A measured portionBay leafWineWaterAn account of what was given and taken
Invocation Approach
Tone
Sober measure
Address
LachesisAllotterShe Who Assigns the Portion
Relationship
The portion that has been weighed out
Warning
She assigns the lot and does not trade it
Resonance
Those asking what their portion actually is
Symbols
The lotsThe measuring rodThe scalesThe thread
Mythology Summary
Lachesis is the allotter of the Moirai: she apportions the portion and the length of each life, and her name comes from lanchanein, to obtain by lot. Hesiod makes the Moirai daughters of Nyx in one genealogy (Theogony 217-222) and daughters of Zeus and Themis in another, where he names Lachesis second of the three (901-906). In Plato's myth of Er she holds the lots and the models of lives and sings of what has been (Republic 617c-e). Pausanias records altars of the Moirai at Olympia beside Zeus Moiragetes, the Zeus who leads the Fates (5.15).
Modern Practice
The power of measure and of the past: what has already been allotted and cannot be re-dealt. A practitioner brings an honest account - what was given, what was taken, what is genuinely available - and asks for the right measure of it rather than for a larger portion. The work is arithmetic, not petition.