By Pat Rogers

     "In the Millennium, people are taking back their power from authority figures," said author and psychic Donna McCue in an interview conducted a scant few hours before the tick of the clock that rolled all the nines off the calendar.

     Trends are changing. People believe in spirituality and in intuitiveness. They are not relying on doctors and political figures to tell them what is right for them. We are looking within ourselves and trusting our own judgments. There is a divine energy that passes through all of us and we have the power to transform our lives. This is our time to know that our minds can direct our future."

     According to Ms. McCue, the past, present and possible future lie unadorned right before our eyes—in the palms of our hands. In her newly-released book, Your Fate Is In four Hands: Using the Principles of Palmistry to Change Your Life, the least Hampton resident draws on her years of experience as an intuitive consultant and palmist to create a "hands-on" self-help book to help those who are interested to find a path to spirituality and to forge their own destiny.

     The book aspires to "identify roadblocks that prevent experiencing life to the maximum capacity, identify dreams and desires and possible fears and doubts that inhibit reaching those goals and to uncover hidden strengths and character traits to find greater fulfillment in relationships, careers and finances".

     "It's a handbook using the hand as a visual aid," said Ms. McCue. "Or an owner's manual to your hand and to your life. Everything we do leaves a mark on our hand. By understanding the lines and markings and mounds and fingers, we can discover our gifts and challenges. Our challenges in life are really where are gifts lie. Nothing comes easy. I wish that it did, but that's not the way it works."

     To help promote the book, Ms. McCue has already embarked on a book tour that will take her to Chicago, Denver, Albuquerque, Manhattan, and Huntington during the month of January. She will also be a guest on the television show, "Brad Shephard & Friends" on January 12 on WMAS, a national cable channel. Her talents as a psychic, palmist, lecturer, workshop leader and corporate reader have been featured in Cosmopolitan and in Working Woman magazines. She was also interviewed for the National Public Radio broadcast of "All Things Considered" that aired on October 26, 1999.

     Ms. McCue has a book signing scheduled at Canio's Book Store in Sag Harbor on February 12. As an added bonus, she said that she would offer a free palm reading to anyone who purchases her book. "I'm going to be talking about love, since it's close to Valentine's Day," said Ms. McCue. "I'll read some things from the palms of their hands for people who buy the book, in addition to signing it. It's an added thing I can do, beyond the usual inscriptions that authors do for their book signings."

     While the book describes the rudiments of palmistry, it is not really an instructional guide for aspiring palmists. Rather, it is an anecdotal self-help book that uses the 12 concepts of palmistry to help the reader carve out a path toward personal happiness within the context of the "bigger picture." Ms. McCue recreates moments from her formerly harsh life growing up as the daughter of an alcoholic father and abusive mother to demonstrate that there is hope as well as light at the end of the tunnel. Additionally, each chapter is peppered with snippets of clients' life experiences and the readings she has conducted for them (all the names have been changed) to illustrate how the lines and markings on the hand correlate to their lives.

     "The book is really a book of stories about my life and that of some of my clients," she said. "It's a lot more exciting and interesting than had I wrote a book just about palmistry. It's an intensely personal book as well. I just let it all hang out. I think it will help you discover you by listening to the stories of other people. Everyone wants to know about themselves. This book can help them do it. I also think that as people read the book, they're going to have their palms in front of them, looking at their hand to see what's there."

     Examples of lines and markings that may be found on the palm are provided along with a brief explanation of each mark's implications. Each chapter in the book correlates with an area or markings of the hand and one of the 12 concepts, namely: truth, service, trust, forgiveness, gratitude, prayer, desire, meditation, surrender and creativity, imagination, the body and willfulness. Exercises are provided at the end of each chapter with both a written portion and an urge to action.

