Fortunes

Getting our fortunes told was quite fun. Happily, we both are going to enjoy a good marriage and there is at least one daughter in our future. Unhappily, spring is a better time to finish Erin's thesis and we may run into some inconveniences while travelling. Fortunately for us, it will be a good year for silk production and farming, although at this time neither of us farms or produces silk. We will keep our eyes open for new opportunities in these fields in the coming year.

The process is quite streamlined. Once you enter the temple, you approach a counter on the side wall and pick up a cannister of sticks (much like pixie sticks) and two red lip-shaped tokens. You then take your shoes off and kneel on the carpet in front of the altar. While thinking of a specific question you want answered, you shake your can of pixie sticks at a 45* angle. Eventually one or more will fly out. If it is more than one or if you don't really like the one that fell out, you put the stick(s) back in and start over. Once a single stick falls out, you throw the red lip-shaped things. You have three chances to get one up and one down, yin-yang. If it doesn't happen within three tosses, you put the stick back in the cannister and return the lot to the counter. This means it is not a fortuitous time to get your fortune told. If you do get this yin-yang configuration, you take the stick up to the counter and are given a slip of paper with a number and verse on it. You then look up the number in a book and it describes in further detail the verse and your fortune. You need to read between the lines a bit to link it to your question.

For example, both of our fortunes said that we would have good silk production. Being that we own exactly zero silk worms between the two of us, this must represent something else, probably that it will be a good economic year for us. Strange, given that we have no jobs but there it is.

We were both pleased to have a daughter foretold. We are working on coming up with a name but hope that she doesn't arrive for at least another year or so. We were also told that our marriage would be happy (well duh!) and that travelling would be mostly good (well, all good for Joey and mostly good for Erin -- again, duh!).

All in all, the fortune telling experience was entertaining and educational. It was vague enough to give us a general feeling of well-being and precise enough to make it personal. Now that we understand the process, we may join the masses on Saturday night and try it again.

There are no images because taking pictures is not allowed. Sorry, words will have to suffice for this post.