For many centuries, fortune telling has been a part of the tradition of welcoming the New Year, which in ancient times began with the Winter Solstice. I like to consult the Oracles—from the Tarot, to the iChing, from psychics to dream interpretation, the Ouija board, and horoscopes, I’m a believer that messages can come from many sources. And because I love books, Bibliomancy to appeals to me.

Bilbiomancy is a form of divination in which insights are sought by randomly selecting a passage from a book and interpreting its message. It’s also known as stichomancy—divination by lines of verse in books and compares with rhapsodmancy—divination from a random passage from a poem or ode, and has been in practice for over 3000 years. Ancient Greeks used Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey for guidance. In the middle ages, Virgil’s Aeneid was a popular choice.

Like other forms of divination of “fortune telling,” Bibliomancy is an art, not a science. Meanings and interpretations rest solely with the reader.

It came to me as I sat with a morning cup of coffee a few days ago, that I wanted to use the “twelve days of Christmas” as a starting point for my Bibliomancy readings, and on each day, select a book from my shelves, open it at random and find the passage that might hold a message. But I added a twist: on the first day of Christmas (that would be today, December 25), I would choose the first line of the page I opened to; on the second day, tomorrow, I would find the second line of a different book; the third day, a third book and a third line, and so on up through January 6, which is the twelfth day of Christmas, also known as The Epiphany. (It also happens to be my daughter’s birthday.)

On each of the next eleven days, I’ll post the result of my inquiry on my author Facebook page, and invite you to play along.

Today, the first day of Christmas, I chose Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, opened to page 55 and read the first sentence:

Today as I was walking down Foothill Boulevard to do laundry (the Laundromat one of my delights—not quite the democratic space of the post office or public library, but still, delightful) a hummingbird buzzed past me and alighted in a mostly dead tree poking almost up to the power line.

I won’t write here my response to the sentence; I’ll keep that to my private writing. But I will invite you to play along, if you’d like, to see what your books might have to say to you. Feel free to adapt the practice however you like. A note: don’t try to outsmart the books and look for the “right” sentence. Trust the oracle, and have fun.