Cancer | The Intelligence of Emergence: A Personal and Theoretical Exploration
Hi Everyone,
This article falls under the experimental/conceptual strain of this Substack. It started out as an autobiographical insight into Cancer, which remains as Part 1. It then became an exploration of Cancer from an archetypal perspective. In Parts 2 and 4, I explore this perspective from an angle that has become increasingly compelling for me. In Part 3, I walk through the astronomy to ground the concepts.
I am posting this article here instead of on my other astrology Substack (Astrology Journal) because of the theoretical emphasis and because I anticipate writing follow-up articles fleshing out the concepts. But that will come later after I've made good progress on the astrology software and had a chance to really dive into researching development.
Part 1: The Intelligence of Patterns
In an update I wrote for one of my other Substacks, Running Slant, I talked about a persistent pattern in my life for the last few years since I moved into the place in which I am currently living. The pattern has been that, when my health begins to improve, something in the environment rises up to knock me back.
Recently, since a conversation with a friend, I began to wonder if there are gremlins or ghosts or spirits at play or if it might simply be the wounded personality of the place. At times in the past, when I was down on my knees for the umpteenth time, futilely pleading for this pattern to stop, I even wondered if I might be an unwitting participant in a secret government experiment. I don’t actually think that's the reason, but man.
The reason that I have actually believed is that, over time, I unconsciously built up a pattern that is now playing out. Why now? Because my physical health and material reality created the perfect circumstances for it to play out. Going on that assumption, in the update, I said that I accept this pattern as MY pattern. Indeed, I have. And I still do but in a different way.
After writing that I accepted it as my pattern, I began to wonder, “What if I didn’t accept it as mine? What if, instead of holding onto it, I disconnected from it? What if it was never actually my pattern but someone else’s that I took on as my own?”
What followed was a dramatic, felt-sense visual of an umbilical cord attached to a chaotic other moving this way and that. Rather than being attached to the inside of the mother, it was attached to the outer abdominal area. The fetus, on the other side of the umbilical cord, was understood to be there but not seen. The focus, instead, was on the umbilical cord latched onto the mother.
The impression I was left with from that visual was how powerfully the cord clung to its source of life, its sole imperative to hang on to the fount of nourishment that kept it alive. It was clear to me as I considered this image that it was not wrong to hang on. Instead, it was doing exactly what it had to do and was designed to do. Think of the baby duck imprinting on a human. It is not a mistake. It is an imperative, the design it was given to ensure its survival.
Whatever environment we are born into, we are primed to hang on to ensure our survival. When the only environment available to us is a chaotic, unpredictable one providing no psychological stability, the grasping and attaching instinct in us kicks in at heroic levels, ensuring our continued survival. Like the duck imprinting on a human, this fierce attachment to the dysfunctional is not a mistake. It is exactly what we must do to keep on living. Notice, though, that only one-half of the pattern - the adaptation to the chaos - is ours. The other half - the chaos itself to which we are adapting - is not ours.
Healing Contexts
In mainstream psychotherapeutic environments over the last few decades, logic is often applied to help and assist us in the healing process. We are no longer that infant. We no longer need the mother’s sustenance. We can let go of the pattern. This approach, while the standard model today, is not the only approach and represents a choice made some decades back to make it the standard.1 For me, it is an approach that has never worked.
Since I took my first few, initially desperate, steps on this healing path some decades ago, I have come to realize, one slow step at a time, that the reason the cognitive approach didn’t work for me was because it didn’t allow the wound that needed loving attention and support to emerge. To heal, I needed those wounds to surface so I could understand them, tend to them, and receive the wisdom they had (and have) to share with me. Met with logic, they could never reveal their wisdom, the process instead short-circuited, preventing me from integrating what needed to be integrated for true healing to occur.
I know others have had a different experience in their healing journeys, which I fully respect. Each of our paths is unique, and that goes for our healing paths. The problem is not that, it is when systems and the people trained in them insist that their healing path should be yours. When the systems are based on statistics and a preference for suppressing symptoms, this issue becomes especially problematic. My personal wish is for the bell curve of humanity to move beyond the tendency to impose ready-made structures on others and instead create systems designed to adapt to the individual needs and reality of the person seeking healing.
