Chiron in Aries: The Wound and the Will (2018-2027)

The asteroid of the wounded healer makes its journey through the sign of new beginnings, identity, the masculine, conflict, and trail-blazing. This is a very intense energy that has impacted all of us in different ways. In this article, we will discuss how this shows up and how to work with that.

Note: Astrology is not mental health advice or a substitute for appropriate healing modalities. This article (and my website in general) contains themes unsuitable for an audience under the age of 18.

Shortcuts: Dates, Astro-Terms Explained, Chiron in Aries Interpreted, In-the-Sign Article, Further Reading.

Dates:

In the present time:

April 17th – September 26th, 2018,

February 18th, 2019 – June 19th, 2026, (after this event, Chiron briefly enters Taurus).

September 18th, 2026 – April 14th, 2027. (after this event, Chiron enters Taurus full-time).

In the past:

Chiron has last been in Aries from April 1st, 1968 – March 28th, 1977. The exact dates are:

April 1st – October 18th, 1968,

January 30th, 1969 – May 28th, 1976,

October 13th, 1976 – March 28th, 1976.

In the Future:

Chiron will re-enter Aries on May 3rd, 2068, and will stay there on and off until February 24th, 2078.

Astro-Terms Explained:

Chiron:

Chiron is considered an astrological asteroid, but has astronomically been labeled as a centaur, a dwarf planet, and an asteroid over the years. In summary, it’s a small-ish heavenly body that orbits the Sun from space. Astrologically, it carries less impact than a planet but has a highly specific field of influence that is felt very intensely: it’s our deepest wounds, our journey to healing (and healing modalities in general, including people who do healing – such as doctors and mentors), and it's about the gifts we gained from having been wounded from something. Wounds make us wise: Chiron shows us how it’s done.

Aries:

Aries is a zodiac sign that, in a gist, talks about themes like our identity, our will-power, our capacity for conflict and competition, our ability to get what we want, our desires, and in general, fiery energy. It also signifies men specifically, the masculine in general, and topics around war and violence. I have written an entire article on Aries discussing this zodiac sign in depth: though reading it is not a prerequisite for this article, you can check it out if it interests you. (It’ll also be re-linked below.)

Chiron in Aries: The Will and the Wound

Chiron in Aries marks a time that confronts us with our deepest wounds around certain subjects ruled by the Chiron-in-Aries barrage of topics. It also impacts each of us individually in unique ways – that we’ll talk about more in a separate article about in-the-sign predictions – but for now, let’s talk about the topics everyone runs into: the confusion around our wants and our wounds.

Frankly, the human psyche is meant for growth, adaptation, and learning. In its own way, it tries to protect us by aligning our desires to what we’ve already experienced in life.

To give an example that explains this, let's say you've experienced a wound with men (regardless of your gender). You may now have a conglomerate of desires including: 1) wanting to being left alone by men entirely, 2) controlling men since they're the demographic group that hurt you, 3) controlling individual men so they won't hurt you like partners/family members that you have to be close with, and 4) getting extra-close to men so someone can hopefully heal you where you hurt the most. Paradoxically, the human psyche is quite capable of holding all these desires at the same time, never mind that some just can't co-exist. But that's our brains for you.

If we break down the essence of these desires, we see that they're supposed to do one of two things: 1) keeping us safe so we don’t re-experience hurt (or worse), and 2) to create healing. And how do we create healing? By experiencing the same thing with a different result.

Or so our unconscious would argue. Admittedly, there’s logic in this. Let’s say you were attacked by a bear and carry at the very least inner scars from the experience. Wouldn’t it be healing to have another bear attack you, but this time a) you win or b) someone else shows up and plays the hero, thereby restoring your sense of safety in the world? It is by far not the only avenue for healing (nor the smartest - do not do this at home), but if it goes well, it works.

The problem comes – and that’s the part that Chiron in Aries particularly focuses on – when our unconsciously driven desires are… not quite helpful for a healing journey.

