The Hand of Miriam

Do the five fingers with a flowering eye protect us?

Bodhisattva Wearing the Hand by Mark Tulin

I wear a piece of jewelry not just to make me look pretty — but for health, good luck and to ward off a malevolent glare.

It’s an open five-finger hand, called a Hand of Miriam or a Hamsa Hand with a flowering eye in the center.

I wear it on a leather chain loosely hung around my neck to make me feel supernaturally blessed.

Call it superstition, or an irrational fear, but I won’t leave the house without one.

It’s my protective amulet, my superpower shield warding off the dragons and the demons — like Rosemary’s Baby or the Son of Sam.

A skeptic once asked: Do you really believe that hand works?

So far, I replied, and I held it to his face, and watched him slink away.

We all have magical thinking, our strange and quirky superstitions, our never-stepping-on cracks so we don’t break our mother’s back or knocking on wood for good fortune.

We try to fend off our enemies, avoid traps or dangers, and search for a powerful tool to guard ourselves against poisons of the world.

I may be foolish. It may be an illusion but my Hand I’m not removing. It will hang from my neck until our hostile climate disappears, or, to borrow an Einstein quote — to help me remain sane in an insane world.

A waitress at a vegan diner once said: I love your orange Hand, and she showed me hers, one that she made herself. Then I ordered a veggie burger on a sourdough bun — confident it would be good.

© 2024 Mark Tulin

The Hand cuts across a variety of religions. It is known as the Hand of Fatima in Islam, the Hand of Mary in Christianity, the Hand of Miriam in Judaism, and also present in the ancient religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

I began wearing the Hand of Miriam because of a neighbor. He squinted and gave me an evil eye whenever he was around. It got so bad I started to wear sunglasses to block his hostile glare. And then I discovered the Hand at a museum in L.A. and have been wearing it ever since. It might be seen as foolish to others, but I believe it helps — and that’s all that matters.

Here’s another poem by Mark:

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