Folks often want to know the difference between
Lilith and Chiron. Lilith is a
gift-giver, but her gifts come with a price, because she is either a demon, or
strongly associated with demons. Chiron
is a teacher and a healer, who hands out lessons, some of which can be very
painful. Chiron can also bring about
tremendous healing, in unexpected ways.
But he isn’t a gift-giver in the sense that Lilith is.
Gifts are supposed to be something of a surprise,
and Lilith’s gifts are. They are hidden
talents, and it takes time to realize that you even have something special
there. Usually, one spots the price paid
right away (life is like that). For some
people, their entire destiny hinges on realizing the hidden gift of
Lilith. For others, the “gift” is an
avocation, rather than a vocation, or just the development of a hobby that
brings meaning to middle or older age.
Chiron’s lessons can feel a lot like Lilith’s
“gifts”. But Lilith does not heal the
way Chiron does. One could argue that
she does heal in her guise as Mary Magdalene, who participated in the
tremendous healing spirit of Jesus. In
her core energy as the first wife of Adam, she has tremendous power, but she is
too damaged to provide her children with anything that might heal them. The New
Testament hints at this in Mark 16:9, “After Jesus rose from the dead early on
Sunday morning, the first person who saw him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from
whom he had cast out seven demons.”
On an astrological level, I suspect we are dealing
with the core energy of Lilith, and not her later evolution (although it may
creep in to the 7th House if one is lucky). Also, Lilith does appear to have a unique
interaction with Chiron – a trine, and possibly a conjunction, between these
two, can offer healing to the native, or to others around him or her, in some
pretty unexpected ways.
Now, let’s explore some strong Lilith energy in the
ladies…
Material
Girls
2nd House Lilith Madonna may be the
ultimate material girl – very wealthy (the world’s top-selling female recording
artist of all time), highly entrepreneurial, and something of a psychopath in
her desire to stay on top. One reviewer
noted, “that "Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative and ruthless—somebody
who won't stop until she gets what she wants—and that's something you can get
at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to
her.”
Sarah Palin is another material girl – the reason
she gave up the governorship of Alaska had everything to do with earning easier
money, and making more of it. Palin has
had Lilith play out in her life in a number of ways – she is something of an
Alaskan Renaissance woman, and she attracted an incredible amount of hate from
mainstream media once they picked up on her morally ambiguous actions. She also suffered a fated and deeply painful
Lilith encounter with her former boss, John McCain. No woman has had a more disastrous debut in
American politics.
There are “Material Boys” as well – Aristotle
Onassis, Walt Disney, and Warren Buffet come to mind. Some 2nd House Lilith folks are
unabashedly about the money, and don’t feel any real ambivalence toward it the
way Steve Jobs did.
Madonna
Looking back toward her youth, Madonna takes pride
in the fact that she was a schoolgirl tease and a straight-A student. In 1977, at the age of 19, she moved to New
York with only $35.00 in her pocket. She
later said, “It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d
ever gotten a taxi cab…it was the bravest thing I’d ever done.” She quickly found work as a back-up dancer,
and not too long after her arrival in NY, was dragged into an alley when
returning home from a rehearsal, and forced to perform fellatio at knife-point.
Astrologically, Madonna has a 9th House
Jupiter-Neptune conjunction near the Mid-Heaven, and the whole shebang is in a
tight square to Venus – this probably helped her to sell both sex (Like a
Virgin) and religion (Like a Prayer). Note the similarity of this configuration to
the natal configuration of Pope John Paul II.
Recall that his Venus was tightly conjunct Ketu, and that Ketu makes a
planet behave in a weird or uncharacteristic way – he was obviously not in it
for the money the way Madonna was.
Her mean Lilith is tightly aspected in a grand trine
with an angular Pallas Athene (independent, warrior woman, who does not need a
man), and a hard-working 10th House Saturn. She channeled Lilith seven ways to Sunday –
in a classy way with the film, Evita, and in a trashy way, by simulating
masturbation on-stage. Her best songs
were straight from the two sides of Lilith, as the following example suggests.
"I was surprised by how
people reacted to "Like a Virgin" because when I did that song, to
me, I was singing about how something made me feel a certain way—brand-new and
fresh—and everyone interpreted it as 'I don't want to be a virgin anymore. Fuck
my brains out!' That's not what I sang at all. 'Like a Virgin' was always
absolutely ambiguous."
Madonna was all about explicit sexual imagery, a
sense of style that came to define 1980’s fashion, and irreverent on-stage
behavior – singing in front of burning crosses, and such. She had an incredible number of costume and
image changes – prompting one reviewer’s comment, “One thing you can say about
Madonna…she’s had more incarnations than the Dalai Lama”. Her conversion to Judaism was all part of the
constant reinvention – and another echo of Lilith.
