The Book of Symbols: King/Queen
I've been dipping into random entries from The Book of Symbols each morning, and yesterday's pull was "KING/QUEEN."
There's lots to unpack there, especially in terms of tarot cards. And also, as someone who has been telling my nephew a lot of fairy tales lately, it's a great reminder of the layers of meaning that are buried there. Like in Rumpelstiltskin, when you explain that the king is really greedy, there's implied danger there, because there is literally no higher authority for anyone to appeal to.
This ties into something that has been bugging me since 2016. I know the US President is pointedly not a king, but the symbolic associations are similar. Figureheads are important. It actually matters who occupies that position!
According to The Book of Symbols, monarchs “reflect what is sovereign within the psyche of an individual or a society, the principles or beliefs that hold sway.”
This is why people get so upset about the possibility of elevating people like Obama, H. Clinton, Biden, Sanders, et al to that office, and why it brings qualities like racism, sexism, and antisemitism to a boil. The possibility of being represented on a superlative level by a figure whom you deeply mistrust or hate on an unconscious level is bound to result in some intensely divergent and divisive conscious behaviors.
This also explains the absurd moral scrutiny candidates are placed under, and our abstracted interpretations of their past decisions. Sometimes these instincts serve us well, other times our judgment is being unduly affected on a symbolic level. And this is something that folks may even embrace consciously, saying things like "I don't agree with this person on many points, but I admire what they symbolize." Because of the strange and selective way we interact with the unconscious, this doesn't feel like an admission of having suspended rational judgment. It feels like an expression of personal truth.
So many people couldn't conceive of Trump as a viable candidate until it was too late, because it simply didn't gel with their idea of "the principles or beliefs that hold sway" in this country. And once he was there, it was very hard to accept that these principles WOULD hold sway, but among those with low awareness or whose unconscious is very susceptible to this kind of symbolism, reality readily conforms to whatever narrative is presented. If Trump believed he could be king, and then was elected, and then began acting as a king, there was virtually no way for some to resist that impression.
This is what's been so exhausting for those of us desperate to keep our head above water throughout this: it takes real effort to resist these impressions day after day, moment after moment. We had to keep telling ourselves: "Trump is not king. Our government was crafted to preclude that possibility, and there are safeguards in place to help us withstand instances like this. He is NOT protected by divine fiat. All this will end." Even as many others were energized by this symbolic elevation, we were constantly drained by it. And some definitely grew to accept elements of it, because on a symbolic level they became increasingly impossible to dispute.
Hence the frustration of my progressive friends who were deeply disturbed by the possibility of a Biden coronation -- sorry, I mean inauguration -- which on a symbolic level probably does feel comparable to Trump's, even though these men aren't really the same at all. When a person embodies ideals you find repugnant, the fact that they'll come to "reflect what is sovereign within the psyche of an individual or a society" is simply intolerable.
But the symbolic isn't everything, and our awareness is affected by many other factors. This is why, despite all the depression and fear and isolation, it's important for us to keep our minds flexible, and to scrutinize our own thinking and remain open to the possibility that we really DON'T see the whole picture, we DON'T know how this will end.
The symbol-laden stories we treasure, such as fairy tales, really only give us the broad strokes. Yes, everything we see around us is on par for what we dreaded in a Trump monarchy. But it's also not the whole story, and his eventual defeat is an outcome many could not bring themselves to believe was possible. For years our impressions have been unconsciously affected by this intense symbolism, allowing us to lie to ourselves with a completely straight face.
As the leadership shifts, so will our symbolic interpretations. Everything won't magically "get better," but new stories will seem plausible, new characters will emerge, and reality will undeniably change around us, as if by magic. We are part of that magic. And the more consciously you examine these symbols and the effects they're having on you -- and on your fellow humans -- the more honestly you may be able to engage with the present moment.
But that too takes effort. Conscious engagement can be just as tiring as resistance. The mind wants to drift, to dream, to react, to run purely on the fuel that symbolic realities provide so abundantly. We want the ease that comes from being told a story, we do not want the responsibilities and lessons that come from being a character in one.
My own (limited) awareness of all this was not enough to help me engage with the more "symbolically affected" over the last four years. I was lucky if I could even just keep my own head up at times. This is why we tend to see any mob as adversarial: they're under the influence of something so strong, we can't reason with them or break the spell. On a primal level, we see this as dangerous.
But also, from within the mob, there can be a sense of freedom, and rejoicing, and strength in numbers. Mobs can accomplish incredible things. They are our own weirdly human form of murmuration, the way birds and fish move in unison, appearing united in purpose, the conscious mind utterly bypassed so that something greater can be expressed. The shapes they create in the air and the water are thrilling (and sometimes terrifying) to behold.
I have been part of many murmurations over the past four years, related to the airing of sexual trauma, to celebrations of gender diversity, to demands for justice in the face of violent disregard for life. I have felt horror in these instances, feeling myself to be part of a headless body, a mob.
But when the symbolic head of the nation (and of so many departments and corporations therein) is completely diseased and actively rotting away, that "headlessness" ripples downward, and will express itself in wild, unpredictable ways.With a somewhat better "head" on its shoulders, perhaps many in our nation will have somewhat less occasion to murmurate. That does not automatically signify weaker engagement. If anything, it allows for more strategic and conscious responses to events as they unfold.
This is why I'm inviting people to resist the temptation to cling to all the ways they've engaged in the last four years. Some of it will still prove useful, but some of it won't. Copying and pasting that awareness over the events of the future will not serve you, and could actually end up prolonging the influence of everything we've just survived together.
Birds keep murmurating, but they never create exactly the same murmurations, nor do they swarm constantly and foresake other forms of flight. If they did, they'd gradually just drop from the sky, one by one, missing out on other aspects of bird life.
It matters who is king! But if you are still aspiring to remain sovereign over your own psyche, you've got to remember there are many other kingdoms, including ones which have yet to be founded. And since you are a kingdom in microcosm, it still matters who and what you allow yourself to become, which alliances you form, and how (or whether) you accept victory as well as defeat.
