There’s a certain slant of 

light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Emily Dickinson 

Go frolicking round in rings; 

Then Winter, he who tamed the fly, 

Turns on his back and prepares to die, 

For he cannot live longer under the sky. 

Down the valleys glittering green, 

Down from the hills in snowy rills, 

He melts between the border sheen 

And leaps the flowery verges! 

The Death Of Winter 

George Meredith

There are several names for the March moon, with most relating to the transition between winter and spring, including certain animals reappearing. Those names include the Eagle Moon, Goose Moon or Crow Comes Back Moon. 

The Celts called it the Wind Moon and Plough Moon. 

But the one name that interested me most was the Old English name of Death Moon. Why death ?

Death, because it is the last full moon of winter.  

The full moon in March is the closest full moon to the spring equinox. 

Spring is in the air and snow is melting, moistening the earth as she warms beneath her dormant color palette in preparation for the annual exuberance of rebirth.

Our ancestors used to celebrate and honor this time as the transition from Winter to Spring, from Darkness to Light, from Death to Rebirth, from Melancholy to Joy, Slow rhythm existence to Fast rhythm existence, Introspection to Outward-spection, Imagination to Creation.

“Nothing is more creative than death, since it is the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that ‘I’ cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.” –Alan Watts

Michael Meade (author, mythologist and story-teller) says that in order to fully live we don’t need to die, but a part of us needs to die.