To properly understand an astrological point and be able to more accurately interpret it, we astrologers must, as a basic principle, take into consideration the astronomical perspectives of such point. So, let us look into the celestial mechanics and its astro-logics, before we enrich our understanding with considerations of mythology and other sources of knowledge on this fascinating subject.
The Lunar Apogee
The astrological point we call Black Moon Lilith (BML) is the lunar apogee, a virtual point in the Moon’s orbit around the Earth which marks where it is at its furthest from our planet. At this point, the Moon almost escapes, but is pulled back into orbit by gravity. It is precisely at this point where gravity shows its force, pulling the Moon back towards the Earth. So here we have the first basic concept to consider: a question of mass and distance, gravity.
Now, let us observe its cycle. Black Moon Lilith takes approximately 9 years to go around the zodiac, staying 9 months in each sign (mean node) – the duration of human pregnancy. Here we find another undeniable concept to be considered, pregnancy, or gestation. Interestingly, the Portuguese word for pregnancy is ‘gravidez’, with the same root as ‘gravidade’, gravity. BML refers to gravity, gestation, materialization, and forming the body, bringing down to Earth. It concerns our cellular memory and the basic instincts encrusted in our flesh. It relates to the womb experience, like the foetus that does not yet see, does not think in words and images, but simply senses warmth and cold, tension and relaxation, or the sense of experience being pleasant or unpleasant. It is akin to the reptilian brain, the most basic level of the human brain in charge of survival, concerning issues of life or death.
Black Moon Lilith represents the survival instinct and the unspoken sensations the mother experiences through pregnancy. Rather than being only in the realm of the unconscious, BML is about the real and raw experience, senses and sensations registered in our bodies. The unspoken experience itself goes beyond the mother’s own intentions. Whilst the ‘White’ Moon can tell us about the official experience of the mother, family, and surroundings, the Black Moon tells us about the mother’s visceral experience during her pregnancy.
Black Moon and White Moon
The Moon’s function is to reflect the light of the sun to us. What does that mean in psychological terms? It is the mother (or maternal figure) who reflects to the child the recognition of his or her self and identity. It is what the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan calls the mirror stage – when the mother serves as a mirror to the child, in more than one way. As she recognizes the child, the various sensations and experiences the baby has can be integrated, as she names, and then integrates multiple diverse sensations into one unified body. She also reflects the ‘one body’ that she herself has, and the child starts perceiving her own body separate from the mother’s. So the Moon must reflect the Sun, the identity, the sense of self. To be able to properly reflect, a mirror needs a dark metal behind its crystal. The Black Moon is like the steel behind the White Moon’s crystal. It is what gives depth to the images reflected by the Moon, just as the warmth of a mother’s embrace is what gives consistency to the image of her smiling. That vibrant sparkle in the eye gives depth to her smile and a sense of recognition to the baby.
Observing what is indicated by the mechanics and cycle of Black Moon Lilith, we recognise what a basic, primordial aspect of the human experience she represents. Therefore, we are sure to find various expressions of it in different cultures and times, as a means to elaborate and express this level of experience.
Mythology Related to Black Moon Lilith
The Jewish myth of Lilith is, for obvious reasons, an essential source for understanding Black Moon Lilith, and an engrossing one. Nonetheless, there are other mythical expressions of this astrological point and the human experiences related to it. Each of them will reveal how different cultures deal with the viscerality of life, with the wild feminine, with emptiness, or the devouring impulses of destruction and creation. To mention a few: Hecate, Maleficent, Hags, Cuca, Teniaguá.
In Lilith we find the original woman, the untameable first wife of Adam, before Eve. She is the rebel who did not accept subjection to her man, who was not willing to just be a good wife and bare children, and so turned into a demon, causing trouble. She could kill children or be the one to ask for a safe birth. Lilith could be translated as the night.
In Hindu mythology we find Kali, the dark one or the night, as well. Untameable, rebellious, Kali is rather not another woman, but the same Parvati, wife of the almighty Shiva. When her son Ganesh, whom she had moulded from clay, was beheaded by Shiva, the lovely and devoted wife Parvati, mutated into Durga, Mother Nature, demanding respect for her creative power and fertile expression. As that was not enough to make Shiva understand her, she further mutated into Kali, fighting his celestial army and Shiva himself, until he finally got it and brought Ganesh back to life, replacing his lost head with an elephant’s. And so all was good again with the holy family and balance was restored. Once her creative force was acknowledged and respected, Kali mutated back into the fair Parvati.
