The Three Fates

The concept of the Three Fates comes from a very old Indo-European mythological cycle.

The Fates

The original myth of the Three Fates comes from Greek Myth and the concept of three women who decided the fates of men and women in this world. Their names were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, and later tied to the Gods and the dispensing of destiny upon heroes in the eternal play of the world. Later the Romans adopted their own view of the Fates, attaching them to cycles of birth and death, as did the Vikings and the Three Norns.

The universal truth behind these three witches or Fates lies in the fact they represent the Virgin in Spring, the Mother in Summer, and the Hag in the fall. In Northern Hemisphere European Culture they represented what I call the “Three Faces of the Eternal Earth Mother” who’s being was tied to the cycles of the seasons from spring to summer to fall, which she controlled through the life and death of her son, the Sun, and his hero twin the Dark Lord in Winter (see my YouTube lectures on Phantammeron and Mythopoeia online).

I discovered this connection years ago studying mythology on my own. I began to see the connections between these myths and the love-cycles of the Earth Mother in fairy tale, along with the “cycle of threes” found in all Western culture (Goldilox and the Three Bears, Three Apples of Paris of Greek Myth, etc.). The fact the three witches later became a representation of “the past, present, and future” convinced me they were yearly cyclical symbols of the Sun and year (that’s what Christmas is….a celebration of the Winter Solstice and of the death and rebirth of the year as represented by the Solar cycle in the Northern Hemisphere cultures).

And so I saw the source of the Fates/Norns tale as belonging to our ancient paleo-lithic Earth Mother cults in Europe. Those myths still reverberate in ALL AMERICAN AND WESTERN CULTURE in numerous Hollywood movies, the culture of marriage, our dualistic religions and politics, our Holidays, and even our relationships. The Earth Mother had defined us it seems long after the raw myths of the Three Fates as a religious expression had died….The Phantammeron Fates.

In my book the Phantammeron I used this mysterious idea of the cycle of seasons represented by Earth Mother types as a powerful idea. In my first book I reveal An, the Child of the Dreaming Seas, as one of the three Norns in primal form. She later “weaves upon the Loom of Fate” the destinies of all living things in Phantaia, hidden in a sepulcher in the bottom of the Dreaming Seas. Around her turn the wheels of time which derive from the great River of Avalyr which pours the Golden Sands of Time into her oceans.

As such I’ve conceived of the Fates through her representation. But in Book Two I reveal a deeper secret…..that her child Ana in Book One will now also sleep like her mother but in a tomb beneath Phantaia in the earth. And the Spring or fountain that pours from her heart represents Time, its waters pouring into Avalyr which pour into her mother’s Timeless Seas. So I have used my book again as Mythopoeia…..a tool to express mythology only!

But the third Fate will be revealed as well, which is the Great Mother of the Seas of Eternity. She is in fact “A”, the Mother of “An”, as “An” is the Mother of “Ana”. She Dreams beyond all seas and waters, and washes clean the Universe of its shattered dreams so they can be reborn. And so as the First Fate or Earth Mother, she represent Birth or Rebirth, which is how the Romans saw the first Fate.

This is just one of the many great aspects of writing in this new form I call Mythopoeia. And it is why I encourage all young people to try it. Fiction doesn’t have to be about plot lines, protagonists, resolutions, and hero-stories trying to entertain.

Mythopoeia can be about philosophical constructs and your spiritual exploration of ideas and concepts that tap into your deeper ideas of the world and of life and the mysteries of Time and Fate. Only by experimenting with abstract forms of fiction like Mythopoeia can you explore those themes fully.

– the Author



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