Lilith, the Hag, and the Dark Moon

Within Virgo, especially toward the later portion of the sign and into Hasta nakshatra, I see what I call Isis Veiled: the harsh, discerning feminine Earth that does not open herself indiscriminately. She is veiled because she does not accept the ordinary man in his original, material state. She does not open because she is desired, approached, pursued, or asserted upon. The veil itself is a boundary, and it protects what is sacred from being accessed by what is merely material. This is why I think Virgo is so often connected symbolically with nuns, veiled women, women who cover themselves, and women who withdraw from ordinary sexual life. The Virgo (feminine) is not open to everyone. She is selective, discerning, and unwilling to give herself merely because a man wants her or because relationship, marriage, sexuality, or motherhood are presented as her natural “destination”. She opens only to what she recognizes as truly worthy.

In its highest expression, what is worthy is the true spiritual man. Not simply a religious man, not a man who wears the symbols of spirituality, not someone who claims authority or occupies a religious position. This distinction matters because the feminine can be exploited, as women are/tend to devotion. Women who are deeply religious, devoted, disciplined, or spiritually minded can have that devotion used by institutions or by men who present themselves as spiritual authorities without actually embodying what they claim. Their devotion, purity, sacrifice, and spiritual power can be redirected toward something false. So the danger here is false spirituality: this woman can reject the ordinary material man and still be deceived by a man who has disguised the material under religious clothing. But in the higher expression, she recognizes the difference. She is only open to the true spiritual man, and this is why I often correlate the Spiritual Master with Jesus, not necessarily with Christianity as an institution, but with Jesus as the symbol of the truly spiritual masculine. The feminine here does not unveil before power, position, desire, charisma, or authority. She unveils before spiritual reality. And when she recognizes that reality, she can become completely devoted. This is important because the Virgo in itself, specially relating to the final portion of Virgo is not incapable of surrender. She is capable of an enormous surrender, but that surrender is not indiscriminate. She remains veiled until what stands before her is worthy of what she contains. The veil is lifted only in the presence of the true adept, the master, the true spiritual man. She is not conquered, forced open, or made available. She unveils because she recognizes truth. The act of unveiling is therefore not submission to pressure, but the response of the feminine to true spiritual worth.

Beside this Isis energy, I also see Lilith within Virgo. Lilith is different. If Isis is the feminine that withholds herself until the worthy spiritual masculine appears, Lilith is the feminine that may refuse creation itself. She is the hag, the part of creation that is not open to creating, the feminine that is veiled because she does not want to be asserted upon. There is something in Lilith that says: I do not have to open, receive, reproduce, relate, or become available simply because another force wants access to me. This is a very important feminine principle because the feminine is so often reduced to receptivity, fertility, sexuality, motherhood, relationship, and creation. But there is also a feminine that refuses, that is closed, that does not want to create, and that belongs to itself (I see that much reflected in female poets).

That is where the hag appears. The hag is no longer organized around desirability. She is no longer required to be beautiful for someone else, fertile, seductive, attractive, nurturing, receptive…etc. She stands outside that entire system. She is the feminine that cannot be accessed through desire, persuaded into openness through passion, or reduced to what she can provide (I’ve been reading a lot and seeing a lot : “What do you *woman* bring to the table?. She refuses to exist for the pleasure, reproduction, or fulfillment of another.

This is also where the debilitation of Venus in Virgo becomes extremely meaningful. Venus is rajasic. Venus is passion, attraction, sensuality, relationship, pleasure, beauty, exchange, and the desire to unite. Venus celebrates relationship, while Virgo questions it. Virgo looks at passion and asks whether passion is enough, looks at attraction and asks whether attraction is worthy, and looks at relationship and asks whether the relationship should exist at all. Virgo discriminates where Venus wants to unite. This is why Venus is uncomfortable here. Virgo does not automatically celebrate the relationship impulse. Virgo is not impressed merely because two people want each other. Desire itself is not sacred, passion itself is not sacred, and relationship itself is not sacred. Virgo wants to know the quality of what is being created through that union. This is where the latter portion of Virgo becomes so severe. She is not feminine in the purely Venusian sense. She is not automatically open, seductive or receptive. She is the feminine that discriminates, refuses, and remains veiled. She may appear nun-like because her energy is withdrawn from ordinary relationship, and she may appear hag-like because she is no longer stirring herself around beauty (and often are the most beautiful ones), desirability, fertility, or male approval. Yet she can become completely devotional when she finally recognizes what is truly worthy (of her devotion, of being consumed and naked).

