The Sun enters Cancer on June 21st, opening the solstice gate to Summer.
While preparing for the solstice my mind kept turning back to 2021, when I was dipping deeply into the archetype of Cancer in preparation for my monthly Archetypal Reel series.
(The Cancer Reel remains one of my favorites, by the way. Have a listen if you want to go DEEEEP into Cancer's alchemical secrets: https://saraeliseastrology.com/payment/class-m9ybl)
At this time, 2 years ago, I was devoted to a practice called 'The Holy Womb Chakra', a system using vedic mantra and yantra to open and cleanse connection to the divine feminine. That experience was so powerful for me, it fueled a newsletter that I feel called to re-share with you. I hope you don't mind.... Something tells me this story is worth telling again.
It's not my story, after all. It belongs to our Mother.
Not a one of us did not come through a mother, whatever her ability to hold us may have been. Yet the MOTHER PRINCIPLE goes beyond the flesh. Cancer is the great Cosmic Womb or Mother principle, the most generative and creative force in the zodiac. The dreamer who dreams us, the Gaia who feeds us, the Goddess who loves us beyond ourselves.
To tap into HER is, perhaps, the ultimate in achievements.
Please, let me share how I came to feel this.
In 1995, I was invited to stay with a friends family on their off-grid homestead high in the Rocky Mountains.
Gladda and Vince were the parents names. This beautiful couple had settled at the top of a mountain, at the end of an abandoned logging road, early in the 1970s. The story was they simply picked a road and walked up it, till they came to a flat spot and started to build. All with a 3 year girl in tow.
Together, they created a home with fallen trees scattered on the land, left behind after the logging company's pillage.
Having immigrated from Ireland, Vince's knowledge of traditional farming practices enabled him to work fields with horse and plow. Gladda tended greenhouses, cultivated vegetables. For years, they chopped wood and hauled water. Lived without electricity.
But by the time I was there, they had built a siphoning system that carried water from a mountain spring through PVC pipes, directly to their hobbit-style wooden kitchen. They had a cow who provided daily yogurt for oatmeal and young cheese for creamy pasta. There were chickens who gave eggs. Bees with honey. Berries in abundance. And potatoes! So many.
The two of them were grizzled mountaineers, devoted to sustainable living and organic permaculture, and devoted to each other. Thursdays, Gladda told me with a giggle, were when they met in the forest to make love. Every week, without fail. Their ritual.
Through the summers they bordered young men, somewhat lost and searching souls, offering room in board in exchange for labor.... and apprenticeship. These men knew the value of what they were receiving, this first hand experience with an 'off the path' lifestyle. They toiled with care and respect. Honor.
Vince would say "I need to teach as many of them as will learn! Before it's too late."
This small family somehow thrived for decades, in those mountains. TRUE homesteaders, they never held title to their land. They simply worked it. Treated it with respect. RAISED A DAUGHTER IN THIS WAY. Contributed to the community.
I was in blown into a million pieces of amazement.
One early morning, as I lay sleeping in this pristine wilderness temple, I had a dream.
In it I was first walked through someone's fancy Vancouver mansion where a lavish display of 'things' were highlighted for view. In 1995, these 'things' included camcorders, gaming systems, the latest in audio technology, sought-after material possessions... the best of the best. As I was guided through the house, I was struck with the frigidity of these symbols of 'success'.
Then I was brought out of this 'house' and dropped deep into the belly of the Earth. The Gaia herself. A different kind of 'home'.
In this place, I felt calm. I felt connected with the power of regeneration and creation, of safety. It was warm, wet, dark, wild, unknown, unknowable! Mysterious and powerful. Exciting. Alive.
And in this place of earth connection, I was so still that I could literally hear Her Heartbeat. I could feel it, as if it were my own. Deep, soft, consistent, real.
It felt so good to be Home, to be so intimately connected with Her. I felt a level of Peace I had never known until that moment.
And then a voice spoke into my heart, in the dream, and posed a question...
'Of all you might achieve in life, what could be more valuable than knowing the heartbeat of your Mother?'
And I awoke.
Wow.
I lay in that small wooden out-post which was my 'room'.
I remember how hot it was inside that structure, in the morning sun.
I remember how the sound of bees and pollinators elevated the air around me.
I remember how good it felt to breath in the smell of warm wood mingled with mountain crispness.
I remember feeling so fully alive.
I remember tears and gratitude intermingling, welling like water in my chest. That was the first time I'd felt that.
When I think of Gladda and Vince, my heart still breaks for gratitude. I am sure they have transitioned by now. Perhaps they passed the torch, perhaps their daughter brought them into the city. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I have no idea.
But I will always remember:
They taught me what it means to be Human.
They taught me that the deep earth heartbeat is my home.
Life is so tender and tenuous. Of this, we are all too well aware. Cancer teaches us to not miss a single breath.
How has the mother reached out to YOU? I'd love to hear.
Love, Sara
