Scorpio New Moon: Conjunct true Black Moon Lilith, opposing Rx Arjunsuri-Ceres

The new Moon at 3:03 PM Pacific time at 17 Scorpio is conjunct true Black Moon Lilith, at 13 Scorpio, and opposing Arjunsuri and Ceres, both retrograde in Taurus at 18 and 16, respectively.

For starters, some basic thoughts on Lilith can be found here and here.

With Lilith conjunct the new Moon, we’re talking about the probably-buried suspicion of your true, raw, animal nature that has an “in” to your more-conscious feeling nature at this time. The period that’s beginning with this new moon includes what could be considered an invitation to you to admit, if you haven’t done so already, that Lilith exists within you. She can appear in many different forms, but I suspect you’ll notice yourself wanting to edit an honest and sort of raw response to something in the moment because you’re clear that it’s socially unacceptable. And because you’re either not sure of what heinous response you’d get, or unwilling to get the kind of heinous response you know you’d get. And yet new Moon energy is about, in a sense, trial and error - stepping into experience without knowing precisely what we’re doing or where it’s going; forgiving ourselves for learning through experience and, thereby, risking pain and failure.

By house and sign, you can get a flavor for the ways in which you experience (and refuse to experience) Lilith in your life. With this energy conjunct the new moon, however, the opportunity for any of us is to allow more of our real natures time and space in our lives. Forget for a minute the details of any of Lilith’s stories that you may be familiar with - forget the subject matter of her experience for a moment, in other words - and understand that the edgy side of your animalness and it’s natural presence in you is what’s in question.

I’m not advising you to turn on the faucet of inexplicable crazy that you might think, or might have heard, is the key to Lilith energy. The fear that it’s too much to look at and deal with is what keeps it too much to look at and deal with, and so being willing to open to the energy and see that there are indeed parts of us that are kept far from the light of day may be more important than freaking out with suppressed anger, etc. - but it really just depends on what’s on tap for you right now.

Arjunsuri (asteroid 20300) opposing the new moon is a statement about the need to check the Scorpio intensity of expression with some Taurus grounding in the why we’re doing what we’re doing, specifically in being clear on whose voice we honor when we open up our personal Scorpio floodgates of feeling and get all Scorpio with ourselves or others. That the asteroid is retrograde suggests that revisiting our motivation for what we do (whose agenda are we supporting) is part of the question the moment asks. It’s conjunct retrograde Ceres, adding to the question of the moment a note on defining ourselves by the roles we perform for others. And this happens in Taurus, the sign of self-reliance.

Tying this all together, we’re looking at the opportunity to ask ourselves if the depths we’re either passionate about exploring or adamant about hiding (/hiding from) are informed by what we think about what we need to take care of ourselves, or what we’ve been told about what we need to take care of ourselves.

When the Sun’s in Scorpio, we’re always confronted with issues of where and how we meet others in the tight spaces of intimate relating. Scorpio’s the energy of wanting to penetrate another (person, thing, idea) in order to experience what it’s like to be it, which is to say be one with it. The conjunction of Lilith with the new moon and the opposition of Rx Arjunrsuri/Rx Ceres invites us to take a step toward deeper understanding of how we invite, create, recognize and interact in those tight spaces of intimacy - whose passion? whose desire? whose ideas of appropriateness? whose agenda?

This can manifest in our lives in many forms. Sex and sexuality are not the only playing grounds of Scorpio. Naked, absolute honesty is an area associated with Scorpio energy, as is removing the veneers of anything to see what’s happening below the surface. And it can of course come in the domain of shared material resources, but that’s often just a red herring for the issues of honesty and truth that’re behind all such transactions/interactions.

That said, those who are open to anything that might come up will in all likelihood see in themselves conditioning surrounding sexuality. In the ways that you understand yourself as a sexual being, one tack goes, what kinds of programming do you carry about what to do with that? What about how to do it? And as long as I’m throwing the “w” questions out there: With whom, why and when? (This could almost be another long post by itself, but, briefly: If you have control-based rules about whom you love, what it takes for you to love them, and what conditions make it okay for you/give you a green light to love, there’s an opportunity to sort out which of those rules are inherited/absorbed as a result of your conditioning and which are of your own design & manufacture, and which from each category are worth keeping and maintaining.)

This is happening on my Sun-Lucifer-Juno conjunction in my 2nd house, so I’m off to ask myself the hard version of the questions I so casually typed out for you above…

Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.

