Cosmophilia: You Belong Here for Cancer
By Eric Francis
Cancer Part One
Cancer Part Two
Cosmophilia prologue
Cosmophilia houses
To understand the sign Cancer, it’s necessary to understand cycles. Related to the Moon, your sign is the one that says what goes around comes around, there is a time for every purpose, and that the tides are the most dependable thing on Earth.
Between the Teardrops by Cameron Gray.
Yet in recent years you have sought to stabilize your life, and in doing so, you’ve made contact with the deep foundation on which you’ve organized your existence. You’ve worked to strengthen that foundation as well as build on it. The result is a life that can withstand change and that also thrives on change.
Like any creature who lives in a coastal area, you do just fine when the tide is in, when it’s out and when it’s changing. You know you need to respond appropriately to the conditions of the moment.
Life has not necessarily been easy in the years since Pluto entered Capricorn (that phased in between 2008 and 2009), but if you consider how far you’ve come, I think you’ll see that every bit of effort, inconvenience, change and intensity has added up to actual progress. The aspects of life where you’ve made the most progress are the ones you previously considered impossible or intractable.
There were many things you were convinced could somehow not change, or be improved; they seemed too deeply embedded into the structure of your consciousness or your environment. These included people, circumstances and patterns that seemed crystallized.
Then came Pluto — the unstoppable force, the great renovator, the soul-searching power tool. Depending on how attached you were to past structures, Pluto’s action may have felt anywhere from compelling to enforced to compulsory. Yet Pluto always gets results. You have indeed made real changes and more significantly, cleared space in your life for new things to happen.
This is the year when your process shifts from mostly being about demolition to mostly being about construction. You still have places to clear. You’ve also gotten the hang of building. But you’ve reached a subtle threshold, where the process you’re involved with has taken on a life of its own. Everyone around you has been influenced or affected. Part of what was holding you back was indeed the unwillingness of others to change or to grow. But even they have come under the thrall of the tectonic power of your evolutionary process.
What is interesting is how you’ve discovered and come to accept something that you may have doubted — change is possible, it’s necessary, and you can do it when you need to. It helps considerably if you work with the psychic and cosmic forces within you and around you. It helps if you leave the growth of other people to them and not concern yourself with their resistance.
Being the nurturing person you are, you might involve yourself with that. You might think it’s cold not to get too involved. Yet for others to make progress, they must to some real degree be left to their own choices. And you’re feeling strong enough about yourself to know that if they want to choose you, or some experience with you, they will. I would guess that you’ve seen a good few times that it’s pointless to try to convince people of anything.
What exactly is responsible for this progress? We could look to many factors — Pluto is one of them. Its counterpart Uranus is another, which is flooding your professional ambitions with vitality, inventiveness and a stop-at-absolutely-nothing attitude. There are other factors at work.
Kronos and Hades in Cancer
Slow-moving objects in one’s own sign often describe the deepest processes in astrology. You have a slow-mover in your sign, one that’s been working its way through your sign for more than 10 years. That is Kronos, one of the eight invisible planets of an old astrology philosophy called the Hamburg School. Few astrologers use this point. Personally, I use what speaks to me — and Kronos does.
Kronos is a super-Saturn. Yet it takes longer to go through one sign (43 years) than a full orbit of Saturn around the entire zodiac (29 years), so it describes a very, very gradual process — in this case, that of building your self-respect. I have written before that self-esteem is the single most problematic issue of our times; in many people this goes as far as outright self-hatred. You cannot afford such extravagances, and you’ve always known that, even if you’ve slipped at different times in your life. And if you look back on those times when you thought you slipped, you may see that in truth, your self-esteem is what got you through.
Yes, ‘esteem’ is a form of respect, but actual respect is more tangible. It’s more ordinary, and more useful. Respect does not put a person onto a pedestal like we might think of ‘esteem’ as doing. And what you’ve learned is an ordinary, useful form of respecting yourself — that is, of embodying your self-respect and experiencing it as part of your character that you can depend on.
This process will last many more years; Kronos will be in your sign for another full Saturn cycle! Yet you’ve come far enough to know you’re making real progress and that it’s worth it to keep making progress. When you come from a place of self-respect, you hold everyone else to that standard — in how they treat you and how they treat themselves.
