Dark Moon Lilith
Lilith is the Great Equalizer. In our chart Lilith represents where we throw caution and rules to the wind to protect what is real, pointing to the ugly truth and embracing a necessary evil. Lilith pushes one to the fringe to rattle cages and raise eyebrows with a rude awakening. Lilith is the goddess warrior queen who ferociously fights against stagnating feminine impotency, castration, inhibition and discrimination. When confronted with Lilith in our chart we are given a choice to either courageously confront the dark disturbing dragon or suffer the consequences.
Many Lilith righteousness stands are being taken with the recent Slutwalk and the Middle East cultural turmoil not only with the general unrest regarding freedom but specifically with women’s rights demanding freedom and equal rights as true suffragettes coming forward once again. A few newsworthy specifics seen in a very brutal domestic violence dispute regarding a husband gouging his wife’s eyes out because he was not OK with his wife reaching toward her higher education aspiration and the ongoing fight against archaic methods of punishment such as the stoning in Afghanistan and extreme oppression and honor killing as well as oppressive gender selection practices. Victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, discrimination and harassment are making more and more headlines now standing up against past exploitation, humiliation and trauma.
The role of Dark Moon Lilith is to embrace our primitive, instinctual and primal dark and taboo, wild side of our nature. The book “Women Who Run with Wolves” captures this essence. “If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman… have faith… there is yet time.” – from Women Who Run with the Wolves. Dark Moon Lilith depicts the darker side of our nature, the shadow which we mostly prefer to ignore relating to guilt, shame, envy, vengeance and the unseemly side of human nature. Lilith’s role is to expose and display the darker side of our nature in order to bring it to light of consciousness and out of the shadows of the unconscious to transpose the vexing into constructive use such as a Leo Lilith needing to take its strong ego and use it to stand up for dignity against adversity or a Scorpio Lilith that will take vengeance for a rightful cause.
Historically, in ancient Egypt and in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies, egalitarian systems were predominant. Aside from religious association, Lilith’s role was well respected in temples of priestesses and honoring the power and strength of the sacred goddess along with all her counterpart goddesses such as Inanna, Shiva and Shakti -Aphrodite, Athena and Iris where matriarchy was also respected. Lilith’s placement points to weaknesses that need attention-Lilith Mars may help with assertion, Lilith Venus may help with either curtailing vanity or help in recognizing self worth beyond physical beauty. Lilith tends to bring out the destructive side first though in order to show how the darker weak side works against us and becomes our own worst enemy. Due to Lilith’s powerful energy, its need to be expelled and released can come unhinged and spill out with raging force. Lilith will boil over and burst in areas that need attention-that tapping that continues to gnaw at those pressure points. Lilith opens a portal to elucidate any abomination.
The myth of Lilith and the original story is based around her refusal to submit to Adam and subjugate to his authority and was banished from the Garden of Eden with Eve to replace her. Lilith was Adam’s first wife created at the same time and of the same earth yet Eve was created from Adam’s rib, here Lilith represents the true form of her equality as Eve was only a sub part of a whole demonstrating the early development of patriarchy and inequality that stemmed from biblical reference. Lilith embodies biting the apple, the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and taking the leap beyond sanctioned barriers that limit progress. With Christian doctrine of original sin, leaving one at the stage of ignorance is bliss where knowledge is akin to evil, Lilith’s rebellious role is to deter from the role of obedience and servitude. The underlying message being, complacency may be safe and simple although naive, yet growth and evolution brings fear of the unknown with potential growing pain and suffering but necessary learning, wisdom and enlightenment.
Lilith represents what is unique and authentic, a distinct and defined feminine identity without any fusion and confusion. Her energy clear and raw, untamed and wild- the “bitch” who bows to no one. The unencumbered, unbridled, self regenerating, self sustaining feminine that will accept nothing less than full regard for her wholeness and individuality. Those who haven’t really completely accepted or embraced Lilith will continue to try to mold her around all these subservient “blender cocktails” roles and continue to discourage Lilith and her real bare bones ID energy. Its push away from antiquated expression yet no matter the social structure, the base ID energy is always a primal core marker and indicator. Social conditioning is built on the premise to control Lilith’s pure feminine nature which is contained and curtailed for social propriety. Sit quietly and don’t ruffle any feathers, stir the apple cart or stand up or speak up. She must sit pretty, be nice and pleasant and not dare step out of bounds of her gilded cage with a desire for independence and refusal to accept second class status and double standards.
A child’s honesty is at its purest although rattled and rough. Herein lies the message of innocence of Lilith. In watching classic social conditioning, a boy and his wild antics not being thwarted, yet a girl is still stifled and told to be pleasant still gender typecasting and grooming girl’s with archaic beliefs in outer beauty as powerful, stuck in notions that being a “model” using adornment is empowering and places more value on who you are as a woman taken to extremes where younger and younger girls are modeled and sexualized, children being paraded in seductive outfits and makeup. Seems the more we try to empower women or the feminine spirit, the more extreme sexual exploitation and degradation in pornography becomes. Instead of girls becoming anorexic due to fear of physical imperfection and not being accepted or liked, girls can now freely develop their mind and get science degrees and join the soccer or hockey team and be seen for who they are and what they think and not just what they look like. This isn’t about feminism or women groomed to wear the pants.
