Welcome to Lilith Speaks the podcast with me your host Emily Tuck for those who are ready to embrace the power that Lilith brings on the crossroads for those who are ready to say yes, to themselves, to life, and to the possibilities it offers.
Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of Lilith Speaks. I’m your host, Emily Tuck, and today, we’re going to spend a little bit of time talking about Lilith herself, who she’s known as biblically, mostly, and a little bit of how she’s interpreted within myth and legend, or how her story has been lost along the way.
So if you’re interested in the historical aspects of Lilith and her story, and this is a short episode for you, and in the show notes, I’ll put a few references that I used when I was researching a little more over the years, if you want to go and read a little more, or find out a little more about her.
So to me, Lilith is a lost feminine archetype. She’s the access to the divine feminine. And obviously, she’s sometimes known as the Archetype of Lilith, and sometimes I refer to her as the Goddess Lilith. Historically, or Biblically, she is known, or can be referred to as the first wife of Adam. So a lot of people know the story of Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden. It’s in Genesis, and that speaks of Adam, who is born first, and then Eve is born out of his rib.
Well, originally, there was a version of the story, where men and women were created on the same day, from the same mud, and Lilith was the woman that was created equal, so created in the same way and created on the same day, as opposed to he who was created afterwards, and from his rib and therefore subservient to Adam.
Now, that piece of information alone is quite an interesting one for me, as I was finding out more about Lilith, because it completely changes the relationship and the narrative for men and women in relationships. Now, whether that is in romantic relationships or equalities within projects, or work that they did together, or anything really, it speaks to them speaks of that yin and yang balance where the masculine has something to offer. Feminine has something to offer, but it is equal.
Also, as there’s been lots of different waves of femininity as it’s been trying to make its way through whether or not that femininity is women trying to be like men, or whether it’s women trying to make sure that men are kind of suppressed as a compensation for the years of the patriarchal viewpoint.
I find it interesting, that it Lilith and Adam are created on the same day by the same method. They’re equal to there’s no power over in either direction, as far as I’m concerned with the energy of that history. So when you look a little bit deeper into this, what I found is that Biblical scholars do acknowledge that there were two very different accounts, two very different versions of the Genesis story, the creation story within Genesis.
The first one is dated approximately 950 BC, and is referred to as the Yahwist version and the other one that is universally kind of recognized or mostly kind of acknowledged, because obviously, there were a few intermitted versions, but the one that’s mostly acknowledged, is known as the Priestly Codex or the Priestly writings, and they’re around 440 BC.
One tells the story of Adam and Eve, while the other tells the story of Adam and Lilith. And so I, you know, found that really interesting that even biblical scholars acknowledged there are two versions that they cannot reconcile, and they can’t seem to make fit together.
So to me that says that one version was written and then discarded at some point, because it obviously didn’t suit maybe what was the agenda of the time or what what was the message that wants to be given out?
And so the version that we’re left with and the version that we know, is that one of the subservient Eve, who was more than happy to accept a subservient role while Lilith, perversion per story is that, having been born equal she then decided to or haven’t been created equal. She then decided that she wanted that equality, to be mirrored in what she did next, and how she conducted herself in the World.
And so both, she wouldn’t accept that subservient and submissive position when it came to lovemaking, but also, in terms of having her voice heard, or having a say in things, she also wasn’t someone who would go along with whatever Adam wanted.
And as a result, it became a massive power struggle between Adam and Lilith, because it didn’t reconcile itself initially. And eventually, depending on which version of Lilith’s story that you come across, she, either spoke the secret name of God and was released from the Garden of Eden and left the Garden of Eden of her own will, her own free will, or she was cast out for refusing to be subservient.
Either way, the version that you hear, the result that you get is that Lilith, left the Garden of Eden. And she ultimately left or was asked to leave, because she wanted to use her voice, she wanted to speak as freely and she wanted to be heard, which I think speaks volumes of how women have, are or are not acknowledged within what they’re trying to say.
And when I think about the people that I’ve worked with other women I’ve come across who are still finding it hard to find their voice, even myself doing this podcast was a very, very scary concept, because I would need to speak my truth. And I would need to put it out to the wider World.
And there are people that I really do want to hear this work. And there are people that are a little, oh, my God, it’s really scary to put it out there. So even that, and we carry that truth and that story, in our DNA, you carry that in our DNA as men and as women as people and how we interact with one another.
For me, the Lilith version of the story where she leaves, and she wants that equality speaks to me of the complementary nature of men and women, and creates a relationship template of equality between men and women, and a new narrative for relationships and marriages and intimacy that doesn’t maybe has historically not existed, or one that both partners have maybe been seeking but didn’t have a template for so they couldn’t create it for themselves. And so I find this story, a really, I find it a really, really interesting thing to study.
Now, in terms of her Mythology, Lilith actually has kind of been pushed away, because it was obviously the story of Genesis, Lilith has then been sidelined and pushed away into, I guess, Jewish myth. So there’s these mythical stories of her, and how she went around trying to create and to what she would then do, is essentially she’d get all these versions of the myth. And the things they have in common are things like she would go around and in trying to, she would devour children, or she would come to people who are creative and sort of overtaken them. And it’s been really interesting to research that side of things, to find that no matter where else you find her, she’s always depicted as the downfall of man.
