The asteroid Lilith is one of a pantheon of astrological pulse points in a chart—along with Ceres the nurturer, Pallas the wise one, Vesta the guardian of hearth and home, and Juno the wife or partner. These asteroids give us information on ourselves in a more exacting, more determined light than the planets.

To understand what these asteroid placements in our chart mean, we need to look at the mythology behind them. And we must be willing to examine them fully. If we look at the unadorned, politically incorrect, archaic tales, we will at least have a place to start. Then we will see what the story tells us—no frills.

In mythology and folklore, Lilith is the most famous demon goddess of antiquity. Her myth dates back to the time of the stories of Gilgamesh and of the Bible. As the tale unfolds, we find that Lilith was created from sediment to be the first wife of Adam. Once she and Adam got together, she refused to have sexual relations with him in a subservient position. She demanded that they either engage in these activities side by side or with her laying on top. Adam refused, and attempted to force her to have sex with him in the manner he desired. Lilith fled and then became transformed into a she-devil, whereupon she promptly mated with other demons and began to produce demon-children.

Three angels appeared to Lilith to tell her to go back to Adam and when she refused they began to kill her demon offspring. Lilith then ventured forth to kill Adam's children and grandchildren in retaliation and revenge. Parents wrote on the walls of the house a new baby was born to, to prevent Lilith from killing the new arrival.

And that's the story. Now its easy to see in our modern times how this story would be told to prevent women from even thinking about transgressing the unbelievably limiting and oppressive moral climate in which they found themselves. Lilith not wanting to submit to Adam but instead wanting to be equal was her first mistake.

We can see why Lilith became the vengeful evil women she was, but regardless of her motives, she did turn to evil. When Lilith appears in our horoscope, she is, in fact, showing us where in ourselves we hold a place of vengefulness, a place of where we are willing to become as evil as those around us.

Lilith is a dark place in our charts, and to know where that darkness comes from is as important as knowing where it can take us—and how, and when. First, the sign in which Lilith appears will determine how Lilith energy is expressed. The house is where it will manifest itself. The aspects, which must be very small (a 1 or 2 degree orb only), will show what planets are involved in our Lilith drama.

Our own charts notwithstanding, knowing how our Lilith placement relates to us through synastry with others is of primary importance. If Lilith is directly on your partner's Venus, you'd know straight away that in a love relationship, you could be put in a position of being made to feel unworthy and need to be on your guard. It could also tell you that the person you are involved with will hit all your trigger spots, and that revenge and rage could be part of the equation. As you sink deeper into the relationship, you need to be very sure you are making yourself clear in all commutations in this relationship and not allowing your emotions to run wild.

Dealing with our own dark side is never easy, and having Lilith energy show up in the 10th house of career could make us want to hide away forever. But conflict like that must be faced. If you can be pushed to extremes in your career path, it is important to know that. Should you ever be placed in a position where you work under someone who does not respect you—who sabotages your work and views you as a threat—you may be prone to rage of the highest order. It would be good to be aware of that. Should you ever be provoked, justly or unjustly, you'll need to be able to keep your vengefulness under control.

The "eye for an eye" maxim, no matter how appealing it may be to us, does not give us back what we want: our highest good. Revenge may be the most tempting emotion you have, and it may be something you have to deal with every day. But if you are trying to operate with your own best interests in mind, then it is yourself you need to think about—not the other person or situation.

Just as it is important to know how our nurturing self is most activated, so it is important to know how our vengeful self is activated and under what circumstances. We all experience rage, and rage at being treated unfairly is the most potent.

One final thought: I like the entry for sediment found in a dictionary, "solid fragments of inorganic or organic material that come from the weathering of rock and are carried and deposited by wind, water, or ice." It's quite poetic, in a way. I think of all the years that had to pass to weather the rock to grind it and chip bits off of it, and then the elements of the universe, the air, the water, perhaps even fire, taking these bits and bringing them down to earth, to the ground. And there sprang Lilith.

Lilith combines all of that plus metamorphosis into all that we have beneath our skin, the bits that didn't wear away, that stayed alive and true about us. They are still there. We need to acknowledge them and face them, to make them our own. In that process we become real, not just a stick figure drawn in someone else's notebook.

Lilith—along with Ceres and Pallas and Juno and Vesta—can shore our sense of self together into a tapestry that is written with our own names, the most sacred and highest, which are the ones we have created for ourselves.