Mythical creature sighting ahead
on Fogtober, the myth of the wounded healer, and the brave girls and women still leading the charge in Iran
Hi friends,
I can’t sleep. I toss and turn and as I do I wonder why sleep has proven itself, time and time again, elusive to me. But when I sink into the clutch of dreams, the worlds I inhabit are built of the most fantastical things. I dream of angels sometimes and in poems at others, or else full and lengthy stories unfold, once an entire novel sprung unbidden like Athena from Zeus’s head—only for me to forget the details once I woke.
And I’ve always loved Greek mythology.
“‘Come,’ said Chiron. ‘Have I told you the legend of Aesclepius, and how he came to know the secrets of healing?’
He had, but we wanted to hear it again, the story of how the hero, son of Apollo, had spared a snake’s life. The snake had licked his ears clean in gratitude, so that he might hear her whisper the secrets of herbs to him.
‘But you were the one who really taught him healing,’ Achilles said.
‘I was.’
‘You do not mind that the snake gets all the credit?’
Chiron’s teeth showed through his dark beard. A smile. ‘No, Achilles, I do not mind.’”
—The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
In the classical Greek myths, centaurs took the fantastical form we know today—they were immortal creatures with the legs and lower body of a horse rising into the muscled upper half of a human. Most were of a primitive intelligence coupled with brutish strength and a taste for violence (trigger warning: a lot of it of the sexual kind against women, because what else would it be when it comes to Greek mythology?).
Chiron was different. He was an immortal, yes, like the rest of his kind, but considered an outsider, fated to live alone on Mount Pelion in Thessaly after he was abandoned at birth by his Oceanid mother and Titan father. Mount Pelion was named after King Peleus, father to Achilles, whom Chiron was indeed known for teaching. The wise centaur taught more heroes of antiquity too—Patroclus, Jason, Perseus, Heracles, and the above-mentioned Aesclepius, god of medicine. (All of whom were problematic except for Patroclus, pretty much, and Patroclus had his moments.)
In Miller’s Song of Achilles, and in many other stories, he is characterized by his prowess in the studies of surgery, soldiery, and more. He also lived in a cave that Patroclus describes as being made not of dark stone, but of pale rose quartz. (!!!)
Chiron became what soon was known as the “wounded healer”—an archetype those of us who reside in the interlocking worlds of spirituality and astrology are all too familiar with—because he was twice-wounded. The first wound was inflicted at birth, when he was abandoned as an orphan and a “monster”; the second came when he was teaching Heracles, after a Dionysian wine that was gifted to the unhinged hero lured in the other centaurs who lived on Mount Pelion and they pretty much collectively lost their shit in the pursuit of Dionysian delights.
When Heracles defended Chiron’s cave against them—come on, don’t come for the rose quartz cave!—with arrows dipped in the blood of the Hydra he’d slain, one struck Chiron, causing untold pain. It was the singular wound the centaur was unable to heal, and because he was immortal, he was doomed to suffer until he and big H were finally able to strike a deal with Zeus.
He then replaced Prometheus, who was probably like, Thanks bro, after he had been forced to suffer an eagle pecking out his also-immortal liver day in and day out, with it growing back overnight for who knows how long. (This was, of course, in punishment for—yeah, yeah, as we all know—stealing fire from the gods of Mount Olympus and giving it to humankind.)
Chiron was then fixed against the night sky in the constellation of Sagittarius. Love that for him!
that full moon in Aries was something, wasn’t it?
I know that I’m writing about it a little late, but for me, the intense energy of that Aries moon lingered well into this week. There’s also the fact that Fogtober in San Francisco has been very real this year—both in the literal sense, and in that I feel fog will start pouring out of my ears on one of these over-busy scrambling mornings. A friend mentioned that he had the scramblies in a group chat, and that has stuck with me since.
Mars in Gemini (with Mars soon going into retrograde on October 30) has a little something something to contribute to the overall sense of distraction and inability to focus. Plus, Mars made a square to Neptune this week, which came into play on Tuesday and Wednesday; and amidst that clusterfuck of cosmic energy we have the ongoing chronicles of the Mars-Saturn trine.
So what does this all mean? Squares are widely seen as uncomfortable and challenging aspects in astrology, occurring when two planets appear to be at 90 degrees from each other (if that’s hard to envision, think of them as being three signs apart on the zodiac wheel). This means the planets are in signs of the same “modality”—cardinal (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn), mutable (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces), or fixed (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), but their elements will be different—look at air sign Libra and earth sign Capricorn, for instance—and it can make for a tense and inflexible clash of energies.
