Lilith vs. Chhinnamasta
I mean just look at her. Wouldn't you want to be this cool? floating in a red lotus, feeding the nectar of the gods to your loved ones? Oh come on I'm just playing. She's absolutely terrifying. But no other Goddess screams badass more than this ---(maybe Kali).
The imagery is there. She's clearly a deity of Mars' blood and Venus' knees. What isn't so clear is why? What makes her Marslike?
Mars:
She's not bloodthirsty. She's sick of it. She's the one who says, "we're sinking this ship together, and we're all going down together!" (She's a goddess after my own Aries Moon heart).
What I'm saying is she's what happens when tolerance, law and order reach their breaking points and turn into madness. In fact, in Tibet she's known as Uchema.
Uchema was a daughter of royalty, who was sentenced to be beheaded for her transgressions. Sound familiar? Here's the catch. She didn't leave "the Garden" to "find herself." She took responsibility, said, fuck you, Dad, I'll do the damn thing myself! Chopped off her own head and paraded it around town.
Venus:
So there's an interesting thing here about voyeurism. We're all familiar with the walk of shame. And this type of prying is very pluto-venus. It's like when you crane your neck at an accident to get a good look, but you tell yourself, "oh, the horror!" to keep human.
Keeping human is great, and prying is great too. Kids need teachers to pry them to study, husbands need women to pry them to emote. But what else needs prying?
The magical clam! Ah, we struck the vein! Clams are a symbol of Venus!
Would you look at that? Our second planet finds itself at the knees of Chhinamasta. And I say the knees, specifically, for a reason.
It's not hard to imagine Chhinamasta as a nice girl, doing the housewife chores before life fucked her up! You might not think makeup, dolling, and attracting suitors is a chore but it is and it breaks a lot of women. Look at the fascination with cougar culture and anti-aging in America.
A second Venus aspect in this deity is that of Taurus and the neck. She suffers unspeakably like millions of people every day. She takes the pain, she suffers silently until one day she bursts into madness.
So again we see that she represents humanity pushed to its outer limits by pressure and force. You want to see me? You'll see all of me. Another Aries motto.
Saturn:
So a lesser known association would be the Trinity aspect. But first let's talk humility. Not only is she severing her head as a paradoxical act of defiance and penance, but she's feeding herself and two others. This is a humbling aspect seen in Saturn. Saturn is the one who levels the playing field. In the words of Kubrick:
Let it be known, King George III reigned from 1760-1820. When did Pluto move into Capricorn, (the ruled sign of Saturn), in the 18th century? The 1760s!
So we have Saturn, the great equalizer. To be equal one needs to be fair. Fairness comes through mediation. Where we have two sides battling for supremacy we have one middle-ground. Not only do we have Saturn, now we have Libra, and Mercury; the Thrice-Great.
Compassion:
Lastly, we have the one that alludes me. The aspect of Compassion.
If you were to tell me Chhinamasta was a compassionate deity, I'd be pissed! But that's what they say she is. I can't wrap my head around it, but I'd guess Carl Jung would know.
Maybe it has to do with the duality-mirror of the astral world; the catharsis of seeing something gruesome, and the soul translating or sublimating it in reality into a positive.
Maybe the relief comes to her like it comes to a family of three sitting together at dinner time to hash out in uncomfortable silence the fight they had an hour earlier; maybe it's the empathy that creeps in.
Maybe it's the relief of others seeing the real you. I have no clue about this one. But clearly, ego (and head) detachment make one kinder!
Or, even maybe the reality is that this is her way of expressing motherhood, and in a broader sense the way of mars'/pluto's diurnal motherhood. The mother who speaks to the pain and blood of the unspoken.
Conclusion:
All this to say be a Chhinamasta. The collective western psyche infiltrated us with an idea that we are to be empowered by this dark, slytherin-ass nature, called Lilith, that masquerades itself as "divine feminine." That's not to say it doesn't have its place. It's to say that we see how it isn't working 13 years on when the morality of society is all but dead and decayed like a rusted wheel.
Even the saudis recognize women as arbiters of morality, hence why some Princes have decided to remodel "housewives" as "generation shapers."
Well, what happens when an entire collective of generation shapers identifies with the Jewish, Lamia demonness? You have something that slithers and hisses, lies and contorts, suffocates and twists. Lilith was never a figure to emulate. And we see now in society that she is an image of our lack of accountability, lack of reflection, and even our prostitution of ourselves for pennies on the open internet.
Now, at a time when the Great Shift of the Esoteric Seasons turns to Spring, and the heat of Aries loads up, we have a new model - the model of the fiery Kali, the Fierce Tummo, the Headless Chhinamasta.
It won't be easy. But I for one will enjoy watching the old, weird, watery-slippery Woman slough off like a reptile skin. This is the era of Rebirth and Resurrection, so let's find some new Role models.
