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| Barbra Streisand was a natural Lilith as a young woman. |
Observations
Communicative chameleon –
mischievous, witty, charismatic, clever liar.
Known for saying one thing and doing another.
Personality – Quicksilver,
curious, inventive – the 3rd House is the mindset, so Lilith
qualities will be a thorough part of the personality. Sometimes Lilith even “takes over” the mind,
with resulting mental illness.
Lilith impacts the sibling:
On occasion, there is an
overwhelming number of siblings (Dolly Parton, Tenzin Gyatso [the 14th
Dalai Lama], the Dionne quintuplets) or death of a sibling (the three previous
examples – sibling death is more frequent in very large families)
More often, there is Lilith-like
behavior in the sibling (Britney Spears, Bill Clinton, Jackie Kennedy).
Loss of legal custody of
children - the child is taken away from the parent, or the 3rd House
parent has children who are taken away – this is different from the abandonment
more typically experienced by 4th House Lilith. (Britney Spears,
Courtney Love, the Dionne quintuplets)
Very occasionally, a marker
for the death of children (more typical if Lilith is tightly conjunct a planet
or fixed star). Jackie Kennedy had an
infant son who died in 1963, and also a stillborn daughter. She also had Lilith partile conjunct Altair
in the 1st degree of Aquarius.
Lilith impacts the voice –
some natives have incredible voices (Susan Boyle, Barbra Streisand). There are a lot of singers with this
placement, and quite a few dancers, as well as people who were both singers and
dancers (Maya Angelou, Britney Spears, Courtney Love).
This Lilith shows up very
strongly in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. There may be less of an impact as the native
ages, although some aspects of this Lilith are still present in maturity. A powerful 3rd House Lilith gets
the child out of the starting blocks unusually fast, and the payout normally
occurs before age 25. This is the child
with a full-time career, or a teenager who experiences total transformation by
late adolescence.
Mental illness first
diagnosed in early adolescence is featured, although not very common (Virginia
Woolf, Sylvia Plath had her first suicide attempt by age 20, all of the Dionne
quintuplets had epilepsy).
Occasionally signifies a
dynastic family with quite a few premature deaths or assassinations – Jackie Kennedy,
Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and Caroline Kennedy all have 3rd House
Lilith.
In marked contrast to 4th
House Lilith, the childhood family is often a source of support, or receives
the native’s support – especially in dire circumstances, and despite other dysfunction. Even when very poor, the family somehow keeps
the wolf from the door (Maya Angelou’s uncles killed the live-in boyfriend who
raped her, Dolly Parton was raised “dirt poor”, but she and her husband raised
several of her younger siblings).
Quite a few trust fund kids
have this placement (Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelley, Courtney Love, Vladimir Nabakov, and Rihanna, who
was taken to live with a wealthy family in early adolescence).
Likes having sex with the
neighbors, or “neighbors” in the sense of one’s peers – may do best in an open marriage (Dolly
Parton, Barbra Streisand)
These are rebellious
rule-breakers when young, but are more likely to use their Lilith-like cunning
within the establishment as they mature, whereas 9th House Lilith
wants to reform the system, or somehow transform it, and more often operates
beyond the establishment.
Contrast 3rd House Lilith Rupert Murdoch, who headed up a news empire, with 9th House dissident Edward Snowden, who works with cutting-edge, alternative journalists and filmmakers.
Also contrast the
leadership style of 3rd House Bill Clinton, the President who
rehabilitated the Democratic Party after Jimmy Carter, with the maverick 9th
House Margaret Thatcher, who was first viewed as outside the establishment,
then became part of the establishment, and finally ended by being booted from the establishment.
The Dionne Quintuplets
Born 1934
All of the sisters had epilepsy –
mental illness and the premature death of siblings in an unfortunate effect of
3rd House Lilith on occasion.
Also, this was one instance where the family did not appear to “pull
together” despite desperate circumstances.
The girls were named Annette
(died at age 79 in August 2013), Cecile (died at age 79 in August 2013), Emilie
(who died at her convent in 1954 at age 20 after an epileptic seizure), Marie
(who died in 1970 from a blood clot to the brain at age 35), and Yvonne (who
died of cancer in 2001).
The family was very poor, with
five older children at the time the quintuplets were born, with the last of
those children being born only eleven months before the quintuplets. Their mother, Elzirie, reportedly went into
shock after their birth – she thought she had been carrying twins.
A year after they were born, the
Canadian government took all five girls away from their parents because the
parents appeared to be exploiting them.
