The Thread of the Fates

“A man's character is his fate.” -- Heraclitus

The white-robed personifications of destiny in Greek mythology were the Moirae or Moerae, often called the Fates. The number of Fates was fixed at three and were said to control the thread of life for every mortal born—from birth till death—metaphorically. Clotho, the “spinner” was the Fate of birth. Lachesis, the “drawer of lots” measured the thread of life, or time that a person was allotted. The final Moirae, Atropos was the “cutter” of that life-thread, the decider of a person’s moment of death or release from the mortal plane.

How interesting to have a life measured with the metaphor of thread. But think of a thread as not a single, thin fiber. Thread is made up of multiple fibers that are spun together, similar to the slenderest of rope. Along the course of that length of thread, there are many individual beginning and endings of individual fibers, where new bits are woven in and sputter out along the slender threads path.

Isn’t our life, our time here on Earth,  similar to that act of weaving? Or more appropriately, isn’t living a life a form of weaving a thread of consciousness and purpose?

Just as when I was born, when Clotho started to spin me into existence and weave me, I became part of a new life in my family. An added layer of strength (or weakness depending on who you ask) for that moment. And then for a moment in time, that thread of time ran until another fiber was added to strengthen the thread. Think brothers, sisters, cousins and even people added through marriages. All entering to stregthen the thread.

I did not know it at the time, the time that I was living from birth till now, that Lachesis was measuring my life. Then re-measuring again and again depending on what I was doing and how I was acting. Smoking. Drinking. Not exercising or exercising. Surrounding myself with love--or toxic people and attitudes. All of those life decisions effecting when the final measure would take place and the third fate would step up to do her duty.

Clip.

Now enter Atropos and her shears, and somewhere along the same thread, fibers ended with a snip and lives were abruptly ripped from the cables. We have all felt how this weakens the thread, how our families lose strengths that the dead added to our lives-- the many gifts that they brought to the time they dwelled with us. Even divorce, family conflicts or sudden illnesses can cause the same weakening of the thread.

Our only hope, is to teach the strengths that bond people together and show that our strength as a community of man is the only way that we can span difficult times and trying circumstances. We need to adapt and to embrace that which is the only thing that truly endures…and that is change. Even the enduring changes along our own, carefully measured thread of time.