The View from Delphi
Rhapsodies on Hellenic Wisdom &
An Ecstatic Appreciation of Western History
by Frank Marrero, Enelysios
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Mythological and Historical Accounts of Delphi,
the Center of the World
Before the pantheon of gods and goddesses looked upon humanity and Earth from the heaven-world of Mount Olympus, there were only the primal divinities Chronos and Rhea (literally, Time and Flow). There were no other beings, for as soon as Rhea would give birth to a new form, Chronos would eat them, This mythology refers to a time when forms (particularly men and women) were entirely subject to time and determination, when there was no knowledge of fateful living, nor “authencity”, nor the transcendence of the passing of forms.
Like all mothers, Flow wanted her offspring not to be consumed by Time, and so, on the birth of a new child she tricked Chronos by wrapping a large stone in swaddling clothes. Chronos ate the stone and the newborn escaped Time’s hunger. The child, Zeus (Sanskrit Dyas, “Day/Sky/Brightness), who would give luminesce to the day’s canopy, was thus born in a cave high on Mount Ida, Crete. He quickly grew to full power and banished his father, Time, who had meanwhile vomited the stone, to rule the eternal Fields of Elysium. (And up with the stone came also Zeus’s previous brothers and sisters.)
Rhea, in substituting the stone for the child, also mothers the metaphor, giving rise to the dawn of symbology. To be carried across (meta-phor) time appears as the first conscious sacrifice, where a divine flow shatters Time’s stranglehold on creation. Because of the primal giving of the divine Flow, there appeared a divine Brightness, and time was, at last, resolved into eternity. In the metaphor of the divine Flow, the seed of metaphysics was given genesis. Upon the sacred work (sacri-fice) of the Goddess, a luminosity that exceeds death appeared upon the land.
Zeus’s Brightness is not only a poetic description, a mythological metaphor, and a historical moment, but indicates also an understanding whereby the revelation of the world (particularly epitomized as evolution) and the being of mankind (epitomized as each of us) glimpses their bright and timeless transparency to one another. The mythic seed which flowered into non-mythic consciousness was born in the birth of Zeus.
Through the mysterious gods we have learned how to rest with the unknowable, with the undefined, with perpetual growth and eternal life. And from the birth of gods, man and woman were called into and beyond themselves.
Zeus first married Metis (Wisdom), and when she became pregnant, Gaia told Zeus that the infant of Metis was destined to be greater than that of the progenitor—so Zeus promptly swallowed Metis and embryo. This combining of power with wisdom is of the first order, eternity’s first necessity. The embryo reappears later as Athena, born full-grown, suddenly mature. Indeed, the sharp and cunning Athenians overthrew the mythology with schools of philosophy.
Zeus then married Themis (Ordinance), and made the laws. Zeus, Brightness divine, stands above opposites and disputes—and the spirit-power of Zeus could be felt in the laws. With Themis, Zeus fathered Dike (Justice), the balanced Way between the means. Justice is the balance born from bright understanding. The marriage of Order and Brightness yielded a just and balanced rightness (eudike).
Brightness loves to combine with all things, and Zeus is certainly no exception. Wandering in Tyre, he fell in love with the Phoenician princess Europa, and promptly appeared a a white bull—that which is strong, fearless, and good. He enticed Europa onto his back, pretending he was tame. But once upon the steed, Bright Zeus jumped into the sea and swam to Crete. Thenceforth, Europa of Tyre gave birth to Minos, leader of the Minoans, and became the motherly source of all her European grandchildren.
Even before the sanctuary was called Delphi, three thousand years ago, there were festivals and an oracle ceremony by the Cretan/Minoan priestesses worshipping Gaia, the great Mother. The sophistication of their religious ceremony had come as part of the lush growth of the Cretan-Minoan “thousand years of peace.” The Minoan influence was found on the a small terrace and fountain upon the flanks of Parnassos, referred to then as Pytho. The sensual Minoan elegance sweetened the holy issuance, the honored fount. Pytho is the womb that would become delphi. Upon this high ground with its sweet fumes and holy spring, timeless words naturally spouted forth, a majestic beauty of inspired speech. From this sacred place, divine knowledge quenched the thirst of pilgrims.
Zeus released two eagles—his own birds, from the opposite ends of the Earth, knowing that they would cross at the earth’s center. This is how the location of Delphi, the sacred center was determined.
