Cancer is a feeling type. Feeling types have the strongest potential of the four basic types for expressing their highest spiritual nature. They’re intuitive, empathic, sensitive, and very aware of the needs of others. They can be very hard to understand because they tend to hide their true selves. They take cover in their shells when you try to pry into their private lives. They’re cautious because they feel deeply vulnerable. Cancer types must learn to be frank and direct, rather than wield tact and diplomacy to avoid emotional confrontation. Avoiding confrontation doesn’t mean they won’t cultivate intimacy wherever and whenever they can. Cancer feelings can swing from loving and devoted to secretive and reclusive to obsessive and fearful. When Cancer types are feeling controlled or confined, they can become dark and moody. They need to feel protected and secure before they can fully trust. Once trust is earned, loyalties run deep. Healthy family ties and close friendships nourish their naturally nurturing natures. Having organization, structure, and detail helps them feel more stable and secure.

Healthy types have no problem expressing love, compassion, sympathy, and devotion. They communicate best with other feeling types and feel safe with practical types who are responsible, reliable, and dependable. Feeling types are thinking and intuitive type challenged. They’re nervous they’ll be left holding the psychic garbage bag and forced to deal with the emotional fallout when idealism, optimism, enthusiasm, and logic wane, and they do. Having acute consciousness of one’s own emotional needs is essential.

Pure types tend to be internally secretive and externally ambitious at the same time. They’ll work extremely hard as long as income matches output. That income provides food, family security, and fertile ground for their roots and resourceful imaginations.

Demeter is the Greek earth goddess of grain and the harvest. I chose her to represent Cancer and water because she’s a powerful mother. Cancer mothers (not all) are thought to be controlling and overprotective of their children. When Pluto abducted Persephone, Demeter exercised her mother power over all the gods, goddesses, and mankind by creating winter (death of flora) for the months that Persephone is with Pluto.

You don’t have to have a Cancer sun to have Cancer hands and behavior. Rectangular palms and long fingers (often held closely together) indicate dominant feeling types. Healthy Cancer hands are firm in consistency and moderate in flexibility with pink elastic skin. Joints are less stiff than Scorpion and less flexible than Piscean types. Healthy types have a firm sincere handshake. More lines add more sensitivity. Head and life lines may separate at their beginnings. Long head lines gently slope downward toward well-developed heels of the hands while long heart lines gracefully curve upward toward the index finger. I’ve observed a lot of round or conical fingertips with long nails and a majority of loop fingerprints, but not enough to generalize.

“You’ve got to play to lose”

Forty-one years ago, this moment was captured in a photo booth at Kennywood Amusement Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lloyd and I met while employed part time at a metal, plastics, and woodworking machine shop where we fabricated preschool children’s learning thingamajigs. We made toys for ourselves on our own time. We were about to graduate from different colleges. I’d become an industrial designer. Lloyd would continue to be an artist. We were actually a couple of Peter Pans on our way to Neverland.

 

Once upon a time, we hitchhiked to a local auto drive-away place, surveyed some pins on a map, and impulsively decided to drive a brand new black Cadillac Fleetwood limousine from Pittsburgh to Miami Beach. We had three days to get there. With a lot of caffeine and humor, we made it in twenty-four hours. We visited Lloyd’s older sister when we arrived, pretending we were successful entrepreneurs. While we were out shooting skeet and racing go-carts at the local track, Lloyd’s sister thoughtfully washed our laundry for us. We came home to find our ragged underwear and socks hanging on her clothes line. The jig was up. Then we drove the Caddy to the beach in search of horny females, but didn’t enchant any.

Lloyd would say to me, “People who tell the truth don’t need to have good memories”. I’d reply, “We may be bastards, but at least we’re honest”. Fifty years of friendship have witnessed many challenging lessons in humility for us. We delayed our outer world from harmonizing with our inner world by always choosing to learn the hard way. There were no shortcuts. We had to finally let go of our need to be more and greater than we were.

