Rise Of The Sovereign Archetype
A Shared Empathic Vision Amongst the Midst of Chaos is Emerging.
“ Sovereign (sometimes called the King), representing wholeness, order, coherence, shared vision and purpose. This is not about any one person being the sovereign. It is about the urge to gather around a compelling cause — to be part of an unfolding heroic narrative. This archetype calls for invitation, rather than persuasion or coercion, and for discernment”
“What is needed in the Age of Thrivability is skilful integration of all four archetypes.”
— Michelle Holliday
The true leaders of our slowly collapsing post-industrial world that genuinely thrives are the ones with the ability to extend their agency from self, their fellow brothers, sisters and to Gaia. The leaders of the future are non-autocratic, sharing a vision for absolute equality in unity, holding space with the patience and tenacity to guide those who are lost by invoking individual authentic power for reconnection. These are the guides who celebrate diversity, enabling multiplicity in unity and with the ability to expand our capacities to love. Compassion is the new revolution that will bind us together. A shared vision for global empathy is the strongest and most brightest one that will save us.
The leaders that thrive will balance The 4 Archetypes of Thrivability — by bringing in the Sovereign (King & Queen) and embodying it fully to its fruition.
I have included some of Holliday’s content, explaining in more detail of these 4 archetypes —
The Warrior and Weaver is a battle between the Feminine and Masculine archetypes. The Sovereign and emergent potential between these two opposing forces balances it out in a yin-yang playfulness that embraces the joy of being in middle-ground in a game of tug of war.
Embracing the transformative energy of the Sovereign is the most ideal and promising in a world of chaos and uncertainty. This is a time for empathic resonance, of unified coherency and a shared knowingness that we will make it through the next stage of our metamorphosis.
With increasingly more and more natural disasters, climate migration, overpopulation, resource shortages, wars, chemical pollution, drug addiction and poverty, an agenda for wellness, a longing reconnection with our own divine power is desperately needed, even if systems are more convoluted than ever and there seems to be no going back. What we can do is reclaim our own power we have externalised towards a system that has failed. We must ignite the Kings & Queens, our Sovereign potential for guiding our way back to each other in communion.
By embracing our inner sovereignty and making the most of an optimistic shared vision of the commons’ reconnection with and reclamation of the land, we can thrive into the new world with abundant love and harmony.
The Game Theory
We are currently participating in a finite zero-sum game where there are bound to be winners and losers, much like our current economy. Like any finite game that involves winners and losers, there is a definitive end, whether we like it or not.
James P. Carse mentions in his book Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility that there are at least 2 kind of games, finite ones where a game comes to a definitive end when someone has won, and an infinite game, where the infinite players play freely. If they must play within restrictions, they cannot play in enjoyment and with the intention to merely exist and explore.
What do all finite games have in common? Someone has to create the rules and conditions. There is also a competitive race to finish towards the end. Finite games establish temporal, spatial and numerical boundaries by which all players must agree on. Opponents are needed to go against. Much like our current economic system, our winners are the players who accumulates the most numerical points and are the players that earn the most control over spatial and temporal boundaries over others losers.
In an infinite game however, no one wins or loses as they are not participating in the game as the game does not exist within the restrictions of boundaries. On the other hand, if they are conceptually participating in an infinite game, then they are merely playing without the existence an opponent. An infinite game needs no spatial, temporal and numerical boundaries in order for existence to thrive.
Today’s players, like you and me are in the old paradigm of the finite game. We are all equally bound to busy work schedules, confined in specific locations due to borders, financial limitations, political and autocratic control and a negative bank value that incentivises players to be subjected into the game deeper. It then becomes a game of life and death. A game for the survival of our hopeless existence. Finite games restrains the freedom of players. There is no escaping the economic paradigm. It is finite. The game is coming to an end with an environmental, financial and ego-shattering collapse unimaginable to the players deeply involved in it.
The End of the Old Paradigm
In preparation for a civilisation collapse and whilst awaiting our next epochal shift of a cultural metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, a new system of order that is inconceivable from our perceivable reality has the potential to emerge into existence. A system of mutual win-win solutions where we are all winners by playing the infinite game. The notion of not having any spatial, temporal and numerical boundaries or limits is not conceivable. Our minds cannot not quantify what we value, however if what we value is in abundance due to the knowledge of an infinite world, why do we even have to quantify it into its numerical constraints at all? It is because people do not think in abundance, but in scarcity and lack. It is the Sovereign archetype that embodies wholeness and the certainty of abundance.
Sovereignty in a Regenerative World
The leaders of the future regenerative economy will embody the Sovereign archetype to its fullness and guide us with a promising vision that opens up expansive space for trial and error, rather than restricts its multiple players to their fullest existence. A space for ultimate creative freedom to experiment with work that will thrive in the new world.
These leaders influence and hold the empathic vision which commences a heroic and noble act of service and contribution for our brothers and sisters to create those win win situations. Inevitably there would be regulations in place, however those rules would only be established in consensual agreement and a shared sense of truth between all players in the field of the infinite game of creative play.
Those identifying with the old paradigm are bound to lose to a definitive end of themselves in the current finite game at play, unless they own their Sovereignty enough to step up and out into the new infinite game of play being co-created with diverse players in empathic resonance.
A new vision of unity can be shared and social coherence can take place once enough people have woken up and taken the actionable steps to bring in a world that thrives. The act of play in an infinite game is a disciplined willingness to practice these principles of unknowing, imagination and ambiguity. Also known as Transformational Learning.
Those willing to thrive past the current collapsing paradigm should understand where we can find Sovereign (emergent potential) in our current regulatory framework. What and where are the loopholes in capitalism we can leverage? What exists where we can enable and build this emerging archetype of shared vision and transmutational narrative for thriving?Through self-sovereignty and creative freedom to experiment we can simply invite those in the old paradigm to join us in the new one.
Each of us willing would have to do the necessary work to lay out a transitional pathway for all players to be part of our unfolding heroic narrative. The vision for humanitarianism and compassion for the land in magnetic empathic resonance could be the new basic ground rules and immovable principles for a thriving Commons.
We are all stepping out into a new game where we are all infinite players that can play. It is a game where everyone wins.