For me, the only thing that has led to increased healing is a progressive surfacing of wounds, mostly in the form of inner children, that I can then tend and get to know. In getting to know them, I learn to appreciate them instead of criticize them, to see their intelligence and worth. Through this process, slowly, one step at a time, I have been learning to see my intelligence and worth and to trust in myself - in who I am. I am learning to accept the input from people who recognize that their job isn’t to tell me who I am and decide my path, but to provide a space where who I am can emerge and we both can learn about me from that process.
The Developmental Intelligence of Our Patterns
With the emergence of this image of the umbilical cord, I see that there is, indeed, an aspect of this situation in which I have been that is my pattern - the pattern of hanging on to a source of life.
But, unlike how I had been framing “my pattern” before - as a problem, a thing to be fixed, a sign of my failing - I see it now as an innately intelligent pattern earned and exercised in an impossible situation. What I learned to do from the get-go was cling to chaos. That meant that, in my particular situation because of my particular wiring, the pre-cognitive substrate of this pattern was not only immune to cognitive intervention, but worsened by it.
The upshot of my experience on the healing path is the awareness that, at least for me, healing - true healing - can’t happen when it is wrangled or rushed. The corollary to that understanding is that we are not failing when we don't heal according to the timing or way that others see as best for us. Healing, just like development, can only happen in its own time, according to its own wisdom.
It is from this experience that a developmental framework for understanding astrology has been emerging in my work. If we break things down developmentally, we can say that part of the timing of growth is innate, with developmental stages arising according to an inner human blueprint. Another part of it is dependent on the conditions in which we find ourselves. As we go through life, it seems that the stages unfurl according to their cyclic design - assuming sufficient conditions are present for them to do so. But the fact that they unfurl does not necessarily mean the conditions are there to support us in integrating them. That is another factor altogether. Because of this second factor, it is always possible that we may enter and move through adulthood with prior stages of development unintegrated and thus unanchored.
As we heal - at least this has been so for me - we may find prior developmental stages unexpectedly resurfacing. This experience can really throw us for a loop and our instinct may be to ignore it, deny it, suppress it, or whatever our go-to strategy might be. For me, my go-to strategies stopped working when my health collapsed. No longer able to access the energy resources that supported these strategies and, at the same time, not yet having developed healthy alternatives, I found myself at the mercy of these unhealed parts.
Fortunately, I had studied enough astrology by then, particularly the evolutionary kind, to understand that this chaotic lack of control was part of the Capricorn path. Though I don’t recall it explained in this way, how I have come to understand it is that these swings between control and chaos are an inevitable part of the process of learning self-mastery, a process that probably progresses over lifetimes. To the extent that we’ve exercised suppression as a stand-in for the authentic discipline that characterizes true mastery, the chaotic side will come into play at some point, in some lifetime.
This understanding of Capricorn, a sign I have in abundance in my chart, was my salvation through the upside-down, down-on-my-knees, breakdown part of this process, the difference between threading the line of sanity and insanity to crossing over it. For me, this lifetime has clearly been the one where the need to develop authentic mastery, meaning authentic mastery of self, has come to a head. Indeed, the path I charted through my life conveniently led me to a dead end, a destination with no other options but to look within and reckon with what is there.
What I’ve come to feel and believe as this process has unfolded and continues to unfold is that when stages of development - or prior aspects of ourselves or our inner children - resurface, presumably because we weren’t able to anchor them when they first arose, it means that we have come far enough along on our healing path that there are sufficient foundations in place for us to start learning how to integrate them. In other words, it means we’ve come a long way.
Part 2: Cancer - The Archetype of Emergence
Astrologically, the aspect of healing that relates symbolically to the umbilical cord belongs to the realm of Cancer, the sign that represents the womb, the mother, the baby, and birth. But the case I’d like to make is that these representations are not specific to the mother and child. Rather, the mother and child provide us with an archetypal template for understanding a process that manifests cyclically throughout our lives. This process, I believe, is a developmental one that includes progressing towards greater levels of independence while, at the same time, emerging at each new level into the support that is needed for that level to be successfully integrated.
