HOW I LOST MY SANITY ~ Episode 4

There were only two patients in the art room. One was warily tucked in a corner, the other was a pretty twenty something African-American woman quietly cutting colored paper with a child’s scissors. I gently mused out loud. “You look healthy and normal. Why are you here?”

“My psychiatrist tells me it’s because I feel no remorse for what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I killed my roommate”. I chopped her up in the bathtub and flushed as much of her as I could down the toilet. The rest of her I put in black plastic garbage bags that I tossed in a dumpster.”

“Did you think you would get away with that?”

“I didn’t think at all. I got the idea from TV.”

“And you don’t feel badly about what you did?”

“The girl is dead. There’s nothing I can do about that!” “I guess I’m sorry for her family”.

Mary grew up in a verbally abusive emotionally constipated family with no privacy. When Mary left home, she applied for a single room at college and was forced to have a roommate. Enduring a year, Mary reapplied, and lost the room to her roommate. Completely losing control of her mind and heart while stuck in a state of rage, Mary eliminated her problem.

Many strange stories unfolded over the next several months in the art room. Every day promised new adventure. I was glad I’d survived the bog of bureaucratic bullshit. I was yearning to examine everyone’s hands, but decided to wait. I anticipated astonishing tales of intrigue and amazing artworks. Many patients had artistic talent. There were two professional artists in the group. I supported everyone’s creativity and acquired special materials and supplies above and beyond my call of duty.

The first patient I bonded with was a refined and cultivated woman in her mid to late fifties. Bizarre circumstances led to Betsy’s hapless and senseless captivity. She lived on Treasure Island, a wealthy seaside community. Betsy managed an art gallery and was gossip columnist for a local newspaper. She loved to garden and was a member of a local gardening club.

A lawyer of considerable power purchased the land adjoining Betsy’s and neglected it. Weeds and branches drooped and draped sloppily onto Betsy’s property. Her neighbor‘s obvious dislike of landscaping and disdain for his neighbors annoyed the hell out of Betsy. One very vexing afternoon, she verbally threatened to chop off everything extending onto her domain. Grabbing her ax, she angrily severed every limb over her property line. While quietly recuperating on her porch, Betsy became alarmed and frightened when police in plain clothes marched aggressively through the gate of her yard.

Betsy grabbed her ax, attempting to chase them away. The next thing she knew, Betsy was sedated in a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation. Her neighbor had pulled strings and managed to have her temporarily committed. Then her serious problems began. Because Betsy was so agitated, Thorazine was prescribed, mandated, and administered. Betsy had a bad reaction to Thorazine. She was rushed to a local hospital. Her spleen had to be removed.

Betsy was no criminal. Nor was she crazy. She had great character references. Her son, a successful architect, pleaded fervently for her release, but no one appeared able to help her. A series of unfortunate events had led to her getting caught up in ‘The System’. Betsy’s attitude remained positive and optimistic while her mental and physical health deteriorated. She lost three productive years of her life. The lawyer tried to acquire Betsy’s property while she was locked up, but her son successfully blocked him.

Everyone admired Betsy. I was self-appointed president of her fan club. She could draw, paint, sculpt, and write better than anyone. She won several patient art awards. She was a positive role model. As editor and illustrator for the patient newspaper, The Scene. Betsy also created signage for hospital activities and events. I got special permissions for her creative seamstress work and purchased (my $) supplies like needles, threads, and unique fabrics.

Betsy designed stuffed insects. She called them ‘love bugs’. Sewing and sowing the seeds of success in my mind, Betsy inspired me to imagine a patient run cottage industry within the confines of hospital life that would serve other sheltered workshops in social and medical worlds. We could be a source for products, design, and marketing.

I got braver each day as I investigated patients’ lives. I couldn’t divulge my appetite for wanting to know more, but I did look as closely as I could at their records, hands, and gestures. I printed crude hands using newsprint paper with poster paint. I assumed madness would be revealed in aberrations of hand morphology and topography. There were many unusual hands. I saw a lot of frustration, anger, and fear, along with an uncanny clarity or lack of clarity in thinking. Many souls saw only one solution to their problem, never considering the consequences. Invoking hindsight enables most folk to harness our strengths, mindsets, attitudes, and actions, and embrace whatever challenges we encounter on the path to becoming healthier and happier.

Repressed rage, confused minds, and constipated emotions rule mental illness. I’d never have predicted from the hands that I read, that most of these people would be committed to mental institutions. Many patients lacked peripheral lines. They were less neurotic than the wounded healers with highly developed superegos and many more peripheral lines who were paid to care for them.

I only saw one club (murderer’s) thumb in the patient population. I expected to see many more Mr. Hydes, motivated by passion, lacking impulse control, and having a propensity for violence. I didn’t. Other hands were soft and supple. Sometimes their bones felt detached. There was zero energy, enthusiasm, or desire to think clearly or do anything meaningful. I observed one psychotic person’s skin as appearing splotchy purplish red. I imagined the color combo was repressed rage. Many hands were stiff in the joints, preventing the lost souls trapped in limbo between their inside and outside from escaping. I examined schizophrenic hands with two sets of head or heart lines in dominant hands that were ambiguous, ambivalent, suffering, struggling, and striving to know themselves and others.

Betsy and I loved the symbolism of the Tarot. We consulted the cards many times with many questions. We rarely heard what we wanted to hear, but always heard what we already knew. I collected birth names, dates, times, and places from patients, but didn’t explain why.

Most artwork and poetry in The Scene came from the art room. The patient newspaper was a venue for creative expression for patients and staff. It offered hospital news and provided space for patients to express their concerns and share their creativity. It was an important venue because it provided an outlet for frustration, anger, and depression. Everyone spent too much time complaining and blaming their problems on ‘The System’ and each other.

I decided to become a spiritual ambassador and good sense maker. The real enemies were our bad habits, bureaucracy, and time. We were a team whether we chose ‘to be or not to be’.

One notorious patient infected my psyche with doubt. He was a young black man in his early thirties. Fred had been mentally, emotionally, and physically malnourished via many abusive foster parents. A gentle kindness lie beneath the surface of Fred’s deeply scarred face. Fred was violent, but it wasn’t knife fights and gang warfare that got him locked up. It was Fred’s unrequited love. Fred was obsessed with a teenage girl. Allegedly, she was ‘taken away from him’ by an `abusive maniac’. Fred created realistic ‘WANTED DEAD or ALIVE’ posters of his maniac. He posted them all over town, offering a phony ten thousand dollar reward for him. Fred had no clue he was creating evidence that would lead him directly to the loony bin.

Fred’s large feminine hands, rectangular palms, long slender knotty fingers, and conical fingertips embody the quintessential ‘feeling’ type: great for empathy, appreciating art, research, organizing, paying attention to detail, and mostly for caring. Fred’s long head line sloped into the heel of his hand, revealing a vivid imagination and rich fantasy life. Fred could copy anything perfectly. He could have been a master forger, but that particular crime would never have occurred to him. I cheered Fred’s abilities and encouraged him to draw from real life. I also convinced his treatment team and security on his ward to let him have pencils and paper and allow him to draw under supervision.

Fred had a private sketch book. He produced forty or fifty sketches and drawings in the first month and showed no one. I asked to see them. Reluctantly, he showed them to me. I was blown away. The political parody above was his first. That’s Ronald Reagan and its meaning is self-explanatory. What stunned me most were caricatures of staff sexually abusing patients. Patients were pleasuring staff in the sickest possible ways. Were security, therapists, and patients actually having bizarre sex acts using objects of pleasure and pain or was Fred’s vision an artistic fabrication of his unique psyche?

How could Fred have witnessed what he was portraying? He had a graphic imagination. Maybe his friends were telling him their stories and he was interpreting them. Fred let me photocopy a few drawings. I wondered about the veracity of Fred’s artwork and shared it with Dolores. She showed it to the cabinet. Betraying Fred’s trust was my greatest blunder and regret. Fred fought fiercely as his drawings and supplies were confiscated. It wrenched my heart to watch him being reduced to a drug induced stupor, artistic genius, never to create (during my tenure) again. I was responsible and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Mary 2 was a highly functioning, extremely troubled patient. Mary believed she was Satan’s child, a bad seed. Mary was three when she first unsuccessfully attempted to poison her little sister. Then she failed to drown her in the bathtub. She tied her to a tree in a lightning storm, hoping she’d be electrocuted. Finally, Mary’s dysfunctional fundamentalist Catholic parents enrolled her in a devout Catholic school. They hoped that would save her. Mary predictably became more twisted. At sixteen, Mary set a nun on fire and carved her charring body to a bloody pulp with a broken glass bottle. She told everyone, “The Devil made me do it”.

Mary produced dark artwork. I coveted and appropriated her drawings every chance I got. While under suicide watch in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital, Mary etched `666′ in the skin of her arms and legs with whatever sharp objects she could find. She also scratched ‘666’ on furniture.

I don’t frequently see hands that frighten me. Mary’s hands were scary. The creepy hand above with very stiff fingers that curl inwardly belong to Susan Atkins’ (Charles Manson’s protege’). They’re similar to Mary’s. Mary’s skin was hard, dry, coarse, and reddish. She chewed on her nails relentlessly, leaving her nail beds red, raw, and sore. Mary transformed self-critical into self-hatred. I wished I could help her let go of irrational terror. Mary’s soul was hard-boiled from the hellish reality of growing up with hypocritical parents, along with fundamentalist codes, irrational doctrines, punitive rules, and restrictive regulations.