Lilith is about liberating the true feminine nature which was suppressed due to fear and ignorance. I don’t believe Lilith’s message in myth and the intention was to brutalize and destroy and run amok with cruelty, but to only seek wrath against what wasn’t “fair” or suppressed or controlled and move forward progressively. Lilith in her darkness is the repressed, denied part of us that hides behind what’s “proper” or socially acceptable and going along with the norm and conformity. The message is there are ways to embrace Lilith and refine the expression without destruction in her path as the repressed Lilith is the boiling point that bubbles over and seethes. Lilith expression is available to us whether we choose to embrace, deny or fear her.
I see Lilith as beyond culture, social sanctions, gender, emotion, anger, rage, chaos , rebellion, escaping or detachment. Lilith is pure conscious gut instinct loosening any shackles of entrapment and inequality. Hence the casting out and the alienation. I believe we have more of a palate for her as we recognize the necessary cutting through the stultifying belief systems and practices that create walls around with fences, rules, hierarchies, power structures and anything that binds or restricts or limits. Lilith embodies the raw freedom, completely removed from anything enslaving in any capacity. The pure will to live exactly as you feel to in the moment guided by your own personal unique potent authority. Here Lilith in her glory stands for those who have no fear in being rejected or cast out due to standing up to any unfairness and confronting any repressed or hidden agenda that most would rather keep under wraps. Here Lilith is the “pink” elephant in the room that demands to be seen and heard, no matter the consequences.
Lilith has the courage to stand alone with no qualms of being alienated in the name of bearing her soul and saying what’s on her mind, no matter how unpopular. This isn’t rebellious or radical like Uranus and trying to be different, it’s “just the facts” lumps and all. Any anger, frustration, annoyance will get full voice with Lilith. And this is the freedom of Lilith-say it like it is and get on with it. No passive aggressive, revengeful, denial, escape, hurtful intention as the expression is immediate and clean, clear. Albeit shocking, as exposing the ugly truth is not a dish served lightly.
For Lilith to embrace her individuality with courage and no fear alongside all her feminine intuitive strength is a potent lethal combination that no one can deny yet will continue to want to thwart, disable or control simply because of the fear of the absolute rawness. This is why the legend bears so strong with the feminine archetype challenging the patriarchal power structure giving the feminine energy second class, minority status-keep her hidden with all the other skeletons in the closet, or wrapped up in a heart shaped box disguised as submissiveness, passivity, pleasantry and congeniality spoiling to let loose the fierce feminine force from pandora’s box and no doubt can wreak havoc and poetically wax lyrical the burden of the monthly cycle where the female “bleeds” with the accompanying hormonal fluctuations and rages.
Lilith has had a PR smear campaign against her as the nasty succubus, revengeful, defiant witch spawned by Satan. This is the dark side of Lilith repressed as well as a way for conventional standards to keep Lilith in the closet by identifying her with such a harmful reputation. In society built with conventions and standards of social structures for restraint and proper order, the principle of Lilith is not a welcome expression as she personifies the devil’s advocate, the one who will truly cut through the haze of herd mentality and take a stand against the popular belief system, or group consensus or majority no matter the ridicule or persecution. Due to the powerful courage in her wrath, she is feared and it’s easier to oust, banish and eliminate her than to embrace her.
Sexuality is Lilith’s alter as she refused to lie beneath Adam in coitus. Lilith’s instinctual sexuality and pure expression to own and proclaim her seductive power and have her rightful individual sexual expression without a man minus the double standards and brutalized practices of female genital mutilation still taking place in 28 countries where a girl’s clitoris is removed before puberty. The clitoris represents a woman’s ability to self satisfaction completely whole and self sufficient unto herself leaving her to experience love as two whole beings coming together and taking out the tired out dependency clause of two halves meeting as one. Here sex for pleasure and enjoyment and not just procreation, to be hidden, shamed or subjugated.
Lilith’s untainted nakedness and innocence, as a child in the Garden of Eden away from biblical reference to sexuality as dirty, unclean and impure. Just as the masculine has been ornated with the phallic symbol, the feminine needs to be recognized for the power of her potency and her yonic symbol instead of being “boxed” in and controlled and caged. So much emphasis is placed on the protruding piercing phallic symbolism but so little of the mysterious, depth and hidden rapture of the yonic. So much more than what you see is what you get with the the honor of the feminine full deep potential and the vast reaches of her innermost secrets.
Very similar is the story of Moses exile into the desert for wishing to free the people of Israel from slavery. Lilith wrath is essentially based on moving beyond rigid constraints of a social or religious dogma, exposing the ever gaping holes in belief systems that hinder freedom and equality. Lilith embodies any principle around taking the risk of being excluded, excommunicated, isolated and forsaken due to not following the norm. You can equate it to anything related to gay rights, human rights, religious rights, anyone who has been outcast, abandoned, shunned, a forsaken pariah, bullied can relate to the trappings of Lilith whether in her shadow rage or her fearless courageous crusader stand. Lilith is the true female warrior who fights for progressiveness away from outmoded, restricting, imprisoning tired out systems, structures and beliefs. Lilith took a big bite of the apple of the Tree of Knowledge and discovered the lie that it wasn’t evil to acquire knowledge but that ignorance was a sin.