Cancer II — The 3 of Cups (and the Couple Who Climbed the Empire State Building)
The Story That Found Me
I want to tell you how this decan announced itself, because I didn’t go looking for it. It came to me through my phone, mid-scroll, the way the loudest omens usually do.
A Taurus and a Cancer breached security and climbed the Empire State Building. Dressed in all black. Carrying a flag with a message about love overcoming the love of power. And at the top — at the literal highest point of a building named after empire — one of them proposed.
I sat there staring at my screen because we are, as of today (the 1st of july upon writing this), in the Cancer II decan. Ruled by the 3 of Cups. And the decan that just closed — Cancer I — is ruled by the 2 of Cups, the card of union, the mirror, the sacred meeting of two.
Two people formed a union in Cancer I and made it public right at the threshold of Cancer II. The cards flipped from private union to public celebration, and the collective got a proposal broadcast to thousands of people in real time.
I didn’t have to reach for this one. It reached for me. So let’s walk it.
What’s a Decan? (The Quick Recap)
If you’re new here: every zodiac sign spans 30 degrees, and since antiquity astrologers have divided each sign into three 10-degree slices called decans — 36 in total across the wheel. Each decan carries its own flavor within the sign, its own planetary ruler, and in the Golden Dawn system, its own minor arcana card.
Cancer is a water sign, so its decans belong to the suit of Cups: the 2, 3, and 4. We just crossed from Cancer I (2 of Cups) into Cancer II (3 of Cups), which runs roughly July 2–11, covering 10–20 degrees of Cancer.
If you’re doing the decan walk with me, welcome back. If you’re just dropping in — this one’s a celebration. You picked a good week.
Correspondences at a Glance
| Correspondence | Cancer II |
| Degrees | 10–20º Cancer |
| Dates (approx.) | July 2–11 |
| Minor Arcana | 3 of Cups |
| Thoth Title | Lord of Abundance |
| Decan Ruler (Chaldean) | Mercury |
| Sign Ruler | The Moon |
| Associated Majors | The Chariot (Cancer), The Magus (Mercury) |
| Kabbalah | Binah — Understanding, the Great Mother, sphere of Saturn |
| Element / Modality | Water / Cardinal, succedent decan |
| Decan Image | A beautiful woman wreathed with myrtle, holding a lyre, singing of love and gladness |
The Decan Image: She Sings of Love and Gladness
Let’s start with the traditional image of this decan, because once you see it next to this story, you can’t unsee it.
The classical image for Cancer II is a woman wreathed in myrtle — Venus’s plant — holding a lyre, singing of love and gladness. She stands at the shore. She isn’t whispering her song in a private room. She’s performing it. Love, made audible, for anyone in range to hear.
Now hold that next to two people carrying a flag about love up the side of the most photographed building in America. She sings it; they flew it. Same decan, same instruction: take the love and broadcast it. Cancer II doesn’t want the feeling kept inside the shell. It wants the feeling turned into a song, a banner, a toast — something the collective can witness.
The 3 of Cups: From Mirror to Celebration
The 2 of Cups is courtship. It’s the meeting of equals, the “I see myself in you” moment. It’s private — just the two of you, finding each other.
The 3 of Cups is what happens after the union is sealed. It’s not two anymore. It’s the toast. The witnessing. The union made visible to the community that surrounds it. The energy that was quiet and contained in Cancer I spills outward in Cancer II — joy shared beyond the pair.
In the RWS, three figures dance in a circle with cups raised, fruit and harvest at their feet. Pamela Colman Smith gives us abundance as something communal — nobody in this card is celebrating alone. The harvest imagery matters too: this is joy that was grown, not stumbled into.
In the Thoth, Crowley calls this card the Lord of Abundance — Mercury in Cancer. Lotus cups overflow into one another, wreathed in pomegranates. And here’s where Crowley gets interesting (he always does): the pomegranates tie this card to Persephone. Abundance, yes — but abundance with a memory of the underworld in it. Crowley’s read carries a quiet warning that pleasure enjoyed should not be blindly trusted, that every celebration contains the seed of its own season turning. Very Cancerian, honestly — even the party card in this sign remembers.
