The semi-circular line on your palm leading from above the thumb down to the wrist. In palm reading, it is generally read downwards towards the wrist. This line is not only about the subject's life span, but also about vitality, potential or past sickness, and sometimes love and affection. A long life line tends to indicate a longer life, and of it seems that a subject has two life lines this can mean added strength and resistance to illness (read the outer one as the real life line).

A mark along the life line, like an "island," a hole, or another small line crossing it can indicate periods of sickness. For example, if there is a circular blip near the beginning of your life line, it could mean that you had a period of illness or injury as a child. Also, if your life line tends to peter out near the end, it can mean sickness in your old age.

The life line is one of three primary lines (the other two being the Head Line and the Heart Line) within palmistry and the most well known. The life line is related to the physical vitality of a person and to a much lesser degree, the lifespan (though the Health Line is a better indicator).

The Life line starts on the inside of the palm between the index finger and the thumb and bends around the thumb and the Mount of Venus. In the diagram below, it is the only line present.

   _.-._        
 _| | | |      
| | | | |      
| | | | |      
|       | _  
|    .-'/`/  
|   '    /    
 \  '.  /      
  |    | 

The length of the line is proportional to the energy reserves. A strong curve down indicates strength, while a line that is straight shows lack of stamina. The wider the arc, the more outgoing a person.

Within palmistry, the lines are seen as 'energy flows' between the mounts (the sources of energy). A life line that curves around the Mount of Venus suggests enthusiasm and a happy home life. A line that runs to the Mount of the Moon (in the heel of the hand) suggests imagination.

The shape of the line is also important. If the life line is thin or wavery suggests uneven vitality. A Life Line that is chained (appears to be made of links) suggests a worrisome person as do small lines crossing the life line. Lines branching upwards were recovered from while lines branching downwards are waisted energy.

As with any line on the hand, the position of the mark indicates the time the action took place or is to take place. A mark at the start of the line refers to childhood while at the end of the line refers to old age.

In knitting, a life line is a thread drawn through every stitch in a single row. Its purpose is to prevent the knitter from frogging -- that is to say, ripping the fabric out -- past a certain point. If you yank the tail of the yarn after hitting the lifelined row, it will catch, and the remaining fabric will be safe.

All knitters choose to believe that they never make mistakes that need to be ripped out, but all knitters are delusional in this regard. There will come a day, I promise you, when you discover an ugly little error a couple of rows down and you will need to unravel.

Now a talented knitter can generally unravel solid fabric without too much difficulty; the stitches in ordinary stockinette, garter, or rib are arranged in predictable ways and can be replaced on the needle easily once you pass the problem spot. But in more complex patterns, especially lace and cabling, a life line can save large amounts of fabric that you would otherwise have to start over from the beginning.

This is because the holes in lace are made with lots of yarn overs, which are very tricky to distinguish from ordinary stitches, and which are even trickier to replace correctly on the needle. As for cable patterns, they are created by physically shifting the order of stitches around on the needle; replacing these stitches badly is guaranteed to create errors that are worse than the one you were originally trying to fix.

It is also easy to lose track of the number of remaining rows in your work in progress after an unravelling fit. This can be mitigated by tinking (which is what knitting dorks call picking out stitches one by one), but the process is slow and frustrating, and sometimes it would take less time just to rip the whole thing out and start over from scratch.

So it's a good idea to create a life line after finishing a row you're happy with in a difficult pattern. A life line can be made out of any strand that is thinner than the yarn you're working with. It can be made of cotton crochet thread, sewing thread or even dental floss. Simply thread an ordinary needle (not a knitting needle -- a needle with an eye) and run it through the live stitches beneath your active knitting needle. Then you can forget about it. If you make an error later on, you'll be exceedingly glad you made a life line. If you don't make a mistake later, then you've only wasted a minute or two of your time.

 life line
 

 

 Because lily could not be like the rest of her world, and feel safe and know that small mistakes could not cause total devastation, she was forced to become smarter and less trusting then the rest of her world. Lily was different, and she knew well that it would not change, and she could do nothing to make it better, or to forget it. Her safety would always be at risk, so as she held the silver bead necklace that was her life line in her hands, she couldn't help but to hold it with a loathing, but at the same time with a kind of motherly protection. Because if  those beads were all gone, lily would be gone too, and she wouldn't come back.

Because she would be dead. It was the "gift" she was chosen to be given, though lily could hardly call it a gift. The other kids her age were given blessings, and she was the only one that was given a curse. They were unusual, after all, she was the only person she knew with a curse instead of a gift. The blessing giver was known, as told by his name, for giving blessings, not curses, but as he told lily many times, it was not his decision what was given to the newborn child he must bless or curse, it was predestined by some greater power no one understood. Lily understood this, but could help but feel angry at him as she watched her peers excel in what they did, while she stayed in the corner, fearing the possibilities of the next day. She would always think about her classmate aggie, who used her blessing of the ability to fix things to perfect all the buildings in her community, and derrick, who used his healing powers to rid the community of the plague so many years ago, and was still celebrated for it, because there had been no sickness since.  

But lily could just sit and think about the life she was forced to live, only she had a life line, and the necklace of silver beads was a too literal form of it. The necklace was truly a lifeline, because if she pulled off or gave away any of the beads on her necklace, or if they came off of their on account, which they could and sometimes did, then lily would die.

  When she was younger, she didn't realize the seriousness of her situation, and when she was about 5, lily forgot to tuck her necklace in side her jacket, like the leaders always told her to, and all the young children in her class were  enchanted by the sparkly beads. A bold girl eventually came up to lily and asked if she could have a bead, and not truly understanding what those beads meant, lily pulled one off and handed it to the girl, then lily's necklace joined back together were it had broken from her pulling off the bead. The rest of lily's classmates ran forward, and they each asked for a bead, and enjoying all the attention she was getting, lily happily pulled off about 20 of those precious beads. Lily's necklace was noticeably shorter after this, so the teacher noticed, and explained to lily for a very long time that she must not pull off any beads, ever again, no matter what the circumstances. Lily didn't see the problem at the time, but everyone obeyed the leaders, and the teacher was a very important one, so she kept the rest off the beads on 

the necklace. Towards the end of the day, lily had began to wish she still had the beads she had given out, because her necklace just felt different to her without them. But her classmates didn't seem to feel a real need of the pretty beads anymore, the grew bored of them, any as the students filed out of the school room to go to the sleeping area, many of the beads were left on the ground, or in the bottom of students desks. The beads seemed to have lost their grandeur when all the students had one, and all you could do was look at them.