Black Moon Lilith in Astrology
Filho da Lua by Santiago Caruso
What is Black Moon Lilith in Astrology?
In astrology, Lilith represents the ways we’ve each been demonized, cast out, scorned, hated, feared, disrespected. She represents what we’re hated for, the things about us that other people find threatening about us, and oftentimes jealousy. When we talk about Lilith we often talk about themes of chaos, shame, sexuality, rage, and fear.
Lilith can be extremely seductive and in relationship astrology she represents the type of magnetic attraction that will cause someone to leave a union with a loving partner for an incubus- or succubus-like lover.
In astrology, there are (at least) four different Liliths. Here we’re going to focus on Black Moon Lilith, which is a point in space, not an actual celestial body. It is the point in the moon's orbit that is farthest from the earth.
The Myth of Lilith
There are tons of different myths surrounding Lilith, dating back thousands of years. In the most commonly talked about myth in present day, Lilith was the wife of Adam (like, Adam of Adam and Eve). She was created not from his body but from the same soil he was created from. Adam and Lilith were supposed to be equals, and Lilith wanted to have sex as equals. One telling of the tale is that she just wanted to spend some time on top; she didn’t want to be subservient to Adam in any way. Why would she be expected to lie only beneath him if they were equals in paradise?
Her wishes were refused and she had no choice but to head out, so she gave ‘em the middle finger and left.
She proceeded to wander the earth, fuck demons, and presumably do all the other standard things women do when we’ve been scorned. When they tried to bring her back to the garden, she refused. As a result, Lilith has been cast as a demon throughout history. She has been hated and feared for millennia, said to prey on infants and pregnant women.
Was this justified?
In the most popular myth, Lilith was a woman who wanted equality and pleasure. Her sin was her refusal to lie down and be fucked. Her crime was her desire for sovereignty and her unwillingness to embrace subservience or unequal treatment. She left (or was cast out of) the literal Garden of Eden solely because she demanded the respect and care she wanted and deserved, and only once she was cast out then did she wreak havoc. She was essentially punished for someone else’s wrongdoing.
Lilith was never malicious. She responded to mistreatment. Keep that in mind. Lilith is a figure who wants equality, pleasure, and freedom. But once she has been disrespected (and generally only once disrespected), expect chaos. Expect turmoil. Expect a reaction. This is crucial to remember.
Lilith only spawns chaos and destruction when she’s been disrespected, abused, treated unjustly, expelled.
Natal Black Moon Lilith
At the most base level, Black Moon Lilith’s sign and house in a natal chart can represent: betrayal, humiliation, primal sexuality, some of the darkest rage, chaos; feelings of being hated, ostracized, feared, demonized; how we have our power and dignity taken from us; how we respond to disrespect and mistreatment; how we fight back; and where and how we have to learn to stand up for ourselves. In our charts, Lilith is found where we are both disrespected and feared. It often shows up as a place of pain, disrespect, betrayal, and tornado-like personal power.
Black Moon Lilith represents where we’re unfairly demonized more than actual crimes committed. Think about where Lilith is in your chart — her sign, house, and aspects. Is that where you’re an evil cunt, or is it where people label you as such for little to no actual real reason? Is that an area of life where you’ve been shamed?
Where does the Lilith “wound” come from in our lives?
Because Black Moon Lilith is part of the moon’s orbit and the moon is associated with the mother in astrology, sometimes the Lilith wound comes from having seen your mother (or a mother figure, or mothers in general) mistreated for embodying Lilithian characteristics and/or characteristics associated with the sign or house that Black Moon Lilith falls in in your chart. Because Lilith is a feminine figure, sometimes this is related to other feminine figures in your life, or within your sphere of influence. But the Black Moon Lilith wound can represent anyone that you’ve seen mistreated, cast out, shamed, abused. This person could be anybody that you could identify with who you saw being shamed or treated like shit. This gets deep into our subconscious, and the early-life memory of someone else’s shame that we witnessed lives on inside of us.
Do you truly feel deep down that the sign your Lilith is in is shameful and deserving of abuse? Of course not. It’s just a sign that we’ve seen cast out or harmed for being itself, and through that, we all learned that it was not okay to be Lilith or the sign of our Lilith.
In order to find empowerment through Lilith, we have to embrace that there is power, too, in being the outcast.
Working with Natal Black Moon Lilith
Reclaiming our power is the answer. Lilith is a secret source of untapped power, something within ourselves that we have to LEARN to recognize as power after a lifetime of being told that it’s a “bad” part of us that has to be extinguished. That has always been a lie.
But here’s the thing about Lilith: you’re not necessarily crazy for being afraid to let this part of you out, because oftentimes it actually will go badly, especially for those of us who are unable or unwilling to fit into society’s limiting boxes or pedestalized, whitewashed, heteronormative, patriarchal, cisgendered, picket-fenced-off ideal. Many of us are marginalized, oppressed, cast out, and generally fucked by the world we live in. Disrespect, abuse, betrayal, judgment, jealousy and exile are all real things that so many of us experience over and over and over and over, sometimes on a daily basis. For most of us, there really are unwanted social consequences for being the people we are. The wound you feel surrounding your natal Black Moon Lilith is likely real.
Lilith is the part of your psyche that fights back. She’s the part of you that knows you are not crazy and that what you see, feel and experience is real. It’s the part of you that knows that it’s not wrong to be angry or afraid. It’s not wrong to respond to mistreatment. It’s not wrong to stand up for yourself (or others) or to be the exact person that you are. Black Moon Lilith lives in the dark pit of the psyche because that’s where she is free.
She left the Garden of Eden in the name of self-preservation, because she wouldn’t back down and betray herself; “if I can’t be free in the light, I will at least be free in the dark.” We let her out when we live out true debauchery, sexual liberation; she is in spit, cum, blood, laughing into the night, magnetic attraction, eye contact, claw marks, rich soil. Being in touch with Black Moon Lilith is becoming the spitting snake, the smoky seductress, and the fucking weirdo.
Goldfish by Gustav Klimt
Klimt painted ‘Goldfish’ as a “fuck you” to the state after the rejection of the three ceiling paintings he was commissioned to do for the University of Vienna, on the grounds of “pornography” and “perverted excess.” Big Lilith energy in this one.