The government in turn quickly proceeded to exploit the girls for more
money than the parents could have ever dreamed of. The parents fought hard to get them back, and
finally managed it in November 1943. The
entire family was able to move into a yellow brick, 20-room mansion with hot
running water, electricity, and telephones, paid for out of the quintuplets’
fund.
The story turns tragic after
that. As adults, Annette, Cecile, and
Yvonne accused their father of sexual abuse, their mother of physical and
emotional abuse, and described their older siblings as envious and cruel. The
three surviving sisters say they were sometimes denied privileges their older
siblings received, and were more strictly disciplined and punished. They also
received a heavier share of the housework and farm-work. They claimed they were
unaware for many years that the lavish house, the expensive food, and the
series of cars the family enjoyed were paid for with money they themselves had
earned. All five quintuplets left home
at age 18 and had very limited contact with their parents afterwards.
Emile’s death at age 20 affected all four of her sisters deeply. As an epileptic who had already had a series
of seizures at her convent, she had asked not to be left unattended, but the nun
who was supposed to be watching her thought she was asleep and went to Mass.
Emilie had another seizure, rolled onto her belly and, unable to raise her face
from her pillow, accidentally suffocated.
Barbra Streisand
Streisand has a partile Lilith-Jupiter conjunction at 19 Gemini in the 3rd
House (the Jupiter-Lilith conjunction occurs once every 33 years). She also has a Saturn-Uranus conjunction (one
of the more powerful conjunctions) at 28 Taurus on the cusp of the 3rd
House.
On the other side of the house at the 4th House cusp, she has
Mars conjunct the fixed stars Betelgeuse (fortune, wealth, and kingly
attributes) and Polaris (the lodestar of early English authors – a focal point
of attention and admiration). So it’s
fair to say her 3rd House may be a bit overloaded.
Her Wikipedia entry notes the length and breadth of a phenomenal
career. Although known mainly as a
singer, she has a ton of film credits as actress, director, and producer. There are all kinds of references to her in
TV and film. There are rumors of so many
lovers – not only Omar Sharif, Ryan O’Neal, Warren Beatty, and Robert Redford,
but also Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, tennis player Andre Agassi,
newscaster Peter Jennings, and Richard Baskin, heir to the Baskin Robbins
fortune – not to even mention the lesbian lovers.
Wikipedia raves over her as
follows:
·
She is one of the rare
artists to achieve number-one albums
in five consecutive decades.
·
With the 1983 film Yentl, she established herself as one of the film industry’s most
notable figures by becoming the first woman to direct, produce, script and star
in her own picture. She was also
producer, director, and star in the 1991 film The Prince of Tides.
·
In 1993, New York Times music critic
Stephen Holden wrote that Streisand "enjoys a cultural status that only
one other American entertainer, Frank Sinatra, has achieved in the last half
century.
·
She is one of the few entertainers to have won an
Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award.
·
She is one of the most commercially and critically
successful entertainers in modern entertainment history, and has the widest
span (48 years) between first and latest top-ten albums of any female recording
artist.
Streisand got her start as a nightclub singer in gay bars. In 1960, at age 18, her boyfriend, Barry
Dennen, who she didn’t know was bisexual, helped her create a club act (see the
link on Dennen in the SOURCES). She first
performed at The Lion, a popular gay nightclub in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Streisand’s support of gay rights dates from
this early period – since gay patrons were the first to recognize her talent. She first appeared on the Tonight Show at age
19. Her first album won two Grammy
awards in 1963, when she was 21 years old.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Johnson) is best known for the famous first book in her series of
autobiographies, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”, about her life up until the
age of 17. In it, she describes how she
was raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, when she was eight years
old. She told her family, and he was
sent to jail for only one day. Four days
after he was released, he was found murdered, and Angelou says her uncles did
it. She became selectively mute for
almost five years, later saying, “"I thought, my voice killed him; I
killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never
speak again, because my voice would kill anyone …”. Her Lilith stands alone in the 3rd
House – few children have such a strong sense of the power of death embodied by
Lilith.
Angelou’s adolescence and early adulthood have the hallmarks of a powerful
Lilith. At age 16, she was on her way to
unwed motherhood. While pregnant, she
worked as the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Three weeks after graduating high school, at
age 17, she gave birth to her only son, who later changed his name to Guy
Johnson.
There is a musical quality to her book titles. The title “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”
is taken from the poem, “Sympathy” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the first important
black poet in American literature. Her
second title, “Gather Together In My Name”, recounts her life from roughly age
18 to age 22, when she worked as a cook, stripper, madam, and prostitute. In “Singing and Swinging and Getting Merry
Like Christmas”, she continues with life at age 22 through age 27. This is when she marries a white sailor for
three years – he is intelligent, kind, and reliable – and provides a temporary
source of stability for her and her son.
