By Heather L. Hines
Let me start by saying I’ve done tarot readings with a general lack of success. Most tarot readers, when encountering me, assume that I want to know about my love life. That’s the first indication things won’t go well. And then they talk about finding my soulmate.
So how does someone step into a darkened room with a stranger and have the courage to ask about themselves and their future? How can we trust what we can’t see and believe in someone we’ve only just met? Where does it come from, or is it all just hooey?
For me, I tend to go into readings with my mouth shut. There are many ways to read a person. Between physical and behavioral clues the reader can assess who you are and what you want without saying a word. Even without breaching the veil, an astute person can glean insight.
My reading with Rachel G of Rachel G palmistry wasn’t what I was expecting. She was personable, funny, and, what’s more important intuitive. First, it started with her asking me the general purpose of my reading. What route do I want to go? Already this made me happy. She didn’t assume, she asked, and she asked me to keep it general.
Which told me she didn’t want me to give her the answers. She wanted to find them herself.
When she asked me what general topic I wanted her reading to focus on, I chose career. She said she will be “looking at the elements of your hands… the overall shape of my fingers and palm as well as focusing on different areas of your fingers.” So now I know it’s not just about the lines on your hands.
The next thing she did was set her timer and look at my hand.
Now, I assumed she would bring my palm close to her face, with me awkwardly contorting for her. Maybe she would pull down a pair of thick coke bottle glasses, study the lines in my hand, and tell me about some unknown dark seated trauma. We can safely say Professor Trelawney was what I was expecting. What can I say? I’m a child of the Harry Potter generation. She didn’t. The first thing she did was glance at my hand, and with that quick look, she had me pegged.
When I asked her how she explains her insights, she said, “Well, there is a lot of psychology behind it. The ability, psychic ability, the Claire’s [example: Clairvoyant- the ability to perceive events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact] under that umbrella, that and the different types of empaths. You start out as an empath, and then you branch into a specific path which goes into the Claires, and then you go into a specific Claire ability.
And what is the impetus of all that is that they’re finding ancestral trauma. Because the more trauma a person has, they are kind of trained to feel and only focus on the people that are potential threats in a social environment. So, they are kind of keyed in to feeling every aspect of the space, and it comes through the family line.”
So, I gave her my dominant hand, which Rachel explained represents my current life. So that my left hand, the non-dominant, would reflect the most poignant events that happened in previous lifetimes.
She explained the lines on our hands change every two to four months on the left hand, my non-dominant hand, and about 75% of the lines on your dominant hand change every six to eight weeks.
Who would have guessed? But it does make sense. After all, we are constantly using our hands.
She told me I had an earth hand, which is not related to astrology. And that’s when I sat forward and started listening. Her type of palmistry, Rachel explains, is part Aristotelian with Vedic mixed in. I had to look both up and still don’t know what it means.
Rachel said she “focuses on the four elements air, water, fire, and earth. An Earth hand,” she explained, “is always found in the trenches from people willing to get their hands dirty. They are the nurturer, not the doctor but the nurse.
Earth… doesn’t have a bias, it doesn’t discriminate, it’s like you throw a seed from a weed at the soil and earth will help it grow and give nutrients to it.”
Which is surprisingly accurate since I do have a tendency to nurture weeds. Until now, I just thought that made me a lousy gardener. Apparently, it’s just my generous nature.
“Boundaries are extremely important to Earth hands,” Rachel advised, “and you are 100% an Earth hand.” There are combinations of the elements, but not in my hand. Because when I do things, I go big. If you are curious, Earth hands are represented as having a square palm and short fingers. You can find some more information on hand shapes here.
Another thing she noted from my hand has what she called an actors formation, which relates to how I express myself, or in my case, how I don’t. At this point, she was looking not just at the shape of my hand but at how my fingers were splayed. She brought to my attention that my middle finger and ring finger are close together, and my pinky and index have a distance between the two inner fingers. As she explained, each finger represents the Roman gods: Mercury, Apollo, Saturn, and Jupiter with the thumb, contrary to popular opinion, Venus.
She said I have the hand of an entrepreneur. She showed me that my wisdom line doesn’t pinch with my lifeline. I’m a part of 30% of the population with this open figuration.
“People that have this formation have a higher calling and have a higher purpose...” So how did I get this line? “and this is the bad part, somebody ended your previous life prematurely, in a really bad way... we’ll say a higher authority lets you have that direct channel to that wisdom from the past life so that you can finish in this life what you were meant to finish, karmically.” Yikes.