Kronos has given you the self-respect necessary to rise to the occasion. You have over the past extended phase of your life learned never to succumb to the notion that you’re “too insignificant” or “not important enough,” and if you have not gotten there, I suggest you dive into this experience. Regardless of any other voices in your mind, it’s fully available to you and well worth developing, practicing and cultivating.
If you take one thing away from this reading or from anything I’ve written or said, may it be this: Your self-respect is the very essence of your happiness, your success and your ability to meet challenges in life. It is your most valuable asset. Rather than guarding it carefully, I suggest you put it to work for you all the time.
There is a shadow side to this, which (as with all unusual, odd or minor points) is worth bringing up. Kronos cautions against considering yourself a VIP or somehow special person. That is for other people to decide. Consider yourself the average mortal, call ahead for restaurant reservations, don’t jump the line, when your friends come out with something buy it for full price, and take every occasion you can to give other people an edge.
One other element from this obscure branch of astrology (also called Uranian Astrology) is accompanying you. That is another invisible planet called Hades. A more recent arrival in your sign, moving a bit faster than Kronos, Hades is about depth. You may be aware that you’re noticing how shallow so many people and things are; this may be a source of irritation. Don’t let it get to you. People are as deep or as shallow as they want to be. Your presence always pushes them a little (or a lot) to go deeper.
The real gift of Hades is the ability to extract your own resources from your inner being. If you need some mineral, nutrient or substance, you can go within and bring it out of yourself. With enough focus, you may find you are the most abundant supply of whatever it is that you need. I suggest you experiment with this.
Choose some vexing issue, shortage or necessity that has been resistant to help from the outside. Focus and commit to developing that thing within. You are likely to discover an abundance of that very thing. You might find you have so much of it that you can supply the people around you. Just make sure your needs are taken care of first. Then, as you always do, make your resources available to all of those who pass the self-respect test.
Uranus in Aries: Well-Tailored Innovation
Mars and Uranus are the two planets most associated with drive. Uranus has been active in one of the boldest houses of your chart, Aries, which for you is the 10th house.
Having Aries here is bold enough. Now you also have a planet that is at once clever, revolutionary and packed with energy. You may have gone through more than a few shakeups the past few years under this influence. What I trust you’ve learned is how to put those shakeups to use, and how to influence your environment in creative ways.
This is not a stabilizing factor, to put it mildly; you have to bring that quality to your work. But Uranus in your 10th casts you as the ultimate iconoclast — and one who knows how to change the system from within. To do this, you must find that perfect balance of fitting in and being different. One cannot come at the expense of the other. It is possible to get that hybrid working for you.
What is the most exciting about this year is that Uranus begins to pull away from Pluto; the Uranus-Pluto square is finally separating, after decades of building up. What this says to me is that you no longer need to count on previously established change in your environment in order to be at your most innovative.
Indeed, you must now exceed the seeming limits of your environment and what you think those limits permit. For the past several years you could take your innovative or odd approaches and always nudge your way into a pre-existing space. Now you will be opening up new space, new territory, and challenging the world with your ideas and innovative leadership style.
Remember though that innovation must be balanced with respect for convention. If you’re going to propose something revolutionary, wear proper business attire. If you’re going to challenge authority, do it in a respectful and honest way. Know your audience. Figure out who has what power, and assume that people will use it if they want to. If you work with existing power structures, you will be able to get more done. The idea is to foster incremental change rather than total and sudden revolution.
Float ideas and see how they go over. Remember many people may initially think your very best ideas are not going to work; don’t let negative reviews or predictions influence the choices you make. Yet you have to listen carefully for any cautionary notes and take them under advisement — which means consider and note them, rather than automatically follow them.
Saturn in Sagittarius: Abiding With Work
To this end, Saturn ingressing Sagittarius will be an excellent resource for you. Saturn respects convention and is a master at the art of necessary change. Uranus is often credited as the most active change-agent of the zodiac; I would cast my vote for Saturn.
Saturn has just changed signs. It’s now in Sagittarius, where it will be until late 2017, minus three months between June 14 and Sept. 15 of 2015.
Your 6th house is your house of work and wellbeing. It is the house of service as well. This has been a chaotic place for many years, owing first to the presence of Pluto, then a flock of wild centaurs and other new discoveries that have been stirring the pot nearly nonstop.
