I seem to be surrounded with death this week – one good friend is dying, another good friend’s dog has died, and now the Doctor of Death himself has died at the age of 83.

Jack Kevorkian, a physician, began writing articles about euthanasia in the early 1980s and began a career of “death counseling” in 1987.  His first public assisted suicide was in 1990, and although he lost his medical license in 1991 he continued to assist terminally ill people in ending their own lives.

The idea that individuals should have the right to make the decision about when and how to terminate their earthly existence is one that is hotly debated among religious scholars.  Jack Kevorkian’s birthchart (he was born May 29, 1928, at a time unknown in Pontiac Michigan) shows that he has the Sun in Gemini in a wide (far apart) opposition to Saturn.  Before we had Pluto to destroy and rebuild, Saturn was the Lord of Death so it is appropriate that Dr. Kevorkian would have a strong Saturnian component to his chart.

The Gemini Sun is non-judgmental – it entertains all kinds of viewpoints without adhering to one, but the aspect of Dr. K’s chart that illustrates his passionate defense of personal liberation and the freedom to make choices about one’s death is the conjunction of Mars to Uranus in his chart, both in Aries.  Mars represents the personal Will, and Uranus represents the force of rebellion against the structure of authority, so when these two planets combine forces it can be quite combustible indeed.  The fact that these two planets combine in fiery Aries, the sign of individual expression and courageous forays into the unknown, accentuates this fever of passion for individual liberty.

Pluto, the modern planet of death, is in a strong square to the Mars/Uranus combination and even though it is a bit wide and therefore not as intense an aspect, there is still a predisposition to fighting against (Mars/Uranus) the power structures (Pluto) in order to accomplish one’s goal.  Kevorkian never married and spent his life seeking the change of our laws around suicide.

We would expect that Uranus cycles would be important during Kevorkian’s life because a transit of Uranus would activate the conjunction of Mars and Uranus in his chart, stimulating a rebellion of some kind and this is exactly what occurred.  His first arrest in 1991 occured as transiting Uranus was in the closing square of the cycle, and his death occurred at the Uranus Return, the final phase of one Uranus cycle (and potentially the beginning of a new life).

On the day Kevorkian died transiting Pluto was in an exact square to Uranus in his chart, and he was very near to his Uranus return, the return of Uranus to its place in the birthchart that occurs at age 84, promising the ultimate liberation.  And as if that wasn’t enough to free him from his bondage, his Jupiter return occurred three days before his death.  Jupiter and Uranus both deal with freedom but in different ways.  Jupiter seeks the expansion of our lives, and Uranus is more about experiences that shock and awe us into change.

With all of these influences bearing down on him at once it’s clear that his death provided for him the liberation that he sought throughout his life.