Reflecting on the newborn baby, we get our first hint of this two-part process. Previously contained entirely within the body of another and entirely dependent on the safety and nourishment provided by that body, the newborn’s emergence from the womb marks the first moment of separation in its incarnated form. While the newborn is by no means independent, when it emerges from the womb, it is more independent than it was when in the womb. Significantly, when the baby emerges from the womb, it finds itself in the arms of nurturing, fostering, protective others providing it with the support it needs to adjust to and thrive in its new environment.
It seems reasonable to assume that this archetypal expression of Cancer is meant to maintain in some form throughout the baby’s life, including into adulthood. When we make this assumption, we come away with the implication that as the baby continues to emerge into new stages of independence, it also emerges into new conditions of support appropriate to the realm it has emerged into. Thus, Cancer reminds us that these seemingly contradictory needs are not mutually exclusive. They are, instead, inextricable and essential to our continued well-being as we grow. This perspective changes the question we might ask about Cancer from, “When will we outgrow our need for support?” to, “Given the stage of development we are currently working to integrate, what is the support we need that will help us do so?”
This perspective on Cancer, particularly the part about emerging into greater stages of independence, might seem surprising. But there is evidence for it in the underlying math and astronomy of the zodiac wheel and it is that underlying structure that led me to it. Thus, I want to take some time in Part 2 to walk through these concepts, doing so in a way that will help to make the connection between the abstract wheel and our everyday earth-sky spatial reality. Then, once the technical rationale for this perspective is clear, we'll pick up in Part 3 where we left off, diving deeper into Cancer as an archetype of cyclical emergence into new levels of independence and support.
Part 3: Cancer - A Walkthrough of the Astronomy
Cancer’s Position in the Zodiac
Cancer’s position on the natural zodiac gives us a key anchor we need to understand the broader implications of its archetypal meaning. The natural zodiac is the zodiac (or wheel of twelve signs) before it is adjusted for a specific date, time, and location. For comparison, your birth chart, while based on the natural zodiac, is rotated according to the time and place you were born. While the order of the signs in your chart is identical to those on the natural wheel, where each sign falls around the wheel will likely be different.
The natural zodiac serves as a calendar, with each sign directly correlating to a specific time of year. In the Northern Hemisphere, Aries corresponds to the beginning of Spring, with the following two signs, Taurus and Gemini, corresponding to the middle and end parts of Spring. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true. Aries corresponds to the beginning of Fall, with Taurus and Gemini corresponding to the middle and end of Fall. However, in this article, I’ll be focusing on the Northern Hemisphere perspective because that is the one I know, experientially, and what I draw from to make connections with the signs.
The next sign, Cancer, corresponds to the start of Summer, with the following two signs, Leo and Virgo, corresponding to the middle and end parts of Summer. And so on for the rest of the signs. Because there are twelve signs, each sign corresponds to approximately one month of time. However, unlike the calendar we use to plan and schedule our daily activities, the start date for the natural zodiac is not January 1st. It is, instead, the Spring Equinox.
Let’s dive a notch deeper into the math of the wheel. Each sign on the wheel spans thirty degrees. This distance is the result of simple math: all circles, including the zodiac wheel, are 360 degrees. That fact means that the length of each section of a wheel, the wheel itself divided into twelve equal sizes, is going to be thirty degrees.
Another mathematical fact is that because the year is 365 days long, a number that is very close to 360, each degree on the wheel corresponds to approximately one day in the year. Since a day is the time it takes the Sun to appear to travel around the Earth back to the spot it was at the day before, this correlation means that the Sun moves about one degree per day through the chart. Thus, the Sun spends about thirty days in each thirty-degree sign.
If we look a little more closely at the math again, we see that Aries begins at zero degrees on the wheel and continues until thirty degrees (technically, 29.99 degrees). Taurus picks up from there, starting at thirty degrees and continuing until sixty degrees (technically 59.99 degrees). Gemini follows Taurus, beginning at sixty degrees and continuing until ninety degrees (technically, 89.99 degrees). This structure means that Cancer, the sign that follows Gemini, begins at ninety degrees.
