This season’s tarotscopes feature the Next World Tarot and the Astrol-OG Deck.
After a season of curiosity, exploration, and understanding, Cancer brings a balance of emotion, sensitivity, and strong boundaries. Our sign of cardinal water, Cancer is loyal, intuitive, and intensely compassionate. This is an energy that understands how to sink into heavy emotions, but that prefers to keep their most vulnerable sensations and longings to themselves.
How do you understand privacy? What happens in the depths of your subconscious, that you may keep so hidden that you aren’t even completely aware of it yourself? With Cancer, we are invited to explore various kinds of intimacy, particularly around caretaking, nurturing, nourishing. Like all water signs, Cancer isn’t interested in the superficial — but this season, having a container for emotion, relationships, community, and vulnerability is incredibly important. What do you guard, hold back, and what do you allow others to see? How do you decide what to share, and what to protect? Who do you let in, and why? When do your boundaries erode, and how do they become fortified?
In the correspondences created by the Order of the Golden Dawn, Cancer is tied to the Chariot, the seventh archetype that the Fool encounters on their journey through the major arcana. The Chariot is often associated with determination and focus, perseverance, intensity — it’s with this archetype that we take the information that we gathered with Gemini and the Lovers, and start to test the waters, see what feels right, push our own limits. When we layer in the meanings of the number seven in Pythagorean numerology, we also find wisdom, spirituality, purpose: a craving for a quest, a desire to understand what is driving us forward. The Chariot challenges us to ask more questions, to find the need and longing and curiosity that is motivating our actions and living within our choices. What pushes you to take risks? What makes a big opportunity worth the effort?
Cancer’s ruling planet of the moon, as well as its association with the Chariot and the number seven, makes it a sign brimming with mystery and care, nourishment and necessary caution. Many of the cards pulled for this season are about walking a fine line between truth and compassion, protection and pursuit. In this season of Cancer, pay attention to what motivates you to act, and when your intuition buzzes with warning. What is worth fighting for? When do you break your own rules? How can you extend compassion to those around you, while also offering it to yourself?
Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. Cancer is ruled by the moon, associated with emotions and embodiment, so pay special attention to your moon placement this season.
I recently hosted an Instagram series on social justice and community care resources, which can help you find places to donate, learn, and connect. You can find my work on Patreon, my website, TikTok, and Instagram, and make sure you’re following me on Twitter for the latest announcements about my upcoming tarot book, publishing with Weiser in March 2023.
As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Cancer season!
Aries
Knight of wands
What are you pursuing? You’re famously high energy, competitive, and determined — and this season, it may feel like the fire inside of you is burning unceasingly, urging you to move, create, inspire. Don’t be afraid to tap into the emotions that are tied to your work, play, and creativity, especially if you’re working on something more personal than your usual projects. There is magic in the fire and water within you, so listen to that hum, and see where it takes you. Where is your vision leading you? How can you be completely and fully authentic?
Taurus
Eight of wands
How are you defining success? Your energy tends to be more slow and methodical, yet this season, you may find yourself swept up in movement, as things click into place and you feel a rush of excitement, fulfillment, empowerment. There’s such magic in progress, so take time to celebrate what you are making, where you are growing. Yet you may also find opportunities to clarify what the finish line really looks like, to recognize within yourself what it would mean to feel like something is completed. Where are you finding freedom? How does achievement also inspire passionate joy?
Gemini
Nine of wands
Which limits are you pushing? Your curiosity and capacity for multiple projects at once is legendary, and clarifying and defending your creative ambitions last season, you may now feel yourself starting to slow down, run out of steam, or question how much longer you can push at this pace. You are capable of so much, but even the strongest need to rest, and sometimes, it’s wise to ask for help, support, or comfort when we need it most. This season, pay attention to all that you are juggling, and consider ways that you can be flexible, show yourself compassion around deadlines or restrictions. You may feel that you have a lot to prove, but who are you trying to convince?
Cancer
Ten of swords
Happy birthday, Cancer! As we shift into your season, it’s important for you to ask yourself: where is privacy doing more harm than good? You’re simultaneously nurturing and protective, and often that is most clear in the ways that you treat yourself — you won’t let just anyone in, but once someone has access to that tender heart, you expect them to treat it with respect. But sometimes we build a narrative around suffering, that we have to do so in silence, that our challenges are ours alone to bear. This season, offer yourself the gifts of compassion and perspective, particularly if you find yourself caught up in a victim mindset. Is it really that bad? What do you gain by suffering in silence? And in letting someone else in on your pain, how might they help you see it in a new, more accurate light?
Leo
Knight of swords
What do you believe, with every single piece of yourself? And how do those beliefs manifest? You may feel clear-eyed and focused in a way that is particularly exciting this season, throwing your entire being into a goal, ambition, or truth that feels like it defines you. There’s power in fucking shit up, in calling out falsehoods, in reckoning with what is broken. Yet don’t forget to care for yourself, to rest and breathe, to let others join you in the fight. What is becoming more and more clear to you? And how can you use that sense of clarity and truth to make a real, lasting impact?
