Finding Inspiration from My Ancestors: The Raven

Many indigenous stories feature the Raven as a creator, innovator, and transformer. That’s how they feel to me, sacred somehow.

A couple of years ago, in Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Washington, a giant young raven followed me, my daughter, and my three grandsons along the trail. He moved from tree to tree, keeping pace, curious and unafraid. Watching.

Lincoln Park sits on old ground. Bluff and water. Forest and shore. A place shaped by time. People have noticed the ravens there for years, the way they linger, the way their voices carry.

The way they seem to study those who pass through feels attentive.

That understanding influences some of my work. Raven as maker. Raven as witness. Sometimes he arrives, following along a forest path, watching, waiting. Other times, he is an image, a silhouette, a contrast, black against light.

The Story I know of The Raven goes something like this.

The Raven

The world was mostly water. It was a shifting place, without edges. Raven circled above, black against the mist, measuring the surface with a maker’s eye.

He wanted solid ground. A place that would hold weight. Somewhere to rest without sinking.

So he dove.

Down through cold silence, Raven searched the dark below. He returned with mud clutched in his beak and spread it carefully on the water’s surface.

The mud held.

Raven dove again. And again. Each descent thickened the world, and land rose slowly.

Layered. Almost solid.

When Raven walked on the new ground, it shifted under his weight. Annoyed, he stamped his feet, and hills took shape. He dragged his wings in the dirt, and valleys opened behind him. Where Raven paused, forests gathered. In the places he did not touch, rivers learned their routes.

Raven made animals next. Some swift. Some stubborn. Some were clever enough to cause trouble.

Last, Raven shaped people from the same mud he had mined from below. He gave them hands to keep forming the world. He gave them hunger to keep them alert. He gave them stories so they could remember what had been and imagine what might still be possible.

Then, Raven rose into the sky and watched as people learned the land the hard way, by walking it, by failing on it, by burying their dead in it.

Acrylic on Cradled Wood Panel by Sharon Stallings (2026)

I created this painting to honor the Raven. The signed and numbered Giclée prints will be for sale at the Columbia Pacific Farmer’s Market in June.