Welcome to the inaugural episode of Kalliope's Sanctum! In this episode, I begin with a poetic imagining of Kalliope's story, the one before she was ever Muse on Mount Olympus, and also after, now, as we liberate her back to her own ground of being, where she began. I introduce the episode with a few notes about her mythic context, but the story-poem itself begins at 9:58. In the notes, I mention an upcoming opportunity to hear the ecstatic music of Crete live, in my house in California, on February 29th 2020. See more here! https://www.zygiamusic.com/ (Note that the opening music is played by the same musician who will be performing here, Giannis Linardakis.) For a pdf version of this piece, & more mythic fiction, see my Patreon offerings. https://www.patreon.com/sylvialinsteadt/posts ABOUT THE PODCAST: Welcome to Kalliope's Sanctum, a biweekly story podcast hosted by writer Sylvia V. Linsteadt. This podcast is dedicated to Kalliope, primordial and first Muse of epic poetry and ecstatic song in ancient Greece. This podcast is a place of sanctuary for her oldest stories. It is a return to the wild garden, to the spring, to the ground of being & the source of inspiration in the Earth. Here, we honor Kalliope as Muse of Earth. Here, you will find some of the stories beneath the stories of Old Europe: short fictional/poetic pieces written and read by Sylvia that explore elements of indigenous Old European mythology, with a focus on pre-Hellenic (pre-Patriarchal) Greece. Come sit with us in the honeyed light, among the ripe pomegranates, in Kalliope's sanctuary, where the stories that arise directly from the ground of being and lifeforce can still be safely told and celebrated. Come lean against the sun-warmed stones, with the fragrance of propolis & myrrh in the air, and the trees heavy with autumn quince. This is the garden before the fall, a sanctuary for all hearts in this time. Join us, and be revived. PODCAST ART: Catherine Sieck PODCAST MUSIC: Giannis Linardakis (Cretan lute composition) ABOUT SYLVIA V. LINSTEADT: Sylvia V. Linsteadt is a novelist, poet, scholar of ancient history, myth and ecology, and artist. She divides her time between California & Crete, where she is currently working on a novel set in Minoan times. Her published fiction includes the middle grade children’s duology The Stargold Chronicles— The Wild Folk (Usborne, June 2018) and The Wild Folk Rising (Usborne, May 2019)— Our Lady of the Dark Country, a collection of short stories (January 2018) and Tatterdemalion (Unbound, Spring 2017); her works of nonfiction include The Wonderments of the East Bay (Heyday 2014), and Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area (Heyday, Spring 2017). Her short fiction has been published in New California Writing 2013, Dark Mountain, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Golden Key and Deathless Press. Her creative nonfiction can be found in Dark Mountain, Earthlines Magazine, Poecology, and News from Native California. For three years (from 2013 to 2016) Sylvia ran a stories-in-the-mail business called Wild Talewort, in which she sent out rewilded tellings of fairytales and myths to the physical-post boxes of hundreds of subscribers around the world. Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area won the Northern California Book Award in General Nonfiction in 2018. Website: http://www.sylvialinsteadt.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sylviavlinsteadt/ Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/sylvialinsteadt