Virgo
Eight of swords
Where are you getting in your own way? You are so good at making things perfect, at getting everything in line, at checking the details and ensuring that every last challenge is conquered. But sometimes, that sense of perfectionism, that desire for achievement, can get you in trouble, and leave you scrambling to find the balance between safety and freedom. You are allowed to care for yourself, and sometimes that looks like stepping back from your work, looking at a situation critically, and finding an exit strategy. Where are self-limiting beliefs holding you back from joyful movement? How can you let yourself be free?
Libra
Six of cups
How are you nurturing yourself? The world is incredibly hard right now, and as someone with a gift for listening, honoring all sides, being open to new perspectives, it can be draining to absorb so much from others, to keep looking for beauty in the darkness. This season, remember the gifts of Cancer and don’t be afraid to nourish yourself, to care for yourself, to remember your roots and your ties and your needs. What does it look like to give yourself radical compassion? What, or who, helps you remember who you are? Are there wounds within your heart that are craving attention, healing, and how can you prioritize that kind of gentleness?
Scorpio
Five of wands
What are you fighting for? Tension is a powerful motivator, and this season, it may feel like you are being challenged at every turn, facing obstacles no matter what you try. Sometimes this is a real thing that you have to deal with — but other times, external challenges are a result of internal indecision, frustration, or lack of desire. Are you really chasing after something that you want? Or are you going through the motions, wishing you were anywhere else? Pay attention to the origins of conflict, and stop giving your energy, time, and resources to something that doesn’t actually matter to you. Is this a strife that you are willing to endure, or a sign that you’re ready for a different objective?
Sagittarius
Four of wands
How are you setting yourself up for creative success? The first stages of a new project can be so exhilarating – and as you continue to make progress on an ambition, goal, or dream that’s close to your heart, do yourself a favor and stay organized about what you are working towards. Structure may feel at odds with your endless desire for freedom, but putting a few stabilizing elements in place will ensure that you get exactly where you want to go. Who do you want to bring into your work? What milestones can you identify? Which resources can you tap into? And what can you celebrate already?
Capricorn
Three of swords
What is truth worth to you? There is power in clarity — but there can also be unexpected, unanticipated pain. When our eyes are opened to something, when we share or receive a critical piece of information, when we perceive a truth in a way that shakes us, it can be wildly freeing. Yet it’s essential that we pair this kind of sharp lucidity with intentionality, purpose, and compassion. You have a capacity for blunt expression that is a true gift, but it’s important to know when, and how, to wield it. This season, pay attention to what you share, what you receive, and what you do with this information. Truth is a gift, but it may come with a cost. How can you balance honesty with sensitivity?
Aquarius
Page of swords
What are you ready to discover? Perceptive and reflective, you have a gift for innovation, and are able to see things in unexpected, powerful ways. And in the wake of a major shift, this season may bring opportunities for new clarity, particularly when it comes to shared resources, shared information, shared beliefs. While Cancer may be associated with limits, the Chariot makes a lot of space for discovery, and invites big questions. What lives behind your desire for intellectual expansion? What pushes you to look deeper? What inspires you to investigate?
Pisces
Five of pentacles
What are you longing for? In this season of water, you may feel ready to plunge into the depths — yet you may find yourself craving resources that you can’t access, longing for something you don’t possess. The question is: are you actually lacking, or are you just unsatisfied with the resources that you have at your disposal? Do you truly need what you want, or are you just struggling to find a solution that utilizes what you already have? Give yourself some space, and some grace, to explore any shifts in resources that you experience. No matter what this season brings, you have access to more than you realize. How can you prioritize hope? Who is offering you aid?
your last few columns, meg, have each given me something that has been INCREDIBLY generative for my thinking – thank you!
oh that is such a lovely thing to say, thank you!! 🖤🖤🖤
You might want to check your Aries and Aquarius photos! They’re the wrong way round.
this has been fixed!
I love how you explain where your different interpretations come from, Meg, and this overview of Cancer season was so helpful for me. Beautiful work! (P.S. I think you might have flip-flopped your Aries and Aquarius photos)
yes these photos just got put into the wrong position, thank you!
Thank you for this as always Meg 💜💜
I’ve never engaged much with astrology, chiefly because almost none of the traits that are said to be typical of folks with my sign resonate for me. I’m curious about what astrology enthusiasts would advise to somebody who doesn’t feel “at home” in their sign. Thoughts?
My advice? Look at the rest of your chart. Your sun sign is one little piece of your astrological whole. Your “big three” are your sun, moon, and rising signs. Mine, for example, are Cancer, Aquarius, Aquarius. I have found I often identify wayyyy more with Aquarius than Cancer.
I love your take on Cancer as the Chariot! I was kind of confuzzled when I first read this correspondence but it has actually helped me expand my concept of what being a Cancer means. We aren’t the cardinal water sign for nothing- we GO THERE for people but since it’s emotion-driven sometimes it doesn’t feel like the action of the chariot. And it’s also worthwhile to notice that on traditional art, the animals pulling the chariot are sitting still! The charioteer knows how to take a pause, to hold their horses, to be confident even in inaction.