The Journal

Plain-spoken guides to reading the hand, understanding your sign and choosing a stone that suits you.

Palmistry · Featured

How to Read Your Palm: A Beginner's Guide to the Four Major Lines

Everything starts with four lines and one question: which hand? Here is how a palm reader looks at a hand for the first time, and how you can do the same with your own.

Palmistry

The Heart Line: What It Says About Love and Emotion

The topmost line of the palm is the one people ask about first. Here is what its length, curve, ending and breaks mean...

Palmistry

The Life Line Does Not Predict How Long You Will Live

The most misunderstood line in the hand measures vitality and change, not years. Here is how to read its curve, breaks...

Palmistry

The Head Line: How You Think, Written in Your Palm

Not how clever you are, but how your mind works: fast or slow, practical or imaginative, cautious or bold. The head...

Palmistry

The Mounts of the Hand: Where the Planets Live in Your Palm

Seven raised pads of flesh, each named for a planet, tell a reader what the lines cannot: how much of each planet's...

Astrology

Sade Sati Explained: Saturn's Seven-and-a-Half-Year Test

The most feared transit in Vedic astrology is also the most misunderstood. What it is, when it happens, what it tends...

Gemstones

The Navaratna: Which Planet Each of the Nine Gems Belongs To

Vedic astrology assigns one gem to each of nine planets. Here is the full list, what each is worn for, and the...

Astrology

Fire, Earth, Air, Water: How the Elements and Modalities Shape the Twelve Signs

Two simple groupings explain most of what a sign is like before you learn anything else about it. Here is how they work.

Astrology

Ruling Planets: Why Mars Rules Aries and What That Means for You

Every sign has a planet behind it. Knowing which one explains the sign, and tells you which finger, which day and which...

Gemstones

How to Wear a Gemstone: Finger, Metal, Weight, Day and the First Wearing

A stone worn the wrong way is jewellery; worn the right way, tradition says, it is a remedy. The rules are simple once...

Gemstones

Real or Fake? Ten Tests You Can Do Before Buying a Gemstone

You do not need a laboratory to catch most fakes. A loupe, a lamp, a glass of water and ten minutes will expose glass...

Gemstones

Birthstones by Month: The Modern List and the Older Traditions Behind It

The birthstone list on every jeweller's wall is barely a century old. Here it is, month by month, with the older...

Palmistry

Left Hand or Right Hand? Which Palm to Read and Why They Differ

The two hands rarely match, and the differences between them are where the most interesting reading is. Here is how...