by Dominique Jones
One of the most reliable methods to align ourselves with a high spiritual vibration is through the energy of appreciation. Nature’s treasures sustain us and surround us daily, providing a deep and moving energy, and if we meditate on their beauty, we find our hearts and spirits expanding in expressive and fulfilling ways.
One of the ways to grow during our journeys is to recognize the relationship between astrology and nourishment. You will find a correlation between a sign and a food in this article and methods you can use to attune your energy.
Cancer is the cardinal sign in the zodiac that introduces the season of summer, attached to the archetype of the Moon and the mother. The moon is a planet-sized body that orbits the earth without atmosphere and light of its own. Its temperature when facing the sun is extremely hot and when enveloped in the darkness of space is extremely cold. Cancers likewise experience the full gamut of sensitivity to emotional experience, and run hot and cold according to the energy they encounter, so they should get ready to REFLECT.
Imagine time is not limited to its linear trajectory—that there is a dimension where all points in time happen simultaneously. In a divine state of being, you could reach into any moment and have access to past, present, and future—being unlimited by the perceptions that have constrained humans through living a linear history. All our concepts of time would be uprooted as the connections between centuries would be pliable and circular.
Now imagine the same thing applying to emotions. Imagine all emotions happening at once. Imagine the ability to access the connections between emotional states-of-being and the causal effects of thoughts and actions rippling through the world long before the ripples occur.
As they measure our brain activity, neuroscientists say that we make decisions unconsciously prior to our conscious thought leading to an action. That’s why it’s so difficult to change our habits—we have to access the unconscious decision-making from which our habitual ritual actions and subsequent emotional reactions result. The Cancer perceptions work at that unconscious moment of vibration and so can see the results approaching and can feel the probable emotions emerging. Imagine that level of emotional consciousness and you can begin to imagine the perceptions while a person with strong Cancer energy simply sips a cup of tea.
Every time there is a change in the energy around them, a Cancer will feel it. The Cancer person may not even be conscious of their empathic abilities or able to elucidate their experience. They may not be able to put it into any language that can be spoken, and it’s an enormous energetic capability. To perceive energy changes, and on the emotional level, which is the level of vibrational evaluation, makes one feel as if one is the judge of something.
Until a person has gone through their spiritual maturation into a full sense that they are included in the family of life and they know without a shadow of a doubt that they are loved by life, they will likely make the mistake of thinking they are supposed to go about discerning things. Society will not help them out here, as there are plenty of messages to support thoughts of being critical and superior/inferior. The problem for all of us with any of these thoughts is that eventually judgments turn on us and make us unhappy and lonely. They are a lower vibration and lead to emotions that are unsustainable.
Perhaps that is why in astrology it has been said that Cancers run hot and cold, or can be explosive. But the underlying mechanism is the management of perceiving all emotions. When the Cancer person can see behind the veil of situations into their true potential for emotional insight, they begin to awaken their empathic and psychic abilities. Then it gets fun instead of confusing and judgmental or reactive.
Empathic life becomes a dialogue with reality where a Cancer can begin to bless themselves and those around them with their insights, their ability to integrate the molecules in the air into a positive and warm glow through their intentional heart energy and their water sign depth of transformation that is like none other. When you see the changes throughout the life of a Cancer, you will be inspired beyond belief.
The reason is that the Cancer energy is also known as the birth energy, and it is not only vibrating at the unconscious point of decision-making in our minds, but at the point of many creative processes in our lives. Observing the sacred joy of creation is a high calling for Cancers.
It’s so important for Cancer folks to give themselves as much room as they would like to take good care of themselves. Often, this means permission for solitude and time with nature and beauty. This permission for self-care is a theme I’ve seen repeatedly in clients with strong Cancer influence. Somehow, this seems a shadow theme in the Cancer life—get out of balance via over-responsibility or focusing too much on others and then, via a trauma such as illness or divorce, get back into balance through a time of retreat and intensive self-care. I get the feeling if Cancers had this permission from a young age, it might help them avoid this shadow cycle in the future.
Cancer energy is perhaps the most nurturing energy you will ever encounter when you reach it at its spiritual zenith. The soul of Cancer is the seat of motherhood, and that is the ticket for the seat we all would like to purchase. Nothing is warmer or more inspiring and beautiful. It’s where we want to be—the creative center—and the result for which we all have been working so very hard—to be at home and at peace. Cancers already have it right in the center of their heart-space, and it is a gift for all of us.
(To note, all of us have the sign of Cancer in our chart, and wherever we have it in our chart, we can always be at home there. A Kajama astrologer can tell you what part of life can give you infinite peace.)
If you are interested in bringing forth more Cancer energy in your life, you can use two methods. The first method is through nourishment and the second method is through a guided meditation. If you combine the two, you have even more manifestation energy.
You can manifest Cancer energy if you want to increase your ability in any or all of the following areas of your life:
- Uterus, breast, and pregnancy
- Nutrition, digestion, and stomach issues (including ulcers)
- Family and home
- Sympathy, emotions, and emotional balance
- Sensitivity (increasing)
- Femininity
- Baking/catering, interior decorating, real estate, social work, doctors, hotels, commerce, supplying domestic needs of all kinds
- Boats and lakes
- Plumbing and buildings
- Empathic abilities / psychic abilities
Method 1: Nourishment
Mushrooms are associated with the sign of Cancer. Medicinal mushrooms are a rich pharmaceutical that support healing and/or protection from cancer, inflammation, immunity problems, liver problems, fibroids, cholesterol issues, diabetes, viral infections, and other chronic illnesses. Basically, mushrooms are amazing allies for both humans and the earth, and we humans have eaten them with gusto throughout the ages.
You can cook mushrooms and they will retain their nutritional support for your body. One of the great things about them is that you don’t need to be concerned about cooking the nutrients out of them. To prepare them, simply wipe them off with a damp cloth or paper towel instead of trying to wash them under water. You can cook them dry or in an oil or butter, or whatever preparation you prefer.
The earliest record of mushroom use was found in a cave in Algeria from about 5000 BCE where they were pictured with a dancing shaman outlined with a glowing aura. The Greeks and Romans wrote extensively on how they feasted upon their boletus and cultivated mushrooms on poplar trees. The Chinese and Indian cultures widely used many species of mushrooms. Russians have a rich history of mushroom gathering and feasting. Fungi appear on eighteen European coats of arms. Mushrooms have been part of the human family’s diet throughout our history, and have been on earth for what we know to be about 500 million years (according to fossil data).
There are at least 1.4 million species of mushrooms, but we’ve only identified about 800,000. Mushrooms that are available for us to eat are often cultivated, but many of them are still gathered in forests. It’s important—extremely important—to be educated and meticulous when gathering mushrooms because many mushrooms are poisonous and even deadly.
There are many varieties of mushrooms beyond the button and portabella mushrooms we often see in grocery stores. The king bolete mushroom used in the meditation created below was often thought to be the finest mushroom for eating and was hunted down during mushroom season and placed on the table of royalty.
In addition to food, mushrooms are used in fuel cells and in mycoremediation. Mycoremediation is a process that uses fungi to help dispose of toxic materials, decontaminate and reduce road and farm runoff, reduce forest fire potential, clean up contaminated bacterium like E. coli, and create buffer zones around polluted areas.
It has been said that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. I would like to see the DNA of mushrooms. Fungi move—they lift heavy rocks and break through concrete. They come in all sizes and live to be hundreds of years old. The Fruiting bodies we eat are small parts of the whole fungi. The whole creatures consist of mycelium that spread out on the ground and absorb the water and nutrients from the surrounding area, and each of the fruiting bodies is connected to everything that mycelium touches.
Mushrooms, then, are like little friends to us—in the majority of cases. As long as we are wise in our consumption, choosing safe mushroom varieties, it is wise to consume them on a daily basis to keep ourselves very healthy, indeed!
Method 2: Guided Meditation
This guided meditation is full of images and thoughts that are very grounding. You can use the following guided meditation in a few ways. The first is to read it silently, slowly to yourself, letting the images wash over your imagination. The second is to visit IntuitiveMoon.com and listen to the audio recordings. Take a few minutes during your day for yourself, close your eyes, and be led in a meditation that is nourishing and deeply refreshing.