So I do not see Virgo purity as innocence. I see it as discernment. She unveils for the true spiritual man.

Building upon the Lilith aspect, or the hag, there is also the queen archetype. Lilith herself is the queen, while Eve is the princess. Eve is the receptive feminine, while Lilith is the hungry feminine: unwilling, closed, and in a way connected to the New moon. She is the dark moon, without light. This is also why I connect her with Dhumavati, the Mahavidya within Hindu cosmology. These archetypes begin to come together through the same image: the new moon, the feminine principle that lacks sunlight, that lacks the yang solar energy and therefore remains within a darker, older (but only to the unworthy) , more consuming form of femininity.

Lilith, Dhumavati, Isis Veiled, the nun, and the queen archetype all touch this same principle in different ways. They belong to an Earth that does not nourish but consumes. It is an Earth that wants to keep things bound to itself. This is not necessarily an aggressive quality, but it is the cruel aspect of nature: nature as the force that keeps beings within the cycle of birth and death, continuously returning them to matter. It consumes what it produces and produces again from what it has consumed. In this sense, the veiled or dark feminine is not only refusing the masculine; she is also bound to matter itself, to the closed circuit of nature, waiting for the solar principle that can illuminate and transform her.

I think this becomes especially important in Virgo when we consider the debilitation of Venus there. Venus, as I said, is the planet of relationship, passion, attraction, and union. But Venus is exalted in Pisces, exactly opposite Virgo, and Pisces represents an entirely different condition of the feminine. In Pisces, the woman is open. The veil has been removed. She has been asserted upon by the right masculine energy, and because of that she is full of energy again. If Virgo carries something of the dark or new moon, Pisces carries the image of the full moon: the feminine completely illuminated.

There is something similar in Taurus, where the Moon is exalted and where I relate the feminine to Eve, although Eve (Taurus) and Pisces are not exactly the same. Eve is completely bathing in the solar light of the Creator. She is still within the Garden of Eden, before the fall, and therefore her openness exists within an original state of creation. She has not yet undergone the process of individuation that follows the fall. Pisces, however, represents something different. Pisces is the place we all return (if we individuate and crystalize the Soul) after the entire individual journey has already taken place. It is where we return as individuated beings after the fall from the garden. The woman here is completely unveiled, but she is unveiled in another way from Eve. In here, duality no longer exists. Here, the woman is with a man who is truly spiritual, an adept, a master, and both of them are individuated. They have already crossed the abyss, so to speak. Their union is not the unconscious union of the Garden of Eden but a conscious spiritual union reached after individuation. This makes Virgo the opposite condition. In Virgo, there is still this feminine who is craving the true masculine, the true light, the true solar principle, but she is completely closed to men who do not embody it. She does not open simply because a masculine presence appears. She remains veiled because what she is looking for is not merely a man but the true masculine principle itself. Until that appears, she remains within this darker, stagnant, lunar condition. She remains the new moon rather than the full moon, withholding herself from ordinary masculinity because ordinary masculinity cannot illuminate her. She is waiting for the solar light that is actually capable of reaching her.

The feminine will not move into full Venusian openness merely for the sake of relationship, attraction, or passion. She remains closed until she encounters the masculine force that is genuinely capable of transforming that condition. Only then can the veil be lifted, the dark moon become illuminated, and the feminine move from the closed state of Virgo toward the unveiled and fully receptive condition represented by Pisces.

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