Saturn is describing a phase where your day-to-day life stabilizes — but only because you want it to. Saturn, like any planet, is a resource. It is a tool that you get to use. Saturn is, in the first instance, saying: structure your life. That begins with sufficient water, wholesome food, adequate sleep and maintaining your physical environment, especially your workspace. You have so many ideas, desires and ambitions that the only way to really keep your focus and get some or most of it done is to be disciplined. Note: that does not mean rigid or stuck — to the contrary, Sagittarius is about flexibility and adaptability as much as it is about aspiring to one goal.
Saturn in this placement is saying: use the power of goal-setting. Work from an actual agenda, that you write out and keep track of. When you add something to your life as a goal, do so in a tangible and documented way. If you want to achieve something, devote energy to it — in that persistent, consistent way that Saturn rewards generously.
Saturn is urging you to work within your limits, and to gently stretch them over time. At first it would be better to have more modest aspirations, and to take care of the basic necessities, maintenance and order as a way of setting the stage for your success. But don’t get too hung up on those things; to succeed at anything you must raise a little chaos, engage the unpredictable forces and take some risks.
The result will be a work pattern that you can abide with. You are far happier being your own manager than being managed; you need to coexist peacefully with your work process. That is what I mean by abide. For you, abide has one other special quality — never being bored. If there is one thing you cannot stand, it’s boredom. As Saturn makes its way across this house for the next three years, watch this one carefully. Boredom is a sign that something important has to change. It might be small; it might be big. Note what that change is, and put it on a schedule.
Indeed, put everything on a schedule. You don’t have to adhere to it rigidly; a schedule is an approximate guideline that helps you prioritize, plan and set yourself up for success. It allows you to take certain steps in advance of when you want the final result to happen.
I have noticed that the poor use of time is a kind of poverty. People who consider themselves impoverished are often very challenged when it comes to handling time. Time is a form of wealth, and whether you make no money or a million dollars a day, we all have the same amount of time in a month, a year, a decade.
If you use your time consciously, which is a step toward using it well, you will find you have more resources; more time available; and you’ll make better use of the ‘time is money’ phenomenon.
With Saturn there can be an odd feeling of everything going into manual mode. Processes you used to take for granted, things you didn’t have to worry about, or things that were previously automatic may need attention now. I encourage you to get your hands into whatever it is that needs maintenance and repair. If someone else is working, supervise closely. Do what you can yourself.
One Last Career Message: A Very Unusual Eclipse
On March 20, there is a very unusual eclipse that takes place — unusual for where it falls in the zodiac and where, in turn, this meets up with your chart. It involves the 10th house, the house associated with career, achievement, reputation and accountability.
What makes this eclipse unusual is that it occurs in the last degree of Pisces, which is the last degree of the zodiac. What makes that unusual for you is that this event occurs just one degree before the beginning of Aries, as if it’s in the activation zone right where your 10th house begins.
This is one of the most potent and least-used degrees of the zodiac. An eclipse there is an invitation to put it to work. The image associated with this degree involves growing into a vision that you have for yourself. It is about choosing an example for your life, and over time, growing into that vision.
I think of this degree as an opportunity to consciously materialize not just what you want to do but who you want to be. The usual hardness that is sometimes associated with this process — hardness as in difficulty, or hardness as in lack of pliability — does not exist with this degree.
It’s as if the process just happens, but you are giving it life and energy with your visualization process. So in honor of this, I would challenge you to visualize the role you truly want in the world. Be clear, in detail, what you want to be and therefore what you want to do with your being. Be clear about specifics like how you would appear visually, where you would physically be, the purpose you would serve and what you want to express. Determine how much money you would make; be specific.
Moreover, ask yourself how you would feel being in this position. It is the feeling that counts more than anything. How you would feel is the thing to learn and emulate first.
Please don’t worry about what it would take to get there. That defeats the process of this kind of creation.
Chariklo in Capricorn: Abiding Love
There is a reminder in your charts this year that love is not about hope. A great deal of hope is invested in the idea of love, but in my view actual love is an act of faith rather than of hope. The difference is trust. Where there is trust, I would call that faith rather than hope.
Love is a matter of the heart, which is to say, there is a loving element in you that loves despite what your mind may say. It’s necessary to be aware of this, and that sometimes you must temper it with your ability to consciously choose rather than just let things happen. In romantic terms, love is destiny; it’s an emotional faculty. This is different from the spiritual quality of love, though it’s not easy to describe the difference. It is not even easy to discern it when you see it, because the body masks the deeper truth until we’re sensitive enough to discern it.
