Cancer Rewilded: 5 Totem Animals of the Cardinal Water Sign

Bright belated blessings of the Summer Solstice to you, friends! This is the time in the Northern Hemisphere when the Sun has reached its northernmost zenith in the sky and its highest elevation above the horizon from our perspective here on Earth. We experience this as the longest day of the year, and us astrologers also know it to be the beginning of Cancer Season.

Just as the Sun enters the tropical zodiac sign of Aries every year on the day of the Spring Equinox, the Sun enters Cancer on the day of the Summer Solstice. Cancer, the only sign of the zodiac ruled by the Moon, might seem like a peculiar sign to have associated with this notable time when the Sun - the Moon’s apparent opposite - is at the height of its power, but the connection here is an old one and makes a lot of sense when we can look beyond Cancer’s typical (and grossly oversimplified) associations with home, family and roots. More on that in a moment… 

In this article, we will take a little look at the sign of Cancer itself, before considering a collection of animals who represent the qualities of this sign, and who we might engage with to help us understand and connect with Cancer in a way which can also help bring us back into meaningful relationship with nature.

Cancer: Returning to Source 

Cancer is the first water sign of the zodiac wheel, represented by the symbol of the crab. After our mind has taken flight with a myriad of thoughts and possibilities in Gemini Season, Cancer calls us back down into our deep soul, and invites us to consider what really matters to us and whether the words we have been speaking are really in alignment with our inner emotional truth. This sign is often associated with people who are deeply emotional and sentimental, and at their best, Cancerians are considered to be compassionate, nurturing and intuitive individuals. However, the shadows of this sign are often said to be defensiveness, over-sensitivity and a preoccupation with the past. 

Sitting as it does at one of the four turning points of the year, the Summer Solstice, Cancer is one of the four cardinal signs, meaning its energy is initiatory and concerned with beginnings (the other cardinal signs are Aries, Libra and Capricorn, which correspond with the Spring Equinox, Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice respectively). To the ancients, the Summer Solstice represented the moment when the Sun began its descent back towards the earthly plane. The sign of Cancer was believed to be the portal through which souls would reincarnate back into a physical existence, representing the descent of spirit into matter, and so Cancer came to be called ‘the Gateway of Mankind’. However, whilst the body is temporary, the soul is eternal, and the motivation of the sign of Cancer is that of eventually returning us to source, to our beginnings, for when the soul incarnates it carries with it an elusive recollection felt as a deep instinctive longing for the place from whence it came.

In modern Western astrology, we speak of the Moon, Cancer’s ruler, as being symbolic of our unconscious emotions, our instinctual needs, and both the inner child and the mother. We associate her with that which we need to feel nurtured and protected, safe and secure, as well as how we provide these things for others. Being both literally and metaphorically reflective, we also associate her with memory and a longing for that which has gone. But the sources of the Moon’s archetypes are as old as the hills over which we watch her shine at night, and the reasons for them are both complex and fascinating. 

The Moon was correctly recognised by Ancient Greek astronomers and astrologers (there was very little distinction between the two in those days) as being the closest celestial body to the Earth, thanks to the work of Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd Century BCE. Thus, in astrological terms, it was also considered to be the planet most associated with terrestrial affairs, and most intimately connected to our material existence. Whilst the celestial or heavenly spheres were eternal and unchanging, a defining feature of our incarnate human lives was and is flux. Each of us is born into being, we age, we grow and change, and eventually we pass out of being. In the same way, the Moon has ever-changing faces, growing in light to her fullness before beginning to recede, and eventually fading back into darkness at the end of each lunar month.

Totem Animals of Cancer

The Crab

Cancer is traditionally represented by the symbol of the crab, and indeed the word cancer means ‘crab’ in Latin. In Greek mythology, the goddess Hera sent a giant crab, Karkinos, to thwart Heracles during his second labor, which was to slay the Lernaean Hydra. She had a particular disdain for Heracles, so when he appeared to be defeating the Hydra, she sent Karkinos to nip at his ankles and cause a distraction. But in annoyance Hercules stamped on Karkinos, breaking the crab’s shell and crushing him, before finally slaying the Hydra. In honour of the crab’s loyalty and sacrifice, Hera lifted him up and placed him in the heavens as the constellation of Cancer. 

