In Like a Lion
In like a lion, they say…
March. It’s an auspicious month. One that takes its name from the god of Mars, the war-god of Roman fame. He’s red-faced and strong and won’t back down from a fight. He’s intelligent, ingenious, and one who makes a statement wherever he goes. He’s something to contend with, but only carefully.
Just when Julius Caesar thought he was safe, that god of fate swooped down, just like the foreboding Mars, dealing him a fatal blow at the hand of his cohorts-turned-enemies outside of the counsel chambers in the Forum Romana centuries ago. His augers had been right. Trust the augurs everyone said. But Caesar was his own man. He ignored those warnings and went ahead. Brave…maybe. Doomed…definitely.
And so it was that on the Ides of March, a great historical moment happened. One that has been on the lips of others ever since, even making it into a famous playbook by an out of work, quirky, not terribly refined, but so very talented writer centuries after the deed was done. Shakespeare retold the story of this Caesar and the scene always meets with raucous applause even now.
So what about that “out like a lamb” thing?
Out Like a Lamb
Yes, it’s Easter time usually at the end of March or the beginnings of April, and yes, many of us do “sacrifice” the lamb as in the Bible to commemorate the day at our Sunday dinner. And yes, the spring is just around the corner and we are showered with floral upbringings and an array of colorful carpets, post-haste the inevitable rainy season.
I think, however, that the lamb part comes from how we never really understand, no matter how old we get, that life runs in cycles. These cycles are inevitable, too. They take us through dark moments, amazingly great days, and the calms before the storms always, always portend something. Usually something that knocks us off our feet, but as the powers that be would have it, knocks us right back, ever so gently and with a whisper, back into the places where we can breathe, hope and otherwise live in peace. The some things that we cannot control, anticipate, or otherwise manipulate always happen and what we can do is to accept those storms and embrace them as naturally and as intensely as we hold dear the nicer moments. Although they may be at opposite sides of the spectrum, they are, after all, the stuff that dreams are made of. Even the ones that begin and end with the fiery force of our far-flung planet Mars—especially those. Those are the ones which take you back to the calmest of places once they are at rest.
So if like me, you were fortunate enough to be born under the sign of Aries, with that fierce ruling planet of Mars, take note of the augurs of life that begin and end with both kinds of energy. And with a grain of salt, know that it’s necessary to make up the whole mysterious earth-island paradise of your life which someday may be finished by either a song or a sword. It’s out of your control. And even a controlling, independent, refreshingly different, exasperatingly inquisitive, relentlessly driven, true Aries like me, wrote the book on that.