3. Cancer has never been close to the Milky Way. But maybe the idea of a regeneration in Cancer came when the constellation was just past summer solstice. Its faint stars could have been regarded as a sign that the strong spring Sun (Mars) was gone, no longer was ruling. And the multitude of very small stars in M44 could have suggested a place of birth, the offspring.

Midsummer as a time of conception involving Father Sun and Mother Earth is an ancient idea. We should remember the Mnajdra Solar Temple (cfr at The Mad Hatter) - and, when looking at the picture again we can remember Egyptian X:

... Then I become aware of ... a presence - a faint, ghostly glimmering, like moonglow, that has appeared on the solstice stone. I don't know how long it lasts, a second or two only I would guess, but while it is there it seems less like a projection - which I know it to be - than something immanent within the stone itself. And it seems to function as a herald for it fades almost as soon as it has appeared and in its place the full effect snaps on - instantaneously. It wasn't there, and then it's there ...

"... early fable attributed its guardianship [that of Cancer] to the god Mercury, whence its title Mercurii Sidus ..." (Allen)

Wednesday (the day of turning around) comes after Tuesday.

The idea of a migration of human souls via the Milky Way could have originated some time later, when the Milky Way stood like a Tree at summer solstice and Cancer had moved away.

... Men's spirits were thought to dwell in the Milky Way between incarnations. This conception has been handed down as an Orphic and Pythagorean tradition fitting into the frame of the migration of the soul. Macrobius, who has provided the broadest report on the matter, has it that souls ascend by way of Capricorn, and then, in order to be reborn, descend again through the 'Gate of Cancer'. Macrobius talks of signs; the constellations rising at the solstices in his time (and still in ours) were Gemini and Sagittarius: the 'Gate of Cancer' means Gemini. In fact, he states explicitly (I,12.5) that this 'Gate' is 'where the Zodiac and the Milky Way intersect' ...

At the time of Macrobius Cancer was no longer at midsummer. The name Gate of Cancer was therefore applied to Gemini. And Gemini happened to be just on the other side of the Milky Way, which opened up for a possibility to connect the River with the Gate, the Milky Way with the entrance to next year via Mother Earth.

Earlier, when Gemini was at spring equinox the returning Spring Sun maybe was thought of as having migrated from autumn equinox via the Milky Way. And at that time Cancer could have referred to the barren earth woman waiting for Sun.

What happens up in the sky above should be mirrored in the actions of man:

... Yet few heavenly signs have been subjects of more attention in early days, and few better determined; for, according to Chaldaean and Platonist philosophy, it was the supposed Gate of Men through which souls descended from heaven into human bodies ...

And it can be questioned if the developments in the sky induced man to action or if it was necessary for man to induce action in the sky - a futile question similar to asking which came first, egg or hen. (No cock mentioned, but the hen may have been able to lay eggs without him.)

... In the deep night before the image [of Lono] is first seen, there is a Makahiki ceremony called 'splashing-water' (hi'uwai). Kepelino tells of sacred chiefs being carried to the water where the people in their finery are bathing; in the excitement created by the beauty of their attire, 'one person was attracted to another, and the result', says this convert to Catholicism, 'was by no means good'. At dawn, when the people emerged from their amorous sport, there standing on the beach was the image of Lono. White tapa cloth and skins of the ka'upu bird hang from the horizontal bar of the tall crosspiece image. The ka'upu is almost certainly the albatross, a migratory bird that appears in the western Hawaiian chain - the white Lanyon albatross at Ni'ihau Island - to breed and lay eggs in October-November, or the beginning of the Makahiki season ...

... When it was evident that the years lay ready to burst into life, everyone took hold of them, so that once more would start forth - once again - another (period of) fifty-two years. Then (the two cycles) might proceed to reach one hundred and four years. It was called 'One Age' when twice they had made the round, when twice the times of binding the years had come together. Behold what was done when the years were bound - when was reached the time when they were to draw the new fire, when now its count was accomplished. First they put out fires everywhere in the country round. And the statues, hewn in either wood or stone, kept in each man's home and regarded as gods, were all cast into the water. Also (were) these (cast away) - the pestles and the (three) hearth stones (upon which the cooking pots rested); and everywhere there was much sweeping - there was sweeping very clear. Rubbish was thrown out; none lay in any of the houses ...