It is during the period of her third book that she begins to tap the power
of Lilith in a mature, positive way. Her
marriage allowed her to take modern dance classes, and her innate talent for
dance allowed her to pair up with Alvin Ailey in a dance team called “Al and
Rita” that performed at black fraternal organizations in San Francisco (Ailey
went on to head up his own dance company).
Right after her divorce from the sailor, she dances to calypso music at The
Purple Onion in San Francisco – where she gets her first career break as a
calypso dancer, which leads to a European tour.
She also gets the stage name, Maya Angelou, at The Purple Onion. She starts learning languages while on tour in
Europe, and eventually ends up very proficient in five other languages besides
English – French, Italian, Spanish, Egyptian Arabic, and Ghanian Fante – Lilith
yielded so many 3rd House gifts for Angelou.
Angelou’s extensive peer networking had a huge influence on her life prior
to the publication of “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” in 1969. After she
meets South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make in 1961, she and her son
accompany him, first to Cairo, where she works as a journalist, and then to
Ghana, where she becomes close friends with Malcolm X during his visit in the
early 1960’s. When she returns to the US
in 1965, she helps Malcolm X build a new civil rights organization. In 1968, despite little experience in
television, she writes, produces, and narrates a ten-part series on the
connection between blues music and black heritage for National Education TV,
the precursor of PBS. She does all of
this by age 40, and before publishing the memoir that would make her famous.
Bill Clinton
Teasing the power of Lilith out of Bill Clinton’s chart was a little
tough. He’s got an incredibly fortunate
horoscope in other ways, including a packed 11th House, with the
Sun, Pluto, Mercury, and Saturn, all in Leo, a 1st House Jupiter
tightly conjunct Spica (known as the “Shining Jewel” in Vedic astrology, and
considered perhaps the most fortunate fixed star), and a partile Mars-Neptune
conjunction one degree away from his Libra Ascendant (a conjunction which
astrologer Grant Lewi described as “having the power that Alladin received from
the lamp”). His Lilith resides alone in
the 3rd, dominated by other aspects.
It is difficult to point to any career achievements strongly associated
with 3rd House Lilith, making him different from people like Maya
Angelou or Jackie Kennedy. Also, his
adolescence is not spectacular – aside from a single photo taken of him shaking
John F. Kennedy’s hand in 1963 at age 17.
Nonetheless, Clinton matured into an incredibly charismatic, deceptive
communicator – he was known as a “flip-flopper” who would take any position on
an issue, and later change his mind.
Part of this power undoubtedly came from the tightly angular
Mars-Neptune conjunction, which is said to give almost magical power to achieve
the native’s wishes in the house where it resides, and at least some of this
power is linked to a 3rd House Lord conjunct Spica. Lilith is energized by the power of the 3rd
House placement, yet still seems like a background echo.
Clinton was involved with a lot of women besides his wife, not just Monica
Lewinsky, and a promiscuous streak does show up with other 3rd House
Lilith natives, like Barbra Streisand and Dolly Parton, who admit to it, and
like Maya Angelou, who most likely doesn’t.
It is probably safest to say that Lilith’s power was largely deflected onto
his brother, Roger Clinton, who was given the codename “Headache” by the Secret
Service due to his knack for landing in trouble. Bill ended up pardoning his brother for a
1985 cocaine conviction for which Roger had served a year in jail.
After his Presidency was over, Lilith manifested in a mature, positive
manner – his subtle communication skills were put to good use on sensitive
diplomatic missions during the Obama administration, and the speech he gave at
Obama’s nomination is considered a standout as far as national convention
speeches go.
The 14th Dalai
Lama
The life of Tenzin Gyatso is more closely associated with a powerful 3rd
House Lilith. He was born in a poor farming family, the 5th child of
sixteen children, and only six of his siblings survived childhood. Although little mention is made, the death of
nine siblings must have had a huge impact on his childhood. Another point of interest from a 3rd
House Lilith perspective is that his first language was a creole Chinese
dialect that is rather looked down on by the Chinese. He didn’t even speak Tibetan at home.
He was proclaimed “tolku” (rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at
age 2. In 1950, at age 15, he was
enthroned as Tibet’s Head of State. By
age 25, he had set up Tibet’s government in exile in Dharmasala, India. To do this, he had to approach the Prime
Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and ask for political asylum for himself
and his people, which he did at age 20, in 1956. Nehru was afraid of angering China, and told
him to forget it.
