Preston Singletary

Raven’s World
He went to sleep, Raven did, and for a long time he slept. And while he slept, he had Dreams, and they were good Dreams. Raven was the best dreamer of them all. He dreamed of the sky, which was clear and endless. He dreamed of the waters, which were clean and cold. He dreamed of the animals, who were uncorrupted by the smell of men’s hands, who had never tasted sugar but who had sipped honey. He dreamed of the World as it was before it turned on itself with contempt and tore itself apart. He dreamed of the Before World, which was as immaculate and true as the high breeze that holds the eagles in the sky. The Before World with its magnificent salmon, bellies ripe to bursting with roe, hurling themselves upriver to spawn. The Before World with the music and the People, happy, contented People, satisfied by their abundance, grateful, generous, humble People. Raven dreamed.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.

Canoe Travelers
The people had seen Raven then. They had seen him arrive there on the beach and they said, “Oh, Raven, we’ve been calling for you!” Raven said to the people, “I am hungry. I cannot listen when I am hungry. Feed me!” The people gathered all the foods and made a feast for Raven with their cedar-smoked salmon and their blackberries and their snow crabs. They dressed in their feasting blankets, and they lit a great fire, and they danced for Raven. And when Raven sat down to eat his food, there was little on the table. The salmon wasn’t red and glistening like garnets in slate, but pale and pink. True, the blackberries were large and plump, but they were without flavor. The snow crabs were absent altogether. Raven asked the people, “Where is my feast?” “This is what we have,” they replied. “Our salmon comes from farms and is genetically modified, pale and sickly. Our fruit is sprayed with a chemical so it will never decay, yet the fruit has lost its flavor. And the snow crabs…the White man says there is a heat wave in the ocean, which is only something the White man can say, and all the crabs are dead.”

Raven wept for his people then. He loved his people, for he made them out of leaves. He could have made them out of stone, and they would have lived forever. But Raven chose to make the people out of leaves so they would grow and live and die and return to the earth and be born again. Raven loves all people, even those who make heat waves at the bottom of oceans.

Raven said to his people, “I will help you.” And that is how Raven returned to the World.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.

Shrouded in Mystery
Raven went home then, and he retrieved his most powerful fighting hat and placed it on his head, for he was ready to do battle with any demon necessary. When Raven left his hut with his fighting hat on, the young children who saw him were so frightened, they hid behind their mothers’ skirts. Dogs cowered and whined. The bravest of men wavered in their stride. Raven was a fearsome fighter!

“I will call for my spirit helpers,” Raven proclaimed. He built himself a sweat lodge using branches and limbs. When the lodge was finished, the people built a fire and heated the stones and when the hot stones were ready, Raven went inside.

He sat in the smoke and intense heat of the sweat lodge for hours. The stones grew cold and were replaced with hot ones by Raven’s people. He sat in the sweat lodge for days. And as he was nearing unconsciousness, Raven had visions of lights, blue lights dancing all around him. These lights were the spirits of the ancestors who had come to give Raven guidance. The blue light spirits danced before Raven and told him things he should know. And Raven called his spirit animals, his friends, and they came to him, they gathered, they imbued him with their power and Raven ascended and ascended until he was everything around us, he became all things, and his love for all things exuded from his whole spirit.

In the sweat lodge, the stones were cold. The people looked inside. Raven was not there. He had vanished into another dimension, because when the Dream World and the Waking World mix, things like that happen.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.

Land Otter Man
Raven didn’t want to go into battle without an ally, so he visited the kushtaka, the land otter people, who live where the breeze blows both ways. The land otter people were very powerful. In the beginning, when Raven named the birds and the animals of the forests and of the Underwater World and gave them their assignments, he gave the land otter the ability to change shape into that of any creature it wished. With this power came a responsibility: the kushtaka were charged with watching over the waters and the forests for those who are lost and near death from exposure or drowning. The kushtaka saves these lost souls and adopts them into their clan. 

Heh.

Raven went to the kushtaka, who live on the point where the breeze blows from either side, and Raven feasted them so they would join him in a united front against those who make heat waves in oceans—fierce and powerful and unseen enemies, Raven warned the kushtaka, that demanded the attention of all. Those land otters, they called the other animal spirits, and the others came, because the kushtaka was neither friend nor foe, and that’s why they came when the kushtaka called, because there was no guile in the kushtaka call.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.

Bear’s Cave
Now it happens that Raven saw a dark hollow in the wooded slope of a mountain and Raven alit at the edge of that hollow and he looked into the darkness, and he saw nothing, so he stepped inside and out of the wind. As Raven ventured deeper into that cave, he could smell things, wet fur and fish and dry wood, and he could see by the light of a warm fire that he was in someone’s house, but since that someone was not home, Raven thought, he could make use of the house until such time he was asked to vacate. So he warmed himself by the fire. It was a nice fire and it warmed him well.

It was not long before the cave’s denizen, a rotund and cranky Bear, returned home to find Raven stealing the warmth from Bear’s fire. “Give me back my warmth!” Bear growled. He attempted to grab Raven and shake the warmth from him, but Raven leapt into the air and hopped away with such élan, Bear was impressed. “You are very clever, White Bird,” Bear said, for this was long ago before Raven had learned to color his feathers black, and for this reason Bear did not know with whom he was contending. “But my Bear nature will smother you eventually.” Bear chased Raven around like that for quite a while, getting his hands nearly around Raven’s neck only to have Raven duck away, spin and kick, and hold—two-three-four! Soon, Bear grew so tired he barely reached for Raven, but Raven still jab-step, jab-step, twirl and leapt! away, until Bear sat back and laughed. “You keep running, White Bird,” Bear said. “And I’m not even chasing you.”

“I’m not running,” replied Raven. “I’m dancing!”

“Dancing!” Bear cried. “Ho, ho! Dance, White Bird! Dance!”

And that was Raven’s First Dance. And we have been dancing ever since. Heh.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.

Raven’s Compassion
Listen to the rain. Listen to the wind.

That is what it sounded like as Raven returned to his home, a storm blowing in hard, and discovered a little red bird, soaked to the bone, freezing and afraid, cowering in the corner of Raven’s nest. At first, Raven was irritated by his uninvited guest. Raven had been through much and he was tired and wanted some “me” time. He pushed the little red bird toward the door.

“Yeep,” the little red bird said, and Raven stopped. He remembered his own experience, when he sought refuge in Bear’s cave. Bear did not shuttle Raven out of the cave and into the rain; he welcomed Raven; he fed Raven; he restored Raven.

Raven said nothing but left the little red bird alone in his corner, for Raven realized the little bird was likely frightened. Raven went to his fire pit and lit a fire. When the fire had been stoked and was giving off plenty of warmth, Raven left.

With Raven gone, the little red bird ventured out from the corner where he sat shivering. He inched closer to the warming fire until, slightly warmed, he grew bolder and moved closer still until he was fully warmed. Raven returned then with a small trout, not big enough for a meal for two. Without a word, Raven prepared and cooked that trout over that fire while the little red bird watched, and when the trout was nearly finished, Raven held his hand over it. He pricked the palm of his claw with his beak and squeezed and squeezed. The fat of a Raven is not as abundant as the fat of a bear, but Raven did his best and squeezed a few drops of fat onto the salmon and the hut came alive with the delicious smell of roasted fish.

Raven placed that roasted fish between himself and the little red bird. “All that I have, I give to you,” he said. And the two birds feasted together.

Narrative text written by Garth Stein.