November 9, 2007 By Tom Jacobs

Profile: Film Director David Cronenberg

I was drawn to see Cronenberg’s new film, “Eastern Promises,” yesterday. After noting my reactions to various aspects of it, I thought to look up his list of films on IMDB. My suspicion was correct: I’ve been drawn to his films for years, and always have a major discomfort when watching them, even as I know I need to watch them.

It’s something like 8 of his films that I’ve seen, not that many, really. But the impact they’ve had on me has been deep, and brought me to look up his chart (March 15, 943, Toronto, ON Canada, no time).

The first thing that jumped out at me from his chart is retrograde Chiron in the same degree as the Leo North Node. It tells me that his own unique brand of creative expression in the karmic past had no outlet, or was not supported or possible (given the circumstances of the situations in which he found himself), and that its expression may feel like an imperative in this life. Pluto is also retrograde and in the sign of Leo…and directly opposite Mars in Aquarius. This tells me that his conscious and unconscious desires (Mars and Pluto, respectively), have an argument running, and that the product of the argument will be an outward expression of Martian stuff that can shock and disturb, but that will support the needs of the Rx Pluto in a way that perhaps only makes a clear sort of sense to Cronenberg himself.

South Node ruler Uranus is in Gemini, conjunct Saturn in Gemini, the former being square the nodal axis. Uranus therefore represents unresolved issues from the karmic past this time around for him. From Steve Forrest I’ve picked up a great phrase for when the South Node ruler squares the nodal axis: He was his own worst enemy. In Cronenberg’s case, it looks like he achieved status as his own worst enemy by what he communicated and how he did it.

The asteroid Lucifer is also square the nodal axis, from the last degree of Scorpio. This tells of the perception in the karmic past that he did things that were bad, wrong - or, if you prefer, evil. Given the relative nature of right and wrong, the perception of having done wrong is enough to have this asteroid square the nodal axis. In Scorpio, we’re talking about intensity, probing the depths, telling difficult truths - we’re talking about the use of power. The dialogue between Lucifer in Scorpio and Uranus in Gemini, the opposition squaring the nodes in Aquarius/Leo, centers on the right use of information for the right reasons, the right expression for the right reasons. One read on them is just because you can surprise the stuff out of people with your message and how you deliver it doesn’t mean that you should. The opposition can serve to keep both energies in check, as they’re having a conversation and can offer each other the differing perspectives (the signs they’re in) they each understand. If they do serve to keep each other in check, Lucifer will ask Uranus if the message needs to be as explosive as Uranus wants it to be, and Uranus will ask Lucifer if anything out of the ordinary is automatically wrong to express.

When going down the list of films yesterday, one of the big ahas was when seeing “Dead Ringers” there. I’ve been hypnotically drawn to see that movie twice (forgetting between viewings everything about it), and each time felt my skin crawl, and my resolve to remember my own version of sanity dissipate…and I couldn’t just quit it and move on to something else. For me, Cronenberg’s work offers the opportunity to see this kind of Mars-Pluto/Chiron expression in action, and I seem to be hooked. And fully disturbed. In the end, I objected to the fact that the film was even made (yes, I can laugh at myself for this now), and understanding the Uranus/Gemini-Lucifer/Scorpio opposition in square to the nodes offers the energy I was responding to with my objection.

The last thing I’ll mention is the true Black Moon Lilith (listed as “osc.” in the embedded chart). With the messages we can/I do variously assume Cronenberg offers us, the data I’ve mentioned so far can come into play. With his true BML, however, I offer that understanding his reasons for his own expression (taking the content of the work out of the picture) are helped by understanding this placement. It’s retrograde, and conjunct Jupiter in the sign of Cancer. What I see with true BML when conjunct other bodies is that there’s a specific dependence on the expression of that other body and the willingness to experience, be, view or meet Lilith. Conjunct Jupiter, his sense of bigness, his ability to risk optimism and fulfill his natural human need to develop a sense of largeness within and for life, is tied to admitting (and perhaps being) Lilith.

This tells me that when he risks sharing his vision, he risks being treated as a Lilith figure. That he’s a man makes no difference to this story; when you bring Lilith, you run the risk of being labeled and treated as dangerous, a malcontent, deserving of abuse for what you brought. (One of the giantly needed teachings surrounding Lilith is that each of us, male and female, has her as part of our makeup.)

When we have conjunctions to Lilith, it’s natural to avoid knowing or expressing the energy of the conjuncting planet, because we’re taught to fear Lilith and avoid learning who she is and what she has to offer. When I see Lilith with Neptune, for example, the typical, default orientation is to avoid knowing the direct connection with God/Goddess/Spirit that we each as humans on some level crave. When Lilith is with the Sun, being seen is the issue; creative expression of ourselves as a cohesive unit (the job of the Sun), is what’s avoided…until, of course, it isn’t.

