An eclipse is a literal darkening, representing an important shift in consciousness, as the unconscious takes over for a potent moment in a transference of energy. The face of the Moon covers the face of the Sun and changes its mask. A new play unfolds, especially so in Leo, the drama sign of the zodiac! The Black Goddess plays a starring role, most obviously in her guise as the New Moon, its time of darkness and invisibility. We will actually "see" this New Moon as a silhouette in front of the Sun. She becomes visible in her darkness. A New Moon is a new birth from the union of the Sun and Moon, enhanced this time by the altered light of such an eclipse.

As we live our lives, we give birth to ourselves again and again as we re-imagine who we are. This is the aspiration and inspiration of the divine feminine, emerging from the star-sparked womb of the night sky into the manifest light of day. The Sun-Moon union of such a total eclipse echoes the main theme of relationship dynamics that engages us this year, with a prolonged conjunction of Chiron and Juno. On the day of the eclipse that conjunction is again on-line, with the Shaman-Healer in the same degree as the Queen of the Gods who rules over union and commitment. This conjunction calls for a healing and new levels of relationship, both personally and globally. We are asked to let go of resistance and fear to seek a deeper honesty and truth upon which to base the new millennium.

Also on Eclipse Day, another potent conjunction is in progress, as dark-faced Pluto welcomes an esoteric familiar-- Black Moon Lilith. Black Moon is the second focal point of the Moon's elliptical orbit around the Earth, the same point at which the Moon its at its farthest point from Earth, reaching out toward the Sun. Thus, Black Moon is an invisible energy vortex, a key dynamic in the Sun-Moon-Earth relationship.

As an intuitive science, the full power of astrology lies in transforming consciousness through imagery. What power images have in our unconscious! What images do we hold and where do these images come from? What motivations underlie these images and how might they need to change? Astrology as a language of the soul contains the power of the imagination that is called for as Pluto, the planet of death and rebirth, moves through Sagittarius, the sign of the Truth-Seeker. As we reinvent our language, it must come out of the core, the underground, of our experience. In The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, theologian Matthew Fox writes:

It is out of deep experience that language is reborn. This rebirth occurs through

the generation of new images, for images are closer to our experience than words.

Images are the midwives between experience and language. A mystical awakening

will entail an awakening of the power of images to heal, to name, to excite, to teach.

The image of Lilith is an especially potent midwife and teacher. This Dark Goddess, appearing in the sacred Tree of Life in the very earliest mythology from Sumeria, is rooted in ancient prehistory. She pushes touchy buttons in the unconscious, as her dubious reputation suggests. Charged as seductress, child-killer, and bride of Satan, Lilith is essentially Tantric in nature, erotic and transformative, stripping the veils of illusion in her Dance of the Seven Veils (one for each chakra). She has intrigued artists and writers such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, George Bernard Shaw, and Victor Hugo. A provocative 1960's movie named Lilith stars Jean Seberg, Warren Beatty and Peter Fonda. We meet her in the fiction of Anais Nin and as a character in T.V.'s Cheers. She presides over the popular Lilith Fair music-fest. Several web sites are dedicated to her, and lines of sexy products and services are sold in her name.

Goddess of Earth and Heaven, Lilith gives her name to four rather esoteric points in astrology--an asteroid, a seldom seen dusky Dark Moon that circles the Earth, and the Black Moon, a energy vortex in the Earth-Moon system. The "demon" star Algol, pictured as the head of Medusa, is also called Lilith. All four of these Liliths are active in the eclipse. I have already mentioned the conjunction of Black Moon with Pluto, a deep revelation of the Black Madonna wielding her compassionate yet uncompromising Sword of Truth.

