March

March is a greening time, a new beginning for plants – and people, too.  What a perfect moment to consider the powerful beauty in many of our endeavors – the imaginative play of children, the joy of song and dance, and the accomplishments of innovators.  It can be a time of renewal, too, for commitment to overcoming ongoing human struggles of all kinds.  March on!

March On

Neither a lamb

nor lion be -

march on, march on.

More bell and song

than hammer, now –

march on, march on.

People before

creeds and causes –

march on, and on,

and on, and on.

Stella Castella

Here are some quotes from some well-known people with March birthdays.  They come, as before, from A Gift of Days:  The Greatest Words to Live By by Stephen Alcorn.

Miriam Makeba (singer):  Everyone now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa.  I just told the world the truth.  And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.

Ornette Coleman (musician):  You've got to realize.  In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

James Madison (U.S. President):  Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.

Fred Rogers (educator):  People often talk about play as if it were a relief from serious learning or a "waste of time."  But for children, play is serious learning.

Gloria Steinem (women's rights activist):  Without leaps of imagination, or dreams, we lose the excitement of possibilities.  Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Zbigniew Brzezinski (political scientist):  We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.

Cesar Chavez (civil rights activist):  There is no substitute for hard work, twenty-three or twenty-four hours a day.  And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.