If you search the internet for words people have spoken about expectations, you will find something to the effect of “Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed.” attributed to many people. It seems a tidbit of wisdom that many live by. I have been thinking of expectations over these last weeks as the temperatures in Minnesota have been very warm and what little snow we had on the ground has melted. The truth is, living in this state known for cold and ice and snow, we expect this to always be the case. A Christmas without snow? Travesty! Not being able to skate, walk, or drive your car onto the ice from sometime in December till March? Unheard of. No need to layer upon layer before headed out to shovel or dig or simply walk to the car? Crazy talk! We have expectations.

Yet our expectations have been shattered along with records for temperature, snowfall, and ice depth. Yesterday I saw people running in shorts and t-shirts. Today’s paper carried a photo of a young woman cross country skiing in shorts and a tank top. The snow had been made by a machine, no doubt the same kind of contraption that created the snow for the snow sculptures that were created for the St. Paul Winter Carnival that now lay in lumpy heaps.  Make no mistake about it this weather has made for an easier life…no digging out, no chopping ice, no spreading of salt or other compounds to melt the sidewalk. Yet, I’ve come to expect the cold and the work that winter brings. It helps to keep my life in balance…makes me appreciate the spring and warmth and eventually the summer. Talking with others we express our confusion and general sense of how to behave in any rational fashion in the face of it all. Choosing to live here means having certain expectations and certain concessions to the life we chose.

Today, February 1st, the Sun is shining and it promises to be nearly 50 degrees. This day in the Celtic calendar marks the first day of the season of Spring,called Imbolc, sitting midway between the Winter and Summer Solstices. I have always loved this. While the weather may be messing with my seasonal expectations, marking this date as this shift has always brought me a certain sense of order and hope. The fact that it is also the Feast Day of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, makes the day twice as sweet. 

So, this morning I made a kind of homage to the bridge of the day. I pulled out the paper white bulbs that had been resting in a brown paperbag in a closet and prepared them for what they might become. The weather outside may not be what it normally is on the first day of February but the bulbs do not know this. The Sun that will draw them to their green and white height will be their own kind of expectation. And I will get to be present to it and revel in its power. 

The wise woman and author Caitlin Matthews writes this Song of Imbolc for this day:

I am the unopened bud, and I the blossom,
I am the life-force gathering to a crest,
I am the still companion of silence, 
I am the far-flung seeker of the quest.
I am the daughter gathering in wisdom,
I am the son whose questions never cease,
I am the dawn-light searching out glad justice,
I am the center where all souls find peace.

My expectations of winter may have been dashed for the time being. But there are weeks to go in this new year and who knows what they will bring? For the time being, on this first day of Celtic spring, I will celebrate the unopened bud, the blossom, the life-force, the silence, this quest. And I will pray that my soul…and all souls…find peace.