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The Artist’s
Alamanac
March 2004
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March is Nature’s way
of sorting things out.
Wind thrashes the
trees, pruning the deadwood, twisting buds from bare branches.
Creeks run high, flushing a year’s trash from their banks, while
each variety of clouds chases the last from windswept skies.
Kayakers in their
wetsuits practice climbing the swollen falls below the millpond on
Bledsoe, now a Class 3 stream. Fathers use weekends, kites and
children as reasons to feel the throb and ebb of wind. Gardeners
scrutinize fall’s plantings for signs of life and prune back to
greenwood. It is time for spring housecleaning.
The wise farmer waits
for wind to work its magic with his medium, the soil. A week’s wind
can suck a winter’s worth of wet from the earth. He learned well
from father and grandfathers the folly of plowing wet ground, and he
waits for a “good season” in the soil. They still enjoy in Cedar
Grove the stories of the weekend farmer who insisted on plowing his
ground on his schedule rather than that set by the skies and spent
the next three years sorting unbreakable clay bricks with his disk
and harrow.
They also plant by the
sign. The zodiac still holds sway with large numbers of people, as
seen in the astrology columns in magazines and newspapers. This is
the month of superstitions. “Beware the Ides of March”, was the
advice Julius Caesar chose to ignore. My grandfather would not have
his hair cut in March. It was vile superstitions that St. Patrick
really drove from snakeless Ireland.
It must be the wind.
Golfers are advised to slow their swing and concentrate more when
it’s windy. Spring winds can cause an old house to writhe and moan
in the night and generate unearthly thoughts. Winds claim our
attention, whether driving on the highway or lying in bed. The most
violent of winds is a tornado and we have them now. My grandfather
witnessed the devastation of the worst tornado ever to hit the
county near Graball, where they stacked the bodies like cordwood.
Afterwards, he came home and built a tornado shelter. Perhaps that’s
when he became superstitious.
March is named for
Mars, the mythical god of war, or contending forces. On the 21st,
the Vernal Equinox, the contending forces are equal. Night and day,
winter and spring, come into perfect balance. Spring wins, and
afterwards, we may venture from our dark caves to plant our gardens
in the sunlit hope of March.
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