In astrology, it so happens that ninety degrees is the distance of a significant aspect. Aspects are meaningful degree distances between planets. Ninety degrees is the degree distance of the square aspect. When two planets are ninety degrees apart, they are said to be square one another.
In my approach to astrology, the correlation between an aspect’s degree distance and where that degree distance falls on the natural wheel is significant. If the distance of 90 degrees puts us at the start of Cancer, that tells me that we can gain insight into the meaning of the square by considering the Cancer archetype. We can also gain insight into Cancer by considering the square.
To understand the square, it will help to get a feel for the astronomy of it. To do that, we’ll look at three different cycles: the Sun’s seasonal cycle, the lunation cycle, and the Sun’s apparent yearly path, or cycle, as shown on the wheel. We’ll start with the Sun’s seasonal cycle.
The Square Aspect: How We See It in the Sky
Example 1: The Sun’s Seasonal Cycle
In the Northern Hemisphere, we mark the moment when the Sun reaches zero degrees Aries as the Spring Equinox. When it reaches zero Cancer, we mark that as the Summer Solstice, the moment summer begins. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true. When the Sun reaches zero Aries, it marks the start of fall. When it reaches zero Cancer, it marks the start of winter. Thus, the seasonal symbolism associated with the signs will differ in each hemisphere. As I mentioned in the previous section, because I’m from the North, I incorporate the symbolism of the Northern seasonal cycle because that is what I know from experience. Thus, I’ll continue to draw on and share that perspective in this section.
If we were to chart the Sun’s path on a map over a year, what we would see is that it appears to travel back and forth between two latitude lines, the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The former - the Tropic of Cancer - is the point furthest North that the Sun reaches. The latter - the Tropic of Capricorn - is the point furthest South that it reaches. What’s really happening, though, is that, as the Earth travels around the Sun, its alignment with the Sun changes relative to its tilt.
In the Northern Hemisphere, when the Sun has reached the Tropic of Cancer and has climbed to its highest point in the sky at noon, we have our Summer Solstice. At this moment, the tilt of the Earth has the Northern Hemisphere leaning towards the Sun. In the Southern Hemisphere, the tilt has that part of the Earth leaning away from Sun and they have their Winter Solstice.
When, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth aligns with the Sun such that its tilt is pointing away from the Sun, it appears to us that the Sun has reached the Tropic of Capricorn and has sunk to its lowest point in the sky at noon. At this moment, we have our Winter Solstice. The opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere. There, the Earth is tilted towards the Sun and has reached its highest point in the sky. Thus, they have their Summer Solstice.
The word tropic comes from a Greek word that means turn. The word tropic comes from a Greek word that means turn. This word conveys an apparent astronomical reality - that the moment the Sun reaches either the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn, from a geocentric perspective, it changes direction, or turns around, in the sky. At these moments, what we experience is that, as it moves in its new direction as the days and weeks pass, it appears to reach either incrementally higher in the sky or incrementally lower in the sky as we observe it at noon each day. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, as it progresses towards the Tropic of Cancer, it rises higher in the sky until it reaches the Summer Solstice. Then, from that moment on, it sinks lower in the sky until it reaches the Tropic of Capricorn and we have our Winter Solstice. Halfway between those two points, it crosses the equator, once at the Spring Equinox during its climb higher in the sky and once at the Fall Equinox during its descent.
We saw in the previous section that Cancer corresponds to the first month of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. We now know that the first month of Summer begins when the Sun reaches the Tropic of Cancer and we have our Summer Solstice. Using the natural zodiac wheel to chart this moment, we would put the Sun at zero degrees Cancer.
Knowing the astronomy of the Sun’s seasonal cycle, we can use it to gain insight into the symbolic meaning of Cancer. Whether in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, the symbolism of a turning point comes into play with Cancer because of its correspondence with the solstices. In the Northern Hemisphere, that turning point is associated with the transition to summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is associated with the transition to winter.
