When I first met Jana Napoli 20 years ago, she took my hands, opened them up, studied them carefully and slowly began revealing to me things that I might have known about myself, but could not articulate fully. Or revealed to me things that I did not acknowledge. For over two decades of our friendship, I’ve been witness to many readings of stranger’s hands and watched them open up to her and themselves.
In Jana’s world, she sees possibility in almost every hand she reads. She expresses kindness along with a humorous eye toward the different energies that motivate us. She sees in every person the innocent inner child or sometimes the stubborn older adult. She has a remarkable way of acknowledging each person fully by opening your hand and studying the confirmation of fingers and palms, and the lines in their hands. Her gentle voice says that you were born with a purpose, and her purpose in life is to help you understand yours.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “About palmistry and astrology: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities.”
My identity is elusive? Who am I? What do I know about myself? How am I perceived by others. For the most part, I think that I identify myself by what I have done, where I live and have lived, the friends who know me by name or the family I belong to. For the most part, my work carries me through my day, week after week, and I often identify myself by what I have accomplished. And in so doing, I may have limited the possibilities open to me.
There may be another part of identity that escapes us most of our lives and that we ignore in our waking hours. In listening to Jana read my palm, she reminds me that there are certain traits about my character that motivate me and guide me through my life. There are childhood experiences that define who I am and how I behave. Perhaps, deeper reasons why I am who I am and do what I do.
To participate in a reading with Jana is entering into a suspended state-of mind, relaxing the need to express myself and simply listen. Opening up to new possibilities, new ways to see myself, understanding my shortcomings as a liberating exercise.
I start by placing my palms upward: a sign of openness, honesty, receptiveness. In this simple gesture, I surrender to her my hands, given to me at birth and holding a lifetime of experience.
These hands that have served me so well in exploring the world, leading the way in opening and closing doors to discovery, touching what lay beyond to reassure me that the world was real and not imaginary (or both.) The hands that I have used to make things. The hands that I have used to catch my balance. The hands that I have used to express affection or defense. The hands that clasp each other in anticipation of what might happen next.
Now I relax my hands and enter into a world of new possibilities, without expectation.