When sacred Night sweeps heavenward, she takes
the glad, the winsome day, and folding it,
rolls up its golden carpet that had been
spread over an abysmal pit.
Gone vision-like is the eternal world,
and man, a homeless orphan, has to face,
in utter helplessness, naked, alone,
the blackness of immeasurable space.
Upon himself he has to lean; with mind
abolished, thought unfathered, in the dim
depths of his soul he sinks, for nothing comes
from outside to support or limit him.
All life and brightness seem an ancient dream-
while in the substance of the night,
unravelled, alien, he now perceives
a fateful something that is his by right.
Fydor Tyutchev
At the time it was discovered that Anthony Bourdain had taken his own life:
Mercury3-Saturn6-Mars9=Asc
VenusMC-3=Jupiter5
Jupiter5=Neptune8-9
He suffered from depression. Natal Saturn retrograde wasn't your vanilla version of the Saturn Retrograde Phenomenology. Saturn was square Jupiter-Pluto AND quindicile Mercury (ruler of the third if the time fits...) And I think Dean hits the nail on the head when he suggests that the chart is "fitting". (And we'll never really know to echo Barb and James) Still, one of the great story tellers of modern times "chose" Mercury=Asc to deliver his final message. FITTING. Mercury ruler of the third suggests a mindset in tumult perhaps; "thought unfathered."
"The blackness of immeasurable space" overwhelmed his potential to see things as they are; phainesthai is the potential of all things to glow and shimmer in divine reflection, to "shine forth" in the words of Jordan Peterson. But these potentials were obscured by 'other worldly' pursuits to Parts Unknown. In other words, in his obsession to explore the world and to tell the story of the other he still could not find his fill 'from outside to support him.' I think James' comment about his not having a sustainable spiritual connection is spot on. Finding our "bliss" as Joseph Campbell called it is within for sure, however, there is a prerequisite that we connect ourselves to the Earth through a certain amount of narrowing and extreme effort to achieve mastery at something in the world. That is we need to go through the lived experience that connects us to that Source and I think that Bourdain may have in fact come close to this experience to some degree and perhaps often... but as James' mentions Bourdain's "glimpses" of this experience must have made that fact all the more difficult for him in knowing that the experience was one that he could not sustain. Like trying to catch the "Dragon Fly" that "dark genie" as Bourdain called it, caught up with him, the same 'dark genie' that seduced him into drug addiction in the first place. And we know that sometimes the most spiritually inclined are also the most vulnerable.
I think that the astrology is eloquent in the 'timed' chart we have. Especially when taking measure of the Solar Arcs. The Vedic Mythological story of the PaNis stealing the cows (cow=light/rays in Sanskrit) from the gods comes to mind. Tyutchev captures and contains the essence of the message that the Rishis were trying to convey, but I think perhaps the story is not merely one for the world at large, and it is not merely a story for the cosmos either. It is also a very personal and individual story. We all have our RasA (river/emotions) to cross. And our journey at one time or another brings us face to face with our demons (the brothers Vritra and Vala in the Myth and Vala's minions the dreaded PaNis, hoarders of the cows, obstruction of Truth and blockers of light). Even though Anthony was "recovered" he was still in effect "chasing dragons" trying to duplicate the rush and feeling of contentment he got from that first bag of heroin on Rivington Street.
In 1980, Bourdain copped his first bag of Heroin and then used everyday (which sounds so Scorpionic and the reason I began with Scorpio on the Ascendant). Solar Arc pictures on his his 24th birthday:
SunAsc=Neptune8-9
Nodal Axis=VenusMC-3
Mars9=Sun
Combating issues of identity, ambivalence, and belonging. Drugs and creative involvement with others, easily piqued and agitated, possibly too rajasic and rambunctious.
Pierre Bourdain, Anthony's father, died around April 28, 1987
SA VenusMC opposed the Moon12 and was square Neptune. Significantly, SA Moon moved to oppose Jupiter and square Saturn, while SA Saturn moved into a quindecile aspect with natal Mercury. Saturn’s arc from its natal position moved exactly 30 degrees, quindecile to Mercury and so in some sense reflects the mirrored circumstance of his natal Saturn in terms of how he needed to think and perhaps suggests something about his response to learning of his father's death, separating from his paternal influence and perhaps also creating distance with his brother Chris. Solar Arc Neptune too activates the ominous Saturn square Pluto-Jupiter. The overall picture of these arcs in tandem with the current transits of that time suggest tremendous emotional release AND perhaps a draining of personal power. BUT this was also the time period where Anthony stopped using heroin. In recovery speak, "he hit bottom."
He Married Putkowski with SA Venus opposed the Moon and square Neptune, while SA Uranus was exact to natal Jupiter. They would divorce 20 years later in 2005: SA Mars opposite Neptune and square the Moon. Both SA Saturn and SA Neptune were quindecile natal Mercury and transiting Uranus was exact on natal Mars. Anthony called his separation and divorce from Putkoski the great betrayal.
Anthony’s natal Mars, Mercury and Neptune appear to be sensitive degrees but the 27th degree of Scorpio seems especially sensitive both by degree and by reference of transiting Saturn and as well by Saturn’s Arc. The incident of his suicide appeared to be no exception to both his sensitivity and vulnerability to the enormous pressures of the night. Maybe that is the degree I saw projected from his face even when he smiled. We might be able to fine tune this chart with more accurate timing of events in his life. In his bio he stated that a most significant early event occurred when he was @10 and went to France to visit relatives. The narrative most commonly told is how this trip planted a seed of culinary curiosity that would not die. But it is also the same area of France where his father lost his own father, Anthony's grandfather, at the young and impressionable age of 9. His father would over compensate. Attend Yale and become a high level music executive in Manhattan. Anthony was no slouch academically, he got into Vassar. But he must have been a disappointment to his father. Bourdain dropped out of Vassar. And even then he was a writer; writing reports for students who would pay him cash so that he could buy drugs. His father surely expressed his disappointment and let him know in no uncertain terms. And so, Anthony had to cut his own path, so much so that many year later after divorcing his first wife, he and his girlfriend Busia had matching chef's knife tattoos etched onto each other while on vacation. That was 2005. But the relationship cooled 10 years in and 9 years after his daughter was born in 2007. Anthony's schedule didn't slow and the strain on the marriage forced their relationship to bend and "open". He met Asia and fell hard in love, BUT at the start of that relationship it was Asia who was severely depressed. Interestingly, Anthony became the hero-in her distress but when the glass slippers slipped off, she was either unaware of his suffering or was simply not able to provide that same level of support back to him in return.
In one version of the Myth of Panis, the gods send the Sun-Bird to recover the stolen cows. But SuparNa (the Eagle or Sun-Bird) accepts a "bargain" from the Panis and returns empty handed. The gods are furious and "strangle" the Sun-Bird until curd spits out, revealing his betrayal. Anthony Bourdain commited suicide by hanging and strangling himself to death with the belt from his hotel bathrobe. "... a fateful something that is his by right."
HVA
P.S. And so would his decision to live be "a fateful something that is his by right." However, that something would require that the cows (light) come home.