The best and most common example would be someone who was sexually abused and puts themselves into situations where they continue to be used, but now on their terms. You could argue that this can be empowering for a while – but a) only in specific circumstances, mainly when the actor here is actually in control (which they often aren’t), and b) this often only aids for a moment and then turns into something that feels more like the repetition of one’s wound over time. Your needs for healing change over time, but our wound-led desires may not get the memo: they may keep driving you to that one action that helped for a short while but didn’t fix the problem. And let’s get real, putting yourself into a situation that’s partially painful for you (deliberately being somewhere where you know others are using you is not 100% bliss, sunshine, and rainbows) is not the smartest healing journey, anyway. Other avenues are frankly better suited for creating lasting healing.

Never mind that some methods for re-experiencing your wound with a healing result (say, pouring honey all over yourself and running butt naked through bear territory, shouting “WHO’S MY TEDDY BEAAAR!”) just aren’t safe, sane, or in any way capable of producing a healing result. So, there are things we can be drawn to do because we crave healing that WON’T EVER lead to the healing that drives our impulse.

Chiron in Aries shows us the desires that are meant to lead to our healing; it shows us our desires that lead to bigger wounding, and it also shows us desires that fall into a third category: desires that completely result from pain and wounds and have nothing to do with healing.

Why do people re-experience their trauma by going back to the people who hurt them – fully knowing they’ll keep hurting them? This is a question I was asked recently, and Chiron in Aries highlights its answer: for lack of a better word, our wounds fight to survive within us. Or, you could say, our sense of self fights to remain as it is – and if that includes shitty things we feel, think, or believe about ourselves. All these things fight to remain within us as well.

Essentially, a part of being human means that a fraction of ourselves constantly thinks: “If I change, I will die,” even if that’s the most ridiculous thing in the present circumstances – we’re not wired to be 100% logical, even if we strive to be so. So, part of ourselves clings to the wounds we have and fights to keep them. One of the ways we do that (and the one that’s highlighted under Chiron in Aries) is desires that keep us wounded should we fulfill them. You can call these things self-destructive desires, intrusive thoughts, or what have you: the result is obvious, though it’s our choice to give into them (and to what degree).

So, what does it mean when Chiron highlights this?

A) The wound is revealed.

Chiron highlighting Aries means that these wounds: the times when our desires steer us towards healing (in a good way or… let’s say a questionable way with the potential for catastrophe). It also reveals our self-destructive desires by showing us the destructive consequence of a pre-existing desire, or by confronting us with the fact that we might have a certain desire we didn’t even notice but lived out unconsciously.

B) After the awareness comes healing.

Chiron, by its nature, tries to steer us towards healing our wounds, not towards further pain. That healing, however, is hard-earned. Still, under this astrological influence, we receive a boost in dealing with these parts of ourselves to create lasting change and healing.

Part of that healing means that our core desires (like, healing Wound A) shift into saner expressions that are safer for us and get the job done. Part of that healing results in our desires themselves shifting or ending completely. We become wiser… and our desires do, too.

So, let’s talk about a different aspect of Chiron in Aries:

(Not) Getting What I Want

Chiron in Aries shows us the wound when it comes to desire – which means that it highlights when our desires are unfulfilled, or when we don’t think we have what it takes to fulfill our desires… including the times when we don’t even try to get what we truly want.

Frankly (I love this word for Chiron in Aries), we don’t always get what we want. As kids, we might want to have a certain toy falling from the sky and into our laps that our parents couldn’t afford or didn’t want us to have. As adults, we might want things that we know are completely impossible – like someone coming back from the dead – or things that just don’t play out that way: Like a relationship with that person we love who unfortunately doesn’t return our feelings, a raise we just don’t get, or just a day when we aren’t stuck in a traffic jam “for ONCE.”

Not getting what we want is not a comfortable experience, but one we ideally learn to manage as children. However, under Chiron in Aries, we have to be confronted with that feeling, the impatience that comes from something we want needing time to come together, and the feeling of helplessness and anger when it’s just impossible. Our lack of power and agency becomes more obvious… and there’s a healing journey taking place here. It also confronts us when we actually can’t do what it is we want to do for some reason or another, even though it “should be possible.”

