Year of the Emperor
This post was originally published on March 15, 2020
🔺Summoning your inner Emperor🔺 Reflections on the collective tarot card for 2020…
For the past three months, I have felt called to explore this archetype within myself through meditation, deeper learning and creative process. The Emperor corresponds to the element of fire and the zodiac sign Aries. Aries rules my 12th house in my natal chart, the place of unseen forces and the subconscious. This pisces season I’ve been really diving deep into these hidden, uncharted waters where I've found myself confronted with a deep fear and mistrust of my power and the unconscious ways that I mistreat and repress my life force.
I know I’m not alone in this feeling of fear and mistrust of personal power. We all have experience with abusive authority figures and power over dynamics that cause a lot of harm to us and our world. It’s easy to equate these experiences as the only way power is used and wielded. Thus we are more inclined to abandon or repress our innate power because we don’t want to perpetuate harm.
But as I have been deepening my relationship to The Emperor archetype, I am seeing more clearly that there is another way. Instead of shirking our power, we can become more conscious of it. We can step into our integrity and take full responsibility for our lives. We can see past the lie that power is only a dynamic of domination, control and separation. Instead we can discover that true power comes from accepting, integrating and uniting all parts of our selves. A true Emperor is someone who is whole within themselves.
For me this work has looked like reparenting my inner child, rebuilding trust within myself and inching my way back into taking responsibility and reclaiming authority over my life. As I continue on this path of healing, I feel myself being called to take an honest look at the deeper parts of myself that I have been conditioned to repress and deny; to unearth and examine the patterns, behaviors, inherited/internalized beliefs and emotional addictions that keep me from my truth.
This work is not easy, but is so important. The more I keep at it, the more I begin to hear lost parts of myself crying out for my attention. I am learning to step into the role of divine father by being present with and allowing these parts of me to come out of the shadows; holding space for them to be seen and witnessed with active patience, unconditional love, acceptance, and compassion.