I love holding both versions at once. RWS gives you the dance; Thoth reminds you the dance is happening in a world where winters exist. You need both to read this decan honestly.
On the Tree of Life, the threes live in Binah — Understanding, the Great Mother, the divine womb, the sphere where force first takes shape. (Kabbalah is not my area of deep expertise, so as always, take my read here as a student’s notes rather than gospel.) But I’ll say this much: a three is a portal of creation. Two meet, and a third thing is born — a marriage, a community, a story the whole world watches. That’s Binah energy: the union gestating into form.
Mercury in the Moon’s House
Here’s the tension that makes this decan hum: the decan ruler is Mercury — the messenger, the trickster, the speed-of-light news cycle — operating inside Cancer, the Moon’s deeply feeling, memory-soaked, walled home.
Because Cancer is walls. The crab’s shell, the moat, the gated garden, the protective enclosure that keeps the soft interior safe. Binah is an enclosure too — the womb, the container. This whole decan is built out of protective architecture.
And who’s the one figure no wall can stop? Mercury. Messages slip through gates. Stories scale fences. Word gets out.
T. Susan Chang’s phrase for this decan (from 36 Secrets, which is my constant companion on this walk) is “I feel expressive” — the Chariot plus the Magus. And I genuinely cannot think of a better three-word caption for this event. Two people felt something and expressed it from the most visible pulpit on the continent. The Chariot got them up the wall; the Magus made sure the world understood why. Will and message, armor and announcement, moving as one.
Mercury in Cancer is the story that travels fast because it makes people feel something. The footage of the climb went viral at Mercury speed, but what carried it wasn’t information — it was the emotional charge underneath. A proposal. A flag about love. The collective felt it before it analyzed it. The message and the feeling arrived as one thing, which is exactly what this decan does.
And notice: they breached security. They went through the wall. In a decan defined by enclosures, the event that defined the week was Mercury doing what Mercury always does — treating the barrier as a suggestion and carrying the message over the top of it.
The Crab Has a Stinger
Before this all gets too sweet, let’s be honest about the undercurrent — because Cancer II has one.
By the older triplicity system, the water signs answer to Mars — which means underneath the toast and the dancing, this decan carries a Scorpionic edge. The party card has a hidden blade. Some of the old writers pictured this decan not as a soft moon-crab at all, but as a crab with a stinger.
You can feel that edge in this story if you look for it. This wasn’t a sanctioned proposal on the observation deck with a photographer on retainer. It was a security breach. Somebody risked arrest to do this. The celebration and the transgression are the same act — and that’s very Cancer II. The 3 of Cups isn’t naive; it knows that real joy sometimes has to fight its way past the gatekeepers to happen at all. Abundance with teeth.
It’s also worth remembering, per Crowley’s pomegranates, that the party doesn’t last. My book puts it plainly: these high points are cyclic and fleeting, and that’s precisely why they should be noted and cherished. The 3 of Cups’ only real warning is carpe diem. Seize the moment — it will not keep.
And Here’s the Kicker: America Is a Cancer II Native
This is the part that took the whole thing from “great synchronicity” to “okay, now I’m getting chills.”
By the most commonly used birth chart for the United States (the Sibly chart, July 4, 1776), the US Sun sits at roughly 13 degrees of Cancer. Squarely inside this decan. The United States is, natally, a Cancer II — a 3 of Cups country. Which honestly explains a lot: the fireworks, the cookouts, the entire national identity built around one giant communal celebration every July.
So run it back: during America’s own solar decan, two days before the country’s birthday, two people climbed America’s most iconic building — a monument to empire — and planted a message that love outlasts the love of power at the very top of it.
The collective’s birthday card came early this year, and the return address was the sky.
The Jungian Layer: Coniunctio in Public
You know I can’t leave this alone. It’s how my brain is built.
Jung’s word for the sacred marriage — the union of opposites at the center of individuation — is the coniunctio. Not literally man-and-woman, but animus and anima: the inner masculine and inner feminine every psyche carries, the conscious and unconscious selves that spend most of our lives at odds. The whole project of individuation is getting those two to stop warring and start integrating.
