So, why "otter in motley?"
Well, otter because otter is my adopted totem animal. Many of my defining characteristics are reflected in otters: curiosity, playfulness, affection, inventiveness, existing in two worlds simultaneously. (Medieval naturalists didn't know whether to classify otters as beasts or fish, since they seemed to be both land and water creatures. Similarly, in many ways I've found I'm difficult to categorize by conventional means.) It's said that otters, unique among wild animals, are likely to assume that another creature is friendly until it proves aggressive. That instinct, with its implications of trust, sociability and straightforwardness, is something I relate to very much.
And in motley because motley is the traditional garb or costume of the Fool, the archetype I've closely identified with since I first started reading Shakespeare, and then more so as I began to explore the many forms Fools have taken throughout history and around the world. I love the skewed, inverted wisdom of fools, their gravity masked in absurdity, their delight in riddles and nonsense, their power to speak the hard truth without fear of reprisal. Fools have a powerful, transformative, shamanic magic and seem to straddle the line between worlds; their vestments are their patched, tattered, multicolored motley coats that suggest their protean nature and their ability to be many contradictory things at once. Motley's both a costume and a professional uniform, an attire that both reveals and disguises the nature of its wearer. It sums up in that way what a Fool is, and represents many qualities of the inner landscape I've spent the last decade cultivating.
So, when I was corresponding with far-flung friends and relations in college, I often signed my letters the otter in motley. When I later made the inevitable move to the online world, it seemed a natural fit for an online ID. I've never been tempted to abandon it; after all this time, it still has the same significance to me as a thumbnail-sketch of who I am.