There remains in traditional palmistry a pervasive myth, which suggests that a palm reader is able to foretell the length of your life from the length of your “life” line. Yet many people with a short life line live a long life, just as many who die young have long life lines. From whence this fatalistic idea, that a short line puts you at risk of a short life? What does it mean if you have a short line, if it doesn’t mean a short life?
The myth dates back to mediaeval times, when markings on the hands were believed to have literal and specific interpretation, and superstition was rife. The focus of palmists of the day was on prediction of events, such as marriage, children, monetary gains or losses, and death. The future was described chronologically, and chiromancy, the divinatory component of chirology, prevailed.
In those years people were born into their station in life. Whereas today we understand the principle of free will, and we have more freedom to determine our destiny, they had little opportunity to elevate, nor to in any way improve their circumstances. Fate and destiny were one and the same, and there was none of the social mobility that we enjoy today. Fortune tellers, who assumed the position of being able to foretell the future, were consulted for their opinion of not just when death would occur, but often of the manner of death, such as by hanging.
Now hundreds of years have passed; “fate” has lost it’s old cast-in-stone meaning and “destiny” can be co-created with our thoughts and actions. Our evolution of consciousness and circumstance has changed the interpretation of the short “life” line.
A distinction is now made between the tradition of identifying length of life vs. the more accurate indication of the degree of will to live. If short earth lines appear of good quality, deep and pink, clearly visible, neither too faint nor too dark, the owner has a resource of joie de vivre and vitality, which those with a longer but poorer quality line may be hard pressed to keep up with. For this person, all must be done as if there is no tomorrow. A great deal of activity can be crammed into a short amount of time. If the short earth line is very faint, it shows that the person’s health and vitality is diminished. Low energy and tiredness are characterised.
Short earth lines which don’t run their full length to root in the base of the earth quadrant also reveal feelings in the person of being ungrounded. Maybe they tend to space out and find it hard to rest and relax. Another meaning suggests rootlessness due to many home moves.
Long earth lines which curve to tuck around balls of thumbs at their ends reveal traits such as fond attachment to family and national or accented ethnic group identity. For these people, belonging is of paramount importance, they need to feel rooted to their base. They strive for their kin and love their home and country.
The term “earth line” is used in chirology, rather than the palmistic term, “life line”. The element earth is the building block upon which the most basic requirement for life, our physicality and our health, rests. The presence of a well formed earth line assures us of vitality, vigour and strength, all earth principles. An earth line clear of markings, even if it is short, bestows endurance, and a reliable (another earth principle) regenerative energy.
In modern hand reading, the lengths, depths, direction flow and markings of our life lines reveal more about quality of life force, characteristic traits, orientations and preferences than they do about prediction of death. Interpretation depends too on the modifying influence of all other hand features. The tradition of predicting the length of life has neither authenticity nor value; the long and the short of it is that length of life is not evidenced in length of lines.
Jennifer Hirsch
Cell: +27 082 415 0653
Author: Spirit Connection
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