March Is...

March 10, 2024

Sunrise, March 3, 2024

March is moody and muddy. She is gray and sunshine and gusty winds all rolled into one. She encourages the trees to drop whatever remains that needs to be let go and suddenly the world looks more bare than it did before. She encourages us to drop what needs to be let go as well, not to keep carrying what no longer serves us.

The last of the seeds are letting go, hoping to find fertile soil.

March is warm and she is cold. She is carried on the wind. Winter clothes and summer clothes hang side by side, sometimes needed in the same day. She is short sleeves and scarves and raincoats and parkas. March asks us to stretch our muscles and remember our resilience.

If I could take a picture of March, she might look like this.

March is insistent. Her energy is an upward spiral, urging every fiber in every being to wake up, move, and grow. She tells the birds to change into their “party clothes”, the beautiful colors of the breeding season. She tells us it is time to step into our new skins, to let our beautiful colors shine a little more each year.

Yellow-rumped warblers haven’t changed their feathers yet, but they will soon.

March is not one for spectacular sunrises, at least not often. It’s as if she just doesn’t have time for all that drama. March sunrises are often clear and windy or completely cloud-covered. Sunrise colors are not her adornment - she is more focused on the new growth on the trees. She knows what’s called for now is light and rain in somewhat equal measure.

Sunrise, March 2, 2024

March asks me to look a the in-betweens. The places where the water meets the sand. The places new growth hangs together with the last remnants of fall. March is an open book, allowing me to see the birds in the trees more easily than the months before and the months to follow.

One morning the waves made the most exquisite carvings on the sand. I hadn’t seen it before - and I haven’t seen it since.

I often think I know March and then she makes me look again. Each time she comes around she asks me to look with fresh eyes and see what she might offer this year. March reminds me that beauty is sometimes found where you least expect it.

It looks like someone placed these items and sculpted the sand. A true work of art in a place I have walked past hundreds of times.

March will be what she will be. Lion. Lamb. Dragon. All are possible. Her energy stirs things up. I feel unsettled, which seems to be exactly what she is meant to do. March says, “Come now, it is time to change”. I often feel that change takes a lot of energy but March shows me that change creates a lot of energy too.

First time I've seen a bluebird fight! These two males were definitely filled with energy.

The lovely lady who was the object of their desire (on the left).

How grand is a world where all things change? How remarkable that each month comes and goes and allows us to appreciate it all over again when it returns?

Sometimes the energy of March feels a lot like these geese who splash in, honking, with tongues hanging out.

I always hope March will be a bit more lamb than lion, but only she knows what she has in store. Whatever she brings, I practice holding gratitude for the gifts she brings. I practice loving her, however she shows up.

Sunset, March 3, 2024 (And there were frogs singing!)

The waves on the sand were so delightful, I just want to give you a few more looks! I truly have never seen this before. I love that nature can still surprise me after more than ten years of walking in the same place.

Ornate waves

Big, smooth waves.

Perfectly even waves.

Every one of the patterns is a little different

How is March showing up where you live?