Christopher Hitchens' Lilith, Among Other Things

As I've noted before I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by Lilith's presence in Astrology Charts. This is because of a lecture I heard at NCGR in Denver given by German Astrologer Antonia Langsdorff. And it's because Lilith has been passing over my natal Moon.

Lilith is represented by 3 different points in Astrology at this point. The one I'm interested in is a fictional spot in the Moon's orbital path. There's something about looking at a mathematical spot that's related to the dark side of the Moon's orbit that just seems to be explaining so much to me lately.

First, to set the mood, a YouTube performance of Lou Reed singing about Lilith

hey babe, take a walk on the wild side

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
(doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)
(doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)
(doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)
(doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)
(doo)


You can google Lilith's story from the Ancient Sources if this song doesn't tell you all you need to know. Written history is full of so much oppression of women that it's interesting to look at how characters survive in such circumstances.

Men have Lilith in their charts but they generally don't have to struggle with her as much because they are usually urged to show their "Light" within society. In that end, that is probably what Lilith wants, what with her connection with the Dark and the Night. Men will usually receive help from outside sources which sort of keeps them from having to express their Lilith energy. White Men especially in written history are free of having to look at this side of themselves.

And that is what is fascinating about Christopher Hitchens. For some reason when I read that this Literary Critic and English Intellectual & Narcissist Blowhard wrote an article for Vanity Fair about how Women aren't funny I suspected that there was some kind of suspicious Lilith activity going on in his chart. I've had these conversations with women friends about how, on the whole, women aren't funny. And, after my obsessive year of hanging out in yarn stores I can attest that this is mostly true. But, I have never met a guy who was obnoxious enough to talk about this on his lonesome.

I found the article through Kottke.org which linked to a woman who was criticizing Hitchens' criticism with a really horrible and unfunny article which was total Lilith anger stuff. And I suppose that's why I was so curious to look at Hitchens' Lilith placement.

That's circular thinking for sure, perhaps a Lilith thing?

Hitchens' progressed Mercury is at the end of a Retrograde Session and I think he's running out of material -- either that, or this White Guy is being forced to draw on his own Lilith.... and as I said before that's a very special event in this world....

Anyway, I had to look up Hitchens' Lilith and so the rest of his chart.

Christopher Hitchens
b. Apr. 13, 1949 Portsmouth, England

Sun 24 Aries; Moon Libra or Scorpio; NN 27 Aries Rx

Talk about taking a walk on the wild side. Hitchens' Lilith is at 30 Pisces. That's the most creative point in the chart, the last degree of the Zodiac. Not only is this 1 degree away from the Aries Point which means a bringing forth into public eyes, it represents the end and the beginning of the wheel, the birthing point. That's a pretty wild marker to place right at that point in the chart. Lilith won't be held down. Lilith lets go.

Looking at the rest of the chart shows that He probably just wants women to follow along, or at least to keep up. He's got a conjunction of Sun-Mercury-Venus to the North Node in Aries. Aries is known to act and then think, doesn't matter how Intellectual or how English a guy is. Somehow I get the feeling that Hitchens couldn't care less about whether women are funny or not. He was just looking for a topic to write for an article in a magazine.

All kinds of complications ensue because Hitchens was born on the same day as a Total Lunar Eclipse between Aries and Libra. Without a birth time there's no way of knowing whether his Moon is in Libra or Scorpio but if the moon is connected with the South Node then he has a very complicated set of emotional tensions to deal with within himself even without Lilith. If he were born with the Full Moon in his chart it means that he actually has an amped up awareness of others, especially with his Libra Moon. Perhaps this fire and light is an indicator of why he's such a successful critic. He really is aware and is reacting to what he's talking about, not just being analytical.

Hitchens' chart is really interesting non-Lilith-wise for lots of other reasons. First, he's almost all Fire and Air. That's pretty great for an intellectual, critic, writer type. It's also pretty great for a windbag. In the Outer Planet realm, i.e. the slow moving planets that indicate generational trends that a person deals with, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are in each of the Air Signs. They are not in aspect with each other. Pluto, of course, is in the Fire Sign of Leo.

And there's an exceptional stellium of inner planets conjunct within a 5-point stellium of Aries. These are in conjunction with Hitchens' North Node in Aries. This means that this guy is meant to assert himself in this life as a free speaking (Mercury), free loving (Venus) spirit (Sun, ego).

And something that interests me as far as the progressions go is that he has Mercury combust the Sun. This means that Mercury's energy gets eclipsed by the Sun's heat (ego) which is an interesting aspect for a writer to have to deal with, especially a critic. And it's even more interesting because Mercury has gone retrograde by progression in its own sign of Gemini (Communications) since 1989. Interesting that this year is when Hitchens removed himself from Communist party which would have required a huge shift in thinking and communications, not to mention neighborhoods.

He then began to talk about his Atheism. God doesn't exist.

He is now complaining about how women aren't funny. Interesting the common theme of things falling off of their pedestals with him. A man with all that Aries will have to contend with an abnormal amount of Idealism associated with Fire. He also might not really be able to sit still long enough to listen to a woman tell a joke.

Hitchens' Mercury will turn direct by progression around 2012-13. He's probably a bit burned out right now on all this talkie talk. He may finally be able to write a novel or a screenplay or something that's he's always wanted to do. He is said to have quit his smoking habit but is still a serious drinking problem and no wonder. He may sober up, get a liver transplant, and take on the real reason why people need a God in their lives, and that is to spiritually defend themselves against the allopathic medical profession. Hey, maybe he'll attack the Medical Profession ... no, not at his age. Whew, that Lilith in Pisces, sign of the addictions.

Okay, so back to Lilith. I wrote about the NCGR lecture here which is not the most flattering presentation of these great astrologers. The astrologer I heard was Antonia Langsdorff. I think I commented on how "funny" her presentation was. Odd, she is funny and She is very much a She. I seem to remember that she gave a brief account of how was her toddler daughter was going through a phase of humping the pillows on her Mother's sofa. She had to explain to the daughter why that was not ok (without repressing daughter's Lilith, of course) and she had to explain to her Mother why her daughter was doing that. And the whole story is very Lilith.

The Moon and Venus represent Women in Astrology but I think it's a very interesting thing to look at the darker side of the female character. The asteroids really portray sides of women that women see themselves as. And so there's Lilith. Lilith doesn't kill herself like Bovary and Karenina. Lilith kills her kids.