Beware the Ides of March

Change is the theme of March. We can count on the weather to vary, for old proverbs tell us, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” The reverse holds true too. March is the boundary line between winter and spring, with the Vernal Equinox occurring March 19, 2020, at 10:50 pm Central Time.

Folklore tell us that you can balance a raw egg on its end on the equinox, something attributed to the Earth’s “balance” on that day. While this sounds like a fun activity, there’s no basis in fact that egg balancing is any easier on the equinox, according to NASA. The U.S. space agency conducted an unscientific experiment and found it was no easier to balance an egg on the equinox than on any other day. What did make it easier was finding an egg with small bumps on its shell, something that NASA said made the “seemingly impossible task achievable.”

Super Tuesday on March 3rd is the first coast to coast opportunity to select a presidential candidate to oppose the one currently in office. As I write this, every single TV commercial is a political one. We should be glad for this, for some countries don’t have this luxury. I hear a big rain event is forecast for Arkansas, so I recommend early voting, but not often voting. Remember we practice “one rabbit, one vote.” If you want to stuff a box, don’t let it be the ballot box, but fill a food drive box. While some rabbits do prosper in our economy, other rabbits still struggle due to health problems, job losses, or other difficulties in life.

Purim, beginning at sunset on March 10, marks the leadership of Queen Esther, who advocated to the king for her Jewish people, to protect them from a royal death decree back in the fourth century BCE, as told in the Book of Esther. The mark of a leader is to risk their own position to benefit those who are subject to injustice.

“For if you keep quiet at such a time as this, help and protection will come to the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Yet, who knows whether it was not for such a time as this that you were made queen?” (Additions to Esther 4:14)

On March 15th we celebrate the Ides of March. The Ides are nothing more than the name the Romans gave to the middle of the month, just as we get excited about Hump Day or the Weekend. Life moved slower back in BCE, but they didn’t have the internet and were still using ink and parchment. We first find the expression ‘Beware the Ides of March’ in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 1601, when the soothsayer whispers to Julius Caesar a warning of his impending death. Shakespeare also added the famous retort to Caesar’s assassins, ‘Et tu, Brute?’ History records no words from Caesar when the dictator, who was launching a series of political and social reforms, was assassinated by a group of nobles in the Senate House on the Ides of March.

Free Agency is another way to change leaders, and it’s far better plan than assassination, a practice only used in pirate and authoritarian organizations. March 18, at 4 pm ET begins the fruit basket turnover we know as Free Agency. Drew Brees and Tom Brady, quarterbacks who rank first and second on the all-time NFL passing touchdowns list, will both have the last two years of their current deals void on the eve of the new league year. While they’re the two oldest position players in pro football, new contracts in New Orleans and New England are likely. Even if those deals don’t come together, it’s possible either (or both) could retire.

In the United Methodist Church, springtime is appointment season. Clergy who’ve grown long in the tooth decide to retire, others change relationships to the annual conference due to health or geography, and then there’s the pulpits that need a pastor. While our church tends to move on a regular calendar nationwide, those denominations and congregations who call their own pastor need to seek one whenever they have a need and take the best of what’s available.

Having been born a cradle Methodist, I prefer our way of sending new leadership. As my mother used to say, in one of her many unfiltered moments, “If you don’t like the preachers in the Methodist Church, think of them like the weather. They’ll change pretty soon, but don’t get your heart attached, for they’ll have to move on elsewhere. It’s their nature.” Of course, I’m not sure my mother ever had any filtered moments, but the rabbits always knew where they stood with her.

The Ides of March may be the sifting or winnowing date for the Democrats in their presidential primaries. The magic number to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president is 1,991 delegates. It could take months to officially get there, but a total of 1,344 delegates will be allotted on Super Tuesday alone — about 33 percent of the total. Then 11 more state contests are up for grabs on March 10 and 17. By the time March 17 rolls around, 61 percent of the pledged delegates will be allotted.

We could either have a pretty good sense of who the Democratic nominee will be by the Ides of March, or the primary could still be contested, as it was in 2016. If the latter, the contests to decide the winner will happen from March 18 to June 6. Those three months will be when the remaining 39 percent of delegates will be allotted; the most important day in this stretch is April 28, when New York and Pennsylvania vote, among others.

