Cancer Personality, The World Mother (Lover)

The Cancer personality is the most sensitive in the entire zodiac. They take things personally. Cancer’s symbol is the crab. On the outside they possess a hard shell but on the inside they are composed of flesh of the most tender and exquisite delicacy.

This is an apt metaphor for how the Cancer native is constructed for they keep those sensitive emotions on the inside. Brooding and sulking are two activities the crab likes to engage in. They do them exceptionally well. If you have hurt their feelings (it would be next to impossible not to) then you will be experiencing Cancer’s indirect manner of letting you know this. If your lucky they will just become hysterical and be done with the whole charade but if not you will be entreated to some nasty silent treatments.

The Cancer personality is very susceptible to outside influences. A little stimulation goes a long way with these creatures. It is a reaction to the excess nervous frenzy of Gemini preceding them. The crab slows down and takes in the sights and sounds in a contemplative mode. Little things might enrapt their attention and they will sit there absorbed in reverie, slowly turning it languidly around in their minds.

A Cancer friend of mine once said that, “Cancers don’t need drugs, they get high off drinking water.” How true. A Cancer should be careful indulging in intoxicants because they are already sensitive enough and they could become psychically imbalanced by altering their delicate chemistry.

The Cancer personality is attuned to mood and atmosphere. Nostalgia for the past is a penchant of the crab. Life was always more magical when they were young.

Remembrances and keepsakes are treasures to them. In their memory they can really get involved with the action. When events are actually occurring they can feel overwhelmed with the myriad sensations that are assailing their delicate receptors. When the moment is past it can be savored.

Even painful events are numerously recounted by the Cancer personality because they want to remember it all, the good and the bad. What they seek is the most faithful depiction of what actually happened. They possess the historical sense and feel that without a documented lineage the present is meaningless. Thus, they make fine historians, anthropologists, and archeologists.

The crab can be prejudiced towards people and things that it does not like. Those people and things will not exist to them. The ones it loves it is protective and maternal towards. The personality of Cancer embodies the mother archetype. If they don’t have children they will mother their friends.

The Cancer native’s great quest is learning to psychologically separate from their mother. Frequently, the mother is overly attached to the Cancer child and will prevent the child from leaving her even if this means sacrificing the child’s potential.

Many Cancers unconsciously long to return to the womb where they were safe and protected. This dynamic of bondage between mother and child lies at the heart of the sign. The crab needs to come out of their shell and into direct contact with life.

A familiar pattern for the Cancer personality is to seek out surrogate mother figures that can take care of them and remove their fears of isolation and separateness. They find it difficult to stand on their own and often end up in codependent relationships with another “terrible mother” who doesn’t want them to leave and encourages them to sacrifice their potential.

The crab usually shifts at some point from the personal mother to the creative unconscious. Here is the womb from which they long to bring forth their children. The birth process is crucial to understanding Cancer’s motivation.

Their imaginations are teeming with the denizens from the deep waters of embryonic consciousness.

Cancer was born physically but they need to achieve true psychological birth. This is often achieved by giving form to what lies in the ancestral matrix. The crab becomes an artist for an artist is one who gives birth to themselves through the language of their chosen medium. Many Cancer artists create powerful and revelatory works because of their closeness to the womb of mankind, the waters out of which all life comes. In doing so, they become mothers, to themselves and to the whole world.