photo montage from CNN.  Andrew Koenig, the son of Walter Koenig who played Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek series, has been missing since February 14th.  He was last seen at a bakery in Vancouver.  Koenig is an actor who is best known as Kirk Cameron’s sidekick in the long-running television series “Growing Pains.”  Some of Koenig’s friends fear the worst, reporting that he had been depressed and fed up with his life in California. He sold all of his possessions and walked away from his home in Venice on February 4. 

Koenig (8/17/1968, time unknown, LA CA)  is 41, the age at which transiting Uranus opposes Uranus in the birthchart, and because he is one of those “Uranus/Pluto” people who were born between 1962 and 1968, that Uranus opposition is particularly intense.  Briefly, Uranus is the planet of rebellion and revolutionary change, and Pluto, the planet of death and rebirth, presides over experiences that transform us from the ground up.  This cohort of people carry this archetype of revolutionary change within them.

The Uranus Opposition is a planetary cycle in which Uranus in the sky opposes Uranus in the birthchart.  It occurs at age 40-42, and is the most intense of the “midlife crisis” transits, generating an urge to break free of whatever is holding us back.  For this age group, because Uranus opposes not only natal Uranus but also natal Pluto, this time period is even more urgent and powerful and necessitates a letting go of the past in order to move forward into the future.

Pluto squares his Moon, or his emotions, and Andrew’s former landlord told TMZ that Andrew did not have a good relationship with his mother (the Moon often, but not always, represents the mother in the natal chart and Pluto is the planet of destruction, death and rebirth, emphasizing an intensely emotional nature).

He has also had a number of challenging planetary cycles over the past couple of years, including Saturn transiting not only his Sun but also his lineup of Virgo planets which can be quite stressful.  In addition, transiting Saturn and Pluto have been facing off in challenging aspects against Chiron in his chart, the planet of psycho-spiritual wounds and emotional pain.  As if that weren’t enough, transiting Chiron was opposing his Sun, bringing more of that pain to the surface so that it could be processed and released, and transiting Pluto has been in a square to the Sun in his progressed chart, adding a tremendous amount of intensity to his life and experience. 

This would have been a difficult time for anyone, and unless you are on a path of emotional healing and spiritual development – and frankly, even if you are – this kind of planetary intensity can drive you to the wall where change must occur.  Koenig’s chart is short on water, the element that offers an outlet for the emotions, so the processing of emotions does not come easily to him.  With no water and this collection of planetary influences, he would have been at a loss to know how to handle all of the feelings that roiled within him. 

US magazine reports that Koenig’s parents received a disturbing and direct letter from their son and contacted police immediately.  

Unfortunately, astrology cannot tell us whether or not Andrew will be found.  For that we just have to wait.