Black Moon Lilith

Our Dark Mother of Embodied Truth 

Part One of a Two Part In Depth Blog on the Dark Wisdom of the Divine Feminine

Breaking through the stagnancy of established social dysfunction requires a kind of cosmic agitation and birthing consciousness. Lilith is such a way shower. 

Around 4000 years ago in Babylon, she was labelled a night terror, a demon. Her presence continued to weave its way through various cultures, and eventually she shows up in Jewish writings, named as the first wife of Adam. A satirical Jewish text describes Adam’s attempt to assert superiority based on his maleness and his demand that Lilith do what she was told. Her response to this was to affirm that they were equals, born of the same Earth. Here we encounter the basis for a modern viewpoint of Lilith as the first feminist. 

“Lilith is a feminist archetype that can help liberate all humans from patriarchal power-play, bringing us back to the truths of our body wisdom.”

The consequence of Lilith’s declaration of innate equality and personal sovereignty vary depending on source. Some say that she was banished from the Garden of Eden, others that she spoke the secret name of God (something the Goddess Isis also did as a pathway to personal and spiritual empowerment) and then left of her own volition, and my personal favourite, some say she upped and flew off to build her own life elsewhere. Other sources report that Lilith went mad – which reminds me of Krishnamurti’s nugget of wisdom that “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” If Lilith did enter madness, it would have been of the sacred kind. 

Sacred madness is symbolic of the crazy-making we have to make conscious as we unplug from mainstream conditioning in all of its horror and ridiculousness. If you have gone through that journey already, you will know that when confronting cognitive dissonance, there is a period where you will likely question your own sanity before the breakthrough into clarity of vision occurs. 

“Now that spirituality is filtering into the mainstream, the need for body-resonance as a truth-barometer is more important than ever. The assuming of pseudo-spiritual identities and speech in order to gain counter-culture status and its associated perks such as political power, or even to attract romantic opportunities, is on the rise. Lilith’s instinctual intuition cuts through what may sound right, but is little more than a manipulative tool.”

Lilith is the plain-speaking, sensible rabble rouser within that confronts cultural (and personal) gaslighting, even if the price of such integrity is building a more authentic life for oneself, breaking down falsehoods and starting again, from the ground up. 

Lilith has become something of a political figure – as I noted, her feminist inclinations are strong – however for me she is also a spiritual symbol of the dark feminine. The dark feminine is powerful. Hers is the shadowy realm of attributes that belong to the human soul but are socially decried. Denounced and disavowed, these valuable aspects of ourselves become hidden in the deep recesses of our psyches as a result. We may have learned to judge and fear the very qualities that would set us free. Denied the right to mature naturally, these energies become distorted and captive in body until the soul is ready and able to process them.

What is the hidden Lilith-power within many bodies and souls trying to break free from oppression, abuse, inauthenticity and fear? Rage, fierceness, defiance and sovereignty all belong in this category, along with inconvenient truth-telling that promotes awakening and healing, along with the sacred refusal to be exploited, subordinated or diminished to pacify another’s delusions. 

Those delusions include the belief that we can, or should, tell another what their truth should be (and why it should match ours). The truth-revealing acts that actually get us somewhere worthwhile (as opposed to deeper into unconscious patriarchal-collusion which results in oppression of the spirit) are those that hold space for another to find their own journey to their essence, rather than believing we know best and seeking to impose our will upon others. Even if we think we have the answers (as if the Great Mystery can ever be answered!), such arrogance does not facilitate liberation. It perpetuates spiritual oppression. 

Lilith in that sense is the sacred agitator, the truth-revealer. Yet she is not chaos for the sake of it. She is the truth that leads to freedom, and the maturity to meet the consequences of our decisions so that we can evolve, claim our love and empowerment, and become birth mothers and founding fathers of a more healed, awakened and healthy culture.

“Accessing the Lilith potency within is not an intellectual exercise – hence society, with its general tendency towards left-brain ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ mentality – cannot understand her. The inner spontaneous movement towards our inner Lilith occurs when we need to deal with suffering that society (in its current evolution) cannot recognise, respond to meaningfully, or heal. The call of Lilith is the call beyond polite so-called well-adjusted society into the realm of deep self in order to find the energy and consciousness needed to break free.“

Lilith’s preserving and empowering energy is often first accessed through implicit memory. This is true experience which the body holds and expresses, and which we cannot necessarily connect to an explicit event. It is non-verbal memory, encoded in feeling and sensation. It is factual in the sense that it is true, even if it cannot be related to a particular recollection or event. 

The way society determines truth – can I see it, measure it, provide statistics and reliable replication – has its usefulness in certain contexts but also its limitations, and denial of truths that run deeper than physically measurable phenomena is a tremendous limitation indeed. 

In modern culture there can be fear of implicit memory because from an intellectual standpoint, it can seem murky. Yet from the body’s perspective, the truth of the experience, the instinctual unflinching honesty of the biological system expressing itself, is undeniable. 

Learning how to access and express our suffering is a pre-requisite for healing. Many of our human family are in denial, chasing ever greener grass, as it were, to avoid grappling with inner truths. Yet there are also many who are exhausted by the trauma-driven repetition-compulsion and feel stuck in suffering, yearning for something more true, real and beautiful to awaken in their lives. They realise the world cannot provide what is needed at a deeper level. Material possessions and accomplishments are not the enemy, but neither are they surrogates for self love and peace of mind. 

Without access to inner peace through self healing, we will be expending precious energies fighting an ongoing battle against underlying fear, anxiety, depression, self doubt and mental anguish.

This is where we need, and find, Lilith. She is our guardian for learning how to trust our innate experience and find the courage and capacity for expression. Patience and process is needed to support the nervous system in release and reorganisation following traumatic events. This is even more the case when dealing with complicated trauma, which could also be called ongoing trauma. 

Unresolved trauma is at the basis of modern culture, driving it further along an unsustainable path. Culture can be distorted into something toxic with ongoing re-enactment of unprocessed historical and contemporary trauma occurs. In short, trauma is more widespread, pervasive and enduring than mainstream consciousness acknowledges. Often healers or other sensitives, especially those who have done work on their own trauma resolution, will be able to sense deep trauma in others long before that person is ready and able to recognise it in themselves. 

“Timing is an instrumental facet of healing. It cannot be forced, for there must be sufficient inner energy oriented in readiness to latch on to the opportunities for deeper truths to break through dissonance and conditioning at the opportune moment. The soul knows how to prepare for this. To deny this and try to force something would be akin to pulling at blades of grass to get them to grow faster. To attempt to compel healing – rather than providing energy for it and holding space for it – can become a form of subtle violence. It can also become overt violence. Plenty of bloodshed has occurred over so-called spiritual truths.”

So, we hold compassion and the tension of realising that we are in a profoundly disturbed culture, yet we are doing the work for healing ourselves, and through that, our collective, according to a greater timing and wisdom. Lilith is fierce, but she is also wise. She awakens in us when we need her, and we realise her presence when we are ready. 

Read part two “Lilith and moving beyond cognitive dissonance here