Cancer is a Sign of Shape + Countershape
Heretical Cancer #3
Cancer season invited me to contemplate the Cardinal Signs.
Remember, astrology is dynamic and unfolding - this transmission is only meant to be a fragment of what the Cardinal signs are and could be.
I surmise the Cardinal Signs are the signs of shape-countershape - where self meets something other. The signs of boundaries, feedback, reflection and of self-discovery through collision or contact with an Other.
In the sign of Aries, you are discovering yourself based on how the world at large (or said another way - external reality) reacts to you. Walls are hard - I am softer than a wall. Water is cold - I am warmer than water. I learn myself through encounters.
In the sign of Cancer, you are discovering yourself through family.
It’s no coincidence that water takes the shape of vessel it is poured into. More than any other relationship, family is what most defines our shape. Water is associated with the unconscious, and this tells us that our family shapes us without our conscious awareness.
Air also fills a vessel - therefore, it’s no coincidence, that we usually repeat our developmental experience in our romantic relationships. That being said, air also rises and seeks to understand - hinting that we can transcend and transform our relational patterns through consciousness - the first step is becoming aware - moving from unconscious water to conscious air.
In the sign of Capricorn, we are learning what kind of puzzle piece we are when it comes to society. In a village, are we the shoemaker or the baker? What role do we play? How do we contribute to our community?
The sign of Earth desires to make something material. We want to feel substantive in Capricorn. Useful. Capable. Like we are making a contribution to the whole.
Through each Cardinal sign we learn our edges - where we end and where an Other begins.
Through each Cardinal sign, we receive feedback, input, data that helps us analyze, clarify and more wholly see and experience ourselves.
Richard Idemon says that all relationships are mirrors, helping us see ourselves more clearly.
The cardinal signs have a great deal to teach us about boundaries. Where my edges are. Who I am and who I am not. When we are clear about our boundaries we are clear on what belongs to us vs. what belongs to others - a lesson the fixed signs continue.
Aries teaches that by asserting our Self, we get data and feedback from the world.
In Cancer, we must eventually individuate from the family and from the parents, one of the hardest tasks of humaning.
Cancer is therefore - like all the water signs - a sign that has to do with an experience of betrayal.
When we decide we want different values, lifestyles, relationships, outcomes than our parents, it can feel like we are betraying them. It often feels like in order to accomplish this we need to free ourselves from our parents influence to a degree that feels impossible. Often, we must metaphorically “kill” or "turn against” or “turn away.” Betrayal of the parents is an archetypal experience that is necessary for the fullest flowering of the true Self, however.
In Libra, we must acknowledge the Other and how we affect them - the Self and “Selfing” has consequences. The truth is that the presence of the Other will limit the expression and unbridled influence and self-exertion of the Self, and this is a negotiation.
In Capricorn, we learn right responsibility - what is and isn’t ours to steward and control. Capricorn is often the ironic lesson of putting things down - things that don’t belong to us, that aren’t ours to worry about. Capricorn is often a place where we burden ourselves with a carapace of crap that isn’t actually ours.
The cardinal signs are ALL signs of self-definition and self-evolution, and self-delineation, self-protection, self-creation. Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn are all about meeting, understanding and evolving self through the alchemy and catalyst of relationship.
The Cardinal Signs show us that Self is actually created through relationships - there is no Self without Other. Self cannot know or experience Self without Other. The Cardinal signs teach us about interdependence - inter-creation - on a deep existential - an ontological - level.
When you are moving through the world, letting family lap up against you, moving towards an Other, choosing a vocation, remember Shape-Countershape - does the shape of the thing you are encountering create a pleasant and desirable counter-shape in you?
And what shape would you like to be, what counter-shape would you like to create in others? What shapes do you need to encounter to create the shape you want to be?
The Cardinal signs teach us the importance of putting ourselves into environments that are generous and loving, that carve and cradle us into the selves that we want to be and become.
Said in a Cancerian way - we must choose shells that are both comfortable presently, but are also an agreeable shape to grow into.