Mary had a huge crush on me. She was the first to arrive at the art room and last to leave. I felt nauseous when I was alone with her. I was repulsed, but always smiled and acted nice. Mary generously offered to give me a quickie blow-job under my desk. I remembered Fred’s drawings and how easy it would be to become one of his vignettes. I thought about all of the Ministers and Priests, religious shepherds, who physically and spiritually rape the innocent lambs they are entrusted to protect. Does terror, shame, guilt, and disgrace trigger erotic fantasy? Is fear of being caught a turn on? Can the Devil sow the seeds of evil in a psyche?

Mary was hovering over me and monopolizing my attention. I was abrupt and impatient with her. Dark rings appeared around her darkening eyes. Mary felt rejected. Satan was hard at work, preparing her for evil acts that night on her ward. It was a full moon. Stealing the ‘six’ and ‘nine’ balls from the pool table, Mary loaded them in a black wool sock, then beat a new patient to death while she slept. The poor woman was there for shoplifting, a few days of observation, and psychiatric evaluation. Mary said she didn’t like the way the woman looked at her. She’d certainly think twice before shoplifting again had she survived. I felt guilty and responsible. I should have said something. Staff should have been more vigilant. Mental institutions aren’t called lunatic asylums for nothing.

It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters. Gene was undeniably the most incredible artist in the hospital. He’d been a successful commercial artist and advertising executive. Scuttlebutt was that he created the TV ads that everyone loves to remember.

Gene was unique. A celebrity on his ward, he had the only private room, outfitted with his own furniture, library, audio tape collection, state of art stereo system, Bose headphones, and grizzly bear rug.

No one messed with Gene. Dark satanic auras shrouded Gene. Angry facial expressions and aggressive body language told a tale of uncontrollable rage from a horrible childhood. Gene was hostile. Everything about him screamed, “Stay away from me!” In a jealous fury and fit of rage, Gene slit his girlfriend’s throat from ear to ear. She survived, didn’t press charges, and forgave him. Gene couldn’t forgive himself. He told me had to stay because he’d do it again.

Gene could have been free had he wanted to be and behaved accordingly. I tried to make good sense to Gene and convince him to become an active member of the real world again. Gene wanted to stay. With little interest in worldly freedom, he was free to love his literature, music, art, and still be king of the roost. I actually felt a little jealous of his inner freedom.

Gene was charismatic in a dark and dangerous way. He was the patient Dolores caught in the art supply closet with Janice. That untimely final exit for Janice turned out to be wonderful therapy for Gene. We frequently had philosophical discussions and co-created artworks that I still cherish. This life size pastel Gene drew of me in the art-room subtly captures a very private part of me.

Benny was Gene’s buddy. Benny was uncooperative. A strong fit black man in his early thirties, Benny’s phobia of homosexuality impelled the former transit policeman to assault a bar full of gay men one night with a semi-automatic weapon. While freebasing crack, Benny brutally slaughtered eight gay men.

Benny came up bi-yearly for forensic review. He believed he’d be set free one day, but was always rejected. One psychologist told me that a ‘secret agenda’ was to never ever let him go or know. It was in everyone’s best interest to humor Benny. Otherwise, he’d lose hope, become violent, and need to be permanently medicated.

There was never a dull day in the art room. One handsome young patient, recently admitted, had cut his mother’s heart out, artfully prepared, and hungrily ate it with her favorite knife and fork on her favorite plate while drinking her favorite wine and reclining in her favorite chair.

Another man was found combing his mother’s hair on her mantel, weeks after he had cut her head off. The entire hospital was full of lunatics and addicts who committed violent acts under the influences of bad circumstances, rage, or drugs. Schizophrenics, sociopaths, psychotics, and pathological liars flourished and blossomed. One sociopath from England had a Rolls Royce delivered to the hospital entrance based on conversations he had with a dealer from a pay phone in the hall of his ward. If only I could put everyone’s amazing talents to good use…

Jesus Jefferson was the angriest patient in the hospital. Rejected countless times by forensic committees, Jesus had nothing left to lose. Everyone steered clear of him. Jesus had thrown his girlfriend, her 3 year old child, and dog from a 17th story window. They died instantly as they hit the ground. Jesus had zero remorse and never spoke of the incident. He clearly needed to be locked up, but what of his other innate talents and abilities. I envisioned Jesus as a capable production manager in a patient run manufacturing business. I shared my idea with two staff psychologists and they agreed with me. Unfortunately, Jesus was too unpredictable and angry to be given any real opportunity to take real responsibility.

Names have meaning. Many people who end up in loony bins are named after biblical figures. Jesus, Mary, Faith, Angel, Grace, and Hope haunt wards at mental institutions everywhere. Whatever their parents had hoped, wanted, or expected… something else weird and perverted happened. My parody below represents my interpretation of present-day archetypal names.

MAGA = TRUMP vs chump

HOW I LOST MY SANITY3

After six to eight working days, I’d met most of the patients. There were five men’s wards and one women’s ward. The wards traveled around the hospital escorted by SHTA’s. One, two, or three wards at a time would meet in the rehab department for recreational/religious services. Many patients found religion while incarcerated. Evangelists, fundamentalists, and self-styled ministers attended every service, along with agnostics, atheists, and heretics. I counted four Jewish patients in the mix. Jewish services were most ludicrous of all. Patients of every shape, size, color, and religious denomination wore yarmulkes (skullcaps) and pretended to chant pigeon Hebrew. For attending religious services, patients received extra rewards such as cigarettes, tea bags, and candy. They also hoped to earn a few brownie points with God and the Forensic Committee when they came up for evaluation.

The next several months were both enlightening and frustrating. It was obvious I needed more clinical training specific to a forensic population. I reached from the Rehab department to make allies on the treatment teams and in the cabinet. Unfortunately, protocol and position are guidelines in public service. If you go directly to someone outside of your department on your own initiative, it can be misconstrued as a breach of faith or as a failure on the part of your supervisor to control her staff. Employees generate truckloads of surplus paperwork and ask permission for everything in writing. Dolores was reprimanded. I felt dejected.

My initial impression of patients was that they were generally dull and apathetic, motivated by bribery or extortion. Cigarettes (nicotine), candy (sugar), tea bags (caffeine), and little packets of Sanka rewarded good behaviors. I believed they were ultimately harmful and destructive. Extortion was punishment for bad behaviors. Having no rewards, no activities, temporary isolation, or mandatory drug treatments is really `Pavlov 101′ in practice.

There were two types of patients. Nearly all had committed acts of violence. Some were there for psychiatric evaluation. Others were assigned for long term care by the court system because they were unfit to stand trial or too mentally and emotionally disturbed to be in a normal prison setting. There were several mass murderers and serial killers. You’d never know it as they appeared meek, apathetic, and ordinary. As they grew to trust me, they revealed hopes, dreams, fears, and tales of intrigue and horror.

I was steadily earning the trust and respect of the rehab staff. I’d read Dolores’s hands. Within a month, I was asked by other staff members to share my insights and observations about them. The rehab staff was caring and well meaning. I observed unhealthy doses of neurosis combined with fear, paranoia, and overdeveloped senses of responsibility, obligation, and guilt. Public service feels thankless and hopeless to many of the staff. I tried to be constructive, helpful, and leave everyone feeling hopeful.

I suggested to Dolores that she practice saying “NO”. I advised Zandor not to react negatively to criticism, even if it’s personal. I nagged Billy (Skinny) to lighten up and see reality as it is and not how he wants it to be. I encouraged Luscious Lips to let go of his guilt, cultivate good habits (like controlling his indulgences), and begin to schedule activities to look forward to in his life. I applauded Barbara’s ability to maintain clear boundaries and thanked her for her honesty with herself and everyone else. I cheered Maya’s energy and enthusiasm. I let her know I supported whatever she wanted for herself. I wanted Janice to clearly see and express herself creatively.

My reputation as a hand analyst spread quickly. Soon, I was in the hospital director’s office reading her hands. Dr. Helga presented a caring and friendly demeanor, but after examining her hands for a couple of minutes, I was positive it was an act. She had the stiffest hands and fingers I’d ever felt, inwardly curving pinkie fingers, and a clear simian line in her dominant hand. Knotty fingers and long index fingers were well suited for a detail-oriented directorship. Helga’s father had been a German SS or gestapo who ran a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. There was no place for emotion in Helga’s formative years. She was calculating, ambitious, and couldn’t tolerate disobedience. She ordered me to never discuss what I saw with anyone and told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from patient hands. I gained insight into the cabinet by reading several members directly and by carefully listening and observing body language at meetings and in casual exchanges without permission.

It took six months to learn the ropes while generating and accumulating huge masses of paperwork and proposals. I was ready to present my syllabus for prevocational classes to the cabinet when the hand of fate unexpectedly intervened. A quirky thing happened. Dolores accidentally caught Janice, the art therapist, in the art supply closet with her skirt up around her ears. She was dispensing her own personal form of emotional and physical therapy to one of the male patients. Janice was fired instantly.

Janice had self-destructed. I’d lucked out. There was no art therapist. I was the only staff member qualified to fill in until another was hired. I knew about art. I didn’t know the first thing about art therapy or forensic psychology. That didn’t seem to faze anybody. I was thrilled to put everything aside to be the new substitute art therapist. I’d finally get to meet patients. Nearly all the patients frequented the art room. It was a chance to play with art materials and express themselves creatively. They could sculpt with clay, draw and paint, make collages, write poetry, and play music. I’d examine their hands, astrology, and experiment with tarot on them. This was an important lesson in human nature and my nature that I’ll never forget.

