Author Archive | John Otterbacher

“They’ve summoned up a thundercloud, And they’re going to hear from me.” Leonard Cohen Tuesday.

I doubt you know you are a dog, Finnegan. No mind for it, no time. No regret or rumination about this unearned life of privilege – kibble morning and night, a late afternoon hour in the woods. Nor it’s certain end, for that matter. Only this cuffed hand and it’s comfortable fingers, stroking an ear […]

“When I was the stream, the forest, when I was still the field, when I was every hoof, foot, fin and wing, when I was the sky itself, no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, for there was nothing I could not love.” Meister Eckhart

“Yes–the springtimes needed you. Often a star was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past, or as you walked under an open window, a violin yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission. But could you accomplish it? Weren’t you always distracted by expectation, as […]

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old. They grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Please tell me it’s not too late…

The woods are still tonight. They are not silent. Even as they empty me of the agitation I bring, they speak of a larger encircling self.

Barbara: “I like choral groups.” John: “I like coffee.”