By this, I mean that a person, in their body, might act in a similar way no matter what kind of love they are feeling. But their motives are similar; it looks the same when they make tea; but underneath, everything is different.
An important, indeed beautiful, minor planet changes signs this year — Chariklo. One of the centaur planets, Chariklo is named for the water-nymph wife of Chiron. This year it begins a transition from Sagittarius to Capricorn, your relationship house.
Chariklo is the messenger and example of abiding love. She is ingressing Capricorn fresh from an adventure in Sagittarius, which took her across the Galactic Core, and through conjunctions with many potent planets. Chariklo has a story to tell, one of a bold quest in the process of finding her soul.
Though it’s rare, there is such a thing as unconditional love. You cannot get it at Eddie Bauer and diamonds are not usually involved. It cannot be easily explained, or explained away.
Unconditional love is an existential state, of the one doing the loving. It does not necessarily feel like passion; rather, it’s about existence and coexistence. Emerging from the total recognition of who someone is, that is the thing that is not compromised or placed into a conditional status.
In some way, this property of relating is entering your life. It may be subtle. It may be as obvious as your ability to notice. You may be offered an example of this kind of love in some way.
This example is there for your benefit, primarily as a benefit to learn from. If you find yourself as the recipient of someone’s true faith, remember that is primarily an example for you. Rather than taking it for granted, rise to the occasion and learn to be like this person.
The same would be true if you have someone in your environment who is able to express abiding love for another person. In this, you have a demonstration of what is possible. Notice carefully how this happens; what the emotional elements are.
Here is the thing, and it may be THE thing for a Cancerian: The real message of unconditional love is about your ability to receive love. Cancer is the classic sign of “I give to everyone because I find it difficult to receive.”
In the first instance and perhaps the last, Chariklo in Capricorn is about your ability to receive the love that is offered to you. This may take practice, it may take some therapy, it could benefit from a bit of radical honesty, some self-forgiveness and forgiveness all around. Alpha and Omega, for you, this is about receiving. With a whole heart and a clear conscience.
Postscript from Mars: Trust Your Desire
Bono once wrote, “You don’t know if it’s fear or desire.” That’s an elegant description of Mars, the planet of drive and motivation. Quoting another rock star, the time to hesitate is through.
Mars makes people nervous — and it’s also true that Mars gets results. For you, those results will come with being clear about what you want, then acting on it. Your charts illustrate the hesitancy you might be feeling and at the same time assure you that this is your most effective, potent and trustworthy tool.
An illustration from astrology may help describe this. On the day of the Cancer solstice, when the Sun enters your sign, Mars remains in Gemini, about two degrees back. That places Mars in your 12th house. The 12th is like a parallel world of thought, similar to a dream world that you walk around with all the time. In psychological terms, it’s the unconscious — but it has a way of making itself known.
In the 12th, Mars can manifest as “fear or desire” — especially in Gemini, where opposites can both be true at the same time. Another property of the 12th is a sensation or feeling that you either don’t recognize or don’t acknowledge. Mars in this position is saying boldly, acknowledge what you want. Be clear with yourself. Snap out of denial — especially about what you want. To a great degree that will address the fear factor.
Yet both the 12th and Gemini describe ambiguity around what you want. For this reason, it’s essential to your success that you work out your priorities, your needs and your desired outcomes, before acting on them. Action taken from a half-aware place will waste your energy and lead to conflict. Action taken from a place of clarity will get results that surprise you and awaken you to the power of your will.
The subtle point here is that Mars is conjunct a fixed star. That star is called Betelgeuse. Though I am not a fixed star expert, this is one I’ve been watching for a while and have done some reading on — and it’s a powerhouse. The key to accessing your strength and influence is your clarity, and then taking action without hesitating — especially where professional matters are concerned.
If you find yourself getting nervous at a point of decision, or nervous for some reason you don’t understand, stop and ask yourself what you want — exactly, precisely, what you want. Do what you can to choose from among alternatives and take yourself through a conscious process of “I want this” and “I don’t want this.”
Then choose, and then take action based on your decision — and pay attention to the results you get.
Charts
Cancer chart.
Cancer sketch.