I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, ever since learning that my soul name was Lilith.
The name “Lilith” means “Of the Night.” I have tried, in the past, to explain why my soul would choose a name that means that particular thing, either by using Lilith’s albinism to make it sound like shi had to only ever be outside during the nighttime, or by claiming shi was simply nocturnal.
There’s just one slight problem with both of these ideas: they don’t match up with what I know about Lilith.
In Lilith’s memories, for instance, most of the things shi engages in are done in broad daylight. I have a memory of standing talking to some local humans from a nearby human town, in a farm field. I am naked save for a wide-brimmed hat, my fellow Draconians are naked, and the humans are clothed, and it’s as casual as can be. And it’s a bright, beautiful, very sunny day. The only hint of me having trouble with the sun is the aforementioned hat that I’m wearing, as the wide brim offers protection from getting burned, to an extent. If Lilith couldn’t handle the sun, shi wouldn’t be so easily outside, in the nude save for the hat, enjoying the sunshine along with everyone else.
Hir people do live underground, but they are reptilian, meaning that the sun is something they crave. While warm-blooded instead of cold-blooded, my species’ body temperature is affected by the environment. Science calls our thermal strategy “Mesothermic,” as it has a base internal body temperature regulated by our metabolism, but at the same time the weather and environment also play a part.
This is important because while my species lives underground, we are still lovers of the sun, and if Lilith is nocturnal, then so would the rest of the entire species. Yet my memories of Lilith and hir people suggest that they love being outdoors during the day, like most reptilians do.
But there is another possibility that I have only recently considered. In my memories from various past lives that I have access to, I’ve noticed a pattern when it comes to conflict. Anashai’El, the Seraph, openly opposed a scorched-earth war against another species, and her open opposition earned her a false accusation (and stealthy conviction) of treason. The people she sought to save from extinction ended up winning anyway, because that same Seraph suicided, was born into the body of a member of the targeted species, and became a trusted warrior and led the charge to fight when the Seraphim came to wipe them out. Being a former Seraph, she knew how to kill the Seraphim, and she and her fellows slew thirteen of the 20 that came to wipe out their home world.
Lilith hirself fought against Inanna of House Enlil, and while shi initially won, Inanna went crying back home to her grandfather and he came and threatened Lilith’s people with utter destruction if Lilith didn’t step down from hir position. Lilith did so, and Inanna began to immediately spread lies and rumors about hir to make hir seem like a horrible monster, torturing and killing any who dared tell the truth about the real Lilith.
And in my own current lifetime, while some fights have certainly been successful, most haven’t, and I’ve paid a heavy price for losing those fights. One conflict, though, involved my step-father and his overbearing cruelty. I got so fed up with his lies, his manipulation, his constant badgering of me to be useful while simultaneously getting mad at me for actually trying to do what he wanted, that I ran away using my car.
He got mad, told me not to do it again, didn’t change his behavior. Eventually I did it again. This time he told me that if I took my car one more time he’d have me sent to prison for grand theft auto because his name was on the title and thus the car, which my money had paid for, was actually his property. Then he strutted around like he’d just won the game, that he had total control over my life and there was nothing I could do to make him stop it.
So I ran away a third time... on a 10-speed Schwinn he’d bought at a garage sale. I took a backpack with me, and decided that being a hobo collecting pop cans for the nickel deposit was better than living under his iron rule. A little under a week later he begged me to come home, promised he’d never abuse me again, and indeed did change his behavior after I came back.
It didn’t last, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that when I openly defied him, he became dominant, but when I adapted and found a different way to defy him, one that he couldn’t threaten me with prison over, I won the day.
In all of these situations, open defiance of those in power ended up destroying my hopes. Only when I became sneaky, going behind their back, using knowledge of their own weaknesses against them, did I succeed.
