With Chiron and the Sun meeting up in the sign of Aries on the 29th of March, in anticipation of the conjunction, I started feeling the energy of the wounded healer and his desire for wholeness.
But where does wholeness come from?
Chiron, in Greek mythology, is one of the Centaurs. He was a famous healer known for having been pierced by an arrow which caused an injury that would not heal. Chiron’s journey then became an endless quest to heal this particular wound.
In Astrology, in addition to representing the wounded healer, Chiron’s orbit between Saturn and Uranus represents the Shamanic ability to connect the world as we know it and the Underworld.
Chiron in us represents that psychic wound which we strive to heal through our everyday experiences, whether we are conscious of it or not. Above all, he represents the need to go into the Underworld to undertake a healing journey that can only be accessed through the unknown.
When we are conscious of how our outer experience is merely a series of tests geared at healing our deepest inner wounds, we can make the most of every experience. However, when we are unconscious to this fact of life, we seek healing outside of us — perhaps at the mall in the shape of designer clothes or in the kitchen in the shape of food.
Learning to manifest and co-create with the Universe is actually a result of becoming conscious of how our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. That is why journaling, dreamwork and yoga are excellent tools for healing and creating awareness of our inner worlds.
The goal of such practices? To awaken to the flow of the Universe and learn to master the three-dimensional world we inhabit through mastery and understanding of our inner world.
With the Sun meeting up with Chiron in the sky, we have the radiance of the Sun illuminating our inner wound and bringing to light anything that might have been in the dark that could bring us to wholeness.
And what is wholeness but healing? To unbecome everything we thought we should be in order to become part of a social world, so that we may become who we truly are.
A trip to the Underworld
Chiron and the Sun meeting up and thinking of Chiron’s ability to travel to the Underworld to find healing reminded me of my time exploring Sayulita’s nearby virgin beaches, more specifically, Carricitos.
Carricitos is a small, nearly virgin beach about a 30–40 minute walk from Sayulita’s town square. Getting there feels like a pilgrimage in and of itself, not just because of the time and distance you would have to commit to traveling to Carricitos, but because you have to walk through a cemetery to get there.
The cemetery is small and has an eerie aura of reverence to the dust and bones that were once the bodies that housed the souls of surfers and locals alike. It’s far enough from the Sayulita party scene that you can get lost in the sounds of nature around you, but close enough to pay your respects and get back to the party before you miss out on anything.
Mexican culture has always had a sort of healthy relationship with death. Perhaps because we understand that the lines between our world and the Underworld might be blurred. It may not be quite so easy to see where the Underworld and our world begin or end, but with the right attitude you can see those portals into the Underworld in the most unlikely of places.
Such a portal opens up right at the cemetery, for just past it and to the right is Playa de los Muertos.
Playa de los Muertos is a small beach peppered with locals, transplants, and tourists alike. It’s much less crowded than Sayulita beach, but, because of the walk through the cemetery, has more of a sacred air about it — as though you had stepped outside of time and space as you know it.
If you veer to the left, however, instead of going down to Playa de los Muertos, you will find yourself venturing up and down a hill covered in dirt then cobblestones. The first time you go there, it very much feels like a metaphor for the spiritual journey that many of us are on — you pray you are headed in the right direction, but ultimately you have to place your trust that your phone doesn’t lose its signal and that the map on your phone will get you there.
Once you approach the beach, that is if you don’t miss the scant signs for it, you are faced with new portals. The first is an incomplete wall through which you can walk towards the beach under a doorless door frame. Before you can cross, however, you are greeted by a stop sign spray painted into the wall:
“Stop, check point for introspection. Turn on your inner light.”
And then, the ocean.
Or should we say, the Underworld.
The beach is nearly empty save for organized party days or weekends. It is truly the perfect place for introspection.
Time crawls with the urgency of a sloth going down for a nap. It is almost as if time is conspiring with the ocean to give it ample of space to whisper to you the secrets of the Underworld that you most need to hear so that you may find the healing that brought you to Sayulita.
The Underworld
To put it into everyday terms, to cross into the Underworld is to enter into a space and time that are outside of space and time as you know them. It is to step into sacred ground where you can commune with the Universe or whatever form of creative intelligence you believe in.
Of course, all of this you cannot see or perceive with your physical eyes, but rather with the eyes of the heart.
You also don’t have to go to Mexico, or travel much further than your living room for that matter, to go to the Underworld. Going into the Underworld on a daily basis can be as simple as interpreting your dreams, meditating, or creating art for the sake of creating art.
But it is in these journeys to the Underworld where we can find the discarded pieces of ourselves that may hold the key to our healing. There you may find the imagination of the greatest version of yourself that you are having a hard time conceiving of, or the love that you believe was withheld from you as a child.
Healing is an everyday opportunity — will you take it?