The symbol of the crab reveals to us much about the sign of Cancer, part of which is demonstrated in this myth. A crab’s vulnerable soft body is protected by a hard outer shell, into which it can retreat when it feels threatened. Many people with a lot of Cancer in their natal charts can be emotionally guarded, feeling deeply but withdrawing into themselves when instinct tells them they need to. They feel their way intuitively and can be tentative and indirect, and we can see this too in the sideways movement of the crab. That said though, the crab has sharp claws with which to protect itself, and likewise (if pushed far enough) Cancerian people will defend themselves when they perceive that they are under attack. Cancer’s sensitivity means this sign tends to be somewhat emotionally reactive, and there is a reason why you might have heard this referred to this as ‘being crabby’!

The crab periodically needs to shed its shell and grow a new one as it gets bigger. We often think of the Cancerian crab as carrying its home upon its back, and this aspect of the crab reminds us that sometimes, even what we think of as home can be grown out of. This is especially well represented by the hermit crab, who does not grow its own exoskeleton, but rather scavenges discarded shells once belonging to other sea creatures to live in, moving out of one and into another as it outgrows them. Of course, biologically speaking the hermit crab is not a crab at all, being more closely related to lobsters - but since Cancer is historically also sometimes represented by a lobster, the symbolism still fits quite neatly.

Many species of crab are coastal dwellers, living in the meeting place between land and ocean, just as Cancer bridges the divide between spirit and matter. The earth represents the material plane, and the water the spiritual. The crab thus offers us a metaphor through which we can come to know both and move between them. The crab is pushed up the beach and pulled back down into the sea, swayed back and forth by the waxing and waning cycles of the Moon, and from this we can also learn the importance of feeling into and going with the ebb and flow of our feelings or the changing seasons of our lives.

The Scarab Beetle

For those of us who grew up in the nineties, we inevitably can’t help but associate the scarab beetle with the film The Mummy, and so this little creature probably does not immediately present itself to us as a particularly Cancerian individual! However, to the Ancient Egyptians, it was the scarab beetle who represented this sign rather than the crab. This can be seen in the famous Dendera Zodiac, an extraordinary bas-relief that was carved into the ceiling of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera circa 50 BCE.

Their spiritual meaning was born quite simply out of their natural behaviour. To the casual observer, young beetles seem to spontaneously birth out of the earth as if by magic, without the need of natural reproductive processes, and thus they became a sacred symbol of rebirth, connected with the origins of life, divine creation, and the continued existence of the soul after death - all very Cancerian themes. Of course, we now know that they are not actually born out of nowhere, but they are held in such high regard that the scarab is still commonly worn as a protective amulet, believed to ward off evil and bring good fortune. 

Extraordinarily, recent studies have revealed that scarab beetles have remarkable compound eyes (a trait they actually share with crabs!) and navigate using the light of the Sun, the Moon and - when the Moon is dark - the stars, specifically the Milky Way. The Milky Way itself is intricately symbolically connected to the sign of Cancer in both Egyptian and Greek mythology. The Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Nut are both closely associated with the Milky Way, as well as with motherhood, birth and the nurturing and sustaining of life; meanwhile, in Greek myth, the Milk Way is said to have been created when Hera’s milk sprayed from her breast across the sky whilst she was being made to nurse Heracles. The details of that story may differ depending on the account, but this is where the Milky Way derives its name. It was believed to be the nurturing source of life, a great celestial river down which the eternal soul would travel. The two points where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic are the tropical signs of Cancer and Capricorn, with these being thought to be the portals through which the soul entered and departed its earthly incarnations; and the former is of course the very same Cancerian ‘Gateway of Mankind’ mentioned earlier. Scarab beetles are the first insect known to use the sky as a compass to find their way, and in a mythological sense it is almost as if they instinctively know that it will one day guide their way back home. 