     For instance, the chapter on trust and the heart line provides exercises designed to replace negative, self-berating thoughts with nurturing, positive ones. Action suggestions include to treat yourself as if you were a welcome guest in your own home and to arrange your living space and meals with this same thought in mind. Other suggestions include treating yourself to a meal prepared by others, a walk, or a new purchase in an effort to be nice to yourself every day. Afterward the participant is advised to "pay attention to your hands and ... your heart line. Those [chains, branches or forks] ... that are indicated in the future may indeed change as you do."

     "Because I see so many islands, dots, horizontal lines, and descending branches on the palms of my clients, I know our negative attitudes toward ourselves must change so that we can lead richer, more satisfying lives," wrote Ms. McCue, along with co-author Stacey Donovan from Amagansett. "Most often, a combination of negative mental and physical factors

result in the idea of dis-ease, or disease. Our goal, then, is to become more comfortable with ourselves."

     The fact that individuals control their own destiny is a strong theme that is reiterated through the book. In the chapter titled, "Truth," Ms. McCue writes, "...I want to emphasize the importance our own attitudes play in regard to our lives. I have witnessed on the hands of countless clients the proof that as we change, so too do the lines on our hands. So rather than read them as any sort of indictment or unchanging pronouncement about who we are or how our lives will unfold, we must remind ourselves that they are merely a reflection of where we are now in life and that as we grow and change, so will the markings and characteristics of our hands."

     Ms. McCue said that she has been an intuitive consultant for about 25 years. After taking a stab as an actress (her one claim to fame was a part in the motion picture, "Midnight Cowboy") and a stand-up comedian, she found that her main talent was as an intuitive.

     "I really wanted to be an actress and came to New York in the 70s,n she recalled. "And I did have a part in 'Midnight Cowboy,' so that was something. I also wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but that didn't work out either. I remember the last time I was on stage, it was at Catch-A-Rising star. I started to do my jokes, which were about me, about how fat I was and other things about my life and I started to cry. All of a sudden, I thought, this is not funny. This is my life. I'm not happy. I worked in the crying with the act, so it was okay. But that was the last time I was a stand-up comedian as a profession."

     She turned her talents toward the psychic and spiritual and has built a life helping others realize the truth of their current situations while pointing them in the direction they would like their life to follow. "I'm not a psychic like those on the 'Psychic Line,' she said. "I'm like a psychic second opinion. Or a psychic kick in the butt. I usually tell people what they know, deep down, but just need someone else to tell them before they feel they can go out and change their lives or live them as they know that they need to."

     In fact, it was Ms. McCue's intuitive abilities that cinched the deal for not only this book, but for two additional books to be published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.

     "I had to meet with a room full of editors," Ms. McCue said. There were 13 or 14 top editors. So I offered to do a personal reading for everyone in the room, as long as they didn't mind hearing personal things about each other. Then I said I wouldn't reveal anything embarrassing or degrading. I charge extra for that," she added and laughed.

     Ms. McCue said that her insights were right on target for each person in the room and, afterwards, all of them felt a sense of closeness to the others that they said was unprecedented. They were so impressed, Ms. McCue said, she was led into the marketing department to perform readings there.

     "So here I am in the marketing department and I read this one woman," Ms. McCue recalled. "I said to her, I don't know what you do, but you should be running this company.'" To that, the unknown woman responded, "I do. I'm the head of the company. You just closed your deal."

     "The proof is in the reading," said Ms. McCue. "I've wanted to do this book for 10 years. I wrote this book to share my insights from reading people, and from my own life, with others. We hold our fate in our hands. We have the power to be truthful with ourselves, to live in the moment and to find our futures in that moment. We make decisions about our lives and our truths are contained in our hands. Our personal road maps are right in front of us. All we have to do is look and see."

      Ms. McCue's book, Your Fate Is In Your Hands: Using the Principles of Palmistry to Change Your Life, is available at Canio's Books, Metaphysical Books in Sag Harbor and through amazon.com. Her book can also be purchased through her website, www.donnamccue.com. Information on her book tour, future workshops as well as personal or corporate readings can also be directed through her web site or via phone at 324-6540.

The Southampton Press
January 6, 2000