In a den of foxes, a stranger of the same species visits, only to be met by hostile growls and threats. Persistent, the stranger returns to the site, asking for the unusual: a permanent place in the family. In most cases, there will be no room for the visitor, who will have to move on. But if the alien senses any relenting of the residents' warnings, the fox is likely to take a posture of demonstrated vulnerability. She will lower her head and tail, then turn her neck toward the territorial owner, offering her jugular vein.

As someone sits down before me, I often recognize how vulnerable she feels in presenting me her open hands. I see it in her eyes. Even more, I see it in the postures of her hands. It must feel like exposing a jugular vein. Try it yourself. Close your eyes and sit comfortably with hands in lap. Then gradually turn your palms up, one on each knee. This is one of the reasons the reading of hands is formidable.

When I talk to you about your life and its potential, I assume an unusual responsibility. In their own elegant language, your hands speak with utmost truth and I am an interpreter. Part of my job is to impart to you that there is room for error in the translation. Another part is to keep your best interests foremost in my intentions. In order to do that, I believe the reader must offer you empowerment, offer you choices. My best reading is one that simply tells you in a new way what you already know. My ultimate responsibility is to be able to trust the information which comes to you through me.

It is not my job to find anything wrong with you, or to impose my limitations or biases on you, or to restrict you. The fact is that history is filled with the work of those who were determined to find superiority-inferiority conclusions through anatomical comparisons. Man is better than animal; men are better than women; white is better than black or red; Christian is better than Jew. Ad infinitum. These conclusions were reached through "scientific" methods such as craniometrics (measurements of cranial capacity), or the comparative sizes of jaws and arms and feet, or the sizes and location of bumps on the skull.

I find that a good part of my effort as a hand analyst is spent in counteracting images of charlatans. Whether those reputations are founded in fact or legend, I do find it incumbent on me and the system I use to initiate skeptics into recognition of accuracy and integrity. Interestingly, with rare exception, only those who refuse to submit their hands to analysis continue to assert that it has no value. So it is, though, that I enter the dens of human society. Hoping to offer something recognizable for its worth, I persevere despite growling and threats. It takes some courage but, if I put forward a jugular vein, I sometimes find my readings permanently accepted and embraced, even by the most unlikely members of society.