Yesterday, June 21, marks not only the summer solstice, but also the beginning of Cancer month.
If you are a follower or practitioner of Western tropical astrology, you understand that the SEASONS, not the physical constellations, are what we use to mark the start of each of the 12 zodiac months, due to thousands of years of the Earth wobbling off its original alignment with those constellations.
Read THIS BLOG for a new perspective on the energy of the signs by looking at the time of the year that the Sun is passing through them.
So studying Cancer specifically—when it occurs and what’s going on with the season—there’s some interesting irony to be considered.
On the summer solstice, we experience the longest day of the year. The Sun is at its biggest and brightest. But Cancer is ruled by the Moon, who is, of course, the most hidden on this day. How does that make sense?!
The Moon is the ruler of our emotions, our most authentic selves, and the stuff we tend to keep under wraps. In the DARK, get it? ‘Cause the Moon comes out at night? Your Moon sign is an indicator of your pure natural state and how you react to situations internally, even if you don’t necessarily allow those reactions to come out publicly and instead send them through a filter to appear differently for others.
So while the Sun is shining at its brightest, we also need to remember that Ms. Moon, equally as important, is in her deepest and most hidden state, taking a peek at what’s going on in there.
So it really does make sense that this time of the year would correspond to Cancer, because the Moon is also in her comfort zone, hidden deep beneath the covers of night.
The symbol of Cancer is the crab, which, like the Moon, retreats into its shell where it keeps all its secrets.
But what are we supposed to be learning from Cancer and the crab? Well, for starters, how about we let some of that stuff that we’ve kept hidden in our emotional drawers out for some time in the sunlight? What’s the real reason we’ve created a private version of ourselves as a mode of protection—a shell—from our public version?
Sure, we all need some semblance of self-protection. And it can be very comforting and even empowering to maintain a private self where you don’t allow the influence of others to affect your self-image. However, Cancer asks us to sort through it all and see if perhaps “self-protection” is really fear of putting it all out there. And because Cancer and the Moon are the intuits of the zodiac, we are gifted with an intuitive understanding of which things we should continue to keep in our drawers and which things we should find the courage to take out and put on the shelf.
Remember also that Cancer is a cardinal sign—an initiator. Furthermore, the crab moves in a lateral direction, completely differently than the forward motion that we’re used to. We’re asked to move in new directions, originating that movement from a deeper and more intuitive place. On a spiritual level, we can take advantage of the heightened connection with divinity—especially the divine feminine—to be guided on which new directions to take and what parts of ourselves we should bring to light and fully embrace.
So, sure, the crab is ironic. But so is the duality of our life experience in general—feeling and experiencing one thing on the inside and another on the outside. And the message the crab has for us is that we must learn how to bring these two experiences into alignment.