Cancer Season and Why We Should All Aspire to be Crabby
Well Starpals, I’m not a scientist, but a symbolicist (new word?), and as we head into Cancer season, I want to talk about crabs. No, not that kind of crabs. Well, actually, yes that kind of crabs, too. Buckle up.
Last summer I was hanging around my Aunt Betty’s pool chit-chatting with my family when my cousin’s spouse told me there’s a phenomenon where nature keeps making the crab. “Nature keeps doing WHAT,” I spit-took my Michelada. He then told me about carcinization, or the process of becoming crab-like.
You KNOW my little Cancerian pincers grabbed hold of this shiny new information like a chonky mollusk! If you didn’t know, the crab is the animal symbol for Cancer! I needed to know why nature keeps making crabs so I could sift some deeper meaning about the zodiac! (Apparently, the internet memefied carcinization in late 2020, but if you’re like me and had other things going on, I’m about to rock. your. world.)
Based on my extensive research (a 7-minute YouTube video) things keep evolving into crabs or crab-imitators and the reason is that crabs are fucking awesome. (clawesome.)
Crabs and crab-wannabes (this is where pubic lice come in, sorry) move faster, burrow better, can climb fucking trees (horrifying), and are less juicy to predators because they’ve lost their long tails (see the poor, butter-envesseled lobster). Crabs are adept at survival, and wherever Cancer is located in your chart might represent the Bear Grylls section of your personality.
I apologize for making a Bear Grylls reference.
This shows up in the stereotypes about Cancerians and the sign of Cancer. We like cooking, quilting, and making you feel warm and fuzzy. We’re natural leaders, and hardcore empaths, a.k.a. diaper-commercial-and-movie-theater-criers. What keeps all this sweetness from becoming saccharine is the subtext that if the zombie apocalypse arrives, you want us on your fucking team. Cancer contains the intuition of the moon, its ruler, and the crusty toughness to survive in attuned coordination with its sensitivity. So this Cancer season, you might find yourself practicing a little carcinization! Bahaha!
Happy Solstice and Cancer Season to all my Starpals out there from your crustacean mom-friend,
Lindsey