Manhunting: Boston's 19 Year-Old Bombing Suspect

Runners completing the Boston Marathon in 2010

(photo credit: Daskos99, August 2010)

As I got up this morning and heard that the second suspected Boston Marathon bomber is 19 years old, I started thinking…what do we know just from that?

The first thing which jumped to mind is that 19 years is the Metonic cycle – the eclipse cycle. Of course we don’t know if this individual was born in the first or second half of the year (nor am I going to bore us all with reciting the technicalities of eclipses before-or-after the date of our birth) but the there were two solar eclipses in 1994. One was at 19 Taurus and the other was at 10 Scorpio. Either way you’re talking about a person born with emotionality on the prime (or primal) list of items which by nature or nurture are indicated as ‘trigger points.’

That Pluto was in Scorpio at the time combines with the eclipse data to tell us that this is a person striving for a sense of personal viability. Whatever sign Pluto is in, we tend to focus on that in needing to learn lessons about the ‘balance’ Pluto’s reputation for “obsession” points to our needing to learn. Scorpio, being one of the three ‘interactive’ signs (Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius) marks everybody born between 1972 and 2008 as needing to learn how to balance some level of Plutonic obsessions on what ‘they’ do or what ‘they’ have, or how ‘they’ do it, or who ‘they’ are (or any other ‘they’ qualifier) with the basics of Aries, Taurus and Gemini, the solidity and awareness of existing (Aries), the ability to wrestle with your own self-worth and satisfaction quotients (or lack thereof) which is so very Taurean and the ability to think things through the choose and build your own future (Gemini).

(Just to note here…those born in 1972 and 2008 aren’t automatically included here, since Pluto was moving back and forth while changing signs during those years. But a large number of people will, yes, be included.)

Nineteen years old is also just past the point where the Nodes (north and south) return to their point of natal origin. (The nodal cycle is 18.6 years in length.) Since the Nodes refer to our relationship to our world and the world’s relationship with us, prior to the first nodal return it’s natural for society to consider us ‘not yet ready’ for full-fledged “adult relationships” …which conversely, lends a bit of a jackrabbit quality to being nineteen. In astrological terms, it’s like we have this ‘new-found’ power to feel ourselves being in relationship with others and our world.’

Not all of us weather that period exquisitely, as we are seeing today.

Nineteen also precedes the first Chiron square (which happens around age 20-21), a point when many if not most of us get to facing our Self at some level, realizing we need to ‘get to work being us,’ if you will. Before we get that far, that self-reflective gear hasn’t kicked in – which can make for a lot of painful choices and bad behavior, no question.

Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts

(photo credit: chensiyuan, 2009)

If this suspect is 19 today, that means he was probably born with Saturn in early Pisces. As of April 1, 1994 Saturn was at 7 Pisces and by the end of December it was back at 7 Pisces (which is all about Saturn’s retrograde cycle). During that year Saturn did get as far as 12 Pisces, which would put it in the realm of being currently conjuncted by Chiron. At the other end of the scale (at 7 or so Pisces) Saturn would be coming under transiting Neptune’s dissolving, confounding and disillusionment effects.

And speaking of Neptune, the early 1990s was also a time when Uranus and Neptune were traveling through the 3rd and most ‘worldly/interative’ realm of Capricorn, the sign of things we do in the public realm and personal structures. We can expect some really great things out of some people born during this time, but with the net energy of this combination being ‘change’ the question is how do you go about it?

Obviously in this case, not well. Once we get this young man’s birth data (if we ever get it), it will be educational at least to see why the Uranian ‘explosive’ quality became his personal outlet.

Looking at the ephemeris for that year, that Jupiter was in Scorpio also seems important. Not only will that tend to ‘embed’ and ‘expand’ on Pluto’s presence in Scorpio but it poses a question as to whether this person’s Pisces Saturn is in aspect to his natal Jupiter Scorpio. The reason to wonder about that is because Jupiter/Saturn connections in any chart are notoriously societal and structural. We see it in the charts of those who found corporations and head organizations, we see it in people who really aim at society and things societal. Obviously most of the time that’s about getting the great job and ‘being somebody’ during your lifetime.

But not always.

There is, of course, some chance that this person was born in the first few months of 1995. If so, his Pluto would be in Sagittarius – and conjunct Jupiter in Sagittarius. That would change the landscape of this discussion, moving us from the emotional realm of Scorpio into the Plutonic realm of how things should work which directs us back to a need for thinking things through and being willing to harness your own mind.

Which, considering how bombs are made, could be true.

If this is a person with Pluto in Sagittarius, then the conversation will – or should – move back towards mental health, which seems to be an underlying conversation in the United States (and maybe the world) right now.

Which means it needs to be discussed.

