Palmar creases
Palmar creases are the furrows that score the palm. They form in utero, during the first trimester of pregnancy, marking the zones where the hand folds. Anatomy describes three main ones, which palmistry names the life, head, and heart lines. These creases are not fixed: they deepen, branch, and change with age and with how the hand is used.
What observation tells us
The creases of your palm form before birth, in the first trimester of pregnancy, along the zones where the hand folds. Aristotle already noticed them in his History of Animals. Three major creases structure most palms; some hands show only two, or a single transverse crease.
Lines that live
Your creases are not carved once and for all: they deepen, branch, and fade in places over the years and with the use of your hand. That is why palm readers reread a palm at different ages of life. The hand you look at today is not the one you will read in ten years.
Where palmistry meets them
Palmistry gave names to these three major creases: the life, head, and heart lines. The fact that they shift over time actually feeds its reading: a line that transforms goes along with a person who transforms. You can see in this a meeting point between observation of the body and the language of symbol.
Sources
- , History of Animals
- , The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading (1900)