Sunday, May 12, 2013

Trip to the Palm Reader


I've never been to psychic or a medium or had any sort of reading. I'll read my horoscope when I remember I have the app on my phone, but that has always been it. I'm going to try something new and go see a palm reader, and here's my story.


So I finally found a psychic that I could afford and seems relatively legitimate.  I was thrilled when I finally made an appointment. I’m going to have my palm read and am actually really looking forward to it. I’ve never been to a place like this before or even seen someone do a reading. The only experience I have with psychics or mediums is television. For years I’ve seen reality shows with people being connected to loved ones that have left this world. I’m not expecting any sort of connection in that respect. I’m just looking forward to seeing how accurate, if at all, this woman is.

The idea of palm reading is very interesting. From my hand she could possibly tell me all about different aspects of my life. Because I have literally no experience in this area, I’ve done some research.

Palmistry or Chiromancy (palm reading) originated in the Far east and was used in India, China, Tibet, Persia, and countries in Europe.  Though there are no official records, it is believed that palm reading began in India with roots in Hinduism. It is said that palm reading is used to indicate the person’s future whose palm is being read. There are number of factors involved in a reading as well.

The reader usually begins with the person’s dominant hand and observes the various lines on the hand.
All of these lines on my hand that I’ve thought of as creases my 20 years of life apparently mean something else entirely. Observing my own hand now I feel like I could give myself a palm reading based of the information on the internet. In fact, I’ll do that in a bit. For now, more information.

A palm reader pays attention to the shape of a hand sometime observing characteristics of the fingers, fingernails, skin texture, fingerprints, and flexibility of the hand. The more I read about all of this the more I worry my palm reader is going to tell me horrible things about my future.

A friend once told me that I seem like a person that always has very put together hands, meaning they always look clean and well-kempt. I always have my nails painted and I always wear rings. I’ve never bitten my nails so they’ve always been a decent length if not long. I actually take pride in how my hands look. Right now they have some awesome purple nail polish on with a cool design. I like to paint them and make them pretty. I wonder if the reader will say something about that… if it means something. Who knows. I tend to ramble.

There are a multitude of factors of a palm reading, so says the internet. The “basic framework for classical palmistry, is rooted in Greek Mythology.”  Well that is interesting. I love Greek Mythology. These websites tell me that each are of the palm and fingers are related to a god or goddess. The ring finger is paired with Greek God Apollo and therefore tie subjects dealing with art, music, aesthetics, fame, wealth and harmony to the ring finger. That seems like a lot of information from one appendange.

Right vs. Left Handed
-The left hand is controlled by the right brain(pattern recognition, relationship understanding), reflects the inner person, the natural self, the anima, and the lateral thinking.
-The right hand is controlled by the left brain (logic, reason, and language), reflects the outer person, objective self, influence of social environment, education, and experience. It represents linear thinking.

Do palm readers read only one hand? Or both? These are things I’m very curious to find out.

There are also many different methods of palm reading that involve different factors. Some readings involve looking at hand shape and those are classified by Earth, Air, Water and Fire.

·         Earth hands are generally identified by broad, square palms and fingers, thick or coarse skin, and ruddy color. The length of the palm from wrist to the bottom of the fingers is usually equal to the length of the fingers.
·         Air hands exhibit square or rectangular palms with long fingers and sometimes protruding knuckles, low-set thumbs, and often dry skin. The length of the palm from wrist to the bottom of the fingers is usually equal to the length of the fingers.
·         Water hands are seeable by the short, sometimes oval-shaped palm, with long, flexible, conical fingers. The length of the palm from wrist to the bottom of the fingers is usually less than the width across the widest part of the palm, and usually equal to the length of the fingers.
·         Fire hands are characterized by a square or rectangular palm, flushed or pink skin, and shorter fingers. The length of the palm from wrist to the bottom of the fingers is usually greater than the length of the fingers.

Then the most widely understood part of palm reading is reading the lines of the individuals hand. All of which mean something different, like the picture above displays. Some of the main lines include:
·         The heart line: represents love and attraction, shows matters of the heart and our emotional wellbeing
·         The head line: interprets how the person’s mind and the way it works. This includes learning style, communication style, intellectualism and thirst for knowledge. Also known to show preferences for which side of the brain people “prefer” meaning right brain vs. left brain people.
·         The life line: Shows the person’s vitality and vigor, physical health and well-being. Contrary to popular belief, it does not show how long people will live. (GREAT! I was worried about that one. Thought I might hear about dying young today)

There are so many other lines that some palm readers may look at. There are also meanings that go along with the combination of some lines and the locations on the hand of where two lines intercept. One of the most popular seems to be the simian crease.  This is where the heart and head lines fuse together and has significance in emotional and reasoning nature.

Other lines that my internet sources explain to me are the Sun line, Girdle of Venus, Union lines, Mercury line, Travel lines, Apollo Line, Ominous line, and various other markings.