Astrologer Tay Nicholas, whom I recently discovered via Twitter thread, shared a powerful take on Aries “full moon aftercare”, and on the Mars-Saturn trine1, that is absolutely worth the read if you, too, have been feeling sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And, well, if you’re just as aggravated with the astrology community churning out unoriginal horoscopes that prop up the Siamese twin pillars of “toxic positivity” ideology and “doom and gloom” astrology.
Tay calls the astrology at hand a “burnout cocktail situation”, and, ummm, yeah. I’m inclined to agree. They write,
“I’m burnt out on astrology that neglects everyone going through actual hard shit… And I am so tired of advice that only centers around individual priorities and growth when there are so many people who need real help from their friends, colleagues and greater communities more than ever right now...
There is a way to be realistic and genuine without fear mongering and catastrophizing. There is a way to authentically relate to those who are experiencing extreme hardship when we talk about how transits might be reflected in someone’s life.”
And there is a way to do this without placing blame on any one individual for those very transits, or making them feel victimized and specifically targeted by the whims of the cosmos.
In the podcast section of her app, Astrology of the Week Ahead, astrologer and social justice advocate Chani Nicholas shares:
“The full moon in Aries is really active. It’s going to make something incredibly obvious. It’s a very energetic Full Moon. And, it’s also sitting right next to Chiron, the minor planet that is called the wounded healer.
So, one of the things that this Full Moon is going to highlight, or bring about, or make conscious is one of our wounds—what activates our wounds, how to hold them, how to work with them, and how to learn from them. How to be a mentee of them, if you will.”
Easier said than done, right? Because when a wound gets activated, especially an unconscious one, the first instinct for most people isn’t to hold, or work, or learn from them. It’s usually to run from them—or do whatever we can to avoid feeling into them. If you’re like me, you do your best to write into them, which sometimes means that you find yourself writing in circles around them.
And really, sometimes I still can’t help it, even after all this time and all these self improvement practices, even though the self love is real and juicy and good and I can mostly hold it in its fullness now. Sometimes I still can’t help but tire of myself—of the same worn-in and wearying anxieties and insecurities.
But maybe that’s part of it.
We’ve all heard the oft-quoted expression, Healing is not linear. Ours is a society constructed of Before and Afters; we live for them, wait with bated breaths, uncover the old celebrity photos of what she looked like before the extensive plastic surgery changed her entire face (well, yes, that’s a different kind of healing, but before I digress…). No one wants to talk about the middle part, except for in another cliched saying—this one touting the merits of the journey and not the destination.
No one wants to talk about the messy inner work that happens in that middle part, either. No one wants to about how the deep-seated anxieties and insecurities and trauma wounds don’t just go away. Mostly because, and let’s face it, the practice of doing the work just isn’t sexy. There is a distinct lack of fun in even the phrasing.
Right now, Chiron is in Aries, and, as Aries is the “baby” or child of the zodiac, this can mean that we are revisiting childhood wounds. Remember to be gentle with yourself at this time.
My own Chiron is in Cancer, and is on prominent display in my first house, where the rest of my Cancer stellium also lies.
Accessing Chiron in the birth chart is the doorway to addressing and healing, or at least beginning the process of healing—even, and especially, the things we don’t quite recognize are furtively guiding our path. Learning self-awareness, coupled with a desire to face those things, is integral to bringing them to light—but so, too, is shadow work. Without the light we cannot have the shadow, and vice versa.
(I am not, nor do I profess myself to be a mental health professional. It’s all well and good to laugh at memes that question, “Is it a spiritual awakening? or is it psychosis???”, but pls make sure you are well supported when embarking on any shadow work endeavors. It can have unforeseen results, like a depressive spiral into a dark night of the soul—remind me to tell you about when that happened to me sometime—and should be practiced with caution. If you are struggling, seriously, consider contacting your mental health provider/trusted person you can safely confide in, etc. Okay. Done with the legalese now, but I do mean it.)
What I love most about Chiron is the idea that even though we may live out our wounds in some ways—often in ways that unfold throughout the entirety of our tiny mortal lives—we can also use them as catalysts to help support others along their own paths of healing. We can immortalize ourselves by writing, creating art, throwing ourselves into the pursuit of our studies and the things we love. We can revel in the magic of what is both human and mythical creature in each of us.
And even when we are hurting, we can move, inspire, and teach others, at times completely unexpectedly. That is one of the arcing, trembling joys of being human—even in a world that increasingly seems to be giving itself over to its baser, more animal urges.
