Fortune Cookies Speak Truth

In the spirit of modernist poets and artists such as Marianne Moore and Joseph Cornell who juxtaposed the stuff and substance of high culture with pop cultural treasure, I offer you all of the fortune cookie fortunes that I am currently carrying in my wallet:

Take the advice of a faithful friend. 

You find what you're looking for; just open your eyes!

Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life!

Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.

Opportunity always ahead if you look and think.

You will always be surrounded by true firends. [sic]

Although a few of these fortunes sound a bit ominous, on the whole they offer solid advice and generous predictions about my future.  Few things are as reassuring as a good fortune, or as disappointing as an unfavorable one.  While some might place the fortune cookie in the realm of superstition, it is uncanny that so many people look for assurance, confirmation, and validation in material signs, whether from a beneficent sky, a successful shake of the Magic 8 Ball,  or the serendipitous find of a four-leafed clover.  Perhaps my favorite example is that of Mary Baker Eddy's reassurance during a troubling time  upon opening a drawer and finding a rubber band that had curled into the shape of a heart. (Mary Ann Caws refers to this in her fabulous book on Joseph Cornell)

Kismet

Kismet.  [Turk. kismet, Pers. quismat, a. Aarb. qisma(t) portion, lot, fate, f. qasama to divide.]

Destiny, fate.

1849 E.B. EASTWICK Dry Leaves 46 One day a man related to me a story of Kismat or destiny.  1865 MRS. GASKELL  in Cornh. Mag. Feb. 219 It's a pity when these old Saxon houses vanish off the land; but it is 'kismet' with the Hamleys.  1883 F.M.CRAWFORD   Mr. Isaccs i. 19 The stars or the fates...or whatever you like to term your kismet.

---Definition courtesy of the Oxofrd English Dictionary

Today's quote is a definition of one of my favorite words--Kismet. As the quotes above suggest, this word of Arabic origin entered the English language in the mid to late 1800s.  In English, kismet suggests a kind of magic, good fortune, crossing paths, the perfect alliance of the stars, an overarching order.  It has a romantic quality, suggesting that things are "meant to be"--despite all evidence to the contrary. 

Horoscope

The word "horoscope" derives from the French words for "hour" and "season" as well as the Greek word for "observer." To locate destiny in the alignment of celestial bodies is nonsensical and yet enticingly dramatic.


Those who favor this quote will know that it was also chosen by Lucy Maud Montgomery for her book Anne of Green Gables. 

"The good stars met in your horoscope,
     Made you of spirit and fire and dew--"

--Robert Browning (1812-1889), "Evelyn Hope"

Meant to Be

It was not, Britomart, thy wandring eye
Glauncing unwares in charmed looking glass,
But the straight course of heavenly destiny,
Led with eternall providence, that has
Guided thy glaunce, to bring his will to pas:
Ne is thy fate, ne is thy fortune ill,
To love the prowest knight, that ever was
Therefore submit thy wayes unto his will,
And do by all dew means thy destiny fulfill.

---Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen (1590)