“What happened to you?”

“I fell, Aussie. You see this log here? I was trying to cross the creek by walking on top of it, fell off, and ended up in the creek with freezing water and mud right up to my chest.”

“Hee hee hee!”

“This is not a laughing matter, Auss.”

“I jump into cold water all the time.”

“I don’t have your double coat of fur. My clothes, my sneakers, jacket, everything is very wet and cold.”

“Throw me a stick! Throw me a stick!”

“Henry, what are you whining about?”

“There are a million sticks all around. Throw me one! Throw me one!”

“I can’t play Fetch now, you crazy dog! Doesn’t anyone understand my situation? If I don’t get out of here soon, real soon, I’ll freeze to death.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I’ve got both feet stuck under the log, Aussie.”

“May I ask you a question, oh great Zen teacher?”

“This is not the best time, Auss.”

“You wrote about embodiment the other day, remember?”

“And since then, I came down with a burning body rash which was an allergic reaction to an antibiotic that I got for an infected, broken tooth.”

“Since you told everyone to be in their body, I was wondering how it was for you. Just asking.”

“Miserable, Aussie. I was in pain, I was itching, my body was burning.”

“And how is it to be in your body now?”

“Terrible, Aussie. I can’t get my feet unstuck from under the log.”

“Throw me a stick! Throw me a stick!”

“Henry, I know it’s hard for you to understand that not everything is about you, but it isn’t.”

“Sounds to me like since you wrote about the importance of embodiment, you’ve been nothing but embodied. Hee! Hee! Hee!”

“Aussie, get help!”

“Please. You got the wrong dog here. You know what time this is?”

“The time of my death?”

“No, it’s the humbling time. The time when all you teachers learn that you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“Aussie, this is hardly the time for a lecture, though I admit that humility is what I learn more and more as I get older. I really need to get out of the creek. Boy, I thought I was in the middle of it with my infected teeth, too be extracted tomorrow if I live so long. Then I got the rash. Then I fell into the creek.”

“Just when you think you’re in the middle of it, you find out there’s a middle to the middle.”

“Throw me a stick! Throw me a stick!”

“Should I throw Illegal into the water? This is our chance. The Spaulding Brook Creek will take his body down to the Sawmill River, which will take him down to the Connecticut River, which will, eventually, take him down to the Atlantic Ocean. What a tour he’ll have of this country!”

“OK, I think I have one leg up on the log. If I don’t get the other up, Aussie, I might just die here.”

“Whatever happens, don’t forget to be in your body. Besides, this is your punishment for not taking us out for three days.”

“I couldn’t put any clothes on except for cotton pajamas, Auss. You should have seen the look I got from the pharmacist when I picked up my steroids. And now, look, it’s snowing. This is all I need.”

“Try not to take it personally. You’re also wearing a down jacket, which is pulling you down. Are you enjoying this mess?”

“Auss, can’t you pretend to be Lassie and get help?”

“You’re the one who talks of how Zen practice isn’t just about sitting in a zendo, it’s about interacting with all beings, and when you do that, life gets messy, and messes are an integral part of Zen practice.”

“I know, Aussie. I learned that from Bernie.”

“Did he ever fall into a creek full of freezing water up to his chest?”

“Bernie believed in driving, not walking.”

“So how are you enjoying this mess? And are you still practicing embodiment?”

“Throw me a stick! Throw me a stick!”

“There! I got my whole body onto the log. Now I’m just inching forward till I get to land.”

“That’ll teach you to cross the creek when you haven’t even been out for days. What were you thinking?”

“There’s an interesting looking spot out there with stones and branches on top of a mound of earth, Aussie. Looked like something someone put together, maybe even a sacred place.”

“Your problem is you’re always curious.”

“In all these years I couldn’t get to the other side, but because of the drought we’re still having I thought I could finally cross and investigate. There! I’m finally standing up. Let’s go. I need to get out of these cold wet clothes. My feet are sloshing around in freezing water in my sneakers. I’m bound to come down with pneumonia.”

“Another middle to the middle of things. Can we go home now?”

“Let’s all go home. I have to take off my gloves, they’re freezing wet.”

“Is that why your fingers are red?”

“No, I put on nail polish this morning, only I forgot how jittery I get on steroids.”

“Your hands look like a mural. Tell me something. What came up for you when you were standing in that water up to your chest and snow begins to fall?”

“I thought of Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and how at the end Warren Beatty is wounded and trying to make it back to Julie Christie, and instead falls down and dies while covered by drifts of snow. It’s a very good movie, Auss.”

“Anything else?”

“The last line of James Joyce’s great story, about the snow covering the living and the dead. For a minute there I wondered which I would be.”

“Wow, so speaks a master of embodiment.”