Just a few days ago, my “Whats the Vibe? 2025” Guide came out.

This guide is a monthly, weekly, and daily breakdown of the astrology of the next 12 months, complete with aligning activities to help you attune with the quality of time found in each day.
This guide gives you that context and shows you how to work with the larger influences that impact us.

One thing I’m most proud of with this astrological year ahead for 2025 is that is gets into the weeds of how a certain morning or weekend will go but it also helps you tune into bigger cycles and transits to watch as well.

Though the swift movement of the Moon will impact your day-to-day (see this past newsletter), the slower moving planets will impact things on a more long-term scale.

Long-lasting transits allows deeper changes to take hold within us and also play out on the global scale. The movement of the outer planets or Jupiter and Saturn bring in new trends, scientific breakthroughs, economic upheavals, political moves. By watching these transits, we can see how the shifts of our lives connect to the rest of the world.

One of the biggest, and most auspicious, shifts of 2025 is Jupiter’s movement into Cancer on June 9th, 2025.

Jupiter changes signs every one year and only spends one twelfth of its time in Cancer, its exaltation. In this essay I’ll get into the sign of Cancer, why Jupiter does well here, and what that could mean for us next.

You can learn more about how this transit, plus countless others, will play out in my 2025 guidebook.

Learn more about the guide and purchase here:

What's the Vibe? 2025

The Truth about Cancer

Mode: Cardinal

Element: Water

Symbol: The Crab

Domicile Ruler: The Moon

Exaltation Ruler: Jupiter

The sign of Cancer is a shifty one, even I’ll admit. On the one hand, this sign marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, this water sign is ruled by the Moon, queen of the night. Though many modern resources reduce Cancers to crybabies or mother types, its symbol is the hard-shelled, pinching crab— not an animal you would associate with the sign often associated with our comfortable private lives. Café Astrology tells us “Cancer natives are self-protective and sensitive, and often retreat into themselves when hurt”. They “resist changes in the environment” in order to shield themselves “from hostile elements in various habitats”.

Co-star describes Cancers as “Sensitive, [seeking] comfort, [forgiving] but never [forgetting"]” while also taking on other people’s problems. From these descriptions, you get the picture of a moody, walled-in being who is averse to change or forgiveness. Their sensitivity makes them too delicate and testy for this cruel world world.

But the truth is more complex than that.

The Moon Queen

If you were to pick up Vettius Valens, for example, your conception of Cancer would be quite different than what convention dictates. The Hellenistic astrologer calls men born under this sign “ambitious, popular, constantly changing, theatrical, cheerful, easily downcast, pleasure loving, party-giving, public". One would not expect such a sociable, visible description of the sign often relegated to moping around the house.

I believe a lot of the confusion comes from how we see and understand the Moon. Though Luna literally represents the beginning of all things, our physical existence and daily life, she is often reduced to the role of the mother and homemaker. But remember the Moon, like the Sun, is also a luminary. According to the Yavanjataka, if the planets were a court, the Sun would be the king and the Moon, the queen. But if the Sun is public from his throne, issuing decrees sent out by messengers, the Moon finds her public role amidst the people, like Cancer Sun Princess Diana. Though she enjoyed her private life, Diana was constantly thrust into the spotlight, often due to her more mundane, personal choices— her fashion sense, her tenderness towards an AIDS patient, her divorce and pregnancy and mental health. But she was also literally known as “The People’s Princess”: her common touch is what made her not just royal, but, as the Valens text above points out, popular.

While the Sun gains their sovereignty through being somehow different or elevated above others, the Moon gains her from reveling in her being like everyone else. . But more than that, Cancer creates get-togethers and gatherings for people to socialize and mingle. Being “theatrical,” they know how to turn something into a production and their “cheerful” and “ambitious” disposition lends them to create great works for their own pleasure. What else is a party but a public display of connection and enjoyment? Perhaps this is part of why Jupiter exalts here: he is able to make one feel intimate even in a grand, impersonal situation

The Changer

But, just as the hangover and clean-up follow the rager, Cancer is not known for only sunny skies. The moody allegations still stick as Valens calls them “constantly changing” as well as “easily downcast,” implying a small thing can sour their mood. Like the phases of the moons, our feelings on a given day are constantly changing. Cancer is a sign of embodying this constant quickening, this shifting between many things. We see this quality play out beyond their emotions, however, which modern definitions tend to miss.

In addition to moving between moods, there is a restlessness in both mind and body with this sign. While they are often reduced to stodgy home dwellers, Valens writes this: “unsteady of mind, they say one thing but think another, and not sticking to one activity or (at the most) two, they become wanderers and travelers”. You will see this manifesting in the changing of their professions, path and locations. Those with heavy Cancer may find themselves taking up many different professions or moving a lot. They need to be able to shift their surroundings to match their moods and desires. This is not an erraticism: it’s being faithful to our cycles, another lunar gift.