Similarly, Chiron in Aries teaches us (though some of us might be slower learners than others), where we have the POWER TO CHANGE THINGS! Sometimes, we believe to be stuck, think we just couldn’t have what we want if we tried… and it’s nonsense. In reality, we had the capacity to get over there and ask for that raise. We had the option of going for the person we really loved and at least trying to make things work (sometimes, people do start loving us when they get to know us a little – please don’t see this as an invitation to turn into a stalker, that is not how I mean this). Sometimes, there’s a real-life shift we could do that would pave the path for our success.

Chiron in Aries confronts us with the parts of our lives where we’re holding ourselves back… and helps us go for it again, healing the parts that feel like we possibly couldn’t, or that we don’t deserve the positive result, or that we would break if we just tried.

Paradoxically, Chiron in Aries also highlights a different wound under the umbrella title of “getting what we want”… actually getting what we want.

Being a child, teen, and grown-up teaches us that sometimes, getting what we always wanted is the most painful thing in our lives. Because what we wanted may not have been good for us (discussed above), or because the way we went about it destroys the reason why we wanted the thing in the first place. Chiron here shows us those wounds, promotes our healing – and most importantly, teaches us the life lesson to avoid this in the future.

Now, let’s pivot to another topic entirely: boundaries.

“I. Said. No.” Assertiveness, Boundaries, and Identity

Chiron in Aries brings us to a healing journey that makes us better able to defend ourselves and to keep ourselves safe – because it handles how we engage in conflict (and what things we can do to avoid it without shoving ourselves under the bus before the conflict emerges). There are people who are very good at getting what they want, including via manipulation, extraction, or plain old violence and abuse. Chiron in Aries is a quick intensive on how to defend yourself against them and how you need to grow to become able to stand up for yourself (and/or others).

This leads me to identity: You probably noted that I used the word “I” in the headings for Chiron in Aries. The deeper reason for this is that Chiron here reveals our sense of self – including all its wounds around who we think we truly are deep inside – and promotes deeper healing. This is a time to figure out who you are – and who you aren’t.

Men and the Masculine

The final topic for today is one of the worldly significations that Aries carries that isn’t quite universal or applicable to all, at least not in a direct way. Every zodiac sign and planet has some demographic it’s particularly connected to: like Taurus and Libra with women and the feminine, the the sign of Cancer with parents (and mothers in particular) as well as newborns, and the sign of Gemini with siblings and twins… the sign we’re looking at today, Aries, rules men and the masculine. This means that Chiron here carries a theme of wounds, healing, and gifts from the healing journey with men and the masculine – which means that men, or our relationships with/between men, are affected. (There’s also something to be said for the inner masculine, etc., but that’s been mostly discussed above under different terms).

So, let’s talk about men. Under Chiron in Aries, the wounds people have with (other) men are amplified and more in our awareness. Similarly, men may have been more wounded (or told about their wounds and flaws) as men. This will eventually shift into something that allows for healing to occur: men with themselves and other men, and the rest of the world with men as well. Beyond the wounds/healing happening between people, let’s speak to a wider subject: masculinity.

Under Chiron in Aries, our wounds around masculinity and our changing (and paradoxical but co-existing) demands around what masculinity is or needs to be – created a lot of strife and pain for people who identify as masculine. There simply is no way to win… unless you forge your own path and define what masculinity is for yourself, and then say “eff it” to everyone else – which, by the way, is very much the empowerment that Chiron in Aries brings. The issue here is, of course, when this turns into something that’s actually toxic, though it doesn’t always lead to that result.

This theme will drastically change once Neptune and Saturn both enter Aries in 2025-2026 (and stay much longer in that sign) – and when Chiron switches signs.

In-the-Sign Predictions

On top of these generalized themes that everyone encounters in one way, shape, or form, we’re also specifically impacted via our Sun and Rising Signs. Here’s the article to read about that.