20 Jun Muses and Memory ~ Cancer Season – June 21st-July 22nd, 2022

On June 21st, 2022 the solstice arrives, heralding the beginning of Cancer season. In the northern hemisphere, the Sun will finally reach its apex in the heavens and begin its slow descent into the ripening beauty of summertime.

As the Sun crosses through this gateway, the intellect that brightened so much in Gemini season now softens, turning its gaze towards the light of soul. 

This is a season full of romantic longing, for Cancer is ruled by the dreamy and deep feeling Moon. In her watery oasis, she promises warm nights scented with jasmine, starry indigo skies and silver ripples upon the water.

The Moon’s influence in Cancer season inspires you to retreat into your dreamworld to reflect, stirring the power of memory to emerge. Just as the Moon reflects the Sun’s light, so too does memory reflect life.

The playwright Tennessee Williams, once said:

What happened yesterday is a memory. And tomorrow is a dream. How to capture a moment before it slips away?

Reflecting Upon the Past

The sign of Cancer is knows that memories and dreams emerge from the same source. This place in the zodiac is like a warm pool that gently nourishes everything it touches.

The waters bubble up from the earth’s deepest mineral wells, enriched by the bones of the past. This is a languid world of lucid dreams. Fossils and footprints scatter the shore, luring you deeply into the realm of memory where your voice joins an ancestral chorus.

The soil of all future growth is made much richer by digging into the past, unearthing its secrets, bones and treasures. This is why the sign of Cancer is especially gifted in the reflective art of history. 

In Ancient Greece, Plato argued that learning is recollection. Elsewhere, Socrates referred to himself as a midwife of knowledge, considering his famous method of questioning the best way to coax memory, summoning a student’s innate understanding to come forth. And the Orphic priests were said to drink from the “pool of Memory” in order to experience perfect wisdom. 

In Cancer season, remember that history is not written in stone, but in the waters of Memory.

The life of the dead is in the memory of the living.

Memory is a flood of sentience and feeling that reveals the past to be alive within you. So whatever struggles you may be enduring in this dark age, let the waters of memory invite moments of quiet inspiration. Remember that your ancestors have endured much worse. And you’re strong enough to survive and thrive in 2022 because of them.

In ancient Greece, Memory (Mnemosyne) was said to be the mother of the nine muses. Her name derives from Mene, (Moon) and mosune, (wooden house), so her name actually means ‘House of the Moon.’ 

Silver Screen

From a mythic perspective, memory lives within you inside the House of the Moon.

And all dreams, art and creativity are born there through the lunar power of reflection. Art marries the conscious and unconscious, and weaves the past into the future. Everything you know about history has been transmitted by the muses through songs, stories, sculpture, architecture etc…

But the art form that represents the true essence of Memory most of all is film, once called the silver screen. It is quite symbolic that the first photographs were developed by using silver nitrate, once called lunar caustic because ancient alchemists associated silver with the Moon. 

Gently touched by the Moon’s silvery power, paper reacts to light and records a life-like impression. The art of photography reflects the power of memory, capturing a moment in time before its lost to eternity. 

And as photography evolved into film, the lunar realm of dreams was replicated for the first time in art history. Fluid, surreal, and swelling with emotion, a film captures the Moon’s essence like nothing else can: lulling you into a darkened trance, pulling you into a waking dream where time is an illusion and memory comes alive.

The essence of the Moon in film can be deeply understood through the surreal work of Jean Cocteau, who was born with his Sun, Mars, Chiron and North Node all in Cancer. 

“Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.”

Cocteau was an archetypal artist, a Parisian aristocrat who lived openly as a bisexual and was addicted to opium. His life of tragedy led him to create a fantastical dreamworld in poetry and art, but his most lasting legacy is in films. From his perspective:

“A film is not the telling of a dream, but a dream in which we all participate together through a kind of hypnosis.”

He is remembered because his films are transcendently beautiful, portals into glistening surreality where the heart of primal myth and romantic longing is discovered. 

Just as the Moon reflects the Sun’s light, a film reflects the soul of the audience. You can only perceive beauty and feeling that’s already within you. Considering this, Cocteau is famous for saying that: 

“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.” 

And his cinematic creations are exactly that, a mirror that thinks and feels for a long time before it reflects what’s inside the audience. As a testament to the power of film to mimic memory, Cocteau’s films retell the ancient tragedy of Orpheus as well as Beauty and the Beast. 

Drinking deeply from the water’s memory, Cocteau films awaken the light of the soul which perceives that…

“Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. 

We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.”

Cancer season is a lovely little oasis in 2022, blessed by many gentle transits. This is your time to commune with the past, nurture the depths of your soul and invite inspiration to be born from the waters of memory. 

Fond memories bring the light of better days to warm you.

Much Love,

Rachel