The art room was small and private (14’X 14′). I was happy about that because in addition to having the potential for intimacy, I was required to inventory every pencil, crayon, scissor, and even staple. These were all considered potentially dangerous weapons. Everything in Rehab was either bolted down or fastened together with special screws and nuts that required special tools to unfasten. Every precaution was taken to protect us from patients and patients from each other and themselves.

One very crazy patient who seriously creeped me out was James. After James’s mother would visit him, staff would find him mutilating his genitals with a paperclip, staple, or whatever he could find that caused damage. James eventually died of AIDS after repeatedly letting other male patients have their way with him sexually. I stayed away from James’s hands, but I do remember ugly brown tobacco stains between the tips of his index and middle fingers from letting cigarettes burn to ash without taking a puff.

I was cautious around patients. I tried to be helpful. I spoke little except when spoken to. I’d sometimes sketch patients. They saw me drawing and sculpting and began asking for artistic advice. I happily provided tips and tricks. It took over six months to locate a new art therapist. During this time, I’d meet a dozen patients who would influence my destiny.

Stay tuned to meet the patients…

Author’s note: If you’ve read the first episode of ‘How I lost my Sanity’, you know my writing is a combo of fact and fiction. Using the same voice as my non-fiction writing may create some confusion. I break rules of grammar and syntax. A generous helping of political and social incorrectness sheds darkness on my protagonist. Made up names and characters from movies parody and give faces to characters in my story. If you have any thoughts, ideas, feelings, suggestions, advice, or whatever about my writing and story, feel free to comment.

Gemini & Hands

Self Portrait

You don’t need a Gemini sun, moon, ascendant, planets, or house placements to be Gemini. Thinking Types have square palms and long fingers. No matter what your  astrology says, pure Geminis have square palms, widely spread long fingers, flexible joints, supple thumbs, and dominant first phalanges on slightly knotty first phalanges with rounded tips. Gemini (mutable) is mentally and socially adaptable. Aquarius  (fixed) is unique, eccentric, and innovative. Libra (cardinal) is strategic, balanced, and fair. Of course, there are dark sides…

When major lines in thinking hands split at their ends, that person is able to see many possibilities and outcomes. They often think or feel they have too many choices and decisions to make in order to get whatever done or go wherever they’re going. Mutable types are the most indecisive of the three modalities, especially air and water.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are water signs. Feelings must be balanced with Thinking. Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini are the opposing forces. Ambivalent feelings are incarnate in chains and islands on heart lines. Branches of feelings appear to be magnetically drawn to thinking. Parents who aren’t physically or emotionally present and / or don’t talk about their feelings are teaching their children to analyze, compartmentalize, and rationalize feelings. Rationalizing is safer than verbalizing feelings. A physically or emotionally absent parent as role model in the formative years is a recipe for struggling to learn to value ones’ thinking, feelings, and being. A short index finger often goes with a head ruled heart. Split lines are split for many reasons. Most people have challenging journeys.

Astrology reveals potentials. It’s impossible to accurately foretell a future. It’s hard to predict what we’ll do with potentials in our natal horoscope. Symbols may or may not reflect what you choose to integrate into your character and behavior.

Hands are topographical maps of character in past, present, and future. It’s easy to see the person’s corresponding strengths and weaknesses. While exercising our free will, changing our thinking, modifying our behavior, and re-scripting our story, we can observe the results, clearly etched and reflected in the morphology and topography of our hands over time.

Healthy Geminis have long straight pinkie fingers. They’re master bullshit detectors, acutely aware of their own bullshit, like knowingly being tactful and diplomatic when they’re much better off being frank and direct. Critical thinking, careful decision making, and crystal clear communication make good sense out of nonsense. What you see is what you get!

Dominant Gemini has square palms and long fingers, firm pink elastic skin with loop fingerprints. Long ring fingers with whorl prints add attractiveness, talent, salesmanship, risk taking, and luck. Knowing when to stop is the challenge. Gambling is a bad habit and horrible addiction. Dominant  middle fingers, square tips, and developed first knots add technical, scientific, and pragmatic attributes. Powerful index fingers increase leadership potentials, speaking abilities, career potentials, partnerships, friendships, and goals.

Geminis make great lawyers, bankers, doctors, orators, writers, engineers, teachers, salesmen, accountants, and shopkeepers. Dominant pinkie types play small musical instruments that require physical and mental dexterity. Music makes great sense since hearing is Gemini’s physical sense. I’ve worked at special events with top magicians with dominant pinkies. They astound their audiences while deceiving their eyes and minds.

Cultivated Geminis are consummate communicators, social magnets, intuitive geniuses, and great judges of character. Most social of all signs, Gemini is often accused of being an impractical dreamer because he loves ideas so much. He can detach himself from mundane reality, still remaining objective about everyone and everything. He overvalues intellect and undervalues emotion. He feels threatened when his ideas and opinions are ignored without good reason. He can accept your viewpoint, even though he disagrees with you. He’s easily distracted and doesn’t want responsibility for making decisions that have consequences. Longing to be free and unrestricted, he actually needs most to stay focused, disciplined, and structured. Earning rewards requires doing whatever needs to be done with courage, strength, wisdom, and grace.

Hermes (Mercury) was the shortest god. The pinkie is the shortest finger. If the tip is longer than the crease between the first and second phalanx of the ring finger, it’s long. If shorter, it’s short. Dominant pinkie folk are often short in stature like Ed Harris (Sag) with slender body and face. Pure types are animated, with dark hair and penetrating eyes with crow’s feet in the corners. Gemini is the most youthful of all types, eternally childlike, they love children. Men often sport thin beards like Johnny Depp (Gemini). Michael Jackson (Virgo, ruled by Mercury) was a real life Peter Pan. He actually lived in ‘Neverland’. Brooke, Liza, and Liz were Michael’s Wendy’s.

Gemini is androgynous. In Greek myth, Hermes & Aphrodite (siblings) had an incestuous relationship that spawned Hermaphrodite. Dominance of Hermes in one’s psyche (known or unknown) creates bi-sexual tendencies. David Bowie was Capricorn with dominant Hermes. Mick Jagger is Hermes with strong Leo. Cate Blanchett is Hermes with a powerful Taurus sun. She played Bob Dylan, who is Gemini. Boy George is Gemini. Grace Jones, Taurus, has Mercury conjunct Uranus in Gemini. That’s a lot of uniqueness and eccentricity.

Our pinkie finger reveals our ability to communicate. It indicates truthfulness. Early family dynamic can be observed in how the pinkie is set and held. Very short or low set pinkies reveal lack of trust as a major issue. Many women with low set pinkies have told me they have trouble having orgasms. Their real challenge is in trusting someone enough to have real intimacy. Lengths and proportions of pinkie fingers symbolizes technical, language, sexual, financial, and family potentials.

Gemini rules hands and governs our nervous and respiratory systems. Health issues revolve around nervous and bronchial systems. Geminis have potential problems with headaches, thyroid glands, memory loss, and speech impediments. I’m Gemini. I’ve coped with Tinnitus (ringing in my head) for many years. It’s the worm in my apple.

Gold and diamond rings are normally found on the ring (marriage) finger. You’ll see rings on pinkie fingers of acquisitive people. Pinkie rings can symbolize sublimation of sexual energies to accomplish something that requires a lot of libido. I once examined a group of fifty young people born into powerful families in the 80’s. Considering the prosperity of the period, it seemed a paradox that every person I read had short phalanges on the bottom segment of their little fingers. Money will never be the motivation for their career choices. In the final analysis, their families, personal matters, and values will drive these individuals.

Would you buy a used car from this Gemini? Gemini’s liabilities are deceitfulness, trickiness, fickleness, nervousness, restlessness, and shallowness. People preaching on soapboxes, pickpockets, and most con artists have powerful pinkies (inwardly curving). Donald’s curve inward, confirmed in his natal astrology by a close Mercury Neptune square. It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters. Our trickster is not hiding his dark side. The streets are littered with conned contractors, jilted beauty queens, and fired apprentices. The Emperor grabs our pussies as he tortures our mother. If you believe mom (GAIA) is happy about her body, respiratory, circulatory systems, and spirit, we’re all in serious trouble!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many wonderful people have curved pinkies. They learned the hard way as little children to ‘act nice’. Their job was to avoid confrontation and keep the peace. Learning to say ‘NO’ is a lifelong challenge for them (especially with a large ball of thumb). It’s hard to straighten a curved pinkie, but it can be done. The person must stop trying to please and be whatever everyone else wants and needs them to be. If you’re pretending whatever is OK and it isn’t, check your pinkies.

SCORPIO & PSYCHE

Save

Share

Personal and Collective Psyches transform as outer planets change zodiacal sign. It takes roughly twenty years for Pluto to change sign. Pluto nearly doubled speed in Scorpio on his relentless quest for power and control of everyone and everything from 1984~1995. Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune passed through Scorpio in the 20th Century.

The eighth house of Scorpio and Pluto rule secrets, sexuality, death, and other people’s money in astrology. Greed and hubris defrocked televangelist Jim Bakker. Dismissed as minister of the Assemblies of God denomination in 1989, Bakker was convicted in federal court on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. By diverting millions of dollars to their greedy and grandiose lifestyle, Jimmy and his wife, Tammy, duped their naive followers out of 158 million dollars. Sex scandals busted Senator Gary Hart.

Jimmy’s back, angrily preaching Trumpism, Covid Cures, and End Times!

