I have been asked about the recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain (and the sister of the Queen of Holland) and I have come up with, not an answer, but something that I feel helps us to understand better why someone would choose to take their own life. I think it is important that we learn about the Eighth House of an astrological chart, the Planet Pluto, which rules the 8th house, and the Sign Scorpio, which is also closest in meaning to the Eighth House of a chart. But what are the houses! I’ll tell you, though you may want to get something to eat after I do!
An astrological chart looks like a Pizza! The twelve slices of this pizza are called the 12 Houses of an Astrology Chart. Each "slice" or House represents a "slice of life," an area of our everyday experience.
The slice of house that is most associated with death is the Eighth House. Death used to be much more of a part of our daily life. People who lived on farms raised and slaughtered animals. Even those who lived in villages and towns understood perfectly where there meat came from. And when people died, it was understood to be a natural part of life, not the losing of some kind of race.
But the eighth house also has to do with legacies, inheritances, other people's resources, other people's POWER! The power exchange we call "sex," where the orgasm is referred to as "the little death" by some cultures because one's heart misses a beat when it occurs, is also an Eighth House matter.
If the Eighth House is like a slice of pizza, then the 12 Signs of Astrology are like 12 cheeses and the various planets are the toppings that taste better with some cheeses rather than others. The perfect Eighth House slice of pizza has the planetary topping we call Pluto sitting in the cheese we call the Sign of Scorpio. If you're still reading this and haven't rushed to get something to eat...OK, welcome back from your kitchen run.
Pluto, like all of the planets of astrology, does not represent an area of daily life, it represents an aspect of our psyche. Pluto represents how we grow - or how we go - when faced with the fact that all good things must come to an end, including us. The human capacity to "whistle past the graveyard," and avoid thinking about death, any death, is staggering at this point in history.
We all have to put ourselves into a bit of a denial state in order to function in the face of our certain death. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to think about these kinds of things but if you don't give them any thought then they might come sneaking up on you all at once and create a sudden despair that wipes away all other thoughts like who's going to have to clean up afterwards, how are other people going to feel about what has happened - the answer being that they're going to die, too.
You can see that when the Eighth House and Pluto matters come to the forefront of one's psyche, you had better be strong enough to handle such ultimate power. Most people are but we all have our moments of weakness and when you get the perfect storm, there you go.
I've saved Scorpio cheese for last because the Signs blend their quality flavors with the planet and the House that they melt into. The Scorpio cheese is the most intense one, even more so than Aquarius, and this brings me to why the recent Water Grand Trine coincided with these suicides, having Jupiter in Scorpio is How we Grown Through Intensity, Extreme Black or White thinking (no shades of gray), and Jupiter, while usually good, can also symbolize too much of a good thing.
So we have Jupiter in Scorpio trining Neptune in Pisces, and still do, the ultimate compassion, sensitivity, seeking utopia, nirvana, placement for Neptune, and then Venus was in Cancer - it's too far away to complete the Grand Trine now, but it was there opposing Pluto, lord of the underworld. So Venus was in the same sign as the Sun in the charts of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain and Pluto could have been opposing their Suns and/or other planets near it. Power struggles happen with Pluto oppositions.
Look, I'm not judging but we can't win them all and maybe these people struggled with stuff we can't imagine and "lost," or decided that rather than let Death take them on its terms, they were going to go out on their terms. I don't know, of course, and it's kind of impossible to think that they changed their minds in mid action because of how they did it, they could have just untied the ligature.
But I hope that they find peace in the place where we're all headed and where I hope Amy Zerner and I will be together forever - it's our 40th wedding anniversary! - and we will meet our loved ones there, too, both human and animal. Now THAT is totally Neptune in Pisces trine Jupiter in Scorpio!
