My search for good fortune
I am addicted to my horoscope. I read it almost daily, impose meanings on the mundane where they seem to fit, and discard what I don’t feel (or want) to be relevant. I’d say that I’m pretty grounded – and I think of it as a harmless sort of hobby. But much human energy is given to imagining the future, so no wonder the thought of a future revealed is irresistible.
I did once have my palm read. It was a summer party and we’d all dressed up as hippies or drifters and pinned flowers in our hair. There was a palmist there, offering twominute prophecies. I wasn’t convinced she possessed much of a gift so I didn’t pay much her attention. But I occasionally feel the impulse to have my palm read again, particularly when I face a complicated decision. In fact, as the new year dawned, I found myself thinking about it more and more.
I didn’t want to go all Eat, Pray, Love and disappear off to Bali, but I did get the number of a probable (possible) palmist from a neighbour. I sent them a text message: ‘Hello. Do you do palm readings? K.’
Two days later, an answer, as if from nowhere: ‘Hiya, no, I don’t. I work through mediumship, hun. X.’
It was a shame – I liked the sound of this friendly stranger.
In the past, I’d also seen a Gypsy wagon on Brighton pier. I thought about getting the train there and had visions of roaming the Brighton lanes in the drizzle looking for the chalked-up sign of a fortune teller. But neither that, nor my text-messaging medium fitted the bill.
Over the years, there have been many celebrated psychics. Cheiro, an Irish clairvoyant and one of the world’s most famous palm readers, worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His famous followers included Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. He meet his guru and learnt the skill in India, and studied a book that had pages made of human skin.
Now there are more mystics than ever. You can even have your future predicted through your computer screen.
Palm reading has existed for thousands of years, with dark-eyed, nomadic Gypsies coming from the East. Gypsy women became known for the tarot cards and crystal balls they used; they also read faces, palms and tea leaves. It is a skill that has been used by Aristotle, Alexander the Great – and Derren Brown.
We are born with our fingerprints. They form when we are no bigger than a plum in our mother’s womb and we keep them all our lives. A man’s individual character is writ in his hand, or so they say. My hands are broad; my sister’s are dainty. My hands are more shaped for kneading bread than for playing piano – that much I can tell you myself. Our hands are the most dextrous parts of the bodies. Character and daily habit work themselves into the creases. But while I can read my history off my palm, what about my future?
There is certainly one problem that I find hard to reconcile. If you can read a life path in a hand, or the stars, then surely that path is predestined? If my destiny is on my hands, then can it also still be in my hands?
As I said, I am recreationally superstitious; I pick up pennies and count magpies. I found a three of hearts on the pavement last week and I put it in my pocket. I haven’t worked out its meaning yet, but I feel it must have one. But now my intuition is telling me not to find out what life has in store. If it were possible to find a persuasive palm reader, then I might invest too much faith in what they say. If, for example, I was told that a man in red would break my heart, I might be tempted to avoid men who drive a red car, wear a red hat, red shirt, red tie. And what if the man in red was supposed to be a great love of mine, a love worth the heartbreak? Many things in life cause us pain. Pain is sometimes good for us. I don’t want to make the mistake of trying to avoid it.
Besides, the future is a lonely place if you’re the only one who’s there. Better to stay here, now. For the moment, I will struggle through my personal journey blindly, feeling my way forward with my hands.
I did once have my palm read. It was a summer party and we’d all dressed up as hippies or drifters and pinned flowers in our hair. There was a palmist there, offering twominute prophecies. I wasn’t convinced she possessed much of a gift so I didn’t pay much her attention. But I occasionally feel the impulse to have my palm read again, particularly when I face a complicated decision. In fact, as the new year dawned, I found myself thinking about it more and more.
I didn’t want to go all Eat, Pray, Love and disappear off to Bali, but I did get the number of a probable (possible) palmist from a neighbour. I sent them a text message: ‘Hello. Do you do palm readings? K.’
Two days later, an answer, as if from nowhere: ‘Hiya, no, I don’t. I work through mediumship, hun. X.’
It was a shame – I liked the sound of this friendly stranger.
In the past, I’d also seen a Gypsy wagon on Brighton pier. I thought about getting the train there and had visions of roaming the Brighton lanes in the drizzle looking for the chalked-up sign of a fortune teller. But neither that, nor my text-messaging medium fitted the bill.
Over the years, there have been many celebrated psychics. Cheiro, an Irish clairvoyant and one of the world’s most famous palm readers, worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His famous followers included Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. He meet his guru and learnt the skill in India, and studied a book that had pages made of human skin.
Now there are more mystics than ever. You can even have your future predicted through your computer screen.
Palm reading has existed for thousands of years, with dark-eyed, nomadic Gypsies coming from the East. Gypsy women became known for the tarot cards and crystal balls they used; they also read faces, palms and tea leaves. It is a skill that has been used by Aristotle, Alexander the Great – and Derren Brown.
We are born with our fingerprints. They form when we are no bigger than a plum in our mother’s womb and we keep them all our lives. A man’s individual character is writ in his hand, or so they say. My hands are broad; my sister’s are dainty. My hands are more shaped for kneading bread than for playing piano – that much I can tell you myself. Our hands are the most dextrous parts of the bodies. Character and daily habit work themselves into the creases. But while I can read my history off my palm, what about my future?
There is certainly one problem that I find hard to reconcile. If you can read a life path in a hand, or the stars, then surely that path is predestined? If my destiny is on my hands, then can it also still be in my hands?
As I said, I am recreationally superstitious; I pick up pennies and count magpies. I found a three of hearts on the pavement last week and I put it in my pocket. I haven’t worked out its meaning yet, but I feel it must have one. But now my intuition is telling me not to find out what life has in store. If it were possible to find a persuasive palm reader, then I might invest too much faith in what they say. If, for example, I was told that a man in red would break my heart, I might be tempted to avoid men who drive a red car, wear a red hat, red shirt, red tie. And what if the man in red was supposed to be a great love of mine, a love worth the heartbreak? Many things in life cause us pain. Pain is sometimes good for us. I don’t want to make the mistake of trying to avoid it.
Besides, the future is a lonely place if you’re the only one who’s there. Better to stay here, now. For the moment, I will struggle through my personal journey blindly, feeling my way forward with my hands.