Lloyd’s slender rectangular palms and long fingers harmonize with his Cancer sun, which is conjunct my Mercury. His Gemini ascendant harmonizes with my Gemini sun. Lloyd’s head and life lines are tightly intertwined at their beginnings and reveal his desire to feel appreciated. He was a sensitive child who needed love and support, but didn’t  get any. Lloyd tried hard to fix his broken parents, but they were too sick to give him approval and appreciation. Instead, they judged, criticized, and abused him. Lloyd can survive without anyone’s approval, but he thrives on appreciation. He’ll give his friends the shirt off his back, but they had better not take him for granted. Lloyd has literally given me the shirt off his back in my moment of need. I was on my way to an important meeting and got a nasty stain on my shirt. Before I could blink, Lloyd took off his shirt and traded with me.

Lloyd’s a quick thinker and extremely clever with words. Soon after we met, he was on the TV word show “Jeopardy”. When the host asked, “What do you do Mister Wilson?”  Lloyd replied, “I’m a sculptor”. “What kind of sculpture do you make?” Not having a quick easy explanation for his broad eclectic mind and artwork, Lloyd sized up the marketing opportunity and responded in his deep resonant voice, “Expensive Sculpture”.

Lloyd didn’t get much nurturing as a child. He developed his quick wit and sense of humor while trying to avoid extreme physical abuse. When his mother was happy, Lloyd was safe. When she was unhappy, she’d incite Lloyd’s rage filled father to hurt him. Lloyd’s mother committed suicide, his father was committed to a mental institution, and his beautiful sister, who I’d met in Florida with her two young children, great husband, and apparently idyllic life, suddenly and unexpectedly blew her head off with a shotgun.

Lloyd’s very flexible thumbs symbolize his ability to adapt to the most horrible of circumstances. They also embody his generosity of heart and spirit. It’s very hard for Lloyd to say “NO”. He probably doesn’t realize it, but the gold ring on the bottom middle finger of Lloyd’s unconscious hand symbolizes his need to have clear boundaries, be frugal, and not give everything away.

 

 

Cancers are collectors. Some stockpile food in case of shortage or emergency. Lloyd collects art books, literature (he’s the most well-read person I know), religious art, art supplies, tools, and clothing. When wealthy people die, their families donate their clothing to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Lloyd has a keen eye for the finest designer clothing as he picks through the merchandise. He’s a master bargain hunter. I call him my personal dresser. We wear the same sizes. Lloyd chooses suits, coats, and jackets with me in mind. He has gifted me with suits worth thousands of dollars that he paid ten or fifteen dollars for. Many have never been worn.

Lloyd Wilson is Pittsburgh’s best kept secret because he loves his anonymity. His artwork reveals a magical spirit, but few will ever get to know it. Lloyd personifies Cancer’s best qualities. He’s supportive, sympathetic, receptive, reflective, intuitive, imaginative, and extremely devoted to friends and family.  It’s no surprise he’s my best friend.

USA PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY

There have been four US Presidents born under the sign of Cancer. The most recent and worst (in my opinion) President in history was George W Bush. His intuitive hands and personality match his Leo ascendant. George manifested the worst qualities of Cancer and Leo in his presidential intentions and actions. Here’s my rant I featured him in.

 

There were three previous Cancer Presidents. It’s interesting to look at the similarities.

Like George W. Bush vs. Al Gore, the 6^th President, John Quincy Adams finished second in the popular vote behind General Andrew Jackson. No one had a sizable majority. The choice was put before the House of Representatives. The House Speaker, Henry Clay, swung the election to Adams. When Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State, the Jackson followers cried, “Corrupt bargain”.

Unlike Bush, Adams was not re-installed. Here’s a quote on Adams by W.H. Littleton. “Of all the men whom it was ever my lot to accost and to waste civilities upon, he was the most doggedly and systematically repulsive. With a vinegar aspect, cotton in his leathern ears, and hatred in his heart, he sat… like a bulldog among spaniels”.

The 30^th President, Calvin Coolidge, shared his (July 4) birthday with the US Declaration of Independence. His most famous characteristic, “holding his tongue”, earned him the title, “Silent Cal”. Two infamous sayings of his were, “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it” and “The business of America is business”.  William Allen White described him, “He was an economic fatalist with a God given inertia. He knew nothing and refused to learn”. “He was weaned on a pickle” declared Alice Roosevelt Longworth

The 38^th President, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., didn’t learn that he had been adopted until he was seventeen years old. His wife Betty performed the domestic chores because Gerry wouldn’t lift a finger around the house.   As Speaker of the other house, Ford passionately pleaded for escalation of the war in Vietnam. He urged members to “unleash devastating air and sea power”.

