The Irish Lass (poem)

Dhr. Seven edited by Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Wisdom of the Zen master (Angel City Zen)

Excuse me, miss, sorry to bother, but I'm seeking a redheaded suburban Sedona'ite last seen traveling through this neck of the woods or living the cloistered life aloft in a hermitage on the cleft of one of the surrounding hills, by the given name of Rowan Siobhan Fiona Elfinkilt, Gwendolyn Mackenzie Paisley Wigglesbottom, or some such, though for reasons undreamt of by Man she's taken to answering to "Hey you," a dashing figure whose dulcet voice sounds like the mew of a brinded feline, except when she weeps, as it then becomes the whoosh of water cascading in the staccato gulps of a stony brook plunging into a limpid pool lined with verdant moss and fern fringes, and you might know her because you bear a striking resemblance, twins perhaps.

I wish I lived in my own hermitage high in the mountains with no one bothering my peace.

.

You're Irish? - Yeah, what was your first clue?

We were rapt just this evening in meditation in a hollow under a tree large enough to take up residence enveloped in its roots, and I'm keen not to again lose touch though we've scarcely ever had the chance to be in direct touch, yet more than sufficient to stimulate the appetite for more, and losing it should not cause such a sting as it does when for long stretches we are forced to be apart with no hope of again uniting, be it on account of rare inclement weather, general holiday daze, or the sad fact of our benefactor's sudden declining health, and I intend to see to it that we establish a means of communication that shall not soon be rent asunder by the vagaries of a life beset by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, if only she would assent to such a bold proposal.

Did it work? It worked or seems to have. And now I have nothing higher to live for:

• BOOK: Nothing Higher to Live For by Leonard Price (Ven. Nyanasobhano, Buddhist Publication Society via Access to Insight)
• Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romance
• The Sinagua ("Without Water") | History of the Sinaguan People of Sedona, AZ

Bewitching sidhe or Celtic devi (amcplus.com)

Which, when you come to think of it, might not be a good thing. Let go. Drop it. Attach not for there is a hidden danger in attachment, in grasping and clinging to the pleasant things we grasp. We can instead enjoy things mindfully while we have them in hand and not become obsessed with "possessing" them as if they could ever really satisfy and fulfill. That is not where fulfillment is. Where is fulfillment? Ultimately, it is to be experienced as nirvana, in the nirodha (cessation) here-and-now, by wisdom, a release of the heart.