Hands

Your hands are the tool with which you touch the world. Nothing you do — nothing created, nothing given, nothing held — bypasses them. They write, they cook, they caress, they shape, they greet, they ward off, they hold on, they let go. Between brain and world they are the link. What you want inwardly becomes action through your hands. What you feel often shows itself first in them — in tension, sweat, trembling, numbness, coldness, warmth.

When your hands cause you trouble — when they ache, stiffen, tremble, fall asleep, stay cold, crack, cramp, sweat — they are not only reporting a mechanical problem in bones, tendons or joints. They are telling you something about your relationship to doing, about what you reach for, about what you do not want to reach for, about what you have been holding on to for too long.