The Box of Light

In the beginning, the world was dark.

In the Tlingit telling, a wealthy old man at the head of the Nass River kept all the light of the world for himself, sealed inside nested bentwood boxes in his clan house. People stumbled through a dark world, unable to fish, forage or find their way.

Raven, then a white bird, grew tired of the darkness. He became a hemlock needle floating in the water the old man's daughter drank, and was born again as her son: the old man's beloved grandson. The child cried for the boxes until his grandfather let him play with them. One by one he opened them. The stars rose into the sky. The moon followed. When he finally held the last box, the one holding the sun, he became Raven again and flew up through the smoke hole. The soot turned his feathers black forever. He released the daylight, and the people could finally see, fish and live.

This is not Pandora's box. The Greek box held sickness and sorrow, released by accident. Raven's boxes held light — hoarded by one, released on purpose for all.

Raven's Corner works the same way. The knowledge, tools and systems that keep a family fed, powered, healthy, housed and free have been boxed up and hoarded by centralized institutions. Raven Rolland Gregg — raised on the Situk River in Yakutat, Alaska, from a large Alaska Native family on his mother's side and a commercial-fishing family on his father's — is opening those boxes one at a time and handing the light to you.

19 boxes. 7 Sovereign Bodies. 12 Resource Realms. One direction: from dependence to independence.