Sing to Me, Pythia

a story-film

“I saw a terrible vision the day before the one they call Apollo came.

I saw what was inconceivable then in the days of innocence, when a woman’s body was as holy and whole as the saffron crocus, and her sons beloved for their generosity, their way with animals, their lithe speed in footraces, and not for their cleverness at war. In that vision I saw beyond conquest, far beyond, to another kind of brokenness. I saw into the desolation of a terrible forgetting. When even the names were dead, and the Oracle a ruin visited but not believed.

To be conquered is one thing. To be silenced until the silence itself is forgotten is to be left without the dark blessing of rebirth that lives at the center of the world.

But there are daughters and sons coming who need the story of what silenced us, and how. So I will tell it from the beginning.”

-from “The Pythia,” in Our Lady of the Dark Country, by Sylvia V. Linsteadt

Four years ago now, maybe five, I recorded my short story “The Pythia” for my fledgling podcast, Kalliope’s Sanctum. I had no idea the response I would receive from listeners across the world. I had no idea how many women I would come to know because of this story, because of what it stirred in each of them.

I had written “The Pythia” a few years earlier, six months or so before I moved to Crete in late 2018. I remember that the story fell through me almost in one cascade, like gulping clear spring water. I felt that I was listening to old voices, and transcribing what I heard. At the same time, I felt I was listening to my own womb, and transcribing what I heard. The story felt that visceral to me. It felt like water I was thirsty for beyond words. It still does.

“The Pythia” explores the underpinnings of the myth of Apollo and his takeover of the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi. In the oldest stories, Delphi belongs not to Apollo but to oracular and dreaming women who spoke to the Python in the Earth. The child of Ge. Gaia. Earth. Before Apollo, Delphi belonged to Ge, the goddess of Earth, who is, of course far far older than any Olympian gods. This story is told from the point of view of one of the Pythias, Daphne. It is her account of the day Apollo came, of what led up to it, and what still remains.

Every year, the outcry at the heart of this story feels more pressing to me, more of this very moment. Back in 2016, during that first terrible term, I wrote about dragons rising in the earth, and in our bodies, in response to the rise of fascism, hatred, and ecocide. Now I think they are here among us, and they are singing loud for us to turn and remember them, to ally with them, to sink our roots deep while we raise our candles of hope and navigation through the darkness high.

And so, a little over a month ago, I sat down to read the story aloud by my winter fire, while my brother Simon V. Linsteadt filmed me. He then filmed other beautiful footage on Mt. Vision here in Point Reyes (including a guest appearance of my sister-in-law

Simone Leon

), and wove all of this together with musical compositions of his. The result is a luminous film-telling of my Pythia— a kind of story-time by the fire meets pythic dreamscape.

So, we offer this film of The Pythia to you today, by the light of the waxing February moon, in honor of the speaking laurel trees and earthen snakes, in honor of the voices of the oracular women of Delphi whose songs were buried.

We hope you enjoy this version of the story, and that you share it far and near with all your dear ones, and take hope from the undying strength of the Pythia, of Daphne, and of our Gaia, our Mother.

(For more about Simon and his work, do visit his website— he is a phenomenal musician, composer, sound engineer, and film-maker, and I am so blessed to have him as a collaborator.)