The Summer Solstice and the Symbolic Meaning of Cancer
Drawing on Cancer’s rulership of the womb, we could say that the chemical signaling from the baby that initiates birth marks a significant turning point in its growth process, one begins its transition from one stage of being (or growth) to the next stage. In the North, we associate the Summer with the maturation of life, more sun and warmth, an abundance of food, and the greater sense of ease and well-being, freedom, and independence that comes with this maturity and abundance. For the baby, emerging into the open air and a new stage of development represents movement into greater maturity. It also represents the realization of a greater level of independence, ease, and freedom of movement: it now breathes on its own, must seek out its food, and, no longer confined by the increasingly cramped womb, has greater room to move.
But the baby has also emerged into a new level of support. It has arms to hold it while it builds its strength and coordination, breasts to feed it so it can build its strength, and people to look after it until it reaches a point where it can look after itself. The archetypal story of the newborn tells us that growth and support are intimately connected. While we may become progressively independent as we grow, we will still need support. The question to ask ourselves is, “What is the support we need to help us anchor the stage of development that is currently up for anchoring and integration?”
Example 2: The Lunation Cycle
In astrology, whenever we talk about aspects, we are always talking about relationships between planets. As the planets travel in their orbits, they do so at different speeds, faster planets catching up to and then moving past slower planets, then circling around to catch back up to them. Over the millennia, astrologers identified certain moments in the cycle between two planets that seemed symbolically meaningful. These moments are what we call aspects and they are measured in degrees. The square is one of these aspects. It occurs when one planet is either ninety degrees ahead of or behind another.
While aspects are an abstract concept, they are based on physical phenomena and we can get a feel for them by considering a familiar physical phenomenon - the lunation cycle. This cycle has eight phases, four primary and four cross-quarter phases. The primary phases are readily identifiable phases: the New Moon, the First Quarter Moon, the Full Moon, and the Last Quarter Moon. We’ll focus on these, but to be thorough, the cross-quarter moons are the Crescent Moon, the Gibbous Moon, the Disseminating Moon, and the Balsamic Moon. Let’s start by looking at the New Moon.
The New Moon
When the Moon is in its new phase, it appears dark to us. That is not because its dark side is facing us as that never happens. Instead, the Moon has reached a point in its orbit where it is positioned between the Earth and Sun. If, when we looked up at the day or night sky, we could see both the Sun and Moon together at this time, we would see the Moon stacked in front of the Sun, with the Sun shining its light on the part of the Moon facing away from us. As for the part facing us, the Sun’s light would not be shining on it, so it would appear dark.
Looking out at the Sun and Moon one more time from our vantage point on Earth, we would notice that they appeared to be located at the same spot in the constellations that lined their path. Mapping what we see on the zodiac wheel, we would chart them at the same spot on the wheel. When planets are in this relationship with one another, we say they are conjunct. Like the square, the conjunction is an aspect. It is shorthand for saying planets are zero degrees apart. When this aspect is exact, it also tells us that the planets have started a new cycle together.
The First Quarter Moon
Because the Moon moves more quickly than the Sun, after it conjoins the Sun, it continues past it, appearing to travel ahead of it. In reality, it is moving around the Earth as the Earth speeds around the Sun. As it continues to travel around the Earth, it reaches a point where it is one-quarter of the way in its orbit around the Earth relative to where it appeared to conjunct the Sun. We call this point in its cycle the First Quarter Moon. Notably, it is called the First Quarter Moon because of its relationship with the Earth, not the Sun. I mention that because, in astrology, all of the Moon phases, including the First Quarter Moon, are shown on the wheel as occurring between the Sun and Moon. That is so because we chart what we see from Earth, not what is objectively happening in the sky.
Seeing the Moon in the sky at this stage in its cycle, it looks to us like a half-moon. In reality, we are seeing one half of the visible side of the Moon. The entire dark side of the Moon, which constitutes one-half of the entire Moon, is always hidden from us. Thus, at the quarter Moon, we see one-half of one-half of the Moon, or one-quarter of the entire Moon. But the fact that we see only a quarter of the Moon is not why it’s called a quarter moon. As we have already established, it is called a quarter moon because it has traveled one quarter of the way around the Earth. Nevertheless, the quarter theme is worth noting.
