Kurt Cobain's Suicide Singer, songwriter, guitarist Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana, shot himself in the face with a shotgun on April 7, 1994 (reports are that he'd been dead about 24 hours before his body was discovered by an electrician early Friday morning of th 8th). The rock world may have been shocked, but I wasn't-the very first time I saw this young man in his music video, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," I thought to myself, he's not long for this world. There was an aura of depression, defeatism and isolation surrounding him.
Kurt Cobain was born February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. I don't know the time of birth. Apparently, Cobain had suffered periodic bouts of depression and alienation ever since his parent's divorce in 1975, when he was 8 years old. I don't know much of the early details of his early life, but it seems his was a very troubled childhood and, according to biographer Micheal Azerrad's book Come As You Are, he first took heroin in 1985 at age 18, and started using it about once a week in 1990.
By the time this letter is published, we'll probably know more about this complex young man, so I won't waste your time with sketchy information here. What we can look at now is the transits to Cobain's natal chart to get some clues as to his state of mind when he decided to end his life.
Looking at his chart from the Sidereal stand point, we see the following planetary positions: Sun at 7* Aquarius, Mercury at 24* Aquarius, Venus at 1* Pisces, Saturn at 4* Pisces, North Node at 15* Aries, Moon at 14* Gemini, Jupiter at 1* Cancer, Pluto at 25* Leo, Uranus at 28* Leo, Mars at 7* Libra and Neptune at 0* Scorpio.
The transiting planets on April 7th were in the following positions: Moon and Saturn in Aquarius (possibly at or near conjunction at the time of his death), Mars at 29* Aquarius (opposite his Uranus), Mercury at 0* Pisces (conjunct his Venus and opposite his Uranus), Sun at 22* Pisces, Venus at 11* Aries, Jupiter at 17* Libra, North Node at 29* Libra (one degree from his Neptune), Pluto at 3* Scorpio (two degrees past his Neptune), Neptune at 28* Sagittarius (trine natal Uranus), and Uranus at 1* Capricorn (opposite natal Jupiter).
The most striking configuration here is the transiting Mars-Mercury conjunction near natal Mercury and opposite natal Uranus-Pluto. The Mars-Uranus opposition in it's self is enough to cause concern, as it suggests highly volatile emotions leading to sudden extreme actions. When we bring Cobain's natal Mercury-Pluto opposition into it, we get a picture of a very isolated person who felt unable to express his feelings in an intimate and trusting way. He did leave a rather extensive suicide note, so he was at least able to express himself in writing, but with no living, breathing human being on the other side of that communication, it was a one-sided conversation (typical for the Mercury-Pluto person).
Much has been made of Cobain's "sensitivity," as would befit someone with a Pisces Sun (which he has in the Tropical zodiac), but apparently this sensitivity was not of the empathetic kind, though he used word a lot in his suicide note. I suspect he was virtually unable to feel true empathy with others, though he may have wanted to. In fact, it's possible that if he possessed the quality of empathy, he wouldn't have been able to kill himself, because he would not only know how badly those who loved him would feel about losing him, but he would have been able to feel that loss himself.
Kurt Cobain was probably on the road to suicide for most of his life (some have suggested he started using heavy drugs as a prelude to the ultimate act), but whether his depressive personality was the result of a particular pattern of planets on the day of his birth, or of an unstable and unhappy childhood, no one can know for certain. What we do know is that a fine musical talent was silenced forever by an impulsive act that made easier to commit because a gun was near at hand. And that's the real tragedy.