Palmistry · 手相 · Shou Xiang

Palm reading, without the photograph

A palm photograph is biometric data, and sending yours to a server to have a model describe it is a strange price to pay for a reading. This one works the other way round. You look at your own hand and answer eleven questions about what is there. What comes back covers the frame, the three main lines, the mounts, and the places where your own hand contradicts itself. It is read the way Chinese astrology reads a birth chart — structure first, interpretation second.

Heart Head Life

How to find the three lines

  1. Turn your hand palm up, fingers relaxed. A tense hand rearranges the creases.
  2. The top horizontal line is the heart line. It runs from the outer edge toward the index or middle finger.
  3. The middle one is the head line. It runs across the centre of the palm, often starting joined to the line below it.
  4. The line curving around the base of your thumb is the life line. It is not a lifespan — ignore anyone who says it is.
  5. The vertical line up the middle, if you have one, is the fate line. Plenty of people do not, and that is not a defect.

Diagram is schematic, not to scale. Your lines will sit differently — that is the point.

Optional: open a photo of your palm to look at

Stays on your device. It is opened locally by your browser and is never uploaded, never transmitted, and never stored anywhere. Close the tab and it is gone.

Local preview, never uploaded
The schools disagree about which hand means what. The reading will tell you which convention it used.
Look at the outline before you look at the lines. Shape is read first.
Middle finger against palm length is the quickest comparison.
Measure on the palm side, from the base crease. This is the one item here that comes from research rather than tradition.
This is the most heavily weighted feature on the hand. Look closely.
Vertical line toward the middle finger. It is fine not to have one.
The pad that feels fullest, not the one you like best.
Eleven answers. Nothing uploaded.

Face and hand are read together in the tradition, not separately — the face reading works the same way. If you want the part that comes from your birth moment instead of your body, your Four Pillars chart is free. And if you are wondering whether any of this is compatible with the birth-chart systems at all, this guide covers how the frameworks relate.