We see this quarter theme repeated in another way, too. If, during the quarter moon phase, we were to look out at the eastern horizon at midday when the Sun is at its highest point in the sky, we would see the quarter moon rising. Idealizing this situation by imagining the Sun directly overhead at noon, we can imagine hands of a clock centered in the Earth. The hour hand would be pointing up to the Sun at noon and the minute hand would be pointing out to the Moon at 3 o’clock. We would note that the clock hands, marking off one-quarter of the clock face, showed us that the Sun had traveled one-quarter of its apparent daily journey around the Earth relative to the horizon.
We could go on to measure the angle formed by the clock hands. When we do, we would find that they formed a right angle. We could also draw a line connecting the Sun at Noon with the Moon at 3 o’clock, completing a right triangle. The right angle of a right triangle is ninety degrees. If we were to chart the Sun and Moon on the zodiac wheel and measure the distance between them on the wheel, we would find that they were ninety degrees apart. We saw earlier that ninety degrees is the distance of the square aspect.
To bring this analogy back around to Cancer, imagine that the Sun is at zero degrees of Aries. To map the First Quarter Moon, we would place the Moon ninety degrees ahead of the Sun, which would put it at zero degrees of Cancer. While each sign marks a stretch in the yearly cycle of the Sun, each also implies a spatial relationship. Cancer, because of its position on the wheel and in the seasonal cycle, implies a square relationship. Because of all of the quarter imagery contained within the experiential astronomy of the First Quarter Moon and the clear correspondence between it and the square aspect as just elucidated, meditating on the First Quarter Moon may give us a more embodied understanding of the square.
The Full Phase
After the Moon reahes its first quarter phase, it continues to speed ahead of the Sun until it reaches its full phase. At the full phase, the Sun, Moon, and Earth come back into alignment. This time, though, the Moon is on one side of the Earth and the Sun is on the other, placing the Earth between the Sun and Moon. During the Full Moon, when we look up at the sky at night, we see the side of the Moon facing us fully illuminated. If we were to look out at the eastern horizon when the Sun was setting in the West, we would see that the Moon was rising in the East. On the zodiac wheel, we would chart the Sun opposite the Moon and say they were in opposition to one another. Once the Moon reaches its opposition to the Sun, it transitions from the waxing stage of its cycle to the waning stage of its cycle.
While it would make sense to think that the Earth would prevent the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon from our vantage point at this time, in fact, that only happens two or three times a year. When it does happen, we have an eclipse. The reason it happens so rarely is because the path of the Moon is angled a little relative to the path of the Earth. That quirk of its orbit means that as the Moon travels around the Earth, it lands a little above or below the Earth when it reaches its opposition to the Sun. Thus, we see the Sun’s light reflecting off it.
The Last Quarter Phase
As it continues into its waning stage, the Moon eventually reaches a point where it is again resting on the horizon when the Sun is at its highest point in the sky. This time, though, it is setting on the western horizon rather than rising on the eastern horizon. If we were to idealize this relationship as we did with the First Quarter Moon, we would once again find that the Earth, Sun, and Moon form a right triangle, with the Sun and Moon both at right angles to the Earth.
Mapping the Sun and Moon on the zodiac wheel, we would place the Moon ninety degrees behind the Sun and call it a last-quarter or third-quarter square. On the natural wheel, the last-quarter square is associated with Capricorn, the sign opposite Cancer. Because our focus in this article is Cancer, we will not be exploring the symbolism of Capricorn and the last quarter phase.
Example 3: Planet Orbits
If we take the Sun by itself, we can map its apparent journey through the year on the zodiac wheel. To help embody an understanding of the Sun’s apparent journey, we can imagine drawing a circle in the dirt or sand. This circle represents the Sun’s path. In reality, it is the Earth’s path, but, in astrology, we chart what we see. Thus, the circle represents the Sun’s path. This path is also known as the ecliptic, the strip of space through which all of the planets travel, not just the Sun (or Earth).
