Mount Parnassus ©2009 Charlene Nevill

Or is she? As I approached the sanctuary later that first afternoon, dark clouds framed the mountains as the sun cast the last rays of daylight over the ruins. Feeling a familiar clutching in my heart and my gut as I gazed at that mountain, I knew I’d been here before.

There were scores of people at the site from all over the world. I wondered if the news about the site’s closure had been as disappointing to them as it had to me, but I thought it unlikely that more than a handful had made the trip expressly to commune with the Oracle.

The Roman Agora ©2009 Charlene Nevill

As I walked along the Sacred Way, I focused intently on every stone, every pedestal, and every column hoping to find some connections with the past. I continued to feel overwhelmed by the mountains that towered over the site; I knew they had something to tell me, but I had no idea what it might be nor how to find out.

Below the Treasury of the Athenians, I got my first glimpse of the Omphalos. Tears welled up and my heart ached with an unidentifiable sadness. I couldn’t ‘see’ anything, and I didn’t ‘know’ anything that I didn’t already know, but I was certain that this large, egg-shaped stone and I had a history.

Omphalos ©2009 Charlene Nevill

Created to symbolize the center, or navel of the earth, the original Omphalos was kept in the Adyton, the inner sanctum in the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle made her prophesies. Delphic authorities had placed several replicas around the sanctuary to remind pilgrims of the site’s holiness. Judging from the appearance of this stone, it was very, very old, and assuming it hadn’t been moved, a multitude of supplicants had passed it as they made their way to the Temple with their queries.

Because I wouldn’t have the opportunity to get close to the Adyton, I vowed to spend time with this strange artifact during the next few days and ‘feel’ its energy. Maybe it, too, had something to tell me.