April Full Moon in Libra: A Woman Out Of Darkness- “The New Lilith”.

In today’s full moon chart, what draws my attention and feels most alive is a tight conjunction between asteroid Lilith and Chiron at 24 ° and 25 ° of Aries respectively.

As the only astronomical body of Lilith, asteroid Lilith represents the embodied, closest, physical manifestation of Lilith that we experience. How this energy moves in our life astrologically is described by the placement of asteroid Lilith in our natal chart. Other points of Lilith, that is the two points of Black Moon Lilith, and Dark Moon Lilith are hypothetical points and therefore arguably less accessible to our psyche, or at least less directly felt.

Archetypally and symbolically speaking, asteroid Lilith may be the most raw and immediate experience of the untamed feminine before patriarchal distortions or dilution. The other Lilith points in our chart describe where in our life we experience these distortions, and offers guidance for reclamation of this wild instinctual feminine energy.

In the full moon chart, asteroid Lilith conjunct Chiron in Aries symbolically tells the story of how collectively this aspect of the feminine has been wounded in our culture. In Aries, this speaks to how the lives of individuals are affected by these distortions.

Where asteroid Lilith sits in your own chart and how it is aspected highlights your feminine power, or the place you are most likely to feel it.

In my case, asteroid Lilith is at 4 ° Sagittarius 20’ in my 5^th house, which is exactly conjunct my natal Neptune to the minute at 4° Sagittarius 20’. Neptune and the raw unmediated feminine for me then are one in the same. Less than 1 ° away is my Sun/Moon midpoint at 3 ° Sagittarius 38’. This means that not only is my raw, untamed, instinctual and original face of the feminine, merged with Neptune, but it also is expressed through a blending of my conscious and unconscious, i.e.; the totality of my psyche. In Evolutionary Astrology, among other things, Neptune highlights where the soul experiences disillusionments that are designed to break attachments to worldly or mundane fantasies.

In the synastry chart of the most challenging and transformative romantic relationship I’ve had by far, our Sun/Moon midpoints were in an exact opposition creating a pressure and tension that forced me to see where I had bought into an illusion and how my feminine soul suffered as a consequence. This relationship began more or less at the beginning of Pluto transiting my natal Sun, to Pluto squaring my Moon, and right the way through to Pluto moving off both my Sun and Moon. This was an underworld initiation through which I was permanently changed, and although it was extremely challenging at the time, in retrospect I see that it was intimately bound with moving out of the darkness of my own unconscious. In dreams, my lover would lead me into the underworld of my personal unconscious to meet aspects of myself that had split off, where libido and life force were trapped. I documented these dreams that ran into hundreds; one day I will chart my soul’s journey through this initiation.

This continues to be a work in progress. Moving on…

Asteroid Lilith was discovered on 11th February 1927 by Benjamin Jekhowsky from the Algiers Observatory, Algeria. Interesting to note that the “Running Horned Woman” (6000 – 4000 B.C.E), one of the earliest and most significant depictions of a ritualistic or divine feminine figure hails from Algeria.

Recently I have noticed that in my work there has been a shift toward a more focused exploration of the feminine psyche and how it has been explored, represented, charted and presented within the androcentric framework of psychology and psychiatry. While there have been significant shifts in psychology in relation to the feminine experience in recent decades, it is undeniable that the origins of modern psychiatry and psychology were rooted in pathologizing female behaviour.

 In 1927 when asteroid Lilith was discovered, a brilliant young woman in the throes of her first Saturn return was midway through an intense period of analysis with Carl Gustav Jung, who at that time was already a highly eminent and internationally recognised psychologist and psychiatrist. In the 9 months that she was an analysand of Jung, Christiana Morgan brought forth a startling compendium of visions and insights from the depth of her unconscious. As an artist, she skilfully illustrated her vision in pen and ink producing images on a par with anything in Jung’s own Red Book.

The content from Morgan’s unconscious impressed Jung so much that he told her, “Your visions contain material for analysis for the next centuries.” What he did later was, and remains, one of the most unacknowledged exploitations of modern psychology.