Since, from our perspective, the Earth is at the center of all this celestial activity, we can draw a second circle in the center of the first to represent the Earth. Then, we can imagine ourselves standing in the center of this inner circle, looking out at the outer circle just as we look out at the Sun’s path from our perch on the Earth.
To help us map the Sun’s journey throughout the year, we divide the circle into twelve equal-sized slices. Using the names of the twelve primary constellations that line the path of the Sun, we label each slice. Starting with Aries, we proceed counter-clockwise around the wheel, following the order of the constellations in the sky. That order starts with Aries and proceeds through Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
To orient us, we designate zero degrees of Aries as the starting point of the wheel and say that it corresponds to the time of the Spring Equinox. Thus, every year at the precise moment the Spring Equinox occurs, we would draw a picture of the Sun at zero degrees of Aries. As we saw in the section on the Sun’s seasonal cycle, the Sun travels about one degree per day. Thus, on the next day, we would draw a picture of the Sun at one degree Aries. The day after that, we would draw a picture of the Sun at two degrees Aries, and so on.
After thirty days, the Sun will have traveled all the way through Aries and entered Taurus. After sixty days, it will have finished up in Taurus and entered Gemini. After ninety days, it will have finished up in Gemini and entered Cancer. Because each day corresponds to a degree, when it reaches Cancer, it will have traveled ninety degrees. As we have already seen, this ninety-degree point corresponds to zero degrees of Cancer. The Sun, having traveled from zero degrees Aries to zero degrees Cancer, has traveled ninety degrees, one-quarter of the way around the circle. As we have seen, this initial one-quarter distance corresponds to the waxing, first-quarter square.
While the other planets move faster or slower than the Sun, if we track them from zero degrees Aries to zero degrees Cancer, they, too, will have traveled ninety degrees. While it will have taken them a shorter or longer amount of time to get there, reaching the ninety-degree point of their cycle still indicates that they have completed one-quarter of their complete cycle.
Thus, no matter how we slice it, when we consider Cancer on the natural wheel, we find that it is inextricably linked to the waxing first quarter square.
The Square Aspect in Astrology: the Symbolism of Crisis
Symbolically, in astrology, the square aspect represents a crisis. If we think about what a square is based on what we’ve just learned, we get a more nuanced understanding of crisis: a crisis is a significant point in our journey, a turning point, a point that marks the end of one leg of our trek and the beginning of the next.
If we think about the right angle of a right triangle or a geometric square, we get the idea of a structural tension point, a crucial point where two perpendicular forces come together. While there is the potential for one perpendicular force to displace another, in a stable structure, the two forces come together to form a structure that provides stability.
If we extend the sides of the right triangle or square, we get a crossroads. A crossroads requires us to make a choice. Do we go this way or that way or turn back altogether? This imagery resonates strongly with the idea of a turning point that we see with the Sun at the solstices. We can perhaps think of these turning points as choice points.
Thus, we get the idea from the symbolic understanding that arises from the astronomy and math of a square, that the square aspect represents a significant point of change in our lives, one that marks a shift from one stage of our journey to the next. The idea of a crisis adds an additional nuance - that this transition is not predetermined. In other words, what it will be will depend on what we choose. What we choose, in turn, will depend on the foundations we have succeeded in putting in place. The quantity and quality of these foundations will, in turn, depend on the quantity and quality of the support we have had or have.
Typically, when we think of a crisis, we think of something beyond our control that is both unexpected and unwanted. But crisis can also mean a developmental challenge that arises at key moments in the growth process. At these moments, we are compelled to make choices. The choices we make will depend on many factors, including the developmental stage we are entering, the quality of the foundations we’ve been able to build up until that point, and who we uniquely are.
The moment when the birth process begins provides us with a perfect example of a developmental crisis, or challenge point. While challenging for both baby and mother, it is initiated by the baby and expected by the mother. Both know, the mother consciously and the baby organismically, that for life and growth to continue, the baby has to leave its familiar environment and enter the new environment for which it has been growing itself. While neither fully understands what they’re in for (assuming it’s the mother’s first birth), the baby compels the moment, and the mother, having been waiting on the moment to arrive, is committed to it, physically, and, when having prepared for it, emotionally, also.
