DEXTRALIST SUPERSTITIONS

As it happens to be International Left-Handedness Day, why not tackle the issue of dextralism once more? -- Not as well-known as racism, sexism, or queerphobia, but nevertheless a form of discrimination. This article is about how the sinister side is omnipresent in superstition and magical thinking... Now I'm a freethinker in general, but also interested in folklore and the like. So please take these superstitions with a grain of salt (and, oui, the one with salt is featured on this list!).

Black cats, as well as corvids, bring good luck crossing a person's path from right to left, granting favourable times. But from left to right, the black cat or crow-relative is a bad omen.

Spilling sodium chloride, aka table salt, during meals, often by overturning the salt shaker, is also allegedly an evil omen. The most common contemporary belief requires you to toss a pinch of the spilt salt over your left shoulder, into the face of the shoulder devil (the angel is on the right -- remember any old Western cartoons where they appear) who lurks there.

The Scottish Play, the one with the usurper and the three witches and the indelible blood stains, left (pun intended!) its curse on me during the 4th centennial celebrations in the springtime of 2016, when I was to attend a performance of Mac**th in Valencia and mentioned its title (and surname of the titular usurpers) more than thrice. After attending the play without a hitch, my bad luck streak (which forced me to call my retelling of the story Los Usurpadores and omit the fatal Mac- surname) did not cease until I cast something over my left shoulder as well... this time, a frothy glob of spit into the faces of the three witches who haunted me!

If someone had a bad day, we say in Spanish "se ha levantado con el pie izquierdo". Unluckily, yours truly is left-footed as well... but luckily, she's generally a freethinker who does not pay much heed which foot she gets first out of bed, over a threshold, up some stairs or ladders...

Finally, engagement and wedding rings are worn on the left ring finger because, in a surprising twist, there is allegedly a vein or a meridian or nadi that leads straight to the heart from there! And we use our left hearts for systemic circulation (unless dextrocardia) and thus feel that our hearts are more on the left side... so in a heartbeat we have gone from dextralism to a sinistralist superstition, to end on a positive note!