For people whose birth chart places Chiron in Taurus, pain is something they make their own. They hold onto it so thoroughly that others might mistake them for people who seek suffering. They grow accustomed to it, and as a group they tend to remain in hurtful situations well past the point when they should leave.
This is not because Chiron in Taurus individuals take pleasure in pain. Their way of handling it is simply slow. The injuries they sustained early on were drawn out and lingering. For them, pain registers on a physical, material level—it feels concrete and real, not something easily dismissed. Working through it takes time.
They may brood or sink into the pain before they finally resolve to make the most of it. Even so, they do eventually produce something lovely and worthwhile from their suffering, and that in turn tends to inspire others.
Chiron is associated with wounding and healing. Those with Chiron in Taurus cannot heal until they have immersed themselves in agony for a while, then risen again—renewed and improved—and built genuine value out of their pain.
The very act of constructing something valuable is what brings them relief.
Why Chiron in Taurus May Work This Way
Chiron occupied Taurus from 1976 to 1984. Children born with this placement were in elementary school at a time when computers and other technological devices were all the rage. In every class there seemed to be one child whose book report was typed on a home computer and printed on a dot matrix printer. The teacher was genuinely impressed, and the rest of the class felt inferior for handing in something handwritten. These Chiron in Taurus children were among the first to experience the effects of the “Digital Divide” at school. The technology was so new that no programs existed yet to help students obtain affordable computers.
Popularity became tied to the gadgets a child owned. The early 1980s were a period of extreme excess, a time for displaying everything one had. “Keeping up with the Joneses” was not a new notion, but in the early 1980s that game became far harder to play. It was no longer about a fancy new toaster; it was about expensive items such as computers, Walkmans, CD players, and gaming consoles.
Yet the very gadgets children needed in order to be accepted were often beyond what an average household could afford.
When the Walkman first appeared in 1979, its price was equivalent to roughly $442 in today’s money.[1] The Atari gaming console cost the equivalent of about $771 today.[2] And without one of those, nobody wanted to visit your house after school.
Most Chiron in Taurus children had to cope with a subtle but genuine feeling of inferiority. Ordinary middle-class children—not poor by any standard—were suddenly made to feel poor. If you lacked a computer, a Walkman, or an Atari, the assumption was that you must be poor.
Commercials of that era gave the impression that everyone owned fancy gadgets, but in reality most households did not. Only a minority of children could afford such things—just enough to make everyone else feel poor. Children were constantly exposed to advertisements that embodied 1980s materialism. Materialism has always existed, but in the 1980s it reached new heights.
Children with Chiron in Taurus absorbed the lesson that what mattered most—at school and in the neighborhood—was what you owned, not how intelligent or kind you were.
Earlier, Chiron was in Taurus from 1926 to 1934. The widespread poverty of that era is well known, but fewer people realize it was also a time of excess and materialism, much like the 1980s. During the Great Depression, there were still wealthy individuals in the early 1930s who flaunted their riches in ostentatious displays.[3] The situation was extreme enough that PBS History Detectives observed, “America has never again seen such obvious excess at a time of widespread poverty.”[4]
As a result, the ordinary majority had to contend not only with poverty but also with a sense of being inferior to the upper class.
In both periods when Chiron was in Taurus, the stark contrast between the “Haves and the Have-Nots” produced a real feeling of inferiority. Even the “Haves” had to bear being cast as “bad guys” simply for their prosperity. So perhaps people with Chiron in Taurus deserve some leniency.
If you were born with Chiron in Taurus, take pride. You have learned how to build real value. You have learned how to use the cards you were dealt to create beautiful things.
Others may not know what to do when life crushes them, but you know how to turn pain into productivity. So your parents could not afford to buy you an Atari—but you eventually learned that by working after school, you could save enough to buy what you wanted.
Indeed, in Taurus, Chiron does not merely heal; it rebuilds and improves.
For the Chiron energy to show up in your life, Chiron needs to be strongly placed in your birth chart. It is strong in one of the angular houses or when in aspect with a personal planet. The house in your chart where Chiron sits will be the area where you feel its energy most. As with any planet, the energy is felt especially strongly if Chiron is on your Ascendant. Chiron conjunct the Ascendant tends to manifest in robust, sometimes quite literal ways, as the following example shows.
Bill Russell: Chiron Conjunct Ascendant in Taurus
Bill Russell, the NBA basketball player for the Boston Celtics, has Chiron conjunct his Ascendant in Taurus with an orb of less than 2 degrees. Beyond dealing with poverty, he was made to feel inferior many times in his life. Bill Russell is a five-time basketball MVP, but no one would have guessed that when he was cut from his junior high basketball team. He worked hard to improve his game and became “one of the most successful and decorated athletes in North American sports history.”[5]
He did not build this only for himself. “He also inspired his teammates to elevate their own defensive play.”[5]
What Chiron in Taurus Can Teach Us
People with Chiron in Taurus can show us how to sew a beautiful quilt from the scraps we are given. They show us how to make lemonade out of lemons. They show us how to make the best of the hand we are dealt. They reveal what real value looks like.
We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.[6]
