I’m in the process of building a bookshelf for my new office area, where I will give astrology readings, counseling sessions, and work on writing projects. With Mercury in Gemini at the midheaven opposite Uranus, and Virgo rising, I’ve always collected and pored over books, sought them out as a source of illumination, insight, and comfort. We live next to the church of St. Michael the Archangel, with whom I share a middle name, and they recently gave away a bookshelf that I turned into a built-in (pictured right). But with all these shelves double stacked, I knew I’d need some more space eventually…

It’s always felt special to live next to St. Michael’s church, a name given to me by my father who also shares that middle name. We were named after his mom’s younger brother, who died of pneumonia as an infant, and who my father has always felt looks after him. My dad recently said that Michael was likely looking after me too when I was traveling through Osh, Kyrgyzstan and civil war broke out in 2010. I was very much a nomad in my post-college years and all these books ended up in boxes. But in a bookstore in Bangkok in 2007, in Mercury-Uranus fashion, I discovered a book that would unexpectedly and forever alter the course of my life: Cosmos & Psyche by Rick Tarnas. This astrology book would lead me to San Francisco in 2012 to study with Rick, where I would meet Jessica, who had come for the same reason.

Some of the most precious boxes of books made it with me to California, or earlier to France, but never have they all been fully reunited until now. Before I rediscovered the divine through astrology, philosophy itself and the books that contained it had become my spiritual home. They enlivened, fueled, and sustained me through my hardest questions and moments of growth. These sacred tomes have been my beacon and guiding light, another sort of angel watching over me. And so this bookshelf project feels like a ritual act, the creation of an altar, a vessel, and a home for these bound grails of wisdom.

And while I’ve wanted to do this for some time, several circumstances conspired to bring it all to a head right now. I felt torn about needing to clear out this 8-foot long pine desk, a dining table really, that I wrote my dissertation on (pictured right). I’ve resisted getting rid of it because of its sentimental and energetic value–not to mention that I just love a giant solid wooden desk–but alas, it’s just too darn huge and won’t fit in my new office area anyway. I was having trouble nailing down a buyer when it dawned on me that I could repurpose it into a bookshelf rather than getting rid of it all together. I had some planks leftover from the other bookshelf. I made a few trips to Home Depot to get the remaining wood and tools necessary, and things are now underway.

A second circumstance that prompted the project is an antique clock that I recently inherited from my grandfather on my mother’s side, Howard, and which belonged to his great grandfather Andrew, my great-great-great grandfather born in 1828. This clock sat on the bookshelf at my grandparents’ house my entire childhood, and presided over the living room where Christmas and family visits always took place. This clock is the centerpiece of the bookshelf design. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade, so this project has been a great way to connect to his energetic and genetic signature, especially since we share a birthday! I have a Mars-Saturn conjunction natally, correlated with wood-working, working with one’s hands in the material realm, applying energy to shape the raw wooden vessel into structured space. This conjunction is additionally trine my Mercury in Gemini at the midheaven. The clock itself as a timepiece & antique is a symbol of Saturn, and the books & knowledge are a symbol of Mercury. The thick black lines in the schematic are the repurposed portions of the pine desk, formed into a Gemini symbol, which is ruled by Mercury, with the Saturnian antique clock nestled in the middle of the glyph, the entire project an honoring of my natal Mercury-Mars-Saturn.

The proportions of the design are inspired by the golden ratio, which I taught on in both The Astronomy & Cultural History of Astrology, as well as Aspects in Astrology: Sacred Geometry. The golden ratio can be represented by a line divided into two portions so that the relationship between the smaller line and the bigger line is proportional to the relationship between the bigger line and the entire line (small+big). If the small and big lines were used as sides of a rectangle you would have a golden rectangle, thought to be inherently beautiful by cultures across the globe, and incorporated into countless works of art such as the Parthenon and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The bookshelf is full of golden rectangles, and not surprisingly the clock itself approximates one. I will write a separate post going into some of the intricacies of the mathematics.

So, I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but the last piece that has really motivated me is Jupiter’s upcoming move into Gemini, where it will conjoin my natal Mercury and midheaven. When I look back on my Astrobiography, the quadrature alignments of this transit have consistently correlated with big leaps in my thinking. For example, 12 years or one Jupiter cycle ago it coincided with my arrival in San Francisco to begin my Master’s at CIIS. So with this transit incoming, I wanted to use my Mercury-Mars-Saturn to prepare the temple and the tabernacle within which to better participate with the Jupiter transit. What’s more, Saturn is currently squaring my natal Mercury, lending its industry and ability to manifest and make real to the work. I recently wrote this post about the 4 pillars of astrology, which gives a taste of the direction my thoughts are going and the Mercury-Uranus astrological writing that will happen at the desk in front of this bookshelf. Additionally, in keeping with the repurposed desk, I will be revising the dissertation that was written on it into a book for publication–a philosophical history of participation with the divine in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

But before any writing can take place, the first order of business was to remove the legs from the desk. I accessed what screws I could, but most of them were buried under wood plugs or too stripped to get a grip on. The mallet was my friend for ripping off the legs and framed edges. The desk top will be sawed into two long pieces and two shorter pieces to form the Mercury glyph.

Next, I rounded out the raw edges of the thinner shelves using a sander.

Here’s the shelf edge before and after sanding:

Then I was ready to cut the shelves to the necessary sizes using a circular saw.

I started staining the shelves but decided the stain was too red. I have since sanded the stain off and will try something lighter. I would love for you to follow me on this physical and astrological journey of participation!