Palmistry: Chirognomy

A few years ago I learned the word Chirognomy: The corner of palmistry that focuses on the shape of the hands and fingers.

The square layout familiar from my tarot zine nudged me to catalogue that word.

My original witchy zine was my Tarot Zine. It was a reference for a workshop I ran for some local teens. I had been thinking about it for years and finally had enough of an excuse to push the idea out of my head. It’s my first zine that I published, so that analysis paralysis was powerful. It has fold out pages and is as close to pocket size that I could print. A couple years later when I re-printed it for another workshop, I had to size it up because they no longer printed 4″ tall zines.

I had an idea to over-research a bunch of different witchy topics and build a compendium of collated information in reference zine format. This didn’t get past the ideation stage, but who knows? I’ll throw it on following curiosities and see what comes of it.

Wandering through websites and books. Gathering and bundling the basics.

That information collation is a key part of my processing. Like many autistic folks, I have a tendency to bottom-up process. Almost all my metabolizing of ideas I call processing, and everything must be processed.

There’s a completeness to taking something completely apart to understand it fully. To look at 90 samples to be able to name a pattern. To pull the information from 30 websites and books before deciding how you will explain a card’s meaning. To never miss the opportunity to add a few (or few too many) words of nuance to every thing that falls out of my mouth.

I used to hate my “over”-processing, thinking my rambling words and clarifications and footnotes¹ (and asides) and disclaimers and addendumsand postscripts,andtwocents – Think they were annoying. Over the past year I’ve started falling in love with things I previously thought were flaws. I’ve started seeing pieces of myself in others, people it is easy to love. I love to hear someone’s ramble. I love to co-process. I love to be present with someone in their brainspace and have a look around. I’ve had to start thinking my tendencies aren’t annoying. If they were, wouldn’t these others be annoying too? No, that certainly wasn’t right. I’m not saying I’m a bastion of self-love but we’re getting closer.

Each element with its own notable features. In the elemental model you start with two questions: Is your palm as wide as it is tall? Are your fingers longer or shorter than your palm is tall?

So much of palmistry is hard for me to understand. Is this line deep or shallow? Can I not tell in the picture because of the poor lighting or am I just not seeing what they are? Two measurements is approachable. That’s why I chose to start here.

My palm is rectangular and my fingers are short. Following the chart that makes me fire. Fire hands are always moving, often scarred from high activity. They get bored easily – always seeking stimulation – something new to do.

The four elements crop up so often in witchy places and help me do the initial learn. It’s like anything else that if you know more about anything, somehow you’ll find a way to hold other things in it. Fire, Wands, Active. Water, Cups, Emotional. Earth, Pentacles or Coins, Functional. Air, Swords, Ideas. Four little squares that things fall into over and over again.

Sometimes I need to change the rigging holding my executive function in place. When this happens, sometimes I just need a spark. Keep my fire hands moving. I will have a dice decide for me how I will accomplish something. Like an water sign might? Become sensual and emotionally connected to folding laundry. Give extra sentimentality to the moment? Romance it? Or perhaps like a fire sign and go to it immediately, maybe listening to music and making a dance party of painting an ACEO.

In Latin, manus means hand. From it we get manual, manage, manuscript… Things guided or made by hand.

Etymology has always been one of my special interests. If we’re talking about the sun of my special interests as the concept of categorization, etymology sits comfortably as a planet. My platonic-life-partner, best friend, and ex-nemesis and I bonded in a Latin class. I’ve been known to stop a conversation to look up something on Wiktionary. I just named 80 something patterns with Pseudo-Latin.

Manus² is one of my favorite Latin words. I have to remind that hand is the root of so many important words – words that often challenge if machines can actually manage (to handle), maintain (To hold by the hand), manifest (to strike by the hand), manual (handbook), manufacture (to make by hand), and manuscript (writing by hand). What are we losing as a species when we stop doing these things by hand? There are so many things I want a machine to do. Please monitor how long my lasagna is in the oven. I will stop paying attention then it will burn. Please sew the project I need to give to a loved one this weekend. I have procrastinated too long and don’t have time to do it on my own. Please automate cutting out certain fussy cuts for me. I’ll tell you what to do then you do it. There are some things I want to stay manual. I want to manage my manufacturing. I want to manifest my manuscripts and manuals.

Hands invite you to seek, to grasp, to hold.

If my fingers were longer, I might seek connection like a water hand. If my palms were wider, I might seek security like an earth hand. If both were true, I might seek answers like an air hand.

I’m not sure I believe all of the things I’ve read, but the gentlest caretakers I know have water hands, and I’ve never met an earth hand who wasn’t practical. And my hands? They keep moving.

I am a person that sits between skepticism and gnosticism. I crave the magic, and I love evidence. A study and a deep bottom-up processing doesn’t need to result in me co-signing what I’ve read. But on the other hand, I’m a scorpio and we’re very superstitious.

Following curiosities:

• Other palmistry
• Ennuiwitch Compendium pocket references
• Posting some of my Executive Function Rigging
• Mal Blum San Cristobal Latin Quest
• Security Envelope Latin Glossary
• Values Qualitative Research

1. And references, ↩︎
2. Manus on Wiktionary ↩︎