Chiron Enters Taurus

After spending eight years in the sign Aries, on June 19 Chiron finally dipped its toes into Taurus – but it will only be there for about twelve weeks before returning to Aries on September 17. We’ll have to wait until mid-April 2027 before Chiron settles in for its seven year passage through the sign of the Bull. It first touches Gemini in July 2033, but soon returns to Taurus, and only arrives solidly in Gemini on May 5, 2034.

Chiron’s journeys through Aries and Taurus are long ones, especially when we remember that its total orbit only takes a little under fifty-one years. Divide that number by twelve, and you get an average duration of its passage though each sign of about four years. One key to understanding why it spends so much time in Aries and Taurus is to remember that this planetoid’s orbit is highly elliptical. Its motion is slowest when it’s in Aries. By the time it gets into Libra, it’s halfway around the zodiac. That puts it a lot closer to the Sun and the increased gravitational pull zooms it along a lot more quickly.

There’s a second complicating factor: compared to the “real” planets, Chiron’s mass is low and so it gets kicked around a lot by their gravity. That’s why when you Google “Chiron’s orbital period,” you don’t get the kind of precision we’re accustomed to seeing with, for example, Mars (686.98 earth days.) Some sources give Chiron an orbital period of 50.7 years, while others say 50.45 years. That’s because of gravitational interference, mostly by massive Jupiter and Saturn. Sometimes Chiron is closer to them and it’s pulled harder, other times it’s further away and they’re less of an influence, so it all becomes a tangle of ever-changing variables.

One practical takeaway is that while we take Chiron seriously, we should never confuse it with the major planets. Chiron would fit between New York and Boston or just about cover the Shanghai-Hangzhou metroplex in China. Even relatively tiny Pluto – the smallest of the real astrological planets – is about twelve times Chiron’s diameter.

So, cutting to the heart of the matter, what can we expect from Chiron’s passage through Taurus?