The reading of a hand

Yours is the fire hand: a long palm with short fingers. Palmists read it as the hand of a doer, energetic, enthusiastic and bold, who leads by example and acts on instinct. You are warm, impatient and creative, and you need a purpose to burn for. Your challenge is to finish what you begin.

In love the fire hand is passionate and generous, and needs excitement and admiration.

At work it thrives in leadership, sales, sport, performance and anything with energy.

For wellbeing it needs movement, sunlight and regular rest to avoid burnout.

In youth the fire hand is restless and daring; in adulthood it leads and starts things; in later life its warmth inspires the young.

You read your writing hand. Palmists say it shows what you have made of your life: your choices, your work and the person you have become. Compare it one day with your other hand, which shows what you were born with.

Your heart line ends between the index and middle fingers, which palmists consider the most balanced ending. You are warm and loving, but also realistic: you can give your heart without losing your head, and you build steady, caring relationships.

In daily life this heart line gives you a gift for lasting relationships: warmth with good judgement. You can be close without losing yourself, and friends trust your advice in matters of the heart.

Your head line slopes down towards the wrist, towards the Mount of the Moon: an imaginative, creative mind. You think in images and feelings, you are drawn to art and stories, and your intuition is strong.

In practice you thrive in creative work, writing, design and anything that uses imagination. Routine tasks can bore you; a creative outlet keeps your mind content.

Your head and life lines begin apart. This is read as independence and confidence from an early age: you trust your own judgement and are not afraid to go your own way.

Your life line sweeps in a wide, generous curve into the palm. It is read as vitality, enthusiasm and a love of life, a strong constitution and a warm, outgoing energy. (Palmists read the life line as energy and quality of life, never its length in years.)

This energy suits an active, social life: travel, sport, people and adventure. Rest is as important as action; even strong fires need fuel.

Palmists traditionally time a life along the life line: it begins at the edge of the palm between thumb and index finger, which stands for birth, and runs down towards the wrist, roughly a decade for every finger's width. Breaks, branches and islands along it are read as changes, new starts and periods of rest, at about the age where they fall.

Your fate line starts in the middle of the palm. It is read as a calling found later, often in your thirties: the first part of life was searching, and the second finds its direction.

If you have not yet found your calling, it is likely still to come; if you have, it probably came after years of searching.

The mounts are the soft pads of the palm, each named for a planet. The most developed one shows where your energy gathers.

The Mount of Jupiter under your index finger is your most prominent: ambition, leadership, confidence and a love of honour. You are drawn to lead and to teach.

Feed this energy with responsibility, teaching and goals worth striving for.

• Venus: love, warmth and the senses
• Jupiter: ambition, faith and leadership · your fullest mount
• Saturn: wisdom, duty and solitude
• Apollo: creativity, joy and recognition
• Mercury: words, wit, trade and healing
• The Moon: imagination, intuition and travel

As a Taurus, ruled by Venus, the base of your thumb, the Mount of Venus, is your sign's place: love, pleasure and endurance.

Your thumb stays firm: a determined, reliable, strong-willed nature. You hold your ground, save carefully and keep your word.

Your ring finger is longer than your index finger: the finger of Apollo leads. It is read as creativity, risk-taking and charm.

This is a guided reading: you looked at your own hand and chose what you saw, and each choice is read according to the Western palmistry tradition, from the Renaissance chiromancers to the nineteenth-century palmists Casimir d'Arpentigny and William Benham, with the modern four-element hand types. Palmistry is for reflection and entertainment; the lines say nothing about health or the length of a life.