The Chiron-Eris Connection

Eris, the planet of social chaos and tribal identity, is met by the self-aware presence of Chiron. It will be a rude awakening for some. It's a transcendent moment for others.

Photo by Eric Francis

Dear Friend and Reader:

Most people want astrology to tell them when they’re going to get rich, when they’re going to get laid, and when they’re going to die. I’m sorry but I cannot help with any of those questions today; for an extra fee, catch me next week.

But today I can tell you something about the current conjunction of Chiron and Eris that it would seem has not broken the surface of mainstream or even alt astrology. I’m not surprised; this is not an easy event to read. It involves two slow-moving planets, small but meaningful, that are setting the tone of our time in history.

The conjunction takes place on Oct. 8, the second in a cluster of three (this is true of most outer-planet conjunctions). In this cluster, the first happened May 27 and the last one will be March 19, 2026. If you want to understand the crisis the planet is in, which is mostly a crisis of consciousness, this is the aspect to study.

Under the Chiron-Eris conjunction: Pres. Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast, Feb. 25, 1972, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

An Era-Defining, Generational Event

An event like this defines an era; historically, I see evidence of this influence being in effect back at least five years and potentially back to 2018. With slow-moving outer planet events, we are talking about generational astrology that defines an era, and moreover, a time frame with events that define an era.

Something like this last happened in 1971-72 (in Aries, like today), when Chiron and Eris formed their most recent conjunction. This was really the astrology of what we think of as the late 1960s and early 1970s (the early ‘60s were described by the Uranus-Pluto-Chiron pattern from Virgo to Pisces).

Before that we have to go back to 1917-1918 (Chiron conjunct Eris in Pisces), and then to 1863-1864 (also in Pisces). If you know history, you know that these are the dates of all-consuming wars: the peak of Vietnam, U.S. involvement in World War I, and the U.S. War Between the States (or Civil War).

What’s different about now is that for the first time, the conjunction is happening consciously — that is, we know about it. All the previous ones were before either planet was discovered. Astrologers had no way to know about their existence, and with extremely rare exceptions more than a century ago, do not attempt to infer the presence of unknown planets.

The digital environment before it melted down. Photo of #Occupy Wall Street takeover of Times Square, autumn 2011. Photo by Eric Francis.

The World Information War, or WW III

We are now in another war — the World Information War, which is WW III. In this unusual uproar, there’s no distinction between civilian and military combatants; between adults and children; between corporate and individual actors; or between nationalities. This is an all-in kind of war, involving everyone, described by the turmoil of Eris in Aries.

Yet this war is about more than external conflict. It is the result of personhood falling through the floor of the digital environment. The real crisis is within consciousness, and for those who can feel it, the current moment is calling for awareness about how to get out of that conflict. Many other people will be dragged in deeper; some will stay in a state of perpetual confusion; and others will get their bearings and commit to a healing process, both personal and social.

Together, Chiron and Eris offer a sense of dawning reality that can potentially counter the inner chaos and propaganda fog machine that’s blowing a hurricane of smoke, smog and fog out of the Neptune in Aries aspect pattern (this is another matter that I’ll come back to as my work on the annual edition develops).

Studying Chiron and Eris, we can be aware of the prevailing state of chaos and personal agitation, and disorientation that spans from the personal to the collective. You may have read this quote in previous articles, quoted from an email sent to me by Eric McLuhan, Marshall’s son:

“The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”

This is the nature of Eris in Aries. Chiron is trying to get our attention to awaken us from this evolving disaster before it consumes everyone and everything.

Pluto seen from New Horizons. JPL photo.

The Two Most Important Planetary Discoveries Since Pluto

To tell you what these planets are about, I have to provide a little history. It’s my view that Chiron and Eris are the two most significant additions to astrology since Pluto. You may remember that the naming and categorization of Eris was the factor that got Pluto demoted to alleged non-planet way back in 2006.

Under the current model, our solar system contains eight planets and more than one million known minor planets. (They orbit our Sun, not other stars.) A lot of these are fast-moving asteroids; but a good few others are slow-movers and have significant influence for those who know what to look and feel for. They come in a variety of categories you may have heard of, such as Kuiper objects or centaurs.

Pluto, a Kuiper object that’s now considered minor planet “(134340) Pluto,” was discovered in 1930 and for a long time was the frontier of astrology and the solar system. Notably, it took quite a while (as in several decades after its discovery) to catch on, and today few would consider casting a chart without it. It was not really shown any respect until the late 1970s. Astrologers are often set in their ways, they are slow to adapt, and don’t like to confront new influences in their own natal charts.

Pluto is an unusual cluster of six little objects all orbiting a common center of gravity. It’s sometimes called the Pluto-Charon binary system. This system goes around the Sun in 248 years. Read carefully: Charon, not Chiron, which is something else.

Charles Kowal, discoverer of Chiron. Later, his job involved downloading photos from the Hubble Space Telescope. Photographer unknown.