As if reading the lines on the hand aren’t specific enough, to understand them, you must understand the underlying mounts. Hands are divided into seven segments called mounts. Each mount corresponds with a planet and the mounts of our hand reflect the influences of said planet and the challenges related to it. (This one seems a little far fetched to me.)

The mounts also represent the colors of the rainbow! That’s exciting, I love the rainbow.

So these mounts are Luna, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, Mercury and Rahu/Ketu. Well now I’m just incredibly confused because that’s more than seven mounts. Props to any palm reader out there that understands all of this information! It is certainly a lot!

I’m not even going to delve into the descriptions of the mounts on the hand because I don’t even understand them myself. Maybe my reader will explain them to me.

I’m going to attempt to read my OWN palm now thanks to a handy dandy tutorial on the interweb (Don’t mind my awesome hand pun there…)


Observe:
I’ve chosen my right hand because it is my dominant one. Also the tutorial says “For females, the right hand is what you're born with, and left is what you've accumulated throughout your life” and I happen to be female.

So first I identified my heart, life, and head lines on my hand. I was slightly confused when I couldn’t identify my fate line. But then I noticed that not everyone has one so I felt much better.

My heart line told me that I was selfish when it comes to love. I don’t know how true that is. But then again, I’m  not a palm reader so I can be interpreting this ALL WRONG. Head line told me I like adventure, and have enthusiasm for life as well as being creative and spontaneous. My life line also said I have enthusiasm and strength. For my hand shape, I’m going to go with Earth, which means I have solid values, can be stubborn, practical, responsible, sometimes materialistic, I work with my hands and am comfortable with the tangible.

Maybe I’m just bending the interpretation in my mind but I think a lot of the descriptions I read for myself are true. Now I can see if the real reader says anything similar.

Click Here for the Pamplet of the place I decided to go to!
So I've made it to the Psychic and am about to have my palms read. First thing that freaks me out a little is the door opened about 20 seconds before I got to it... Courteous but strange!



I wasn't able to record the session itself otherwise I would have posted that here. I am even more fascinated about the practice of palm reading than before. Throughout my entire reading, being the skeptic that I am, made a conscious effort not to say anything that would leader my reader, Gabriella, to make any sort of inference.

The session lasted about 45 minutes and blurred together. By the time it was over I didn't realize that much time had gone by. I'm an emotional person but I didn't think anything would affect me. I experienced such huge emotional changes in front of a complete stranger.

It began with Gabriella asking me to make two wishes, one in my head and one out loud. I don't really want to disclose too much personal information but my wish out loud was that I wish I could run faster, the one in my mind was more private.

For all of my research, she did not say much about my hands themselves. She did tell me from the lines of my hand that I will be happy, my life will be long and unaffected by sickness, I am creative, have a short temper, and I will be successful. She urged me to stick with the path that I'm on and do not let others inspire me to deviate. Where I'm going is where I should be headed. 

Throughout the 40 minutes I learned a lot about myself. Things I already knew but then Gabriella began to delve deeper into my past. I learned after the session that she specializes in relationships, probably something  I would have avoided had I known. There were many instances where I could tell that she was pressing one direction on a whim and staying vague so that she could go off of my responses. There were very few moments that she would say something that I literally cannot explain how she would know about me.

The idea that someone has extra senses that allow them to read people so completely, seems plausible to me now. It has to be. Gabriella mentioned events of my past that were so specific that unless she spoke to my close friends she could not have known them. I only made the appointment 3 hours before I went in. I still don't know how to explain the things she said.

One instance that I feel comfortable sharing is and its proof in this blog. I said that I was worried that she was going to tell me I was going to die young or something. Gabriella was one of the sweetest people and I saw as her expression hardened, a question form in her mind. Out of no where, she looked up at me and said are you worried that you're going to die young, because people have in your life? Mind = blown. I have had multiple friends die under the age of 20 in the past 3 years. Its been life changing. That one question threw me off. Then she said 3 years ago, I did not have these feelings, I was happier and more easy going. POOF goes every ounce of reason in my mind.

How does she know these things? I don't know if I'll ever understand.

She dug down into some serious aspects of my life and worried for me. Asked to put me in deeper meditation to find the root of my problems and help me. Unfortunately reality set back in when I said I didn't have the money for something like that, but still, the blockages she told me I have, feel very real. 

I think the art of palm reading is very spiritual and very personal. No two palms are alike and can be interpreted a number of ways, just like spirituality. Psychics very well may have a connection with the soul and the mind that I do not. I'll definitely go see another psychic some day and see if they can sense the same things about me.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot I can write or present to make my readers understand what I felt as Gabriella gazed at my palms and nearly brought me to tears with stories of  MY past. It was surreal. I can say now that this new experience that I have has caused me to re-evaluate. My skepticism is now rich with confusion. I'm grateful for the experience.