It is known that the CIA stepped into the breach – just who approached whom
seems a little murky. With Gyatso’s
knowledge, the CIA began training Tibetan guerillas at a secret military
training camp in Colorado, and it also helped make the exodous from Tibet over
the Himalayans possible. 80,000 Tibetan refugees soon followed. Gyatso got his people resettled, and
established the cultural institutions that would preserve their language and
beliefs by 1959. At the time, he was 25.
Gyatso’s ascent into maturity seems incredibly fast and steep – one can
only guess what a total transformation must have occurred between age 15, when
he became Head of State, and age 20, when he went to Nehru with his plans for
exile already fully formed.
As with other 3rd House true Lilith people, he is great at peer
networking. He has met with several
Popes, a Chief Rabbi in Israel, a former president of the Mormon Church, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and President George W. Bush, among others.
There is even an element of “say one thing; do another” on his views on
vegetarianism, and the Wikipedia excerpt below shows a certain degree of what
might be called “flip-flopping”.
“People think of animals as if they were
vegetables, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about
animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a
vegetarian diet that doesn’t cause suffering.” – Dalai Lama
In Tibet, where historically meat was the most
common food, most monks historically have been omnivores, including the Dalai
Lamas. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama was raised in a meat-eating family but
converted to vegetarianism after arriving in India, where vegetables are much
more easily available. He spent many years as a vegetarian, but after
contracting hepatitis in India and suffering from weakness, his doctors ordered
him to eat meat on alternating days, which he did for several years. He tried
switching back to a vegetarian diet, but once again returned to limited
consumption of meat. This attracted public attention when, during a visit to
the White House, he was offered a vegetarian menu but declined by replying, as
he is known to do on occasion when dining in the company of non-vegetarians,
"I'm a Tibetan monk, not a vegetarian”. His own home kitchen, however, is
completely vegetarian.
The behavior Tenzin Gyatzo’s most famous sibling also merits a mention. Thubten
Jigme Norbu, Gyatso’s eldest brother, was recognized as the 24th incarnation of
Takster Rinpoche at the age of three.
When he was 27, he became the abbot of Kumbum Monastery, one of the
largest in Eastern Tibet.
His Wikipedia entry notes the following:
Kumbum was one of the first areas to be invaded by
the army of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The PRC held Norbu under
house arrest in the monastery, sleeping in his room and following him 24 hours
a day. The PRC demanded that he travel to Lhasa, denounce the Tibetan
government, and denounce his younger brother the Dalai Lama, who was then about
15 years old. Norbu pretended to agree with the PRC's demands and, as a result,
was able to reach Lhasa to warn his brother of the seriousness of the Chinese
invasion.
Carlos Castenada
His story shows how downright creepy 3rd House Lilith can
be. Castenada had Lilith, Rahu, and
Pluto in the 3rd House, with a fallen Jupiter in Capricorn one
degree away from his Mid-Heaven, and two degrees away from Ketu, which wipes it
out even further.
His famous books about his tutelage under Don Juan, a peyote shaman, were
written while he was a graduate student of anthropology at UCLA in the
1960’s. Significantly, Castenada hoped
to build a career within the academic system.
The UCLA anthropology department backed him up when he claimed the books
were true, until later scholarship proved that the books were essentially
fiction, with little or nothing that could be verified from an anthropological
standpoint.
Castenada had an undoubted gift for language. In a 1973 issue of Time Magazine,
correspondent Sandra Burton writes, “Castaneda makes the reader experience the
pressure of mysterious winds and the shiver of leaves at twilight, the hunter's
peculiar alertness to sound and smell, the rock-bottom scrubbiness of Indian life,
the raw fragrance of tequilla and the vile, fibrous taste of peyote, the dust
in the car, and the loft of a crow's flight. It is a superbly concrete setting,
dense with animistic meaning. This is just as well, in view of the utter
weirdness of the events that happen in it."
Castenada dropped out of public view after 1973, and became the leader of a
small cult for the last twenty-five years of his life. His story becomes more sinister after
this. He recruited two graduate students
at UCLA whom he referred to as his “brujas”.
Both women cut off contact with their families and took new names. Regina Thal became Florinda Donner-Grau,
and Maryann Simko became Taisha Abelar.
A third woman named Kathleen Pohlman became Carol Tiggs, and all
three women moved into a large home with Castenada in Los Angelos. Three other women later became part of his
inner circle, and all six women disappeared soon after Castenada’s death in
1998. The remains of one woman, Patricia
Partin, were discovered in 1998, and a DNA identification was finally made in
2006. The others have not been
found. A mass suicide is assumed.
