Upcoming sTORYTELLING
Swanskin, or the Maiden TSAR
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 Swan QUeen
march 22nd 2026
Point Reyes Station, CA
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?
Myths and folktales about swans are almost always love stories, because swan love is the love of pure devotion. The devotion of the swan maiden to her stolen swanskin and her wild soul. The devotion of swan mates on their yearly migrations. The devotion of a young lover to the swan woman he’s seen only in a dream, but will follow to the ends of the earth to find again.
In this day-long mythic storytelling and dance immersion right at the cusp of the spring equinox, Sylvia V. Linsteadt will lead us into the terrain of swan love with her telling of a swan story from Lithuania that she likes to call The Maiden from Beyond Thrice Nine Lands.
After Sylvia's telling, sacred dance teacher Nao Sims will walk us deeper into the story as it dwells in our own bodies, where we will dance with the water and air and earth, exploring the feeling of our own swanskins, our relationship to devotion, our hearts’ migrations and longings, and the new life burgeoning in us with the arrival of spring. Throughout the day, Sylvia will also lead us in several guided writing exercises to help us gather the feathers of our experiences, and the story’s movements through us, in one place.
Our location will be in the beautiful old chapel at the Dance Palace in downtown Point Reyes Station, California, perched at the edge of the marsh, estuary and bird-filled waters of Tomales Bay. We will be able to spend time during our lunch hour with the birds and waters there.
This class is open to all women. You do not need to be a dancer or a writer to participate, not at all! Nao and Sylvia use both practices simply as doorways into a deeper relationship with soul, body, earth and the creative life.
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
PsYCHE’S SEEDS
A TELLING OF pSYCHE & eROS
August 8th 2026
1:30 pm - 5:30 pm
“Hurry my love! Run away, my gazelle, my wild stag on the hills of cinnamon.”
- The Song of Songs
Join Sylvia for a luxurious telling of the great, ancient Mediterranean love story of Psyche and Eros. Although attributed to the writings of the Roman author Lucius Apuleius in the 2nd century AD, the story of Psyche’s search for her lost beloved has its roots in earlier folklore traditions in Greece and beyond. Here are traces of Persephone’s pre-patriarchal descent into the underworld and her yearly resurrection in the flowering spring. Here are seeds whose roots perhaps reach far back into the Paleolithic, to stories of women marrying bears and wild stags.
Come follow Psyche (whose name means “soul” in ancient Greek) in her excruciating but ultimately redemptive, radiant initiation at the hands of Aphrodite and her son Eros. Come follow Psyche into the fires of amor, pregnant as she descends across underworld rivers, through the most terrifying places in the heart, and back again. What does it mean to hold up a light to the face of true love, and to see the shadows cast? What does it mean for the Soul to meet Love, and Love to meet Soul? What does it mean that at the center of this luminous story, a pregnant woman whose heart blazes with devotion is the only one who can heal the wounded god of Love himself?
After Sylvia’s telling, there will be a short break and then time to respond creatively together to the story through conversation, simple writing prompts, and work with clay.
20 places available
PAST STORYTELLING events
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.
The Island Daughter & the Green Knight
dECEMBER 6TH 2025, cOURTENay, B.C.
By the light of the winter fire in a snug yurt, Sylvia will tell a beautiful old fairytale from the forested islands of Scandinavia 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. This is a story to carry with you into the dark heart of the winter season, a story to carry like a flame by which to light your own candles.
After Sylvia's telling, sacred dance teacher Nao Sims will walk us into the story as it dwells in our bodies. Following its green language, we will go within and move as the Island Daughter moves, as the Green Knight moves, listening to what arises and where the story takes us.
At the end, there will be tea and St. Lucia saffron buns to enjoy in honor of the season, and time to reflect and share together around the fire.