Homosexuals exited closets in masses in the late 70’s ~ 80’s to become a focus of daily conversation. HIV prevention and condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS. Faith healing was popular, but it didn’t heal AIDS.

Scorpio can be healthy and evolved or perverted by secret sexual fantasies, lust for money, hunger for power, and fear of loss of control. As Pluto transited Scorpio, unholy alliances with the Devil encouraged predatory preachers and poisonous politicians to physically and spiritually rape the innocent souls that they were entrusted to protect. While seduction turns Pluto on, betrayal gets him off!

Religion is bankrupt without morality and blind without spirituality. When Jupiter entered Scorpio in October 2017, greedy bigoted misogynists grabbed unsuspecting pussies while repressing women’s freedom of choice and reproductive rights. Have-nots were discouraged by haves from voting. Horrible sexual and business behaviors were excused and rewarded. The human race was a race against bad shit happening.

Christian hypocrites, poisonous partisan politicians, and insane ideologues had plenty to hate and preach about. ‘CHRISTIANS’ who can steer hurricanes and miraculously cure pandemics, don’t have a clue how not to hate Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and all other Immigrants. Corrupt bigots promise good sense and deliver nonsense!

1980 put the first professional actor in the White House after the lowest voter turnout in history. Reagan had previously been spokesperson for ’20 Mule Team Borax’ and former host of ‘Death Valley Days’. He played his roles well, though he never helped the poor. ‘Reaganomics’ didn’t ‘Trickle Down’. When Oliver North exposed the Iran Contra scandal, Reagan performed his role, managing covertly and quietly while remaining relatively unscathed by political scandal.

Significant violence was caused as Police bombed the headquarters of the black radical group MOVE. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Laura. Terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 259 passengers and 11 innocent bystanders in Scotland.

Neptune regenerates and degenerates. Neptune (Pisces) passed through Scorpio from 1957 to 1970. Regenerative sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations juxtaposed degenerative race riots, terrorist bombings, and hijackings. Spiritual transformation was scarce. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by `her own bodyguards’. Racial tensions rose as Bernard Goetz, subway vigilante, became a folk hero after shooting four young black men in NYC. Goetz accused them of robbing him. They claimed they didn’t provoke him. A white washed justice system favored Goetz.

Neptune rules dreams, illusions, and delusions. Escapism, political unrest, and the assassinations of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. drove tens of thousands of desperate draftees and others into exile, rather than serve in Vietnam. Haves always had numerous acceptable excuses (like bone spurs) for not serving, while confused and fearful havenots consumed illicit drugs, indulged in pornography, and incited violence. Promiscuous sex was normal. Oral sex and contraceptives became popular.

Uranus (Aquarius) transited Scorpio from 1975 to 1982. The end of the Vietnam War for America was the beginning of terror for Cambodia. A senate committee revealed ‘assassination’ was a viable option in US foreign policy.

Irreverent political humor nourished hungry audiences as poisonous partisan politicians preached neo-Christianity, sparking a revival of satire and parody. Saturday Night Live flourished. Uranus (sudden change) blossomed in Taurus (values) as it opposed Scorpio (death and transformation). Irreversible transformations in personal and collective psyche, philosophy, and purpose will manifest in November 2020 if hindsight is truly 2020.

Our Founding Fathers saw us as their children. They wanted what was best for our future (despite their personal prejudices and programming). Our Constitution is still encouraging us to say what’s on our minds and share what’s in our hearts via our first amendment rights! We all need to feel appreciated, be celebrated, and given a helping hand in one way or another. Our democracy must never be taken for granted!

Scorpio symbolizes powerful females, sex, and death. Persephone, Helen of Troy, and the Queen of Cups are powerful Scorpio archetypes. The Episcopal Church ordained its first woman in 1974. Barbara Walters was the First Lady News anchor on ABC TV in 1976. Scorpio rules reproductive systems and functions. MIT scientists created the first synthetic gene in 1976. The first test tube baby was conceived outside of the womb in 1978. The first Death sentence in ten years was carried out when convicted murderer Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in 1977.

Scorpio rules garbage. Would you believe I used to be the Guru of Garbage? The notorious Garbage Barge ferried 3,100 tons of toxic waste 6,000 miles before returning to be incinerated. Fidel Castro’s “Freedom Flotilla” embarrassed the USA when we realized that Castro had unloaded his mentally ill, underworld criminals, and other misfits on us. Over 1,000 “No Nukes” protesters were arrested on Wall Street on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. What will happen in nine years on the 100th anniversary?

Uranus in Scorpio conjured an instant cult classic in 1975. The ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ encouraged the ideology that ‘anything goes’. Punk Rock was unconventional, rebellious, and nihilistic. Ultrasound was an alternative to x-ray radiation. Palimony suits became popular. IBM reintroduced personal PCs and transformed communications. Performance art was popular for all creative artists. Personal gender identity needed to become accepted or face a future of dire consequences rooted in fear and hatred. It’s still a partisan problem for everyone.

The only guarantee in life is Death. Scorpio rules Insurance. Taxes and Insurance reside in the eighth house. If we have something of value (2nd house) to protect, we must pay to play (8th house). Insurance guarantees that a party be paid for a specific loss. The insured can worry less about the costs and consequences of bad shit happening to family, health, home, car, property, or whatever is valuable and insurable. Insurance is legalized gambling. The insured shoots craps and always loses, even when they win. Your insurance agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is favored due to predetermined statistics, permutations, combinations, and probabilities. Expensive risks are wedded to high stakes. You can understand your odds by examining actuarial tables. See your prospects by observing your premiums.

Insuring is sometimes confused with ensuring or assuring. Life is not ensured or assured. Spraying crops with herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides ensures fewer weeds, bugs, and fungi. It assures (by degree) that we eat, drink, breathe, and apply toxic chemicals to our lungs, guts, hair, skin, mouths, nails, toes, and genitals. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market does not insure, ensure, or assure the market won’t collapse. Employees of Enron believed their pensions insured, ensured, and assured a secure retirement, but they didn’t. Conserving energy ensures we consume less energy, generate surplus energy, create less pollution, and endanger fewer natural resources. Drilling for oil in wilderness does not insure we’ll have enough oil. It does ensure and assure we’ll have other environmental, social, political, and planetary challenges. Vengeance as a remedy for violence assures more vengeance and violence.

Everyone dies. Life insurance protects the living. What’s the premium for a graceful and painless final exit? What are the last years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of your life worth? Read  Final Exit by Derek Humphrey. Die with dignity. When it’s your time, having a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to a future of dependency, lack of awareness, loss of love, pain, poverty, or bad health in old age is a good idea.

Saturn and Pluto in Scorpio inspired this self-portrait.

Our 2nd Amendment arms anyone who is eligible, ready, and willing to participate and permits open season on perceived tyranny for many of too many reasons. Our laws enable us to own and use weapons of mass destruction. Blending politics, religion, and profit with Second Amendment rights is a horrible idea and will surely backfire on the NRA.

Gun laws are useless when angry desperate haters with semi-automatic weapons are driven to violence. Boundaries between sanity and insanity are blurred by bigotry, hate, and fear. A pacifist public must protect family and possessions from the poisonous hordes of deluded gun owners with a bible in one hand and an AK47 in the other.

ELECTION WEEK FORECAST

It’s time to evict Masta-Don and his Repuglican’t Kakistocracy. Nov. 3 2020 will be a new beginning or the ending of good health on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes. Partisan politics and religious hypocrisy are characterized by selfish ideas and senseless actions. Human chaos is catalyzing global destruction. As we destroy our planet, our individual and collective psyches are becoming immune compromised.

GEMINI & HANDS

You don’t need a Gemini sun, moon, ascendant, planets, or house placements to be Gemini. No matter what your astrology says about you, pure Gemini types have square palms, widely spread long fingers, flexible joints, supple thumbs, dominant first phalanges on slightly knotty fingers, and rounded and spatulate fingertips. Thinking types sport square palms and long fingers. More mentally adaptable than Aquarius  (fixed) and socially adaptable than Libra (cardinal), Gemini is mutable. Lines in thinking hands that split at their ends symbolize being able to see many outcomes and having many choices and decisions to make.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are water signs. Ambivalent feelings are embodied in chains and islands on heart lines, especially when they’re magnetically drawn toward head lines. When the end of the heart line reaches down to touch the beginning of the head line, analyzing, rationalizing, and compartmentalizing feelings is much easier than verbalizing them. Most people have challenging journeys. Having a physically or emotionally absent parent as a role model during the formative years is a recipe for a lifetime of questioning and struggling to learn to value oneself. Look for a short index finger to go with the head ruled heart. Most split lines are split for many reasons.

It’s impossible to accurately foretell your future or what you will do with your potentials from a natal horoscope. Astrology reveals potentials. Your astrological symbolism may or may not reflect what you choose to integrate into your character and behavior. Hands are topographical maps of character  in past, present, and future. When you embrace your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses, you can exercise your free will, change your thinking, modify your behavior, re-script your story, and observe the results over time, clearly reflected in the ever changing morphology and topography of your hands.

Healthy Geminis have long straight pinkie fingers. Pragmatic minds, critical thinking, clear communication, and the ability to focus can make good sense out of nonsense. Common sense isn’t working well these days.

Gemini has firm pink elastic skin and long fingers with loop prints. Long ring fingers  with whorl prints add attractiveness, salesmanship, risk taking, talent, and good luck. Knowing when to stop is key to winning. Dominant  middle fingers with square tips and developed first knots add technical, scientific, and pragmatic attributes. Strong index fingers increase writing and oratory abilities, career opportunities, and ambitious goals.

