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Mircea Eliade – Patterns in Comparative religion

Needless to say, in those cultures in which Great Goddesses have absorbed the powers of the moon, the earth and vegetation; the spindle and distaff with which they spin the fates of men become two more of their many attributes.  Such is the case of the goddesses with the spindle found at Troy, dating from the period between 2000 and 1500 BC.  This iconographic figure is common in the East; we find a distaff in the hand of Ishtar, of the Hittite Great Goddess, of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, of a primitive Cypriot divinity, of the goddess of Ephesus.

Destiny, the thread of life, is a long or short period of time.  The Great Goddesses consequently become mistresses of time, of the destinies they create according to their will.  In Sanskrit Time is kala, and the word is very close to the name of the Great Goddess Kali