Presidential candidates are all competing for a majority of 3,979 pledged delegates. Separately, there are also 771 automatic delegates, otherwise known as “superdelegates.” Again, it’s worth noting the biggest DNC rules changes were around superdelegates. The change stems from the tumultuous 2016 primary campaign, in which Sanders’ supporters accused the superdelegates of having too much influence over the outcome, since the overwhelming majority of them supported Clinton. That means these 771 superdelegates will not vote on the first ballot, unless there’s already a candidate with a supermajority of pledged delegates. While some hope for a contested convention, this rabbit thinks the end of the race will find fewer taking the checkered flag than after the Big One at Daytona International Speedway.

Rabbits can help us find a better leadership style. The typical Rabbit Leader has the following characteristics:

1. Typically chaotic
2. Overwhelmed and running around
3. Trying to do to many things at once, micromanaging
4. Neglecting to delegate
5. Always “busy” when people asked how it’s going.
6. Definitely “late, for a very important date.”

Work expands to fill the time available, but working harder doesn’t always mean greater rewards. Working smarter, not harder, is the better choice. If we don’t take time to reflect, plan, dream, and vision for the future, we won’t give our best efforts to endeavors. I used to tell my team I didn’t need to have all the decisions run past me, such as flowers for Sunday, the acolytes, or the ushers’ names. They had responsibilities for these and didn’t need my second guessing their choices. I have only one brain, and it’s a very small funnel. It has a tendency to get clogged if too many details get crammed into it. I kept my eye on the big picture and the team helped me keep the day to day details filled in.

The Velveteen Rabbit reminds us to be the most effective leader, we need to be our real self and allow others to love us until we’re worn from use. It isn’t easy to be vulnerable, but this is the mark of a leader.

‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That is why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

We rabbits shouldn’t fear change, and certainly not in the month of March. We have the Romans to thank for the months of January and February. The God Janus was two faced, looking both forward and backward. February was a month of purification. March was the original first month of the Roman year. If the spring flowers and new leaves bursting forth from the frozen earth cause you to revision your goals for turning over a new leaf, now is the time for a change!

Plutarch wrote in the 1st CE, “It was also natural that Martius, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus’s first (month) and Aprilis, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads. But others, because of its being p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but say it is called Aprilis from aperio, Latin for to open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers.”

Perhaps the greatest change in March all the rabbit denizens undergo in the neighborhood is on Saint Patrick’s Day. Suddenly everyone has kissed the Blarney Stone, or perhaps that’s the Guinness speaking. All wear a touch of green to avoid the pinch that turns them red. Every bunny is Irish for one day.

If you visit Hot Springs, Arkansas, you can attend The First Ever 17th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, all 98 feet of Bridge Street! Foghat, the legendary rock band that created “Slow Ride” and other hits, will play a free public concert on Tuesday, March 17, 2020, immediately following the First Ever 17th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Hot Springs.

The day prior, Blues Traveler, the legendary rock band with 13 hit albums to its credit, will play a free concert on Monday, March 16, 2020, on the eve of the First Ever 17th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Hot Springs. And…the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, plus local floats and marching groups. The Ides of March should beware the St. Patty Party at Hot Springs National Park, which was once known as Hot Springs Reservation. It was set aside in 1832 to protect the Park’s primary resource, the hot springs. This type of Reservation was an early version of the National Park idea. Hot Springs was actually the first area in the United States to be set aside for its natural features.

Until next time, every bunny stay well, get plenty of sleep, keep washing your hands, and remember March 8th begins DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME: Spring Forward and enjoy the extra hour of daylight in the late afternoon.

Joy and Peace,
Cornelia

Balance an egg on the Equinox. https://www.al.com/news/2019/03/spring-equinox-2019-official-first-day-of-spring-can-you-stand-an-egg-on-its-end-today.html

Ides of March Presidential Predictions and Delegate Tracker
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21113779/2020-presidential-delegate-tracker

Democratic Superdelegates
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/democrats-superdelegates-voting-changes/index.html

Plutarch, “Nuna Pompilius,” C.E. 75
Sanctum Library: 8th-7th Century B.C.E.
Translated by John Dryden.
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-text-Plutarch.html

Hot Springs National Park
https://www.nps.gov/hosp/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm