In Greek Mythology, Asclepius, son of the Sun God Apollo, was fostered by the wise healer centaur Chiron. Over his lifetime, Chiron taught him everything he knew: the healing power of herbs, how to use his hands to heal the wounded, the internal journey offered by music and stories, and much more that occurred in Chiron’s cave.
As a grown demi-god, Asclepius realised that something was missing in Chiron’s teaching: the Psyche itself. And so, he discovered a way to enter the internal workings of his patients through their dreaming process. Asclepius, or one of his totem animals: snakes and dogs, would enter the consciousness of the dreamer seeking health. From inside the dreamworld he would either perform the tasks necessary to bring back health and vitality or show the dreamer what was needed in their dayworld to heal.
In Astrology, Neptune is associated with the oceanic deep unconscious, the fantasy realm and the dreamworld. Asclepius, therefore, is in many ways a ‘child of Neptune’ (or Poseidon in Greek). The Centaur Chiron was discovered in 1977 and is directly linked to the wise centaur of the old myths.
Whether it’s Freud and Jung bringing a focus back to the dreams of their clients, or the advent of hypnotherapy (Hypnos being the god of sleep), or the use of psychedelics to enhance the body’s ability to spontaneously heal, we can see the signatures of these two archetypal figures throughout the history of Psychology and beyond. We even see the rod of Asclepius still in use today as the core symbol of medicine itself, and it is still common to recite the Hippocratic Oath when becoming a medical professional; Hippocrates being what was knows as an ‘Asclepiad’: a son of Asclepius.
In this talk we will look at the cycles of Neptune and Chiron, with particular attention paid to the moments of Asclepian/Chironic interference in the path of Western Medicine through the vehicle of chance and synchronicity. On a more personal level, we will look at our own relationship to these two figures in our chart, and how we might be able to dream more deeply into their non-rational relevance to our own healing process.