An Odd Stick

I am sitting in the outdoor tub, deep into meditation. My body is submerged in 102-degree water, up to my neck. I float weightless in the healing waters. I lose sense of my body, as my mind also floats in a sea of quiet contemplation. In this state I either go deep into concentration, forgetting about my body and most of the thoughts that have been roiling around in my head all day, or am very aware of my body and am alert to any sensations that occur. Or I may get deeply drawn into stars overhead, or listen to the forest sounds of critters in the night, or to the breeze flowing by. I just allow what comes up to take my attention, as fully as I can.

On this black night in June I am subliminally aware that Cecil the cat is sitting three feet above me, perched atop the wall, surveying his realm. I know he crouches there motionless and silent, waiting for any critter to come near, any hapless and tasty creature that may be unaware of his presence. He might appear relaxed but his muscles are coiled and ready to spring him into action in an instant. I can’t see Cecil in this darkness, but I had earlier heard him ascend to his post, as I sank into my meditative state.

Suddenly I hear him whap at something above me. The sound pulls me partially and momentarily out of my reverie, wondering what happened. I hear him whap again, followed by the sound of something splashing into the water next to me. Now fully roused, I look up towards Cecil and blurt out, “No! Stop that!” He leaps from his perch and moves off.

Before I resettle into my meditations, I feel around for what I believe is the stick that he knocked down into the tub. It must be floating on the surface. But I can’t locate it. Hmmmm… I push my hand towards the bottom of the tub, in order to brace myself for a more thorough search for Cecil’s dislodged stick.

As my hand descends, I feel something. Ah, it must be that I’ve found that stick! But I note that the stick does not feel as I had expected it to. It’s not stiff and rough, as it should be. It isn’t floating, as it should be. In fact, it seems to be moving, even to slither through the palm of my hand. It feels animate, slick, slender, and long.

Holy defecation, it’s a snake!! A wriggly snake! That evil beast that spoiled Adam & Eve’s idyllic lives. The most loathsome, threatening cold-blooded brute on the planet: in my tub, up against my body! I feel pure panic and the instant rush of adrenalin.

We know that when we are underwater, we cannot move quickly. The dense liquid slows our movements. It bogs us down. How many of us have had anxiety dreams, in which we are trying to run through water, but our bodies move excruciatingly slowly? Maybe something is pursuing us in our scary dream—something that can move much faster than we do through water—and threatens to overtake us. This frightening scenario can morph into a full-blown nightmare.

This time, however, the bath water does not slow me down one whit. I launch myself into the air, like a whale breaching the ocean’s surface, leaping far above the surface. In a microsecond I am standing beside the tub, not even having had enough time to be fully terrified. Only then I realize that adrenalin is wildly coursing through me, causing me to shake and flutter. There is just enough light, when I look down into the tub, to see the black snake as it surfaces. It peers up at me, recognizing the monster that had tried to grab it, and in a flash, swims to the opposite end of the tub and disappears over the edge. The water didn’t seem to slow it down either!

My meditation mood now shattered for the night, I hop towards the house, trying to shake the jitters, thinking I might need a scotch to calm down.