Dark Moon Lilith

What Lilith is

The Moon’s path around the Earth is an ellipse, not a perfect circle. The point where it swings farthest from Earth is called the lunar apogee, and in astrology this point is called Dark Moon Lilith, or Black Moon Lilith. It is an empty point in space rather than a body you can see.

Lilith moves through the zodiac in about nine years, spending around nine months in each sign.

The name

Lilith comes from ancient Middle Eastern myth. In later Jewish folklore she was Adam’s first wife, who refused to be ruled and left the Garden of Eden. Astrologers took the name for a point that stands for independence and the parts of us that refuse to be tamed.

What it means in your chart

Lilith’s sign and house show where you hold raw, instinctive power, where you may have felt shamed or rejected, and where you refuse to compromise. Making peace with your Lilith is about owning these parts of yourself rather than hiding them.

Mean or true Lilith?

Because the Moon’s orbit wobbles, astrologers calculate Lilith in two ways. Mean Lilith smooths out the wobble and moves steadily; true (or osculating) Lilith follows the wobble and can be several degrees different. Mean Lilith is the more widely used, and Starlight’s chart will always say which one it shows.

Not to be confused with

There is also an asteroid named Lilith and a hypothetical “second moon” called Dark Moon. These are different things; Starlight’s Lilith is the lunar apogee.