The Wisdom of Winnie the Pooh
A Bear of Very Little Brain who is wiser than us all
It’s nearly eleven pm as I type this, and a cup of tea is keeping me company as I try to write. I am, alas, a night owl by habit but not by nature, and I have no profound thoughts begging to be written at this time of night.
Yet as a wise man named Paul once said, so often, it is the weak and foolish things of this world that shame the strong and wise.
So let’s turn, you and I, to a Bear of Very Little Brain. Here, I’ve made you a cup of tea. We’ll let him begin each conversation, only stepping in when he’s done.
(Honey in your tea?)
“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today," said Pooh.
"There there," said Piglet. "I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do.”— Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
This is, I think, one of the best ways to care for someone who’s tired, or lonely, or just not feeling very much like themselves.
After all, we can’t fix anything. Sometimes we think we can, but the end result is never really in our hands.
But what we can do is bring tea, and bring honey, and sit next to someone until they feel better. We can love them.
We can stay.
And that is, I think, enough.
“But it isn't easy,' said Pooh. 'Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.”
— The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne
Along with Pooh’s Poetry and Hums, I’d add poems, articles, short stories, novels—any kind of creative writing.
They hate when we hunt them. Sometimes we have to, usually because a deadline is hunting us, and we need to offer it a story or a poem before it decides to gobble us up, instead.
But whenever we do try to “get” the Poetry and Hums, the experience is usually misereable, for them and for us. Ideas will run away, inspiration will turn invisible, and before long, staring at a wall has made us go cross-eyed and pushing a wheelbarrow under a blazing sun sounds like a wonderful alternative.
(Incidentally, it’s often when I finally give up hunting that the ideas creep back out to find me. They do, I think, want to get us—but they want to know that we’ll be gentle and quiet with them, not tearing through the world looking for anything that will “work.”)
“What I like doing best is Nothing."
"How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
"Oh!" said Pooh.”— Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
Sometime around the age of twelve, I lost the ability to do Nothing. I don’t quite think I realized what I was missing at the time, but the condidion persisted for a few years.
Sometime around fifteen, though, things began settling out again. I took walks without books, without company, just to listen to things I couldn’t hear. I learned to just go along. I learned to not bother.
(Other terms for doing Nothing include breathing, be-still-and-know-that-I-am-God-ing, and staying sane.)
“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”
— Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
I agree. So rather than trying to add long words to this, I shall say, what about cookies? They might go well with our tea.
“It's so much more friendly with two.”
— Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
There are wonderful reasons to be by yourself. Solitute can help you think better. It can help you slow down. It can help you learn how to be quiet.
Yet of all the lovely things you can do by yourself, being friendly is not one of them.
There are so many virtues tied up in that word—listening, caring, laughing, to name a few—and they cannot be carried out in isolation. To truly live as a human (or bear, or piglet), you must step outside of your own little corner (or invite someone in), make a cup of tea, and settle in to be friendly.
So, they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.
— Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
I visited Ashdown Forest (the real-life place that the Hundred-Acre Woods is based off of) last fall, and this is true.
Up at the top of the hill, there’s the Enchanted Place. And there, as you sit down, tired from the climb, you can sense a little boy and his Bear, still playing.
As any cook can tell you, you never take an ingredient out. If you add a teaspoon of vanilla into your batter, there it stays. You can add other ingredients—you can add so many ingredients that the vanilla is nearly drowned out.
But you can’t take it out
Our childhood play hours are the same. As we grow, we add to who we are as people, sometimes so much that the children we were, for better or worse, nearly seem to disappear.
Yet those magical hours of climbing trees, playing pirates, and watching clouds through skylights never truly leave us.
And how very thankful I am for it.
“Well, it’s the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep.”
— The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne
And, with this, I shall finish the post and take Pooh’s advice.
If it’s been a while since you’ve picked up a Winnie the Pooh book, please do yourself a favor and try to change that over the next week. I promise, it will be time well spent.
Another cup of tea, before you go?
This is such a beautiful post, Karissa 🥰
Winnie the Pooh is my absolute favorite, as is this post.