Side note: the moon is now in Gemini. Hopefully it can help us zip through this fog with the quickness, but I’m not placing bets for anytime soon.
Look at us having some fun with our demons!
things that I love
In the titular poem of his third book, Love and Other Poems, the poet Alex Dimitrov constructs a list of just that—bright, flashing, sublime, and also entirely ordinary things that he loves. This poem did such wonderful things to my brain.
You can read it in its entirety here (10/10 recommend doing this). But I also wanted to share part of a list of my own, one that it inspired me to create—mostly because this poem alternately elicited giggles and that indescribable but gorgeous, self-contained little slice of joy that arises when you’re in the presence of art that makes you feel something. Which is to say, good art. (Let me finish the book before I deem it great, although I have this little feeling...)
I love that it’s October, and that despite the tumult and sheer breadth of human pain—and the astonishing amount of it that is happening at this very moment—we have that, and the way that it’s a beginning and an end at the same time.
I love that I can reach into my own pain and carve something of it, something that, even if it isn’t beautiful, can at least mean something.
I love that a group of parrots is called a pandemonium; a group of butterflies, a kaleidoscope.
I love anything and everything in the soft and luminous shades of “pastel rainbow.” But I also love black, and how there are different shades of it, too, and I’m intrigued by the duality of that.
I love mushrooms. I find them endlessly fascinating. There’s a lot I could say about mushrooms, but for now I will refrain.
I love astrology as a lens for better understanding myself and others.
I love that feeling of immense relief when you finally get over an ex-lover (cough situationship cough) who was never actually right or meant for you anyway.
I love healing from things that I once thought I was forever doomed to be triggered by.
I love that despite women once being burned at the stake for even the smallest whisper of a suspicion that they were witches, in recent years more and more of us have been brazenly reaching toward the occult. That we have fallen in love with our own mysticism and we refuse to keep quiet anymore. (Also a big fan of the myriad witchy costumes at Spirit Halloween, and Spirit Halloween in general, and the way its veritable existence is likely making the men who did the burning roll over in their graves.)
I love how powerful and brave and badass women are, and I love that all over the world we are fighting for our rights (though I don’t love that we have to), and I love that we will not stop fighting for them and for each other.
Teenage girls continue to lead the charge in Iran
This piece was far and away my most viewed newsletter on Substack so far. (I’m talking 5x my normal amount of views.) Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading. I’m working on what I think will be a series of essays about my background and the multiple ways in which I felt othered throughout my upbringing as a first generation Iranian-American, but in the meantime, I wanted to share a few things:
This episode of Honestly with Bari Weiss, The Iranian Regime’s Most Wanted Woman, is a must listen. It’s an alternately expansive, illuminating, and inflammatory conversation with outspoken journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, whose lifelong battle for human rights in Iran resulted not only in her being forced to flee the country, but having a target painted on her back by the Iranian government. Her family has been targeted as well, and a more recent attempt of the government to take her life—on American soil, no less—has led to Masih living in a total of four different safe houses.
“I don’t have faith in [the] US government; I have faith in Iranian people. I just want the US government to understand that this is the battle we should fight together, because we are protecting democracy. We’re not just fighting for ourselves in Iran—we are protecting America. You cannot be free, you cannot have freedom and democracy in the world if the Islamic Republic is in power, if the Islamicists are in power. That’s the point.
I want the government to understand that this is the right time to show solidarity with freedom fighters, with democracy fighters in the region. These are freedom fighters which can actually help you to promote democracy in the United States of America as well.”
—Masih Alinejad
Freedom of speech is not something we should take for granted. Ever.
More of this from the sports community, please. (Granted there are other traumas female athletes are currently facing as well.)
This house in San Francisco that was transformed overnight as a symbol of solidarity for Iranians and Iranian Americans.
This Guardian story about the Iranian women who are using their art to protest. (Thanks to Ali Vingiano, who featured this in her Little Things newsletter on Substack last week, for this one.) Moved me to tears.
And finally, this Washington Post article detailing how young Iranian Americans have been organizing to protest and call for an end to the gender apartheid regime. One Tehrangeles2 native interviewed for the piece shared, “While I certainly have a personal connection and interest in the culture that raised me… my real conviction stems from how inspired I’ve been by the sheer fearlessness of these young girls who are quite literally risking their lives every day fighting for their basic freedoms.”
Here are some ways you can help.
See you next week for another edition of Cosmic Kudos.
xx
Kimia
While squares are typically viewed as challenging, trines are mostly seen as harmonious. But that doesn’t stop them from bringing some tricky and transformative energy into the mix.
If you know, you know.