The story of Bright Raven
A small coordinate in a German forest
In November 2025, I was in a forest in Germany.
It was not a mystical journey, and I had not gone there looking for an answer about my life.
A trail through the forest offered a sequence of simple invitations: open your eyes, stop and listen, lean against a tree, find your balance, embrace a trunk, look upward, notice a new angle, smell the air, touch the bark, and find a place that felt right.
There was no grand lesson along the way. Just looking, listening, smelling, and touching, until the things that usually filled my mind became a little quieter.
The final station was called Waldmandala. It invited visitors to collect what the forest had already left behind: stones, branches, leaves, and fruit, then arrange them into something on the ground.
I crouched down. By then, a name was already in my mind: Bright Raven.
I picked up stones, found crooked branches, and moved dry leaves. I did not make a traditional mandala. I made a raven.
It was not made particularly well. Without knowing the answer, you might not have recognized a bird at all. A few stones suggested a body. Branches became a head, a beak, a wing, and two thin legs. Leaves rested among the wing.
What actually remained
It did not fly. It simply occupied a small piece of ground.
For me, that was enough. Something that had existed only in my mind now had an outline, a little weight, and a photograph proving that it had once been there.
A name made visible
The first time I saw it on the ground
My name is Bertram, and I also use the name Bright Raven.
Bertram comes from two Germanic name elements: berht / beraht, meaning “bright, shining”; and hramn / hraban, meaning “raven”.
I knew that meaning when I chose the name Bright Raven. But it was not until that day that I first saw it lying on the ground.
At a Waldmandala in Germany, I picked up stones, dry branches, and fallen leaves. I did not make a traditional mandala. I made a raven.
I was not finding a symbol for a brand. For the first time, I gave something that had lived inside a name a shape.
The raven never became a fixed answer. It became a name under which I could keep questions.
I begin with games, AI, and creative practice, looking at how technology changes the way we pay attention, judge, and choose. Some questions become essays. Some become tools such as Maida. Those that have not yet found a form remain in the Lab, where they can be tested.
Mandara is one of them. The forest had asked me to make a Waldmandala, and I made a raven. Later, that raven made its own Mandara.
I do not treat that day as destiny. It simply left me a small coordinate I can return to when I need to check my direction.
When the world becomes increasingly good at completing things for us, what do we still want to experience, choose, and create ourselves?
I do not know the answer yet.
That is why I am here.
Contact
If you would like to make something together
If you are working on a project involving games, AI, creative practice, or the way people use technology, you are welcome to write if you would like to exchange ideas, propose a collaboration, or discuss an experiment that has not fully taken shape.
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