Sunday 23rd February 2020: (4) Emperor

Today, I went to the cinema to see the Met Opera Live Viewing HD production of Akhnaton, so it seems appropriate that on this day, dedicated to the Sun, I should draw the (4) Emperor, who is attributed to Aries in whose sign the Sun is exalted.

A Lesson in How to Maintain Power by Emperor Marcus Aurelius

Today’s quotation from the Daily Stoic is by that most excellent of Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, is itself a quotation from a lost play by Euripedes, is all about not giving your power over to your emotional reaction to circumstances,

You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.

Euripedes, Bellerphone, quoted by Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.38, cited in The Daily Stoic, p. 63

The (4) Emperor does not give away power or authority to circumstances and the emotions they tend to rouse. Neither should we.