Chiron is Definitely Something Else

In 1977, Chiron was discovered, and over time, this discovery changed our concept of astrology. Really a massive comet nucleus, Chiron has an approximately 51-year orbit, and it was (for a short while) the harbinger of a spiritual and healing approach to astrology. While this didn’t really catch on, Chiron has had a subtle influence rather than overt one.

Why didn’t it catch on? First, Chiron is about the serious business of healing. In a society addicted to trauma, healing isn’t any fun. It is difficult and it takes a while and most people don’t bother until they are backed into a corner or hit bottom. Most astrologers don’t want to talk about this in YouTubes or even in articles. New Moon meditations are much more popular.

Just as Chiron was gaining some influence, a traditional/medieval astrology took hold, and it openly eschews the new influences. It’s easy to see why.

Healing requires embracing commitments that Chiron describes: to self-awareness, personal actualization and devotion to truth. It represents a healing journey and also one of awakening. If you hear someone say that Chiron is the ‘wounded healer’, you can be pretty sure they don’t have much experience.

Chiron Shows Up at Personal Crisis Points

While Chiron represents the healing process, in my experience it shows up at personal crisis points, and calls for raising awareness about the necessities of growth. Some of these crisis points are medical situations, but not usually. Rather, you will see Chiron present at important life transitions of all kinds.

Chiron also represents standing out and apart. Its first keyword was ‘maverick’, assigned by its discoverer to describe its hybrid of comet, asteroid and planet. Named for the first centaur of Greek mythology, Chiron of mythological fame is part horse and part human. Therefore, it represents a connection to our animal nature and four feet making contact with the Earth.

My most basic delineation of Chiron in the natal chart is that it represents one’s state of awareness. I realize this is not a dramatic explanation. But once you learn the times when Chiron was active in your life, it can be a jaw-dropping experience.

The wedding of Thetis and Peleus - Golden Apple of Discord, delivered by Eris, repainted by Jacob Jordaens, after Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1633.

Eris was Named for the Goddess of Chaos

Eris is a newer discovery. It’s a binary system (two orbiting planets) currently far, far from the Sun — three times further than Pluto. It goes around our Sun in 557 years (this number keeps getting adjusted by a few years plus or minus). Eris is currently about 97 times the Earth-Sun distance from the Sun.

Eris first entered Aries in June 1922, and took until 1927 to fully transition out of Pisces. Eris in Aries arrives with the age of broadcast mass media (radio, in particular), and spans into the digital and A.I. eras of the internet. Eris will make it to Taurus to stay in 2048, so it spends more than 130 years in Aries. This is all highly unusual behavior for a planet, and most astrologers have no idea what to do with it.

Chad Trujillo, one of the discoverers, told me shortly after the naming that the discovery team selected the name Eris because she’s the goddess of discord and the world is currently a mess. She is also described as the goddess of strife and war. But we might ask what all this mayhem, in our time, is about.

When I began delineating Eris in 2005, before it was named, it seemed to be a postmodern influence: that is, describing not just a divided world, but a fragmented sense of inner existence, time seeming to occur simultaneously or being out of whack, and little or nothing happening in a predictable order. Postmodern means nothing ‘makes sense’ in the usual inflection of that term.

In short, postmodern is the electrical world, and for us today, the digital world.

Photo by Eric Francis - Book of Blue - New York.

Facets and Fragments of Self

In January 2007, I published a short book called Eris: Facets and Fragments of Self. Early on, I was unknowingly onto what would become my primary theory of Eris in our era: that it represents what happens to people when exposed to electrical media. Here is what I published at the time:

Notably, our relationship to technology is a crucial factor in postmodern existence. As philosopher Marshall McLuhan suggested of broadcast media [actually, of all human tools], we create it, then it creates us. This constant revision, co-creation and morphing relationship to the technology we surround ourselves with, or that is imposed on us, is associated with a sense of self that has no fixed point of reference, and in many ways is experienced as having no solid ground to stand on.

Nearly twenty years on, I’m impressed that I got that right. This was 10 years before I began my in-depth study of Dr. McLuhan’s work in 2016 with his grandson Andrew. My original Eris essay describes the notion of digital disembodiment, or loss of self:

We live in a time when many of us have an ‘online self’ and a ‘real world self’ (whether we intended this or not, and whether we notice or not). Sometimes we’re more or less successful at constituting an ego identity or even a soul presence in cyberspace. How we integrate these two (or more) identities, and integrating our relationships to the people we know from either of them, is an ongoing challenge. It’s also an exciting opportunity for human interrelation. It’s constantly pushing us to redefine what a ‘self’ really is, and to see ourselves from two or more perspectives.

I must say, I did not see what was coming, in terms of the total digital takeover of all identity and also the advent of generative A.I. taking over thought itself.

In the old days, you went to it. Photo by Eric Francis.