I’ve worked at special events with magicians with dominant pinkie fingers. They astound audiences while deceiving the eyes and minds of their beholders. Geminis make great lawyers, bankers, doctors, orators, writers, engineers, teachers, salesmen, accountants, and shopkeepers. Dominant pinkies play small musical instruments that require physical and mental dexterity, which makes sense since hearing is Gemini’s physical sense.

Cultivated Geminis are consummate communicators, social magnets, intuitive geniuses, and great judges of character. Most social of all, Gemini is often accused of being an impractical dreamer because he loves ideas so much. He can detach himself from mundane reality while remaining objective about everyone and everything else. He overvalues intellect and undervalues emotion and feels threatened when his ideas and opinions are ignored without good reason. He can accept your viewpoint, even when he disagrees with you. He’s easily distracted and doesn’t like being responsible for making decisions before knowing the consequences. Longing to be free and unrestricted, he desperately needs to stay focused, disciplined, and structured. Being rewarded requires doing what needs to be done with courage, strength, wisdom, and grace.

Hermes (Mercury) was the shortest god. The pinkie is the shortest finger. When the tip is longer than the crease between the first and second phalanx of the ring finger, it’s long. If shorter, it’s short. Dominant pinkie people are often short in stature like Ed Harris (Sag) with a slender body and face. Pure types are animated, with dark hair and penetrating eyes with crow’s feet in the corners. Gemini is the most youthful of all types, forever childlike and loving children. Men sport thin beards like Johnny Depp (Gemini). Michael Jackson (Virgo, ruled by Mercury) was a Peter Pan who actually lived in ‘Neverland’. Peter needs Wendy. Someone must be practical and responsible. Peter had Brooke, Liza, and Liz.

Gemini is androgynous. In Greek myth, Hermes & Aphrodite (siblings) had an incestuous fling that created Hermaphrodite. Dominance of Hermes in a psyche (known or not) creates bi-sexual tendencies. David Bowie was Capricorn with strong Hermes. Mick Jagger is Hermes with Leo sun. Kate Blanchett is Mercury with a Taurus sun. Bob Dylan is Gemini. Boy George is Gemini. Grace Jones (71) is Taurus with Mercury conjunct Uranus in Gemini. She didn’t get eccentric from Taurus!

Our pinkie finger reveals our ability to communicate. It indicates truthfulness. Early family dynamic can be observed in how the pinkie is set and held. Very short or low set pinkies reveal lack of trust as a major issue. Many women with low set pinkies have told me they have trouble having orgasms. Their real challenge is in trusting someone enough to have real intimacy. Lengths and proportions of pinkie fingers symbolizes technical, language, sexual, and family potentials.

Gemini rules hands and governs our nervous and respiratory systems. Health issues revolve around nervous and bronchial systems. Geminis have potential problems with headaches, thyroid glands, memory loss, and speech impediments. I’m Gemini. I’ve coped with Tinnitus (ringing in my head) for many years. It’s the worm in my apple.

Gold and diamond rings are normally found on the ring finger. They’re often on the pinkie fingers of acquisitive people. Pinkie rings symbolize sublimation of sexual energies to accomplish something that requires libido. I once examined a group of fifty young people born into powerful families in the 80’s. Considering the prosperity of the period, it seemed paradoxical that every one of them had short phalanges on the bottom segment of their little fingers on their dominant hands. Money will never be their motivation for career choices. Family, personal matters, and values will drive these individuals.

Would you buy a used car from this Gemini? I wouldn’t. Gemini’s liabilities are deceitfulness, trickiness, fickleness, nervousness, restlessness, and shallowness. People preaching on soapboxes, pickpockets, and most con artists have powerful pinkies (mostly inwardly curving). Don’s curve inward, confirmed in his natal astrology by a close Mercury Neptune square. It’s not what you do, but what you can get away with that matters. Our trickster is not masterful at hiding his dark side. We’re the conned contractors, jilted beauty queens, and fired apprentices. Our Emperor is grabbing our pussies while abusing our mother. If you think mom is happy about what’s happening to her body, respiratory system, circulatory system, and spirit, you’re the crazy one!

NOTE: Many wonderful people have curved pinkies. They learned as children to ‘act nice’, avoid confrontation, and be peacemakers. A lifelong challenge is to learn to say ‘NO’ (especially with large ball of thumb). They must stop trying to please and being what everyone else wants and needs them to be. If you’re pretending everything is OK and it isn’t, check your pinkies.

SAGITTARIAN HANDS

You don’t need a Sagittarius Sun, Moon, houses, aspects, planets, or planetary placements in your natal astrology to be Sagittarian. Sagittarian hands are healthy looking with mildly flexible wrist joints, pink firm elastic skin, and a confident hand shake. Elastic hands with rectangular palms and short flexible fingers reflect Intuitive  and  mutable personalities. Pure types tend to have long straight  index fingers that stand away from the hand. No matter what your basic type, strong index fingers point to ambition, leadership abilities, self-pride, confidence, spiritual affinities, religious affiliations, idealism, truthfulness, and generosity. Pink color under index fingers adds energy and enthusiasm and reveals a desire to make a difference.

I’m generalizing from my personal experience when I tell you that I see a lot of smooth finger joints, round and conical fingertips, and loop and whorl fingerprints on Sagittarians. I’ve read many tens of thousands of hands over forty years, but I haven’t documented enough statistically to call my experience scientific. One thing I can say for sure is that healthy Sagittarians are idealists, enthusiastic, and self-assured. They’re eternal optimists, honest, and sincere, with friendly charismatic voices designed to persuade. Good luck and positive thinking support them in achieving their goals.

Sagittarians are philosophical, expansive, generous, passionate, principled, proud, truthful, and spiritual. They’re irresistible when they truly believe in themselves. Sagittarians are often accused of seeing life through rose colored glasses because they tend to see people and circumstances as they want them to be instead of how they really are. They love travel and take time to explore and seek food and adventure when they arrive at a new destination. Inherently nature lovers, they’re also naturally healthy types.

Jupiter’s dominant physical sense is taste. Sagittarians love exotic foods, luxurious desserts, and fine wine. Many of the world’s finest and worst chefs have dominant index fingers. Depending on the length and thickness of the bottom phalange, temptation is a force that emerges from deep within the psyche. Loving rich food and fine wine is a potent temptation that can lead them down that dark path of excess that leads to the palace of wisdom. Most of their physical problems result from overindulging in food, drink, and other temptations. Gluttony makes them prone to blood disorders, liver disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and troubles with throat, thighs, and hips. Vanity is tactless, insincere, judgmental, opinionated, hypercritical, hypocritical, impractical, grandiose, arrogant, dictatorial, vain, gluttonous, and philandering. Many dominant index fingered people are of medium height with generously proportioned bodies. More than a few have wide chests, high foreheads, and widely spaced kindly eyes on roundish faces with wavy hair.

When a dominant hand’s index finger is long, (past midway to tip of top phalanx of middle finger), projects forward, has a pinkish color beneath (all races), that person loves being boss and hates being criticized. As planners, setters of goals, and natural leaders, they’re attracted to other ambitious career minded professionals, and go-getters (like themselves). They must steer far from strays and fixer-uppers who are attracted to them. Anyone needing a free ride or unable to carry their own weight quickly loses credibility and respect.

Healthy Sagittarians enjoy being married. They need a partner as much as a lover. Setting goals, planning, and dreaming about the future together is essential to having a loving relationship. Their personal problems often result from practicing obsessive and controlling behavioral patterns, and expressing judgmental and critical attitudes. False pride, gluttony, vanity, and bossiness are weaknesses these individuals must overcome by practicing moderation and steadily earning self-esteem and success. Sagittarians must choose a philosophy that helps them be an integral part of a working society instead of tilting at windmills like Don Quixote or being someone who always has everyone else’s answers.

A short index finger is less than half way to the middle of the top phalange of the middle finger. A person with a short index finger must work harder to achieve the same results as a long index fingered person. Many short index fingered people don’t value themselves enough because they were not valued during their formative years. Where was support and encouragement when they needed it? Their challenge is to learn to ask enough for themselves. Plenty of very successful individuals have had to contend with very short index fingers. They earned every drop of whatever they were able to achieve. Nothing came easily, but it was well worth the risk and work.

Scientific studies relate short index fingers to homosexuality. Click if you’re curious about my take on the subject.  Click on this minute long YouTube video if you want to see how understanding index fingers altered our child’s destiny. Basic hand shape reveals whether a person is more intuitivepracticalthinking, or feeling. Whoever cultivates and nourishes a dominant index finger is honest and direct, shows pride in their work, and takes calculated risks. Many strong index fingered people are successful managers, journalists, judges, lawyers, politicians, singers (musical instrument is voice), producers, promoters, priests, chefs, speakers, and salespeople.

Every finger and fingerprint needs to be considered when examining a person’s character. Proportions of individual phalanges, knots, and nails are important. For instance, spatula shaped fingertips with whorl fingerprints embody philosophical, unconventional, and original thinking. Square tips with arch prints are practical, responsible, reliable, and dependable. Round and conical tips with loop prints are adaptable and communicative. Skin ridge patterns rarely change, except under sudden  extreme circumstances. Depending on your basic type, normal and peripheral lines change gradually as thinking and circumstances change. Careful examination of dermatoglyphics requires a quality set of hand-prints and/or hi-res digital photos, a powerful magnifying glass, and precise measuring tools. You can still give a great reading without peripheral details once you know the gestalt of a person. Additional detail affirms and confirms the basic character and behavior of a person and provides valuable information as to current events and timing.

