The Fates: What lessons do the Ancient Greek Sisters have for us today?

The sisters ponder on and weave the tapestry of a life *1 Read from ... Lachesis Chlotho Atropos Conclusion

The Ancients believed the three Fates had roles at the start and ending point of their lives, and at the various crisis points. They were the mistresses of the mother thread in the life everyone, both gods and humans. Is there something to learn from it today? That's the topic of this blog post. Let's kick off with a brief summary of who they were. Looking at the image, we see

• Lachesis (the assigner, sitting at the back) she decided how long you would live for;
• Clotho (the spinner on the right, that's the thread of your life she's pulling on), Clotho spun the story of your life and intervened at critical moments in it; and
• Atropos ( on the left - the 'unturnable', preparing for the moment when she will cut off the thread) she also ensured that you never deviated from your fate.

Each of these women acted independently from the others, i.e. they could not influence each other's actions. No doubt, being women they likely gossiped about our foibles, but at the key points they acted on their own volition. No court of arbitration. No appeals. Dice rolled, wheel of fortune spun, now get on with it. You wish our leaders could act with that sort of firmness and decisiveness!

How might this work then? and what value did people get from the process? Why were they so accepting of it? Let's do a plain language, somewhat allegorical deep dive into it.

Lachesis

She had a rod which she used to calculate the length of your life. Your life would be spun on a spindle, so her measuring rod was used to determine how much thread is allocated to you. Think of it this way ~ every heartbeat is a stitch, and when all the thread is used up, your time has come.

Freedom from the fear of death
You might say that there doesn't seem to be much value in that! Not so. The ancients were very pre-occupied with the reality of death. Life was uncertain, and death or misfortune could strike at any time, from anywhere, without warning or mercy. Much like today, in fact ~ only we put it to the back of our minds. Modern life insulates us from death until it strikes those around us, and then we are overwhelmed by it. Thereafter it haunts us, a silent breathe on the nape of the neck.

Lachesis takes this most primal of fears away: this fear of dying. Since our days have been numbered, down to the last second, they were able to live life fully and without fear. You're going to die when you're going to die, whether you act with cowardice or courage, with honour or deceit, so you're free to live your life to its allotted span. At the end of your days you will be remembered for how you lived, and for nothing else. Your legacy is in your own hands. This is the promise of Religion expressed in a different way: both view death as a portal rather than as an ending. Both offer a means to immortality.

Having done her work she plays no more part in our lives: Easy job. Some goddesses have all the luck! Look at her up there with her chin in her hands, chatting about this or that while the other girls do the hard yards.

Clotho

She has skeins of twine with which to weave your life's story around the mortal thread. Not forgetting a spindle and a needle to do the weaving with.

Imagine it this way. You're living your life, and unbeknownst it's been recorded on a tapestry which can be seen by those who have sight of it - not mortal people, of course! but by those who'll judge you one day and call you to account. We have come to a Big Moment waiting on a Big Decision. Maybe your relationship with your partner has soured. Maybe chance has brought someone new into view, and temptation beckons. What to do? Well, let's see …. hmmmm. Divorce, that's an option. Murder. An Affair (sounds exciting!) Couples Therapy? Maybe do nothing (because doing nothing is a choice with consequences!)

Knowing you (as Clotho does, she's been weaving your life's story since birth!) she knows what you would do in the event of each decision, and so she weaves a different path for each choice: one that you will be fated to follow once you've made up your mind. Beware! The law of unintended consequences always applies. Clotho is also the Goddess of Chance. She (metaphorically speaking) spins a wheel of fortune and let's that influence her weaving. And so Murphy's Law was born . . . . .

Let's think about this for a moment. Your life now comes down to a cycle of issues and events that lead up to a decision point. It's your decision, no one else's. You could get someone else to decide for you, but again that's what you chose. Having made your choice you're committed to follow whatever transpires. Once begun Divorce follows its path. You can't undead your partner once the murder is done (or attempted.) There's a process waiting, with police, judges, jails and who knows what else. The affair, well that could go anywhere! And not all of it to your liking either. Doing nothing will most likely lead to a deepening of a poisonous relationship steadily souring two lives. More if there are children or other dependents in the equation. Maybe couples therapy would've been a good choice after all . . . committed couples therapy, that is.

You live your life, you're confronted with choices, make them and then you're on an irreversible path. Nothing much has changed in 5000 years, has it? To live well you must choose wisely. But wisdom is not given us, it is acquired through our life's choices and reflections: we are iron hoping to be forged into steel in the furnace of life.

