May 2007
The Troubled Young Man with a Gun
Astrologers are looking at the chart of the Virginia Tech shootings for hints about the mind and motivations of Cho Seung-hui, America’s latest Troubled Young Man (With a Gun). A dread new cultural archetype, the TYM(WAG) is a desperately attention-worthy sign of the times. We have come a long way from the 1950s’ Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.
But the chart does not tell us just about Cho. It tells us about the season we are living through. The two transits which dominated the chart of April 17th were both just shy of reaching exactitude: Mars exactly conjoined Uranus a week later; its impact extends through early May. The Saturn – Neptune opposition is getting ready for its final exactitude at the end of June, and on May 24th it reaches a peak of another kind when Neptune makes a direct station.