Upcoming Events
swanskin
a Story of swan woman & king ivan
June 13th 2026
6:00- 8:30 PM
St. Columba’s, Inverness California
At the far edge of the world, a swan woman hears the call of her true love and comes flying across the land and sea to meet him. In the heart of the kingdom, the king hears her song, but he has forgotten how to love without stealing, how to stay awake when she arrives. What will it take for them to find each other again, and for what has been broken in each of them to mend?
Join me as I share my rewoven telling of the story of the Swan Queen from the lands of both Lithuania and Russia. This is a story of the power of shapeshifting bird-women, of migration and coming home, of what it means for a man to seek the thrice tenth land, of the importance of wise (and sometimes terrifying) old women, and of the miraculous powers of the heart.
Our evening will be held in the radiant old-growth redwood rafters of St. Columba's church, nestled in the bay laurels and pines of the Point Reyes Peninsula, with the scent of Tomales Bay wafting up through the spring land. They have held a limited number of rooms (at a very reasonable cost) available for those who would like to stay the night after the event.
After booking your ticket, you can send an inquiry to annahaight@stcolumbasinverness.org and tell her you are a guest for Sylvia Linsteadt’s storytelling evening, and book the room with her.
The Island Daughter & the Green Knight
aNIMAL TRACKING & STORYTELLING ON THE POINT REYES PENINSULA
June 20th 2026
10:30 am- 4:00 pm
Join Sylvia on summer solstice day, out in the wilds of the Point Reyes Peninsula, for a field-telling of a beautiful old fairytale from the forested islands of Scandinavia called “The Island Daughter the Green Knight.”
This is a story about a woman who longs for a green land she has never seen, and a knight who speaks the language of birds. It is a story about the healing that comes from the deepest forest and the language of wild things, a story about the miraculous ways that true love can find us when we least expect it.
After the telling, Sylvia will guide participants in a series of animal tracking, bird language and nature-connection exercises to allow the story to bring us into deeper relationship with the singing earth.
There will be a picnic lunch break, creative writing exercises that ground what we have witnessed and wondered into our own stories and poems, and plenty of time to wander and carry this story out into the high summer land.
10:30 am - 4:00 pm, at a field location on the Point Reyes Peninsula that will be sent out to participants during the week before the class.
20 places available
Into the Motherhouse
an archaeomythology of the feminine in old europe
August 8th and September 19th.
During each session in her sunny studio in downtown Point Reyes Station, Sylvia will tell a fairytale or myth, weaving it back into its root systems in matrilineal Old Europe during the Neolithic and earlier. There will be time to creatively respond to the stories through mythic writing exercises, ceramics, and textile work, and to share together in the spiraling sisterhood of the Motherhouse.
In this session, Sylvia will tell her own version of the great ancient Mediterranean tale of Psyche and Amor, taking us a step deeper into the old feminine mystery tales whose roots rest long before the days of Rome.
We will follow Psyche as she learns the language of serpents, sorts seeds, travels to the underworld, traverses ecstatic physical and spiritual love and immense despair, and births the child of her truest, deepest love, while discussing the older origins of her initiatory activities and the great August festivals to the Mediterranean goddess of all earthly pleasure and abundance.
We will then use clay to shape our own votives in response to the story, which Sylvia will fire in her kiln and return to participants the following month.
Saturday August 8th, 1:30 pm - 5:30 pm.
EXACT LOCATION & DETAILS SENT OUT BEFORE EACH SESSION
PAST EVENTS
During each session in her sunny studio in downtown Point Reyes Station, Sylvia will tell a fairytale or myth, weaving it back into its root systems in matrilineal Old Europe during the Neolithic and earlier. There will be time to creatively respond to the stories through mythic writing exercises, ceramics, and textile work, and to share together in the spiraling sisterhood of the Motherhouse.
In our final session, Sylvia will tell her version of the myth of Demeter’s search for her daughter Persephone. This telling will challenge the orientation and tone of the classical-era Homeric Hymn to Demeter, rerooting this myth into its prepatriarchal origins while also highlighting its emergence at a time in the ancient world when patrilineal law overthrew matrilineal law.
We will meet Demeter in her full-seeding, absolute abundance, not as a lesser goddess scorned by Zeus’s new laws, but as the Mother of Life, the mother who has never stopped holding her lantern high for us as we emerge again and again from the underworld back to the light.
We will work with clay to create vessels for and of Demeter, which will be fired by Sylvia in her kiln and returned to participants the following month.
Saturday September 19th, 1:30 pm - 5:30 pm.
EXACT LOCATION & DETAILS SENT OUT BEFORE EACH SESSION
BEYOND tHRICE nINE lANDS
tales & songs for solstice eve
December 20 2025, 6:00 - 8:30 PM
St. Columba’s, Inverness California
On winter solstice eve, a night that once honored ancestral mothers and grandmothers (once known as Modranicht in Old English, which means something like “the Night of the Mothers”) I will be telling two old fairytales that sing of white-feathered bird women who have gone beyond the thrice nine kingdoms because they have been forgotten, stories of true love, impossible journeys, wild forests very much like the steep ridges of Inverness, and joyous rebirths. They are stories to light a fire in you as we step together into deep winter, stories to enchant and to awaken, and to call forth your own solstice season dreams.
Bring your blankets and sheepskins for a warm and nourishing evening of tales told the old way, and music woven through. There will be warm tea and cake offered during a brief intermission, and I may even sing a song or two before the night is done!
About the location: St. Columba’s is a beautiful wooden chapel, contemplative center and retreat house built in the early 1900’s in Inverness, California on the Point Reyes Peninsula. They have held a limited number of rooms (at a very reasonable cost) available for those who would like to stay the night after the event. After booking your ticket, you can send an inquiry to annahaight@stcolumbasinverness.org and tell her you are a guest for Sylvia Linsteadt’s storytelling evening, and book the room with her.
