Dear Friend and Reader:
Tuesday’s Taurus New Moon is conjunct the Black Moon Lilith. A point used more frequently by European astrologers, BML or Lilith is technically called the osculating apogee, or the Moon’s point of maximum distance from the Earth. If you look up “osculating” in the dictionary, you find out that it’s about kissing — a lovely image for Beltane.
This point has an interesting property: it dances around. The “true” calculation points to the apogee being one place, then it often turns up in another. The “mean” calculation more or less stays put, or better said, drifts slowly. Lilith in astronomy, as in mythology, has the feeling of something difficult to grasp, or pin down. With Tuesday’s lunation, the mean apogee and the true apogee are in the same place, close to the New Moon.
We know Lilith as “the first woman” from various side-mythologies (mostly Medieval). She was the first wife of Adam, who was created as his equal, but Adam wasn’t having it, so she went off on her own (and in some tellings, shows up again as the serpent). She is portrayed as temptress, seductress, disagreeable and as a demon. This area of mythology is often used to explain patriarchy. Adam’s known consort Eve is subjugated, made from Adam’s rib (he was put to sleep for the procedure, and nowhere is there a reference to his waking up). Eve is not Adam’s equal. This creation myth is a real mess. It is the worst of them all.
The one in the Bible verges on hilarious. Do we really think that the all-knowing, all powerful God would just make a dude, and leave him wandering around the forest all by himself? Nobody to play drums, smoke a doobie or make out with? It sounds like a satire.
Lilith and Matters of Trust
In my Weekend Astrology Podcast, I mentioned that one thing I’ve seen Black Moon Lilith represent is the thing about women that other women don’t trust. This commenced an interesting discussion with a reader and one of our editors that I will reveal in detail on Friday’s Planet Waves FM. The discussion included what is being done socially to sex and gender in our time, and included a branch about the healing properties of power exchange in sexuality (what some call BD/SM or domination play).
We can also think about Lilith as being about a struggle for trust in existence, and in the case of Taurus, in its incarnate, maculate, physical form. You know, the lives we live in-body.
Currently we are all under the thrall of a seemingly perpetual, 24/7 marketing campaign about how you cannot trust your body, or trust existence, and you don’t have an immune system, and your body has no power to heal, and no intelligence, and so on. However, the human race and all biological entities have been adapting to viruses and bacteria for our entire existence. If you hear Zach Bush tell the story, viruses and bacteria are the vector of evolution; the blocks of the ever-evolving genetic code. Our mitochondria — the powerhouse of our cells — is made of bacterial DNA.
However, lately, there are days when life feels like it’s been downgraded from a B-rated science fiction film to a mouthwash commercial telling everyone how disgusting they are. But now the supposed solution to a disease that does not exist is genetic modification.
Save for this kind of constant messaging, we would be more inclined to trust our bodies and notice what is happening in the actual environment. People who have eaten non-GMO foods for the past 20 years would recognize they don’t want to become one.
Mars square Chiron: The Rut
One of the more interesting features in this chart is Mars square Chiron, a distinctive aspect that I associate with having so much integrity that a person is effectively blocked from living the way they want. This aspect is full of hesitation of the “I would love to do that but I shouldn’t (because I’m too pure)” variety. We all know these people; they live like Friday is a school night. Yet many people have a touch of this to some degree, and desire is under attack.
Mars represents the animus or male principle, and this is activated by the square to Chiron — though through the crisis of avoiding transmutation — that is, actually growing and changing from one point to another. Chiron represents both the sacred warrior principle, the sense of wounding and the innate power of transmutation — which is evolution.
So in this chart, we have the expression of the Moon and the Sun in Taurus filtered through profound hesitancy around trusting physical existence, which is a way of saying mater-matter-mother (New Moon conjunct Lilith), and blocked assertive energy. This blocked energy is theoretically allowed to express itself only in perceived immaculate form: the perfect sexual desire that nobody finds offensive.
Under Judeo-Christiandom, there is no such thing. All sex under Hebrew and Jewish law is ultimately offensive, disgusting, immoral, sinful or rape. And in our day, men can be anything but male, except when you need them to chop through the roof of a burning building and rescue your children and your kitten.
Expression in Distorted Forms
Mars square Chiron, with its natural flow blocked, jammed in a rut, tends to find expression in a distorted form, when what it needs is to open up and experiment. Distorted forms of masculine include any desire tainted with guilt about desire, violence, silence, aggression, or anger. These sometimes also cross over to distorted feminine.