Cancer and the Orb of the Mushroom Guided Meditation
As you settle into a comfortable position, focus your awareness on your breath. Breathe slowly and relax. Gently move your mind’s eye to the area of your body surrounding your heart. Imagine in the center of your heart area, there is a golden circle of light, like a small star that lives inside you and can contract and expand at any time. This golden orb is extremely flexible.
It can expand to encompass and protect your entire body. It can contract down to the size of a penny. You feel at home in this golden glow. It is a sensation you can always return to, like you can always retreat to the quiet of your home after being out in the world for a time.
You feel peace, serenity, and the sense that you can open the door to your true nature. As you enjoy these feelings, you focus your breathing through your heart.
The golden orb of light changes to a size that is ideal for you to feel comfortable. It honors and protects your heart.
Imagine your consciousness moving into the center of the golden orb energy. As you move into the center of the circle of light, you find that you are safe and anchored in a way that allows you to travel into your imagination deeper.
Move even more into the center of the light. As you experience the illumination of light moving toward you, you will also discover a scene opening up before you. You will find yourself in a forest at night.
You are floating in your orb of light just above the ground, flying smoothly along, just above the ground like a tiny fairy. You enjoy being able to see at night. You enjoy being able to fly and move effortlessly at any speed you desire, even pop in and out anywhere your curiosity directs.
Air for you is like water that you swim within. Every movement is effortless and you observe how things grow in this forest full of life and loveliness. For a little while, you may move around looking at night creatures and their habits. You watch various plants and trees.
Then you move under one particular tree and see the fruiting bodies of a patch of king bolete mushrooms growing amid the bark and pinecones sprinkled at the feet of this tree and its neighbors.
You become curious to explore what it would be like to merge your energy with a mushroom being. A wild growing fungus. Something in between a plant and an animal. For a few moments, you simply sit atop one of the tall mushroom caps, feeling the smooth surface against your fingertips and palm.
Then you lift off and effortlessly fly underneath. You see the bottom of the mushroom cap up close.
You decide to explore the inside of a mushroom. You slowly approach the pores underneath the mushroom’s top and enter into the space between them like a little spaceship traveling into the unknown.
As you travel down into the stem of the fruiting portion of the mushroom, you arrive at its base and realize this one fruit that humans know to be a singular mushroom is actually connected via its stem to its mycelium. This mother mycelium is a singular entity to the whole family of mushroom stems that you saw underneath the tree. The mushroom is one complex organism, with mushroom stems emerging into the air time and time again to spread its spores.
You can feel how sensitive the mushroom is, and how each stem is connected to the others through the ground. The sense of connectedness is so strong in the mushroom consciousness that it’s a transformative force. The mycelium reaches out like a tongue to taste new territory and digests wastes into nutrients.
As it cleans the ground around it, it picks up any water it can find and transports it through the mycelium, up the stems, and up into the caps. No part of the mushroom family is alone and nothing it touches is left unnourished. The mother mycelium is a bed of unseen activity low to the ground that surrounds and changes everything.
What a profound example of divine nurturing, you think, as you thank the mushroom spirit for sharing its wisdom. You wrap your arms around yourself as if to convey you are giving the mushroom a hug and then fly back up through the mycelium and out the mushroom’s pores the same way the mushroom spores would when they are ready to travel into the air.
You promise the mother mycelium you will be back for another visit, and you slowly return through the cool air of the forest over the ground and the night-time flowers and birds and when you are ready, up into the golden light at the center of your heart.
Breathe, and enjoy feeling at home in your heart. Now notice your body, and notice how you are connected to the earth. Feel your toes and feet. Make a vow to take inspiration from the mushroom and transform something for the better today, however large or small it may be. Breathe through your heart and allow the golden orb to rest at a size and place that you will be comfortable with during normal consciousness. It is a protective energy that you can carry within you always. When you’re ready, open your eyes, give yourself time to adjust gently, and slowly ease into activity.
Dominique Jones is an internationally known astrologer, psychic, and writer. She is the author of the upcoming book “Nourishing Astrology,” a compendium of correlations between astrological elements and foods, along with recipes for manifesting astrological energies. She is also a professional metaphysical consultant at Kajama. Visit her at www.intuitivemoon.com to schedule a reading or sign up for her FREE monthly newsletter, featuring a comprehensive monthly astrological overview, healthy recipes and more!