The Dog

The next animal we will consider as a totem of Cancer is the dog, who fits this role rather well through its connection to Cancer’s ruling planet, the Moon.

Unlike most celestial bodies we work with in astrology, the Moon is not named after a particular deity. However, there are three goddesses associated with the Moon in the Greek pantheon, and the dog is sacred to all of them. The goddess Selene was considered to be the personification of the Moon herself, and was associated with the full moon; Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and childbirth, was associated with the half moon; and finally the dark moon was associated with Hekate, goddess of the night, witchcraft, necromancy and the crossroads.

In her role as huntress, Artemis especially held dogs in very high regard, and she is rarely depicted without her pack of magical hunting hounds. Despite their ferocity in maintaining guardianship over the untamed wild, Artemis’ dogs were extremely loyal constant companions. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to share our lives with a canine friend will know that one of the domestic dog’s most defining characteristics is its unwavering devotion to his or her human, and it is partly this this that makes the dog such a good Cancerian totem. Cancer is often considered to be one of the most loyal signs of the Zodiac because they care so very deeply, value security and prioritise the nurture and protection of those they love, and dogs often show themselves to share these traits in their own way. Indeed there is perhaps no better symbol of loyalty and friendship than the dog. Many people find they actually prefer the company of their dog to that of other humans, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to firmly declare that “home is where the dog is”! 

Selene’s association with dogs appears to have been a late addition to her symbolism through her lunar connection to Artemis and Hekate, but that said, Hekate’s relationship with them was very different to Artemis’ and yet still shows us another Cancerian side to the dog. Hekate valued dogs - especially black dogs - in their role as guardians, and she was frequently depicted flanked by dogs in Greek artwork. There are various writings in which their howling and baying heralds her coming and they were said to escort her on nighttime wanderings. From ancient times through to the modern day, dogs have been kept to guard land and watch over herds, and have long been believed to provide protection against wayward spirits and ill-intentioned ghosts. Dogs are sensitive to liminal spaces and the beings that inhabit them, and this is also reflected in the mythology of Kerberos (Cerberus), the three-headed guard-hound of Hades. Although Hekate and Kerberos seem to have been rarely depicted together, they were connected through their shared association with spirits, and we might say they worked together in that Hekate guided the souls of the dead to the Underworld and Kerberos made sure they stayed there!

The Deer

The next animal we will consider as a totem of Cancer is the deer, in particular the hind or doe.

Perhaps the most precious sacred animal of Artemis was the Ceryneian Hind, an extraordinary female deer with great golden antlers, so swift that even Heracles was hard-pushed to capture her. Four more of these sacred creatures are often reported to pull Artemis’ chariot - although some sources (I think mistakenly) seem to interpret these as stags due to their antlers. It is not known precisely why Artemis’ sacred hinds had antlers and there are several interesting theories (unfortunately there isn’t time to delve into them in this article), but one of my favourites is that they were actually reindeer cows, who do in fact have antlers like their male counterparts!

The timid and elusive nature of the female deer makes her a perfect symbol of the untameable wilderness over which Artemis presides. Whether reindeer, red deer or otherwise, she is extremely sensitive and intuitive, and so she can help us to connect with our innate lunar instincts and our wild self. In doing so, she reminds us that we too are animals - a fact that many of us in our ‘civilised’ world are quick to forget. Her elegance, subtlety and gentleness are also reflective of many of the traditionally feminine traits which the Moon represents, and embracing the deer can help put us in touch with this more tender side of the sign of Cancer.

This same elusiveness is what gave the deer its association with the divine across many cultures. In the Celtic traditions they are often connected with fairy lore, and if you have ever witnessed a hind or doe in the forest disappear as quickly as she appeared, you will understand why. One moment she is there, and the next she is gone and you are left wondering if she was ever really there at all. Thus the deer can bring us an awareness of the liminal and the places-between-places - something most of our chosen Cancer totem animals here seem to share. We are called to look deeper, beyond the material and the apparently obvious, to what lies beneath; deer invites us into the realms of spirit, soul and deep feeling in which Cancer feels so naturally at home.