Atropos

Atropos has a pair of shears, probably better to think of them as scissors, these days. They never had modern manufacturing plants. The modern Atropos probably dresses like a Goth and has a range of really cool scissors in her hand bag. And hates her parents & siblings (careful dears, those scissors have purpose!)

So what's her role then? Keeping the end in mind, once the length of your thread has run out, she makes sure to cut off any that might somehow have remained. She cuts off the thread and so ends your life's tapestry simultaneously drawing an end to your life.

She has other duties during your life. After her sister has woven the possibilities, Clotho steps away. Atropos waits until you choose and then cuts off the ends of the lives you chose against. These are your ghost lives, shadowy possibilities of might-have-beens irrevocably pruned and composted.

There is no value in the moment of cutting, the value comes later in self-reflection and awareness, if you choose to make it so. 

Wisdom begins here, because as we reflect on the lessons of our choices, and ponder our ghosted lives, so we start on our journey towards it. We come to understand that the Wisdom of our mentors and influencers are their stories partially realised in ours: the contexts of our own lives might differ, but human emotion, honour, morality and ethics and their opposites are eternal. To become wise we take the wisdom of the past and adapt it for the present, and then hand it on to the future.

So what is there to conclude?

That the process the Fates followed are a mirror of our own lives maybe?

How will your tapestry look, laid out at the end of days?

All your struggles and choices laid bare:
a legacy built from the ugliest clay in a life well lived,
or one torn down from a golden plinth?

We know and understand so much more, yet still our lives are woven under the influence of random chance and in the midst of mindless chaos, and here's the only difference between then and now: The Ancients had an external force to blame for how their lives unfolded. We can own our lives.

*1: Public domain image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

The Pearl as a Symbol of Commitment

 There is a story told, probably apocryphal, about a wealthy couple, their wedding day and his wedding gift of natural black pearls to her. On the eve of the wedding, she caught him kissing one of the servant girls. Angry with him, but not angry enough to lose her love, they went ahead with the wedding, but she refused to wear the pearls. Instead, she left them unopened in their box, and there they lay for the 70 years of their marriage. The family of course knew about the famous pearls which were said to be both beautiful and extremely valuable.
 Thus it was with some considerable interest that the family gathered at the reading of the will to see them brought to the light of day for the first time. The box was opened: the flannel cover unwrapped and there was revealed ~ a small pile of dust. With no one to care for them, they simply disintegrated away.

The Pearl and Commitment and this little anecdote
What does this little story says to us? And why am I telling it?
A pearl is not like any other jewel. It is not a hard and cold crystalline mineral or piece of rock. You could say it remains alive, and it needs love and care throughout its lifetime. This is why it has so often been a symbol of love.
The gift of the pearl holds within it a message of commitment.

From the past to the Present to the Future
Ten years ago my good friends Niranjan and Nimi brought into the world a little baby girl: Nimesha.
Now she stands on the threshold of a Commitment: On Sunday the 7th of November she takes her confirmation vows.
And since Religion is itself a deep commitment, a commitment of faith in the face of a disbelieving world, this is the gift I have chosen for her ~a little string of freshwater pearls, and a locket.
Here is a note that I wrote her: maybe it says something to you too.

Nimesha's letter
Dear Nimesha,
Today is your confirmation, the day that you confirm your faith openly for the first time.
So here are some thoughts to take with you after the ceremony.
Of all the things that we commit ourselves to, Faith is at the same time the closest and the furthest.
Unlike your parents, or your friends, or even a boyfriend!, you can’t argue with it or confront it anywhere but inside your own self.
It must sustain you even at that time when it seems to be the furthest from you, and when everything in the world seems to be dragging you away from it, somehow you must find yourself returning.
But this is not something that happens on its own. To love a thing you must look after it, care for it, even, and especially, when it is furthest from your mind.
Pearls are like that: you can't just leave them in a box with all your other jewelry, they have to be kept separately in a special place and regularly taken out and kept moist and clean. You have to put yourself into them, and you have to do this all through your life: just as you have to do with your Faith. Always growing it, always looking after it, always including yourself in it.
With this pearl necklace, there is little locket. This is what you can do with it: whenever you feel that something important needs to be remembered, something that might be slipping away, either a person or an idea or a cause: write a little note about it, and put it in the locket and then take it out occasionally from time to time to re-affirm your commitment to it.


With love,
Cyril
 

all images (c) cyril souchon