First Post

Hello, everyone (if anyone does indeed stumble across my blog).  Welcome to my blog and my very first post here.  I have had numerous other journals, but I decided I wanted to start a creative blog.  A blog that includes images, drawings (although, I can't draw, so I wouldn't expect much there) and other various things to express myself more deeply.  I'm currently a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago for Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling.  It's a very endearing field, and I am very excited to be a student in the field that I have wanted to go into for the last 4 years.


On my time off from school, I've been trying to read books that I'm not forced to read. ;)  I've heard about a book called The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff from several of my friends, and always found myself interested in reading it.  I've finally started the book and I love it so far.  I've always been interested in Eastern ways of thinking and thought it to be interesting that this book was introducing Taoism through Winnie the Pooh.  This book is very charming and its old pictures of Pooh bear and his friends reminds of when I was little and I used to go over to my Grandma's apartment and she'd have many children's books for me to read, one being a book of Winnie the Pooh.  There's something very different and special between the actual older books of Winnie the Pooh and the version of Winnie the Pooh in TV shows and movies.


I'm secretly and not-so-secretly a child at heart, and it leaves a warm feeling in my heart reading a combination of a piece of my childhood and a more "adult" like topic.  What particularly fascinated me was a poem Benjamin Hoff (and Pooh bear!) referenced within the book (and I'm sure I read it as a young girl, but never understood it until now). Here it is:

COTTLESTON PIE

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.

Ask me a Riddle and I reply:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleson Pie,

A fish can't whistle and neither can I.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

Why does a chicken, I don't know why.

Ask me a riddle and I reply:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.

In the book, it went on to cleverly explain each of the three verses and Cottleston Pie translates to: "Inner Nature" which I found very beautiful.  This concept of going back to one's inner nature, going inward into oneself in a healthy and positive way and Pooh is symbolic of this simplistic, inner nature.  Pooh bear isn't neurotic, he doesn't over think things or think of the future or the past, he is just in the present and does things on intuition.  Everything Pooh does comes from his inner nature of just being who he is, no more and no less.  I really look up to this image of Pooh and everything he stands for and I need more of it in my life.  I over think things in my everyday life, I think of the past and present and yes, I am neurotic.  Nothing seems as simple in my world as Pooh.  Pooh bear may not be real, but the ideas he represents, "Cottleston Pie" "Inner Nature' is very much real. 


"A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly" 
In the book he mentioned how this relates to the "square peg, round hole" idea.  When I read this it completely reminded me of The Holiday with Kate Winslet when she was telling off her ex that they are "square peg and round hole."  The book went on to discuss how a lot of times, our society likes to take their square pegs and keep trying over and over to jam it into a round hole with situations that are clearly not working out.  We like to think we can't fail and we force things, going against our inner nature, blocking that flow in our lives.  I completely agree with this, and too often I do this.  I push things without lettings things just naturally happen.  I think we all need this in our lives.


I'm a little over half-way done with the book and I'm already feeling very inspired to use my inner nature and go with the flow more because I'm definitely not that type of person most days.  I love to plan and expect things to happen according to the expectations that I have built in my mind.


Heres to self improvement, greater optimism and a sense that my own "cottleston pie" will come out more often for a fulfilling lifestyle.  Thanks for reading everyone.

<3<3 Lindsay