Shelter Wisdom from Pooh Bear

“What day is it?” asked Pooh. 
“It’s today,” squealed Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

Such a lesson from “a bear with very little brain” to remind us to not count the days since isolation started or the moments until it might possibly end so much that the only day we don’t live is today.

Pooh said is so well. Eckhart Tolle has since said it more grown-uply, as has so many others who understand and embrace the premise of living in the now.  Shelter-in-place has brought this concept to people whose radars might have never picked it up had it not been for the coronavirus.

So much uncertainty is surrounding us and the future, which we used to think we had some control over. Now that we are learning the difference for real between what we can control and what we can’t, many are learning to surrender into the sweet moment of now and try to trust. 

“What’s the matter…”
“Nothing Pooh Bear, nothing. We can’t all, and some of us don’t.
That’s all there is to it.” 

At home we circle around our space and deepen the grooves in our floor while talking to ourselves.
Does it sound anything like this?  

“Hello,” said Piglet, “what are you doing?”
“Hunting,” said Pooh.
“Hunting what?”
“Tracking something,” said Winnie-the-Pooh mysteriously.
“Tracking what?” said Piglet, coming closer.
“That’s just what I ask myself, I ask myself – what?”
“What do you think you will answer?”
“I shall have to wait till I catch up with it,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

It is a sobering memory how we all used to exchange our opinions and beliefs of the future, the near one and the one further out. Only two months ago, we were all smart-asses on some level, knowing something we couldn’t know. That suddenly just doesn’t work so well anymore. If we have any brains, even as little as Pooh the Bear, we now know we know nothing. We can still set goals, aspire, build and plan, but now we know for certain that something outside of our control CAN stop us or change our course in an instant. 

Pooh’s words are scrambled and designed liked that. Designed to be funny. And perhaps a little more than that, as we well know. What we used to think was primarily nonsense to entertain children suddenly makes sense in a new way. Like Hans Christian Andersen, who really wrote his fairy tales for children to tell adults a thing or two, A.A. Milne’s simple bear is telling us something profound if we are able to listen. Nothing like solitude and silence for listening and hearing better. 

Consider this:

Pooh is out one morning and comes across a hole in a sandy bank. This is where Rabbit lives. After a little introductory exchange, Pooh climbs through the hole and he and Rabbit have a lovely visit with honey and condensed milk. When it is time for Pooh to take his exit (the honey is gone), he climbs back through the hole – only to get stuck.

“It all comes,” said Pooh crossly,” of not having front doors big enough.”
“It all comes,” said Rabbit sternly, “of eating too much.”

     Boy Christopher Robin comes to the rescue and declares:

“We shall have to wait for you to get thin again.”
“How long does getting thin take,” asked Pooh anxiously.
“About a week, I should think.”
“But I can’t stay here for a WEEK!”
“You can stay here alright, silly old Bear. It’s getting out which is so difficult.”

And there we have it. Shelter-in-place defined by the silly old Bear.
We are stuck, and we think that is the problem. We just want out, but it is the PROCESS of getting un-stuck that is both the problem and the solution.

If Bear has not given you something to chew on yet, I offer this poem written by “A Bear of Very Little Brain,” slightly altered and with three weekend-day verses added on my account… 

On Monday, when the sun is hot
I wonder to myself a lot
“Now is it true, or is it not,
“That what is which and which is what?”

On Tuesday, when the wind really blows
The feeling in me really grows and grows
That hardly anybody knows
If those are these and these are those. 

On Wednesday, when the sky is blue
And I have nothing else to do
I sometimes wonder if it’s true
That who is what and what is who.

On Thursday, when it starts to sprinkle
And the leaves on the trees get a tingle
How very readily one sees
That there are those – but whose are these? 

On Friday, when I try again to like to Zoom
All I can think is - will it be over soon?
And then it occurs to me while solo-singing
Is this a beginning to an end or an end to a beginning?

On Saturday, a brand new day arrives
Another one without disguise
Untarnished by meetings and scheduled endeavors
Is it now or is it later, sooner or whenever?

On Sunday, it all went so fast
Was it Monday or Wednesday just this past
That I thought time was long and slow
Is it Monday or Wednesday, how can we know? 

On Monday, when the sun is hot……