Introducing... the Planetometer!

It's a machine I've wanted to create since I first heard of it late last year, but its complexity is beyond me at this time.

The Antikythera Mechanism, despite being not wholly accurate, still managed through the use of dozens of gears to track the movements of the planets in the sky around Earth, even taking their retrogrades into account. It was a brilliant piece of engineering, assumed to be invented or at least improved by Archimedes. It also pointed to the importance of the planets and stars to civilizations preceding ours, beyond merely reading our weekly astrology predictions.

Even those of us who desire to go beyond checking out the future of our zodiac signs in the Portland Mercury or Daily Gripe, who want to track the movement of stars and planets for magickal workings, and perhaps to plan our entire year, now have the vast resource of the Internet for our perusal. We no longer need a brass gear with 223 teeth to predict the next eclipse; a single website with a chart, pulled up by smart-phone, can tell us where Jupiter is and if it just went into retrograde. I am positive there are now amazing apps for professional astrologers, that show the whole celestial sphere along with its symbols and aspects at one click.

I, however, have not yet downloaded one of these apps (the closest I came was an app that displays the face of the Prague Astronomical Clock at preset times). I'm also a fan of hands-on material creativity, of learning by doing. This past year I've been exploring astrology with increasing focus, attempting to learn what each of the planets influence in different signs and aspects to one another, and it's a lot!

I'm also a visual person: A mere chart of symbols and numbers is challenging for me to visualize, until I learn their relationships in space and time. It's like trying to imagine the spacial movement of time on a round clock face, when you've only seen a digital clock, only more so --- you may be able to logic it out, but it's harder to "feel" those relationships.

Astrologers used to draw charts, I'm sure, with the twelve signs and houses of thirty degrees each, the angles and planets, and lines between showing squares and trines and so forth. (Reminds me of our Geology orienting studies.) When I first encountered my own birth chart as a teenager, my astrologer friend --- still my friend --- was already figuring the chart on a computer program, then printing it out on what was likely an ancient, dot-matrix printer; years later, I cut out the chart on its white paper and glued it into my book of shadows.

But even a chart is static, a strange language of lines, symbols, numbers. Somehow, I wanted to learn astrology more effectively by seeing the planets move. And I didn't want a cyber-solution, one more reason to be glued to my smart-phone looking at an app, the way I am this very moment. I wanted a real-world device. I wanted an Antikythera Mechanism.

As I said, despite my research, such a mechanism is currently beyond me due to time, tools, money and living situation alike. I'm no master clockmaker. But just as I could feasibly make an astrolabe or villaluna, I could make the dial portion of a celestial zodiac chart --- i.e. "planetometer" or astroloscope --- and set it by hand, the way you do a rotary calendar. As for the numbers, or ephemera, those can be found on the Internet, with little trouble.

What I envision for this project, then, is a kind of rough astrology "chart" that, rather than being drawn out, is formed simply by turning hands on a dial to current planetary signs and angles. It's less a detailed, down-to-the-minute-of-a-degree professional astrology readout than a daily, at-a-glance tool: "Oh right, today the Moon is in... and Jupiter is... which makes it a good day to be mindful of..."

My hope is that repeated iterations and uses of such a tool will lead me to grow increasingly aware of the astrological subtleties discussed in some of the sites I visit, such as Hare-in-the-Moon or Conscious Reminder, and thus begin to make my own predictions ...which I then can test against the knowledge of a professional. Research, try, compare: It's how I learned to formulate herbal potions, after all!

So, how to make this thing? As I've been plotting for months regarding the making of an astrolabe, the first step seemed obvious: Get myself some sheet metal. Preferably brass or bronze, as used in many instruments of old. This proved harder than I'd anticipated . . . There were no pieces large enough at the hardware stores, even if they'd been a reasonable price. Then again, I first decided to begin with a test-piece, anyway. An old round metal spice-box lid from Scrap would do!

At the same store, I got a few small thin copper shapes, originally sold for crafts. These would do for making the planet pointers. I'd need ten pointers --- eleven if you included the proto-planet Chiron, who's been in Aries (and the news) lately, and I did want to include it: Like Chiron, I have a wounded-healer faculty. A few nights ago, I cut and sanded the copper shapes into pointers. Each pointer was carefully shaped so the planet signs would be staggered, in case of a conjuction.

A couple nights later, I stamped the names of each planet on with steel stamps. Finally, last night I drilled holes, then painted on the planets and their signs with oil paints (more durable than acrylic). Today I got the correct size of brass screws, which I mis-sized yesterday --- even as I told Hal, an old coworker at the hardware store I once worked at, goodbye for what may be the last time. His last day was today. Like me, he is ready to move on with life. I offered him my best easy-yet-sincere, uplifing gift: chocolate.


What's next?
 I've asked myself that more than once today. For this project, the answer is pretty simple: Print out one of these beautiful zodiac dials, add degrees to get as precise as I can, screw on the pointers --- in order, of course --- and start using my new tool for daily astrology divinings! If the test version brings giod results, I'll make a better and more rugged one. With its info-crammed dial and thick stack of hands, I imagine the final product to sort of resemble an overgrown pocketwatch, except it functions more like a settable calendar. One day, though, if gears that small can be made. . . . .

It was a very odd watch. It had no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he said, "Hagrid's late."

In my excitement over the Antikythera Mechanism, I'd forgotten this detail from Book One. But planetary time is nothing new, especially for mages and alchemists! I'll be joining you shortly, Albus.