Cancer

cancer1Louise’s tarotscope: This will be a really soft and gentle month for you. I’m definitely seeing self-care come into play—I like to call it positive selfishness. I want to see that in your January, you recognizing that the more you look after yourself, the more you can do everything else. It’s really easy for you to look after things for your parents, or to help your friends with problems, but you have to take care of yourself first. If you take care of yourself first, you can always be a better friend, student, team member.

I believe in having a morning practice—it’s a way of making time for yourself before the day starts. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed recently, or tightly wound, this month’s watery energy calls you back to your comfort mode. Partly, that involves allowing yourself time alone. If that feels really uncomfortable, then your discomfort is a call to action: Try sitting alone a bit longer! It can be tough to hang out on our own, and often people tell me how hard they find it to meditate. Don’t worry, sometimes meditating is just wriggling on the spot while you wish you weren’t hanging out with yourself. Every morning, allow yourself to light a candle, put on your favorite song and sit. Or make time to eat breakfast or to have a cup of tea on your own. The January feeling is that everyone’s getting active, but you have a very make-a-fort energy this month. Make a den in your home, or in the corner of your bedroom, and use it as your January quiet time to which you can retreat to watch TV, read books, study, or cast spells. Know that it’s OK—this is a Cancer energy, to retreat into your shell to feel safe.

I also believe that our safe place has to be inside of us, which is why a self-care practice is important. When we think of a safe place, it’s good not to attach it to another person, because we can never control what other people are doing or their movements. Pillowfort yourself a corner somewhere that’s yours and throw yourself there. We can all benefit from that cozy space, a nest as an active thing that doesn’t feel lazy so much as it feels like an assigned den for doing you. January is a good time to make yourself space and give yourself time, so that if you’re worried about anything, you have a nest that feels really fun and safe to retreat to.

cancer001

Dylan’s advice: It seems clear that a fort-making session is in order this January! Choose a theme or intention that you want this fort to be a space for, and fill it with objects, resources, and comforts that allow you to immerse yourself in whatever that intention may be. If you want to cultivate more learning outside of school into your life, grab the books you want to get into and stack them high in your comfy fort, equipped with reading lights, pencils, and Post-Its for making notes. For a Cancer who seeks more comfort in the stressful coming year, arrange your fluffiest comforters and pillows under billows of sheets pinned to your wall and make little stations of cozy luxury, which might look like pedicure supplies or a hot water bottle or a knitting project to be picked up again whenever you re-enter your fort. If you have so many looming exams or application deadlines to get through this month that full-on lazing seems but a dream, make this fort your snug and toasty Go Gettem HQ, from which you can plug in your laptop or slug in your textbooks and notecards for banishing stiff studying and getting shit done while still wrapping yourself in warmth. Whatever you do, just make sure there’s a strand of fairy lights hung up somewhere—it’s not a fort without some!