Zeus then send Apollo, his own son from the Northeast, to Delphi to claim the sacred center as a seat for his spiritual power. His passage from Hyerborea carries the stories, mysteries, and understanding of the philosophy from the Northern shamans and mystics of India. It is this force that goes south and west to meet an elegance as the eagles cross at the center.
Guarding the sacred ground was a dragon-snake. Let us take a moment to consider the significance of the reptilian talisman. The snake simultaneously represents many forces. The shedding of the skin is, of course, a universal symbolism for renewal. But as a talisman, as a power in our evolutionary heredity, the snake represents the transition from worm to spine, from dim flesh to acute nervous system and spinal awareness. As a spinal metaphor, the snake is associated with a range of energies from fleshy pleasures to higher pleasures, from sensual sexuality to mystic integration, from rushes of energy to deep rest. The whole range of energies, low and high, and the stillness of primal rest was anciently symbolized in it esoteric fullness by the caduceus (and the risen snake of the royal Egyptian headdress). Likened to the kundalini of the Indian yogis, all are esoteric indications of the nervous system in full unfoldment, inviting all to mystical openness in the divine.
Fascination by energies, gross or subtle is penetrated by Apollonian insight. It is the gift of Apollo to see the One Brightness in each of the many things and energies he encounters. Apollo represents the evolutionary discriminative leap beyond the limits of the nervous system.
So Apollo came to the center of the world and with his “silver tipped arrows” and his “phallus beams” slew the dragon-snake and fertilized the luxuriant ground. Apollonian discrimination claimed central position in the culture—a theological divinity beyond fascinations, clarifying and enlivening all that is seen.
Apollo then danced at the center his fingers striking the strings of his lyre as the fullness of his radiance blessed the sacred center in beautiful song.
Delphi! Here I shall entertain
To build a far-famed Temple and ordain
An Oracle to inform the minds of men,
Who shall forever offer to my love
The greatest gifts
—even all the men that move
In rich Peloponnesus and all those of Europe, and the isles the seas enclose,
Whom future search of Acts
and Beings bring—
To whom I’ll prophesy the truths of things
In that rich Temple where my Oracle sings.
Apollo went north to purify himself for his killing of the Python, and, in his absence, mortals responded with a House and Sanctuary for the god who had mastered the serpent. (And it is Apollo’s pet snake, the coluber longissimus, that twines around Asklepios’ medical staff.) In the Temple of Apollo, the ancient Goddess and mastered Snake continued in the form of the Oracle speaker, the Pythia, the Sybil of Delphi. This combination (in broad terms) of southern Minoan sensuality and northern Dorian cunning gave birth to an ecstatic “child” from the womb of Delphi–the sacred root of the West itself, where the active and receptive principles were equal divinities in which the world was both enjoyed and understood. The Temple built to Apollo became the heart in the foundation of Western culture. The truth that penetrates all fascinations had claimed the center, and a nameless understanding began to appear out of the myths.
With the insertion of Apollo into the goddess culture, Pytho changed into Delphi, the snake became a womb, was fertilzed, and a theological understanding was born from the illumined myths.
After Apollo claimed the sacred center for his father, Zeus then took the stone with which sacrifical Rhea had diverted Chronos’ attention and placed it there, on the terrace beside the sacred spring. The Omphallos, the metaphorical diversion of Chronos, the seed of symbology, or navel-marker of the world was placed by the timeless Brightness divine, marking Delphi as the spiritual center of the world.
The Omphallos was the mythos which would grow into logos—indeed the Athenians called the Omphallos “the seed of logos.” The discrimination that changes time to eternity and snake to openness was mythically germinated in the West at Delphi, and would give birth to foundational Western contemplations.
Apollo spoke through the Pythia as she performed the Oracle between the two gods, Apollo and Dionysus. In honored and ceremonial worship the Pythia gave herself intoxicatingly (in the manner of Dionysus) to Apollo, and from this “marriage” there appeared a stillness beyond the storm of feeling, where she completed in her own flesh and spirit the dyad of submission and penetration. Her reflections to precious questions were appreciated as miraculous, an ecstatic appearance of the god Apollo—spoken through a bodily agent of the Goddess. This “epiphany” could be witnessed and participated in on the seventh day of every spring, summer, and autumn month—nine times a year. Questions cast upon her miraculous pool were reflected back to the questioner with the flavor of immortality.
