The End of an 8 Year Era and a 50 Year Cycle

Is there something in your life you can clearly define as pre-2018 and post-2018?

What have you been going through since then?

Maybe it isn’t something you can point to externally. Maybe nothing dramatic happened at all. But perhaps there’s an internal shift you’ve noticed in yourself—a dividing line between who you were before and who you’ve become since.

I don’t know about you, but 2018 was the last year I could confidently say I was genuinely happy and thriving. Since then life took a turn, mostly my health.

I’ll give you a snapshot of what that looked like:

I went from loving my life & living my dream, working in Hollywood with an amazing team of people, to the entire team quitting (one due to racism/discrimination), I was then discriminated against and targeted at work by new senior members of my team—one of which didn’t even have to interview for her job if you know what I mean, and the other who had apparently driven out another WOC in her previous role. I started having panic attacks before going to the office, diagnosed with three mental health disorders (anxiety, depression, adjustment disorder), forced to see a therapist and complete a certain number of sessions so they could sign me off otherwise I had to go to rehab on a 6-week program, hired legal counsel but they said the fight against Corporate America was near impossible, meanwhile back in London my grandad had had a stroke, I lost a lot of weight and developed body dysmorphia, pushed out of my job, had to leave LA and move back home to London because of my visa, moved back in with my family after years of living out and struggled with reintegrating, fears of failure, covid happened, grandparents health deteriorated as a result, developed social anxiety and didn’t want to leave the house to see anyone, started branding OTHERWORLDLY, grandad had another stroke, grandmother developed dementia, finally realised I was involved in an emotionally abusive situationship (and had been on/off for years), mental health went from bad to worse which triggered a full-on breakdown that almost cost me my life.
Started my healing journey by taking my interest in astrology/spiritual/health & wellness more seriously, got a new job, situationship came back around and I gave it another shot, realised that was a mistake, saw a therapist to process the end of not only a complex situation but dissolving of a friendship, my physical health started to suffer, watched my grandmother fail to recognise me anymore, watched my grandad lose all mobility and speech, tried to help someone very close to me get out of a toxic abusive relationship, I launched my Substack, cousins on both side of my family gave birth and started a new generation! Finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with PCOS, found out that one of my exes had been trying to convince my friend to be with him/get married (at the same time as he was asking me for another chance), grandmother passed away, grandad passed 6 months later, dealing with grief and trying to help those around me deal with grief, helped situationship navigate a difficult career issue he was having in his life…
…and then finally, I took a step back from everything and everyone—and in doing so, realised some friendships weren’t as reciprocal or as strong as I thought without my constant participation…

…and I tried to do it all with a smile on my face:

A part of me is like, wow, are you really going to publish this? I’m a very private person and enjoy my peace. But I think if your intentions are genuine, writing demands the truth from you. It draws it out of you. I also think it’s a great way to process and recognise your emotions with a bit of perspective. Even as I’m reading this back, I’m thinking why the hell did I give the situationship another go when I had only just started healing and clearly not in the best frame of mind?! And I’m the one who lived it lol. But that’s the beauty of hindsight I suppose. In the moment I remember wanting that relationship situationship to work out so badly, I convinced myself that he had healed enough to change his ways and that both of us had done ‘the work’ needed to commit to each other. El oh el. I was so naive. We both had a long way to go—but that’s a story for another day.

The reason I’m baring my soul with you today, is because Chiron finally leaves Aries to move into Taurus, starting a new healing journey for us all.

You may be thinking, what’s Chiron?

Chiron is often referred to as the ‘wounded healer’ in astrology. It’s a comet/celestial body discovered in 1977, orbiting roughly between Saturn and Uranus. It represents our deepest wounds, but also the wisdom we gain through learning to live with them. Unlike Saturn, which teaches through responsibility, or Pluto, which transforms through endings and rebirth, Chiron asks us to acknowledge the parts of ourselves that still hurt. Not so we can stay stuck in them, but so we can stop pretending they don't exist.

The last eight years of my Chiron in Aries journey has clearly been a difficult one as you’ve read, but that wasn’t just Chiron moving through Aries, it was also my Chiron square. A Chiron square occurs when transiting Chiron forms a challenging angle to your natal Chiron. It's often considered one of the more significant healing periods in astrology because any unresolved wounds will resurface for you to deal with. Situations, relationships, and patterns repeat themselves until we're willing to look at what they're trying to teach us.

