The Winds of March

"Wild as a March hare," has long typified the spirit of the month when winds seem to have lost their anchors and the very air has a feeling of expectancy and excitement. Whoever first hinted that the hares in March were wild, knew something of the feelings of all living things during that period of transition between the cold of winter and the warm breezes of spring.

"March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" is another of those sayings that all remember and accept as the truth. But March does not always ring true to form and while in most years the winds are abnormally strong, there are times when even from the first they are full of the presage of things to come and soft as the winds of May.

And when Shakespeare said "Beware the Ides of March," I have a feeling that he knew, too, that he picked a time of uncertainty when most anything might happen, for the downfall of Caesar.

No doubt there are many more sayings of a proverbial slant that betray the character of the month of March, but the one I like best is the first—"Wild as a March hare"—for that seems to indicate the stirring of new life that all things know.

It means that winter is over, that spring is just around the corner, that the sap is beginning to run, that buds are swelling, wild flowers beginning to poke through the mold and duff, that a rejuvenation is in the making and that a thousand things are happening underground that for six long months or more were dead and forgotten.

No wonder the March hares are wild and that they race before the great blustery winds of spring. For surely all of this is enough to turn the heads of much saner folk, let alone the hares. In all creation there is nothing more exhilarating that this rebirth of life and surely there can be nothing more exciting than to be in the open when a gale has a tang of the south in it that seems to be unlocking all the doors of nature.

All life, animals of the wild and men as well, is stirred powerfully by the March winds. Then we feel the need to get into the open at all costs, to travel far and wide and, if nothing else, at least feel the ground under our feet.

So when a day comes along, as it surely will, or a night perhaps when the moon is full and the March winds are whooping it up, take to the open country, hike through the fields and woods, follow the roads and trails away from all the main highways. And if there are no side roads, follow the main arterials themselves, for even there you will feel the surge in the March winds.

You will return with a new feeling, a sensation of having been cleaned and refreshed, and perhaps if you are lucky you might capture some of that elusive insanity and wildness that a winter in town has all but erased from your memory.