Ford launched an unsuccessful crusade to impeach liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas as a favor to his buddy Richard Nixon. Ford ultimately granted Nixon a “full complete and absolute pardon” for all his crimes relating to the Watergate scandal. Ford also blamed the democrats for the disastrous rate of inflation and warned that electing more democrats would “jeopardize world peace”. He admitted that he almost never read books, but did find time to watch football on TV. Here are a few quotes from some of his celebrated critics.

“I cannot dislike him personally — he’s cordial and gracious. But he’s consistently wrong and consistency is a virtue of small minds. He’s never proposed a constructive solution to anything”.  Congressman Robert Drinan

Lyndon Johnson accused Ford of “playing too much football with his helmet off”. “Jerry’s the only man I ever knew who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time”.

“Ford isn’t a bad man, but he’s dumb—dumb. He shouldn’t be dumb either. He went to school just like everybody else”.  Reverend Duncan Littlefair

“The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life… it should be something useful, something good”

In contrast to George W Bush, the Dalai Lama is “the reborn soul of Buddha” and Nobel Prize winning pacifist. In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a singer, priest, healer, poet, and musician who could charm anyone. Orpheus enchanted Pluto into letting him enter the collective unconscious to retrieve his beloved Eurydice. In a moment of weakness, Orpheus looked back at death after being warned not to by Pluto. Orpheus lost Eurydice. He symbolizes the wounded healer who can heal others but not himself. The Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet in 1959. He lived as a “simple monk” in a remote corner of Northern India. His lifetime goals are to promote peace and love in the world and return to Tibet. You can bet whatever we owe China that it won’t happen anytime soon.

As the planet Pluto (god of sex, death, and transformation) transited the sign of Cancer from 1913 to 1938, partisan politics, nationalism, and isolationism transformed the world. World War I ended. World War II began. In 1913, President Wilson pressed a button in the White House that blew up the Gamboa Dike resulting in the destruction of the Isthmus of Panama. That action transformed travel by sea by creating a canal between oceans. Wilson legislated the Carter-Owen Bill that established a Federal Reserve System that transformed the strangle hold on the nation’s currency and credit system by banks.

Daylight Saving Time transformed the nation’s clocks. Transcontinental telephone service transformed international communications. World communications and atomic energy were developed. NBC became the first Nationwide Broadcasting Company. Wall Street prospered from the war while soldiers earning $16 per month died in the trenches. President Wilson established a lottery style draft promoting patriotism, while Congress passed the Espionage Act fining draft dodgers $10,000 and imposing a twenty-year jail sentence. No child was left behind.

Everyone was encouraged to “Do your bit”. Liberty Bonds and wheatless-meatless days were promoted. By the end of 1919, the Influenza pandemic had peaked causing over half a million deaths while almost one quarter of the nation’s population were sick. Prohibition banned liquor for all U.S. citizens. A huge black market and bootlegging industry began to thrive. Black leader Marcus Garvey organized The Empire of Africa that attracted over 500,000 followers. He led the largest mass exodus of Blacks in U.S. history. There was little sense of brotherhood.

In 1929, doubt, fear, and panic upset the stock market which faced its darkest hour and most difficult crisis in history. Traditional foundations of home and family transformed. People born during this period spent much of their lives taking care of family. Parents with overdeveloped guilt and obligation trips motivated children of this generation to become dropouts and runaways.

As the planet Uranus transited the sign of Cancer from 1949 to1955, Mothers stopped staying at home and went to work. Women began wearing the “bikini”, a fashionable French bathing suit. ‘I Love Lucy’, a comical show about a housewife and Cuban bandleader husband became the most popular show on TV. Ranch houses and basement playrooms became popular. The subconscious mind was explored in psychology.  People born between 1949 and 1955 with Uranus in Cancer may be oversensitive and easily hurt by irrational fears, or they may be rational, aware, and strong by choice.

Stay tuned for LEO – Search for Father…