It began with a curious thought. Most problems do. And so do most solutions.
I lay in my bed trying to awaken my legs when it hit me that today, March 15th, is the Ides of March.
“Beware, the Ides of March”. That’s the phrase that always spills from my mind, though for most of my life I knew little about it except that it involved Julius Caesar and Brutus and a knife in the back. Now, thanks to my daily Lenten writing exercise, I know more. Because of the internet rabbit holes are deeper and brighter.
The curse of writing on my computer rather than with pen and ink is that I have far too easy access to “further information” when I’m writing. I can keep one figurative finger in the original page and turn to another, which requires me to save that page and turn to yet another page, until I end up with ten tabs open on my computer and I’ve forgotten what I was writing about in the first place.
The blessing of writing on my computer is that I can open ten tabs at once and dive into a figurative butterfly chamber, dancing in a fluttering sea of newness and beauty.
Ides, if you didn’t know, is based on a Latin term. It means the halfway point in each month, relative to the Gregorian calendar. In the Roman calendar it was the date against which other dates were determined. So basically, they start with the Ides and count backwards and forwards. Its more involved than I care to write about right now, but that’s the basic idea. There are a couple other monthly dates involved in those calculations.
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| Replica of an ancient Roman wall calendar. |
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| A simplified look at dates on the Roman calendar. |
Further Wikipedia research reiterated an old tidbit of knowledge I suppose I’d forgotten; that the month of March is actually the first month in the Roman calendar. This is why September (sept meaning seventh) and December (deca meaning tenth) feel misnamed in our current calendar. They were christened with their names in the Roman calendar. If the pivotal date in March is that middle date against which all others are set, then New Year’s celebrations would be at the Ides of March. Indeed, there were all sorts of religious rituals and pagan celebrations around that time of year, including the pagan observance of Eastertide in relation to Spring Equinox. A couple that come to mind are the ritualistic leading of a lamb through the streets, ending at a sacrificial altar. Another is the public beating of a man dressed in animal skins and driving him from the city, representing the tossing out of the old year and welcoming the new. I can’t help but pause and ponder the symbolism in leading a lamb to slaughter and the public beating and removal of an innocent around the new year, Spring Equinox, Eastertide.
Ramadan, Easter, Spring, New Year, they are just a sampling of the fact that there is more that unites us as a species than divides us. Old things end, new ones begin. The old sorcerer may have whispered to Caesar to beware the Ides of March as a forewarning of impending death. But the angels in Heaven lifted their trumpets in celebration of a season of new beginnings, when life is renewed and restored. Cold soil is the place from which new beginnings spring.
Happy new year, everyone.
