Tenderest Parts: Welcome Cancer Season

Cancer season. Acknowledge that you do, in fact, have feelings. Feel them (because thinking them doesn’t count). Tuck down comfy-cozy in your shell and sense into what nourishes you, what makes you feel secure, well and whole. Notice the sensations in your body. Nurture the tenderest parts of you and others. Protect what’s in process. Gestate the thing - you know the one. Let your soft underbelly show with the trustworthy ones in your life. Empty out. Ebb and flow.

The body already knows. The “body keeps the score,” yes, but also the instructions. That wave of tension in your belly, that sudden breath you didn’t realize you were holding, that ache in your shoulders when the world feels too heavy. All of it speaking. All of it asking to be heard.

This is where trauma-informed massage may be a support, as a place to practice listening. A place to tuck yourself into a shell that is safe, where the softest parts of you can surface for a moment, be tended, then retreat again if needed.

Cancer is represented by the crab who lives at the edge of the waters. Such a vulnerable, soft-bodied creature with no internal skeleton, self-protective, contained inside a hard shell, armored up and never moving in a straight line but cautiously zig-zagging, spiraling in towards the center only to spiral back out again.

This, too, is how healing happens. Never linear. Always circling back, pulling away, returning again when it feels safe. Massage as ritual honors that rhythm.

We bless the armor.
We wait with you, and for you.

You are the tender and the tough. The exile and the protector. You can ebb and flow between feeling-states, timelines and memories. You can honor your darkest depths and find your way back again to the safety of your shoreline. You can carry with you all the hurts, and also a balm to heal each one. You can return to yourself. You can be home to yourself.

At the start of this Cancer season, consider:

What defenses do I use again and again?

How do I know I am safe to come out of my shell?

What am I shielding myself from/guarding against?

How does my body tell me I’m safe enough to soften?

What might it be like to let my rigidity recede and my softness surface?

What is one message my young, tender self needs from me right now?

May this season carry you home to yourself. And, for those seeking soulful, soothing massage in Casper, Wyoming to support you in that, you are welcome. My practice is a place to settle in and rest. A place to let your body guide the way, to soften only as much as feels possible, to be met exactly where you are. A healing ritual for all parts of you. A shoreline you can return to again and again.