The much publicized suicide of Tyler Clementi last week after a roommate posted a streaming web video of him in intimate contact with a male friend was only one of what appears to be an epidemic of suicides by gay teenaged boys.   Asher Brown was 13 when he killed himself after coming out to his stepfather as gay.  Seth Walsh was another 13-year old who hanged himself after being relentlessly taunted and bullied.   Billy Lucas was 15 when he killed himself after what friends call a lifetime of bullying.  

It’s not just closeted teens that suffer.  Fifteen-year old Justin Aaberg, who had been out since he was 13, hanged himself after a short lifetime of hidden suffering and the recent end of a relationship. And the most recent victim, Raymond Chase,  19-year old college student who hung himself last Wednesday in his dorm room, was openly gay.  The reason for his self-destruction is not yet known. 

And September was just another month.  This summer three young gay men in Utah killed themselves, a fact which drew fire to the Mormon Church which was accused of bigotry.  

It’s appalling that in today’s world, when we claim to be so much smarter and more accepting than our forbears, that this kind of bullying is allowed to happen.  It’s certainly nothing new – at a music workshop last week we learned a tune called Hector the Hero.  This tune was penned in tribute to Major General Hector MacDonald, a well-respected Scottish general who killed himself in 1903 after he was outed by rumors of his homosexuality.  

It’s difficult to draw astrological conclusions without the birthdates of the individual boys, but it’s noteworthy that this suicidal climax follows the summer of the Cardinal Climax, with its interplanetary conflict and stress.  The suicide of Tyler Clementi is particularly appalling because of the manner in which his intimate life was broadcast in the most public format possible.  We can relate this to the passage of Chiron, with its wounding and hoped-for subsequent healing, passing through the sign of Aquarius ruling technology and the internet. 

We have also had the double whammy of Uranus (technology) in Pisces (loss of boundaries) in mutual reception with Neptune (breaking down boundaries) in Aquarius (technology).  Under this influence social interaction has largely become internet-based, with this being particularly and vividly true among the young. Uranus and Aquarius are famously dispassionate and lacking of empathy, and the coldness in which these teenaged roomates streamed the most private of moments in the most public of places is beyond belief.     The Uranus and Aquarius influence is thought to instill acceptance and a desire for social equality, but perhaps this needs to be taught rather than taken for granted.

These are things to keep in mind as we move into the Age of Aquarius, in which technology is worshipped and human weaknesses are denigrated and dismissed.