Notes On Cancer Season
— BY COSMIC SHRIMP
Cancer season takes us back to our roots to honour them, and to give thanks to our care takers for their unique offering of nurturance.
To embody Cancer, notice how you attune to others’ needs, and how you instinctively protects what’s most precious and vulnerable to you. This could be pets, friends, family, clients, plants, the body… any form of life which feels sacred to you. Cancer is where we take on extra emotional responsibility, feeling the cuts and scrapes on the knees of our dear ones as if it were on our own skin. It’s when someone’s happiness means we can breathe out with relief, and when someone’s sadness feels like our biggest failure. It’s us searching for a way to make it better, frantically grasping for band-aids and chocolates, presents and hugs, soft blankets and warm kisses.
Cancer asks us to reflect on upbringing and the role our parents played in forming our ability to look after ourselves – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It may not have always been in the most loving of ways, but often our parents shortcomings plant the seed for our greatest strengths to grow.
On the other hand, if we’re raising, protecting, and nurturing others, Cancer asks us for the possibility of a gradual but deep understanding that no guardian nor childhood can be perfect – mistakes will be made and suffering will be caused – and preventing the hurts of the world reaching our loved ones actually robs them of personal development, which must come at their own pace and in their own way.
Cancer acts as a catalyst for emotional change and growth – it’s a vehicle for emotional life force to pass through and initiate emotional maturity, raising something from one form to another, and providing the environment for both the self and others to flourish. It asks us to both protect and to surrender: protect within the natural balance of life, and let go when it’s right for your treasure to be released.
Embodying Cancer asks for emotional stillness. There is a lot of internal movement during this time, and Cancer performs best when inner fears and critics are shushed to make way for a larger intuitive perspective. With this information, we know exactly what to do and how to best provide and care. We may channel pain, sadness, grief, and anger. Let it out through the body and imagine it floating away.
Whether you find yourself taking on too much emotional responsibility, or avoiding it entirely, Cancer season is an invitation to sense if there’s a balance you can strive for. Even though it’s a sign with homebody tendencies, nothing makes Cancer happier than launching others and itself out into the world.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
Where in your life have you over-incubated yourself?
What are your experiences of parenting or being parented?
What do you feel the most protective of?
What are you scared to lose?
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