Scenic Drives

From the Albano-Waite Tarot, the Lovers; from the Rumi Cards, "moon kisses:"

       Instead of thinking of love when I saw this card, I thought about choice. The man looks at the woman, who focuses on the angel, who looks down on both. Most RWS interpretations speak of an equal partnership between people, but today this feels different. The partnership is in the way I balance the sacred and mundane. No matter how spiritual I'd like to be, I still have to take care of the basics in the real world. Yet the angel seems to say that both of these parts of life are holy and woven together; neither one is better than the other.
       The Rumi card reminds me that what I love is what I give my attention to and what I spend time doing. Whether dealing with the sacred or mundane, am I mindful or mindless? Churning out thoughts doesn't mean I'm consciously aware of what I'm doing. The New Yorker had a cartoon that illustrates how most of us (including myself!) go through our days:

Meditation teacher Tara Brach says that 98% of our thoughts are a repetition from the days before. Tedious indeed! If I want to connect on a deep level instead of a surface one, I need to try and choose awareness instead of thinking, "as soon as I get through this, I can go do..." Love is a verb and requires that I drive through life wide awake no matter what the scenery looks like.