Author, Speaker and Adventurer

TUESDAY

Health / Heart

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

FINNEGAN

Image of a dog looking out of a window

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 […]

SUMMER

Image of a chair on a porch

I do love the return of summer, the soft rush of it, the thrust from ground to green, the mating serenade out in the trees, the buzz and hum of it, the heat and sweat and shedding of clothes.  

WHEN

Image of lake with a mostly sunny sky

“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

MISSION

Dog walking in the woods

“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 […]

DREAMING

John Blue Ridge - aging

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

SILENCE

Image of a path in between the woods during winter

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.

HARMONY

John Otterbacher and his wife - blog

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

ENOUGH

"My Job 1. Love everybody 2. Everything else" paper

On days like this, when nothing I think or do or scratch on paper seems enough, a return to ground…