By Alison Dhuanna, UK Astrologer
The presence of Black Moon Lilith as a second gravitational center of our moon’s elliptical orbit has been known for some time. The discovery of NASA of a physical, small Moon connected to our Moon is likely to be Dark Moon Lilith reported as far back as 1618 according to Delphine Jay in ‘Interpreting Lilith’. Dark Moon Lilith is said to receive no light from the sun, have an orbit of 119 days and be more of a dust cloud than a solid body. As in the Goddess Mysteries, its official discovery portends that a veil been drawn back to reveal the Dark Goddess in all her power.
As predicted in my first blog of 2017 it has been a year of the rising of women, largely in response to the election of Donald Trump a man who openly has issues with women. It has been a shock to many of us in the western world that our hard fought for rights can be blatantly disregarded. Women across the world continue to be treated as sexual commodities and there is a strong feeling afoot that it is time for it to stop.
The discovery of any new planet or body means the archetype they embody is going to expand in the human realm of consciousness. With any archetype, there are wounds and gifts, so what are they for Lilith?
In our first myth Lilith is created as the first woman as an equal to Adam. Lilith wants to be an equal in every way including sexually. Adam wants to dominate her. In despair Lilith runs away to the Red Sea where she lives with lions and becomes a bird snake women residing in the Tree of Life. It is interesting that she takes the same form as Quetzalcoatl the Mayan god connected with Venus. From this first myth, we experience the wounds:
- Sexual repression and domination
- Loss of status and belonging to mainstream society
- Fear of the Feminine by the Masculine
- Anger towards the Masculine by the Feminine
- This is also played out on a global level between the Yin races originating in Africa and the Yang races which are European in origin. We all embody both though so we shouldn’t get too fixed on this.
This list is of course not conclusive. The wounds run very deep across global cultures. We hear of a few ancient cultures, for example the Guanche’s of La Gomera in the Canary Islands – giant red-headed peoples who had equal societies of men and women. Ancestrally they have been linked by DNA to the Berber tribes of Africa and are possible ancestors of Lilith. The Druids and the Gnostic Christians too saw men and women as equals.
Otherwise it’s a pretty bleak story if we look at the Kali Yoga aeon. Women have made great strides forward and have the vote in many countries now. Yet if we look at the whole picture globally this wounded archetype is still playing out like a broken record repeatedly.
What can eject us as humanity from this situation is by focusing on the positive gifts of Lilith which are:
- Androgynous shamanic power. The symbolism of the Bird Serpent women/man is of Heaven and Earth meeting through the human being.
- The sovereign woman in equal partnership with men, other women or on her own.
- Embodying the power which will transform the world and disable energetically the fear based politics of the patriarchy
In the second myth of Lilith we find her as the Hand-maiden to Inanna the Sumerian Goddess of what is current day Iraq. She assists Inanna to descend into the underworld to meet her dark sister Erishkigal. Erishkigal has been banished to the underworld because she was raped – in other words punished for what a man did to her. At its most extreme we can imagine the abused women in psychiatric institutions locked up against their will or women in the Middle East who get stoned when they have been raped. The rage of Erishkigal is as big as the galaxy itself and it destroys all in its path. Many women are working very consciously to transmute this rage. Addictions which devastate our health are a way many women manage this rage.
Inanna is the only Goddess in mythology who willingly descends into the Underworld a place you can never return from, or so it was before Inanna did it. Passing through 7 gates Inanna is stripped of all her worldly power and status. Finally, she is strung up on a hook naked, rotting and dead for 3 days. It is Lilith who realizes all is not well and arranges through Inanna’s father to send these little androgynous beings into the underworld to resurrect Inanna. They win Erishkigal over by repeating all that she says – in other words showing empathy and properly hearing Erishkigal’s story. It is one of the most powerful medicines of the ‘Talking Stick’ when a person is witnessed and feels heard.
Inanna is resurrected and returns to the upper world – now Queen of Heaven and Earth mirroring Persephone in later myths. She does however have to sacrifice her own male lover who goes into the underworld to replace her and there’s a heart stopping sadness in the poem where this happens.
The wounds of Lilith (If we see both Inanna and Erishkigal as parts of her) in this myth are:
- Sexual abuse and rape
- Being outcast from society
- Rage and grief that makes a normal life impossible
- The sacrifice of the male lover to facilitate recovery – many women are sacrificing having a relationship in this lifetime to stay in their power rather than put up with being dominated in the same old story.
The gifts are:
- The inner alchemist who brings about the resurrection or recovery of the shadow self
- The full integration of the shadow self through the choice to descend into the underworld in a conscious way.
- The power of integrating Heaven and Earth within
- The restoration of social status and community
- The restoration of the sovereign women.
- The role of the Father (inwardly and outwardly) in the resurrection
The discovery of Dark Moon Lilith feels like nothing less than the successful resurrection of Inanna. Sometimes people say to me what’s in this transformation for men? This quote from Black Moon Lilith by Kelly Hunter seems to sum it up perfectly.
“But I will not submit to you and be put beneath you like a serving maid.
I am his who dares to pay my price.
I ask too much you say? Yet I give all. Why do you hold back?
I warn you, if you send me away you will fall asleep
And your rib will be taken out for your mate.
You banish me, but you will be cast out from the garden and struggle to be reborn.
I will return to remind you of what you really want.
How you feel broken with a mate who is but a part of you, like a crutch.”
I am offering 10 astrology readings where the 3 bodies of Lilith – Black Moon Lilith, Dark Moon Lilith and Asteroid Lilith will be included free. You will discover how Lilith affects you personally. This will add around 30 minutes to the 60 minute reading. The cost for the usual Goddess Asteroid reading is £87 and you can email me with your birth information at astroalison@gmail.com. You can visit my website www.schoolofastroshamanism.com for more information about my work.
In celebration of the discovery of Dark Moon Lilith here are 3 of my Spoken Word poems from the anthology Lilith: Queen of the Night with artwork by Elizabeth Berg my American sister https://youtu.be/Bs3ysnhAbSg
Thanks a lot Alison. Hopefully we’ll listen deeper from now on.