattern of the aspect in history, primarily to see how often it occurs and in which signs it has occurred, and let’s peek a bit into its future too. These are always important considerations to examine at the beginning of aspect research. 

600 years of Chiron opposite Uranus (1500 – 2100)

• 1507 – 1508: Uranus in Pisces/Aries and Chiron in Virgo/Libra
• 1607 – 1608: Uranus in Taurus/Gemini and Chiron in Scorpio/Sagittarius 
• 1743 – 1745: Uranus in Capricorn/Aquarius and Chiron in Cancer/Leo 
• 1845 – 1847: Uranus in Aries and Chiron in Libra
• 1951 – 1990: Uranus in 7 signs from Cancer through to Capricorn and Chiron in the opposition to all of these signs.
• 2095 – 2097: Uranus in Aries and Chiron in Libra

The first shock: I did not use any orbs for the opposition in the above. The above are the dates of exact opposition aspects, from first to last instance. Focus for a moment on the time span of the current opposition, 1951-1990. Now check the time span of the others.

It’s lasting just a couple of years under normal conditions!

This in itself is a massively revealing detail of the pattern – virtually every working person alive today carries some imprint of this aspect in their charts, to some degree. Only those now over or near 70 and our youngest under the age of about 27 are not natal owners of this aspect in a significant way (but their parents and children are – and the young have bigger fish to fry). Also, these numbers are expandable depending on the orbs you use for the aspect. This is about as ‘wow!’ as it gets for an astrologer as even the slowest moving planetoid, Pluto, takes less time to go through a single sign. The length of time and thus the scale of this aspect in modern times alone must be appreciated – it is a characteristic of virtually all adult human beings on the Earth at this time and is therefore very powerfully active among us in a way that is highly strange and unusual. Experienced astrologers will also draw breath when it is pointed out that (second shock) during its long presence in our skies the opposition passed through all 6 pairs of signs, Uranus traveling half of the way around the zodiac and keeping pace with a slowed Chiron for the entire 40-45 years. I will come back to this.

Third shock: at least as far back as 6,000 BCE – the limits of most modern ephemeredes – there are no other instances of this opposition remaining in effect for so long. Therefore it has extraordinary and even unique significance and at the same time a vastly general one too – since it is not a unique feature of this or of most other charts belonging to living people, it is arguable that more than any other this aspect is the aspect that describes ‘us’ – our struggle, our common cause for being here now, our mission if you prefer, even our era. It is an aspect suggesting an unavoidable face to face confrontation wherein the extreme struggle and pain of the birthing of a new society, a new paradigm for a new awareness, ultimately a collective awareness of unique individuals inseparably connected to Earth and nature and sharing a common fate with all that lives alongside us, is born; or of collectively being catastrophically sundered from this awareness and acting as the agent which causes a global reset. It is basically some kind of critical turning point in the relationship of humanity to nature ​and itself​​. At this stage if we do not make this collective transition we will tear ourselves apart and do great damage to the entire planet. We are the ones who grapple with this opposition at an apex of history wherein we must either achieve this goal or destroy ourselves through the manifold schisms that exist between us. I believe all previous instances of this aspect in history have been leading up to this one, and that the next (2095-2097) will reveal the outcome as humanity takes stock and looks back on its story at the end of a powerfully transformative 21st century. The key to creating a positive outcome is to build a new and more human society that can positively respond to the crises facing all of us and restore the natural world that we have sacrificed for our progress, focusing the knowledge and technology that sacrifice has brought onto that purpose. Like Aquarius, we must pour a refreshing libation upon the Earth, and a major part of that is in the human spirit – the way we see ourselves in relation to one another and nature must be healed first, in order for us to understand what our responsibilities are.

I will leave others to research the past instances of this opposition for themselves as what I want to focus on in this writing is the recent one. If we look at this most recent opposition we can see that there are peak times in which its effect is very strong (the opposition becomes exact by zodiacal degrees of longitude) and that these peaks are splayed across all the signs, delineating subsections of this opposition through the signs as shown below:

Chiron opposite Uranus (1950- 1995)

