Table of Contents
THE CUSP-BORN CANCER
Are you really a Cancer? If your birthday falls during the fourth week of June, at the beginning of Cancer, will you still retain the traits of Gemini, the sign of the Zodiac before Cancer? And what if you were born late in Julyare you more Leo than Cancer? Many people born at the edge, or cusp, of a sign have difficulty determining exactly what sign they are. If you are one of these people, heres how you can figure it out, once and for all.
Consult the cusp table on the facing page, then locate the year of your birth. The table will tell you the precise days on which the Sun entered and left your sign for the year of your birth. In that way you can determine if you are a true Canceror whether you are a Gemini or Leoaccording to the variations in cusp dates from year to year (see also page 17).
If you were born at the beginning or end of Cancer, yours is a lifetime reflecting a process of subtle transformation. Your life on Earth will symbolize a significant change in consciousness, for you are either about to enter a whole new way of living or are leaving one behind.
If you were born during the fourth week of June, you may want to read the Gemini book as well as Cancer. Because Gemini holds the keys to the more hidden sides of your personality, many of your dilemmas and uncertainties about the world and people around you can be revealed. You can tune in to your secret wishes, and your potential for cosmic unfoldment.
Although you feel you have a lot to say, you will often withdraw and remain silent. Sometimes, the more you say the more confused a situation can get. Talking can drain you, and you are vulnerable to gossip. You feel secure surrounded by intimates you can trust, but sometimes the neighborseven your own relativesseem to be talking behind your back and you sense a vague plot in the air.
You symbolize the birth of feeling, the silent but rich condition of a fertilized seed growing full with life. The family is always an issue. At best you are a feeling type whose power of sensing things remains a force behind everything you think and do.
If you were born the fourth week of July, you may want to read the horoscope book for Leo as well as Cancer, for Leo could be your greatest asset. You need a warm embrace, the comfort and safety of being cared for, protected, fed. You need strong ties to the past, to the family. Attachments are natural for you. You want to be your own person, yet you often find ties and attachments prohibiting you from the rebirth you are anticipating. You may find it hard to separate yourself from dependencies without being drawn backward again and again.
You symbolize the fullness of growth, the condition of being nearly ripe, the new life about to emerge from the shadows into the sunshine.
THE CUSPS OF CANCER
DATES SUN ENTERS CANCER (LEAVES GEMINI)
DATES SUN LEAVES CANCER (ENTERS LEO)
THE ASCENDANT: CANCER RISING
Could you be a double Cancer? That is, could you have Cancer as your Rising sign as well as your Sun sign? The tables on pages 8-9 will tell you Cancer people what your Rising sign happens to be. Just find the hour of your birth, then find the day of your birth, and you will see which sign of the Zodiac is your Ascendant, as the Rising sign is called. The Ascendant is called that because it is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the time of your birth. For a more detailed discussion of the Rising sign and the twelve houses of the Zodiac, see pages 17-20.
The Ascendant, or Rising sign, is placed on the 1st house in a horoscope, of which there are twelve houses. The 1st house represents your response to the environmentyour unique response. Call it identity, personality, ego, self-image, facade, come-on, body-mind-spiritwhatever term best conveys to you the meaning of the you that acts and reacts in the world. It is a you that is always changing, discovering a new you. Your identity started with birth and early environment, over which you had little conscious control, and continues to experience, to adjust, to express itself. The 1st house also represents how others see you. Has anyone ever guessed your sign to be your Rising sign? People may respond to that personality, that facade, that body type governed by your Rising sign.
Your Ascendant, or Rising sign, modifies your basic Sun sign personality, and it affects the way you act out the daily predictions for your Sun sign. If your Rising sign indeed is Cancer, what follows is a description of its effect on your horoscope. If your Rising sign is not Cancer, but some other sign of the Zodiac, you may wish to read the horoscope book for that sign as well.
With Cancer on the Ascendant, that is, in the 1st house, the ruling planet of the 1st house is the Moon. The Moon here gives you an especially keen ability to sense patterns and changes in the environment. The Moon in this position makes you more than just receptive; it makes you reactive and adaptive. You can integrate the most fleeting, irrational impressions received from the environment. There is, however, the danger that such sensory overload, so to speak, could inhibit your ability to act appropriately in a given situation.
Cancer in the 1st house accentuates your ambitiousness. Tenacity,a strong Cancer trait, is translated here into a highly developed power of focus. You can focus your energy on several levels at oncesocial, emotional, even psychicin order to realize your aims. But always the scene of struggle and realization is personal rather than public, concrete rather than abstract. Your three basic lovesfood, home, moneyare all personal ones. Power is not a burning issue for you, but on the other hand, concepts of right and wrong are. You may also hide behind your concepts, posing as a more intellectual person than you really feel, whenever you become too timid to express your strongly emotional nature.
Sympathy and sensitivity are basic personality traits for Cancer Rising. That combination may lead to a subjective view of the world, one which has little in common with the views of other people. For that reason, you may appear to be shy, when in fact you are merely retiring from a possible occasion of misunderstanding or conflict. You prefer to protect yourself and those you love from any pain or suffering. You want to provide a comfortable haven for all the hurt creatures of the world. You can, therefore, be labeled a homebody or a mothering type.
Although the concept of home is central in your life, you are not a stick-in-the-mud; indeed, you do not necessarily like to be rooted in one place. You would like a family, to nurture and protect it, to develop and instill pervasive attitudes of right conduct. If you dont have a natural family, you will be happy serving a community cause, even if that service takes you far and wide and results in reversals of fortune along the way. There may be many travels and voyages in the lifetimes of those of you with Cancer Rising. Home is where your heart is. Possessions, too, have little meaning for you unless they are connected with a special person or intimate situation.