In 1932, Christiana Morgan sent Jung the images that had arisen during their sessions. Between the years of 1930-1934, Jung published his “Visions Seminars”, presenting the images and content that Morgan had shared with him. In his inner circle, Jung delivered lectures and talks based on Morgan’s rich inner world, neither disclosing her identity nor crediting her as a collaborator. Instead, she was presented as a nameless, faceless, somewhat insignificant patient. When Morgan discovered what Jung had been doing with her private material (the contents of her soul), she was understandably upset and asked him to stop.

In 1927, the year asteroid Lilith was discovered, Jung actively encouraged Christiana to begin an affair with Henry Murray, who had only that year began working in the psychology department of Harvard University. Previously Murray had held a research fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

Though both Christiana and Henry were married to other people at the time, Jung, whose own views of marriage were unconventional, encouraged the union between Morgan and Murray to unlock their unconscious creativity. According to Michel Weber, Jung’s goal was to transform Morgan into an erotic muse to serve both himself and Murray (in that order).

In Harvard, Morgan and Murray co created the Thematic Apperception Test; many of the images used in the test were drawn by Morgan. Though she was originally credited with senior authorship, her name was later obliterated from the TAT. During his time at Harvard, Henry Murray was involved in the CIA’s secret MK Ultra experiments in mind control. Conducting unethical, high stress psychological experiments on Harvard undergraduates, from 1959-1962, Murray subjected students to intense abuse and verbal attacks that were intended to break them down. One of his more infamous subjects was Ted Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber”.

In her biography of Christiana Morgan, “Translate this Darkness – The Life of Christiana Morgan, the Veiled Woman in Jung’s Circle”, Claire Douglas (ex-wife of J.D Salinger), summarizes Christiana’s journey in the following way:

Christiana did not defeat the depths but instead, and originally, united the depths with the heights. Toward the end of her visions book, in February 1927, she discovered what the masculine era had tried to hide: that not only the primitive and spiritual feminine needed uniting, but also the masculine figures of Satan and Christ.

Curiously, coincidentally, synchronistically, February 1927 was the exact month and year of the discovery of asteroid Lilith. The exiled, primitive and wild goddess had spoken, was speaking through the inner visions, trances and dreams of Christiana Morgan.

According to Michel Weber, upon seeing a sculpture of Morgan herself created in 1935 by the French-born American sculptor Gaston Lachaise (1882–1935), the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) exclaimed:

It is a primitive woman moving from one age to another. Terrible, magnificent, —a woman who would commit murder. A great primeval force. O, not you, you at all as far as likeness goes. Good heavens! What have you inspired? Woman becoming, woman moving out of darkness into light. The most magnificent statue of a woman I have ever seen.

They called this portrait of Christina Morgan the “New Eve” little did they realise she was in fact the “New Lilith”.

In her paper, “Christiana Morgan’s Final Visions A Contextual View”, Jungian psychoanalyst and independent researcher, Ilona Melker quotes Jung

“These visions [Christiana’s] are an expression of a very general problem, that they are demonstrating different aspects of the unconscious development in order to bring it a step forward in consciousness”.

According to Melker, Jung called it a task for our times, which has gone too far into Yang, into directed masculine dominance by the ego complex. The yin principle includes the chthonic, dark erotic and earthy feminine, reverence for the earth herself and for the body as the expression of our earthiness.

It is still a task for our times, perhaps even more pressing.

This is Lilith, a woman moving out of darkness into light.  In this full moon chart, the wound of that woman surfaces for us to acknowledge, to feel, and to find where that movement from darkness to light is happening in our own feminine soul.

Christiana Morgan died by drowning at the age of 69 while on vacation in the Virgin Islands with Henry Murray. It is speculated that her death was as a result of suicide, however there remains an element of mystery surrounding the circumstances of her death due to the differing accounts of what happened given by Murray.

In Christiana Morgan’s natal chart asteroid Lilith sits at 27° Libra 48’ conjunct Mars at 27° Libra 40’ (20 arc minutes). Mars squares her nodal axis by 5°. In Evolutionary Astrology when a planet is square the nodal axis, this is known as a “skipped step”.

There is much that can be unpacked and explored about the life and times of Christiana Morgan, her art, her visions, her legacy, and her relationships. Using her astrology chart as a symbolic representation of her life and soul’s journey, if you are interested in Christiana Morgan and would like to discover more about her, as well as learn how to use astrology in a psycho- spiritual and archetypal way for deeper insights, perhaps you would like to join me for a symbolic journey ( details of how to join will follow, or else sign up to receive my newsletter).