Tarot: The Emperor (4)
Written by Kevin J McKee for the SoJournal and Personal Guide 2026. Reprinted with permission.
As our friend, Everyman learns the process of bringing the spiritual into the physical realm, he moves along his path, practising along the way until he comes across a very stern, maybe even intimidating man, sitting on an uncomfortable looking throne, he looks like he might jump into action at any time. He has met the Emperor.
Holding an orb in his left hand, and a sceptre in his right hand, wearing his armour, he is the epitome of physical power, his red robes are draped formally and balanced, everything about him is centred and grounded in the physical world.
The Emperor represents the Divine Masculine in physical manifestation. Objectivity and power of will. Initiation and instigation. Individualistic, energetic and self-reliant. He helps us to take the more “wishy-washy” states of feelings and emotions and apply them to the physical world. Even though the Empress has begun this process, The Emperor brings it into manifestation. He epitomises material success. He also reminds us not to swing totally into the objectivity and will power, but to temper that with compassion.
In terms of the Journey of the Fool. After Everyman learns that he can bring spiritual energy into physical reality by allowing the Empress to teach him and gets him started on the process, he starts practicing his new skills, having some success but something is stopping him getting it right. Until he meets The Emperor who observes his practice, and guides him until he can manifest his energy with much more accuracy and poise in the physical realm.
Meditation
Read through the instructions below, don’t be scared to open your eyes and check something rather than hope you are doing it right. The answer to the questions; “Am I doing this right?” and “Am I meditating?” is always no. If you are thinking, you are not meditating. Meditation is a heart-based process, not an intellectual one.
Trust yourself just a little bit, you can do this. Everyone meditates in their own way, don’t panic, do the best you can right now and surrender to the process.
- Prepare as you normally would for meditation if you are an experienced meditator. If you haven’t meditated for a while, or ever, use a place you can be undisturbed, maybe light a candle (white would be good for this purpose), light your favourite incense, put on some instrumental music, lyrics will disturb your concentration. Sit comfortably on the floor or on a chair, wear loose clothing or at least loosen belts etc.
- Take a few slow, deep breaths focussing on relaxing, releasing the thoughts in your head, your mind will start running around a bit, that’s ok, acknowledge the thought, let it go and focus back on your breathing. Meditation is an exercise and like any exercise it takes a bit of practice to “get it right”.
- An important thing to remember about meditation is that it takes place in the inner planes of your mind, so release your expectations of what is going to happen, release your expectations about what is correct or right and relax into the process.
- If you try to control the meditation you are not meditating, you are just breathing deeply. Be open to receive, even if what you receive is not what you expect or hope for.
- If your attention “skips”, that’s ok, take another deep breath and focus again. It will get easier with practice.
- If you have already done a meditation to create a meditation temple or inner temple etc. you can use it for this process, if you haven’t created an inner temple or something similar, you can imagine your mind and awareness moving down from your head into your heart (PS – apparently your physical heart has brain cells in it too – called the heart brain – more about the heart space in the article on (0) or the blank page).
- Once you are in the heart space, hold the card in front of you, you can open your eyes, then once you think you can visualise the image, close your eyes again. Don’t panic about getting it 100%, go with what you can do.
- Imagine stepping through the border of the card and speak to The Emperor. Ask him what he is trying to tell you. If you have some awareness of the process of creation and manifestation, but seem to be just missing the mark, the Emperor can help here.
- Drop your expectations and anticipated answers, listen and let the thoughts flow and when you are ready continue to step 5 of the standard meditation.
- When you feel you have absorbed everything you can for the moment, focus again on your breathing, you may feel disconnected from your body, that’s ok, take some more breathes focussing on balancing your mind with your body, rub your fingers and thumb on both hands together until you feel centred, calm and grounded.
- Take a massive breath in, blow yourself up like a balloon, then exhale in a rush allowing all the air to rush out of your lungs, then breathe normally and when you feel ready open your eyes.
- Remember to make notes in your journal/mediation journal.