This energy well needs to become the next thing that it wants to become, not stay the very thing that is not working. Yet most of our lives are lived in ruts. But it will force change if it needs to, which is then usually destructive.
The thing that felt most pleasant about the events of one year ago was being released from trapped and stuck patterns.
Feminine energy does the same thing. If it feels disempowered, it will resort to trickery, manipulation, sabotage or fraud to get what it wants. These sometimes also cross over to distorted masculine.
When you have billions of people living this twisted version of creative energy, they are easy to fool. You can convince them of anything. This is how suppressed orgasm leads to the charismatic leader who leads the people into tyranny, and they are happy for it. That is, until they figure out what happened.
The Way Through
There is a way through this thicket. It begins with people granting one another amnesty for their presumed past sins and transgressions. To not do this makes progress impossible. Everybody has a grudge or two, and most of them are irrelevant emotional attachments for their own sake. The next step is to commit to healing. This does not mean to become healed, but rather to commit to the healing journey and all that it entails.
Then we can commit to allowing male to be male, and female to be female. That means allowing men to be men, and women to be women. Gender bending is always optional: I am talking about what is enforced, socially or otherwise. Then we agree that men and women will experience one another as such. It is not someone’s job to cease being male or female because someone thinks it is.
People interested in relating primarily through same-sex affiliations and relationships must have that option honored and affirmed, for them. We all agree that is OK but not mandatory. Those interested in relating primarily to the opposite sex must give themselves and one another position to do so. The “heterosexual agenda,” the “homosexual agenda,” the “monogamous agenda,” and any other agendas are forms of tyranny.
Then, people can work out their power imbalances and power struggles. That part does not need to be as messy as it’s made out to be. It’s easier if we admit what we want, and not project this opposite or opposition onto someone else. Feel who you are and be who you are. Whether you are a man or a woman, live your reality, and if you want to experiment with femininity or masculinity in any combination, go for it. That is nature and that is transmutation.
Speaking of: Jupiter Ingresses Pisces on Thursday
I have mentioned a few times that the overwhelming energy of Aquarius is creating an environment were many people feel completely natural pressuring people into being just like them. There has been a massive social control impulse turned loose. The celebrities are on parade. Laurie Anderson, who wrote a brilliant song about why you should not modify your body, is advocating the genetic injection.
Way back in 2020, the force and pressure was coming mostly from above. In 2021, it is mostly lateral: virtue signaling on crank.
We are about to get some relief from all that Aquarius, in the form of Jupiter ingressing Pisces this week, for the first time in 12 years. One of the qualities lacking right now is Pisces: receptive feminine energy. Currently Neptune is there (longterm visitor, 2011-2026) but that is creating a deficit. Neptune is also about delusions and denial.
Jupiter is going to give substance to Pisces. We need this substance: some material to work with, some sense of the presence of Pisces energy in a positive and affirmative form. We all dearly need the abundance of Jupiter in Pisces. We need the allowing of Jupiter in Pisces. We need the excess of Jupiter in Pisces. In sum, we need Jupiter in Pisces and I reckon a good few people consciously want what this is about.
Jupiter is the largest planet, denser than Saturn, and (after the Sun) it rules all of the gravity in the solar system. When we shift some of that gravity into Pisces, we get into more being than thinking. The element of faith is introduced, rather than the know-it-all tendency of shadow Aquarius.
And as for wholesome Aquarius: this sign and Saturn here are utterly meaningless if we do not allow space for individual thought, and therefore, for people to be individuals: to be who they are. For many people, that’s a tough one, but it’s not so difficult as it seems.
Give yourself a little space to think for yourself, and to allow your ideas about life — and what you want from life — to flow naturally.
Faithfully,
Week Ahead Podcast with Eric Francis | May 10
Today’s Week Ahead Astrology Podcast with Eric Francis covers the Taurus New Moon on Tuesday, May 11, and Jupiter entering Pisces on Thursday, May 13. Music by Vision Quest. Read about the Philosophy of Astrology course.
About Planet Waves. This website is an unusual source of spiritual astrology and news coverage integrated with an astrological perspective. “Spiritual” means we are concerned with the inner life, growth, self-awareness and conscious participation in the world. Please explore our new website using the navigation at the top of the page. If you take your time, you will make many discoveries. You are welcome to support our work financially: we pay many people to produce the professional quality articles and artwork that you see. You may make a donation in any amount to our nonprofit organization (which comes with website access), or get a subscription. There are many excellent options.