Asteroid Lilith is retrograde at 9 degrees Pisces, squaring the Pluto-Black Moon conjunction. This square of two Liliths activates the energy of this goddess on more than one level, demonstrating the dysfunction of outmoded socio-cultural role models of the feminine, suggesting confrontations in sexual and power dynamics in relationships, and urging new psychic perceptions to be integrated into our mode of response. Together Asteroid and Black Moon create a T-square with Venus in retrograde motion at 2 degrees Virgo. Another manifestation of the Dark Goddess, the radiant Lady of the Evening has disappeared into the sunset. Periodically the Love Goddess descends to the underworld in order to reevaluate relationships and her level of satisfaction--yet another indication of the attention to quality in relationship during this major shift year and the emerging influence of the feminine. Venus retrogrades back and stations at 18 degrees Leo--the eclipse point!--on September 11. Now the Morning Star, she is re-newed, empowered and ready to move on. At New Year, Venus is in the first degrees of Sagittarius. She, too, reveals the truth.

Dark Moon Lilith participates in the fixed grand cross of the eclipse. Dark Moon is at 18 degree 10 minutes Aquarius, conjunct Uranus and the South Node, and exactly opposite the eclipse point. Dark Moon, well researched by Delphine Jay in Interpreting Lilith, lures us into our more self-centered illusions for the purpose of purging negative desires and to grow beyond the habitual patterns of early Moon conditioning. Dark Moon represents a primal, objective, impersonal instinct that seeks identification beyond the physical and emotional realms. "This is the way it must be," she says clearly and definitively, like one of the Fates. When her expression is denied or self-centered, she can be quite negative; when the emotional content is channelized into higher centers (as a Leo eclipse also suggests), she adds power to creative, mental or aesthetic expression, even to spiritual practice. "Lilith strictly symbolizes the objective thinking approach. Anything less is unsuccessful," writes Jay. Its nature is quite compatible with Uranus in Aquarius in its push toward a broader socio-spiritual perspective that breaks with patterns from the past.

The Lilith star Algol is right in the fixed cross of this eclipse also. Located at the zodiacal equivalent of 25+ Taurus, Algol culminates, or reaches its highest point in the sky, at 18 Taurus. The culmination point is significant in a star's impact, rather like a planet on the mid heaven, as discussed by Bernadette Brady in her excellent new book, Brady's Book of Fixed Stars. This point is exactly square the eclipse point, and conjunct Saturn. Algol is baleful eye of Medusa, the serpent-haired witch in Greece, that turns the viewer to stone. Such an Eye perceives "with an objectivity, like that of nature itself and our dreams, boring into the soul to find the naked truth, to see reality beneath all its myriad forms and the illusions and defenses it displays," writes Sylvia Pereira in Descent to the Goddess. For the Chinese, Algol was called the star of Piled-Up Corpses, according to star researcher R.A. Allen. Not an easy star to deal with, Algol insists yet again on clear-sightedness, perception and power.

In her many forms, Lilith offers stepping stones to deep dimensions of our souls. Essentially Tantric in nature, Lilith is erotic and transformational. As one who takes us through the darkness to find the greater more subtle light, she has affinity with other dark goddesses--Hecate, Kali, The Black Madonna and the Shekhina. She brings the men in from the fields for the sacred rites. She sings the Song of Solomon. She offers Eve the apple.

She it is who stands at the Millennial threshold, as she has ever stood at the gate of the Secret Garden, the Garden of Eden, wielding the flaming Sword of Truth that cuts through illusions. Through her many octaves of influence she taps into an urgent desire of the soul that seeks dramatization in life and will brook no denial. In a time such as ours of potent change, the Black Goddess Lilith, with her vital creative life force and spiritual impulse, illumines the inner pathway with the most heart for each seeker of Truth and Love. The Dark Goddess looks you in the eye and asks, "Who are you? What do you want to be in your new life?"

Kelley Hunter is an astrological consultant, star gazer and educator. Co-author of Astrology for Women, she offers an astrological mentorship in Depth Astrology. She will present a performance piece of the Dark Goddess Lilith at the Great Eclipse conference of the Astrological Association of Great Britain in August 1999. Her booklet on Black Moon Lilith is being published by ACS Publishing. Email: kelleyh@viaccess.net. You can also reach her at 1-888-7ALTAIR or PO Box 37, St. John, USVI 00831.