Hello you,
It’s time again for an adventure in Embodying the Tarot and today we’ve got one of the more reviled archetypes of the major arcana - The Emperor. We’ll get into why they can be such a confronting energy to work with (hint - it involves colonialism and patriarchy and capitalism) and how you can engage with this card of systems and structures from a more generative place.
Before we get into it I have a question for you…
I have space for two new one-to-one clients this season. Are you one of them?
This is a container for folks who want to do the deep work of coming home to themselves. It’s six months of navigating your nervous system, remembering your power, and rebelling against the things that keep you from being who you really are. Sound good? Book a discovery call and we can talk about how one-to-one work could work for you.
Okay, let’s go negotiate our relationship to systems with The Emperor…
4.
The Emperor
The cool stone of your throne is unyielding beneath you. You sit, spine upright, chest proud. Tall and steady as an ancient oak. A leader through and through. You hold the gaze of those before you. Not as a threat or some puffed up pissing contest, it’s just that you know your power and you’re not afraid to back yourself.
Your energy is grounded, called back from all the places that try to fritter it to the wind. It radiates golden from your solar plexus. Your feet are solid on the floor. You stand your ground with the steady self-possession of a person who knows their edges and will make the hard decisions if need be. No matter how unpopular they are.
Your deep-rooted power is echoed by the mountains at your back, rocky and immovable. You know deep in your bones that constraints and controls are part of growth, part of the creation process. You are ram’s horns and bitter medicine. You are impeccable, loving boundaries. You are power wielded wisely.
Who is The Emperor?
Following the verdant fecundity of The Empress, The Emperor can be a rude shock. What’s with all these hard lines and control?! We were just lounging about in a lush garden eating pomegranates and now this fucking guy shows up to enforce bed time and remind us to brush our teeth for the whole, dentist-recommended two minutes?! Ugh.
But just like the parent who knows their kid needs a nap, even though their toddler swears through overstimulated sobs that they’re “not tired!!!”, The Emperor is a card of necessary constraint.
If the journey through the tarot is one of self-actualisation and creative expression (as I believe it to be) then The Emperor’s structure and control are invaluable elements. Without it there’s no channel, no container to hold our energy.
The phrase that I come back to time and time again with The Emperor is ‘supportive structure’.
Like giving the sweet peas in your garden a trellis to grow up so they can get more sun. Like the veins and arteries that channel your blood efficiently through your body, rather than it just sloshing around willy nilly. Like the devoted daily practice that brings you back to yourself, invariably making you feel more alive and connected (even if you had to give yourself a stern talking to before you stopped procrastinating and actually did it).
It’s a card that asks us what containment we need in order to thrive. How we can give our power a channel to flow through, so that we might bring our wildest truest truths into the world.
And just like anything that structure can go either way. It can be a force of support, a vessel to hold us, or it can be rigid and forceful and brittle, gripping too tight and dominating.
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