She encouraged me to go into business independently, pick a cause, and stand firmly behind it. This resonated with me because I am on the cusp of doing just that. Not the cause part, that I’m still looking for that.
Then, Rachel looked at my index finger, called it Zeus, and remarked that it was perfectly straight. Then she said once I find my cause, I will be unshakable. She warned me not to avoid my true purpose, or I’ll be reincarnated with a flaw that would make attaining that knowledge and purpose even harder. Again, yikes.
At the end of my 30-minute palm reading, she shuffled an oracle deck and explained that the Oracle card was supposed to back up the palm reading and give me something tangible to relate to. “Oracle is more gray and about your personal energy...”
I got the Dream Thief. It was a creepy-looking owl with human eyes holding a giant pearly ball in its talons. As soon as she saw it, she knew, “You are your own worst enemy.” Again, yes. Also, again, yikes. Rachel explained that what this meant was I was stuck on the hamster wheel. Until I find the faith in my own strength and abilities to go out on my own, and that the refusal of the call is my inability to let go of what I’m used to”
If I’m ever going to get to where I’m supposed to be going, I’ll have to let go and accept the call. I couldn’t agree more. I can’t tell you how much that resonated. I thoroughly enjoyed this reading. Maybe it has something to do with her telling me I’m meant to write a book series (I’m currently writing book three, Summer Reign, which will release Summer of 2023), and it will make it to the screens. I’m sure it helped.
After the reading, Rachel allowed me to ask her some questions about her experiences and practices.
She’s been palm reading for 36 years, she started when she was 15. And now she’s got a show in the UK, which you can find out more here. “Spiritualism in the UK is protected under a religious act. It’s a law. And it’s a completely different approach.”
Public schools in the UK have religious education, known as RE. It’s a basic component of their curriculum. Because for them, it’s crucial for children and young people to learn and be respectful of people’s beliefs and cultures.
Rachel suggests that anyone with a gift they want to explore, do their homework. “That is number one. People like to throw around the term empath... There are about 20 different types of empaths. Hone your abilities through research, know what you must do to be safe, know the potentials.”
Essentially don’t just grab an Ouija board and start asking questions.
“It never ends well. It never ends well for them.”
“You have to educate yourself, and it’s really beneficial to find a mentor that you can kind of find a common link with. Someone who’s easygoing, laid back, open to showing you how to go about things, and not demanding that you follow it the exact way they do it. A mentor should only try to bring out the best and who they’re mentoring and let them have their own strength.”
Some of the things she wished more people knew before getting a reading are:
“I wish they [clients] understood that they don’t have to be scared. And in the end, they are actually the ones in control of the reading. Not the reader.”
At any point in time, a client has the ability to say, “I don’t like the vibe I’m getting off of you,” or “I don’t like what you’re saying. I think I’m just going to walk away.”
“You have to use your judgment as a client when getting a reading as to whether or not the person is being upfront, altristic, open with a pure ideology and intention, or if they’re just trying to strike fear and take advantage.”
Don’t ask about death. You don’t want to know.
“Everybody has their own ability to assess that. Sometimes people at psychic fairs will sit across for me, and they’re scared witless because of some of the stuff that was said to them by someone else. And that makes me mad.” She gets a lot of people who have a negative stigma against palmistry and other types of psychic readings because of others who use fear tactics to sell their services.
“There are thousands of different ways to read palms because it is the oldest form of divination.”
Rachel called her own method “a social/ analytical approach to palmistry.
Chinese palmistry has been around for thousands of years. People do not understand that palmistry is as old as our hands. Before there was language [everyone looked at the differences in our hands], so every culture came up with their own theory as to why that is...”
Some things that she won’t try to answer are: when am I going to die, how am I going to die, what am I going to die from? “100% anything about death you should not answer, and there’s a couple of reasons—first, free will. The second there is the fact that mind over matter. [Having that constant fear and knowledge] is a horrible and abysmal burden, and that basically almost guarantees that it will happen to them. And it’s just wrong,” she says, “to make people worry about that.”
“And that’s what I like about palmistry because you can see it [the future] changing on your hand every six to eight weeks. So, it’s kind of like a reassurance that it’s always changing.”
I hope this inside look into a palmistry reading has helped alleviate some of your questions or fears. And remember--
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy,” --William Shakespeare.
Wow! I learned so many new things by reading your article. Thank you for writing such a wonderful piece of literature!