Or if somebody in the TV show has her name, it’s always a bad character. She’s always the person that is going to bring about the breakdown of maybe a relationship, she might be somebody who is going to destroy creative projects, or the children, you know, to create the legacy that you’re trying to create in the World, the children.
So it becomes that now, it was almost a free for all on her and what she who she had to be because she had to be demonized. Once she’d stood up for herself and wanted to use her voice and demanded equality back in Genesis, she now needed to be demonized. And they’ve gone out of their way to do so going out of their way to demonize her. And there’s a version of the legend where she leaves and she goes off and is with Samual and therefore is kind of in engages, all that kind of demonic a negative idea of what she gets up to once she leaves Eden.
But I find it fascinating because ultimately, all she wanted to do was have that equality and use her voice and speak up for that. What was her equal contribution her Yin to Adams Yang, because of the agenda of the time or the biblical ideas at the time, that couldn’t be allowed to stay at a story, that couldn’t be the narrative that we have coming down in our DNA.
So that is the little that I researched around her that kind of pulled together say that this episode wasn’t too long, but also let you learn a little bit about her history, and where her story had got lost, and why it was lost. Because I think it’s important to understand that as we go through learning about the power that she brings on the crossroads, which is next week’s episode, and as I go on to hopefully talk to you about different aspects that she impacts as the episodes go by, it’s interesting to see that to realize maybe why we have trouble connecting to those areas, or why we feel like we want to, but somehow we don’t have a template for it, or where we feel like we may be creating it from scratch.
Actually, there is a template out there, there is a coordinate, and it’s the goddess and archetype. And because I find often that because there is no template or idea of who Lilith is, because she’s this question mark in our understanding, rather than something that we know, as a fully formed female archetype, or a female kind of role model that we can use.
I find that when I’m both for myself, but also when I’ve been sharing it with my friends, with the women in my life, with even with the men in my life, and with my clients, that often the depiction of left for us can look very different. And by that, I mean, if I was to bring Lilith forward, and I would say what does she look like? Or does she wear? How do I feel her close by? How do I feel like I’m embodying The Woman or I’m embodying.
For different women, it could look very, very different, because it’s the thing that makes us feel or the way that we feel empowered, the way that we feel, kind of that we can make these powerful choices that we are stepping into who we can be.
And for each person, the presentation of what that would look like can look very, very different. For me, it always has a cross between a kind of vintage clothes, I always when I feel him coming forward, I’m more inclined to wear those clothes. Or I might be more inclined to buy something from 1940s.
Other people have presented her very, very differently. And they say, Well, for me, what it looks like is that actually, I can have some fun with the way that I present myself in the World. I often find that when I start working with people, I found it in myself and I found in others, often the presentation can look a little dark, because there is a power in the darkness, there is a power in that presentation. And so often, they suddenly start wearing different clothes, or they start wearing maybe a little bit darker makeup, they might go through a phase where they’re wearing a very red, very rich kind of red colors and that sort of thing. Because the power kind of draws that forward. So you often find that this on the sporting have a dark now red nail varnish, or that they’ve taken more time over their appearance. And it’s got this kind of Rouge noir feel about it.
I went through a phase like that, and it almost evolved right the way through and it’s now become like a silver and dark green and kind of gothy the green so that the presentation can be unique for every woman. So what I have often done with people is to say now that I’ve explained who Lilith is, historically, maybe biblically,
Who was she to you? What does she look like to you? And I often get my clients to do a kind of collage and a visual, go out and find pictures and images that speak of that power and that kind of presentation. What does it look like to you? And then we can work with that presentation and go, okay, how can you bring that into your life. So that becomes a way that we find out who we fill in the gaps for ourselves.
We as women, and we as people working with couples, fill in those gaps ourselves. How do we know that it was present was the changes that you see in the person was the presentation that she brings to you? What’s the decisions that you’d make differently? So that can be really interesting watching people, feel it in their bones, feel it in their DNA and fill in the gaps, so that her story is still told and she’s still presented in the World.
And I always enjoy watching women bring that forward. When I’m sharing Lilith with them, it becomes a natural progression, which is a really beautiful thing to see.
So that’s the end of this week’s episode. I just wanted to spend a little bit of time introducing you to the history of her and how she presents. The next week’s episode is you’ll notice this week there’s been to next week they’ll also be too because I want to be able to share the Water element the Five Elements which is an upcoming episode So, I want to be able to share that on the solstice, which is the week of the twin commencing the 20th because the solstice is the 21st of December.
So for this week, and next week there will be two episodes. And then after that there’ll be one a week, unless people request it differently or have things that they want to know more about and I’ll adjust the schedule. So that we to this week to next week, and then after that, there’ll be one a week, finding out a little bit more about Lilith each week.
Thank you for joining me this week on Lilith speaks the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed making it. To find out more or if you feel you want to connect, you can find me at EmilyTuck.com. Or you can join my free mighty networks called The Woman spoken or life with Lilith. Or feel free to connect and follow me on LinkedIn and just search Emily Tuck. I can’t wait to see you there and share more about how we can bespoke your life with Lilith