She was the first that thence was driven; With her was hell with Eve was heaven
– “Eden’s Bower,” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1869
Lilith – Adam’s First wife, a temptress, a demon, the architect of Man’s fall from Eden. As the embodiment of “the perilous principle in the world being female from the first,”* she has captivated writers and artists since the dawn of civilization. Her image has become standardized, traditionally cast as a woman of supreme beauty, an un-aging seductress ominously entangled with the Serpent and the Tree. Yet Canadian painter Jon Tobin has envisioned a new Lilith – a psychological being and a woman of raw, primal emotion, journeying through darkness, as much tormented by her inner demons as humanity is by her deception.
Tobin’s Lilith is introspective. As she ages, she becomes increasingly aware of her true self. The blindfold present in each image in the series represents self-contemplation as well as her blindness to the havoc she wreaks. She is also carnal and raw – a “woman in exile who has returned to her body/ as one would return from a country on the other side of the Sun.”**
“The Lilith Series,” an ongoing study of the character, visualizes the artist’s personal interpretation of the Lilith Myth in the style that is signature Jon Tobin. The artist is known for his ethereal canvases that pulsate with internal energy, and Lilith emerges out of Tobin’s autographic palate of subdued hues, masterfully manipulated to create startling contrasts and tactile depth in darkness. The palate ultimately harmonizes to create a ghostly figure of Lilith that is mysterious, captivating, and haunting.
Tobin studied Fine Art and French-Canadian Literature at University of Waterloo. Besides serving on the Board of Directors of the Waterloo Regional Arts Council, Tobin teaches aspiring artists and lectures on the techniques of “tactile media.” His paintings have been widely exhibited at galleries in Toronto, Montreal, and his hometown of Kitchener and collectors have been quick to recognize the sublime yet subtle beauty of Tobin’s artistic vision.
*Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Correspondence of 21 April, 1870.
** “femme en exil revenant dans son corps/ comme on revient de loin/ de l’autre pays/ du soleil” from Michel Camus’ “Hymne a Lilith: La femme double.”
Meet me in the Drawing Room 
Lilith and the Secret of Tones
The ancient lore speaks of Lilith the foul
Sweet Sumerian, screeching night owl
Seeking dames of a feather
Casting sound spells, flocking together
Misty sirens hear them sing
We hear them all as our ears ring
Some of us fall upon the rocky beach
Some to flight beyond ocean’s reach
Mirror, mirror, oh mirror ball
Who is the fairest of them all?
Oh, but Sarah, lovely princess pure
Her voice the clearest, most dearest lure
In the rhyme of time, Lilith flies
Again and again reborn in disguise
Soft, gentle, as if to further
Something hidden within her worth her
The dream, the hope, the bidden foe
All man’s glory in the glow
Yet watch, for there is a chance of slight peace
As in McDonald’s tome of a beast
Oh better the whole story be told
And everyone be wiser, young and old
Watch, listen, feel the bold tone
You will be the rock…. or turned to stone
Stoned by Medusa, she herself did call
Her names were many before the fall
Adam’s first, or was it the moon’s child?
Tugged along tide, wet with ocean’s smile
Was she neutral with the angel’s Holy Grail
Or quite complicit with Samael’s tale?
Templars have wondered for generations past
To the present, the future, a reciprocal impasse
Androgyny’s children, the touch of orphan’s saint
Giving solace to those fumbling in ecstatic faint
Alchemic swirls of the aqua permanence
The philosophers gem surfacing to dance
Where is the treasure lost, hidden now-
Off the coast, in Oak Island’s frothy maw?
Even Lilith knows not where
The White Lady of Rosslyn keeps her chair….
In Rosslyn’s castle, and Holy Chapel Choir
Drifts the tone in stone of everyone’s desire
Played in the mist, along River Esk’s glen
Old Scotland, New Scotland, she taunts all men
With a treasure, it never fails to mesmerize
If one whispers just right by truth to wise
Some even say Lilith herself will appear
As the holy light, St Clair, so clear
Oh, but that may be the forgone illusion
The lighted law that leads to delusion
The cup that is full but never doth flows
Drawn in and out, pretending to glow
Aye, careful then, watch and learn
Forever her rhymes twist to turn
When you believe a part of you
Begs to love all…. of her crystal blue
Interesting poem .Who is the author ?