And the Sybil, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedzened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the divinity in her.
—Herakleitos, 6th Century B.C.E.
At the center of the temple was Zeus’ birth stone, the Omphallos—the “original metaphor”—as the navel-marker of the world. From this metaphor, all other metaphors were born, beginning with the metaphor of the gods.
The Omphallos received sacramental worship by the priests of Apollo, the Prophetes, in the center adyton where the Sybil or Pythia—witnessed by the timeless stone—would utter forth the timeless words (prophesy). In religious ceremony, the Omphallos was ritually adorned with woolen yarn, for it was said that when the goddess Harmonia wove the web of the world she started with the Omphallos at the center.
In the adyton, an eternal fire burned continuously for 1600 years, being extinguished but once by invaders. All fires throughout Hellas came from Delphi. It was considered an auspicious beginning to have the Oracle give a new colony a blessing prophecy for its future and coals from the eternal fire. It is said that a thousand cities around the Mediterranean began this way.
Although certainly not free of petty politics, at it peak Delphi was like no place in history, glistening with gifts, and hosted an Amphictony (a kind of “United Nations”) for communication between the different city-states, all of whom wanted access to Delphi and the Oracle. The Amphictony (lit. “states around”) were those twelve other districts surrounding the Delphic district of Hellas. These districts held a political and cultural forum at Delphi and adorned it with sumptuous gifts. The central calendar, coordinating religious festivals with a Pan-Hellenic schedule, as well as standardized rituals of purification and ceremony, came from Delphi. Thus, because of the Amphictony, the people of the lower Balkan peninsula came to forever call themselves “Hellenes,” and their entire county “Hellas”. (What the Romans mistakenly referred to as “Graecia”. The “Greeks” are known to themselves as Hellenes and their county as Hellas.”)
Twenty-seven centuries have passed since Delphi first held the Pythian games. What delineated the games at Delphi from the games of Olympia was that the Pythian competition also included the courting of the Muses. Emphasis on poetry, song, dance, and instrumentals elevated the championship contests to the higher arts.
Musiki was an exercise in resonance and anciently meant all the arts, not just music. Apollo and his lyre would lead and guide the inspiration and bless the Pythian games. While athletics were indeed celebrated, Apollo’s Muses infused the competitions at Delphi with spirituality. It was, after all, the center of the world and the home of the Muses.
It is no accident that all the Muses are women—emphasizing the necessity and power of reception in the process of inspiration. The submission of the Muses to Apollo represented the intoxication of submission to the god of harmony.
What we call an “educated” or “distinguished” person, the ancients would address such as one as musiki. To be unmusical was, well, crude. The exercise of resonance (harmonia) was seen as primary to education and informed the student of the internal avenues of character, health, and understanding. So important was it that Plato declared that music should precede and dominate gymnastics, for the soul should form the body, not visa versa.
Yehudi Menuhin, in The Music of Man, gives this musical role of Delphi his highest praise:
There is surely no more impressive site in the world than the Temple of Apollo at Delphi on Mount Parnassus; of all the glorious holy places, this site of the Oracle of Delphi established the link between music and mystery.... The word music itself comes for the Greek word musiki, meaning all the arts of the nine Muses. Apollo, son of Zeus, was the leader of the Muses, as master athlete and warrior as well as master musician. Mount Parnassus came to be thought of as the home of music.
Let it also be noted that the Temples and Treasuries at Delphi were the first Museums, temples holding art creating by those who had been taken by the Muses. To walk up the Sacred Way was to be immersed in beatitude, to be embraced by the artful glow of divine creation.
The golden age of ancient Hellas, which defined Western history, did not fall out of the sky, or come out of nowhere. It was given birth by the religious and spiritual understanding of the divine-worshipping priestesses, Orphic mystics, musiki, and raving ek-statics. Therefore, let us stand again upon the steps of Apollo’s Temple and contemplate the divinities within the Temple.
PrefaceAcknowledgments Introduction: The Forms of Delphi
Mythological and Historical Accounts of Delphi, the Center of the World
The Ecstatic Dance of Apollo and Dionysus
Rhapsodies on the Ancient Sacred Understanding: The Oracle at Delphi
The Caduceus, “Temple Sleep,” and the Religious Origins of Western Medicine
Orpheus, The Katha Upanishad, and the Secret Way Beyond Death