Delphi
Getting high as balls to tell the future (spoiler alert: the future is on fire)
On Saturday I took a bus to Delphi, an ancient city state most famous for the Temple of Apollo where, for generations, a powerful oracle was said to live.
An oracle is a truth telling/ fortune telling mystical force between the real world and the spirit world, and people and rulers would travel from all over to come and find out what to do, or have their decisions blessed, or purify themselves after sin.
The oracle would be channelled through a high priestess called Pythia, a woman from the local area, who would sit on a stand and get high on burning leaves, then speak to the person asking.
Her pronouncement would be unintelligible, because she was high as balls, so the priests would have to decode it (at a price of course) to the person asking.
This is some OG hustle and I’m here for it.
The Pythia used to be beautiful young virgins, but they kept getting kidnapped, so then they made a rule you had to be over 50 to be one instead. Which I guess is easier than protecting the young women but jeez guys.
Delphi is in a stunning mountainous landscape surrounded by lots of incredible ruins that are between 2000 and 3000 years old and I fucking loved it even though it was 41 degrees.
On the way home we drove past a wildfire as it kicked off, and helicopters and planes flew narrowly over the bus to drop water on the flames.
Emergency alerts started pinging on our phones and I was pretty nervous given the fire was only 25km out of Athens and the sky was filled with smoke. Nobody on the bus said anything about it, so neither did I.
The Temple of Apollo was rebuilt twice, after two fires: one in mid 6th century BC and another 300 years later.
Hopefully we can rebuild the planet too, once the whole thing is in flames or underwater.
But we’ll probably stay as quiet as we did on my bus and then be surprised even though the emergency alert has been going off for decades now.
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