Astrological Craft Corner: The Making of My First Astrolabe

Being born with a Gemini Moon is an affliction deserving of its own support group. Consider that I also have a cardinal fire sun and you have some insight into the bright, shiny, distraction-inducing tendency to follow new bits of information down rabbit holes, momentarily enticed by the promise of big ideas for which I have no action plan nor concrete pathway to sustain anything beyond the first initial try.

If my natal chart were a bus, the wheels came off long ago given how many projects I’ve started and stopped — my fiction writing chief among them. Nonetheless, as I strive towards some modicum of discipline in my creative life, I am heartened by the degree to which the study of astrology has provided a directional force for my frequent flights of fancy. In this small enclave of my life, I can afford to chase ideas, explore techniques, and research the history of a tradition dating back millennia, and which its detractors have somewhat succeeded in consigning to the trash heap of scholarly inquiry. A shame, really, considering how profoundly impressive astronomer-astrologers from previous centuries were in both their sophisticated techniques for mapping the heavens and in the degree to which they could accurately predict the characteristics of nativities and revolutions.

Recently, I listened to an older recording of two of my astrological heroes — the late Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro — interviewing Richard Kremer on the history of astronomical calculations and computational…