And Jung consistently describes that process as an ascent. You don’t integrate the opposites from the safety of the sanctioned path. You leave the roped-off viewing deck. You climb something forbidden. You risk exposure to reach the vantage point where wholeness becomes visible.
So look at what we were given: Taurus — fixed earth, Venus-ruled, the body, the form-giver — and Cancer — cardinal water, Moon-ruled, memory, feeling, home — climbing together, past security, toward the highest point of an icon lodged in the collective mind. Earth meeting water. Body meeting emotion. Conscious meeting unconscious.
The black clothing reads as the nigredo — the alchemical blackening, the void-stage that precedes every transformation. You pass through the dark, dissolved version of yourself before anything new can integrate. They wore the first stage of the work while completing the last.
And the flag — love overcoming the love of power — is the entire individuation project in a sentence. The ego wants ascent for its own sake: control, dominance, empire. The Self wants union. When the Self wins, Jung says, you’ve touched something sacred.
This wasn’t just a stunt. It was the collective psyche doing alchemy in public — a coniunctio performed on the world’s most visible altar, timed to the exact ten-day window ruled by the card of union celebrated.
A Reading for the Collective
I had to pull cards on this, because I needed to know what this energy is doing for all of us — not just the couple on the tower.
I pulled the Daughter of Swords, the 3 of Pentacles, and The Lovers. Almost too perfect.
Daughter of Swords came from the bottom of the deck, which tells me she’s foundational — running underneath everything else. She’s the spark, the curiosity, the “wait, what is this and why can’t I stop thinking about it.” That’s literally what this story did: it traveled at Mercury speed and cracked open the collective’s curiosity. If this event (or this post) made you pause and go wait — that’s her. That’s the invitation.
The 3 of Pentacles is the build. Collaboration, craft, “we make this real together.” Earth energy answering all that water. Collectively, I read this as a season where we’re being asked to actually construct the things we say we believe in — love outlasting power isn’t a vibe, it’s a build, and it takes more than one set of hands.
The Lovers — of course. Gemini’s card, the twins, the choice. Not just romantic love but the conscious decision, made over and over, to choose union instead of division. The Lovers never lets you be passive. It always asks: what are you choosing, and why?
Read as a line: the Daughter sparks the curiosity → the 3 of Pentacles asks us to build something real from it, together → the Lovers asks us to keep choosing union on purpose while we do.Link to the read
How to Walk this Decan: Altar Notes and Prompts
If you keep a decan altar, this one wants amber or maroon, or Mercury’s yellow and purple. Chalices and drinking vessels, musical instruments (she does carry a lyre, after all), anything that says celebration and abundance to you. Offerings of white or red wine, seashells, lavender, myrtle, elderflower. Traditionally this decan’s image is worked for abundance in both riches and friendship, protection of growing things, and celebrations — especially among women.
And if you’re journaling alongside the walk, here’s where I’d start:
- What have I been building quietly that’s ready to be witnessed?
- Where do I still feel split — and what would it take to let those parts finally meet?
- What’s the “forbidden path” I’ve been too scared to take?
- What am I choosing on purpose this week, instead of just letting happen?
Sit with them. Pull your own 3 of Cups from every deck you own and lay them side by side — notice which one feels like your version of celebration this year.
And whatever your celebration is right now, don’t postpone it. This decan’s whole warning is that the high points are fleeting — that’s not a reason to grieve them, it’s the reason to show up for them. Raise the cup while it’s full.
If you’re doing the decan walk and want to share what’s coming up for you during Cancer II, drop it in the comments. I always love hearing how this energy is moving through other people’s lives and practices.
And if you’re new to the decan walk series, start at the beginning — or wherever feels right. That’s always been the instruction.
Sources & further reading: T. Susan Chang, 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey Through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot; T. Susan Chang, “Reading the Decans: A Moment’s Grace [Cancer II]”; Astrologer’s Coop, “Cancer II: Tension at the Party”; Auntie Moon, “Astrological Picture Book: 2nd Decan Cancer, Crab With a Stinger.”