Some of this period was also my Saturn Return and I had Pluto conjunct some of my personal planets, taking me to the underworld. It honestly felt like I was in hell—at least in my mind, just trapped. The only thing that kept me somewhat above water was my faith and spiritual practice. Also as an astrologer, I know that all transits are cycles—everything is temporary. You’ll experience lows but you’ll also experience highs because the planets are going to keep it moving.

But the positive part of this journey is that once you've survived something difficult and done the work to rebuild yourself afterwards, you begin to trust your ability to get through future challenges. Life doesn't get easier necessarily, but you become wiser in how you move through it—you become better at recognising what's for you and what isn't. You stop wasting energy trying to force yourself to flourish in places that were never meant to hold you. The challenges don't disappear, but your relationship to them changes.

For me, much of that healing has centred around relationships for the past eight years. Friends. Family. Romantic partners. The imbalance between what I was giving and what I was receiving. A painful lesson in recognising my value within relationships and feeling worthy enough to stop accepting the bare minimum. Recognising I actually have a lot to bring to the table.

Realising I need to stop over-explaining, over-giving, over-accommodating, and hoping that if I just loved people hard enough, they’d eventually meet me where I was at. Perhaps the hardest part was realising how much of my self-worth had become tied to other people's perception of me. The lesson was never about convincing other people to see my worth. It was about recognising it for myself. And deciding that no one else’s opinion would get to define it ever again.

Chiron in Aries has spent the last eight years sitting opposite Libra, making this a collective lesson around identity, independence, and our relationship to other people, i.e. who are you when you’re not trying to keep everyone else happy? Who are you when you're not seeking validation, approval, or permission from the people around you? And what happens when you finally choose yourself?

You would have felt this heavily last week because Venus made a square (tension point) to Chiron, highlighting our disappointment or rejection in relation to relationships. Perhaps a difficult conversation or a realisation that someone wasn’t showing up for you in the way you’d hoped. Whatever form it took, the transit was asking: where are you still looking for your worth outside of yourself?

So like I said, since 2018, Chiron in Aries has been our personal survival story. It’s been the chapter where we’ve had to take a stand for ourselves and stop waiting for someone else to rescue us. Where we realised success isn’t something that’s handed to you—you have to go out and claim it for yourself. Where we learned what happens when we abandon ourselves in favour of other people’s needs.

But now marks the beginning of a new healing journey as Chiron leaves Aries and enters Taurus.

I’ll caveat this by saying that what we’re experiencing now is only a preview.

Over the next three months, pay attention to what this transit is trying to show you. Chiron will retrograde back into Aries in September before returning to Taurus next year, so we're only getting our first glimpse of the story for now.

So what themes is Chiron in Taurus likely to bring up?

Taurus is concerned with what's tangible: land, resources, body, our senses. This is very much going to be about value and worth. The things that make us feel safe, secure, and supported in the physical world.

If Chiron in Aries asked, who are you?, Chiron in Taurus asks, what do you value?

And perhaps more importantly: do your actions reflect that value?

How are you pouring into yourself? Have you been treating your body like a temple or an afterthought? Have you been building financial security for your future? Have you been allowing yourself to experience joy, rest, and pleasure, or have you convinced yourself those things need to be earned first? If you've been disconnected from your body (hi, it's me), this transit may guide you back towards it.

Remember, we just spent seven years with Uranus moving through Taurus, disrupting whatever part of life Taurus rules in our charts. You’re familiar with the disruption and change it brought you. Chiron is going over this like a soothing balm—it may sting at first but necessary to heal the wounds.

What also gives me hope about this transit is that Chiron is now moving through a Venus-ruled sign rather than a Mars-ruled one. For the past eight years, Chiron has operated through Aries and therefore through Mars: courage, conflict, identity, separation, action, survival. With Chiron in Taurus we are under Venus’ influence—pleasure/joy, finances, relationships, desire.

And it's funny because lately I've found myself thinking about how connected I used to be to joy when I was younger. The last eight years have made that very difficult to do, but I didn’t realise how badly I missed that part of me until now…as Chiron moves into Taurus.

Maybe that’s part of the medicine of Chiron in Taurus. Not just healing our wounds, but reconnecting us with the parts of ourselves that got lost while we were trying to survive.

Chiron hasn’t been in Taurus for almost fifty years. Isn’t it wild to think that for many of us, this will be the first time we’re experiencing this transit in our lifetime?

If you’re a Taurus—or have significant fixed-sign placements in Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, or Aquarius—this is going to be more impactful for you. If you have Chiron in Taurus, it’s time for your Chiron return!

I’m going to write a part two to this Chiron in Taurus story, about how it will affect us all collectively. Stay tuned!

If you’d like to learn how the second half of the year changes for you, you can find your sign-based guide here.