I am listening to Joan Osborne’s “If God Were One of Us” and remembering the nineties as I am working on this blog entry. And indeed she is a Cancer native. Her fleshy appearance and fluid vocals demonstrate what a musical crab can look and sound like.
Here we are in July 2009 and surely this month belongs to the crab. It is suddenly the blessed time of midsummer once again here in Vermont. This is the season the average Vermonter dreams about all year. We, in the northeast of the United States, have all experienced the longest day of the year more than a week ago and the move toward shorter days is upon us. Fear not, however, for we are only losing about a minute of sunlight per day and we have many hot months ahead of us delivered up with plenty of sun if we are lucky.
It is, nevertheless, quite strange that already by the beginning of July we are losing about a minute of sunlight each day; in essence, we are moving toward autumn via a silent trickle. As is always the case with time and the seasons – inevitably, they move on and perhaps it is this fact that makes the human condition so fragile. If we attempt to attach lasting happiness to seasons, weekend vacations, or even favorite times of day, well, it is inevitable that these brackets of time will come and go with no chance of capturing the exact moment ever again except through an old photograph or a recording. Inevitably, if we wait for the zenith of some occurrence, it will no doubt arrive quickly and great hardship will ensue as we await the next pinnacle of some such time or place to come again.
Trying to achieve the perfect spot and time to dwell in is no easy task. Ridley Scott’s monumental science fiction film “Blade Runner” examines from top to bottom the idea of human memory asking the question: are we simply the sum total of our memories? This is fascinating to ponder, but for our purposes here I will simply put forward the notion that happiness is doomed if we attach it to specific times and places for in our collective hearts we realize that all is transitory and that not one time can really be better than any other. The globe turns and the seasons change and the body ages.
This situation is certainly true of the summer solstice as well although most of us are just concerned that the temperatures stay warm. Most folks tend to wait for the arrival of the heat of summer and barely notice the calendar date, say, once we are in June and the sun is prominent enough for people to be convinced late spring is well under way. The beeches and outdoor cafes soon fill up. Some t-shirt and shorts types may experience the end of summer fears after the fourth of July celebrations are over (nothing is quite so shocking as waiting for fireworks, experiencing them, and then suddenly all of it being over), but generally many people consider the 4th of July festivities to be the actual kickoff of summer.
For me, as an existential Scandinavian living in Vermont, it is a common feeling in my life to mourn for summer after the fireworks are over. A little voice inside my head states that an apex of some sort has already been reached. Anyway ...... this is too much talk about fireworks. What I really want to talk about is the summer solstice.
Few people tend to have solstice blues that result from knowing that the longest day of the year has already occurred.
For myself, however, I view the solstice as a completion of the waiting for longer days and the completion of the longest day cycle. “Achieving” the solstice seems a tremendous calendar goal for me. I use this ideation to jump at this month’s topic with concern towards the sign of Cancer and Leo.
An astrological riddle for me personally is whether LEO or CANCER has the ultimate connection to midsummer. Both of these signs are clearly associated with summer and lushness in nature, but my question is concerning the idea of whether the boiling sun glare of Leo is about midsummer (though clearly Leo arrives well after midsummer), or is it the changeable and ephemeral Cancer that connects to midsummer moonlight even more powerfully.
It is strange to think about Cancer as a “seasonal sign” because of the glyph’s obvious association to 6 and 9, which I like to connect to a strange yin and yang force (the oral sex reference works as well because there is no doubt that Cancer is very much about the mouth and about appetites:). What is noteworthy is that Cancer seems to be about summer nights where as Leo is about burning summer days.
I propose a new way of understanding Cancer and Leo – it would seem that they are both connected to the summer solstice. Ironically, it would seem that Leo is somehow more powerful because it is about Mars and the hot sun; yet, the moon is so much closer to the earth and obviously the moon controls the tides and the feelings in our bodies that come from the night waters – think dreams and other intense nocturnal behaviors!
Summer, then, would seem an amalgamation of Cancerian and Leonic themes. Summer babies are born via the maternal Cancerian and fathered and played with by Leo dads –gender lines can easily be crossed here, but not so much within the symbolism of these two very distinct energies that govern the very nature of summer for all practical purposes. The crab and the lion seem an unlikely pair, but together they create our summer memories, some of which will be photographed and poured over in time by the Cancerian family historians. Happy Summer!
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