3rd House true Lilith can coin a term or make speech its trademark. Castenada called himself a “nagual”, using
the term to mean “leader of a party of seers”.
Anthropologists use the term “nagual” to mean a shaman or sorcerer who
claims to be able to change into animal form.
CONCLUSION
Given the potential that Lilith has in the 3rd House, I can
understand why astrologer Mae Wilson-Ludlam writes that Lilith is
exalted in Gemini in her book, “Lilith Insight”.
My own feeling is that Lilith isn’t really fallen in Sagittarius, however – it can manifest just as strongly, and bring just as much luck, in the 9th House. If anything, the 4th House and 11th house experience of Lilith seems to give its natives more life-long difficulty.
My own feeling is that Lilith isn’t really fallen in Sagittarius, however – it can manifest just as strongly, and bring just as much luck, in the 9th House. If anything, the 4th House and 11th house experience of Lilith seems to give its natives more life-long difficulty.
In Vedic astrology, an exalted
Moon in Rohini prefers its own kind of people, while a fallen moon in Anuradha
is very open to outsiders and other cultures.
The Moon isn’t considered weak in Anuradha, although it may cause
difficulty in the native’s life during its dasa due to its fallen status.
Something similar operates with Lilith in Gemini, I suspect. A 3rd House native prefers to work within existing systems, and uses their cunning and artistic talent to achieve leadership positions in these arenas. A 9th House Lilith is more likely to work outside or beyond existing systems, or to co-opt and completely transform them – behaving more like the mythological Lilith, in other words. In that sense, Lilith could be considered “fallen”, just as she is in the ancient sources, but she certainly isn’t weak.
Something similar operates with Lilith in Gemini, I suspect. A 3rd House native prefers to work within existing systems, and uses their cunning and artistic talent to achieve leadership positions in these arenas. A 9th House Lilith is more likely to work outside or beyond existing systems, or to co-opt and completely transform them – behaving more like the mythological Lilith, in other words. In that sense, Lilith could be considered “fallen”, just as she is in the ancient sources, but she certainly isn’t weak.
In terms of conjunctions,
Lilith-Mercury is one of the best – these are cunning, manipulative
communicators with a strong veneer of believability, or those with integrity
who can embrace shady dealings or strategies without losing the intent of a
noble goal (Barack Obama immediately comes to mind – see “Lilith in the SixthHouse: The Executive”).
Lilith-Saturn is another conjunction
that normally works out quite well. It
is not often that one can put anything past these people. The discipline of Saturn shapes the
perception of Lilith. Instead of
constantly twisting in its own manipulative motion, Lilith can spot any twist
or manipulative motion in others.
Based on my experience with
Lilith in the zodiac houses, I suspect that a Lilith-Moon conjunction can be
particularly damaging for women, and a Lilith-Uranus conjunction is way too
much “loose cannon” energy unless the rest of the nativity shows extreme
discipline and focus. However, I do not see
examples of tight conjunctions in the files of nativities I follow, so this
remains speculation on my part.
A FEW FINAL NOTES
·
There were a number of other interesting 3rd
House BML people that could have been profiled who did not make the cut – Susan
Boyle ( who was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome), "Deep Throat" Linda Lovelace, Grace Kelly, Ted Kennedy, Kevin Costner, Sylvia Plath, Fidel Castro, et
al. I went with the profiles I found
most interesting to research, as well as those whose lives reflected an aspect
of Lilith that I wished to highlight.
·
This series of articles uses true Lilith as its
basis. This is distinct from BML
Lilith, or mean Lilith, which may be in the same sign as true Lilith, or one sign away. Astrologer Kelly Hunter has observed a
“Lilith corridor” of heightened manifestation in the degrees between True
Lilith and Mean Lilith, and I concur on a noticeable impact during the nine
year Lilith return. I mention this as
clarification for beginners who are new to Lilith – Kelly Hunter’s page is the
last link in the SOURCES for “Lilith in the Sixth House: The Executive”.
·
For readers who wish to do
natal charts at the “Extended Chart Selection” on astro.com:
Asteroid Lilith –
1181, True Lilith – h13, BML – h21
SOURCES
Wikipedia does a good, concise summary on a lot of people. . I
used Wikipedia for the Dionne quintuplets, Barbra Streisand, and Maya Angelou.
A look at some of Barbra
Streisand’s lovers:
An article on Barbra Streisand’s
very first lover, Barry Dennan:
For Carlos Castenada, I used
astrotheme and Wikipedia.
