Lifelines: Hands of Time

I love hands. I love the way they move throughout the world. Whenever I meet anyone my eyes go first to their eyes and then their hands. For the most part, when someone shares a story about themselves their hands don’t seem to match the words. They gesture and express in accordance with the story but their hands tell another story. The texture, scars, shape and movement say a different version. They speak the truth.I look at my own hands. I think of the thousands of times they have held my children, assured them of safety, fixed their boo-boo’s, sheltered them from others and rubbed them with constant love. These hands have held a lost pet, a friend in need, wiped tears, and have been the last touch before a loved one died. They have caressed lovers, massaged love into a moment of pain, and held my own life with joy and sorrow. They’ve created, pushed, pulled and extended themselves to all that life has thrown at me. These hands are the spaces in the gaps of all that doesn’t live in awareness of my stories. Each finger has explored and allowed spirit to be moved in and out of my realm. In an unconscious walking world, they have been the guidance that sustains me. In conscious awareness, they are the grace that guides my presence throughout each day.In palmistry the life line is that line that determines the challenges and length of life. To me, life lines are the hands themselves. They are the extension of one spirit to another and to the world. They hold life in them and give back to another. Think of all that they do in just one hour. They feed, clothe, wash, love, and bring the world to us. They work for us, not only in a profession but in everything we do to survive. They extend to help another, assure that things will be fine, express what words can’t, and hold the world in the center of them.Each line, scar, callous, freckle, creates a union to our journey. They speak of your past and how you have arrived here. They heal, love, and bring the extension of another into your proximity. Hands are not just extremities of a body, but the life line of your existence. With each touch that is shared you enter another’s space. These life lines are the doorway into the home of another. They are the strength of mind, body and spirit that stretch out and welcome life.  Hands are the sole connection to another's soul.  I can't help but notice them in each person that arrives in my life ready to share their journey with me.“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.” – Rumi