ORIGINS: Beware the Ides of March

Perhaps you’re vaguely familiar with the phrase, “Beware the Ides of March…”

It’s one of those phrases that has seeped into our collective consciousness, branding it with overtones of doom, destruction and possible death. References to the Ides of March, especially in pop culture today, seem to make the day itself cursed.

Yesterday was March 15. The Ides of March. The day I wrote this article.

But what does the phrase really mean? What is its origins? How did we get to where we are now?

If you’re anything like me, you need to know. Curiosity has frequently gotten the best of me, and I did what most “can’t let it rest” people do – I went down the rabbit hole.

Of course, in this context “going down the rabbit hole” means doing a deep dive on the ‘www’. I came up with interesting information about how this phrase came about and how its meaning has evolved to what we currently understand today.

If you guessed that the phrase is a quote from William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, you’d be correct. A soothsayer dishes out the dire warning to Caesar, which he ultimately ignores and subsequently dies at the hand of members of the Roman senate. Hence, the “doom and gloom” makes sense.

The “Ides of March” has become a bad omen and the day never brings good news.

But, according to the History Channel, the Ides of March has a rather benign origin.

Kalends, Nones and Ides were ancient markers used to reference dates in relation to lunar phases. Ides simply referred to the first new moon of the given month, which usually fell between the 13th and the 15th. In fact, the Ides of March once signified the new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing.

Another fun fact, courtesy of the History Channel. Just two years before Caesar was betrayed and butchered, he uprooted Rome’s New Year celebration from the traditional March 15 date to January 1.

Why he did that, I don’t know. How he did that is perhaps more disturbing. With the power he wielded, Julius Caesar was able to drastically alter the habits and customs of a culture grounded in ancient indigenous tradition, of people close to the land and guided by nature itself.

The practical side of me thinks that celebrating the new year in March makes so much more sense. Spring is the ultimate expression of rebirth and hope. We awaken from the long, cold winter when all life seems silent and still. And it’s always a miracle to witness new buds bursting from frozen tundra. It truly seems the best time to welcome in another year, exploding with potential and promise.

Yet, Julius Caesar changed all that. With an insanely unhealthy dose of ego and unbridled power, his decree changed how we act even today. Yeah. Maybe the members of his own senate had good enough reasons to want him gone.

I guess that’s what you get when you mess with Mother Nature.

But unfortunately, the portent of the Ides of March has stuck. And for me, particularly on this day, the harbinger hit too close to home.

You see, March 15 was the day I had a three-month follow-up appointment with my oncologist.

Last year, around this time, I started experiencing pain in my back. I’m not one to ignore the signals my body sends me, so I did what any relatively healthy, 63-year-old person without insurance would do. I chalked it up to the aches and pains of getting older and doubled down on my holistic health practices.

But by May 25, I was in excruciating pain, unable to get adequate answers or action because I wasn’t part of the “system.” I try to avoid hospitals as much as possible, but I ended up in the ED at Mercy Hospital in Durango, and before dawn broke, they had me bundled up and on my way to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction via helicopter.

A flurry of tests later, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Large Cell B Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. One tumor along my spine had grown so much that it had broken vertebra, and I was scheduled immediately for a spinal fusion. The surgery took 8 hours and I am now sporting two 10” metal rods in my back. I was hospitalized there for nearly six weeks, and when I returned to Pagosa Springs, I began a rigorous and daunting chemotherapy R-CHOP regimen (named appropriately) that lasted five months.

You could say it’s been a year.

But so far, I’m a survivor.

My last chemo infusion was November 17, 2022. At least I pray that it was my last. That’s why this three-month follow-up is so very important to me. I really want to know if my traumatic ordeal is behind me. I need to start a true recovery.

One of the most difficult parts of receiving the dreaded “C” diagnosis is that no one really knows. I’ve asked every medical professional I’ve encountered in the past year – from doctors, oncology NPs, nurses in infusion rooms, imaging technicians, chaplains, social workers, and probably even a few hospital janitors – why I was one of the many unlucky people who have been diagnosed with cancer. I was really hoping for some conclusive answers, some underlying causes, some indicators that I needed to change my behavior, habits or even beliefs. So far, no one can tell me definitively.

And I am not alone.

In 2022 the American Cancer Society estimated 1.9 million new cancer diagnoses and 609,360 cancer deaths in the United States. That’s simply astonishing. There probably aren’t very many people alive today who are not at least touched in some significant way by a cancer diagnosis.

The medical profession is getting better at treating cancer patients, i.e., fewer of us are dying from the treatment. But I learned the hard way that nothing is certain or absolute.

To prepare for the appointment yesterday, I was scheduled for a PET scan, which is the acronym for positron emission tomography scan, a sophisticated type of imaging test that can identify and pinpoint how organs and tissues are functioning. Basically, the technician shoots you up with a radioactive substance called a tracer, which then gravitates towards those areas of your body that have a high uptake of glucose. Your brain and heart usually utilize a high amount of glucose, but so do cancer cells.

The results of my PET scan on March 1 were a mixed bag. No further growth or activity of the cancer cells in the previously known regions. Yes! But suspicious uptake of glucose in my throat. Wait. What? Suspicious activity someplace else? What does this mean? How will I know? I need to talk to my oncology team.

My appointment was scheduled for March 15. Are you kidding me? I’m not usually superstitious, but I was headed to an oncology follow-up appointment on the Ides of March??

It’s not an auspicious way to start recovery.

Yet, like I’ve done so much in the past decade or more of my life, I’m reaching back – way back – to ancient understandings and traditions. I pursued training as a shaman and Reiki master because I needed to find a different way.

I’m choosing to believe that today, March 15, the Ides of March, is the first day of my new year. A cause for celebration and growth. A way to forge ahead with a glimmer of hope and promise of better things to come.

It’s time to change. We need to change. Spring is here.