love postcard #5 cancer, the bonds we choose to keep, the promises we choose to flow

the blood [of the covenant] is thicker than the water [of the womb]

Hello Lovers

The sun moves from the chaotic and brilliant air of mercury-ruled gemini into the sensitive and caring water of moon-ruled cancer. If you’ve been connecting with the different parts of your spirit during gemini season, I bow to you for entertaining and studying the range of multidimensional realities that exist within you, however fleeting or boring or generative or destructive they may be. Gemini is a sign that is moving away from the fixation of stable earth (taurus) to the initiation of cardinal water (cancer), and now we are here in cancer, we are flowing from a place of clever chaos (gemini) to a place of majestic radiance (leo). To begin that thema-mundi-creation process, one has to know the soulful parts of ourselves, where we are willing to nurture and create from as origin… to feel what we are here to embody, and why.

I was recently invited to SP Hall’s podcast Luminaries In and Out of Sect to have a fruitful conversation surrounding multiple things: gemini, moon, mercury, everything. Around the 24th minute, I shared how I conceptualized the moon as the cup - what holds us in this world… how we came from the womb… and what is the container we are being held in this life. Later on, I touched on how I perceive the lunation cycle as an all-inclusive process because the moon becomes the stringer that threads all the planetary gemstones together - again, and again each month. SP also vulnerably shared the touching lunar myth of Hecate (a Greek goddess associated with magick and the moon) assisting Demeter to search and retrieve her daughter, Persephone - reminding us how the Moon becomes a helpful and resourceful companion in times of hardship. [This cancer season, I would highly recommend listening to one or two episodes of this podcast, if you want to divine via intuition - close your eyes and tune into your body - choose a number between 1-22… go to that episode number… there could be a lunar and ancestral message there for you!]

In thinking, and feeling, and writing about the Moon today, I was reminded of

Ari Felix

of

DREAM REALM

writing on YOUR MOTHER IS YOUR MATRIX:

if you want to know what your body believes about how reality works & what it needs to feel safe to create reality, look to your own matrix. look to the stories, conditioning, patterns, and context of your childhood. that will tell you about the stories, conditioning, patterns, and context of your mother/caregivers/ancestors.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to talk about Cancer + Luna energy as much as it is difficult to talk about intergenerational mother wounds and familial relationships. We all have a complex relationship with our caretakers and our mothers, and our caretakers have a complex relationship with their mothers too, especially living in this capitalist - neocolonialist - white supremacist - cisheteropatriarchal society.

We are all trying to survive and thrive on this goddex earth we call home. All of us have different relationships and definitions of “home” in our hearts. I remembered when Professor Shawna Wakefield asked our Intersections of Race and Power in Development class, for our definition of “home” - and I answered that “home is where the loving people are.”

As much as I am happy and relieved to come back home, my parents are still in denial and fearful of my sexuality, because they are dealing with their sense of shame and religious indoctrination, despite loving me. Those are their battles, and over the years I have realized that I never needed their 100% approval to accept my way of life as an unapologetic queer muslim, and I can’t always try to impose radical change on the people I love - unless they are willing to change.

Our ability and capacity to “change” is a lunar principle, it depends upon our inner-outer worldviews - and much of our personal conditionings are imposed from within and from without.

Traditionally, the Moon also rules the realm of privacy - the nocturnal light, and *sometimes* we think all that is private must be kept as such. Yet, we forget how the Moon has multiple phases in a month (8 phases in certain systems), multiple lunations and eclipses in a year - and she always reveals the hidden and the repressed. Slowly over time, she reflects her luminous light on these topics - no matter how shameful or painful. Change happens over time, sometimes change happens in private before it becomes public, known to all.

Perhaps this cancer season is a great invitation time to reflect on…

• the stories of our blood and chosen ancestors,

• the stories we inherited from them about ourselves and our becoming

• the stories we have lived through thus far - and how much of those inherited stories have been true, or false, or ambiguous, or rather irrelevant

• the stories we are willing to CHANGE about ourselves and our ancestors

• the stories we choose to keep, the stories we choose to flow with in becoming the future ancestors

Remember, you are also the creator of your matrix. Cancer is the kingdom of the Moon (domicile) and the crown of Jupiter (exaltation). When we create new stories and conditionings of what holds us together in this world (the Moon), we are creating new ancestral bonds with ourselves, a changing promise between you and the universe (Jupiter - the holy planet overseeing the realm of oaths).

I hope we make new promises to ourselves, and nurture them as our future homes!

On a side note, recently I found out that the proverb blood is thicker than water [that emphasizes familial relationship over everything else] is incomplete or rather misquoted from… the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb [that emphasizes more on the promise between people and their chosen family]. While doing a quick Google search, I also found another saying replacing the water with milk (another lunar signification!). In the spirit of Jupiter's exaltation in Cancer, for me - everything belongs and has its origin and reasoning, though I am more inclined to side with the latter due to personal experience of familial and non-familial bonds.

Please comment below on how some of those reflection-questions land for you! Any heartful thoughts, feelings, reflections, or sensations are always welcomed here ~ love you. I wish you an emotionally beautiful cancer season wherever you are!

Your Love Devotee,
Shahir

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If you feel like reading more Cancer-related posts, I would recommend my past writings on:

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love you, all of you,
shahir

~ artwork on the other side of the postcard ~

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