March-ing along ...

Pagan Book of Days gives us some reports that may be of interest here: March 14, which we know and celebrate as Einstein's birthday-- among others-- was the beginning of the Runic half-month of Beorc, and is the date of the festival of Veturius Mamurius, on which the art of armor-making is celebrated. Beorc is ruled by the goddess of the birch tree, and is noted as a time of symbolic purification in preparation for rebirth and new beginnings. Goes with the springtide feel of these days as light comes earlier in the mornings, I would say, and to hell with DST. Onward.

March 15, of course was the jolly old Ides. Besides the assassination, in 44 BC, of Julius Caesar, it is the holy day of the Greek goddess of the earth, Rhea, Zeus' mother, an aspect of the Great Mother. Traditions honor river sprites or nymphs on the Ides of March-- we could go float small boats on the Columbia if we wanted, as we did for a certain Viking funeral many Ides ago. Then, the sixteenth began a two-day Dionysian festival of wine, to assure a fruitful grape harvest in due season ...17th, of course honors St. Patrick of the shamrock, who held the great snake roundup some centuries back. Besides that, it is the end of the Celtic tree-month of Nuin.

Which brings us to today, the 18th and the beginning of the Celtic tree-month of Fearn. It's also noted as the date St Edward the martyr was killed by his mother in 979, "perhaps as part of a continuing tradition of the sacrificial king who must die for his people"? ...

Onward--