It’s Now Much Worse Than This

At the time I wrote that, in 2006, the internet was not as pervasive as it is today. People went to it, and did not carry it around everywhere. There was no social media, there were no ‘smart’ phones, therefore no apps. There were no appliances (such as alarm systems or air conditioners) connected to the internet. There were barely any blogs. There was no Uber or GrubHub and Amazon was a fancy bookstore.

This is hard to imagine today, when nearly everyone and everything is online 24/7/365. It’s fair to say that most people no longer are aware of a ‘real world self’.

The internet is an extension of the central nervous system of everyone on the planet. We are now all connected not by apps or email but rather by consciousness itself, induced by digital technology. We are all within one another’s energy fields. We are swimming in one another’s personal information, photographs, memories, and communications. This is why we live in a world where privacy is not even a valid concept.

Through this interwoven central nervous system, we exist as an enormous tribe, where we are easily herded by people with access to massive numbers of users. Often these same people can manipulate events, which go ‘viral’ and take over the entire digital consciousness field. Even if all you read are your garden club emails, you can still feel it.

To live like this is very intense — we really have no idea how intense — it cannot be sustained, and what happens is that many people try to pull back or numb out. Others just get overwhelmed and choose to tune out. Others get hopped up on rage, which is a natural extension of being disembodied and disconnected from themselves. Anger and attack are poor attempts to self-actualize. The result is the digital fog, or haze, or in truth, global crisis.

Photo by Eric Francis

Eris is Below the Level of Normal Perception

This condition mostly exists below the level of perception. We only notice it at certain specific times, and never entirely. You don’t notice how dependent you are on electricity until the power goes out. A fish probably does not think much about water until it’s beached or flopping on the deck of a boat. And even then it may lack a concept for ‘water’.

There is a denial factor, but the real problem is that the environment is always invisible and subliminal. When I use the word ‘environmental’ this is what I mean. The fancy word for this is ubiquitous.

In a similar way, we lack a concept for the condition we are in. Let’s call it Eris in Aries. It is difficult for many people to get away from the internet, and yet we take it with us because we have been so conditioned by it. So ‘it’ has become us — our state of mind. Whether the digital haze is about withdrawal, induced stupidity, confusion or polarized rage, it amounts to the same disconnect from yourself.

I realize you will not find one other astrologer who delineates Eris as “digital disembodiment, stupidity, confusion or polarized rage,” though this is the result of nearly 20 years of work on the issue. This includes ongoing, nonstop investigation into the influence of digital technology on people.

And I’ve been studying charts of major advances in digital technology — and the people who push it. Eris is prominent in every chart. Right away, we noticed that both Bill Gates (cofounder of Microsoft) and Steve Jobs (cofounder of Apple) both have the Moon conjunct Eris. I could give hundreds of examples; if you’re curious, check my video on the astrology of A.I.

The Chironian healing cave in Rosendale, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.

Chiron, Making the Invisible Visible

Now enter Chiron. From other contexts, we know that Chiron is a kind of grease and fog cutter. Its presence arrives as an organizing principle, which at first calls attention to the problem of chaos and disorder.

Chiron is also an individuating influence, and this is creating tension with the tribal and collectivizing influence of Eris. Remember that what I’m calling Eris, and in particular Eris in Aries, is driven by electrical and electronic technology. The result is not an organic form of tribes but previously civilized people forgetting who they are and gathering with others, often based on some perceived common enemy.

Said another way, an electrical or Eris tribe typically defines its existence by what it’s against. Then there are the false ‘communities’, like tow truck drivers everywhere. Then there are various ‘movements’ that spring up every five minutes. All of this is digital mirage. For most people it exists below the level of perception.

Chiron represents a threshold of liminality, the point at which we may become aware of our environment — whether inner or outer. Usually, this happens in a crisis. If there is no crisis, tuning into the environment can, itself, be a critical moment. Therefore, beware of panic.

Chiron and friend, as visualized by Betty Dodson, 1968.

What Was in the Punch?

Because the environment is invisible and tends to act invisibly, it’s not really studied; it’s largely ignored. People tend to be obsessed by the figure they are staring at. Though it may seem to exist in the background, what I call the ground field — the background — is the most influential thing in our lives. And by that, I also mean the background mood or vibe and the inner state of most people, which has left us with no conventional moorings or reference points.

Chiron is calling attention to these factors. For many it will feel like a rude awakening, to all they have neglected or abandoned. It’s one thing to be driving around aimlessly but with perfect confidence. Then you might get to that moment where you determine that you’re lost. And that is the necessary first step to finding yourself. Similarly, we exist in a state of confusion that we don’t really understand and have not admitted to.

It may seem like a paradox to understand confusion. But think of it this way. Imagine you’ve gone to a party and you start to feel really weird. At some point you might ask what was in the punch. Or you might say, “Where am I?”

For our society, neither has happened yet.

Your faithful astrolover,