Madonna was also a total game-changer in the music
industry. Tony Sclafani from MSNBC had
this to say about her musical legacy.
It's worth noting that before
Madonna, most music mega-stars were guy rockers; after her, almost all would be
female singers ... When The Beatles hit America, they changed the paradigm
of performer from solo act to band. Madonna changed it back—with an emphasis on
the female.
Others weighed in.
Camile Paglia called her a “true feminist”. More significantly, Professor Colin Barrow of
the Cranfield School of Management
described Madonna as "America's smartest businesswoman ... who has
moved to the top of her industry and stayed there by constantly reinventing
herself".
MY NOTE: 2nd
House Lilith frequently pays fastidious attention to design – Steve Jobs was
obsessed with the design of his Apple products, and Leonardo da Vinci was one
of the greatest designers who ever lived. Even if there is no overt design ability,
there can be a very strong discrimination on anything to do with matters of
taste (the second house is the natural house of Venus in Taurus = beautiful
possessions, or trashy possessions others think are cool.) Madonna did this with fashion – when she
cropped tops with crosses, everyone wanted their own version of that look, and
when she wore boleros and layered skirts in her videos, girls started wearing
that, too.
Sarah
Palin
First, let me say that I admire Sarah Palin, while
most other astrologers seem to hate her.
When John McCain was about to dump her, the media focused on how
unprepared she was for basic questions on current events. Her political record in Wasilla came under
intense scrutiny. The smear campaign
became outrageous – soon bloggers were “proving” that her son Trig, who has
Down’s syndrome, was actually her daughter Bristol’s baby, and that Palin had
apparently faked the entire pregnancy.
Make no mistake, Sarah Palin has a challenging
nativity – having five planets in Aquarius can’t be easy on anybody! Note that this karmic signature is shared
with her grandson, Tripp Johnston, who has a whopping six planets in Capricorn,
and three more in Aquarius.
Nonetheless, when I look at her, I see an Alaskan
Renaissance woman, if not an especially intellectual one. She was captain of her high school basketball
team, ran 10k races, hunted large game for food with her father before going to
school in the morning, played the flute, ice fished, and took second place in
the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, which won her a scholarship that helped her
attend college. Then she managed to get
a job as a sports newscaster in Alaska after graduation, fulfilling her college
dream. Her grades were never especially
good, but she more than compensated in any non-academic arena. In fact, one
gets the sense that the compensation was deliberate. Why she doesn’t get more credit for working
her ass off to overcome learning disabilities by attempting to shine in every
way outside the classroom is something I have never understood.
Her biography suggests that her body is curiously
impervious to pain on occasion. As a
teenage basketball player, she displayed intense focus. She played the championship game despite a
stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last
seconds. Later in life, she apparently
went through labor with her last child while on a long flight back to Alaska,
and returned home to have the child, instead of opting for a delivery in
Anchorage.
When I asked a conservative friend why so many
liberal women seemed to hate Palin, I got a candid response that seems to make
a lot of sense, at least to me. “Envy,”
my friend said, and added, “she excels at every type of sport and outdoor
endeavor, AND she was beautiful, AND she has five children, AND she became
governor of Alaska, AND she has a loyal husband who made her political career
possible, AND she has a husband who would never cheat on her the way Hillary’s
husband did.”
Astrologically, Palin shared a fated and tragic
synastry with her running mate and boss, John McCain. McCain is a maverick who has always trusted
his instincts, and he was inexplicably drawn to Sarah. Then, when he realized she wasn’t going to be
able to hold up her end of the bargain, he dumped her. There is a strong echo of the original myth
of Adam and Lilith operating here. Not
surprisingly, McCain’s true Lilith at 15 degrees Libra is partile conjunct
Palin’s Ascendant!
Strongly
Visual Minds
 |
| Given the strong energy of Lilith in his art,
one might expect a Lilith-Neptune aspect in the nativity of Jack Vettriano,
even though his birth time on Nov 17, 1951 is unknown. Sure enough, his mean Lilith squares Neptune
(1 degree orb). |
In the natural house of Venus, the Second House,
Lilith’s gifts tend to be visual rather than verbal in nature. There are important writers with Lilith in
this house, but they aren’t always easy to understand. 2nd House Lilith natives Marcel
Proust and Dane Rudhyar were known for their dense, convoluted writing
style. Natal 2nd House Lilith
Antoine de Saint Exupery was known as much for his illustrations as for his
text in his most famous story, “The Little Prince”. 2nd House Lilith F. Scott
Fitzgerald was known for convoluted, mysterious plots that were difficult to
decipher – as a high school student assigned to read, “The Great Gatsby”, I had
no idea what Daisy Buchannan really did in that story, and the teacher
certainly didn’t help me to discover it.
