March

Poems, Quotes, Folklore, Myths
Sayings, Links, References, Lore
Ideas, Garden Chores

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, California

Quotes     Links     References     Garden Chores     Photos

Quotes
March:  Poetry, Quotations, Sayings, Facts, Information, Quips, Aphorisms

"The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings."
-   Joyce Kilmer, Spring

"The afternoon is bright,
with spring in the air,
a mild March afternoon,
with the breath of April stirring,
I am alone in the quiet patio
looking for some old untried illusion -
some shadow on the whiteness of the wall
some memory asleep
on the stone rim of the fountain,
perhaps in the air
the light swish of some trailing gown."
-   Antonio Machado, 1875-1939
    Selected Poems, # 3, Translated by Alan S. Trueblood

"Each leaf,
each blade of grass
vies for attention.

Even weeds
carry tiny blossoms
to astonish us."
-  Marianne Poloskey, Sunday in Spring

"The sun is brilliant in the sky but its warmth does not reach my face.
The breeze stirs the trees but leaves my hair unmoved.
The cooling rain will feed the grass but will not slake my thirst.
It is all inches away but further from me than my dreams."
-   M. Romeo LaFlamme, The First of March

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
-  William Wordsworth, Daffodils

"Last day of Winter,
leafless walnut trees--
form is emptiness.

First day of Spring,
clear sky to Mt. Shasta--
emptiness is form." 
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings: March   

"March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy."
-   Emily Dickinson, XLVIII

"The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow.  Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase."  
-   E.B. White, "Hot Weather," One Man's Meat, 1944   

"The March wind roars
Like a lion in the sky,
And makes us shiver
As he passes by.

When winds are soft,
And the days are warm and clear,
Just like a gentle lamb,
Then spring is here."
-   Author Unknown

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough."
-   A. E. Houseman, Shropshire Lad

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"
-   Robin Williams

"Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, 
       and the splendor of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger 
       than dreams that fulfill us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops 
       and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossom like snow 
       or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, 
       nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: 
       such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms
        that enkindle the season they smite."
-   Algernon C. Swinburne, March: An Ode

"Today is the day when bold kites fly,
When cumulus clouds roar across the sky.
When robins return, when children cheer,
When light rain beckons spring to appear.

Today is the day when daffodils bloom,
Which children pick to fill the room,
Today is the day when grasses green,
When leaves burst forth for spring to be seen."
-   Robert McCracken, Spring

"Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees."
-   Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring

"This hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds of
uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ’38) out of their
rotting hearts generations rise
trying once more to become
the forest

just beyond them 
tall enough to be called trees 
in their youth like aspen a bouquet 
of young beech is gathered

they still wear last summer’s leaves  
the lightest brown almost translucent 
how their stubbornness has decorated  
the winter woods"
-   Grace Paley, A Walk in March

"O the green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing."
-   Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Green Things Growing

"Springtime is the land awakening.  
The March winds are the morning yawn."  
-   Lewis Grizzard, Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You

"A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King."
-   Emily Dickenson, # 103

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." 
-   George Santayana

"The name Ostara goes back to Jacob Grimm, who, in his Deutsche Mythologie, speculated about an ancient German goddess Ostara, after whom the Easter festival (German: Ostern) could have been named. Grimm's main source is De temporum ratione by the Venerable Bede. Bede had put forward the thesis that the Anglo-Saxon name for the month of April, Eostur-monath, was named after a goddess Eostre^[1]. 

Ostara is one of the four lesser Wiccan holidays or sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. Ostara is celebrated on the spring equinox, in the Northern hemisphere around March 21 and in the Southern hemisphere around September 23, depending upon the specific timing of the equinox. Among the Wiccan sabbats, it is preceded by Imbolc and followed by Beltane.

In the book Eight Sabbats for Witches by Janet and Stewart Farrar, the festival Ostara is characterized by the rejoining of the Mother Goddess and her lover-consort-son, who spent the winter months in death. Other variations include the young God regaining strength in his youth after being born at Yule, and the Goddess returning to her Maiden aspect.

Ostara is the virgin Goddess of spring. This holiday concerns the deity's trip to the underworld, and their struggle to return from the Land of the Dead to Earth. When they accomplish this return, they have a life renewed. It was considered bad luck to wear anything new before Ostara, so the people would work through the winter in secret to make elegant clothes for the Sabbat celebration. The entire community would gather for games, feasting, and religious rituals while showing off their clothing.

The modern belief that eggs are delivered by a rabbit known as the Easter Bunny comes from the legend of the Goddess Eostre. So much did a lowly rabbit want to please the Goddess that he laid the sacred eggs in her honor, gaily decorated them, and humbly presented them to her. So pleased was she that she wished all humankind to share in her joy. In honor of her wishes, the rabbit went through the entire world and distributed these little decorated gifts of life"
-  Ostara in Wikipedia

"Winds of March, we welcome you,
There is work for you to do.
Work and play and blow all day,
Blow the Winter wind away."   

