Which tarot card is Cancer?

Why The Chariot carries Cancer

Cancer is cardinal water and the sign of the shell - the crab that carries its protection with it. The Chariot is a card about armour and forward motion at the same time, which is a stranger combination than it first appears and exactly the Cancerian problem.

The RWS charioteer wears a crescent moon on each shoulder and a canopy of stars, and his chariot is a stone box. He is armoured, enclosed, and moving. The two sphinxes pulling him are not reined - he holds no reins at all - which is the card's central puzzle: the motion is controlled by will and attention rather than by mechanism.

The Moon rules Cancer, and the lunar detail on the card is unusually explicit. Read as Cancer, The Chariot is emotional self-command: getting somewhere while protecting something soft, and holding a direction through feeling rather than against it. That is a considerably more interesting card than "victory".

The difficult register

Badly placed, it is armour that has become the whole personality - defence maintained so long that nothing gets in, including what was wanted.

The three Cancer decans and their cards

Cancer spans thirty degrees, divided into three decans of ten. Each has its own planetary ruler under the Chaldean order and its own pip card from the Suit of Cups — which is how a Minor Arcana card can be placed against a stretch of the calendar.

The Cancer court cards

Cancer is water, so its court belongs to the Suit of Cups — receptive, attuned and inward.