I had to watch the movie years later, or I would never have figured it
out.
Lilith in this house is known for art and music and
design. Dane Rudhyar gets as much credit
for his music as he does for astrology in some circles. Polymath Albert Schweitzer noted the esoteric
meaning of Bach’s compositions, and wrote criticism on the historical Jesus,
although he is known mainly as a medical doctor and philanthropist. Schewitzer’s magnum opus on Jesus is online –
the writing style is clear, but I wouldn’t call it easy to understand.
2nd House Lilith Norman Rockwell became
known for patriotic art that appealed to common people – it was clear, and easy
for everyone to understand. Steve Jobs
made products that everyone loved looking at.
Alfred Hitchcock made the films that defined an era, but he was very
dependent on his writers, although he did not like to admit it.
Jobs said he had always wanted to be an artist, but
he saw himself primarily as a businessman.
He admits he was attracted to his sister, Mona Simpson, because she
possessed the verbal acuity that he himself did not have.
Alfred
Hitchcock
Hitchcock had a mind that liked to fuck with people. He was overweight his entire life, even as a
child (outcast Lilith in the house of the body). He also had a sporadic, unconscious psychic
gift for sensing the future, although this does not appear to be an attribute
of Lilith. According to Wikipedia, one
of his early pieces, "Fedora" (1921), gave a strikingly accurate
description of his future wife, Alma Reville
(whom he had not yet met).
Hitchcock made great who-done-it films with a
twist. In “Strangers on a Train” (1951),
two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof murder technique.
He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each
perform the other's murder. In “Dial M
for Murder” (1954), Ray Milland plays the scheming villain, an
ex-tennis pro who tries to murder his unfaithful wife Grace Kelly
for her money. When she kills the hired assassin in self-defense, Milland
manipulates the evidence to pin the death on his wife. His most famous film, Psycho (1960), changed
the horror film genre forever.
At least one woman accused Hitchcock of being a
psychopath, Tippi Hedren, star of “The Birds” (1963). If an interview Hedren gave in 2012 was
accurate, it is pretty disturbing.
According to Wikipedia, “In 2012, Hedren described Hitchcock as a ‘sad
character’; a man of ‘unusual genius’, yet ‘evil, and deviant, almost to the
point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that
were totally unsuspecting.’ In response, a Daily Telegraph article
quoted several actresses who worked with Hitchcock, including Eva Marie Saint,
Doris Day
and Kim Novak,
all of them appearing to refute Hedren's account of him.”
His fastidiousness and attention to detail also
found its way into each film poster
for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film
poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—and
kept them busy with countless rounds of revision until he felt that the single
image of the poster accurately represented his entire film. Steve Jobs was also said to strongly echo
this work style.
Leonardo
da Vinci
Da Vinci and Steve Jobs share some eerie
similarities in their early lives. Both
were born illegitimate – da Vinci was given the name of his town of birth,
since he wasn’t entitled to his father’s name.
Da Vinci’s mother abandoned him when he was five years old; it was the
price she had to pay to have a chance of marriage to any man other than her
son’s father. Jobs’ mother gave him up
in infancy, also in hopes of finally making a match. She wanted her son to go to a
college-educated couple, and attempted to block his adoption by Paul Jobs, who
was not college educated.
When da Vinci was 14, he was apprenticed to one of
the best artists of his day, Andrea di Cione (Verrocchio), in whose workshop he
would have learned frame-making, gilding, bronze, metal, and plaster casting,
drawing, leather-work, carpentry, sculpting, and painting. He got a strong mentor in di Cione, and da
Vinci remained loyal to him even after he set up his own shop and became a
master in his own right. Jobs also got
an exceptional mentor in his adopted father, Paul Jobs, who had the skills to
encourage his son’s mechanical genius at an early age. Like da Vinci, Jobs would remain loyal to him
for life.
Da Vinci was a vegetarian at a time when it was not
a fad. He loved animals and loathed war,
and yet he was a highly recruited military engineer and weapons expert. Jobs was a pescatarian (he ate fish, but did
not consume any other meats). His
products were embraced by the military, and his company’s back-door cooperation
with NSA is suspected, although not proven – see SOURCES.
