How I'm Channeling Now
Lilith in Leo & New Reading Style
In the summer of 2022, I forayed into something I can only call “active channeling,” in which I’d turn up on the dance floor, activate my “gate” and welcome Venus to move through me. The results were spectacular, triggering a leveling up of my sexual stock.
That was August: Leo season. We’re now exactly six months into the future, days after the Leo full moon, in the depths of Aquarius — in the inverse, the opposite, the shadow. If I was contacting Venus in the hot thrill of the summer, who am I channeling now?
You probably saw her coming, screeching and hurling hellfire from the cracked apocrypha of the Old Testament: the Goblin Queen herself: Lilith. I recently wrote for NYLON about Lilith’s 2023 move into Leo. The supreme avatar of abjection, exiled sexuality and reclaimed power invoked the “bad mommy” archetype during 2022’s reproductive rights backlash blowout. Now, she’s in the sign of affirmed talent. In the article, I invoke Norma Desmond, NPD legend Jenna Maroney, Valerie Cherish and even Demi Moore’s Madison Lee, from Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, all embodying Lilith in Leo. These are the grand dames who refuse to go out gently, just because the world has tired of their shtick.
But since writing the piece, it’s gotten more personal. I made direct contact with Lilith yesterday (not the first time), welcoming her into the placid dreamscape of my mind. First there was the bullroar, then the screaming, then a meltdown that would make the Dark Phoenix look restrained. I let her melt my flesh, devour my bones, and swallow every piece of me. Then we got to talking.
I needed to confront my death drive, my desire to annihilate, humiliate and burn down everything around me. I wanted to get to the core of the Leonine theatricality at play here: the desire to destroy myself for attention, to make myself a burning effigy so that the ones who originally violated, shamed and muzzled me would pay. My revenge all these years has never been unleashed on them, but on myself: through financial anorexia, sexual exhibitionism, relationship and career sabotage and immunological despair.
Anyways, Lilith wanted to take the attack from the stage directly to the source. But I refused. It’s not possible. So I asked if we could make a deal, in the spirit of her tour in Leo: Help me channel this savage retribution into my art. And let’s make buckets of money, while we’re at it. We signed it in blood. I got to writing immediately after, on a new project. It terrifies and thrills me. Watch this space, I suppose…
That’s the dark femme. What about the demonic masculine? I’m now in my fourth month of a deranged bodybuilding bulking plan, the type which would make my vegan, sustainability-obsessed Rabbi disown me forever. It feels unstable and dangerous, like I’m in some sort of distorted, circuit queen remake of Rosemary’s Baby.
But I can’t stop. Whether it’s my own disdain for the trappings of 5’9 twink frailness, some backwards desire to feel “strong” and “protected” from further abuse (good luck with that) or a fetish for balooned male proportions developed through the tactile overstimulation of X-Men action figures throughout childhood, I want more. I’ve been rewatching the greatest hits from Schwarzenegger’s steroid-surging ’80s and early-’90s sci-fi oeuvre (which is largely untouchable): Predator (cathartic), Commando (fun), Terminator (brilliant), The Running Man (prescient), Total Recall (genius), and my beloved Terminator 2. Why can’t I have a powerful body? Why must I consign myself to some stale narrative of weakness and intellectual fragility? What if I can’t help but double dip into dangerous dysmorphia?
I called on my #1 deity Dionysus, the messiah of rapture, and surrendered to my inner devil. I gave him my body, to let him distort and remake, a vessel of hedonism, power and beauty. It’s another stupid reversal, but I know that when this journey is done (and thanks to my recent reparative bottoming surgery, paid for by Obamacare), when I’m a slab of stacked testosterone, I’ll be able to get on all fours with a freedom I’ve never known, and embrace my infernal feminine. I won’t be afraid to hide it anymore.
And beyond that, it’s a balance to all these gates opening, this contact with other realms. My guides, more than anything, want me to be in my body and enjoying it. None of them get to occupy this plane of existence, get to eat greek yogurt or squeeze tushes. Whatever it takes to bring me here, I have to double down.
There’s more news on the channeling front: I’m offering a new kind of reading called PLANETARY CHANNELING. Instead of the more traditional chart process, I get on the phone with you and have your planets, asteroids and mythic archetypes (including Lilith) speak directly through me. It’s kind of an Akashic astrology moment, which I’m actively developing as we go. I’ve done it with my close circle of friends and it’s been full body nearly every time. If you’re down for a wild new ride, use the code LILITHINLEO to book a planetary channeling reading on my site.
See you on this side,
David Odyssey