• 1950: Opposition begins to take shape.
• 1951 -1955: Uranus in Cancer, Chiron in Capricorn (Peaks in Feb. & May 1952, Jan. & Jul. 1953 and Jan., Aug. & Dec. 1954)
• 1956 – 1960: Uranus in Leo, Chiron in Aquarius (Peaks in Sep. & Dec. 1955 and Oct. & Nov. 1956)
• 1961 -1968: Uranus in Virgo, Chiron in Pisces (Peaks in Nov. & Dec. 1964, Nov. 1965, Jan. & Oct, 1966, Feb. & Oct. 1967 and Feb. 1968)
• 1968 – 1975: Uranus in Libra, Chiron in Aries (Peaks in Oct. 1968, Mar. & Sep. 1969, Apr. & Sep. 1970, Apr. & Sep. 1971, May & Sep. 1972, May & Aug. 1973 and Jun. & Aug. 1974)
• 1975 – 1981: Uranus in Scorpio, Chiron in Taurus (Peaks in Jul. 1976, Jul. 1977, Aug. 1978, Aug. 1979, Aug. 1980 and Aug. 1981 although these peaks are not as high as those in other signs are)
• 1981 – 1988: Uranus in Sagittarius, Chiron in Gemini (Peaks in Aug. & Oct. 1985, Jul. & Nov. 1986, Jul. & Dec. 1987 and Jun. 1988)
• 1988 – 1990+: Uranus in Capricorn, Chiron in Cancer (Peaks in Jan. & May 1989 after which opposition begins fading away)
• 1991+: Opposition now phasing out fast.

This shows that there are ‘alternating currents’, a positive or Electric current (Fire and Air signs) and a negative or Magnetic current (Water and Earth signs) and also that (as I have explained in The 26 Keys and elsehwere in this journal) there are different processes involved in the different currents:

• 1951 – 1955 (4 years): Magnetic current, Constructive processes – to build up something
• 1956 – 1960 (4 years): Electric current, Emanatory processes – to enliven something
• 1961 – 1968 (7 years): Magnetic current, Refining processes – to improve something
• 1968 – 1975 (7 years): Electric current, Creative processes – to create something
• 1975 – 1981 (6 years): Magnetic current, Binding processes – to control something
• 1981 – 1988 (7 years): Electric current, Informative processes – to comprehend something ​​
• 1988 – 1990/1 (2-3 years): Magnetic current, Constructive processes again

So we can now see a structure emerging and we can see which periods of time give birth to individuals involved in specific processes involved in this effort. Some people will be born in years when Chiron and Uranus change signs, and then some of those people will have Chiron opposition Uranus in an ‘out of sign’ relationship, which does not fit the archetypes above. These people act to stitch the different processes together, people who ‘cross the streams’ and bring one current into contact with another, in effect acting as ElectroMagnetic processors of the aspects meaning. For example, they might be bringing together ideas and information from the informative crowd (Chiron or Uranus in Gemini or Sagittarius) with the control mechanisms and stabilizing of the binding crowd (Chiron or Uranus in Taurus or Scorpio).

Before I talk about what I have unearthed in my practice about the different sub-groups of this opposition I have just outlined I need to say something about the general nature of this aspect, especially psychologically and socially. How does it affect a person in real life?

It seems essentially to be about living in an entire world of people with a need to heal and be healed, together. The collective human spirit is in desperate need of integration of its parts and so we​ must achieve a healing of​ our major splits or experience rapid and shocking social breakdowns as it fails. The common experience of these people is that they know the human endeavour is in urgent need of rapid, painful change and that there is a need to unite in order to face the multitude of threats not just to ourselves but to nature itself. However, in the face of this there is a feeling of chaos as things fall apart under multiplying pressures.

Characteristic of this aspect are willful desires for freedom from pain and suffering, social division and inequality, ideological schisms that split society into opposing camps, cutting ties and making sudden changes if circumstances or people stand in your way, acting from desperation or a sense of urgency, a strong desire to express freedom which may be a result of an inability to face deep wounds which are projected onto others, sudden breakdowns in civil order and obedience, collapsed institutions, opportunities to heal or rend asunder, the experience of communities and nations grouping together or splintering apart, painful controversy, man made natural disasters and upheavals, massive rises in unemployment which leave the masses feeling used and useless, the masses being confronted with their own pain and the suffering they inflict and a wild, hedonistic, wounded society which in its overemphasis on being unique and standing out reduces people to commodities that can be bought and sold, squeezed dry, tossed aside and forgotten. In its death throes such a society could tear everything around it apart. 

The task is to face the collective wound head on and find a healing outlet for individual suffering which we can share with the rest of humanity. Collectively, but by working as individuals, this generation has to fix societal imbalances; they have to work together to raise funds for starving children, shelter the homeless, save the planet even. They have to respond to sudden emergencies. Many of these things look like lost causes, and some are, because the root cause of the wounds in our society are nothing new, they stretch back thousands of years, and its manifestations are now multiplied six billion fold and rising. Yet even in the face of this we must try to heal things collectively – we will have no choice as ultimately it will be forced on us (this is an oppositions nature – there can be no avoidance), and while we may not succeed there is definitely a point in trying so long as we do not fall into projecting this aspect onto convenient figureheads of blame or fall into multiple antagonistically related camps. We must accept first and foremost that the schism between humanity and nature begins at home. We must learn that there are consequences for every single one of our actions and this means that some of the things we have done will not be reversible and will affect the lives of future generations and life on Earth dramatically. The opposition is about facing this reality and not flinching from the devastation we witness so that we can learn these terrible lessons and never repeat them. They are too great for any single one of us to bear; we all share in the responsibility (the ability to respond) and thus we all share in the insight and wisdom which needs to be applied to alleviate and heal the Earth. I think we must learn to work in initially fractured communities and build a collective awareness among those in our immediate neighbourhood and when enough people do this these smaller collectives will find one another and begin forming more stable and complex forms. We must do this whether or not the parent society we live in collapses – if it collapses it will partly serve to physically force this action upon us for physical survival.