Either way – with Pluto in Scorpio or Pluto in Sagittarius, Ixion is going to be conjunct Pluto. And that adds to the challenge to not see things as being about what you want (or the way you want to see them) until you learn a seriously hard lesson.

link to - Ixion: Our Conflict of Self

Also in that ‘either way’ bucket is the fact that Neptune and Uranus is in a transiting opposition to Castor and Pollux, underscoring the need to think things through and to recognize the realities of life and life’s realities.

Plutino Huya and dwarf planet Haumea were transiting early Libra during this time, adding a challenge to ‘not kid ourselves’ about who others were. Or how they are going to react to what you do and who you are in their world.

Obviously millions of people were born during this time. The vast majority of them will go on to live completely non-offending lives.

But to have been born then…and to be 19 now does lend a certain aura of challenge, especially once you take life experiences into account. As I sit typing, the news people are talking about whether this young man (or his now dead suspected partner-in-crime) probably didn’t get exposed to nation-of-origin violence as a child. Their interviews with uncles hint at fatalistic, violence-ridden pasts.

This isn’t always the full tale. Or the outcome. But the more that psychologists (and astrologers) look at families, the more it seems that the deficits or difficulties of the parents are willed at least to the children, and that when it comes to arriving in America from a war torn country anywhere, or the effects of war on any country even once the sounds of guns and bombs fades into blissful silence...it may take not one but two full generations - even more - for the shattering effects of violence to merely begin to wear away.

Which is sobering in the extreme.

************ UPDATE *************

Within an hour of this post hitting the internet, I got a note from Charles (which you will find in the comments section below), who gave us an FBI-supplied birth date for the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is still being hunted. Data on his older brother - who was shot by police overnight - is not yet available.

First of all, thanks, Charles.

Secondly...with a July 22, 1993 birth date now in hand, we know that Dzhokhar's Pluto is at 22 Scorpio, indeed conjunct Ixion (at 25 Scorpio) with Pluto being opposed by the incoming eclipse.

We don't yet have a place of birth for this chart, but setting it in Kyrgyzstan (for the sake of time zones) gives us a 29 'critical degree' Cancer Sun, which would certainly have been set off by Sun/Mars hitting the square at 29 Aries.

Interestingly, this young man's Jupiter is at 8 Libra, a degree which is almost unique in the zodiac for having earned a specific name ("the widow's degree") which amounts to a process of 'learning through loss.' 

link to post - To the Degree: 8 Libra 

Demonstrating amply how it's always best not to jump at conclusions, suspect Dzhokhar has a late Aquarian Saturn (28 Aquarius) not Saturn in PIsces. This 28 Aquarian Saturn is thus in a stressful inconjunct with this young man's Sun which, at the very least we would guess has something to do with his feeling of 'fitting in' and feeling like he had 'a place' in the world (or society) he is living in.

The Neptune/Uranus conjunction alluded to earlier is exact on this birth date. And in looking up the degree of this conjunction (19 Capricorn) one of the references uses these phrases: 'an explosive element' and 'taking a solid stand' which ring chillingly with recent events. That the term 'stoicism' is also used would also seem to ask that we consider those comments made about how long it takes for the legacy of violence and war to be worn through in any group of human beings. in listening to the interviews given by the uncles, at least one of them seemed entirely factual, saying something very close to 'it's over - they'll kill him' with the kind of attitude you'd expect from one who has learned to be resigned.

In opposition to Uranus and Neptune are Mercury at 18 Cancer. As always, any connection between Mercury and Neptune is always ripe to become 'the lie' we are told, this opposition may be the lie which is believed, which we think the world is, which we respond to, or which we tell. That this Mercury is in conjunction with fixed star Castor (one of the Gemini twins) lends a very mortal sort of purely impassioned thought which is part of the challenge of Gemini.

Sadly, the father (who is being interviewed) is saying this bombing was not done by his sons. It's so understandable. And suspects are not yet convicted, so... if this is America, all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

At the same time, we have in the past couple of years seen a series of parents unable to accept the need to do something about the needs of adult children in mental trouble. One famous case where the parents did step in is Britney Spears - which many will say is about the money involved. But who really cares, so long as people's problems get sorted out so that they don't harm themselves, other people or our ability to have faith in our society or life itself.

It's a delicate balance...having enough love to weather your children's foibles while having enough perspective to be able to understand when they're running amuck. I know this sounds terrible, but when the conversation gets to this point I always think about a series of interviews done with Jeffrey Dahmer's father, who understood what his son had done and yet loved him still.

People don't have to be perfect for us to love them. But loving them may - at times - require that we step in and do the difficult thing, and not leave that up to society after harm is finally done.

For now, I must run. But more on this later, to be sure.     .
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