Cancer (21 June - 22 July)
Original art by Bex McKay
Octavia Butler, prophet
If you’re a science fiction fan, you’ve definitely heard of Octavia Butler (22 June 1947 - 24 February 2006). Her most popular works combine dystopian futures with themes of race, sexuality, politics and environmentalism. Her three seminal series, The Xenogenesis series, the Parable series, and the Patternist series are not just widely read, but widely taught and studied for their prescient observations about society.
Cancers are symbolized by the crab, a fitting symbol for people who are tough and protective on the outside, but nurturing and emotional on the inside. Butler’s body of work exposes a lot of uncomfortable truths, both about society and the environment – it takes someone tough to unblinkingly tell what she perceives as the truth. But the reason behind the desire to tell that truth is a desire for change – to protect the future.
Butler came from extremely humble origins, the daughter of a maid and a man who shined shoes and died early in her life. She was raised by her mother and grandmother, a possible cause of the very feminist messages in her writing. She credits “excellent free, public education,” which gave her the ability to not only investigate causes of society’s ills, but a way to hone her talent and desire to expose those ills. The two of cups speaks of passion and fairness when upright – two qualities that propelled Butler’s writing from the beginning. On the flip side, when reversed, it speaks of abuse and domination, which can also be said to have propelled her writing. It’s no coincidence that a Black author is writing about the effects of abuse and domination.
The combination of the astrological sign Cancer and the two of cups mean that Cancers embody both strength and passion, both sensitivity and fairness. People like this are in an excellent position to effect social change. But social change doesn’t happen overnight, and during her lifetime, her most controversial books weren’t selling. The fact that her aunt once told her “Negroes can’t be writers” likely haunted her for much of her life, propelling her habit of rising hours before dawn so that she could write before heading out to the series of low-level jobs she worked as she struggled to earn a living with her writing.
Science fiction was the perfect outlet for Butler. It allowed her to take the problems she saw in society to their logical conclusions, making her work increasingly relevant as time goes by and many things that were fantastical imaginings at the time are now realities that humanity isn’t necessarily dealing well with.
It is a shame that Butler died in 2006 after a fall. Had she lived just a little longer, she would have seen her body of work garner not just more sales, but increasing relevance as many of the things she predicted have come to pass, including the widening income gap, climate change, and the rise of authoritarianism.
