R Re-Imagining Lilith

What do we really mean when we re-imagine Lilith? A woman who wanted creative communication and expression with Adam? A woman who was betrayed by both Lilith and G.d? A woman who returned to the Garden of Eden in order to tempt Eve to take the apple from the tree that was prohibited to her, in the guise of a serpent no less. Maybe she suspected that Adam would shun her again if she approached him; the risk in approaching Eve seemed a better one – another woman after all, with a certain receptivity – Were they both rebels? With or without a cause?

What was her politic? Was she standing up for herself? Did Lilith choose wandering in the wilderness as a preferred way of life to one of subjugation? Did she want to right the wrong of her expulsion and repression done to her by rising after her long and arduous reflection in the Red Sea? Could Eve’s eyes be opened so that she would not suffer a similar fate – that of having no choice? What did the seeds  of the apple represent that Eve took, bit and chewed and swallowed? Were those seeds of potential? Another way of life, of growth, one away from dependency where all their needs were met and choice of self-determination was not a possibility? Was Lilith offering a natural instinctual gift from nature? Did she sense that Eve, like her, may well have had a sense of being weighed down in this patriarchal atmosphere, with little chance of becoming her own person? Did she have an instinctual knowing that Eve would never be free to meet her own feminine ego had she remained stuck in the status quo?

There are many modalities of Lilith that we experience within ourselves. Her dark and light side, her manic and depressive moods, her sinner and saint qualities, her strengths and vulnerabilities, her wildness and her conformity. Her capacity for love and fear, for interdependence and independence. We may be inclined to call one side positive and the other negative, but this is a value judgment. The opposing polarities belong together and each requires the other for its wholeness. If we consciously bring her out of the shadows, we will be more whole and thus empowered.

We have every right to fear the darkness of Lilith and her rage, but rage has meaning and purpose. Highly charged emotions have a vibrational pattern; they are valuable in that they disturb us – they are meant to. They help to illuminate and elucidate those highly charged feelings and emotions that lie festering in the dark, and to bring them out into the open. The darkest corner of our souls is where the hardest work needs to be done. That which was rejected and repressed will become the corner stone. Psalms 118 vs 22: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone’. I like to think of the feminine principle, repressed and rejected for aeons, being resurrected and finally and taking its rightful place.

Thank you for reading!

25 Comments on A-Z R Re Imagining Lilith

  1. Hi Susan – anger as a teacher … per Elaine’s comment above – a good thought … cheers Hilary

  3. I love the abstract image of the Sufi dancer, Susan. And then the wonderful questions. Each one could begin the chapter of a book.
    Anthony Damiani was my first personal teacher in the late 1960s. He taught his students meditation, world philosophies, and Jung. I was an idealistic hippie girl, so was shocked that meditation and inner work stirred up anger and shadow energy. I thought anger was bad and should be shunned. Instead, Anthony said, “Pay close attention to what makes you mad. Watch anger because it’s a teacher.” That forever changed my attitude about “negative” emotions. I don’t blast away with rage, but I watch what makes me angry and see if it’s asking me to act or asking me to reflect. It often arises in response to our repressive political world.
    Yes to your prayer that the Feminine Principle finally claim her birthright.

    • Thank you Elaine for this lovely comment. I too used to wonder about feelings/emotions that were stirred, including anger, sadness and shadow energy when all I was attempting to do with meditation, psychology, philosophy etc was to bring about my own inner peace! Well, many many years later, I have a bit of a grasp on it – and have learned to reflect on what triggers my buttons …

  5. It is interesting bit of synchronicity that another friend just did a sort of homage poem to Dylan Thomas’s “Rage. Rage Against the Dying of the Light.” Rage can be destructive, but as you say it can also bring feeling and destruction into the light. The storm rages, but then comes the light–maybe even a rainbow.

    • That is definitely a lovely bit of synchronicity Merril, thanks for mentioning it! Whenever synchronicity happens in my life I take notice and give thanks for it. The rainbow is such a lovely image thanks for that too 🙂

  6. Dear Susan, This is extraordinary! You ask all the important questions here and from them arise a re-imagination of Lilith indeed, and how her archetypal story of rage, rejection and repression continues to hold meaning and resonance in the world today. How relevant her story is, and how imperative it is that we all know her story! Thank you for resurrecting Lilith and bringing her firmly back into our waking ‘conscious’ lives, far from the dark depths and corners of our mind where she had been hiding out. Your Psalm quotation is spot on! Sister, your warm and wild feminine pen is on fire! In soul, Deborah.

    • Dear Deborah, thank you! Many questions indeed … Is it a task we have to do one by one? I think so – yet it’s a comfort for me to know that you too and others are prepared to look her in the eye. So, while it is a lonely and at times fearsome path, it’s not entirely – in soul, Susan.

  7. You’ve used a lot of powerful R words in your post today Susan. I think we DO have to reimagine this tale, and it’s always been just as much calling the Divine Masculine into beingness in order to meet a sovereign Divine Feminine. I think we’ve been waiting as long as we can for the masculine paradigm to evolve itself into the Divine Masculine. It’s time to yank Lilith out of the darkness she’s been cast into, and we need to do it with our own grasp of the Divine Feminine from this point in the timeline. Otherwise we’ll be waiting forever more.

    • Thanks for your lovely comment Deborah – I’m reminded of Sophia, the consort of G.d, aka known as Mother, or Mother Nature, where the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine come together and there is a divine balance and harmony …

      And, just because, I like thinking of Adam, had he NOT taken the apple, would be waiting forever more for his supper 🙂

  8. This post is so powerfully sculpted, it pulls at the status quo with gusto. And yet, when I re-read it, the duality you mention here reminded me of the sign of infinity in one of Deborah’s posts. Is the point of this flux (the flow of energies) to reach that point of equilibrium where the light and dark meet? Is the feminine (repressed since ions) rage finding its way to that point? And does it then mean that the masculine has to meet this flux half way across the stream? Too many questions are popping up…and it’s almost time to go to bed. Shall read this post again tomorrow (if time permits). Thank you for this thought provoking post.
    R is for #RallyforRivers

    • Thanks Arti – yes that meeting point of the opposites where each extreme has travelled to meet at the centre point, allows for more movement and more possibilities ..

  10. You’ve read my mind, Susan. I do fear, and am disturbed by, the darkness of Lilith. Thank you for another very thought-provoking post.

  12. Beautifully written, Susan. Negative emotions have their purpose, indeed. They prompt us to act, step out of danger, and similarly they hurt when we look at the world through negativity and anger too long. I particularly like your final sentence above: resurrected, after having been repressed and rejected. All very descriptive Rs.

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