I am the son whose questions never cease, I am the life-force gathering to a crest, I am the unopened bud, and I the blossom, The wise woman and author Caitlin Matthews writes this Song of Imbolc for this day: And I will get to be present to it and revel in its power. The Sun that will draw them to their green and white height will be their own kind of expectation. The weather outside may not be what it normally is on the first day of February but the bulbs do not know this. 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. So, this morning I made a kind of homage to the bridge of the day. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, makes the day twice as sweet. The fact that it is also the Feast Day of St. 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. 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. Today, February 1st, the Sun is shining and it promises to be nearly 50 degrees. Choosing to live here means having certain expectations and certain concessions to the life we chose. Talking with others we express our confusion and general sense of how to behave in any rational fashion in the face of it all. It helps to keep my life in balance…makes me appreciate the spring and warmth and eventually the summer. Yet, I’ve come to expect the cold and the work that winter brings. 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. Paul Winter Carnival that now lay in lumpy heaps. 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. Today’s paper carried a photo of a young woman cross country skiing in shorts and a tank top. Yesterday I saw people running in shorts and t-shirts. Yet our expectations have been shattered along with records for temperature, snowfall, and ice depth. No need to layer upon layer before headed out to shovel or dig or simply walk to the car? Crazy talk! We have expectations. 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. The truth is, living in this state known for cold and ice and snow, we expect this to always be the case. 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. It seems a tidbit of wisdom that many live by. 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.
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