O, the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Chosen leaf OF Bard and Chief, Old Erin's native Shamrock.

These grow genuine shamrocks. It?s not clover at all.

I'll seek a four-leaved shamrock in all thy fairy dells, And if I find the charmed leaves, oh, how I'll weave my spells!

Technologies of the soul tend to be simple, bodily, slow and related to the heart as much as the mind. Everything around us tells us we should be mechanically sophisticated, electronic, quick, and informational in our expressiveness - an exact antipode to the virtues of the soul. It is no wonder, then, that in an age of telecommunications - which, by the way, literally means "distant connections" - we suffer symptoms of the loss of soul. We are being urged from every side to become efficient rather than intimate.

Go where we may, rest where we will,
Eternal London haunts us still.

It may help us, in those times of trouble, to remember that love is not only about relationship, it is also an affair of the soul.