On the potential of our traumatized parts and the archetypal transformation of Queen Esther.

The book of Esther, literally the scroll of Esther, is the basis for the holiday of Purim. It tells of the event in which the Jews of the Persian Empire were set to be wiped out, and how the decree was overturned. The characters in this story provide some fantastic archetypes and archetypal stories of potential. For example, Esther’s transition and transformation from orphan girl to queen, both of which are powerful archetypes. Recently I’ve seen memes paraphrasing the sentence from chapter 4 verse 14 as, “Perhaps this is the moment for which you’ve been created,” as a call to step into one’s own power. The original sentence appears when Esther is told by Mordechai, her uncle, that Haman, a high official of the king Ahasuerus, has a plan to kill all the Jews. Mordechai urges her to go beg the king to change this decree. Esther is initially reluctant as approaching the king without being called on by him risks immediate death, and she has not been called to the king in some time. Mordechai responds: “If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.” 

Crises put our inner archetypes on full display, and provide us an opportunity to change. While being a queen and an orphan are Esther’s material identities, their archetypal nature offers a look into the mechanisms of change. In addition to the orphan and queen archetypes, it seems that another archetype plays a major role in her inner transformation. Looking first at the orphan archetype, some expressions of it may be feeling invisible, and being dependent and obedient.  Additional features of this archetype may be learned helplessness, and doing what one is told for fear of being rejected and once again abandoned. One need not be an actual orphan to possess the orphan archetype, and certain family dynamics can create this archetypal inner child, even when both parents are still very much alive.  It is telling that nearly half way through the story only some basic facts about Esther are known, mainly that she is an orphan raised by her uncle. Up to this point she is largely invisible, acting as an extension of her uncle, obedient and dependent. It is only in chapter four that we finally hear her voice. Although she has reached royalty status, her inner queen hasn’t yet emerged. The dialogue around her fate and that of her community shifts something in her. While her uncle tells her to go and beg the king, she doesn’t just rush into the king’s quarters, she presents the predicament to Mordechai of what is at stake if that were to be done, her death. 

Mordechai offers her to consider the following; firstly, that keeping silent during a crisis, and having someone else step in as savior, may also lead also to death. While in the story this refers to her literal death, another type of death can occur when our reactions are based in trauma anchors and trauma formed archetypes, the death of potential. When we are trauma anchored, we may want to keep silent and let someone else act on our behalf, but this also leads to self abandonment, a relinquishing of self sovereignty, and an impeding of the emergence of non trauma anchored parts. Mordechai also presents her with her ultimate potential, “perhaps you have attained to royal position for such a crisis.” In this crisis she is faced with a choice, to continue with old archetypal behaviors or shift to something else. All crises present us with options of how to respond, but some crises are so powerful, they shatter our old patterns, and invoke parts of the self previously repressed or dormant. Esther shifts into her “Queeness,” with help from an archetype that’s probably been repressed for fear of abandonment, that of the rebel. 

When her inner rebel is activated, Esther no longer simply follows orders, she begins to rebel. The first person she seemingly challenges on her road to individuation is her primary caretaker, her uncle. Intrapersonally though, she may have first had to challenge herself and the person she has become as a result of accepting the archetypal role of the orphan. Once we realize that we have a hand in the creation and maintenance of certain aspects of ourself, we can decide to keep them, or relinquish them. That is when internal and ultimately external shifts can occur.  Once her inner shift occurs, Esther’s response is no longer a codependent one based in her orphan archetype seeking safety and security. Her inner rebel provides a path for her inner queen to take over. Esther rebels against the role she has been in, and against the power dynamic with her uncle. After her inner restructuring, as it were, she comes up with a plan. A plan in which she takes full control of the situation. She asks for the Jews to fast for three days, calling forth her energetic and intuitive resources, and setting an intention. After the three day fast period, she would approach the king, who hasn’t yet called for her, and in doing so also rebels against rules of the kingdom. The intention she sets for her actions to have a desired outcome no longer originates from an anxious or trauma anchored position. With her inner orphan no longer in a position of power, her inner queen is able to make decisions from a place of sovereignty and intuition. She accepts full responsibility for her actions from this point on and declares “...if I am to perish, I shall perish.” A shift occurs in her tone and language, from fear of death to full acceptance of the possible outcome of her actions. Accepting her fate is now based on calculated decisions, guided by a sovereign self, and not by a triggered response. Her ability to navigate this crisis stems from her asserting her “royalness” first in her self, and then outward.

The steps Esther took after finding her own self sovereignty saves her whole community. While there’s something very appealing about such a story, we all have that magical power to do so for ourselves, however global, communal, familial, or personal the outcome may be.  The more familiar we are with our inner archetypes the more we can recognize which of them aid or limit our decisions. Doing so can help us in shifting from those archetypes which leave us helpless, vulnerable, and trauma anchored to those which offer us freedom and serenity.  The parts of ourselves that sabotage our growth, will encourage us to remain silent in crisis. They do so because the suffering of that which is known is better than the anxiety of the unknown, because that which is unknown might cause these parts of the self to no longer be necessary, and perish. Nothing is more frightening to these parts of the ego than being made irrelevant and ceasing to exist. Those situations which trigger the archetypes that have held us back, and kept us in destructive patterns, are the same ones which can allow us to move into our personal royal position in growth and healing.