The two opposite forms in the zodiacal sign of Cancer ♋ look like a pair of embryos or seedlings. It seems that there is something in the state of germination, of becoming. This is indeed the meaning of the sign of Cancer: it gives the substance or substrate for a new being, it is its base environment, its womb. It is the place from where the being (in its individual and in its universal sense) starts from, where it is conceived and borne. As first or cardinal sign of the zodiacal triality of Water, it stands for the deep of Water ( תהום in the Genesis, the primordial ocean) where the seeds of new worlds are placed.
The astrological traditions are unanimous in assigning the domicile of the Moon to the sign of Cancer ♋. It is therefore apparent that there is an intrinsic correspondence between Cancer and the lowest of the celestial spheres in mediavel cosmology, which is the “Heaven of the Moon”. This last “Heaven” under which the sublunar, earthly world begins, is also called the “World of Formation”. It corresponds to the third of the four cabbalistic worlds, Yetzirah, the abode of the angels. It is where the forms are created as subtle bodies before they come into existence. This is the area of the mundus imaginalis , the Imaginal World1 or Alam al-mithal, where, according to Ibn Arabi, “spirit becomes body and body becomes spirit”. The Imaginal World is the world of the Soul and the souls. It is an intermediate world whose function is to communicate between the intellectual and the sensory physical world, between thought and being
Now, it is an interesting fact that the shape of the two opposing, “embrionic” forms in the symbol for the zodiacal sign Cancer ♋ is to be found in a ligature of the Sanskrit for the well-known monosyllabic mantra of the Eastern tradition, AUM2.
ॐ
This ligature can be divided inro three parts. There is the A as a long initial vocal, (depicted in Sanskrit as आ ), and there is the final sound as a point ઁ . These two parts of the ligature are joined by a spiral stroke which underlines the adjacent letters. In Indian writings it stands for the vowel U.
ુ
This single character has a similar shape as the two “seedlings” in ♋. Both forms have a curling, spiral end. Indeed, the germs of the cancer as well as the middle of the syllable (U) stand for a condition in the stage of “involution” respectively “evolution”. This condition is an intermediate state: a transition between the “inferior” sensory world and the upper world of intelligibility. In the Indian tradtition it is called “dream state” (taijasa), which can also be considered as the realm of imaginal (not imaginary!) forms1. As the germ or “seedling” symbolizes a being between conception and birth, only “virtually” present, but not yet manifest, so stands the middle of syllable of the mantra AUM for the reverse passage from the state of the revealed Being (A) to its final cause (the dimensionless, metaphysical point as the primordial principle of all Being)3.
As we have seen, the two embrionic forms in the sign of cancer are shown in the opposite sense, building up a circle with two complementary forms. This corresponds to the yin-yang ☯ , a symbol of the Far Eastern tradition that combines the two forms in the same way as the sign of Cancer. It is a cyclical symbol, which means that it stands for the change in the temporal cycle phases with the predominance of yin (winter, darkness) respectively yang (summer, light). It also stands for the symbolism of the “hemispheres” (as in various cultural systems the Double spiral). Its spherical shape (the World Egg ) corresponds to the Being in its perfect fullness, in which the two seedlings have their origin, divided into male and female, but not yet separated.
Furthermore, the zodiacal sign (or better: hieroglyphe) Cancer ♋ can be brought in correspondence with the divine Conch shell (shankha), not only by his aquatic quality. According to the Indian tradition, the Conch preserves during the eschatological dissolution of the World (pralaya) inside the germs of a new world cycle. It encloses the “indestructible” primordial sound (akshara), once again revealed at the beginning of each cycle as the monosyllabic AUM4. The symbolic correspondace to the seedling in the zodiac sign of cancer is the following: the straight line (A)5 covers and closes (U) the shell containing inside the “pearl” (M), the starting point and essence of all being. At the same time, the horizontal orientation of the straight line symbolizes the “surface” of the Water as the base for the development of the seed (the blossoming of the lotus flower) at the end of the eclipse between two cycles. The lower one of the two “seedlings” represent the Ark of Noah (or of Satyavrata in the Hindu tradition), containing in its interior the point in which all beings are in a state of complete involution. The upper one represents the rainbow which, at the moment of restoration and renewal of all things, appears in the “cloud”, that is, in the upper waters, while the Ark swims during the flood on the lower waters. The lower semicircle as Ark and the upper semi-circle as Rainbow form a single circular figur and represent together the restoration of the origin: it is the vertical section through the original spherical shape, whereas the horizontal section shows the enclosures of the earthly paradise.
(Source: René Guénon: L’hiéroglyphe du Cancer. Paris, Voile d’Isis, 1931)
1 Imaginal World as defined by Henry Corbin
2 If the glyph in Unicode (U +0950) is not visible, then your browser is not up to date and cannot reproduce the Unicode Devanagari font. See in this case the article AUM in the Wikipedia.
3 The shape and the sound of the syllable is a symbol of the mystical unity of creation, preservation and dissolution of being, it is a representation of the trimurti (Brahmā – Viṣṇu – Śiva).
4 see the prologue in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word …”
5 The vowel A is in Sanskrit sometimes represented as a straight line.