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."
-   Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

"For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."
-  Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon

"Gwyl Canol GwenWynol or Eostre: (pronounced E-ostra, also known as Ostara, Spring Equinox etc.), March 21-23. Time of equal day and equal night. This is often celebrated with eggs (beginnings) and rabbits (fertiity) ... see the theme? It is now time to lay the seeds of new projects and new directions that you have meditated on throughout the cold months. Now is the time to start taking action. (A lot of traditions use this particular sabbat for initiations. New roads, a new breath.) Colours for this sabbat: Purple and Yellow

The Spring Equinox defines the season where Spring reaches it's apex, halfway through its journey from Candlemas to Beltane.   Night and day are in perfect balance, with the powers of light on the ascendancy.   The god of light now wins a victory over his twin, the god of darkness.  In the Welsh Mabinogion, this is the day on which the restored Llew takes his vengeance on Goronwy by piercing him with the sunlight spear.  For Llew was restored/reborn at the Winter Solstice and is now well/old enough to vanquish his rival/twin and mate with his lover/mother.  And the great Mother Goddess, who has returned to her Virgin aspect at Candlemas, welcomes the young sun god's embraces and conceives a child. The child will be born nine months from now, at the next Winter Solstice. And so the cycle closes at last to begin anew.

The customs surrounding the celebration of the spring equinox were imported from Mediterranean lands, although there can be no doubt that the first inhabitants of the British Isles observed it, as evidence from megalithic sites shows. But it was certainly more popular to the south, where people celebrated the holiday as New Year's Day, and claimed it as the first day of the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries. However you look at it, it is certainly a time of new beginnings, as a simple glance at Nature will prove."
-   Spring Equinox  

March

Links and References

April: Quotes, Poems and Sayings

Cloud Hands: Mind-Body Arts

March - Links from Yahoo

March - Mystical World Wide Web

Cuttings - March.   Haiku and short poems by Michael P. Garofalo.  

Earth Calendar - Wiccan Holidays 

Earth Day (March 21st) Links - Open Directory 

Easter in Wikipedia  

Folklore Calendar 

Green Way Blog

Heartwarming Easter Poems

Holiday Insights

Holiday Links - Yahoo

Korean Customs

March Holidays and Celebrations 

March: Quotes, Poems and Sayings

Months of the Year

 Ostara in Wikipedia

Quotes for Gardeners.   Over 3,300 quotes arranged by over 135 topics.

Saint Patrick's Day - Yahoo Links  

Spirit of Gardening

Spring and Easter Poetry

Spring Days

Spring Equinox Celebrations 

Spring Equinox Wiccan Overview

Spring  -  Quotes, Poems, Sayings and Quips for Gardeners

Spring: Links and Ideas for Teachers   

Spring Poetry

Traditional English Customs and Folktales of March

Wicca and Paganism

Winter - Quotes, Poems, Sayings and Quips for Gardeners

March Weather Lore

A wet March, a wet Spring.

Clichés for Gardeners

Weather Lore

March Folklore

Astrological Signs:  Pisces,  February 19 - March 20

Astrological Signs:  Aries,  March 21 -  April 20

February  Birthstones:  Aquamarine

The Spring Equinox is associated with, or known as: Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Festival of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, Rites of Spring, and the Vernal Equinox.

March Garden Chores

Red Bluff, North Sacramento Valley, California, USA

USDA Zone 9

Typical Weather for Our Area

March Gardening Chores in Red Bluff

Browsing and ordering from seed and garden catalogs.  
Planting potted trees and shrubs.  
Placing cold sensitive potted plants in protected areas or indoors.
Pruning and mulching dormant trees and vines. 
Repairing and sharpening tools.
Fertilizing with 16-16-16 or manure. 
Planting seeds in containers in the greenhouse.  
Planting some vegetable starts in the ground.
Watering as needed.  
Raking up fallen twigs and branches.
Weeding around the base of small trees and shrubs.
Mowing and weeding as needed.
Cleaning and repairing drip irrigation lines. 
Making up To Do lists. 
Spraying dormant trees and shrubs. 
Painting fences and art objects as needed. 
Developing Spring Resolutions for personal improvements. 
Fixing up lawn mowers and other power tools for outdoor work.   

March Gardening Chores and Tips for U.S.A. Zones

Oak Hill March Tips - Georgia

Oregon State University March Tips

Earth Wise Creations March Tips - Zone 9

Seasonal Garden Chores - Links

Top Garden Projects for March in the Pacific Northwest by Ed Hume

52 Weeks in the California Garden by Richard Smaus

March Gardening Tips from Ortho

The Garden Helper Tips for March - Northern U.S.

Gardening Tips - March - New York Botanical Garden

Master Gardeners Tips

Photographs in March from Red Bluff, California
Karen and Mike Garofalo

Red Bluff Gardens -  Comparison from 1998 - 2007

All photographs taken by Karen Garofalo.