The Emperor

To start, I want to confess that the Emperor is one of those cards that makes me a bit squirmy. It reminds me of so much that is wrong in our world; in its distorted form, it expresses itself as unchecked and unjust power, authoritarianism and fascism, toxic masculinity, the desire to overcome, control, and dominate.

However, like all tarot cards, the Emperor represents an archetype that can be taken to extremes with damaging effects but also is an essential part of all of us and, when integrated appropriately, allows us to express it in a balanced and healthy way. In my last post, I explored what the Empress can teach us about joy, and I touched on the importance of creating disciplines and habits, both to help us tune into how we experience joy and to keep our search from true joy from turning into the pursuit of pure hedonism. The Emperor is the counterpart to the Empress, the one who can help us create those structures and containers that allow the impulses of the Empress to be expressed in healthy and balanced ways.

The Emperor is the ultimate executive, the one in charge who sets the rules. In tarot readings, he may represent leaders and bosses of all kinds, as well as principles of hierarchy, order, structure and organization. The Emperor can also speak to our own relationships with authority and power. So when I feel squirmy and even afraid of this figure, I am curious about what is being evoked inside me. This got me thinking about how I wrestle with authority, and how my experience of external authority figures and structures is deeply tied to my own struggle to find a healthy inner locus of authority. I will use this post to explore my own challenges with the archetype of authority and what it might look like for us as individuals and communities to embody healthy expressions of authority.

On the one hand, so many of us have been harmed by distorted expressions of power and authority that it makes sense for this card to trigger something within us. We should question why power is so wrapped up in violence, racism, and misogyny. Disordered expressions of power are so pervasive that we may end up perceiving power solely as dominance.

A recurrent dream image got me thinking about the dynamics of imbalanced power and the fear it causes. In some of my most frightening dreams, I find myself confronted by uniformed male police or military figures who seem to lack all sense of humanity. We live in a time when uniformed masked figures sweep through neighborhoods, plucking individuals from their communities and leaving trauma in their wake, or marching through our cities in the name of white nationalism. I see echoes of my own family's experience with authoritarianism and the Holocaust in these images and in my dreams. Perhaps my dreams tap into generational trauma inherited through my family as well as more universal experiences of the terror of authoritarianism that has plagued so many societies.

Yet, if I adopt a Jungian lens, which views dream figures as projections of unconscious parts of ourselves, these authority figures represent an authoritative part of myself that I find quite terrifying. I think the two interpretations of these dream images are deeply intertwined, in that I carry a belief, borne out by the real experiences of so many of us, that authority figures are to be feared, and my unconscious has translated that to mean my own authority is also to be feared. Taking it a step further, what happens to these inner authoritarians who are part of my psyche? Denying them doesn't make them go away - they just get more frightening and find ways to express themselves indirectly, whether through harsh criticism of myself and others or irritability and unexpected waves of anger that seem to come from nowhere. Jung's work is such a helpful reminder that the goal is not to eliminate the more challenging aspects of ourselves but to engage with them and ultimately to integrate them into our psyches.

I also cannot engage with the Emperor archetype without confronting the reality that power has become so intertwined with patriarchy. I think much of my discomfort around what this archetype represents has to do with my experience being socialized as a woman. I have been taught to deny parts of myself that are coded as masculine that have to do with expressing power, strength, and even anger.

As I explore how to integrate these more difficult aspects of myself, I have been reflecting on what healthy authority looks like on an individual and collective level. Here is what comes to mind when I think about how power can operate in a way that promotes human flourishing:

• We are clear about our own needs and boundaries, while respecting those of others

• We understand our inherent worth and are willing to tolerate discomfort to protect it

• Leadership is shared and not hoarded

• Conflict is expressed without violence or hatred

• Love for self and all people is the central guiding principle

  
  

This is only a starting point, and I am sure many others would have more to add (or disagree with some of the principles I listed).

The Emperor asks us how authority can contribute to individual and collective flourishing. How can we relate to principles of power and authority within us and in our society in ways that neither negate those principles nor use them to perpetuate the harms we are trying to overcome?

How do you relate to power around you and within you? When have you trusted your own authority even when it felt uncomfortable? What examples do you see of positive expressions of power?