Skin ridge patterns are beyond the scope of this post. Richard Unger has devoted his career to the subject. Richard is a practicing hand reader, palmistry teacher, and finger print expert on the west coast. We’ve stayed in touch and shared our  work and palmistry experiences for many years. If you want to learn more about fingerprints, I recommend Richard’s book LIFEPRINTS as valuable reading for any student of palmistry, metaphysics, and human destiny. 

SCORPIO & PSYCHE

When outer planets change zodiacal sign, personal psyches are transformed forever. Collective psyche transforms correspondingly. Pluto normally takes twenty years to change sign. While Pluto was at home in Scorpio from 1984 to 1995, it doubled its speed and potency. Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune’s journey through Scorpio in the 20th Century changed our views of Sex, Violence, and Death forever.

Scorpio’s eighth house rules sexual behavior and other people’s money. Sex scandals ousted Senator Gary Hart, while greed and hubris caught up with televangelist Jim Bakker. Bakker was convicted of defrauding his followers out of 158 million dollars.

 

Homosexuals exited closets in masses in the late 70’s and early 80’s to become a topic of everyday conversation. HIV prevention and condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS.

 

 

Scorpio can be healthy and evolved like a Dove or Phoenix who rises from the ashes. When Pluto passed through Scorpio, sexual fantasies, perversion, and untimely demise flourished and blossomed in its dark underbelly. Too many Scorpions had too many horrible hypocritical secrets. They sold their souls to the Devil by finding pleasure in corrupting innocence. The seduction turns Scorpion on, but the betrayal gets him off! Predatory preachers raped the innocent souls they were entrusted to protect in an unholy alliance with the Devil ~ a crime punishable by GOD as an eternity in HELL.

Since Jupiter entered Scorpio on October 10, 2017, many greedy misogynists have grabbed many pussies, repressed many women from exercising their reproductive rights, prevented others from voting, condoned lying, and then rewarded the worst of sexual behaviors. The human race has become a race against bad shit happening. VOTE!

 

Faith healing was certainly no help to the AIDS epidemic. Fundamentalist religious fanatics, poisonous partisan politicians, and insane ideologues had plenty to hate and lots to preach about. Imagine the hubris of a ‘CHRISTIAN’ leader who thinks he can steer hurricanes to punish non-believers, who calls non-Christians ‘Termites’, derides immigrants, Islam, Muslims, and discriminates against colors… a complete idiot promising nonsense!

1980 put the first professional actor in Whitehouse after the lowest voter turnout ever. ‘Reaganomics’ didn’t ‘Trickle Down’. The Reagan years were like ’20 Mule Team Borax’ and ‘Death Valley Days’ revisited. When Oliver North exposed the Iran Contra scandal, he and Reagan played their roles as well as possible, managing to walk away quietly and relatively unscathed from political scandal.

 

Other significant violent happenings were manifesting. Police bombed the headquarters of a black radical group called MOVE. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Laura. Terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 259 passengers and 11 villagers in Scotland.

 

Neptune regenerates or degenerates. Neptune (Pisces) transited Scorpio from 1957 to 1970, generating sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations and degenerating into race riots, terrorist bombings, and hijackings. New opportunities for spiritual transformation and growth benefited very few. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by `two of her own bodyguards’. Racial tensions rose as Bernard Goetz, the subway vigilante, became a folk hero after he shot four young black men in NYC. He said they were robbing him. They claimed they didn’t provoke him. White justice prevailed.

Neptune rules dreams, illusion, and delusion. It was an era of escapism. Political unrest catalyzed the assassinations of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Many thousands of men went into exile rather than serve in the Vietnam War. Lots of confused and fearful people consumed all sorts of drugs while others devoured pornography and violence. Oral sex and contraceptives became popular while indiscriminate sex became normal.

Uranus (Aquarius) transited Scorpio from 1975 to 1982. It was the end of the Vietnam War for America and the beginning of terror for Cambodia. A senate committee admitted that ‘ASSASSINATION’ was modus operandi in U.S. foreign policy.

Irreverent political humor nourished hungry audiences. Saturday Night Live flourished and blossomed as poisonous partisan politics sparked a revival of satire and parody. As Uranus transits Taurus (values) and opposes Scorpio (death & transformation), it catalyzes irreversible changes in our personal and collective psyches, philosophies, and purpose. Hopefully, when we’re done with Fascism, we’ll never take what we value or have failed to value for granted again!

HAVES must learn they can no longer afford not to value ‘have-nots’ or to take them for granted. Have-nots must be loved and appreciated for any and all good things that aren’t about money. Our Founding Fathers saw us all as their children and truly wanted what’s best for all of us (despite their personal prejudices and programming). Thanks to them, we can say what’s on our minds and share what’s in our hearts via our first amendment rights!

Scorpio symbolizes powerful women, sex, and death. Persephone and Helen of Troy were Scorpios. The Episcopal Church ordained its first woman in 1974. Barbara Walters was First Lady News anchor on ABC TV in 1976. Scorpio rules reproductive functions. MIT scientists created the first synthetic gene in 1976. The first test tube baby was conceived outside of the womb in 1978. The first Death sentence in ten years was carried out when convicted murderer Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in 1977.

Scorpio rules garbage. No one ever accepted our infamous Garbage Barge that ferried 3,100 tons of toxic waste 6,000 miles before returning to NIMBY, to be incinerated for all to breathe. Speaking of refuse, Fidel Castro’s “Freedom Flotilla” embarrassed US when we realized that Castro had unloaded his underworld criminals, mentally ill, and other misfits on us. Over 1,000 “No Nukes” protesters were arrested on Wall Street on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. Imagine 1,000,000? 10,000,000?

In 1975, the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ became an instant cult classic. Its message was ‘anything goes’ (as long as you’re not hurting anyone). Punk Rock was a rebellious, unconventional, and nihilistic expression of Uranus in Scorpio. Ultrasound became an alternative to x-ray radiation. Palimony suits became popular. IBM introduced the personal PC and transformed communications for all time. Performance art became a popular and exciting venue for all creative artists. Personal gender identity needs to be accepted by all or we will face the deep and dark consequences of our fear and hate.

 

The only guarantees in life are Death, Taxes, and Insurance. Insurance is an 8th house matter. It implies we have something of value (2nd house) to protect. You can purchase Insurance, which is a contract that guarantees one party pays another party against a specified loss. You’ve got to pay to play. When premiums are paid, we worry less about the costs and consequences of bad shit happening to family, health, home, car, property, or whatever we value that’s insurable. Everyone’s health must be insured.

Insurance is premeditated gambling. The insured shoots craps and always loses, even when she wins. Your insurance agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is always favored financially due to statistics, permutations, combinations, and probabilities. High risks are wedded to high stakes. You can check your prospects by examining your actuarial tables and know your odds by observing your premiums.

Insuring is often confused with ensuring or assuring. Life is not ensured or assured. Spraying crops with pesticides ensures fewer bugs, weeds, and funguses. It assures we eat, drink, breathe, and apply some degree of toxic chemicals to our lungs, guts, hair, skin, mouths, nails, toes, genitals, or whatever. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market doesn’t insure, ensure, or assure the market won’t collapse. Employees of Enron believed their pensions ensured and assured a secure retirement. Conserving energy ensures we will have more energy and waste fewer natural resources. Drilling for oil in wilderness does not insure we will have enough oil. It ensures and assures we will have environmental, social, political, and planetary health challenges and problems. Offering vengeance as a solution to violence assures more violence.

Life insurance protects the living. What’s the premium for a graceful and painless final exit? How much $$$ are the last months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of your life worth?  Everyone dies. If you want to learn more about Dying with Dignity, read Final Exit by Derek Humphrey. When your time comes, having a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to facing a future of dependency, lack of awareness, lack of love, pain, or poverty in old age is a good idea. Or not…

“Dr. Death” (Jack Kevorkian) inspired me to create my very own ‘Dr. Death Do It Yourself Kit’. In case I ever decide to end this insanity of trying to be sane in an insane world, or lose my health, I plan to leave this planet as peacefully and painlessly as possible and to leave others with as small as possible a mess to clean up. An oxygen mask attached to a tank of helium is my means to an independent, painless, peaceful and non-messy final exit.

Mixing politics, religion, and profit with our 2nd amendment rights will surely backfire on the NRA. Laws that enable us to own and use weapons will be regretted when have-nots with guns become fearful and desperate enough to use them. Boundaries between sanity and insanity will blur, and haves will be looking over their shoulders while attempting to protect their families and possessions from the ravenous masses that are scraping for pennies at the bottom of the barrel while watching haves living like royalty.

We’ve become dinosaurs. Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual futures and the future of our planet are being threatened with chaos and extinction. Our Constitution has armed us (whoever is ready, able, and willing to protect ourselves, our families, ideologies, and beliefs) and given us permission to exercise our rights to declare open season on tyranny, eradicate greed, and remove the predatory Tyrantosaurus Hex.

Scorpio and the Collective Psyche in the 20th Century

Outer planets have a powerful influence on the personal psyche. They also symbolize massive transformations in the collective psyche as they change sign. When Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto transited the sign of Scorpio in the 20th Century, our views of Sex, Violence, and Death transformed forever.

Pluto takes twenty years to change astrological sign during which time it disintegrates, destroys, and transforms collective consciousness. Pluto almost doubled its speed when it transited its own astrological home of Scorpio from 1984 to 1995.