It makes me curious about Cronenberg’s sense of Jupiter, his willingness to Jupiter, in his early days (he clearly has no problem exploring this energy now). I guess I’ll add that to my Lilith homework list.

And I didn’t even mention that the Mars-Pluto opposition is actually a t-square between Mars-Pluto-Eros, the Sun-Arjunsuri conjunction in Pisces, or the square from Venus in Aries to Moon-Jupiter-true BML…

Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.

September 27, 2007 By Tom Jacobs

Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo square Black Moon Lilith/Neptune

I’ve been organizing by thoughts on Lilith as they’ve come through the last couple of months, organizing them into something useful (Virgo) that I’ll use for teaching in the future (Saturn’s transiting my 11th house).

As Saturn’s still on Arjunsuri, which natally squares BML/Neptune, accessing my own ideas about Lilith via determined, focused work is a plan for the week. Saturn squaring it has also manifested as a few clients the last few days who are ready to hear their Lilith stories and begin to heal the debris surrounding their experience. Actually, two clients yesterday were intimately familiar with Lilith (one on SN and the other in the 1st). Oh, hey, wait a minute: Work (Saturn) came to me in the form of other people very focused on their goals (11th house) and seeking healing (Virgo).

Colleagues have reminded me repeatedly re my own chart that Sagittarius is the sign of focus, but I seem to have developed a habit of being all over the place with my Sag energy. It’s true that I often surprise people by being able to return to my original thread after exploring a substantial tangent, but I observe myself as actually unfocused. Saturn squaring the Neptune I feel as a little less room to maneuver freely the totality of creation; I’m readily aware that there are things that need to be done.

And while the transit through the 11th highlights what I’m doing now to support future realities, I admit to eagerness coursing through my whole being to share what I’m developing. But isn’t Jupiter in my 3rd at the same time? Where Jupiter is natally? Why, yesss, it is…

Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation

September 21, 2007 By Tom Jacobs

Shadow Suppression: Lilith, Lucifer and the Dark

It takes a lot of energy to keep out of your consciousness things you don’t want to see. This is the heart of the healing work surrounding wounding associated with Pluto, but it’s also associated with any archetype’s natural expression that we attempt for any reason to suppress.

Pluto’s the obvious example, but we’re talking about every archetype. There are varying levels of social sanction for the different sorts of explosions stemming from an individual’s inability to continue suppression. But all such expressions (explosions following suppression) are seen by society through the lens of Saturn, the glue that we use to hold ourselves in a meaningful sort of structure. They will therefore be seen rather one-dimensionally, as they would if viewed through the lens of any single archetype.

Associated with every archetype are shadow elements we’d rather not see. Mars offers an obvious example in those who use violence outside the structures of the military/police/civic rescue arenas and sports. Uranus offers the terrorist, Venus offers the heart-breaking and deceptive seducer, Sun offers the fascist and the tyrant.

But there are archetypal shadows for which we don’t currently have a vocabulary. Those offered by Lilith, for example, are what come to mind. As a matter of fact, everything about Lilith is made into shadow, leaving people with strong Lilith energy often terrified to again receive the brutal punishment they’ve gotten in the past from embodying the natural energy of this dark goddess.

What’s happened in our history is that we’ve forgotten how to face the dark. Which means that we have come to attempt to deny our true natures. We are light and dark. Each of us covers the whole range of possibilities. If this idea frightens you, take a moment to find out what part of you is conditioned to be afraid. I guarantee you that you have Lilith in you and she wants to find expression, and that there are parts of you that tell yourself that you’re bad for having this part.

Recently I understood that going deeply into Lilith requires me to give up my idea of what love is. I’ve had to confront my assumptions of what it means to support, honor and love others. Specifically, on one level, there are times when not helping someone is helping them more than they know. This is pretty obvious, but on another level entirely, one from which the journey of life is seen as the point of it (and not the pursuit or attainment of happiness, pleasure, ease or goodness), that I try to help you is absurd. No one but you can help you - your journey is in your hands and there’s nothing in reality that I do that actually helps, even if it looks like I do.

This is the level from which we can come to know Lilith. If we assume that destruction is always negative, we miss the point of what she would teach us. Who’s to say what’s good and what’s bad? Is there any such thing? Or is there just creation and destruction and the aftermath of each that forms the bulk of our lives?

So, this is the kind of stuff that makes a deep part of you nervous. Having a relationship with the dark doesn’t destroy existing relationships to moral systems, it only puts those moral systems into context. Perhaps they’re then dropped, but what follows isn’t automatically anarchy, as our conditioned fear of the dark tells us.

