So you’ve been working with Lilith. You’ve identified your wound. You’ve gotten in touch with your fury. You’ve made peace with your darkness. Now what? How do you truly work with Lilith to create something positive and make the most of the pain you’ve experienced? For the answer, let’s turn back to the myth.
According to medieval folk traditions, after Lilith experienced her great indignity, she fled. But she didn’t merely retreat to lick her wounds. She thought. She meditated. And then she began to act. She gave birth to her demons, allowing her pain to become tangible and take physical form. Then she unleashed them on the world. She created an army for herself and turned it against the system that failed her. The world that allowed her to be wounded so grievously would fall, at least if she had anything to say about it.
And that, I think, is the ultimate goal of the Lilith wound. It rips the blindfold from our eyes and forces us to see the ugliness in the world. No longer can we bask in sweet repose in our personal Eden. Instead, we must reckon with a system that is unfair, malicious, and thoroughly rigged. We no longer have the luxury of passively accepting things as they are. Instead, we are forced to take them down.
Lilith is activism. And activism is not just external. Activism can mean transforming our own hearts. Activism can mean turning inward and identifying all the ways we have been complicit in our own oppression. It can mean decoupling the ideas of victimhood and weakness. Yes, you were victimized. And yet, you have survived. And now you wield a power that would have been unimaginable to your former self. And activism can mean working to do away with all the ways you perpetuate pain, both in yourself and in others.
But activism can also be external. It can heeding the call to arms, leading the protest, and allowing your voice to rise up, stentorian and proud as you declare that the old ways have fallen. It can mean organizing the people who have suffered along with you. It can mean healing each other. It can mean allowing yourself into the light again, no longer afraid of your scars being seen.
But whatever it means for you, one thing is clear. When Lilith walks into the room, the time for making peace is over. Instead, we are called to become fire-breathing hellbeasts, striking fear into the hearts of those who would keep us small and in chains. We are called to stand up and advocate on our own behalf. And when we do, the fear dissolves. The wounds heal over. The pain fades. And finally, after all this time, we are free.
Have you ever heeded Lilith’s call to arms? What happened?
Most of my life has been a work of Lilith unfolding. To discover her archetypal influence via astrology adds to the journey. In my ancestral mythology Lilith is our Hi’iaka and Pele … sisters who must set off to ‘find their father’ or find their purpose/destiny in life. Lilith is in my natal chart 1st House in the sign of Aquarius. To find the wounds and the tools to return armed I left my homeland as a young woman(24). The short story to the long tale is I remain ‘away from home’ to work with Lilith and astrologically it’s my Jupiter and Venus in Sag (the love of adventure and bigger dreams) that has mustered my strength time and time again. Uranus in my 6th House Gemini sextiling all that tradition fuels the internal battle. A Capricorn natal moon calls me back to the cave to restore.
An old woman warrior needs all the seen and unseen allies for the journey in my experience. Astrology and mythology two constant powers. Thanks for the question, Midara. I’m enjoying your unfolding presence:)
I had to leave home, too, to meet and uncover my Lilith! I’ve lived half way around the world for ten years now and I left home about the same age as you.
What a great post, Midara!
I think we live in Lilith times these days,with the unfairness and wounding by powerful people in power positions, taking out their ignorance on the world. If anyone was Lilith, I think it could be Mother Earth, cause we are wounding her immensely with all our concentrated efforts to milk her of her resources.
Other than that, in my personal life, I’ve worked to let the fires blaze on my wounds publicly. I have Mercury in Scorpio, in 8th/9th house. Plutonic transformation through speech and writing and letting the world know about male power abuse (my Lilith is in Capricorn) has been the place where I can feel the injustice blaze hot and heated inside me.
The hardest part about working with Lilith though, has been to be vulnerable, to show the scars to the world. Lilith is in my 12th house.
I am a deeply wounded and deeply private person and I have carried a lot of shame about my failings and fiascos. Through therapy my deepest shame and fear has been exposed and let out in the light. I work on setting it free, not all of it can be perhaps, but the parts that can, has healed because it was exposed – and met trust, caring and gentleness.
The result has been a healing from the inside. I am not done but I am on my way.
As Lilith is squaring my moon in 8th from her place in the 12th, I realized my deepest and most unrealised scars stems from my mother. The past 15 years (since leaving the nest) I have been rebelling against her Capricorn 4th house, and I know that one of the ways to heal is by talking about it. I have Chiron in the 3rd. Talking is healing.
So with all that, I would say going into therapy has been the best damn decision I have taken in a very long time. I am sure my Lilith would agree…
As a follow up note I think that by letting go of the relationship with my mother, working to become emotionally independent, has given me a deep belief in myself and that I can be enough on my own.
For example, once I was desperate to get married, until I realized that it was the hunt for being truly accepted by another (aka my mom).
But then I realized what I needeed instead was to fully accept myself and commit to myself – to swear I will focus and commit to my own happiness in life, not being dependent on another person for it.
By letting go, I became free of the fear I’d say. I think perhaps, that’s Lilith is for me ?
I wish I had your insight 30 years ago.
You little star.
Anette, that’s beautiful. And very Lilith! She lets go. She recognizes that there is no way to have a safe, healthy relationship under the conditions laid out for her, so she lets go and instead begins to carve out a new world for herself. She begins to value herself more than she values approval from others. And that is a very powerful type of freedom.
Just like Anette, I was forced to step up to the plate with a 2H Aries Lilith conjunct my SN. I couldn’t stand the indignities of my ex anymore, both monetarily and philanderings, so I served him the divorce papers and moved on. The process was akin to crawling over a firepit but, in the end, it was validating and liberating. I was truly reborn.
I’ve always felt Lilith must be significant in my life because she’s conjunct my north node. Reflecting on my life quickly, after reading your words – yes! I can see how my life has always been moving towards embracing and expressing a very much slumbering Lilith. I think she works hand in hand with my scorpio moon. They relentlessly push me into the darkness to awaken, to learn and to fight back – calling me out of my passivity. I was raised to please and to be passive, so this work, is a lifetime – or half of a lifetime so far – of embracing, accepting and wielding what is Lilith and the emotions she reflects, that I was taught to deny.
This description of Lilith was a gift to read today. Thank you.
She’s hard at work in my life now
Well, I have Lilith in my first house.
Today I got my hair cut, and absolutely no brushing.
So I think Lilith is amused.
Loving all the writing on Lilith. She’s in my 9th house in Cancer opposing several Capricorn planets/asteroids in the 3rd. She’s relentless and, I’m grateful for the strength and resolve she continues to provide.
How do I find Lilith in my chart?
Welcome, F!
I wrote about it here:https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/mean-or-true-black-moon-lilith-which-is-correct/
“the easiest way is to head to astro.com and go to the Additional Objects field at the bottom of the page. First, click on Lilith. That is Mean Lilith. Then, on the right side of the page, under Manual Entry, put in h13. That is True Lilith.”
Thank you
My MO has always been to shrink or disappear when faced with unfairness. But I see now that’s unfair to me and I won’t do it anymore. BML 12/Pisces trine 4th house Saturn, square 3rd house Gemini Mercury and quincunxes Venus in Leo 5th.
All Lilith placements are in my 12th except the asteroid is in the 6th
Finding all this information on Lilith here on this blog has been helpful and validating. Thank you.