Shay's Circle of Life

Palm Reading: Your Future is in Your Hands

When you look at your palm, do you see your deepest traits and desires or just that splotch of mustard you haven’t yet washed off? Take a look into the ancient art of palmistry.

A person's face is what makes them unique, but some believe it's the palm that tells us who they truly are. According to tradition, your weak hand (the left for right-handers, and vice versa) reflects your inherited traits, whereas the dominant hand offers insight into your individuality and potential. Many palm readers take other factors into account, such as the shape of your hands. Long, slender fingers might indicate a sensitive soul, for example. On the palm itself, the various lines and wrinkles each represent different aspects of a person, and experienced readers know how to interpret all the subtle variations, from how straight a line is to how many breaks it has. The line that carries the most weight in a reading is the lifeline, which depicts your quality of life. Other important palm lines are the head line that represents mental abilities, the heart line that shows emotions, and the fate line that ventures into your destiny to reveal what kinds of mittens you it want to wear in the future.

Futures aren't necessarily set in stone, however, and neither are the lines on your palm, as they’ve been observed to change over the course of a life. Palmistry, on the other hand, seems to have endured through the ages. Some form of the art has been documented in everything from ancient Chinese writings to the works of Aristotle in 305 BC. Despite its widespread popularity, palm reading has had its skeptics—King George IV banned its practice in England, and no real scientific evidence exists to back it up. Still, that hasn’t prevented people from using it to inform their lives to this day, and even Carl Jung—the grandfather of analytical psychology—was fascinated by its apparent powers.