Grasping the Importance of Our Hands
Our hands do so much for us. They are capable of a wide variety of functions: touch, grasping, feeling, holding, manipulating, caressing, and more.Our hands can perform extremely gentle and precise actions such as writing a letter, painting a picture, threading a needle, or playing a violin.
Our hands also enable us to perform heavy labor, such as digging with a shovel, swinging an ax, using a jackhammer to drill through concrete, or pounding a railroad spike with a sledgehammer.
We use our hands to feel whether something is rough or smooth, hot or cold, sharp or dull. We hold a child’s hand as we cross the street, We caress the hair of a loved one.
We talk with our hands.
Common phrases include: “touching on an important point,” “grasping a concept,” “getting your arms around an idea:” “taking a hands-on approach:” and “fingering a bad guy;” They do the talking when a person uses sign language.
The hand is an amazingly multifaced “terminal device” located at the end of your arm.
In An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, J.C. Cooper offers the following information regarding gestures of the hand:
On the breast: submission, the attitude of a servant or slave
Clasping: union, mystic, marriage, friendship, allegiance
Folded: repose, immobility
Covering the eyes: Shame or horror
Crossed at the wrist: binding or being bound
Laying on: the transference of power and grace or healing
On the neck: sacrifice
Open: Bounty, liberality, justice
Clenched: threat, aggression
Outstretched. Blessing, protection, and welcome
Placed in another’s: pledge of service, the right-hand pledges the life principle
Placed together: defenselessness, submission of the vassal before the sovereign, inferiority, inoffensiveness, greeting, allegiance.
Placed on each other palms upward meditation, receptiveness
Raised: Adoration, worship, prayer, salutation, amazement, horror,
Raised with palm outwards: blessing, divine grace
Both Hands raised: supplication, weakness, an implication of ignorance, dependence, surrender, also invocation, and prayer
Raised to the head: thought, care
Shaking the hand: forms the cross or ankh of the covenant, a pledge
Washing hands: dinner, innocence, purification, repudiation of guilt
Wringing hands: excessive grief or lamentation.
