The Ides of March

We're in the middle of four important dates in the spring calendar.  Today is the Ides of March, yesterday was Pi Day, tomorrow is St. Urho's Day, and Friday is green beer day!  It's a worth a moment to remember what these days are all about.

Ides of March

The Ideas of March (a beautiful peaceful sunny day here) is best known from the ancient Roman calendar, when the first day of March marked the new year.  The middle of the month in that calendar marked the full moon, so March 15th was the first full moon.  In four months of the year the full moon was on the 15th day; in the other months it was on the 13th day.  Nothing foreboding about all that.

But in 44 BC Julius Caesar had just been elected Emperor for life, and the upper classes were a little peeved.  When Caesar showed up for the Roman Senate meeting he was stabbed repeatedly.  According to myth a soothsayer had warned him with the words 'Beware the Idea of March'.  Thus the 'Ides of March' has held a certain ominous meaning.

But it's really due to Shakespeare that we remember the phrase.  After all few of us know much ancient Roman history, but almost all of us studied Shakespeare's plays (for better or worse).  In his play 'Julius Caesar' Shakespeare has the soothsayer utter those words, and the rest is history.  Shakespeare wasn't too much hung up on facts, twisting the details to suit his fancy here (just as he did in the play 'MacBeth'), but we all remember the phrase 'Beware the Ides of March'.

Then of course the weather folks got into the game, citing major storms that have occurred on March 15th (often simply during the month of March seems enough).  Thus March in general and the Ides of March in particular hold the reputation of marking bad weather.  Certainly not here today, though winter is dragging on.

Pi Day

Yesterday was Pi Day.  If you remember your math, 'Pi' (3.14 or the ratio of the diameter of a circle to the circumference) is a mathematical constant.  And it's not surprising that the 14th day of the 3rd month is Pi Day.  Besides, it can be celebrated with a slice of pie!  I found reference to Pi Day in no fewer than 3 blogs yesterday, DJan-ity has the best discussion and points out that it's also Einstein's Birthday.

St. Urho's Day

St.  Urho is a fictional Finnish Saint, invented by Finnish Americans in Northern Minnesota in 1956, when Urho Kekkonen was elected President of Finland.  The conspirators who invented it wanted to have a day to celebrate their culture as the Irish did on St. Paddy's Day.  Then they picked March 16th as St. Urho's Day so they could start drinking their green beer before the Irish.  Of course Far Side of Fifty is the blog that celebrates St. Urho's Day - check it out.

Green Beer Day or St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick is the patron Saint of Ireland, known for bringing Christianity to much of northern Ireland in the 5th century.  Though there is debate over both when and where he was born, I think the dates 385-461 mark his life well enough.  I think the legend of his birth in southwest Scotland is reasonable, but we do know that he was captured by Irish pirates as a teenager and enslaved as a shepherd in Ireland for 6 years.  He escaped and made his way back to home where he trained to become a cleric.  It was then that he moved to Ireland and began his great life preaching Christianity.

St. Patrick's Day was recognized as a Christian feast day in the early 1600s, and has grown ever since.  Some would say that it's celebrated more among the Irish of North America than in Ireland itself.  It's not just green beer that's associated with the day, it's almost anything green, especially any clothing and shamrocks.  The day falls within Lent of course, but historically the church has lifted the restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol for the day, enabling the consumption of gallons of green beer!

So enjoy whatever day you want to celebrate, but beware the Ides of March!