Fal-e Hafez
Ask, as generations have.
What a fal is
A fal is a question put to a book. You hold the question in mind, open the Divan of Hafez at random, and read the ghazal you land on as an answer. The practice is old enough that it has its own name, faal-e Hafez, and its own etiquette: you do not ask twice about the same thing, and you read the whole poem rather than picking the line you wanted.
When a fal is read
It belongs to particular nights. On Yalda, the longest night of the year, the Divan comes out after the pomegranates and someone reads for each person present. It happens again at Norooz. In many houses the book lives somewhere permanent and gets opened whenever a decision is close, which is why Iranians often say they own two books they never bought: the Quran and the Hafez.
Fal-e Hafez in Hamdam
Hamdam does the same thing without the paper. Ask, and it opens the Divan at a verse, in the original Persian or in English.
غنچه گو تنگدل از كارِ فروبسته مَباش
كز دَمِ صبح مدد يابي و انفاسِ نسيم
Tell the bud: do not be small-hearted at what remains closed — for from the morning's breath you will find help, and from the breeze's sigh.