The Bear 

The final totem of Cancer is yet another sacred animal of Artemis - which perhaps isn’t surprising, seeing as Artemis keeps all wild animals under her stewardship. This last animal is the bear - perhaps the ultimate symbol of the wild. But the fearless bear brings us into relationship with nature in a very different way to the gentle deer. Of course, most wild animals will bring themes of instinct and intuition into our awareness, but whilst the deer speaks to us of nature’s free and elusive spirit, the bear tells us stories of the ancient and the primal. As a Cancerian totem, the bear connects us with source and the origins of all things, and serves to remind us of our ancestral roots and our heritage. Even at the dawn of prehistory, it seems that ancient man revered the bear, and stone altars together with great collections of bear bones have been discovered dating back as far as 70,000 years. This is one of our most primal (if not perhaps the primal) totem animal, and thus when we connect with the bear spiritually, we are partaking in a practice that our predecessors partook in all that time ago.

The bear can also bring us into relationship with Cancer is through the archetype of the mother. The term “mother bear” is not uncommonly used to denote a mother with a fierce protective and nurturing instinct. Female bears raise their cubs alone, with some species devoting as long as three years to teach them how to hunt, forage and survive without her, thus making the bear a powerful symbol of motherhood and maternal instinct.

Of course, sadly here in the UK our native bears were driven out of our forests and eventually into extinction, but for those of us sensitive to such things their spirit remains in the still-wild spaces, a reminder of a time long before our forests were felled and our rivers polluted. We yearn for a return to nature, and this longing for the past is yet another way in which the symbol of the bear can connect us with the sign of Cancer, which is so often associated with memory and mourning for that which no longer is.

Final Thoughts

A constant theme of these explorations into Rewilding the Zodiac is that there are unfortunately always some animals that I would have liked to include that I have to leave out. I do my best to curate a selection for each sign that feel are most appropriate, and which each embody different aspects of a sign's nature. I also like to choose a variety of species and ‘types’ of animals, so that hopefully you might feel drawn to at least one of them.

All of the animals presented here offer us some sort of link with the liminal and the in-between, and have a sense for intuiting the unseen, just as Cancer calls us to be deeply sensitive, intuitive and soulful. The crab inhabits the shoreline where land meets sea, the scarab beetle navigates the earth by the light of the heavens, the dog senses the presence of otherworldly entities, the deer is oftentimes associated with fairy lore and the bear connects us with the spirits of our ancestors.

But each one also brings our attention to other different aspects of the sign of Cancer in their own unique and special way. The crab can teach us how to be soft within but hard without, as well as how to go with the flow of the tides of our lives. The dog is perhaps the ultimate symbol of empathy, loyalty and guardianship - all undeniably Cancerian values. Meanwhile the elusive and gentle hind embodies many very lunar qualities, and in connecting with her we can come to embrace these traits ourselves. The bear tells us tales of our primal and wild origins, whilst also teaching us of the fierce but loving protectress also known as mother. And finally, the scarab’s life cycle brings us awareness of the ever-turning wheel of death and rebirth, of divine creation and the eternal life of the soul, and through communion with this humble little creature we might somehow find our way back home.

Which animal you choose to work with may be dependant upon which one calls to you most, or feels most relatable or accessible. Or you might like to work with different totems at different times, under different circumstances or with different intentions in mind. Or you might like to take the time to get to know each one in turn. Perhaps none of these animals speak to you, and you have another Cancerian totem who you connect with more naturally (if you do, I’d love to know who and what they are!).

And as always, how you choose to work with these animals in your own astrological or spiritual practice is entirely up to you. You might prefer to research them and learn about them, meditate with them, write stories or poetry or create artwork depicting them. You might like to make a space for them upon your altar, or leave offerings to them. There is no right or wrong, except to say that when connecting with these animals in the natural world, leave no trace and do no harm. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know these Cancerian animals with me. A heartfelt thank you to you for reading, and as always please do share your thoughts in the comments. This project is still growing and unfolding its wings, so all feedback is greatly valued.

With love and magic, 

Merry x