Sunday, 22 August 2021
Driving Context
It’s finally here. We’re going to O’Reilly’s, and I can’t wait. What I’m dreading is driving up the narrow winding road. Although I’m the first to admit I love a long and winding road leading to a vacation door, I’m not a fan of one lane roadways with sheer drops on one side and a cliff wall on the other.
You may notice references to the Beatles song, Long and Winding Road; it’s very much how I used The Eagles, Hotel California song on Day 088. To recognise the referenced or amended line, I have underlined the relevant text.
Anyway, the cliff and the wall inhibit the freedom of driving smoothly up the mountain. There’s the constant stress of a car coming in the opposite direction. Blind curves blocking the vision of the upcoming road are particularly challenging. The hairpin and blind curves always disappear, even if you’ve seen that road before.
But if you want to get great walks atop the mountain, it always leads me here to O’Reilly’s spoor. Although there can be wild and windy nights keeping you locked inside with a pool of tears, it leaves you crying for the day.
There is an advantage to having one road and one path, and that is you don’t need to know the way. The truth is there’re many times you’re on the road alone, and the tension escalates as a result of doom complacency.
Doom complacency is taking for granted, you’re on your own, but at any moment, another oncoming car could appear. I can tell you there have been many times my family and friends have wanted to cry. Anyway, you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried to relax my passengers, but still, they lean back when I drive the long and winding road. 😱
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Okay, there’s no ranch. As you might be aware, yesterday, the home network went down; the fix for the web is due on Tuesday. I just wanted to get back to before the description of the drive up the mountain to O’Reilly’s and before I got carried away with a Beatles song.
That means there are two full days our Millennial cat sitter was going to be without wi-fi! Luckily, he’s good with that; he has heaps of data on his phone plan. Of course! 😮💨
The cats and cat sitter got settled, there was a look on all their faces said – wait for it – “don’t keep me waiting here“. I’m so sorry about that; I couldn’t help but get one last lyric in before we set off driving on the road to the analysis.
I can’t believe we’re actually going away – we have one up on COVID – and I wish we had booked a little longer.
Today's Cards
The Cards - Driving Analysis
Carryover Cards
No cards carried over from yesterday.
Cross
The Miser sits stingily in the Distant Past feeding the Morality of Now who Politics influences. Ripeness is the Goal that encouraged Adventure and prompted Future Energy Awareness.
I suspect that The Miser refers to booking a holiday we initially didn’t want; driving somewhere close to home just seemed like a bit of a waste of time. This resistance to spending more money on a close-to-home vacation led to the Politics of when we arrived wishing to spend a little more time.
When we arrived at O’Reilly’s, we felt the time was right (Ripeness) to extend our stay if possible. In increasing the number of days, the retreat had to shuffle rooms (doing the right thing, Morality).
The Adventure was getting out of the house, and while driving to O’Reilly’s, it began to dawn on me (Awareness) just how much we needed the break.
Base
There were Feelings of Sorrow as I left our cats and fish as home, not nearly enough to have me stay, especially since I knew they were in good hands.
Others’ Views is that I’m heading into Ice-olation. Usually, I would treat this card with its more profound, spiritual or philosophical intent, but today, driving to O’Reilly’s pseudo-remote location is the literal isolation that others might see.
Hopes & Fears has the card of Playfulness, and it is what I’m hoping for, but alas, I fear the daily writing might interfere a little with playtime.
Now that we’re here at the retreat, the Outcome of Possibilities opens up to us for the next few days, at least. It also means I don’t have to think of the drive home until then.
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
- The Beatles, The Long and Winding Road