Whether this moment presents as a healthy developmental challenge or as a crisis in the way we typically think of it will depend on the foundations the mother has been able to put in place to support the baby’s growth in the womb, which will depend, in turn, on the support she has had in her own life. These foundations will determine the baby’s ability to grow the foundations it will need to realize each new stage of growth in the womb and then initiate the crucial turning point in its life cycle when it transitions from living inside the womb to living outside of it.
With the idea established so far of an archetypal cancerian process, we can now move on to consider how this idea might apply beyond the specific scenario of the birth of the newborn.
Part 4: Cancer - Emerging into New Levels of Support
In the first part of this article, I talked about the birth process of the newborn baby as that of emerging into a greater stage of independence relative to when it was in the womb while, at the same time, emerging into a new level of support. I also proposed that this process could be seen as an archetypal process of Cancer, applying not just to the birth of the newborn, but to significant moments in our growth process throughout our lives.
This framing suggests that there is a central paradox to the Cancer archetype: our design is to become progressively more independent as we develop, but it is also to be supported at every stage of growth. To better understand this paradox, it will help to consider tensegrity structures.
The word tensegrity is constructed from the words tension and integrity. In tensegrity structures, the integrity of the structure is realized by ensuring that every part of the structure is in right tension with every other part. In this way, every part is interconnected with every other part, meaning that every part contributes to the integrity, or well-being, of the whole. At the same time, every part is dependent on the integrity, or well-being, of every other part. In tensegrity structures, tension is not a dirty word. When healthy, tension signifies the right balance between the parts.
The archetypal cancerian birth process tells us that our two paradoxical needs - to become more independent and to be supported - are forever in a fluxing state of tension that shifts and adapts according to what is needed at a given time in our development. As we emerge into greater levels of independence, we remain part of a larger, encompassing, structure, one that, ideally, shapes itself to our developmental requirements. We are also an integral part of that larger, encompassing structure. As we grow more independent, we step into roles of support. Crucially, how much support each individual requires and gives depends on the level of independence and mastery they have realized in their development.
Developmentally speaking, the human growth stages, in a general way, seem pre-determined at a blueprint level. While I believe conditions determine the level we do or don’t realize, I also believe that healing can help us shift thwarting conditions to supportive conditions. The specifics of the healing process will be different for each person depending on a constellation of factors, including what stage is up for healing, the nature of the wounds, our individual makeup, and more. However, as we each heal, our understanding of what is healthy and what is not, in a general way, and, more specifically, of who we are, where we are (what stage), and what we need from ourselves and others will also improve. With this better and more precise understanding, we can naturally begin making better choices for ourselves.
The more I have learned from my own healing process, the more I have come to feel that one thing that could help humanity tremendously at this time is a more universal understanding of the stages of human development and what is needed at each stage to ensure its successful integration and grounding within each person. Such an understanding would help each of us as we look within to what needs healing, work to heal what we find, and help and support others, when ready and if called, in their healing and growth efforts.
Conclusion
As stated at the top of this article, the ideas shared in this article are exploratory concepts that I expect I’ll be fleshing out in more detail in the future at some point. For now, I hope these ideas provide a helpful and useful lens into the cancer archetype as you contemplate the Cancer archetype.
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Notes
To get a sense of the path the psychotherapeutic realm chose from the choices it had, check out the epic debate, now uploaded on YouTube, between behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner and humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers. According to a 2020 article posted on the University of Minnesota Duluth’s website, it was held in 1962 on that campus. The date shown on the video uploaded to YouTube is 1976. I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy. Nevertheless, the debate occurred and, aving listened to it decades after the fact, I can say that its original epic quality came through loud and clear. What I remember was how it stunningly revealed the differences between their approaches and perspectives. Sadly, in my view, the powers that be in that field chose to prioritize the behavioral path over the humanistic one.