This aspect also very clearly relates to finding an individuality you can be proud of in a room full of people. We are all born split inside because we do not accept ourselves for who we are, fundamentally we feel we must make adjustments and changes in order to be liked and accepted (often in response to Uranian media gods and icons), or we have self inflicted wounds upon our own individuality. You and I and all others born in these changing times must dig deep into ourselves and find a way to accept that you and I and all we know are not separate parts but an integrated whole, observing and experiencing itself through infinite points of contact, a human collective. It is the task of each person born with this aspect to play a part in healing and mending the human spirit by witnessing its crippled state face to face. This involves looking not only at our own inhumane treatment of one another, but also our more reckless choices made in the name of freedom which damage the environment and inflict pain on other living species. It’s about the healing that comes from facing pain en-masse and embracing our vast array of differences as an empowerment which can alleviate this pain, about realising our need and our wish to heal with one another and using ALL of our varied resources in tandem to make it so. 

The aspect therefore indicates a shocking number of varied contacts who will share some form of social wound (remember the arrival of social media has occurred for us), an increasingly visible wound inflicted on individuals by their wounded society, and from each of these encounters we gain sometimes painful insight into our own individual being, an awareness that offers healing to all involved. By learning to share our individual pain and work through it as fellow humans we grow stronger, not weaker, just as a person who gathers followers of like mind increases the power of the message they come to give.

The message here is thus one of collective healing. In joining humanity together in a collective we will not obliterate individuality, we will gain greater freedom and healing acceptance for all individuals, but only if we heal our world and our society first by reconnecting with nature not as a resource but as a living thing we must care for and respect, not sponge off of like idle teenagers, otherwise we will get an oppressive and paranoid world order seeking to deny, control or contain the collapse in any way possible and an eventual calamity which shatters our world. Our own collective identity only ultimately becomes clearer through coming face to face with something utterly different, through relating self to self, and perceiving the whole in the face of different parts, even when they are sharply contrasted and seem painfully irreconcilable.

This aspect brings many of these lessons into sharp focus and can produce many surprises when it is being activated. Since this aspect is in virtually all modern charts, is an opposition, and involves all 12 signs, there is no period in our lives today when a living generation is not experiencing activation of this aspect and often there are multiple activations of this aspect occurring across different generations at the same time. It is literally a living thing, happening and taking form every day right now. It’s time to recognize this and consciously engage with its significance.

The 6 basic subgroups of this opposition seem to carry with them the following qualities with which to accomplish the above, and each seems to have a focus or area for the development of a new human paradigm. Here are some of my thoughts about these sub-groups and their roles. 

1951 – 1955 (4 years): Magnetic current, Constructive processes – to build up something.
1988 – 1990 (2 years): Magnetic current, Constructive processes again.

These groups are the only two groups who cross significant generation gaps because they are born at the beginning and end of the oppositions life span in the sky. Their eldest are now in their 60s and their youngest are only about 27-30. This means the young have to look harder to find others in their generation with the same dynamic, as there is only 2 years to work with.

In terms of this opposition both of these groups are most sensitive to Lights or planets moving through either Cancer or Capricorn, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Earth or Water sign, and tend to get stress triggered with Aries and Libra transits. The Earth/Water sign times are when they should act as a collective force. Their focus is in constructing and crystallizing what the new human paradigm should be. They can be effective in the areas of any overall structural reforms and reform of the concept of family and home, i.e. in re-establishing our awareness of the Earth as a mutual nest (Cancer) and discipling ourselves and leaders to be responsible for it (Capricorn).

1956 – 1960 (4 years): Electric current, Emanatory processes – to enliven something.