It is surely interesting how in India the Black Moon does not appear as another rival woman, but as another aspect of the same feminine, just as BML is a virtual point in the Moon’s orbit, and not another physical body.
Living in India when I was a teenager, definitely contributed in teaching me a lot about BML, for the visceral aspect of life is quite integrated in the culture. The practice of dancing, martial arts and meditation are deeply connected to BML. Kali is at times considered the original form of all things, being thought of as the dark and formless to which all eventually dissolve – nothingness. How significant, when we think of the 9-month period in the womb, this empty space from which life is born. And it is also noteworthy the fact that the apogee is in the same direction as the empty focal point of the ellipse of the lunar orbit. If we calculate BML considering, not the topocentric perspective, but the core of the Earth as reference, the empty focal point is precisely in conjunction with the apogee. Therefore, BML surely has this relation to the void, to emptiness.
Below or Beyond Words and Images
Saying BML refers to visceral and raw experience, not elaborated by words and images, has two different perspectives we may consider. The fundamental one, never to be disregarded, is the one explained above, relating to a more primitive level of experience, below (or before) the record of words and images. Yet BML also relates to those experiences that go beyond words and images, call it Samadhi, Tantra, or The Tao. It has the potential to connect us to a more essential and raw sense of reality, and truly perceive it in the flesh, not just in intellectual lucubration. It can signify presence in the body, being able to respond from a no-mind space, with the radical totality of a samurai, or a tango dancer. Thus, it is an important point regarding both physical arts and talent.
In a natal chart, BML can indicate a great difficulty (a void, a lack), as well as the potential for a visceral talent. Here again we notice Kali, as the destroyer of demons. To go beyond this difficulty, impulses must be channelled into creative actions. The placement of BML will tell us what sort of compulsive or visceral difficulty exists, and what and how it can be converted into a visceral talent. Such integration happens not just at the emotional and intellectual levels, but rather operates alchemically at the physical level, transforming destruction into creation.
Death Drive and Life Drive
Black Moon Lilith is often thought of in terms of sexuality, and although she is certainly fundamental when we consider sexuality, that is not BML’s most essential meaning. BML is a more basic essence of the fundamental impulses, called by Sigmund Freud the death drive and the life drive, the forces of destruction and creation present in a human being. From the life drive comes sexuality, but before that is the survival instinct – the most basic and raw connection to life.
Therefore BML is amalgamated with sexuality, but it is not the elaborations of sexuality we find in Venus, Mars, or Pluto. To take her for a mere symbol of sexuality is to miss much in the astrological interpretation. There is much more to learn from this point, as we keep in mind her essence as that of fundamental impulses of survival, destruction, and creation – compulsion or sublimation. Related to the formation of our body, she can also inform us about the body of the Earth, Mother Nature’s body.
Earthquakes and Natural Movements
In astrological charts of movements of the Earth that have an impact on humans, BML is often activated by some aspect. Further research can be done, but I have observed some of these events, and have presented lectures on the topic in a few countries (Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Portugal). To illustrate this characteristic to be taken into account when interpreting BML, I briefly mention three examples:
Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan on March 10, 2011: the only exact aspect was of BML squaring the Lunar Nodes, at 28º38’ of mutable signs, BML being in Pisces, activating her dispositor, Neptune (lord of earthquakes and seaquakes), which was in mutual reception with Uranus, both at anaretic degrees. And BML was conjunct Uranus.
Important: BML, like the Nodes, is a virtual point, so its dispositor becomes a vehicle for its manifestation; at the same time activating and being also activated by her, in a stronger way than already seen with planets.
Volcano eruption in Chile in April, 2015: this one ended up being a prediction from an article written for the Cosmic Intelligence Agency, where I mentioned a volcano activity symbolically, knowing it was indeed likely to happen, since there was a grand earth trine connecting BML in Virgo with Pluto in Capricorn and her dispositor then, Mercury, in conjunction to Mars in Taurus. The very day of the exact aspect, a big eruption started in Chile.
