Clotho
Clotho is the spinner among the Moirai, the three Fates, and her name comes from klothein, to spin. Hesiod gives two genealogies for the Moirai in one poem: in the Theogony they are born of Nyx without a father (217-222), and later they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, named Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos (901-906).
The Moirai are a collective power, not three independent goddesses: they are invoked as a triad, and the spin-allot-cut division of labour is the Hesiodic and Platonic systematisation of a force that is often left nameless and numberless. Clotho has no temple, priesthood or festival of her own anywhere in the Greek record; what exists is the cult of the Moirai as a group, as at the altars at Olympia beside Zeus Moiragetes (Pausanias 5.15). The planetary, zodiacal, tarot and sabbat values here are modern Western overlays with no ancient basis, and the tradition's own account is primary. The Roman equation with the Parcae (Nona, Decima, Morta; Varro in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 3.16) is a later identification, not a Greek doctrine.
Correspondences
- Planetary Correspondence
- Mercury
Offerings
- Offerings
- Spun woolA thread tied deliberatelyWaterMilkAttention given to the present moment
Sacred timing
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- KlothoThe SpinnerOne of the MoiraiOne of the Three Fates
- Gender Expression
- Feminine
- Titles
- The SpinnerOne of the Three MoiraiShe Who Draws the ThreadDaughter of Night
- Symbols
- SpindleDistaffThreadThe wool basket
Practice
- Invocation Approach
- ToneQuiet attention not negotiationAddressClothoSpinnerOne of the ThreeRelationshipThe moment that is being spun nowWarningShe does not bargain and the thread is drawn as it is drawnResonanceThose at a beginning or learning to meet the present
- Modern Practice
Approached as the power of the present: what is being spun now, not what was or will be. The three are always addressed together, and Clotho is the one named when something has just begun - a work, a life, a commitment - and the task is to hold the thread steady rather than to ask for a different one.
Nature and meaning
- Domain
- The spun threadThe present momentBirthNecessityThe beginning of a lifeSpinningWhat is being made now
- Mythology Summary
Clotho is the spinner among the Moirai, the three Fates, and her name comes from klothein, to spin. Hesiod gives two genealogies for the Moirai in one poem: in the Theogony they are born of Nyx without a father (217-222), and later they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, named Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos (901-906). Plato sets the three at the spindle of Necessity in the myth of Er, where Clotho sings of the present moment while her sisters sing of past and future (Republic 617c).
Details
- Correspondences
- ColorsWhiteSilverGreyBlueScentsLavenderSageMetalsSilverTinAnimalsSpiderSwan
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