Unlike young Jobs, da Vinci knew his real father as
a child. His father noted the child’s
mental concentration – when he collected dead animals to use as models for a
drawing, he was so focused that he didn’t appear to notice the odor of the
decaying animals, which nearly overwhelmed his father. Once da Vinci was older, some art scholars
say he painted and repainted the Mona Lisa’s lips for ten years. Jobs was said to have displayed similar
compulsiveness, which drove many of his employees quietly crazy.
Da Vinci was primarily an artist. He conceptualized a lot of drawings on paper
that would become reality centuries later, but did little actual
inventing. The exception was an
automatic bobbin that da Vinci actually built, but didn’t really know what to
do with. Much later, this invention made
both the sewing machine and the manual camera possible.
Jobs was not an artist, although he liked them and
wanted to be around them. He does not
get sole credit for any of his inventions, although his powerful sense of
artistic judgment allowed him to shape the work of other people so it would
sell. Both men were hustlers – Jobs
found a way to get all the components he needed for his early computer, and da
Vinci flattered patrons to become a great man – his roster included the very
best, Cesare Borgia, Giuliano de Medici, and Francis I, the king of France.
Some historians think there is evidence da Vinci may
have tracked down his mother once he become a famous man, and that he quietly
paid to support her in her final years.
Jobs is known to have quietly tracked down his own mother, and rebuilt a
relationship with her. He never let
anyone replace his relationship with his adopted father, Paul Jobs, however.
Finally, Jobs made his name with a tablet called the
IPad. With the advent of typeset printing, da Vinci built a collection of 116
books. While many of his works perished
over the centuries, he is remembered through the 4000 surviving pages of his
notebooks.
ERRATA
MY NOTE: When I wrote the Lilith series this past
summer, I failed to notice that astrotheme.com was using True Lilith on its
birth charts of celebrities, rather than BML.
In many cases, BML and True Lilith are located in the same house in the
nativity. However, some of the profiles
in earlier articles undoubtedly describe a BML that is actually in a different
natal house from what I stated, since I used nativities from astrotheme.com
almost exclusively. This will only add
to confusion among readers who insist on knowing which Lilith they are dealing
with, mean or true Lilith.
Although I plan to return to earlier articles to
catch mistakes, I decided to let the house observations on Lilith stand. Readers who wish to interpret Lilith in their
own charts, or for those of family members, friends, or clients should keep in
mind that a subject who has either mean or true Lilith in a specific house will
often display attributes of that house.
Of course, this raises the inevitable question of
which Lilith is more relevant, mean Lilith or true Lilith?
The best way I know to answer this question is that
if both mean and true Lilith participate in a tight conjunction with a
fixed star, prominent angle, or another planet, or form a tight aspect like a
T-Square or a Grand Trine with other planets or asteroids in the nativity, the
person is likely to have a heightened experience of Lilith. Even if only one Lilith makes these aspects,
however, one may sense the spirit of Lilith keenly in one’s own life.
Example: This author has 11th House true
Lilith partile conjunct the fixed star Sirius, and 11th House mean
Lilith (4 degrees Leo) in a Grand Trine with 3rd House Neptune (0 degrees
Sagittarius) and 7th House Chiron (2 degrees Aries), along with mean
Lilith in a Grand Cross with Saturn (2 degrees Taurus), Pallas Athene (3
degrees Aquarius), and Jupiter (4 degrees Scorpio). Whew!
SOURCES and NOTES
Retaliation for questions on Obama’s birth
certificate turned into accusations that Palin faked her entire last pregnancy,
and took her daughter Bristol’s child as her own. Never mind that a couple of key dates don’t
add up for this scenario to be likely.
There are a number of sources for this on the Internet. I selected one of them, for its flavor.
The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert
Schweitzer:
Tippi Hedren’s Telegraph interview on her
relationship with Alfred Hitchcock:
Apple products in the military:
An interesting look at what is possibly an ongoing
collaboration between the company Steve Jobs founded and the NSA, although it
certainly isn’t portrayed this way.
There is no actual proof that Jobs was ever cozy with NSA
personally. Certain bloggers seem to
think it likely anyway. Readers may make
up their own minds.
For a biography on Leonardo da Vinci, I used a good
article from Investor’s Business Daily by Paul Katzeff.
http://news.investors.com/management-leaders-in-success/071813-664238-leonardo-da-vinci-was-a-multitask-genius.htm
***
Phoenix Noodle Soup, a contributor on astro.com,
brought the following page to my attention.
It explains the astronomical difference between Mean and True Lilith,
and will be interesting for anyone who worries about which Lilith to use
(although this page WILL NOT tell you which one to use – it sticks to the
astronomy).
