Cancer the Crab in the Zodiac

Cancer the Crab is a sign of feelings, home, and the artistic soul. Cancer season is the full flowering of Summer, with dates from June 21st to July 21st.

Sun into Cancer begins (in the North) with Summer Solstice when the Sun is at its peak. Cancer season is one for summer parties, glistening skin, and splashing in water bodies. 

Cancer Characteristics

Cancer is a homebody and has a primal need for security on the home front. But the Crab is also ambitious, like other cardinal signs, and is often tenacious when moving toward its goal. 

Cancer's are Moon-ruled and can become a bit looney, especially when worn down, emotionally hurt, lonely or overwhelmed. Moods come and go quickly, and the Cancerian is intimate with the waxing and waning -- the Moon in all her phases. 

This is the Zodiac sign of the Mother, originating waters, cozy closeness, emotional bonding (or bondage!) Cancer's depth of feeling is palpable, and its impulse is toward emotionally familiar people and places. Cancer is the keeper of the hearth and home, but they're eager to make a mark, too. They move indirectly, sensing the undercurrents, and developing strong ties of loyalty among friends and co-workers.

Cancer is at its most powerful when using the power of emotion to move people and experience meaning. 

Cancer Particulars 

• Element is Water (imaginative, active dreamer).
• Quality is Cardinal (impactful, leader).
• Cancer is Feminine (receptive, impressionable).
• Polarity is Capricorn.
• Ruler is the Moon
• Natural House is Fourth.
• Phrase is "I feel."
• Body Association: Womanly parts (breasts, ovaries, womb, nipples), stomach (digestion, esophagus), bodily fluids.
• Cancer initiates the Summer season.
• Colors are blues, moonlight hues (pearl, silver, soft gray, cream, milky white), aquamarine.
• Rules silver.
• Birthstone ruby, moonstone or pearl.
• Gemstones white varieties like opal, mother of pearl, white topaz, snow quartz.

Flowers are moon flowers, night-blooming cereus, cotton, lilies and white roses, daisies, wallflowers, and poppies. Flowers for the Moon garden, like jasmine, stephanotis and tuberose, and the peony. Also, white gardenia, camelia, madonna lily, water lily, ocean pearl, white aster, arctic queen clematis.

Animals: bears, kangaroos, opossum and home-carrying types like turtles and snails; water creatures like the playful otter, shellfish, crabs, lobsters.

Cancer in Love

Cancer in love is standoffish until they are smitten -- then they're like moony-eyed, and stuck on you. The Crab likes to take its sweet time in the love game. In fact, if you meet a boundary-less Cancer, beware -- they likely have known great heartbreak and breaches of trust. 

Cancer wants to feel sure of you in love, and may always need reassurance from those closest to them. Sometimes this is intense and has an almost desperate edge to it. Some Crabs flounder through life and love and find it hard to truly show their vulnerability.

And yet, Cancer people are endearing, and often exude a warmth that makes friends or family feel like they've "come home." The Crab loves to take care of those he or she loves and becomes a local treasure for these nurturing traits. 

Extremes of Cancer

At the extreme edges, Cancer is neurotic, self-absorbed, manipulative, clingy and bogged down in emotional swamps.

Cancer is gifted with a rare sense of timing, which helps in business and love. Some come off as aloof but are registering everything. A wounded Cancer can be cruel and rejecting -- becoming what they fear the most.

Many have crazy close ties with 'Mother' which translates to a lifelong challenge to become emotionally self-sustaining. Cancer's have big hearts and many are artists, putting great emotional force in whatever they do.

*The Dates for Cancer change every year, so check an ephemeris -- or your free birth chart -- if you're on the cusp.