Belle 2

Lilith

Lilith’s origins are Babylonian, she re-appears in the Bible as Adam’s first wife, but is banished childless after claiming equality with him. She is portrayed as a snake and as such returns as the temptress. A demon, a stealer of husbands and children, an evil beguiling witch. Depending on the age and culture, fear of Lilith waxes and wanes. Generally the more sexually repressed the society, the more she is seen as demon and servant of Satan. The less mankind is at harmony with his female nature the more demonic Lilith becomes, conversely a man at peace with his ‘feminine’ subconscious sees Lilith as his muse. Residing in shadows she is the unconscious, the female nature within man - his muse but also his fears and on occasion nightmares. The unconscious mind is unaware of time, feels rather than reasons, and perhaps has roots extending so far into the past that it is pre-human, pre-sexual, androgynous, eternal. Down, down into the depths where everything and everything lies beneath the surface, the unconscious is not aware of good and evil, God is not necessarily good and Satan is not necessarily bad.
Associated with the moon’s dark phase, Lilith drifts in and out of men’s affairs under various guises, Hecate, Diana, Persephone, the white goddess; she is the moon that is there but cannot be seen, her moonlight shadow stretches over all the women in this series.