Similarly, stepping into Lucifer work doesn’t take us to a higher moral ground, but in truth tends to evaporate the boundaries of specific moral systems. Deeply meaningful Lucifer work takes one to the threshold at which it’s seen that all one can do about developing a relationship to the divine is to choose to do it or not to do it. To either manifest our idea of the divine through our actions or to manifest the opposite.

The path that takes us there is very often informed by the (conditioned) expectation that God is to be found somewhere, if only we were doing the right thing, looking in the right places, or trafficking in the right lingo. The darkness we find in Lucifer work is facing the terrible fact that we can choose to turn away from our idea of God - and there will be no penalty from an external power for doing so. The darkness is in accepting responsibility for ourselves by facing the truth that we have the choice to work for or against what we know is good.

Suppressing Lilith leads to all manner of destructive expression surrounding anger at not having power or being recognized for our true natures, or being forced to deny them. Suppressing Lucifer leads to all manner of destructive action to one’s self and to others, in varying kinds of expression based in anger of feeling abandoned by God and being afraid of aloneness. All these archetypes have in common is that we teach each other to be afraid to look them in the eye, leaving us afraid to look ourselves in the eye. We tell each other that expression of them brings darkness, oblivious to the fact that expression of any archetype can bring darkness.

The truth is that each of us has choice in how to use any energy. This truth is what we as defined as larger groups can’t handle, can’t deal with. That there is choice in each individual terrifies anyone in any sort of conventional seat of authority and power.

And yet, I write again, people will always have access to their true natures. No one will ever truly forget the truth of their nature. And they will in time figure out that the whole human suit game is about choice, and they will in time learn to decondition themselves and exercise free will, which will in fact require looking at these darknesses we carry, getting to know and accept them, and love ourselves for having them. Accepting your self fully, which is creating wholeness in your life and the only true measure of health, means seeing, integrating and loving each part of your complex, multihued nature.

Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.

September 3, 2007 By Tom Jacobs

Where’s Lilith?

Lilith is everywhere.

Everywhere.

In everyone.

Everyone is Lilith.

As everyone is every archetype we could talk about.

Except that the times in which we live now are calling for us to heal our Liliths, so I talk about her a lot.

Hey, you -

Stop believing that your true nature is wrong.

Stop believing that there’s something wrong with you because you have desires and visions that don’t fit the mandates of your environment.

Just go ahead and give that crap up.

(How?

You’ve got to do some of what’s often called “shadow work.” You’ve got to bring up and out parts of yourself you’ve been led to believe are dangerous, ugly, and raw - and integrate them. That rawness, it turns out, is your aliveness.

There are limitless ways to do this, as Lilith is best served in any activity that gets our primal juices flowing. Art and sex are two ready examples, but anything can be done from the place where the fountain gets switched on.

I ordered a cup of tea last night from that place. I noticed that I was pleased when a particular counter person at a particular coffee place was on shift, and when I ordered my tea, I felt the raw desire that I associate with Lilith and I sent it down into the earth. (A way of grounding one’s self in strong energy and not throwing it at those around one.) I knew she felt it because when I turned to leave, one word in her sentence to the next customer came out at about 1500% her normal volume. Her energetic footing was a little shaken when I withdrew all that Lilith-inspired attention.

[NB: The lunar eclipse yesterday squared my true Black Moon Lilith-Neptune conjunction in the 2nd house, at 3 and 4 Sagittarius, respectively - I got to see new things about what Lilith-Neptune stuff I hide or de-emphasize, and as it squared, it wanted action - squares require resolution.]

When we find Lilith in ourselves, we’re prone to remembering the injunctions against our raw intensity our families, clans and societies teach us in our youth, or have beaten into or raped out of us when we stray from their accepted norms. Here’s the beautiful part: Your rawness doesn’t have to be violent. Violence surrounding this raw energy is a corruption of the energy, a forcing of it into a tiny shape that can be swept out of the way…until it explodes. (And if there’s anything in everything that I teach for the rest of my life that is heard, I’d be honored if it’s this: Any energy in us suppressed is subject to explosion. Honoring our true natures, whatever corner we’re thinking or talking about, is vital to happiness, health and survival.)

After, of course, a lot of time feeling resentment and anger from the suppression. The best or worst thing about society, depending on how Saturnian or Uranian you are, is that you don’t have to teach every single person to do this or not to do that; people from their love, and from their fear, will spread the word on their own. Because of this, any of us can choose to support authentic expression in other people.)

Yeah, just go ahead and give that crap up.

Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.

August 29, 2007 By Tom Jacobs