Palmistry and face reading are an old wisdom of reading a person's temperament and the grain of their life from what shows on the body. The lines and mounts of the palm, the features and impression of the face, are seen to naturally take on the time one has lived and the habits of the heart. In the East these were treated as an observational study bordering on medicine and philosophy, and in the West the tradition of "palmistry" has long been carried on as well.
The most widely known feature of the palm is its three great lines: the life line, the heart line, and the head line. The life line is seen to reflect the flow of health and vitality, the heart line the grain of emotion and relationships, and the head line the direction of one's thinking and talents. To these are added secondary lines such as the fate line and sun line, along with the shape of the hand and the length of the fingers, drawing a three-dimensional portrait of a person. Intriguingly, palm lines are said not to be fixed but to change little by little with time and attitude—hence the old saying that "you can change your palm through effort."
Face reading examines the face by parts: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and so on. The forehead is taken to symbolize early life and wisdom, the nose middle age and wealth, the mouth and chin later years and will. Yet elders agreed that the true heart of face reading lies less in the shape of the features themselves than in the expression and atmosphere a person wears—their "complexion of spirit." As the saying goes that fortune dwells in an ever-smiling face while shadow falls on a frequently frowning one, face reading embraces not only the looks one is born with but the impression one cultivates through living.
So the wisest attitude toward palmistry and face reading is not to receive them as the brand of a fixed fate. The lines carved on the hand and the impression cast on the face are only a starting point; what days you add upon them is entirely your own. A good reading becomes a useful mirror only when you read a fine sign as humility not to grow complacent, and a wanting sign as effort to make up for it.
FortuneLeaf's palmistry and face-reading content is made in this spirit. It conveys traditional interpretations kindly, but we hope you take them not as a yardstick to hate yourself or to judge others carelessly, but as a starting point to understand yourself more deeply and tend yourself warmly. The story written on the body is not an ending but the first sentence of a story you will go on writing from now.
When you open your palm, there are three lines that stand out most clearly. The life line that curves around the thumb has been read as the energy of health and vitality; the head line crossing the palm as the grain of one's way of thinking and talent; and the heart line flowing above it as the pattern of feeling and relationships. Yet it is intriguing that palm lines are not a stamp fixed for life—they fade and deepen little by little according to one's habits and state of mind. Face reading is the same. A broad, bright forehead is said to symbolize thought and early-life fortune; clear eyes, the vitality of the mind; the nose, the pillar of wealth and self-regard; the mouth, speech and blessings—but above all, what the old physiognomy stressed again and again was the teaching that "the mind's features matter more than the face's." More than the shape of a face, the way a person uses their heart ultimately shapes their expression and impression, and that impression draws people and opportunities. To read palms and faces, then, is less about using one's inborn pattern as an excuse than about firming the resolve to engrave a better pattern from here on.