The recent natural disasters in the Caribbean, Mexico and the USA in August and September of 2017: BML conjuncted Saturn during the total solar eclipse of August 21st, the exact aspect happening on August 22nd, and applying to trine the Lunar Nodes and Uranus.
This does not mean BML aspects are necessarily causes or indications of natural disasters, but when she participates in certain configurations, she seems to weigh as a significant indicator of such possibilities, as she moves the collective in strongly visceral ways. So far, it does not seem to be the case only with hard aspects, but simply contacts with significant players.
Natal Placements of Black Moon Lilith
In the astrological houses, BML shows an experience through which the body is formed. Whilst in signs, it shows an attempt to elaborate this experience, to give it a screenplay – a means to convert it into a capacity and talent, or merely react instinctively.
To more concisely approach the placements here, we will go through them by the elements. Modalities can be truly enlightening, but my take on each of the three crosses of the zodiac would take an additional article to properly explain it. Nonetheless, the elements certainly a provide perspective by which to work with BML placements.
On the axis of Fire and Air, we have a self-affirmation of some sort (fire) and a space for sharing, open to others (air). With BML, there will be either a certain lack, or a compensating excess. Such difficulties, when converted into talent, turn into a visceral capacity with a strong potential to have an impact. In the Fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, there is a lack of self and the capacity to ignite, which can then be compensated in an excess of fire, generating some sort of violence – either to others or to oneself. In Air signs of Libra, Aquarius and Gemini, there is a lack of the other, or a compensating excess in needing to be mobilized by the other. When we talk about BML, there can be either visceral attraction or repulsion, or both at the same time.
On the Water and Earth axis, we find the fundamental impulses of survival and the resistance to them. Cancer-Capricorn, the axis of hunger (both physical and emotional), Scorpio-Taurus the axis of sex (la petite mort, and transformation), and Virgo-Pisces the axis of sleep (or, as said in Spanish, sueño, the same word meaning both sleep and dream). So, in Water signs, there is an incessant flow of a particular impulse. And in Earth signs, there is a visceral resistance to that specific impulse.
Black Moon Lilith in Transits
When BML receives aspects, the planet which applies calls us to deal with the nature of the specific BML, giving an opportunity for its elaboration, expression, and integration. When transiting BML applies to natal chart points, it brings up the unprocessed, unelaborated content from that astrological point. BML stays for 9 days on each degree, so her aspects in transit last about 18 days, considering a one-degree orb.
In collective transits, BML speaks of the tone or of what moves the collective deep down inside, indicating the instinctive undertone of a particular period, reflecting a backdrop behind our words and images at a given moment. It concerns what is moving the collective at the visceral level.
Domicile and Exaltation
How appropriate for BML to be transiting in her domicile at the time of this conference. The domicile of BML is in Capricorn, opposite to the ‘White’ Moon’s in Cancer. Gestating a material body, materializing, bringing down to Earth, as well as expelling the baby out of the womb for it to be born, these are BML’s concerns. If we were to depend on Cancer to let a baby go, perhaps it would take more than 9 months. But Capricorn knows the limits of time, and the need for becoming an individual in the world. In Capricorn, she is in a position of power in society, playing on equal terms with men. In the Earth cardinal sign, she is also more likely to be able to contain impulses, to be channelled to her greater goals or purpose. Cancer is her exile, for she is not the cosiest and most comfortable presence to have in a nest. She can turn out to be wonderful eventually, but not exactly by simple and traditional ways.
Her exaltation is in Scorpio, where we could say the Force is rather strong with her. Also, here we find it opposite to the Moon’s, which is Taurus. BML’s exaltation is in the sign of depth and alchemy, the one willing to look at what might not be always pretty and transform it. And for daring to do so, in Scorpio she can also find the most precious hidden treasures in the depths of the Earth. It is not her home though, so she might go a bit over the edge and cause some intense drama. But it surely is a rather potent alchemical placement for her, as a guest of honour.
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Full Moon: Image by josef1985 from Pixabay
Lilith Relief: Aiwok [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
Tango: Laura Murphy and Fransley Marcel
