Two Otters

By Reverend Doug Kraft, April, 2010

Four eyes, four ears and two noses gazed at me from a rock slab in the river. The otters were assessing if I was a threat. Then one turned to the other as if to say, “He’s okay.” She rubbed her chin on the rock. He rolled over on his back, belly to the sun, and scratched his spine. I felt blessed.

Nearby, a squirrel stopped dead in his tracks, stared at me with twitching tail and took off like a lightning bolt. Poor squirrels never feel safe.

Meanwhile the otters played on the rock. They didn’t move as fast as the squirrel, but they were energetic, relaxed and more flexible than a yogi.

Five Canadian geese floated by looking majestic until one strained to feed off the river bed, head down and bottom up – not very majestic.

Meanwhile the otter couple slid below the water without sound or splash. They surfaced ten feet away, floating on their backs as they chewed a morsel.

A dog stumbled enthusiastically along the opposite shore thinking, “What can I chase? What can I chase?” He was so eager he didn’t notice the otters.

They attended intelligently until he had thumped by. Then they slid gracefully onto the rock again, rolling over each other in affectionate play.

An egret glided up the river, turned and landed in the shallows. I’d love to fly like an egret. But those long thin legs seem awfully fragile.

Meanwhile the otters leapt into the river, undulated through the currents and slipped back onto the sunny rock. They were as strong as they were lithesome.

When I grow up I want to be an otter.

I know: how do I know what an otter’s life is really like? But they do inspire playful fluidity and energetic peacefulness.

An ecologist once remarked that humans are the wild creatures, always trying to change our environment. Otters on the other hand, seem utterly at home in their world just as it is.

I feel a touch of that in Spring. After all the winter rains (political and economic as well as meteorological) a little sunshine on the belly might do us all good. As the skies turn blue, the distant mountains become visible and the weather warms a little, I find my problems and stresses don’t really ebb. I just don’t seem to care about them as much. This world is home.

May we all know our inner otters.

Namasté,

Doug