on cancer & capricorn: the axis of lineage & legacy
on queer time, beyoncé, & the solstice
Happy Summer Solstice, beloveds. The sun enters Cancer at 10:42pm Eastern tonight. By way of honoring the solstice and the arrival of Cancer season, here’s the fourth issue of the zodiacal axis pairings, exploring the archetypes of Cancer and Capricorn through the concept of lineage & legacy (and also: Beyoncé, ancestor veneration, and queer descendants).
ICYMI:
🎧 Coven Convo: Gods, Ancestors, & Spirits, Oh My! — new Call Your Coven episode is out!
Earlier this year, I received a gorgeous question from someone in the astrology for writers Discord:
I’ve been really interested lately in what we can learn from polarities between signs and how working with the energy of a sign’s opposite can help us move toward healing. I’m thinking especially in terms of nodal placements but also generally. Could you talk through a little about what opposing signs can learn from each other?
This question has inspired a series devoted to each of the six zodiacal pairs, because to explore the polarities/axes of the six zodiacal pairs is to understand the whole of human experience. We began this series with on aries & libra & also the nodes, which I articulated Aries & Libra as The Axis of Positionality as well as my more academic/theoretical take on the nodes and why I’m not especially considering them for this series. We then explored Taurus & Scorpio, which I frame as The Axis of Desire & Control and Gemini & Sagittarius: The Axis of Information.
Before we dive into our fourth pair, Cancer & Capricorn, permit me to repeat myself, since some folks are new to astrology, and/or haven’t read the prior installment(s):
There are 12 zodiac signs. Of these, there are 6 pairs of opposing signs, called “opposing” because they are 180* away from each other. The pairs always come in complementary elements (air and fire; earth and water), and they are always of the same modality (cardinal, fixed, mutable).
We each, all of us, have every sign in our birth chart. Personally, I find that the signs folks are most uncomfortable with, or critical of, are usually reflective of the part of their chart they are most uncomfortable with and critical of. Understanding the axis on which these signs reside deepens our understanding of not only the signs, but also of how the chart works together as a whole.
With all that said, let us proceed further into the zodiac on this, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Cancer & Capricorn: The Axis of Lineage & Legacy
water & earth; cardinal (signs that initiate seasons)
Historically, I have called this the axis of security, as both Cancer and Capricorn are profoundly concerned with security: with the sanctity of the home, with the safeguarding of material, spiritual, and reputational wealth. But in reflecting on this axis, that relationship to (in)security, to the tenuousness of life, goes much deeper.
We are born of water, and we die and return to earth. The moon, the archetypal mother. Saturn, the archetypal father. The tension between what is private and what is public. The summer and winter solstices: the longest day and the longest night.
Cancer, known for its memory. Capricorn, known for its ability to build that which lasts. Cancer, the ritual bath where our beloved dead so easily come to dwell. Capricorn, the protective edifice: the tub to the bath, the riverbed to the river, offering a way to hold that which is infinite.
… which brings us to the technology by which we measure lineage and legacy: that of time.
The moon, which rules Cancer, and Saturn, which rules Capricorn, are the planets most concerned with time. Most every ancient calendar tracked thed cycles of the moon, which gave order and structure to our days. Some cultures and religions still celebrate their holidays based on lunations: the Chinese New Year, for example, is celebrated on the first New Moon of the year. The moon literally controls major bodies of water on earth (and the human body is, of course, up to 60% water); Saturn is the furthest visible planet in the sky, the “last” of the traditional planets, the boundary-keeper between that which we can see and that which is beyond sensory comprehension. And then there is the fact that Saturn is the Roman name for the titan Kronos, himself also called Father Time, that planet which rules all things aging, maturation, and even death itself.
This is our foundational understanding of Cancer and Capricorn. But to limit ourselves to chronological, material time would intimate that there is a concrete beginning and after, a definable past, present, and future.
As a queer person living outside of the socially determined straight chronology of a life, I find that there is tremendous slippage between lineage and legacy. Between who is an ancestor, and who is a descendant.
Queer time works differently than hetero time. Jack Halberstam has my favorite description of this:
queer time for me is the dark nightclub, the perverse turn away from the narrative coherence of adolescence– early adulthood –marriage – reproduction – child rearing– retirement–death.
Queerness is a constant state of death, resurrection, and rebirth. But we aren’t the only ones who experience this. Trauma creates a non-linear experience, the collective trauma of a marginalized, abused group of people inciting and inspiring art that loops on itself, playing with time, what’s old is new again as that which was forgotten and suppressed is re-covered and re-claimed.
A prime example: We are seeing this slippage between what is legacy and what is lineage play out on a grand stage (and in our TikTok feeds) with Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour.
The most consistent through-line and theme of Beyoncé’s “brand,” if we might call it that, is Ancestor Veneration. Especially since her self-titled album which dropped in December 2013, she’s created multiple bodies of work (Lemonade, The Gift, Homecoming, Renaissance, Cowboy Carter) and physical product lines (haircare, whiskey) that directly reclaim Black history and reposition it at the foreground of popular culture. Much is made of her already-secure legacy, including speculation around her daughter Blue Ivy’s inevitable career launch, but the foundation of that legacy work is in explicitly honoring her lineage and heritage.
It’s very notable to me that her official birth time, released in the Cowboy Carter tour book, gives her a Capricorn Midheaven and accompanying Cancer IC. The Midheaven, that which we are most known for, that point in the chart through which she directly interacts with audience, fans and critics alike, is the hardworking Capricorn mountain climber: the ferocious work ethic, the unapologetic ambition, the Ruler archetype. But that is driven by the most tender IC, that most private point in the chart where lies our inheritance and underbelly. Notable, that Beyoncé’s MC is ruled by an exalted 7th house Libra Saturn, whereas her IC is ruled by a super-tapped in 8th house Scorpio moon.
In venerating her ancestors (I ain’t in no gang / but I got shooters and I bang bang), in bringing the work of the Linda Martells of the music industry to light, in putting forgotten artists on a screen to be witnessed by sold-out stadiums, Beyoncé collapses the bridge between ancestral lineage with her own legacy. She honors them as a descendant; she also is in The Process of Becoming a (good) Well & Wise Ancestor, one who imagines bridges and paths into existence for people like her (which is Midheaven work!). It’s the positioning of one’s art in time, of understanding impact and potential.
From the opening song “American Requiem”: Nothin' really ends / For things to stay the same, they have to change again. What a perfect encapsulation of the Cancer-Capricorn axis.
Nothing really ends.
For things to stay the same, they have to change again.
Happy Summer Solstice.
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I'm a Cancer sun/Capricorn rising, and I love the way you frame this: "Cancer, known for its memory. Capricorn, known for its ability to build that which lasts. Cancer, the ritual bath where our beloved dead so easily come to dwell. Capricorn, the protective edifice: the tub to the bath, the riverbed to the river, offering a way to hold that which is infinite."
As a Cap sun, Cancer ascendant, this axis rules a lot of my thinking about how astrology shows up in my life. Whether I'm reading my sun or my rising, they're echoes of each other. Also, my Saturn is in Cancer, and my moon is Aquarius -- not Capricorn, but still ruled by Saturn. So much Saturn and moon energy!