It was a challenging time to keep secrets. Sex combined with death to expose the dark underbelly of Scorpio. HIV came into being while condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS. Homosexuality came out of the closet to be the topic of everyday conversation. Religious fundamentalists and politicians had plenty to preach about. Sex scandals ousted Senator Gary Hart and televangelist Jim Bakker. Scorpio rules other people’s money and Bakker was later convicted of defrauding his followers of 158 million dollars.

Police bombed the headquarters of a black radical group called MOVE. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Laura. Oliver North exposed the Iran Contra scandal. He and Ronald Reagan walked away intact. Terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 259 passengers and 11 villagers in Scotland.

 

 

Nobody wanted our famous Garbage barge which carried 3,100 tons of Garbage 6,000 miles before returning home to be burned.

“Dr. Death” (Jack Kevorkian) became a household name.

When Neptune (Pisces) transited the sign of Scorpio from 1957 to 1970, it offered an opportunity for spiritual transformation. Neptune regenerates or degenerates. It began with sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations and ended with race riots, terrorist bombings, and hijackings. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by `two of her own bodyguards’. Racial tensions rose. Bernard Goetz shot four young black men in the NYC subway system. He claimed they were robbing him. They claimed not to have provoked him. Political unrest catalyzed the assassinations of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. It was an era of escapism. Drugs, pornography, and indiscriminate sex became normal. Oral sex and contraceptives became popular. Thousands of men went into exile rather than serve in the Vietnam War.

When Uranus (Aquarius) transited Scorpio from 1975 to 1981, it marked the end of the Vietnam War for America and the beginning of new terror in Cambodia. A senate committee admitted that assassination was modus operandi in U.S. foreign policy.

Mass humor was irreverent as seen by the popularity of Saturday Night Live on TV.

Scorpio rules the reproductive system. In 1976, scientists at MIT created the first synthetic gene. The first test tube baby was conceived outside of the womb in 1978.

Scorpio symbolizes powerful women. The Episcopal Church ordained the first woman. Barbara Walters was the first woman national news anchor on ABC TV.

The first Death (Pluto) sentence was carried out in ten years when convicted murderer Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad.

Punk Rock was loud and nihilistic, an unconventional rebellious expression of Uranus.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show became a cult classic.

Ultrasound became an alternative to x-ray radiation.

Performance art became a new art form.

Palimony suits became popular.

Over 1,000 “No Nukes” protesters were arrested on Wall Street on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash.

1980 saw the first professional actor in the Whitehouse following the lowest voter turnout in modern history.

Fidel Castro’s “Freedom Flotilla” embarrassed the U.S. when we discovered that Castro had unloaded his underworld criminals, mentally ill, and misfits on us.

IBM introduced the personal PC and revolutionized the computer industry forever.

Insurance is very 8th house. We’ve all heard, “The only guarantees in life are Death and Taxes”. Life is not ensured or assured like Death and Taxes, but you can purchase life insurance, which is a contractual arrangement whereby one party pays another party to guarantee them against a specified loss. Insurance implies that we have something of value (2nd house). Perhaps we can’t afford not to value something. Assuming our premiums are paid, we worry less about the costs of bad shit happening to family, health, home, car, property, or whatever we value that’s insurable.

Insurance is a form of gambling. Your agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is always favored financially due to statistical permutations, combinations, and probabilities. High risk means high stakes. You can check your odds by examining insurance actuarial tables and know your prospects by observing your premiums. The insured shoots craps and always loses, even when he wins.

Insuring may be confused with ensuring or assuring. Spraying crops with pesticides ensures fewer bugs and weeds. It assures we eat drink and breathe toxic chemicals. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market does not insure that the market won’t collapse. Employees of Enron believed their pensions insured a secure retirement. Drilling for oil in the wilderness does not insure that we will have enough oil. It does ensure and assure that we’ll have social, political, and environmental problems. Conserving energy ensures that we will have more energy and waste fewer natural resources. Offering vengeance as a solution to violence assures more violence.

Everyone dies. Life insurance protects the living. What are your last few months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds worth?  What’s the premium for a graceful painless final exit? I’d like to live a long and healthy life and enjoy a quick and graceful final exit. Having an abundance of Scorpio symbolism in my horoscope, I’ve created my very own “Dr. Death Do it Yourself Kit”. It’s a breathing apparatus attached to a tank of helium. When necessary, I’ll have a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to facing a future of pain, dependency, lack of awareness, no love, or abject poverty in old (hopefully) age. Read Final Exit by Derek Humphrey if you want to learn more about Dying with Dignity.

Publicity Stories #6 ~ Volunteering

volunteer-work

Volunteering has always been good for business. Being generous with my time and energies has been extremely rewarding on many levels. I get to meet other givers at charity functions. I’ve connected with some of my favorite event planners, performers, and caterers at fund raising events. Forty years later, we still recommend each other for well-paid work when we get the opportunity. Another benefit of charitable events is benefactors, who may pay $1000 or more a plate for dinner and entertainment. They also throw their own parties. I often give out business cards when asked and collect referrals for other causes and more lucrative events. I read many people at these events who have the maladies we’re working for or have family members or friends who have them. I feel grateful to be able to be there to support them.

Newspapers, magazines, books, and radio & TV were obvious ways to promote business. When I first started contributing my time and talents to causes, it never occurred to me to volunteer for the purpose of marketing or publicity. I was taught in early childhood that if you’re lucky enough to have a good life, you have a responsibility to give back in some way. I used to search for old ladies to help across the street, carry their bags, give up my seat, or open a door. I never expected anything in return.  I believe that learning to give contributed to my having a happy childhood.

These days, I sign copious petitions and donate time and money to a variety of social causes. I sometimes regret getting involved as I receive copious requests for endless causes and contributions in my mailbox. I feel like unsubscribing from everything and becoming a hermit, but I don’t. It’s impossible for me to stand by while plutocrats and bigots exploit our environment and trample our human rights under gigantic footprints.

I volunteer regularly for charitable causes like AIDS, Cancer, Schizophrenia, Cystic Fibrosis, Blindness, Healthy Environment, and Dance & Arts Education. The same organizations have called me back year after year. I ask them to pay these days, but offer a substantial discount. They’re grateful to have me and tell me that their guests ask ahead whether I’ll be there. Some of their patrons feel like old friends who like to inform me of their progress since last year’s five-minute rendezvous.

Back in the late ‘80’s, I started working with the AIDS community. It began as research. I hoped to be able to identify the virus in a diversity of hands and track its progress or regress. I printed many hundreds of immune deficient hands of people in various stages from early HIV to full blown AIDS. As I continued to print their hands, I found substantial changes over time. It was hard for me to finance my time and expenses. I tried to find a sponsor to help fund my efforts. No one seemed interested in paying for my research.

In 1994, I discovered Bailey House and met Roy Fowler. Bailey House was an AIDS housing and health organization and Roy was in charge of rehab. Roy wanted to help and hired me to read their clients’ hands, tarot cards, and astrology. I worked two afternoons a week for two years with Roy and Bailey House’s staff and clients.

Individuals with HIV/AIDS tend to suppress their potentials because they’re concerned mainly with the harsh realities of their impending mortality. I was able to identify their strengths, abilities, and talents and encourage them to have hope and make use of the time and resources they had. I played a role for many as a spiritual counselor. Just my being there encouraged some of the more despondent clients to show up at the center.

It was hard to leave, but I needed to make more money. I also hadn’t been able to gather enough hard statistics to validate my research. When I left, Roy handed me this unsolicited testimonial (below). He hoped to help me advance my palmistry work.

bailey-house

Fingers and Planets

twelve hands

All palmists agree on the importance of the thumb. Although the thumb is a small body part, it takes up a huge space in the cerebral cortex of our brains. The thumb opposes our other four fingers, which has enabled our minds to develop. It’s the primary reason we have dominion over our ancestors, the apes. We’ve designed all of our tools from a pencil to the most sophisticated computer because of the placement of our thumbs. As our hands carry out the messages of our minds, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are reflected in the morphology and topography of our hands.    

The thumb symbolizes our most valuable resources: willpower, logic, and ability to love. It’s essential to our well-being that these three very important qualities be balanced. Like our other fingers, a thumb has two joints and three segments known as phalanges. The top phalange represents will. The second or middle phalange represents logic and ability to reason. If the will segment is longer than logic, you frequently act before you think. If there’s more logic than will, you may figure whatever out, but then procrastinate. A tiny bit more logic than will keeps us in check. The bottom phalange is the ball of thumb, contained by the lifeline. The ball of thumb governs our capacity to love and have compassion and sympathy for others, to maintain significant relationships, to appreciate people, animals, nature, art, and music. If there’s not enough love and sympathy, all the logic in the world won’t matter.

Unlike our other four fingers, our thumb is not ruled by a single planet. It’s obvious that willpower, logic, and love contain all elements and modalities. You can assign a sun sign to any detail to gain more insight. A particular element or modality may be strengthened or weakened by the shape of the tip and / or fingerprint. For example, a spatulate tip with a whorl print adds cardinality and fire. A square tip with an arch print adds fixity and earth. A round or conical tip with a loop print adds mutability and air or water. Many combinations are possible. I’ve written several blog posts on the thumb: The Basics ~ A Parable ~ The Murderer’s Thumb ~ Generalities

Fingers and career

Once you’ve established a dominant element and modality for both hands, examine the fingers. The lengths and proportions of fingers, shapes of tips, knots, and nails reveal our relationships with others and what types of career and work we’re best suited for. How are your fingers spread? If they’re widely spaced, freedom is essential to doing things your way. If they’re held closely together you’re a team player, cautious at beginnings, and prefer not to make important decisions on your own.

