Black Moon Lilith

BLACK MOON LILITH

RULERSHIPS

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DETRIMENTS

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KEYWORDS

Autonomy

Black Moon Lilith represents the apogee of the lunar orbit, where it lies farthest from the earth. This mystical astrological point cycles once around the chart every nine years, and is quite different from the asteroid named Lilith having a much faster cycle of about four years, and also differs from the hypothetical “Dark Moon“ second satellite of the Earth, studied since the mid-nineteenth century but never confirmed astronomically. Presumably these other astrological factors also share in the Lilith archetype, but Black Moon Lilith has been the most typically used in modern Western Astrology.

Lilith represents an important piece of the feminine that has been lost or even shunned in modern patriarchal society. She was worshipped in ancient Babylonia as the handmaiden of Innana and also viewed with distrust as the archetype of wild and uncontrolled sexuality. She is identified in Hebrew mythology as the first and rejected wife of Adam, who found her too argumentative, and too insistent on having an equal footing with his male ascendancy. She has thus come to represent the principle of equality between the sexes, being also associated with raw sexual power and its spiritual use as in Tantra practice. She is also a fitting archetype for the dark unknown part of ourselves that represents our unchained sexuality, and the female portion of either a man's or a woman's basic nature. Her archetype also includes the rage of being repressed and excluded from everyday life. Like Chiron, Lilith represents the potentially walled-off world of dark, instinctual urges that come from deep inside ourselves and lead us toward transcendence. When her influence is developed and explored through spiritual practice, she becomes a powerful ally for healing and regaining wholeness. Where she is found in the chart, either by aspect or by house position, she urges us to explore the dark unknown and instinctual side of feminine sexuality and to embrace the healing power of acknowledging and honoring this influence.