This group are probably the largest adult group alive today, ranging in age from 58 to 62 at the time of writing. In terms of this opposition they are most sensitive to the Lights or planets moving through Leo or Aquarius, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Air or Fire sign and tend to get stress triggered with Taurus and Scorpio transits. . This group bring the new paradigm to life, often with a sudden and colourful approach that brings drama. They have a focus on the artistic and scientific/technological areas of the new paradigm. Notice that they are of an older generation who have had to adapt to the arrival of social media and other tech, they are not naturally born into it. This has been part of their ‘healing crisis’ and was triggered around their Uranus half returns and Chiron returns (which happen for all of us in our early 40s and early 50s and seem to be major turning points in our awareness of what this opposition means). These people are also concerned with both leadership and a healthy and enlivening circulation of energies. They can help us to take command of situations and assign designated roles to individuals in cells or groups. They energise the new paradigm and our efforts at collectve healing. 

1961 – 1968 (7 years): Magnetic current, Refining processes – to improve something.

This group are large and active in modern life, ranging from about 50 to 57 years old at the time of this writing. In terms of this opposition they are most sensitive to the Lights or planets moving through Virgo or Pisces, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Earth or Water sign and tend to get stress triggered with Gemini and Sagittarius transits. This group works quietly to weed out flaws and identify weakness as well as to devise practical methods towards ideal solutions.  They are idealists, planners and dreamers who can both feel what the new paradigm needs and how to practically get there. Often they play support roles in the group mind, finding ways to be helpful of other efforts, but they can also focus on the cleansing and healing ahead of us. Essentially they open us to the power of compassion and service to one another and thus provide a spiritual attitude of kindness and benevolence to our spirit, but they are very vulnerable to the chaos of the processes we must go through.

1968 – 1975 (7 years): Electric current, Creative processes – to create something.

This younger group are the ones currently in charge of most of the world, being aged about 43 to 50. In terms of this opposition they are most sensitive to the Lights or planets moving through Aries or Libra, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Air or Fire sign and tend to get stress triggered with Cancer and Capricorn transits. . Their focus is on creating the new paradigm, which means initiating it and sustaining its creative juices. Their focus is also on social equilibrium and social conflicts and divisions, injustices, inequalities and the use of diplomacy to avert war. They try to bring about an end to our antagonistic or unfair relationships to nature and one another. Often they are straddled between working alone and co-operating with a partner. This is part of the creative process. The current dialogue on the internet (A: “You are just a Libtard SJW!!” B: “And you are a Nazi!”) is a manifestation of the tensions and divisions within this subgroup.

1975 – 1981 (6 years): Magnetic current, Binding processes – to control something.

Aged now about 37 to 43, this group are all having or are on the cusp of the Uranus half return. In terms of this opposition they are most sensitive to the Lights or planets moving through Taurus or Scorpio, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Earth or Water sign and tend to get stress triggered with Leo and Aquarius transits.  These people stabilize and concrete the new paradigm, they make it stick. Their focus is upon resources and the distribution of riches (not just wealth) and power and also upon the persistence that will be needed to transform our paradigm. They can also act as a stubborn resistance to unwanted changes. Frequently they are called upon to take the strain of certain changes, and thus are a source of collective endurance.

1981 – 1988 (7 years): Electric current, Informative processes – to comprehend something.

Now aged an adult but youthful​ 30-37, these people have experienced their first Saturn return and are also very active in modern life. In terms of this opposition they are most sensitive to the Lights or planets moving through Gemini or Sagittarius, though they can also become effective with any movement through any Air or Fire sign and tend to get stress triggered with Virgo and Pisces transits. These people are the researchers, information nodes, archivists and reporters for the new paradigm. They identify, label and assign information to where it is needed. They are often travelers, teachers or data miners. They are often restless and nervous socially and so help us understand why we are so edgy around one another. They help to keep the human mind curious and involved in discovery.

As mentioned above the Uranus half return and Chiron returns seems to be significant turning points in terms of what this opposiiton means to any given individual or subgroup, but any time a major activation of the Chiron or Uranus keys is happening there is some kind of activity related to this aspect. Some of the subgroups have Pluto activation of Uranus keys, and some have Pluto activation of Chiron keys, and the same situation applies to Neptune activations as well. Thus, at some point in our lives some of us have Neptune or Pluto affecting the Chiron side of this oppostion and some the Uranus side. Jupiter and Saturn activations to this opposition also play important roles in its life. Additionally, more research is needed into other newly discovered bodies,  particularly Eris, to uncover what roles they might play in this important aspect.

One final note: if you are one of the (ever-growing) minority of people alive who do not have this aspect, it does not mean that you are not involved in the overall process of moving the human race forwards into this new paradigm. The process is underway in every single life. It just means you are not directly involved in the parts that this opposition is concerned with – there are many other astrological factors involved in this transition, such as the Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn in the early 1990s, for example. 

I hope this article has given you something to think about, if you have any constructive comments or thoughts you would like to share about any of the issues raised here, please leave them in the comments below.