Natal Wheel › Guides › Aspects › Lilith and Ceres
Lilith and Ceres · the refusal to nurture
Lilith in aspect to Ceres
Ceres provides and Lilith will not be conscripted. Together they mark the place where a person declines the caring role that everyone assumed they would take: the woman who will not mother, the child who will not become the parent's parent. The refusal is usually judged harshly and is usually correct. It is also rarely explained, since the explanation would require saying out loud what the family has arranged itself around not saying, and the person has generally decided that is not their job either. The judgement comes fastest from whoever was expecting to be looked after.
What each body brings
| Lilith | the untamed and the refused |
|---|---|
| Ceres | nurture and the cycle of loss and return |
The soft aspects (trine or sextile)
Trine or sextile, care is given on stated terms and withheld without guilt. The person is generous and entirely unbudgeable about the limits, which others learn to respect once they have tested them once. Testing it once is usually enough, and the limit does not move afterwards. What makes it workable is that the terms are stated rather than discovered, which spares everybody a great deal.
The hard aspects (square or opposition)
Square or opposition, obligation and refusal fight. Care is given resentfully or withdrawn abruptly, and both are reactions to having been assigned the job. Saying no at the outset avoids the whole cycle, and the reason it does not happen is that the assignment is usually made silently and accepted the same way. A refusal at the outset is heard as a preference; a refusal after two years is heard as a betrayal.
The conjunction
Conjunct, nourishment and refusal are the same subject. It is a difficult placement in a family that expects service, and a clarifying one for anybody who has been quietly carrying everyone. Families judge it harshly; it is generally the right call anyway. It also gives permission, quietly, to everyone else in the family who wanted to say the same thing.
Reading it in a chart
The orb settles how strongly this shows: a contact within a degree is a defining feature of a chart, one at the edge of the orb is a colouring. The signs the two planets occupy change the manner, the houses change the arena, and a third planet touching either of them can change the reading entirely.