 

Index FingerDominant index fingers (Jupiter) are long and stand independently from other fingers. A strong index fingered person prefers to partner. As ambitious types, they visualize their goals and then plan to accomplish them. As career minded individuals, they’re motivated by professionalism. They have natural leadership abilities that attract opportunities for them to manage. They’re drawn to others like themselves who are ambitious and proactive. Controlling behavior patterns, obsessive habits, being critical, judgmental, and indulging in too much good food and drink are weaknesses. Other flaws include false pride, gluttony, vanity, and bossiness. Dominant index fingered individuals must overcome their excesses by practicing moderation. Success comes more easily than most other types, but it still must be earned. Many successful judges, journalists, lawyers, politicians, producers, promoters, priests, speakers, salespeople, and the finest and worst chefs have dominant index fingers.

Basic hand shape will reveal whether the person is more adventurous, practical, thinking, or feeling. Shapes of tips, knots, nails, and fingerprints can dramatically modify any interpretation. You can assign an element and modality to any detail to gain more insight into the issue or challenge you’re addressing. Want to befriend a dominant index fingered person? Be honest, direct, proactive, and take pride in your career.

Many dominant index finger types are of medium height with generously proportioned bodies, wide chests, high foreheads, wide eyes, full faces, and wavy dark hair. Long index finger folk are naturally healthy types who may overindulge in rich exotic foods, luxurious desserts, and fine wines. It’s not a paradox that their physical sense is taste. The older they get, the higher the toll. Temptation knocks and Jupiter unlocks the door to eventual blood disorders, liver trouble, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and problems with hips, thighs, and throat. Many people believe short index fingers are connected to homosexuality. That’s not true. Here’s what I have to say on the subject.

10.cancerThe middle finger (Saturn) is the balance wheel of the hand. It should always be the longest finger, although it may appear shorter relative to index and / or ring fingers, which may be above average. Structure, discipline, and focus are needed. Harnessing these qualities is another story. Saturn is his own worst critic and easily frustrated. Finding healthy uses of will power is essential to having a healthy life. Dominant middle finger types are loners and need alone time. Less inclined to marry than other types, they’re dependable, organized, efficient, patient, and faithful. Their troubles begin with spending too much time feeling guilty, fearful, self-critical, frustrated, and depressed. Being overly responsible and perfectionistic is a recipe for depression, frustration, and fear. Notice how the strong middle finger in this photo magnetically draws the other fingers toward it. This man is an incredible artisan and a confirmed bachelor. He worked as a night watchman for many years.

Donald RumsfeldDominant middle-fingered folk are frequently tall, slender, and angular in appearance. Pure types have dark hair, large bones, stern features, and bland complexions. The prevailing physical sense is smell. Many Saturn types love string instruments and prefer classical music with a tinge of sadness. They eventually have problems with teeth, knees, ligaments, and hardening of arteries, rheumatism, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, or deafness in the left ear. When the middle finger leans toward the ring finger, you’ve got an individual with a very strong need for privacy. When he’s feeling confined, controlled, or restricted, he gets cranky. Notice the curved middle finger on Donald Rumsfeld’s left hand. There’s no doubt he’s a curmudgeon. Abraham Lincoln (Aquarius) and Clint Eastwood (Gemini) are quintessential Saturnians.

Many conservative business people, real estate moguls, writers, technical individuals, craftsmen, therapists, night watchmen, master criminals, morticians, undertakers, and derelicts are middle finger types. Powerful individuals with dominant top phalanges lead the way in research, science, mathematics, and humor.

Have a dominant middle-fingered boss? Do your homework with a very sharp pencil. Your precision, attention to detail, and realism are vital to achieving your goals. Don’t be late and don’t make excuses. Assume responsibility and be pragmatic, reliable, and dependable. You’ll avoid criticism and maybe even get some praise.

The middle finger is the finger of fate. It’s where illusion and delusion meet reality. No matter what else is happening in your hands, the middle finger forces you to face the facts. Then you have to do whatever needs to be done. It’s always about work on your part. The remedy for many maladies is inherent in the challenges in and around the middle finger. Whether you do the work or not, what you do will show in your hands. A grille (schmutz) is a bunch of lines crisscrossing in every direction under the middle finger and a sure sign of frustration resulting from too much perfectionism or not doing what needs to be done. People with schmutz below their middle finger are their own worst critics. They must lighten up, buckle down, and bite the proverbial bullet. Taking one step at a time is the best medicine for letting go of frustration. Healthy attitudes will in time reduce or erase the grille. Healthy people have strong healthy middle fingers.

8. GeminiRing finger types are happiest. Dominant index fingered folk are the most ambitious. Middle finger types are the most serious. The sun (Leo) finger is symbolized by Apollo, who hauls the sun across the sky each day in his chariot. Apollo types are attractive, brilliant, charming, graceful, artistic, and successful on the inside. Healthy dominant ring finger types are versatile, adaptable, creative, and expressive.

 

Being so brilliant with so many natural talents and abilities has a downside. It’s easy to be spread too thin (“jack of all trades”). Concern with outward appearances and being tempted by casual attractions is a waste of valuable time. They enjoy marriage, but have very high expectations of their mates that can lead to disappointment. So much solar energy makes them irresistible. Apollo types are healthy, medium height, naturally muscular, and athletic. Their dominant sense is sight. Physical weaknesses are heart problems, eyesight, and circulation. Dominant ring fingered people are lucky. They can trust their gut. When they take calculated risks, they often succeed. I’ve read the hands of many gamblers with very long ring fingers. Their biggest challenge is in knowing when to stop. Their optimism and idealism cloud reality. The most successful actors, artists, musicians, designers, and sales people have dominant ring fingers.

strong pinkyThis powerful pinky finger fits a communicative, curious, and quick-witted individual. Dominant pinky fingered people are bottom liners. As quick thinkers and excellent communicators, they’re well aware that if their presentation doesn’t add up, they won’t make the sale. They’re eternally childlike and cherish their freedom. In relationships, they love variety until they end up marrying someone like their mother or father. They love children and will bear any burden for family.

Hermes is the Greek god attributed to the pinky finger. Peter Pan (adolescence), Puck, Knight of Swords, Court Jester, Magician, Thoth, Loki, and Mercury are all Hermes. Clever tricksters can also be great communicators and potential archetypes of wisdom.

Early family dynamic can be observed in the way the pinky is set on the hands. When it’s short or low set, trust is a major issue. Many women with very low set pinkies have told me that they have trouble having orgasms. Their real challenge is in trusting themselves and others enough to have real intimacy. A pinky finger emphasizes technical, language, and family, in addition to sexual potentials. Hermes’ dominant physical sense is hearing. Hermes prefers musical instruments that require dexterity.

Finger length

The pinky finger is normally the shortest finger. To determine whether the pinky is considered long or short, look to where it lines up with the ring finger. When the tip of the pinky finger is above the crease between the first and second phalange of the ring finger, it’s considered long. When the pinky finger is shorter than that crease in the ring finger, it’s considered short. Hermes was the shortest of the gods. A dominant pinky fingered person tends to be short in stature. His or her body and face are slender, with expressive hands, dark hair, and penetrating eyes with crow’s feet in the corners. Ed Harris is a great example. Pinky fingered folk are youthful looking with men frequently having thin beards. Johnny Depp is a Mercurial type. Mercurial types are androgynous. Many (they may not know or admit it) are bi-sexual. David Bowie was Mercurial. Michael Jackson (Peter Pan) actually lived in his very own Neverland.

Health issues center around the nervous and bronchial systems. Problems with headaches, thyroid glands, memory loss, and speech impediments are common. Healthy types can be intuitive geniuses and great judges of character. Their liabilities are trickiness, fickleness, nervousness, restlessness, and superficiality. People preaching on soapboxes, pickpockets, and successful con artists have dominant pinkies (most inwardly curving). Mercury types make great lawyers, doctors, orators, writers, engineers, teachers, accountants, bankers, shopkeepers, and magicians. I work at special events with famous magicians. These amazing tricksters are very Mercurial. They surprise and astound by deceiving the eye and mind through sleight of hand. Hermes leads the way in science, law, medicine, writing, and banking.

George Tenet

Is this man telling the truth?

The chirological equivalent of Pinocchio’s nose is a deeply inwardly curving pinky finger. If your pinky finger is curved inwardly, you typically hate confrontation and spend too much time behaving in ways that work. You’ve spent so much of your life acting and bending the truth that you aren’t even aware you’re doing it. Most curved pinky fingered people learn early in life that “nice” works. Their biggest challenge is that “nice” ends up becoming safe instead of satisfying. Curved pinky fingered people are peacemakers. They try to fix other people and circumstances. If you’re one of these people, be yourself and not who you think everyone else wants and needs you to be.

Pinky ringGold and diamond rings are often found on the pinky finger of acquisitive people. Pinky rings can symbolize the sublimation of sexual energies in order to achieve something requiring a lot of energy. I once examined a group of fifty young men and women, all born into wealthy families in the 80′s. Considering the prosperity of the period, it seemed a paradox to me that every single one of them had an obviously short phalange on the bottom segment of the little finger of his or her dominant hand. The bottom phalange represents the material world. Money will never be a motivation for this group’s career choices. Family issues and personal values will drive these individuals.