Connecting with Your Fluids in Cancer Season
Reflections on Care
It’s been a minute.
Life has been a LOT recently, hasn’t it?
To manage it all, I’ve been entering into meditation through the songs of birds in the morning.
I’m connecting with my ancestors by learning to speak Irish. It is going slow, but well. (If you’re interested in learning Irish, I recommend Irish with Mollie.)
A Robin found a space in between a trellis and the siding of the house we rent. On occasion, I peek at the nest, trying not to disrupt their peace. A few weeks ago I spotted Robin’s babies, with wide open mouths and tongues wagging, waiting for worms from mama. Since I began writing this article, they have flown the nest!
I met an old woman the other day. She had tiny bats tattooed on her ears. They may be the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen. She is an artist, and she loves the Mandalorian and Pedro Pascal. I told her I enjoyed the TV series as well.
When we are in the times we are in, it is these kinds of interactions that fills my body with joy, in amongst all the grief and sadness.
As I write this, we are now in cancer season which begins around the time of the summer solstice, on June 21st - July 22nd.
In Western Astrology, Cancer is a water sign, and in the body it is associated with the breasts, nipples, lower lobes of the lungs, pleura, rib basket, stomach and uterus.
A tiny bit of embryology - our lungs bud from the primitive foregut. This means that our respiratory system arose from what is now our digestive tract.
If you want to work with a particular system of your body in cancer season, you could bring your attention to your digestive system and stomach. Remember this very early connectivity when your lungs budded off the primitive gut.
I have my moon in cancer. What I know about other cancer-identified folks is that we care a lot. We have a great deal of emotional understanding and depth. My Cancerian friends and I enjoy philosophical conversations around what it means to heal . We tend to be nurturing, the cancer stereotype, but that doesn’t need to be all of who we are. We don’t have to identify with only nurturer. We learn as we get older how to not take shit, which softens the cancer shell… a bit. We are sensitive, and so laughing and letting go helps. Many of my Cancerian friends are quite funny and silly! My favorite activity to do with them is swimming, or in some way being on the ocean.
You can work with your nervous system when you’re feeling activated, but you can also turn your attention towards your fluid systems.
There is a lot to be activated by these days. You may think it’s only personal, but it’s not.
Sometimes you need to be there for a bit. You need to realize you’re pissed off about something, because anger is a really important emotion. Anger drives me to call my local government and ask them WTF? Anger can also mean care. It’s a realization around boundaries and where there is a lack of care. NO - you cannot spend my tax money to fund war. NO - you cannot treat migrants and refugees like this (and bill C-2 in Canada). This is intolerable, and monstrously uncaring!
I have got a lot of air in my chart and I can spin out easily into processing the shit out of everything. As cancer is a water sign, I am also called to the fluids of my body.
If you have a lot of air or you want to work with fluids in your body, try craniosacral therapy, or some way to connect to your craniosacral fluid. Craniosacral fluid surrounds your brain and spinal cord. Craniosacral fluid offers us buoyancy and protection. It offers us a lot of care.
Next time you’re floating in water, be it a bath or the lake or the ocean, imagine the way craniosacral fluid bathes your brain and spinal cord. Feel your buoyancy and fluid protection surrounding what my teacher, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, calls the organ of perception (your brain and spinal cord).
If you’re close to marine life and crabs in the ocean, notice how they float in water. They are protected by their shells of their bodies and move in water in ease. I love watching them in water, grounded by crawling on the rocks.
Fluids, such as our blood and lymph can be expressed through movement that is rhythmic - so dance, jump on a trampoline if you are able to, jiggle (and giggle) often!
Let these practices be your embodied rituals for cancer season, or find your own.
I’ll end with some reflection questions for the rest of cancer season. If you’d like, take some time to journal and write down your answers:
How may you connect with the fluids of your body this cancer season?
If you’re someone that expresses a lot of care or who does a lot of care-taking, how can you turn that care towards yourself?
Could you imagine all of the empathetic energy you give to others, and turn that inwards, even for 5 minutes a day? (As a suggestion, bring that energy to your heart.)
What is your relationship with water? How do you honour water?
What do you care about right now? What actions are you taking to show that care?
What I know about astrology I owe to Embodied Astrology. I am a student and member, and friend of theirs. If you want to learn and geek out on Astro in an embodied way in community, I highly recommend Embodied Astrology
I’m choosing to close comments on my posts but I’d love to hear from you! Email me at: contact@kellygordon.ca.