Each month with On the Cusp, we point our astrological magnifying glass on all the people born between two zodiac signs. Because when your birthday falls at either the tail end or very beginning of your sun sign’s season, your personality may be influenced by your cosmic neighbor.
Experts in This Article
professional astrologer, writer, clinical sexologist, and author of Sex and Your Stars: A Sexologist’s Guide to the Erotic Energy of the Zodiac
With summer heating up, it’s Gemini and Cancer feeling the love. Below Stefanie Iris Weiss, astrologer and co-author of Surviving Saturn’s Return: Overcoming the Most Tumultuous Time of Your Life, explains how social butterfly Gemini and Group Mom Cancer may exist in one star-powered person.
Happy birthday, turn-of-the-solstice babies! Those born on the Gemini Cancer cusp (around June 21) have the distinct honor of blossoming during a pretty baller time of the year. “This cusp marks one of the loveliest transitions of all—that delicious moment when spring officially slides into summer on the solstice,” says Weiss. “It’s one of the most magical points of the astrological year.”
But, why? And what does it actually mean to be born on the Gemini Cancer cusp? First, a reminder that you are always one sign or another, but depending on your birth date, hues from your zodiac neighbor may influence your nuanced personality. So maybe you’re a Gemini with Cancer-esque qualities leading you to pause and feel, or you’re a Cancer with Gemini tendencies to dial your emotions from an 8 to an 11—but you’re still certainly one sign or the other. But before we get into what that means, let’s backtrack to actually explain those signs.
Gemini personality traits look a bit like this:
These are the socialites of the zodiac: Think the Olsen twins in their hard-partying NYU days, not in their reclusive, dressed-like-a-Victorian-widow-with-a-Venti days. (Or maybe both—who am I to judge?) Gemini babies are known for their dual nature and their unfortunate tendency to flake. When they do show up though, they’re intelligent, vivacious, and able to go with the flow.
Definitely invite a Gemini to a party if you need someone to light up the room with their charismatic personality. Just…don’t rely on them to bring anything crucial in case “something” comes up.
And here’s the deal when it comes to Cancer signs:
My best friend from Maine is actually a tried-and-true Cancer and wants everyone to know—she even illegally got the zodiac symbol tattooed on her stomach at age 14. Adolescent-ink choices aside, she’s emblematic of the sign’s most enduring attributes. If you’re a Cancer, you’re—for better or worse—known for your deep sensitivity. You have artistic sensibilities, being exceptionally creative and imaginative.
Cancers also need constant love and validation from the people in their life. They can be clingy and moody, but are overall good to keep around: Their intuitive, empathetic, and nurturing nature makes them the best person to cry with when life gets you down.
So this is what it means if you teeter on the Gemini Cancer cusp:
Being on the Gemini Cancer cusp means you may skew more sensitive than the average person, but really, it depends precisely on your birth date, Weiss says. “If you’re born in the very last degrees of Gemini—before the sun officially enters the waters of Cancer, you’re still more of a thinker than a feeler,” she says. “A Cancer-inflected Gemini knows how to emote and can translate their emotions into words easily, but they’ll still pass through the filter of the mind before the heart and gut.”
“People born on this cusp, depending on other factors like where their Mercury is placed, are the type that will labor over long emails, like a Victorian romance novelist, waiting days to hit send.” —astrologer Stefanie Iris Weiss
And if you’re a Cancer who feels the tug of Gemini? You still feel all the feels, but you’re not necessarily going to let them drive you everywhere you go. “A Gemini-inflected Cancer, a person born in the very first degrees of the summer seasons’s very first sign, is likely to be a heady-yet-moody type,” Weiss says. “You’re less likely to trust your intuition than someone born in mid or late Cancer, and more like to feel those feels yet wonder if, how, and when to convey them.”
The biggest distinction, though, seems to be in the mediation between mind and heart. Cuspers definitely lack the impulsive nature of other Geminis and allow a minute to think on their emotions before expressing them with an emphatic eloquence.
“People born on this cusp, depending on other factors like where their Mercury is placed, are the type that will labor over long emails, like a Victorian romance novelist, waiting days to hit send,” Weiss says. “A true Gemini would just text a sentence with no punctuation, but these natives will make sure that all the feelings are on the proverbial page. A true Cancer would insist on a meet-up over a glass of rosé and only 24-hours later, after multiple crying bouts, feel as if they had adequately conveyed her feelings.”
So, bottom line: True Gemini-Cancer cuspers have it in them to be really great and expressive friends without going overboard.
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