I don’t think my soul called itself Lilith when I was the Seraph Anashai’El. I think the name came later, though still earlier than the lifetime I know of as “Lilith.” “Of The Night” can mean a nocturnal entity, of course, but it also can mean someone who uses the tools of the night, such as stealth, subterfuge, dirty fighting, and constantly keeping one’s opponents guessing. It isn’t by accident that my favorite classes in video games are rogues or assassins. When I fight openly, as a “courageous” individual, I know that there will be hell for me to pay for doing so, even if (and I dare say ESPECIALLY if) my cause is just. I only truly win when I avoid direct confrontation and stick to the shadows... when I stick to the “night,” as it were... and strike when my opponents aren’t expecting it. I suspect that this is why I chose the name “Lilith,” long ago. The other explanations were all clunky and difficult to believe. This one, though, makes sense. I am a practical individual, and Lilith is also a practical individual. My soul generally prefers to mean what shi says and to say what shi means. When that doesn’t work, shi improvises. When violent people start thumping their chests, shi backs off and waits until shi can strike from the shadows.
Perhaps the most important distinction of who I am, is that I like to be left alone. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am a sociable person. It’s just that people tend to be difficult to be around due to how different I am from them. I have no problem being by myself in life, so long as other people respect that. My lifetimes that I have access to span more than 150 quadrillion years. That’s 10 million times longer than our current universe has existed, give or take a few thousand eons. The memories I have access to are limited only to a few, and they all have to do with how I handled controversy. As Tribal Ina’ana*, my family was slaughtered and I sought to rebuild using myself and my firstborn son, but was murdered while in labor. As Anashai’El, I was betrayed by the very people I called colleague. In the third, also named Ina’ana*, I led a people to battle against overwhelming odds and, with knowledge I kept from my previous lifetime, we were victorious. As Lilith, I fought against a greedy and self-entitled “goddess” and won, only to have my victory be snatched away due to her grandfather’s meddling. And in this current life, the only victories I’ve had have been the result of “cowardly” things that are considered “dishonorable” such as sneaking away in the night on a bicycle so my step-father couldn’t have me arrested. Any time I’ve done the “honorable” thing I’ve ended up regretting it, including almost dying of black mold in my lungs in late 2011 when I behaved honorably, and demanded to my step-father’s face that he be the man he always said he was and take responsibility for his own evils that he had committed.
“Only a fucking coward hides” says every video game villain who has an army at his back and who knows that if you do the “honorable” thing, he and his buddies can kill you with ease. If there’s one lesson my soul has learned the hard way, it’s that doing things the “honorable” way is a quick route to getting yourself killed. Being a practical soul, it’s not difficult at all to see why I would have chosen “Lilith” as my name so many eons ago. The only methods that have worked for me are the dishonorable, scary, dark ones that are “of the night.”
Lilith likes being out in the sun, provided it isn’t too hot outside, and provided that the day isn’t too overly bright. I am the same way. I am actually scared to be outside during the nighttime, though I imagine Lilith is more comfortable with it. Ultimately, though, the name wasn’t chosen out of love for the nighttime. It was chosen, rather, for the practicality of it. I am “of the night” in the sense that I must do things that bullies consider “dishonorable” in order to thrive.
On a side note, it’s interesting how it’s only “dishonorable” when I do it, but never when they do it.
~Lilith
*Two things about the name “Ina’ana”
1) While it sounds and is spelled similarly to the name “Inanna,” the meaning is completely different. “Inanna” is Sumerian for “Lady of the Sky,” while “Ina’ana” is Seraphic/Hebrew for “Healing and Favored Grace.”
2) I am uncomfortable, often in the extreme, with using either version of the name, due to my association of it with the Sumerian goddess, an individual who has earned my hatred a thousand times over for attempted domination of me, her domination over the people I loved, and her lies that she told about me which are still present and widely believed to this very day. Inanna and my step-father have a lot in common. I celebrated when I read my step-father’s obituary a couple years ago, which should give you a fair idea of the kind of hatred I have for the so-called “goddess.”
